Britain's National Health Service, like state benefits in general, is the price British governments have to pay their citizen-vassals for their loyalty, i.e votes, which they have done on the cheap by attracting labour (from cleaning staff to consultants) from developing countries in Asia and Africa.

The state's function is to administer and facilitate exploitation of the artificial socioeconomic environment we human "prime apes" have created for ourselves and where, perverted and fatally misplaced, the individual continues to conduct his Darwinian struggle for survival and advantage - dumb animals that we STILL are.

In politics and business all that counts is POWER. Which is why they are all so obsessed with economic growth (it took me a long while to understand this particular "insanity of normality", which most people still haven't recognised): because it translates into more money and POWER.

Why is POWER of such central importance? Because man is an animal, whose blind, biological, Darwinian struggle for survival and (reproductive) success is greatly enhanced - potentially, at least - by POWER.

Why do I point this out? Because it shows that our whole socioeconomic order (and the civilization that depends on it) is inherently unsustainable.

Make the most of it, Ms Edelstein, while it lasts - which will not be for long . . .