Future threat to public services

The Financial Times reports that cuts in public services are on the cards for 2011 as the government plans to boost short term spending.

Alistair Darling has made clear that he will not cut spending now as the economy slows to recession, but will try to bring forward capital spending and "reprioritise" current expenditure on areas that support the economy or protect people from the downturn.

As the £115 million a week net Britain hands to the audit-failing EU falls into neither of these priority categories, when will Mr Darling be heading to Brussels to break the bad news that their huge weekly cheque has been "reprioritised"?

A range of government departments including Work & Pensions, Revenue & Customs, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office already face sharp real-term cuts in their budgets.

Latest spending plans squeezed virtually all government departments to protect health, education and law & order, which themselves received lower rises than in previous years.

However it will be beyond 2010 - after the next general election - when the real pain will be felt.

"What has happened recently will leave a permanent scar on the economy," said Ray Barrell of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

"After the dust has settled, all governments will have to give serious thought to the level of public services that they want."

However not all the pain may be taken by public services. Some of it could well come from tax rises.

In the current economic turmoil, the billions of pounds a year Britain lavishes on the wasteful and fraud-ridden EU is looking less and less sustainable. As public finances tighten, the government needs to act urgently to redirect these huge amounts to more productive purposes.

Kidney cancer drugs too costly for NHS

Four new drugs to treat advanced kidney cancer have been rejected by the government's drugs advisory body as too expensive for use by the NHS, various news sources report today.

Although the drugs were acknowledged to provide "substantial benefits" and were judged to provide "significant gains" in survival, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has refused approval on the grounds that the NHS cannot afford to provide them to patients.

More than 7,000 people are diagnosed with kidney cancer annually in the UK, with around 1,700 of those diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer.

The drugs cost between £20,000 to £35,000 a year per patient, but even at the upper end of this scale the total cost of providing the drugs to all the 1,700 patients for a year - at just under £60m - is a tiny fraction of the £115m every week the government lavishes on the audit-failing EU. Priorities?

The decision to issue draft guidance rejecting Sutent (sunitinib), Avastin (bevacizumab), Nexavar (sorafenib) and Torisel (temsirolimus) has outraged charities, kidney specialists and campaigners.

Experts have reacted angrily to the decision, saying it left them with little option for treating patients.

Although there are treatments available, none of them "cure" advanced renal cell carcinoma or cancer that has spread from the initial tumour. But they can help extend a patients' life by around five to six months.

Quoted in the Times report, John Wagstaff, an honorary consultant in medical oncology at the South Wales Cancer Institute in Swansea and director of the Wales Cancer Trials Network, said there was “no point” in him accepting referrals for people with advanced kidney cancer because about 75 per cent of them “do not gain any real benefit” from interferon. The only other option, he said, was to make patients comfortable in their last months.

The draft guidelines for England and Wales, which are subject to appeal, recommended people already on the drugs should be able to continue therapy.

In the BBC's report, Pat Hanlon from Kidney Cancer UK said that the drugs provide a 'considerable benefit' and Professor Peter Johnson, from Cancer Research UK, said they had shown a small but definite improvement in an illness where there are few alternative treatments.

It's easy to cast NICE as the villian of the piece, but in trying to get the best out of limited resources they have a very difficult job to do.

In reality, in agreeing to pay an unjustifiable 63% extra to the undeserving EU, it is the government and the MPs who voted to approve that deal who are solely to blame when there's no public money left for life-prolonging drugs to be made available on the NHS.

Norfolk & Suffolk: Post office closures hit elderly

Post Office bosses and the government came under fire last night as it emerged a third of pensioners in Norfolk and West Suffolk are set to be left without their local branch - reports the Eastern Daily Press.

An estimated 82,200 elderly people in the area will be affected, forcing them to travel further to a post office.

Fifty post office branches are set to shut as part of controversial nationwide cuts to the network, caused by the government's refusal to increase subsidies for loss-making branches.

The government's stance over funding of post offices is in stark contrast to Gordon Brown's approval of the European Union budget deal, which increased our payments to the EU by an astonishing 63% to £115m (net) every single week between now and 2013 - putting the £150m annual subsidy for post offices in the shade.

Approval was given despite the EU's accounts not having been given a clean bill of health by auditors for the past thirteen years, and the organisation's terrible repuation for waste and fraud.

Help the Aged yesterday criticised the closure plan and accused the Post Office of ignoring the older population.

Pensioners are a primary customer base for post offices, with thousands collecting pensions from them each week.

Dr Alan Burnett, the charity's senior policy officer, said: “When you have a mobility problem or difficulty getting around, a journey extended by only half a mile is not a simple matter of a little more exercise - it is almost a complete removal of the service.

“Older people in Norfolk and West Suffolk are contacting us to say they feel ignored by the consultation process. It's beginning to seem as if the Post Office is merely paying lip service to government consultation regulations and not really listening to the valuable local information being given to them.

“If older people are not listened to, and their needs are not taken into account, the consequences for many will be extremely serious.”

So far, 970 branches have shut across the country, out of the 2,500 earmarked for closure. Less than 4% have been saved, despite numerous campaigns.

On a national scale, millions of pensioners are struggling with simple day-to-day tasks as a result of the ongoing closures, and Help the Aged claim that 2.3 million people will need to travel at least half a mile further afield to find a replacement post office.

Last night, two of the counties' MPs spoke angrily of the impact the scheme was set to have on their constituents, branding the consultation “farcical”.

Richard Spring, MP for West Suffolk, said: "We always said the post office closures would hit the most vulnerable, most particularly in rural areas. They are part of village life.

"We've been through a farcical consultation. They have decided in a completely arbitrary way without any consideration. The figures are shocking, but I'm not surprised.

"I'm grateful to Help the Aged for highlighting the impact. It only fortifies the view I had.”

Christopher Fraser, MP for South-West Norfolk, said: “The figures are simply appalling. The government's decision to cut funding for the sub-post office network is a cynical, cost-cutting policy that will prove devastating to those living in the countryside.”

Access to arthritis drugs denied

Around 60,000 people in the UK with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are being denied access to potentially life-changing drugs - reports ITV News today.

A decision by the National institute for health and clinical excellence (NICE) will mean that patients will not able able to try a second anti-TNF (tumour necrosis factor alpha inhibitor) if their first attempt at the therapy fails.

Anti-TNF therapy drugs - adalimunab, etanercept, infliximab - can slow the progress of disease and help to reduce symptoms such as joint pain, swelling, mobility and fatigue.

NICE said that giving patients two, or even three, anti-TNFs is not 'cost-effective' and that doctors should offer patients the next drug in line - rituximab - which costs about £3,000 less per year than the cheapest anti-TNF.

This is yet another example of health services restricting effective drugs on the grounds of costs that, if provided, could greatly improve many people's quality of life. All the while the government shamefully continues to waste an astonishing £115m a week on the audit-failing European Union.

Charities have said that moving from one therapy to a second or third has been established practice in the UK for years and the change could leave sufferers with pain and the possibility of long-term disability.

Rob Moots, ARMA clinician and professor of rheumatology at Liverpool University, said: "It's almost impossible to know which anti-TNF will work for a patient at the outset.

