Editorial Monday 19 March 2012: #Winning!, with Andrew Lansley's Pelican Bill

The House of Lords today rejected both Lord Owen's motion to delay and Baroness Thornton's motion to dismiss. The Health And Social Care Bill thus passed back to the House of Commons from the House of Lords and (after a spot of potential ping-pong tomorrow) will become law.

Andrew Lansley (saviour, liberator) thus has his Bill.


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A year ago, the actor Charlie Sheen had an extremely public mental breakdown. (Media coverage, both old and new, was of course massively sympathetic.)

Among the things Sheen wanted the world to know, using traditional broadcast media and the micro-blogging site Twitter, was that he was "#winning"; that he has "tiger blood" and that he was "on a drug ... called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body".

That was Winning! with Charlie Sheen.

Now we have the prospect of Winning! with Andrew Lansley.

I will shortly be publishing some analysis on subscription-only product Health Policy Intelligence (£69 / year; email editorial AT healthpolicyinsight.com to register your interest) on what this means for the main political parties and the NHS.

One quick observation and one joke, then.

The quick observation is that some opponents of the Bill have painted so apocalyptic a picture of the Bill that the mere continued existence of the NHS in more or less the same form on Wednesday 21 March 2012 will represent a victory of sorts for Andrew Lansley's reforms.

(Mr Lansley should savour the moment, because trouble will be along before very long.)

I have previously done the joke that 'a Health Secretary redisorganising the NHS is like a dog licking its own arsehole: just because they can doesn't mean they should'.

And now we have Mr Lansley's Pelican Bill, borrowed from the classic joke about tax inspectors - 'What have Andrew Lansley and a pelican got in common? They can both stick their Bills right up their own arses'.