The government has now tabled yet more ‘amendments to the amendments’ to the HSCB – this time 137 of them, complete with ‘briefing notes’. The pace of developments is making Dr No quite giddy, so he settled down with his opium pipe, and before long it dawned on him: the government isn’t making laws, it’s making movies…
After the success of the 1994 movie Speed, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, and the dismal sequel Speed 2: Cruise Control, there was for a while a suggestion of a triquel, Speed 3: Ignition, but it turned out to be a hoax. No doubt the catastrophic bombing of Speed 2 blew up any chance of Hollywood making Speed 3, but never mind – for we have our very own Speed 3, already up to speed and running fast at an NHS trust near you. It is, of course, Speed 3: Health and Social Care Bill, produced by David “Wide-screen” Cameron, and directed by Andrew “One-track” Lansley.
The premise of the Speed movie series is dashing and compelling: what if something large, very large, with lots of vulnerable people trapped on board, accelerates to terminal velocity in a direction that makes a crash, a very large crash, inevitable? The scope for special effects is unlimited – the original Speed movie got through twelve buses, two of which were blown up; another had its front cut off.
Speed 2 transferred the action – unsuccessfully – to a cruise liner; Speed 3: Health and Social Care Bill transfers it – brilliantly – to NHS hospitals. Arch villain David Nicholson has planted a fiscal bomb in the bowels of every trust: each one must travel faster and faster along a financial road littered with ramps bumps hoops and gaps, or else crash and burn. Inside each trust, a rich cast of slice-of-life characters face doom as trust after trust hurtles towards oblivion…
Yep – Speed 3: Health and Social Care Bill is running at an NHS trust near you right now. The question is: where the hell are Reeves and Bullock?