As with many couples, they have asked for two dinner services – one for every day and one more formal – as well as the staples of fine china and a set of crystal glasses. Both John and Dawn admit that the sherry glasses will not get a great deal of use immediately as neither they, nor their friends, are sherry drinkers quite yet. “I suppose we wouldn’t have got the quality or quantity of glassware if we had bought it ourselves,” John admits. They are probably not big dinner party throwers: the dinner service has a maximum of eight settings, not the more usual 12.While most of the gifts on their list are those you might expect a young couple starting out would use, some are for later on in their married life. She chose 75 per cent of the items.It is obvious from their list that John, who now works for Marks & Spencer, and Dawn are not into fussy detail (witness the plain white Lumiere china dinner service with a delicate gold rim), have a modest budget (the most expensive single item is a bathroom cabinet at pounds 85) and are practical in their choices (with the kettle and iron). They live together in Watford and are getting married today with 120 guests at Christchurch, in Dawn’s home town, Newport, Gwent.

Dawn, in particular, was keen on a list as several friends who had not had one had been disappointed with their gifts, falling prey to the ten toasters problem. They met in a department store more than three years ago when Dawn was shopping in the home furnishings section of which John was manager. Her fiance, John Cooper, 27, is a merchandising manager at a home furnishing store. Photographs by David Modell

All Tory life is there: (left) John MacGregor, Bill Cash and Jonathan Evans. Kenneth Clarke (top) prepares for a ‘live two-way’; and John Redwood (above) enjoys the oxygen of unwonted publicity
Noman Lamont, the man who almost ran, combs his hair before yet another television appearanceMichael Heseltine ducks out of the BBC radio car outside his house in Belgravia; Alan Clark watches a studio debate; Edward Leigh (second from right) looks on approvingly as John Redwood holds forth.

Dawn Crewe and John Cooper

List at Marks & Spencer
Guests 120Total Spend pounds 2,560Most expensive single itemMahogany finish bathroom cabinet at pounds 85Cheapest single itemWhite embossed sugar bowl with lid at pounds 3Dawn Crewe, 30, is an accounts executive at a distribution company. For the past fortnight, the BBC’s Millbank Studios, nerve-centre of its political coverage, has been a theatre of human comedy. If you retire three years later and sell your share of the premises, you could walk away with a capital gain.” But, despite such perks, he insists that GPs earning pounds 60-70,000 are “working their butts off”.Richard Woodman. Worth another pounds 3,000.Night visits – up to pounds 48.45 per visit – in areas where there is heavy demand.Various fees for maternity services, prescribing the Pill, fitting contraceptive coils, health promotion, and minor surgery.Being a GP fund holder makes little difference to pay, but controversial opportunities may exist whereby fund holders can switch savings they make running a practice into capital assets.Dr Michael Wilson, former chairman of the BMA’s General Medical Services Commitee, says, “If you saved pounds 100,000 on your fund, and the FHSA agreed, you could use the money to build an extension to your surgery. Doctors who practise in holiday resorts with a stream of temporary residents enjoy not only the sunshine but a fee worth up to pounds 13.05 for every temporary patient.Tax perks include: GPs paying a salary to their spouses for carrying out minor secretarial duties and putting money into her pension scheme; motoring expenses are also an excellent tax saving method;Moonlighting in fields as diverse as private practice, public relations work for pharmaceutical companies, and journalism.Childhood immunisation and cervical screening.

The average list size is 1,900, so capitation fees are worth at least pounds 30,000.GPs working in deprived areas receive up to pounds 10.35 per patient, while those lucky enough to work in large rural practices, dispensing their own drugs and claiming rural mileage expenses, can easily earn 25 per cent more than the average. But variations between GPs mean that the bottom ten per cent earn pounds 24,250 or less.These variations are affected by:The number of patients on a GPs list. In addition to a basic practice allowance of pounds 6,912, every patient under 65 attracts a capitation fee of pounds 14.80, rising to pounds 19.55 for patients aged 65-74, and pounds 37.80 for the over-75s. This results in enormous pay differences between GPs, depending on how hard they work, patient list size and ability to wangle money out of the Family Health Service Authority.Average gross income: pounds 64,648 – but this includes pounds 21,700 to cover the cost of running the surgery and paying a proportion of the wages of the non-medical practice staff.So, net target income: pounds 43,165.

Places remain unfilled on training schemes for GPs, and practices are being forced to advertise time and time again for new partners. What will be the quality of the new generation of doctors?Would it bother you that the doctor examining you was desperately unhappy in his or her job? That they had drunk too much the night before, or were on the verge of suicide? Would you be happy to place “your life in their hands”?Can a GP get rich?GPs have been sufficiently astute to avoid a salaried service, preferring to keep the perks of self-employment and being paid on the basis of a “Red Book” of fees and allowances. Newly-qualified doctors are quickly seeing the error of their ways and opting for other careers. It may enjoy tabloid tales of consultants working ten minutes a week for the NHS.Who, though, will take the place of the doctors who are leaving? Applications for places in medical schools are down from six applicants for each place in 1978 when I applied, to two for each place now. Kenneth Clarke’s quote about GPs reaching for their wallets in response to the NHS reforms sticks easily in the public consciousness.The public may believe Government propaganda about reduced waiting lists which, for reasons I have never been able to fathom, seems to be the single most important yardstick by which the health service efficiency is measured.