Watch Cameron being heckled over the NHS...

Whilst blue blood was being delivered at a London Hospital recently, our red blood was being delivered into the hands of a US private equity firm. Posh Dave announced this week that 'we' have sold the NHS-owned blood plasma supplier Plasma Resources UK (PRUK) to Bain Capital (the company co-founded by Mitt Romney and which was subject to a lot of not-very-flattering scrutiny in the Presidential elections last year) in a £230 million deal. This was done over competing bids from companies with existing expertise in the field and who might reasonably be thought to provide a more natural partnering with PRUK. But if you are on a privatising mission, you'll look at it not as a health issue but as a simple business transaction. Health is regarded as a commodity and, from this perspective, why not sell PRUK to Bain Capital? The fact that private companies do not have a good track record when it comes to preventing product contamination doesn't come into it. No wonder this move has been criticised by many non-partisan and authoritative voices who know about these things.

Episodes such as this reinforce the reality of Posh Dave's agenda for privatising the NHS. Take a look at the short clip of him being heckled by a protester at the Olympic park over the privatisation of the health service. Unable to deny the charge that he is "privatising the NHS", Posh Dave can only offer the non-sequitur that the government is "putting more money in". What struck me about his body language here is his obvious distain for even momentary encounters with the 'plebs'. Patricians don't like it up 'em, Captain Mainwaring!