Health
Medical emergency
General practice is broken
Along comes monkeypox
I hate to be one of those columnists who says ‘I told you so’. But I told you so. Looking…
How to handle the next pandemic
There has been a considerable hoo-hah in the press about the recent World Health Organisation report estimating Covid-related deaths internationally…
Pause célèbre
The march of the ‘menosplainers’
Are we falling out of love with the NHS?
Clap for carers now feels like ancient history. Public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest since 1997, according…
The cancer care timebomb that desperately needs to be fixed
As many as 100,000 patients had a cancer that was missed, or had their diagnoses or treatments delayed during the…
Poet’s notebook
Living, as Clive James put it, under a life sentence, and having refused chemotherapy, I find I respond to the…
Barometer
Blow by blow Did Storm Eunice really set a new record for wind speed in England? A 122 mph gust…
Low life
Eighty yards west of the high terrace where I’ve sat for three weeks recuperating is a hospice built for Napoleon’s…
Sceptic shock
I got Covid a couple of weeks ago. Second time for me, which was annoying because I’d told Caroline that…
Health, wealth and happiness
Stories about money are never about money. They are about pain, about family, about atrocity, about luck, about health, about…
Does the doctor really need to see you now?
Only later, perhaps even a decade later, as the pandemic of 2020-22 shrinks in our rear-view mirror, may we be…
Do we want the nanny state tracking our every step?
The best thing that can be said about the government’s latest anti-obesity scheme is that it’s cheap. For now. The…
Why did we decide that Covid was over?
Look, I don’t know much epidemiology. Can’t pretend to. So what follows is, necessarily, a personal finger to the wind.…
A great reformer?
Sajid Javid has big plans for the NHS – if Covid lets him
Boris Johnson and the Tory identity crisis
The Tory conference in Manchester will be a relatively muted affair. In part, this is because — as I say…
Diary
I am just back from my final salmon fishing trip of the year. I have never had a worse season…
End of the line
It’s time to rethink the queue
An unhealthy app-etite
As I begin, I’m tortured by the doo-do-doo-do of The Twilight Zone’s theme music. I’ve hurtled back in time. Suddenly…
Diary
You always remember when a prime minister calls you to ask you to take on a new role, and you…
Dishing the dirt
The case against organic food
What did the Romans ever do for us?
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is planning to install a statue of John Chilembwe in Trafalgar Square. Mr Chilembwe…
Dr No
The GP won’t see you now
Barometer
At Redwall Abbey Does fiction provide any guide as to the ultimate fate of Labour’s Red Wall? — Redwall Abbey…
A game of patients
As Covid retreats, the malingerers are making a comeback
