>> The Conservative Party have been in power for 12 years. When they gained power they pursued a policy of "austerity" to reduce the size of the govt and local govt, reduce the funding of nationally funded things, and to replace such govt owned things with "public private partnerships".
Folk talking about austerity as a tory thing are going to be in for a monster shock if energy prices persist through the next elections, and when they realize the size of the Covid bill vs the GFC bill. It may very well be Labour sitting as the final nails are driven into the NHS, just by sheer luck of timing
The end of the NHS is unlikely to be caused by money or lack thereof, given the NHS was founded while the UK was still suffering the economic consequences of the pyrrhic victory of WW2 — food rationing was still a thing, and was only completely ended six years after the NHS was founded, just in time for the Suez crisis to bring it back for a few more months.
You seem to be missing a bit of context here - this was after the Global Financial Crisis when even the outgoing Labour Chancellor of the Exchequor admitted there was no money left https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/17/liam-byrne-...
>> So we entered the pandemic with an already under-funded and stretched health care system.
It's 12% of GDP currently, which isn't that out of step globally.