David Cameron and his ministers are reported to have been shocked and amazed by the public's reaction to their plan to sell off Britain's state-owned forests. I am shocked and amazed that this was the case. It should have been obvious that the plan would be vigorously opposed. In this overcrowded, heavily urbanised island, the remaining stretches of countryside – and especially the wilder woodland bits – are treasured. People have fought long and hard for the right of access to them, and they take comfort from the fact that many famous forests, such as the New Forest in Hampshire and the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, are owned and protected by the nation. However misguided and incompetent the Forestry Commission may have been in its management of these woodlands, and however well cared for they might be in private ownership, the public doesn't want to know. The public wants Britain's forests to retain their status as inviolable parts of our heritage, safe from the potential depredations of private interests.

People who vote Conservative do so in the belief that a Conservative government will generally keep things the same. If you want radical change, you vote Labour. You vote Tory for stability and continuity, and that includes continuity in the state ownership of valued national assets. There is particular outrage when Tories trample on tradition, as when the government of Edward Heath in the 1970s redrew county boundaries, and even abolished one or two ancient counties altogether, in the supposed interest of administrative efficiency. For the whole point of Tories is that, wherever possible, they should try not to change anything.

Tories bent on reform risk looking uncomfortably out of character. Poor Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary, was forced to admit her error and pledged: "I now want to move forward in step with the public." This should always have been the approach.

Save me from the NHS

No reform of the NHS could solve the problem identified by the health service ombudsman Ann Abraham in her horrifying report this week about the ill-treatment of old people in hospital. According to Abraham, the NHS fails "to meet even the most basic standards of care" for the elderly, and she found it "incomprehensible how staff are still neglecting fundamental aspects of care for older people, including food, water and cleanliness".

There was, she said, "a casual indifference to the dignity and welfare of older patients". The reason for this cannot be lack of money or facilities, since care for others can be demonstrated. It is, on the contrary, evidence of a shocking lack of human compassion among many NHS staff. It makes me think that when I become senile or incapacitated, which, given my age (71), may not be too long hence, I would rather be in a poorly equipped hospital where the staff were kind, than in a modern one where they loathed one just because one was old.

Abraham's report was published on the same day as another by the NSPCC saying that one in five older schoolchildren – about a million – had been neglected or subjected to severe ill-treatment, including sexual abuse. This was the conclusion of a survey in which children between the ages of 11 and 17 were questioned about their experiences. "Physical violence, neglect and forced sex are still harming the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, and most of it remains unreported," said chief executive Andrew Flanagan. What horrible people we British seem to be! David Cameron was rebuked for describing British society as "broken" because he seemed to be thinking mainly of teenage hooliganism and exaggerating its extent. But it is among adults that the description may, in fact, be apt.

Berlusconi's bad PR

Max Clifford believes he could have saved Silvio Berlusconi from his present troubles. "Powerful men tend to have a very, very high sex drive and like to take risks to add to the excitement," he told the Times. "As a PR person, you should stage-manage every aspect of their private lives and then no one finds out. With me, 95% of the time no one has had a clue about what went on with people far more famous than Berlusconi." People "far more famous" than Italy's notorious prime minister must be rare, and it's hard to believe that any of them would have invited Clifford to "stage-manage every aspect of their private lives" or, if they did, that he would have succeeded in hiding their bad behaviour from absolutely everybody.

The dim dynasty

So keen are Americans on political dynasties that they will create one out of even the dimmest of families. One could understand the Kennedys, for they were at least glamorous, but who could have predicted that the first president called Bush would leave such a legacy. George Bush Sr was gravely lacking in charisma, sometimes characterised as "looking like every woman's first husband". But his very dim son George occupied the White House for two terms, and now his brother Jeb is tipped for the Republican nomination. Jeb may be a bit brighter, but honestly! The Americans might as well have the Hanoverians back.