Businesses and NHS brace for fresh impact as minister blames Labour for UK’s cyber-security failings
Did you pay money as a victim of ransomware?
Russia had nothing to do with a massive global cyberattack, President Vladimir Putin said Monday, criticising the US intelligence community for creating the original software, AFP reports.
“As for the source of these threats, Microsoft’s leadership stated this directly, they said the source of the virus was the special services of the United States,” Putin said.
Three hospitals in Ireland have been targeted by the cyber attack.
Health chiefs blocked external communication to servers until Wednesday to stop the spread of the “ransomware” virus as officials confirmed that up to 20 computers had been affected.
The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has broken his silence on the cyber- attacks after pressure to comment.
He said there has not been a second wave of cyber attacks after the NHS was struck by ransomware attacks on Friday, PA reports.
Thousands of NHS computers were still using the old Windows XP operating system, the government has revealed, though a Number 10 spokesman insisted other Windows’ systems were also affected.
The prime minister’s spokesman said the NHS had updated the vast majority of its systems but just under 5% were still operating Windows XP.
Health trusts across England were sent details of an IT security patch that would have protected them from the crippling ransomware attack, NHS Digital said.
NHS Digital, the arms-length body of the Department of Health that provides information, data and IT systems for the NHS, said it had made health trusts aware last month of IT protection that could have prevented the attack.
The French government cyber security agency ANSII knows of “fewer than 10” French companies that have fallen victim to a global hacking attack that hit car factories, hospitals and other organisations in about 100 countries, an ANSII spokesman said on Monday.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman has defended health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s lack of public statements or appearances since the cyberattack on Friday.
“This is an international cyber crime, committed on an unprecedented scale.
Theresa May has rejected claims the government ignored warnings the NHS was vulnerable to a possible cyber security attack.
The Prime Minister said warnings had been given to hospital trusts.
If you paid money as a victim of ransomware we’d like to hear from you. How much were you asked to pay? Why did you decide to pay the ransom? What happened afterwards? We’d also like to hear the experiences of those who paid in other recent attacks. You can share your stories with us – anonymously if you wish – by filling in our form here.
Few major problems have been reported in India with the hea of the government response team saying “everything seems to be normal, so far”, AP reports.
Experts estimated 5% of affected computers were in India, with the Computer Emergency Response Team of India issuing a red-colored “critical alert”.
Microsoft’s top lawyer has called on governments around the world to treat the international cyber attack as a “wake-up call” as he laid part of the blame at the door of the US administration, PA reports.
Brad Smith, the technology firm’s president and chief legal officer, criticised US intelligence agencies the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) for “stockpiling” software code which could be exploited by hackers.
“Hundreds of thousands” of Chinese computers at nearly 30,000 institutions including government agencies have been hit by the global ransomware attack, a leading Chinese security-software provider has said.
The enterprise-security division of Qihoo 360, one of China’s leading suppliers of anti-virus software, said 29,372 institutions ranging from government offices to universities, ATMs and hospitals had been “infected” by the outbreak as of late Saturday, AFP reports.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, NHS Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and NHS Fylde and Wyre CCG are still experiencing some IT problems.
They said services are open and operating “as best as possible” but asked patients only to attend A&E in life-threatening and urgent cases.
The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust reported their IT system had not been attacked and was operating normally.
Likewise the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs hospitals in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale, said they had not been affected by the attack but had taken precautionary measures to protect their IT systems.
The Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust said patient safety is being “maintained” but difficulties are continuing.
Patients scheduled to have operations today have been asked not to attend hospital unless they have been contacted directly.
European governments and companies appeared early Monday to have avoided further fallout from a crippling global cyberattack, the police agency Europol said.
“The number of victims appears not to have gone up and so far the situation seems stable in Europe, which is a success,” senior spokesman for Europol, Jan Op Gen Oorth told AFP.
No patient data has been lost in the ransomware attack on Scottish NHS computer systems, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Eleven health boards as well as NHS National Services and the Scottish Ambulance Service were affected Friday’s attack, PA reports.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, arriving in Brussels for a meeting of EU foreign ministers, said the cyber-threat was not on the agenda.
He said: “Cyber-security is a huge issue for all of us in all our countries.
Three days on from the initial outbreak, fewer than a hundred victims of the WeCry malware appear to have given in and paid the ransom, according to analysis of the two bitcoin addresses to which the software demanded payment.
In order to restore encrypted files, the malware demands a payment of $ 300 in the cryptocurrency, sent to one of two addresses hardcoded into the software. Yet the contents of the addresses, which like all bitcoin wallets are publicly viewable, shows just under 14 bitcoin has been sent to them in total. At current exchange rates, that is worth slightly under $ 25,000, suggesting just 82 victims have paid the ransom.
Jeremy Hunt was warned last summer that the NHS was failing to prioritise cybersecurity and continued to use obsolete computer systems, the Times reported.
The Care Quality Commission and Dame Fiona Caldicott, the national data guardian, wrote to the health secretary to point out a worrying “lack of understanding of security issues” and that “the external cyberthreat is becoming a bigger consideration”.
York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which was hit by the attack on Friday, said some out-patient appointments had been cancelled on Monday – especially at Selby War Memorial Hospital – but most were not affected.
The trust said bone scan appoints had been cancelled in Scarborough and in Selby: “All outpatient appointments are cancelled except blood-taking and MSK physiotherapy.”
The British cybersecurity researcher described as an “accidental hero” for halting the global spread of the ransomware attack has spoken of his fears for his safety after a number of media outlets revealed his identity.
The 22-year-old, who tweets as @malwaretechblog, told the MailOnline: “In future someone might want to retaliate – they could find my identity within seconds.
Meanwhile in Japan, AP reports the ransomware attack hit computers at 600 locations but appeared to cause no major problems as Japanese started their workday Monday even as the attack caused chaos elsewhere.
Nissan Motor Co. confirmed some units had been targeted, but there was no major impact on its business.
As the UK wakes up on Monday braced for fresh impact as NHS returns to work, Chinese state media say more than 29,000 institutions across China have been infected by the global “ransomware” cyberattack, AP reports.
Xinhua News Agency reports that by Saturday evening, 29,372 institutions had been infected along with hundreds of thousands of devices. It cited the Threat Intelligence Center of Qihoo 360, a Chinese internet security services company.
Welcome to live coverage of the fallout from last Friday’s ransomware attack.
Ben Wallace, UK security minister has been on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme defending its record on investment in cyber-security.
• This is not targeted at the NHS, it’s an international attack, says Theresa May
• NHS England declares major incident after ransomware blocks access to patient records, internal phones and emails
More than half of Scotland’s health boards have been affected by a large-scale cyber attack on NHS computer systems. GP surgeries and dental surgeries were among some of the locations hit by the ransomware attack on IT networks, the Press Association reports.
NHS Lanarkshire said only those patients requiring emergency treatment should attend hospital while they dealt with the issue on Friday.
The Agence France-Presse news agency reports that, in Spain, employees at the telecom giant Telefónica were told to shut down their workstations immediately through megaphone announcements as the attack spread.
Forcepoint Security Labs said that “a major malicious email campaign” consisting of nearly 5m emails per hour was spreading the ransomware.
