Liam Donaldson: An Alternative View

I've had a hell of a day.

Studying to pass a nonsense exam to prove I am worthy of running a company we have done successfully since 1995, thanks to the EU natch, is bad enough before it is rubbed in the open wound by reading therein, chapter and verse, the ridiculous bacon-slicer avoidance legislation which no-one in their right mind would waste money on.

Also not appreciated is the state of my backside after being forced to partake of Pizza Express yesterday, which she sure as shit knows disagrees with me, by Fanny P.

My Wii age went up, probably due to back ache from poring over the transcribed retching from the EU, and I am now officially a child abuser (according to the NSPCC) for snapping the kids' bow after, despite previous warnings, the third rubber-tipped arrow flew past my ear (proxy attack). And also for saying "Bloody kids! Who'd have them?" (Humiliation/degradation). Their playful giggling did nothing to soothe my mood.

Then I read this. A gushing biog of the clinically-obese Liam Donaldson. Red mist-o-meter alert, chaps.

Sars, binge drinking, MRSA, MMR, avian flu, swine flu: in the last decade they have all been the headline subject of major health scares. And the man whose job it is to evaluate the risks, develop a strategy and issue advice on each of these matters is the chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson.

Hold on, Mr Guardian puffer, where is mention of the 'obesity epidemic'? Was that part of your first draft before you put a big black line through it on seeing that Liam is no stranger to a palletload of sirloin?

It's not an enviable task. If he appears to do too little, he stands accused of complacency.

Since when did this cunt do too little? Only regarding obesity really, but then that's no surprise, he being the human equivalent of a fucking vogon and all that.

If he is seen to intervene too actively, it's said that he's stirring up panic.

Well, since he is an unelected cock-socket who needs to justify his very existence at every opportunity, that's not too surprising. In normal life, such a false premise for power generally leads to poor judgement ...

The current concern about H1N1 or, as its more popularly known, swine flu perfectly illustrates the point. Just a few weeks ago, Donaldson was advising schools to shut down if there were cases of the virus among pupils. Now schools are told to remain open ...

... such as knee-jerk stuff like that (assuming he can still find his knee amongst the dappled cellulite, of course. Did I mention he is rather huge?) ...

... and there are predictions of 100,000 cases a week of H1N1 by late August.

.. and further scare-mongering like that.

But Donaldson knows that in matters of public health it's preferable to hedge your bets. "We don't yet know enough about the risk profile of the virus," he said last week with typical caution.

You don't know about the risk profile of fucking anything, you dangle-bellied troll. You merely trot out the latest healthist cause célèbre at will, gently tip-toeing your wobble-bottomed frame through any reference to obesity as you go.

If that sounds like a certain amount of backside covering, then it's understandable.

Backside covering? How'd he do that? Has he bought up the old Wimbledon Centre Court covers from eBay?

Donaldson has spent many years and a lot of effort arguing that we need to prepare for a pandemic virus.

And every time he has talked out of his humongous, lard-laden arse.

Avian flu looked like it might be a contender in 2005, and Donaldson warned that 750,000 global deaths was "not impossible".

Even though it turned out that, in the real world, it frigging well was.

At first, in its Mexican stage, H1N1 looked like it might be the virus that Donaldson has long been expecting.

Expecting? Don't you mean 'hoping' so that his crystal ball gazing was not to be shown up as a fat fucker talking bollocks which, let's face it, is a more accurate description.

Yet even if swine flu does turn out to be something only slightly more troubling than normal influenza, it would be unfair to accuse the chief medical officer of having got it wrong.

Beg fucking pardon? So accusing the guy of getting everything wrong on a regular basis, scaring the bejeebers out of the public time after time, with no real motivation except for a desperate need to cling onto the fat salary and the pies that go with it, is not being 'fair'?

Instead, in calmly preparing for the worst, while also allowing for the most positive outcome, he's done what we expect of our public servants.

Now this bit is true. All we expect out of our public servants nowadays, especially in the Department of Health, is to be hectoring alarmists with no clue as to the value in - I dunno - shutting the fuck up every now and then.