"Before this decision we could try patients on each of the three treatments in turn to find one that was effective for them - now we only have one shot at success.

"This flies in the face of clinical judgment. Many patients will be left in astonishing pain, while knowing we haven't explored all the options for them."

The British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register shows that around 70% of patients will get a good response from a second anti-TNF if the effects of the first start to wane.

Ailsa Bosworth, chief executive of the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, said the move, combined with a Nice decision in April to reject the drug abatacept, meant effective therapies for arthrities provided by the NHS had been cut from five to two.

She added: "This decision is another nail in the coffin for the treatment of RA in England and Wales.

"Nice are re-writing the rules of RA treatment in this country, ignoring the clinical effectiveness of drugs and ignoring the views of patients and clinicians.

"Nice is systematically taking away clinically effective and proven treatments from patients and giving them just one roll of the dice when it comes to Anti-TNF treatment."

Ros Meek, director of the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA), said: "Nice's decision takes away access to a normal and independent life for the many thousands of people battling with the condition.

"It also totally contradicts Lord Darzi's pronouncements in his recent review of the NHS - in particular his focus on patient choice and patient empowerment.

"It's a prescription for pain."

A spokeswoman for Nice said: "Nice has not yet issued final guidance to the NHS. Consultees now have the opportunity to appeal against the draft guidance. Subject to an appeal being received, guidance is expected in September 2008."

Salford: Woman fights for NHS cancer drug

A woman terminally ill with kidney cancer could now be given a drug which could prolong her life, after a High Court ruling - reports ITV News.

Sutent has not yet been approved by the government and is not automatically available on the NHS.

Jean Murphy, a 62-year-old grandmother from Salford, had twice been denied the drug by Salford Primary Care Trust on the grounds that it is too expensive.

Dr Mike Burrows from the trust said before the ruling: "We have a limited amount of resources and have to make decisions on which treatments we are prepared to fund and which we cannot fund. We have to use health economics to support those decisions."

Ruling on the case, Mr Justice Burnett said the Trust's commissioning panel had failed to consider Mrs Murphy's application "in the round", and to take into account her day-to-day responsibility for caring for her husband who has a heart condition and diabetes.

This is yet another example of how the abject waste of £115 million a week paid to the audit-failing European Union - an unjustifiable 63% increase on the annual amount Britain paid between 2001-06 - is causing real suffering and shortfalls in essential public services.

In particular, Salford MP Hazel Blears needs to explain why she voted to approve paying this extra money to the EU while her local hospital clearly cannot provide services her constituents need, and blame a "limited amount of resources".

With public finances tightening, we can no longer afford to hand over so much money to the European Union. Especially as the "majority" of the EU's spending has not been approved by auditors for 13 years running, and there are so many reports of waste and fraud - going on even within EU institutions themselves.

Evidence continues to grow that it's time to Stop the Cheques to the EU.

Warwickshire: Woman in High Court sight battle

A woman who could lose her sight has been given permission for a test case at the High Court to try to get an NHS Trust to fund her treatment - reports the BBC.

Warwickshire Primary Care Trust refused to pay for Patricia Meadow's eye treatment, even though the drug is available in other areas.

The trust took a "resource-based" decision not to fund treatment, the court heard, meaning it has insufficient funding from central government to provide the care Ms Meadows needs.

Ms Meadows suffers from wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in her left eye, and dry intermediate AMD in her right.

There is no treatment for the dry condition, but there is hope that a course of the drug ranibizumab (trade name Lucentis) will save the sight in her left eye.

The High Court heard from her lawyers that objective medical evidence shows a course of the drug has up to a 95% chance of arresting her eyesight deterioration.

They said there was also a chance of it improving her vision and without treatment she could lose her sight in a matter of months.

Her case is being backed by the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

Mr Justice Undershill gave permission for a judicial review to be heard within a matter of weeks.

David Lock, appearing for the PCT, said that Novartis, the manufacturer of Lucentis, was refusing to provide the support recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

He said: "Without the manufacturers support, Nice has clearly advised that this is not a cost-effective treatment.

He said the PCT had to balance a budget of £668m and it was impossible to meet all the needs of patients.

So while this is the case, why has the government agreed to giving the audit-failing European Union a massive and unreasonable 63% increase in payments, taking Britain's contribution to an astonishing £115 million (net) every single week?

It's people like Ms Meadows who are being forced to pay the price of the utter waste of huge amounts of public money on the EU.

Improvements needed over flood response

Major improvements are needed to ensure the country is better protected against flooding, reports the Eastern Daily Press.

Two new reports are set to highlight that Britain was ill-prepared for last summer's floods, which caused devastation across large parts of the country, and that eastern England is particularly under threat.

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) report - The Flooding: Engineering Resilience - warns the UK's power, water and transport systems are stretched to the limit and need extra capacity to prevent blackouts and shortages when the country is hit by floods in the future.

In a special section on the east of England, the ICE report states that drainage systems in places like Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge are already working at full capacity and that pressure would only be increased as the region moves towards meeting its target of building 500,000 new homes by 2021.

The vulnerability of the Norfolk Broads and major Suffolk roads such as the A12 are also highlighted, should controversial proposals to abandon flood defences along 25 square miles go ahead.

“No other area of the UK is in such real and immediate danger from flooding as the East of England. It's at risk from all sides: coastal erosion and flooding, tidal surges, river flooding and overflowing drains in towns and cities,” the report states.

ICE said investment in new infrastructure had been reduced by economic and regulatory pressure to a point where “there is no longer any spare capacity available to provide alternative sources of power or water treatment should key utilities be compromised by flooding”.

The report also said funding for flood defences was not sufficient or secure, undermining industry confidence, and there were not enough skilled engineers to deliver protection from flooding.

The ICE report coincides with the release of a government-commissioned review from Sir Michael Pitt, which contains 92 recommendations on how Britain should be better equipped in the event of future flooding crises.

Britain's vulnerability was highlighted this time last year when places such as Hull were devastated by flooding. Then, in November, communities along the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline narrowly missed being swamped by a North Sea tidal surge.

Sir Michael's recommendations include local authorities being given a more clearly-defined leadership role in overseeing the maintenance of drainage networks, a joint nerve centre from which the Met Office and Environment Agency can issue better flood warnings and new building regulations detailing drainage systems and appropriate construction materials.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the government was working to ensure that infrastructure was resistant to flooding and robust back-up was in place where it was most needed.

She added: “Work includes assessing the vulnerability of infrastructure to natural hazards and working with industry and operators to ensure it's resilient. More details on this work will be provided as part of our formal response to the Pitt report.”

Council workers vote for strike

The BBC reports today that Council workers have voted in favour of industrial action in a dispute over pay.

The public sector workers union Unison has announced that its members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland voted by 55% to strike, after rejecting a below-inflation 2.45% pay offer which they argue is effectively a pay cut.

The union is demanding a 6% pay rise or 50p an hour extra, whichever is greater.

