The Burnham Test

Andy Burnham, our Health Secretary (no, really, he is), has accused Dan Hannan of being "unpatriotic" - presumably for failing to support the current US government's healthcare policy. Curious definition.

With Blair it was illegal Bush wars, with Brown it's madcap Obama health nationalisation plans.

So we now have what we might call "The Burnham Test": if you don't support a US government policy a Labourist UK government happens to like, then you're somehow anti-British. That's a pretty odd test of patriotism - and one that will attract only richly deserved contempt from our "partners" in Europe and beyond.

As for the NHS - well, I have to assume this is the same "world class" health service that failed to spot my aunt's two broken fingers three weeks ago and fobbed her off with a couple of packets of cocodamol (the NHS's drug of choice). Oh yeah, the broken fingers were in the original radiology notes. But the doctor treating her apparently failed to notice them because he could barely speak English. Nothing controversial about that. It's just a fact - and one which was acknowledged today after she went back to the hospital - in agony - to complain that her hand was not healing and a doctor who could read English immediately discovered the "mistake". "Oh, Mrs ---, you've got two broken fingers!"

Lucky she wasn't being tested for cancer the first time around, I guess. She'd probably be dead by now - like so many others.

World class indeed.

Sorry for sounding so "unpatriotic", Andy.