Miliband asked how many quangos there would be in the reformed NHS. The number would rise from 163 to 521
No wonder the prime minister was rattled yesterday. Not only did Ed Miliband land a couple of blows ? not something that happens every week ? but the Speaker ticked him off not once, but twice. This is the equivalent of the head boy reproving the headmaster. Oh, and the bald patch has doubled in length. It is now the same shape, size and colour as two goujons of plaice. Larry, the Downing Street cat, must look at David Cameron hungrily.
Miliband kicked off with his by now predictable habit of asking a question to which he knows the answer but of which he imagines Cameron is ignorant. In this case it was to ask how many quangos there would be in the new, reformed NHS. Not knowing the answer, or at least not being prepared to admit that he knew it, the prime minister replied that everyone loved his reorganisation, especially people in the NHS.
So Miliband provided the answer. The number would rise from 163 to 521. If true, this does seem an awful lot. The Labour leader produced a list of some. "Pathfinder consortia, health and well-being boards, shadow commissioning groups, authorised commissioning groups, a national commissioning board, PCT clusters, FHA clusters, clinical networks and clinical senates."
(I expect they had those in ancient Rome. "I'm feeling a bit peaky, Bilius."
"Take two leeches and call me in the morning, Nausius.")
Was this what Cameron had meant by the bonfire of the quangos?
Miliband also extracted some blood from the �852m he claimed it would cost in redundancy payments for NHS staff. Could Cameron promise that none of those people would be re-employed in their old jobs? He could not. Instead he talked about today's festival of strikes, which is what he wanted to talk about in the first place. He began to rave. Labour wanted the whole country to be like Greece, he said ? at considerable length.
The Speaker intervened. "We're very grateful!" he said crisply, which is John Bercow-speak for "Shut it, sunshine!"
Cameron looked furious. But the Speaker wasn't finished with him yet. After he had spent 56 seconds ? eternity at question time ? talking about crime in London, Bercow interrupted him again. "Prime minister's questions are principally for backbenchers," he said, which was ? if you picked the bones out of it ? a thunderous reproof, if a little unfair. After all, the title of the session does imply prime minister's answers as well. If not perhaps at such enormous length.
Cameron must have thought all the ills of the world were heaped on his shoulders when Sir Peter Tapsell arose. As the alarm sounded in the Hansard office, and a team of Japanese calligraphers were sent to immortalise his words on parchment (there is always time, as Labour cheers are loud and long when Sir Peter speaks), the prime minister must have assumed he was about to receive yet another majestic bollocking from the father of the house.
Not so. Sir Peter merely hoped that, given the chaos in the EU, we would be able to negotiate a spanking new treaty.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/29/quangos-nhs-simon-hoggart
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