Labour Gives Up On Governing Britain

From today's Telegraph:

Labour has admitted it had abandoned its historic commitment to eliminate mixed-sex wards from NHS hospitals.

Health minister Lord Darzi of Denham told the House of Lords that the key manifesto pledge repeated in 1997 and 2001 was "an aspiration that cannot be met".

These people have had more than ten years to implement this commitment. Obviously they've been far too busy lecturing us on the perils of the Demon Drink and the virtues of a government-approved diet to sort out the expensive mess they've made of actually running the health department.

In fact, all our politicians at the moment seem to be thoroughly transfixed by tit-for-tat accusations of financial impropriety against Alan Johnson, Derek Conway and a host of others.

Given that this is what most of them seem to enjoy best, and is doubtless the most that many of them are capable of, perhaps it isn't surprising that the tedious and complex business of running the country can end up being neglected for a decade.

Maybe if we paid everyone in Westminster and Whitehall to do nothing for a year or two, things might improve. As it is the country is sinking under the combined weight of their interventionism and incompetence.