Blair's government is a 'vast inhuman machine'

Opposition party chief David Cameron was making an audacious raid on Tony Blair's political territory Sunday, claiming himself the potential guardian of Britain's health service _ a totemic issue for governing Labour _ and condemning the government as a "vast, inhuman machine."

Addressing delegates at a convention in Nottingham, central England, the Conservative leader planned to pitch himself as the lawmaker to correct the county's creaking health network, dogged by hospital closures, huge debts and a revolt among junior doctors over job opportunities.

Blair's Labour is fiercely proud of establishing Britain's National Health Service, which introduced state-funded health care in 1948. Conservatives had traditionally favored offering the public assistance to use private medical providers while reducing investment in state-run services.