While it would make Barry Gardiner MP’s life easier if he represented a one-man constituency, Brett North isn’t going to be pleased with BBC London.

I’ve moved house and I’m still stowing away a whole load of things that I know why I kept but that don’t have obvious places to go. One is this notebook in which I started to note down some of my 7-year-old’s questions. If anyone can answer them, it would help me stop being such a deadbeat dad 🤣

Not entirely sure why they buried the key to it all in the 14th paragraph… www.theguardian.com/money/2025/s...

Important from @healthwatchengland.bsky.social. I was invited for mine 7 years after I became eligible, finally went 2-and-a-half years later, had blood pressure of 170/120 and dread to think what might have happened. (Exercise and meds have sorted the BP now.) www.healthwatch.co.uk/blog/2025-09...

Nothing will stop the illegal ice cream vans on Westminster Bridge

I find it quite endearing that there are still PR people who think I’m going to read this now and still remember it, after weeks of the world continuing its accelerating descent, in October. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Claire has overseen a period of pretty substantial (unprecedented?) growth in spending on mental health services ... Yet it's miles away from meeting need and demand The commitment to that growing investment now very clearly at an end

I can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that when someone posts something on LinkedIn the Guardian thinks it counts as an EXCLUSIVE. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A textbook case of how not to report polls. '50%? Oh my god!' 'Oh, you mean a 9-point increase'?

The doctor quoted by Dr Aseem Malhotra in his speech today was listed in 2020 as having a financial interest in a rival Covid vaccine and company.

Nudge. Always felt too simplistic to me, especially when it comes to health and health services. Does anyone have an example of nudge making a meaningful difference in healthcare? Aware that reach is a problem on this platform, so please pass on. Trying to write something for publication. Thanks!

I see ITV are doing a drama about The Thick of It inquiry episode.

Friend’s 8 yo is in hospital in Malaysia. This is how lunch comes. Different smiley face every time. Why aren’t we doing this?

Animated BSL station platform warning message 👍

I checked what i have to do with the nine empty spray cans of red paint I used to do up this tin trunk and established that as they’re aerosol cans containing paint I need to hand them to the staff at the council recycling centre. But I just realised they’re also in charge of roundabouts. #Awkward

Our new chart this week shows wide variation at local authority level in the proportion of people who die aged under 75. In Slough, 45% die under the age of 75, yet it's just 24% in adjoining Windsor and Maidenhead. Find out more: buff.ly/20unIxr

Not convinced this press officer understands how the Tardis is supposed to work.

Thanks @privateeyenews.bsky.social for this addition to my “Maybe the people selling us AI ought to learn a bit about how AI works” file…

Today’s Epping judgement seems a decent reason to share this recent Healthwatch Hertfordshire report that paints a stark picture of what it’s really like to live in an asylum hotel. www.healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk/news/2025-07...

Good. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/a...

Dear doctoral candidates, If you want me to spend 15 minutes providing consent to take part in your study and a further 30 minutes completing the survey, having pondered your detailed eligibility criteria, then using either or both of ‘please’ and ‘thanks’ in your email would be an incentive.

Improving general practice appointment booking - bureaucratic justice suggests striving for GP appointment booking processes to be perceived as efficient and for them to be perceived as legitimate and just. bjgp.org/content/75/...

Well played, Let’s-Play-Sleeping-Lions Train Dad 👏

Another important piece of work by Healthwatch Hertfordshire, on the needs and experiences of the #ArmedForces community and #Veterans. As with our recent #AsylumSeekers and #Refugees work, the #NHS often assumes everyone knows how it’s organised. www.healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk/news/2025-08...

BBC 1 o’clock news sending subliminal branding messages ahead of a future Streeting leadership campaign?

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Another important piece of work by Healthwatch Hertfordshire, on the needs and experiences of the #ArmedForces community and #Veterans. As with our recent #AsylumSeekers and #Refugees work, the #NHS often assumes everyone knows how it’s organised. www.healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk/news/2025-08...

Good, if there’s follow-through so we really end up with a wide range of lived experience informing policy processes and decisions. I often point to the decades of problems with the NHS dental contract to show what happens when policymakers are a class apart. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Former soldier + TV personality Ant Middleton (who wants to run for Mayor of London - was hoping to go for the Reform nomination) wants to ban Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, as well as Sadiq Khan, and Boris, Churchill and King Charles III from government roles

Sad news but it’s prompting so many happy memories. There’ll be lots of people feeling that way and I wish he could know. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

A really interesting development. @realgeoffbarton.bsky.social to lead a new taskforce on inclusion which will make recommendations in the autumn as the govt is expected to announce key SEND reforms. www.tes.com/magazine/new...

#MotivationalPhoneChargerCablePackaging #YesIAm

I just had to press about 35 buttons to get a cup of tea in Leon and that is TOO MANY BUTTONS. If I really must press a button it should just be one that says TEA

Someone should tell all those “adulting is really hard” people that apparently all you have to do is stare into your phone camera.

1% supporting the right to own an alligator with no license. Excellent.

But obviously, as they take pains to point out, they’re mainly motivated by their tender-hearted concern for children. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Spotted a £26 hardback book reduced to £8. Then spotted another £30 hardback reduced to £9. At the till the £9 one was further reduced to £8. Then they applied a multi-buy discount so I paid £12 for the pair. Smugness police now attending WH Smith to contain the incident.

What’s the point of a licence fee or anything like it if not to provide coverage of the boring but important stuff? Stopping Politics Live just the latest in the slow killing of any proper coverage of the party conferences.

More whimsy like this please www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What kind of wine do these people drink???

I once tweeted that Cilla Black had a voice like two skinheads kicking a banjo up the A19. A few days later I was followed by Dionne Warwick.

Hope over experience? Excellent new opinion piece in the BMJ on patient and staff voice in the NHS after the Dash review, by my @thisinstitute.cam.ac.uk colleagues @instagraham.bsky.social and @janekohara.bsky.social www.bmj.com/content/390/...

This point about trauma, alongside some other themes in this new #Healthwatch Hertfordshire report (buff.ly/gjdirhB), has made me think about what people said during this project I worked on at The Richmond Group of Charities a few years back: www.richmondgroupofcharities.org.uk/publications...

Reposting my popular post from elsewhere. It's still relevant 6 years later. I made a handy flowchart called "Should I say resources?" Please use as needed.

New Spinal Tap corporate HQ’s opened near Watford Junction.

Some good news about practical stuff. I’m stoked that The Richmond Group of Charities has been able to turn the internal and external discussions I helped get going while I was there into a concrete commitment from the Govt that will make a growing difference to people. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Sorting hats off to The Times.

One thing about the new ethno-nationalists is they are, just at base, isolated from the culture of their own country. They have no acquaintance with our national game or indeed any major British sport. They have clearly spent little time in any of the UK’s constituent countries other than England.

Excellent challenge at the end of this from @hbuckingham.bsky.social. Real political accountability is more than point-scoring or vote-winning. Now pondering why people often want to stay as far away from hospital as possible but don’t want the hospital to be far away… www.hsj.co.uk/policy-and-r...