The only way to beat the Tories is for opposition parties to work together | Shirley Williams

Theresa May’s Conservative government is less united and less powerful than it may seem. It has a small and vulnerable majority, remains divided on what kind of relationship it wants with the European Union, and disagrees on some key political issues like the role, if any, that grammar schools should play in secondary education.

Even the current urgent crisis on care for elderly and disabled adults is a source of argument. Should local councils, starved of resources after years of heavy cuts, be held to their statutory responsibilities, or is the crisis so extensive that only government responses will suffice – higher national taxes or an increase in national insurance contributions to meet the evident suffering of the old, the sick and the poor?

Proposing a precept of a few percent more on council taxes will lead to greater burdens on local businesses: some will be bankrupted, shops and offices will close, and more areas of our towns and cities will become derelict.

Yet the government has faced little effective opposition, not because of its majority but because the opposition parties fail to work together, even though on many issues there is no difference of principle or conviction between them, and there is a clear opposition to the Conservatives. On the survival of the NHS, the need to tackle care for the sick and elderly at a national level, the commitment to comprehensive education, greater fairness in taxation and on tackling poverty, there is little if any reason why cross-party opposition campaigns could not be forged.

The Brexit negotiations will involve a review of all the laws and rules the UK accepted as part of agreed European legislation. Once the negotiations begin in earnest, the best part of the European Union’s welfare and employment rights heritage will be at great risk. For parties of the centre and centre left, it is vital to fight to retain employment rights, such as provision for parental leave, rest time and holiday entitlement. If these are abolished, thousands of people will be worse off. But the opposition work required will demand time and effort from all the progressive parties, working together.

Sadly, despite the urgency, the opposition parties are not working together. Tribalism, not least in the Labour party, dominates, and provides the government with a green light for its more extreme policies. What we have to do is sit down, take each one of the issues on which we are broadly in agreement, and work out how best, in parliament and elsewhere, we can support a common policy. For instance, in the case of the NHS we could strongly argue for a continued immigration policy that allows men and women from other countries who are prepared to work in the health service to come to the UK. In the case of the council precept, we need to put together the outline of a national policy for care. And on civil liberties issues such as detention without trial, we could agree on the position that there should be a limit on how long anyone can be detained.

The parties of the centre and left are highly unlikely to merge or become one party. But they could surely forge progressive alliances on issues and surely agree to protect and defend the common ground based on values we already share, above all to protect the poor and those in need. The price of tribalism is conceding to the government so much that we value in our society.

The only way to beat the Tories is for opposition parties to work together | Shirley Williams

Doctor"s Diary: The medicine that "made parties a doddle" in the Fifties

After recovered, the bottle was stored in the pantry “for emergencies only”, this kind of as a get together, in which a spoonful of the elixir “made it a doddle”. When the bottle was completed, her mom returned for a repeat prescription. The medical professional had, nevertheless, moved on and his successor regretted he was unable to comply with her request, for, after consulting the records, the substances included amphetamines.

The report of unexplained bouts of stomach discomfort in the twelve-yr-old grandson with diabetes, as featured in the column final week, has prompted a reader to create that, as a youthful boy, her diabetic son (now aged 32) had intermittent, “awful stomach pains and cramps”, lasting up to a day, and of this kind of severity as to make him sick. They have been sooner or later attributed by the paediatric advisor at the Royal Berkshire Hospital to the exciting condition recognized as abdominal migraine, due, it is presumed, to the exact same mechanism as classical migraine: of an alteration in blood movement to the tissues. It disappeared right after puberty.

Alternatively, about one particular in ten kids with diabetes also have coeliac illness triggered by sensitivity to gluten. This proved to be the explanation for yet another boy who, for the very best part of two years, was woken by severe abdominal discomfort pretty much each night. His mother and father placed him on a gluten-free diet and “almost immediately” his attacks ceased, only to relapse if he inadvertently ate a gluten-containing foodstuff.

