Alan Milburn, England's health secretary, admitted this week that rationing is part of the government's modernisation agenda for the health service.

At a debate organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research in London Mr Milburn said: “The NHS—just like every other health system in the world, public or private—has never, or will never, provide all the care it might theoretically be possible to provide. That would probably be true even if the whole of the UK gross domestic product was …