Our lot are good, your lot are bad

I don't have much contact with the rarified world of politics. I am an exhausted by-stander trying (and failing) to stay awake even for Newsnight on BBC2.

Occasionally I do meet up with those who are high up in politics and policy, but this happens rarely.

I recently had an opportunity to meet with my MP. This was a meeting that I was invited to by my Patient Panel, at the end of another long day.

The main discussion was on the Health and Social Care Bill, and my MP was smooth and well-briefed with selected facts to bolster the case. I am also well-briefed, as I know my subject, and have a few contrary killer facts of my own. The MP was surefooted, and quite certain in their rightness, and I was impressed with the show.

There was no meeting of minds. I did not see the shiny new NHS that was being proffered (decisions devolved to clinicians, competition improving services, lean bureaucracy etc) and the MP did not see my vision (cost cuts, rationing, break-up of services etc). The MP had an invisible clipboard.

In one exchange I castigated the MP for a colleague's (a Nottinghamshire MP) rudeness on TV when being interviewed with Dr Clare Gerada of the Royal College of GPs, and the rebuttal sheet clearly gave instructions on how to try and undermine the elected and mandated Chair of Council.

The only agreement was when one of the patients criticised the PFI deals done by New Labour in the previous administration. Eyes lit up: "I agree with you - the administration of the deals by Labour was scandalous".

It is interesting that politicians seem to think that we, the public, can differentiate between one and the other main party, and if we are critical of the previous buffoons, we support the current buffoons. We do not. The NHS have been gradually sold down the river by all those in Westminster and Whitehall, ever since 1990. They do not listen to doctors, nurses, midwives or patients.

When the public wake up to this fact it will be too late.

Why does the Secretary of State need a heavy police guard when visiting a hospital? Because some of use are wise to his plans.