2021: 7 - 8

We suffer from a lack of Faith? The capital F is deliberate, as is the question mark. Speaking for myself I find my own faith intellectually vexing but, at base, comforting. I wish that comfort on others but I know of people far more decent and happy than I who manage perfectly well without it.

I mention this because in July the NHS was awarded the George Cross - rather akin to the historical awards of that honour to the island of Malta and to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. All leave a rather icky feeling that the donor of the award is virtue-signalling. This may sound ungenerous but let me explain.

My first exposure to paid employment was as a student porter in the NHS. This was back in the good old, bad old, days before Thatcher had even become Prime Minister. The hospital was laughably over-staffed and was a hot-bed of job demarcation. Nonetheless there was an underlying feeling of comfort that the Service was there for all of us. In a (much) later business life I had to deal with the Service on a regular basis. Its administration was sclerotic and badly thought-out. But just as you reached the point of despair you would encounter someone who genuinely believed in the provision of services free at the point of delivery. To my shame I cannot remember his name but I negotiated a complex contract with a Procurement Officer at BEN NHS Trust. The two of us pushed it through, sometimes paying lip-service to the blocked but proper channels, more often making it up as we went along. I count it one of the handful of my best legal accomplishments.

All of which in a round-about way brings me to my point. The NHS is the closest thing we have to an established religion in modern Britain - and that state of affairs is to a large degree because so many of us lack any better faith. This veneration of the Health Service is not in fact good for us or for the Service itself. 

In August Panorama alleged that David Cameron had made (perfectly legally it would seem) £7 million for advising the bankrupt Greensill company. Now never mind that old shitbag Tiny Rowland, that really is the unacceptable face of capitalism and a good reason why it is so difficult to be an apologist for the modern Conservative Party - and God knows, I've tried.