Some more quotes from the prime minister. She has told reporters:
I think what is important is that we have recognised that increasingly we need to be aware of the need to address cyber security issues, that’s why the National Cyber Security Centre has been set up. It is now able to work with the NHS to support the organisations concerned and to ensure that patient safety is protected.
After the prime minister said she was “not aware of any evidence that patient data has been compromised”, Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering at Cambridge university, advises caution.
The NHS are saying that patient privacy hasn’t been compromised, but if significant numbers of hospitals have been negligently running unpatched computers for two months after the patch came out, how do they know?
Some more on that statement from the prime minister, Theresa May, who says:
We are aware that a number of NHS organisations have reported that they have suffered from a ransomware attack.
This is not targeted at the NHS, it’s an international attack and a number of countries and organisations have been affected.
There are reports around that as many as 40 NHS organisations have been hit by the cyber-attack. NHS Digital says it is not going to confirm the number until tomorrow.
The cyber-attack that has hit the NHS is part of a wider international attack, the prime minister Theresa May has confirmed.
She said there is no evidence that patient data had been compromised.
One expert who has worked closely with law enforcement says this would be seen as an attack on critical national infrastructure. He says investigators will be examining systems affected by the ransomware to see how badly they are affected and whether they, in turn, can or already have infected other computer systems connected to them.
He adds that the fear is that the ransonware cannot be broken and thus data and files infected are either lost or that the only way to get them back would be to pay the ransom, which would involve giving money to criminals.
One question arising from the attack on a sector of critical national infrastructure is whether the government has a policy on paying ransom to cyber hackers.
British government policy in the case of a terrorist attack or of the taking of a person hostage is clear: ransom will not be paid. But it is not clear if a policy exists for the 21st-century cyber equivalent. The lead agency dealing with the attack on the NHS is the National Cyber Security Centre, an arm of GCHQ.
The New York Times is reporting that 12 countries, including the UK, have been affected.
It reports that the attack struck “computers across a wide swath of Europe and Asia”, saying that Japan, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam and the Philippines are among those affected.
Prof Alan Woodward, a security expert from the University of Surrey, says the attackers appear to have taken advantage of a chink in the armour of Microsoft XP that was exposed in a recent leak of CIA hacking tools.
He says the problem may have been exacerbated because organisations have not updated their software with the fixes made available, or are using outdated versions.
From what we can see, it is a piece of ransomware called wanna decryptor. It goes by other names but it emerged in February 2017. Since then, it has been modified and there is evidence that it is spreading using a flaw in the Microsoft network protocol called SMB, which was exposed in the recent dump of exploits that were allegedly from US intelligence agencies.
It is not just the NHS affected: reports suggest it is a global problem. The virulence is likely to be because some organisations have either not applied the patch released by Microsoft, or they are using outdated operating systems (such as XP) that are no longer supported by Microsoft and hence no patch exists.
NHS England have released an updated statement. Dr Anne Rainsberry, the NHS incident director, said:
We’d like to reassure patients that if they need the NHS and it’s an emergency that they should visit A&E or access emergency services in the same way as they normally would and staff will ensure they get the care they need.
More widely, we ask people to use the NHS wisely while we deal with this major incident, which is still ongoing. NHS Digital are investigating the incident and across the NHS we have tried and tested contingency plans to ensure we are able to keep the NHS open for business.
Here’s a little background from my colleagues Damien Gayle, Alexandra Topping and Sarah Marsh. They report the situation as it stood at about 5pm today:
Hospitals across England have been hit by a large-scale cyber-attack, the NHS has confirmed, which has locked staff out of their computers and forced many trusts to divert emergency patients.
The IT systems of NHS sites across the country appear to have been simultaneously hit, with a pop-up message demanding a ransom in exchange for access to the PCs. NHS England has declared a major incident. NHS Digital said it was aware of the problem and would release more details soon.
The NHS has declared a major incident after it was hit by a cyber attack that is thought to have affected services across England and Scotland. Staff have been locked out of their computers and many trusts have been forced to divert emergency patients.
We’ll be updating you here as this story develops.
Live coverage of all the day’s campaign action with the last PMQs before the election and a row over Labour’s NHS funding promises
Labour will lift pay cap for ‘overworked’ NHS staff
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PMQs – Snap verdict
PMQs – Verdict from the Twitter commentariat
Afternoon summary
You’d have to have a screw loose not to think things are pretty tough. I noticed when Jeremy addressed the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] he didn’t announce the key seats we’d need to take off the Tories to form a Labour government. I thought that was ominous.
It is a remarkable achievement for the leadership to have taken a catastrophic situation in Scotland and made it quite a lot worse. We seem to be doing worse in Wales … We’ve gone backwards amongst every demographic, every region of the country. Jeremy is behind Theresa May on managing the NHS! It’s quite a special achievement to put all of that together in a short period of time. Hats off to Jeremy and Seumas [Milne], Diane [Abbott] and John [McDonnell]. That’s pretty special.
In February the government announced that it would close the so-called Dubs scheme for taking unaccompanied child refugees from Europe after a total of 350 were admitted. This caused outrage because, when the government accepted Lord Dubs’ amendment to the Immigration Act committing it to take some unaccompanied child refugees, it was expected that around 3,000 could be admitted.
Today, in a written ministerial statement, the Home Office minister Robert Goodwill has admitted that a further 130 places are available for unaccompanied child refugees. The Home Office should have know about these extra places when it made its announcement two months ago but it didn’t because it lost the submission from a council saying it could provide the places.
The government remains fully committed to the implementation of our commitment under section 67 [the Dubs amendment] to transfer unaccompanied children to the UK from Europe and no eligible child has been refused transfer to the UK as a result of this error. The home secretary has written to her counterparts in France, Greece and Italy and we are working closely with member states, as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and NGO partners so we can identify and transfer children to the UK as soon as possible.
It is welcome that an extra 130 children will be brought to safety in Britain under the Dubs scheme. But it beggars belief that these children weren’t helped earlier because of a basic admin error. This shows a shameful failure by the Home Office to talk properly to local councils who were willing and able to help or to check they had counted the figures up right. This shows the Home Office simply hasn’t taken this seriously enough.
Time and again the select committee and local councils across the country told the Home office that there were more places available, but they wouldn’t budge and they failed to follow up. Surely on something as important as this, when children are at risk of trafficking and prostitution, they would have checked the numbers were right.
Here is another picture from Jeremy Corbyn’s NHS visit this afternoon.
The Scottish Labour party has named a former chief of the pro-UK Better Together campaign, Blair McDougall, and a leading Corbyn supporter, Rhea Wolfson, in their first tranche of general election candidates.
After its rout by the Scottish National party at the 2015 election, Scottish Labour was left with one MP, leaving it the major task of finding up to 58 new candidates when its popularity is at a record low of 14%. This is the first election where Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale and her officials have autonomy from the UK party in choosing candidates.
Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, has also criticised Jeremy Corbyn for not being willing to take part in a leaders’ debate without Theresa May. She is echoing what her friend and political ally, the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, said on Twitter earlier. (See 2.08pm.) In 2015 Wood and Sturgeon joined Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, and Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, in a so-called “challengers’ debate” that did not feature David Cameron.
