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Breakfast was interrupted this morning by a small but telling number: 71.2. That is the percentage of cancer patients in the Southern Kingdom who begin treatment within the target of 62 days from urgent referral. The government had promised 80% by March 2027. Performance, rather than improving, has declined. A gentleman named Alan waited nearly five months for lung surgery after a cancer diagnosis, during which time his tumour spread and two of his scans were cancelled because machines had broken. This Author set down her toast and has not retrieved it since.
Leading oncologists now describe the 2027 target as “simply impossible to hit”, citing a complete absence of accountability and the curious fact that the independent cancer board promised in the National Cancer Plan has no confirmed leadership. Radiotherapy UK calculates that more than 2,800 additional patients would need to begin treatment every month – a near 15% increase on current numbers – merely to reach a target that is already receding. One does not require a medical degree to grasp that this is, in the plainest possible terms, a catastrophe dressed in bureaucratic language.
On a somewhat lighter note, though not for the hospitality trade, Lady Rayner is today convening an assembly of mayors at The Prime Minister’s Residence to announce that local leaders across the Southern Kingdom may henceforth impose an overnight visitor levy upon tourists, with no upper limit whatsoever. One might charitably call it a contribution to civic improvement. The trade body UKHospitality calls it something rather less charitable, warning that the average family holiday in England could cost £100 to £120 more, and that “local government, struggling for funds, will pull that lever until it snaps.” This Author finds the image of a mayor gleefully snapping a fiscal lever quite the most vivid political metaphor of the season.
The government counters that budget holidays are protected, it being a percentage rather than a flat fee. Gentle Reader, a percentage of an already extortionate seaside hotel room is not what most persons would recognise as protection. Still, it is a Thursday in September, and the Southern Kingdom‘s mayors must be kept amused somehow.
To more uplifting matters. The Prince of Wales travels to Everton’s ground today to launch the On Your Side project, a scheme to harness the reach of sport in preventing suicide, supported by football captain Harry Kane, boxer Carl Frampton, and former Newcastle striker Alan Shearer. This Author applauds the initiative wholeheartedly, noting only that it is the Prince of Wales‘s largest public appearance since the return of the Duke of Sussex and the Duchess of Sussex made headlines – which says rather more about the state of royal coverage than about the prince himself. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for men under fifty in the Kingdom. That is a figure which deserves considerably more of society’s attention than it presently receives.
Now, to a scene of quite astonishing absurdity in Portsmouth. Some thirty to forty persons descended upon the Marriott Hotel in Cosham on Tuesday evening, having seen a photograph on digital salons of what appeared to be foreign nationals alighting from a coach and concluded – entirely without evidence – that migrants had arrived. The guests were, in fact, members of the Pakistan under-19 cricket team, in town for a scheduled match. The mob reached the very floor of the hotel and knocked upon the players’ doors. The team, displaying a composure one might envy, behaved with complete dignity and did not escalate the matter. Hampshire Police found no offences committed, and the crowd dispersed by nine o’clock.
A Reform Society county councillor in attendance, having been shown proof by hotel staff that the guests were cricketers, duly urged people online not to attend – though one notes he had already attended himself. “Mere speculation rather than based on truth or fact,” he later told the Broadcasting Society. This Author could not have phrased the episode more precisely.
Finally, a dispatch of genuine practical utility: five new conditions – migraines, acne, ear infections, scabies, and badly blocked noses – may henceforth be treated by pharmacists in the Southern Kingdom without requiring a visit to one’s general practitioner. Lord Burnham has declared that families are “fed up with the scramble for routine appointments”, a sentiment with which no reasonable person would quarrel. The National Health Society adds that this summer was among the three busiest on record for its emergency rooms. This Author’s only observation is that scabies and acne appearing on the same list as “easily treated conditions” is either reassuring or alarming, depending entirely upon one’s current complexion. Either way, the apothecary awaits.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.