@rathfelder.bsky.social
Retired Mancunian agitator. Patient representative/ public contributor in Manchester University. Unpaid advocate for disabled people. Wikipedian. Whalley Range Labour Party. Perfection is the enemy of improvement!
Starmer has had a brilliant few weeks, the story was done to death in January and no new or sensational information has been released, the media and others are just regurgitating what they said a few months ago. Even worse is their hypocrisy, beautifully highlighted here by Private Eye.
🟨 Print Edition — Reform Attacks Byline Times
Reform UK accused Byline Times of “attempting to derail a democratic election” for reporting on Matt Goodwin’s academic ties to organisations linked to discredited pseudoscientific race ideology
NHS surcharge is an illuminating example of a policy that has been designed to meet public concerns about migration impacts. Hiking it from £200 to > £1000 means the NHS is v likely making a surplus (esp on students). I doubt many people have heard of it
South East Water says it can't provide water to all new homes
Water companies haven't built new reservoirs for decades, paid dividends, govts did nothing
Govt wants to build new homes but no infrastructure planning. That's what happens when you privatize essentials infrastructure.
Rob Hutton’s evisceration of DCMS was the funniest and angriest thing I’ve read in response to what has happened to UK broadcast media
thecritic.co.uk/bring-back-d...
and because taxes on property are so poor.
Last year I realised something that has changed my perspective on advocacy
At @walkridegm.org.uk we noticed social media wasn’t having a meaningful impact on active travel delivery, so we shifted our focus to more constructive spaces
Helmets are a difficult subject because there’s a difference between individual health risk (wearing a helmet reduces the risk of head injury) and population health risk (if wearing helmets puts people off cycling then you get an increase in health problems from decreased activity)
This week's post on Labour's existential crisis and why they need clarity over their enemies to recover.
(£/free trial)
samf.substack.com/p/fighting-b...
For example: this new cycle lane has made my commute much better. A small change, maybe, but I feel it significantly.
a patriotic montage of British history from Advance UK: Anglo-Saxon warriors, soldiers fighting in the second world war, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road. “This is Britain, where freedom was written, Built in defiance, paid for in blood.” www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...
In England a driver can be speeding, using cannabis and a phone, overtake another vehicle, mount the pavement outside a school playground and kill a 4-year-old girl while uninsured — and receive just 3 years 10 months for causing death by careless driving.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
30 years since the Dunblane massacre, which led to a ban on ownership of most handguns, 56% of Britons believe there should be tighter restrictions on guns and only 4% think there should be fewer
Complete ban: 28%
Tighter restrictions: 28%
Current rules about right: 35%
Fewer restrictions: 4%
It’s true for a number of people, enticed by “the American” dream; who get here and realize: this is it? I’ve made a terrible mistake.
The pharmacy counter is the place people most frequently interact with the health care system, so concern about prescription drug costs is broad, and growing.
www.kff.org/public-opini...
Kind of a summary of the whole Trump administration:
-campaigns on lowering drug prices
-does showy press conferences and inexplicable tariffs about lowering drug prices
-every important relevant policy obviously likely to raise drug prices relative to purchasing power
-drug prices go up
All three lines are correct and true representations of reality. Data literacy is a crucial skill to make sense of the world.
Over 100 children among nearly 800 killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon
www.channel4.com/news/over-10...
Boris Johnson wrote a polemic against banning handguns a week after the massacre. Nigel Farage attacked the handgun ban as "ludicrous" two decades later in 2018. He is retreating from his view these days.
www.scotsman.com/news/politic...
After Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch appeared to make contradictory claims about defence spending last week, we’ve taken a closer look at the numbers.
Defence spending is set to increase, as our fact check of three of the claims we heard explains.
It is neither inevitable nor acceptable that anyone is killed on London’s roads.
Today’s Vision Zero Action Plan launch at LAS HART Resilience Hub reinforces my commitment to ending road deaths.
There is more to do, but every step matters to make our city safer.
Clacton?
"Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?"
2️⃣In this blog, Sarah Woolnough, CE of @thekingsfund.bsky.social highlights that although preventative health interventions are often dubbed as 'nanny state' policies by critics, these policies are popular with the public and vital for public health.
Trump fired the people whose job it would be to warn him of the really obvious stuff.
With everything else going on I missed Badenoch committing the Tories to a policy of “enforced” assimilation into officially approved culture.
📉 Wait lists have fallen again by 43k in January - 374k in 18 months.
🚑 Fastest ambulance response in 5 years, down to less than 29 mins for heart attacks and stroke
🏥 A&E waits the shortest for four years despite a hugely demanding winter
Lots done, lots more to do.
Wes Streeting admits another cut to mental health spend share
The proportion of the NHS budget spent on mental healthcare will be cut for the third year in a row, the health secretary has admitted
www.hsj.co.uk/mental-healt...
Pedro Sánchez has taken a strong position in refusing the US demand to use Spanish bases to strike Iran. Europe should show solidarity with Spain in the face of Donald Trump’s threats. https://bit.ly/4l7IYhs
