Neil Tester

Senior DWP civil servant blames victims for carer’s allowance scandal Neil Couling said failings by individual claimants ‘at the heart’ of crisis, despite a report finding DWP shortcomings ‘unacceptable’

Classy. Or just auditioning for a role as a panto villain?
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

‘It was the last time Mum smiled at me’: the choirs singing to the dying in three-part harmony A worldwide movement to sing gentle songs to the dying provides comfort, peace and release to both the suffering and the singers

Beautiful and thought-provoking on lots of levels.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Screenshot from the Sunday Times. Two stories next to each other. Photo of Malta. Headline: Forget Dubai - Britons are moving here to cut tax bills instead. Photo of Zohran Mamdani. Headline: Rich New Yorkers eye London as Mamdani plots wealth tax.

Hang on, Sunday Times - maybe make your mind up?

Mount Vernon Hospital, Rickmansworth Road, Northwood - Hillingdon | Historic England Explore every county, district, city and major town across England.

Heritage at Risk register’s out in a week of briefings that the Budget will cut NHS lists. Describes this 123-yr-old hospital as decaying with no solution agreed. That’s just its existence, not its NHS function. Cutting lists needs a serious capital strategy.
historicengland.org.uk/listing/heri...

This article was amended on 4 November 2025 to remove a suggestion that print journalism is "obsolete". Newspapers and magazines are still available.

Love this note at the end of the Guardian’s review of the J**n L***s Christmas ad.

What are parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities telling us? Parents across England are speaking up about the challenges they face getting the right specialist support for their children and how families are often left struggling to get the care their children ...

Good to see @healthwatchengland.bsky.social pulling together experiences of children with SEN and disabilities ahead of White Paper. Glad 2 of the examples used come from what people have shared with Healthwatch Hertfordshire - and that one is a good news story. www.healthwatch.co.uk/blog/2025-11...

Whoever’s directing Sunday Brunch just made my morning. @charliehigson.bsky.social said he bonded with @jimmoir1.bsky.social over their partners cheating on them by going fishing together. Cut to young Norwegian singer Sigrid looking utterly staggered that Brits discuss such things on live TV.

This is good news but the Secretary of State’s wrong to say women have been suffering in silence. They’ve consistently been trying to tell the system and being ignored. Sound familiar? Here’s Exhibit A from Healthwatch Hertfordshire: www.healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk/news/2023-12...

SPOILER ALERT: the blog may not be *entirely* about the TV show…

“Just go outside!” I’m writing this just over eight hours before I settle down to watch this evening’s opening episode of Celebrity Traitors. This trailer article in today’s Guardian provides a masterclass in how to org...

Who else is looking forward to Celebrity Traitors tonight? I have views…
neiltesterconsulting.co.uk/blogs-and-ar...

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

“Just go outside!” I’m writing this just over eight hours before I settle down to watch this evening’s opening episode of Celebrity Traitors. This trailer article in today’s Guardian provides a masterclass in how to org...

Who else is looking forward to Celebrity Traitors tonight? I have views…
neiltesterconsulting.co.uk/blogs-and-ar...

Screenshot of BBC London news. A man with grey hair, wearing a white shirt and dark suit, is being interviewed in a city street. The on-screen caption identifies him as Brent North, Gatwick Diamond Initiative.

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.

A page in a lined notebook. Handwritten text as follows. 4/5/09 Why are my cheeks and earlobes soft? 4/5/09 Why is everything in space? 6/5/09 Why do train signals have four lights? 21/5/09 Are pandas dangerous?

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 🤣

Newly retired UK teachers ‘sick with worry’ after delays in pension payments Current and retired staff complain about delays, backlogs and poor communication at Teachers’ Pensions

Not entirely sure why they buried the key to it all in the 14th paragraph…

www.theguardian.com/money/2025/s...

Time to get serious about men’s NHS Health Checks Our new research shows that too many men are missing out on the NHS Health Check, which is essential in preventing illness and saving lives. Read our findings and calls to action for healthcare leader...

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

‘Partridge is more popular than me – that’s a given!’ Steve Coogan on Alan’s glorious return For three decades, he has played one of the UK’s greatest ever comedy characters. But how different is he to Alan Partridge really? Ahead of the presenter’s new show about mental health, Coogan is put...

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...

Resignation of Claire Murdoch

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

Labour comms director helped write manifesto while still working at TikTok Exclusive: James Lyons rewrote 2024 election pledges ‘over evenings and weekends’ before his exit from social media company

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.

‘Waste is a resource, not a nuisance’: the team who will collect and use up your leftover paint Rather than leave unwanted paint to go to waste, Community RePaint is using it to transform local communities

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I may be imagining it but I think I remember (maybe a decade ago) @bengoldacre.bsky.social doing some effective work on letting GPs know when they were outliers in relation to prescribing.

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!

David Tennant and Toby Jones looking remarkably like an ITV version of Malcolm Tucker and apparatchik at a hearing in an upcoming drama.

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

Spag Bol with vegetables made into a smiley face.

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?

A railway platform indicator board displays the following message: “Stand back from the platform edge. The fast train now approaching does not stop here.” Next to the text is a computer-animated woman relating the message in British Sign Language.

Animated BSL station platform warning message 👍

Red spray paint cans.

A large trunk, painted red, on a plastic sheet covered in spray paint.

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