Wood said:
It is disappointing to hear that the leader of the Labour party is not prepared to take part in any televised leaders’ debates without the prime minister.
These debates are a good opportunity for people to engage with the election and for the leaders to put forward their vision to voters.
You have probably got the point about “strong and stable leadership” by now, but just in case you haven’t, the Guardian video team have produced a video pointing out just how frequently the Tories hammered home this message at PMQs.
Jeremy Corbyn has renewed his call for Theresa May to take part in TV election debates. And he has signalled that he won’t take part if she is not included. Speaking to Sky News, he said:
I asked Theresa May this morning about the TV debates, lots of people asked her about it, and she said they’re over because there are no more prime minister’s question times because parliament is now dissolved, or will be dissolved next week. And so, actually, the debate has to include the prime minister, the leader of the Conservative party, and we are up for that debate.
You will see me all over the country taking questions from people on the streets.
This is from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
CPS source confirms they’ve received a file from Kent Police over election expenses in South Thanet
Jeremy Corbyn has been meeting health workers today.
A Panelbase poll is out today giving the Conservatives a 22-point lead over Labour. Here are the figures.
On BBC Radio 5 Live Michael Gove, the former Conservative justice secretary and a leader of the Vote Leave campaign, said he was “absolutely convinced” that Brexit would result in more money going to the NHS. When it was put to him that Vote Leave had said at one point that an extra £100m a week would go to the NHS if the UK left the EU, and he was asked if he still expected that, he replied:
I am absolutely convinced that we will be spending significantly more on the NHS [after Brexit.] I hope it’s £100m.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, has tweeted saying that he has “sacked” David Ward as a candidate. (See 2.26pm.)
I believe in a politics that is open, tolerant and united. David Ward is unfit to represent the party and I have sacked him.
Arlene Foster, Democratic Unionist leader and first minister in the last power sharing government in Northern Ireland, took time out today from electioneering to pay a highly symbolic visit to Irish language pupils at a Catholic school near the border.
Foster had been criticised earlier this year for her opposition to an Irish Language Act – a key demand by Sinn Fein – which would put Gaelic on an equal par to English throughout Northern Ireland.
Now Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, is accusing Jeremy Corbyn of “running scared” after it emerged that Corbyn will not take part in TV election debates if Theresa May is not included. Farron said:
Corbyn is running scared. He is running away from facing his opponents, he is running away from defending his policies, he is running away from leadership.
The Liberal Democrats have barred former Bradford East MP David Ward from standing again for the party, after Tim Farron said his comments about Jews had been “deeply offensive, wrong and antisemitic”, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Related: Tim Farron sacks Lib Dem candidate for ‘deeply offensive and antisemitic’ comments
In the huddle for lobby journalists after the final PMQs of the parliament, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman struck an upbeat note about Labour’s prospects. He said the Conservatives’ poll lead will narrow once the campaign gets underway and the public get to hear Labour’s message, “in our own voice”.
We are confident that we can win this election, and we’re fighting for every seat, and we’re confident that once Labour’s message is clearly heard, and there is a chance for the public to hear policies that many of them won’t have heard before, but which are extremely popular, and we know to be so, that will have cut-through, and Labour support will increase.
The politics and the polling is actually quite complex and quite varied across different countries, and I don’t think it’s just a technical issue to do with the polling companies that we’re in; I think it’s to do with the volatile and fluid political situation, with much more fragmentation.
This was all dealt with when the allegation first came out, and it’s not the case that John McDonnell signed any such statement. When the story was first run about a year ago it was made clear that it was confusion about another statement; he never signed the statement involving MI5, it was another story entirely. This is recycled fake news.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has been campaigning in Stirling today.
On the World at One Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s general election coordinator, said the party’s manifesto would be published on Monday 15 May. Asked how Labour would fund its promises, he replied:
I’m not in a position to spell out the Labour party’s full manifesto here. But we will have to wait until May 15 for the manifesto.
Conservatives have denied that Boris Johnson is being sidelined from the party’s general election campaign by Theresa May, the Press Association reports.
Reports have suggested the foreign secretary has been told to keep a low profile because he is vulnerable to challenge over his pre-referendum claims that Brexit would deliver £350m a week to spend on the NHS.
A senior Conservative source dismissed the claims as speculation, and said Johnson would soon enter the fray.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has criticised Jeremy Corbyn for apparently refusing to take part in an election debates if Theresa May is not involved. She posted this on Twitter.
Faced with an open goal, Corbyn decides against even attempting to score . Unbelievable, if true. https://t.co/JkRBLxgLID
Source close to Jeremy Corbyn reveals he won’t take part in TV debates if Theresa May doesn’t. #GE17
This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about PMQs.
Mostly people are quite positive about Jeremy Corbyn, although several people think Angus Robertson was more effective.
Corbyn uses last #PMQs to attack May on triple lock, NHS, housing, education spending cuts. Weak ground 4 May but no real blows dealt #PMQs
May is a master at not answering the question. That is why Corbyn should use #PMQs to ask her the same one 6 times. Makes her uncomfortable
Corbyn channelling impressive levels of passion at #PMQs
Corbyn is doing rather well, as he did last week. Spitting out the questions. May quite pugnacious in reply
There’s much more to being a good PM than PMQs, of course, but May remains quite weak at this. No wonder she’s dodging tv debates
COMMENT AR shows JC how to do #PMQs but remember TM wants to drop pensions triple lock. If this is the worst this gets for her…
Theresa May savages Jeremy Corbyn at final PMQs before election #GE2017 https://t.co/9X2W54WHBL pic.twitter.com/hsy094eOaX
.@AngusRobertson there proving he’s the best opposition leader in the Commons. Skewers May on pension lock #pmqs
SNP’s Angus Robertson doing what Corbyn cd hv done: forcing May to wriggle on triple lock for pensions. May refuses to guarantee it. #pmqs
Corbyn channelling Miliband 2013: “He may be strong at standing up to weak, but always weak when it comes to standing up against the strong”
Corbyn with decent election lines the tories are for ‘the rich not the rest, the strong against the weak, and weak against the strong’
Corbyn quoted both Blair (“many not the few”) and Miliband (“weak against the strong”) at #PMQs. https://t.co/Q15ztRfeIH
Some very glum faces from Labour moderates sitting behind Corbyn during PMQs.
This is #PMQs at its worst – neither answering questions, talking about completely different subjects and shouting slogans #PMQs
Labour sources are also criticising Theresa May for referring to Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs as a terrorist sympathiser.
Senior Labour source says May calling Corbyn “a terrorist sympathiser” in #pmqs was a “discredit to the office of Prime Minister”
I Like Corbyn, But… https://t.co/xZPMEvtpjH
It gets so much better #ILikeCorbynBut pic.twitter.com/YzQwd7xrC8
Labour are ruling out Jeremy Corbyn taking part in any TV debates that do not feature Theresa May, Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh reports.
Labour source just ruled out Corbyn taking part in any TV debates that don’t feature Theresa May.
