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Hello and welcome to this episode of audio reads.

This week we hear from Douglas Murray, Professor Paul Dolan and

Andrew Watts. First up, it's Douglas Murray on what Labour's new attack line should be now that

the Tories have become the party of the NHS. I wonder what the Labour Party will use as its

scare slogan at the next election. After all, the usual one of, insert number,

weeks, days, minutes to save the NHS, may not work next time. Not that it worked every time

before, but it has long been the favourite attack line of a British left that likes to portray the Conservative Party

as so ravenously right-wing that whenever it comes to power it wastes not a moment

in dismantling Atkley's post-war creation. And yet, although the Conservative Party has been in power

fairly often since 1945,

not once has it managed to dismantle, privatise, or otherwise sell off the NHS.

Its tendency, rather, has been to increase spending, ring-fence spending and more.

If the master plan remained the same, then the party has

been uniquely inept at its implementation. And, while believable, it seems more likely that the

Conservative Party long ago made its peace with the welfare state, and that the Labour Party has

acted with a degree of disingenuity at recent

general elections. For shame. The reason why the line may particularly not work next time

is not just that Matt Hancock will not appear in public without his rainbow badge, rather

...