Chimps' Tea Party @ No 10

"Dear me! It seems Lord and Master, him upstairs and his pals, are behaving like the monkeys at the 'Chimps' Tea Party! Remember that?" Arturo asked. "And we'd have known nothing about it but for that Peter Cruddas bloke being taken in by some of Murdoch's reporters!"

Of course, I had never actually seen the famed 'Chimps' Tea Party' which used to be held at London Zoo. But I had heard about it from my Aunty Dora who had been there. It seems the chimps were dressed up and given seats around a table. Tea and cakes and lots of goodies were brought to the table and the chimps proceeded to 'have fun'.

Now it seems we have our own equivalent of the 'Chimps' Tea Party' right here in jolly old Downing Street. 'Boy David' Cameron and the 'lovely' Samantha provide a meal and people eat with them! Some of those invited have made a contribution.

Something a bit fishy here? Do I sense you're thinking? Well, if it was fish, neither Arturo nor I had a bite of it! Whether it was fish, fowl or good red herring, we know not.

According to Peter Cruddas, now ex-Tory Party fund-raiser, some of those invited, to sample delectable morsels at the Cameron table, had paid handsomely for the joy of it! The 'Premier League' guys, according to Cruddas, had paid over £200,000! Now that's some meal!

Of course, we don't think that the Downing Street 'Chimps' Party' was ever as amusing as the London Zoo version. There, so I am told, the chimps got to throw cream cakes at each other! I doubt whether the 'lovely' Samantha could tolerate that! 'Boy David' gave up such things when he left the Bullingdon Club! But what these other 'chimps' are doing is chucking money round the table. Not as amusing to watch for onlookers but it's quite effective for the 'chuckers'. Again, don't take my word for it -we have Peter Cruddas' account!

However, the purpose of these little social gatherings, in the Cameron's private apartment, was not for pure entertainment. Oh No! Nothing so simple! Mary Riddell of the Telegraph wrote an article under the headline:

Cash for access: the scent of money has become a bad smell around David Cameron

She said:

David Cameron is not the first alleged pay-per-view prime minister, and he will not be the last. Claims by the Tories’ banished co-treasurer, Peter Cruddas, of “premier league” access to the PM in return for a £250,000 gift to party coffers were both shocking and predictable.

While denying that the PM was for hire, Downing Street was slow to publish the details of those, party donors included, who attended the Camerons’ private dinners for friends.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9167356/Cash-for-access-the-scent-of-money-has-become-a-bad-smell-around-David-Cameron.html

There has been a furore about what Arturo termed the 'pay-per-eat' with the Camerons. The story was broken by the Murdoch press which is a bit rich! Didn't he tell the Commons Select Committee that as soon as Cameron was ensconced in No 10 - he - Rupert himself - entered by the 'back door'! I'm sure he must have had, at least, a cuppa or two!

Now the ex-Tory Party fund-raiser, Peter Cruddas, has been flaunting his great knowledge about the goings-on at No 10, in a sting by reporters from the Sunday Times. Other papers quickly gave their opinions:

It'll be awesome for your business: Tory treasurer told donors they could have access to PM and influence policy

That was the headline in the Mail. The article by Jason Groves continued:

David Cameron’s pledge to clean up politics came back to bite him yesterday after his chief fundraiser was secretly filmed boasting major donors would get both access and influence in return for hard cash.

Peter Cruddas, a spread betting millionaire, told undercover reporters posing as potential donors that they could expect to meet the Prime Minister and feed in their concerns directly to Downing Street’s policy-making machine.

‘It will be awesome for your business,’ he claimed.Mr Cruddas, who was appointed by Mr Cameron as the Conservative Party’s co-treasurer in June last year, quit within hours of the secret recordings being made public.

Two years ago, Mr Cameron pledged to clean up politics by clamping down on the shadowy world of lobbying. But Mr Cruddas’s comments appeared to suggest that those with fat enough wallets are able to buy access to the heart of Downing Street.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120287/Itll-awesome-business-Tory-treasurer-told-donors-access-PM-influence-policy.html#ixzz1qGIqTdu7

All this news of his little private dinners must be particularly galling for 'Boy David' Cameron. Why? Well, very recently he told a group of excited schoolchildren visiting No 10:

"I live in a little flat, a very nice flat actually, above No 11 Downing Street, but what I get up to up there is private."

