You may be at risk...

I write this after a quick visit to my doctor’s surgery for my annual diabetes check up. In concept this is the NHS being proactive. Or so the Government would have us believe. In reality I don’t get to see a doctor any more because, as my diabetic nurse put it today, “the doctor can’t cope with the rise in diabetics at the surgery, so I see them all now.” She reassured me that should she, a non-doctor, discover any complication she would of course refer me to a doctor. Comforting

On the notice board I discovered more proactivity. I’m quoting directly from a poster now:

“If you've ever had sex you may be at risk of having Chlamydia - use our free postal kit to find out” It then directs you to a website: www.haveyougotit.nhs.uk

Think about that for a minute: if you’ve ever had sex you may be at risk. That’s well over 70% of the population potentially walking about with, what we used to call, “a dose” (obviously my estimate doesn’t include Susan Boyle or Dot Cotton, though, come to think of it Dot did have Nasty Nick didn’t she?). I urge all of you who have ever moved beyond a fumble behind the bike sheds to apply for your kit. Then visit my new website www.noihavenotgotit.com where I offer lots of advice on what to do if you don’t have it.

But, why stop at Chlamydia? What about:

“If you ever cross the road you may be at risk of breaking a leg – use our free hopping on your damaged leg kit to find out. Visit www.shitmylegiskillingme.com

Personally, I’m fed up with being told what to do, or not do, by the Government. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, exercise, don’t eat fat but eat your five a day – don’t ever have sex. LEAVE-ME-ALONE and get on with fucking up the country.

Oh, shit, I can feel a rant building. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this but what is the point of all this Government? We have over a million more public sector workers now that we did in 1997 – what do they all do? The Government spent (our money, I might remind you) in excess of 1 billion pounds on public information advertising last year. Think about that a little harder. Do you have any concept of how many civil servants and politicians it takes to spend 1 billion? It’s astronomical: it takes teams of them. Teams write the tender documents (with the help of platoons of external consultants), an army trawl over the tender responses, managers manage the whole process and accountants turn up because it is now compulsory to have at least a 3:1 ratio of accountants to workers. Once all is agreed it’s unpicked by a legion of lawyers forcing the process to be repeated a million times. Bill for spending 1 billion: 200 million.

Meanwhile I’m forced to see a willing, but under-qualified health worker, because the NHS solution to chronic illness is to remove it from doctors’ workloads.

Oh, bugger I’m angry now. Did you know each politician costs us, on average, (excluding duck houses) over £500,000 per year to maintain? There are nearly 700 of them and the average parliament is 5 years – bung in some pension contributions. Total cost: over 2 billion pounds, or half the annual defence budget.

No wonder people don’t vote, they can’t afford to.

But, don’t despair because I have a solution: replace politicians with a combination of reality TV, lifestyle programmes and soaps. They are extremely cheap to make and very popular with people most at risk of catching Clamydia.

Reality TV like Fussy Eaters can be used to highlight how ugly people are who don’t eat anything green. Property Ladder can provide us with the fundamentals of economics by explaining (as it does every week) that you can’t convert a crumbling barn into a pension nest egg on a budget of £100 and a wife who really believes they’ll definitely be in by Christmas. Eastenders can be used for advice on health matters, relationship counselling, anything to do with a dose, marriage break ups, affairs, unemployment, marriages to ex-wives sisters, homosexuality as a lifestyle choice, rape, murder, gender reassignment, prostitution, shoplifting and running a cafe where all the customers have the right money for what they buy all of the time.

All we need now is 2 million civil servants to start the tender process…