Nicholas Theobald

Chart from Office of Rail and Road (HMG) showing annual and quarterly passenger rail journeys for Great Britain from April 2015 to March 2025.

In Great Britain, there are about 1.7 billion passenger rail journeys each year without serious incident (about 150 million a month). It's worth keeping perspective as news media discuss banning knives on trains or installing scanners at stations.
dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/u...

This is something @aaronwinter.bsky.social and I explored in our report for the @runnymedetrust.bsky.social in the lead up to the 2024 election

Once more, the key question is not whether immigration is a popular concern, but why it has been made so

www.runnymedetrust.org/publications...

In trying to save his own reputation, has the lead expert witness in the trial of Lucy Letby sacrificed the reputation of his fellow experts?

🧵1/4

Tories deny they have thrown out plans to toughen up indefinite leave to remain Plans to retrospectively remove the settled status are no longer Tory policy, a spokesman suggested on Wednesday.

More confusion from the hapless Philp/Lam team

“It is now our formal announced policy to restrict benefits to anyone who is not a British citizen. That is policy.".

Obviously, that would mean tearing up the Conservatives' own Brexit deal with the EU.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

England's Covid wave recedes but is replaced by flu Making Sense explores how evidence and data can help us make sense of the world — from the NHS and Covid to science, democracy and politics. Christina Pagel is a Professor of Operational Research at...

Covid in England is definitely on the way down, but Flu is on the way up - and over a month early.

My latest substack
open.substack.com/pub/christin...

‘Elon Musk won’t stop. It’s time the British government g... The platform has become a swamp of disinformation. Politicians should lead the way out of it

Elon Must won't stop.

I wrote this for @theobserveruk.bsky.social.

As a GP, I am not allowed to receive a pen or post-it note pad from a pharmaceutical company rep

Govt banned them in case I was influenced to prescribe medications

This should also be banned

Influence being bought in Govt

Patients should influence not the healthy & wealthy

"Clean air is just as important as healthy school lunches and safe playground equipment."

"Clean air needs an evangelist... Chair, we ask you to be that evangelist!"

"This could end up being the most important thing the inquiry recommends for public health."

7/

"There is a reluctance to recognise that clean air... is important, and... a strange disconnect between the high level of proof... some people require to show measures like these work, compared to the low level of proof... used to justify enormously disruptive school-attendance restrictions..."

5/

Ventilation works!

Prof Sir Chris Whitty said "Improving ventilation would be a good thing. It would not just be for future [respiratory] pandemic... like this one, but also for year on year 'flu and other respiratory infections."

4/

My closing submissions in the children and young people module of the Covid Inquiry, on behalf of Clinically Vulnerable Families

People with some cancers live longer after a COVID vaccine mRNA vaccines seem to boost the effectiveness of an immune therapy for skin and lung cancer ― in an unexpected way.

Here's a much better source confirming this:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A surprise bonus from COVID-19 vaccines: bolstering cancer treatment Patients who got shots of mRNA before starting a type of cancer immunotherapy lived much longer

People who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors lived significantly longer than those who received the same drugs but didn’t get the vaccine.

wow, which common vaccine was it?

How safe are UK research institutions from politicisation? - Impact of Social Sciences New research finds the arm's length bodies that underpin UK research run the risk of politicisation unless they are put on a firmer footing.

How safe are UK research institutions from politicisation?
@chrischirp.bsky.social & have have written a new blog for LSE on our report

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Anti-malaria funding cuts could lead to ‘deadliest resurgence ever’, study warns Expected reduction in contributions by wealthy countries likely to cost millions of lives and billions in lost growth

It’s not just The termination of USAID that threatens to create an increase in malaria cases but countries such as UK and Germany also reducing their aid budgets too will contribute. We have to work with African countries to avoid this from happening

Mosquitoes found in Iceland for first time as climate crisis warms country Three specimens discovered in what was previously one of the only places in the world without the insects

Climate change is enabling vectors like mosquitos and ticks to emerge and even thrive in places they once couldn’t have existed - this is a huge threat for infection spread eg dengue that could have worse impacts in infection-naive individuals that are more susceptible 🧪

On the edge My week in the NHS

New post just out:

"On the edge"

On my unexpected week in hospital and five things I learnt about the state of the NHS.

