Society

‘A great experience during my colposcopy’ – inside the NHS’s new Accountability Hub

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Jeremy Hunt has taken up this mantra with the launch of the NHS’s Accountability Hub today. As well as offering information about your nearest GP or hospital, the NHS Choices website is now full of patient safety indicators which, according to the Department of Health, offer an ‘unprecedented amount of patient safety information to allow patients, regulators and staff to see safety performance across a range of indicators.’ All sounds like a good idea, so I had a poke around to see how much information was available on two hospitals I’ve had the pleasure of visiting — one in London, one

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: Andy Coulson guilty in hacking trial

In the past few minutes, Andy Coulson has been found guilty on one count of conspiracy to hack phones. The jury has not given its verdict on all counts yet, but this is the verdict that David Cameron dreaded. As Coulson was his former director of communications, it again raises questions about his judgement in hiring the former editor of the News of the World. He has already said that if it turned out that he had been lied to, he will make a ‘profound apology’: ‘If it turns out I have been lied to that would be a moment for a profound apology, and in that event I can

Let’s have more work and lower costs to raise living standards – the Living Wage won’t help

In the latest in a long-line of Commissions or studies into the roll-out of a ‘Living Wage’, today the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu has called for the introduction of a wage rate of £7.65 per hour (or £8.80 in London) in sectors that ‘could afford it’. In reality this means the public sector and a host of other industries where there aren’t many low paid individuals, such as accountancy, consultancy, banking and construction. Though not as damaging as an economy wide roll-out, if adopted this could still have a host of unintended consequences. For those who’ve been hibernating in Outer Mongolia for the last few years, the Living Wage is

The Aspirin dilemma: should you stop taking it?

You may be feeling confused following recent press reports that Aspirin is no longer recommended as stroke prevention. Those who take Aspirin may be more panicked than confused, if so stay calm and breathe (feel free to utilise a paper bag if you think it might help, I try not to judge). To answer the question of why your doctor is giving or not giving you Aspirin requires an understanding of what it does. Aspirin blocks a set of enzymes which are required to initiate a series of complicated events in the body that allow platelets to become active in your blood and plug up any small breaks in blood

If Scotland breaks away, the constitutional consequences would be dramatic

The result on the 18th September may cause the dissolution of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This Union is in fact made up of three different uniting acts, the evolution of which is worth examining. The following 2 articles from the Act of Union 1707 clearly show that the primary Union was between the Kingdom of England ‘incorporating Wales’ and the Kingdom of Scotland. Together they formed the so-called ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’. ARTICLE I That The Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland shall upon the first Day of May which shall be in the Year one thousand seven hundred and seven, and for ever

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Cameron gives Van Rompuy the full and frank treatment

David Cameron has this afternoon had a ‘full and frank’ discussion with European Council president Herman Van Rompuy about the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker for president of the European Commission. What does ‘full and frank’ mean? According to this picture, it involved the PM demanding a vote on the appointment from behind his hand. Not a diplomatic tactic we’ve seen before…

H.Pylori is the deadliest thing you’ve never heard of — here’s why you should be screened for it

Most people won’t know about Helicobacter Pylori (H.Pylori), a common bacterial infection of the lining of the stomach. Yet it affects around half of adults in the UK and virtually everyone by the age of seventy. Unfortunately H. Pylori often causes no symptoms but is associated with a number of significant conditions such as stomach cancer. It is estimated that 2500 new cases of stomach cancer occurring within the UK each year are linked to the presence of H.Pylori infection. Research from the University of Leeds published in the British Medical Journal last week demonstrated that screening for H.Pylori – perhaps as part of a full health check or health

Nick Cohen

Spastics, cretins and the political correctness of the right

Ruth Richards, head of communications at Mind, has written a response to my criticism of the pointlessness of politically correct descriptions of the mentally ill and handicapped. As you would expect it is worth reading in full, but I am afraid it left me unconvinced. She thinks that the effort to reshape language is worthwhile, and cannot see how today’s polite discourse will become tomorrow’s insults. ‘I don’t agree that in however many years’ time the terms we use today will become offensive in their own right. “Person with mental health problems” is just far too clunky to be shouted in the playground.’ So it is. But ‘mental’ is already

Rod Liddle

World Cup diary: The French look very good. Damn.

