Despite widespread concern about the growing fragmentation of the NHS, the Tory government continues to do anything but contribute to its repair. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought this, our most valued national institution, to its knees; instead of working to do what’s needed to protect our public health, those in power prioritise dogma and nepotism. The latest example of this is Dido Harding’s bid to become chief executive of England’s NHS.

Dido Harding, who was made a Tory peer in 2014 by her old Oxford mate David Cameron, has racked up a trail of failures in both the public and private sectors, many enabled by her seat at the heart of the growing Tory chumocracy. Her husband, Tory MP John Penrose, is a member of the board of free-market platform 1828, which has called for the NHS to be replaced by a social insurance system; she is also a member of the Jockey Club—along with Matt Hancock—whose formal healthcare partner is Randox, a healthcare company advised by yet more Tories and paid £133 million to produce Covid testing kits last year without competition.

Questions have since been rightly raised about Harding’s lack of expertise and qualifications in public health given the abysmal performance of test-and-trace on her watch. The national testing system almost collapsed as last autumn’s second wave took off, and until recently the tracing system failed to contact anything like a sufficient number of people; meanwhile, the country faced an astonishing bill of £37 billion for the programme’s first two years – a bill which included considerable payments to private companies such as McKinsey, Deloitte, and Serco. In fact, some of the management consultants employed on test-and-trace by Harding were receiving £1,000 a day for their services.

Back in March, the Public Accounts Committee confirmed what has long been public knowledge: that despite spending ‘unimaginable sums’, it was not clear if test and trace was working effectively; most noticeably, it had failed to avert another lockdown. This conclusion was supported by scientists on the government’s Sage committee, who the previous October had found that test and trace made only a ‘marginal impact on reducing transmissions’. Polling in March showed that only 29% of the public saw the test and trace system as a success, compared to the 60% who admired the vaccine rollout headed by the NHS rather than private profit-makers.

Harding’s approach to public health is perhaps explained by the fact that her experience lies in business, not in epidemiology. She initially made a name for herself rising through the ranks of management consultancy McKinsey and supermarket chains Tesco and Sainsbury’s, and then had a turbulent spell as the head of TalkTalk, during which the broadband company received a record £400,000 fine from the UK information commissioner for a major data security breach. (This is particularly alarming given the growing concern about the NHS’s own data security practices.) Harding resigned after 18 months, and in the process received a doubled pay package despite the incident losing the company £60 million and the privacy of more than 100,000 customers.

The stakes then were high. Now, they are higher. The NHS needs someone who is prepared to re-imagine a health system that genuinely provides for those who rely on it – including improving waiting times and quality of care, increasing resources, ending private outsourcing, reducing institutional racism, and protecting the safety of both workers and patients. Our Health Service has been ravaged by a decade of austerity followed by a pandemic; its staff are underpaid, increasingly exhausted, and facing abandonment by Labour as well as the Tories. Worst of all, it is being infiltrated by profit-driven private companies rubbing their hands together at the prospect of making money off us when we’re sick. All they need is the right person to open the door.

Harding, who claims she wants to end the NHS’s reliance on foreign doctors and nurses, evidently does not understand the situation facing the Service and all those who work in it. Her recent display of xenophobia isn’t just insulting to the migrant workers who have upheld the NHS since its inception and, at the peak of this pandemic, risked their lives to perform heroics to make up for the government’s incompetence – it also undermines the very values that the NHS stands for. Rather than universalism, equality, and public good, Dido Harding exemplifies the arrogance of our governing elite, the inequality that persists in this country, the cronyism and tribalism that inhibit progress, and the disturbing ability of the well-connected to thrive despite persistently putting the lives of others at serious risk.

Simon Stevens steps down as the current NHS England chief role in July, but the NHS’s problems will not leave with him. Along with other erosions, the upcoming Health and Care Bill, pushed by the Tory government, will give the Health Secretary absolute powers, including over appointments. If it passes, we are likely to see a string of compliant allies handed jobs in health and social care and on trust boards. Dido Harding is just the start. For the public, her incompetence and calm capitulation to capitalist logics is what causes major alarm. For the ruling class, it’s what makes her perfect for the job.