Social care

Barometer | 2 May 2019

Great shakes Shale gas commissioner Natascha Engel resigned in protest at what she called ‘absurd’ restrictions on fracking — in particular rules which state that fracking operations must cease. Has anyone ever been harmed by a tremor at magnitude 0.5? — The Richter scale was devised by seismologist Charles F. Richter in 1935. It is a logarithmic scale, each ascending number marking an increase of approximately 31 times the amount of released energy. — The largest recorded earthquake, in Chile in 1960, measured 9.5. A tremor less than 4.0 is unlikely to cause damage and one of 2.0 or below unlikely even to be felt. — A tremor of 1.0 releases

Letters | 22 June 2017

May’s convictions Sir: Nick Timothy seeks sympathy by revealing that his ‘loved ones’ are upset by the personal attacks to which he is now subject (Diary, 17 June). They could have been spared distress if he had not invited retaliation by swearing at senior ministers and civil servants who crossed him. How could a prim vicar’s daughter have allowed endless profanities from this ill-mannered man and his ill-tempered associate Fiona Hill? Perhaps Timothy’s most extraordinary claim is that ‘a return to traditional campaigning methods’ was planned but Lynton Crosby vetoed it. Traditionally the Tories did not contract out their campaign to consultants charging vast fees. The leader and party chairman

Barometer | 25 May 2017

Sloganeering Do snappy manifesto titles help win elections? Some which led to victory: ‘Let Us Face the Future’ — Labour 1945 ‘The New Britain’ — Labour 1964 ‘A Better Tomorrow’ — Conservative 1970 ‘ Let Us Work Together: Labour’s Way Out of the Mess’ — February 1974 ‘The 1979 Conservative Party General Election Manifesto’ ‘ Because Britain Deserves Better’ — Labour 1997 And some which led to heavy defeats: ‘Winston Churchill’s Declaration of Policy to the Electors’ — Conservative 1945 ‘Action Not Words: the New Conserv­ative Programme’ — 1966 ‘ The New Hope for Britain’ — Labour 1983 ‘Britain Will Win With Labour’ — 1987 ‘You Can Only Be Sure

Portrait of the week | 25 May 2017

Home  Twenty-two people were killed and 59 wounded by a man who blew himself up, with a bomb containing metal fragments, in the foyer of Manchester Arena as crowds were leaving a concert by the American singer Ariana Grande, aged 23, who has a strong following among young girls. Of the wounded, 12 were children. Police named the suspected murderer as Salman Ramadan Abedi, aged 22, a Mancunian whose family come from Libya, which he had recently visited. Isis said it was behind the attack. A 23-year-old man was arrested the next day. The official threat level was raised to ‘critical’, meaning that an attack was expected imminently. Soldiers were

James Forsyth

Will Theresa May ever resist a backlash?

Elections matter. They are fundamental to our way of life. So, while it is appropriate that the campaigns stopped on Tuesday to mourn the victims of the heinous terrorist attack in Manchester, democracy demands that they resume as quickly as possible. The terrorists must know that they will never change how our society functions. This is an odd election. Everyone assumes they know what the result will be and the real psephological debate is over just how big the Tory majority will be. On Monday, even the most panicked Tory was only concerned about what Theresa May’s U-turn would mean for the party’s margin of victory, not the actual result.

Mary Wakefield

Why do nurses quit? Because they care

Sometimes, on Sundays, I visit Richard, a friend who’s 95 and lives alone. The idea originally was that I’d be doing Richard a favour, but the truth is he cheers me up far more than I do him. I visit because I like him, but as the weeks go by, I’m afraid I’ve also developed a grim curiosity about what it’s like to be in your nineties. Meals-on-wheels, crumbling knees, hernias, cannulas, the way a day dissolves into unintended naps… ‘Can’t we talk about something more cheerful?’ says Richard, as we sit knee to knee. But I’m obsessed, like a tourist taking notes on some awful country they must one

May’s big chance

It is the fate of all new prime ministers to be compared with their recent predecessors. Theresa May has already been accused of being the heir to the micro-managing Gordon Brown. Her allies, meanwhile, see a new Margaret Thatcher, an uncompromising Boadicea destined to retrieve sovereignty from Europe. But perhaps a more fitting model for May would be a less recent Labour prime minister: Clement Attlee. When Labourites reminisce about Attlee, it isn’t so much the man himself who makes them misty-eyed. It is the achievements of those who worked for him — Nye Bevan, Ernest Bevin and the rest. Attlee’s government created the welfare state and the National Health