Issue 1619
With M.D.: "The NHS has a long and inglorious history of covering up poor care and protecting organisational and personal reputations at the expense of truth and safety, most notably in the way it treats whistleblowers. Just 25 years since the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) became law, the outlook for those who speak up for patient safety is as grim as ever…"
With Bio-Waste Spreader: "The Tory government in Westminster has long displayed a lack of interest in the decline of the UK's food self-sufficiency. So farmers could be forgiven for needing a reality check at the recent sight and sound of Rishi Sunak supporting Welsh farmers in Llandudno who were protesting about the Welsh government's plans to set aside 20 percent of farmland for trees and wildlife…"
With Dr B Ching: "The government seems to have learned nothing from the disjointed train procurements of the past 30 years, judging by its latest 'overview' of new trains. Britain supplied trains and components to itself and countries worldwide until privatisation halted British Rail's research and development and made domestic orders ludicrously erratic. Now only Derby has a mass-production factory, belonging to, er, a French multinational…"
With Remote Controller: "The decision to end The Crown in December makes increasing sense. Even a writer as loose with royal history as Peter Morgan (Eyes passim) would surely by now have concluded that he couldn't make it up. With the King and the next Queen absent from public events with unspecific but clearly serious illness, the Californian exiled prince Hamlet agonises over his podcast strategy…"
With Old Sparky: "The government is consulting on its deranged policy of extending subsidies for tree- burning power stations against a backdrop of near universal recognition that Drax et al are anything but the low-carbon generators they claim to be (Eyes passim). Three significant new converts to the ranks of the anti-Drax consensus should worry ministers and Drax itself. Science has long been hostile to tree-burning for electricity…"
With Lunchtime O'Boulez: "The Home Office looked pretty silly last week after it succumbed to an avalanche of criticism and reversed its decision to refuse the worthy Afghan Youth Orchestra entry to Britain for a concert tour. There was never a convincing reason to close the door to these exiled musicians in the first place. They've been through quite enough since fleeing the music-hating, instrument-burning Taliban…"
With Slicker: "Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's decision to pre-empt Labour by abolishing 'non-dom' tax status for wealthy UK residents potentially raises some interesting questions regarding Tory peer, pollster, donor and biographer Michael Ashcroft, whose UK tax status has long been a matter for debate. Non-doms – usually foreign nationals or those with family roots outside the UK – do not pay tax on their overseas income or assets unless they remit those funds into the UK…"
Letter from Pretoria
From Our Own Correspondent: "It's a long time since Nelson Mandela's rainbow nation held the moral high ground on the international stage. So it was surprising that South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice went as well as it did, and was as well received as it was in parts of the world more easily forgotten by governments and media in Europe and America. But things are back to normal now…"