Amber More or Less Alert

There are, it appears, a few people in the world who are less concerned than the Health Secretary about the survival of the National Health Service. NHS computers have been using outdated software, which has been vulnerable to hacking ever since the coalition decided to stop paying Microsoft for security updates in 2014. A cyber-attack has now occurred; the attacking software apparently originated with the security agency of our dead-eyed warden's greatest ally, whose security measures permitted the software to be stolen and adapted for nefarious purposes. This is of course the cyber-war equivalent of developing a nice new bacteriological weapon and forgetting to immunise one's own personnel; a scenario of which Her Majesty's Government has considerable experience. Cyber-security is the responsibility of the Home Office; so the present stand-in for a Home Secretary has naturally been concerned to emphasise that the question of the moment is whether any lessons should be learned from the incompetence of her predecessor, whose name nobody seems to remember at the moment. As a preliminary measure, the NHS has been ordered to get itself properly equipped, presumably by utilising the efficiency savings made through the departure of all those wog doctors and bursary-scrounging nurses.