It is extremely unlikely that a Tea Party movement could ever take off in Britain: the main reason being that, unlike in the US, the British simply lack the political vocabulary and intellectual building blocks to demand one.
On Monday, CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer asked Tea Party presidential candidate Ron Paul what should happen to a 30-year-old uninsured man who needs expensive medical care. Should the state pay his bills? Paul replied:
That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody —
He never finished his point, being drowned out by the approving cheers and whoops of the Tea Party faithful in the audience.
Kent Snyder could have finished his point for him. Snyder was a volunteer who eventually became a campaign manager for Ron Paul’s previous presidential bid in 2008. “It was Kent more than anyone else who encouraged and pushed Ron to run for president,” said a Ron Paul spokesperson.
Kent Snyder caught pneumonia during Paul's 2008 campaign. On June 26, 2008 he died from complications from his pneumonia, but not before running up a $400,000 in medical bill. He didn't have health insurance. His family couldn't pay the bill and it was left to an on line campaign by friends to pay off his debt to his health care providers.
Even with the National Health Service in the tender care of the Tories, such a thing couldn't happen in Britain, at least for the foreseeable future. The British simply lack the political vocabulary and intellectual building blocks to demand such things and I, for one, am very, very grateful that we do lack them.
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