… it is a matter of common experience that members of the middle classes are far better able to derive benefits from the system than the lower classes. They complain where the lower orders swear, and bureaucrats are aware that articulacy is a more dangerous enemy than assaults on staff can ever be.
The interesting question of why the NHS should continue to hold the affection of the British people, when it is at best mediocre in its performance and frequently unpleasant to deal with, is one that should be of interest to all political scientists. The answer is not pleasing to those who believe in human rationality.
The affection represents the triumph of rhetoric over reality. This rhetoric contains an implicit historiography, in which the pre-NHS era is akin to that of jahiliyya, the era of ignorance before the advent of Muhammad, in Islamic historiography: in short, that there was no healthcare for most of the population before the NHS. This historiography has for decades been continuously and successfully insinuated into the minds of the population. It has been Britain’s pale imitation of totalitarian propaganda. Intentionally or not, Boris Johnson recently reinforced the mythological status of the NHS. And when, in the present crisis, retired doctors such as I were asked to return to work if they were able, it was to help the NHS. This was like asking a soldier to lay down his life for the sake of the Ministry of Defence. It says something about the credulity of the public that the response to slogans like “protect the NHS” was dull compliance, rather than outraged demands as to why it wasn’t protecting us.
I suspect also that the sheer unpleasantness of the NHS is reassuring to the British population. It evokes the Dunkirk spirit: we are all stranded on the beach of illness together. And if we cannot all live in luxury, we can at least all die in squalor. Justice is served.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Empire of conformists”, The Critic, 2020-04-29.
August 1, 2025
QotD: The self-serving mythology of Britain’s NHS
Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Government, Health, Quotations — Tags: Culture, Debunking, Historiography, Mythology, Propaganda, SocializedMedicine, TheodoreDalrymple — Nicholas @ 01:00
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