{"id":17,"date":"2011-03-16T20:18:11","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T20:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2025-09-11T12:58:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:58:57","slug":"articles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/?page_id=17","title":{"rendered":"Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

More of us are growing old, but pensioners don’t have to be an economic burden<\/a><\/p>\n

This government must address the changing balance of our population to prevent Britons sliding into state dependency<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby<\/a><\/p>\n

19th August 2025<\/p>\n

As the country paid its respects to the last surviving veterans of the Second World War, you might have assumed that Britain venerates its pensioners. But the increase in life expectancy since that war means that the pensioners are a much bigger share of the population than in 1945 and there is now a danger that rather than valuing and celebrating seniority, younger generations are being encouraged to see the elderly as a liability and a\u00a0drain on the public purse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pension commission, launched recently by the Labour government, announced this week that within the next 50 years pensioners will make up a quarter of the adult population. This alarming headline has triggered speculation that the ground is being prepared for an\u00a0increase in pension age<\/a>\u00a0or the\u00a0discarding of the triple lock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
The Government is keen to damp down speculation of any changes to the current system, fearing the electoral impact, not to mention the wrath of its own backbenchers, following the embarrassing <\/span>retreat on the winter fuel allowance<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But the changing balance of the population needs to be addressed, so that growing old is viewed as an opportunity rather than as a slide into dependency. The reality is that older people are enjoying much better health than their parents\u2019 generation and many are continuing to work beyond retirement age. Today\u2019s grandparents are also\u00a0more likely to be providing childcare<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 or helping their adult children onto the housing ladder \u2013 than putting their feet up.<\/p>\n

George Osborne\u2019s highly political decision to introduce the triple lock, during the coalition government, may have looked like an easy win at the time, but by creating a massive financial liability has ended up by stoking intergenerational resentment. The state pension is now the\u00a0second biggest item of government expenditure<\/a>\u00a0after health; by 2030 it is expected to cost around \u00a315bn a year. Had the\u00a0state pension<\/a> simply kept pace with the cost of living, the cost would have been around a third lower.<\/p>\n

An inflation-protected pension should surely now be the way forward, breaking the link with earnings but providing a safety net to underlie private savings. A government with the courage to propose this would be in a much stronger position to offer incentives to savers and promote greater financial independence in old age. Coupled with this should be serious reform to the social care sector, to lift the burden on the NHS and assuage the misery of too many older pensioners languishing in hospital. Again, incentives need to be put in place to encourage self-insurance, with a cap on care costs to enable a thriving social insurance sector and more private care providers.<\/p>\n

The danger with the present Labour government is that it is ducking both these challenges and compounding the problematic legacy of previous administrations. It has postponed any decision on the reform of social care, despite the inevitable impact on the NHS budget in the meantime. As to pension saving, the Chancellor is actively\u00a0reducing or removing pension tax reliefs<\/a>\u00a0as well as undermining private pensions providers by interfering in their investment decisions. Damaging private saving simply pushes the problem back on to the Government\u2019s books. This country has drifted into a mindset of state dependency and none of our politicians have the courage or foresight to break free.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

The ECJ has green-lighted enormous “climate reparations”. Starmer is unlikely to resist<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n
The Prime Minister and Attorney General’s surrender to international law has come at a cost<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Jill Kirby<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
26th July 2025<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The concept of international law has in recent years been stretched to the point of absurdity<\/a>, and the latest decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) shows just how unwise Keir Starmer\u2019s government has been in\u00a0conceding power to unelected organisations such as the UN<\/a>. Sitting in The Hague, a panel of judges led by ICJ president Yuji Iwasawa, a Japanese legal professor, ruled this week in favour of a group of Pacific island law students seeking the right to sue other nations they deem responsible for man-made climate change.<\/p>\n

The ruling opens the door for countries who consider they are at risk from global warming to sue Britain for reparations. Some 132 nations supported the legal action; the potential for all of these nations to seek compensation from the UK and other western countries is mind-boggling.<\/p>\n

Playing into the hands of activists who would like to blame Britain and other developed nations for the ills of the modern world, the ICJ bases its judgement on the theory that rising sea levels are attributable to the manufacturing processes which have been responsible for much of humankind\u2019s progress since the Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0a theory which is still contested by scientists<\/a>\u00a0and ultimately impossible to prove. But in signing up to climate treaties, such as the Paris Agreement, and international accords at the annual Cop summits, Britain has effectively accepted responsibility for contributing to global warming, pledging not only to reduce UK emissions but also to make big payments to developing countries to enable them to introduce so-called \u201cgreen technologies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Always keen to burnish their environmental credentials on the world stage, recent Conservative governments have been as eager as Labour to sign up to such agreements. But such virtue-signalling comes at a price. The millions of pounds handed over each year in pursuit of these accords will be dwarfed by the cost of climate reparations following this week\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Responding to the ICJ\u2019s decision the Foreign Office has asserted that the judgment is \u201cnon-binding\u201d and \u201cadvisory\u201d.\u00a0 But the \u201cadvisory\u201d nature of the ICJ\u2019s ruling on the Chagos Islands did not deter the Labour government from surrendering those islands to Mauritius, despite the huge financial cost and risks to our future defence capabilities. Insisting that in so doing the UK was meeting its obligations under international law, the Prime Minister has surely invited other nations to embark on litigation against this country based on ICJ judgments.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the supremacy of international law has been made quite clear by Keir Starmer\u2019s old friend Richard Hermer. On being ennobled and appointed as Attorney General last year, Hermer gave instructions to the government\u2019s legal department to comply with international law, requiring that Parliament should not legislate contrary to it.<\/p>\n

Undermining the sovereignty of our government in this way does not appear to trouble Lord Hermer, and it will certainly provide plenty of work for his former colleagues. Barristers from his old sets at Doughty Street and Matrix chambers have been leading the successful climate claims at the Hague and will likely be first in line for the next round of litigation seeking reparations. As one of these barristers,\u00a0Jennifer Robinson<\/a>, declared: \u201cThis is a huge win\u201d which \u201cis going to change the face of climate advocacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly threatens to be an expensive decision for the UK. Prime Minister, you have put us in the hands of the international courts, but where will you find the cash to pay the reparations?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

France is getting something right: let’s scrap a few Bank Holidays<\/a><\/p>\n

It will certainly play well with the OBR, and might even impress the bond markets. Why not give it a try?<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby<\/a>, 17th July 2025<\/p>\n

If Rachel Reeves seriously wants to grow the British economy and tackle record levels of public debt, maybe she should be looking across the Channel for ideas.
\nFrancois Bayrou, the Prime Minister appointed by President Macron with the unenviable task of sorting out the French fiscal crisis, has proposed cancelling two Bank Holidays, in a bid to improve national productivity.
\nTo no-one\u2019s surprise, the idea has been met with indignation by both the populist Right and Left-wing opposition parties, who are generally united in their refusal to countenance any dilution of workers\u2019 rights or benefits. But surely M Bayrou has a point: are public holidays really necessary, when productivity is persistently low and public debt is at an all-time high?
\nIn fact the loss of two national holidays would still leave the French population with nine days of religious or secular commemoration. That would bring them in line with Scotland, which has nine Bank Holidays, one more than in England, which currently has eight.
\nBut perhaps it\u2019s time for the UK to reconsider all these national holidays. Our debt level is dangerously close to 100 per cent of GDP (in France it\u2019s 110 per cent) and we too have a serious productivity problem and every reason to worry about the sustainability of our public finances.
\nCurtailing regular interruptions to the working week could be a useful boost to the economy; in any case, hasn\u2019t the original purpose of such holidays long since disappeared?
\nAs a Victorian invention, the Bank Holiday dates from an era when the working week included Saturdays and annual paid leave was minimal or non-existent. These mandatory days off have proliferated over the years as governments have courted popularity; when new ones are introduced no one has the courage to suggest an old one might be abolished.
\nThe Spring Bank Holiday at the end of May, once known as Whit Monday, was first introduced in the 1870s to mark the day after Pentecost, a key date in the Christian calendar, but has had no religious significance since it became detached from Whitsun in the 1970s. Nowadays it follows hard upon the May Day holiday, which has nothing to do with maypole dancing but was purely an invention of a weak Labour government flaunting its solidarity with the workers in 1978.
\nThis in turn is preceded by Easter Monday, so that when Easter falls late there can be three extended weekends in less than two months.
\nOf course in a Christian country Christmas Day should be a day of celebration, and there\u2019s a case for Boxing Day and indeed Easter Monday, if only to give the clergy a breather, but it\u2019s questionable whether New Year\u2019s Day is anything other than an excuse for a hangover or a reason to stop work altogether for ten days starting on Christmas Eve.
\nAs for August Bank Holiday: why head for the beach or a local beauty spot when everyone else is doing the same?
\nSo Rachel, here\u2019s your chance to echo the Prime Minister\u2019s entente cordiale and support President Macron\u2019s beleaguered government in this bold new initiative by announcing that the UK will in fact be cutting out at least three of our superfluous Bank Holidays next year and thereafter.
\nIt will certainly play well with the OBR, and might even impress the bond markets. Why not give it a try?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Rachel Reeves is recklessly destroying the British pension<\/a><\/p>\n

This Labour Government are ruining what was once the envy of the world in order to help \u2018balance the books\u2019<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby<\/a>, 28th May 2025<\/p>\n

For a Chancellor of the Exchequer under pressure to increase the Government\u2019s tax take without appearing to raise taxes, it looks as if pension schemes may be\u00a0next in the firing line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rachel Reeves faces her first full spending review next month with the public finances in a desperate state; annual interest payments on the national debt are running at more than \u00a3100billion and the Labour government has proved incapable of turning the spending taps off.<\/p>\n

With pension funds<\/a> \u2013 and pension contributions \u2013 seen as an easy target for a Government that has run out of money, HMRC\u2019s report this week on the subject of \u201csalary sacrifice\u201d schemes looks suspiciously well-timed.<\/p>\n

Reeves wouldn\u2019t be the first Labour Chancellor to squeeze the\u00a0British private pension sector<\/a>, which was once the envy of the world. The rot set in when Gordon Brown started taxing pension funds on dividends from their investments, at a cost to those funds of around \u00a310billion a year.<\/p>\n

In her autumn statement last year Reeves took a swing at personal pension pots by announcing her decision to end inheritance tax relief on unspent pensions, which previously could be passed on tax free if a saver died before the age of 75.<\/p>\n

And pension providers are now being put under pressure by the Government to invest only in British firms, despite the fact that the returns from those investments may be lower as a result, penalising participants by reducing their retirement income.<\/p>\n

Salary sacrifice pension schemes, the subject of the HMRC report, are offered to employees by around half of the UK\u2019s companies. Pension contributions are deducted from salary free of income tax and national insurance, providing an incentive to the employee to build up a pension and an opportunity for the employer to reduce the cost of NI.<\/p>\n

\n
HMRC has taken soundings on the use of such schemes, noting the value to employees and companies, and working out how the withdrawal of the reliefs would affect an individual\u2019s net income.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Unsurprisingly the biggest impact is on\u00a0employees with high salaries<\/a>. But it\u2019s clear that the incentive effect is strongest for those whose income is closest to tax thresholds: the prospect of paying tax at 40 per cent rather than 20 per cent is a powerful reason to sacrifice the top slice of income. For parents threatened with the loss of child benefit if they start moving into higher rate tax, for example, it\u2019s a no-brainer.<\/p>\n

But to the Treasury such incentives are seen only in terms of a reduced tax stream. The risk that employees will be less likely to build up a pension, or that employers might decide that operating such a scheme is no longer viable, will be of no concern to the Chancellor because it won\u2019t show up on this year\u2019s balance sheet.<\/p>\n

It is of course perfectly logical to offer tax relief on pension contributions: revenue forgone by the Government in the short term will be recouped later when the pension is drawn down as income. But for a Government thinking only about the next set of elections, the temptation to raid pensions now, rather than find any cuts to bloated state expenditure, will probably be too great to resist.<\/p>\n

The HMRC report is therefore likely to be seized upon by the Treasury hungry for any scraps to\u00a0help balance the books<\/a>. The slow death of the UK\u2019s pension industry will be accelerated, but will anyone in this Labour Government notice or care?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
\n
The war on farmers will get much worse in the name of net zero<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Jill Kirby, 27th February 2025<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Any British farmers who entrusted Labour with their vote at the last election are surely regretting it now.
\nThe threat to family farms from the removal of inheritance tax relief has been the most obvious blow, bringing farmers in their thousands on to the streets of Westminster to protest.
\nBut the future of farming in this country faces a much bigger threat in the years ahead as the government pursues its net zero agenda.
\nAlready frustrated by endless delays in the \u201csustainability\u201d payments they were told would compensate them for giving up productive crops, farmers could be forgiven this week for wondering if the government would like them to stop food production altogether.
\nIf the recommendations from the Climate Change Committee are adopted, it\u2019s clear that thousands of farmers will either be forced off their land or told to retrain as forestry managers.
\nThe Committee\u2019s Carbon Budget, measuring the UK\u2019s progress to net zero, says that British cattle and sheep farming must be reduced by 27 per cent in the next 15 years, and that consumers should adjust their diets accordingly, eating 25 per cent less meat and dairy products.
\nThe Committee stops short of announcing food rationing, so it\u2019s not clear how these dietary changes will be imposed \u2013 veganism has proved to be a minority interest rather than a national enthusiasm.
\nFarmers, however, will have no choice but to comply. The British consumer can simply switch to eating more imported meat and dairy products, but the government can impose its carbon targets for agriculture by issuing livestock quotas.
\nEvery item of livestock already has to be individually documented. Agriculture is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the British economy.
\nThe environmental burden on the sector is already disproportionate. The Climate Change Committee blames farming for contributing 12 per cent of the UK\u2019s carbon emissions. But as farmland accounts for 70 per cent of UK land area, acre-for-acre British farming is much more carbon-efficient than other land uses.
\nYet the Committee\u2019s report frequently groups together emissions from meat, dairy and aviation, as if the sectors are equivalent. As Tom Dunn of the Tenant Farmers\u2019 Association says \u201cthis is simply bonkers\u201d.
\nMinisters have yet to comment on this week\u2019s announcements, but Labour\u2019s enthusiasm for net zero and lack of sympathy for the countryside suggest that their desire to reach climate change targets will outweigh any concern about the impact on agriculture.
\nTenant farmers are already suffering from green zealotry as big landowners such as the National Trust remove fertile land from agricultural use and replace livestock and crops with millions of trees.
\nAs housing estates, solar farms and pylons spread their tentacles across the countryside, forests of plastic-encased saplings are encroaching further on our pastoral landscape. The familiar patchwork of arable and grazing land is disappearing.
\nBritish farmers are paying the price for the metropolitan elite\u2019s obsession with environmentalism. Compounding the tragedy is the certain knowledge that as productive farming grinds to a halt in this country the increase in food imports means that associated carbon emissions will simply be shifted abroad.
\nWinning the race to net zero will be no consolation for a once-fertile country that can no longer feed its own people.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

It shouldn’t take Tony Blair to expose the myth about green jobs<\/a><\/p>\n

Jill Kirby, 20th February 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Britain cannot afford to go on indulging Ed Miliband’s “luxury beliefs” any longer; the price is simply too highAs Ed Miliband\u00a0pursues his relentless and expensive quest<\/a>\u00a0for net zero he would do well to pause and heed the warnings emanating from another, rather more successful, former leader of the Labour Party.<\/p>\n

Tony Blair\u2019s think tank, the grandly titled Institute for Global Change, has\u00a0warned in a report this week<\/a>\u00a0that the Government is overestimating the potential for jobs to be created in \u201cgreen\u201d industries, and that they may not replace the jobs lost in British manufacturing. The report calls for Labour to adopt a \u201chard-headed\u201d approach to industrial strategy which is less reliant on the green agenda.<\/p>\n

\n
The report will surely be welcomed in the Treasury, and indeed by anyone in the Government who is remotely serious about trying to achieve economic growth. Far from being an engine of such growth,\u00a0the net zero agenda is stifling it<\/a>, closing down British industry, draining public funds and increasing costs for consumers.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s increasingly hard to understand why Ed Miliband continues to believe in his own agenda, let alone persuade his colleagues to go along with it. The UK\u2019s\u00a0rush to achieve net zero ahead of all its competitors<\/a>\u00a0is self-defeating, because instead of reducing global carbon emissions it has simply moved them elsewhere.<\/p>\n

How can any industry survive the highest energy prices in the world, roughly four times higher than the US and China? The most obvious victim has been the steel industry; having once been the world\u2019s largest producer of steel, the UK is now closing the last of its blast furnaces, and in future will only have the capacity to produce recycled steel, aided by a \u00a32.5\u2009billion government subsidy and providing a far smaller number of jobs. The demand for steel has in the meantime been met by production elsewhere, most notably China \u2013 the country responsible for\u00a0nearly a third of global carbon emissions<\/a>, and where those emissions have more than doubled over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

\n
The British car industry is beginning to follow a similar pattern. Aided by inward investment, UK vehicle production has been a success story, our biggest single manufacturing export and a major employer, particularly in less wealthy areas. But the quotas and fines imposed by the Government to fulfil the electric vehicle mandate, combined with competition from Chinese factories\u00a0producing cheap electric cars<\/a>, is hitting balance sheets and pushing down demand, so that British car production has dropped to its lowest level since the 1950s.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Tony Blair Institute is therefore only stating the obvious when it points out that jobs created by green initiatives will not compensate for those lost in manufacturing and related industries. But it\u2019s not only a question of jobs lost, painful though that process has been, but the cost to the taxpayer of creating \u201cgreen\u201d employment. These costs are not just direct, in the form of state subsidies to industry to become environmentally friendly, or public sector jobs in \u201csustainability\u201d, but also the indirect cost of British electricity, for both producers and consumers,\u00a0leaving us all worse off<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Blair\u2019s report will surely increase tensions between Rachel Reeves and Miliband, illustrating the folly of some of the Energy Secretary\u2019s claims about green growth. Sooner or later the Prime Minister will have to decide whose side he is on, because Britain cannot afford to go on indulging Miliband\u2019s \u201cluxury beliefs\u201d any longer; the price is simply too high.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Trump’s plastic straw restoration is genius<\/a><\/p>\n

Ending the tyranny of soggy paper tubes will be welcomed by consumers – and might help the planet<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby,\u00a0 13th February 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

With a stroke of the White House pen, Donald Trump has this week revoked another restriction on personal freedom introduced by Democrats, under Joe Biden, in the name of environmentalism. American consumers will no longer be forced to drink their milkshakes and Coke through soggy paper straws.\u00a0Plastic straws \u2013 whether single use or reusable \u2013 are back<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As he signed off another Executive Order on Monday, Trump declared the paper alternatives \u201cdon\u2019t work, I\u2019ve had them many times and on occasion they break, they explode\u2026 It\u2019s a ridiculous situation.\u201d All government buildings are to stop purchasing paper straws and a national strategy will be developed to end their use across America.<\/p>\n

\n
The president\u2019s appetite for fast food and milkshakes is well-known, and he has fulminated against \u201cnon-functional\u201d soggy paper straws for years. A hugely successful item of Maga fundraising in the 2020 Republican campaigns was the sale of Trump-branded, bright red, reusable plastic straws.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Deciding that Americans should once again have the right to put a plastic straw in their drinks is not just about removing an annoying personal bugbear, but is part of the president\u2019s \u201ccommon sense revolution\u201d. Why should everyone buying a milkshake have to tolerate a useless paper substitute when they know that a plastic straw does the job so much better? It\u2019s common sense. The same goes for the replacement of plastic cutlery by bits of wood that neither cut nor scoop; no doubt these will be next on the president\u2019s hitlist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
This latest order has quickly divided national and international opinion, as no doubt Trump intended. Elon Musk, another long-time critic of paper straws, immediately took to X to brand Trump the \u201cGreatest President ever\u201d.\u00a0To environmentalists<\/a>, however, Trump is a vandal who doesn\u2019t care about a global pollution crisis. The White House points out that, on the contrary, producing paper straws consumes more carbon than the plastic alternative. It also asserts that most paper straws contain chemicals that do not decompose and which are potentially harmful to both users and the planet.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Love them or hate them, there is clearly still room for debate on plastic straws\u2019 environmental impact. Like so many ecological campaigns, the outcry against them was triggered by footage on social media \u2013 in this case, a video of researchers removing a straw from a turtle\u2019s nose. But straws are by no means the biggest source of plastic pollution. The rate at which they are discarded means they are often the most visible form of plastic litter washed up on beaches, but research found that the material the straws are made from represents less than 4 per cent of global plastic waste, and that around half of all plastic ocean waste comes from fishing nets, not litter. So Trump\u2019s apparent indifference towards sharks gobbling bits of plastic straw may be less reckless than it looks.<\/p>\n

In any case, it suits the president very much to speak up for manufacturers, restaurateurs and consumers \u2013 and to accuse his opponents of virtue signalling. The White House factsheet accompanying this latest order declares that in banning plastic straws the Democrats were \u201ccaving in to pressure from woke activists who prioritise symbolism over science\u201d. It goes on to cite his decision to pause the expansion of wind farms, recognising that their detrimental impact on the environment, particularly on wildlife, often outweighs their benefits.<\/p>\n

Trump takes the view that America\u2019s domestic supply of \u201cclean coal\u201d and natural gas\u00a0not only offers energy security but provides some of the cleanest energy in the world<\/a>. His critics, both in the US and here in the UK, tend to assume that he says these things to provoke and annoy, or simply to appease his base. The UK Government continues to claim the moral high ground, placing faith in \u201crenewable\u201d energy and closing down our own coal, oil and gas supplies. Voters are beginning to notice, however, that this has meant outsourcing our energy-intensive industries \u2013 including the production of windmills, solar panels and electric vehicles \u2013 to heavily polluting, coal-fired factories in China.<\/p>\n

The ban on plastic straws in the UK \u2013 introduced by the Conservatives under Boris Johnson \u2013 is unlikely to be revoked any time soon. But the next time one of those annoying soggy straws disintegrates in your drink, you might begin to wonder if The Donald has a point.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

End this recycling bin tyranny once and for all<\/a><\/p>\n

The fixation with sorting our rubbish into a dozen different receptacles is making our country uglier, and its people miserable<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby<\/span><\/a>\u00a029th November 2024<\/p>\n

Has the mania for recycling finally reached its limit? The Government seems to have decided that sorting household rubbish into half a dozen different receptacles is not going to save the planet after all.<\/p>\n

Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary,\u00a0announced this week<\/a>\u00a0that councils must limit the number of bins or bags issued to homes and offices to \u201cjust\u201d four. (Yes, four bins is now reckoned to be a modest number.) These are to include one bin for non-recyclables, one container for paper and card, another for food and garden waste and a fourth for all other recycling. This is intended to rein in the excesses of those local councils who currently provide up to 10 different containers and expect their residents to categorise every single item they throw away. I suppose it\u2019s progress, of a sort, and maybe a hint that reality is beginning to dawn on the green zealots.<\/p>\n

\n
Anyone who has tripped over a food waste caddy, disgorging last night\u2019s curry and chicken bones onto the pavement, will be glad to know that this particular piece of performative environmentalism is coming to an end and that in future food leftovers will be composted along with garden rubbish. Were we really supposed to believe that the energy consumed in collecting all these caddies could be replaced by the bio-gas generated from their contents?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that householders have been getting fed up with this time-wasting rubbish-sorting and have been failing to distinguish correctly between all the different categories. Recyclable material is apparently getting contaminated as a result and being discarded. Recent government statistics indicate that the proportion of waste being successfully recycled has been declining in recent years, which suggests that the complexity of many council schemes has been a deterrent and that increasing the number of bins outside every home has been counter-productive.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
As we devote time and energy to washing out our yoghurt pots, or grappling with the plastic tethers on the lid of every juice carton, we begin to wonder if we are being taken for fools.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Reports of recyclable waste being shipped halfway across the world only to be burnt or dumped on some distant shore risks making even the most conscientious among us wonder if there is any point to all this effort. Meanwhile we learn that \u201cGen Z\u201d \u2013 despite being subject to more environmental propaganda than any previous cohort \u2013 are the least likely to engage in this obsessive rubbish-sorting. Nine out of 10 young people (aged 27 or under) admitted in a recent survey that they throw stuff in the bin rather than bothering to clean it for recycling.<\/p>\n

All this suggests that the\u00a0petty tyranny exercised by local councils<\/a>, examining the contents of our bins and threatening to fine us for failing in our recycling duties, may be losing its effect. There is growing resentment of the ugliness of urban streets, where railings are festooned with bin bags and plastic boxes clutter up front yards and pavements. The one-size-fits-all recycling rules make no allowance for the difficulties of storing multiple containers in densely populated areas.<\/p>\n

Nor is the problem confined to towns and cities. On narrow lanes and village greens cottage gardens have had to make way for serried ranks of wheelie bins, sitting waiting for collection day. And while the bins have proliferated, street cleaning seems to have slid down the list of council priorities, presumably because the need to meet arbitrary recycling targets has absorbed an increasing share of local authority budgets.<\/p>\n

Yet there is surely worse to come, as the Labour government presses on with its \u201cgreen\u201d energy agenda, ripping up local planning controls in order to cover our hills and coastline with giant turbines and carpet green fields with solar panels. It\u2019s a strange and contradictory form of \u201cenvironmentalism\u201d that requires us to tolerate these eyesores, and to go on believing that this will make our world a better place.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Nimbys aren’t the villains of the housing crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

Labour’s plans to increase building are likely to fail if all the blame is pinned on local objectors<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a017th July 2024<\/p>\n

There can be no doubt that the UK is experiencing a housing shortage.\u00a0Record levels of immigration<\/a>\u00a0have driven a huge increase in this country\u2019s population, which has far outstripped the supply of new properties. Labour\u2019s ambition to build 1.5 million new homes in the next five years is, in theory at least, likely to be popular.<\/p>\n

As every housing minister over the past 14 years knows, however, goals and delivery are quite different things, and there are plenty of questions to be answered about the mechanisms Labour is seeking to deploy in achieving a level of construction unprecedented so far this century.<\/p>\n

With a touching faith in the power of targets, Labour appears to believe that by imposing top-down demands on every local authority, it will be able to free up huge amounts of land for housing. It\u2019s not clear how the Prime Minister squares these demands with his passionate commitment to devolution and local decision-making.<\/p>\n

In making his housing pledges, the Prime Minister is keen to\u00a0have a swipe at \u201cNimbys<\/a>\u201d \u2013 people who expect that, as local residents, they should have some say in the character of their area. How is it possible to assert one day that decisions are best made closest to the people and communities they affect, and the next day to declare that local authorities will have no say in the number of homes they are expected to build?<\/p>\n

Leaving aside this contradiction, it is not clear that Nimby resistance to planning applications has been a significant impediment to housebuilding. According to the Local Government Association, around 90 per cent of planning applications are approved by local authorities, but more than a million homes with current planning permission have not been built. Loosening the planning regime is no guarantee that house builders will suddenly find the resources to build these houses.<\/p>\n

The building industry has blamed the shortfall on a lack of availability of materials and skilled construction workers, as well as big increases in costs due to environmental regulation.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no sign that Labour will be able to alleviate these problems. In fact, quite the reverse. Angela Rayner\u2019s pledge to ensure \u201cthe biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation\u201d will not come cheap. Expecting house builders to include larger percentages of social or \u201caffordable\u201d homes in every new development will shrink the profit margin to the point where fewer developments will be viable.<\/p>\n

Add to this the infrastructure levy \u2013 which will presumably have to be substantially increased if the Government is to meet its promise of ensuring that new homes are built with enough local services, schools, GPs and the like \u2013 and Labour\u2019s targets begin to look a little hollow.<\/p>\n

Unless\u00a0Rachel Reeves<\/a>\u00a0is able to magic up a very large increase in the housing budget \u2013 which seems unlikely in view of her stern spending rhetoric \u2013 the costs to developers will only continue to increase.<\/p>\n

Much sound and fury has been generated around the proposal to declassify\u00a0green belt land<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 or rather, to redesignate it as grey or brown. Undoubtedly there are areas still labelled as green belt that have become derelict, neglected by their owners (whether public or private), in some cases deliberately, in the hope of planning gain once restrictions are relaxed. But in blaming Nimbys for the preservation of open spaces around our towns and cities, Labour is missing the point.<\/p>\n

Preserving the green belt is not about middle-class homeowners trying to preserve their views. The designation of such open space, using a phrase coined by the socialist philanthropist and founder of the National Trust Octavia Hill, was intended for the benefit of people living in dense inner-city housing. It has remained for many the closest opportunity to experiencing the natural world. Instead of grabbing these spaces for development, a Labour government should be focused on protecting and regenerating these green lungs; the need for them has not gone away.<\/p>\n

In flattening the democratic mechanism of local residents, the Prime Minister hopes to impress voters with his determination to deal with the obstacles his Conservative predecessors failed to overcome. But without addressing the underlying problems Nimbys have warned about, there is very little chance that Labour will have much luck.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Anne Robinson has taught the government a lesson<\/a><\/p>\n

If you have worked hard and saved hard, why shouldn’t you be free to leave your assets to your children rather than the taxman?<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 23rd May 2024<\/p>\n

Anne Robinson doesn\u2019t think much of politicians. In fact she\u2019s so unimpressed by the way they fritter away taxpayers\u2019 cash that she\u2019s decided to give\u00a0her fortune to her children before she dies<\/a>. Declaring \u201cI don\u2019t want the taxman to have it\u201d, she hopes to ensure that by spreading her wealth amongst her family now there will be much less inheritance tax to be paid after her death.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s got a point, and with the threat of a\u00a0Labour government on the horizon<\/a>, she\u2019s unlikely to be the only wealthy individual making such a decision. Robinson has made no secret of the fact that she has made plenty of money and enjoys a jet-setting lifestyle, but she has also been notoriously hard-working and a tough negotiator. Presenting herself as an unlikeable character as quiz show host didn\u2019t bother her and was a canny decision that helped her make her fortune. Why, she argues, should the government take 40% of that fortune after she dies. Much better that her daughter and grandchildren should share it and enjoy it now.<\/p>\n

