Does it take a tragedy to get things done?

Something about those headlines stuck in my throat. Before this week's cabinet battle over public spending, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, went on a tabloid blitz. He left no doubt about his priorities. "Our Ten Special Days with Jennifer," he told the News of the World, had decided him to save the NHS. He told the Mirror, "his voice dropping to a whisper", that "my own personal experience ... convinces me the health service is one of the great British ideas - and we must build on it." In every utterance, Mr Brown's message was the same. His colleagues might have other priorities for public spending, but his were clear. The NHS must have more money, a priority fuelled by personal experience.

Gordon and Sarah Brown's tragedy in losing their daughter was a private one. Hundreds go through the same agony every year, but the Browns were public figures and a measure of publicity was unavoidable. Their grief was shared, and shared with dignity. The public reacted sympathetically and, in the weeks of mourning, respected their privacy.

Now we learn that the experience was more than personal. It has motivated the Chancellor to a new political cause. A hospital service which, in the view of most Londoners, has been sorely neglected by his department for years is suddenly to receive his largesse. He spoke of nothing else. "When you see the health service in an emergency as we did," said Mr Brown, "... you want that to be the kind of health service available all of the time."

You do indeed. In the course of a lifetime spent in London, family and fate have led me inside most central London accident and emergency departments. I find them all dedicated and caring, but they have more in common with a MASH unit than a television emergency ward. All are crippled by lack of space, lack of staff and medical restrictive practices that nobody bothers to reform. All need more money.

The one thought that never crossed my mind was, "if only a Treasury minister could suffer, then things might change". Londoners reading Mr Brown's interviews must have replied with one voice, "Does it really take this to save the NHS?"

Politicians are like the rich. They live in a foreign country. Sir Edward Heath, when prime minister, found himself stuck in his car in Whitehall trying to get from Downing Street to Parliament. In a fury he telephoned the head of the Greater London Council, then on a visit to Japan, and demanded that something be done. The nation hooted with derision at a prime minister who had at last discovered traffic jams and could not walk 200 yards.

London traffic is still the great leveller. But Tony Blair demands police outriders and the use of reserved lanes on the M4. His cavalcades might be those of the Soviet nomenklatura. When he once went by Tube, escorted by the media, he thought it the done thing to chat with other passengers. They quite properly ignored him. John Prescott is famous for his love of using cars for short distances. He alleged this was to protect him from the public. After last year it is more to protect the public from him.

Families are a special case. Labour politicians dread the secondary school question. I am sure Labour's re-conversion to 11-plus selection owes nothing to ideology and everything to the fact that Labour MPs can no longer send their children to private schools. Sink comprehensives are fine so long as there are selective ones for MPs' children. Money is now miraculously flowing to "good" schools.

Both Tony Blair and Jack Straw have experienced the pain of being parents of London teenagers in trouble with the police. They have come face to face with the law on alcohol and drug abuse. Wonder of wonders, there is suddenly talk of the need to change these laws. Studies are undertaken. Committees are appointed. The drugs laws may be of small concern to most of the electorate, but they are of huge concern to politician parents. Has it really taken the mishaps of Master Blair and Master Straw to end the political taboo on drugs reform?

Of course, politicians are human beings. We would rather they experience something of normal life, however briefly, than none at all. Nor can we complain if as a result they see how rotten London's public services have become under their custodianship. Perhaps they should do more of it. They should take the Tube, walk the street, buy a train ticket, wait hours in a surgery and visit a school playground or drug rehab unit other than as visiting royalty.

Their excuse is always security. Security is said to require ministers to avoid public services and thus much of the inconvenience of living and moving in the capital. This is mostly phoney. The venues of British politics in and round Westminster are infested with policemen.

Politicians are in no greater danger of assault than most members of the public these days. Yet they demand a screen of safety to separate them from the risks facing ordinary people, while leaving the public unprotected from what is now a real threat of street crime.

It was Mr Brown's decision this week to turn private experience to political account. Many will welcome the added support he claims to want for the NHS. But we must wonder what it might do for the police budget if a Treasury minister were mugged in the street. What bonanza might come to transport if he were delayed on the Tube or to social services if his relations were evicted from a care home? Must all public services pray for a ministerial misfortune to win cash for improvement?