Just Doing His Part

Fans of the Health and Social Care Disassembly Act 2012 will be gratified to know that its primary pusher, Twizzler Lansley, seems to be making a decent living in the private healthcare sector. His various works of charity and public service include advising a Swiss drugs company which, by a delightful coincidence, is also a major beneficiary of a fund set up by the Twizzler himself for the purpose of throwing taxpayers' money at cancer profiteers. He has also found time to advise a management consultancy firm "which has healthcare clients" and MAP BioPharma; the latter's corporate mission is to "make BioPharma and MedTech market access simple, enabling companies to take control of their market access strategy and optimise their time and budget, securing timely patient access to the latest healthcare innovations", which is just the kind of Newspeak to moisten the Lansley gusset.

Having kicked the NHS into shape for the Bullingdon Club, and thus proved himself too toxic for the Head Boy to appoint as a placeman anywhere else, the Twizzler was duly kicked upstairs to the House of Donors, where he is now doing his bit for democratic accountability by tabling thirty amendments to the Lobbying (Transparency) Bill. Scrutiny is time-limited, so it seems that the Twizzler is performing much the same service to democracy as a talker-out in the House of Expenses Claimants. As with the NHS, the Twizzler proclaims that his patented mercury and strychnine snake-oil is proffered purely from an altruistic sense of public duty and is intended to save and not to kill; and as with the NHS, no doubt the results will speak for themselves.