In the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Joseph Freer tells us what he would do if he were the minister of health (Freer 2021) Freer is opposed to the pro-market, privatising impulse in UK Health Policy. If he were health minister, he would change the constitution, establishing a separately elected legislature, along with a separate and expanded executive for health. Well, not just for health; under Freer's constitutional structure, the Ministry of Health would subsume three or four portfolios in the modern cabinet, with ministers under it having separate responsibilities for housing, welfare, social care, the NHS, public health, and patients. Each of these seven "health" ministers would now have a seat in cabinet.
Now, I am somewhat suspicious of those who tell me that their policy goals require a permanent constitutional revolution. Since Freer does not want to go to the trouble of securing the health budget and ensuring more collaboration between ministries, he has decided that he will turn over the table instead. Freer would be running in an election in which the sole purpose was the promotion of health, instead of a budget that balances investment, growth, or defence with social spending. One must appreciate Freer's candor; unlike many other first-time ministers, he is open about his desire to tell the Prime Minister to sod off and to consolidate all available power under his portfolio. I am only surprised that he did not bother to annex the Ministry of Defence; what with cruise missiles and landmines being somewhat deleterious to a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
But this is expected. Freer is, of course, being modest when he suggests that he would consolidate in the Ministry of Health every aspect of human life from conception to death. He has small, incremental ambitions, like creating a legislative assembly separate from Parliament. Freer is an academic and a researcher of some standing, and I cannot help my bemused affection for his approach. I sometimes suspect that if they made a lepidopterist the minister for endangered species, he would quickly abolish the Magna Carta to preserve some speckled blue wing-flapper of unknown origin.
"Now, come, soyons raisonnables," you say? Alright. Let us be reasonable.