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/307096/PM-describes-his-love-of-riding/-PM-describes-his-love-of-riding-PM-describes-his-love-of-riding-PM-describes-his-love-of-riding

That's what I call ironic! The whole world now knows that what goes on in his 'very nice flat' is far from 'private'! It's a 'chimps' tea party'! The world also understands what Cameron hopes to keep 'private'. Not quite what you would have expected, is it?

It seems that 'Boy David' Cameron finds it difficult to fight some battles and this is a big battle. So, he has brought in the 'Weasel Man' Francis Maude to act as his knight in shining armour. He appeared on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme. Instead of rescuing the situation, 'Weasel Man' Maude only made things worse. Evan Davis' questions about the 'pay-per-eat' story were dismissed as 'a bit of nonsense'! Oh, Francis! Tell that to the marines!!

Arturo padded back into the room "There's a smell of stinking fish coming from the Cameron's flat," he said. It was not said with any degree of irony! Anyway, I quite like stinking fish. I think I'll hang around outside and see if a tasty morsel comes my way!

'Bye'

'Nicholas Ridiculous' Clegg, be wary @ No 10

Arturo and I having watched the Parliament TV channel, until our eyes nearly popped, have slept the sleep of the righteous! We watched the Lords 'alording it until the Health and Social Care Bill had its third reading.

That dreadfully 'umble looking bloke, Lord Howe, was seen to give a smile of satisfaction when he heard the compliments showered on him by obsequious Tory and LibDem peers. To us, Arturo and me, the grin resembled the tortured leering of a dried up lizard. But appearances aside, the faithless LibDem Lords and Baronesses, with one or two noble exceptions, trod the whipped path of ignominy quite blithely.

So - who is this Lord Howe on whom such sweet sickly words were heaped?

Earl Howe has been Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health since May 2010.

Born in 1951, he was educated at Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford. After leaving University in 1973, he joined Barclays Bank and served in a number of managerial and senior managerial posts both overseas and in London. In 1987 he was appointed London director of Adam & Co. plc, the Scottish-based private bank, where he remained until 1990.

In 1991, Lord Howe became a government whip in the House of Lords with responsibilities, successively, for transport, employment, defence and environment. Following the General Election of 1992 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary (Lords) at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; and in 1995 Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, a post he relinquished at the 1997 General Election.

Between 1997 and 2010 he was opposition spokesman for Health and Social Services in the House of Lords. He is an elected hereditary peer under the provisions of the House of Lords Act 1999. Apart from his frontbench responsibilities, Earl Howe has previously been a member of the all-party groups on penal affairs, abuse investigations, pharmaceuticals, adoption, mental health and epilepsy.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.dh.gov.uk/en/Aboutus/MinistersandDepartmentLeaders/Ministers/Ministersbiography/DH_116287

Now, let's take a closer look at one section:

he joined Barclays Bank and served in a number of managerial and senior managerial posts both overseas and in London. In 1987 he was appointed London director of Adam & Co. plc, the Scottish-based private bank, where he remained until 1990.

My my! What a wealth of experience in health matters! He's the sort of man who would know his clavicle from his clavichord. He's just the man you feel in your very bones would understand everything about health care - I jest, of course!

But this is the man who was not a male nurse; not a hospital doctor; not a general practitioner; not even a ward orderly! This is a man who was a former banker! Yes, that's right - a former banker! He was the man, carefully selected by the Tory Party, to best represent the Tory Party line on Health! That says it all, doesn't it? In the Tory mind health and money are one and the same!

Of course, being an ex-banker, he will never need the NHS! So, as Arturo said:

"It's a bloody shambles that this writhing self-satisfied little Toff, of an ex-banker, has ensured the people who rely on the NHS will now be in the hands of private health care companies when they need help!"

Arturo has still not got over the shock of watching late at night when the Bill finally went back to the Commons. Despite some valiant efforts to stall - the Blue LibDems, with a couple of notable exceptions, helped 'Silly Ass' Lansley get his obnoxious Bill through Parliament!

