Sir Nigel Crisp promoted to the House of Lords

Lord Crisp

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

So opens the famous novel by George Orwell, the novel that introduced us to Big Brother long before the advent of reality TV.

Speaking from the Ministry of Truth, the Secretary of State for Health, the blessed Patricia Hewitt, said of Sir Nigel:

"Under his leadership, we have seen extraordinary improvements - record improvements - in the performance of the NHS"

And in the House of Truths today, the Prime Minister said:

"Sir Nigel is a superb public servant who in the past few years has overseen a transformation of the NHS.

If we look back over the past few years, we see the difference investment and reform has made.

Waiting lists have come down by something like 400,000 under this Government. And whereas there used to be, in 1997, almost 300,000 people waiting 15 months for their operation, there's now no one waiting more than six months."

So they are sacking him. That follows does it not?

I cannot improve on the excellent Ann Treneman in The Times today, who says:

PATRICIA HEWITT is suffering from a medical condition in which she says the opposite of what is true. Those close to the Health Secretary accept this and have learnt to cope. So when Pat says “the sun is shining” they know that, in fact, it is bucketing down and to take an umbrella.

Yesterday she tackled Sir Nigel Crisp’s abrupt departure from the NHS by heaping praise on him. Hearing this, we all assumed he had been pushed.

She spoke of him in the kind of hushed tones that many people would reserve for an extraordinary pet: a parakeet that could knit jumpers, for instance, or dog that could speak Japanese. “Under his leadership,” she said, her voice lapping upon us like the gentlest of waves, “we have seen extraordinary improvements — record improvements — in the performance of the NHS.”

This made us realise things were worse than we had thought. MPs exchanged looks of incredulity. The Tories were rustling like rats in a pantry. “Retired! Retired!” they muttered, eyes wide with wonder. Ms Hewitt pretended this wasn’t happening.

She has now perfected the art of acting like all three wise monkeys at once: she sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil. If she isn’t careful, she might get a reputation for being vacuous.

For once, Dr Crippen feels sympathy for Sir Nigel for, like everyone else in the Health Service, he has been impaled on government targets, most of which were unachievable.

We saw this coming. The writing was in on the wall when, only last week, Sir Nigel retreated to his bunker for his final stand, as reported here and here.

This is a negation of ministerial responsibility. Go back to Dugdale and Crichel Down in the 1950's when, interestingly, Dugdale's junior minister was a certain Peter Carrington. Even though only a junior he offered his resignation. It was refused. He was later to resign from the Thatcher government over the Falkland's fiasco. Peter Carrington is a man of principle. A man of the utmost integrity.

The principle of ministerial responsiblity used to be a lynchpin of the British Constitution. It is long gone. Let us not forget that Nigel Crisp, despite his odd hybrid role, was essentially a civil servant. It is the blessed Patricia who should have resigned. Where is her integrity? Where is her principle?

Leaving aside politics, this whole sorry story highlights one of the most morale damaging aspects of the health service.

The lies.

Day in, day out, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, radiographers, healthworkers throughout the NHS have to listen to the blessed Patricia saying that things are getting better and better when all around them, quite patently, the opposite it true.

The Ministry of Truth -- Minitrue, in Newspeak -- was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

(George Orwell : 1984)