For the 'big lie' to work, it seems as though certain conditions have to be satisfied. Denying reality is hard work, as you say, so it requires a traumatised and reasonably united population, willing to risk self-destruction in pursuit of a delusional fantasy. Are those conditions satisfied anywhere at the moment? In the US? Britain? Russia? China? Only one place seems to fit the bill. Israel.
I don't remember the hospital-cleaning aspect of 2005, since the dog whistling about immigration deafened everyone. Tory positioning on that issue started back in the William Hague years, as he was convinced it would eventually move up the polls and become a plus for the Tories - it did, but not fast enough to save his leadership.
I do remember a general concern about the idea of a "deep clean" of all hospitals, which Gordon Brown agreed with soon after he took over, though I don't remember if it happened.
However I was in hospital quite a bit in 2008-9, with leukaemia. I can report that the wards full of people with suppressed or damaged immune systems were always subject to a regime of keeping down infections: visitors told to wear masks and gowns, not allowed to bring flowers (full of bacteria), cleaners in your room every other day. So it certainly is possible to keep specific *parts* of a hospital extremely clean... but they have to be limited, semi-isolated places, with a limited number of special patients, with no hanging around as soon as you have enough neutrophils in your bloodstream to survive in the fresh air.
Last year a friend of mine died of lung cancer, after 18 months of first chemotherapy then immunotherapy and then trying a few alternative things as additional palliative care along with the morphine. My experience, as someone who responded to treatment and survived for over a decade, became less relevant and helpful as the months went by. The only observation I had left that I would share with other visitors was: as long as they want you in a hospital bed, that's a positive sign. Because a hospital isn't a hotel and they won't keep you in a day longer if they don't think it'll do any more good than being at home, and there's always a big queue of other people who need that bed.
For the 'big lie' to work, it seems as though certain conditions have to be satisfied. Denying reality is hard work, as you say, so it requires a traumatised and reasonably united population, willing to risk self-destruction in pursuit of a delusional fantasy. Are those conditions satisfied anywhere at the moment? In the US? Britain? Russia? China? Only one place seems to fit the bill. Israel.
I don't remember the hospital-cleaning aspect of 2005, since the dog whistling about immigration deafened everyone. Tory positioning on that issue started back in the William Hague years, as he was convinced it would eventually move up the polls and become a plus for the Tories - it did, but not fast enough to save his leadership.
I do remember a general concern about the idea of a "deep clean" of all hospitals, which Gordon Brown agreed with soon after he took over, though I don't remember if it happened.
However I was in hospital quite a bit in 2008-9, with leukaemia. I can report that the wards full of people with suppressed or damaged immune systems were always subject to a regime of keeping down infections: visitors told to wear masks and gowns, not allowed to bring flowers (full of bacteria), cleaners in your room every other day. So it certainly is possible to keep specific *parts* of a hospital extremely clean... but they have to be limited, semi-isolated places, with a limited number of special patients, with no hanging around as soon as you have enough neutrophils in your bloodstream to survive in the fresh air.
Last year a friend of mine died of lung cancer, after 18 months of first chemotherapy then immunotherapy and then trying a few alternative things as additional palliative care along with the morphine. My experience, as someone who responded to treatment and survived for over a decade, became less relevant and helpful as the months went by. The only observation I had left that I would share with other visitors was: as long as they want you in a hospital bed, that's a positive sign. Because a hospital isn't a hotel and they won't keep you in a day longer if they don't think it'll do any more good than being at home, and there's always a big queue of other people who need that bed.