You Can Weed a Horticulture, But You Can't Slake the Stink

News Corporation's spokesbeing on public health, Jeremy C Hunt, has registered his annoyance at the persecution of Serco and the failure of Section 75 by denouncing mediocrity in the NHS. Hunt praised the NHS for its excellence in adding spice to the Olympic opening ceremony, from which, as News Corporation's spokesbeing on culture, he apparently tried to remove it. Hunt's own most notable contribution to the Olympics, of course, was the famous backstage knee-trembler with Rupert himself, at which Hunt was doubtless informed about his new post as official demolition agent for Twizzler Lansley's newly vandalised Health Service. Despite Lansley's crude obstinacy and the Deputy Conservatives' routine treachery over the Health and Social Care Act, it seems one or two obstacles to complete twizzlerisation still remain; so now Hunt is worried that "the weeds of failure grow more quickly in a garden of mediocrity". This seems a little unfair. Quite aside from his own natural talents, Hunt is a cabinet colleague of Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith, Theresa May, Philip Hammond and Chris Graybeing; so a preoccupation with mediocrity is hardly to be wondered at. Nevertheless, if Hunt's career proves anything, it is surely that the garden of mediocrity includes the path to the magic money tree of patronage, given a sufficient supply of manure.