Masked Efficiency

Even before the coronavirus concentrated their minds, it was fashionable among former NHS-bashers to reinvent themselves as champions of the NHS once they were safely out of office. The interregnum that followed Margaret Thatcher, whose introduction of the "internal market" was among the more blatant signals of the Conservatives' final solution to the public health problem, was a particularly egregious example. Still, even John Major's oracular whines about the Bullingdon Club may be rivalled by Jeremy C Hunt's attempts to reinvent himself as a champion of the nurses his administration forced into dependence on food banks, and the doctors on whom he declared war. Evidently seeing the pandemic as a chance to flaunt his charisma from the back-benches, Hunt called for better equipment for the frontline staff who, doubtless as a result of Hunt's cleansing influence, have conveniently given up their idle weekend murder habits and been re-born as heroes risking their lives to save others. Astoundingly enough, it now turns out that Hunt's régime blithely contributed to present shortages against the recommendations of its own advisers, who were probably nothing more than mere experts. When it was suggested that guidelines might be updated in line with, of all things, current evidence, Hunt's minions sniffed that "This work is not considered a priority at this time and will be deferred for consideration at a future time." Still, it is encouraging to see that Hunt, like his Cabinet colleagues among the Deputy Conservative Party, has been so much improved by not being in office; and it is to be hoped that the improvement will be allowed to continue for a long time to come.