Theresa May refused to commit to keeping the triple lock at PMQs. But, according to today’s Times, the Tories are thinking of keeping the policy, which ensures pensions rise every year in line with earnings, inflation or 2.5%, whichever is highest, on the grounds that it would be cost free. Here’s an extract from Francis Elliott and Oliver Wright’s story (paywall).
Theresa May is considering keeping the “triple lock” guarantee on state pension increases because it is likely to be a cost-free promise for the next parliament, according to senior ministers.
Labour has promised to increase the state pension by a minimum of 2.5 per cent a year, despite warnings that it could cost taxpayers an additional 1 per cent of GDP by 2036. The lock is triggered only if inflation falls below that figure and the Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting that wages and prices will increase at a faster pace in the next few years.
The Lib Dem peer Olly Grender, who worked in Number 10 as deputy communications director during the coalition, says Theresa May was wrong at PMQs to argue that the Conservatives deserved credit for increasing council house building during the coalition.
Under Coalition NOT Con Govt increase in council house building thanks to LibDems who insisted (Tories at time didn’t give a ****) #PMQs
This is from Politico Europe’s Tom McTague.
French ambassador Sylvie Bermann in the chamber for PMQs. Chuckling away. Would love to read her diptel!
The SNP’s Alex Salmond says Liam Fox went to the Philippines and said we had “shared values” with it. What shared values do we have with Rodrigo Duterte?
May says we need trade deals after Brexit to ensure a strong economy.
Sir Simon Burns, a Conservative, says he has been Chelmsford MP for 30 years. They are perspicacious, he says. They want a government with a strong economy, strong defences and strong leadership. May will deliver that for the next five years, he says.
May thanks Burns for his contribution as an MP and as a minister.
Douglas Carswell, the independent MP, asks what assurance May can give to the 3.8m people who voted Ukip at the last election.
May says she wants to see the UK getting control of its borders and control of its laws.
Dame Angela Watkinson, a Conservative, asks May why people should continue to vote Conservative.
May says every vote for her and the Conservative candidate will be a vote to strengthen her hands in the Brexit talks.
Labour’s George Howarth says Andy Burnham had a debate yesterday on contaminated blood. He called for a Hillsborough-style panel to get to the truth. Will May join the SNP and Labour in backing the idea.
May says the government has put more money into compensation. The department of health will respond to the consultation.
Mike Wood, a Conservative, says it is good to be back. Doctors saved his life in January. Will May look at what can be done to reduce deaths from sepsis.
May says it is fantastic to see Wood back. She says he is right to focus attention on this problem. The department of health is working on a new sepsis action plan.
Labour’s Grahame Morris asks why May is afraid of TV debates. One should be held in Easington, he says, where May could see the impact of her policies.
May says she has been debating Corbyn every week.
Sir Gerald Howarth, a Conservative who is standing down, says he came into the Commons in 1983, when the country had a strong woman leader, and he leaves as another one is restoring British sovereignty. He appeals to Howarth to protect the armed forces guarding “this sceptred isle”.
May says people will have a choice at the election. The Tories will continue to protect the armed forces.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, says May once berated her party as the “nasty party”. But it has never been nastier. And Labour is not holding to account. Doesn’t the country need the Lib Dems?
May says Farron talks about a decent opposition. She says Farron cannot say that when the Lib Dems have just elected a candidate with a questionable record on antisemitism.
Sir Eric Pickles, the Conservative, asks May about anti-semitism, and if she shares his disgust at the selection of David Ward, a former MP accuses of anti-semitism, as a Lib Dem candidate. (See 10.35am.)
May pays tribute to the work Pickles had done tackling anti-semitism. She says people will be disappointed to see the Lib Dems adopt a candidate with a questionable record on anti-semitism.
Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP MP, asks May if she agrees that those who refuse to take their seats (Sinn Fein) and who are refusing to form a government in Northern Ireland are not serving their constituents.
May agrees. She says she wants to work for the restoration of a government in Northern Ireland.
Peter Lilley, the Conservative, says he is standing down because of Theresa May. He says he has confidence that she will deliver Brexit properly. And we must accept that no deal is better than a bad deal. To deny this would be to admit that no price would be too high. That would be the worst possible deal, he says.
May thanks Lilley for everything he has done, not just as an MP, but as a minister in government. She says it is right to get on with delivering Brexit. The only way to ensure that is to get a Conservative government elected.
PMQs – Snap verdict: At PMQs you can deploy the sniper’s rifle or the shotgun, and today we saw Angus Robertson try one, and Jeremy Corbyn use the other. They were both effective in their way, although Theresa May’s shield of slogans and talking points managed to protect her quite adequately. It did not feel as if anyone secured a great triumph.
But in the circumstances, and with polling organisations pouring humiliation over Corbyn by the hour, that probably amounted to something of a win for the Labour leader. He asked about a range of topics, resorting to the “here’s a question from a viewer” formula that he used frequently in his first PMQs outings and neatly skewering May over her reluctance to take questions from members of the public. It was not flashy or eye-catching, but it was honest and solid and his points were strong. In response, May resorted to carpet-bombing Corbyn with the “strong and stable” leadership stuff. Her message discipline is outstanding, and conventional wisdom has it that you cannot repeat these slogans too often (although May seems to be testing that theory to destruction.)
Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, asks for a clear and unambiguous commitment to keeping the triple lock for pensioners.
May says she has been very clear that pensioners have benefited to the tune of £1,250 a year. Under her pension incomes will continue to increase.
Ben Howlett, a Conservative, asks if May agrees that his voters should give him a renewed mandate to improve traffic around Bath.
May agrees. A vote for any other party is a vote for wrecking the economy.
Corbyn says millions of women will have heard that answer. Labour will guarantee the triple lock. And it won’t move the goalposts. Sybil, who witnessed the founding of the NHS, said she is 88. She has had wonderful service from the NHS. But now she is scared of going into hospital. With more delayed discharges, isn’t she right to be frightened.
May says the NHS is treated more people than ever before. But that is only possible with a strong economy. She says she will defend her record. She says Diane Abbott has been directing her followers to a website “I like Corbyn but ..”. It addresses questions about Corbyn not being able to pay for his policies and being a terrorist sympathiser. Even Corbyn’s supporters know he is not fit to run the country.
Corbyn says the last Labour government delivered a decent homes standard for every council in the country. House building has fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s. Children are being held back by cuts. Laura, a teacher, said she was seeing less cash every year to pay for children, and more reliance on parent funding. Is May still denying funding per pupil is being cut.
May says record levels of funding are going into schools. People will have a choice, she says. The government has delivered more good school places. Corbyn believes in a one-size-fits-all, take-it-or-leave-it approach to education.
Corbyn says Andy is concerned about how his children are being held back. All three of his children, in their mid 20s, cannot afford to move out of the family home. Don’t we need a housing strategy to deal with it?
May asks what happened under Labour. Under Labour, house building starts fell by 45%. And the number of social homes fell. Under the Conservatives more than twice as much council housing has been built as under Labour.
Jeremy Corbyn says this is the last PMQs of this parliament. It would be appropriate to pay tribute to MPs who are leaving, he says. And he thanks the speaker for presiding over these exchanges.
