Nick Boles
Let the voters have their say
While most people in the country have been worrying about how to get to work through the snow and ice and who's going to look after their children while their school is closed, everyone in Westminster has spent the last two days talking about the latest Labour plot to get rid of Gordon Brown. I don't know about you but I am heartily sick of these stories. Gordon Brown has been Prime Minister for the last two years. The British people had no say in his election to that office. At the very least, they deserve an opportunity to pass their own verdict on his tenure of it. And a general election is the way to let them do it.
My NHS, your NHS, our NHS
David Cameron has kicked off the Conservatives' campaign for change with a billboard promising cuts in the budget deficit and not the NHS. Our opponents doubt the depth and sincerity of the Conservatives' commitment to the NHS. But I hope that no-one will doubt David Cameron's - or mine. David has talked of the huge debt he and his family owe the NHS for the way doctors and nurses looked after Ivan and helped make his short life a more bearable one. What some of you may not know is that I have my own personal reason to thank the NHS. In the spring of 2007, before I moved to Lincolnshire, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease, a cancer of the lymph system. Although I had private health insurance at the time, I relied on the NHS for every aspect of my treatment. And the care I received throughout several months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy was superb. Can the NHS be reformed and improved? Of course it can. But can I countenance a Britain without it? Over my dead body.
