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,…
We need more unemployed doctors
In medicine, the working year begins today, as freshly qualified doctors start and others rotate to new attachments. Mismanagement means…
I work in the NHS: the government cannot accept doctors’ pay demands
Junior doctors are set to strike, despite winning little public sympathy with their demand for a 29 per cent pay…
We should raise, not lower, the voting age
Keir Starmer’s decision to lower the voting age to 16 is widely seen as a cynical attempt to secure votes,…
Wes Streeting has learnt nothing from the NHS’s past mistakes
Yesterday, Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer announced a ten-year plan to save the NHS. ‘There are moments in our national…
The flaw in Wes Streeting’s AI NHS app plan
Speaking at Blackpool Football Club earlier this week, Wes Streeting announced his latest bid to modernise the NHS: bold new…
NHS ‘spy scales’ won’t tackle childhood obesity
NHS England, ostensibly wishing to respond to the challenge of childhood obesity, announced yesterday the introduction of ‘spy scales’ to…
The trouble with GPs
This week, Wes Streeting – defending Labour’s rise in National Insurance contributions and seeking to fend off the surging Reform…
Oxford is right to remember its German war dead
The Queen’s College, Oxford, has put in a planning application to add the names of five alumni who died fighting…
MPs deserve more than a £2,500 pay rise
It looks set to be a happy April for MPs who are in line for a 2.8 per cent pay…
No one is immune from a groupchat blunder
On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic, told the entertaining story of being added, alongside Pete Hegseth and J.…
Have we become too reliant on antidepressants?
One in seven British adults – almost nine million people – now take antidepressants. Yet a study attached to the…
Sydney Smith’s love for life lives on
Why should anyone care about Sydney Smith, who died on this day in 1845? 180 years have diminished the stature…
Why the NHS is failing
The NHS is swallowing more money than ever, yet delivering worse results. Now its failings are not only hurting patients,…
Dinner for one is the best way to spend Valentine’s Day
This Valentine’s Day, as the nation does its duty and celebrates by dining out, often in stilted discomfort, it occurs…
Doctor Who fans – and its writers – need to grow up
Doctor Who, which started back in 1963, is often spoken about with a curious reverence as though it were something…
The true value of going to Oxford
Difficult, I know, to spend your life dreaming of having gone to Oxford. This year’s offers have just been announced…
When did the A&E winter crisis become the norm?
Not a winter goes past without hospitals overflowing; the situation is so predictable it deserves a better word than ‘crisis’.…
The addictive joy of cookbooks
New Year’s resolutions are famously frail, so pick one that’s achievable. Half of the year’s cookbooks are sold in December:…