He says when he became leader 18 months ago he said he wanted people’s voices to be heard in parliament. So, instead of just speaking to handpicked audiences, will May today answer questions from the public. Christopher wrote to him this week saying hus husband had only a 1% increase in wages. But their buying power had gone down 15%. So where is his share in the stronger economy.
Richard Drax, a Conservative, asks about a leftwing campaign for socialist victory that proposed disbanding M15. Would May allow anyone like that to draft her manifesto?
No, says May. She says the plan to disband MI%, disarm the police and scrap the deterrent was endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn’s policy chief, Andrew Fisher. Corbyn is “simply not up to the job”, she says.
Theresa May starts by answering a closed question from the Conservative MP Michael Fabricant about the economy in the West Midlands. It is doing well, she says. And so are public services, because you can only have those with “strong and stable leadership”.
Fabricant says the country needs “strong and stable leadership”.
This is from the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves.
More Labour MPs in for #PMQs than there have been for a while – some taking a last look around?
Very loud cheers for Theresa May as she enters Commons chamber for #PMQs
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
#PMQS LIVEBLOG: These lucky MPs will be grilling the PM from 12. Follow all the action here – https://t.co/B8kBRMA48K pic.twitter.com/mTlwnKdOKL
This is from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
This Parliament has only sat for 299 days – and had 61 PMQs – for some MPs, today’s the leaving do! Election will decide which ones
PMQs will start in 10 minutes. It is the last of this parliament.
And it is also only the second, and last, election TV debate between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn (counting last week’s PMQs as the first.)
Ipsos MORI has more good news for the Conservatives on the polling front. As Joe Murphy reports in the Evening Standard, Theresa May has the best ratings on “best PM” since the firm started polling on this in the 1970s. Here’s an extract from Murphy’s story.
Theresa May’s leadership score has soared higher than either Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair enjoyed in their best years, an exclusive poll reveals today
The Ipsos MORI survey shows the Conservatives on 49 per cent, with an extraordinary 23 per cent lead over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour who are on 26 …
Mahatma Gandhi was one of the great figures of the 20th century. He led India to independence and championed a form of non-violent civil disobedience that inspired campaigners around the world. It is hard to think of a modern equivalent, but the Ukip leader Paul Nuttall has suggested a possible candidate: himself.
Nuttall did quite put himself in the same league as the great Gandhi, but in an interview with the Wolverhampton Express and Star suggested they had something in common and the paper’s website has headlined the story: “I’m like Gandhi, says Ukip leader Paul Nuttall in Wolverhampton.” This is what Nuttall told the paper:
Raising issues of equality, women’s rights, and FGM are the issues other parties don’t want to tackle.
Ukip will lead on these and as I said in our press conference I feel as if we are a decade ahead of our time – a bit like we were a decade ahead of our time on getting out of the EU, and on mass immigration.
YouGov has released some new polling this morning. Since February, Theresa May’s net favourability rating has gone up (from +6 to +10) and Jeremy Corbyn’s has gone done (from -40 to -42).
Peter Lilley, the Conservative former social security secretary regarded as one of the Eurosceptics cabinet “bastards” once denounced by John Major, is standing down, the Guido Fawkes blog reports. In a statement announcing his decision Lilley said:
Now we have in Theresa May an outstanding Prime Minister in whom I have great confidence.
I profoundly hope she will be returned with a strong mandate to complete the process of leaving the EU and to seize the opportunities which regaining control of our laws, border, money and trade will give our country.
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron is continuing his tour of remain seats with Brexiteer MPs, after vowing to unseat Labour’s Kate Hoey in Vauxhall. His stop today is St Albans, where more than 62% of voters backed staying in the EU but Conservative MP Anne Main campaigned for leave.
Farron used the campaign stop to highlight the risk to the economy of leaving the EU and tell businesses they should stop funding the Conservatives while they pursue a hard Brexit.
My message to business is this – dump the Tories. Every penny you give them will hurt you; you are funding your own funeral. The success of British business matters. Strong British businesses mean more jobs and a stronger society.
With this disastrous hard Brexit the government is hurting businesses, both big and small, costing jobs and hitting families. All this means fewer jobs, higher prices and spiralling costs of things like fuel. This is a Brexit squeeze affecting millions of people.
.@timfarron visits the National Pharmacy Association in St Albans with @libdemdaisy talking about the #NHS & care pic.twitter.com/ZImwhVQEX1
The Conservatives have also produced a briefing accusing Labour of spending the money it proposes to raise from corporation tax over and over again. The Lib Dems cited 10 examples, although two items on their list were essentially the same. (See 9.09am.) In a note for journalists a few days ago, the Tories cited 11 examples. Most of the Tory ones were the same as the Lib Dem ones, but the Tories had three examples not on the Lib Dem list. Here they are, as set out in the Tory briefing.
Scrapping university tuition fees. Jeremy Corbyn said:‘At the moment what we’re doing is asking students to fund universities rather than the public to fund universities. I would rather move in to the other way around, with public funding of it … It would be largely on levels of corporate taxation’ (Victoria Derbyshire Labour Leadership Hustings, 17 August 2016).
Reversing changes to Universal Credit. John McDonnell:‘Universal Credit. We’re hoping on Wednesday the government will reverse that … If you had a fair taxation system, you weren’t giving the tax giveaways to corporations and to the rich, if you seriously tackle tax evasion and tax avoidance, if you grew the economy we’d be able to afford – we’d be able to afford our public services’ (The Andrew Marr Show, BBC One, 21 November 2016).
Tuition fees will be scrapped and maintenance grants brought back, the Green party are announcing as key features of their election manifesto.
Co-leaders Jonathan Bartley and deputy leader Amelia Womack will also say in a speech today that students and universities will be protected after Brexit if the Green party were in power.
The Green party is the only party standing up for students and putting young people at the heart of its campaign.
Education is a right not a commodity to be bought and sold, and we need a level playing field so everyone has the chance to go to university or college.
If the referendum result had gone the other way David Cameron – remember him? – would be in Downing Street this morning preparing for PMQs. Instead he happens to be in Bangkok, where he has just finished speaking at a tourism conference. My colleague Oliver Holmes was there and he has sent me the highlights.
Here are some of the key points he made.
Let me be optimistic … It’s very good that we are having this election, because I think if Theresa May is successful, she’ll actually have a larger majority and, potentially, more time to deal with Brexit and its consequences.
Arguably, you could say, looking at the state of British politics, the Conservative party having accepted the referendum result and got on with the process and responsibly delivering it, is probably the most healthy mainstream political party anywhere in western Europe.
It was a legitimate cause of populist concern, that Britain was a member of this organisation, the organisation had changed a huge amount over the last forty years, it had gained more powers, it had passed more treaties, it had become more important in more areas. And yet in spite of the fact that the British people were occasional offered a referendum by their leaders, most famously by Tony Blair, they never got a referendum.
If you want to address the causes of populism, it was necessary, in my view, to have a referendum.
But I think it was the right thing. The lack of a referendum was poisoning British politics and so I put that right.
