How Bad Can it Get? Lib Dems Await 

Last night I wrote about the storm that was lashing Malta. I described it as elemental and powerful. I said it was the worst I could remember. I imagined at the time that it would gradually die down through the night and that, by this morning, we would only have the remnants of the storm.

How wrong I was. As the night progressed I was repeatedly awakened by the ever-strengthening wind, the sound of trees being blown over, the waves crashing against the rocks some 100 yards away. As morning broke, the sea was a roiling, terrifying mass of water, throwing spume high into the air. The palm trees were bending to almost 90 degrees. A lone Hoopoo tried to land, without success. There was a large tree branch in the swimming pool and most of the guests at he hotel gathered in the lounge, not prepared to brave these elements. Throughout the day, we have waited for the wind and the storm to abate, but in vain. As I write, the skies are darkening again, the wind and the rain still lash the island, and we still cannot go out.

So it will be for the Tories and, especially, for the Liberal Democrats. They have convinced themselves that the storm over the NHS will abate; that by the time of the next general election they will be back in calm waters. They delude themselves. This storm will go on and on. Every time the winds start to subside in one area, a new gust will blow from somewhere else. Fairly or not, every ill that befalls the NHS will be blamed on them. And ills will befall the NHS, because they always do and because this Bill makes it more, not less, likely, with its many tiers of management, its wholesale destruction of public health and its disruption of the service. Their failure today at the Lib Dem Conference in Gateshead to show some courage and to show us, the electorate, that the NHS means more to them than staying in power will not be forgotten. I have voted for them in the past. I shall never do so again.