A strike would affect a wide range of public services that local communities rely on, including school dinner staff and classroom assistants, care home workers and a range of council services like bin collections and environmental health inspectors.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said his members were "fed up and angry they are expected to accept pay cut after pay cut while bread and butter prices go through the roof.

"Most of them are low-paid workers, who are hit hardest by food and fuel price hikes."

But Brian Baldwin, chairman of the local government employers' negotiators, said: "If the pay settlement was set any higher, then councils will be forced into making unpalatable choices between cutting front line services and laying off staff. Neither unions nor employers would want either of these options.

Of course, another option is for the government to stop wasting vast amounts of money - for example handing a 63% increase in our payments to the audit-failing EU for MEPs to rip off - so that it can give more to local councils to provide both quality essential services and afford fair pay for workers.

The government's preferred inflation measure, the Consumer Prices Index rose, to 3.3% in May, with the Bank of England warning it may reach 4%.

The wider Retail Prices Index measure of inflation - the one used for many pay negotiations - is already at 4.3%.

Charity props up NHS cancer care

The NHS relies heavily on charitable donations for the treatment and support of children and teenagers with cancer, research reported by the BBC suggests.

Up to half of funding in NHS specialist cancer centres in England and Wales comes from charities, a team of health economists has calculated.

Some oncologists said without charity support many services would not exist.

The funding level raises questions about the government's responsibility for cancer care, the researchers say.

The report's author, Dr Dyfrig Hughes, said, "The take-home message is that it is a significant contribution towards work which arguably should be paid for by the NHS."

A total of 51 charities have been set up specifically to assist children with cancer and 340 charities had made some kind of financial contribution, the University of Bangor team report in the Journal of Child Health Care.

A further 28 organisations had been set up to provide funds for hospices.

Figures from 2003 show that between £25m and £38m (depending on the method of calculation used) of funding for cancer care came from national charities, compared with between £38m and £55m coming from the NHS.

Yet these sums are tiny factions of the amount of money the government pays to wasteful organisations like the EU, following the government's pledge to pay 63% more a year to the EU from last year.

With the net payments now reaching £115 million every single week - in total £6bn a year - even the upper figures given for cancer care amount to less than a week's money given to the audit-failing EU. Right priorities?

Study author, Dr Dyfrig Hughes, said the charity figures could be an underestimate, as they did not include the many hospital and local charities which also provide funding.

"For things which might be labelled as luxury that's fine, but essential things should come from central resources to ensure equal access," he said.

MEPs in expenses scandals

To show exactly where the £115 million (net) Britain lavishes every week on the European Union at the cost of public services actually goes, we've put together a little collection of links to recent newspaper articles about the activities of Britain's Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

We'll leave it to you to decide whether these people deserve to wield the 63% increase in funding that Gordon Brown approved gifting them at the start of this year, and which will be backdated to the start of 2007.

Or whether spending these large sums on the other causes and purposes highlighted on this blog might be a better use of scarce public money.

MEPs 'expenses abuse' hushed up by Brussels
The Times, 21 February 2008

MEP in £500,000 allowances probe
Sunday Times, 1 June 2008

Second Tory MEP loses position over expenses
Daily Telegraph, 7 June 2008

Tory MEP Sir Robert Atkins flew to wedding on expenses
Sunday Times, 8 June 2008

Fresh names in Tory MEP expenses row
EUobserver, 9 June 2008

EastEnders MEP pays gay lover £30,000 to be his secretary
Daily Mail, 10 June 2008

MEPs say expenses troubleshooter risks a timebomb of further sleaze disclosures
The Times, 11 June 2008

The Fatcat Parliament: How MEPs pocket a staggering £630,000 a year
Evening Standard, 14 June 2008

Tory MEP Den Dover faces quiz over cars worth £65,000
Sunday Times, 15 June 2008

Despite these shocking revelations, and many more, the government keeps throwing our £115 million every week into this EU black hole of waste and fraud.

What will it take for the government to Stop the Cheques and put that money to many more essential purposes that could make life better for those who need it most?

Norfolk & Suffolk: Campaigners united over sea defences

Groups fighting plans to abandon coastal areas to the waves have resolved to work together to convince the government to drop the controversial proposals - reports the Eastern Daily Press.

Councillors from across Suffolk and Norfolk coastal areas and from all levels of local government met for a conference in Southwold today.

Also among more than 100 delegates were coastal pressure groups, Natural England, Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer and Euro MP Geoffrey Van Orden.

They were united in wanting to stop the Environment Agency's policy of “managed retreat”, or letting nature take its course as sea levels rise and coastal erosion continues.

The conference focused on the Blyth estuary, one of the areas which will be most affected by the policy, but also heard of concerns elsewhere on the Suffolk coast and in Norfolk.

Delegates decided that co-operation and communication were the key to persuading government to drop the plans and instead invest in flood defences.

Norfolk: Fire chief warns of flood threat

A senior fire office last night issued a stark warning that a repeat of the 1953 floods - which killed 100 in Norfolk - would have a more devastating impact today because of a lack of specialist crews - reports the Eastern Daily Press.

East Anglia has been identified as one of the least protected areas of the country in a report which reveals a national shortage of firefighters trained in flood rescues.

Paul Hayden, who coordinates flood rescues for the Chief Fire Officers' Association and is the former deputy chief fire officer for Norfolk, called for additional training and equipment so more firefighters can respond to major flooding disasters.

Youngsters wait longer for dental care

Young people in Norfolk and Suffolk are being forced to wait up to four years for orthodontic appointments, despite more than £5m being pumped into the region's NHS dental services - reports the Eastern Daily Press.

However, the sum is equivalent to only 8 hours of cash the government pays to the audit-failing European Union every year - even taking into account grants and subisides Britain receives back. And only about a fifth of the money will be spent on tackling the severe shortage of orthodontists.

Meanwhile, the average wait for orthodontic care in the Yarmouth and Waveney Primary Care Trust (PCT) area now tops three and a half years, with patients in Suffolk and Norfolk waiting two and a half year before an appointment.

Last month, NHS Norfolk announced that it would invest £2.8m in the county's NHS dentistry services to tackle shortages in towns including Dereham and North Walsham, but only £720,000 will be spent on improving access to orthodontic treatment.

Although the extra funding should allow about 600 more cases to be dealt with each year by employing at least two more specialist orthodontists, it will take several years for the long waiting lists to be reduced.

Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary and North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb said: “Norfolk has some completely unacceptable waiting times and, as a parent whose children have both benefitted from orthodontic treatment, I sympathise with the problem.

“Parents are finding now that getting treatment for their children is much more difficult than it was just three or four years ago, the service has deteriorated that quickly. It is a serious issue.”

In the Yarmouth and Waveney area, the average waiting time is three and a half years - meaning that many patients are left waiting significantly longer than that before treatment.

With some youngsters being referred to orthodontists when they are 10 or 11, they could be in their late teens before the work to correct their teeth is complete.

Bob Purser, contracts manager for Yarmouth and Waveney PCT, said: “We acknowledge that there is currently an extended assessment waiting time for primary care specialist orthodontics treatment. A key priority for the PCT for the coming 12 months is to significantly reduce this waiting time.”