These terrorists and their apologists are trying hijack a great religion and twist and pervert it for their own ends. We must not play into their hands. And that was to me, the biggest problem with President Tump’s travel ban. It would be seen, could be seen, as labelling whole countries as extreme and dangerous because they were predominately Islamic. It’s not a clash between civilisations that we face. That is what the extremists want us to think. This is if you like a war within Islam.”
There would have been a big lesson learn. I thought it was misconceived from the very outset.
Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told the Today programme earlier that Labour would have to raise “significant extra sums” to fund its plan to give NHS staff a pay rise. He said:
Each 1% on pay, just 1%, costs half a billion pounds each time. It’s not possible to say from what the Labour party have said quite how much more they intend to spend on the NHS.
If you are going to do that over the next two or three years you will also clearly need to raise significant extra sums in tax revenue.
Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem former health minister, told the Today programme that he agreed with Labour about the need for NHS staff to be paid more. He said the current 1% cap on NHS pay increases was unsustainable.
In effect we are asking very many staff across the NHS to just, year on year, take a pay cut in real terms in order to sustain our NHS. And I don’t think that’s acceptable. I think ultimately it’s dangerous. We are seeing widespread vacancies … Actually people will vote with their feet and leave if you don’t maintain wages at least in real terms.
The problem with the Labour position is their proposal just isn’t credible … The money from corporation tax increase has been spent about 10 times over.
Labour have already committed to using funding from an increase to corporation tax ten times since the last general election:
1. Bringing back the education maintenance allowance and university maintenance grants.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, will announce his guarantees for NHS staff in a speech to the Unison conference in Liverpool. According to extracts released in advance he will say:
NHS staff have been taken for granted for too long by the Conservatives. Cuts to pay and training mean hard working staff are being forced from NHS professions and young people are being put off before they have even started. Now Brexit threatens the ability of health employers to recruit from overseas.
What is bad for NHS staff is bad for patients too. Short staffing means reduced services and a threat to patient safety. Labour’s new guarantees for NHS staff will help keep services running at the standard which England’s patients expect …
In his Today interview earlier Jeremy Hunt admitted that Brexit would have an impact on the NHS.
There’s no point saying that Brexit and the Brexit negotiations won’t affect the NHS. This is absolutely critical for our public services.
Q: Are you saying you will give the NHS whatever it needs?
Ashworth says the NHS has not had what it needs.
Good morning. I’m taking over from Claire.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, is on Today now.
We will outline what level corporation tax will be in our manifesto when we publish it in the coming days … The whole programme that the Labour Party will be putting to the country in this election campaign will be costed.
I’m now handing over the live reins to Andrew Sparrow, who’ll take you through the rest of the day’s political news.
A quick reminder: you can sign up for the Snap, our daily election briefing email, here.
In a video for the Guardian, Paul Mason pushes back against the argument from the Daily Mail and others that those who oppose the government and its Brexit plans are “saboteurs”. Meaningful opposition to the Tories is necessary for the country and for democracy, he argues:
Meg Hillier, the Labour MP who chairs the cross-party public accounts committee, has been talking about its free schools report.
We will consider the recommendations carefully and respond in due course.
As well as Labour’s own NHS pledges, we might expect Jeremy Corbyn to press Theresa May on this damning MPs’ report on free schools when the two leaders meet for the final PMQs of this parliament at noon.
In the – so far – planned absence of televised head-to-head debates during the campaign, today could be the last time we see May and Corbyn take each other on ahead of 8 June.
The DfE is spending well over the odds in its bid to create 500 more free schools while other schools are in poor condition. Many free schools are in inadequate premises, including many without on-site playgrounds or sports facilities …
The department is in a weak negotiating position and commonly pays well in excess of the official valuation. On average, it has paid 19% over the official valuation, with 20 sites costing over 60% more.
Leaders in Europe will demand that Theresa May respects the right of EU nationals who have lived in the UK for five years to acquire permanent residence, Daniel Boffey and Lisa O’Carroll report:
In a sign of growing anger over the perceived bureaucratic hurdles being put in their way, the call will be made at a summit on Saturday, where the leaders of the 27 other EU member states are set to sign their negotiating guidelines.
The guidelines were amended by officials on Monday to strengthen demands over Britain’s €60bn divorce bill, open the door to further cooperation on EU-UK foreign policy and law enforcement, and add a call for transparency during the talks.
Such guarantees must be effective, enforceable, non-discriminatory and comprehensive, including the right to acquire permanent residence after a continuous period of five years of legal residence. Citizens should be able to exercise their rights through smooth and simple administrative procedures.
Related: Brexit: EU leaders to demand May respect citizens’ residency rights
Pressed on the issue of social care – which Theresa May has pledged to “stop ducking” – Jeremy Hunt is similarly reticent about what the not-ducking will look like:
We need a long-term sustainable solution.
You’ll have to wait and see what manifesto says … I’m not going to speculate on what the contents of our manifesto are.
And here’s Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, who’s popped up to defend his record against the Labour claim that staff are “ignored, insulted, undervalued, overworked and underpaid by this Tory government”.
I think they are working harder than they’ve ever worked before … You see a government that’s responding to that.
We will be able to train record number of nurses.
Applications do then recover.
You’ll have to wait and see what the manifesto says.
Labour will be attempting to shift the debate today on to the NHS, with shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth making a number of pledges:
Related: Labour will give pay rise to ‘overworked and underpaid’ NHS staff
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader (with Caroline Lucas) of the Green party, has been updating Radio 4’s Today programme on the progress of the progressive alliance, their proposed anti-Tory electoral pact.
The response from Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron, says Bartley, has been
very disappointing … they haven’t responded.
On a local level, people are talking to each other …
We want people to vote Green [but] we will support whatever the local party wants to do. But it has to be a reciprocal arrangement.
Good morning and welcome back to another day on the campaign marathon.
I’m Claire Phipps, bringing you this morning’s essential – should your morning be incomplete without news of constituency selection battles – briefing, and steering the live blog until Andrew Sparrow joins us later.
Remember, the opinion polls were wrong in the 2015 general election; they were wrong in the referendum; and Jeremy Corbyn himself has said that he was a 200-1 outsider for the Labour leadership in 2015 – and look where that got him.
In effect, this is EU Referendum 2. This is the chance for those who didn’t vote/couldn’t vote, to come out. It’s a chance for Remainers to convert more people, help their friends to see the catastrophe that Brexit is …
‘My own constituency voted Remain,’ Theresa May announced in the Commons as an example of her adhering to the ‘will of the people’. But if everyone in Maidenhead who voted Remain backed the Lib Dems in June, the PM could lose her seat.
The Labour party will need more than a wish list and a collection of grievances. I’ll offer three topics for starters. How do we ensure a fair intergenerational settlement? How can our education and tax system respond to the changes of the world of work and employment? Where do we anchor democratic accountability in a world of global flows of goods, money and people?
Planning for parliamentary deadlock and pacts with other parties might be tempting. But these are the methods of counter-insurgents. If Labour instead wants to be a party of government, it has to go into the 2017 election fighting for every vote.
