I’m writing this from the BMA’s annual representative meeting in Cardiff. The location seems appropriate. Outside the conference hall is a statue of the NHS’s founder Aneurin Bevan. The NHS “will only last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it,” he once said. Inside the hall the faithful are fighting. One speaker brandishes her well worn copy of Bevan’s book In Place Of Fear. She says she’s old enough to remember its publication. “For the first time ever I’m afraid,” she says.

The government’s plans for the English NHS, detailed in its embattled bill, are “the final step on the road to privatisation,” …