Robinson\u2019s bluntness in announcing her motivation is in keeping with her approach to life, but her honesty is welcome. It\u2019s a view widely shared: polling shows that\u00a0inheritance tax is the most unpopular tax in the UK<\/a>. Reasons given to pollsters include that people have already paid tax on their earnings and on the property they purchased so they should not be taxed again when their assets are passed on. There\u2019s a strong sense of injustice about double taxation, with the feeling that the government is dipping in twice to hard-earned resources.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also widespread resentment that inheritance tax presses hardest on people who can\u2019t afford to exploit tax loopholes. For the super-wealthy, there are ways to avoid big inheritance tax bills, by putting their wealth into businesses or agricultural assets eligible for tax relief.<\/p>\n

Anne Robinson is in the comfortable position of knowing that she can share out her assets while she\u2019s still alive without denting her current lifestyle, or risking impoverishment in the future. Having a good relationship with her daughter no doubt gives her more confidence to hand over some of her investments and perhaps one of her (several) homes.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
But even if they fall out \u2013 which is surely not impossible \u2013 Robinson has no doubt kept enough back that she will not have to worry. She will still be able to indulge her self-declared passion for shopping, expensive holidays and, at the very least, one luxurious property to live in. Importantly, at the age of 79, she has no doubt made sure to have enough left to pay her medical bills and to employ staff to care for her should her health decline in the years to come.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

However, for most parents worrying about a tax hit after their death, the decision to give away assets during their lifetime is not so straightforward. Parents who downsize their home in order to give part of the proceeds to their adult children can be dismayed if those children go on to spend the money frivolously or make decisions their parents don\u2019t approve of. Arguments about money can \u00a0soon erode trust and sour relationships.<\/p>\n

Even in the happiest of families, handing over assets that seem surplus in a time of good health can prove short sighted a few years later. Given the parlous state of social care in the UK, and the cost of private nursing, you would be very unwise to part with savings that might later be needed to pay for such care. Not to mention the state of NHS waiting lists: why give money to your grandchildren if it means you can\u2019t pay for a new hip or urgent cancer treatment?<\/p>\n

Government should therefore be doing everything in their power to encourage people to save for a self-sufficient old age; the threat that assets left over might be taxed at 40% is a strong disincentive to such self-reliance.<\/p>\n

In speaking out about her own decision Robinson has highlighted two important truths. First, that high rates of tax don\u2019t work because wealthy people will rearrange their affairs to avoid paying them. Secondly, that inheritance tax is unjust: if you have worked hard and saved hard, then provided you have paid all the tax due in your lifetime shouldn\u2019t you be free to leave your assets to your children?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

True British patriots have gas boilers and petrol cars<\/a><\/p>\n

Rushing to adopt heat pumps and EVs won’t make this country more energy secure. It will put us at risk of blackouts.<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 15 April 2024<\/p>\n

As sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps\u00a0continue to fall<\/a>\u00a0far short of government targets, the net-zero lobby is resorting to ever more desperate tactics to persuade us all to abandon our cars and boilers. The latest, from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank, is to argue that homeowners and drivers can demonstrate \u201cenergy patriotism\u201d by using electricity to heat their homes and power their cars.<\/p>\n

The claim is based on the theory that electricity is more likely than other fuels to be generated in the UK, through the use of wind farms and solar panels. Thus it is our patriotic duty to buy EVs and heat pumps, despite the fact that they can cost nearly twice as much as their petrol and gas counterparts.<\/p>\n

As hostilities in the Middle East threaten oil supplies, and with the ever-present risk of sabotage to undersea cables, the idea of energy self-sufficiency is certainly attractive \u2013 and possibly crucial to our future security. If renewables really could provide us with such security, the net-zero enthusiasts might have a winning argument. But wrapping a Union flag around wind and solar power cannot disguise its inherent failings.<\/p>\n

First, and most obviously, is the problem of intermittent supply. No matter how many new wind turbines are built, no energy will be generated when the wind doesn\u2019t blow, a problem frequently experienced during the relatively calm year of 2023. Yet the opposite problem also applies: on the windiest days, UK turbines can generate more power than the transmission network can cope with, so they have to be turned off \u2013 and wind farms are then\u00a0entitled to compensation<\/a>\u00a0equalling the price of the electricity they could have supplied.<\/p>\n

In either situation, gas power stations have to supply the shortfall, creating additional expense. As the UK runs down its extraction of oil and gas, more of the gas fuelling our power stations is being imported. There\u2019s nothing \u201cpatriotic\u201d about this exercise.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the suggestion that electricity from solar panels can ever have more than a marginal impact on this country\u2019s power needs does not stack up, given intermittency of supply relative to the expense of installation and maintenance.
\nEven supposing the UK eventually undertakes the massive expansion of the grid necessary to manage the shift away from oil and gas, the prospect of being able to rely on renewable energy will therefore remain elusive. In the meantime, should consumers embrace heat pumps and electric cars at the rate envisaged by the UK\u2019s various carbon targets, the demands on the grid would surely inevitably\u00a0result in blackouts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, mass purchase of electric vehicles is bound to increase our reliance on imports from China, since their EVs are the closest to becoming affordable. As with so much of the UK\u2019s manufacturing industry \u2013 including the production of solar panels and wind turbines \u2013 carbon taxes and restrictions on the use of fossil fuels appear to have contributed to the outsourcing of production overseas, leaving the UK far less self-sufficient.<\/p>\n

The most patriotic way forward for the UK would be\u00a0to increase investment in\u00a0North Sea oil and gas production and give the go-ahead to fracking, following the example of the\u00a0US, where energy security is now a reality. America has been a net energy exporter for the past five years, as we have moved in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

The claim that abandoning fossil fuels will make this country safer in a hostile world is a perversion of reality; it should be treated with contempt.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

The part-time probate office is compounding families’ grief<\/a><\/p>\n

The Civil Service has once again decided that the answer to a crisis is to make life easier for staff and more difficult for customers<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby<\/a>\u00a014 February 2024<\/p>\n

Government services in Britain seem to be grinding to a halt. This week it was revealed that civil servants in the probate registry will\u00a0no longer answer<\/a>\u00a0telephone enquiries after lunchtime. Their justification for this decision is that their huge backlog of probate documentation can only be tackled if they close their helpline at 1pm every day, for a period of at least three months.<\/p>\n

In response to a crisis, why does the Civil Service always seem to decide that the answer is to make life easier for its staff and more difficult for its customers? Helplines will now presumably be jammed with callers from 9am to 1pm every day, as bereaved relatives seek help with their applications.<\/p>\n

Families are already waiting far too long for\u00a0probate to be granted<\/a>. A compulsory legal process that used to take a few weeks now takes months and sometimes as much as a year. At one of life\u2019s most upsetting and stressful times, grieving families are being left in limbo.<\/p>\n

Having overcome the first layer of bureaucracy by registering a death and assembling all the necessary paperwork to apply for the grant of probate, their applications sit at the registry, often waiting for several weeks before being opened, let alone processed.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the assets of the deceased are effectively frozen. Until a grant of probate is provided by the registry, the house belonging to the deceased cannot be sold. Across the country, homes stand empty as a result, not only gumming up the housing market but also creating a headache for the bereaved.<\/p>\n

Unoccupied houses are difficult and expensive to insure and they have to be secured and maintained, often by families living a distance away. Worse still, if the deceased\u2019s assets reached the threshold for inheritance tax to be payable, HMRC requires the tax to be paid within six months of the death, failing which a hefty interest rate is charged at 2.5 percentage points above the Bank of England base rate. Yet if a property cannot be sold due to delays at the probate registry, the money still has to be found, as HMRC will not accept probate delay as an excuse.<\/p>\n

These are the harsh realities facing grieving families on a daily basis, while one of the most basic functions of government bureaucracy is mired in chaos. Perhaps the worst of it is that no one is really surprised any more.<\/p>\n

The reasons for this particular failure were all too predictable. Five years ago, England and Wales had a fairly efficient and responsive probate service, regionally based in district registries around the country, with experienced staff who could turn around applications promptly and rarely made mistakes.<\/p>\n

To \u201cstreamline\u201d the service, the district registries were closed and the process centralised and \u2013 guess what \u2013 \u201cdigitalised\u201d. Experienced staff faced redundancy, on the basis that the new digital system would be cheap and efficient, requiring fewer, lower-paid, employees.<\/p>\n

Sounds familiar? Not surprisingly, the transition to a digital system has been fraught with difficulties; probate lawyers complain that, when a grant of probate is finally received, it is much\u00a0more likely to contain errors and will have to be returned to the registry for\u00a0correction.<\/p>\n

But this is what the ordinary citizen has come to expect of the modern British state. Pay more \u2013 in taxes and fees \u2013 for a worse service. And don\u2019t expect anything to improve under a\u00a0Labour government, where more services will be\u00a0sucked into state monopolies and we will all have to stand in the queue.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Junior doctors are killing the NHS they claim to love<\/a><\/p>\n

The system is broken, with many patients forced to go private in order to receive any treatment at all<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby<\/a> 2 January 2024<\/p>\n

As junior doctors walk out on strike again today in pursuit of a 35 per cent pay increase, they will surely be aware that their decision to stop work for the next six days could cost lives.<\/p>\n

In 2023, at almost 53,000, there were more excess deaths in the UK than in any non-pandemic year since the Second World War. Undiagnosed cancers, untreated heart attacks and delayed operations took a heavy toll, as nurses, paramedics and finally junior doctors all took part in strike action.<\/p>\n

With more than seven million people already on waiting lists for treatment from the NHS, the situation can only get worse in the week ahead, as consultants cover the work of striking doctors on top of their existing duties.<\/p>\n

The Government no doubt hoped that\u00a0replacing Steve Barclay with a new Health Secretary<\/a>\u00a0might enable the impasse with the junior doctors to be broken, and for a brief while there were signs that negotiations might make progress. But the doctors\u2019 union\u2019s demands were too ambitious and the Government is unlikely to concede them for fear that meeting their claim in full will provoke other workers to demand more.<\/p>\n

\n
With this bleak outlook ahead for 2024, must the sick go on dying for want of treatment? Tragically, this seems inevitable, and it\u2019s hard not to conclude that the health service is broken beyond repair. As Britain\u2019s excess deaths outpace those of many other comparable developed nations, can any government really persist in believing that the NHS is the best healthcare model available?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The British people no longer seem to think so; last year public confidence in the NHS dropped to its lowest ever level, with fewer than a third of people satisfied with the service.<\/p>\n

More and more of us are deciding that the only way to get prompt treatment is to pay for it. Last year saw a record number of people opting for private treatment, not just through health insurers but also, increasingly, by paying to see a private GP and for tests and operations.<\/p>\n

In contrast to previous generations, this includes many in their 20s and 30s, who lack confidence in a service that does not respond to demand. Research published in the autumn found that 18-24 year olds were the most likely of all age groups to have used private healthcare, and the vast majority of under-34s would consider going private.<\/p>\n

Clearly they do not share the quasi-religious belief in the NHS that has been ascribed to previous generations.\u00a0What good is a \u201cfree\u201d health service if you can\u2019t see a doctor?<\/a>\u00a0Or if you can\u2019t get a test to find out if your symptoms are those of a life-threatening cancer?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, older generations are increasingly being forced to choose between paying for an expensive operation or putting up with a life of pain and restricted mobility. Tens of thousands of people are now paying for cataract removal, at around \u00a33,000 a time, or hip replacement surgeries costing \u00a315,000. The increase in upfront payments is in addition to a rise in membership of private health insurance schemes to cover such surgery, as well as cancer tests and treatments.<\/p>\n

The Government should be grateful to the hundreds of thousands of British people of all ages now taking the private health option \u2013 if only because it reduces the pressure on NHS waiting lists.<\/p>\n

Yet the idea of making private health insurance more affordable \u2013 for example by making it tax-deductible \u2013 is still regarded as unthinkable among even many Conservative politicians.<\/p>\n

Sooner or later this Government \u2013 or its successor \u2013 will have to face up to reality and decide how best to implement a system of universal health insurance or means-tested co-payments. There are abundant successful examples from other countries,\u00a0notably Australia<\/a>. Our antipodean friends succeed in providing better care with more doctors per head, more treatment facilities, and notably better diagnosis and survival rates, at a lower level of expenditure relative to GDP.<\/p>\n

Britain currently has the worst of all worlds, its people being forced to pay heavily through their taxes for a health service that doesn\u2019t treat them adequately, and then having to pay for private services on top of that.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, junior doctors are putting the final nail in the coffin of the health service that they profess to love.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
\n
How many of the “sick” are in fact capable of working?<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It’s time for Job Centre staff to stop working from home and start carrying out face-to-face interviews with the unemployed<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Jill Kirby<\/a> 23 November 2023<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Among the many dismal legacies of Covid lockdowns is the increase in benefit claimants who are no longer required to look for work, in most cases due to sickness or disability, including mental health problems. This group now accounts for around half of the 5.4 million people in the UK on\u00a0out-of-work benefits<\/a>\u00a0and is forecast by the DWP to grow exponentially over the next few years, at huge cost to the public purse. This is despite the fact that even in the regions with the highest number of benefit claimants there are thousands of job vacancies.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It was no surprise, then, that in his Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced a set of initiatives to try to tackle this deep-seated problem, including a requirement for the long term unemployed to attend mandatory work placements and to withdraw benefits altogether from those who refuse to engage with the work search process.<\/p>\n

Predictably there were shouts of \u201cnasty party\u201d from Labour MPs. But signing off tens of thousands of people every year with little to no requirement to look for work is more than just a poor use of taxpayers\u2019 funds, it\u2019s also a huge waste of human potential, consigning people to a future of inactivity and\u00a0state dependency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the ways in which the government seeks to sweeten the pill is to suggest that if claimants can\u2019t get to work because of their disability, then they can try working from home. It sounds like a pragmatic alternative; and clearly the Government thinks this should make it harder for claimants to refuse a job. Modest extra funds are also being allocated to mental health treatment, in the hope that this combination of stick and carrot will at least stem the increase in worklessness and perhaps reduce the numbers.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether these policies will have much of an impact, and indeed how many of them will be in place before the next election, and their potential to be reversed by a Labour government. Will the threat of\u00a0stopping benefits<\/a>\u00a0for those who refuse to cooperate actually be carried through?<\/p>\n

\n
Importantly, will Job Centre staff stop working from home and start carrying out face-to-face interviews with the unemployed? Perhaps one of the biggest factors allowing people to become detached from the world of work has been the abandonment of mandatory in-person Job Centre assessments. During the pandemic these were replaced by paper-based or telephone interviews. This has contributed to claimants\u2019 failure to engage with the recruitment process. With no external encouragement, it\u2019s easy to see how the fear of losing regular payments, combined with anxiety about being able to hold down a job, leads to long term detachment from the workplace. Months and then years can go by, and the possibility of work drops out of the picture altogether.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s an irony that in seeking to cajole people into jobs, the Government has lighted on the idea of working from home \u2013 when in fact the reluctance of the UK\u2019s public sector to leave their homes and get back to the office has seriously undermined the nation\u2019s productivity. Hence the long tail of lockdown continues its damage to both lives and livelihoods. The Chancellor\u2019s announcements are welcome, but it may be years before the tide is turned and the UK recovers the habit of work.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

The heat pump nightmare is far from over<\/a><\/p>\n

The National Infrastructure commission is wrong to rule out the use of hydrogen or the continued use of gas<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby<\/a> 18 October 2023<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now clear from the evidence that heat pumps are an impractical form of heating for millions of UK homes. This is due not only to high upfront costs but also the lack of insulation in older buildings and the inability of systems driven by heat pumps to respond quickly to weather variations. Yet Sir John Armitt, the head of the National Infrastructure Commission, is this week urging the Government to commit to a total ban on gas boilers by 2035, declaring that\u00a0heat pumps are the only way forward<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In its Second National Infrastructure Assessment, the Commission lays out a set of recommendations without which, it claims, the Government cannot meet its net zero targets. This includes the disconnection and decommissioning of the UK\u2019s entire gas network \u2013 at an estimated cost of some \u00a374\u2009billion \u2013 thereby ending the use of gas as a domestic and commercial heating fuel by 2050.<\/p>\n

The Commission is adamant that the use of hydrogen as a full or partial substitute for gas, and which could be piped through the existing gas network after some modifications, should be ruled out. In order to persuade homeowners and local authorities to abandon their gas heating and install heat pumps, the Government would also be expected to hand out billions in subsidies.<\/p>\n

Given the current level of the national debt, the state of the economy and the ever-increasing demands from the NHS, it is hard to see where all these billions will be found. The Commission blithely asserts that \u201cbold\u201d decisions must be taken, and the cost spread between national and local authority budgets as well as by levies on consumers. It claims that the costs could eventually be recouped through the lowering of energy costs via the increased use of renewables.<\/p>\n

But this is itself an expectation that surely deserves closer scrutiny: there were no bids from suppliers for offshore wind in the Government\u2019s most recent energy auction, mainly because the reduction in government subsidies had rendered the projects unprofitable. The prospect of cheap and plentiful renewable electricity remains a distant dream. Upgrading the electricity network to handle the switch away from fossil fuels is also expected to cost tens of billions.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the Government has not rushed to endorse the Commission\u2019s proposals, and has issued a statement to the effect that the gas network will always be part of our energy system and that the role of hydrogen is\u00a0still being explored<\/a>. Certainly, the repurposing of the gas grid to accommodate hydrogen looks a lot more realistic than abandoning the grid altogether, and it\u2019s surprising that the Commission has not referred to the progress being made in Germany, blending natural gas and hydrogen with a view to ending its reliance on imported gas.<\/p>\n

This approach would draw on the experience of the 1970s transition from manufactured \u201ctown gas\u201d to natural gas, which required modifications to the network and boilers but at a much more modest cost than wholesale replacement of national and domestic infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the Commission cites the UK transition to natural gas as a laudable example of a forward-thinking infrastructure change, comparable to the overhaul required to replace boilers with heat pumps. In fact, it\u2019s a striking contrast. The Commission seems convinced that the bigger and bolder the changes and the more money is spent, the better will be the outcome.<\/p>\n

Of course, the same reasoning was deployed for HS2, of which Sir John has also been an enthusiastic proponent. But if ever there was a moment for borrowing and spending upwards of \u00a374\u2009billion, that moment is long past. The Conservative government and Labour front bench now appear to agree that the dismal state of our public finances will constrain expenditure for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

Yet neither party seems to have adjusted its assumption that net zero can be achieved by 2050. It\u2019s to his credit that Sunak has postponed the ban on gas and oil boilers; it remains to be seen whether Sir Keir Starmer will follow suit by the time of the next election.<\/p>\n

But there remains a yawning gap between an imagined net zero future and the practical reality of life in Britain today, of which the proposed abandonment of gas as an energy source is a graphic illustration.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

The NHS seems to think GPs are too important to see their patients<\/a><\/p>\n

Health bosses should be much more concerned that too many sick people are not being seen by their GP in the first place<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 12 September 2023<\/p>\n

Have you tried to get an appointment with your GP lately? Maybe you got as far as a conversation with the receptionist, only to be subjected to a long and possibly embarrassing interrogation about the nature of your symptoms. If you persisted, you might then have been offered an appointment some weeks hence, perhaps by telephone rather than face to face. It\u2019s a discouraging process and many people just give up.<\/p>\n

Such experiences make it difficult to believe the claim made this week by NHS England that around\u00a0one in six<\/a>\u00a0of all GP appointments is taken up by people who do not need to be there. This is one of the early findings from the \u201cNational General Practice Improvement Programme\u201d, an initiative launched by NHS England this year in response to widespread concerns about lack of access to a doctor.<\/p>\n

Most of us are left asking: how on earth did these people with apparently trivial problems manage to get that appointment? Are they all fantasists who invented life-threatening symptoms? Or are they simply patients who thought that their symptoms should be checked out by a professional but were then reassured to find that their problem was capable of being remedied by a nurse or pharmacist?<\/p>\n

With the benefit of hindsight, it\u2019s no doubt possible to conclude that some GP appointments are unnecessary. But the NHS should be much more concerned that too many sick people are not being seen by their GP in the first place and their lives are being put at risk. Last year more than a third of all cancer sufferers were only diagnosed when they arrived at A&E, by which time they were much less likely to survive the disease.<\/p>\n

Among the many dismal legacies of Covid has been a reluctance to\u00a0seek out healthcare<\/a>. The message throughout the pandemic was clear: keep away from the doctor if at all possible. Not only are you a potential burden on an overstretched NHS, you are also putting yourself at risk of infection. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in preventable deaths from illnesses that went untreated.<\/p>\n

It also heralded the replacement of face-to-face appointments with telephone consultations, and expanded the role of GP receptionists in quizzing patients, in an attempt to keep the pressure off GPs. NHS England seems to have decided that this is the only way forward, regardless of patient satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Of course it makes sense to try to ensure that GPs use\u00a0their time efficiently<\/a>, and that people are directed to the right service. But the emphasis on efficiency should not be allowed to compromise patient safety. As gatekeepers to the health service, with the power to decide whether a patient can have access to prescribed medication, specialist advice or hospital treatment, GPs have a massive responsibility.<\/p>\n

Their failure to examine a patient, or to pick up potentially serious symptoms, can have life-or-death consequences. If one in six appointments turns out not to need professional attention, surely that is a small price to pay, compared with the risk of overlooking a fatal condition?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s depressing, therefore, that this latest initiative for \u201cimproving\u201d GP services is to try to divert more people away from seeing a doctor. It\u2019s also hard to believe that GPs themselves see this as a solution. One of their most frequent complaints is being forced to fill in unnecessary paperwork when they could be seeing patients instead.<\/p>\n

If NHS England focused on reducing bureaucracy and encouraging doctors to spend more time with their patients, they might also find it easier to recruit and retain doctors in this crucial branch of healthcare.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

No, I won’t replace my oil boiler with a heat pump<\/a><\/p>\n

Even if I could afford the expense, the technology is not advanced enough to keep my house warm<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 9 August 2023<\/p>\n

Does anyone in Government really believe that domestic oil heating can be abolished entirely in just a few years\u2019 time? A ban on fitting new oil-fired boilers, announced in 2019, is due to apply from 2026. But as the date draws near, the uproar in rural communities will make Ulez look like\u00a0a walk in the park<\/a>. It is a huge worry for the 1.5 million households in the countryside who rely on oil for heating and hot water, and who are wondering what they will do when their boilers wear out.<\/p>\n

I know how they feel. Along with nearly all the houses in the Warwickshire village where I live, my home is heated by oil, because there is no local gas supply, and I dread the prospect of giving up such an efficient form of heating with no practical replacement in sight. Last December, as temperatures sank to -12C, I gave thanks for piping hot radiators and hot water at the flick of a switch, and shivered at the prospect of trying to warm my house by any other means.<\/p>\n

Like much of my village, my home dates from the 19th century; it was designed to be heated by open fires in every room. Oil-fired central heating transformed life in these houses, and modern condensing oil boilers like mine, which recycle waste gases in the boiler flue, are now some of the most energy-efficient methods of providing heating and hot water. They are also currently some of the cheapest forms of heating, despite the fact that they are not covered by the\u00a0energy price cap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My oil supplier is a family-run local firm whose friendly delivery man comes out in all weathers to fill the tank; prices are competitive, as any of its customers can use another supplier whenever they like \u2013 no paperwork, just a phone call. What a contrast to my electricity supplier, which never answers the phone and goes on putting up my direct debit despite keeping a big credit balance.<\/p>\n

Much as I love my oil-fired heating, by 2026 my boiler will be 20 years old, so I\u2019ve researched the cost of replacing it with\u00a0a heat pump<\/a>, in order to comply with the Government\u2019s mandate. It\u2019s horrifying. For a start, the heat pump would cost more than twice as much as a new oil boiler. That\u2019s pretty off-putting, but the expense doesn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

Because my existing 20-year-old radiators would only reach around a half of the temperature currently achieved, I would need to replace all of them with much bigger ones, and all the existing neat and narrow pipework would have to be changed. Even supposing I could face the cost and disruption, I would still have to get used to lower room temperatures. My beautiful but thermally inefficient 19th-century windows would have to go, but replicating them with modern materials would cost a minimum of \u00a33,000 each.<\/p>\n

Even the most enthusiastic proponent of\u00a0net zero targets<\/a>\u00a0might jib at the expense. I certainly can\u2019t afford it, nor can I face the disruption to my life. And given the price of electricity, which economic forecasters reckon will go on rising for years to come, it\u2019s likely I\u2019d be paying higher running costs than at present, so there\u2019s no prospect of recouping even a fraction of the enormous capital outlay.<\/p>\n

Some of my neighbours who live in newly built homes with heat pumps are mostly happy with them; modern insulation means their houses are sealed from draughts and usually have underfloor heating. There are still drawbacks, such as keeping the heat running 24 hours a day in order to maintain a reasonable level of warmth. And they all have wood-burning stoves to top up the heat in their sitting rooms. But for any house built before about 1970 \u2013 in other words, the majority of UK housing stock \u2013 installing a heat pump could require so much adaptation that it is surely impractical and unaffordable.<\/p>\n

Have ministers even begun to think about the impact on rural poverty, for families on low wages or those on fixed incomes? When their oil boilers fail and can\u2019t be replaced, they may have no affordable alternative. Do ministers expect them to revert to 19th-century living standards and go out gathering firewood in an attempt to keep warm?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s baffling that a Tory government ever thought that oil-fired heating could be phased out nine years ahead of the gas equivalent. And while George Eustice, the former environment secretary, is right to warn of the electoral consequences for rural MPs, I\u2019m inclined to ask why he didn\u2019t speak up in 2019 when the ban was announced. Do politicians only think about the impact on rural communities when their own seats are at risk?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Thames Water is flirting with socialism<\/a><\/p>\n

If utilities are sold on the basis of income, then the game really is up for our flailing economy<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 12 July 2023<\/p>\n

Customers of Thames Water who have large gardens might not be expecting\u00a0a surcharge for their water because they are considered wealthy<\/a>\u00a0enough to afford it. But that is the logical conclusion of the ideas put forward by Cathryn Ross, the utility giant\u2019s co-chief executive.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Bloomberg, Ross suggested that having a big garden is an indicator of money, and presumably a potential target for her company. The gardens could be a \u201cproxy for relatively high-income households\u201d, she said, having already told a London Assembly committee that a \u201cprogressive charging system for water\u201d could also be considered. \u201cSoak the rich\u201d might be another way of putting it.<\/p>\n

But water usage is, of course, already metered for many households, so that those who use more \u2013 whether by watering their gardens, taking more baths, or for any other purpose \u2013 are paying bigger bills than their more frugal counterparts. That is perfectly fair; water is a commodity and should be charged according to usage.<\/p>\n

Those aspects of the service which cannot easily be measured, such as discharge and drainage, tend to be covered by standing charges based on consumption. Having a large garden may be a reason why some customers use more water, but owners of such gardens will already be conscious that turning on the hose increases their bills, just as turning up the thermostat leads to a bigger electricity bill.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0Thames Water<\/a>\u00a0have failed to install water meters in enough of their customers\u2019 homes then that will have been their own error. But to suggest that payment for water should be levied according not to usage but instead by income indicates a socialist mindset that bodes ill for the future of the company.<\/p>\n

Suppose for a moment that the chief executive of one of the big supermarket chains suggested that they might start charging \u201cprogressively\u201d for food. A proxy would have to be established, such as the size of the car in which the customer arrived at the store. A surcharge would then be applied at the till, on the basis that the customer looks wealthy enough to pay more for a loaf of bread or a pint of milk, and should be required to subsidise the food bills of other customers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not difficult to imagine the problems that would soon result from such a clumsy attempt at redistribution, by a company appearing to cast itself as a branch of HMRC.<\/p>\n

Yet Ross\u2019s suggestion is equally wrong-headed. There is no reason why any company should need to charge its customers differential prices based on their supposed ability to pay, rather than the amount of goods or services being purchased. Any attempt to implement such a policy would be a clear acknowledgment of serious market failure.<\/p>\n

As a former head of Ofwat, the watchdog responsible for oversight of Thames Water, Ross might be expected to have a clearer idea about why the company was permitted to saddle itself with massive debts while seemingly failing to attend to basic problems, such as preventing sewage spills, dealing with leaks and ensuring that its customers would be supplied with enough water to manage through a summer without any hosepipe bans.<\/p>\n

But now that she has a chance to redress Thames Water\u2019s problems, Ross\u2019s first instinct seems to be to see how far she can squeeze the customer.<\/p>\n

Of course, Thames Water, like other UK water suppliers (but unlike any other utility company) has a monopoly on its customer base, and thus little incentive to compete. Market forces cannot therefore operate properly to keep prices down, leaving only the authorities to prevent Thames from introducing \u201cprogressive\u201d pricing for its product.<\/p>\n

But perhaps Ross reckons that a Government which appears to have few qualms about increasing taxation will raise no objection to piling on another levy in the form of a Thames Water wealth tax.<\/p>\n

Enjoy your garden while you can, but be warned \u2013 it is now a signifier of your income, and could cost you dear.<\/p>\n

Selfish teachers owe children an apology<\/a><\/p>\n

They are now doubling down on the damage caused during lockdown via despicable strikes<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 1st February 2023<\/p>\n

Have the teaching unions no shame? For two years, evidence has mounted showing the harm inflicted by Covid lockdowns on children of all ages. School closures didn\u2019t just hurt pupils\u2019 education, they also had a serious impact on their mental health and social development.This damage may never be repaired: delayed literacy and lost qualifications, along with social anxiety, are already translating into lower wages and poorer life chances.<\/p>\n

