Nick Clarke, presenter of The World at One, has died aged just 58, following a very public battle with cancer.

Nick had a long career with the BBC, but I know him best as presenter of The World at One, and for his moving audio diary of his cancer journey. He always came across more as a chatty friend than a newsreader, as reflected by some 2,000 messages of condolence on the BBC website, and many, many more on individual blogs and websites.

The beauty of Nick Clarke’s political presenting is that he could examine politics in the greatest forensic detail, whilst also retaining a warmth, a breath of knowledge about everyday life, and a touch of little humour. His presenting was always elegant, and his interviews calm and measured, simultaneously detailed, incisive and impeccably polite.

Nick Robinson’s tribute brings back fond memories of some of the best political interviews of our time:

Nick asked once asked what I consider to be the perfect question – proving that you could balance persistence with courtesy. He was being fobbed off by the government’s straight-bat man Alastair Darling who was insisting on talking about the Tories’ policies and refusing to answer about his own. Nick paused briefly after one such answer – just long enough for the audience to notice. Then in that gloriously rich bass of a voice asked, “Minister, just for the sake of neatness could you answer the question I asked you”. Glorious.

There’s a full obituary on the BBC site, as well as a tribute from Mark Damazer, the controller of Radio 4. Thoughts are with his five children, and his widow Barbara.

He will be sadly missed.

Everybody’s favourite giant-flower wearing government jester, Heath Secretary ‘Mad’ Patricia Hewitt, has pronounced that

some parts of the NHS in England have taken on too many doctors and nurses

That seems a bit of a sweeping statement to me. I think it’s important she’s more specific – exactly which hospitals have too many doctors and nurses? Presumably not the one in Wales, which has had to close its minor injuries unit due to a lack of staff. Presumably not Scotland, where current government estimates say there will soon be 500 too few GPs – a number the BMA beleives to be much higher. And presumably not England, where ambulances have been turned away from understaffed A&Es.

But they’re out there somewhere. And it’s important we find them. After all, we can’t go spending all the NHS money on silly extravagances like doctors and nurses when there’s marketing to be paid for.

So where are these wasteful hospitals? Dr Crippen’s looking for them. I want to know where they are. And I’m sure the electorate surrounding the identified hospitals will be interested.

So come on, Pat, tell us: Which hospitals have too many healthcare staff?

I’m not sure on this one… Is this exactly the opposite of what David Cameron wanted his Webcameron site to be used for – or is it exactly what he wanted?

It’s certainly ‘down with the kids’ – it’s not a Tory message, but is the hope that videos like this will attract young people to the site, so that when they start browsing they might come across some Conservative content – or even just reinforce the ‘Cool Cameron’ brand in their minds? Or was this exactly the sort of thing the critics feared?

I’m confusuled!

From the Press Association:

A cash-strapped hospital could open its doors to dogs and cats in a bid to raise extra funds, it has emerged.

Ipswich Hospital is proposing to use its state-of-the-art radiotherapy equipment, which lies dormant at weekends, to treat family pets with cancer at special Saturday morning clinics.

It’s like something from The Thick of It. When the NHS is so cash-strapped that hospitals are thinking of treating animals, things aren’t going well. Why do I suspect the hand of Mad Pat in this? Just to remind you, other proposals she’s come up with include closing unpopular hospital departments, making those who spread MRSA face criminal charges, announcing that the doubling of NHS debt means the financial crisis is “stabilising”, and, perhaps most famously, announcing that this year was the NHS’s “best year ever”. Compared to those gaffes, suggesting that NHS hospitals start treating pets seems relatively sane.

How is this woman still in her job?

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/blair.flv” /]

I have written a lot in the past about the NHS, but rarely have I touched upon the subject of dentistry – mainly because it’s not an area in which I think I have particularly special knowledge. This missive from a reader of Dr Crippen needs no specialist knowledge:

Several years ago I had an NHS dentist. I saw him regularly albeit reluctantly, he used to do his ‘stuff’ and I’d leave, sometimes sore and sometimes not.

Then I moved house.

The area I moved to has few NHS dentists and none of them has vacancies for new NHS patients. I’ve been on four different waiting lists for several years during which I’ve received no dental treatment.

It started with a single filling falling out, shortly followed by another and then within six months nearly every filling in my head ended up in the bin. I rang all the NHS Dentists in the area but I was turned away. I was not registered and, in any case, they had no vacancies. Some of the dental practices didn’t even bother to talk to me. As soon as I mentioned ‘NHS’ and ‘Not Registered’ they just put the phone down on me.

The full story (well worth reading) wants to remind everybody that the Labour government has done little to improve the health service in any meaningful way – an assessment with which the Health Secretary “Mad” Pat agrees.

Let me remind you, for a moment, of Tony Blair’s conference speech of 1999:

…everyone within the next two years will be able once again to see an NHS dentist just by phoning NHS Direct

Seven years later, and NHS dentistry is in a worse state than when Tony Blair made his pledge.

Another broken promise. Another absent apology.

David Cameron has started vlogging, or video-blogging, or YouTubing, or whatever the heck it’s called these days. It really is a masterstroke. Webcameron is an excellent idea.

