Insidious Doctors, Yellow Perils

For our sub-verminous overlords at least, it appears that the Year of the Rat has got off to an auspicious start. With palpable relief, the more exalted specimens of Rattus bevani have declared that there exists at least one threat to the health of the nation more serious and imminent than that posed by Her Majesty's Government. By a remarkable stroke of good fortune, the origin of the threat is one of those inscrutable foreign places; and by a convenient coincidence, the Minister for Profitable Healthcare is facing some little embarrassment about his local hospital, where his close friend is chief executive and where a witch-hunt against the medical staff has gone a bit Head Boy-shaped. Hancock has recused himself from all responsibility, and doubtless the spads are rushing forth from the hatcheries to hurl themselves into the line of any fire that comes his way; but in the meantime a substitute witch-hunt is indubitably called for. The proles may still not be quite ready to acclaim the Conservatives for doctor-bashing; but they will surely stand shoulder to shoulder with Hancock when he's cleaning out the disease-spreading Heathen Chinee and closing all those Marmite-free restaurants.