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Health warning With M.D.: “The Royal College of Nursing has surveyed more than 5,000 members and found staff at breaking point, with deaths going unnoticed for hours as patients are left stranded in corridors, toilets and car parks. The key problems are as old as the NHS: lack of staff and lack of beds. The Tories’ workforce plan proposed a rapid expansion of “associates” who are quicker and cheaper to train than doctors and nurses…”
With Bio-Waste Spreader: “If environment secretary Steve Reed hoped farmer indignation at the government’s treatment of agriculture since its election had subsided over the new year, his hopes will have been dashed by a frosty reception at the recent Oxford Farming Conference. Farmers remain furious about inheritance tax being imposed on farmland in last October’s budget – but what else is driving their anger?…”
With Dr B Ching: “Firstgroup has revealed its Lumo firm, which runs ‘open-access’ trains on the east-coast mainline, made a stunning 39 percent operating profit last year. Labour ministers apparently can’t decide if they want more or less of that. Keir Starmer and transport secretary Heidi Alexander stole the limelight at Hitachi’s train-assembly plant near Darlington on 6 December, claiming they’d “helped secure a deal” for 14 new trains that protects hundreds of jobs. But…”
With Remote Controller: “With the feel of a placed leak, a Sunday Times front page write-off from a Culture magazine piece revealed on 12 January that culture secretary Lisa Nandy was considering replacing the BBC licence fee with funding from general taxation. Bizarrely, though, the pieces also contained a quote from a government spokesperson insisting that this is not government policy. So what’s going on?…”
With Old Sparky: “This column has never rushed to predict blackouts, readily acknowledging the expertise and resources of the electricity grid operator, nowadays the newly established National Energy System Operator (NESO) in keeping the lights on (see Eye 1637). However, on 8 January, a bitterly cold day, wind power collapsed and Britain came within a hair’s breadth of the dreaded ‘demand control’…”
With Lunchtime O’Boulez: “The dysfunctional Arts Council England (ACE) doesn’t chalk up many victories these days, but it has scored a modest triumph in the employment appeals tribunal, after a judge took the unusual step of awarding it costs against a former member of staff. Corynne Elliot brought an action against ACE claiming she’d been forced to resign from her job as a relationship manager because of racial discrimination…”
With Slicker: “Talk of a $100m donation to Reform UK from Elon Musk may have faded after the world’s richest man dismissed its leader Nigel Farage as not the far-enough-right man to oust prime minister Keir Starmer. But the threat focused Labour and Tory minds on the long overdue need to change rules on corporate political donations. Legislation to prevent UK companies being conduits for otherwise banned foreign donations was first urged...”
Letter from Panama City
From Our Own Correspondent: “The last time the US invaded tiny Panama back in 1989, it was to remove our dictator who was also a CIA stooge and friend to the narcos. When Donald Trump this month threatened to take back the Panama Canal from ‘China’, he united Latin America in opposition and entertained horrified progressives with his nasty words. But there is something going on here…”