Since everything is about money at the moment, it is perhaps no surprise that enterprising politicians have been totting up what the NHS and government spend on everything from celebrities to Department of Health officials.
As it turns out, compared with senior DH mandarins, celebrities come cheap. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb might be kicking up a fuss about the£90,000 annual budget for household names such as former page three girl Melinda Messenger to front public health campaigns, but, let's face it, she's cheap at the price.
As the Mail on Sunday reports, Ben Bradshaw pointed out that only a "minuscule fraction of our public health campaigns budget is spent on fees for well-known figures". Sadly, we may never know whether the pun was intended.
Melinda and the others would earn more if they got a top job at the DH. Fifty senior officials at Richmond House are paid more than£100,000 a year, reported the Sunday Mirror, on the back of yet another Freedom of Information request from - you guessed it - Norman Lamb.
Manager baiting
And, although we're talking about civil servants, why not have a pop at managers at the same time? According to his press release, "the explosion in the number of managers, not just in the Department of Health but across the NHS in general, is crazy".
The Tories take aim at "NHS bosses" too, with chief executive David Nicholson among those criticised by shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien in The Sunday Times for his£37,600 a year allowance for working in London when he lives in Yorkshire.
What we've not found out is how much singer and Strictly Come Dancing star Alesha Dixon was paid for posing naked in a bath full of condoms, because it took place the year before. But that didn't stop the Mail on Sunday and Daily Star using the pictures again, naturally.
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