Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

I had thought Blair's Iraq posturings were the worst affront to democracy but the current Coalition is beating him hands down.

Both parties commissioned and agreed to the Coalition document to bind this parliament.

One of the things it says is 'No Top Down reorganisations of the NHS'

From Sir David Nicholson's testimony to the Health and Social Care Committee today -

He said the NHS was facing "its greatest challenge" because it was currently undergoing a reorganisation.

At the moment the NHS is facing its greatest challenge. In the next few days we will abolish over 160 organisations and we will set up another 211 local organisations and a whole myriad of national ones. We'll completely change the way in which we allocate resources and incentivise the NHS. At the same time, we have already lost 13,500 administrative and management staff that have all that corporate memory in them. So it is at maximum risk over the next few days.

At another point he said that he told ministers, after being appointed NHS chief executive in 2006, that "the last thing" the NHS needed was a reorganisation.

Reorganising the NHS is a very, very difficult thing to do, and it is fraught with risk.

But he was supporting reorganisation now because the "financial circumstances" facing the NHS had changed.

Just how to we get democratic redress for this?!?!