Nonetheless, it is required to recognise that kids (specially boys) in the pre-teenage many years are prone to the syndrome Recurrent Abdominal Soreness (RAP), for which no result in is recognized, and which in some evolves into Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

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This week’s conundrum comes courtesy of Mr N A from Leeds, puzzled by why his first, normal bowel movement of the day need to be followed an hour later by the “urgent” need to have for a even more evacuation – “much looser, practically liquid at times”. This, for clear motives, can be most inconvenient, and he needs to know whether any individual with a comparable knowledge may well know of a preventive remedy.

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Lastly, my thanks to a reader for passing on a simple but efficient treatment for easing the agonizing muscle spasms in the decrease back, induced by arthritis of the lumbar spine. He had spent substantial sums on different kinds of osteopathic manipulation, right up until suggested by a wellness service physiotherapist that he must practise normal do-it-by yourself massage by lying on the floor for many minutes a day with a tennis ball positioned at the primary internet site of the discomfort. This would exert just the appropriate sum of stress on the knot formed by the muscles in spasm, causing them to unwind.

“This is definitely no panacea, but has provided a lot more relief than my prior expensive therapies – and all for the cost of a tennis ball,” he writes. And not even that, as the tennis ball he utilizes was identified by his dog when out on their every day stroll.

Electronic mail health-related concerns confidentially to Dr James LeFanu at drjames@telegraph.co.uk. Solutions will be published on The Telegraph website every single Friday at telegraph.co.united kingdom/wellness

Doctor"s Diary: The medicine that "made parties a doddle" in the Fifties

Female genital mutilation parties becoming held in United kingdom, MPs told

Fahma Mohamed (C) and fellow anti-FGM campaigners deliver a petition to parliament. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian

The cutting of girls at female genital mutilation “parties” is even now going on in Britain and not just taking place abroad, healthcare professionals have informed MPs.

The Commons residence affairs decide on committee has heard that “cutters” – typically older women – are flown into Britain for the events, at which as a lot of as a dozen girls might be operated on.

Janet Fyle, of the Royal University of Midwives, explained that by the time the authorities could be alerted, the cutter would have left. “By the time the girls are cut, the female ‘cutter’ is on her flight back to the country she came from. We can’t go after the cutter. We never know who she or he is. The parents have to be held responsible,” she said.

Professor Janice Rymer, of the Royal University of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, shared Fyle’s belief that FGM was happening in Britain. Asked about its scale, she mentioned: “We have no thought. We have no data but I am certain it is taking place in this nation.”

The MPs also heard proof that 75 to 80 girls were undergoing FGM reversal operations in Britain each and every year.

The line of questioning by the MPs in the last evidence session of their inquiry into FGM suggested that their report is likely to recommend that healthcare pros be positioned below a new statutory duty to report situations to the police.

The health authorities have been asked for their response to a tv and poster campaign to raise awareness of FGM, and to a requirement that any ladies who faced a risk of mutilation need to have it recorded in their paediatric “red guide”, which is issued to every little one in Britain.

The MPs heard from French legal authorities that statutory reporting to the police was essential in France and that these accountable for mutilating women had been jailed for up to eight years.

The 1st man or woman to be charged underneath Britain’s FGM laws appeared at the Old Bailey final week. Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena, 31, is accused of carrying out the procedure on a female following she gave birth at Whittington hospital in Archway, north London, on 24 November 2012.

Scotland Yard has launched a campaign to avoid women getting flown abroad to be mutilated, senior officers advised the select committee. They blamed the lack of prosecutions more than the previous twenty many years on healthcare experts for failing to report instances to the police.

Nevertheless, Professor Nigel Mathers, of the Royal University of General Practitioners, stated on Tuesday that police had been not placing the blame in the right place.

He stated it was not needed to area a statutory duty on doctors to report situations of FGM simply because they have been presently below a statutory obligation to report cases of child abuse, and FGM was a form of this: “The problems is in identifying people involved,” he mentioned.

His issues was supported by Rymer, who said that she agreed with statutory reporting in principle, but that most cases encountered by gynaecologists and obstetricians concerned pregnant females in their 20s who had been lower sixteen or so years before.

But she was advised by the committee chair, Keith Vaz, that he had no sympathy with that place and it was for the director of public prosecutions, not healthcare specialists, to determine no matter whether a prosecution should proceed in this kind of situations.

Female genital mutilation parties becoming held in United kingdom, MPs told