The slop hits the fan

You find me here in the wee small hours, unable to sleep as I nibble nervously on the corner of a custard cream and await dawn’s first rosy fingers to strike the brick wall opposite my cell room window and wait for the knock at the door.

The Department of Health isn’t particularly noted for being a big soft Andrex puppy with a super sense of fun that loves nothing more than rolling over and having its tummy tickled. It’s more of a Rottweiler with a bad case of gout, a severe toothache and a personality disorder thrown in for good measure. By the time you read this, the first editions of the nation’s tabloids and broadsheets will have hit the streets and Gordon Brown will have gone postal. He’ll have called an emergency meeting of the COBRA committee in order to hunt down the mole responsible for the Hospital Food Bingo story; a story that’s appears to have taken on a life of its own in the preceding 24 hours and is now plastered all over the nation’s papers.

I can picture it now. It’s similar to the scene in the film Downfall where Hitler’s last few trusted henchmen are trying to break the news to the Fuhrer that the game is up. Deep in the bowels of 10 Downing Street, Gordon is staring at the first editions of the morning papers as Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, wrings his hands and cowers in front the great man’s desk.

“Why wasn’t this spotted sooner?” Brown asks Mandelson, who is stood behind and slightly to the left of him.

“An excellent question Prime Minster. I’m afraid the ungrateful traitor who perpetrated this foul calumny apparently did so via Facebook, and then only to a select band of friends. Apparently one of those friends thought it was funny and sent a copy to the press.”

“I don’t see anything funny about it. How come it’s all over the papers this morning.”

Burnham cleared his throat nervously. “I think the press thought he had a valid point. Nearly half of all hospital food is wasted and  goes uneaten. Thousands of people leave hospital with malnutrition each year. Perhaps they thought it was newsworthy.”

A large clunking fist slams down on the table, Brown trembles, his face ashen with rage. “I didn’t run up the biggest budget deficit in the history of this country just so some ungrateful provincial hack could take the piss out of good wholesome NHS food. Food, which I might add, the ungrateful bastard is getting for free. I want this individual found. I want him hunted down and identified before I make a statement on the One O’Clock News.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to find him,” Mandelson purrs in Brown’s ear. “We know his age, his approximate location, his medical condition and his occupation. Shouldn’t take us more than half an hour.”

“Bring him in for questioning. Confiscate his computer, mobile phone and camera equipment. We can’t allow this sort of thing to undermine the progress we’ve made in reforming the NHS. Dawn Primarolo has spent months getting rid of every last scrap of salt, fat, sugar and taste from hospital food and this worthless piece of shit decides to take the piss out of it.”

“Burnham… get the hospitals to check for anyone else who’s not eating their food and put them under surveillance. In the meantime, someone get Jamie Oliver on the phone… there’s work to be done.”