Ah, the 1970s; suddenly, it seems as if that most reviled and least-missed decade is repeating itself. The price of oil is leaping. Stagflation is rearing its head. And the unions are back. Yes, those wretched doctors, and their “sod the public” bloody-mindedness.

Doctors? When we think of bloody-minded unions, it's the likes of Jack Jones and Bob Crow that usually spring to mind. But when it comes to feather-bedding, screwing the public and a rigidly focused protection of its members' interest at the expense of everyone else, no other union comes close to the the British Medical Association.

Yesterday Hamish Meldrum, the BMA's chairman, added another string to its bow: cruelty. Speaking about the current rules governing co-payment - patients forced to pay privately for drugs denied by the NHS are then deemed non-people and refused any further NHS treatment - Dr Meldrum said the NHS should not treat patients who have paid for drugs themselves: “My gut instinct is that this goes against the sort of NHS I believe in, which is free at the point of use, fair and equitable to all.” And which, he didn't add, would let patients die rather than use a drug their health authority will not supply. Equity it may be; but it can be the equity of death.

But no one should be surprised at the sheer callousness of Dr Meldrum's position. The notion that an organisation which represents doctors ought somehow to have the patient's interest in mind is attractive. But it is also naive. When it comes to the public, the BMA sees us as little more than a cash cow.

Take its most recent campaign against polyclinics. The union's claim that it seeks only to protect the supposedly wonderful relationship between GPs and their patients is pure sophistry. All it wants to protect is the income its members receive. The BMA stiffed the incompetent Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, in the negotiations over the GP contract. Doctors were given the chance to stop all evening and weekend work in return for a 6 per cent pay cut. Then they were offered vast sums to hit a series of basic targets, so that today GP pay averages more than £100,000, even though the basic agreed sum is £55,000.

When Alan Johnson, Hewitt's successor as Health Secretary, made the reasonable suggestion that GPs might consider changing their opening hours to accommodate their patients' working hours, Dr Meldrum responded by demanding yet more money for his members.

Ken Clarke had it right when, as Health Secretary, he spoke to the BMA: “Every time I mention the word reform, you reach for your wallet.”

Stephen Pollard is President of the Centre for the New Europe

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