Take a Large Hoe and a Shovel Also

It has been some time since Her Majesty's Government pledged to bestow "parity of esteem" upon mental as compared with physical health problems; or in Standard English, to treat both with similar neglect, at least as far as the hated NHS is concerned. If a survey of GPs by the mental health charity Stem4 is to be believed, the results are much as one would expect: such is the Conservative Party's esteem for mental health that more than forty per cent of doctors are advising parents of afflicted children to pay for private care. "Parents whose child has cancer or a serious physical health condition would never have to pay for private care," commented the founder of Stem4, who clearly underestimates what parity of esteem may yet achieve in NHS efficiency savings. Doubtless our approaching liberation from the Euro-wog yoke will offer more opportunities to tackle the matter in a proper British fashion, with the reintroduction of National Service and the removal of all those nasty, oppressive restrictions on child labour. Meanwhile, the offspring of real people may be permitted anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders and depression; among the less deserving, such complaints merely indicate a lack of sufficient moral fibre to hire a proper nanny.