I know some people say the NHS is like a religion in this country, but this is getting ridiculous.

Downing Street has launched a Twitter campaign called “We love the NHS”. Sarah Brown says “We love the NHS — more than words can say”. Andy Burnham says “Over the moon about strong support for NHS — an institution I will defend to my dying day”. Gordon Brown says the “NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there”.

Daniel Hannan happened to criticise the NHS on American television recently. Labour have jumped on Hannan’s criticism, painting it as “unpatriotic”. He has even been accused of being a traitor. Labour have reverted to nationalism (the scoundrels). Their criticism has a flavour of anti-Americanism too — as if the only two possibilities are American-style healthcare and British-style healthcare. Gordon Brown is preposterously described as “defending” the NHS from American criticism, as if it somehow needed defending from America.

How absurd this all is. Criticising the NHS is no more unpatriotic than criticising the police. And we shouldn’t “love” government institutions, even if we respect them.

This is dog-whistle politics at its worst. There’s no substance to it — it’s nothing more than loving Big Brother followed by a Two-Minutes’ Hate. However, it’s working. It’s mobilising Labour supporters, and distracting attention from the fact that Labour have no healthcare policies. It’s classic Labour tactics: no arguments; just straw men and emotions. They’re poisoning public debate, when we should be discussing how to improve the NHS (as Hannan has in fact done), not having a competition to see who loves it most.

Labour really are the stupid party.