Caught In The Act

Nadine Dorries gets a bad press, which I assume is because she defends council housing from David Cameron. Frank Field gets a bad press for sounding like a Labour MP from back in the days when there were such people, who had never been Trots in their lives. Neither is a fully signed-up pro-lifer. But their baiters will make a great deal of hay over their proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. Good. "Blessed are you", and all that. Not to say, "Woe unto you".

But what if these amendments, requiring pre-abortion counselling by a body which did not provide abortion, and transferring responsibility for the abortion guidelines from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (which used to be against abortion) to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, were to be passed? How, then, ought we to regard the Bill as a whole, which in all other respects is a perfectly ghastly attempt to dismantle the NHS, contrary to the specific manifesto commitments of both Coalition parties?