Asking hospital patients for passports isn’t racist – it makes sense if we want our NHS to survive

WHEN my grandfather was working in the NHS, as a GP, he had only three weapons in his medical armoury – aspirin, bandages and a bit of time for those who dropped by because they were lonely.

Illnesses and ailments then were either cheap to fix or fatal. Which meant that the NHS worked very well.

It’s a different story today though because medical science is able to transplant hearts and enlarge breasts and prevent strokes.

Treating a cancer patient can cost £100,000. And since half the population will get this bastard of a disease at some point, you do have to scratch your head and think, “How on earth can we afford it?”.

The sad truth is that one day, it won’t be possible.

But until that day arrives, the Government is looking at ways to keep costs down, and has suggested that patients must produce ID to show they are at least eligible for free treatment.

This would, it’s hoped, prevent doctors spending our money on patients who arrived at Heathrow that morning having contributed not one penny to the NHS. So-called health tourists.

The issue was discussed this week on the BBC’s Question Time and was dismissed by pretty much the entire panel, and presenter David Dimbleby himself, as racist.

In the audience were a handful of lunatics who made mooing noises. But mostly it was an endless succession of junior doctors and student activists who said the NHS should provide care at all levels to everyone from all over the world all of the time.

I’m afraid I watched the whole thing unfurl with sagging shoulders and a heavy heart.

That personable but completely misguided lunatic who runs what used to be called the Liberal Democrats — but since the election is the Liberal Democrat — said all of the money used to prop up the economy should be spent on the NHS and that if someone arrived from, say, Nigeria for a transplant, he or she should be treated, no questions asked, and then sent a bill for the work afterwards.

Really? And they’d do what with it? Pay up? Or put it in the bin?

So then expensive lawyers would have to become involved, and their letters would go in the bin too. And then what?

Wouldn’t it be easier to say to someone arriving at the hospital: “Can we see your passport?

That’s not racist. It’s just sensible.

History to bear in mind

THE Government has decided to spend £7.6million of our money so that a gigantic stately home near Rotherham can be restored to its former glory.

Needless to say, a lot of people were rushing about saying the money should have been spent on the kiddies and old people.

But I wasn’t.

I was looking into the history of the house in question and it turned out that in its heyday, it provided quarters for a full-time “bear keeper”.

Can you imagine being so rich that you can afford a bear, and a full-time man to look after it?

Mind you, stuff like that does still go on today.

I know someone who employs a “projectionist” for when he wants to watch a DVD.

And I rang a friend the other day and was told by her housekeeper that she was in the “flower room”.

I quite like the idea of having so many rooms that one of them is reserved solely for the arrangement of flowers.

Ice one, captain

FOR years, scientists and global warming enthusiasts have had to guess how much ice was in the sea off Antarctica 100 years ago.

There were no records. No one had been. And there were no satellites keeping a watchful eye back then.

But now it turns out that the explorer, Scott of the Antarctic, kept meticulous records about how much sea ice he encountered more than a century ago.

His data has been compared to present day figures and it turns out there’s as much ice now as there was then. The figures are pretty much identical.

Greenpeace has not exactly been shouting about these findings.

Can’t imagine why.

It's Herr-esy to diss Brits

ACCORDING to Philip Hammond and Theresa May, German industry is far more efficient than ours, with their workers producing in four days what it takes ours five to achieve.

How have they worked that one out?

Did they perhaps look at Volkswagen and think, “Golly. They’re making loads more cars than Aston Martin or Rolls-Royce. There must be something wrong with Britain.”

No there isn’t. It’s just that the cars we make tend to be complicated and full of craftsmanship.

The cars made in Germany roll down a production line and are simple.

This is the problem when you put people called Hammond and May in the hot seat. They end up talking nonsense.

I mean, are they saying that the British can’t produce newspapers as fast as the Germans? I only ask because it’s not like you’re reading this on a Tuesday.

Nor did I watch the news from Tuesday on TV last night.

But if Hammond and May really are worried about how we lag behind Germany in productivity, they could speed things up here by adopting the system they employ on their autobahns.

And get rid of our idiotically low speed limits.

Button it, Jenson

JENSON BUTTON has pointed out that none of us on The Grand Tour are racing drivers (dead right) and that when we drift a car round a corner in a cloud of tyre smoke, he feels sad – because he loves cars and thinks we are probably causing damage.

Now, I like Jenson a lot. He’s funny and bright.

But he seems to have forgotten that when he appeared in the most recent season of Top Gear, he drifted a McLaren so enormously he ended up crashing off the track completely.

Planet of the fakes

VIEWERS have been criticising the Planet Earth II series, saying the sound effects are fake.

Yup. They pretty much always are in nature films.

It’s hard enough getting the pictures of a bear catching a fish or a bat having a crap or a fox pleasuring itself without having to wait for the soundman to get his headphones on and fire up the electric handbag.

I shouldn’t worry though, because the BBC’s natural history department is famously thorough.

So if they play the sound of a wonga wonga bird doing a mating call, it won’t be just some library sound effect of a blackbird outside the studio window.

It may not have been recorded at the same time as the pictures were shot, but it really will be a wonga wonga bird and it really will be horny.

It will be true, but not necessarily real. And that’s not fakery in my book.

Ambassa-duh

RIGHT, so this week Donald Trump suggested that Nigel Farage should be the next British ambassador to America.

I see, and who’s going to be the new US ambassador in Britain? Ted Nugent?

Actually, scratch that. Because the way things are going, it could be...