Revolution Blues

STARMER’S first speech to conference, apart from apparently having been designed to send those listening to sleep, was peppered throughout with talk of “my dad” and occasionally his mum too, his speech writer obviously thinking it might relate to those of us who work for a living. I’m not even going to try to count how many times he mentioned his dad, but if you weren’t listening (and if you weren’t I envy you) it was a lot. But there was more. Honest guv. According to what has to be one of the most inept leaders Labour has ever had, the NHS is facing a big “moment’ and all schoolchildren should take part in competitive sports. I’m finding it difficult to contain my excitement. He is going to solve every problem, from police to education to the climate crisis. It will surely be the utopia we all expected after Brexit had been implemented. Though he didn’t really say just how these problems would be solved, but I guess that might be in danger of being an actual policy. You’ll be pleased...

  ON 6th February 1992 I was doing the late stint as News Editor at a newspaper in Gloucester. There was no lead story for the morning and I was tearing my hair out and harassing the reporters who were also on lates, when two policemen walked into our offices and I broke out into a big grin, thinking they must have a good story for us. But after greeting them they checked my name and then asked if Paul Williams was my husband. My smile faded a little as I answered in the affirmative. They then told me he’d been involved in an accident and could I come with them. Fine, no problem. I wasn’t overly worried as they said it was ‘his legs’ and I just thought of broken legs, which is not good but also not the end of the world, and one of the risks of riding motorbikes daily as we both did. When we arrived at A & E, only about a five minute drive away, I was immediately shown into this private waiting room, and it was then that I began to get a little concerned, thinking it might be wo...

  WOMEN, and men, are justifiably angry and, in many cases, scared as a strict new abortion law came into effect in Texas after the Supreme Court voted down an emergency appeal to block it.. Despite pro-choice protests from people across Texas, the new SB8 law banning abortions from as early as six weeks has been passed in the state. The so-called Heartbeat Act, which came into effect on Wednesday, despite the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to the procedure (known throughout the world as Roe vs Wade), is one of the most restrictive American laws and is also imposed in the states of Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky and Ohio. The law prohibits women from getting an abortion once a foetal heartbeat can be detected, which is usually around six weeks and often before women even know they are pregnant, and gives citizens the right to take legal action against doctors or anyone else who helps a woman terminate a pregnancy.   The American Civil Liber...