Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Happy birthday, and now I’m going to kill you.

I don't get much post through the door that isn't asking me for money or trying to get me to spend money - but I got a nice letter through yesterday from my local Miliband telling me that it was the NHS's birthday, and that he wanted to ruin it utterly, and would I mind filling in a completely skewed questionnaire to try and make it out as if Labour had done brilliant things recently?

I call him a 'Miliband' because the dull New Labour cookie-cutter face who was writing to me is someone who's instantly forgettable. My outgoing MP, a real Labour MP, is someone whom you could actually recognise in a crowd - he looks like a human being. His replacement, however, is an unbelievably drab fellow, lacking in any discernible characteristics whatsoever. But that's the kind of spectacular insipidness that thrives in politicians nowadays - the only way you can tell the boring, brown-haired, slim Labour politicians apart from the boring, brown-haired, slim Tory politicians is by asking them what private school they went to. You don't even realise the Milibands are twins at first - that's because they're so utterly bland, you can't even notice any distinguishing features about them whatsoever. No tangible facial expressions or any betrayal of human emotion at all - just plastic nothingness.

Anyway, some birthday present for the NHS. The questionnaire on the back of this MP's letter - I'm guessing it's exactly the same letter sent to everyone in the country, just with the cypher of a New Labour face at the top changed and possibly the words slightly altered in an attempt to reflect some 'localness' - is skewed to try and make you answer in a set of predicted answers. For example: "Has your GP benefitted [sic] from modernised buildings?" - well, I would prefer to answer that yes, there is a new building, but my GP hasn't benefited at all. I couldn't give a tupenny toss what kind of building there is.

I tell you what I do care about, though. The New Labour drone says it's important that GPs aren't run for the benefit of GPs but patients. Which I kind of agree with, up to a point. Later opening hours aren't really that important to most people - but because some people want them open later, Labour uses that as an excuse to create privatised polyclinic nonsense - new practices in every town and city, some operated by the private sector. Meanwhile, Beardy Branson and his chums are allowed to set up Trojan Horses in existing GP practices, without any consultation of patients at all, to encourage the 'worried well' affluent patients to fork out on snake oil like 'nutritionists' and acupuncture, giving GPs a 10 per cent cut for using their trusted status among the community to flog on these profitable treatments.

It would be like allowing private security companies to have offices in police stations, and giving your copper a 10 per cent cut if they referred crime victims over to them. Get people when they're at their most vulnerable - use the trusted public sector to boost private profit.

A simple question. Who asked for this? Who asked for GP out-of-hours services to be privatised? No-one did, except the private firms who benefit. Who asked for Virgin to be allowed to set up their stall in GP practices? No-one, except these private firms who are going to do very nicely indeed. Who asked for polyclinics (sorry, we must call them 'GP-led health centres' or New Labour will bawl their eyes out and say we've got it all wrong. But they're fucking polyclinics. You can call a fishmonger a greengrocer, but if it sells fish, we all know what it is)? No-one did. Who asked for GPs to have to compete for patients? No-one did. Who asked for GPs to open later? No-one except those who will benefit most - not patients, but the private sector, and the likes of the CBI who will be pleased that soon employers will tell their employees they can't have work time off to go to the doctor.

I must sound terribly old fashioned. My view is that if you're unwell, you take time off work. If you want to see a GP, you see one within walking distance, and that all GPs should be of the same standard and offer the same stuff. I don't want a bloody Virgin GP; I want an NHS one. I don't want my doctor to offer private shit on the side, which may or may not be complete hocus-pocus, which he gets a 10 per cent cut of to incentivise him. Who does? Who asked for this? Did we?

In a way, we did. We voted in New Labour. We didn't complain about out-of-hours GPs being privatised. We didn't complain about the other steps towards privatisation. We didn't shout loud enough. And now, here it comes. Private GPs will hoover up the worried well and the affluent types who have cash to burn on bollocks like acupuncture and nutritionists, cutting the elderly and the poor adrift to have to make do. Surgeries will close as competition for the five-star patients increases. You think old people suffered because of post offices closing? Wait till their GP closes down and they have to travel miles to see one. All in the name of 'choice'.

So if you get a letter from your dull-as-ditchwater New Labour chappie saying isn't it great what's being done with the NHS, you do have a choice. Ignore the multiple-choice answers written in such a way as to shepherd you towards certain conclusions; there's a tiny space below for you to write your thoughts. why not go the whole hog and write a long letter, if you really care about NHS privatisation. It's a freepost exercise, after all.

Because if we don't, in a few weeks' time, we'll hear about 'the public' and how 'we' have 'overwhelmingly backed' these NHS steps to privatisation.

Maybe you don't have a problem with privatisation. Labour don't. The Tories probably don't, though to be fair to them, they are giving the impression of wanting to fight the GP closures that will inevitably follow polyclinics. If you don't mind privatisation, then fine: you're going to get your wish. If you do, then it's time to speak up.

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