I had some interesting discussions with people following Tuesday’s post which had argued that the Government would be in a much better medium term political position if it lost the Bill. One or two really felt that I was offering the only explanation for the Government’s ineptitude in arguing for the Bill. They seriously thought the Government were being deliberately hopeless in arguing for the Bill in the hope that they would lose.

This really isn’t the case. The Government will be delighted that they have won the second reading of the Bill, but that doesn’t change my view that it would be much more in their interests to lose the legislation. They are much more concerned with these day-to-day victories and less worried about the strategic war about who will be held responsible for the turbulence in the NHS over the next 3 years.