Years ago, in 1989, while attending a seminar at the Institute of Economic Affairs, then the intellectual power-house of Thatcherism, I recall being struck by how its disciples, having opened up local government to market forces, now regarded the NHS as the next big challenge.
In the end it was too big even for the IEA. Fast-forward 22 years, and a Conservative prime minister is grappling again with the same subject, namely, how to bring the private sector into the NHS. And like his predecessors, David Cameron is finding it problematic.