It’s certainly caused something of a stir in the blogosphere: James O’Malley rather enjoyed it, I think:

The first thing that struck me about this was why is the Leader of the Opposition, a man who earns £127,000 a year, doing the washing up by hand? Surely he owns a dishwasher? Even the proletariat can afford a dishwasher these days! Surely this little piece to camera wasn’t all stage managed?

The other thing that annoyed me about the video was that there was no pay-off. Having watched a lot of videos on the internet, I was expecting it to all build up to something. I thought towards the end he was going to shout “SHUT THE FUCK UP, KIDS!” Disappointing.

Nathan Nelson is possibly even more cynical:

I use Ecover as I am a left-wing Guardian-reading wooly liberal who thinks he can save the planet by buying Ecover products – presumably, I was supposed to see Dave using Ecover and welcome his to my bosom immediately as a kindred spirit.

And Pal makes an even better point:

Crumbs! Dave nearly does the washing up! His hands don’t get wet – he just waves his green washing up liquid around a bit.

But what none of these blogs mention is that they – just like me – are doing exactly what the Conservatives want. We’re talking about them. Whether we think Webcameron is the best idea since sliced bread, or whether we think it’s carefully crafted and stage managed as to mean nothing, the fact is that it’s generating a Conservative buzz. Looking at the Technorati stats, Conservative Party is being blogged a hell of a lot more than Labour Party, and (so the theory goes) if we’re talking about the Conservatives, we’re probably listening to a little of their policy. And maybe even warming to them a little.

It’s exactly where Labour have gone wrong with Dave the Chameleon. That’s a cute character, which at a glance actually makes you think favourably of the Conservatives. Only people who stick around to listen to the full message get the criticism – and few bother. The Conservatives, on the other hand, give a positive impression at first glance – though arguably fall down on policy. But no-one’s listening by that stage anyway.

Cameron is playing a blinder. And I mean Cameron. This is the land of ‘Brand Cameron’. The Webcameron site has no Conservative branding. This is about selling him, not the party, and it’s working. Labour’s playing catch-up. The longer Blair remains as a drag on the Labour party, the bigger the lead Cameron gets. Gordon Brown, or whoever turns out to be the next Labour leader, needs to pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag if they’re to take on Mr Cameron. The next election could be very interesting.

Today is one of those wonderful days where an unfortunate confluence of events means that we can see through the government’s spin and political correctness, and gawp at the real decisions being taken in Whitehall.

Today, new legislation comes into force, spun as ‘banning ageism‘:

They make it unlawful to discriminate against workers under the age of 65 on the grounds of age.

The rules will impact on recruitment, training, promotion, redundancy, retirement, pay and pension provision.

Ministers have been popping up here, there, and everywhere over the last week emphasising that not only does this rule out discrimination against older people, it also protects the young from being discriminated against in favour of the old. Which is all fine and dandy, but sadly untrue.

Giving the lie to the spin is another new piece of legislation coming into force today: An increase in the minimum wage. Despite ageism now being illegal, this continues to have three tiers. 16 and 17 year olds receive a minimum of £3.30 per hour, 18 to 21 year olds receive a minimum £4.85, whilst over 21s get £5.35.

Ageism is, apparently, outlawed, but if I were to go and get a proper job today, I could be paid 50p an hour less than somebody less than six-months my senior. From where I’m standing, that smells a lot like ageism.

So it’s fairly clear that the government’s actual target here is the older generation. By preventing employers from retiring people at sixty based on age alone, perhaps the government think that this will become the norm, before they force it to be so by raising the official retirement age. But it’s a bit of a stretch even for Nu Labour to pretend to be discouraging ageism on the same day as retaining an increasing a three-tier minimum wage.

But thank you, Tony, for showing us how to ban ageism whilst simultaneously actively promoting it. I don’t think anyone else could.

Margaret Beckett, Foreign Secretary, Sunday with Adam Boulton (24 September 2006):

Tony Blair said he would not serve a full term through this Parliament.

Peter Hain, N. Ireland Secretary, Sunday with Adam Boulton (24 September 2006):

He (Blair) said he was going to serve a full term.

Good to see that everyone at the Labour Party Conference is singing from the same hymn sheet.

With due credit to More4 News.

Mr Blair’s getting quite good a slapping the Chancellor round the chops, it would seem. On today’s Sunday AM, he’s announced that

the most important thing is that this week we set out an agenda for the future

He wants to talk about the future, whilst avoiding the question of who might be the future leader. He wants to pave his own path, so that he’s telling Gordon what to do from beyond the political grave. Spinner reckons watching Tone’s interview is ‘perfect media training in action’. I call it ‘How to annoy the chancellor without even mentioning his name’.

Is this a brilliant final political play from the man whose career is defined by media-friendly political strategy? That’s up to Gordon. If he’s stupid enough to take the bait and directly challenge Mr Blair, he’ll not succeed. If he remembers that revenge is a dish best served cold (with a side order of cliché), then he can wait until he gets into Number Ten, and undo Mr Blair’s ‘reforms’ stitch by stitch, with the former PM unable to do anything to stop him. How satisfying.

And, when even the uber-loyal (if mad) Health Secretary agrees that your reforms have failed, maybe it would even be good for the country, too. Maybe.