"You've never had it so good..."

Knowledge is not intelligence - Albert Einstein

This quote certainly applies to my favourite academic, Professor Marcus Longley, who ( for some unkown reason ) is trying to emulate the great Harold MacMillan.  I could hardly believe my ears when the Prof said that "We've all been living in a fools paradise.....", referring to our former years of ( apparently ) languishing in the care of NHS Wales where "money flowed like a waterfall...".  Triumphantly, he says that we've all been brought down to earth with a bump and have to face 'reality' as "the money has run out and we all have acccept the painful changes necessary to achieve a sustainable health service."

What a complete berk, Longley ! How on earth do you keep your job at the University of Glamorgan, being such a shameless, ass-kissing toady ? And to think, you were once jocularly referred to as a 'health economist', I don't know how you sleep nights after misrepresenting the truth to the extent that you have become a ventriloquist's dummy. 

I used to respect you when you were on the side of the long-suffering patients, but now any respect you warranted has 'gone with the wind', like flatulence.  In the past, we have both spoken on the television and the radio in support of the long-suffering health service patients, both pressing for a change to the NHS that would mean shorter waiting times and better care than we have experienced since the year 2000.  What a charlatan you have become !

Don't you think it odd that this academic nit-wit has only just started singing this song, lately ?  How is that we have never heard Marcus ever warn us - or anybody - that we have been 'living in a fool's paradise' before, during all those years as a health economist ?  Isn't it odd that this turncoat has never, ever been reported as saying anything so monumentally stupid as this before ?  Could it be that he has sold his soul for personal fame and gain, by assuming the role of someone who knows anything about health economics, or any form of economics ? We know that he has never questioned the voracity of any of the government's claims of overspend in the NHS.  And since when did he start believing that our health service was a matter of profit and loss, when none of the comparative figures of performance compared to budget have ever been published ?  Some economist - some academic ! 

It's a shame the university doesn't compare his exhorbitant salary to his performance - if it was possible to measure, of course.  In truth, the only 'fools paradise' where money flows like a waterfall is in the life of an academic or a bureacrat, who work like collaborators or quizzlings for their autocratic political masters. Their primary role is to spread the vile propaganda - such as the misrepresentation of facts, used to justify the need for change in NHS Wales, when, in truth, the only motive for change is to cut costs !   R.W.