Society

After weeks of speculation over the Princess of Wales’s health since she underwent abdominal surgery in January, Kate Middleton has this evening issued a statement. In a video message, the Princess of Wales says she is in the early stages of preventative chemotherapy after cancer was found in tests. She said the news had come as a ‘huge shock’ but while it had been an ‘incredibly tough couple of months’. she is ‘well and getting stronger every day’. In the statement, the Princess says that it was after the operation in January that doctors found cancer present: ‘My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative

The Scottish parliament’s decision to ban its staff wearing campaigning lanyards may seem like a small step. But could it set a precedent for rolling back a trend for tolerating staff activism that has spread throughout the civil service in recent years? In an email to staff, the move was justified ‘to minimise the risk of perceived bias and avoid any perception that wearing such items may be influencing our own decision-making.’ But the problem of staff activism goes further than this.  The real change came since George Floyd and the rise of trans ideology I have recently left the civil service as a director after a 30-year career in four departments. Traditionally, civil

Is Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer right to have limited the access to and sway held over him by Baroness Lawrence, the mother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence? Lady Lawrence, a Labour peer who was made the party’s race relations adviser by Starmer after he became leader early in 2020, is in no doubt that this is what has happened in recent weeks. According to the Times, she told a meeting with shadow ministers and senior party officials, ‘I wish Keir listened to me’ and blamed ‘gatekeepers’ around the Labour leader for obstructing her work. Baroness Lawrence seems only to have one approach when it comes to race relations