To the Labour campaign’s macho-black ‘masculine battle bus’, twinned with their pink ladies’ number that’s currently stuck in traffic
somewhere near Didcot Parkway. Here reports are filtering through of secret policy documents, intended to be kept under wraps until
May’s General Election, which have somehow been made public, by unfortunate accident or embarrassing leak.
“It all started last week when [BBC reporter] Nick Robinson bumped into Ed Milliband after a hard day up parliament,” Labour’s
campaign coordinator Randolph Axelrod told HDUK when we turned up at his recent book tour. “Nick invited Ed for an ale in
Westminster and they ended up getting absolutely smashed on a pub crawl. The Labour leader was about to go for a bacon sandwich when ‘Nasty Nick’,
as we call him over here, pressed him on recent allegations of ‘weaponising the NHS’. Mullered out of his brains, and apparently believing their conversation
was in confidence, Milliband totally spilled his beans. Now the cat’s well and truly out of the sack.”
Indeed, Edward Milliband (left), who has long been subject to vituperative attacks in the British press for being
vaguely left-wing and not looking like Ryan Gosling, woke up today with one awful ‘katzenjammer’ hangover and gradually realised his plans to “fully weaponise” Britain’s
health service were now out in the open. The facts and figures have been smeared across today’s media outlets and give a full breakdown of Ed’s promised “extra £2.5
billion for the NHS” when elected. This comprises 50% employing additional staff, 20% for facility improvement and another 30% toward “firearms, artillery and general
defence measures”. The latter is expected to include, as an example, the land-mining of public lawns in hospital grounds prior to visits by Conservative councillors who
intend to talk of ‘cuts’.
In an attempt to regain the initiative, the Labour party has now released more details which explain their underpinning ‘big idea’, one
that will combine the UK health and military budgets to save somewhere in the region of ten billion pounds a year. This money would
then go toward propping up failing accident and emergency wards and cutting the um, er… deficit, that’s it – deficit! But delving into
the detail, it becomes apparent there are problems with Labour’s new flagship policy, as one General Practitioner told us.
“I’ve just got a full explanation through from the British Medical Council,” Dr Meatspace Vroom (right) explained from his practice in Feniton. “It says here that, in the event of a
Labour win, I'll have to partake in compulsory lessons at my nearest firing range, and also keep a handgun in my desk drawer during surgery hours.”
“As a pacifist, I didn’t sign up for this sort of thing. I’m here to help people, not harm them,” Dr Vroom went on, increasingly idealistic
before pausing to reflect: “Mind you, having a Colt 45 in easy reach might help with the time-wasters, along with those irritating
appointments where someone complains of multiple ailments. Sometimes I think it’d be good if the threats I gave out to
hypochondriacs weren’t idle…”
“And what about those who talk of psychosomatic illness, then won’t believe it when I say there’s nothing physically wrong with them?” Meatspace mused. “Yes – I see
how waving loaded weaponry around might convince them to leave my premises quickly and efficiently. They’ll stop yapping about imaginary aches and pain when I
shove a loaded barrel into their mush. Maybe I will vote Labour after all.”
Other measures detailed in this leaked document, authored by the Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham (right), include a proposal for installing missile launchers on hospital
roofs to combat mid-air hijackings, a nuclear bomb in every outpatient ward “in case things get hairy in the Middle East”, and a proposal to parachute teams of ‘peacekeeping
nurses’ into warzones, because they’re a lot nicer than squaddies. These unusual elements of Labour policy were quickly seized upon by puffin-faced corporate shill ‘Diddy’
David Cameron, with the Prime Minister telling the House of Commons:
“When I attacked Milliband for weaponising the NHS, after he claimed my government had wasted three billion quid on pointless
restructuring, I was speaking metaphorically,” tutted the P.M. “Now those Communist idiots in opposition have apparently come to the
conclusion it’s a literal matter, and they can turn our Health Service into a scene from ‘Rollerball’ or something.”
“These plans make my secret mission to run the NHS for the profit of the 1% and refuse medicine to shirkers or the morbidly obese look almost reasonable.” Cameron
claimed, to raucous laughter from backbench MPs, before handing over to his Health Secretary, Jeremy ‘Rhymes With’ Hunt. The latter continued by telling the assembled
company that 72-hours was a perfectly reasonable length of time to wait on an emergency ward for treatment, and reports of patients collapsing in a faint before being seen,
possibly due to malnutrition, have been “exaggerated”. Hunt then moved on to the recent revelations.
“These notions are ridiculous,” Jezza asserted. “I don’t need to see pharmacists in bulletproof vests or surgeons wearing flak jackets as Labour intends, even if it will combat those
admissions who complain of ‘stomach trouble’ then turn out to be jihadi suicide bombers with explosive ingredients in their tummies, as depicted in one of many unlikely scenarios set out
in this document.” Mr Hunt then held up the offending Health Manifesto to illustrate his point. “They won’t recruit medical professionals on the basis of knowledge and experience, but
instead according to their ability to strip a rifle swiftly, accreditation in the martial arts, or the ability to defenestrate a drunk man. It’s ludicrous – the NHS isn’t cut out for functioning as a
weapon. A pointed stick’s a weapon. Trident’s a weapon. In the wrong circumstances, Eric Pickles is a weapon. Our NHS is a Health Service, which explains the acronym.”
By way of retaliation, Andy Burnham subsequently claimed the Tories were running scared of Labour’s innovative concepts. The Shadow Health Secretary
said there was plenty of grassroots support for his plans, especially among midwives, orderlies and other frontline staff, who are currently subject to a
five-year pay freeze, which effectively means a 15% cut. Indeed, one ward nurse recently told Kay Burley of Sky News to “give me a knife, point Jeremy
Hunt out to me and I’ll show you just how effectively the NHS can be ‘weaponised’.”
Meanwhile a floundering Milliband, whose party has been ahead in every poll for years and is therefore certain to lose the next election, has been forced to
assert that he doesn’t have an eating disorder and promise not to get pissed in the presence of hostile reporters in the future. Ed has also reassured the
public that machine gun turrets and reinforced security doors are perfectly natural additions to local health clinics, even as he promises a “sleeker, more dangerous" NHS, one that’s fit
for the future and can either treat your child’s cough in a timely fashion, or invade Russia at a moment’s notice.
The 24-hour news cycle has now moved on from this ‘weaponising’ debate to accusations the NHS is being used as a “political football”. In order to resolve this latest bout of
parliamentary bickering, Mayor of London Boris Johnson and his staff will tomorrow take on all-comers in a special City Hall soccer game, where the opposition will consist of
oncologists from Ashford’s William Harvey hospital and Leighton Baines.
