Balancing the books

Well, fair play to Patricia Hewitt, she staked her job on getting the NHS' books to balance and she seems to have pulled it off.

It's not too hard to get a set of books to balance, a wee provision here, a written off debtor there and you're golden. But to do so and have a nice big surplus once you're done isn't so easy.

Though it is slightly suspicious that in the last financial year there was a deficit of £500m and now this year there is a surplus of £510m. All looks rosy on the surface, I just hope there wasn't any jiggery pokery going on to have this good news today. It's not like Patricia didn't have the means or the motive to make sure today's announcement occurred as it did.


I guess time will tell if there are any black holes in the finances. And I would like to say she has saved her job but with Gordon Brown champing at the bit to be Prime Minister and get his own team into the Cabinet, I'm sure Patricia will have lots of spare time on her hands this summer compared to how busy she is these days.