Politics

Talk to anyone for long enough about the UK’s building safety crisis and you soon will be asked: why are we in such a mess? Why, in one of the wealthiest countries on earth with a functioning planning and regulatory system, are thousands of people currently trapped in homes built with dangerous and combustible materials? How could we have allowed so many unsafe buildings to be built, signed off, sold and inhabited for all these years? Like all questions of this scale, there are multiple answers which combine to form a complex picture. But while people are quick to draw conclusions about reckless builders cutting corners, there is less awareness

Labour is demanding that Matt Hancock apologise to NHS workers for a ‘disgraceful attack’ on the NHS. In a letter to the Health Secretary, the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner says Hancock must distance himself from a claim that ‘there is nothing special about the NHS, neither during this pandemic nor at any other time’. She also writes that ‘if you are committed to the protection of our NHS you must take action immediately to assure the NHS and the British people’ that he doesn’t think ‘we should not be grateful for the NHS or thank the NHS and its staff for their work during this pandemic’. This sounds serious,

It has taken the Conservatives an entire decade to recover from their last attempt to legislate for a reorganisation of the NHS. Now, they’re proposing to unpick some of what’s left of that Health and Social Care Act.  Details of a Health and Care White Paper leaked to the excellent Andy Cowper at Health Policy Insight last week revealed that ministers want to grab more control of the health service overall, as well as individual foundation trusts and matters such as water fluoridation. The Health Secretary will become significantly more powerful. Some of this forthcoming legislation contains changes NHS England has long wanted and been expecting, such as abolishing Andrew Lansley’s

Nadhim Zahawi – ‘I’m confident’ all over 50s will get jab by May Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi was sent out to bat for the government this morning, at a time when over 11 million people have received a first dose of an approved Covid vaccine. Zahawi told Sophy Ridge that he was certain that, despite any possible disruption caused by the European Commission’s aborted jab grab, the government was still on course to meet its targets. The first four priority groups are forecast to be vaccinated by mid-February; and groups five-nine are estimated to be offered a jab at some point in the spring:  NZ: I’m confident we’ll meet our