WEEKENDER: The Assisted Dying Bill, by Wiggia

 

Why are they all smiling!

The title gives the impression this Bill is all about helping those in extreme medical circumstances out of their dilemma by killing them. For some it makes sense, for many it is a form of legalised murder.

Far too many influences are involved that are not in any way wanting to help the afflicted but hasten them on their way for their own advantage, whether they be individuals or organisations i.e. the State.

The fact this Bill is a private members’ one does not disguise an element that shows all the signs of relieving older people of the help they need as they approach their later days.

There was a time when older family members were automatically brought ‘home’ to see out their days in the bosom of the family. That of course was a long time ago, now they become a nuisance only. Contact often is because family members can see a pot of gold within reach, I doubt if many reading this will not have across the family members descending like vultures when a grandparent dies in the belief they are entitled to what is left; I have seen it in my own family, it is not something to be proud of and the usual suspects turn up every time like locusts.

I have heard many such cases from friends over the years so I am hardly surprised how widespread it is when it happens.

Now it appears that governments want to get in on the act. In the Lords Matthew Parish was mentioned for his recent piece in the Times…..

https://x.com/i/status/1968979274775277584:

“The elderly and infirm are a ‘drain on resources’”. Lord Curry of Kirkharle quotes Matthew Parris in The Times saying it would be good if they felt pressure to end their lives early. This is the chilling attitude that legalising assisted suicide would normalise.

An interesting issue is the MP who put forward this private members bill. Kim Leadbetter is a strange choice for Westminster. Being the sister of the murdered MP Jo Cox seems to be enough to have chosen her for the shoo-in, hardly a reason on its own for being selected but many both in the Commons and the Lords have got there by association of one sort or another over the years and it still goes on. Her main distinction since winning the seat is to be very coy about her sexuality as her Muslim supporters are not known for being tolerant to sexual deviation so she butters them up to the detriment of everything else. Still she has got this far with the Bill and it looks as though it will pass in one form or another. What her motivation was for presenting the bill in the first place is not known, was it actually her or is she a proxy for the government as a whole?

There is generally a support group for assisted dying that is purely financial. Many commentators have voiced concerns over the cost of social care and the NHS (in general unaffordable), coupled with the increase in the aged population. Yet this is not a problem that has crept up unforeseen. The figures since the start of the last century show a steady rise in longevity and as with so much else little has been done to meet the inevitable demands it would bring, yet strangely the government of the time while worried about the costs is introducing ever more items to increase life expectancy, such as medical advances, better (though that is increasingly abused) diet, and lifestyle changes.

As with most advances there is a downside, in this case the cost as the recipients are of the older retired age group.

So once again many who believe they are being in some way robbed of services and financial gain see assisted dying as a way to lessen the load so to speak by targeting the group that takes most of the resources.

We saw some of this during Covid as explained in my last piece on the NHS, and the care home murders, for that is what they were went unchallenged and no one has been brought to book for the decisions made, truly one of the most disgraceful decisions made in recent times. That was even repeated when and after the instances leaked out, no one cared, so there is a problem and we cannot trust governments to legislate on this matter; they are not to be trusted.

And if anyone believes the never ending lawyer fest that is the Covid enquiry will bring answers to this and people to book, I have a bridge to sell you.

Strangely during all the discussions on this Bill between the great and the good and the indifferent, at no point has the use of DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) notices in hospitals been raised. As I have previously written I am one of the few to have had a DNR notice put on them and lived! I do know what I am talking about. Finding other examples is easy: I have spoken to three people I know, one an old friend, who have had partners and family members suggested for DNRs at their time in hospita. These were thankfully resisted by family members and all those patients are leading normal lives, which begs the question about the criteria in place for issuing these notices in the first place - or is there a simpler explanation? I leave that thought with you.

