A short measure of public esteem for the Liberal Democrats is the length attached in the media to the Rt. Hon. Vincent Cable MP’s name, and the longer, the better. When fully expanded in all its parts, the LDs are in full sail, before a soldier’s wind. Vincent says they are still making good way, but Vince tells of head winds, and when crimped to Vic, stormy seas are close ahead. The day it’s V signals nothing’s left, and that’ll be the day for those who value survival to abandon ship.
Dr No mentions this barometer of public esteem since it seems to him that, while Michael Foot may have written the longest suicide note in political history, the LDs are now engaged in the longest suicide act in political history.
Earlier this month, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee lived up to its name, and beamed a professor into one of its hearings. 
Is there more patient abuse in the NHS today than there was, say, thirty years ago, or are we just better at exposing it? Dr No does not know for certain. He chose a thirty year comparator because it was about that time ago that he was a medical student, and then a junior doctor, and so frequently exposed to different wards and hospitals. His recollections from that time are more of starched white sheets, and of course the starched but very beguiling nurses who smoothed them out, than of beds doubling up as commodes. He does recall once seeing a cockroach on the polished wooden floor of a ward, but it was a one-off sighting of a very lonely cockroach. Today, it seems, the cockroaches have grown in both size and number, many now standing on two legs as they mishandle and maltreat the patients on their ward. Has it come to pass that the once occasional failing has now become normal practice? 
Question Time last night on BBC1 assembled a panel sure to cause fireworks, and fireworks there were, on a military scale. Lansley spent much of the programme looking like a barrage balloon about to explode, Sarah Sands explained to anyone willing to listen why she should be the next editor of the Daily Mail, and Mark Littlewood previewed the bilateral cauliflower ears that all Lib-Dems will sport, once the electorate give them the boxing about the ears that they so sorely deserve at the next election. But the best and most striking bit was the visceral anger of the audience. At one point, they almost rose up as one, as if to tear Lansley limb from limb. Dr No, pacifist that he is, almost wished they had. At least we would have been spared further sight of that blasted barrage balloon.
Today, the Lords had a once in a lifetime opportunity to demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, that they are the peoples’ friend, the rock in the British system that stands against the tides of party politics – and they blew it. By allowing a second reading of the Health and Social Care bill, and failing to vote for significant amendments, they have, in effect, given free passage to the Bill and its inevitable consequence – the fragmentation and in due course destruction of our national health service.
Last night’s News at Ten on BBC1 was fronted by a back room cove with hair pulled straight from a Brylcreem ad. The lead item presented Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, as a cross between a schoolboy caught with his shorts down, and a Klan buddy with his ex-best man. The editorial line was let’s pop Liam on a spit and roast him, because he might produce some good crackling. But then again he might not. We shall have to wait and see. 
Pity the poor patients in Yorkshire. Hot on the heels of the 
Monday’s Channel Four 
Not so long ago, Meccano Flanders got herself into mild hot water for allegedly