Nhs

The language of sailing ships is as treacherous as a lee shore. Words seldom mean what they suggest or are pronounced phonetically. So if you climb the ratlines, you may reach the top by means of the futtock shrouds, unless you can use a lubber’s hole. When Sir Keir Starmer insisted last week that the NHS waiting-list is ‘a drag anchor on our economy and our country’, his metaphor was obscure to his listeners and unhelpful to his argument. A drag anchor is a useful thing: a device towed underwater by a sailing ship in order to keep it pointing into the waves and to lessen leeway. In other words,

Growing problem Sir: The first leading article of the year (‘Growing apart’, 4 January) points to the gap in economic growth between the US and the UK, while the first cover piece (‘Shift key’) identifies a shift rightwards in values and voting intention, in reaction to the bigger state model of Keir Starmer’s government. Sandwiched between the two is ‘Reeves’s new year’s resolution’, in which James Heale tells us of the Labour Growth Group, a WhatsApp group with 99 MPs that is only marginally more credible than a Turkeys for Christmas cabal. Have these Labour MPs studied the research cited in Jon Moynihan’s excellent Return to Growth? Has Rachel Reeves?

‘An old lady’s fallen down – quick! She’s bleeding. Come help.’ An elderly woman lay on the entrance steps of the block of mansion flats, food from a Tesco bag spilled around her, blood spreading on the stone. It was clear she’d tripped and banged her forehead, opening a large gash over her right eye. The courier had already tried to call an ambulance, but been put on hold. He had to continue his delivery run, so he’d begun ringing doorbells to summon assistance. The lady was groggy but awake. I asked her name – Daphne. I helped her sit up, slowly, and propped her against the doorway’s cold brickwork.

The survey says Sir: David Butterfield’s 21 years of experience of higher education (‘Decline and fall’, 26 October) chimes with my 35. But the decline in the rigour of university education which he so deftly describes has not been entirely self-willed. Successive governments have championed a consumerist understanding of higher education. Students have become consumers and academics have become service providers. The reduction in the intellectual demands of undergraduate courses and grade inflation are due to the annual National Student Survey. Universities are in thrall to this and make ever greater efforts ‘to enhance the student experience’. This includes pandering to the desire of most students to have fewer essays,

‘I’m making a hedgehog rescue ladder,’ said the builder boyfriend, who was on his knees in the farmyard, drilling a series of mini rungs into place on two mini rails. The builder boyfriend keeps going to check but the hedgehog seems very happy, snoozing away in its comfy box I should have known. Why did I even ask? Of course he was making a hedgehog rescue ladder. The BB doesn’t like to admit it, but beneath the gruff exterior he has such a soft spot for all living creatures that he often bends down to pick up stranded worms from pavements and roads. It is a charming contradiction in his

Doctor’s note Sir: Your leading article ‘Labour vs labour’ (21 September) follows a recent theme that I have noticed in The Spectator, in which the government is criticised for allowing public pay rises without implementing changes to working practices to increase productivity. I cannot comment on other sectors but I work in the NHS, working closely with junior doctors as colleagues and am involved in training them. Your article appears to imply that if they worked harder or differently, productivity would improve. While I accept that NHS productivity may not have improved (or may have worsened over recent years), my experience as a GP and trainer is that my productivity

The TV talent show star was due to arrive at 5 p.m., and would be checking into our house long before we were ready to open it as a B&B. I said yes to the lady in the village who organises events, and she told me to expect this singer who is very popular in Ireland, and his band, who would be performing at the local folk festival. Kids, babies, female friends holding babies. I leaned to my friend: ‘They can’t all be staying at mine, can they?’ I spent weeks trying to make our partially renovated Georgian house look acceptable, and then the builder boyfriend had to go to