In my case the protocols were not followed, to the extent that my wife was not aware of what had happened. When she visited me the day after being told ‘I was unlikely to make it’ she found I had been moved and put in a bare room and all the medical support had been withdrawn. The ‘doctor’ was summoned to explain what had happened but failed to appear and made an appointment for the following morning. He failed to show again and my wife rightly went ballistic.

Fortunately one of the nurses that had been looking after me got hold of the doctor’s superior who came down and came in to see me and reported back to my wife. He felt it was a wrong decision, had me fed, cleaned up , changed my medication put me back on a ward and here I am. The original doctor to all intents disappeared never to be seen again.

https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/do-not-attempt-cardiopulmonary-resuscitation-dnacpr-decisions/

If you read the above it shows that little or nothing applied to my case and what was not revealed to my wife/family.

That story has all the hallmarks of the NHS not wanting to spend any more money on a patient. That one doctor who never went through the protocols thought it was an easy way out. Harsh you say? Not really, to not even have the decency to explain what he had put in motion was at best poor and at worst a dereliction of duty. How many in the same position would have accepted the original decision and let the patient die believing all they had been told (or not told)?

Despite my semi comatose state I was aware of my position and remember vowing to try and go home. I actually managed to get out of the bed and crawled because I could not walk at that stage, before (I presume) being found on the floor and put back in the bed. Surely my being able to do that would have triggered some sort of message that something was not right here. The memory of being in that windowless barren room very much alone is something that the comatose state I was in only partially blots out and will always haunt me. God knows what it must be like for someone who is fully functional.

But the Bill is for people who have full mental capacity and with a prognosis that they have only six months to live. Who decides the six months. The examples I have given presumed the patients were not going to survive but all are still here, one of them ten years later and living a near to normal life.

The safeguards are a problem. In my case we had Health Power of Attorney, but it was not asked about and my wife did not know that it applied to DNRs; it does of course and except in extreme cases a DNR can not be given to anyone with that power of attorney without going before a judge first to decide on the way forward. Where does this sit with the Assisted Dying Bill?

Yes I can see circumstances where excess pain and suffering that have become intolerable with no hope of a reverse in that status are grounds for a decision to end life. But what happens with mental problems? I had an aunt who suffered from dementia and suffered from mini strokes. She was in a private nursing home because she had the money to fund it and was not expected to last beyond a year or so. In fact she lasted fifteen years with no quality of life at all for most of that period; for her an end would have been merciful.

There are so many variables in this that a one size bill does not fit the case. It has never been an easy decision even when using DIGNITAS as the same problems exist there.

The great and the good in the Lords have to my surprise passed the Bill. Considering the age of many in that place I can only assume they voted that way in the belief that this bill will in no way ever affect them. The talk of saving money that came up with some of them was a case of this is for them not us. Beware: this is a very dangerous path to set out on.

Unbiased news is our bulwark against chaos

On 8 September, BBC1 breakfast time news headlines referred to the two men who machine-gunned six people at a bus stop in Israel as Palestinian “activists”.

In itself, it doesn’t necessarily confirm anti-Semitic bias in the Corporation, but that soft-handed term clearly betrays bias in favour of a different group, whom it can portray as freedom-fighters, uncritically relaying claims by Hamas.

The BBC is not the only institution to fall prey to it. The British Foreign Office has long been seen as Arabist, and it’s not just Jews saying that – Nigel Jones repeated it in The Spectator last year.

When both the Government’s advisers on foreign affairs and the nation’s official broadcaster have lost their objectivity, we have a problem.

The erosion of trust goes further.

The United Nations – such an optimistic, feel-good title – recently ruled that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza, so giving official validation to a word used by many in their allegations. The verdict was issued by a UN ‘Independent International Commission of Inquiry’ on 16 September. It was referenced on X the following day by a group of ex-BBC journalists calling themselves The News Agents, who also quoted a Labour MP calling on the PM to stop Israel.

