Strictly Come Bake Off . . . on the NHS!
THe Whitehall department that meets every week to give me something to write about has surpassed itself. Just look at Page One of yesterday’s Mail.
Beneath promotions for the memoirs of Strictly’s Mr Nasty, whoever he is, and recipes from the Great British Bake Off, you’ll find a perfect example of the ingenuity of some of the Government’s finest minds.
‘elderly people could be prescribed ballroom dancing lessons and cookery classes on the NHS as part of a new strategy to combat loneliness, Theresa May will announce today.’ Brilliant.
How many brainstorming sessions, how many cups of Fairtrade coffee, how many late-night pizzas did it take them to come up with that? NOW, pay attention everyone. The PM’s in deep trouble over Brexit. We desperately need a diversionary tactic to get the Irish backstop off the front pages. And we need it fast. Any ideas?
We have to focus on what people really care about. Go on.
Look, while Westminster is obsessing about the Brexit negotiations, everyone else is talking about a couple caught snogging on Strictly Come Dancing. What’s Strictly Come Dancing? It’s a television show. Really? Yes, like The Great British Bake Off, only with dancing instead of cakes. People actually watch this stuff? In their millions. Almost as many as voted Leave. I’m listening.
What if we could harness the popularity of these two programmes to some new Government initiative?
How so?
The NHS, for instance. We could do with something to take everybody’s mind off the crisis in the health service.
Didn’t we try that last week, suggesting people should see their GP 15 at a time, like Alcoholics Anonymous? Whose bright idea was that?
Never mind. Concentrate on the job in hand. What I’m suggesting is that we exploit the popularity of Strictly and Bake Off by announcing the NHS is going to offer free dancing and cookery lessons? Why?
Oh, I dunno, to combat some disease or other. How about obesity? Dancing would help people lose weight.
So it might. But teaching people how to bake a scrumptious stem ginger cake with cream cheese frosting and salted caramel isn’t exactly the best way to tackle an obesity crisis.
True, but think of the publicity. We could even launch an ad campaign and get Prue Leith and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, from Bake Off, and Claudia Wossername from Strictly to front it. I like that. But linking it to obesity isn’t going to fly. Any other ideas? Didn’t I read somewhere that there’s a loneliness epidemic? A what?
According to a new report, up to a fifth of adults in the UK suffer from loneliness most or all of the time.
Where on earth did that figure come from?
I just made it up. Apparently, there are some people who go for days, weeks, even months without seeing another living soul.
I’m not surprised. They’re all sitting at home watching Strictly Come Dancing and The Great British Bake Off. What’s any of this got to do with the NHS?
We could produce a report saying loneliness causes strokes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, ingrowing toenails, take your pick. Then we say that by offering dancing classes and cookery lessons, we’ll actually be saving the NHS money. And how much will that cost? Ball park, give or take, call it 20 mill for cash. Prue Leith doesn’t come cheap. And we’re already spending £1.8 million setting up a chain of community cafes to combat loneliness. I didn’t know that.
You were on holiday that day. The Prime Minister’s announcing it to coincide with the next wave of Cabinet resignations over Brexit. Why are we spending £1.8 million of taxpayers’ money bankrolling a chain of cafes? Isn’t that what Starbucks and Costa are for? You can’t move for coffee shops on most High Streets these days.
What’s a couple of mill between friends? Drop in the ocean. The PM has promised we’ll be spending an extra £20 billion on health. And anyway, the NHS already offers everything from tattoo removal and breast enlargement to IVF for transsexuals. Rotherham
NHS Trust has laid out £500,000 a year on a range of alternative treatments, including tai chi, quizzes and indoor curling. Curling? Helps people overcome depression, by all accounts. That’s the theory, anyway.
OK, dancing and cooking on the NHS. It’s worth a try. Let’s brief No 10 and draw up a press release. If nothing else, it’ll give Littlejohn something to write about next Tuesday. On it already.
But we need a back-up plan, just in case. What else are people interested in? You can’t go wrong with the royals.
That’s it! If the Brexit talks go belly up, we’ll get the Palace to announce that Meghan Markle’s having a baby . . .