Twitter was awash with tear-jerking tweets of woe. However, a new political party is rising from the ashes of the 'Drop The Bill' campaign. It proposes to support doctors, at the next election, who are going to stand against LibDems and certain vulnerable Tories who supported the Bill.

If Arturo was human - he'd love to stand against 'Ridiculous Nicholas' Clegg. But he's an under stairs cat - so he can't! Clegg had better watch out, all the same, for his trouser legs when he next comes to No 10! I've caught Arturo practising the left-leg pounce - and - he's been sharpening his claws in readiness! I don't envy 'Ridiculous Nicholas' Clegg's future!

'Bye' from Arturo and me.

This shameful Coalition @ No 10

"First - Maggie Thatcher sold off the family silver - according to Harold MacMillan who was hardly a radical man! Now these arseholes, Cameron and Clegg, are selling off the NHS!" Arturo was incandescent with rage.

He is so right. But then, Arturo nearly always is! Today, it really is time to man the barricades. It is the last possible day to *SAVE THE NHS*. By tomorrow, it will be too late!

While 'Boy David' Cameron was poncing around Washington, like Obama's tame mutt, the few men and women of integrity left in Parliament were desperately trying to get the 'Transition Risk Register' published so that the country, as a whole, would know where it stood in relation to the appalling Health and Social Care Bill, the love-child of 'Silly Ass' Lansley and the Devil Incarnate.

Whilst Obama has been struggling to give the poor in America a Health Service that will take care of them - across the pond, Cameron, Clegg and Lansley have been desperately trying to unravel the NHS.

Andy Burnham, Shadow Health Secretary, has written a letter to the Guardian explaining exactly what the 'Transition Risk Register' is:

The transition risk register deals not with the unthinkable, which of course raises difficult presentational challenges, but the very real and predictable risks arising from ministers' own policy choices. If ministers are asking for parliament's approval to implement their decisions, they should at very least be required to provide MPs and peers with all relevant information on the risks of doing so. ...
People care passionately about the NHS. They have a right to know the full implications of the government's proposed reorganisation. Ministers are insulting parliament by expecting it to endorse changes of this magnitude to the country's best-loved institution while withholding information that could change the way MPs and peers vote. Ministers are stringing out their response to the tribunal so they can ram their bill through parliament without publishing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/18/risk-register-nhs-reform-bill

Today, in the House of Lords, there will be one last ditch attempt to rectify this scandalous situation. Lord David Owen and Baroness Thornton have tabled motions to hold up the progress of the Bill until the Risk Register is published. The Guardian, in an article by Randeep Ramesh, social affairs editor has the headline:

Ministers lied to push through NHS reforms, Labour peer claims

It goes on to quote from Lady Thornton:

"This is an ideologically driven bill and the Lib Dems capitulated. Ministers lied to get it through. I know it's unusually unparliamentary language but I am really horrified. They have sold us a pup."

The article continued:

The Labour peer said such a vote was now justified as "it really was the last 48 hours to save the NHS". Her ire is particularly directed at the Lib Dem peers Lady Williams and Lord Clement-Jones.

After weeks of working with the pair on defeating the government over the pro-competition parts of the bill, Thornton said the two had pulled out just before the crucial Lib Dem spring conference – where activists went on to win a motion declining to back the reforms and embarrassed the party leadership.

Instead of shielding the NHS from the full force of EU competition law, Clement-Jones did a deal with the government so that ministers would offer a "strong statement" on the need to take patients' interests into account – arguing that this would insulate the health service in court against legal challenge.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/18/ministers-nhs-reforms-labour-peer

What is also scandalous is the report issued by the web site Corporate Watch which has the headline:

An unhealthy business: major healthcare companies use tax havens to avoid millions in UK tax March 17, 2012

It goes on to list the various companies and their devious methods of tax-avoidance:

While in public they have been presenting themselves as the future of the NHS, a Corporate Watch investigation into the accounts and finances of five of the major private healthcare companies has found widespread use of tax havens,* including the British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey, Guernsey and the Cayman Islands, and tax avoidance schemes Barclays or Vodafone accountants would be proud of.

