NHS Direct

As sick as a parrot?
So NHS Direct is no more. The service was switched off at the end of last week. It was, in conceptual terms, pure Nulabour and came home from the maternity ward, if you see what I mean, in mid-1998. Being pure Nulabour in manner it tinkered with, but did not solve, a number of problems that were spun out of all proportion to justify its creation. So why did they do it? Well first we admit that Nulabour are obsessed with health 'issues'. So much so that it would, under normal circumstances, warrant a course of treatment for a gross psychological disorder. However, there is method in their madness. For while no sane person would wish the health of the nation to decline, the NHS is an ideal tool to use in the creation of a dependency culture. Then, and upon that, can a whole way of managing society be founded.

The Labour Party, in both old and new forms, sees itself as the owner of the NHS. Set up in 1946 you might have thought that anything so old would have been the target of Tony Blair and his messianic reforming zeal. But following the collapse of industry in the UK it's in the NHS that the trade union movement has its power base. This by virtue of the fact that the NHS employs about 1.4 million workers and a very high proportion of them union members.