Iknow doctors have a long training and have to absorb a lot of knowledge before they are let loose in a surgery or a hospital ward, but still there is one extra module which needs to be inserted into their schedule: one on the public finances. In fact, maybe just give them an afternoon off to read the papers.

For the past couple of months we have had almost daily briefings from Number 11 floating the ever-more desperate ways in which Rachel Reeves is flirting with raising taxes to fill her fiscal black hole. The bond markets are flickering at every suggestion, weighing up the risk that Britain is thrown headlong into a fiscal crisis if it doesn’t seek to reduce £160 billion a year in public spending. Yet that hasn’t stopped the junior doctors from going ahead with a five-day strike, bleat

See Full Page