Spire Healthcare, the UK's second largest private healthcare company, is channelling £65m a year through a Luxembourg subsidiary of Cinven, its private equity owner, almost wiping out its taxable UK earnings.

Care UK, which operates NHS treatment centres, walk-in centres and mental health services across England, is reducing its tax liability by routing £8m a year in interest payments on loan notes issued in the Channel Islands.

Circle Health, the self-styled “social enterprise” that became the first private company to take over the management of an NHS hospital, is owned by companies and investment funds registered in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey and the Cayman Islands.

Ramsay Health Care, the company with the greatest number of healthcare provision contracts in the NHS, has used a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to finance the purchase of a French health company for its Australian parent company.

General Healthcare Group, the biggest private hospital group in the UK, has registered the ownership of its hospitals through subsidiaries in the British Virgin Islands, potentially avoiding stamp duty when its owners come to sell. Its corporate structure may also mean its owners will not pay UK capital gains tax.

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=4251

Is anyone surprised? No! With Cameron, Clegg and Lansley in power one would expect nothing less!

The final word should go to Lord David Owen who has made a plea for sanity today:

For the health and social care bill to become law on Tuesday, without at least the Lords and Commons knowing why the tribunal believes this particular risk assessment should be published, is a constitutional outrage.

Peers undoubtedly have different views on publishing the risk assessment, but this is not the issue in Monday's debate. It is that members of both houses should have the opportunity to read the detailed arguments.

The way to block the bill will be to vote against the third reading, something rarely done but, in all the circumstances, fully justified.

Lord Owen is a former Labour foreign secretary and founding member of the SDP who sits in the Lords as a crossbencher

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/17/nhs-bill-parliament-constitutional-outrage

Arturo and I are tootling off down the road to sit in Parliament Square and watch what goes on! But we both say, loud and clear, to anyone listening:

*SAVE THE NHS*

'Bye'

LibDems threaten suicide @ No 10

"Beveridge would be horrified if he knew what the old Liberal Party had become!" Arturo said. "He drafted the guidelines for the NHS and now his successors are tearing it apart!" He waved a copy of The Independent on Sunday at me.

There was a Leading Article on the topic of the Health and Social Care Bill. The headline was:

Doctors to the rescue

In this, the writer highlights the disastrous way in which this particular Bill has been drafted and presented.

The Bill is now in injury time in the House of Lords. Tomorrow, peers have their last chance to stop it when they vote on a delaying amendment tabled by Lord Owen ...

The Article continues:

As we report today, a group of hundreds of doctors, representing thousands more, is launching a last attempt to persuade peers to drop the Bill. They intend to stand as candidates at the next election against Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs on a Save the NHS platform. This is no mere revenge against the Liberal Democrats for betraying another policy for which the party purported to stand, but a serious attempt to persuade the party's peers to do the right thing tomorrow.

Have the LibDems under the suicidal leadership of 'Ridiculous Nicholas' Clegg seen the light, at last? Can the LibDem peers salvage some dignity for their Party from the fiasco in which they find themselves as a result of their present leadership? It is doubtful! After all the spectre of a near-tearful Baroness Williams, who hated the criticism hurled at her after the LibDem Conference, was not an example of staunch defiance in the face of wipe-out!

The Independent on Sunday Article concluded:

We suspect that tomorrow's vote in the House of Lords has already been decided, but The Independent on Sunday wishes the campaign well. If the Bill passes, we hope that the doctors can, by targeting Liberal Democrats – and Conservatives too – in marginal seats, hold the NHS reforms to democratic account over the next three years. If the Government's botched changes damage the NHS, the MPs who supported it must pay the price.

At the end of the Article, several people posted their comments. 'affront' stated:

It's astonishing that management consultants role in all this hasn't attracted more attention. KPMG and McKinsey have had most influence on Lansley, Cameron and Clegg's thinking. Mark Britnell, KPMG's head of health, joyfully announced that Lansley would 'shred the NHS' http://goo.gl/I7RuN.

McKinsey consultants, including former Department of Health staff, are not only advising on strategy but are also being paid to provide training for GPs. Worse, they also act for many of the healthcare corporates lining up to take over NHS services.

