Update 5
Palliative Michelle’s policy now seems to be getting me off the Steroids, on Tuesday she took me down to just 4mg per day (originally 16mg) and so far without any significant change to my symptoms. I have started to be aware of pressure in my brain - not quite a headache, but certainly the first indication of what probably lies ahead. I pushed her to guess how long I may have - she feels that unless something else intervenes I’m probably here for a couple more months rather than weeks.
On Monday we ate at Gianni’s, on Tuesday at the delightful French Bistro ‘Petit Coco’, on Saturday we drove over to Madley for dinner at the Kilpeck Inn and on Sunday we enjoyed the magnificent Sunday lunch at the Hotel du Vin. It’s interesting how the imminence of one’s demise allows for the almost complete abandonment of any gastronomic restraint. I refuse however to recognise that the size of my waistline may now be exceeding the size 36 indicated on the label of my trousers..
I’ve been looking at various surveys of the Conservative membership. It appears that even if he emerges with the greatest support from MPs, in the final vote, Rishi Sunak has virtually no chance of winning the support of a majority of his party’s members. No matter who emerges as his opponent, they will beat him by a significant margin. Few commentators are analysing why that is, but I suspect the reason may well be linked to an observation I heard more than once when canvassing for the Lib Dems. “yes, but we know that the only real Brits are the white Brits” - for Conservatives, the party of xenophobia and Brexit, the party that yearns for yesteryear and Winston Churchill, racism is still something of a comfort blanket.
On those Brexit benefits by the way, the recent report ‘Stagnation Nation’ from the Resolution Foundation makes clear that whilst disposable family incomes have been falling consistently in Britain, they rose by a third in France and by half in the Netherlands and Germany. We can now only dream of just how much better off we’d have been without Johnson’s rejection of our European partnership. Thank you to those of you who asked about my move into active politics since we arrived in Cheltenham - I’m writing a piece about my experiences and it will probably be posted next week.
The first Conservative leader debate showed us two things; firstly that Sunak is probably the only candidate capable of doing the job, and secondly that Liz Truss is almost certainly unhinged. I admired Tugendhat’s willingness to admit that Johnson is not an honest man whilst the others all tried in different ways to keep defending the lying oaf. I suspect Tugendhat, whose chairmanship of the Defence Select Committee has been impressive, will be appointed a minister at some point but I couldn’t see why either Mordaunt or Badenoch were attracting any support.
The second leader’s debate was every bit as dull as the first. What a truly second rate, lacklustre bunch of would be PMs they make. It’s as though they’ve each had a charisma by-pass and then collectively agreed to avoid saying anything that might risk being described as inspirational. What was made clear was that with the exception of Sunak, none of the others are as bothered about climate change as is almost every climate scientist in the world - this is a terrifying prospect if, like me, you fear for your children’s and grandchildren’s future on this planet.
If I were a Conservative I’d be taking a chance on Tugendhat as the only candidate not sullied by any defence of the oaf’s lies.
As you can probably imagine, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the current state of our nhs and it’s not encouraging research. We need to rid ourselves of the idea that it is somehow a very special, and very impressive operation because it is not. Perhaps it once was, but not any more. Let’s start by looking at how we compare with the healthcare services in some similar economies:
UK. Germany France Netherlands Greece Switzerland Euro Area
Docs per 1,000 2.8 4.2 3.3 3.6 5.5 4.3 3.9
Hospital beds per 1,000 2.5 6 .0 5.9 3.2 4.2 4.6 4.3
Health spend % of GDP 10 11.4 11.3 10.0 7.7 11.9 10.1
(Economist Intelligence unit 2022)
The UK also has fewer CT Scanners (8 per million population compared to an EU average of 21.4) and MRI scanners (6.1 per million compared to an EU average of 15.4) than most other European countries.
(The King’s Fund)
Over the period 1997-2010 the UK government’s investment in the nhs achieved the longest sustained period of growth since its inception. Since 2010 growth during the 12 years of this Conservative led government has been only a quarter of the previous 12 years under Labour - Tory austerity has been hugely damaging to the level of care being provided. The impact of Brexit coupled with that of COVID has left the nhs with more than six million sick people on waiting lists with little prospect of the numbers coming down anytime soon. Training places have been consistently cut for doctors and nurses and the bursary scheme has been totally abandoned for nurses. The present government is now actively promoting the sale of GP practices to private foreign companies with an intention that cost cutting will deliver the huge profits to which US healthcare has become accustomed. You probably read about the US company Centene which has already bought up a couple of GP group practices in London, with more to go. Privatisation of the nhs is well underway - but it will be questioned in the courts. No doubt your donations to the cause will be welcomed.
The most obvious way to make a difference to the way our hospitals operate would have been to address the issue of bed blocking. In 2018 the government announced the amalgamation of the health services with social care under a single ministry. In 2021 it further announced an increase of 1% in National Insurance eventually to provide serious investment in our social care, but not yet. Johnson said at the outset of his premiership that he had a plan to solve the social care challenge, but since then not a single jot of this plan has been revealed.
And finally: a few months ago Margaret bought a bird feeding device that she filled with seeds. Until a couple of weeks ago, only a solitary Robin had been to dine, but now we have what appear to be a couple of regular Sparrow families and yesterday a delightful pair of Goldfinches. It would be wrong of me not to report that last week, following a spectacular sky dive, one of our young Sparrows was taken by a Sparrow Hawk. However much my non meat-eating readers are determined to protect animal life, Mother Nature has no such compunction.
