I can't quite work this into a coherent thought, but Richard Branson pleading for state subsidies, the same Richard Branson who sued the NHS in 2016, right now, as people are being encouraged to donate to the NHS as if it were a charity and not a state health service, is... wild.

I'm increasingly furious at the British government coding of the NHS as philanthropic, both because of the way that it portrays healthcare workers as angelic figures willing to literally sacrifice themselves (and working for love means you can't demand payrises, either)...

...but also because there's no starker example of the Conservative approach to welfare: the poor should depend on charity, the wealthy may support this system through largesse, we should all be proud of -- but not fund -- this Uniquely British System built on British Values

Constructing a sort of Britishness out of a "love" for the NHS that attacks junior doctors in tabloid papers, a love of entrepreneurship that celebrates men like Branson as somehow "self-made", a love of social hierarchy even if you're at the bottom, and union jack bunting.

this is all very sixth form common room politics, but there's something in here about philanthropy and politics and the role of the state and British exceptionalism that sits at the heart of a lot of my academic research

as @Emily_Baughan points out, the labour movement itself fought for healthcare not to rely on charity basically until 1948 and should be much warier about ceding this ground now (all my thoughts on welfare and charity are basically the result of conversations with @Emily_Baughan)