On top of that, the body set up to oversee privatisation of NHS services, Monitor, has a former McKinsey private equity man as its chief exec (on secondment from a private sector provider) and two of its directors are also McKinsey men.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-doctors-to-the-rescue-7576246.html

The reference to which 'affront' alludes is an article in The Guardian of May 14 2011. This was written by Daniel Boffey and Toby Helm. It quotes from a speech made by Mark Britnell one of 'Boy David' Cameron's so-called 'kitchen cabinet' who were advising on the future of the NHS.

Britnell told his audience: "GPs will have to aggregate purchasing power and there will be a big opportunity for those companies that can facilitate this process … In future, the NHS will be a state insurance provider, not a state deliverer." He added: "The NHS will be shown no mercy and the best time to take advantage of this will be in the next couple of years."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/14/david-cameron-adviser-health-reform

Wow! With friends like that advising on the future of the NHS - who needs enemies? Surely. 'Ridiculous Nicholas' Clegg must have heard some of that! Or was he so busy navel-gazing and smiling at his own reflection in the mirror that he was deaf to the 'shown no mercy' clause?

Well - 'Ridiculous Nicholas' Clegg neither you nor your LibDem Party will be 'shown mercy' either. Countdown to demise is on ...

Amongst those who are already starting the countdown are the 250 doctors who signed a Letter to the Independent on Sunday under the top signature of Dr Clive Peedell, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Co-chair NHS Consultants’ Association. The letter begins:

We believe that the Parliamentary passage of the Health and Social Care Bill has been an embarrassment to our democracy.

It continues by showing the major flaws in the way the Bill was drafted and the impact that it will have on the NHS.

These drastic changes fundamentally undermine the founding principles of the NHS and have no democratic mandate from the electorate and were not part of the coalition agreement.

As healthcare professionals, we are appalled that the coalition Government has imposed many of the changes before the bill has even been enacted and then tried to use this as “evidence” that the professions support their reform. Nothing could be further from the truth...
It is our view that coalition MPs and Peers have placed the political survival of the coalition Government above professional opinion, patient safety, and the will of the citizens of this country.

They don't mince their words, do they? Pity Baroness Williams did not listen to Dr Clive Peedell before and after his 'Bevan's Run'.

The Letter ends:

We are shocked by the failure of the democratic process and the facilitating role played by the Liberal Democrats in the passage of this bill. We have therefore decided to form a coalition of healthcare professionals to take on coalition MPs at the next General election, on the non-party, independent ticket of defending the NHS and acting in the wider public interest.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/ios-letters-medics-launch-national-campaign-7576235.html

Amongst the seats they intend to target are:

LIB DEMS:

Nick Clegg Lib Dem, Sheffield Hallam. 2010 majority 15,284 (29.9%)

Simon Hughes Lib Dem, Bermondsey and Old Southwark. Majority 8,530 (19.1%)

Lynne Featherstone Lib Dem, Hornsey and Wood Green. Majority 6,875 (12.5%)

Jo Swinson Lib Dem, Dunbartonshire East. Majority 2,184 (4.6%)

John Leech Lib Dem, Manchester Withington. Majority 1,894 (4.2%)

Sarah Teather Lib Dem, Brent Central. Majority 1,345 (3%)

TORIES:

Jacob Rees-MoggCon, Somerset North East. Majority 4,914 (9.6%)

Chloe Smith Conservative, Norwich North. Majority 3,901 (9.2%)

Louise Mensch Con, Corby. Majority 1,895 (3.5%)

Anna Soubry Con, Broxtowe. Majority 389 (0.7%)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/doctors-bid-to-unseat-50-mps-in-revenge-over-nhs-bill-7576423.html

Who would miss any of the above mentioned? No one in our acquaintanship, that's for sure. There'd be no caterwauling round the drains of 10 Downing Street from Arturo or from me!

Talking of caterwauling - we're off for a tasty snack of left-over caviar, left-over from the Interns' 'Welcome Home, David' party!

'Bye'

NHS being butchered @ No 10

"We need a charrette." Arturo said.

"What's a charrette?" I asked.

"A public meeting or workshop devoted to a concerted effort to solve a problem." He responded. "And Boy, do we have a problem!! The NHS is going down the Swanee!"

