"Our plan for the NHS is working."
That was the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, this week, announcing that the NHS waiting list had fallen by 515,000 since Labour took office in July 2024.
There's a small problem with the figure - well, a large one, actually; no problem with Labour is ever a small one.
According to data uncovered earlier this year, NHS England has been paying hospital trusts £33 per patient removed from the waiting list under "validation exercises". Between April and September 2025 alone, NHS England paid trusts £18.8 million for this work.
That is roughly 570,000 patients removed in six months. In January 2026, the trusts struck a quarter of a million more off in a single month. The patients removed include those who chose to go private rather than wait, those who failed to respond to a text message, and those who died waiting.
The half-million reduction in the waiting list since Labour took office is, on the arithmetic, fully accounted for by the validation deletions. But no one is getting treated. You know this. You've seen things in your NHS ward stand blandly still across this whole period. You've probably heard Streeting crow this nonsense and thought "Well, it's not bloody working for me, I'm still waiting."
That's because, to our Health Secretary (and, unbelievably, perhaps our future PM), you, the patient, are but a mere incidental data point, my dear, and if Labour can pay NHS hospitals to delete your name from a list you belong on to serve themselves, they will.
Rishi Sunak's government, to just about the only morsel of credit it it could reasonably command, actually vetoed an identical scheme on the grounds not that it was fundamentally dishonest but that it was paying the NHS for "doing something it should be doing anyway" and "artificially reducing" the waiting list.
It merely illustrates a principle with which almost every voter in Britain is now familiar. As bad as the Tories were, Labour are even worse; for the voter, for the NHS, and for everything and everyone else.
Sigh. Son who is about to graduate from Exeter with a good law degree has sent off 150 applications for summer work, internships, experience. His CV looks good. Results are good. Very personable. Scrubs up well. Loads of mini pupillage experience. Some of the applications are for unpaid work. Most don’t bother replying. None give feedback. The opportunities for young people, even law graduates, just aren’t there. It’s heart-breaking.
🚨Two UK pub chains axed along with 3,500 jobs amid rising taxes
Whitbread, which owns both Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, plans to close all 197 of its restaurant sites.
CEO Dominic Paul said the decision followed “significant cost increases”, which includes higher employer National Insurance contributions and business rates.
Reeves' relentless pursuit of businesses' money is ruining our economy!
Rachel Reeves is decimating business and jobs.
A minimum wage of £15 would end my coffee shop, it would have to close, as would many other businesses.
I’ll explain for the economically illiterate.
Staff costs are currently half our costs, a £15 minimum wage is actually more than £15 an hour for the company, because you have to add:
- 12.07% holiday
- Sick pay
- Maternity pay if and when required
- National insurance
- Pension contributions
These costs would mean the shop loses money because remember, energy costs are up, rates are up, regulations are up.
Now you can pass these costs onto the consumer - that would mean charging a lot more for coffee, people won’t pay it. The likes of Starbucks and Costa can, because they have economies of scale. The independent doesn’t.
Now the little socialist will say well this is your fault, if you can’t run a business that can afford to pay its staff properly, but the little socialist has never run a business and does not understand the dynamics.
Now I could pay some staff off and fill those hours myself or reduce us to one staff member during certain periods - but this proves the point that a minimum wage costs jobs.
There was a time when these jobs were done by kids, perhaps on the weekend, paid a lower wage, no holiday and no silly employment rights. Perhaps they were even paid cash. The dynamic worked and small businesses like this could operate. It was also a great first job. Sadly now it isn’t worth employing entitlement youngsters at this level of pay.
So alas, I don’t need the stress, the business would close, a number of jobs would be lost.
Economics is about understanding these dynamics, no vibes.
The cost of living is not solved through passing on inflation to the business, it is solved by ending high inflation and creating prosperity. This is what socialists don’t understand, they can’t create prosperity, they can only destroy it.
Cadbury’s ‘Dairy Milk’ got banned from being called chocolate in 27 countries… because it’s no longer chocolate. 🍫
They swapped the expensive cocoa butter for industrial oils and petroleum vanilla, then added PGPR to stop it separating. All done in sneaky little 1% changes so you’d never notice.
You’re not eating chocolate anymore – you’re eating a flavoured wax bar with a fancy wrapper.
Check the ingredients. See ‘vegetable fats’ or ‘PGPR’? That’s your sign it’s fake.
Real chocolate has 5 ingredients max. Everything else is just expensive processed junk.
They’ve been robbing your taste buds for years.
What’s next – ‘milk’ without the milk? 🥛
Cadburys Easter eggs are being boycotted in all shops! People do not want palm oil they want the proper eggs we used to have! Get it off the shelves! Boycott Cadbury!
I'm not far off 80 had every vaccination going but as a very young child did get measles before the vaccination was available, was very poorly and left partially deaf which I have coped with throughout my life! For the love of god get your children vaccinated!
Credit to @Fenerbahce & their relentless development of players, another star in the making. Thank you Fener for giving us this talent, we will take of your boy. 🔵🟡 🤝 🔵⚪️
#BHAFC#Fenerbahçe
Brave English woman catches immigrant fly-tipping rubbish from his work van – and confronts him on the spot! 👏🏻
He stupidly used his own work van with all his company details plastered on it.
Time to make him famous for all the wrong reasons!
Share far and wide!