The Lower You Go, the Safer You Are

Since Nick Clegg is on record as opposing regional pay deals for NHS staff, at least one NHS consortium is naturally attempting to impose a regional pay deal on its staff. The South West Pay, Terms and Conditions Consortium, which employs about seven per cent of what remains of the Health Service, has decided that the kind of people who did so much for little Ivan (remember him?) are best efficientised with pay cuts, longer hours and reduced leave. Somehow or other, this is supposed to safeguard up to six thousand jobs, although it is not entirely clear what prevents any particular human resource from being insecure as well as overworked and badly paid. Twizzler Lansley has huffed and puffed about it, but the Department of Health has bravely spoken up and regretted the trade union intransigence which - along with such perennial culprits as the weather, the Euro-wogs, the jubilee, the Olympics and the North Sea - has caused us all so much unnecessary trouble. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, is on holiday.