Foreign Legion and the NHS
They told us
We will rebalance the economy, harmonise fiscally
Foment a new industrial policy
Siphon wealth from the undeserving rich to pipette to hardworking supplicants
Hose down NHS hospitals submerged in debt and shower companies North, East, West with new incentives to invest.
They said that
From the depth of tread on tyres in skips brimming with discarded presents.
From hybrid car sales and even their thefts.
From the little girls’ nose jobs
From parking charges in Belgravia
The sharp-elbowed in Harrods shopping for caviar.
From the cost of an undergraduate degree
And from the price of a garage in Hackney
And from the frisky eighty year olds glowing blue from the sildenafil pill,
Dressed in tight jeans as if they were twenty
That England was reborn after wars, debts and despair.
Yet, where is this promised NHS and Northern Powerhouse?
When the last wave of North-eastern wealth seems to have gone out with the Great Recession,
Sweeping wages, young hopes and promise with it back South where it came from.
Now A and Es, so full to bursting that ambulance could turn hearse,
And bedrooms could double up as theatres or worse as morgues,
We know of a million winding their way to food banks
We hear of a body or two picked clean by birds not by loan sharks.
We hear of scraps outside hotel bins, but the blue press says it’s only for rare vitamins
We see men, old at fifty in crumbling day centres with quiet soot-humoured reflection, their singed nostrils and cracked mouths puffing tobacco heavenward: human haystacks, economic miracles: they have no social services or pension.
But hear the bugled response from the Hunt. Free free enterprise in NHS: use the same scope for top and tail and offer a discount for not minding who, or which, end, is probed first.
That will open up blocked orifices and competition
You may ask how long all this will last
Well, the first econopriest said he does not see wealth returning up north or to any hospital,
The second, bleary-eyed Laura, emerging from her Treasury basement purdah pronounces that she cannot see that far up north and,
After keeping everyone at St Pancras waiting, the last and most senior says in a grave voice that he just couldn’t see that far, up north,
And he sets upon the other two for not saying much.
But let’s have a referendum.
Because without these feral foreigners, the NHS would be much, much, better off.
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