The Daily Mail and Sun warn David Cameron not to treat the NHS as a sacred cow

The Sun first:

"Yes, under Labour there have been some improvements.

But it STILL fails to deliver value for the billions it spends.

It STILL operates a postcode lottery for life-saving drugs.

It STILL hasn't fixed filthy wards and MRSA.

It STILL lags on cancer survival rates and waiting lists.

And it is STILL burdened by a vast, often incompetent management.

Nobody reading Mr Cameron's passionate defence of the NHS can doubt his sincerity.

His pledges to improve quality and scrap targets are welcome.

But is he right to vow he will carry on pouring money into the NHS without seeking better value for taxpayers?

Is Mr Cameron saying that in these tough times it is impossible to identify any waste or inefficiency in an organisation that employs 1.5million and eats a billion pounds every three days?

We all admire the NHS. We're glad it's there.

But it could - and should - do better."

And the Daily Mail, too:

"While Mr Cameron and Mr Brown were right to defend the NHS from U.S. slurs, they are reluctant to acknowledge that it has increasingly significant flaws. The Tory leader in particular appears paralysed by the fear that heaping anything but praise on the NHS will make his party 'nasty' in the public's eyes - hence the promise to protect its current budget, despite Britain's £1trillion of debt."

Read the Mail's full leading article.

Tim Montgomerie