But the union leaders who insisted on school closures during lockdown have now found a new way to disrupt childrens\u2019 lives \u2013 forcing schools to close all over again as teachers strike, apparently for higher pay. The majority of schools were believed to have been disrupted yesterday, and one in seven children at closed schools were offered no education at all.<\/p>\n

This will have brought back painful memories for many parents. During the pandemic, they were expected to supervise their children\u2019s remote learning at the same time as holding down their own jobs. For some this was an impossible task, and children who lacked motivation or whose homes were simply too cramped to cope with home learning missed out on education altogether. When schools did reopen, some children were reluctant to return \u2013 rates of unauthorised absence are still higher than pre-pandemic.<\/p>\n

The consequences were predictable enough almost from the start of the first lockdown in 2020. Data was emerging to show that children were not at risk of serious illness from Covid. Nor did they play a significant part in spreading the infection. Yet the leaders of the teachers\u2019 unions refused to believe it. Schools in the UK were subject to longer closures than in nearly all other OECD countries.<\/p>\n

You might think the same unions would now express some regret at their decision to insist on these closures. In the United States, the head of one of the largest teachers\u2019 unions even tweeted in support of an article that admitted the alarming damage caused.<\/p>\n

In the UK, no such acknowledgment has been forthcoming. Instead the unions have decided to double down, urging members not only to strike but to organise their withdrawal of labour in the most disruptive way possible. By refusing to notify head teachers in advance of their intentions, union members made it very difficult for those in charge to decide whether or not to open their schools.<\/p>\n

As a result, thousands of conscientious teachers who chose not to strike and had no wish to disrupt their pupils\u2019 education will have been forced to stay at home. (Perhaps this had more to do with pay than anything else, since a school closure means that striking teachers might still be paid along with their non-striking colleagues.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, with little or no advance warning, millions of parents had to take time off work to look after their children, causing disruption in turn to businesses and to the public sector and, with subsequent loss of income, for already hard-pressed families.<\/p>\n

It is hardly as if the teaching unions have a strong case. As this paper revealed yesterday, average salaries for experienced teachers in England are higher than in most European countries, both at primary and secondary school level, when compared with their peer group. And not only are they better paid, but they are required to work fewer hours than in almost any other developed nation.<\/p>\n

In Switzerland and Sweden, for example, teachers are paid less than in England but are required to be at work for 50 per cent more of the time. Only in Luxembourg are teachers\u2019 hours shorter than in England. Why, then, would the situation in our schools be \u201cuntenable\u201d, as Mary Bousted, general secretary of the National Education Union, alleges?<\/p>\n

While families and workers across all sectors are feeling the squeeze from inflation, it\u2019s very hard to argue that teachers are particularly hard done by. Parents who are still trying to pick up the pieces from pandemic closures have every reason to feel aggrieved that their children\u2019s schooling is subject to yet more disruption.<\/p>\n

And the children? They deserve an apology at the very least, and for their teachers to get back to work and stay there.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

The collapse of the NHS was all too tragically predictable<\/a><\/p>\n

Try not to get ill, because the health service is too busy to see you<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a03rd January 2023<\/p>\n

Have NHS bosses learnt nothing from the pandemic? In 2020, we were told to stay away from hospitals and GP surgeries to prevent the health service from collapsing under the strain of Covid. In the ensuing two years, mortality statistics have shown the price paid for such restraint: thousands of excess deaths due to delayed treatments and a failure to diagnose serious health conditions. Now we hear that long delays in emergency care are adding to this death toll by as many as 500 lives lost every week.
\nIn the face of this very predictable disaster, the message emerging from the NHS is unchanged: please don\u2019t call us because we may not be able to help you. Sir Frank Atherton, chief medical officer of Wales, gave a New Year warning to the public not to do anything risky or attempt a keep-fit routine that might lead to an accident requiring medical attention. We already know that calling for an ambulance may be a waste of time and that it\u2019s probably better to try to get to hospital by some other means. Getting a timely GP appointment, meanwhile, is close to impossible \u2013 which in turn piles more pressure on A&E.
\nThe result is that it feels like 2020 all over again: try not to get ill, because the NHS is too busy to see you. A new survey reported yesterday that 30 per cent of adults questioned had tried and failed to get a doctor\u2019s appointment in the past year and that, as a result, around half had either attempted to treat themselves or asked someone else (not medically qualified) to do so. Inability to access care is not just dangerous for those who are ill but also has a knock-on effect. As Chris Whitty has pointed out, the failure to be prescribed medication for blood pressure or raised cholesterol levels may be the cause of the excess deaths from heart conditions of thousands of middle-aged men.
\nIt\u2019s all too clear that this country is in the grip of a health emergency, yet the Government, along with NHS England and the NHS Federation, appears to think that the current model of healthcare in this country remains viable. They seem to imagine that the after-effects of lockdown will subside and that a bit more focus on cancer treatment, or new targets for GPs, or spending a few billion more in taxpayer funding, will put the NHS back on its feet. This is wishful thinking. For years before the pandemic, the accessibility of GPs was dwindling, waiting lists were too long, cancer survival was lagging well behind comparable nations, and beds were overflowing with elderly patients through lack of social care. Hence the panic when Covid erupted.
\nThe tragedy is that the lessons which should have been learnt from lockdown are being ignored. Interviewed about the crisis yesterday, Chris Hopson, NHS England\u2019s director of strategy, offered the usual excuses, such as the upsurge in flu admissions and failure to discharge elderly patients \u2013 problems that have been flagged up for months if not years in advance. There was no indication that he felt any responsibility for the lack of planning to meet these challenges. He went so far as to blame the post-war baby boom for placing additional demand on the service \u2013 a problem which NHS chiefs have surely had long enough to prepare for.
\nAs excess deaths mount and as more people turn to private healthcare, the message could not be clearer: we need a health service that responds to patient demand, based on a different funding model. Attempting to hold back demand by asking the public to put off using the NHS is both dangerous and self-defeating.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

This strike-ridden Christmas the elderly will suffer more than most<\/a><\/p>\n

Today’s stoical older generation does not deserve to bear the brunt of trade union militancy<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a019th December 2022<\/p>\n

It is fashionable nowadays to complain about older people being cosseted at the expense of the younger generation. With their triple-lock pensions, subsidised bus passes and, for many, mortgage-free homes, we should stop worrying about the elderly and focus on other groups \u2013 or so the narrative goes.<\/p>\n

But as union leaders dig in for a slew of Christmas-wrecking strikes this week, they should be reminded that the people who will be hit hardest will be the older generation, and especially the frail and lonely. For the last two years Covid restrictions have robbed this generation of the opportunity to be with their families at Christmas, and now they are confronted with a whole new set of distressing obstacles.<\/p>\n

Those no longer able to drive, for example, are most likely to be stranded by rail strikes. Already deterred from using rail services due to repeated disruption, they will either have to rely on friends to provide a lift on abnormally congested roads, or stay at home. Still, this doesn\u2019t seem to bother Mick Lynch and his merry band of train drivers, who are going ahead with their strike on Christmas Eve and giving themselves an extended holiday.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, strikes across the NHS present a serious cause for anxiety. Older people whose mobility is limited, or life expectancy reduced, by delayed surgery \u2013 who have already waited months for postponed operations \u2013 will have to go on waiting even longer, since their procedures are often dismissed as \u201celective\u201d or \u201cnon-urgent\u201d. Indeed, some may have operations cancelled entirely.<\/p>\n

Yet the nurses\u2019 union maintains that pre-Christmas strikes are justified, even though it is abundantly clear that the Government will not countenance the 19 per cent pay rise they are seeking.<\/p>\n

As if that isn\u2019t bad enough, all three trade unions representing paramedics (Unite, Unison and the GMB) are going ahead with their strike this Wednesday. Some patients already in hospital who expected to be home for Christmas, many of them elderly, have been warned they may not be discharged because there will be neither nurses to discharge them nor ambulances to get them home.<\/p>\n

And the old or frail who have been stuck indoors during the freezing weather, rather than risk a slip on the ice, now have to worry about the risk of falling over during the strike. Unless their condition is classified by the system as posing an immediate threat to life, it looks as though their 999 calls might be in vain.<\/p>\n

The generation who have paid taxes and National Insurance contributions throughout their working lives, in the expectation that at least a minimum of healthcare would be available to them in times of need, surely have plenty to complain about this Christmas. But because they are also the generation who can remember the war, or at least post-war food rationing, and who once lived in homes without the luxuries of central heating, telephones or TV, they are not making much of a fuss.<\/p>\n

Unlikely to take to social media to express their outrage, more likely to express quiet disappointment to their friends or families, today\u2019s stoical older generation does not deserve to bear the brunt of trade union militancy.<\/p>\n

The union leaders full of self-righteous indignation this week should spare a thought for their parents and grandparents, and call off their Christmas strikes.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Protecting the NHS was a dismal failure.<\/a><\/p>\n

Lockdown was imposed to stop the NHS from collapsing. Now it is falling apart anyway.<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a06th December 2022<\/p>\n

Is it time to admit that the policy of \u201cprotecting the NHS\u201d during the Covid pandemic was a dismal failure? We were told to stay at home to prevent the health service from collapsing. Non-Covid treatments were cancelled to allow doctors and nurses to focus on the virus, while people stayed away of their own accord. Lockdown imposed vast costs on society and the economy. But the NHS wasn\u2019t saved. People didn\u2019t stop becoming unwell from diseases other than Covid. And now, predictably, the health service is falling apart.
\nAlarming new figures published yesterday by the OECD show the scale of the disaster. The NHS shut down more services in 2020 than almost any other health service in Europe. In Germany, for example, the number of diagnostic scans for cancer fell by just 0.3 per cent compared to the previous year, but in the UK they dropped by 15 per cent. The drop in cancer surgery was even greater, at 25 per cent, the biggest fall in any European country except Romania.
\nAccording to Macmillan Cancer Support, around 30,000 fewer people in England started cancer treatment between March and August 2020 than in the same period in 2019. Two years on, the UK is counting the tragic cost in additional deaths and a health service struggling to catch up. As the country with one of the worst records in cancer survival in Europe before Covid, the UK now lags yet further behind.
\nAs we know, it\u2019s not just cancer services that fell by the wayside, but almost every other aspect of NHS care. Hip and knee surgery declined at a higher rate than any other European country, leaving thousands more people in pain and lacking mobility \u2013 operations that carry huge waiting lists two years later. Access to a GP is still limited and almost always delayed, meaning that the consequences of late diagnosis and postponed treatment are likely to persist for years ahead.
\nNow that we can see how badly the UK\u2019s health service has fared compared with other countries, are politicians and health service leaders prepared to learn lessons from those comparisons? For example, why did the NHS feel it necessary to close down services that in other countries were largely maintained during the Covid outbreak? Was this because its leaders were aware that the service was too fragile to cope?
\nAll the clapping and saucepan banging was a good way to distract us from the problems inherent in a service which was simply not structured to respond to patient demand \u2013 and which certainly didn\u2019t have the flexibility to cope with a pandemic. Huge sacrifices were being asked of the public, in order to \u201cprotect\u201d a service which was already on its knees. Even now, the Government remains reluctant to acknowledge that those sacrifices may have been too great, in terms of lives lost to undiagnosed conditions, young lives damaged by school closures, and mental health problems triggered by isolation and anxiety.
\nIt wasn\u2019t just the closure of services that prevented people being treated during the pandemic. As Government health advisors Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance admitted last week, people didn\u2019t come forward for treatment, either due to a sense of altruism or fear. The Government relied heavily on both sentiments, using emotionally manipulative public advertising campaigns. Scary pictures of people in oxygen masks were deployed to frighten us into compliance with lockdown rules. And it soon became known that anyone receiving hospital treatment would be denied visitors, so that the fear of disease was compounded by the fear of dying alone.
\nOf course people didn\u2019t stop getting ill from causes other than Covid. Yet concerns expressed at the time, by cancer specialists and others, pointing out the risks of delaying diagnosis and treatments for cancer and other ailments, were brushed aside. The focus on the pandemic at the expense of other healthcare needs continued, even as it became apparent that the disease was less deadly than feared and that deaths from other causes were accelerating.
\nAs this deadly legacy continues to unfold, will the Government now admit that our costly attempt to \u201cprotect the NHS\u201d was futile? Most importantly, will the Prime Minister and Health Secretary look at these international comparisons and finally accept that the top-down, cash-hungry and crisis-ridden NHS is broken, and we need an entirely new model?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

We’re all the prisoners of an unreformed NHS<\/a><\/p>\n

Higher taxes are inevitable so long as the unproductive health service fails to learn from the likes of Singapore<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 18th November 2022<\/p>\n

As he announced yet another big increase in taxpayer funding to the NHS yesterday, Jeremy Hunt made a bold claim for the future of healthcare in this country. \u201cWe want Scandinavian quality alongside Singaporean efficiency, both better outcomes for citizens and better value for taxpayers.\u201d
\nWho could possibly disagree? Sweden and Singapore have two of the most successful healthcare systems in the world, with low mortality rates, high levels of patient satisfaction and world-leading use of innovative technology. The healthcare budget in Sweden is only slightly higher than that of the UK; in Singapore it is very much lower. They each offer universal care, with responsive primary care, faster diagnosis, better cancer survival, shorter waiting times and safer maternity wards than the UK.
\nSadly, as Hunt, a former health secretary, must know, the chances of Britain\u2019s NHS successfully reaching the high standards of Sweden or the efficiency of Singapore is precisely zero. That\u2019s because the problems with the health service have nothing to do with money, but with the structure and funding model. And as long as those do not change, the whole country is stuck as the prisoner of a health system that demands ever-growing amounts of money for ever-worse outcomes. An ever-increasing tax burden is the inevitable result.
\nAs reports from the National Audit Office and the Institute for Fiscal Studies this week made clear, productivity in the NHS is collapsing, despite a big increase in funds and a 10 per cent rise in the numbers of both nurses and doctors since 2019. More money has persistently failed to achieve better results.
\nIn fact, the last time the health budget experienced a real spending cut was in 1976. Today, it consumes close to half of all day-to-day government spending, yet health outcomes continue to languish in the bottom half of international tables.\u00a0 The UK can indeed be described as the \u201csick man of Europe\u201d, with more than seven million people on waiting lists for hospital treatment. Yet the tax burden stands at its highest for 70 years.
\nIn citing Scandinavia and Singapore as models for the UK, I fear Hunt was being disingenuous, because he made no reference to the reason for the success of those models. In the UK, care is organised through a single massive institution, channelling huge sums of money through innumerable layers of national and regional administration, inevitably wasting billions on the way. Patients, having paid for their healthcare through taxation, are treated as supplicants, who must wait their turn for a \u201cfree\u201d service. There is no sense of accountability and no apparent connection between payment and results.
\nIn the Nordic countries, healthcare is the responsibility of local government, observing standards set nationally, and delivered through a combination of private, charitable and public hospitals; payment is made through mandatory health insurance. The connection between patients and provider is much closer, and the incentives for competition between providers and insurers help to drive up standards. Patients feel more in control and are much more likely to demand, and receive, value for money.
\nThe principles underpinning such health systems make sense to anyone with a Conservative outlook, and their success in practice would surely convince all but the most hardened socialist. So how is it that after all these years of Conservative government we are still lumbered with a dysfunctional Left-wing model that is now on the point of collapse? As the Chancellor awarded the NHS \u00a36.6 billion of additional funding yesterday, he said that he was \u201casking\u201d the NHS to tackle waste and inefficiency \u2013 but with no suggestion that the cash might be withheld if the efficiencies failed to materialise. No wonder the head of NHS England Amanda Pritchard declared she was pleased with the latest increase.
\nPerhaps Mr Hunt thinks the public will be reassured of his good intent and aspiration for reform. He also announced that he had made a key appointment of a new advisor who will find ways to increase efficiency. Step forward Patricia Hewitt, health secretary in Tony Blair\u2019s government. The Conservatives are now so far out of ideas that the only person they can suggest to sort out the mess in the NHS is a former Labour minister.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Britain will pay a high price for the Tories’ new magic money tree<\/a><\/p>\n

Leaving tax thresholds unchanged may seem like an easy win for the Treasury but it will be massively counterproductive<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 14th November 2022<\/p>\n

Remember the \u201cmagic money tree\u201d? Back in 2017, the Tories used the phrase to dismiss as pure fantasy Labour\u2019s plans for boosting welfare spending without raising taxes. All fiscal decisions have consequences, they rightly argued. During lockdown, however, some imagined that the tree had actually been found, as central banks were accused of printing cash to enable governments to borrow with abandon. Today\u2019s surging inflation is proof that they were wrong.
\nBut now Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt seem to believe they have found a magic money tree of their own. Their approach appears to have it all. It allows them to claim to be sticking to their manifesto promises, by not increasing headline tax rates, while still boosting revenue by \u00a330 billion a year. Through the simple expedient of freezing tax thresholds at a time of high inflation, they may think they can balance the books without harming the economy or provoking a revolt among taxpayers.
\nThis is so-called fiscal drag, a policy adopted by Sunak as chancellor in 2021 when he announced a five year freeze in income tax thresholds. In this week\u2019s Autumn Statement that freeze is expected to be extended until 2028. But it has an even longer pedigree. When the 40p rate was introduced in 1990, it was paid by less than 4 per cent of the population \u2013 around 1.7 million people. This year it will be paid by 6 million. By 2026, the Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates that 7.7 million will be paying tax at the higher rate.
\nMaybe the Government thinks we won\u2019t feel the pain. In times of low inflation, taxpayers may not have resented HMRC dipping slightly deeper into their wages each year if they were lucky enough to get a pay rise. But nowadays, when heating bills have doubled in a year and the price of essential food items is soaring, handing over a bigger slice of income to the government will squeeze household budgets hard.
\nThe biggest problem, however, concerns incentives. As the UK tips into recession and with the after-effects of the pandemic lingering on, there is a desperate need to boost work rates and economic activity. But for low earners currently paying no income tax, freezing the tax-free allowance for the next six years will make work less attractive. For those on basic rate tax but close to the higher rate threshold, why work longer hours if for every extra pound earned the taxman will take 40p?
\nFor families with children, the penalty could be much greater: as soon as a parent moves into the higher rate band, their child benefit is cut. Combine that cut with the cost of childcare and it\u2019s hardly surprising if parents decide that working longer hours or seeking promotion is not worth the sacrifice.
\nThis dampening of incentives will not only afflict businesses and wealth creation but poses a serious threat to the public sector, in particular the NHS. Why would hospital doctors or senior nurses increase their shifts and put in longer hours if it means a serious tax penalty? For GPs and consultants, the combination of a freeze in income thresholds and the cap on pension savings could mean extra hours at work would leave them worse off.
\nLeaving tax thresholds unchanged may seem like an easy win for the Treasury, but appearances can be deceptive. Stripping this supposed magic money tree of its fruit will leave the Conservatives with a bitter after taste if it shrinks the economy, reduces work rates and pushes more earners into early retirement.<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Powerful NHS bosses are escaping scrutiny<\/a><\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY\u00a0<\/a>\u00a02nd November 2022<\/p>\n

The NHS is in crisis and the winter has barely started. Health officials have told the Government that an extra \u00a37 billion is needed to deal with rising costs, in addition to the staggering \u00a3152 billion already allocated to the health service this year. Seven million people are on waiting lists for treatment, a backlog that may not be cleared before 2025. Delays are costing lives: figures published this week show that the rate of excess deaths in England and Wales last month was higher than during the Covid pandemic, confirming a pattern already seen in mortality figures over the spring and summer. The price of \u201cprotecting the NHS\u201d during lockdown is being paid in lost lives as well as cash.
\nYet in contrast to the days of the pandemic, when health officials became household names, the current head of the health service has been almost invisible. Amanda Pritchard was appointed chief executive of NHS England in 2021; her job description makes clear that she is accountable to the government for the huge allocation of taxpayer funding being swallowed up by the health service in England. She sits at the head of a managerial team of national and regional directors, the layers of bureaucracy having continued to proliferate even as the number of front line health workers has fallen.
\nNHS England was created in the coalition years, ostensibly to provide an arm\u2019s length management structure more effective than the Department of Health in making healthcare decisions. Cynics would suggest that, by putting a quango in charge, ministers could dodge the blame when things went wrong. Like most quangos, however, NHS England has created its own empire at huge cost without delivering any noticeable improvement in the quality of services on the front line.
\nNor has it succeeded in lifting the blame for failure from the Government\u2019s door \u2013 in part because neither politicians nor the public act as if it even exists. Governments continue to face demands for more money, and yet the people responsible for allocating that money face practically zero pressure to account for the results. This is even more extraordinary when, as international data shows, comparable European economies with similar levels of health expenditure have much better outcomes and, despite slower rates of vaccination, emerged from the pandemic in better shape \u2013 and with lower mortality rates \u2013 than the NHS.
\nWhether it is the dire state of maternity care in too many hospital trusts, endless waits for scans and tests, or the fear that calling an ambulance may be futile if there are no beds available, this \u201ccradle to grave\u201d service is failing at every level. Back in 2020, the government wanted us to be so scared of Covid that we wouldn\u2019t go out. Nowadays we\u2019re just scared of needing the NHS because we fear that it won\u2019t be able to help us.
\nThe effectiveness or otherwise of Pritchard and her team therefore has life and death implications for the entire population. Arguably, her role is of as much concern to the public as the Prime Minister\u2019s. Why, then, is so little known about it?
\nApart from a brief appearance yesterday when she talked about all the \u201cchallenges\u201d the NHS is having to endure, Pritchard\u2019s public statements since her appointment have been almost non-existent. We know almost nothing about what she thinks. Does she believe, for example, that there are too many layers of management sucking funds away from front line care? Is she happy that NHS trusts are still recruiting equality and diversity officers at salaries well in excess of nurses\u2019 pay? How worried is she about the level of pay-outs for negligent maternity care, and avoidable baby deaths?
\nFrom his stint on TV during the pandemic, Chris Whitty became so recognisable that he became the butt of endless jokes, cartoons and internet memes, yet the majority of the British public have never heard of Pritchard, and certainly would struggle to tell you what her job is. I\u2019m not suggesting that she should be at a Downing Street lectern on a daily basis, but surely she should be required to talk to the public more about the desperate state of the service over which she presides, and what NHS England proposes to do about it? Perhaps, she would only use the opportunity to complain about a lack of funds, but at least we would know who to blame the next time a massive injection of money fails to deliver the benefits promised.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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\u00a0Leicester shows that without assimilation, multiculturalism fails<\/a><\/p>\n

The city’s disorder is symptomatic of our dangerously lax attitude to community integration<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 20th September 2022<\/p>\n

It was depressing to see that while British citizens of every creed and colour united to pay tribute to the late Queen this Monday, a very different scene was unfolding on the streets of Leicester.<\/div>\n
\n

Hundreds of young men of Asian origin, many of them wearing hoods and balaclavas, were gathering and taunting each other, throwing bottles and brandishing knives. In the words of Peter Soulsby, Leicester\u2019s mayor, \u201cThings got very nasty indeed.\u201d Dozens of police officers from neighbouring forces, who had been scheduled to assist with the crowds in London, were redeployed to the area to set up cordons and to contain the disorder; some 25 policemen were injured.<\/p>\n

The events were apparently the culmination of several weeks of street violence which had broken out after an India v Pakistan cricket match that took place in Dubai. Community leaders acknowledged that \u201ccelebrations\u201d after previous cricket matches had sometimes got out of hand, due to tensions between Hindu and Muslim communities \u2013 but this latest violence was the worst they had seen. Thankfully, order has for now been restored, mainly as a result of police action, including the arrest of 47 youths since the trouble first flared up.<\/p>\n

But what next? The mayor asserts that his city has managed its ethnic diversity successfully and that the weekend\u2019s violence is uncharacteristic. Yet local crime statistics tell a different story of increasing street violence and social unrest. Whilst Leicester has long been host to a large ethnic population, by far the biggest minority being of Indian origin, there are wide variations of behaviours. Some have proudly adopted the British way of life, but others remain clustered within a few postcodes, living and working amongst those of the same faith and background. This is fertile ground for the simmering hostilities we have seen in recent years between those of Indian and Pakistani origin.<\/p>\n

A more honest account of the state of community relations in Leicester would surely acknowledge that its ethnic population has been accepted but not assimilated, a situation that prevails in several other British cities, particularly in the Midlands and the north of England. As particular ethnic and faith groups have converged on areas within the city, \u201cwhite flight\u201d to the suburbs has taken place, leaving the minority groups to become the majority within a postcode.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t apply to all of course: in Leicester there are examples of Asian-origin families who have moved happily into predominantly white areas. But for those who stay behind, whether out of choice or through financial necessity, their attachment to a neighbourhood consisting of extended families and friends and a shared faith can easily take priority over attachment to Britain. It\u2019s perfectly understandable that this should be the case, but it\u2019s not a mark of successful community relations, despite claims to the contrary.<\/p>\n

Even where co-existence between ethnically diverse groups is entirely peaceful, the economic impact of isolation \u2013 including the lack of a shared language \u2013 can lead to persistent inequality.<\/p>\n

And when peaceful co-existence breaks down and different ethnic or faith backgrounds become an excuse for violent disruption, maybe it\u2019s time to ask whether Britain\u2019s approach to community relations has been such a great success after all. We have not brought communities together under a common, British, identity.<\/p>\n

Leicester\u2019s problem shows how a failure to integrate one ethnic group leads to even greater tension when another, different minority brings its own historic differences to the scene. Unwillingness to identify primarily as British means that such disputes are much more likely to surface. The result in this case is that the city risks becoming a place of sectarian violence between Muslim and Hindu, where faith leaders are called upon to broker peace talks. Is this really the future for multi-cultural Britain?<\/p>\n

The people who stood in queues and lined the streets of London and Windsor this week did not come as representatives of \u201ccommunities\u201d, however different their backgrounds, they came as individuals who wanted to share a moment in British history. Perhaps it\u2019s time to stop treating ethnic groups in this country as communities in need of special treatment, but to focus instead on sharing British values.<\/p>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The BBC’s bias against tax cuts is now too obvious to ignore<\/a><\/p>\n

Does the Today programme ever give a right-of-centre politician a fair hearing?<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 22nd July 2022<\/p>\n

As the Tory finalists\u00a0launch their respective campaigns<\/a>, it is clear that there is one big policy difference between them \u2013 how to steer the economy out of its present difficulties. Briefly put: can government tax and spend its way out, or should it be cutting taxes to stimulate economic growth? The\u00a0importance of this debate<\/a>\u00a0and its impact on future prosperity outweighs everything else under discussion in this summer\u2019s contest, since it will not only determine our living standards but also our future security.<\/p>\n

Here, then, is an opportunity for the BBC to put both sides of the argument and to reach the widest possible audience. Auntie is uniquely placed to air this argument from an entirely neutral standpoint. But is there any serious prospect that it is up to the challenge? On the evidence of its coverage so far, the answer is no.<\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s\u00a0Today<\/em>\u00a0programme was a particularly depressing example of its failure to examine both sides dispassionately. The corporation\u2019s inherent bias seems to be now so deeply ingrained that its researchers and presenters are quite possibly unaware such a bias exists.<\/p>\n

\n
Interviewer Nick Robinson has, over the years, developed\u00a0a tone of mounting incredulity<\/a>\u00a0when questioning almost any right-of-centre politician. This reached its apogee when challenging Boris Johnson and it seems that as he turns his attention to one of the Prime Minister\u2019s potential successors, Robinson finds it impossible to accept that listeners could possibly sympathise with an essentially Conservative message.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In BBC-land, public spending must always be a Good Thing, whereas tax-cutting and keeping spending low must always be Bad. Tax cuts are therefore preceded by the word \u201cunfunded\u201d. More government spending, particularly on public services, will be unquestioningly accepted as evidence of compassion, for which more money must always be found.<\/p>\n

In his breathless quizzing of Liz Truss yesterday, Robinson loftily insisted that tax cuts were inflationary and claimed that all leading economists agreed with him. Scornfully dismissing as a \u201cgamble\u201d Truss\u2019s argument that keeping tax low would stimulate growth, he made it quite clear to listeners that he considered his interviewee to be a reckless know-nothing.<\/p>\n

This despite the fact that, in contrast to many politicians, Truss was not dodging the question but was clearly determined to set out the reasoning behind her claims. In so doing, however, she was challenging the BBC orthodoxy. Robinson was therefore clearly keen to move her on, to questions of a more personal nature, perhaps hoping to unsettle her and to cement his authority.<\/p>\n

But the authority which was once the preserve of our national broadcaster, and on which the\u00a0Today<\/em>\u00a0programme could maintain its place in the news firmament, has long since ebbed away. As viewers and listeners turn to a vast range of other sources of news and comment, the BBC can surely only survive if it is willing to discard its institutional bias, its supercilious tones, and demonstrate instead a genuinely open mind. Otherwise how can it can it justify its dependence on the licence fee?<\/p>\n

But maybe that\u2019s the problem: the licence is, after all, a tax we are compelled to pay and the BBC will always want to increase it.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Forget state vs private, it’s selective schools\u00a0that triumph<\/a><\/p>\n

A new generation of selective schools, which relish the freedom to set high standards, are showing how educational “levelling up” can work<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 16th December 2021<\/p>\n

