With so much sniping recently about portly people, it is easy to forget those whose weight barely registers on the scales.
Continue reading Kate Moss at the thin end of the wedge.
August 2008 Archives
It's definitely catching. Last month Call-me-Dave Cameron launched a verbal blitz on overweight people. Now his health spokesman Andrew Lansley is at it.
Continue reading The Tories and the fat of the land.
Tony Blair started it. We thought he was only half-joking when in 2001 he proposed that drunken young men who engaged in antisocial behaviour should be frogmarched to the nearest cash machine to atone for their misdemeanours by way of an on-the-spot fine.
Continue reading Rod Morgan is right to be worried.
Seldom do I sing from Westminster Council's hymn sheet but I do find myself in harmony with the authority's clampdown on the gobby charity fundraisers who harass shoppers on its streets.
Continue reading Do us a favour and chugger off.
In social care circles, Scandinavia, particularly the Swedish bit, is often cited as the holy grail for professional practice. Few would dispute that social care is well funded and well run in the Nordic countries.
Continue reading Has George Osborne really fallen for a Swedish model?.
Anyone who views our sports stars as pampered should read the story of cricketer Marcus Trescothick, the exquisitely talented Somerset and former England Test batsman.
Continue reading Cricket star's inspirational battle against depression.
Few will be welcoming the homecoming of child sex offender Paul Gadd, alias former glam rock star Gary Glitter, should he decide not to disembark at Bangkok on his flight from Vietnam to the UK today.
Continue reading Gary Glitter case underlines gaps in child sex laws.
The dangers of exposing social care to the whim of market forces were underlined when the High Court ordered a Southern Cross Healthcare subsidiary to relinquish control of a care home in Northamptonshire.
Continue reading Were market forces to blame for care home's woes?.
No wonder David Cameron has distanced himself from the
report that more effort should be spent on cajoling people from northern
England to move south, presumably to London, such is the enviable standard of
living on offer in the capital. "Barmy" and "insane", he called it, displaying
his increasing familiarisation with social care parlance.
Continue reading David Cameron, a true angel of the North.
The UK's war on drugs is costing nearly as much as the
war in Iraq. And like the war in that far-distant land of which we think we
know so much, the one on our doorsteps has similarly little to show for the
billions poured into it.
Continue reading Mixed messages on drugs: is legalisation the answer?.
Another wretched story about getting older has emerged with the news that the NHS is denying up to two million over-65s treatment for depression.
Continue reading Denying older people treatment for depression is ageism.
The three-year gap allowed between inspections of care homes rated as "good" by the Commission for Social Care Inspection is generous indeed. It is also risky.
Continue reading Shut "poor" care homes without delay.
The possible closure of two support groups for victims of sexual violence should be a cause of concern to a government that purports to take a tough line on crime.
Continue reading Health sector should help rape crisis teams.
BBC journalist Kate Adie once described her style of reporting as "telling it like it is". The maxim is not one recognised by the Department of Health in its fight-the-flab campaign (my description, not the DH's).
Continue reading The term is 'obese': live with it.
When scientists calculate as early as July that the following winter is likely to be colder than the ones we have been used to, news of soaring gas and electricity costs merely heightens the sense of foreboding.
Continue reading Scientists and Age Concern agree: a cold winter lies ahead.
You have to hand it to them; the Tories are in rampant mood as they make inroads into traditional Labour territory. Whether it concerns the emergence of an underclass (credit, Iain Duncan Smith), families and inequality (credit, Michael Gove) and our "broken" society generally (credit, Call Me Dave), they are revelling in it. Perhaps they are pining for the halcyon Thatcher years of generosity.
Continue reading Sure Start: Labour needs to spin again.
About Outside Left
| Outside Left questions the thinking behind today’s social policy, with a sometimes wry, occasionally cynical, always straight-talking look at the political elite that shapes it, written by sub editor, Mike McNabb. |
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