Mark Andrews: Piers Morgan, conspiracy theories, and the biggest beneficiary of the NHS shake-up

The Prime Minister is said to have enrolled the services of Piers Morgan for advice on how to deal with Donald Trump, according to reports. 

This seems a strange choice, to say the least. You have a make-or-break meeting with the most powerful and apparently difficult man in the world. The future of the British economy and possibly the world peace are riding on it. And you have to do it on live television, in front of the world's media, including some not particularly friendly US journalists. 

So you look for guidance from a man who came off worst in a spat with a weatherman?

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New research into why people fall for conspiracy theories, suggests sleep deprivation may be a major factor. 

This sounds very suspicious to me. Almost certainly something that has been cooked up by a new global elite working in tandem with international finance and a shadowy group of Birmingham City supporters bent on poisoning our minds. Before you know it, they will have established a new world order and have us all under the control of George Soros, Bill Gates and Paul Peschisolido. Now where's my sleeping pills....

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Joking apart, it may well be that people who struggle for sleep are more inclined to suffer paranoia. Which my explain why Donald Trump, who only sleeps four-five hours a night, always seems a bit tetchy.  

But as my old university lecturer used to remind me, proving a correlation does not demonstrate the direction of causality. And let's be face it, if you spend your every waking moment worrying about how everybody is out to get you, it wouldn't be a terrible surprise if you had a few problems nodding off, would it?

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My thoughts on the abolition of NHS England?

First, and this has troubled me for a while, is that NHS England is surely tautologous. If it represents the whole of England, it's 'National' by definition, so doesn't need the initial 'N'. It would be far simpler just to call it the English Health Service. Yes, I know it's probably another reason why I can't sleep at night. 

I suppose the point I am really trying to make is that when the idea of the NHS was conceived in the 1940s, the big idea was to create a uniform service across the whole of the country, rather than having the patchwork of local health boards, council-run services and charitable trusts previously responsible. But over the past 30 years, we have seen the creation of NHS trusts, regional health authorities, primary care trusts, clinical commissioning groups and most recently integrated care boards, all with the idea of devolving the services locally.

NHS England was created to take political interference out of the health service. Now it's being shut down to get rid of bureaucracy and increase political accountability.

And who has benefited from this constant chopping, changing and rebranding every few years? As far as I can see, there are two main groups. Signwriters and printers of headed stationery.