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It seems that parents who want their children to gain places at Britain\u2019s top universities should think twice before they spend a fortune on private school fees. New research, conducted by the Telegraph, analysed data from Oxford and Cambridge universities showing the number of offers made to every school over the past five years. There has been a distinct shift towards the state sector, where academies and sixth form colleges have seen the biggest increase in Oxbridge admissions. Offers to Eton, Cheltenham Ladies\u2019 College and other leading public schools have been steadily falling.
\nNo doubt some of the new bias towards state schools contains an element of social engineering: university admissions tutors have been feeling the pressure to reduce their intake from independent schools and to look harder for talented pupils from the state sector, particularly those whose families have no previous experience of higher education. But the most striking fact to emerge from the data is the type of state school that has achieved the greatest progress since 2017: the top 10 is dominated by those that are highly academically selective.
\nAt the top of the table for state schools that have increased their Oxbridge intake most dramatically is Brampton Manor Academy in East Ham, one of London\u2019s poorest boroughs, which is selective at sixth form. It sent 51 pupils to Oxbridge this year, up from just three five years ago. It\u2019s a school that has been transformed since being granted academy status, thanks to a head and leadership team with huge ambition for their pupils, 95 per cent of whom are from ethnic minority backgrounds. Brampton is typical of the schools with the fastest growth in Oxbridge places: most are in poorer parts of London and since becoming academies and given freedom to select pupils have been turned into high achieving, tightly disciplined centres of excellence.
\nIndeed, it is not incidental that these schools are selective in their intake, either at age 11 or for entry to the sixth form. Selection allows them to choose those pupils who will benefit most from more rigorous teaching. Moreover, it shows that educational \u201clevelling up\u201d is no longer confined to grammar schools, many of which are only to be found in better-off areas and are increasingly dominated by middle class children. Selective academies, and specialist sixth forms such as King\u2019s College London Maths School, are opening up opportunities for children from all backgrounds, provided they have some aptitude and, most importantly, the desire to achieve.
\nYet the Labour Party and much of the educational establishment is still allergic to the idea of selection or school freedom. Keir Starmer has consistently voted against academy status for schools; Angela Rayner has vowed to return all schools to local authority control should Labour come to power. Their vision of education does not, it seems, include the opportunity to excel. All credit then to the head teachers and governing bodies of the new generation of selective schools who relish the freedom to set high standards and demand serious commitment not only from pupils but also from their parents. The huge demand for places at these schools suggests there is room for many more in their image. Perhaps the single biggest contribution the Government could make towards \u201clevelling up\u201d would be to promote this educational model \u2013 still largely confined to London \u2013 across the whole of the UK.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

The NHS works for its staff, not its patients<\/a><\/p>\n

NHS leaders would rather potentially increase the risk to patients than press their staff to get jabbed, for fear that they will walk away<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0

It was an extraordinary admission. In an interview yesterday morning about the Government\u2019s plans to delay the introduction of compulsory jabs for NHS staff until next year, Sarah Gorton, head of health workers at Unison, the union, said: “This isn\u2019t about what\u2019s right to do for patients, this is about what is the best way of increasing the rates of vaccination across the NHS.”<\/p>\n

Usually the health unions \u2013 and NHS leaders, for that matter \u2013 are a little more coy. For decades, many of us have looked at the NHS, the way it operates, and the service it tends to provide, and concluded it isn\u2019t run in the interests of the patients, but rather the interests of its staff. It is rarely admitted.<\/p>\n

But the evidence is everywhere. We all acknowledge that most front-line health staff have been under huge pressure during the pandemic, but we also know that lockdowns have taken a huge toll on the physical, mental and economic health of the nation. We locked down the country to \u201csave the NHS\u201d. Many of us had thought that the NHS was there to save us.<\/p>\n

Of course, it didn\u2019t. To stop the NHS from collapsing, millions of non-Covid patients were denied the treatment they needed, and we are now having to pay billions of pounds in extra tax to clear the backlog. Poor infection control also meant that the NHS did not save the thousands of people who died having caught Covid after being admitted to hospital: more than 11,000, amounting to 1 in 8 of all Covid deaths in hospital.<\/p>\n

But even today, with the worst of the pandemic hopefully behind us, little seems to have changed. Take Gorton\u2019s comments and the issue of\u00a0compulsory vaccinations<\/a>\u00a0for NHS staff. Around 100,000 of the people working in the health service are unjabbed, despite being one of the earliest groups offered the vaccine. Nearly a year later it is remarkable that NHS managers have still been unable to persuade thousands of employees to take up the offer.<\/p>\n

It is not as if this is an irrelevant matter. It is noticeable that some of the hospital trusts with the highest rates of hospital-acquired Covid deaths \u2013 such as University Hospitals Birmingham \u2013 also have among the highest proportion of unvaccinated staff. For patients using those hospitals, still worried that they might catch Covid while being treated for other conditions, this is far from reassuring.<\/p>\n

Care homes, in contrast, have been told they must dismiss unvaccinated staff before the winter, to protect their residents. Why is the health service being treated differently? It seems NHS leaders would rather potentially increase the risk to patients than press their staff to get jabbed, for fear that they will walk away. Likewise health unions have continued to resist compulsory vaccination \u2013 despite numerous consultations over the past year. Never mind that such vaccination would not only lower the risk of staff infecting patients, but would help to limit the likelihood they will need to take time off with infection themselves.<\/p>\n

Still, the NHS has been saved the trouble of a staff exodus, so you might think they would be pulling out all the stops so that it can get through a difficult winter, while ensuring the public gets the care it needs. It doesn\u2019t appear so. This week the head of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, sparked alarm when she asserted that the rate of hospital admissions for Covid had risen fourteen-fold since the same time last year. A quick look at the data showed this is far from being the case: admissions are much lower than last November. Her comparison was in fact between August this year and last year. It was a curious choice of data and only heightens the suspicion that NHS chiefs would like us to feel so frightened of another wave of deaths that we will voluntarily stay at home and stop bothering the health service.<\/p>\n

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the NHS has us in thrall to its demands. For years it has been able to excuse its failings by complaining of austerity, despite absorbing an ever-increasing share of funds while other public services were cut back. Despite hiring huge numbers of managers, it has seemed unable to plan ahead, by increasing staffing and bed capacity in readiness for winter pressure. The Government must share in the blame, for allowing the NHS to believe that, rather than face up to its failings, it has only to threaten collapse to be handed another wad of taxpayers\u2019 money. But isn\u2019t it about time our NHS took as its starting point the needs of its patients who are, after all, paying the bills?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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GPs are merely at the vanguard of the new war on work<\/a><\/p>\n

It often feels as if the GPs\u2019 notoriously generous contract is a model that other sectors want to follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>\u00a0
\n

Welcome to the new world of work: part-time, flexible hours, working from home, yet with a wage packet big enough to support your lifestyle. It sounds great: work-life balance for all, with more time to spend with the kids (or the exercise bike). You can work as much \u2013 or as little \u2013 as you please. Some are even campaigning for the five-day full-time working week to be cut to four days, for the same salary obviously.<\/p>\n

But what the advocates of the war on full-time work fail to acknowledge is that someone has to pay the price for this flexibility, as has become painfully apparent with GPs.<\/p>\n

A survey has revealed that in 2019\u00a0the average GP was working a three-day week<\/a>, while average pay for GPs rose to more than \u00a3100,000 a year. Even before the pandemic, patients were struggling to get appointments; a more \u201cbalanced\u201d lifestyle for a doctor can mean a patient waiting longer for a diagnosis. It\u2019s hard to see how the health service will ever be able to keep up with patient demand.<\/p>\n

Last week research from Norway found that being able to see the same GP on a regular basis substantially reduces the risk of hospitalisation and premature death; yet in most of the UK it\u2019s virtually impossible to see the same doctor on a repeat visit.<\/p>\n

Far from being a crisis that desperately needs to be addressed, however, it often feels as if the GPs\u2019 notoriously generous contract is a model that other sectors want to follow.<\/p>\n

As the pandemic recedes, employers in both the public and private sector are being encouraged to prioritise the so-called well-being of their employees over everything else. The right to request flexible working is already enshrined in law, and can be useful for some employees so long as their manager agrees, but the Government has suggested this right could be extended to every employee from day one of a new job.<\/p>\n

Nearly three months after the ending of Covid restrictions, many civil servants (and private-sector staff) are still reluctant to return to the office. They have discovered the joys of working from home and are not keen to start back on the daily commute, never mind the effect on their colleagues, their company, or the wider economy. Some train companies are planning to reduce services on Mondays and Fridays, given the lower passenger numbers.<\/p>\n

The Government at first appeared keen to embrace the new zeitgeist. But some ministers are beginning to express their concern as the machinery of government falters; the head of the Civil Service, Simon Case, has told Whitehall departments to get more staff back at their desks. One minister has claimed that the August withdrawal from Afghanistan was hampered because too many officials were working from home and thus unable to share sensitive material. A\u00a0huge backlog at the DVLA due to staff absence<\/a>\u00a0has played a part in the lorry driver shortage, with HGV licences taking much longer to process. Disconnection from team work doesn\u2019t only damage the training of new staff and block creativity, it is also positively harmful to customer service.<\/p>\n

For the millions of people in the UK whose jobs cannot be done at home, or who are self-employed, struggling to run a business, and for whom there is no option but to work long hours to pay their bills, the fashion for \u201cwell-being\u201d is empty rhetoric. Worse, it\u2019s preventing them from accessing essential services. If it persists, half of the workforce might be enjoying the new balanced lifestyle \u2013 but the other half will be paying for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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Boris Johnson has handed total power over the country to the NHS<\/a><\/p>\n

Be in no doubt: if this winter the NHS declares that it can\u2019t cope, the public, not the health service, will get the blame<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>

Who governs Britain? In his announcement of the\u00a0Covid Winter Plan<\/a>\u00a0this week, Boris Johnson gave a clear answer: the NHS.<\/p>\n

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Flanked once again by Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance at a Downing Street press conference on Tuesday, the Prime Minister reserved the right to introduce anti-Covid measures, including vaccine passports and mask mandates. He even refused to rule out the possibility of another national lockdown if, as the Winter Plan document puts it, we have to take \u201cwhatever action is necessary to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed\u201d. For the avoidance of doubt, the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid said: \u201cwe don\u2019t want to get into a position ever again where there\u2019s unsustainable pressure on the NHS so it\u2019s not able to see people in the usual way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The logic is simple: if this winter the NHS declares that it can\u2019t cope, the Government has committed itself to bringing the country to a standstill until it can. Somehow, after three national lockdowns and the rollout of vaccines to more than 80 per cent of the adult population, we are still in the position where the people of Britain are being asked to \u201cprotect the NHS\u201d rather than the other way around.<\/p>\n

This worrying reversal of priorities was born during the pandemic and it would be a dangerous step if it were to linger after it. In NHS crises of the past, as tragic as it undoubtedly was to see ambulances backed up outside hospitals, there was no question of normal life being suspended until the crisis had passed. Or, indeed, of allowing the NHS itself to dictate terms to the rest of us. The answer was to try and improve the NHS.<\/p>\n

Boris Johnson, as other prime ministers have done before him, has sought to do so with a massive cash boost, in his case an unprecedented commitment of an extra \u00a336 billion. But where is the incentive now for the NHS to use that money well?<\/p>\n

The first mistake was in writing a blank cheque with few, if any, conditions attached. Where, for example, is the stipulation that the extra money be spent not on extra managers but in training front line staff? Or the demand for innovative ways of keeping wards open, including devising a proper plan to make the most of\u00a0Nightingale hospitals<\/a>\u00a0and seeking new ways, anathema to many in the health service bureaucracy, of integrating elements of the private sector? Why are frontline NHS staff, unlike those in care homes, still for the moment getting away with not having the vaccine?<\/p>\n

Offering the reserve option of a lockdown if the health service\u2019s leaders fail to improve capacity sufficiently and hospitals are overwhelmed only further weakens the incentive to improve. Worse, it is easy to see how the threat of a costly new lockdown could be leveraged to demand even greater injections of health funding.<\/p>\n

To be fair to Amanda Pritchard, NHS England\u2019s recently appointed chief executive, capacity cannot be built overnight. In a creaking, monolithic structure that has proved stubbornly resistant to change, it is not easy to implement emergency measures capable of tackling a winter with the threat of Covid coupled with other seasonal illnesses such as flu. But what we have seen so far is precious little appetite to right these wrongs and few incentives from Government for things to change.<\/p>\n

Sir Patrick Vallance made clear that he was keen to see the Government do everything necessary to repress the virus because the NHS is, in his view, already \u201cunder extreme pressure\u201d. For all too many people in this country,\u00a0struggling to get a face-to-face appointment with their GP<\/a>, or unable to get diagnostic scans or cancer treatment, the NHS is still not seeing them \u201cin the usual way\u201d. But rather than an all hands to the pump effort to make hospitals fit for the challenge, we have more threats of lockdown and ministers and advisers once again resorting to doom-laden projections.<\/p>\n

Be in no doubt: if this winter the NHS declares that it can\u2019t cope, the public, not the health service, will get the blame. Perhaps the most dismaying conclusion from this week\u2019s announcements is that this Government will never say no to the NHS, whatever the cost to the country.<\/p>\n

We must remain in thrall to an unreformed, inefficient service which we must continue to revere, despite its many failings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
Why force care home workers to have the jab but not NHS staff?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that care homes are being made the scapegoat for government failings<\/div>\n
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JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>\u00a0
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Once again it seems that the care home sector is to take the blame for inadequacies in the NHS. A key reason why Covid swept through care homes last year, accounting for nearly 40,000 excess deaths, was the decision early in the pandemic to discharge elderly patients from hospital into care homes; many took the virus with them, with fatal consequences.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Now the Government has announced that all care home staff must be fully vaccinated by November 11, having their first dose by the middle of next month. The Care Quality Commission will have powers to enforce the requirement, their expectation being that staff who decline the vaccine will be dismissed, unless they can demonstrate that they are exempt. Surprisingly, however, the requirement is not applicable to hospital staff, who can continue to work in the NHS without being vaccinated. Why the disparity?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Government has justified its decision for care home workers on the basis that vaccination offers protection against infection for staff and residents. While recent evidence shows that being vaccinated does not prevent people from passing Covid on, it does reduce the risk of being infected in the first place. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to argue that those working in close proximity to the elderly should have the jab.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
For some care home owners, the ability to make vaccination a condition of employment will be welcome, and ministers should certainly make clear that the law will protect them from being sued on these grounds.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But a survey of care home managers has shown that six in 10 care homes are more worried about losing staff, a significant problem in a sector already struggling with staff shortages. They argue that they should not be forced to sack employees who are reluctant to be vaccinated, as they are tested daily and comply with other requirements for virus control. Losing these staff may pose a threat to the home\u2019s quality of care, or even force its closure.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If vaccination is considered so important for care staff, why is it not equally necessary for NHS employees? We know that thousands of patients caught Covid while in hospital. Control of infection has been at least as big a problem for hospitals as it was for care homes. Surely the sick deserve as much protection as the elderly.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
When mandatory vaccination was first mooted earlier this year, the Government appeared to be working on that assumption; it was announced that mandatory vaccination would apply to NHS staff as well as those working in care homes. But the ensuing consultation has caused the Government to change course. Both the BMA and the Royal College of Nursing spoke out against the legal and ethical implications of insisting on jabs. Describing enforcement as a \u201cblunt instrument\u201d they made clear their preference to encourage and inform, fearful that making jabs mandatory would only inflame vaccine scepticism.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It seems the louder voices of the health unions won the day, and the care sector must accept a requirement that medical leaders found unacceptable. Yet the rates of vaccine hesitancy in the two sectors is remarkably similar: according to the most recent figures, 90 per cent of NHS staff have had their jabs compared to 87 per cent of care home workers. It is hard to escape the conclusion that care homes are being made the scapegoat for government failings, while the NHS, as ever, goes unchallenged.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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Testing is encouraging Covid paranoia<\/a><\/p>\n

How can we live with the virus when the self-isolation policy suggests cases are still to be feared?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>\u00a0

On Monday, the Prime Minister \u2013 finally \u2013 had a clear and confident message for the country: it\u2019s time for us all to take back responsibility and\u00a0use our own judgment<\/a>, instead of relying on the Government to control our every move and monitor our day-to-day activities. Everyone over 50 or with particular vulnerability has been offered double vaccination and the take-up of jabs has been outstandingly high; the threat from Covid has been reduced to the level of flu. As the Prime Minister remarked \u201cit\u2019s now or never.\u201d If the country doesn\u2019t retake its freedom in the middle of summer, reaping the benefits of a brilliant vaccination programme, then when will we ever be free again?<\/p>\n

But no sooner had we begun to digest this message and prepare to pick up the threads of normal life than the brakes were slammed on. Anyone who comes within range of an infected person and who receives a notification via Track and Trace must still go into isolation for 10 days, regardless of their vaccination status. This restriction will not be lifted\u00a0until August 16<\/a>. After that date, the twice-jabbed \u2013 and all under 18s \u2013 will no longer have to self-isolate, although may still be required to undergo regular testing.<\/p>\n

With infections rising, the likelihood of coming into contact with an infected person is also growing, and likely to go on doing so for months to come. On the Government\u2019s estimates, more than 2 million people could be infected in the next six weeks, leading to millions more being told to self isolate.<\/p>\n

Every owner of a business desperate to re-open, or to operate at sufficient capacity to return a profit, is in despair. Who will risk going back to the office, or into a crowded pub, or book tickets for the theatre, and face being told the next morning that they sat near a reported case of Covid and must stay at home for the next ten days? How will restaurants be able to function with staff being sent home because they served an asymptomatic customer whose subsequent lateral flow test delivered bad news? Worst of all, how will the NHS begin to get through its huge backlog of cases with thousands of staff at home in isolation? None of these sectors can afford to lose another month crippled by self-isolation rules.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Government is trying to justify the billions thrown at the test and trace app by prolonging its use past the point when it is relevant or helpful. Last spring and summer, when vaccines were still a distant hope, a swift and effective test, trace and isolate regime could have saved lives. Now, with most of the population protected against serious illness, it is holding captive vast numbers of individuals and families unnecessarily.<\/p>\n

Not only has this brought misery and frustration, it goes against the entire logic of learning to live with Covid. Thanks to the vaccines, the number of cases is almost entirely irrelevant to the danger posed by Covid. Yet instead of encouraging us to view a case of Covid as we might a case of any other respiratory virus, the ongoing isolation policy is doing the opposite \u2013 setting the virus apart as a special threat and encouraging an unjustifiably fearful focus on case numbers.<\/p>\n

As the periodic leaks have indicated, arguments have raged within government over the extent to which freedoms should be curtailed during the pandemic. Those in favour of maximum restrictions, regardless of the side-effects, have generally won the day. In accepting those restrictions, the majority of the public has seemingly been content to hand over many of the decisions which guide our daily lives. Fear of the virus, stoked by unending announcements of deaths and infection rates, has strengthened the Government\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

Now that it is clear that Covid has been tamed but not eradicated, scientists and ministers agree that we must learn to live with the infection. But in order to do that, and restore some kind of normality, the Government must stop feeding the fear and switch to a message of reassurance. Continuing to treat every reported infection as a threat to public safety will only prolong the paranoia.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Why is the PM so downbeat about Britain’s Covid vaccine triumph?<\/a><\/p>\n

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Never has this country been more in need of an upbeat message – yet Boris, in an uncharacteristic fit of modesty, is refusing to oblige<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>\u00a0
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Why is the Prime Minister so reluctant to share the good news, and trumpet the astonishing success of the UK\u2019s vaccine programme? There is no question that the vaccines are achieving their objective: statistics published yesterday showed that of the 74,000 people admitted to British hospitals with the virus in the past seven months,\u00a0only 32 had been vaccinated<\/a>. These remarkable results were achieved with just one jab; it is expected that the protection from two shots will be even greater.<\/p>\n

Yet still Boris Johnson seems unable to give the treatment the\u00a0credit it deserves<\/a>. Last week, he claimed that lockdown was the real reason for the retreat of the virus. This week, he grudgingly said the jabs were making \u201ca big difference\u201d but during a press conference replete with dire warnings of a third wave.<\/p>\n

The ambivalent messaging surrounding vaccines surely cannot be because he thinks it will play well politically. Talking up the efficacy of lockdown leaves the Government open to accusations that it failed to shut down the country soon enough last spring and autumn, while downplaying the decision that really does give the Government something to boast about: putting its trust in vaccines.<\/p>\n

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Or are ministers genuinely afraid that vaccines may no longer work as the virus mutates? There is no evidence to support that fear and widespread scientific confidence that vaccines will still prevent serious illness.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Maybe the Government believes that, unless we are all kept in a state of anxiety, younger cohorts yet to be vaccinated may refuse their jabs. That appears to form at least part of the rationale for the constant talk of Covid passports. Again, however, there is no evidence to suggest that younger people need to be coerced. In fact, the Government\u2019s mixed messaging on vaccine efficacy is more likely to damage take-up rates.<\/p>\n

Possibly the Prime Minister\u2019s real worry is that lockdown will crumble if he enthusiastically endorses the vaccines. But while that may justify a plea to keep restrictions going a little longer, it does not explain the extraordinary claim that lockdowns have done \u201cthe heavy lifting\u201d.<\/p>\n

By clinging to such a cautious timetable for easing lockdown, the Government is keeping the country in a state of near paralysis. This matters. Yesterday, a new survey assessing the impact of lockdown on households in the three largest European economies found the UK had been hit hardest, with the tighter, more prolonged restrictions imposed here playing a significant part in explaining the difference.<\/p>\n

This excess of caution and the refusal to give the success of the vaccination programme more than a half-hearted acknowledgement means that the UK is losing its vaccine advantage, holding back our recovery further. Meanwhile, the constant dampening of confidence and the failure to allow normal family and social interaction are having a terrible effect on the nation\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

Never has this country been more in need of an upbeat message. Yet Boris, in an uncharacteristic fit of modesty, is refusing to oblige. If there really is a good reason to believe that a vaccinated nation needs to go on cowering in fear, we should be given the evidence. All the facts available to us suggest we should be seizing the opportunities granted by our vaccination programme; why doesn\u2019t the Prime Minister agree?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

There’s no point in harassing people to complete this pointless census<\/a><\/p>\n

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The advent of electronic data collection makes the census redundant. There is no justifying its \u00a31 billion price tag<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a>\u00a0
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Householders who diligently filled in their census electronically have not been spared harassment by officials threatening \u00a31,000 fines for non-completion. Thirty thousand field workers have been employed to chase up census forms and it appears that many of them have been making repeated visits to people whose questionnaires have already\u00a0been submitted online.\u00a0<\/a>It\u2019s all the fault of an IT failure, apparently. Given the personal nature of the information being gathered, such incompetence does not inspire faith in the state\u2019s ability to protect our confidential information.<\/p>\n

The situation is doubly ridiculous, however, because the census was hardly necessary in the first place.<\/p>\n

From its modest beginnings in the 19th century, the census has ballooned in size. When public records were minimal and scattered around the country, a census was a government\u2019s best opportunity to assess the size of the population. Questions were limited to the size of the household, and the sex and occupations of those living there.<\/p>\n

As the state expanded, a new justification was found. The census was deemed to be an essential tool for determining where public resources should be allocated. Questions on ethnicity and religion were added later.<\/p>\n

But the advent of electronic data collection has changed the picture entirely. The Office for National Statistics might still argue that the information provided enables the government to plan services such as healthcare, transport and education. But now that our personal data are collected by every public body and company with whom we come into contact, a household survey has become a clumsy, and most likely inaccurate, source of information. We are all logged, assessed, examined and inspected through every stage of life. Those who choose to remain unknown to officialdom, usually because they are living and working in this country illegally, are not likely to fill in a census form, or to be \u201cat home\u201d when the census inspector calls.<\/p>\n

And that is not even to mention the cost. The last census, in 2011, was meant to be the last. After a row over its price-tag (around \u00a3500\u2009 million), ministers in the coalition government had threatened to abolish it altogether. Nothing came of that and this year\u2019s exercise is estimated to cost an astonishing \u00a31\u2009billion. In common with so many government departments and quangos, the bureaucracy underpinning the census threatens to be self-perpetuating, regardless of need or cost-effectiveness.<\/p>\n

If the census was already on its last legs, surely the pandemic must kill it off? Answering questions about journeys to work when millions are furloughed or working from home is not going to help the Government decide future transport needs. The NHS is unlikely to need the census to find out how many people are going to need care in the next 10 years either \u2013 the cancelled operations and waiting lists are evidence enough.<\/p>\n

The Scottish Government postponed its census until 2022 on the basis that many of the answers supplied this year will have little relevance by next spring. Westminster would have been wise to follow suit. Spending a billion pounds to create a fleeting snapshot of England in a pandemic is a waste of time and money. The Government does not need it and can no longer justify this intrusion in\u00a0our lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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\u00a0Testing should be used to open up society, not shut it down<\/a><\/p>\n

The nightmare scenario is that mass testing seems to identify thousands of cases among healthy people, and sets back our return to normality<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a> 8 March 2021<\/p>\n

While primary pupils may have ended their long stint of home schooling yesterday, this is not the case for all secondary school students. Their education will remain contingent on what amounts to an experiment. The Government\u2019s mass testing regime for schools has been presented by ministers as an essential part of the route out of lockdown. But it could quite possibly have the opposite effect.<\/p>\n

The scale of the testing regime<\/a>\u00a0is enormous.\u00a0All pupils aged 11-18<\/a>\u00a0are being asked to undergo three school-based lateral flow tests and one further home test as a condition of returning to the classroom. The same regime will apply to teachers and support staff, so the resumption of secondary education may necessitate about 12 million Covid tests within the next fortnight, the biggest single exercise in mass testing in the UK since the start of the pandemic. Pupils and staff will then have to continue with twice-weekly home testing until the end of term \u2013 that\u2019s between six and seven million tests every week.<\/p>\n

But what does the Government hope to achieve by screening pupils and staff at this stage in the pandemic? At a cost of millions of pounds and with the risk of ongoing disruption in every school whenever there is a positive test result, you might think that ministers have a strong justification. But the Government has been remarkably unspecific. Perhaps it\u2019s there to reassure teachers and parents that infection rates are low across the country? Maybe the Education Secretary hopes it will pacify the teaching unions?<\/p>\n

The danger, however, lies in the\u00a0downside risk of positive test results<\/a>, and the likelihood of false positives (or indeed negatives), a serious problem when testing takes place on this scale, and to which the Government seems to have paid astonishingly little attention. If a lateral flow test gives a positive result, the pupil or teacher being tested will have to self-isolate, along with their entire household, and any other pupils with whom they have been in close contact. That means no school for them or for their siblings, and none of the family will be able to leave the house for work, shopping or exercise for the next 10 days.<\/p>\n

Because lateral flow tests are acknowledged to be less accurate than those processed in a laboratory, a PCR test can then also be taken. If it comes back positive, self-isolation for the whole household goes on. Initially the Government insisted that even if the PCR test came back negative, it could not trump the lateral flow test and isolation would still have to continue. It has now changed tack and conceded that a negative PCR will enable pupils, teachers and families to be released from isolation. But with millions of teenagers and teachers undergoing repeated testing, the incidence of false positives, estimated at three in every thousand for lateral flow tests, has the potential to cause massive disruption.<\/p>\n

Given the success of the vaccination programme in protecting the vulnerable, cutting infections and reducing hospital admissions, why are we now embarking on an experiment that threatens to keep children out of school (and send teachers home to isolate) just when\u00a0their lives should be returning to normal<\/a>? The real nightmare scenario is that mass testing appears to identify thousands of cases among healthy people, and sets back the unlocking of society for everyone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Lockdown should be decriminalised<\/a><\/p>\n

The Government cannot really believe that the nation\u2019s grandparents will wait until mid-May to see their children and grandchildren indoors<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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Older people are becoming lawbreakers on a grand scale, if the latest survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is to be believed. Four in 10 people in England aged over 80 have been meeting friends or family indoors in recent weeks, according to the ONS, despite the fact that lockdown restrictions prohibit such meetings unless the participants are in a permitted \u201cbubble\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to sympathise. Since the early days of the pandemic it\u2019s been clear that older people were most at risk, and many have spent the last year so fearful of death that they have isolated themselves from their friends and told their children and grandchildren to stay away. Hence the eagerness with which the elderly have embraced the vaccine. No wonder there has been an air of excitement at vaccination centres \u2013 they represent the gateway to freedom.<\/p>\n

That excitement seems to be justified. Anyone following the news in the last month will have observed that one dose of Covid vaccine\u00a0provides a remarkably high level of protection<\/a>, once three weeks have elapsed. It\u2019s also increasingly clear that people who have been vaccinated are much less likely to transmit the virus. This being so, a twice-jabbed 85 year old who invites a friend round for tea, or gives a grandchild a hug, can hardly be accused of behaving irresponsibly. Why, then, should they have to risk a criminal record? Older people have waited long enough to resume some semblance of normal life.<\/p>\n

Where the over-80s have led, the over-70s will follow, and the over-60s before long. The Government cannot really believe that the nation\u2019s grandparents will\u00a0wait until mid-May to see their children and grandchildren indoors<\/a>. Last Christmas it was clear enough that the virus was rampant and that those taking advantage of the Christmas Day amnesty might be putting themselves and others at risk; millions chose caution and put the turkey in the freezer for Easter. Now they are told that a turkey sandwich in the garden on Easter Sunday is the best they (legally) can hope for, regardless of their vaccination status. Until 29 March, they can\u2019t even meet their families outdoors.<\/p>\n

As infection rates and deaths continue their downward trajectory and hospital wards are being emptied of Covid patients, the Government cannot continue to maintain that a state of emergency exists. Even if ministers are unwilling to speed up their roadmap formally and allow shops, restaurants and pubs to reopen, there is no longer any case for imposing criminal sanctions on those of any age group who make reasonable decisions about who they meet, and where they meet them. Such sanctions will only bring the law into disrepute. Police forces are beginning to recognise this, announcing their reluctance to intervene in normal activities. As Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said last weekend \u201cwe have had enough of this. It is not policeable. It is not manageable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for the Government to accept that the regulations on household mixing should no longer have the force of law, with fines and a potential criminal record attached, but be treated as health guidance, enabling individuals to manage their own risk. Millions will continue to adhere to that guidance, but we should no longer be jeopardising the relationship between police and society by treating it as a matter of law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Self-serving unions must change or die<\/a><\/p>\n