I replied: “You are journalists. Please look carefully at who is on that UN committee and come back to us.” They haven’t yet done so. That is a pity, because the Committee resigned in July amid accusations of anti-Israel prejudice – but are still serving out their terms. Perhaps this latest ruling is their Parthian shot.

The UN was created in 1945 as a way for the world to be run better and more peacefully. Yet when ex-diplomat Craig Murray told them last week that the UK is a force for evil in the world, “people from all over the globe interrupted with spontaneous applause”. That could be saying more about them than us.

Murray was advocating Scottish independence; yet seeing how the Scottish politico-judicial system dealt with him, one wonders what worse it might have done had it been completely sovereign.

He is an idealist. The UN members are people, and like all people, have a host of agendas. They are also capable of childish resentment when someone comes to tell them unwelcome news, as we saw when both the escalator and his teleprompter suddenly failed President Trump.

Speaking of childishness, see when Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers donated a minute of his speaking time so that the EU Parliament could remember the death of Charlie Kirk and “declare that our right to freedom of speech cannot be extinguished”. Instead, the noise from various quarters was a “rejection” of what Politico calls “right-wing and far-right groups”. Or, to put it another way, bad manners from good haters.

When you know in your bones that you are what Leo Kearse calls “good kind people”, then all opposition must be from the Devil and eradicated by any means possible. Brexiteers are unbelievers in the Great Dream and must be punished.

The liberal civilisation we have depends on not being so sure.

English history has been plagued by doctrinaire Catholicism, firebrand Puritans and revolutionary Communists; now, we have to deal with the threat of millenarian Islam. Most Muslims here are not jihadists, but as their population numbers grow, the underbrush is building up in readiness for radicals to set fire to it. The Left is still smouldering too; perhaps there could be a temporary alliance as there was in Iran. Spiked thinks it is happening again in the West.

As our society fragments into mutually incompatible cliques, it becomes ever more important to consider what could bind us together. Oppression is one answer, and an authoritarian regime like Starmer’s might hold things for a bit; but not forever.

What we need is the truth. The news media are our eyes and ears, and if they feed us illusions, we risk crashing. The Fourth Estate must know that journalism is not propaganda. It should abandon its self-conception of leading a righteous crusade by hiding and twisting facts to tell us stories. We are fallible human beings, not angels and demons. Enough of holy panic. Let’s hear it all, good and bad.

Then, we need our other secular institutions to recover their impartiality.

It has been fascinating to watch US Senate hearings as they try to restore the FBI and the Federal judiciary to their proper functions and root out political activism. To achieve that here, we may need to undo much of what has been done structurally since 1997 to tie up the powers of the people like the threads that held down Gulliver.

But it must be done. Trust is eroding; when it is gone, the nation will collapse.

Our liberty and stability depend on not being certain, on hearing all sides, on avoiding being drawn into a great quest, on not following some charismatic captain, on not delegating our judgment and conscience to international arbiters. We need truth the debunker, not truth the pillar of smoke by day and fire by night.

It starts with the news. We need the news, the whole news and nothing but the news.

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Birth Of Rock 'N' Roll, by JD

The first rock and roll song:

Rocket 88 (Original Version) - Ike Turner/Jackie Brenston

Widely acknowledged as the first “rock and roll” song. The Oldsmobile Rocket 88 was America’s fastest car at the time and cars have often been the subject of popular songs and pop culture in general. The song was written by a 19 year old Ike Turner, the same Ike Turner more famously associated with his wife Tina Turner. The song has been credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats but has also been credited to Ike Turner’s Kings Of Rhythm; in truth they were probably the same musicians.

And here is a brief history of the ‘birth’ of that first Rock ‘n’ Roll Song.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Classic Hits, Part 5, by JD

Mary Wells - My Guy

Frankie Ford "Sea Cruise"

Ronettes - Be My Baby (remastered audio)

Eddie Cochran - Twenty Flight Rock

The Clovers - Love potion number nine.

