Malcolm Clark

New report warns of widening inequalities in food education | Sustain A major new report from The School of Artisan Food’s Best Food Forward programme highlights overwhelming public support for food education in England’s schools, while exposing significant gaps and…

New report warns of widening inequalities in food education www.sustainweb.org/news/feb26-h...

A graph showing a negative trend in HLE

What's one of the best ways to measure population health?

We'd argue it's Healthy Life Expectancy - capturing not just how long we live, but how many of those years are spent in good health.

New figures are out today. The picture isn't good. At a national level, England's HLE continues to fall.

Reform UK suspends by-election campaign activist over ‘antisemitic and misogynistic’ posts EXCLUSIVE: Adam Mitula, Reform UK’s interim campaign manager in Tameside, has been assisting Matt Goodwin's Gorton and Denton by-election campaign

So it turns out Matt Goodwin's Reform campaign manager was a holocaust-denying Nazi who said he would "never touch a Jewish woman.”

When do we start seeing all the coverage of the antisemitism crisis in Reform UK?

www.jewishnews.co.uk/reform-uk-su...

Just received an email to say Feb's volunteering session has been postponed. Waterlogging and concerns on compacting the ground. So next session is 21st March instead.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: "I know that parents across the country want us to act urgently to keep their children safe online. That's why I stood up to Grok and Elon Musk when they flouted British laws and British values. "We will not wait to take the action families need, so we will tighten the rules on AI chatbots and we are laying the ground so we can act at pace on the results of the consultation on young people and social media. "We are determined to give children the childhood they deserve and to prepare them for the future at time of rapid technological change."

The UK Government is finally taking on Elon Musk. Quite a moment. (Now they need to ditch X, ofc)

Some really welcome news from the Government today!

✅ Powers to speed up implementation of children’s wellbeing consultation outcome

✅ Preserving online data in tragic events of children’s deaths

✅ Powers to close loopholes to keep AI chatbots safe from illegal content

"We are no longer the Britain of the Brexit years" says Starmer.

But until the policy shifts from the current position we are really but with relatively minor modifications and less head-banging.

Now's the moment Keir. The country will back you.

Yes. I think they have been postponed a few times because of weather. Next one scheduled for 21 Feb 10am.

Great initiative. Hope this also includes additional measures where school street alone isn't nearly sufficient to curb proven road danger to schoolchildren outside their school - eg Valley Road outside Sunnyhill School.

Love Lambeth Lambeth is expanding its School Streets programme to all eligible primary schools by 2027

In Lambeth we’re committing to installing a School Street for every eligible primary school.

Currently, 45 School Streets serve 50 schools. By March 2027, the remaining 10 primary schools not located on main roads will also have School Streets. Read more here:

love.lambeth.gov.uk/school-stree...

🚨We welcome the Government’s launch of a consultation on expanding smokefree legislation, marking an important moment 20 years on from the parliamentary vote that delivered comprehensive smokefree indoor public places.

Improving the nation’s diet: the impact of ultra-processed food This report sets out our calls to action to improve the food environment and address the health impacts of poor diet, including food high in salt, sugar and fat and UPFs (ultra-processed foods).

📢 New report published today by @bma.org.uk calls on the government to take crucial action to improve our food environment.

Read the full report & recommendations here ⬇️ www.bma.org.uk/what-we-do/p...

Pride in Parades I: The State of Neighbourhood Social Infrastructure - Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods One of the most common concerns that residents of some of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods raise with us is the decline of their local high street. But often the concerns they raise with us are o...

📣New research from the Independent Commission of Neighbourhoods shows a widening gap in access to healthy living, inc how easy it is to access healthy food and drink, between affluent and deprived high streets.

➡️https://bit.ly/4acXAZg

Middle-aged women from deprived backgrounds struggle to quit smoking Middle-aged women from more deprived backgrounds in Great Britain are significantly more likely to smoke and face greater challenges when trying to quit, according to a new study from researchers at U...

A new study from @ucl.ac.uk and @cancerresearchuk.org has found that middle-aged women from more deprived backgrounds are more likely to smoke and struggle to quit smoking.

Smoking causes health inequalities, and this study highlights why the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is so important.