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The public will not forgive the behaviour of a militant minority attempting to frustrate efforts to reopen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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Children need to be back in school, not only for the sake of their education but also their welfare and social development. The Government says it wants all schools to open on or shortly after March 8, to start making up for lost time. Teachers\u2019 unions, however, are once again flexing their muscles, threatening to withdraw their cooperation. The\u00a0National Education Union<\/a>\u00a0has advised its members to prepare to strike, and to use their status as \u201ckey workers\u201d to demand increased pay as a condition of returning to the classroom.<\/p>\n

At a time when thousands of parents have lost their jobs due to Covid, and thousands more are worried about what happens when furlough ends, such demands will not elicit much sympathy. Respect for individual teachers, most of whom want to get back to the classroom, is in danger of being undermined by the intransigence of union leaders.<\/p>\n

It is increasingly clear that the trade unions will not emerge from this pandemic as Covid heroes. Instead of striving to enable their members to serve the public in tough conditions, they seem to welcome every opportunity to exploit workplace closures, and place obstacles in the way of staff returning to work.<\/p>\n

Examples are not hard to find. With a huge backlog of licence applications, the DVLA has recently been attempting to get staff back into its office in Swansea. Employees have been asked for information in order to assess their risk from Covid, reportedly including waist measurements. Logical enough, given that death and hospitalisation rates are much higher amongst the overweight. But head of the Public Services Union Mark Serwotka has reacted with outrage, branding the request insulting.<\/p>\n

One of the unions most conspicuous for its failure to rise to the challenge of the pandemic has been the Fire Brigades Union, whose general secretary is Corbyn-supporting Matt Wrack. Despite the fact that fire and rescue incidents fell to an all-time low last year, the FBU did its level best to prevent firefighters volunteering for additional duties. As the army stepped in at every opportunity, from building hospitals to carrying out mass testing, firefighters were actively discouraged by the FBU from offering to help. This culminated in an instruction in December from the union to all its members\u00a0telling them not to assist the vaccination programme<\/a>\u00a0because the union did not know what the \u201csafety risks\u201d would be. Given the importance and urgency of mass vaccination, this was surely a massive own-goal for the reputation of the fire service.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, non-unionised delivery drivers and shop workers have battled on, coping with the restrictions and in many cases making extra efforts to support their isolated and elderly customers. Manufacturing and building trades, no longer the preserve of the unions, have got on with the job. Many small businesses have spent a fortune complying with Covid safety rules, desperate to keep going in these uncertain times. Yet in public sector offices where the unions still hold sway, the pandemic seems to have been greeted as an opportunity to stay at home on full pay.<\/p>\n

Maybe the public sector unions hope that by making enough noise they can return to the glory days of the 1970s, when trade unions wielded huge influence on policy, their leaders becoming household names as they held the country to ransom. But they should wake up and accept that those days are long gone. In 1979, union membership peaked at 13 million. Now, despite a huge increase in the size of the UK workforce, fewer than 7 million employees belong to a union. The majority of those are in the public sector; membership amongst private sector workers has dwindled to just 13 per cent. The fact is that union leaders can no longer claim to speak for the British workforce.<\/p>\n

Firefighters didn\u2019t sign up to sit around waiting for a call, they expected to be putting themselves at risk to save others from danger. Teachers didn\u2019t join the profession to spend their lives online; most of them are desperate to be back in the classroom, making sure their pupils are thriving. If trade union representatives want to remain relevant after the pandemic, they need to show they are on the side of the public, seeking to overcome the damage wrought by Covid, rather than delaying the recovery.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Vaccines will open up Pandora’s box of woes for\u00a0businesses<\/a><\/p>\n

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Companies will struggle to cope if health and safety rules allow staff to refuse to work with the unjabbed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, has rejected the idea of vaccine passports as \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d. The UK has achieved great success so far by shying away from compulsory vaccination, relying instead on making jabs easily available and persuading the public of their benefits. By extension,\u00a0Mr Zahawi considers it wrong for the Government to deny freedoms to those who have not been immunised<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what about employers? Some companies have stated that they are contemplating \u201cno jab, no job\u201d policies. That may sound controversial, but in some circumstances making vaccination a condition of employment could be justified. If you run a care home and your staff refuse a jab, for example, should they also be refused work? It is a judgment between the possibility that the vaccine will reduce transmission and the chance that you will be unable to find replacement staff in an area rife with skills shortages. It is also a judgment that can only be made by employers themselves \u2013 and most firms in most sectors, I suspect, would prefer not to get involved.<\/p>\n

Now, however, it appears that they may have no choice. According to reports this week, health and safety laws could create what amounts to an obligation on companies across the economy to ensure that their staff are vaccinated. The reason, ministers believe, is that the rules require workers not only to protect themselves from harm, but also colleagues. One government source said: \u201cIf someone is working in an environment where people haven\u2019t been vaccinated, it becomes a public health risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

This would be opening Pandora\u2019s Box. Most obviously, how is an employer to know if staff have had the vaccine? In the absence of vaccine passports, all they can do is ask the question. If an employee declines to answer, the company will need to prove that access to medical records is necessary to fulfil a legal obligation. Vaccination might fall into that category, especially where employees have contact with the vulnerable, but the answer is not straightforward. Many firms will be wary of embarking on the process, or may find themselves stuck in endless negotiations with unions about how to proceed. They could even be subject to legal action by employees.<\/p>\n

Then there is the discrimination point Mr Zahawi raised. Some people will have solid medical reasons for not getting a jab: being pregnant, for example, or having a severe allergy. Others may be resistant for ideological reasons, which might be unfounded but may nevertheless be resistant to persuasion. Some young adults may consider that because they are not at risk from serious illness, they won\u2019t accept the vaccine. It is already apparent that take-up among ethnic minorities is lower than the average; if that reluctance persists, making jobs conditional on jabs could quickly lead to allegations of racism.<\/p>\n

If employers decide that quizzing their staff about their vaccine status is too risky, they face another problem: that some staff might refuse to come into the workplace unless they are confident their co-workers have been vaccinated. Will schoolteachers refuse to go back to work unless all their colleagues have had the jab? What if factory workers, who have been more likely to succumb to Covid than those in many other occupations, refuse to work alongside someone who is unvaccinated? Office workers who have enjoyed the relative freedom of working from home might demand 100 per cent vaccination among their colleagues before they return to the office. The health and safety rules might seem clear cut for hospitals or care homes where unvaccinated staff could pose a risk to the vulnerable, but for the vast majority of workplaces, the regulations are unlikely to provide the certainty that employers need.<\/p>\n

One way to provide that certainty may be for the Government to give employers the right in law to make vaccination a condition of employment. That would help against the threat of legal action by employees, but it would also mean that the use of vaccination passports becomes inevitable. Ministers are reluctant to go down that route, believing that any element of compulsion could threaten public confidence in the vaccine programme. But\u00a0this problem is not going to go away<\/a>, and difficult decisions will have to be made sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Wales’s jab go-slow epitomises the public sector spirit<\/a><\/p>\n

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Mark Drakeford is hardly alone in thinking that state services should be run on behalf of their employees<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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If you live in Wales, don\u2019t be in too much of a hurry to get your Covid vaccine. Now that the majority of England\u2019s over-80s have been given their first jab, the over-70s are starting to be inoculated, too. But not in Wales. Just 4.8 per cent of the Welsh population has been vaccinated, compared with 6 per cent in England. The gap appears to be widening.<\/p>\n

Given the exceptionally high rates of infection in Wales during the second wave of the pandemic, you might think that the devolved administration would be doing everything in its power to close that gap, and even race ahead of England. Lives are at stake, after all.<\/p>\n

But you would reckon without the mindset of Wales\u2019s First Minister, Labour\u2019s Mark Drakeford. Mr Drakeford explained yesterday that although Wales had been supplied with 250,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, \u201cthere would be no point and certainly it would be logistically damaging to use up all our vaccines in the first week and have our vaccinators standing around with nothing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sorry? You might want to read that again. The Welsh government is content to let the Pfizer vaccine sit in the freezer, rather than have it injected into the arms of people who are most at risk from Covid-19. To put it more bluntly, it thinks that keeping vaccinators busy is more important than keeping people alive.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite hard to believe that the vaccine workforce supports Mr Drakeford\u2019s approach. Surely their desire is to work as hard as they possibly can while supplies are to hand, not only to save lives but also to reduce the burden on their colleagues across the health service, overwhelmed by the number of patients in hospital?<\/p>\n

Then again, perhaps not. Mr Drakeford, whose candidacy as leader of Labour in Wales was backed by the far-Left Momentum group, may be unusual for his willingness to propound it so overtly, but his vaccine policy epitomises a view of the public sector that is hardly unusual within its ranks, and on the Left more generally.<\/p>\n

It contends that public services should be run not in the interest of the public, but of their staff. They can only proceed, therefore, at the pace dictated by a unionised workforce. It is a view that has pervaded the response of the to the exigencies of the pandemic, much to our detriment.<\/p>\n

Teachers, at the behest of their union leaders, for example,\u00a0resisted reopening schools after Christmas<\/a>\u00a0despite evidence of the low risk of the virus to children. Rather than arguing for pupils\u2019 needs to be met wherever possible, union leaders have busied themselves thinking up reasons why teaching must stop, even to the extent of declining online teaching if it makes staff uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

HMRC offices, meanwhile, have cut their working hours at a time when, due to Covid job losses, enquiries about tax credits and self-employed support payments are at an all-time high. Across swathes of the country, the heavily unionised Royal Mail, which still acts like a nationalised firm,\u00a0has allowed postal services to grind to a halt for weeks<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 when Amazon and other online retailers have managed to deliver their goods to customers in as little as 24 hours.<\/p>\n

As we marvel at Mr Drakeford\u2019s attitude to the crisis, we can at least give thanks that the UK Government has grasped the need for urgency in commissioning and implementing its vaccine programme. Unlike the EU, where stifling bureaucracy and the desire for collective action has left its member states lagging in the vaccine race,\u00a0it has, so far, been remarkably nimble.<\/a><\/p>\n

But this is due not least to its readiness to involve the private sector in the vaccine roll out. Appointing bio-tech venture capitalist Kate Bingham to lead the vaccine task force proved a smart move. Likewise the choice of Nadhim Zahawi as vaccine minister: before becoming an MP, he built a multi-million pound polling company from scratch, which suggests he is unlikely to be daunted by the scale of the challenge.<\/p>\n

Moving at the speed of the slowest in the convoy might appeal to a socialist mindset, but it won\u2019t save lives when a pandemic is rampant. We are engaged not only in a race against death, but a race to unfreeze the economy, restore jobs and allow families and friends to meet again. The people of Wales deserve better leadership if they are to escape this nightmare.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

People should have the chance to buy the vaccine<\/a><\/p>\n

It would be wrong to rely on the NHS to ensure that the jab is distributed widely and great speed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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The development of effective vaccines against Covid-19 in less than a year has been a triumph for the pharmaceutical industry, whose research scientists have worked round the clock to achieve such remarkable results. And the UK Government\u2019s decision to place great faith in these efforts by pre-ordering large quantities of the Pfizer\/BioNTech vaccine in particular while it was still under development has proved to be its best decision in this epidemic, with the early approval of the Pfizer jab making Britain\u00a0the first country in the world to start vaccinating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Government has admitted, however, a huge challenge lies ahead: to ensure the vaccine is administered successfully to many millions of people, so that normal life can resume as soon as possible. Expectations of a rapid roll-out are already being downplayed, and not merely because only one vaccine has thus far been approved. There is plenty for the state still to get wrong.<\/p>\n

Remember the \u201cworld beating\u201d track and trace app? Instead of adopting an app developed by tech experts in the private sector, the Department of Health was determined to invent its own, spending billions in the process. After stumbling around in those crucial weeks after the national spring lockdown, it was forced to discard the first version, finally launching another at the point when cases were too widespread for the app to make a significant difference.<\/p>\n

Kate Bingham, head of the UK\u2019s Vaccine Taskforce, suggested this week that one of the reasons why Britain has got ahead with its vaccine programme is the fact that, this time, it has not been left to the civil service. \u201cIt\u2019s been uncomfortable, but bringing private sector experts into government to get the job done quickly has worked well,\u201d she said. Rather pointedly, Bingham alluded to the lack of people working in the civil service with any scientific knowledge or industrial experience.<\/p>\n

If we want to make sure that everyone who wants the vaccine has access to it, does it really make sense now to give the NHS a monopoly over its use? Only last week the Doctors\u2019 Association GPs\u2019 committee threatened that surgeries may refuse to administer Covid jabs, demanding higher upfront fees from the Government and claiming that it cannot be managed at the same time as meeting patients\u2019 existing needs. How much time will ministers waste bargaining with reluctant GPs while doses of the vaccine sit unused?<\/p>\n

Demand for jabs will be huge and yet we know from bitter experience that the only way the NHS can respond to patient demand is by rationing its services.\u00a0Lack of capacity has been the bane of our healthcare system<\/a>\u00a0since its inception, leading to long waiting lists, cancelled operations, and high rates of hospital acquired infections. The pandemic has brought home to everyone the tragic drawbacks of rationed healthcare: closing down the economy, unprecedented restrictions on personal freedom, lives lost due to lack of cancer treatment \u2013 all to \u201cprotect our NHS\u201d.<\/p>\n

Do we really want to ration the delivery of Covid vaccinations by moving at the pace dictated by our nationalised health service? Can the Government justify the continued destruction of jobs, businesses and lives which such delays would entail?<\/p>\n

The best way to ensure that the vaccination programme does not descend into chaos would be to give the private sector a role in its delivery. As soon as plentiful supplies of the vaccine are assured and the needs of the most vulnerable have been met, private healthcare providers should be given the option of administering the jabs to everyone wanting to purchase one. Businesses capable of running vaccine programmes, such as those which already offer their employees annual flu jabs, should be given the chance to vaccinate their employees at work.<\/p>\n

The response of business to Covid testing has shown there will be no shortage of companies rising to the challenge. In August, long before the Government introduced mass testing, defence giant BAE Systems offered regular Covid testing for 2,500 employees at its Barrow shipyard. During the autumn, independent schools have been implementing private testing in order to minimise disruption to their pupils\u2019 education. Across the country, private health providers have been meeting huge demand for their testing services; there is no reason to suppose that they will be unable to respond just as well to demand for private vaccinations.<\/p>\n

By seizing the initiative on vaccine development, big pharmaceutical companies stand to make dazzling profits while also helping to save the world. The profit motive should equally be harnessed to ensure that their vaccines have the widest possible reach in the shortest possible time. Let\u2019s not waste the next six months in finding out\u00a0whether or not the NHS can cope<\/a>; our lives have been on hold for long enough.<\/p>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Why is the civil service so keen to get rid of Priti Patel<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Priti Patel\u2019s willingness to row against the establishment tide is arguably exactly what is needed in a Home Secretary<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>

Ten days ago the women in No\u200910 were credited with persuading Boris Johnson that his Government must become less confrontational. In ousting a couple of male advisers who rarely minced their words, it was suggested that Downing Street would begin to show a gentler, more feminine side. But the Prime Minister\u2019s\u00a0robust defence of Priti Patel\u00a0<\/a>in the face of Civil Service criticism shows that standing up for women in politics does not always mean dialling down the conflict.<\/p>\n

Rather than using gentle persuasion, the Home Secretary has at times (by her own admission)\u00a0allowed her impatience to show<\/a>, as she tries to put in place the policies on which this Government was elected. A Cabinet Office investigation into Ms Patel\u2019s conduct has concluded that she breached the ministerial code by failing to treat her civil servants with \u201cconsideration and respect\u201d \u2013 but also that she had legitimate reasons for not feeling supported by a service that lacked flexibility in responding to her requests.<\/p>\n

In backing the Home Secretary, Boris Johnson has made it clear that he will support ministers when they run up against\u00a0the Civil Service<\/a>. It\u2019s fair to say that senior figures on Whitehall are hardly overjoyed.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the Prime Minister\u2019s ethics advisor, Sir Alex Allan, resigned over the matter. He followed Sir Philip Rutnam, former permanent secretary at the Home Office, who when he “resigned” last February issued a public denunciation of Ms Patel\u2019s conduct, claiming that she was wont to shout at officials and make \u201cunreasonable demands\u201d of them. It\u2019s not hard to infer that Ms Patel\u2019s determination to, for example, deport foreign criminals or halt the flow of illegal migrants, clashed with the cautious pragmatism of her civil servants. Her efforts to get a grip on her department clearly ruffled some establishment feathers and she wouldn\u2019t be the first minister to have been the target of maneouverings by disgruntled officials.<\/p>\n

A touch of Sir Humphrey-esque condescension might also have been apparent to the Home Secretary, whose own background, as the daughter of Ugandan Asian immigrants, is rather different from the average senior Whitehall mandarin. Like another woman in politics who was prepared to challenge the status quo, Ms Patel is a shopkeeper\u2019s daughter whose path up the political ladder hasn\u2019t always been greeted with delight by the old boys\u2019 network. In common with her hero Margaret Thatcher, the Home Secretary asks awkward questions and when told by civil servants that something can\u2019t be done is apt to say \u201cwhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Overseeing a police force so weighed down by a \u201cwoke\u201d agenda that they seem unable to catch criminals, and having her attempts to deport convicted offenders continually thwarted, it is hardly surprising if the Home Secretary sometimes allows her frustration to surface. That just shows she is more interested in the public\u2019s priorities than Whitehall opinion.<\/p>\n

Boris Johnson would be justified in believing that Priti Patel\u2019s willingness to row against the establishment tide is exactly what he needs in a Home Secretary.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

No 10 should trust the public on Covid<\/a><\/p>\n

People are now managing their own risk \u2013 the Government needs to work with that, not against it<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>

We may be in lockdown once more, but you wouldn\u2019t have guessed it this weekend. Sunny weather saw crowds thronging open-air markets, parks and seafronts. If stopped and asked why we were out and about, we had our answers ready: we\u2019re shopping for food, exercising, meeting a friend for a walk. Public perception of the risks of Covid have changed since the spring. This time around, instead of hunkering down at home and meekly accepting instructions, we\u2019re exploring all the options available to get on with our lives \u2013 if only to retain our sanity.<\/p>\n

Businesses, too, are putting up more of a fight this time around. Shopkeepers who managed to survive the spring are fearful that this time they really will be crushed out of existence by the big online retailers, so\u00a0 they too have\u00a0 taken a close look at the rules and decided that more of their products \u2013 from cut flowers to aromatherapy oils \u2013 are \u201cessential\u201d. The Government is wise not to follow the Welsh example of closing off certain supermarket aisles, but when many shops have gone to great lengths over the summer to make their premises\u00a0\u201cCovid-proof\u201d<\/a>\u00a0it is hard not to sympathise \u2013 or want to support them.<\/p>\n

And here lies the rub. During the summer every public-facing enterprise \u2013 from pubs to gyms, bookshops to hairdressers \u2013 spent substantial amounts of time and money installing screens and sanitisers, restricting numbers to ensure social distancing and enforcing mask-wearing.<\/p>\n

As all this took place, and as we have learnt more about the virus, we too have changed our habits. It\u2019s become second nature to hold conversations six feet apart, resisting the desire to hug or shake hands, and standing back while others pass by. Wearing a mask may be more about social conformity than confidence in its ability to keep us safe, but we put one on all the same.<\/p>\n

Yet here we are, locked down again and hearing the same old Government message to stay at home. Ministers are even threatening to crack down harder on breaches of the regulations, urging the police to issue on-the-spot fines rather than repeated cautions. Local authorities have been told to\u00a0 \u201cstep up enforcement\u201d where businesses appear to be flouting the rules. The current regulations do not prevent people travelling to take exercise, but police officers have been telling\u00a0Londoners walking in the Cotswolds\u00a0<\/a>that they should stay closer to home.<\/p>\n

The danger in the indignant messaging about staying at home to save lives is that it becomes counter- productive. Enforcement of Lockdown 2 is, as police forces have pointed out, much more complicated than the rules applicable in the spring. Schools and nurseries are open, as are many workplaces. There are many lawful reasons why people are out and about, so blanket restrictions are not possible. Added to which, the rules seem illogical: gyms must close, but physiotherapy can still take place; it\u2019s safe to swim in a river but not a lido; two individuals from different households can meet for a walk two metres apart but they can\u2019t have a game of tennis at opposite ends of a 20-metre court.<\/p>\n

The result of such inconsistencies is that more and more of us are deciding that we can manage our own risk, thank you very much. Without being experts, most of us now have a reasonable grasp of where the greatest dangers lie. There is wider understanding of the risk of indoor versus outdoor gatherings, of the most important precautions to take in trying to avoid infection, and who the most vulnerable are.<\/p>\n

Instead of\u00a0threatening us with bigger fines<\/a>, or trying to frighten us into compliance, the Government needs to start trusting the public. That means sharing information, opening up more national and local data for scrutiny. Introducing endless petty rules and rushing out inconsistent guidance will only lead to more rule-breaking and increase contempt for authority.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Manchester students\u00a0<\/a>last week tore down the barriers erected overnight around their accommodation, the university apologised for the distress caused and removed the fencing. Sympathy for the students was widespread. A Conservative Government should recognise that fencing us in with illogical rules and on-the-spot fines is no way to get through this pandemic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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The conservative case against Marcus Rashford’s school meal plan<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ministers are failing to make the principled argument for individual responsibility and self-sufficiency<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>

Who should bear responsibility for feeding the nation\u2019s children: parents or the state? Facing down a Twitter storm based on the\u00a0premise that children are starving<\/a>, the Government has struggled to find a coherent answer. Yet an answer is urgently required, and it has to be more than just another climbdown. As the economic damage wrought by lockdown claims the livelihoods of more young families, the social media campaigns look set to become unstoppable, with the risk of creating a damaging new culture of welfare entitlement.<\/p>\n

For the past decade, Conservative policies towards welfare have been based on the sound principle that individuals should be encouraged to achieve self-sufficiency, even if they might need temporary help during difficult periods. This was the logic behind the\u00a0introduction of Universal Credit<\/a>, \u201ca hand up rather than a handout\u201d, which saw different benefits merged under one roof in order to incentivise work, and more control put into the hands of individuals and families.<\/p>\n

There were other changes designed to encourage individual responsibility, too. By scrapping the old system under which housing benefit was paid directly to landlords from the Government, tenants were instead required to transfer the money themselves. The idea behind it was not a cruel one, as some alleged, but that if you deny people responsibility for too long, they will never be able to stand on their own two feet.<\/p>\n

Yet in the midst of the pandemic, when the Government has pledged to \u201cput its arms around us\u201d, there is now a danger that, in surrendering to government intervention across all aspects of life, people will gradually lose the ability to think and act for themselves. Ministers are also failing to mount a principled defence against an insatiable demand for new entitlements. Nowhere is this more true than in Marcus Rashford\u2019s campaign to expand the Free School Meal Voucher programme.<\/p>\n

There is a Conservative case against Rashford\u2019s proposals, and it starts with a simple question: why should parents suddenly no longer be responsible for feeding their children during the holidays? This is not a straightforward matter of starving children too poor to afford food, as much of social media might have it. It is a complex area that covers not only children who are fed too little, but also the countless others eating too much of the wrong thing. Too many parents seem to have no idea of what constitutes healthy eating. Isn\u2019t the danger that further stripping them of responsibility will make that problem worse?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, many will ask why expanding food vouchers is the answer when Rishi Sunak had already temporarily increased Universal Credit payments at the start of the pandemic, reflecting the disproportionate impact of lockdown on the finances of the poorest in society. The Chancellor was right to do so, but that is money that we ought to trust parents to spend \u2013 whether on food or on other essentials. To do anything different is again infantilising.<\/p>\n

Some Conservatives have shown that they understand this, among them the backbench MP and former Downing Street adviser Danny Kruger. He argues that turning schools into \u201cpermanent welfare providers\u201d not only usurps the role of parents but also the part played by local communities and voluntary organisations. Having set up and led a charity working with prisoners and their families, he speaks from experience in applying conservative principles to solving social problems.<\/p>\n

It is positive that the Government\u00a0has been groping towards the idea that businesses\u00a0<\/a>and the voluntary sector might combine to provide support via holiday clubs where children would not just receive a healthy meal but also some catch-up teaching. But such schemes should be designed to involve parents and, if necessary, help them to budget for family meals.<\/p>\n

\u201cBootstrap cook\u201d Jack Monroe made a career by showing parents how to feed a family on a fiver a week. There are many parents in even the poorest families who practise such skills and who do not look to schools to stand in their place. We need more parents like that, not fewer. The Conservative Party shouldn\u2019t be afraid to say so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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This terrible winter will show the folly of the working from home “revolution”<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Now that employers are being asked to risk assess home workers’ workspaces, things could be about to get very costly indeed<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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Back in the sunny lockdown spring of 2020,\u00a0escaping the office to work from home had its attractions<\/a>. Freedom from the commute, lunch in the garden, more time with the family. For millennials, a couple of months back in the parental home, with free Wi-fi and all meals provided, made a nice break from routine.<\/p>\n

But as we go into winter, told that there could be six months of ever-tightening restrictions ahead, a desk in a chilly back bedroom or corner of the living room, or a laptop on the kitchen table, are all looking less conducive to a well-balanced life. It\u2019s not just the\u00a0impact on heating bills of staying at home all day<\/a>, or the threat of the taxman catching anyone who has taken the opportunity to carve out a space dedicated to home working. It\u2019s the lack of any form of human interaction, especially if there\u2019s no gym open for indoor exercise, or a pub to go to for a chat. And for young people at the start of their careers, needing to learn from working alongside colleagues, the lack of interaction is not just boring, it presents a real block to progress.<\/p>\n

Online meetings are fine for a while, to cover the basics. But they leave\u00a0no scope for creativity, for ideas generated in the informal conversations which are the stuff of office life, or those random encounters which might result in a new deal<\/a>. For the first couple of months in lockdown, most office-based businesses found they could manage well enough; some even claimed that productivity increased due to less time spent travelling or chatting. But, for most, the ability to stay effective was based on the human and financial capital established by years of team-working, goodwill generated through interaction with clients and knowledge shared by colleagues accustomed to face-to-face encounters.<\/p>\n

As those reserves of capital were depleted, the phased return to the workplace over the summer held out the welcome prospect of a return to near-normal business life. Employers invested heavily in virus protection, drawing up detailed protocols and work rotas to comply with new guidance, making the workplace as safe as possible to get their businesses back on track and \u2013 with luck \u2013 resuming growth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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No sooner had they done so than the Government ended its back-to-the-office message. Now, not only are employers\u2019 efforts at virus protection largely wasted, they are being told they must take responsibility for employees\u2019 working conditions at home. The new chairman of the Health and Safety Executive has announced that employers who \u201cask\u201d their staff to work from home\u00a0should conduct risk assessments.<\/a>\u00a0If sitting at the kitchen table is giving a\u00a0worker a bad back, the HSE will offer a meeting (on Zoom, of course) to check up on the kitchen furniture and if necessary to take the matter up with their employer.<\/p>\n

At this point, employers might reasonably be feeling rather aggrieved. Instead of paying for Perspex partitions, air-conditioning upgrades and hand sanitising stations, it seems they should have been arranging home deliveries of ergonomic desks and chairs for all their staff. In a tough economic climate, with countless at breaking point, this is not the news they want to hear.<\/p>\n

As with so many of the rules currently being made in Westminster, there are costs attached. Employers may be meeting the bill for now, but as businesses falter and work dries up, WFH may turn out to be very expensive for us all.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Priti Patel’s migration plans are truly humane<\/a><\/p>\n

The current soft system for protecting our borders only encourages desperate people to risk their lives<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>

With the Government preparing to \u201ctake back control\u201d of\u00a0UK immigration policies<\/a>, leaked plans to deter illegal migrants by threatening to process their asylum claims offshore were met with predictable uproar. Proposals being examined by the Home Office include setting up processing centres in British overseas territories, where migrants would be held pending their claims being assessed, or housing them in old cruise ships or decommissioned oil platforms off the coast of the UK.<\/p>\n

These ideas draw on the example set by the Australian government in deterring illegal immigration by using detention centres on offshore islands. Angry voices on the Left assert that Priti Patel\u2019s proposals are cruel and inhumane. But the present system is anything but humane, as dangerously overloaded boats and dinghies cross the English Channel in increasing numbers, enriching the traffickers responsible for what\u00a0Boris Johnson<\/a>\u00a0described in yesterday\u2019s Daily Telegraph as an \u201cevil trade\u201d.<\/p>\n

More than 6,000 people\u00a0have made the crossing<\/a>\u00a0so far this year, more than twice the number arriving by this route in 2019. The majority are young men, but women (including expectant mothers) and young children, many of them unaccompanied, are also chancing their lives to make this journey. Many of those making the crossing will have paid the people smugglers thousands of pounds, using their savings or borrowing from their families. In their rush to beat the winter weather, more people are being crammed on to smaller boats; the smugglers charge less, but the risk to life is greater.<\/p>\n

The Home Office has been grappling with this problem for years, to no avail. Since 2019 the UK has been paying the French to put extra police patrols along their coastline, and border forces in Calais claim that nearly half of all attempted crossings have been intercepted. But the number of attempts still continues to grow. French officials have blamed the UK for providing a generous health and welfare system, acting as a magnet, and for failing to deport migrants whose claims are unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

Priti Patel certainly shares that sentiment, citing the \u201cLeftie Labour-supporting lawyers\u201d who\u00a0exploit every opportunity<\/a>\u00a0offered by human rights laws to ensure that their clients remain in the UK. In the last year, only 6 per cent of the migrants who arrived illegally in small boats have been deported, representing very good odds for those tempted to make the journey.<\/p>\n

