14 NEWS Best articles: Britain
THE WEEK 7 May 2022Going private
in the land of
free healthcare
John Burn-Murdoch
Financial Times
Don’t let our healthcare system end up like America’s. That’s what
defenders of the NHS always cry, says John Burn-Murdoch. Yet
few realise how far down this path we’ve already gone. We like
to think that our healthcare is free at the point of use: the reality is
that more and more of us feel obliged to pay for it. In 1990, out-of-
pocket spending on medical expenses here was equivalent to 1%
of GDP, compared with 2.2% in America. Thirty years on, that gap
has disappeared: the figure for the US is now 1.9%; for the UK,
1.8%. And going private isn’t just something middle-class people
do: most of the rise in such spending has been among the lowest-
earning fifth of the population, people who don’t want to spend
years on waiting lists. In a typical year, one in 14 of our poorest
households now incur “catastrophic” healthcare costs (i.e. costs
exceeding 40% of capacity to pay). Is it any wonder the number
of people in the UK resorting to crowdfunding campaigns to pay
private medical fees has risen twentyfold in the past five years –
surely “the starkest signal yet that the NHS is at breaking point”?Europe has
been caught in
Beijing’s grip
Helen Cahill
The Daily Telegraph
Never mind whether Europe can wean itself off Russian gas, says
Helen Cahill. Just as crucial for the Western world is whether we
can end our dependence on China for rare earth metals. These are
a key component of everything from electric vehicle batteries and
smartphones to wind turbines and hi-tech weaponry. In the words
of Paul Atherley, chairman of Pensana Rare Earths, “the whole
world will stop without them”. And right now, China enjoys a
near monopoly on their processing and export: it provides 98%
of the EU’s requirements. Nor has it been slow to exploit this
dominance: last year it seriously considered curbing their export in
order to stall the manufacture of US F-35 fighter jets. Recognising
this vulnerability, the EU recently launched a strategic partnership
with a nearby country well-placed to help Europe distance itself
from Beijing, one with plentiful rare earth deposits and a mining
industry ripe for modernisation. Alas, that country was Ukraine.
As long as Russia’s assault continues, it will be off limits, leaving
us at the mercy of Beijing. Europe desperately needs a plan B.The cowardice
of our craven
prison service
Peter Clarke
Daily Mail
Islamist terrorists seizing control of prison wings and setting up
sharia courts. Devout prisoners dictating the diets of non-Muslim
inmates and appointing their own “emirs”, unofficial chiefs whom
prison guards must propitiate to maintain order. These startling
details in a new “bombshell” report on terrorism in prisons came
as no surprise to me, says Peter Clarke. As a former chief inspector
of prisons, I witnessed them at first-hand – and the prison system’s
“woefully inadequate” response to them. Back in 2015, ex-prison
governor Ian Acheson was asked to report on the issue. He called
for dangerous radicals to be isolated in “separation centres”, but
though three such centres were eventually set up, it’s still absurdly
difficult to get prisoners transferred to them: last year, it seems,
they held just five prisoners. Acheson made 69 recommend ations
in all, 68 of which were accepted. Yet the Prison Service, terrified
of being accused of “Islamophobia” and racism, promised to
implement a mere eight. The service has repeatedly failed to take
the necessary steps to stop radicalised inmates spreading their
dangerous ideology. This “institutional timidity” puts us all at risk.How Savile
was able to
escape justice
Meirion Jones
The Guardian
A man who has spent the
past six years with his penis
attached to his arm has said
he feels like a “real man
again” now that it’s been
reattached to his groin.
Malcolm MacDonald, 47, lost
his penis to an infection that
caused it to drop off into a
toilet in 2010. Doctors created
a replacement in 2015, but
were forced to graft it onto
his arm because of a lack of
oxygen in his blood. In a film
about his ordeal, MacDonald
recalls helping an elderly
woman at a supermarket with
an item on a top shelf, only
for his penis to pop out of his
sleeve unexpectedly. “Can
you imagine six years of your
life with a penis swinging on
your arm?” MacDonald asked.
“It’s been a nightmare.”A 38-year-old man from
Tokyo who identifies as a
“fictosexual” – someone
with a sexual preference for
fictional characters – says
he can no longer talk to
his hologram wife because
her software has expired.
Akihiko Kondo married
Hatsune Miku, an animated
16-year-old, in 2018. The
heartbroken school
administrator insisted that
his love for Miku “hasn’t
changed”. “I thought I could
be with her forever,” he said.A four-year-old was picked up
by police in the Dutch city of
Utrecht last week, after going
for a spin in his mother’s car.
The boy crashed into two
parked cars, then wandered
off, unharmed, in his pyjamas.
Police said he’d been woken
up early, and had chosen to
“go for a drive”. When he
was taken to the scene of the
crash, police asked him how
the car worked; he put the
key in the ignition, turned it
on, and hit the accelerator.
He was taken to the police
station for a mug of cocoa.IT MUST BE TRUE...
I read it in the tabloidsHow did he get away with it? How did our supposedly fearsome
tabloids fail to expose Jimmy Savile’s long history of child abuse?
Blame our libel laws, says Meirion Jones. In 2008, the Sun was all
set to blow the whistle on Savile. The paper had affidavits from
women who’d been abused by him as children at the notorious
Haut de la Garenne children’s home in Jersey; the reporters and
the editor were confident in the evidence. But the in-house lawyers
baulked. If Savile sued, they warned, the Sun would face the best
QCs money could buy, representing a man who might call Prince
Charles and Margaret Thatcher as character witnesses. The case
would “cost a million pounds; the Sun would definitely lose”. The
story was canned. It was just the latest of many aborted attempts
by the media to expose Savile dating back to the 1960s. All were
abandoned for fear of huge legal costs. It was a similar story with
libel cases recently brought against the press by Russian oligarchs.
The good news is that, in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the
Government has pledged to rebalance our libel laws, weighting
them more in favour of public-interest journalism. About time.