We need a national plan to tackle the health inequity that is killing people | Letters
How could I fault Aditya Chakrabortty’s account of the failure to prioritise the nation’s health as he cites me as its inspiration (This is a life and death story for the UK – so why is it being brushed under the carpet?, 6 March).However, it is important to emphasise that the government is well aware of the gross health inequities that scar our nation and limit lives as well as economic prosperity, but chooses not to prioritise them.The ministerial response last month to the House of Lords report on ageing contains this shocking statistic: a girl born in Barnsley can expect an average of 53 years of good health, whereas one born in Wokingham can look forward to 71 healthy years – an extra 18 years.Throughout the country deprivation accelerates ageing, which for many means an unnecessary premature exit from the labour market and premature need for social care.But the main focus of health policy is the manifesto commitment to reduce NHS waiting times, a target that has very little impact on health inequity.
Instead, a radical programme is required to prevent the largely social and commercial determinants of ill-health, such as poverty, poor diets, lack of exercise, and air pollution,In the absence of a national plan for health improvement (following Sweden two decades on), the regional mayors Andy Burnham and Oliver Coppard have produced their own 10-year initiatives to bear down on health inequities,If the government decides to change course these plans could easily be scaled up,But that requires a bold political choice to prioritise health as well as sickness,Alan WalkerEmeritus professor of social policy and social gerontology, University of Sheffield Aditya Chakrabortty is right to be outraged by the report on the decline of healthy life expectancy.
However, it is but one metric that makes up a picture of health inequality, a principle that has hardly changed in a century or more,Health inequality is an issue that is rarely addressed with understanding in British politics and even less used intelligently to drive policy,The Black report in 1980 and the Acheson report in 1998 precisely stated the failure to address these wider determinants of health, but their recommendations were never consistently pursued,The Tory administration put improvements into reverse after 2010, decimating the public health sector, for instance, but the issue was as crucial in 2010 as it is today,Sir Michael Marmot’s commitment to keeping this in the foreground is second to none.
He said it in 2008 and it’s as true now, “social injustice is killing on a grand scale”.Neil BlackshawAlnwick, Northumberland Aditya Chakrabortty excoriates the Tories and Liberal Democrats for the economic austerity that led to the fall in our healthy life expectancy.He doesn’t mention Labour’s Gordon Brown or his chancellor Alistair Darling.In their manifesto, they warn of no fewer than seven “tough choices” should they win the 2010 election.These include £15bn “efficiency” savings, £11bn cuts in “overheads”, £5bn cuts in spending, £20bn raised from asset sales and, would you believe, 1p on national insurance contributions.
Sadly, all our parties share the blame for the groupthink that imposed mistaken neoliberal policies, and all need to learn lessons.With increased but fairer taxation we can already afford to treat the less fortunate with compassion and repair our public realm.We don’t need to wait for growth, we can do it now.Peter WrigleyBirstall, West Yorkshire Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
‘A lot of comedians don’t have a sense of humour’: Jack Dee on his loser Lead Balloon creation Rick Spleen
‘Rick’s basically a what-if version of me. Had I not found success, that’s how I would have been – deluding myself into thinking success will come, or believing it’s not my fault that it hasn’t’I was doing a lot of standup, working with other comedy writers. I was interested in the relationship between writer and performer. I wondered: “What if the writer is funnier than the performer?” I approached Pete Sinclair, who I’d written with for a long time, and said: “What do you reckon?” BBC4 commissioned a pilot.We developed the world of Rick Spleen and his relationship with his writer and the public
Jack White: ‘I’m not going to put a painful thing out there for some idiot on the internet to stomp all over’
As a new book of his lyrics, poems and selected musings is published, the White Stripes’ singer, songwriter and general guitar hero reflects on poetry, politics and why writing a song is like reupholstering a chairOn the jacket of Jack White: Collected Lyrics & Selected Writing Volume 1, the poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib writes: “I wish I read more people who talked about Jack White as a writer of lyrics.” He makes a good point. White is celebrated as a singer, guitarist, producer and generator of indelible riffs but not so much as a wordsmith. His new book, edited by official archivist Ben Blackwell, sets the record straight. Following 2023’s The White Stripes Complete Lyrics 1997-2007, it covers every song White has written outside that band, along with several poems, Instagram ruminations and scans from his notebooks
‘Kitty karma’? Jessie Buckley tries to claw back approval after enraging cat-lovers
If Jessie Buckley fails to win the Oscar for best actress next week it will be a sign that cat lovers have got their claws out.The Irish actor is the runaway favourite for her performance in Hamnet, but in recent days has stumbled into a controversy over a stated antipathy to cats.She has said she once gave her husband an ultimatum to banish his two cats because they would defecate on pillows, telling a podcast: “I was like, ‘it’s me or the cats.’”Cat-lovers have responded with indignation and condemnation, sparking a wave of headlines and warnings that “kitty karma” could deny Buckley, 36, her first Academy award.She attempted to repair the damage on Jimmy Fallon’s chatshow on Thursday, saying it was a “misconception” that she loathed cats
The Guide #233: From Wonder Man to Girl Taken, here’s one thing to watch on every streamer
Streaming services: there’s a lot of them (with yet another, HBO Max, on the way later this month) and everyone seems to be signed up to different ones, making recommendations a challenge. Step forward the Guide’s fourth edition of A Show for Every Streamer (previous versions can be seen here, here and here), which does exactly as it describes. As is tradition, we’ve tried to avoid series that everyone has been nattering about (unlucky, Heated Rivalry), and instead spotlight less heralded, more surprising picks, starting with …Apple TV | Drops of God … a Japanese-American-French drama about warring wine experts, of course. A curious one, though it does fit in with Apple’s penchant for high-end subject matter. After a first series that saw the daughter of a deceased French wine expert face off against his Japanese mentee for ownership of his multimillion-dollar wine collection, season two – which arrived in January – sees the two team up to investigate the mysterious origins of a bottle of red from dad’s collection
My cultural awakening: a Rihanna song showed me how to live as a gay man in Iran
My sexuality had to be hidden from my friends, my parents, not to mention the authorities. Then I found freedom at house parties and one song that sums up me finally being able to be myselfI was raised in Tehran, under the Ayatollah’s sharia law and daily watch of Basij – the “morality police”. My parents fell in love with the Islamic Revolution when I was a baby and welcomed life under its strict religious rules. The Ayatollah’s face stared down from the walls at home, a daily reminder of what was expected and what was forbidden. This included being gay, but by my teenage years I knew I was different from my peers, and began hiding my sexuality from my parents and the world outside
From The Bride! to Harry Styles: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
Maggie Gyllenhaal gives us a new take on The Bride of Frankenstein, and the stadium-conquering pop prince is back with a new albumThe Bride!Out now Maggie Gyllenhaal directs this Chicago-set gothic romance starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. Per James Whale’s 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein, on which it is loosely based, a lonely monster wants a mate and taps up a scientist, Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening), to create her.Peaky Blinders: The Immortal ManOut now As The Rachel was to women who watched Friends in the 90s, so the Peaky Blinders mop chop was to male fans. Will the return of the Birmingham gang drama in feature film form prompt another wave of ill-advised dos? Only time will tell. Just remember, Cillian Murphy looking amazing with that haircut doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for absolutely everyone
Middle East crisis could push UK inflation back up to 3%, says OBR
Pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs is ‘worryingly thin’, experts warn
Datacenters are becoming a target in warfare for the first time
‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI
Cheltenham festival 2026: Lossiemouth leaves rivals in wake to win Champion Hurdle – as it happened
Former Super Bowl champion asked ChatGPT about injuries before girlfriend’s death, court hears