"We had a rally on the 7th. Besides, Lord David Owen is still doing his best to save the NHS." I'd heard him on the BBC radio 4 'Today' programme, this morning.

Even the Royal College of Physicians is stirring itself for one mighty push to save the day. The most senior and much respected of the Royal Medical Colleges has just published the results of its survey of Fellows and Members. These are the main results:

On the question of respondents’ personal view of the Bill;

6% (525) ‘Accept’ the Bill,
69% (6,092) opted to ‘Reject’ the Bill as it stood,
22% (1,971) ‘Neither completely accept, nor completely reject’ the Bill and
3% (290) declined to give an opinion.

http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/press-releases/results-rcp-health-and-social-care-bill-survey

The results of this Royal College of Physicians' survey is in line with all the other Royal Medical Colleges.

Surely a government, with an iota of integrity, would listen to the opinions of its senior health workers when totally changing a healthcare system that was the envy of the world and has stood the test of over 60 years. Look again at the RCP survey result:

69% opted to ‘Reject’ the Bill as it stood

69% - that's the sort of majority any political party would be delighted to have! It's certainly more than the Tory Party received in the 2010 General Election.

The final results in Great Britain were
CON 37%
LAB 30%
LDEM 24%
Others 10%.

http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/britain/uk-election-2010-the-final-results-are-in-30304.html

Ah Ha! So 'Boy David' Cameron's party got a measly 37%. So what gives them the right to overturn the NHS? They made no mention of it in their manifesto! They do not have an outright majority! Call this democracy!!

Then again - who says this present mish-mash of a government, containing bright blue Tories and the new yellow Tories (aka LibDems), has any integrity - or even intelligence.

Lord David Owen made a plea on the 'Today' programme for the Risk Register to be published. The Coalition has rejected this and is defying the Information Commissioner’s ruling that the register should have been released under the Freedom of Information Act.

On his blog site, Lord Owen has written the following:

Lord Owen tables motion on NHS Transitional Risk Register

Lord Owen has tabled the following motion:

Lord Owen to move to resolve that the Health and Social Care Bill be not read a third time until either the House has had an opportunity to consider the detailed reasons for the first-tier tribunal decision that the transitional risk register be disclosed and the Government’s response thereto, or until the last practical opportunity which would allow the bill to receive Royal Assent before prorogation.

If the Government table a motion for Third Reading on Monday 19 March it will be moved as an amendment to Earl Howe’s motion as follows but it is essentially the same motion.

http://www.lorddavidowen.co.uk/

Whether this last ditch attempt to *Save the NHS* from the butchery being perpetrated on it remains to be seen.

Watch this space!

'Bye'

The Party's over for 'Ridiculous Nicholas' @ No 10

"The party's over
It's time to call it a day
They've burst your
pretty balloon"

http://www.mp3lyrics.org/s/shirley-bassey/the-partys-over/

Arturo was caterwauling the lyrics right in my ear! It was awful! But I knew what he meant.

The fiasco of the LibDem Spring Conference was over and done with. 'Ridiculous Nicholas' Clegg thought he had won the vote on the Health and Social Care Bill only to discover that you cannot have your way all the time. No matter what a 'pretty boy' you think you are!

A Guardian article by Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt had the headline:

Nick Clegg isolated after party splits on health and tax

They went on to write:

Nick Clegg's 's leadership came under its most severe challenge since the coalition was formed when the Liberal Democrat conference at the weekend refused to endorse the health bill, and he faced a damaging public split in his party over his plans to force the rich to pay a minimum proportion of their earnings in tax.

After extraordinary manoeuvring, the Lib Dem spring conference in Gateshead voted by 314 to 270 to delete a call for the party's peers to vote for the health bill's third reading, the nearest the delegates could get to outright rejection of the legislation. Clegg and his frontbench were left voting in the minority after a passionate 45-minute debate.

What a surprise that must have been for 'Ridiculous Nicholas' who suffers from the same syndrome as his pal 'Boy David' Cameron. The syndrome of 'What I say is law round here'.

Wintour and Watt continued:

Earlier in the weekend Clegg had urged delegates to endorse the parliamentary party's approach, and told them to support Lady Williams, their senior peer, rather than Andy Burnham, Labour's shadow health secretary.

