The NHS was hit hard by COVID. And no amount of appreciative clapping or painted rainbows could distract from the vulnerabilities which were exposed by the pandemic – or the challenges it created. Some of those challenges – like the staggering backlog in patient care, or the huge mental and...
The UK government has announced the abolition of NHS England, phased over two years. In practice, this will involve merging some functions and staff from NHS England into the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). As part of the change, the government has stated that it expects to...
It’s a difficult period for the feminist movement. Space has opened up in public life for people who argue, very loudly, that efforts to level the playing field for women have come at the expense of men. Many political parties don’t merely neglect women’s interests – they put anti-feminism at...
With one of the largest tuberculosis (TB) outbreaks in US history, Kansas has more to worry about than its recent Super Bowl defeat. During the past year, 67 people with TB have been detected. This comes on the back of increasing rates of TB in the US year on...
Despite exuding confidence, narcissistic people relentlessly crave admiration. In other words, they are unable to convince themselves of their own brilliance. Growing research shows the gap between perception and reality for narcissistic people goes far deeper than their inflated views about their appearance, accomplishments and abilities. Narcissism is a personality trait...
Gene Hackman, an acting titan of 1970s and ‘80s Hollywood with more than 80 screen credits to his name, has died at 95. He was found dead in his home with his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, and his dog. Hackman had a rugged, dominating and commanding presence on screen, known...
  Patrick is 32 years old and has been homeless on and off in Edinburgh since growing up in care. He speaks with a rasping quality due to the ravages of sleeping outdoors in cruel Scottish winters. Until recently, he was one of thousands of people in the UK trapped...
Elon Musk is wielding a chainsaw against US government departments, potentially culling tens of thousands of jobs, as part of a huge plan to shrink the government and slash federal spending. This large-scale purge of public servants, coordinated through Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), may end up creating one...
Plans for the UK and other European countries to send troops to Ukraine are in their very early stages. But the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, will already be thinking about how such a move could play out at home. Sending UK troops abroad, even on a “peacekeeping” mission,...
“The Queen’s had an attack of gout! Hurry!” So exclaimed the crotchety Mrs Meg in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, in which Olivia Colman plays a moribund and overweight Queen Anne. The queen was afflicted with, among many other conditions, gout – a disorder which causes joint inflammation and severe pain. In...