This is controversial and will remind some people why they hate blogs. But it’s been nagging at me for months, so I’m saying it anyway. For the past few months I’ve seen a lot of right-wing content circulating online about cousin marriage in the UK — specifically whether it should be banned. Leaving aside the … Read more
Ending HIV: How Public Health Quietly Delivered One of Britain’s Biggest Successes For most of my adult life, HIV has been treated as a permanent fact of modern life: tragic, manageable, but ultimately ineradicable. Something you mitigate, not solve. That assumption is now wrong. The UK is on track to eliminate new HIV transmissions by … Read more
I’ve been overweight for about 30 years. Or at least, I’ve been over the “correct” BMI for my height. I doubt I’ll ever hit the official ideal weight on the NHS tables — and honestly, I don’t care. If anything, what I illustrate is that the definitions of what is and isn’t a healthy weight … Read more
This week, the government launched its long-awaited 10-year plan for the NHS. At 165 pages, it’s a dense, managerial, and thoroughly technocratic document—very on brand for a government that wants to appear serious and reformist, while hoping most people won’t read past the executive summary. There are three main themes: It’s a top-down, big-state programme … Read more