David Harding 🔶💙

How successive government have created a new rentier economy Governments appease corporations and the super-rich by following the old policies which benefit a few.

Privatisation cult destroying UK.

UK gave away North Sea oil/gas, low fees/tax, collected $11 a barrel revenue, wasted on tax cuts for corporations/rich

Norway didn't, levied higher tax, got $30 a barrel.

Norway has $2trn sovereign fund. UK has economic crisis, still obsessed with privatisation

The hepatitis B vaccine has sharply cut infections in children. Why are some against it? The CDC's vaccine advisory panel is set to discuss and possibly vote on the vaccine at a meeting next week.

Before the HBV vaccine was introduced as part of childhood immunization in Cameroon it wasn't uncommon to see very young people with liver cancer secondary to chronic hepatitis B. The youngest case I saw was a 17yo boy with liver cancer 2/2 to perinatally acquired HBV
www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-...

If Farage wins the next election, it will be down to one person. His name is Keir Starmer.
This thread explains why.
1. Destroying faith in democracy. The UK decisively voted out the Tories, only for Starmer to give us a Continuity Tory government, shamefully beholden to economic power.
🧵

I wonder if @rthonwesstreeting.bsky.social has evidence for saying 'most NHS staff support NHS league tables'?

I care for children in the hospital on inpatient & consult services.

Most weeks there are at least a few kids admitted with vaccine preventable diseases.

Often in children who can’t get vaccinated themselves.

15 years in pediatrics and I’ve never seen a single one admitted with vaccine injury.

Bath A&E in "permacrisis" as admissions soar, warns MP MP Wera Hobhouse warns that patients could face "terrible agony" if nothing is done.

A&E services across the UK have entered a state of permacrisis.

The Conservative's shameful neglect of local health services brought us to this point, but this Labour government needs to realise that we could be sleepwalking towards disaster this winter unless ministers take urgent action. 👇

Feargal Sharkey blasts water company following poo tsunami 140 surfers from around the UK had to cancel an event thanks to South West Water dumping shit - and Feargal Sharkey rightly kicked off

Feargal Sharkey blasts water company following poo tsunami

140 surfers from around the UK had to cancel an event thanks to South West Water dumping shit - and Feargal Sharkey rightly kicked off
www.thecanary.co/trending/202...

Police cover up a Banksy image of judge beating a protester faster than you can say "one of the many Boris Johnson Downing Street parties during covid restrictions which the Met police ignored"

Reform UK punches above weight in media mentions As Reform UK’s annual conference kicks off in Birmingham this week, a new survey shows the party has attracted disproportionately high media attention compared with other major parties this year. Data...

It’s impossible not to notice that Farage and his clown show of 4 MPs are overly promoted by the BBC and right wing press whereas the Lib Dems and Greens are ignored.

unherd.com/newsroom/ref...

Bravo Banksy. 👏

“A new mural by elusive street artist Banksy has appeared on the side of the Royal Courts of Justice building in central London.”

Marina Purkiss, "Nigel Farage cloaks himself in patriotism"

"Farage flew out to the United States, spoke to a US Committee, and he urged the US to put sanctions on the UK"

"Sanctions that would hurt British companies, British people, our back pockets"

"And Farage is your patriot?"

When you think about it for even a moment, that is quite an admission!

“Sorry guys, our business model depends on exploiting illegal workers, if you want us to not break the law you’re gonna have to pay us more…”

The NHS is in a perilous state right now. Emergency rooms are overflowing as ambulances wait for hours in queues to handover ill and injured patients. This should be front page news everywhere.

This is what I’ve found investigating the scale of the crisis 🧵

'It is beyond broken' - inside our terrifying NHS crisis Special report: Patients waiting in ambulances for 24 hours, exhausted and desperate staff feeling helpless and a health service now on life support

A man keels over in a chaotic emergency room, an 88-year-old woman waits for 24 hours in the back of an ambulance, a depressed and frustrated paramedic can’t face his job anymore

This is the reality of the state of the NHS right now and it’s terrifying 👇

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpo...