Confident of being allowed to stay, and also knowing that they will be housed, will receive welfare payments and have access to UK healthcare, it\u2019s not surprising that migrants choose Britain as their ultimate destination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Patel\u2019s critics on the Left argue that this is as it should be; that Britain ought to provide a welcome for refugees from war-torn countries. But there is a gaping hole in this argument: all those who make the Channel crossing have already travelled through EU countries where they could have lodged their asylum claims.<\/p>\n

The countries they fled from may indeed be unsafe. But if that is the case, the first EU country in which they arrive is obliged under the Dublin Convention to consider their claim to asylum. The fact that so many migrants do not seek asylum in Italy, or France, or any other EU country they pass through on the way to the UK indicates that they are not so much driven by fear as attracted by the prospect of a more comfortable life in Britain.<\/p>\n

Hence the other key proposal being\u00a0considered by the Home Secretary<\/a>: that any claims for asylum being made by a migrant who has reached Britain via any EU country will automatically be rejected on the grounds that asylum should have been claimed in the first country reached. Not only would such a rule help to deter illegal migration to the UK, thus putting many of the people smugglers out of business, but it should also, if properly implemented, enable refugees to be distinguished from economic migrants. Such a distinction is crucial to restoring faith in immigration policy.<\/p>\n

For all the noise on the Left, and protests from the shadow home secretary, Ms Patel can be confident of widespread public support. As a Covid-induced economic meltdown threatens the UK with record levels of unemployment, the prospect of feeding and housing increasing numbers of illegal migrants is deeply unpopular.<\/p>\n

The ideas emerging from the Home Office this week provide grounds for hope that, post-Brexit, the tide can be turned and that a fairer and ultimately more compassionate system can be put in place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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Digital ID cards are a terrible idea<\/a><\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>

The Covid-19 pandemic has provided governments around the world with a cast-iron excuse to get intimately involved in the daily lives of their citizens. The UK Government is, it seems, no exception. Anyone who is concerned that state intervention may be getting out of hand should be alarmed by the latest wheeze emanating from No10: a plan to assign a \u201cunique digital identity\u201d to all British citizens. This data-sharing exercise is currently being touted as a solution to difficulties encountered by those trying to obtain welfare support during the pandemic, particularly the 2.6 million self-employed people about whom little information is held on government databases.<\/p>\n

To those who remember the political battles fought over the\u00a0proposed introduction of ID cards by the last Labour government<\/a>, this will seem eerily familiar. Such schemes are always sold as a convenient and speedy way to access state services. The latest selling point \u2013 dealing with the spread of Covid \u2013 has breathed new life into a previously discredited idea.\u00a0Earlier this summer Tony Blair<\/a>, a long-time proponent of national ID cards, described digital ID as \u201ca natural evolution of the way we are going to use technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Conveniently, Mr Blair seems to have forgotten the multi-billion pound failure of his government\u2019s attempts to build an NHS database. No doubt he will be delighted to see a Conservative government embracing an online version of the ID card, the Coalition having dumped that particular Labour project when they took over in 2010. Indeed, the 2010 Conservative manifesto explicitly pledged to scrap ID cards, in order \u201cto reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour government and roll back state intrusion\u201d.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Those bold words have a hollow ring nowadays. What is it about the word \u201cdigital\u201d that seems to lure ministers into a series of costly, ill conceived\u00a0 projects, each one attempting to increase the reach and influence of the state? This latest scheme comes hard on the heels of the much-vaunted, hugely expensive track-and-trace app, once hailed by Boris Johnson as \u201cworld-beating\u201d but which has returned to the drawing board due to \u2013 wait for it \u2013 \u201ctechnical issues\u201d.<\/p>\n

Announcing the latest data-sharing project, minister for digital infrastructure Matt Warman declared that digital identities could contribute billions to the economy and that he looks forward to \u201cworking with partners in the private sector\u201d. If recent history is anything to go by, the section of the economy likely to benefit most from this will be the management consultants and IT providers tasked with setting it up.<\/p>\n

In addition to concerns about the state encroaching on personal freedom, one of the strongest arguments against data-sharing exercises is the threat to privacy. The risk that our health records, tax and benefit status or bank details might be leaked or hacked, whether through incompetence or technical failure, has always been a good reason to resist the amalgamation of multiple sources of information.<\/p>\n

Defenders of the plans will no doubt point out that Google and Facebook nowadays know everything about us, and that we willingly surrender our privacy every time we make an online search or log on to social media. And if the Government can create a seamless path between state agencies and the private sector, won\u2019t we all benefit from increased efficiency?<\/p>\n

Examples of this cited by the Government include removing the need for landlords to check tenants\u2019 immigration status, for bar owners to ask for proof of age, or GPs to require new patients to fill in forms. If we don\u2019t mind Sainsbury’s prompting us to make our usual purchases, or pop-up ads online, why object to the state hoarding our data too?<\/p>\n

The crucial difference is one that should be plain to any right-minded Conservative. The internet giants who hold the keys to our online lives, and the supermarkets who reward us with our loyalty card points, are ultimately answerable to us: their users and their customers. Maintaining data security\u00a0is essential to their commercial success; the reputational and financial cost of breaching our privacy enables us to hold them to account. Not only do state agencies have access to some of the most confidential details about us, they also seem to be the most likely to mislay that information, and there is very little we can do about it.<\/p>\n

Whenever government has sought to amass individual personal data and share it across departments, similar justifications have been offered: speed, convenience, efficiency. Yet when it attempts to put into practice an all-encompassing database purporting to make our lives easier, at the cost of millions if not billions of pounds, the scheme generally collapses amid a welter of acrimony, due to technical failure, data protection breaches or public resistance \u2013 or a combination of all three. There is no reason to suppose that providing us all with a \u201cunique digital identity\u201d will be any different – and every reason to fear that this is the most dangerous example of government overreach to date.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

We can’t wait for a vaccine to make us safe<\/a><\/p>\n

For all the optimism, an effective vaccine could still be years away. We need to get back to normal now.<\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>

Shares in AstraZeneca surged yesterday on the news that President Trump was considering fast-tracking the Covid vaccine it is developing in conjunction with Oxford University. The White House later damped down reports that it would try to shortcut safety procedures in a bid to buy up millions of doses of the vaccine and make them available before the November presidential election.<\/p>\n

US scientific agencies warned, too, of the dangers of rushing out a jab that might be ineffective, or carry harmful side effects. No doubt it\u2019s also clear to the White House that the political gains from releasing a Covid vaccine will only be achieved if the American public have full confidence that it will be safe and effective.<\/p>\n

The idea that President Trump is recklessly seeking to expedite the process has nevertheless taken hold in Left-wing circles. Certainly, he appears to be desperate for a good news story to offset the political damage his administration has suffered in its handling of Covid. But Trufmp is hardly the only leader wanting to boast that he got to the vaccine first.<\/p>\n

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Discounting, for the moment, President Putin\u2019s claims about the success of the Russian vaccine, the UK appears to be leading the field, thanks to the Oxford team, who have made clear that they will not condone any release of the jab they have developed until the full round of trials has been completed. The UK Government already has a contract to purchase 100 million doses of this particular vaccine, 30 million to be available by September if authorisation is achieved by then. Both Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock have understandably been keen to talk up British expertise, perhaps hoping to make up for earlier failures in controlling the disease.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The good news from initial trials is that the Oxford vaccine appears to have a double effect, of providing both antibodies and potentially longer-lasting \u201cT-cell\u201d protection. In carrying out their trials, however, researchers have \u2013 ironically \u2013 been hampered by the fact that the virus is no longer in wide circulation in the UK, so it\u2019s hard to expose volunteers to the risk of infection. Indeed, few of us are likely now to encounter anyone with the virus. Hospital admissions for Covid across England have dropped from 3,000 per day in April to around 50 a day now; daily virus deaths are close to zero. The majority of people who do test positive have no symptoms.<\/p>\n

Despite this very low level of risk, fear of the virus is more persistent in the UK than elsewhere. A survey this week found that employees in this country are more reluctant to return to work than anywhere else in Europe. Government threats of more local lockdowns, talk of a second wave and concern that the NHS would struggle to cope if Covid comes back in the winter have all combined to frighten us into staying at home. But, as Chief Medical Officer Prof Chris Whitty has cautioned, we can\u2019t count on the promised vaccine to make us safe and we may have to wait at least another year before it\u2019s ready to use.<\/p>\n

Millions of pounds of taxpayer\u2019s cash have been staked on government contracts with AstraZeneca and other big drug companies on the basis that normal life can resume once a vaccine is available. But there are still many unknowns. Until large-scale trials have been successfully completed, the Government clearly cannot risk giving the go-ahead to mass vaccination. This process could take at least another 12 months. If serious side-effects emerge, or\u00a0if the immunity conferred proves short-lived<\/a>, all bets are off, and we will have to learn to live with the virus.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s scientists clearly deserve\u00a0great credit for the speed and expertise they have brought to developing a vaccine<\/a>, as do the volunteers coming forward to take part in trials. If it works, and if the UK is indeed one of the first countries to be able to offer safe mass vaccination, there will be a huge sigh of relief across the nation, not least in \u2028Downing Street.<\/p>\n

However, until that day comes<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and in case it never arrives \u2013 the Government should avoid any Trumpian rhetoric and refrain from talking up the vaccine\u2019s prospects. The most important message the country needs to hear is that the risk of falling ill with the virus, let alone dying from it, is now vanishingly small, and that we should not be putting our lives on hold until the vaccine comes along.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Ludicrous quarantine rules are unenforceable<\/a><\/p>\n

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Putting holidaymakers under house arrest will bring both the law and government into disrepute<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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Holidaymakers in France who wouldn\u2019t, or couldn\u2019t, join the race to curtail their trips and get on the last flight \u2013 or boat \u2013 home are now digesting the full horror of\u00a0UK quarantine measures<\/a>. Many will have assumed that the restrictions on their activities would be similar to those applied in lockdown back in March and April, when the pandemic was at its height and everyone was urged to stay at home.<\/p>\n

Working remotely if you could, shopping only for essentials, going out for exercise: not much fun but manageable, particularly for those with desk-based jobs. Anyway,\u00a0a holiday in France<\/a>, where Covid rates and containment policies looked very similar to our own, seemed safe enough. Indeed, for those British travellers heading for rural France the risk of contracting Covid looked lower than on the crowded streets and beaches of Bournemouth or St Ives.<\/p>\n

But the Government, having last month enjoined us to go ahead with our European holidays, doesn\u2019t see it that way. A visit to Brittany is now considered as hazardous as a trip to Sao Paulo, and quarantine restrictions make lockdown look like a picnic by comparison. After completing, to the best of their ability, a set of baffling and bureaucratic forms about their plans and contact details for the next two weeks, returning holidaymakers are being told to go home and\u00a0stay there, with no exceptions.<\/a>\u00a0Quarantine is, in effect, house arrest. It doesn\u2019t mean \u201cwork from home if you can\u201d; it means \u201cyou must not go to work\u201d. It doesn\u2019t mean \u201ctake exercise once a day\u201d; it means \u201cdon\u2019t go out\u201d. No shopping, even for essentials. If you need food or medication, ask a neighbour. No dog-walking allowed. If you break the rules you\u2019ll be subject to fines of up to \u00a31,000.<\/p>\n

Given the information now available about the probable conditions for transmission of Covid, forbidding returning holidaymakers from walking the dog, or driving to the supermarket to pick up a click-and-collect order of groceries, seems wildly disproportionate. With\u00a0Greece and Croatia\u00a0<\/a>potentially joining Spain and France on the \u201cred list\u201d, thousands of UK citizens could be facing a fortnight of confinement. This seems entirely at odds with the Government\u2019s supposed strategy of containing infection through more sophisticated, targeted measures which are meant to enable \u201cnormal\u201d life to resume.<\/p>\n

Yet in deciding when to put countries under travel restrictions, the Government has used an extremely blunt instrument. The \u201cscience-led\u201d benchmark is countries where 20 people in 100,000 test positive for the virus. But such a benchmark does not take account of the possibility that countries carrying out more tests are likely to come up with more positive results. Unless hospital admissions and death rates from Covid are also rising, the figures are largely meaningless.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the arbitrary measures being applied to overseas travel seem all too typical of this Government\u2019s confused and panicky response to the virus. Urged on by the scientists, schools were forced to cancel all exams this summer when, with political will and some careful planning, it would have been possible to carry them out in socially distanced conditions. Employees are being urged to return to their places of work \u2013 yet are still supposed to avoid public transport and keep two metres apart. Try reading the latest regulations and you\u2019ll end up so baffled that it seems easier to do nothing. How does the Government imagine that anything like normal life can resume in this climate of uncertainty and confusion?<\/p>\n

As to the draconian post-holiday quarantine rules, it\u2019s hard to see how they can possibly be enforced. Will the police mount a countrywide campaign, stopping and questioning anyone who looks as if they might have been abroad lately? In practice, and based on enforcement rates to date, the likelihood is that the law will be flouted. But making unenforceable threats based on illogical demands will rapidly bring the law into disrepute and leave the Government struggling to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

As testing improves, rates in this country may well exceed 20 in 100,000. What then? Will everyone in Britain be put under house arrest? We have to learn to live with this virus for the foreseeable future; imposing arbitrary rules will only damage public confidence and dampen any hope of social and economic recovery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Taxing the over-40s is not the way to solve the problem of social care<\/a><\/p>\n

As any Conservative government should know, the solution does not lie in compulsion, but in providing incentives<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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In his opening speech as Prime Minister on the steps of Downing Street a year ago, Boris Johnson made a bold pledge to \u201cfix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared.\u201d The plan, it seems, has yet to be written, and the biggest question still waiting to be answered is: who pays?<\/p>\n

The latest suggestion, emerging from a task force set up by the government last month, is for a new tax towards care costs to be levied on everyone over the age of 40. Similar to a system adopted in Japan, such a tax is apparently favoured by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, although the Treasury is said to be sceptical.<\/p>\n

The idea should be firmly resisted. Compelling people to pay into a national fund, at an age when many will be struggling to meet the financial demands of raising a family and paying a mortgage, is the wrong answer.<\/p>\n

As any Conservative government should know, the solution does not lie in compulsion, but in providing incentives for people to take responsibility for their own future in the way they can best afford. There is a case for \u201cnudging\u201d people,\u00a0such as pension schemes<\/a>\u00a0that require employees to opt out, rather than opt in. Crucially, however, such schemes do not take away personal responsibility and choice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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National insurance was introduced in the first place to provide a fund to be spent on the contributors\u2019 healthcare and pensions, but as Nye Bevan memorably admitted \u201cThe great secret about the National Insurance fund is that there ain’t no fund.”: the money raised is in practice treated in the same way as general taxation. There is no reason to suppose that a social care fund would be any different, or that those paying would have any control over how the money is spent.<\/p>\n

We all need to think about how we pay for our own care in old age. But handing over more money to the government means handing over responsibility \u2013 and choice. As many families have found to their dismay, if the state meets the cost of old age care, social services will decide what kind of care will be offered.<\/p>\n

Care at home will usually be minimal and inadequate, and there will be little or no choice between care homes, sometimes requiring families to travel long distances to see loved ones. Clearly it is much more desirable for an elderly person \u2013 or their family \u2013 to be able to\u00a0choose the care best suited to their needs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The biggest incentive for anyone to save for their own future \u2013 whether in pension plans, property, or savings vehicles like ISAs \u2013 is to provide such choice, rather than forcing them to be dependent on what the state can offer. But one of the biggest worries for anyone trying to save up enough is the inability to predict what their care needs will be: a couple of years of frailty at the end of life, or 20 years with Alzheimers? This is where the government could play a useful role, to act as guarantor.<\/p>\n

Does that sound familiar? It should do, because back in 2012 the Dilnot Report on social care came up with just such a solution, providing a cap on the amount anyone could be required to spend on care, after which the government would foot the bill. The existence of such a cap was intended to open the way to a market in affordable social care insurance, giving everyone more confidence as well as choice.<\/p>\n

The Dilnot Report received cross-party support and was poised for implementation in 2013. It remains the best solution on offer, would save the current government scraping around for new taxes, and provides a neat answer to the question every Conservative should now be asking: how can we give more people the chance to provide for their own needs in old age whilst sharing the cost?<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Why should wealthy pensioners get free TV licences?<\/a><\/p>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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The BBC is right to\u00a0end free TV licences for the over-75s.<\/a>\u00a0There is no justification for subsidising the viewing habits of well-off pensioners, so the decision to limit free licences to those on Pension Credit makes good sense. Of the 4.5 million households currently entitled to a free licence, about 1.5 million will continue to be able to claim, so that the elderly who genuinely struggle to meet the cost will still be protected.<\/p>\n

In the last 20 years, too many freebies have been handed out indiscriminately to the elderly: TV licences, winter fuel allowances, bus passes and travelcards, along with numerous other leisure concessions. Yet over the same period, pensioners\u2019 incomes have risen far faster than those of working age households. The typical pensioner has more disposable income than the average young family, a gap that will undoubtedly grow wider as the full economic impact of the pandemic is felt.<\/p>\n

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Over-70s, especially those with enough income to be paying higher rate tax, do not need all these freebies. But successive governments, ever mindful of the fact that older people are more likely to vote, have been nervous of taking them away, fearing the electoral consequences. In the case of the free TV licence,\u00a0George Osborne\u2019s way of dodging the unpopularity problem\u00a0<\/a>was to cut a deal with the BBC giving them the headache of deciding how to fund i<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0In grasping that particular nettle, the BBC has made the right decision. But now, having turned the majority of its over-75 viewers into paying customers, it should take more care to respond to customer demand.\u00a0Older viewers are the most likely demographic to tune into BBC4, yet this channel \u2013 which carries most of the BBC\u2019s cultural and historical content \u2013 is threatened with closure in order to allocate more money to the youth-facing BBC3. The under-40s have become far less likely than over-65s to watch traditional television, preferring to stream content from the internet and watch whenever, and wherever, they want. With the advent of YouTube, Netflix and Amazon TV, the BBC has slumped in popularity among the young.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Instead of chasing after younger viewers, and losing its older audience base in the process, the BBC should copy its competitors by switching to subscription-based funding. Why should it be compulsory for everyone to pay a fixed fee for programmes they have no desire to watch? The best way to end the arguments about the licence fee would be to abolish it altogether.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n
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Our problem isn’t Brighton. It’s Hove<\/a><\/p>\n

The rising tide of violence on the streets is a greater threat to the public than a few crowded beaches<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>

On Wednesday evening, just a few miles from Brighton, hundreds of teenagers gathered\u00a0in a park in Hove, openly taunting\u00a0the police, who intervened as fights broke out. Later that evening, street parties in Brixton\u00a0erupted into more serious violence<\/a>, with police cars jumped on and 22 officers injured.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere police have reported a spike in knife crime, with seven serious stabbings taking place in the West Midlands within the last week. The lull in crime that took place during lockdown, which apparently left the police with nothing more serious to do than tell sunbathers to go home, is well and truly over.<\/p>\n

Are the police ready to face the challenge of a summer of unrest? Early signs are not very encouraging. One of the most disturbing images to flash up on our screens during the first Black Lives Matter protests was of police officers running away from the crowd as it turned violent. The desire to show that the British police do not resemble their US counterparts appeared to lead to a situation where showing solidarity with protestors took precedence over keeping order.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Working with, rather than against, the public, has underpinned British policing since the days it was founded by Robert Peel. But the principles laid down at the formation of Peel\u2019s force in the 1820s included the requirement to \u201cseek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to the law\u201d.<\/p>\n

Such \u201cabsolutely impartial service\u201d has been watered down in recent years by the demands of equality and diversity. That should not, however, provide\u00a0an excuse for the police to stand back while protestors occupy the streets and pull down statues<\/a>. Scenes from the Black Lives Matter demonstrations left the law-abiding public uneasy about who is really in charge of the streets and parks of our towns and cities.<\/p>\n

That is a question which cannot be left hanging in the air just now. The ingredients for a summer of unrest are all disturbingly present. Most teenagers have been out of school for months and some of them, perhaps not unreasonably, have lost the habit of studying altogether. Their future does not look great. Universities and colleges are closed and the prospects of casual summer jobs, as well as longer term employment, are low.<\/p>\n

Added to this,\u00a0clubs, gyms and most facilities for organised sport are closed<\/a>, and socialising indoors is precluded by health guidance. In a desperate effort to reawaken the hospitality trade, the Government is to license pubs and bars to serve drinks on the street.<\/p>\n

It is not hard to see where the combination of enforced idleness and outdoors-only entertainment ends up. For a lucky few, opera\u00a0on the lawns of Glyndebourne<\/a>. For the rest, street parties that can easily run out of control.<\/p>\n

Over the last three months, we have been told to stay at home to \u201cKeep safe\u201d. Public compliance has rested largely on the fear of catching Covid-19, a fear stoked by the Government and promoted by parts of the media. Despite the current low incidence of infection, the Government still insists that caution must be our watchword. But it will be a tragic irony if the fear of violence in our towns and cities leaves people cowering at home.<\/p>\n

Police chiefs need to stand with the Home Secretary to show that keeping order on the streets is their priority, and that outbreaks of violence present a bigger threat to our safety than the dreaded virus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

\u00a0This is the worst possible time to make divorce easier<\/a><\/p>\n

Lockdown is placing an unnatural strain on even healthy marriages. Ministers should be supporting families \u2013 not weakening them<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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JILL KIRBY<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
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Why does the Government think that this is a good time to push through a bill\u00a0making it easier to get a divorce<\/a>? Parliament is limping back into action, with huge challenges ahead. Priorities for legislation must be the revival of the nation\u2019s economy and the accompanying health protection measures, as well as dealing with the crisis in social care. It is baffling that a reform to divorce law that did not even merit a mention in the Conservatives\u2019 2019 manifesto should be allocated parliamentary time just now. It has also caused justifiable concern among Tory backbenchers unhappy at the idea of making it easier to end marriages.<\/p>\n

The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act was first proposed by Theresa May\u2019s government, in response to lobbying from lawyers and campaigners who asserted that current divorce law had become outdated. They argued that the need to prove \u201cfault\u201d in establishing grounds for divorce led to unnecessary acrimony and that the alternatives to establishing fault \u2013 namely two years separation with consent or five years without consent \u2013 were too slow.<\/p>\n

The new Act seeks to make it possible for either husband or wife to end a marriage by declaring that it has broken down irretrievably and, apart from requiring a six month \u201ccooling off period,\u201d there will be no further obstacle. If the other spouse does not want the marriage to end, he or she will have no legal right to contest or postpone the divorce.<\/p>\n

David Gauke, Justice Secretary at the time the reform was proposed, claimed that existing law led to a \u201cblame game\u201d between couples whose marriage had fallen apart but who could not get divorced quickly unless they could show that one spouse was at fault.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the new law claim that it will enable couples to divorce amicably and that this can only be beneficial to everyone involved, particularly the couple\u2019s children. But the law does not change the fact that relationship breakdown is rarely amicable. For a couple who have had children together, difficult decisions will still have to be made about the custody of those children and the cost of their upbringing. The marital home will probably have to be sold, possessions divided, finances separated.<\/p>\n

All these issues have to be resolved and arguments will inevitably arise. Removing allegations of unfaithfulness or unreasonable behaviour from the mix will make the process more emollient for some. But for those who feel they are the wronged party it is likely to create strong feelings of injustice.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, in either situation, children will still be the victims. Their parents\u2019 freedom to start afresh, often with new partners, will have profound consequences for them. Research data is clear: children whose parents split up experience lasting psychological, educational and financial disadvantage compared with children of intact families. Simplifying the divorce process does not alter that fact.<\/p>\n

The danger inherent in the new law is that marriage is no longer seen as a lifelong commitment but a temporary arrangement.<\/p>\n

For this reason it seems perverse to be hurrying the bill through at a time when marriages have been put under unprecedented and unusual stress. Even the most compatible couples will have had moments in the last three months when\u00a0their marriage has seemed less than idyllic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many couples have found themselves cooped up together 24\/7, maybe trying to work from home as well as caring for and educating their children. Others have been working in stressful environments, risking infection for themselves and their families. These are not normal circumstances, but as the country slowly emerges into an altered world, with continuing economic uncertainty and anxiety, families will need each other more than ever.<\/p>\n

Enquiries to\u00a0divorce lawyers\u00a0<\/a>have risen during lockdown, but so have requests for relationship counselling. As the MP Fiona Bruce, one of the Conservative backbench rebels, puts it: \u201cMany otherwise-durable marriages are under intense Covid-related strain.\u201d In the interests of a generation of children, the Government should be\u00a0 giving married couples a helping hand, not a quick exit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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Our liberties are being undermined without public debate<\/a><\/div>\n
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JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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When the Prime Minister returned to work at the end of April he pledged that all decisions on\u00a0managing Covid-19\u00a0<\/a>would be taken with \u201cmaximum possible transparency\u201d and that the Government would share all its \u201cworking and thinking\u201d with the British people.<\/p>\n

The best place to share such thinking is in Parliament. The daily press briefings have never been a satisfactory format for exploring the reasons behind Government decision-making. If the British people really are to be allowed to share in the process, this can only be achieved through their representatives in the House of Commons. Yesterday\u2019s farcical attempt at socially-distanced voting is proof there will be some kinks to iron out, but it is vital that Parliament resumes, in as close to normal conditions as possible, so that laws can be openly debated.<\/p>\n

Take the latest changes to public health law, introduced on Monday by\u00a0Health Secretary Matt Hancock<\/a>. They include a new rule specifically prohibiting anyone from staying overnight anywhere except their own home. Mr Hancock asserted that these regulations would \u201cflip the basis of the law back to specifically outlining things that you cannot do, as opposed to saying you can\u2019t do anything unless it\u2019s specifically provided for.\u201d<\/p>\n

A welcome principle \u2013 yet Mr Hancock is being a little disingenuous. Yes, this change represents an increase in personal freedom \u2013 but it also brings the law further into the private domain.<\/p>\n

Instead of being accosted in a public place and told to go home, people can now be visited by the police to find out if they are entertaining guests beyond the permitted limit. Police chiefs have already stated that they will not seek to \u201cforcibly remove\u201d someone found to be breaking this law. But they can direct the offender to leave another\u2019s house, with the threat of a fine or even arrest if co-operation is not forthcoming.<\/p>\n

The \u201covernight stay\u201d law may be desirable on public health grounds. But this should be a matter for personal judgment, taking into account individual circumstances. Such questions should at least be offered to the Houses of Parliament for discussion, for health advice to be aired and the arguments for and against personal freedom to be heard.<\/p>\n

Mr Hancock instead took the view that the measures were so urgent that the emergency procedures permitted by public health legislation could be used. Hence the regulations were \u201cmade\u201d on Sunday and became law on Monday morning. Only after becoming law \u2013 by way of statutory instrument \u2013 were they laid before Parliament. Yes, the Government has the power to rush such legislation through and to discuss it later. But this is hardly a transparent approach calculated to gain public trust.<\/p>\n

To build such trust, the Government is right to insist that Parliament should return, and that means in Westminster\u00a0and not via Zoom<\/a>. If some MPs have health concerns that restrict their ability to participate, proxies and other arrangements will suffice. For others to cite childcare as an obstacle to attendance is feeble \u2013 countless key workers have had to overcome similar issues. Nor should it be difficult to find a way of voting that balances practicality with managing risk.<\/p>\n

MPs owe it to their constituents to get back to work, and the Government must trust Parliament to do its job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Government has stolen our right to a family life<\/a><\/div>\n
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JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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With the NHS no longer in crisis, it’s time to question the proportionality of the state’s restrictions<\/em><\/p>\n

Did your heart leap when the Government told you that\u00a0more shops would soon be opening?\u00a0<\/a>No, I thought not. Shopping won\u2019t fill the aching void left by the inability to see our children and grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, our parents and grandparents. All those people who may not live under the same roof with us but whose lives are entwined with ours, and make life worth living: in other words, our families.<\/p>\n

Of the many freedoms we have surrendered over the last 10 weeks, the loss of the freedom\u00a0to spend time with our families as we wish has been the hardest to bear.<\/a>\u00a0Perhaps you have a new grandchild, born during lockdown, who you are longing to see and to hold in your arms? Or maybe you are a new mother, desperate for your own parents to come and hold the baby and share your joy?<\/p>\n

More prosaically but just as importantly, you might be the grandparents who pick the children up from school once a week, or take them to the park on Saturdays, or have them to stay in the school holidays. You probably accepted that lockdown was a painful necessity to get past the point of maximum risk to the NHS and to your own health, and so for 10 weeks you stayed at home, kept your distance and avoided all unnecessary human contact.<\/p>\n

But now, before going out into the wide world again, your first desire is to spend time with your family, knowing that they, like you, have been in lockdown. What could be the danger in that? Yet the Government will not allow you to trust your judgment and exercise this basic right, and so you can only meet your loved ones individually, six-feet apart, in a park or stretch of woodland \u2013 no hugs, no touching.<\/p>\n

Maybe, if no one is looking, you let your grandchild\u2019s little hand creep into yours. But you feel like a criminal as you do so. For a moment, you think that this is how it must feel to be hiding from the watchful eye of a hostile neighbour in a totalitarian state. And you drop the child\u2019s hand and move away. The emotions stirred by such encounters are the most atavistic, for the denial of contact with our loved ones strikes at the heart \u2013 literally \u2013 of what it is to be human.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Winston Churchill argued for an international convention\u00a0<\/a>to protect human rights after the last war, he had in mind those fundamental freedoms Britain had fought so hard to protect \u2013 among them the right to family life. The Human Rights Act, in large part derived from that convention, provides \u201cthe right to enjoy family relationships without interference from government\u201d. The Act also provides for this right to be restricted, for the sake of public safety, health and security \u2013 but only where government can show that the restriction is \u201clawful, necessary and proportionate\u201d.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0the NHS no longer in crisis<\/a>, and infection rates so low that\u00a0vaccine trials are struggling to find people<\/a>\u00a0exposed to the virus, it is surely time to question the proportionality of the Government\u2019s restrictions? If it is judged safe to have a cleaner or a nanny in your home, for children to return to school and for clothes shops to reopen, isn\u2019t it time to trust families to make their own judgments about their ability to mingle safely?<\/p>\n

