Issue 1620
With M.D.: "The NHS may have record waiting times and staff vacancies, but it is doing pretty well with what it has. GP practices in England had 25.7m appointments in December 2023, up 9 percent compared to pre-pandemic. Sixty percent were face-to-face. A strategy to give mothers of premature babies magnesium sulphate, which costs £1, is estimated to have prevented 291 cases of cerebral palsy since September 2019…"
With Bio-Waste Spreader: "The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has released its provisional 'farm business income' survey for England for the year to the end of February. The figures are so grim they raise serious doubts whether food production in the UK can remain viable even if existing levels of subsidies continue. Like its name suggests, farm business income is a measure of the output generated by a farm minus the costs of production…"
With Dr B Ching: "True to form, the fragmented rail industry is pulling in different directions at once on safety and accessibility, spending zillions on improvements but failing to specify that future trains must match up to platform edges. Getting on and off trains is one of the biggest hazards passengers routinely face, the 'platform- train interface' accounting for 48 percent of the total passenger fatality risk on the network…"
With Remote Controller: "The television listings from four decades back now look, for any follower or student of faith, as supernatural as feeding a crowd with two little loaves and five small fishes. On Good Friday morning, BBC1 had an actor reading from the Gospel of St John, followed by a religious drama adapted from a poem by George Herbert. Later, there was a programme called The Road to the Cross…"
With Old Sparky: "As government ministers now explicitly recognise, the UK's dependence on gas-fired power is not going to end any time soon. Who knew! Fourteen years ago, the very first two Old Sparky columns said it would take far longer than officially claimed to develop new nuclear power plus a reliable electricity system based on wind generation, noting that civil servants quietly maintained a robust 'plan B' – ie more gas-fired power…"
With Lunchtime O'Boulez: "Identity politics seem to be causing an increasingly vicious war of words at London's Trinity Laban Conservatoire, where principal Anthony Bowne had to convene an emergency meeting of students and staff last week and issue a cringing statement to students on how 'in awe we are of [your] sense of community and solidarity with each other', while he and faculty directors stood 'ready to support you'. What with?…"
With Slicker: "One by one the Barclay dominoes are falling, each domino further reducing the family's once billionaire status, created over decades through increased borrowing largely hidden by David and Frederick Barclay behind an offshore corporate curtain. The first domino fell with the loss of the Telegraph titles last June, repossessed by bankers Lloyds, owed a long outstanding £1.16bn. Next was the replacement last December of Lloyds as the main Barclay family creditor…"
Letter from New Delhi
From Our Own Correspondent: "Polls are indicating the near-certain return to power of our idolised prime minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for a record third consecutive five-year term in our upcoming general elections. While campaigning vigorously to secure the majority Hindu vote, Modi is also flaunting his government's economic triumphs after a decade of BJP rule, and India's arrival as the world's fifth largest economy…"