Little Darlin' - The Diamonds 1957

START THE WEEK: More NHS, what is to be done? by Wiggia

In the current climate with so much wrong or going wrong in the UK, it seems almost churlish to further criticise that ailing monolithic entity the NHS.

Since my brush with the four horsemen, see earlier entries, I have had plenty of time to analyse my recent appointments with the organisation. Clearl, in its current form it is largely not fit for purpose. So much is glaringly wrong that it is a question of where to start.

The obvious place is the GP surgery There is no doubt that a postcode lottery is part of the GP set up. Some people I know have a decent GP practice allowing same day appointments, phone calls and decent services all round.

My one falls into the ‘not fit for purpose’ category. Whilst they bombard you with requests to visit them for jabs and annual health checks for all and sundry the primary purpose of GP surgeries getting to see a doctor remains frustrating, time-consuming and if you are working nigh on impossible. The Blair contract was the start of a slide in service: he or his government gave the BMA all it asked for with no questions asked over the removal of weekend and after hours work. It became a five day 9-5 service with (in our case and many others) an hour for lunch.

Why was it allowed to fester and end up like this? The fact it is a ‘private’ though publicly funded entity is a part of the reason. GP surgeries use the private and NHS parts according to their needs not those of the patients; again not all but far too many do. The fact they are paid for the amount of patients on their books rather than those that they treat makes them the sole arbiters as to treatment and when it is administered, often it seems at their leisure.

You have the ridiculous case of the NHS bombarding people with adverts to go and see their GP with various serious ailments and then the same people not being able to get an appointment to have the problem analysed. This is plainly wrong and costly for the obvious reasons of delay in treatment and costs in treating the delayed treatment when in many cases the need has reached serious levels or cannot be treated at all.

Plus how come our GP surgeries have the information screens telling migrants they do not have to have any paperwork to get treated as our recently did? We pay for all this and we are not asked how our money should be spent. There is a mindset within the NHS that they know best on all matters, not universally but by enough to make the hairs on the back of your head stand up as happened to me at a routine health check a while ago when the nurse after being asked a simple question about a long wait for treatment smiled and said ‘it is free, you know.’ I did not dare say what I wanted to.

This early diagnosis and treatment which would save lives and money has been promised for years and little has happened. If it did happen there would be nowhere to put the patients anyway, there often isn’t now, as we have the lowest ratio of beds available to patients in Europe - Germany for instance has four times as many and France twice the number.

https://www.pgweb.uk/health/3546-comparing-uk-hospital-beds-with-other-countries

Some years ago the Conservative government decided to introduce a system that it hoped would see patients treated quickly and free up beds to save money. It has backfired spectacularly, with old hospitals like our local one being turned into flats and replaced by new ones with fewer beds. The crisis has been exacerbated by the rapid increase in the migrant population - our indigenous population has remained at the same level for some years, so the migrant problem has affected the NHS twofold: not enough capacity and not enough staff to cope with the increase.

Staffing is another issue and is as stupid as the lack of beds. The NHS employs more people than any other organisation in Europe yet those who manage it (if you can call it that) constantly clamour for more staff. Despite their constant denials it is clear something is wrong. Those that work on the front line will now tell you so - which they would not have done a few years ago, denying the NHS was anything other than the best in the world and saying they would defend it to the hilt! But now during my prolonged stay in hospitals and subsequent visits for myself and more recently my wife, they are much more forthcoming about the organisation’s shortcomings. The district nurse who treated my wife recently was one of many who having spent many years in all areas of nursing spoke of the multiple managers they now have compared with just one a few years ago. Again compared with the European counterparts there is a massive imbalance in the staff employed, something is badly wrong and again the patient/ taxpayer suffers.

The figures show we do indeed have a shortage of doctors, yet the system is not employing front line staff that are available. This is simply a case of lack of funds to employ them or so we are told, despite bringing in staff from third world countries that can ill afford to lose them. Something is very wrong here.