This should be blown up to poster size and pasted on Brexiter walls.

Happy Christmas! 🌲🧑‍🎄⛄ xxx

Musk’s $100m to Farage will break our democracy Keir Starmer needs to fix Britain’s broken electoral laws now - if he doesn’t, we will all suffer the consequences

This can be stopped fairly easily. @petergeoghegan.bsky.social has a very good summary of what is required here. If Starmer implemented something like this, he would be making a historic improvement to British politics open.substack.com/pub/democrac...

Mick Lynch "Nigel Farage is a racist."

RT if Mick is right.

Britain sets aside £10bn for future payments to EU – eight years after Brexit vote Exclusive: To cover the continuing costs of Britain’s divorce from Europe, the government has accounted for £20.6bn in future payments for Brussels staff and diplomats’ pensions, as well as the UK’s p...

Brexit is costing 🇬🇧 a fortune and it’s why Reeves hit biz with £40bn tax hikes.

Govt figures revealed that the provision for “EU liabilities” has fallen from £31.7bn a year ago and £38.7bn year before.

We are “paying vast sums for a terrible Brexit deal”.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

New plan would ‘transform’ end of life care for 100,000 in England and Wales Palliative care commission set up to provide high-quality, holistic support following assisted dying vote

New - MPs, doctors and charities have drawn up a blueprint to deliver an “unprecedented transformation” of end-of-life care.

After parliament’s historic vote last week to legalise assisted dying, a commission on palliative care will be set up.

with Denis Campbell and @alethaadu.bsky.social

Will Labour rise to the challenge from Musk? As Yahoo has reported: Elon Musk is reportedly planning to make a $100 million donation to Reform UK as a “fuck you” to Keir Starmer. According to the Sunday Times, the tech billionaire could funnel ...

Will Labour rise to the challenge from Musk? www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/12... It’s rumoured Musk might give $100 million to Farage to beat Labour. This is a threat to democracy. Will Labour act to defend it, or would that be too much to expect?

If you think more privitisation is good for the NHS.

Ask yourself, why hasn't it helped with water? Or energy? Or transport? Or in fact anything ever?

Rivers full of sewage, energy bills through the roof whilst record profits are recorded and disrupted expensive travel. Let this be a warning.

It is not an overstatement when I say that I could genuinely weep: this is 100% the *exact opposite* of what they need to do: you cannot out-Reform the Reform Party. The only thing this will do is drive more voters to Reform: voters always choose the original. *Every* bit of research shows that. 🧵

'Mind boggling' surge in pneumonia cases among children, teens and young adults Area doctors and hospitals are seeing a 'stunning surge' in walking pneumonia cases, something being seen around the globe this year.

No one could have foreseen this.

ottawacitizen.com/news/local-n...

Muscle weakness post-COVID: a practical guide for primary care Since the earliest stages of the pandemic, muscle weakness has been a key symptom described by patients post-COVID infection. Estimated to affect up to 60% of those with long COVID, it can have a prof...

Our new paper, led by @oohgpwales.bsky.social:

Muscle weakness post-COVID: a practical guide for primary care

TL;DR: patients with muscle weakness after COVID-19 infection may have myelopathy, nerve damage or other organic pathology. Not always due to 'deconditioning'!

bjgp.org/content/74/7...

👋

picture of mouse showing where flu protein goes and where covid spike protein goes flu is mainly lungs, spike is every organ

Why covid is much worse for you than the flu in one self explanatory image

That BMJ review of Long Covid therapies does not show what it says it does The BMJ have published a “living systematic review” of interventions for the management of Long Covid. It sets out to gather all relevant studies, and to comb their findings in order to see what works...

A new BMJ review claims that #LongCovid can be treated using CBT and physical exercise

As ever, the devil is in the detail

TL; DR the authors' own risk-of-bias analyses show that their own conclusion is unwarranted

(Too bad they hid the crucial deets in an online supplement!)

cc #pwME #MECFS

This truly demonstrates the state of women's healthcare in the #NHS

3/4 of a million women waiting for Gynaecology in the UK

A line that would stretch from London to Exeter