By Professor John Robertson OBA
Above, the eight MPs for Lincolnshire constituencies, Margaret Thatcher’s birthplace and now home to Reform’s Richard Tice and the Con Gammon’s Sir Edward Leith. Best of all, Victoria Atkins was Health Secretary under Sunak.
Why am I interested in Lincolnshire?
In October 2024, after 14 years of Tory government, NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board saw only 39.2% of full emergency department patients (Type 1) within the 4 hour target. NHS England as a whole managed only 58.1%.1
In NHS Grampian, the figure was 65%, 11.87% better than the English average and a shocking 65.8% better than the constituency of the recent UK Health Secretary.2
Why am I telling you this?
Headlining in the Herald today:
‘This cannot continue’: Inside the ‘high risk’ pressures engulfing NHS Grampian
A report presented to a board meeting of NHS Grampian last week highlights the severe and ongoing pressures faced by its hospitals just weeks after a ‘critical incident’ saw ambulances diverted.
What on earth must the good folk of Lincolnshire think?
Not much, because few media are reporting that they have a third-world hospital because a fair part of the population have gone private
Sources:
- https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2024-25/
- https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/healthcare-system/urgent-and-unscheduled-care/accident-and-emergency/interactive-charts/how-long-people-spend-in-ae/
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Today at PMQs Scottish Labour’s John Grady asked Sir Keir Starmer to comment on the difference between the NHS in Scotland where almost 11,000 Scots have been waiting more than two years for hospital treatment since their referral with NHS England where the equivalent number is around 113.
If these numbers are really equivalent we must give Labour credit for this absolutely incredible performance as even under the Elective Recovery program 249,343 people in England had waited more than 52 weeks at the end of September 2024.
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Indeed he did.
Operation WASPI deflection up and running.
Is this not reminiscent of what the Tories used to do at WM at PMQ’s when their party were the previous UK government ?
As in not really asking a Q of the PM at PMQ’s but instead feeding him, the PM, a well prepared line that then gave the PM an opportunity to state “My honourable colleague is right the SNP are really #SNPBAD”. (also known as a planned set up).
Seems then with Labour as the new UK government at WM, that clearly some things will never actually “Change” as in with this pathetic and infantile behaviour being a prime , but not solitary, example of the lack of “Change” with Labour in power.
Yesterday I received some bumf from Labour list MSP Sarah Boyack who was rejected by the voters in Scotland in 2016 but when Keiza Dugdale left parliament then Sarah Boyack was shoehorned into the Scottish parliament as another Labour LIST MP.
(She ,Boyack, had also lost the constituency seat that she contested as Ruth Davidson won that seat in 2016 ).
The bumf I received from her was a, checks notes, her ‘annual report’ 2024 ( as a member of the third party at Holyrood).
Wow she is starting her 2026 election campaign a tad (too) early is she not ?????
In this bumf, where she failed to disclose that she was a Labour MSP, she stated all of the various things that she had apparently done that she said represented that she was “working for you” .
Which included , she said, her campaign for a new Eye hospital in Edinburgh to ensure that this issue is on the Scottish government’s radar as we are all supposed to think that they, as in the SNP as a government, are far too distracted by and obsessed with independence, while Sarah and her party are never distracted by or obsessed with their support for their UK apparently (said no one but them).
Also apparently Edinburgh has a housing crisis, would that then be a unique position within the UK ?
Well no it is obviously not.
I mean SKY news have just done an investigation that has found that:
“Children in some parts of England are spending more than five and a half years in temporary accommodation, a Sky News investigation has found”
“Data from Freedom of Information requests shows London and the South East are the regions seeing the longest stays for homeless households”.
“More than two-thirds of local authorities (in England) saw households with children experience stays 20% longer than households without children”.
The Bevan foundation in October 2024 found that in Labour run Wales:
“Wales is in the midst of a housing crisis. The needs of individuals and families are not being met by the housing market. A lack of affordable homes and the wider cost of living pressures mean many people have nowhere to call home”.
Perhaps they need Sarah Boyack’s expertise in this area as apparently she has “ideas and momentum for tacking the Edinburgh Housing crisis” according to the bumf she included in her , checks notes, pre election campaign leaflet, so she can then also help her Labour party Wales solve their housing crisis.
She also notes “Diabetes” being raised by constituents ( not as a constituency MSP but as a list MSP) she then states “she made access to diabetes technology a key focus of her work as an MSP”.
Guess what ? It was reported by Diabetes UK that “Over 207,295 people live with diabetes in Wales, equivalent to 1 in 13 people, the highest level of prevalence of any of the UK Nations” .
So once again a lot of work to do for Labour in Wales on this , as it seems Labour in Wales are not , like Sarah apparently, making Diabetes also a “key focus” of their work as the Welsh government.
Then she notes “Climate targets” effects as being a crisis and states that the Scottish government’s decision to “scrap Scotland’s legally binding climate targets” where apparently she has been “leading the charge for the Scottish government to take more robust climate action”.
