On 9 November last year, in the opening chapter of my book Square Deal I called for the Chancellor Philip Hammond to use his forthcoming Autumn Statement to declare that the age of austerity was over. One year later, I am glad to say he has used this week’s Budget to do what I recommended.
There are only 28 weeks left before we leave the European Union (EU). In all of my conversations with MPs since I published my plan for a Better Brexit, this fact has been uppermost in everyone’s mind.
This autumn Britain faces a terrible choice: between the humiliation of a deal dictated by Brussels; and the chaos of crashing out of the EU next March with no deal. But it is not too late to change course.
Today I am publishing my plan for a Better Brexit.
It is two years since I received an urgent phone call from the Chief Executive of United Lincolnshire Hospital NHS Trust (ULHT) telling me of the decision to close Grantham A & E at night because of staff shortages elsewhere in the trust.
When more than 17 million people voted to leave the European Union, they did not all share the same expectation about where we would end up when we left.
This week the NHS turned 70. There have been celebrations across the country. Theresa May’s announcement that the government will increase the annual funding of the NHS by 3.4% a year (so it is £20 billion a year higher in 2023) means that the NHS can look to the future with optimism.
We don’t celebrate England, and being English, enough. The Scottish aren’t embarrassed about their nation, or their flag. Far from it. You can’t move in Edinburgh or Glasgow without seeing a blue and white saltire flapping in the wind.