(Free to read)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/o...

A-level English, voluntary work, delayed citizenship: it’s Labour’s Orwellian Two Minutes Hate for immigrants | Nesrine Malik It’s easier for politicians to blame others than to face the truth: Britain has been stripped of the spaces and opportunities that allow for true social integration, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Ma...

www.theguardian.com/world/commen... #integration #migration #uklabour

US anti-vax stance to blame for continent-wide surge in measles, say experts The disease was eliminated across the Americas in 2024, but urgent vaccination drives are now under way as cases rise from Mexico to Bolivia after outbreaks farther north

Infections don’t respect borders - as Kennedy pushes disinformation about measles, its treatment and the vaccine the cases of measles increase in US also driving surges in S America and Canada necessitating big vaccine drives to protect citizens

Study: We're losing the war against drug-resistant infections faster than we thought Antimicrobial resistance is responsible for some 1.2 million deaths a year a year and contributes to millions more. Data in the new report shows that the problem is growing at an alarming rate.

Antimicrobial resistance is responsible for some 1.2 million deaths a year a year and contributes to millions more. Data in the new report shows that the problem is growing at an alarming rate. n.pr/3J0HVBC

He supported the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Now he may be deported to the Taliban. He supported America’s war, escaped Afghanistan and started a family in the U.S. Then ICE arrested him. If he is deported, he expects the Taliban to kill him.

My latest, on a man who supported the war in Afghanistan, came to the U.S. legally, applied for asylum, had two kids, became a bookkeeper, bought an American flag bumper sticker.

Then ICE arrested him. If he's deported, he expects the Taliban to kill him.
wapo.st/49aGaw2

The Trawl Meets @zackpolanski.bsky.social

Out now wherever you get your pods.

Link below 👇

Trump, speaking in the Israeli parliament, boasts about the weapons the U.S. has provided and says "you obviously used them very well."
An estimated 20,000 children have died in the war in Gaza.

Homophobic Christian Nationalist mob targets London’s gay district A homophobic religious mob calling themselves the ‘King’s Army’ organised an intimidating mob in the streets of London’s Soho – the heart of London’s LGBT+ community, home to many LGBT+ bars, clubs, a...

Absolutely awful. Just the latest example of rising Christian Nationalism in the UK, much of which can be attributed to American influence and financing.

England is now experiencing a significant Covid wave, after 10 months of relative quiet The latest Covid situation in England and a look at where NHS services are as we head into winter

After a long pause, I've just done another England Covid & NHS update as we head into the autumn/winter season.

TLDR: we're in a significant Covid wave now, the NHS is stretched, get boosted if you're eligible.

christinapagel.substack.com/p/england-is...

England is now experiencing a significant Covid wave, after 10 months of relative quiet The latest Covid situation in England and a look at where NHS services are as we head into winter

We are now in a significant COVID wave after a period of relative calm- excellent summary from @chrischirp.bsky.social

New Study Finds Annual COVID Vaccines Protect People against Severe Disease, Even with Prior Immunity A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

“A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination”

“I’ll put it bluntly, Robert is wrong… it’s actually a very integrated place... Not the definition of a slum.”

Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands 2017-24, responds to Robert Jenrick's comments on Handsworth.

#Newsnight

Helen Salisbury: GPs versus hairdressers? Streeting has no idea The row about online access to GP services continues.1 In April it was agreed that GPs would keep online portals open in their core hours, but a six month delay was put in place. This was so that NHS ...

According to Wes Streeting, GPs are less convenient than hairdressers.
My latest on why goodwill has drained away as we try to provide a safe & equitable service in the teeth of a gale of nonsense from NHS England & the govt.
bmj.com/cgi/content/...