Of course she fails to mention (for obvious reasons) that her Welsh party in 2023 were accused of “ falling behind on actions needed to fight climate change, according to a major report” and “Wales was “significantly off track” and falling behind England and Scotland.”
She then declared that:
She “loves being a voice for you in Holyrood”
However not a voice for WASPI women as she was one of the Labour MSP’s who abstained in the vote on May 2024 at Holyrood to “urgently deliver on the ombudsman’s recommendations to pay compensation in full to those women without delay”.
She “wants your priorities , big or small to be front and centre of her work”
See above response re WASPI women.
She also notes that “she was first elected to Holyrood in 1999 and since then she has used her voice to being constituents issues directly to ministers”
“Since then” ?
Woah, there is a lot of information missing there Sarah, as you have not been a MSP since 1999, typical Labour as in ( a deliberate) selective memory where her time at Holyrood was actually where she was a MSP from 1999 to 2016 .
Then she lost her seat as an MSP in 2016, when she lost to Ruth Davidson in teh Constituency vote, and as she ranked behind Keiza Dugdale and Neil Findlay as a Labour list MSP then she had to leave parliament.
Then when Keiza Dugdale left parliament in 2019 Sarah Boyack got her, Dugdale’s , list seat to replace Keiza Dugdale on the Labour section of the Scottish parliament.
Thank god for TUS where we, and too Prof Robertson, can all expose the duplicity and very much condensed versions of truth as reacted by Labour politicians whose versions of history is tainted by tactical omissions and fake information.
I guess this, like many other examples, proves that if you want change then you need to stop voting for Labour, Tory and the Lib Dems because a vote for them is a vote to stop any change happening for and in Scotland.
Reform UK party offer a change for the worse and more so for Scotland but then those voters in Scotland who intend to vote for them in 2026, know that , which is why they intend to vote for them in 2026.
Vote SNP and then when the time comes FGS vote for independence.
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*Thank god for TUS where we, and too Prof Robertson, can all expose the duplicity and very much condensed versions of truth as reacted by Labour politicians whose versions of history is tainted by tactical omissions and fake information.
*related
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O/T Tucked away in the ‘health’ section of the BBC News website today is this headline: ‘Deaths from alcohol at record high in England’.
It makes reference to the views of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK (AHA). We learn on the AHA’s website that it has written (December 19) to the Westminster government on this issue. (See https://ahauk.org/news/ahalettertohealthsec/ )
(For background: the AHA is ‘an alliance of more than 60 non-governmental organisations which work together to promote evidence-based policies to reduce the harm caused by alcohol’. It campaigns for ‘evidence-based, population level policies to tackle the harms caused by alcohol, not for prohibition. Members of the AHA include medical royal colleges, charities, unions, treatment providers and other organisations that want to tackle alcohol harm.‘)
From the AHA’s website: ‘Public health groups have called on Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to make addressing alcohol harm a top priority in 2025. This follows alarming new statistics that show, in just the last four years, there has been a catastrophic 42% rise in deaths in England caused solely by alcohol. Such a devastating rise in death rate has never been seen before.‘
However, not ‘devastating’ enough to warrant coverage on the main England page of the BBC News website!
The AHA’s letter also draws attention to the inequalities in alcohol harm across England, with the North East suffering a mortality rate more than twice as high as London. Readers of TuS articles on deaths related to illegal drug consumption will recall longstanding higher rates of drug-related deaths in NE England relative to the rest of that country.
The NE being failed by politicians in successive Westminster governments? Why do they consistently fail to take on board the (supposedly) readily available solutions to such deep seated health and societal problems proffered by Tory and Labour colleagues in Holyrood? After all Westminster governments have no need to be constrained financially in resourcing timely solutions.
The AHA goes on to state: ‘… the AHA urges the government to implement a comprehensive response, leveraging the Health Mission board to drive much needed cross-government action. The letter highlights evidence from Scotland, where minimum unit pricing (MUP) has proven effective in reducing alcohol-related harm and calls for similar measures in England to halt the rising death toll.’ Given the status of the AHA and its membership, that is an endorsement worth bearing in mind!
The Scotland section of the BBC News website back on 30 September had this headline: ‘Minimum price of alcohol in Scotland rises by 30%’. This article makes much of those opposed to the Scottish Government’s policy of minimum unit pricing: the ‘off license trade’ and Federation of Independent Retailers; the GMB union; of course a Tory MSP (a practicing GP) who claims that MUP “simply punishes responsible drinkers”; and a Labour Party MSP who if not in outright opposition (it isn’t clear from the weasel words) could not bring herself to offer a positive comment on MUP.
In writing to a Labour Secretary of State to advocate for the introduction of MUP, an SNP government policy, I wonder if the serious, committed people associated with the Alcohol Health Alliance UK are aware of the Bain Principle?
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