Suffolk PCT announced a £1.3m investment in its NHS dental services earlier this year, but only about £900,000 has been ring-fenced for orthodontic care.

NHS Norfolk is due to increase spending on dentistry by 13pc next year, totalling a £2.8m investment.

A spokesman for Suffolk PCT said: “We are aware that some of the waiting lists for orthodontic treatment are longer than we would like. Working with our orthodontists, we are identifying ways of improving access and reducing waiting times. In 07/08 the PCT invested an additional £230,000 precisely for this purpose.”

But these are drops in the ocean compared to the scale of cash central government is wasting on the audit-failing EU, and will make little impact reducing the long waiting lists.

The government must stop wasting so much money on an organisation that hasn't been able to get its accounts approved for 13 years running, and focus on continuing funding shortfalls within NHS Primary Care Trusts that are causing these poor service levels.

Chichester: NHS bosses confirm hospital cuts

Health bosses have confirmed they will go ahead with the downgrading of St Richard's Hospital in Chichester - reports the BBC.

West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) announced last week that Worthing would be the county's major general hospital, having full paediatrics, A&E and consultant-led maternity care

Emergency A&E and maternity services at St Richard's will be cut, forcing long travel times on those who require these services from the area served by the hospital.

The PCT has said St Richard's will retain 90% of its A&E services, with only patients with major problems, those needing emergency surgery and victims of serious accidents going elsewhere.

It said 50% would go to Portsmouth and 50% to Worthing, with the majority being taken directly by ambulance to the appropriate hospital.

However, journey times to those hospitals from the area covered by St Richard's are significant and highly vulnerable to traffic problems at rush hour.

One St Richard's campaigner told BBC South Today: "I often have to go in as an emergency.
"If I have to go to Worthing or Portsmouth it could be fatal."

The PCT said journey times had been taken into consideration when making the decision and it was aware that people in Selsey suffering serious accidents and requiring emergency surgery would have travel times greater than one hour at peak times.

But it said that, on balance, a much greater number of people would be adversely affected if the major general hospital was in Chichester.

Why the PCT has been forced into making this choice and there are insufficient public funds to keep adequate services at BOTH hospitals is the key question in this affair - and very likely due to central government wasting vast sums on other areas of spending.

For example, by sending £115 million every single week to the European Union, whose budget has failed its annual audit for 13 years in a row, and which has a terrible reputation for waste and fraud.

This is totally wasted money and far more than would be required to maintain services at St Richards. The government needs to decide which is more important - health services, or the European Union.

Campaigners for St Richard's are now considering whether to seek a judicial review of the decision.

Norfolk: Retired fireman loses battle for cancer drug

A retired fireman has suffered a setback in his battle to win funding for a cancer drug, reports the Eastern Daily Press.

Liver cancer patient Barry Humphrey has lost an appeal for a £5,000 trial for a drug aimed at buying him more time.

His upset wife Hazel says health bosses have “sentenced him to an early death” though their latest decision.

After 25 years service saving lives as a fireman in London, Mr Humphrey developed a rare cancer, triggered by hepatitis caught from a casualty during a rescue.

But officials at NHS Norfolk have decided not to fund treatment recommended by his consultant, saying Mr Humphrey's case fails to meet national cost-effectiveness guidelines on new drugs.

The couple, from Kimberley Road, are now seeing if there is anywhere else they can take their fight.

Funding the two-month trial treatment themselves was a last option - but they were reluctant having been told they would be opting out of the NHS, resulting in them having to pick up all treatment costs.

Fewer than 5% of liver cancer patients survive more than five years, so time is not on the Humphreys' side without some kind of treatment. And Barry says his consultants believe there are no other alternative drugs.

NHS Norfolk medical director Bryan Heap said treatment funding decisions were taken on clinical rather than social circumstances, so Mr Humphrey's past as an exemplary citizen unfortunately could not be taken into consideration.

The cost of Sorafenib, along with administration, extra scans and follow-up was £150,000 a year, and trials indicated an increase in life expectancy of 12 weeks, with no cure or reduction of symptoms.

Guidelines recommended not funding a new drug if the figure was greater than £30,000, he added.

North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrats health spokesman who has been backing Mr Humphrey's battle, said he was “horrified” by the appeal refusal, and would be seeking to meet a senior official from NHS Norfolk to argue the case.

Smith 'betrayed' police over pay

The home secretary has "betrayed the police service" by refusing to backdate a 2.5% pay rise, the BBC reports today.

Speaking at its conference, the Police Federation chairman Jan Berry said that Jacqui Smith's decision had been "a monumental mistake".

Last year, Jacqui Smith decided not to backdate to September a 2.5% pay rise for police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The police say this means their rise, only paid from December 2007, in reality amounts to 1.9%.

On Tuesday, federation members voted to lobby for the right to strike.

Ms Berry also compared Ms Smith to Education Secretary Ed Balls who has recently defended a pay deal for teachers. "Home Secretary, what is it that Mr Balls has but you do not?" she asked.

"Your decision not to honour the pay award was a breach of faith", she said. "It was a monumental mistake, and I don't say this lightly when I say you betrayed the police service."

Ms Smith later addressed the 1,000 conference delegates, saying: "I know you strongly disagree with the decision, but it was one that I took only after a lot of thought, after considering the full facts of the case, the need to keep mortgages and the cost of living under control - and that includes your mortgages and your families' cost of living as well."

Neglecting to mention that the government regards it 'affordable' to reward the repeatedly audit-failing EU with a 63% increase in public funds - or £2.5bn a year extra for the next five years.

Is the wasteful and extravagant EU really a higher priority than fair pay for our Police? That's certainly the message Jacqui Smith is sending, and isn't one that's likely to be well-received at the ballot box come the next general election.

Elderly care faces £6bn shortfall

Every working family could face paying an "ageing tax" to provide care for the elderly, Gordon Brown proposed yesterday.

The ageing tax is a central plank of a six month consultation launched by the Prime Minister in the face of a growing crisis over who should meet the bills for the care of the elderly.

The Daily Mail reports that this new tax would take the form of a compulsory levy to force people to cover the cost of care home places in the last stages of their lives.

The introduction of such a tax would reignite questions, most recently provoked over charges for rubbish collections, about what exactly people pay Council Tax for - if all the services that it's supposed to cover have to be paid for over again.

According to the BBC report, Gordon Brown says that the care system in England alone faces a £6bn shortfall within 20 years. An amount that just happens to be exactly the same as our new net annual contribution to the EU's leaky budget, which Gordon Brown agreed to following a deal done by Tony Blair in December 2005.

The PM claims that the Treasury cannot pay the fast-rising cost of care homes and home help as the number of elderly people increases, and that the system now needs a 'radical shake up' to avoid this cash crunch.

But another possible solution could be that, rather than force everyone to pay yet another tax, we stop wasting billions of pounds a year on the EU, the "majority" of whose spending has been a mystery to its auditors for 13 years in a row.

Why won't Gordon Brown consider stopping this blatant waste of exactly the amount of money he needs, in order to prevent elderly care services deteriorating or hitting people with yet more taxes?

