Rupert Murdoch has emerged as the leading candidate to secure lucrative contracts providing services to the National Health Service.
The surprise announcement followed the recent restructuring of the coalition cabinet, with industry observers using their enormous breadth of knowledge on the subject, a degree of intuition, and the fact that Jeremy Hunt’s now in charge of Health to proclaim the move ‘a masterstroke’, ‘timely’, ‘shrewd business’ and ‘gawd ‘elp us all’.
Under Mr Murdoch’s proposals, nurses supplied to the health service through his organisation will receive significantly improved salaries of up to an eye-watering £200 a week each, as long as the rights to televised tracheotomies can secure a global audience. Advertising revenue from sponsored surgical instruments will also bring in cash as Mr Murdoch strives to bring the NHS up to Premier League standards.
‘Cancer victims in Bikinis and happy smiling nurses, that’s what the nation wants,’ trumpeted Mr Murdoch via Twitter.
Mr Hunt insisted that the bids for the new contracts would breathe new life into the market, provide a significant boost to quality of service and encourage future competition. ‘But you have to look at the wider picture as well,’ he added, ‘Of course there’s a potential downside if it all goes wrong and if that happens we will naturally have to blah de blah, de blah.’