This 'ex nihilo' fiction

It's not a lie, if only because the people propagating it tend not to have the intellectual integrity to check their sources before trying it on. The claim is that the government's NHS plans are coming like a bolt out of the blue, without having been mentioned at all in any manifesto. Here, for example, is Michael Meacher, inhabiting his own little world where Labour is pure and the Tories come up with evil plans to ruin the NHS:

Leave aside there’s not an iota of mandate for [an “automatic right for private sector companies, charities and voluntary bodies to bid for public work”] from the Tory election manifesto last year. (src)

Reading manifestos is a pain, I know. I mean, I doubt Michael Meacher even got to the end of Labour's turgid effort in May 2010, never mind reading the manifestos of his opponents. But if he wants to claim that something does not appear in their manifesto, he had better try reading it first, or he might look a little silly.

Our public service reform programme will enable social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups to play a leading role in delivering public services and tackling deep-rooted social problems. (p. 37)

We will give every patient the power to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards, within NHS prices. This includes independent, voluntary and community sector providers. (p. 45)

We will strengthen the power of GPs as patients' expert guides through the health system by giving them the power to hold patients' budgets and commission care on their behalf; … and putting them in charge of commissioning local health services. (p. 46)

(pdf)

Nope, the government's current plans for the NHS — plans, I would point out, which are intended to stop government from having Plans for the NHS — have come from absolutely nowhere and bear no relation to anything in either of the election manifestos of the governing parties; and the wider social policies of which they are a vanguard have no precedent on page 37 of the Conservative manifesto at all. GP commissioning is a complete surprise, opening up to private provision is something the Tories had given no thought to, and involving non-governmental organisations in delivering public sector work was seen by no-one. Specially me, because I don't clearly remember almost giving the Tory manifesto a standing ovation when I read the line on p. 45 which I quoted above.

I know it's fashionable to claim that the NHS plans are some sort of weird apparition which was not foreseeable in any sense, and that the idea of opening up the public services to non-state organisations is a magical arrival from another plane. Back in the real world, however, it is clearly also baldly, factually inaccurate. Do I expect Labour politicians to stop making this inaccurate claim?

Go on, guess.