The new consultation paper was launched by Mr Brown in a talk at the King's Fund, the research group that published the 2006 report on the cost of ageing by Sir Derek Wanless.

Sir Derek estimated that an extra £10billion is needed to make the care system work properly, but there was only a token £31million of new money on offer yesterday - just under two days worth of what the Government is prepared to hand the EU. A terrible example of the government's warped priorities with scarce public funds.

Yesterday's consultation paper, endorsed by Mr Brown and seven Cabinet ministers, put back any decisions until next year.

UK's flood defences 'inadequate', warn MPs

Britain could be at risk of a repeat of last summer's flood disaster because the money being spent on improving defences is "inadequate" - reports the Daily Telegraph today.

Ministers had claimed that the £800m earmarked for flood prevention by 2010-2011 (in contrast, equivalent to a mere
7 weeks of our net payments to the EU budget) would be enough.

But MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) have warned that the figure for government spending was "far less impressive under close analysis" and may be insufficient to deal with traditional and new flooding threats.

Last night the government announced £31m from the European Union's Solidarity Fund would be spent on the areas worst hit by the floods (not even two days worth of the NET amount we pay into the EU budget).

The floods in June and July last year, mainly in Yorkshire, Humberside and the Midlands were the worst for 60 years causing £3bn of damage and leaving 13 people dead.

A total of 44,600 homes and 7,100 businesses were flooded and thousands more people were left without power and water.

Nine months on the misery was still continuing for thousands who had not been able to return to their devastated homes.

So why is the government's professed commitment to prevent future flooding so miniscule in comparison to the funds it is prepared to lavish on the wasteful, audit-failing EU?

Are these the priorities we expect?

Science cuts 'hit UK reputation'

A report looking into handling of the "funding crisis" in physics research has concluded that Britain has been left looking like an "unreliable" and "incompetent" partner for international science - reports the BBC.

The report, published by the House of Commons innovation, universities, science and skills committee, said that "urgent changes must be made".

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which looks after some of the largest science centres in Britain, was faced with a deficit of £80m (less than five days worth of our net payments to the EU) after an unfavourable government spending review last year.

The council has had to try to reprioritise its spending but this has meant that some projects are now threatened with closure.

Facilities with an uncertain future include an upgrade to the iconic Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, the Daresbury National Laboratory and the UK infra-red telescope (Ukirt) - the world's largest telescope dedicated to infra-red astronomy, based in Hawaii.

The fate of these and nearly 30 other projects will be decided later in the year.

EU 63%: teachers 2.45%

A teachers' strike set for tomorrow is set to close or partially close more than 6,000 schools in England and Wales - reports the BBC.

Warnings to parents from 88 local authorities - half of the total - show that 28% of schools are expected to face disruption from loss of lessons to complete closures.

The one-day pay strike is being staged on Thursday by members of the National Union of Teachers over a pay dispute.

The union is attacking a pay deal which represents a 2.45% rise this year with a further rise of 2.3% in 2009 and 2010, arguing that it is below inflation and is therefore an effective pay cut.

Christine Blower, the union's acting head, said: "What we're saying to the government is, if you really do value teachers, then make sure that they're paid at least at the level of inflation - which we take to be the RPI, which is 4.1%."

The offer contrasts sharply with the government's agreement to increase Britain's annual contributions to the EU by 63% - or £2.5bn net extra every year from 2007-13.

This excessive generosity was despite EU auditors remaining unable to approve the "majority" of the EU's spending - a situation that has persisted for 13 years running.

This EU pay deal was endorsed by a majority of MPs back in February. So unless the MPs responsible imagine that there is a bottomless pit of public money to plunder, none who unjustifiably voted to support splashing so much extra on the EU can complain when it emerges that there isn't enough money left to pay teachers fairly.

MPs must acknowledge the reality that if they approve an obvious waste of vast sums of public money in one area, then that decision will have consequences in other areas of public spending.

This is a simple economic reality that everyone is familiar with in their own personal lives, and which MPs must realise applies to national finances too.

MPs must take responsibility when this happens, particularly where it affects their own constituencies. Rather than (as so often) posture in support of public services facing cuts, despite having voted to waste large sums that could instead have been used to help.

Widespread disruption to schools is likely in a number of both inner city and rural areas. Leeds, Cardiff, Suffolk and Cumbria all look likely to have many schools shut or partially closed.

Treasury budget shortfall rockets to £10.2bn

The Daily Telegraph reports today that the Treasury's budget shortfall soared to £10.2bn last month, leaving the Government's coffers in a perilous state as the UK enters what could prove a prolonged downturn.

The figure was a third more than economists expected and the largest since records began in 1993, driven by higher government spending and lower tax receipts.

"The public finances are in no way ideally positioned for the slowdown," said David Page, an economist at Investec. "They've almost no room to step up borrowing."

The news makes the recent 63% increase in our payments to the EU's terminally leaky budget to £115m (net) every week once again look an extremely irresponsible choice by both the Government and those MPs who subsequently endorsed the deal.

With public finances tightening, the price of such unjustified extravagance to as wasteful an organisation as the EU will be paid either through higher taxes or cuts affecting public services within each of those MPs' own constituencies.

An outcome for which each of them must take personal responsibility.

The £230m primary schools sell-off

Almost 300 primary school sites have been sold off in the past decade as local councils seek to raise funds, according to a More4 News/Channel 4 News online survey.

The sales have generated £230m for authorities, as councils struggle to meet government funding demands and combat falling school rolls.

The research shows a further 188 primary schools sites are earmarked for future sale.

Critics say the sell-offs are a 'missed opportunity' to improve educational standards, and could leave authorities short of classrooms in the future.

Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT, said: "The findings both surprise and depress me. At the moment we still have extremely large class sizes all over England and Wales, and because of these sell-offs we will find ourselves with insufficient classroom capacity further down the road.

"Whilst the pupil population might be decreasing at the moment this was the ideal opportunity to reduce class sizes and keep spending on education at the same level so that we can begin to fulfil Gordon Brown's promise that state school children will be funded to the same level as those in the independent sector."

Government funds schools according to how many places they have, rather than the actual number of pupils. It urges authorities to close schools with too few children, as they are seen as an ineffective use of resources.

The survey found that the council which received the most for primary school sales in the past decade was Oxfordshire, whose sell-off programme led to £39.8m being brought in from sales.

Others in the top 10 included: Hertfordshire at £25.6m, Cambridgeshire at £19.7, West Sussex at £15.8m, Havering at £15.4m and Leeds at £13.7m.

Over Easter, Cumbria County Council became the latest authority to indicate it was going to close primary schools under a reorganisation programme.

Councils pledge to put the money raised from primary school sales back into education funding, and many new schools and facilities have been built using the revenue.

However, professor Tony Travers, a local government expert at the London School of Economics, warned that pledges on education spending have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

He said: "You have to take councils at face value when they say they will be ring-fencing funds. But ring-fencing doesn't necessarily mean extra spending on education."

Overall, 113 councils responded to questions filed by Channel 4 news online under Freedom of Information rules, to show that 298 primary school sites had been sold off in the past decade for a total of £236,337,577.