The infrastructure has been neglected for decades, Boris, he of the promises, said we were to build forty new hospitals; not one was built and now we have no money to build one. A local hospital, the Queen Elizabeth in King’s Lynn, has been falling down for decades and was recently voted the worst performing hospital in England. We now have almost permanent scaffolding and supports to keep some hospitals upright as well as having people sitting on the floor in A&E waiting. Truly third world status.

With cottage hospitals and convalescent homes a thing of the past there is no spare capacity so the shortage of beds crisis is now a problem all year round not just in winter.

There is no outside the box thinking with the NHS. On the Continent clinics built to provide short stay facilities and minor ops are very successful and take pressure off GPs and main hospitals. Many of our old cottage hospitals did provide those services but were subsumed into the big hospitals; we had a very well-used and successful one in Sudbury Suffolk when we lived nearby, but that was closed.

They are not the answer but would help, especially as main hospitals are suffering from bed blocking with elderly patients not being able to move as no suitable facilities are now available. With an elderly population this is a problem not going away anytime soon.

There is much made of the fact that the NHS are recruiting staff from the third world. Why this should be is a mystery, many qualified British nurses cannot get jobs yet are available and the folly of these decisions is the almost routine employment of expensive agency staff, all of whom left the NHS for better pay and conditions in the private sector in the first place.

One of the observations I made when in for my long stay was the difference in quality among nursing staff. Many of the supposedly qualified nurses from abroad are very much “one item at a time” people. They seem incapable of multi-tasking: a simple request made when passing is met with ‘I will see to that when I have finished this’ and the nurse is never to be seen again - quite a normal occurrence.

And the ward where I was sent before being discharged was full of them and also the same third worlders who took a literal age to do standard tasks. As an example we had the drugs nurse come round and he/she spent three and a half hours, yes really, to dispense to ten patients, starting at eight and finishing at half eleven. So importing staff creates problems as well as solving a few.

A common problem that many can relate to is the time taken to sort out what the problem is in the first place. Again here is a personal example: my wife started to suffer pain in her knee, it got worse and a doctor’s appointment was successfully obtained and the doctor sent her to a specialist at the hospital for diagnosis and X-rays. The result was not conclusive so another appointment with another specialist was made for two months later. All the time the pain was getting worse. The second diagnosis was also inconclusive and a few weeks later it was suggested another expert would have a look at it. This one actually knew what she was doing and thought the X-rays showed little and the problem was her knee. Fine but of course this required another X-ray appointment. That happened a couple of weeks later and lo and behold it was her hip, so back to the hospital for an assessment and the news that it needed a hip replacement. How long to wait? About a year, came the reply.

By now she could not walk but dragged herself around in increasing pain. No way could she go a year like that so with reluctance we went private.

As so many people are having to make the same decision the private hospitals also have a waiting list. On the day of the op it was discovered she had developed an infection in the leg and the op was cancelled. Six weeks later it finally happened, but the endless delays caused problems with further infections and it took an age to get her back on her feet such was the state of her legs after all the inactivity.

If the initial diagnosis and op had taken place quickly it would have been very beneficial to my wife and our bank balance as we are the most expensive in Europe if you go private. Even taking that route the delay was eight months which considering her condition was inexcusable, but we are are part of an army of patients in the same position. I could not imagine how she would have ended up if we could not have afforded to go private.

But the bottom line is what is to become of the NHS? For years any criticism was met with disdain, even up to Covid where the few were still banging pots and pans in appreciation of the few still working. In my area live many doctors of all types as we are near the main hospital. Most spent the whole period at home and the GPs in many cases never went back to a full week ever again.

In the mind of someone who has seen just a smidgen of the whole problem it is obvious that the long term strategy of the NHS needs to be laid out and big changes made. Advances in medical science means many more conditions can be treated and even eliminated, but at a cost. Can we afford it? In an ideal world we would say yes but we are not in an ideal world and we frankly cannot go on this route for ever.