Much has been said\u00a0about \u201cbubbles\u201d allowing two households<\/a>\u00a0to meet at some point in the next month. But the Government insists that such encounters must be outdoors and that no physical contact can take place; we are even to be given guidance on how to walk through a house to reach the garden without touching anything. This kind of micromanagement is becoming ridiculous.<\/p>\n

We have grown accustomed to being told what to do these past months and we have, for the most part, swallowed orders without complaint, believing them to be for our own good and for the health of our nation. But there must be limits on the Government\u2019s ability to intervene in family life. Only we can know the precise circumstances, home life and health risks to which our nearest and dearest have been exposed, and we should be trusted to act accordingly.<\/p>\n

A Prime Minister who cannot understand the importance of this basic freedom shows a woeful lack of understanding of what makes us human. If we are forced to invoke the Human Rights Act to remind him, it will be a sorry moment for Boris Johnson and the Government he leads<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
Killjoy councils should be helping people to enjoy the great outdoors<\/a><\/div>\n
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JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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Lockdown has been miserable enough without local authorities closing public amenities and shutting car parks in a bid to keep us all at home<\/em><\/div>\n
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The weather is glorious, the countryside beckons, and the risks of catching Covid in the open air are now known to be minimal. As lockdown eases off, the best thing we can do with any free time is get outside, soak up the vitamin D and enjoy the wide open spaces offered by England\u2019s coast and countryside. But local councils and tourist boards are acting like a bunch of Nimbys, telling visitors to keep away. Many are refusing to open car parks and public toilets, forcing visitors to park on roadsides and avail themselves of the nearest hedge.<\/div>\n
Professor Robert Dingwall, a member of the Government\u2019s scientific advisory committee, says that councils should be ordered to reopen such facilities to encourage people to get out and about as much as possible. He is concerned that the British population has been \u201cterrorised\u201d into staying at home, and that such disproportionate fear will have a lasting negative impact.<\/div>\n
The Government stated last week that we could all drive as far as we liked to take exercise and enjoy our leisure (in a socially distanced manner). But councils in some of the most beautiful parts of England appeared not to get the message. Cornwall\u2019s council leader declared before the weekend that \u201cCornwall is not open for visitors\u201d. In case anyone was thinking of driving to Keswick, at the heart of the Lake District, local councillors put up roadside signs announcing: \u201cKeswick is still closed. Please come back when we are open.\u201d<\/div>\n
For thousands of people living in densely populated urban areas of the north west, access to the Lake District at the weekend, to wander on the lake shore or walk the fells, is one of life\u2019s greatest pleasures. For such access to be denied, or made as difficult as possible, is contrary to the founding purpose of England\u2019s National Parks, of which the Lake District is one.<\/div>\n
Some tourism chiefs, by contrast, have risen to the occasion. Andy Parsons, chief executive of the Cotswolds Conservation Board, announced that \u201ceveryone is welcome\u201d to enjoy this beautiful part of England. He simply asked visitors to show consideration for local residents and farmers while they do so. It\u2019s a sensible message that acknowledges the privilege attached to living and working in the countryside, a privilege that should be shared, not hoarded.<\/div>\n
In areas such as Cornwall and the Lakes, heavily dependent on tourism for their livelihood, councils should be doing all they can to facilitate safe access. That means opening car parks and public toilets; the latter are a necessity, especially given the importance of hand washing.<\/div>\n
People who cannot drive to the countryside must also be given the confidence to use their local parks. Yet some London councils, including Tower Hamlets (one of the UK\u2019s most deprived urban areas) are closing parks at 5pm, more than three hours before the sun sets. For residents, the very people councils are supposed to serve, that can mean no open-air exercise all week, especially for those still at work.<\/div>\n
The experience of lockdown has highlighted both the best and worst characteristics of British public life. Sadly, many local authorities and taxpayer-funded organisations have shown themselves too eager to cite risk or inconvenience to staff as an excuse to close things down, rather than working out how to open up safely in order to meet the needs of the public they exist to serve.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

Why have we done such a poor job of protecting care homes?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

14th April 2020<\/p>\n

They could have been safe havens from coronavirus. In our obsession with the NHS, they were ignored<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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As the nation stays at home to \u201cprotect the NHS\u201d, another tragedy has been unfolding away from the public gaze. Covid-19 is\u00a0raging through the UK\u2019s care homes<\/a>. The number of residents dying each week with the virus rose tenfold between 27 March and 4 April. It has long been clear that the virus is more likely to be fatal to the elderly and to those with underlying health conditions, yet those most in need of shielding have not been afforded the protection they needed.<\/p>\n

From the beginning of this year, as data emerged from China showing how the lethality of coronavirus differed according to age, it was clear that it would be the elderly who should take greatest care to avoid contracting the disease. Evidence from Italy emphasised the point; the age profile of the population, combined with the greater prevalence of multi-generational households, helped to explain the rapid spread and high death rates experienced in that country. Yet the bodies responsible for the inspection and supervision of our care homes, and in some cases the managers of those homes, were behind the curve.<\/p>\n

In the UK, multi-generational households are the exception. Before the advent of coronavirus, this was commonly held to be a sad state of affairs. Why did we shuffle our elderly relations into residential care rather than have them living with young families? But with the arrival of a pandemic, this separation of the generations might have been converted from weakness to strength. Care homes could have become the equivalent of the \u201cisolation hospitals\u201d used until the 1960s to help protect against infectious diseases.<\/p>\n

It should not be just a matter of hindsight to point to such a possibility: in 2016, a national drill codenamed Exercise Cygnus warned the government, the NHS and local authorities that the UK needed to be better prepared for the possibility that a severe strain of influenza could arrive from an Asian country with devastating effects. Every winter, care homes have to be on their guard against seasonal flu, knowing it to be more deadly for their residents than for the young and healthy.<\/p>\n

Why, then, did the care home sector, the Care Quality Commission and local authorities not impose early lockdowns on care homes and demand that all staff be provided with protective clothing and virus testing? Perhaps the desire to ensure that the elderly did not feel lonely, and the well-meaning insistence that they should maintain social contact lest they suffer from depression, served to distract those in authority from the need to prioritise their physical health.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But it is hard to see why some relatively simple precautions could not have been introduced as soon as coronavirus reached these shores.\u00a0Hand sanitisers<\/a>\u00a0at every doorway, restrictions on visitors and daily health checks on staff should have been the minimum required, backed up by warnings by Public Health England. However imperfect testing may be, surely care home workers should be given the same priority as doctors and nurses, to avoid them unwittingly spreading the illness to their elderly charges.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Moreover, protecting care homes and their residents will become even more important in the months ahead. Steps must very soon be taken to return the young and economically active to some semblance of normal life. But given all the evidence available about the differing impact of the virus, the over-70s and those with existing health problems will no doubt be required to isolate themselves as much as possible from the risk of transmission. The public needs to have confidence that the most elderly and frail are being properly protected.<\/p>\n

It is a dismal irony, however, that our national and quasi-religious\u00a0obsession with the health service<\/a>\u00a0has pushed care homes out of the picture. The Government has justified its entire strategy for fighting this pandemic on the need to \u201cprotect the NHS\u201d, given the limited number of intensive care beds available.<\/p>\n

NHS capacity<\/a>\u00a0does not yet appear to have been breached, but it is sadly inevitable that deaths in care homes will continue to rise. Let us at least do more to protect their staff properly and do our best to ensure that their frail residents are not exposed to unnecessary suffering.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

31st March 2020<\/p>\n

Pettifogging officials must not be allowed to stamp out the last sparks of freedom<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cThis isn\u2019t a holiday!\u201d said the police officers clearing sunbathers off the green in Shepherd\u2019s Bush last week. Reminiscent of the 1940s \u201cDon\u2019t you know there\u2019s a war on!\u201d, it\u2019s a phrase that will no doubt fall from the lips of many officials over the coming weeks. But as those weeks stretch into months,\u00a0the British public must be allowed a little sunbathing if it is to keep its sanity.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he severity of the lockdown imposed on the people of this country will make huge demands on their patience and fortitude. Introduced in order to protect the health service and to save the lives thousands of the elderly and frail, the lockdown will nonetheless take a severe toll on the physical and mental health of millions.<\/p>\n

Current polling shows resounding public support for the measures, but to maintain that support for long enough to have the desired effect, officials at all levels must\u00a0restrain their desire to emulate ARP Warden Hodges\u00a0<\/a>of Dad\u2019s Army, terrorising Walmington-on-Sea with endless petty commands. Setting up hotlines, for people to inform on neighbours suspected of taking two walks a day, might appeal to self-appointed busybodies but will do nothing to build community spirit.<\/p>\n

The list of over-zealous interpretation of the lockdown laws grows longer by the day. Convenience stores, most of whose proprietors and staff are working flat out to keep the nation fed, complained yesterday that council officials had told them not to stock Easter eggs on the grounds they are \u201cnon-essential\u201d. As the stores\u2019 trade body was quick to point out, there is nothing in the regulations to prevent such sales. Of course no one \u201cneeds\u201d Easter eggs, but when children cannot see their friends, go on holiday or even use the swings, who would grudge them a chocolate treat?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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O<\/span>n Saturday, MP Stephen Kinnock tweeted a photo of himself visiting his parents on his father Neil\u2019s 78th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday, taking food supplies plus a couple of garden chairs so he and his wife could sit in the front garden ten feet away from them and sing happy birthday. The response from South Wales police was to rap Kinnock\u2019s knuckles, tweeting \u201cThis is not essential travel\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Church of England has been telling clergy not to use churches for prayer or funerals, despite the fact that specific exemptions in the lockdown regulations allow them to broadcast online worship from those churches, and indeed to hold funerals (within social distancing rules). Whilst\u00a0a few imaginative vicars\u00a0<\/a>continue to use their churches to pray and send out footage of their worship to their housebound flock, the majority have surrendered to officialdom. In this time of anxiety and spiritual hunger, churches and cathedrals stand empty even of their priests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I<\/span>f the nation is to retain its health and sanity it must also, as the Government recognises, be allowed to take exercise in the open air. For city dwellers lucky enough to own a car, it is surely reasonable for them to drive into the countryside to take a bracing walk, away from the crowds. Indeed, by so doing they are relieving pressure on urban green space needed by those who lack cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>he law does not preclude such outings, yet it seems the police are determined to clamp down on what they see as frivolity, to the extent that some forces have been setting up road blocks and asking \u201cIs your journey really necessary?\u201d Given that less than 6 per cent\u00a0of England is built over, it\u2019s hard to argue that there isn\u2019t room in the countryside for us all to take a walk and hear the birds sing.<\/p>\n

Nor should the construction industry be staging a pre-emptive shutdown. Forcing building companies to go under will not help us house the homeless when this crisis passes. The enthusiastic builders working on the new \u201cNightingale\u201d Covid hospital\u00a0suggest that with the application of imagination and common sense, construction work can continue safely with a low risk of infection.<\/p>\n

With Corbynite enthusiasm for command and control, Labour\u2019s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth yesterday called for the government to publish a list of essential businesses \u2013 and close down all the rest. Labour must not be allowed to win this argument.<\/p>\n

The great British public have so far shown remarkable solidarity in embracing the lockdown and supporting the beleaguered health service.\u00a0The Government must not risk that support<\/a>\u00a0by stamping on the few small sparks of freedom that remain undimmed. No-one thinks this is a holiday. But we all need a little sunshine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/h1>\n

JILL KIRBY<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

7th\u00a0January 2020<\/p>\n

Centralising our police forces would be a terrible idea<\/a><\/h1>\n

P<\/span>olicing needs to be brought closer to our communities, not made more remote<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the British public is to feel any benefit from\u00a0the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers<\/a>, then it needs to be clear that an expanded force will focus on public priorities rather than chasing political fashions.<\/p>\n

Research commissioned by this newspaper<\/a>\u00a0shows that the proportion of crimes being solved has fallen to the lowest level recorded, and that courts are standing idle as police and prosecutors fail to bring cases to trial. At the same time, allegedly overstretched officers are finding time to record thousands of \u2018non-crime hate incidents\u2019, of which it seems there is always a plentiful supply on social media.<\/p>\n

There is\u00a0plainly a serious disconnect between public concerns about day-to-day crimes<\/a>, such as street attacks, burglaries and car crime, and the level of police responsiveness. Put bluntly, local police forces are failing in their most important duty: to keep us safe.<\/p>\n

Senior police officers have admitted that this is worrying and acknowledge that police priorities have to change. But we should be wary of the solution currently favoured by Martin Hewett, head of the National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council, who has called for a restructuring of the 43 regional police forces, merging them into a smaller number of bigger units. As ever, the siren call for economies of scale, \u201cstreamlining\u201d and greater specialisation has met with a warm response from leaders of various representative bodies within the police force, such as the Superintendents Association and the Police Federation.<\/p>\n

It is tempting to conclude that the officers who spend their time representing the interests of sectors within the force are more enthusiastic about rearranging structures than challenging and reforming front-line failings.<\/p>\n

Policing our streets, gaining and using information effectively, responding quickly to muggings and break-ins and maintaining public confidence: all these tasks require local and neighbourhood knowledge and all demand front-line officers, not desk-bound \u201cspecialists.\u201d It is an irony that at a time when technology enables information to be shared between individuals and small units faster and more widely than ever before, the assumption remains that mergers are necessary in order to scale up expertise.<\/p>\n

In terms of policing, it is far from clear that this has ever been the case. As a\u00a0large-scale academic review in 2016<\/a>\u00a0pointed out, there is no convincing evidence that merging police forces improves results. The review found that mergers risk impairing local effectiveness and that there is no clear link between size and efficiency. Policing is above all a labour-intensive activity requiring officers on the ground, so that much-vaunted \u201ceconomies of scale\u201d usually remain an aspiration rather than a reality.<\/p>\n

The 2013 merger of police forces across Scotland into one single force should be enough to dispel illusions about the benefits of centralisation. Promised budget savings have failed to materialise, millions being spent on management consultants\u2019 fees while front line staff are cut; crime-fighting policies applicable to tough inner cities were rolled out across Scotland regardless of local policing needs, damaging public confidence and causing resentment amongst officers; both the inaugural Chief Constable and his successor lasted less than three years in the job, resigning amid allegations of management failure.<\/p>\n

To her credit,\u00a0Home Secretary Priti Patel<\/a>\u00a0does not seem convinced that restructuring police forces is necessary, and has made it clear her priority is more officers on the ground, with the support and equipment they need. But she also needs to steer forces away from their preoccupation with social media and the enforcement of \u201cwoke\u201d viewpoints.<\/p>\n

Giving police chiefs ever bigger fiefdoms over which to preside, replacing local knowledge with generalised policies, is precisely the wrong direction of travel. Policing needs to be brought closer to our communities, not made more remote.<\/p>\n

The Sunday Telegraph<\/strong><\/h1>\n

24th November 2019<\/p>\n

Doctors should be doing more home visits not fewer<\/a><\/p>\n

Persuading a doctor to visit you at home nowadays is fraught with obstacles, however ill you might be. Such is the reluctance of GPs to come and see you that you will end up having to get to the surgery somehow, or else head for A & E and take your chances there. Last week a national conference of GPs voted to scrap home visits altogether, describing them as an \u201canachronism\u201d which should not be part of their core work. For the frail elderly, anyone living alone, or parents of young children, particularly those unable to afford a car, the end of home visits is a very worrying prospect.
\nHave GPs really so lost sight of their role that they feel able to describe this part of their work as a \u201cwaste of time\u201d? In an age when almost every consumer item can be delivered to your door, it is extraordinary to think that the one service which you really need to receive at home could soon be consigned to the past. A GP\u2019s waiting room these days is no place to be ill: full of feverish children crying, adults coughing and sneezing, queuing for hours to be seen for five minutes (if you are lucky). That such a system has been allowed to develop is surely a terrible reflection on the priorities of the NHS, where services seem increasingly geared to the convenience of staff rather than patients.
\nAs all political parties vow to spend billions on the health service, it is worth considering what happened when a large pot of money was last offered to GPs, by Tony Blair. Fed up with a long hours culture, and struggling to meet the demands of an expanding \u2013 and increasingly elderly \u2013 population, family doctors negotiated a new deal which paid them better while relieving them of out-of-hours work. So began a trend away from a personalised service where GPs had a holistic picture of their patients\u2019 needs, to be replaced by a box ticking, target-led and surgery-centred business.
\nIf this latest proposal is agreed, any home visits will have to be dealt with by a separate NHS service rather than by local GPs. Not every GP at last week\u2019s conference was happy with the idea. In the words of one of those opposing the resolution, \u201cit will disrupt fundamentally the relationship that we have with patients if they do not trust that when they are older, sicker and more unwell we will still be their doctor.\u2019\u2019
\nFor many patients on the books of large GP practices, who never see the same doctor twice, such trust is already a thing of the past. Enterprising NHS-trained doctors in wealthy neighbourhoods are setting up private practice groups, available to those who can afford to pay a fee. Ironically, these doctors have no surgeries, instead spending all their time on home visits. With minimal overheads, these modern-day Dr Finlays are rediscovering the satisfaction of knowing their patients personally.
\nOne of the reasons NHS practices are currently under so much pressure is the difficulty in recruiting newly-trained doctors to this branch of medicine. Yet if GPs now abandon home visits they will be losing a task which lies at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship, giving purpose and meaning to their role. Any new government settlement for general practice needs to place more emphasis on that relationship, rather than whittling it away further.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/strong><\/h1>\n

15th October 2019<\/p>\n

There’s nothing ‘populist’ about cracking down hard on crime<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cTough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.\u201d Tony Blair\u2019s mantra was aimed at placating anger over rising criminality while reassuring the liberal intelligentsia whose good opinion he wanted to retain. It was a balancing act David Cameron attempted to imitate as he invited us to \u201chug a hoodie\u201d. Under Theresa May, the Tories drifted even further away from their once-hawkish reputation on law and order. But fewer police on the streets, overcrowded and drug-infested prisons, a failing parole system and\u00a0record levels of knife crime<\/a>\u00a0have all combined to create a feeling of insecurity.<\/p>\n

I<\/span>t is this insecurity that Boris Johnson\u2019s government is seeking to address and Priti Patel as Home Secretary has\u00a0left us in no doubt about the direction of travel<\/a>. \u201cWe are coming after you\u201d is her message to criminals, and yesterday\u2019s Queen\u2019s Speech filled in the detail of previously sketched out plans.<\/p>\n

Violent and sex offenders will face longer sentences. The horrific consequences of releasing prisoners only half way through their sentences were revealed by this newspaper last week: almost a fifth of all murders are committed by prisoners on parole who have been let out of jail early. Under the Government\u2019s proposed reform, anyone jailed for four years or more will have to serve at least two-thirds of their sentence before they can be released.<\/p>\n

Further measures include widening the category of murders for which life sentences will be applicable. Tackling concern about foreign offenders, anyone breaching a deportation order will serve years \u2013 rather than weeks \u2013 before being released again. The Government also wants to demonstrate its solidarity with the police by proposing a police covenant, similar to the Military Covenant.<\/p>\n

The Government\u2019s message to the public is clear: we understand why you have lost faith in law enforcement, we share your anger at a system that allows convicted murders to kill again and\u00a0we intend to meet your concerns and rebuild your faith in British justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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P<\/span>redictably the cry has gone up from the bleeding heart liberals, Labour and their fellow travellers in the media, that this \u201ccrackdown on crime\u201d is a \u201cpopulist\u201d measure designed to win the general election that cannot be far away. Francis Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform labelled the new sentencing proposals \u201cthe politics of the lynch mob\u201d which will \u201ctake hope away\u201d from prisoners. Channelling Blair, Harry Fletcher, from probation union Napo, said: \u201cThe Government must tackle the causes of anti-social and criminal behaviour and resist the temptation to flag populist measures.\u201d Diane Abbott dismissed the Government\u2019s programme as a \u201cpre-election party political broadcast which the government has no means to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patel must be delighted with these reactions. Among the liberal intelligentsia, \u201cpopulist\u201d has become a term of abuse. But Johnson\u2019s government, to its credit, sees no conflict between a policy that is popular and a policy that is right. When criminals on early release commit murder, when police officers are killed on duty and children knifed on the streets, the Government\u2019s duty is not to fret for the welfare of the murderers, but to protect the public. And if the Opposition will neither allow the Government to put its reforms into action nor hold an election, it must face the day of reckoning when the public is finally allowed to have a say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

26th July 2019<\/p>\n

Priti Patel’s approach is just what we need to win the war on crime<\/a><\/p>\n

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A<\/span>s knife crime and homicide rates have risen, the Conservatives\u2019 reputation as the party of law and order has been shredded. Boris Johnson\u2019s decision to appoint\u00a0Priti Patel as Home Secretary<\/a>, alongside his commitment to increase police numbers by 20,000, sends a clear signal that his government intends to restore that reputation.<\/p>\n

Proud of his record in reducing crime in London, the new Prime Minister wants to show that he will give the police the tools they need \u2013 including more freedom to stop and search \u2013 to get knives off our streets and make all our towns and cities safer.<\/p>\n

In these uncertain times, with\u00a0an ever-present terror threat<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0an epidemic of fatal stabbings<\/a>, you might expect broad support for such explicit emphasis on public safety. Yet the loudest response to Patel\u2019s appointment so far has been from the human rights lobby, desperate to express their concern at the prospect of a Home Secretary who intends to make national security her priority and who has in the past called for stricter enforcement of immigration rules.<\/p>\n

Underlying many of the criticisms from the Left is of course a barely-concealed hostility to Patel\u2019s cordial relationship with Israel, a relationship which\u00a0led to her informal meetings with Israeli officials<\/a>\u00a0while she served as Secretary of State for International Development.\u00a0\u00a0F<\/span>ailure to clear all those meetings with Downing Street in advance prompted her sacking from the May government, already uneasy at her outspoken calls to make the international aid budget\u00a0work towards Britain\u2019s interests\u00a0abroad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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L<\/span>ike her new boss Boris Johnson, Patel has long argued for a points-based immigration system. As a Vote Leave campaigner, she was a strong exponent of giving the UK control of its own immigration policy, not only to meet its economic needs but also for reasons of national security.<\/p>\n

If called upon to decide between supporting the US and the EU in security matters, it is not hard to guess which way the new Home Secretary will turn. Civil liberties campaigners, outraged at her predecessor Sajid Javid\u2019s decision not to seek an assurance from the US government that convicted Isis torturers and executioners will not face the death penalty, have already marked Patel down as an enemy of human rights, believing she is likely to stick with Javid\u2019s line. Indeed, one of the first attacks against Patel is that she once sympathised with calls for the return of the death penalty in the UK, a view she later abandoned.<\/p>\n

None of these attacks are likely to trouble Patel overmuch; indeed they will help her to establish her credentials as a politician who sides with the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators; not bowing to the liberal metropolitan elite but rather speaking up for the families who have suffered the consequences of rising crime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I<\/span>n so doing, Patel needs also to recognise the link between illegal drug use, particularly the habitual use of cannabis, and violent crime. Examples of the connection are numerous, from the Manchester Arena bombers to the bloodthirsty murderer of Lee Pomeroy on a commuter train.<\/p>\n

Yet over the last four years police forces around the UK have been increasingly reluctant to charge cannabis users, despite the fact that it remains a Class B drug. In some police authorities, fewer than 20 per cent of\u00a0 those found in possession of the drug last year were charged. A Home Secretary who wants to make the streets safer has to challenge police forces on this issue, rather than allowing them to turn a blind eye to \u201crecreational\u201d use.<\/p>\n

During her time as Home Secretary, Theresa May famously\u00a0berated the police for their complacency\u00a0<\/a>and restricted their powers to stop and search. As Prime Minister she reaped the legacy of that confrontation, both in terms of rising knife crime and lack of confidence between police forces and the government.<\/p>\n

Patel is no doubt aware that there is a fine line to tread between calling the police to account and giving them the tools they need to keep us safe. If she can get them to concentrate on public safety, while reassuring officers that she will support them in that task, she will not only restore confidence in the Conservatives but also improve trust in the police force, as a source of security rather than enforcers of political correctness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

4 June 2019<\/p>\n

Labour has shown once again that it wants nothing more than the abolition of private property<\/a><\/p>\n

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Do you have a couple of spare bedrooms? Or maybe a large garden you enjoy cultivating? Jeremy Corbyn would like to tax you for such privileges, to discourage \u201cover-consumption of housing. \u201d If Labour wins the next election,\u00a0 you can forget about keeping your house in retirement and having space for the grandchildren to stay, unless you are assured of a big enough income to meet the tax bill.\u00a0An official report produced for the Labour Party<\/a>\u00a0laments what it describes as our \u201cbroken\u201d system of land ownership and proposes to replace council tax with a \u201cprogressive property tax\u201d, set nationally and based on regularly updated values. Payable by owners but not by tenants, the tax would also be significantly higher for second homes. Current discounts for single people such as widows living alone would be removed, to deter them from occupying \u201clarge\u201d homes.The report, entitled\u00a0Land for the Many<\/em>, is edited by green activist George Monbiot, and has been given a warm response by shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett. It makes no secret of its ambitions to change the way land is owned in the UK, to enable the state to take control over, and ultimately to reallocate, private property.<\/div>\n
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P<\/span>laying on widespread concerns about the cost of housing, the report blames lack of social mobility on increased land values; it argues that the \u201caccumulated wealth\u201d of those who own homes is blocking the aspirations of those unable to get on the housing ladder.<\/p>\n

Instead of considering the obvious causes of pressure on housing in the most overcrowded parts of Britain \u2013 such as the huge increase in immigration triggered by the last Labour government \u2013 Monbiot and his co-authors fall back on the old Left wing sentiments of envy and spite. Since we cannot all have a tennis court or swimming pool, it asserts, our objective should be to arrange that all tennis courts and swimming pools be publicly owned and shared by all. Or perhaps you hope to have your own vegetable garden to tend in retirement? Think again. If Jeremy Corbyn takes power, you will have to join the queue for a state-owned allotment instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>aking the socialist view that private ownership of land should ultimately be abolished, the report envisages an ideal world in which no-one would own the land on which their home is built. Land and housing should no longer, it argues, be \u201ctreated as financial assets.\u201d As a first step, powers of compulsory purchase would be extended to enable public authorities to buy up land for social housing, paying landowners below market price.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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D<\/span>etermined to crush any financial return on owning a property, Labour also has private landlords in its sights. The report describes the private letting market as a \u201cbuy-to-let frenzy\u201d and proposes \u201copen-ended\u201d tenancies, with caps on permissible rent increases.\u00a0Not only would this remove the incentive to let out a property , it would also create significant risks to landlords of being able to reclaim their property in the future, effectively handing control to the tenant.<\/p>\n

Closing down the private rental market in this way would of course mean that everyone unable or unwilling to commit to buying a home would lose their access to privately rented property, a prospect that apparently does not trouble the writers of this report. They seem confident that the state would be able to take over enough land to supply social housing for all at public expense.<\/p>\n

Conservative housing Minister James Brokenshire describes the proposals in Labour\u2019s report as \u201cextraordinary and deeply damaging in equal measure.\u201d He is right.<\/p>\n

Yet this is the same James Brokenshire who less than two months ago announced Conservative plans to stop private landlords reclaiming their properties on \u201cas little as 8 weeks\u2019 notice\u201d: in other words, to end the freedom of contract brought about by shorthold tenancies, currently terminable by either side on a minimum of\u00a0 two\u00a0months\u2019 notice. These \u201cAssured Shorthold\u201d tenancies, introduced by the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher, produced a huge increase in the availability of property for rent. If Jeremy Corbyn wins the battle for hearts and minds with his openly socialist and authoritarian agenda, today\u2019s Conservative Party must take its share of the blame, for shifting the goalposts so far in Mr Corbyn\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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L<\/span>et us hope the next leader of the Conservatives grasps the threat to freedom posed by today\u2019s Labour Party \u2013 and succeeds in communicating it to the electorate before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

6th September 2018<\/p>\n

The Archbishop of Canterbury occupies a unique position in public life. Leader of the Church of England and symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican communion, he has the opportunity to apply biblical wisdom to the challenges of the modern world and to speak up for Christ in a society too often consumed by secular demands. With a publicity machine and Twitter account at his disposal, the Archbishop\u2019s opinions on controversial topics have the potential to influence both public and personal morality.<\/p>\n

How depressing it is, then, that Justin Welby uses his unique position to espouse the standard Left-leaning political prescriptions that we can hear any day of the week not only from Jeremy Corbyn but from nearly all Labour, Green, and LibDem politicians. It has become all so predictable. At least since the Eighties, when in response to inner city riots the Church published Faith in the City \u2013 described by one Cabinet member at the time as \u201cpure Marxist theology\u201d — whenever an Anglican leader has chosen to intervene in politics, his demands have been for higher taxes, more state intervention, and more redistribution.<\/p>\n

In Welby\u2019s case, by participating in a commission on \u201ceconomic justice\u201d led by the IPPR, a think-tank founded to promote New Labour policies, the Archbishop has been unapologetic in expressing a tax-and-spend political worldview. Writing in support of the IPPR\u2019s findings, he demands that the Government should increase taxes on personal wealth and multinationals, set up a state investment bank, force businesses to pay higher wages, and strengthen the bargaining power of the unions.<\/p>\n

