The Royal College of Nursing - Britain's professional body for nurses - is reported as saying that more and more nurses are being forced to give up on the National Health Service because they cannot afford housing.

If any sensible employer were short of a vital pool of skilled people, it would simply offer more pay. But the state is not a sensible employer. So instead, we have seen an endless train of elaborate schemes from Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott - trying to subsidize homes for 'key workers' or force lenders into state-backed 'part ownership' deals. Not enough to solve the problem, but enough to complicate and mess up the housing market.

I appreciate the problem. People are very keen to teach at our local school in Cambridge - until they look at house prices. Then they realize that a teacher's salary won't buy them much. We'd love to pay them more - but of course all that stuff is decided nationally by state bureaucrats.

If the government wants more or better workers in its health or education businesses, it has to pay more or better workers where local conditions dictate. Of course, the unions want to force their mock-egalitarian ideals of equal pay for all on them, so resist it. And, of course, the government is (always) short of money. But if it cut out some unnecessary quangos, fired some useless administrators, and allowed choice and competition to reign in public services, that would suddenly become less of a problem.