Westminster digested

Milidum: I shall come down amongst you to smite the enemy . . . Milidee: You're supposed to be hiding. Milidum: It's not my fault if someone has accidentally leaked the rather marvellous speech I was going to make when I won the Labour leadership. Milidee: But you promised . . . Milidum: Did I? I'd quite forgotten! Still, it might come in handy one day . . . And I shall build a new Jerusalem! Milidee: I wish I'd said that. Labour party: Not as much as we do. Milidee: Well, my new resolution is to say more interesting things, like, um, er, I'm going to build a new Oldham in Scunthorpe and I really, really hate cancer . . . Cameron: Let me just say that no one hates cancer more than I do, which is why, under my new proposals for the NHS, patients will have a choice whether to die quickly or slowly from cancer. Now come along, Cleggster, it's time for your walk. Clegg: I love it when we go outdoors together, Daddy. Where are we going? Cameron: To have our photo taken sitting next to some poor bastard who can't get out of his hospital bed. Clegg: That's so exciting! What shall I say to him, Daddy? Cameron: That you love me very much, that I'm a very listening kind of Daddy and that you love my new NHS reforms. Clegg: I do, I do! But I also loved the old ones that you and Andy tried to rush through last year. That's why I voted for them. Cameron: I know you did, Cleggster and I appreciate that. But I've done a lot of listening since then and what I've heard is the public don't think I know what I'm doing which is why I'm going to do what the public wants . . . Clegg: And what's that? Cameron: Buggered if I know, Cleggster. I've no idea what's in the new bill, but as long as I keep saying we're creating a more streamlined, more bureaucratic, less market-driven, more competitive NHS in which patients have a right to see their GP at any time he or she isn't comparing tenders for healthcare provision, everything should be fine. Clegg: You're so clever, Daddy. At this rate you might even keep me in a job . . . Lansley: For a few minutes longer than me. Osborne: Sod it! Just when I'd fiddled the stats to make it look as if unemployment was falling.