Chris Titley

What has become of the once proud British race? As the workshop of the world we made everything from gizmos to doodahs, then sent them to each wrinkle on the face of the Earth.

Today? We import everything. Even our illnesses are manufactured abroad.

Britain has been brought low by Sydney flu. Sydney, of all places. The shame of it. Those Australians are bad enough when they are crowing about their inevitable sporting victories over these islands; now they will be insufferable. "Say Colleen, y'heard the latest?" "What is it Karl, I'm waxing me wallaby."

"Only that Sydney flu has poleaxed the whingeing Poms!" "Sydney flu? I once had a double dose but still managed to win the Willabong Weightlifting Championships. What a bunch of girl guides those Poms are!"

Of course, the Conservatives are blaming the Government for this humiliation. And why not? When they were the Government, everyone blamed them for everything. Mainly because it was all their fault.

Anyway, shadow health secretary Thingy Wotsisface says that Brits are dropping like flies because of the inept Labour administration. Perhaps there is something in this. Maybe the soft-hearted, Blairist approach has left us vulnerable to infection from international gangs of malevolent germs. A nation that convulses in uncontrollable grief every time a celebrity drops dead - or switches to ITV in the case of

Des Lynam - is not likely to be strong enough to withstand rugged Aussie bacteria.

Think back to Maggie's era. Did anyone get flu then? Of course not. Why? Because they would have been destroyed like a rabid dog at the first sign of a sniffle. Tough love. It's the only language we understand.

No doubt William Hague was looking to make political capital out of the current epidemic at Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon. He will have coined some painful soundbite: "This is not New Labour!

It's Flu Labour!" To which the sickly bunch that make up our legislature will have responded with coughing and waving of prescriptions.

The advice for those under the influence of influenza is straightforward. Take to your bed. Do not, on any account, try to take to a hospital bed. There aren't any left. You should have pre-booked, mate. Why?

Because of the foolhardy decision by both the Blair government and its predecessor to apply free market rules to the National Health Service.

Hospital chiefs view unoccupied beds as vital to cope with fluctuating demand. Ministers see them as inefficient. So beds have been cut while hospital admissions have spiralled. The average bed occupancy has risen from 70 per cent 30 years ago to more than 90 per cent today. The workload of a nurse has increased by nearly a quarter.

Exhausted, demotivated staff are not efficient. Perhaps someone should tell that to Mr Blair now he is back from his winter holiday in Portugal.

Talking of which, it was that same break which got Cherie into trouble on her travels this week. The First Lady only had Portuguese escudos and a credit card in her purse when she arrived at Blackfriars station on Monday. The ticket office was closed and the machines didn't take plastic. So she boarded the train ticketless and paid the £10 fine on arrival.

Train operator Thameslink is lucky she is so honest. By rights the company should have forfeited the money. If Thameslink is unable to provide enough staff to take customers' cash then why should they pay? If tills at York's WH Smith were unmanned, its manager would expect the level of shoplifting to rise dramatically. The same principle applies at railway stations.

To be fair to Thameslink, at least it had provided an engine driver. Often, Virgin can't be bothered to do even that.

If you have any comments you would like to make, contact Chris Titley directly at chris.titley@ycp.co.uk

12/01/00

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.