So priorities have to assessed and approved. Many will like the outcome but it has to be done. The service has to be streamlined. Some services e.g. IVF cannot be seen as a God given right; those who want it must start to pay towards that and many similar elective procedures such as many forms of cosmetic surgery. I am sure readers can think of many other items to add.

The NHS is just that, a ‘national’ health service funded by British tax payers for use by British nationals. Where those CEOs of trusts get the authority to decide to treat the world’s illnesses I have no idea, but it is wrong. Nowhere else that I know treats outsiders for free, all have to pay - and if you are abroad you also have to pay for your own translators if you need one, they are not supplied for free.

The waste in the NHS from prescriptions to procurement is legion. As an example on a previous stay in the local hospital they had just been issued with new bleepers which worked rarely or not at all. It transpired that whoever purchased these never did in-house trials to see if they worked and the cost was £800,000. Again I am sure there are many who can give similar stories, a scandalous waste of other people’s money and it always is.

There is also the annual increase in compensation claims that have reached record levels. There will always be mistakes but is there an effort to reduce these often fatal errors? I recently had an acquaintance whose wife had a heart attack in hospital because no ultra sound was used before the procedure and the qualified doctor was absent when a camera was inserted which caught on a tear in the heart lining and caused an instant cardiac arrest. They have admitted liability for negligence but what of the young woman’s future?

Many of the NHS trust chiefs treat their charges as a personal fiefdom. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent trans decision ours recently announced she would not be complying with the ruling and the hospital would continue with trans women using women’s spaces. Just leave such stuff alone and get on with running a hospital! The rainbow flags on the roof and the PRIDE notices everywhere do not help anyone get better. Just stop it! There is no place for wokeism in hospitals or, as we have discovered, anywhere else.

There have been suggestions the current agreement with GP surgeries should be scrapped. They should be paid for the patients they see not those on their books, and maybe the whole ‘private’ make up of the GP set up should be scrapped and all of it should come under the umbrella of the NHS as an integral part. Anyone old enough to remember when doctors did home visits often at night knows what we are talking about. If the paperwork is weighing them down as claimed then change the set up along with the current failure in many sections of the NHS to inform other parts - they were still using fax machines until recently in some areas.

The NHS cannot fix everything. There is no health service anywhere that can fulfil the needs of all, and no amount of money can solve all the problems unless one wants a health service and no other public services. There simply isn’t enough money.

There was a glimmer of hope in some quarters when the current health secretary Wes Streeting made his first public announcements on the state of the NHS. He said no more money until reforms have been made. That lasted about two weeks when a delighted Wes was seen applauding in Parliament the giving of an extra £29 billion to the health service. As the leader of NHS England said most has already been taken up with wage demands. NHS England is to be disbanded over two years, long enough to find those sacked?

Another announcement, again from the health secretary is the listing of league tables as mentioned earlier. Why? We all know which local hospitals or medical services are good or bad, league tables will do nothing to change that and the poor patients have no choice in what they are given. The Brexit failure PM David Cameron promised, as they all do, that we would have choice in doctors hospitals and surgeries; as with everything else he promised nothing ever materialised.

There has been little to change the minds of those that believe the Conservatives were indeed heading towards a private health service. Only in the Tory Government’s dying moments was money put in to help slow down the decline, the classic “too little, too late,” and again there were no plans for any changes or reform. Perhaps they really did not want the NHS to survive.

And if this is an example of the ten year plan to fix the NHS we are in serious doo-doo:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/29/supermarkets-told-to-cut-100-calories-from-shoppers-baskets/

So either Wes Streeting steps up to the plate and actually makes some meaningful changes or we are screwed for even more tax payer funds to throw at a service that currently is not fit for purpose in many areas.

I’m not holding my breath.

