I am writing this blog in the gap between the festive blowouts of Christmas and New Year which internet wags have dubbed the ’Merryneum’; a time when MPs and my Pulse paymasters are on holiday, but GPs are not, since someone must maintain a vigil over the secret cold remedies that only work when people wouldn’t normally ask but it’s been going on for quite a while and they really need to be better. Having been accused in 2017 of writing ’with a pervading sense of dread’, I’ve decided to turn my frown upside down and start the year with a couple of optimistic thoughts. How hard can it be?
Dr Pete Deveson BLOG Sq web duo
Firstly, I have some financial good news. Contractual change is in the offing; you can tell because fat cat GP stories are back with a vengeance in the Murdoch press. I don’t know how to feel about the £700,000-a-year GP to be honest; on the one hand I begrudgingly admire their chutzpah; on the other, I feel a bit like Jimmy Conway seeing the $20,000 mink coat. ’WHATSAMADDAWITCHOO? YA TRYNA GET US ALL PINCHED?’
Of course, you and I won’t be seeing money like that; in fact, income will continue to drop. But don’t despair, because (*wipes away tears of joy*) GMC fees are set to drop by 8%! So now the annual cost of getting lawyers paid for by you to argue with different lawyers (also paid for by you) about whether you should be struck off is down by a princely £35! God bless us, every one!
My second piece of festive good cheer is political. Damian Green has just learnt to his cost that despite being surrounded by figurative onanists, an alleged penchant for literal self-stimulation in the workplace is enough to get you swiftly discharged from government. His ejection necessitates what may be the first wanking-induced round of Cabinet musical chairs in history (an, ahem, five-knuckle-reshuffle, if you will). Now I know we’ve been burned by false hope before, but *(raises eyes heavenward in silent prayer*) we might just ring in 2018 with a new health secretary.
Bookies are starting to talk up the current incumbent’s chances of becoming the next Prime Minister, using his smooth charms to concoct some kind of political fudge that would be vaguely palatable to all the warring factions in his party and kick Brexit into the long grass indefinitely.
I’d actually be glad to see Jeremy Hunt in Number 10 if it meant the end of Brexit, in much the same way I’d willingly ingest someone else’s liquefied faeces as a last hope against fatal C. diff diarrhoea. And with that in mind, I raise a festive glass-half-full to my lips and wish all my readers a Happy New Year!
Dr Pete Deveson is a GP in Surrey