Would be good if the Prime Minister and/or Home Secretary would for once come out and describe this as the unadulterated racism and xenophobia it so clearly is.

The complex story of public health and prevention spending in local government | The King's Fund What do longer term trends in local government spending tell us about the government’s commitment to the prevention shift?

Signs of a #prevention #shift? #really? What the latest #localgov #publichealth #allocations and wider trends tell us from me and Danielle Jefferies for @thekingsfund.bsky.social www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-...

NEW: Expensive gas still biggest driver of high UK electricity bills, says UKERC

"Volatile, gas-linked market prices – not green policies, as some misleading claims have suggested – dominate the real-terms increase in bills since 2021."

www.carbonbrief.org/expensive-ga...

NHS 10-year-Plan was set to include Minimum Unit Pricing, so successful in Scotland, but alcohol lobby got them - clear lobbyists have unhealthy influence on booze policy

Is the Great British Pub on the verge of extinction? The truth behind the headlines - Institute of Alcohol Studies Media headlines often suggest that British pubs are in terminal decline. But is that true?

In our latest blog, Jem Roberts and Dr Peter Rice unpack the panic about pub closures - and show why much of it is misleading 🍺

What’s actually happening?

⬇️ Pub numbers have fallen for over a century - this isn’t new
⬆️ Employment in pubs has stayed stable...

www.ias.org.uk/2026/02/10/i...

Asserting strength is not the same as pointlessly alienating people.

Morgan McSweeney should have been fired, not given the luxury of resignation. But the rot - both of the acquiescence to a 'big men can get away with anything' culture, and a political project that punches left & down and lacks genuine ambition - is still there.

New leadership is needed. Fast.

While we should all be looking very hard at Starmer’s leadership, this week Nigel Farage decided that the people who vote for him would prefer to have cheaper beer at the expense of children being lifted out of poverty.

Reform by-election candidate suggested people who don’t have kids should pay more tax Exclusive: The Reform politician’s suggestion would ‘punish millions of women and strip them of their basic dignity to choose’, Labour’s deputy leader has warned

So as I struggled with miscarriage after miscarriage before having my 🌈 baby, Reform would seriously think I should pay more tax during that agony.

This policy isn’t just a slippery slope to a handmaids tale dystopian future - it’s a deliberate step towards it
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

When whatever happens at the top of the Labour Party finally happens and given the sorry mess that British politics has been for years, is it maybe time to fix a broken system? Get rid of the “two party politics” delusion? Embrace PR? It’s apparently good enough for Scotland, Wales and N Ireland.

Here’s my view: the Mandelson-Epstein crisis reveals a government fuelled by a masculinised realpolitik, responsible for successive failures of legitimacy and accountability.

It’s time to put some women at the centre

www.thenewworld.co.uk/zoe-grunewal...

There's no reason to accept this as normal, though. Much of Starmer and Labour's unpopularity is not misfortune but his own doing. Mandelson was a choice. Consistently pursuing policy positions designed to appeal to people who will not vote for you - and alienating core supporters - is a choice.

Keir Starmer is unable to turn his government around, which is a hard task, but also his job.

So far, Labour MPs have been unable to either turn Starmer around or kick him out. That’s also a hard task (made harder by the Labour rule book), but it’s their job, too.

New research with @stir.ac.uk: 11-17 year olds see alcohol branding almost every time they watch football or rugby.

👀They recognise alibi marketing and interpret no-low promotions as ads for full-strength alcohol.

📣We're calling for comprehensive restrictions on alcohol marketing in sport.

Pink graphic with black and white text which reads 'What does the new National Cancer Plan for England mean for people affected by cancer?'

After years of campaigning, we’re pleased the government has today launched its National Cancer Plan for England.

We need the government to follow through on these promises to make sure that it can meet its ambition to save more lives from cancer.

Learn more about the Plan : cruk.ink/4awC9Cw

We welcome the National Cancer Plan for England | World Cancer Research Fund World Cancer Research Fund welcomes the publication of the National Cancer Plan for England – reflecting not only on how we treat cancer, but how we prevent it.

Today is #WorldCancerDay and we've been busy digesting the new National Cancer Plan for England.

Check out @wcrf.org's reaction www.wcrf.org/about-us/new...