The backbenches it is then, Ms Hewitt

Continuing a trend of "the least likely people getting it right", today I think I can trump them all. Labour laughing stock and soon to be ex-secretary of state for Health, Patricia Hewitt has finally said something that is neither spin nor complete nonsense. (This, of course, could indeed be the proverbial room full of monkeys eventually coming up with the complete works of Shakespeare, but that is neither here nor there). In response to the expected "big idea" that Gordon will give some sort of political independence to the NHS, Hewitt has said "You don't solve the problem [of independence] by proposing that the NHS could be run like a 1960s nationalised industry". Today she will give a talk to the London School of Economics where she will throw out the suggestion that the NHS should be run like the BBC saying a single board can not manage a budget of £90bn. Gordon will be pleased! She may have lost her job, but she is going out with a bang!

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Looks like another person freed from the responsibility of retaining office, feeling free to be frank in a way that someone with ongoing political hopes would not. There's a high price in eternal scepticism to be paid for this democracy lark.