Super Dave and the road to Damascus

All hail Super Dave, the man who intends gift us all our little hearts have ever desired - if his suspiciously hollow sounding promises are to believed. This simple man and his rag tag band of followers, all recent Damascene converts to the cult of Dave, are planning the great reform act of the noughties and will protect spending in key territory - that which he captured from nasty New Labour in order to secure their centre left ground.

Now secure in his liberal centre left, fortified through his unholy alliance with "the party that cannot win," we can witness the start of devastation we all expected - delivered this time with the emotionless malevolent smile of a hit-man secure in the knowledge he is only doing his job, well.

Tell me sire, super leader of the Liberal Convertocrats; how did this happen? I accept that the NHS is not a holy cow, but it is a worthwhile state institution - gifted us by the last reforming government; not the Liberal/Tory government of 1920s (although it is a fact that the Liberals have been unable to get their hands on the reins of power since - and that was an important reform,) but the Labour government of 1945.  The 1940s and 50s saw a government of real reformers such as Attlee, Bevin and Beveridge, to name but a few.

There are undoubtedly places to save money in the NHS, although the experience of the last cut obsessed 18 year Tory government would not seem to back this up - medical advances cost money and save lives - reducing healthcare spending is not popular nor conducive to a progressive (ouch, that word AGAIN) health system.

As I see it there is one place that serious reductions could be made, addressing a sizable chunk of NHS spending whilst redressing a long running inequity - the terms & conditions, salaries and pensions of the elite NHS employees; consultants and doctors.  It was GPs and Consultants who stood opposed to the creation of the NHS from day one, in fact Bevin acknowledged that in order to garner their support "I stuffed their mouths with gold", subsequent governments have lacked the backbone to revisit this.  Now is the time to look at the salaries of senior clinical staff who are better paid than any other equivalent professional; a consultant starts at  £74,000 per annum and a GP at £53,000, with typical earnings up to double that - how can we justify this disparity?

Anybody got the stomach for  a bit of clinical iconoclasty?

Disclaimer: I was recently discharged from hospital after a "minor operation" which resulted in 3 weeks of fighting a post-op infection that damn near killed me.