A couple of pieces of news.

i) The NHS wants more sick old people to be cared for (or neglected by the NHS) in their homes, "freeing up" hospital beds.

ii) The government is going to allow to NHS hospitals to assign 49 percent of their beds to private patients.

No connection of course.

Still more than half of beds will be reserved for NHS patients, so don't call it privatisation, not even creeping privatisation. And I'm sure there'll be quango created to ensure that the Hospitals don't go above the 49 percent "freeing up" (Christ! I hate that stupid expression), Only like all the Of---s (Ofsted, Ofcom, etc.), it will turn out to be toothless, even an arm of the privatisation as non-privatisation flim-flam. Later the 49 percent will turn out to be a "target", and not to be taken too seriously.