Society

My one regret at having retired from the National Health Service is that I no longer receive official circulars. I used for a time to derive a small secondary income from publishing them; and such was their idiocy that very little commentary on my part was required. They spoke for themselves; it was money for old rope. I am glad to say, however, that old friends keep me in touch with Gogolio-Kafkaesque-Orwellian developments in Europe’s biggest employer (now that the Gulag is no more). One of them, a senior doctor, recently passed on to me an email written about him by someone rejoicing in the title of Lead Nurse Manager,

Martin Jacomb assesses the extent of the damage to the banking system so far — and the effectiveness of responses by central banks, regulators and lawmakers Will it be short and sharp, or drawn out and deep, with lasting damage? A recession is upon us, but no one knows its path. Its course and its force are, like Hurricane Gustav’s, unpredictable. It is already more than a year since it all started. Banks everywhere have made enormous losses; some, even important ones such as Lehman Brothers in New York, have collapsed, and more may do so. They are being blamed for the catastrophe. But it is not as simple as

It’s not often a chap gets to shake a hand that has personally accounted for 31 Japs in the space of one battle. But such was your correspondent’s privilege outside the Royal Courts of Justice this week at the launch of a splendidly righteous case demanding fair and just citizenship rights for Gurkha veterans. A tearful Joanna Lumley was there — her father fought with the Chindits as a major in the 6th Gurkha Rifles — as was a typically well-mannered crowd of perhaps 300 ex-Gurkhas and their families. But the stars of the show were the two frail, elderly men sitting impassively in wheelchairs, with their un-mistakable crimson-ribboned bronze