When Andy met Jimmy
In the fullnes
In 2009, during the dying days of the Brown government, Andy Burnham was made Health Secretary. The country was teetering into recession and the press – now nakedly in love with David Cameron - was tearing Labour to pieces.
Money and popularity was in short supply, as it had never been during successive Blair ministries. Desperate to rekindle some of the animal spirits of New Labour, ministers began to turn to celebrity.
Leaning on Jimmy Savile’s extensive work within the National Health Service, Burnham was able to arrange a meeting. Burnham was not interested in a mere celebrity endorsement. Instead, he was looking to draw upon Savile’s fundraising expertise, to find the money for wide-ranging social care reform whilst the Treasury was battling the global financial crisis.
Now into his early 80s, Savile’s marathon running days were well behind him. But still he retained his inhuman energy. The driving live force which kept him on, and on, and on…
79 Whitehall, Richmond Terrace. November 2009.
‘Thank you, our Jimmy, for taking the time to talk to me, Andrew, a likely Northern laddy who just wants to do best by the most vulnerable in our society’
“Oooh..oooh…now then, now then, now then I won’t call you Andrew because to us, you are our Andy, now then…yes…I’ve always said, the Lords and the Ladies from across the realm have got to come together, knock heads, and establish a cross-party consensus oooo…..”
“Cross-party consensus, that. Wow. I’ve never thought about it like that before. But you are right. We do need a cross-party consensus before progress can be made to stop it being a err, political foot-”
“And you see Andy, the thing that bothers me most is the idea that people have got to sell their home to pay for their care. Imagine that. A Gran having to sell her only asset, that she earned with her own money, so her children have nothing to inherit. That means she’s being taxed twice. Oooho…noow, does that sound fair to you?”
“Yeah, what we absolutely can’t have is old people downsizing their homes. Much better to have it funded out of taxes to income, but look, Jimmy, how do we sell that to the public?”
‘Oooohooohooo, don’t you worry about that my son. You just call it the ‘National Care Service’, people love the NHS. It’s our national religion, don’t you know.”
“Jimmy, I can’t thank you enough, this is genius, you-”
“I think shall be thanking you once this National Care Service is up and running Andy my son, yes yes. Oooh yes. You ever seen the mortification of the flesh Andy? The process is a fascinating thing. And the end product. Ooohhohohoooh yes. Now, I’ll want one of these centres in Harehills, and we’ll need a couple in Scarborough…oooh…and maybe on in walking distance to Buckingham Palace if you don’t mind…oooho….ooho yes….
“Anything you need. Anything. How could I possibly thank you enough?”
“We’ll find ways, Andy. We’ll find ways.”