MAIL COMMENT: How can the NHS put a price on life?

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, given responsibility by the Government for rationing NHS drugs, has a difficult job.

The Health Service does not have infinite resources, and, sadly, will not be able to fund every expensive new treatment.

However, with such realism firmly in mind, today's decision to deny kidney cancer patients four life-prolonging drugs appears harsh, to put it mildly.

Certainly, this is the view of doctors and Cancer Research UK, who are careful not to demand the earth from the NHS, and would not be shouting so loudly if the stakes were not so high.

The drugs in question can double life expectancy and, according to one expert, are the biggest advance in the field for 20 years.

Denied these treatments, those who have spent their working lives contributing to the NHS are effectively being given a 'medieval' standard of care, says Professor Tim Eisen. Meanwhile, armies of bureaucrats continue to pocket countless millions for chasing Whitehall targets.

To rub salt in the wounds, such treatments are routinely available in other EU countries, albeit through differing health systems to our own.

So what does NICE offer by way of explanation? A cold, calculating statement that, while the drugs work for many of those with advanced kidney cancer, they are not 'cost-effective'.

What a clinical way to assess whether a person should be afforded precious extra months and years of life, or consigned to a 'death sentence'.

There will be times when NICE has to say, 'No'. But, as with 2006's disgraceful decision to deny some Alzheimer's sufferers a drug costing only £2.50 a day, this is not one of them.

Stamp out delays

Stamp duty payment holidays...ISAs for first-time buyers saving for a deposit.

Every day a different idea for reviving the collapsed housing market is leaked by ministers, as they cast around for a popular idea to relaunch the Gordon Brown Premiership later this year.

The Mail agrees that action is needed, and stamp duty  -  effectively a stealth tax  -  is a good place to start.

The Tories temporarily raised the payment threshold in the early 1990s, during a similar downturn, and the number of transactions increased significantly.

But, if the Government is going to act, it must do so now  -  not wait until September to secure positive headlines at the Labour Party conference.

For inactivity is actually damaging the property market, as purchasers hold back waiting to see if relief from stamp duty is to be introduced.

The country's interests, not the Labour Party's, must come first.

The profits of failure

Three cheers for Mervyn Davies, the City banker who broke ranks this week to demand an end to the undeserving bonuses which so many of his colleagues enjoy.

The Standard Chartered boss says there should be no reward for 'excessive risk taking or failure', and the Mail agrees.

It was such greedy risk-taking, best exemplified by the Northern Rock scandal, which led to the credit crunch in the first place.

For too long, too many in the City have enjoyed rewards utterly disproportionate to their contribution to Great Britain PLC. Even worse, too often those who fail in the City still enjoy massive bonuses. It is this, more than anything, which the public finds grotesque.