Exclusive: Michael Gove does NOT have links with King Herod

I seem to be on a bit of a roll with the blogging today! Last post I promise...

I'd like to say more about the media sh..., ahem, 'sandstorm' apropos Daniel Hannan and the NHS. But if I start blogging on that one I'll be here for the rest of the day.

Suffice to say: the only thing Dan has done wrong is to expose the fact that the Conservative Party doesn't have anything interesting to say on health, having surrendered our position entirely to Labour. Thus one is treated to the unedifing spectacle of Andrews Burnham and Lansley (political collossi, both) getting into a bidding more about how we can spend yet more money on an unformed health service, and refuting the notion that an organisation that employs 1.4m people might be a bit top-heavy.

However, to cut to the chase, I was watching Huw Edwards interviewing the excellent Michael Gove (thank goodness this man is in the Shadow Cabinet...maybe that's why we have some good policies on education), and he turned to the Dan Hannan issue.

Huw (I remember the good old days when the Sage of Sevenoaks, Peter Sissons, used to cover for this programme in the summer months - much better) asked Michael whether it was true that he had "links" (shock!) to these horrible Right-wing people in the States and here who want to reform (shock! horror!) the NHS. Presumably he means these guys. You would have thought we were talking about these guys.

He then suggested that the Govemeister should consider "severing ties" with the Dan Hannans of this world. For Pete's sake, he made a suggestion, ten months ago in a book, that there might be a more efficient way to provide healthcare in Britain than using a model devised in 1944 when we were still rationing food. You'd think he'd advocated a slaughter of the first born. It's one thing being asked to sever supposed links with extremists (in which case, why doesn't Brown disown Michael Meacher?) but this is a bit much, even for the BBC.

Gove put in a pretty good performance: noted that Dan has deviated from party policy, the policy is blah blah blah but that "...in other areas you disagree with, you don't send them off to Siberia" (hat tip, the Andrew Marr show). Showed him a bit more respect than Cameron did.

Final thought: why can't we have a grown-up debate about healthcare provision, without every attempt being taken as an attempt to impugn the reputation of the staff in the health service? Take prisons for interest. The Left are desperate to close them down, especially these guys, this Lib Dem chap and (in the case of women's prisons - so much for equality) Joan bleedin' Bakewell. In their favourite cliche: "Prisons are an expensive way of making bad people worse."

But surely that's an attack on the prison staff? Aren't they low paid people, toiling in the public sector, working with some 'challenging' characters and trying to do their best under the circumstances? Or is it maybe just possible to talk about reforming the prison system without it being seen as a slur against the people that work there? If only we could discuss health in such a civilised manner.