Still going on, is it, the World Cup? There have been some fine games and some poor games with surprisingly thrilling conclusions. Ronaldo, with possibly the worst haircut I have seen on a human being ever, provided a wonderful chipped cross for Portugal to equalise against the USA; neither team, one suspects will trouble the big boys and I doubt the Portuguese will get out of the group. Good! Russia may also fail to do so and have been exactly as boring as Russia always are when it comes to the final stages of a World Cup. Belgium, meanwhile, look rather less menacing than all the experts suggested they would

Why I hate runners

They annoy dogs, drivers and cyclists, and get in the way of pushchairs, wheelchairs and groups of people out for a stroll enjoying the weather. Who are they? Joggers, of course. And runners. Runners, however, hate joggers. ‘No, I am not a jogger,’ you will have heard, ‘I am a runner.’ The difference between joggers and runners is, I am told by a runner, the speed. My sense of it from listening to the interminable boring-on of both groups is that running is seen as some kind of romantic bid for freedom, whereas jogging is nothing but a slog to keep fit or lose the Chablis gut. What I really

Britain is not alone in its mad attitude to Islamism

There is a tendency in Britain to think we are alone in our national madness. So I thought I would cheer everyone up on this lovely weekend by pointing out that one of the big stories in the Netherlands this week has been whether or not a pro-ISIS demonstration should be allowed in the Hague. The demonstration was planned to take place outside the Iraqi Embassy. There are of course some who are strongly pro-ISIS in the Netherlands. There are also some who are against. Most importantly there is also a political class which has been carefully weighing up the alleged undesirability of ISIS with the historic Dutch tradition of free speech. I

Freddy Gray

Why England’s World Cup elimination will help save the union with Scotland

So England are out the World Cup; the Three Lions rolled over – and we can expect plenty more gloomy Anglo introspection about failings over the coming days. But Alex Salmond must be even more gutted than anyone south of the Border. Over at SNP HQ, they would have been cheering England’s boys on like crazy – because if ever there were something more certain to elicit anti-English sentiment among the Scots in the run up to a referendum, it would be a successful World Cup run. As an Englishman who has lived in Scotland, I’m afraid I know how unbearable it can all seem when England is doing well

Lara Prendergast

Isis on social media

Yesterday evening, I returned home, made a cup of tea and slumped down to catch up on the day’s news. A piece on Twitter caught my eye. Posted by Channel 4, it was titled ‘#Jihad: how ISIS is using social media to win support’. Click. Soon I was learning about how ISIS was calling for global support via a sophisticated social media campaign, branded the ‘one billion campaign’. Click, click. Onto YouTube, where I found graphic videos recorded and uploaded by ISIS members. Click, click, click. Ten minutes later, and I was on Twitter, being recruited by jihadis to come join them. Clearly, I am not about to head to

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle: My run in with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Channel 4 News

I thought you might enjoy watching this debate between me and two eminently sane, rational and balanced women. If you haven’t seen it already. My publishers were anxious I should take part in order to promote my book, Selfish, Whining Monkeys. I said to them: ‘But it’s Channel 4 News. They won’t  have read the book or even given it a second thought. They’ll just sit there and shriek at me.’ Ever the cynic, huh? Join the resistance – and buy Rod Liddle’s £15 new book, Selfish Whining Monkeys, for just £12.99 from the Spectator Bookshop. Click here.

James Forsyth

The Security Services have lost track of 1 in 4 of those who’ve gone to fight in Syria

We have just had a second intelligence failure on Iraq. The speed and extent of ISIS’s sweep into the country took the UK governnment by surprise. Whitehall was not alone in this. As I reveal in the magazine this week, when representatives of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff came to London recently, Iraq was way down their agenda. What makes this intelligence failure so worrying is that we are relying on the security services to keep track of the 400-odd Britons who have gone to fight with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Senior government figures believe that of those who have gone to Syria and then returned to the

Ed West

America and Britain could save Iraq’s Christians – it’s just they don’t care

The Syro-Iraq war, as the firestorm should probably now be called, rages on, with the sword of Damocles hanging over us in Britain. Some 400 British Muslims are fighting with ISIS – only 150 fewer than the number of Muslims in the whole British Army – and we can be pretty sure of blowback when they return home. Afterwards I imagine we’ll have the politicians lecturing us about how this has nothing to do with Islam and then those bizarre ‘one London’ style posters will appear all over the capital; and 90 per cent of the media coverage will be on the danger of Islamophobia – cue footage of football

Rod Liddle

World Cup diary: Progress? What progress? England were witless

The pundits will be doing some quick revisionism. Far from ‘making progress’ if not being “quite the finished article” (© everyone), England has performed less well than they did in the last tournament in which we took part and when everyone agreed we were shite. In fact so far this has been England’s worst ever performance in a world cup. Again – wasted set-pieces, defensive torpor and vulnerability and a complete absence of wit in attack. These are fairly serious flaws, to which you can add another woeful performance from the ubiquitous Stevie G. I think it is a delusion to suggest that progress has been made. I notice some