Cambridge: Protest over ward closures

Protesters have marched through Cambridge to object to plans to close two wards at a hospital - reports the BBC.

A review of services at Brookfields Hospital, looking at the closure of 72-bed Davison House, ends on Monday.

Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) group, supported by the union Unison, held the march against the plans over the effect on elderly care.

The health trust said the closure of Davison House, which provides a rehabilitation service for elderly patients, was just one option.

Major public events threatened by policing charges

Major open air events are increasingly under threat due to high costs being charged by police forces.

The Downs Mail reports that popular community events in Maidstone such as the River Festival, Maidstone Mela and Battle of Maidstone re-enactment are threatened by a £43,000 quote from the police for attending just one event for a day.

This quote, for the 28-year old River Festival, covers eight hours of one chief inspector, three inspectors, fourteen sergeants and eighty constables.

Police can use discretion and have offered a 50% discount, but that still leaves a potentially devastating charge of £21,726 (including VAT) - an almost impossible challenge for the organisers.

Questions are being asked about why public events with a largely trouble-free history are now being faced with such huge charges and the cost is no longer being budgeted into the council tax precept which funds local policing.

Maidstone Borough Commander, chief inspector Tony Henley, said that Kent Police's decision to introduce 'common charges' for events reflected Association of Chief Police Officers' national policy.

Maidstone: Campaign to save hospital services

Local campaigns to save services in Maidstone Hospital are to be co-ordinated in a new organisation called MASH (Maidstone Action for Services in Hospitals) - reports the Downs Mail.

The group is already supported by Maidstone's two MPs, cabinet members of both Kent and Maidstone councils, Maidstone Division of the British Medical Association, the two main local newspapers the Downs Mail and Kent Messenger, together with patients and relatives.

Maidstone Hospital has several mountains to climb, including better management of C-Diff infections which killed more than 90 patients and led to a damning report by the Healthcare Commission.

While the hospital's record is now improving, reports still abound of A&E patients being "stacked" in ambulances due to serious delays in emergency admissions.

December saw a significant increase in the number of people waiting over four hours from a decision to admit to admission - 941 waited more than four hours, with 4 patients waiting more than twelve hours).

The main reason was said to be a lack of beds in A&E.

The hospital also has continuing financial problems, with the trust facing a deficit of £18.7m for 2008/09 and a total savings requirement of £21.2m - amounts that could be wiped out with two days' worth of our payments into the audit-failing European Union budget, if that wasted money were diverted into hospital services.

Woman 'denied sight-save drugs'

A grandmother has said she will go blind unless she can persuade her local NHS to fund drug treatment - reports the BBC.

Margaret Coates, 79, from Bromley, south-east London, has wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which can lead to blindness in both eyes.

Her local Primary Care Trust (PCT) will not pay for a drug called Lucentis, Mrs Coates said.

Bromley PCT said patients who did not meet London-wide treatment criteria could apply for exceptional treatment.

Wet AMD, which affects the central part of the retina, is the leading cause of sight loss in the UK, affecting around a quarter of a million people.

Last year the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommended that NHS patients with wet AMD should be eligible for sight-saving drug Lucentis.

But the availability of the treatment, which can cost thousands of pounds, varies between PCTs.

Mrs Coates, 79, said: "I can't believe the PCT is abandoning me like this when I could lose my sight.

"The thought of going blind terrifies me"

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and the Macular Disease Society (MDS) are campaigning for Bromley PCT to reverse its decision and fund the treatment.

Bromley PCT said it funds Lucentis treatment for Bromley residents with AMD in line with criteria agreed for the whole of south-east London.

"Patients who do not meet these criteria can apply through their clinician to the PCT's exceptional treatments group," a spokesman said.

In order to qualify there must be an "unusual or unique clinical factor" that differentiates the patient from others with the condition, he said.

Kidney cancer man's drugs fight

A man with kidney cancer says he has been refused a drug that could save his life and is still waiting for treatment 18 months after being diagnosed - reports the BBC.

Jocelyn Hall, 60, of Tonna, Neath, is taking his local health board (LHB) to judicial review after it refused to pay for him to have the drug, Sunitinib.

Neath Port Talbot LHB said each case for the drug was reviewed individually.

Mr Hall was diagnosed with kidney cancer in September 2006, a fortnight after he gave his notice so he could retire after working in Neath's Metal Box can factory for 44 years.

Surgeons were unable to operate because his tumour had spread to other organs.

Mr Hall's oncologist at Swansea's Singleton Hospital, Professor John Wagstaff, said the drug treatment he wanted his patient to have cost £2,300 every six weeks.

He said: "I've got a number of patients in exactly the same situation, not just with Neath Port Talbot but with other LHBs in south west Wales.

"It's a continuing battle. If he does not get this drug, the only management available to him is to control his symptoms."

Mr Hall's sister, Rosemarie Snow, said: "He has worked all his life and paid into cancer research all his life and he's got nothing.

"The drugs won't cure him but they will help prolong his life. After he worked 44 years of his life, he wants to enjoy his retirement.

Kate Spall, who has become a patient support advocate since her mother died from a rare kidney cancer, said Mr Hall was the "most exceptional" of the more than 40 cases she had advised.

She said: "He has not treatment for nearly two years for terminal cancer. That is just unheard of.

"In Wales today, somebody has not had had one piece of active treatment. That's Third World. That's unbelievable."

A spokeswoman for Neath Port Talbot LHB said she could not comment on individual cases because of confidentiality.

But she said that the local health board took guidance from the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group, which said the use of Sumitinib should not be supported in Wales.

Post offices disappear from London

Royal Mail is facing a legal challenge over its plans to shut 169 post offices in London, the Evening Standard reports today.

The branches, which amount to a fifth of the network, face the axe under a fast-track closure programme.

The proposals provoked protest from all the main political parties, with one MP saying it was a "kick in the teeth" for Londoners.

The capital has already lost more than 300 post offices in four years, with numbers cut from 1,175 to 849. Royal Mail says more branches must go to stem losses of £3 million a week.

However, the shortfall of £3 million a week causing these cuts pales almost into insignificant compared to the £115 million a week (net) subsidy the Government is lavishing on the wasteful EU.

How is this justified, when countless post offices are closing due to a fraction of this amount, yet auditors haven't been able to confirm how the EU is spending the billions it has been given every year for the last 13 years running?

Certainly no MP who recently voted to boost our payments to the EU by an astonishing 63% can claim to be 'standing up' for any post offices facing closure, without leaving themselves open to charges of utter hypocrisy.

The cutbacks come despite new figures showing London has just one branch for every 8,460 people - compared to the national average of one branch for 3,860.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone said the consultation should be extended to 12 weeks, adding: "London's post offices provide vital support for those who are most in need, particularly the elderly, disabled and those with young children. For many Londoners who do not have a bank account, the post office is an amenity they cannot do without."

Labour MP Kate Hoey said: "Londoners will be angry and frustrated at the sham nature of this consultation. The Post Office has already made up its mind. This is a body blow to communities across London, particularly the most vulnerable in the city."

The Conservative shadow minister for London, Bob Neill, said the closures would reduce the network to a shell.