As Telegraph readers will know, such policies have been tested under past Labour governments and have proved ineffective at solving the problem of poverty and disadvantage. Under the current Conservative government, UK employment is at an all-time high, income inequality has fallen and the wealthiest people now pay a higher proportion of all income tax than at any time under Labour. As for strengthening the trades unions, rail and tube strikes in recent years surely demonstrate that in industries where the unions still exert significant bargaining power, the public pay a very high price in disruption and rising fares?<\/p>\n

But setting aside the economic fallacies in the Archbishop\u2019s proposals, the problem many Christians will have with Welby\u2019s decision to share a platform with the IPPR is the political nature of his interventions.<\/p>\n

With a background in the evangelical wing of the Church of England, it might have been expected that this Archbishop would seize every opportunity to promote a specifically Christian worldview and explain how Bible teaching can be applied to modern social and moral challenges.<\/p>\n

There is surely no shortage of such challenges. Take the rising cost of care for the elderly: it might be apt for the Archbishop to remind us of the commandment to honour our fathers and mothers by taking responsibility for their care, instead of always assuming that the state will step in. The epidemic in gang-based violent crime is one of many social problems with roots in father absence and lack of male role models. Yet we do not hear a call from the Archbishop for policies to discourage casual relationships or increase parental responsibility.<\/p>\n

As lawyers and the media combine to argue for easier divorce, a speech from the Archbishop about the serious and lifelong pledges contained in the ceremony of marriage might not come amiss. These are all topics of fierce debate involving decisions of both public and personal morality, where spiritual guidance is arguably more important than \u201ceconomic justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politicians are very wary of talking about God, perhaps fearful of appearing messianic in their ambitions. But church leaders have a God-given opportunity to engage in moral and spiritual questions, untainted by a political agenda. Earlier this year, Welby attracted widespread ridicule by claiming that the European Union was \u201cthe greatest dream realised for human beings since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.\u201d His boldness in attaching himself to the side of Remain shows that he is not afraid to court political controversy. But many of his flock would prefer that he showed similar boldness in speaking out for Christianity, instead of calling on the state to solve our social and economic ills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From smart meters to the cash point’s decline: Why we are becoming hostages to tech<\/a><\/p>\n

29th June 2018<\/p>\n

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Far from liberating society, technology is eroding our\u00a0independence<\/em><\/h4>\n

H<\/span>ave you had a smart meter installed, thinking it would enable you to control your energy use and keep your bills down? Well, maybe you should think again.<\/p>\n

This week the former head of \u201cmeterology\u201d at energy regulator Ofgem, Jerry Fulton, confirmed what many of us had long suspected: smart meters will give suppliers, rather than consumers, greater control over our energy use and in particular the ability to charge us more for our gas and electricity when we most need to use it. Mr Fulton explained that the latest meters will allow half-hourly variations in charging rates, so that when wind and solar power generation is sluggish and usage is high, prices will rise steeply.<\/p>\n

This seems entirely believable, given the failure of both Labour and Conservative governments over the past 20 years to plan for Britain\u2019s energy needs. Too much green wishful thinking, combined with a pathetic inability to take infrastructure decisions, has led us to the point where energy rationing is a serious possibility.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A<\/span>s a substitute for long-term planning, the Government nags us into accepting smart meters (paid for by a levy on everyone\u2019s bills), while telling us to save money by switching suppliers. Thousands of householders have already discovered that these two objectives are incompatible because their meters won\u2019t recognise different suppliers. And, as Mr Fulton points out, once fluctuating tariffs are introduced, price comparisons will become virtually impossible.<\/p>\n

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This doesn\u2019t feel like progress, does it? Worryingly, a similar process is threatening our access to our own money. Online banking, contactless cards and the end of cash payments are\u00a0all promoted as tools to give us control over our finances. Yet the technological dream rapidly turns sour when online banking systems crash, leaving customers powerless and bringing businesses to a halt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>he march to a cashless society continues: more than a thousand cashpoints have closed in the past six months, often in towns where bank branches have also disappeared. Where ATMs remain, customers are more likely to be charged for using them: yesterday the Daily Telegraph revealed that the UK\u2019s biggest cashpoint provider plans to start charging customers at thousands of its\u00a0machines.<\/p>\n

We thought that technology would liberate us, yet in the hands of big government \u2013 and big corporations \u2013 it is slowly but surely tying us down, by making us dependent. Once hooked, our choices are constrained and we cannot break free.<\/p>\n

This bears down hardest on the poorest in society, who cannot pay their way to freedom: rationing by price is more regressive than any tax. David Cameron once memorably scorned Gordon Brown as an \u201canalogue politician in a digital age\u201d. But in its eagerness to embrace technology, the Government should be more mindful of the digital threats to our freedom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Upholding family values will see off the Left<\/a><\/p>\n

5th August 2017<\/p>\n

Conservatives have long understood that strong families are the best safeguard against state intervention. Couples who take care of each other, look after their children and take responsibility for their elderly relatives, all reduce the burden on the state and on the public purse. In contrast, socialism has always been dismissive of family ties, viewing parents as agents of inequality. Marxist doctrine holds that children should be reared collectively, to eradicate privilege and to ensure loyalty to the state and its objectives.<\/div>\n
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To rediscover the differences between conservatism and Corbynism, to build a coalition of voters that will deliver a majority at the next election, and to create positive arguments for limiting the size \u2013 and cost \u2013 of the state, the Tories need to make the case for upholding and strengthening the role of the family.<\/div>\n
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What does this mean in practice? It starts with support for marriage, the institution proven to be the best insurance against family breakdown and the most likely to provide children with stability. Research shows that the value of marriage is not just coincidental; the public affirmation involved in signing up to marriage, rather than drifting into cohabitation, plays an active role in maintaining a couple\u2019s commitment to each other.<\/div>\n
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Happily, divorce rates are falling, with fewer married couples splitting up. But the prospects for children remain bleak because nearly half of all babies are born to unmarried parents. These parents are three times more likely than their married counterparts to split up before their child reaches 16.<\/div>\n
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Worryingly also, marriage is becoming the preserve of the better-off: the vast majority of married parents are higher rate taxpayers, whereas low income parents are mostly unmarried. Clearly any government interested in promoting family stability needs to provide more support for marriage among middle and lower income groups. Yet recent Conservative governments, in common with their Labour predecessors, have focused support on couples who split up. The marriage tax allowance, so long promised by David Cameron, was finally implemented at a paltry \u00a3200 a year, so insignificant that most couples fail to claim it. This contrasts starkly with the level of subsidy available to parents living apart.<\/div>\n
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Conservatives also need a message to contrast with the Left\u2019s vision of collective, state-supervised childcare. Raising children should be the prerogative of parents, with minimal state intervention, save in cases of abuse or neglect. The role of a Conservative government should therefore be to encourage freedom of choice for families. Instead of subsidies contingent on non-parental, state-regulated care, families with a working parent should be offered tax allowances to spend as they wish, on childminders, nurseries, or care by a family member. If one parent wants to spend time at home caring for their children, while the other works, Conservatives should applaud that decision. Perversely, however, the Tories\u2019 strategy of continually increasing individual tax-free allowances has driven more families to have both parents in work, leaving those with just one breadwinner substantially worse off.<\/div>\n
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Giving families the option to pool their allowances, allocating work and care as best suits them, would not only affirm family life, it would demonstrate a Conservative belief in individual choice, enabling parents to transmit their own values. Such choices should also be open to families when deciding on the best school for their children, and so it is disappointing that the government is cutting the budget for free schools, the parent-led initiative introduced by Michael Gove.<\/div>\n
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Forced by their lack of a majority to abandon plans for more grammars, the Tories should at least be confident in making the case for free schools and their ability to respond to parental choice while providing opportunities for families at all income levels. Instead, however, Justine Greening appears to be succumbing to the agenda of the Left: that all schools should receive more cash regardless of their success rates.<\/div>\n
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The Education Secretary also seems overly keen to subscribe to the most extreme of Left-wing ideas: that gender is a social construct rather than (in almost all cases) a biological fact. Parents who are worried about such outlandish and confusing notions becoming part of the curriculum could be excused for thinking that \u201cconservative\u201d is no longer an apt description of Theresa May\u2019s party.<\/div>\n
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In opposition, a political party can more easily be forgiven for toying with borrowed ideas or seeking to reinvent itself at leisure. But for a government trying to hold back the advance of the most Left-wing Labour leadership Britain has known, such luxuries are not available. If Tories fail to articulate a message based on recognisable principles, ideological ground will soon be ceded and they will find themselves lacking any coherent message. In making the case for conservatism afresh, and pushing back socialism, where better to start than by upholding the family?<\/div>\n
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Jill Kirby is a policy analyst and former director of the Centre for Policy Studies, the think tank co-founded by Margaret Thatcher<\/div>\n

Projects like Hinkley Point look dated before construction even starts<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

24th June 2017<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s deal with French energy suppliers EDF for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point is risky and expensive, and will force consumers to pay higher electricity prices for 35 years. That is the damning verdict of a report released yesterday by the National Audit Office. The total subsidy bill of the massive new power plant, which is not due to be completed until at least 2025 and is based on unproven technology, have risen from an initial \u00a36 billion to \u00a330 billion.<\/p>\n

Theresa May came close to ditching Hinkley last summer, before apparently concluding that a bad deal is, in this case, better than no deal. It\u2019s true that Britain has an energy gap but it\u2019s also increasingly clear that Hinkley is not the answer. What would a better electricity deal look like?<\/p>\n

First, we need to be more nimble: mammoth infrastructure projects like Hinkley look out of date before construction has even started. By basing the deal on pessimistic energy price forecasts back in 2012, the government committed to paying EDF more than double the market price for electricity at a time when prices are falling.<\/p>\n

Second, the government must reconsider the UK\u2019s carbon targets in the light of evidence on the harms of so-called \u201crenewables\u201d. The Labour government\u2019s 2008 pledge to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 has distorted the market, closed British factories, and driven hefty subsidies towards the most costly and inefficient energy sources. Instead of burning cheap coal, several of Britain\u2019s biggest power stations are now subsidised to burn imported wood pellets, a practice which is not only costly for households but has also now been found to emit more carbon. As the Chatham House think tank concluded in a report earlier this year, this misdirected subsidy has been bad for the planet as well as for the consumer.<\/p>\n

Third, use home grown solutions.\u00a0British engineering companies are developing small nuclear reactors, based on existing technology, capable of being built off site and installed much more quickly and cheaply than a giant reactor like Hinkley. Instead of paying hefty subsidies to EDF, why aren\u2019t we promoting these British engineering skills, with the potential not just to supply the UK but to export their products?<\/p>\n

Finally, the government must continue to make the case for fracking in the UK. Shale gas has driven down US energy prices, providing so much fuel that the gas is being liquefied and sold across the world. Because gas is the fossil fuel with the lowest emissions, it can provide us with cheap and reliable fuel at the lowest environmental cost \u2013 long before Hinkley Point raises its ugly and expensive head across the Somerset landscape.<\/p>\n

The adoption crisis is a legacy of target culture<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

12th November 2014<\/p>\n

Rules intended to speed up the process have led to fewer children finding a suitable home<\/p>\n

The Daily\u00a0Mail<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The more you tell teenagers about sex, the more sex they will have. And the more unwanted pregnancies will result.<\/a>
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31st May 2017<\/p>\n

How can rewarding the feckless and punishing the hardworking be the right way to support families?<\/a><\/p>\n

19th August 2014<\/p>\n

The Times and Sunday Times<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Arrogant Bercow should be brought to heel<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

20th August 2014<\/p>\n

The Speaker\u2019s nonsensical appointment of a new clerk of the Commons threatens to bring parliament into disrepute<\/em><\/p>\n

The British parliament is the envy of the world, a model for lawmaking. So as the public lose trust in politicians, the reputation of parliament itself is crucial. That is why the row over the appointment of a new clerk to the House of Commons, at a salary of \u00a3200,000 a year, is not just a silly season Westminster spat. The prime minister should intervene.<\/p>\n

The clerk of the House reports to the Speaker and is responsible for ensuring that parliamentary procedure is observed. This is not just fusty tradition: these rules allow MPs to be properly heard in debates, for due weight to be given to proposed law changes and for parliamentary privilege and freedom of speech to be upheld. The rules are \u00a0set out in\u00a0Erskine May\u2019s\u00a0<\/i>Parliamentary Practice<\/i>, now in its 24th edition and comprising 45 detailed chapters. They are an essential part of the UK constitution.<\/p>\n

John Bercow, the Speaker, depends on the guidance of the clerk and his or her team, as does every MP. The clerk\u2019s salary is much higher than the prime minister\u2019s because it is pegged to that of a lord justice of appeal, which suggests its quasi-judicial status. Indeed, the clerk has the authority to correct the Speaker if necessary, as Mr Bercow\u2019s predecessor, Michael Martin, found to his cost. Mr Martin, under fire for his failure to respond to public concern about MPs\u2019 expenses, tried to slap down backbench attempts to instigate a motion to unseat him. On consulting the clerk, Mr Martin was proved wrong; he resigned the next day.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Mr Bercow is keen to avoid this fate. He is said to have clashed with the current clerk, Sir Robert Rogers, who is standing down after more than four decades of service. Sir Robert is said to find Mr Bercow\u2019s domineering behaviour towards him intolerable.<\/p>\n

In common with his predecessors, who have typically spent their working lives in parliament, Sir Robert not only has a comprehensive grip of procedure but also knows every MP by name. This knowledge is not lightly acquired, which is why the obvious front-runner to replace him is his current deputy, David Natzler. But Mr Natzler, despite being well-liked and respected by parliamentarians, has been passed over by Mr Bercow, who proposes to appoint instead Carol Mills, a manager from the Australian senate.<\/p>\n

Ms Mills has apparently been chosen for her management skills, having been responsible for catering and other administrative services at the Senate. Yet she is totally unfamiliar with parliamentary procedure. The clerk of the Australian Senate, Rosemary Laing, described the potential appointment of Ms Mills as \u201cbizarre and an affront\u201d. Baroness Boothroyd, the former Speaker has this week joined her voice to the criticism, declaring that Ms Mills would be \u201ctotally out of her depth\u201d.<\/p>\n

In choosing a clerk with so much to learn Mr Bercow clearly wants to grab more authority for himself. At the very least, he is showing disdain for the institution he is meant to serve.<\/p>\n

To date, he has shown not only a determination to modernise his role but also to put his personal stamp on it. His decision to reject the speaker\u2019s traditional robes and breeches, in favour of a lounge suit and schoolmaster\u2019s gown, was an early indication of his tendency: to assume that his own choices are more important than the office he occupies.<\/p>\n

Yet parliament is much greater than the sum of its parts. What makes it great is not its MPs or indeed its officers, but the collective wisdom drawn from its rules and traditions, built up over eight centuries. Foremost among the guardians of those traditions is the clerk of the House. Governments and prime ministers come and go; they rise and fall in public esteem and the quality of their governance varies widely. But their mistakes, their whims and preferences, and the possibilities of corruption, are curtailed by the \u201cmother of parliaments\u201d.<\/p>\n

If, when the Chilcot inquiry finally reports, questions are raised again about whether Tony Blair knowingly misled the House of Commons over the Iraq war, there may be calls for the former prime minister to be impeached. The decision whether or not to do so will lie with the House of Commons, under the guidance of the chief clerk. Should this be a former Australian services manager or a clerk whose working life has been steeped in the workings of our democracy?<\/p>\n

Mr Bercow\u2019s wish to jettison institutional wisdom to further his own agenda must be overruled immediately. The clerk\u2019s post is a Crown appointment, which must be authorised by the Queen on the advice of her prime minister. There are two problems. The passed-over deputy clerk, Mr Natzler, is said to be planning a sex discrimination case, arguing that the reason he was rejected for preferment was his gender. Ms Mills is also facing an investigation into her department\u2019s decision to allow CCTV surveillance of an Australian minister\u2019s office. The Queen should not be invited to ratify Ms Mills\u2019s appointment with these issues still outstanding.<\/p>\n

It is hard to see how such a controversial candidate can occupy this post with the quiet authority that is needed. The prime minister has the power to send this proposed appointment back to the Speaker and ask him to think again. He must do so.<\/p>\n

First win hearts and minds. then win elections.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

16th April 2014<\/p>\n

Politicians must win the battle of ideas, and the Conservatives are at last making progress in tax and welfare debates<\/em><\/p>\n

Has George Osborne finally decided that Conservatives can win the battle of ideas? The Chancellor\u2019s new-found confidence, derived from a well-received budget and a growing economy, seems to be inspiring him to seek a change in the terms of debate. Given the importance of positive language in winning hearts and minds, this could be a crucial turning point. On Monday he appeared to lay to rest a negative description of tax cuts that for many years pervaded every speech he made on the subject.<\/p>\n

The pejorative phrase \u201cunfunded tax cuts\u201d entered the political lexicon back in 2006, when Gordon Brown used it to slap down Blairites on the Labour benches. It was swiftly adopted by Mr Osborne, then shadow chancellor, who deployed it at regular intervals to dampen expectations that he would cut taxes. Notably, he used it to rebuff his own Tax Reform Commission\u2019s proposals for increases in the personal allowance, asserting that he would (like Mr Brown) put \u201cstability\u201d ahead of reductions in tax \u2014 as if the two were mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n

Such timidity in the face of Labour\u2019s arguments has now, it seems, been overcome. This week, heralding the results of a new Treasury analysis showing that freezing fuel duty has contributed to growth, the Chancellor was bullish about the ability of tax cuts not only to help \u201cfund\u201d themselves, but also to boost the economy. This analysis came hard on the heels of the news that cutting the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p resulted in \u00a39 billion of extra revenue to the Treasury \u2014 too big a margin to be explained away by deferred earnings. Instead of trying to defend \u201ctax cuts for the rich\u201d, Mr Osborne can now ask Ed Balls: \u201cHow would you fund a return to the 50p tax rate?\u201d<\/p>\n

Seizing the initiative in this way is hugely important for the Conservatives, who have spent too long \u2014 both in opposition and in government \u2014 on the defensive. Fearful of seeming to relish their task, ministers have often appeared apologetic about the decision to cut state spending. Yes, deficit reduction is a necessary and vital task \u2014 albeit one in which the government has made painfully slow progress \u2014 but it is not the only reason to curb the excesses of the Labour years.<\/p>\n

The growth of the state was not just financially costly. As the long arm of government reached further into our businesses, our schools and our families, it squashed initiative, eroded trust and \u2014 as we have now learnt \u2014 increased inequality. The Blair\/Brown governments proved that spending more does not solve deep-rooted social problems; on the contrary, it often exacerbates them.<\/p>\n

In their pre-election pledges to increase spending on overseas aid and the NHS, the Tories appeared to concede an important argument to Mr Brown: only by spending more taxpayers\u2019 money can you prove you care. Yet the cabinet minister most associated with \u201ccompassionate Conservatism\u201d, Iain Duncan Smith, has argued consistently that public spending creates dependency and damages lives. He has been vindicated by a steady accumulation of data showing that tougher welfare sanctions are getting people back to work, confounding his left-wing critics.<\/p>\n

The number of UK households where no one has a job has fallen from 20 per cent in 2010 to 16.6 per cent last year. Figures released yesterday show that in more than 4,000 of the households affected by the government\u2019s benefits cap, working-age adults have now found jobs. If Labour had achieved these advances it would be proclaiming them from the rooftops.<\/p>\n

Children growing up in a home where no one is working were among the greatest victims of the Labour years, lacking any role model for their future lives and learning to accept joblessness as a way of life. In describing the plight of these households, Mr Duncan Smith has rightly refused to describe the welfare dependent as feckless scroungers. Indeed, his preferred terminology is not welfare \u201ccuts\u201d but welfare \u201creform\u201d. This insistence on positive language has reaped popular dividends, with polling showing consistent support for the government on this issue.<\/p>\n

It is said that Mr Osborne\u2019s new, positive language is at the behest of the Conservative campaign adviser Lynton Crosby, who has been concerned that the party is too often on the intellectual defensive. In observing Mr Duncan Smith\u2019s success in getting voters on side, however, the Treasury should also take note of the role of think-tanks in crafting and promoting policy. Margaret Thatcher\u2019s greatest achievements, in curbing big government and unleashing enterprise, would not have taken place without free-market think-tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies. Mr Duncan Smith\u2019s own policy agenda was developed over the past decade by the important think-tank he himself founded; the Centre for Social Justice.<\/p>\n

As Ed Miliband presents the electorate with a vision of old-style price controls and renationalisation, it is imperative for Conservatives to win the battle of ideas. In doing so they must demonstrate, as Mrs Thatcher did, that ideas are not the preserve of policy wonks in dark rooms, but are capable of transforming millions of lives. Key to the ideas\u2019 success will be the language in which they are expressed. As Mr Osborne speaks of a \u201cquiet revolution\u201d where people come to realise they are better at spending their money than government, he is at last recognising the power of ideas and the vital necessity of sharing those ideas with voters. Otherwise it is your opponents who set the terms of debate.<\/p>\n

Couples on \u00a3300k should pay for their own nannies<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

19 March 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Cameron could soon be eligible for \u00a36,000 a year of taxpayers\u2019 cash to help him pay his nanny\u2019s wages. The PM\u2019s salary of \u00a3142,500 might seem a pretty comfortable annual income but things must be tougher than they look. The upper earnings limit for the coalition\u2019s shiny new childcare subsidy is a whacking \u00a3150,000, or \u00a3300,000 for a couple, provided both parents are in paid work.<\/p>\n

As long as Samantha\u2019s part-time role at Smythson slips under this limit, the Camerons\u2019 annual outlay on their Nepalese nanny could be nicely reduced. An extra \u00a36,000 (\u00a32,000 per child under 12) might come in handy. It might even pay for a chillaxing family holiday in Ibiza.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help thinking, however, that the Camerons, and other \u201chard-working families\u201d on \u00a3300,000 a year, should pay for their own nannies. Nick Clegg, who is keen to take the credit for this government largesse, seeks to justify this generosity towards the rich by claiming that a lower cap would make things \u201ctoo complicated\u201d. Funnily enough, we didn\u2019t hear the \u201ctoo complicated\u201d excuse when, two years ago, George Osborne confiscated child benefit from any family with a parent earning more than \u00a350,000. They were labelled as the \u201cbetter off\u201d who should not, in the Chancellor\u2019s view, be receiving support for raising children.<\/p>\n

That confiscation has hit hardest families with only one breadwinner, for whom \u00a350,000 represents their total annual income. These one-earner couples, typically with a mother at home looking after young children, are so far beyond the Government\u2019s sphere of concern that they have been repeatedly punished by coalition policies. The increase in the tax-free personal allowance, for example, is worth half as much to them as to a dual-earner couple. The tax burden on one-earner families in the UK has risen steadily since 2010 and is now 45 per cent higher than the OECD average. And unlike the Prime Minister\u2019s Notting Hill friends, these families will have no share at all in the latest childcare goodies.<\/p>\n

Nor indeed will the very poorest couples, if one of them has the temerity to stay at home looking after their baby. In the eyes of the coalition, a mother who cares for her own children cannot by definition be \u201chard-working\u201d. As far as Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are concerned, childcare is only worthy of financial recognition if someone else does it.<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby is a policy analyst who blogs for The Conservative Woman<\/i><\/p>\n

The nanny state must prove nannying works<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

31 May 2013<\/p>\n

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I’m in the technical middle class – get me out of here!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

4 April 2013<\/p>\n

Parents are the best carers, so pay them<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

21 October 2012<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Is the Government really about to make some of the poorest working families in Britain worse off?\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tax credit changes to encourage hard work can be justified but they have been bungled<\/p>\n

6th April 2012<\/p>\n

If you’ve got erotic capital, why not flaunt it?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Feminists may hate it, but good looks are just as important in the boardroom as the bedroom<\/p>\n

23rd August 2011<\/p>\n

Why Britain must spring its dependency trap<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

22 April 2011<\/p>\n

Don’t tell us debt is bad then treat savers like mugs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

7 April 2011<\/p>\n

More maternity rights are bad for mothers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

14 January 2011<\/p>\n

National insurance is just a tax by another name<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

26 November 2010<\/p>\n

Mummy, they\u2019re misleading you about going back to work<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times 8 August 2010<\/p>\n

This retirement age needed pensioning off<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

30 July 2010<\/p>\n

How Labour blew the children\u2019s inheritance<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

11 June 2010<\/p>\n

ASBOs can\u2019t beat a neighbourhood policeman<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

30 September 2009<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to spot the children really at risk<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

12 August 2009<\/p>\n

Spare some change for our new billboard?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

7 April 2009<\/p>\n

Dithering ministers saddle us with an energy crunch<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times, 3 August 2008<\/p>\n

Parents beware: do-gooders want to push you aside<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times, 8 February 2009<\/p>\n

A mother\u2019s place isn\u2019t in the war zone<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times, 1 April 2007<\/p>\n

Scandal of the pension haves and have-nots<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times, 25 February 2007<\/p>\n

After Climbi\u00e9, children are at even more risk<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times, 11 February 2007<\/p>\n

The hoodie needs a daddy, not a hug<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sunday Times, 16 July 2006<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Prison isn’t working for Huhne or for us<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

2nd April 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Neither the lax regime housing the disgraced MP nor high-security jails are fit for purpose<\/p>\n

Our abortion law is being undermined<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

4th February 2013<\/p>\n

The 1967 Act was never intended to make terminations a form of contraception.<\/p>\n

Nick Clegg is not going to give working mothers a helping hand<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

14th November 2012<\/p>\n

Mothers want to be able to spend more time with their children – this requires changes in the tax system, not pushing fathers to take paternity leave<\/p>\n

Parenting should not be taught by the state<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

18th May 2012<\/p>\n

David Cameron must not be led astray by Norway’s “Golden Skirts”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

10 February 2012<\/p>\n

Quotas are not the way to promote women’s interests<\/p>\n

(Also covered as Talking Point \u00a0in\u00a0The Week<\/a>\u00a010 February 2012)<\/p>\n

Marriage desperately needs a royal boost<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

19 April 2011<\/p>\n

When is the Coalition going to tackle the growing problem of family breakdown?<\/p>\n

There is a way to save our lost children<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

22 February 2011<\/p>\n

With 64,000 children in care, and adoption rates falling, reform is urgently needed.<\/p>\n

Marriage makes us all richer \u2013 not poorer<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

8 February 2011<\/p>\n

The cost to the nation of family breakdown is immense. It is time for politicians to act.<\/p>\n

Prison is what Jon Venables knows best<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

24 July 2010<\/p>\n

It might have been kinder to have left James Bulger’s killer in custody<\/p>\n

Labour’s Katherine Rake is wrong: it takes two to mend a ‘broken …<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

1 December 2009<\/p>\n

It is not in the interests of children to suggest that the nuclear family is dead.<\/p>\n

The bigger Britain’s government gets, the worse it is for us …<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

10 July 2009<\/p>\n

How has government become so disconnected from reality? Five techniques have been deployed to create the appearance of success while presiding over failure.<\/p>\n

The equality agenda is bad news for women<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

30 July 2009<\/p>\n

Women are being told to avoid ‘feminine\u2019 jobs \u2013 but what they want is to stop being lectured.<\/p>\n

The worst place to grow up is in care<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

7 November 2008<\/p>\n

Councils should not be making it even harder for children to be adopted.<\/p>\n

Why the NHS keeps failing mothers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

10 July 2008<\/p>\n

A lavishly funded health service in a Western economy should surely be able to guarantee every mother a properly supervised delivery. Where has it gone so wrong?<\/p>\n

Tories must set parents free to raise children<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

16 June 2008<\/p>\n

The Conservatives must develop their ideas for less state intervention in childcare.<\/p>\n

Labour must stop penalising marriage<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

7 December 2005<\/p>\n

Jill Kirby argues that the Chancellor’s policies have deepened the lone-parent trap.<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

<\/h2>\n

Daily Express<\/strong><\/h1>\n

LET’S STOP PAYING WELFARE MUMS TO HAVE BIG FAMILIES<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

27th October \u00a02012<\/strong><\/p>\n

Couples are putting off having children because they need both salaries to pay the rent or to keep up their mortgage payments.<\/p>\n

They also worry about the price of childcare and the sacrifices they will have to make to give their children a good start in life.<\/p>\n

Why should their taxes be spent on allowing a jobless household to avoid these tough choices?<\/p>\n

CONTROL IMMIGRATION INVASION TO HELP YOUNG UNEMPLOYED<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

5th November 2011<\/p>\n

We know that the coalition is fighting shy of a row about immigration.<\/p>\n

But if it wants to cut the welfare bill, lift the burden on public services and get our young people into work it needs to talk about it.<\/p>\n

CHILDREN IN JOBLESS HOMES AND A NEW KIND OF POVERTY<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

10th September 2010<\/p>\n

Today a child in a house where no one works may have access to a flatscreen TV and the latest trainers….<\/p>\n

SHOULD A LAW FORCE FAMILIES TO CARE FOR AGED PARENTS?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

3rd February 2010<\/p>\n

Do children have a duty to look after their parents in old age? The leading lawyer Baroness Deech believes we are too quick to shrug off our responsibilities…<\/p>\n

MARRIAGE: THE FOUNDATION OF SOCIETY<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

2nd December 2009<\/p>\n

Why won\u2019t Gordon Brown stand up for marriage? The Prime Minister is, by all accounts, a happily married man…<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

The Independent<\/h1>\n

The trick is to succeed where a Labour government failed<\/a><\/p>\n

28 July 2010<\/p>\n

The five ways that government disguises failure as success<\/a><\/p>\n

10 July 2009<\/p>\n

The sinister Newspeak that makes cynics of us all<\/a><\/p>\n

28 December 2007<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Daily Telegraph More of us are growing old, but pensioners don’t have to be an economic burden This government must address the changing balance of our population to prevent Britons sliding into state dependency Jill Kirby 19th August 2025 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":116,"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jillkirby.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}