The Red Cross and The Red Flag

At last, the great battle to save the English NHS is upon us.

And that battle can be waged only by a Leader of the Labour Party, a Shadow Chancellor and a Shadow Health Secretary untainted by the privatisation of England's NHS under Tony Blair and his funny money PFIs.

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, because they opposed all of that tooth and nail from the very start, while their enemies were "voting with the Tories".

And Jonathan Ashworth, because he and I were undergraduates at the time.

I used to take most pleasure in his grey hair, as I do in that, or in the baldness, of many of my contemporaries.

But not anymore.

As for the news that Theresa May is giving her first interview of 2017 to Sky News rather than to the BBC, good for her.

The BBC "interviewed" Corbyn about the fact that the Red Cross had felt moved to intervene in the humanitarian disaster of England's collapsing healthcare system.

The "interviewer" banged on about that funny little report from the Fabian Society, and demanded to know when Corbyn was going to resign.

By contrast, Jon, as he now seems to be known, was treated very respectfully by Sky.

From Orgreave to Liar Kuenssberg, whose continued employment beggars belief after this week, if the BBC sets the Gold Standard, then that only goes to show what a very bad idea the Gold Standard is.