Yet he tends to invoke "the public" the way Jacobins used to refer to the republic. "My bottom line is that I would go to the wall for the public," he said during the Sars scare, "because that is who I am there to serve."

Good on you, Liam, we'd like to see you against a wall too. Preferably wearing a blindfold.

Donaldson has proved able to negotiate the different roles with great effectiveness. "He's very clever at knowing what the media want," says one observer, "and directing the debate where he wants it to go."

ie, Lying.

His most notable success, and the one with which his name may remain most closely associated, has been the banning of smoking in public places. In 2002 he proposed such a ban and was told by the government that it would "never happen". Five years later it was law.

So, let's be clear about this. Elected government said no. An unelected, mendacious, scare-mongering heffalump said yes. Hmmmm.

Donaldson stuck to his guns and, effectively opposing his boss, drove the campaign for the ban, which came into force in 2007

Again, who was elected and who was appointed?

He wants to see smoking brought down to the "gold standard" of California, where only 14% of the population smokes. "The first thing you see when you walk into a supermarket is a wall of cigarette packets," he said. "We need to do something about that, and let's get the cigarette out of Kate Moss's mouth."

We don't need to do anything of the sort. What we need, Liam, is to get someone with some balls to tell you to go fuck yourself. If you need any help with that, we could provide you with a map to find your cock if you like. It's somewhere between your sweaty man boobs and the feet that you used to be able to see when you were 16.

It's this kind of desire to encroach on areas of public life that many see as private that has led to accusations of nanny state interventionism.

No fucking shit, Sherlock!

Earlier this year he employed the phrase "passive drinking" to describe the effects of alcohol on non-drinkers.

Well, the tent-bedecked one would say that. I don't remember him saying much about passive fat fuck-ism, though. Too close to home, I expect.

Donaldson was arguing in support of his contention that alcohol prices should rise to a minimum of 50p per unit. He was rebuffed by Gordon Brown, who saw no need to explore new ways to increase his unpopularity, but remained characteristically undeterred. "It will upset people," he said. "It will ruffle feathers, people will not see immediately why they should participate in it, but we need to face up to this as a country."

No Liam, we need to face up, as a country, to the fact that we have hideous cunts like you dictating health policy without any chance of us voting your saggy arse out of office. That is what is truly worrying about this Labour administration.

When the training system for junior doctors that he instituted resulted in a glut of unemployed doctors, the BMA called for his resignation. He simply pointed out that the BMA had agreed to the proposals, thus making a non-drama out of a non-crisis.

Which, of course, in any other sphere, would have led to sackings of both Donaldson and the proponents in the BMA. But then our cash is a river to be tapped at will, so no problem there. Why punish anyone for fucking everything up and costing the taxpayer money, eh?

He and Brown, for example, were in agreement on making organ donation an opting-out policy, although they were thwarted at the first attempt.

Yet more of Donaldson claiming the right to dictate what we do with our bodies. And more failure. How many lives does this guy have? Is he the fat, belly-dragging neighbourhood cat personified?

But for all his tenacious political skills, it's not thought that he would survive long under a Conservative government, where his statist instincts would almost certainly represent an ideological challenge.

Good fucking riddance. Hope the guy rots and never darkens our sun by stepping outside again.

And as the state has expanded its health responsibilities, many individuals have relinquished their own, most notably in the case of obesity. Donaldson would like to see a "fat tax" on unhealthy foods. It's hard to imagine David Cameron swallowing that.

Well bugger me sideways. He mentions a fat tax when it is too late to do anything about it. Who'd have thunk it?

Once the next GE occurs, it seems that we can finally rid ourselves of this troublesome beast.

Or maybe not.

If, as seems likely, he is moved out of Richmond House next year, a plum job awaits him at the World Health Organisation. In which case it would be a fitting ending for a man who thinks in terms of populations. The most far-reaching of public servants would at last get to serve the most far-reaching of publics.

No, it would be fitting that someone who hasn't attracted a single vote in his life in the UK, is shifted upwards to an organisation which hasn't attracted a single vote in the world.

Career progression, Labour style.