Michael Simmons is The Spectator's Data Editor
Today is being dubbed ‘Walkout Wednesday’: thousands of schools are shut as teachers go on strike – and civil servants and lecturers are also on the picket line. Railway staff continue their strike today too and there is little sign of the strike deadlock being broken. We’re losing more working days to industrial action than
Keir Starmer’s diagnosis of the NHS is correct. ‘If we don’t get real about reform, the NHS will die,’ he says. The Labour leader, and odds-on favourite to be next PM, has called for an ‘unsentimental’ shake-up of a service that is undeniably failing. Millions are waiting for treatment, ambulance waits are so long they
The NHS is struggling. In December, English A&Es saw their busiest month on record: 170,000 people waited more than four hours to be admitted and nearly 55,000 waited more than 12 hours. These are the highest figures ever recorded. Ambulance response times were their worst ever too: the average wait for emergency call-outs was 93
Nicola Sturgeon has blamed ‘unnecessary attendances’ at hospital for the mounting crisis within Scotland’s health service. In a speech defending Health Secretary Humza Yousaf this morning, she said ‘hospitals right now are currently almost completely full’. Turn to Facebook and her government is running a series of adverts where the government’s clinical director, Jason Leitch, advises patients to seek
Is unemployment beginning to bite? Or are the workless trying to rejoin the economy? That’s the key question after the unemployment rate rose to 3.7 per cent today. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics this morning reveal that even though unemployment is up, ‘economic inactivity’ is starting to fall, having previously grown by
The NHS has a crisis every winter, but this year’s is on a different scale. Before a wave of strikes puts patients and care at risk, stats released by NHS England this morning show a health service already on the brink. Last month, the number of 12-hour waits in A&E departments in England exceeded 37,800,
Ian Blackford has resigned after five years as Westminster leader of the SNP. In a statement he said the time was right for ‘fresh leadership’ and that he will not be standing for reelection at the group’s AGM next week. The announcement comes just a fortnight after the Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP survived an attempted
House prices have fallen for the second month in a row, according to Nationwide – following wider predictions of a 9 per cent fall in the market. Nationwide’s house price index fell 1.4 per cent last month after falling 0.9 per cent the month before. That’s still up 4.4 per cent year-on-year but (pandemic excluded)
For Scotland to stay at its current levels of health in 20 years’ time it would have to entirely eradicate cancer. That’s according to the Burden of Disease study published this morning by Public Health Scotland. The report found that although the country’s population is projected to fall in the next two decades, its annual ‘disease burden’ – the
Last night was shaping up to be a night of the long sgian dubhs for the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford. SNP backbenchers have grown unhappy with Blackford’s leadership after several scandals during his tenure. Yesterday a challenge briefly emerged from Aberdeen South MP Stephen Flynn, though Blackford has managed to survive the attempted coup.
Last month, the number of twelve-hour waits in A&E departments in England exceeded 40,000 for the first time ever – an increase of 11,000 in one month. Waiting lists for consultant-led treatment have grown by some 70,000 patients, having passed seven million in September. Ambulance response times, too, are back up over an hour on
More people are dying every week than during Covid’s peak years. Last month there were 1,482 more deaths than average each week – known as excess deaths – compared with just 315 two years ago and 1,322 last year. In the week to 21 October (the most recent week of data) ONS figures reveal there
Gone in a flash, Liz Truss becomes the shortest serving prime minister in British history. As it stands, she’s 75 days short of George Canning, who lasted some 119 days in office before dying from tuberculosis. If Truss’s successor wants to avoid joining her and Canning at the lower ends of the Wikipedia, they’ll need
When Britain crashed out of the European exchange rate mechanism on Black Wednesday, prime minister John Major phoned the Sun editor Kelvin McKenzie to ask how the day’s events would be covered. McKenzie is said to have responded: ‘Prime minister, I have on my desk in front of me a very large bucket of shit
NHS waiting lists have exceeded seven million people for the first time since records began. That means nearly 12 per cent of people in England are waiting for consultant-led treatment. A&E waiting times broke records too: nearly 33,000 people waited more than 12 hours from decision to admit to admission. The target is four hours.
Some nine million working-age people are out of work and are not looking for it either. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics this morning reveal this number has grown by 630,000 since before the pandemic began. This is an increase from the previous quarter and from the same time last year too. Now
16 min listen
This week: Kate Andrews laments how Truss is hurting the free-market cause (00:51), Anthony Whitehead explains the ‘arrogance’ of the latest environmental activist movement the Tyre Extinguishers (06:42) and Michael Simmons reads his notes on barcodes (12:54). Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson.
Britain will make it through the winter without the lights going out. That’s the view of the National Grid, which is responsible for Britain’s energy system. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise based on the BBC’s headline: ‘Homes face winter power cuts in worst-case scenario, says National Grid’. But Fintan Slye, executive director of the grid, offered
Beep-bop. The sound of the supermarket checkout – a noise Morrisons felt the need to mute after the Queen’s death – is made possible by an invention which turns 70 this week: the barcode. On 7 October 1952, a patent was granted to American inventors Bernard Silver and Norman Woodland. Four years earlier, a shopkeeper
Kwarteng’s £45 billion tax cuts will have given Nicola Sturgeon a headache. She has power over income tax and has indicated that she won’t replicate his cuts (especially for the best paid). Which means that Scots could end up paying hundreds of pounds more in income tax next year. Already, there is talk about Scottish
