With the global banking network near meltdown, we're all on a sharp learning curve. So here's a tip for David Cameron: don't use the distress of NHS patients such as the late Elizabeth Woods to make party-political points.
When a celebrity ventures into the inhospitable terrain of public health, the results tend to be predictably cringe-inducing.
The party conference season heralds the least productive element of my job. Attending them means - roughly - receptions, speaking at fringes, talking to anyone who will listen and eating too much and too richly.
What's in a name? Plenty according to the papers, which were this weekend reporting that a crop of senior ministers including health secretary Alan Johnson are determined to hang on to their titles in the event of a reshuffle.
Rather than attend this year's party conferences, I decided instead to take the temperature on US health reform at the two presidential nominating conventions.
By the time you read this, Labour's 2008 party conference in Manchester will be over and Gordon Brown will still be prime minister, despite whatever has happened or not in the interval.
First they complained about the service, now they are complaining about the complaints system.