The gap between first- and second-place party in 2015, 2010 or earlier, as well as any byelection result, is not the only factor. Strategists are having to look at how many people in a given seat voted leave or remain in last year’s EU referendum. This information is especially crucial for the Liberal Democrats …
A 30- to 40-point improvement (that is, a 15% to 20% swing that went entirely from the first-placed party to the Lib Dems) would do the job in seats where a majority voted remain – but that is an incredibly ambitious target.
I do not want the people of Scotland to think that English eurosceptics put their dislike of Brussels ahead of our bond with Edinburgh and Glasgow.
It took two months but Trudy Harrison’s first speech as MP was good. “Who knows if you’ll be back,” SNP MP replies in praise. “Or any of us”
Going into a career in nursing can be challenging, exhausting and demoralising, yet also rewarding and full of opportunities.
But while headlines scream about nursing shortages, funding problems and cuts to bursaries, the profession is still attracting talent.
For those entering a career in nursing, pay, education and advancing the nurse’s role are important issues. Staffing levels and the mix of qualified and support workers; nursing’s response to the changing healthcare agenda; and the recurring accusation that the profession has somehow lost its soul have also come into the mix in recent years.
To mark Nurses’ Day on Friday 12 May, we’ll be asking an expert panel how to make a success of a nursing career. Topics will include:
Can compassion be taught and how to be compassionate on a long shift
How to talk about death with colleagues and patients
Burn-out and how to avoid it
Who to turn to for support
The impact of cutting student bursaries
The role of nursing associates
The live chat is not video or audio-enabled but will take place in the comments section (below). If you would like to feature on the panel or propose questions, please get in touch via alfie.packham@theguardian.com or @GdnHealthcare (#GdnNursing) on Twitter.
Discussion commissioned and controlled by the Guardian, funded by Bucks New University
The panel so far
Anne Corrin, head of education, Royal College of Nursing
Donna Thomas, A&E nurse
Becky Platt, matron for children’s services, West Herts hospitals NHS trust
Prof Ian Norman, executive dean, Florence Nightingale faculty of nursing & midwifery, King’s College London
Sue West, qualified as a registered nurse in 1982, dean of the faculty of society and health, Buckinghamshire New University
You can’t buy time – except, it seems, in America.
Increasing inequality means wealthy Americans can now expect to live up to 15 years longer than their poor counterparts, reports in the British medical journal the Lancet have found.
Researchers said these disparities appear to be worsened by the American health system itself, which relies on for-profit insurance companies, and is the most expensive in the world.
Their conclusion? Treat healthcare as a human right.
“Healthcare is not a commodity,” wrote US Senator Bernie Sanders in an opinion article introducing the issue of the journal, whichis devoted to inequality in American healthcare.“The goal of a healthcare system should be to keep people well, not to make stockholders rich. The USA has the most expensive, bureaucratic, wasteful, and ineffective healthcare system in the world.”
Sanders, like authors of the lead report, called for single-payer health insurance or what Americans might know as “Medicare for all”, a reference to an existing public health program for older Americans.
“Making sure that every citizen has the right to childcare, healthcare, a college education, and secure retirement is not a radical idea. It is as American as apple pie,” he said.
The Lancet studies looked at how the American health system affects inequality and structural racism, and how mass incarceration and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, have changed public health.
Among the studies’ key findings: the richest 1% live up to 15 years longer than the poorest 1%; the same gap in life expectancy widened in recent decades, making poverty a powerful indicator for death; more than one-third of low-income Americans avoid medical care because of costs (compared to 7% in Canada and 1% in the UK); the poorest fifth of Americans pay twice as much for healthcare as a share of income (6% for the poor, versus 3.2% for the rich); and life expectancy would have grown 51.1% more from 1983 to 2005had mass incarceration not accelerated in the mid-1980s.
The poorest Americans have suffered in particular, with life expectancies falling in some groups even while medicine has advanced. For example, researchers reported that the poorest fifth of women born between 1930 and 1960 statistically lived four years less than Americans in the top fifth of the socioeconomic spectrum.
All of these health outcomes arrive in the context of widening general inequality. The share of total income going to the top 1% of earners has more than doubled since 1970,making the US more unequal than all but three developed countries: Chile, Mexico and Turkey.
At the same time, the ACA brought relief to many. The number of Americans without insurance dropped from 48.6 million in 2010 to 28.6 million in 2015. The number of Americans who struggle with medical bills dropped from 41% to 35% in 2014.
Further, accounting for current public health insurance programs, military healthcare, the portion of local and state budgets used to purchase private health insurance for workers, and subsidies to employers to buy workers health insurance, researchers believe as much as 65% of health insurance nationally is already paid for by taxpayers.
The conclusions come at a tumultuous time for American healthcare.
Donald Trump’s election threw his predecessor’s market-based health laws into question. Trump promised multiple times on the campaign trail to repeal the ACA and replace it with “something terrific”.
Though Barack Obama’s signature health law insured more Americans than ever before, problems remain.
Insurance companies have increasingly passed costs on to consumers through “cost-sharing”, or asking Americans to pay more for doctor’s visits, prescription drugs and procedures before insurance kicks in. Sky-high prescription drug prices have prompted public outrage. And a requirement that Americans purchase insurance, even with government subsidies, was politically toxic.
Though Republicans promised for more than seven years to repeal the ACA – if they could only gain control of the federal government – once Trump took office, they offered a plan not conservative enough for conservatives, and not moderate enough for moderates. With an abysmal public approval rating of just 17%, the plan combusted weeks after it was introduced. Failure to pass the bill became a major loss for the Trump administration.
That has left a vacuum of ideas. Republicans tried and failed to resurrect a version of the hated plan this week. Progressives have expressed hope that single-payer reform could move into the forefront.
“I, like many others, was deeply concerned with Republican proposals that went down in flames,” said Dr David Himmelstein, a New York City doctor and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that lobbies for single-payer health reform. Himmelstein was also the author of one Lancet report, America: Equity and Equality in Health.
“It would have been tremendously damaging to large numbers of people in our country. So the defeat of that proposal was encouraging,” he said.
“It’s opened up much more room for debate about what there should be, so in that way, I think it’s an encouraging time that has perils but also opportunities.”
However, single-payer healthcare remains unpopular with American conservatives, who still control the government.
Robert Moffit, a researcher at the conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation, argued that Americans would use healthcare willy-nilly if it were provided by the government.
“I mean look – you can save money with a single-payer system, don’t misunderstand me, but the quality and supply of medical services is going to be determined by government officials,” he said.
“You’re going to have inequalities in any state,” he said, calling it it “naive” to believe a “government-run system that is going to ultimately be highly politicized” would be better than a private one.
As a baby boomer I am ashamed of many of my generation (My generation fought to be free. What happened to us?, 4 April). We are the luckiest generation of the 20th century. Born after the war into the NHS/welfare state, too young for national service, and the first teenage generation to have disposable income. We were witness/participants of the revolution of the 1960s. If we went to university, we had a grant. When we left school, there was almost full employment. Money has followed us as we got older. Yet many of my generation must have voted for Thatcher, Cameron and Brexit. The Tories should not have survived the 19th century, let alone the 20th, and now once again seem the dominant party.