Ambackador – PMQs 10th September 2025

News just in (11am on 11 September): Lord Mandelson has been sacked from his post as Ambassador to the USA.

Some may see it as a victory for Kemi Badenoch’s performance in this week’s PMQs, of which more in a moment. But isn’t it another example of what Dominic Cummings calls “narrative whiplash”: the flailing around of Government and Opposition in response to mainstream news? The Opposition may run around whooping with a fresh scalp in their hands, but what does that change?

We have always known that Mandelson toadies to money and power – see him here with Oleg Deripaska in 2012. He wrote some now media-splashed supportive messages to the well- and widely-connected Jeffrey Epstein in the years before that, yet no-one has suggested that he was ever personally involved in the entertainments allegedly provided by Epstein, both on- and off-shore.

Starmer has thrown Mandelson off the back of the troika – another one for the wolves! He himself is so unpopular that he might easily be next to bite the snow. So what? Someone else would take over the reins, and the journey would continue.

For Sir Keir is merely carrying out – completing – a programme that did not begin with him: the remoulding of the British Constitution, the fragmentation and devolution of Parliament’s powers. Until that is put right, our crisis will only deepen.

And so to PMQs, during which there were some tributes to the late HRH the Duchess of Kent.

The PM deplored the Israeli attacks on Hamas leaders in Qatar and reasserted that diplomacy was the only way to get the remaining Jewish hostages out of Gaza. He also said that Russian drones had invaded Polish airspace, while affirming his support for both Poland and Ukraine. Some may think he is wrong about both peace and war.

The Conservatives’ Dr Luke Evans twitted the PM with Cabinet difficulties over Ministers’ “integrity”, and was easily rebuffed with the Tory-era example of Ms Priti Patel, who unlike Ms Rayner last week, had remained in her post.

Scottish Labour’s Melanie Ward (who won her seat from the SNP last year) congratulated her Party over the Chancellor’s funding for the regeneration of Kirkcaldy High Street.

Ms Badenoch (Leader Of The Opposition, aka LOTO) asked whether Sir Keir had full confidence in HMG’s Ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, in view of the latter’s earlier dealings as Business Secretary with the late Jeffrey Epstein – even after Epstein had been convicted of child sex offences. The PM replied that Lord Mandelson had been appointed using the correct procedure; he said he had confidence in the Ambassador and would not be drawn on any documentation connecting Mandelson and Epstein.

The PM diverted the discussion to Labour’s achievements and projects. Distracted by this shifting ground, LOTO listed many other problems enmiring the nation, which she attributed to Starmer’s weakness; he replied with another list of claimed successes and then went ad hominem (or rather ad feminam), saying the Conservatives’ leadership contest was much more drawn-out than that for the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

The Mail’s Quentin Letts says he squirmed like a fresh-caught eel – but then, Starmer always does. The difference is that eels have a backbone. If Mandelson fell to this, it would not have been because of Badenoch’s wobbly hook. Perhaps the PM cringed at the thought of the scribblers having endless fun with Mandy. More fool he: leaving them to it would let him carry on with his deeper mission.

Labour’s Tim Rutland and the PM agreed on governmental progress with the NHS.

The Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey concurred with criticism of the attack in Qatar, then went on to raise the issues of suicide prevention and parental difficulties with officialdom as they try to care for their children. When he too asked about Lord Mandelson, he received the same dry reference to appointments procedure.

Labour’s Josh Newbury spoke of the restricted life of a severely disabled constituent and the PM promised him some ministerial meetings.

The SNP’s Stephen Flynn delivered an oratorical speech condemning the PM’s scheduled meeting with Israel’s President Herzog, without naming either the man or his role. Sir Keir repeated his two-state solution for the conflict in Gaza.

Bill Esterson (Labour) criticised fracking; Starmer said he would ban it “for good”, and professed shock at Reform’s policy of opposing the development of renewable energy resources.

Simon Hoare (Con) raised the issue of firefighting in rural areas; the PM promised further support.

