One to Watch - Professor David Kerr

Have just been looking at the list of people who have been picked as the' listening panel' for the Health and Social Care Bill. One name jumped out at me - Professor David Kerr. He is simply listed as Professor of Cancer Medicine at Oxford, and you might think that was enough to be getting on with. But there's more to Prof Kerr than that. He has been an advisor on health for Andrew Lansley for the past year. Before that, he was up in Scotland (he is Scottish) and produced a report for his namesake Andy Kerr, (who was the Scottish Health Minister at the time) called, 'Building a Health Service Fit for the Future.' This report became the blueprint for Andy Kerr's 'slash and burn' approach to level 3 hospitals across the central belt in Scotland and led to the absolutely disastrous approach to A&E provision in Glasgow, where only two hospitals are going to be A&Es. Believe me, it's not enough. My own hospital Monklands, was threatened and if Labour had not been put out in 2007, our A&E would have been shut as well. After the SNP got in, he went south and has now cropped up in the middle of another melee - the Health and Social Care Bill.

So why has a man who was advisor to Labour in Scotland, now advisor to the Conservatives in England? The more cynical might venture that this is because there is barely a fag paper's difference in policy between the two. But there's another reason. Kerr is the classic outsider. He is Scottish. He was at one point allegedly, a card carrying member of Labour. And he has been brought in for the same reason that Maggie Thatcher, a woman and non Etonian was put in charge of the government and Field Marshall Haig, who was merchantile class was put in charge of the troops in the First World War. There's unpleasant business afoot. An outsider is needed to do it. Thatcher was brought in to crush the unions. Haig was brought in to preside over a bloodbath. Kerr has been brought in I believe, to close hospitals.

This man is your hatchet man. Watch him.