Robin Millar

🚨 NEW: The Department of Health says the clinical trial of giving puberty blockers to children has been paused

🚨 IN FULL: Morgan McSweeney’s resignation statement “After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government. The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself. When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice. In public life responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside. This has not been an easy decision. Much has been written and said about me over the years but my motivations have always been simple: I have worked every day to elect and support a government that puts the lives of ordinary people first and leads us to a better future for our great country. Only a Labour government will do that. I leave with pride in all we have achieved mixed with regret at the circumstances of my departure. But I have always believed there are moments when you must accept your responsibility and step aside for the bigger cause. As I leave I have two further reflections: Firstly, and most importantly, we must remember the women and girls whose lives were ruined by Jeffrey Epstein and whose voices went unheard for far too long. Secondly, while I did not oversee the due diligence and vetting process, I believe that process must now be fundamentally overhauled. This cannot simply be a gesture but a safeguard for the future. I remain fully supportive of the Prime Minister. He is working every day to rebuild trust, restore standards and serve the country. I will continue to back that mission in whatever way I can. It has been the honour of my life to serve”

No one outside of Wales seems to have picked up on the ridiculous situation we currently have here regarding waiting lists. The Welsh Government are now three weeks late in publishing the latest waiting list data. This is because Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board has problems with its data with the Welsh Government saying that there have been "concerns about the accuracy" of the number for some months. Betsi is Wales' biggest health board, covers all of North Wales, employs 20k people and has a £2bn budget. It has also been in special measures for a decade (except for a brief period when the Welsh Gov took it out just before the last Senedd election). The previous board was sacked en masse by Eluned Morgan when she was health minister and the new one is entirely the creation of the First Minister. This is a scandal that the Welsh Government simply cannot wash their hands of. They have had unprecedented powers to make changes in the organisation for a decade but have failed. Some of the stories from Betsi are unbelievable. In 2022 a member of the board left the organisation only to be appointed by the Welsh Government in spring 2023 to a new independent board which was supposed to scrutinise the health board's performance and governance. As this person previously sat around Betsi’s board table when they were a director this means they would have been scrutinising decisions they themselves made! Ultimately it is the people of North Wales who are suffering because of these failings, as well as the staff on the ground who have to work in this basket case of an organisation. I have no doubt that if this was in South Wales, closer to the corridors of power in Cardiff Bay, this atrocious situation would never have been allowed to fester how it has. We have now reached the stage where we can't even see the latest waiting list data (the reduction of which which was central to Eluned Morgan's strategy) because the one health board the Welsh Gov has direct control over can't even be trusted to have accurate records.

Something very odd is happening behind the scenes on Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill. Multiple sources say Falconer is talking up with Govt bypassing the House of Lords entirely using the Parliament Acts — and has been planning this since the summer 1/

I've finally had a chance to review the NBER 'working paper' which claims that Brexit has already reduced UK GDP by 8% since the vote to leave in 2016... 🤔 At first sight, this figure fails a simple 'smell test'. A closer look confirms that the analysis is flawed... 🧵

Moment of the day? Baroness Finlay quotes to Lord Falconer *his own* 2011 report, which said people should not receive an assisted death because of “lack of access to adequate end-of-life care and support.” Falconer suddenly stops nodding.

A Warning from History. A year after WW1 ended, A French Pilot, Jacques Trolley de Prévaux, flew an Airship from the Belgian coast to the devastated battlefields of France where millions died. Lost for decades this is part of what he saw remastered in color and HD.