Of all the reasons to end a long and bitter industrial dispute, imposing an unwelcome contract on a demoralised workforce to “end the uncertainty” has to be the most bizarre, given the inevitable outcome of the imposition will be not less, but more uncertainty. The demoralised workforce, our junior doctors, are already in bad shape, overstretched and in poor morale. Record numbers are considering – though we don’t yet know how many will pull the ejector seat lever – working abroad. Late last year we learnt that almost half of juniors completing their foundation training chose not to proceed directly with their training – a sure sign of ambivalence about the direction of their chosen career. Hospitals face unprecedented recruitment problems, winter pressures are now being mirrored by summer pressures, with the imminent prospect of all year round pressures. The health service is in a critical way, at risk of implosion. So what does the Health Secretary do when he doesn’t get his own way with the juniors? He hits them on the head. Hard.
Category: The Media
Not Entirely Appropriate
Supposed once by David ‘Hug a Hoodie’ Cameron to be the embodiment of big society in a way that say dear Joanna Lumley never could be, Camila Batmanthingy exploded last week as her charity Kids Company imploded. Boy, was it a big explosion, as if Demis Roussos, once described by Clive James as another larger than life Phenomenon having an immense reserve of inner warmth, had exploded. Appearing with a succession of ever more luminous ever larger tablecloths wound round her head and wrapped round her body, she railed and ranted against the media rumour-mongers who, she said, had caused Kids Company to come crashing down, in the space, she would have us believe, of a few days, if not hours. Other accounts have it that, like Icarus before her, Camila flew too high, and the steady heat of scrutiny melted the wax of her charity. The collapse was as complete as it was sudden.
Breaking Bad
Like a pair of blind impotent bulls, Humph and Jimbo crashed about the Today studio this morning, breaking bad, but not much in the way of news. The programme reverberated to the dull thud of blunt horns getting stuck in wooden stories. Humph deployed his standard technique of exclaiming ‘Ha!’ every time an interviewee started to answer a question, to put the interviewee off balance, while Jimbo has extended his extended question technique by inserting…long…pauses. More crotchety than ever, Jimbo has even started to avoid questions altogether, preferring instead to crochet together a long series of statements…and pauses…and…assertions, more waffle, more saccharisms, more Jimboisms…before delivering a final semi-triumphant statement, leaving the by now stunned hapless interviewee little to do except to agree.