What Lego taught me about my own mediocrity
Lego – I can’t bring myself to capitalise it more than once – was born today in 1958, when it…
Belsen haunted my friend to the grave
A patient, an old woman with white hair, stripped of speech by dementia, followed us each shift, staying an inch…
Labour’s drink-driving law won’t cut road deaths
‘We will tread more lightly on your lives,’ promised Keir Starmer in his first speech as Prime Minister. Yet his…
Christmas and the luxury of fallow time
Christmas is now a festival of family and overeating, yet it keeps its pockets of quiet reflection, even for those…
The welcome tyranny of Christmas cheer
In 1946, buoyed by post-War optimism, the World Health Organisation adopted a famous definition. Health, it declared, was more than…
Death at Christmas
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those…
The yearly flu crisis is entirely avoidable
Each winter our NHS is struck by an ‘unprecedented’ number of cases of seasonal illness. Politicians talk gravely of the…
Why are world leaders shocked by the Bondi Beach attack?
Micheál Martin, Ireland’s Taoiseach, said he is shocked by the anti-Semitic slaughter on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Ursula von der Leyen,…
How terror triumphed at the Christmas market
Mulled wine and Heckler & Koch assault rifles don’t belong together, except in Christmas films like Die Hard. Festive visitors to…
Is racism to blame for the NHS maternity crisis?
‘Nothing prepared me,’ said Baroness Amos as she released her ‘reflections and initial impressions’ about England’s maternity and neonatal services,…
The joy of receiving Christmas cards – even from people I loathe
These days I barely know what my own handwriting looks like; about my friends, the knowledge is all but lost.…
Why GPs are reluctant about online booking
‘Moaning Minnies’ is how the Health Secretary Wes Streeting has described GPs opposing his rollout of online appointment booking. Originally,…
Junior doctors are striking for the wrong reason
Oh God, another junior doctor strike. That seems to be the feeling of the country and of the junior doctors…
Only radical change can cut NHS waiting lists
A research letter in the Future Healthcare Journal, laying out the scale of performance failings in the NHS, has attracted a…
Junior doctors’ strikes are good for my wallet – but totally avoidable
Until Tuesday, I’m once again working as a junior doctor: trying to remember how to take blood, print labels, and…
Are we forgetting how to remember the glorious dead?
The generation that fought in the First World War is gone, and the days are closing for those who served…
How did Birmingham succumb to ethnic strife?
It is strange to see Maccabi Tel Aviv fans banned from a Villa match because the British state won’t protect…
Can the NHS’s anti-Semitism problem be fixed?
The NHS has an anti-Semitism problem, and Wes Streeting wants to fix it. This week he announced plans to ‘make…
The problem with Labour’s plan for ‘NHS Online’
Party conferences are less about conferring than about speeches and announcements. Today Keir Starmer revealed NHS Online, a virtual hospital…
Starmer’s ‘racist’ Reform remark is his ‘deplorables’ moment
Reform’s migration policy of scrapping indefinite leave to remain is racist, according to Keir Starmer. ‘I do think it’s a…
The problem with Jess’s Rule
NHS England has today introduced Jess’s Rule, asking doctors to take a ‘three strikes and rethink approach’. The rule is…
How I came to (reluctantly) like Trump
The Donald is in Britain. As a holidaymaker used to budget flights, I associate Stansted airport, where Trump landed last…
A farewell to aspirin
At last weekend’s European Society of Cardiology conference in Madrid, a quiet funeral bell tolled for aspirin. The drug has…
Britain can’t win its fight against Big Pharma
Britain has picked a fight with the pharma industry, and it isn’t clear why we think we can win. Not…
Why the English fly their flag
For a Brit in America, flag-flying feels so overdone, almost cultish. Why do Americans fly their flag on houses, lawns,…
