Probably a trick from Mandelson's playbook

A letter from Carlos Hernández, the Spanish journalist who died this week. Our job as journalists is to hold power to account, explain what's happening and give voice to the voiceless. Many still do this, but we don't do it enough. It's a big reason why trust in the mainstream media has cratered.

Great analysis. It was also clear from the beginning it wouldn't work. Guy's and St Thomas's was the model for all this, but after starting the programme the trust's wait times fell slower than the national average and the theatre staff went on strike...

Enjoyed writing about the two faces of Harley Street this week. Home to 40% of London's private healthcare market, it's known for its quality and treating royals. It's also where TikTokkers go for botched penis-filler ops and sperm-salmon facials. A townhouse was once a hub for international fraud

My take on England’s daftest sport: Should cheese rolling be protected as British heritage? economist.com/britain/2025...

The PM has just announced the abolition of NHS England, the body responsible for running the £192bn NHS. That was just a formality though: it's death was confirmed with a DOGE-style purge that I wrote about this week. Too soon to say whether it will devolve power or centralise it even further.

This is only getting clearer by the day.

I’m well aware of the risks of trial (or retrial) by media but much about the Lucy Letby case seems deeply troubling. There seems to be a distinct possibility that what was thought to be signs of a killer nurse may actually have just been poor medical care www.economist.com/britain/2025...

America is finished as the dominant global power which made the world in its image. This is only the beginning of the end, but it is the end. Now it behaves like any other brazen empire

This chart from my article this week is pretty scary. 12-hour waits in emergency departments were non-existent in the 2010s in England. Now they're the new normal and are leading to thousands of extra deaths a year: www.economist.com/britain/2025...

There are many reasons why rising flu cases are putting pressure on A&E this winter. But if this government is really serious about shifting to prevention, now would be a good time to look at inadequate vaccination programmes, and the number of old people we have living in cold and damp homes

I don't agree with Kate Andrews often but she does have a point here. In a tax-based system more money for the NHS does mean less money for schools, local govt, defence etc. The answer is to focus more on the wider determinants of health and do NHS reform, but that does mean higher taxes.

How is it that an influencer with a financial interest in promoting quackery can end up as a main source of info for health and wellness? This man has 8.6m YouTube subscribers and his show is saying things like diet can reverse autism. Another consequence of the distrust in mainstream media!

This is staggering even for me who covers the NHS every week. Report out estimating that the NHS spends £15bn a year treating patients harmed by its own care. That doesn’t include negligence claims

It never fails to amaze me how whenever I get on a train everyone (including me right now) is on their phones. The world transformed in a generation

Best news of the day: Swedish study finds that the occasional sweet treat is good for your heart (or at least it needn’t be bad). The study tracked 70,000 participants and found that those who ate a few sweets/pastries a week had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those who didn’t eat any

One more reason for the govt to get its act together on #socialcare reform. If you’re going to change the way local govt is funded, best to have an idea of what councils will need to spend on their single largest area of expenditure - adult social care. ifs.org.uk/publications...

Agree this is good, but tightening eligibility criteria (as governments always do) won’t solve the problem. We have stagnant real wages and the stingiest unemployment benefits in Europe: until we fix both we’ll always oscillate between incentivising gaming of incapacity and leaving people destitute

This is why I still occasionally read The Mirror

Lots going on in France but a lovely piece by @sophiepedder.bsky.social on the reconstruction of Notre Dame. Until his death last year it was led by Jean-Louis Georgelin, my old prof at Sciences Po & the most patriotic man I ever met (he insisted we call him “mon général”). He would've been proud!

Ominous

Men in Blackpool now have a shorter life expectancy than in Glasgow, according to new figures from the ONS. It's now the worst in the UK and the same as Iran

Really interesting work from John Hopkins & @drjoshs.bsky.social quantifying the life expectancy gap between the US & the UK: ❤️ Cardiovascular disease 57% of the gap 💉Drugs overdoses 32% 🔫Gun-related deaths 20% 🚗Car crashes 17% 😷Covid & cancer -26% (UK worse for both) shorturl.at/f3rBB

Put the Christmas tree up last night. Trouble with not having a kid is that there’s no one to blame for the decorations 😬

Over the weekend we asked the public whether they thought Parliament made the right or wrong decision by voting in favour of the assisted dying bill - 62% said right decision and only 16% opposed. A short 🧵 of other reactions from the public to the Bill's passage...

Waiting lists: not just a British problem!

Hello everyone! Since we're all quite new here and The Economist has no bylines (a blessing & a curse!) I thought I'd share a few of the articles I'm most proud of. First this with the fab @fransham.bsky.social showing how covid was part of a decade of UK deaths www.economist.com/interactive/...

“Soared” 😂

The UK is an ageing society, where formal care is costly and the public funds to support it are badly stretched. Care costs have outstripped inflation – and incomes.

Crazy fact from a conference at Imperial on UPFs last week: British kids get 2/3 of their calories from UPFs, more than in America 🍟

Uplifting read in HSJ this morning. £22bn extra for the NHS but already there is no more money!

Some reassuring thoughts on yesterday’s Assisted Dying vote open.substack.com/pub/dangoyal...

At the end of a big day here’s our article on what happened and what it means going forward www.economist.com/britain/2024...

#Breaking The assisted dying bill PASSES its second reading by 330 votes to 275. (Coincidentally the last time this was debated in 2015 it was defeated with 330 votes against). Huge.

“The law is failing people - and we have a duty to fix it” Kim Leadbeater kicking off today’s #AssistedDying debate with both clarity and compassion - as has typified her approach throughout her campaign

The #assisteddying debate is getting underway. No formal time limits on speeches. The debate should be wrapped up around 2pm

Morning, big day today! MPs are voting on the assisted dying bill later – a historic moment that could go either way. I’ll be following it closely and sharing updates as it happens. Keen to hear what you all make of it #AssistedDying

A free post about assisted dying available on davidaaronovitch.substack.com

159,380: Another new record in numbers of homeless children living in temporary accommodation in England. Up 5% on three months ago and 15% on a year ago www.gov.uk/government/s...

A random fact I love about Brits: one in every eight who inquire about a will want to leave something to their pets

The Intelligence dives into the bill that could put Britain on the path to legalising assisted dying tomorrow morning @georgiabanjo.bsky.social has reported from a trip to Australia where a similar bill has already passed @economist.com