It is hard to pinpoint exactly when the National Health Service ceased to be a service and transmuted into a religion. Tony Blair, although a huge investor in health, was initially more interested in schooling. It was David Cameron, anxious to dispel fears that a Conservative government might usher in privatised healthcare, who in 2006 told the Tory party conference: “Tony Blair explained his priorities in three words: education, education, education. I can do it in three letters: NHS.” This process of institutional canonisation continued with the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, during which a bemused world was treated to jitterbugging doctors and nurses and child patients trampolining on hospital beds. Finally, there were evening outbreaks of applause and pot and