"Labour are putting swathes of the London post office network under threat and putting people's livelihoods on the line yet they won't reveal the extent of post office closures until after the election," he said.

Liberal Democrat business spokesman Sarah Teather said: "Today's announcement is a kick in the teeth for Londoners. We already have a second-class service with half as many post offices per head as the rest of the UK. It is no wonder we have to queue so long to post a parcel."

Royal Mail said the vast majority of Londoners would still live within one mile by road of the nearest branch, and claim that nearly 90 per cent of the capital's population would see no change in their nearest branch.

Anita Turner, Post Office Ltd's network development manager for London, said: "Taking the decision to close any post office branch is always very difficult and we know it will cause concern to many of our customers.

"Post Office Ltd's aim is to continue to provide essential services and support retail businesses and the local economy in as many communities as possible, subject to the minimum access criteria set by the Government."

Those wishing to register their views should contact http://www.postoffice.co.uk/networkchange or write to Post Office Ltd at Freepost Consultation (no stamp required) or email consultation@postoffice.co.uk

BAE to lose billions in defence cuts

BAE Systems will have billions of pounds worth of government orders torn up under budget cuts being drawn up this month by ministers - reports The Observer.

Defence sources said the government would scrap plans to buy four more Astute nuclear submarines from BAE, worth £3.5bn.

Ministers also want to cancel their contract to buy a third tranche of Eurofighter jets, worth more than £5bn, from the company.

The government wants to make up to £15bn of cuts in its military budget over the next decade as it tries to rein in public spending (despite agreeing to increase our payments to the audit-failing EU's budget by an astonishing 63% - to £6bn net or £11.5bn gross a year).

The defence industry and the MoD have been locked in fraught negotiations about how to make the savings.

The government is also set to axe plans to order two further Type 45 destroyers from shipbuilding partners VT Group and BAE. The two companies are building six destroyers, which cost about £600m apiece (only a few weeks worth of our net payments to the EU budget), but had hoped to receive an order for another two.

Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners, said defence companies have been trying to co-operate with the government over how best to make the cuts.

'The industry in my view will have done its utmost to support the government over its financial constraints,' he said. He added that he expected the Royal Navy to bear the brunt of the budget cuts.

A spokeswoman for the ministry said: 'The MoD is currently in the middle of its planning round, when it considers a very wide range of options as a matter of course. We are not prepared to comment on any specific proposals before the planning round has run its full course.'

Not only are these cuts potentially over-stretching our armed forces even further than at present, and possibly even putting military lives at risk by trying to over-extend the life of old equipment, but they could also cause the loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs at BAE's British plants.

Yet another example of the utterly misplaced priorities of the government and those MPs who irresponsibly approved the 63% increase in our payments to the audit-failing EU.

That's billions of pounds a year that could be used to prevent these cuts, if they weren't being handed to the EU instead.

Skies dim for British astronomers

British astronomers will lose access to two of the world's finest telescopes in February due to a government funding shortfall, reports the BBC.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which looks after UK astronomy funding, has signalled that formal notice to withdraw from the Gemini organisation - the consortium that runs two of the biggest, most-modern optical-infrared reflecting telescopes in the world - would be issued shortly, as it seeks to plug a large hole in its budget.

The STFC's problems have emerged out of the government's latest spending round, which has left the council short of £80m in the three-year budget plan to 2011.

This is an amount equivalent to just five days worth of money the government is, however, prepared to shower on the audit-failing and wasteful EU.

The result will be that British astronomers will no longer view the Northern Hemisphere sky with the largest class of telescope.

To manage its way out of this crisis, the STFC has announced its intention to close certain programmes and cut research grants. Science societies and union officials have warned the damage to UK physics and astronomy will be incalculable and will lead to hundreds of job losses.

Researchers say they are aghast at the administrators' decision.

Professor Paul Crowther from Sheffield University said: "To withdraw from the state-of-the-art Gemini facilities leaves the UK ground-based astronomy strategy in disarray - some would say deliberately sabotaged."

"This will badly affect the UK astronomical community's ability to address questions such as how galaxies form, or look for planets around other stars, or be able to adequately exploit space observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope," explained the current chair of the UK telescope allocation committee for Gemini.

"The loss of Gemini North is particularly acute, since the majority of the UK past investment has been focused upon the Northern Hemisphere," he told BBC News.

In future, the only way British astronomers can look at the Northern Hemisphere sky with the largest class of telescope is if they are working on projects with co-researchers whose national funding agencies are sponsors of one of these facilities.

Those MPs who voted to approve the recent 63% increase in our contributions to the EU, despite no end to the EU's annual audit failures, are the ones responsible for this problem.

Doubtless the EU could live without our contributions for just five days, so we can save the £80m required and our international scientific reputation. But those politicians have now made their irresponsible and short-sighted decision to give the money to the EU instead. And we can now only cast our verdict on that decision at the ballot box, come the next general election.

Council tax to rise by double the rate of inflation

Council tax bills in England are set to rise by about 4% on average this year, reports the BBC today.

A Local Government Association (LGA) study into 100 draft council budgets obtained by the BBC shows some councils may put bills up by nearly 5%.

The association has warned that many local authorities will still have to ration or cut services despite the increases in tax.

The chairman of the LGA, Sir Simon Milton is quoted as saying: "No-one likes paying more council tax, but this year town halls are making enormous efforts to keep bills down."

But adds that it has been impossible to avoid putting up bills because of the increasing pressure on council budgets.

"Several government departments are shifting extra costs on to councils while limiting funding from central government," Sir Simon said.

The LGA cites that councils are facing extra costs caused by increased migration, funding free travel for pensioners and the disabled, and increasing social care budgets, due to larger numbers of elderly people, and the cost of dealing with household waste.

In Hampshire, one of the councils where bills will go up by nearly 5%, the authority's leader Cllr Ken Thornberry also blames Whitehall for creating the situation.

"We are being asked to do more and more every year by central government with less and less. The system is not sustainable."

This news of another inflation-busting rise in Council Tax comes as the Government gifts a 63% increase in payments to the (audit-failing) EU, and highlights the utter irresponsibility of those MPs who recently voted to approve that deal.

Their constituents will clearly now pay the price of such completely unjustified generosity to the EU through their Council Tax bills. Read who those MPs were here.

As a result of the EU budget deal, we are now paying so much money to EU institutions every year that our new gross annual EU contribution (more than £10 billion) is now enough to cut everyone's Council Tax bill in half.

That's what those MPs could have done with the money, instead of giving it to a body whose auditors haven't been able to explain its spending for 13 years running, and which is regularly mired in reports of waste and fraud.

Coupled with the recent news that MPs want to gift themselves a nice pay rise, a large section of our political elite seem to be becoming ever more detached from financial reality ... busily feathering their own nests and unjustifiably gifting billions of pounds extra a year to unaccountable international institutions, imagining that such waste is not contributing to oppressive Council Tax rises and essential public services being cut.

The only way to wake these people up with a sharp dose of reality is now at that ballot box, the next time we get an opportunity.

Police in protest rally over pay

An estimated 22,500 police officers have marched in central London in a protest over pay - reports the BBC.

