And even if he has inherited less robust tendencies Leo will doubtless be affecting black polo-neck sweaters complaining about the

And even if he has inherited less robust tendencies, Leo will doubtless be affecting black polo-neck sweaters, complaining about the essential meaningless of life, sending out for endless packets of wafery biscuits and pretending not to understand English by the time he’s two.About now, we commentators tend to go for a wider point Ready? Precociousness On the whole, it’s not terribly popular in this country May I mention a name? William Hague You must remember him Looks a little like Leo, too. Did you know that Bruce Forsyth was a child star? He was: Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom Thank you.But, in America, they love precocious children. They crowd, and have always crowded, the screens, with Temples and Culkins, Fosters and Osmonds. All manner of pipingly solemn, archly innocent and droll feats are affectionately indulged by twinkling, kindly adults. WC Fields, who liked his children either boiled or fried, laboured in vain It’s a new world, young country thing, I think. We’d had quite enough with that Mozart.Time for advice and conclusions. So, Leo, if you’ve turned here from the crossword: pipe down, mon vieux Nobody likes a show-off.

Keep your Malraux under the pillow, leave copies of the Mr Men books scattered artlessly about (although Mr Fussy is not without a certain bleak angst). Don’t correct your dad’s spelling, don’t yawn when Uncle Gordon is speaking and, whatever you do, don’t complain about the standard of English cooking.. Common sense would – and, no doubt, Derek Wanless’s final report next spring will – suggest that health services are going to cost a great deal more over the next two decades. Not just because of the possibilities opened up by technological advance, the cost of drugs, the rise in the number of old people, or the £250bn shortfall in the British system during the last 30 years of under investment, but because people in wealthier economies will chose to spend a much higher proportion of their income on the comfort that health care can bring. Spending on health is running at between 10 and 12 per cent of GDP in some European countries. It is possible that it will be 15 per cent in 20 years time – double what the British Government spends on the NHS. Is this, and everything else the Government has to do, to be funded by taxes? The Chancellor has said it should, but other forms of compulsory public funding – including social insurance – are worth looking at first.

Maybe taxation will be shown to be the best and most practical route, but this proposition needs to be critically examined against the alternatives. The sheer scale of what faces us should encourage thinking more boldly.This is dangerous territory, where it is important to be clear what is, and is not, up for grabs. The principle that underlies our collective approach to healthcare – that it should be accessible to all with equity and free at the point of use – should be inviolable in a decent society However, funding and delivery systems are something else. They should be whatever produces the most effective outcome.The real threat to the NHS comes not from people daring to think of the most user-friendly way of paying for health, but from those who don’t and thus condemn the NHS to continued under- provision and an eternity of long waits and cancelled operations.Is tax really the most attractive way to encourage voters to pay what is necessary for a world-class health service? Voters have a choice – and a history of taking the low-tax option. We are all susceptible to the promise of the same result at a lower price Tax is just a black hole. We are only too aware of what we pay in, but how that connects to what we get back is fuzzy. We have to find a way to reconnect the public to the costs of health.This Government has given the NHS huge extra sums already.