Fox gets in a twist over yoga - and firms up his position on tuberculosis

Some newspapers even got an ageing photo of Hatti Jacques out of the picture library to celebrate the event. Carry on, matron! My friend was furious because Alan Milburn's move contradicts the growing professionalism of nursing as a career: more skills acquired and recognised. Where would matron fit into the medical hierarchy? 'She'll be in charge of catering and cleaning, not much time for anything else, ' the MP predicted.

But even the MP acknowledged that the move will be popular with voters. 'I do not get complaints about medical treatment. I get them about meals being left at the end of the bed to get cold because people can't reach them. My constituents want to feel someone's in charge. '

Which leads me to my real point. Last Friday the shadow health secretary, Dr Liam Fox, issued a brief press statement attacking Minister Milburn for ignoring what he called 'the worst outbreak of TB for 20 years', the one in Leicester where 40,000 parents have been sent letters telling them not to panic.

Yet the Department of Health remains silent on the crisis, leaving Labour's 'publicityobsessed ministers' to promote 'the new availability of yoga on the NHS', protested Dr Fox.

He went on to complain that 'the low priority the government gives to public health, coupled with their own incompetence and failure to grasp the seriousness of the issue, makes this outbreak a disaster waiting to happen'.

Specifically, he charged that the then health secretary Frank Dobson was warned in 1999 that supplies of BCG vaccine, produced here solely by Medeva Pharma, were running out. As a result, the vaccination programme was suspended for a year, but many children (perhaps 20 per cent in Leicester) missed it.

All right, I know, Dr Fox is running for reelection too. But it is striking that the issue was not raised at all in the Commons last week as the number of confirmed cases in and around the Crown Hills community college reached 29, including three teachers.

I have checked the Hansards for parliamentary questions, points of order and debates in Westminster Hall. Meningitis C was raised, and lupus, but no tuberculosis. I suspect the Tories will have managed to rectify this omission by the time you read this and MPs are safely enjoying their Easter breaks in the 'open for business' British countryside. And, of course, that other outbreak - over 1,000 cases of foot and mouth - dominated both Parliament and the news media.

And yet. . . the Tories have been asking PQs about TB on and off for months. The Daily Mail has been scaring its readers about the spectre of 'white death' for weeks: those grainy old photos of TB patients' beds parked out in the 'fresh air' in the 1930s (no Hattie Jacques in sight) were both touching and alarming.

Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, also pumped out some figures: the number of patients waiting for 13 weeks for thoracic treatment from a TB specialist has more than doubled to 1,462 per quarter since 1997, with London being the worst hit.

Dr Fox calls London 'the TB capital of Europe', and the poor usually get hit worst, though it should be said that Leicester is a prosperous city. So, why no interest?

According to Dr Fox's staff, within two hours of his statement the DoH issued a brief statement quoting public health minister Yvette Cooper: the outbreak is being treated seriously and Leicester can cope. It wasn't picked up by the press, so Dr Fox tried again on Sunday.

'Anything ministers say on TB should begin with an apology for leaving so many of the most vulnerable unprotected. '

By Sunday the media were dominated by outbreaks of Princess Sophie. Why the relative silence? My hunch would be that fear of a panic that would quickly overwhelm vaccine stocks is only part of the story. In 10-15 years Leicester will become Britain's first city with an ethnic minority majority. Did the TB cluster start in India? Not necessarily, say local officials. All three of its MPs are Labour. An election looms. A recipe for sensitivity.