Louise Bours MEP, UKIP’s health spokesperson, made a startling admission to the Independent in an interview published today. She said:
One thing that irritates me more than anything, and you see so much of it the higher up the political hierarchy you go, that’s it’s full of a load off… people who aren’t particularly honest, let’s put it that way,” says Louise Bours, Ukip MEP for the North-west and the party’s official health spokesperson.
I like people to be straight with me, I don’t like all this…shenanigans in the background, I’d rather people be honest and up-front and I always try to answer things very honestly.
So, honestly, I have no experience in health whatsoever, she says.>
On one of the key battlegrounds of the election, UKIP’s designated spokesperson is basically saying she’s sorry, she doesn’t have a clue.
That might just be ok if the rest of her party could be trusted to have a consistent, coherent policy on the NHS. Farage seems to be confused about future funding of the NHS, making comments favouring a move to an insurance based system. Bours disagrees with him on plain packaging of cigarettes and seems to spend most of the interview apologising for things he’s said.Their policies are a combination of what’s already happening combined with UKIP’s special brand of prejudice.
You don’t have to be an expert in your policy area, I guess. It’s said that Ross Finnie didn’t know one end of a cow from the other when he became Scotland’s first and best Rural Affairs Minister, a job he held for 8 years. He learned quickly, though. I remember him once telling me in far too much detail about several hundred different varieties of grass.
However, it does help if you have a well defined, coherent policy development plan which doesn’t involve your leader making it up as he goes along. I won’t have to trust UKIP with my NHS after May because I live in a place where it’s well beyond their grasp. I hope you don’t either.