Rough treatment

If anyone needed persuading of the deep moral disarray of modern British society, the latest figures on assaults against National Health Service staff should be more than sufficient to convince him. It is not so much their overall number — though 57,830 in a year seems quite a lot to me — that is alarming, as the variation in the way with which they are dealt. The predominant response is, as you would expect, feeble, vacillating, lazy and cowardly: or, if you prefer, forgiving.

I mean no criticism of NHS Protect, the horribly named agency that collected the figures, when I say that these figures raise far more questions than they answer. They do, however, illuminate the general state of confusion in our country much as a flash of lightning illuminates a dark landscape at night.

The number of assaults increased by only 1,112 over the previous 12 months, or 1.96