Spend! Spend! Spend!

The day before the Budget the government heard some terrifying news. The Conservatives stated that they would not support increased health spending unless it was accompanied by reform. Panic spread through the cabinet. "Oh no - the opposition have threatened to oppose us! What are we going to do? Without those crucial votes the Budget will only be passed with a wafer thin majority of 167 votes."

By endlessly talking about the need to reform the NHS, political leaders have implied that the health service is somehow to blame for its own shortcomings. "You can't solve these problems just by throwing money at them," they say. What, problems like shortage of money? "Exactly," they continue. "You might think that the solution to underfunding would be more funds, but nothing could be further from the truth."

I might try that one the next time the bank manager writes to me about my overdraft. "Look, I can't just solve the problem of my overdraft by throwing money at it. We need an assurance that you'll agree to reform your internal structures and administration, and then I'll consider paying what I owe you."

Or what if the doctors tried the same trick on the next politician to be rushed to casualty? "Quick, he's lost four pints of blood; get him a transfusion!"

"Yes, but you see you can't just solve this shortage-of-blood problem by throwing blood at it," says the doctor, relishing the chance to turn the spin back on the spinner. "But my blood pressure is dangerously low!" gasps the politician lying on the trolley.

"Not in real terms," says the doctor. "The rate of decrease is actually levelling out and it's still much higher than it was under the last government."

"And my temperature is 105 - that's critically high, isn't it?"

"Not when seasonally adjusted, and we remain firmly committed to a year-on-year reduction to bring it into line with the European average by 2007."

It is of course wonderful news that this Labour government is committing £40bn to the health service so soon after ousting the Tories in, er, 1997. In the NHS the effects were immediate. There was a sudden drop in the number of Labour party members being treated for severe depression. The Budget was cheered by Labour backbenchers because, unlike previous Budgets, they understood several words of it. The sentence "more spending on the NHS" is actually five words in a row and constitutes a record for the longest anyone has concentrated on a Budget speech without closing their eyes and dreaming that they are Martin Sheen in The West Wing.

The trouble is that most people on the left didn't get involved in politics because they felt passionate about a prudent stewardship of the national economy.

Not many of us ever went on marches chanting: "What do we want?" "Abolition of the national insurance ceiling in order that NHS spending as a proportion of GDP can be brought into line with other western democracies!" Our solution to the complex economic problems of this country was basically that there was this woman called Maggie, and we wanted her out.

Then the Labour party rather threw us by actually coming to power and on day one they set about putting the economy straight. "So interest rates?" said Gordon. "What do we think; up or down?" And the various junior Treasury ministers pretended to think really hard as a way of covering up the fact that they had no idea what was the expected answer.

"Um - I dunno, maybe just move them sideways a bit?" Ten minutes later it was agreed to hand this particular decision over to the Bank of England. Maybe that's why the Tories invented laissez-faire economics, it meant you didn't have to even pretend to comprehend any of it.

But this 2002 Budget was different because everyone understood it. We're going to pay more national insurance and get a better NHS. It is indeed great news, even if it shows how bad things had got that this should seem such a radical idea. "Hooray, hooray! Labour government to raise money to pay for health service! You know that car we've had for all these years - well, they're going to let us put petrol in it as well!"

While many Labour MPs cheered the news, some of the 1997 breed of New Labour clones were bitter about this betrayal of everything they stood for. "Typical Labour party sellout!" they shouted angrily. "Oh yeah, in opposition it's all 'down with the workers and up with big business' - but as soon as you get into power you change your tune!" Some of them are thinking of forming a faction called Old New Labour.

But most people in the country welcome last Wednesday's great news. This government is putting £40bn into the NHS because at last it finally understands what is most important to the people of this country. If that's how much it's going to cost to mend David Beckham's foot, then so be it.

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