Payment by Results

We are well aware, because the Conservative Party and its New Labour acolytes have been informing us for several decades now, that spending taxpayers' money directly on public services is far less efficient than throwing it at profiteers; and of course government bureaucracy and IT systems get along so famously as to require no reminder. Doubtless these two factors serve more than adequately to explain and excuse the failure of a private NHS contractor to dispatch almost thirty thousand pieces of correspondence to patients in north London. The error went undetected for six months, and the NHS still does not know whether anyone's health has suffered as a result, though fortunately the victims were mostly in places like Camden, Islington, Enfield and Haringey and will therefore include many habitual Labour voters. The IT company shrugged off the issue with a bit of coder-brag about "the unique design of a custom script" and will presumably continue to rake in the cash.