Jon Trickett (Lab) bemoaned the high rate of unemployment in his Yorkshire constituency; Sir Keir generalised about increased national employment and celebrated the opening of Doncaster Sheffield airport.

For Bristol’s Greens, Carla Denyer lamented the presence of Israeli arms dealers at the arms fair in London this week, linking it to Gaza. The PM spoke of “strict rules” and “action taken”.

Straight afterwards, Welsh Labour’s Ruth Jones thanked Starmer for his condolences on the sudden death of a Senedd member, Hefin David, and welcomed Labour’s job-creating defence industrial strategy.

Andrew Rosindell (Con) criticised wasting police time on trivial incidents on the Internet, and called for the Public Order Act 1986 to be updated. Sir Keir replied that he had previously said and now repeated that he wanted the police to concentrate on “serious” crime and “crime that matters most to our communities in each of our constituencies”.

Labour’s Adam Jogee wanted more neighbourhood policing. The PM referenced the new Crime and Policing Bill – “which the Conservatives and Reform voted against” – without mentioning those Parties’ concerns, which (we understand) included potential criminalisation of behaviour under the civil ASB framework, and the need to protect freedom of speech and assembly regarding protests.

Mark Pritchard (Con) spoke of deaths in custody at HMP Stoke Heath; Sir Keir referred the matter to the Justice Secretary.

Dr Simon Opher talked about chickenpox vaccinations (which he welcomed) and condemned “false rumours” about vaccines. The PM agreed and castigated “the man who wrote Reform’s health policy” (Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist who at the recent Reform conference controversially linked the Covid vaccine to the King’s cancer). Again, the issue may see further debate: for example, the oncologist Professor Angus Dalgleish thinks that the vaccine may “turbo-charge” cancers. Perhaps sweeping statements should be avoided.

The Lib Dems’ Charlotte Cane asked for the “land use framework” to be consulted before granting permission for more solar farms. The PM repeated his support for renewable energy and promised that “we will follow process”.

Labour’s David Pinto-Duschinsky invited Starmer to expand on the government’s ending of the feudal leasehold system and the introduction of “commonhold”.

Dr Al Pinkerton (Lib Dem) advocated for a Bill to control the criminal cloning and abuse of Vehicle Registration Marks; the PM promised to look at it.

Labour’s Dr Rupa Huq passed on the wish of the Ukrainian community in Acton that the PM should ask President Trump to help find a just peace in Ukraine. Starmer reiterated his support for Ukraine and committed that he would “ramp up the pressure on Putin”.

Sarah Bool (Con) called on Sir Keir to “reset his relationship with our farmers and reverse the family farm tax”. Ignoring the latter, the PM rehearsed his points on the “farming road map”, the “deal with the EU” and the “£5 billion that we put into farming in our last Budget”. As in other matters, the Devil is in the detail – and there seems no desire to release Him in this public context.

Starmer’s PPS, Liz Twist, ended the session by calling on him to reaffirm Labour’s commitment to suicide prevention, which of course he did. But the second reading of the Assisted Dying Bill takes place in the Lords on Friday.

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster

FRIDAY MUSIC: Classic Hits (Part 4) by JD

More oldies but goodies.

The Crystals - Da Do Ron RonNorman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky (1970)Jimmy Jones - Good Timin' This track was a UK No.1 for three weeks in 1960, it reached No.3 in the US. Jimmy Jones (b. 1937 Birmingham, Alabama) is still highly regarded as an influential character on modern music. His use of falsetto voice in R&B/pop directly influenced Del Shannon, who in turn influenced The Bee Gees disco orientated tracks.Johnny Burnette - Dreamin`Dion & The Belmonts I Wonder Why 1958Sam Cooke - Bring It On Home to Me (Official Audio)
The backing singer is Lou Rawls, in fact it sounds more like a duet with Rawls' voice being an essential part of the song.