Twinkle eyes turns on the charm

William Hague met Harriet Harman at PMQs. They were like old lovers bumping into each other at a party. The tension had vanished and little remained but warm mutual regard. Harman led on health rationing and Hague chose not to retaliate, as Cameron surely would have, by demanding to know why she hadn’t mentioned the fall in unemployment.

Hague was all smiles and sunniness today. Harman wanted to know how he’d explain to a patient needing a new hip that the NHS couldn’t afford to operate. ‘Wait in pain? Or pay and go private?’ she suggested. Hague said that the rationing of services was a breakthrough pioneered by the last Labour government.

This prompted Harman to travel back in time and to boast that, ‘Labour builds up the NHS and the Tories drag it down.’ True enough, agreed Hague, if you equate the NHS with NHS managers. Administrators had risen twice as fast under Labour as the number of clinicians.