However, senior party figures said they will now be privately telling Clegg he has to show he is listening to his party and that further substantial changes should be sought, even though the bill has nearly completed its tortuous parliamentary passage.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/11/nick-clegg-health-bill-tax-lib-dem

But will this ridiculous fellow really stoop so low as to listen to anyone else? Past behaviour indicates that he will not.

There were many other accounts of the LibDem conference. Twitter was awash with disillusioned health workers tweeting their alarm. However, the compulsive read, of the moment, is the article written by Polly Toynbee in the 'Guardian' in which she refutes Baroness Williams' defence of the Lords' amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. The headline for Toynbee's article is:

Sorry, Shirley Williams, but I have to nail your health bill myths. The evidence suggests that if anyone is guilty of trumping truth with tribalism on privatisation and the NHS, it's Williams

The article proceeds to investigate, with clinical precision, one of the main points in Baroness Williams' claim that she had been mis-represented about:

* the 49% private provision for NHS foundation trusts

Toynbee ends her article in the following way:

A flurry of minor concessions seems to have blinded Shirley Williams to this bill's unchanged nature. Its purpose remains what it always was: the Conservative charter for commercialising the NHS; the end of the NHS as a national service. The Lords' last chance to amend and delay it is next Monday, while the government resists legal orders to publish its Risk Register. If anyone doubts the scale of change, a second NHS hospital this week put itself up for takeover or private sale, after Hinchingbrooke was called a "one-off". That's just the start..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/12/sorry-shirley-williams-nail-health-bill-myths

On Twitter disapponted Tweeters gave vent to their feelings:

shane So #Clegg wants his party to move on from #nhs argument. Ok Nick try brush this one under the carpet and you look the bigger fool then u are

Phil Bryant ‏Nick Clegg says his party should be "shouting their achievements from the rooftops." Least he won't take up too much of our time #clegg

Clive Peedell Doctors must consider standing against #libdems MPs at next election if Shirley Williams motion is passed. I'll take on Redcar #LDConf

GeorgeMonbiot The cowardice & craven surrender of the #LibDems over the #NHS will not be quickly forgotten: bbc.in/AsTIWc

So - Arturo was right:

"The party's over
It's time to call it a day
They've burst your
pretty balloon"

'It's time to call it a day' on the LibDems as a party! Come 2015 - that is if the Coalition lasts that long - there probably won't be a single LibDem MP left standing. So I say:

Will the last LibDem, kindly switch off the lights, please.

And, it could all have been so very different if they'd had a Leader who really did have some principles.

Arturo and I are off for our nosh. No good crying over spilt milk!

'Bye'

LibDems should be in ICU @ No10

"Those LibDems will be needing the Intensive Care Unit, if this goes on!" Arturo was peering at one of the Intern's Twitter accounts. Boy - was there strong feeling!:

Clive Peedell ‏ Here is scene of treachery, where #libdems have voted to sell out NHS to stay in coalition #LDConf yfrog.com/hsewynnoj

Richard Murphy ‏In the 1950s the LibDems had 5 MPs and could hold meetings in the back of a taxi. That might seem like good times for them by 2015.

Dr Kailash Chand OBE #Libdems supporting #Healthbill will prove electoral suicide if you continue to ignore overwhelming opposition of health workers & public

The instant reactions from Tweeters were interesting - there was universal disappointment. How could LibDems have given up the fight to save the NHS? This spelt the beginning of the end for the LibDems as a party. Some Save Our NHS supporters are vowing to stand against LibDems in the next election. Personally, Arturo and I don't think this is necessary - no right thinking person will ever vote LibDem again. So, save your energy, no need to stand - they'll be annihilated!

'Nicholas Ridiculous' Clegg is not bothered - why should he be? He was only ever in the party to showcase his own 'talents'! 'Boy David' Cameron can always make him the UK Ambassador to the UN or to the USA. Double-Dutch would be understood in both places! As for Cameron, he must be laughing up his sleeve - with one fell swoop he'll see the end of the LibDems. And what will he gain? Why, sole power - no more no less!

That's the time when Arturo and I will up sticks and head for the country - that is if there's any country left, by then!

'Bye' from Arturo and me.