Not long after writing a scathing critique of the NHS, in which he claimed that many foreign doctors working in our hospitals are only in the UK because they’ve been barred from practising in their home countries, Jeremy Clarkson found himself in hospital. Writing in the Sunday Times, the former Top Gear presenter declined to specify exactly why he had required emergency treatment, simply saying that the procedure was “Defcon 1 painful”, before joking that “they had to chisel me off the ceiling with a spatula afterwards.”
Jeremy explained that he had, for many years, paid for private health insurance, but claimed he had become disillusioned with how often insurers tried to wriggle out of paying for various procedures. Instead, he decided to regularly put a sum of money into a dedicated bank account. However, when Jeremy found himself urgently needing medical care last weekend, he was a good two-hour drive away from the nearest private healthcare provider.
But that meant that he would be walking into an NHS hospital just hours after his column describing the health service as a “creaking old monster” had been published.
He joked: “I had a very hot neck when I realised this and wondered if I should maybe tiptoe into the hospital in a Piers Morgan face mask.”
He worried that someone might urinate into his tea in an act of revenge, if not actually do him physical harm. However, the NHS medics were the very paragon of professionalism and he emerged from the hospital the following morning no worse off for the experience: “It was OK,” he said, “I’ve slept in way worse hotels.”
Despite having slammed the health service in his column, Jeremy says he had no complaints about the treatment he received: “I genuinely couldn’t find anything to moan about at all. The doctors, the nurses and everyone I met were kind. It was all spotless. Lunch was kids’ food-brilliant, and they even made me better — for which I shall be eternally grateful.”
But nevertheless, Jeremy maintains that the NHS is simply unaffordable at its current scale, and warns that the chancellor will be forced to increase taxes in order to support it: “Rachel Reeves is going to have to fleece absolutely everyone for more cash,” he predicted.
“She came for the farmers last time around. This time, I wouldn’t be surprised if she came after your children’s pocket money. And of course, she’ll tell us she needs more money for the NHS.”
He listed a number of things that might be banned in order to lessen pressure on the health service, including tanning salons, wood-burning stoves, and meat, before going on to suggest that the government would encourage more migrants to move to the UK in order to lower wage bills.
He maintains, too, that the NHS needs to be radically restructured, if not scrapped altogether: “It’s an excellent organisation and the frontline staff are superb,” he writes. “But in its current state, we as a nation cannot afford it.”