Police are angry that a 2.5% pay rise was only backdated to 1 December for UK officers except for those in Scotland.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would have liked to pay more but it was part of the "fight against inflation" (yet inflating our spending on the EU by £2.5bn a year - or 63% - doesn't seem to worry him!).

Police Federation chairman Jan Berry held "constructive" talks with the home secretary, but said trust between the two sides needed to be rebuilt.

Police say the rise is effectively a 1.9% annual increase - unlike that in Scotland, where it has been backdated to 1 September.

The Police Federation, which represents officers up to the rank of Chief Inspector, has applied for a judicial review of the decision by ministers.

A rally at Central Hall in Westminster, consisting of 3,500 officers, was followed by Ms Berry presenting a petition to Downing Street and meeting home secretary.

Federation members will be balloted next month on whether to campaign for the right to strike.

The Home Office said the home secretary was grateful for the vital and hard work carried out by police officers.

"However, we also have a responsibility to ensure pay settlements take into account affordability and consistency with government pay policy, including the maintenance of low inflation," a spokesman said.

Yet somehow such requirements don't apply when it comes to the EU, where giving that audit-failing organisation an extra £2.5bn a year - a 63% increase, as opposed to the 1.9% pay rise the police are complaining about - is apparently 'affordable' and consistent with the 'maintenance of low inflation'.

What does this say about the government's priorities, and those of the MPs who voted to approve such a shocking waste of even more money on the EU rather than spending it on providing quality public services?

Certainly not one of those MPs, having voted to waste so much on the EU, can also claim to be backing the police. Though that doesn't seem to stop some of the most hypocritical trying.

Warwickshire: Man in NHS battle 'to save sight'

A man has called his NHS trust "morally wrong" for refusing to fund treatment which could save his sight - reports the BBC.

Raymond Liggins, 76, from Nuneaton, lost the sight in his left eye because of wet macular degeneration and now has the condition in his right eye.

Warwickshire Primary Care Trust has said that it did not routinely fund the "sight-saving" drug Lucentis as it was not recommended in guidance to the NHS.

David Rose, chief executive of Warwickshire PCT, said this was the same as other PCTs in the West Midlands.

But Mr Liggins' case has been backed by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and the Macular Disease Society (MDS).

The RNIB said Mr Liggins had the devastating condition age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which could lead to blindness in as little as three months.

It called for Warwickshire PCT to adopt draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) which recommended Lucentis be made available to all patients who developed AMD.

The RNIB said rapid use of the drug was "vital" as it was able to halt the progress of the condition.

Mr Liggins, who is using his life savings to pay for private treatment, said he and other patients with the condition had been "let down" by the NHS.

"It's morally wrong to let people go blind when there are treatments available," he said.

Mr Liggins, who cares for his wife Olive who recently had a stroke, added: "My wife depends on me to help maintain her balance when we go out shopping, but I won't be able to do this if I lose my sight."

Barbara McLaughan, RNIB campaigns manager, said: "It's an absolute disgrace that he is effectively being told to pay up or go blind," she said.

She added: "The clock is literally ticking for patients like Raymond who risk losing their sight because PCTs are denying them sight-saving treatment."

Mr Rose said it was not appropriate for the PCT to comment publicly on an individual case.

He added: "The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) issues guidance to the NHS on treatments and procedures following extensive trial and review and Warwickshire PCT follows all mandatory NICE guidelines.

City concern at Treasury deficit figures

City warnings that government finances are set to plunge far deeper into the red than Alistair Darling has forecast mounted yesterday, after figures were released showing that the Treasury racked up its biggest December deficit on record last month - reports The Times.

Tax receipts that were weaker than expected by the Chancellor were the driving force behind the latest sharp deterioration in the public finances, fuelling fears that government borrowing could spiral as a faltering economy further undermines revenue.

The worsening state of the Government's books was underlined by figures showing that net borrowing for the financial year to date climbed to £43.6 billion, £11.4 billion more than in the same nine months in 2006-07 and far above Mr Darling's full-year forecast of £38 billion for 2007-08.

The worse-than-expected December data released yesterday showed that the Treasury was forced to borrow a net £7.8billion last month to plug the gap between spending and the month's disappointing revenues.

Economists said that the Chancellor was on course to breach that forecast by at least £2billion or £3billion (NB: net increase in payments to the EU: £2.5bn), but could end up exceeding it by much more if inflows of revenues continued to weaken.

This news once again highlights the huge irresponsibility of those MPs who approved a lavish 63% increase in payments for the wasteful and fraud-ridden EU, at the recent Third Reading of the European Communities (Finance) Bill.

Beyond such an increase being completely unjustified while auditors cannot explain where the "majority" of the EU's money goes, such extra payments are clearly just not affordable.

Yet, while the public finances take a nose-dive, post offices close and the government quibbles with the police over £30m of their pay deal (to give just two recent, practical examples of the consequences) these MPs seemed to see no problem in approving the extra £2.5bn (net) a year (on top of the £3.5bn net a year we already pay) to an organisation that has failed its audit for 13 years running.

Despite the valiant efforts of some Labour MPs, like Ian Davidson and Austin Mitchell, most of their colleagues seemed unable to distinguish between the government spin (the money is to help poorer countries in Eastern Europe) and the reality (it will be paid to EU institutions, and where the "majority" of it goes from there has long been anyone's guess!).

All the MPs who voted for this Bill either failed in their responsibility to properly scrutinise the government's actions on behalf of their constituents, or they tried but are simply not up to the job.

Either way you cut it, MPs who approved this deal are not of the calibre necessary to be making such important decisions, and have got to go.

With any problems being suffered by public services in their constituencies caused by a shortfall of public money now being their fault, and theirs alone, for voting to approve this abject waste of public cash on the EU, we can only ensure that those MPs who made such an irresponsible choice are punished by local voters at the next election.

This blog, and the DM's Hall of Hypocrisy, will continue with that goal in mind.

Call for hospital debt write off

A Surrey hospital trust's £56m debt should be written off to let it rebuild its reputation, a local MP has said.

According to the BBC, Reigate MP Crispin Blunt said during a Westminster Hall debate on Tuesday that the size of East Surrey Hospital's debt was because of a delay in the transfer of acute services from Crawley to Redhill in 2001.

Prior to the meeting, Mr Blunt said: "Since 1998 the financial settlement for East Surrey Hospital has been the victim of government interference.

"The current deficit is over £55 million, the largest of any trust in the country" - an amount that could be wiped out with just 4 days' worth of our net contributions to the European Union's audit-failing budget, if the cash were diverted from being sent to that wasteful organisation.

Commenting on his demand that the government write off this debt, Mr Blunt added: "Only this can give the trust the financial footing on which it can begin to rebuild its quality of service and its reputation."

Health minister Dawn Primarolo said Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust was one of 17 classified as "financially challenged".

She added that measures were in place to enable the trust to restore its finances.

But maybe if Ms Primarolo and the government of which she is a part didn't condone wasting so much public money on the audit-failing EU, she wouldn't have to force East Surrey hospital to take these financial "measures" which will very likely harm provision of essential health services.