'Blood sport'
Aneurin Bevan was seldom shy at generating a blunt, pithy expression.
Politics, he averred, was a "blood sport"; his contribution to this brutal combat being to describe the Tories as "lower than vermin".
He categorised Britain as an island "made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish", noting acerbically that "only an organising genius" could produce a shortage of both at the same time.
The tempestuous Bevan was also the health minister who forged the NHS, noting that he had overcome opposition from senior members of the medical profession by "stuffing their mouths with gold."
No more, it seems. Well, up to a point. Nicola Sturgeon has announced that she intends to put "a further and more extensive freeze" on bonuses paid to consultants.
In these grey, mundane times, the language may be far more pallid than that deployed by Nye Bevan.
But the intent is serious, the purpose substantive. Ms Sturgeon wants to signal that the pay freeze due to be imposed upon those earning more than £21,000 in the public sector will be matched by bonus restraint at the top.
Pay settlements
So what is she doing? She is curbing the consultants bonus bill by £2m - down from £28m to £26m.
Not, therefore, entirely the advent of a new dawn in pay settlements.
To be fair to Ms Sturgeon, she notes that distinction awards have been extant since the foundation of the NHS, since Nye was around.
Her measure is designed to prevent the awarding of new bonuses, following comparable constraint in the current year - and pending a UK review of the whole system.
This issue is comparable to the sporadic arguments at Holyrood over the extent of bonuses paid to quango executives.
Opposition leaders, understandably, demand action. Ministers, equally fairly, point out that these bonus payments are often tied to legally binding contracts signed by previous administrations.
So there is a series of interlocking issues. Do we need bonuses at all to motivate and reward senior staff?
Pay freeze
If so, on what basis should they be paid? Should they be mandated or discretionary? If discretionary, at whose discretion? Managers? Ministers?
On the matter of pay and costs, closer to home, MSPs and parliamentary staff are setting an example. Holyrood's budget will be cut by £9m in real terms by 2014/15, including a pay freeze.
A relatively small amount, perhaps, by contrast with £1bn of cuts presaged for the coming year.
But an exhortation pour encourager les autres. As Bevan said: "This is my truth. Tell me yours."
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