I have voted in all three referendums involving England and found myself on the losing side each time. I voted out in 1975 but subsequently changed my mind when I found out that the only protection for workers during the Thatcher years was Europe. I voted for a change to the electoral system, and finally remain last year. When I was young we were proud of the welfare state. When did welfare get replaced by benefits and become such a dirty word to many of my generation? When will my generation wake up and remember their radical past and recognise that, as Harold Macmillan said, they “have never had it so good”? Richard Ascough Thames Ditton, Surrey
• Polly Toynbee wonders what happened to us. Being of a similar age, I also remember a 1950s childhood followed by the optimistic 1960s. The greater equality and better living standards that many enjoyed then may have obscured far more significant changes abroad. After the independence and partition of India in 1947, most of Britain’s vast empire disappeared between 1957 and 1968, while from 1961 to 1973 the UK was actively attempting to join the European common market.
The subsequent arrival of people from former colonies, of refugees from post-imperial conflicts, and then Europeans entitled to join them, all profoundly changed the daily experience of many urban citizens. Because we have not had to face our chequered history the way others (such as Germany) were obliged to, there is little collective consciousness of the close connection between revolutionary political events half a century ago and current cynical despair. That is what did not happen to us. Dr Sebastian Kraemer London
• Polly Toynbee asks why a generation that fought hard for equality and the liberalisation of attitudes is responsible for denying the same opportunities to those coming behind. I am a member of that generation and one who, along with everyone else I know, voted remain. I feel now that as well as a T-shirt announcing I am one of the 48%, I should have another to say I am one of those who have no wish to bring back the rope, cane or pre-decimal currency. Could it be that those who want to turn the clock back to the 1950s are simply grieving for their lost youth and hoping that by “taking back control” they can have the benefits of being young combined with the knowledge and experience of old age? Wave your blue passport in the air and jingle the pennies and florins in your pocket as much as you like, you will never be 16 again. We’re old, it’s not our time any more. To coin a phrase, get over it. Lynne Copley Huddersfield
• Polly Toynbee reminds me that I was born in the era of the ration book. I grew up in the era of live now, pay later. As we liquidated the empire and repaid the American lend/lease debt in its entirety, the “never had it so good” generation was funded by accumulating debt. Deregulation of the banking system allowed us to pretend debt could expand indefinitely. Politicians never found the courage to tell their constituents to live within their incomes. Austerity is the pay later era of live now.
Older people who want to bring back hanging, flogging and the rest of the 1950s nostalgia want to go through the last 70 years all over again because they cannot see any workable alternative. How we might pay for it all, with the debt already accumulated, is another matter. May and the Brexiteers are getting spiteful because they have seen the figures and know they don’t add up for everyone. Martin London Henllan, Denbighshire
• As I walked along Park Lane, as part of the march for Europe, I remembered that 49 years ago I had been a few streets away in Grosvenor Square, protesting about the Vietnam war. I was amused to notice that half of the EU supporters were old enough to have been there as well. We were vocal then and now, but never a majority. Perhaps what Polly forgets is that our generation was not one entirely made up of hippies and beatniks; there were also the mods, rockers, skinheads and diligent conventionalists. I suspect that baby boomers’ attitudes have not become significantly more or less selfish. Martin Cooper Bromley, Kent
• Polly Toynbee is right to feel ashamed of our generation opting for self-interest in voting out of the EU. I try to cast the smallest pebble into the biggest pond by wearing an EU badge on my coat on all occasions. Val Mainwood Colchester, Essex
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During a recent 10-day stay in a London hospital I impertinently asked each of the 49 people who came to my bedside where they were from originally. Ten were British, five Portuguese, four Spanish, three Philippino, two each from India, Ghana, Somalia and Finland, and one each from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Romania, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Nepal, Brazil, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zaire, Malaysia, Mauritius, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Iran and Nigeria. These figures should mean something to politicians. They certainly meant a great deal to me and to my fellow ward-mates. John Holme London
• On page 29, Balancing the Bookshelves calls for better gender balance in children’s books (18 March), including not assuming animal characters to be male. Page 33: Natalie Nougayrède writes of “the inalienable dignity of mankind”. Page 38: “cameraman” (but on page 47 “camera operator”). Would it be too much to ask this paper to practise what it preaches? Sylvia Rose Totnes, Devon
• Can these 7 million wasted takeaway coffee cups per day not be sent to plant nurseries for potting (Cook, 11 March)? Rupert Stringer Horley, Surrey
• Now that we know when the PM will trigger article 50 (Report, 20 March, theguardian.com), will Wednesday 29 March 2017 go down in remainers’ diaries as May Day (Mayday, Mayday)? Colin Barr Ulverston, Cumbria
• In Hyde, in the 1950s, my mother would sandwich two rounds of leftover pastry with jam, brush the top with milk and bake (Letters, passim). This went by the name of courting cake. My three sons, irreverent southerners, renamed it leg-over cake. Jane McAdoo London
• In the Centerprise community project (Hackney, early 1970s) we used to sell, successfully, caterers coleslaw enhanced with raisins and fresh apple as “social workers’ salad”. Tom Wilson Nottingham
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Parenthood could boost your chances of living longer in your later years, according researchers who believe the effect could be down to children helping with care and support.
While previous research has shown that adults with children live longer than those without, the new study unpicks how the effect plays out in older age.
“We started first at the age of 60 and we looked all the way up to the age of 100,” said Karin Modig, a co-author of the research from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.
Modig and colleagues used national registry data to follow almost 1.5 million Swedes born between 1911 and 1925 as they aged. The team found that while the risk of death increased with age for all adults, having children was linked to greater longevity. The results are published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
At the age of 60, men who had children had almost two years more on their remaining life expectancy than those without, at 20.2 and 18.4 years respectively. A similar trend was seen for women aged 60, with life expectancies of 23.1 years for those without children and 24.6 years for mothers.
By contrast at the age of 80, parents had a life expectancy of 7.7 years for men and 9.5 years for women, compared to 7 years for men without children and 8.9 years for women without children.
The team also looked at the risk of dying within a year for each age, taking into account factors such as education and marital status.
The findings reveal that the benefits of having children became more pronounced with age – an effect that was greater for men than women. Furthermore, the team found that having children had a stronger impact on the longevity of men who were not married than those with a spouse.
The researchers suggest that could be because unmarried men are more dependant on their children for support than men who are married, adding that previous research has suggested that men benefit more from marriage when it comes to survival than women do, possibly explaining why the effect is not seen for women.
Unlike some previous research, the authors found that the sex of the child had no influence on their parent’s longevity – however the finding was based only on families with one child. “Perhaps being the only child is related to a greater responsibility of parents, reducing the difference in the amount of help given by sons and daughters,” they write.
While it is not clear why having children is linked to a longer life, the researchers suggest it might be down to children helping to look after their ageing parents, be it through physical care, emotional support or even arguing for better treatment.
However there are other explanations, including that adults with children might have healthier lifestyles, or that there are other factors that could decrease an individual’s chances of having children and raise their risk of death.
But while having children might boost the years left on your clock, Modig says it is far from the only factor influencing longevity.
“In terms of all other causes that would affect your death risk in these old ages, having a child is not among the greatest ones,” she said. “But it is still a 1.5% difference [for 90-year-old men] which is still substantial.”
