Yet Owen will not suggest that such providers are nationalised. He will instead criticise the government for increasing the amount of contract work undertaken for the NHS by the private sector. And in doing so he will perform the tactically useful task of distancing himself from the record of the Blair government which did exactly the same and which, among Labour Party members, is far, far more hated than any Conservative government.

It may be helpful to Owen at this point if I point out the depressing fact that he is very far from being a Blairite. This is a profound disappointment to me. Having been a parliamentary colleague of his for five years, and having known him for some years before that, I would probably place him on the political spectrum at the same position as the man he supported for the leadership in 2010, Ed Miliband. In my book he's a dangerous Leftie, but to be fair, that description doesn't exclude many Labour members.

He certainly wouldn't support my view that private enterprise has greatly strengthened our health service over the years – not just in the part-private status quo bequeathed to us by Bevan, but in the welcome increase in private treatment of patients who would previously have been treated by the NHS exclusively. The defining and invaluable principle of the NHS is not that services are provided by a publicly-owned organisation, but that services are provided free at the point of use. There can hardly be an MP in the House today who doesn't have a constituent whose painful and debilitating condition was relieved by a private contractor to the NHS.