The graph reproduced above is from the Tax Research UK website, where it is being used to show that the Lords agreed to regulations that – in effect – privatised the English NHS last week, because of greed.

It shows the difference between OECD countries, based on the amount they spend on healthcare and the average life expectancy.

Note that the UK is currently more or less in the middle of the majority group, with average spending and a fairly high life expectancy.

By contrast, the USA is out on its own, with almost three times as much money spent on healthcare and a lower life expectancy (if only by a year). Clearly, the huge amount of extra cash spent on its private system does not lead to a huge improvement in health.

So the question must be asked: Why is the British government determined to change our system – which, despite all the criticisms currently being trumped up against it, works – into one that is far more costly but produces slightly worse results?

How will that improve the nation’s finances, for example?

Considering that the poorer nine-tenths of the population would have a hard time stumping up the money for health insurance, it seems likely that we will see the return of some of the diseases that have been more or less eradicated from our shores for the last few decades, which leads to another couple of questions. Perhaps you would like to ask them on the doorstep, when canvassers come around in advance of the May elections.

Firstly, do Conservatives and Liberal Democrats miss the old-time diseases like diphtheria so badly that they had to attack the healthcare system in order to bring them back?

And also, if they really do miss those diseases, why not inflict them on their own social class, rather than on people who were quite happy with the system as it was?