Happy Friday!

These links are the culmination of at least a month of me collecting them and then forgetting to hit publish so some may be a little out of date!

Israeli forces kill at least nine Palestinians in West Bank raids. Israel won’t stop until someone (the US) stops them. They are gunning for genocide and calling criticism anti-semitic. It’s not anti-semitic to point out when people are wrong, the reasons for it are complex but it needs to stop. Take away their arms, sanction them, do to them what the West does to other states like Iran. No more playing favourites, the Israeli state is not moral it is refusing to compromise and blaming Palestinians for it. Enough.

‘Many people would throw a tantrum at this point’: An Israeli and a Palestinian discuss 7 October, Gaza – and the future. This is so worth reading, it’s painful and frustrating but it does allow for nuance

I’m Ukrainian but my first words were Russian. It’s a legacy we’ve spent our whole lives trying to escape. Worth reading this, to think about how war calcifies identity.

East German culture has been ignored for too long. Until we embrace it, our country will remain dangerously divided. I grew up with the idea that West Germany spent a great deal of the post war years, addressing Nazism and that East Germany had not. And I suspect that assumption meant that when AfD started to rise that this was why. The old ‘those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it’ cliché. Given all things that are happening here, I think that’s too simple an assumption but somehow I’m not surprised to discover that the people behind AfD are not from where their supports are..

Grenfell report blames decades of government failure and ‘systematic dishonesty’ of companies. Late stage capitalism and poor government with the added toxic belief that people in social housing are somehow worth less than people with money.

Renting in England is like trying to buy Oasis tickets – Labour’s solutions only go so far. 2.5 years is the average length of tenancy? Blimey, I’m throwing off that curve at 15 years. It’s about good tenants and good landlords.

More than a million unpaid UK carers living in poverty, research finds. This is something that I’ve been thinking about recently. Fortunately, I won’t need give up work to care for my Mum, she’s doesn’t need full time care, just some help. So, I’ll juggle work a bit if there’s an emergency, I’ll use up leave to go to appointments with her, everything else will fit around the evenings and weekends. I know so many people who have done or are doing that. I don’t expect to be paid for looking after my mum, I recognise the privilege of having a parent that has been alive long enough to require help as she ages. 

However, there is financial cost for caring, for me that the cost of travel and having to give up a day every weekend, this year I bought extra holiday and as I’ve used most of it on mum’s appointments that will continue next year. I’m lucky, I’m relatively well paid (for London) and I work in a company and have a manager who understand and give me time. Also Ma isn’t struggling for money, we can afford it (although if anyone would like to argue for a free bus pass for carers, I’m here for that!). If you can’t, there’s carer’s allowance.

Well, that’s the theory, but to qualify for the £4,258.80 pounds a year carer’s allowance, you need to earn less than £151.00 per week. Which is £7,852 a year. How many people do you know that can live on that? If you must give up work to care for someone and have a spouse who supports you, carer’s allowance will help to offset the cost of caring, if you don’t need to work for money, carer’s allowance is great. If you are single or if you and your partner both work, then you can’t claim carers allowance. 35 hours a week at minimum wage is £20,820.80. If you’re earning that, money is probably already tight, you need all the help you can get but you can’t get any help. Which means probably one of you giving up work and then everyone struggling. People who have full time jobs can’t claim carers allowance as they juggle the emotional and financial cost of caring for others and save the country a massive amount of money in care fees and NHS costs. It’s a ‘benefit’ designed for the 1950’s not for the 2000’s. We need to massively rethink how we view caring for sick, disabled, or elderly people. As part of the re-think we need to think give carers the same rights as parents to vary hours or take time out when required and we should increase the threshold of what you can earn before you can claim carer’s allowance. I think that if you are the primary support for someone who is claiming disability living allowance then you should get carers allowance regardless of how much you earn and we should perhaps define the role a bit better, looking after a disabled child, an elderly parent or a elderly parent with dementia are all very difference experiences with different tasks and we really need to look at how we choose to support people.

Ministers launch pension credit campaign after restricting winter fuel payments. I get why they did away with universal winter fuel payments but I really dislike taking a universal benefit and restricting it. The state pension is about £11k a year and the pension tax credit only takes it to the state pension, also that cliff edge of people who are about £500 a year over the pension tax credit threshold worries me too. I want to see this government raise capital gains tax (unearned wealth) instead of playing about with tax and benefits of working and/or poor people.

Pension pot amount needed for ‘basic’ retirement rises 60% in three years. This month is pension awareness month, if you haven’t already, it’s time to have a look at your pension provision

Stop press: it’s the very last Evening Standard in London today. And that tells us a lot about Britain in 2024. We used to get the Evening Standard every day, Dad used it for jobs and I’ve done that too. I learned to cook in part from the Nigel Slater and Lindsey Bareham columns, for years Ma had the ‘Thatcher Resigns’ front page framed. I still pick one up for Mum when I go into the offie, so she can do the crossword. It’ll be strange not to have it around…

Why stop at breakfast? We paediatricians think all of England’s primary pupils should have lunch for free. I do think that universal free school meals are the way to go. However, as a child of the 1970’s and 80’s who went to schools that were full of working-class kids (ILEA so we still got the free school milk in primary), there weren’t that many of us that couldn’t afford school dinner or packed lunch. There were a couple, and it was a smallish school, we all knew why. There was a disabled parent, a single parent, there were a couple of kids who probably should have been or were under social services. But for most of us, food wasn’t something we thought about, I can’t remember school dinners, I had a packed lunch which was a sandwich, a yoghurt, fruit and veg (I really liked to take a carrot instead of an apple!), maybe some crisps and some form of biscuit bar all through my school life (Grandad was the provider of fruit and biscuits because he was a feeder, a trait I definitely inherited). Most of my class did the same and there were variations, I came from a not much added sugar household, my cousins didn’t. Some of the kids ate more exciting food than the standard white working-class diet of the 70’s and 80’s but there was always food, enough of it and healthy enough. So, I have to ask what kind of society have we created where people can’t adequately feed their children? Where they don’t have the money or time or knowledge or equipment to make enough decent food for themselves or their kids? So much so that our children are getting shorter and less healthy, that they have tooth decay so bad they must have all their teeth removed? That the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is supportive of the idea of free school breakfasts and lunches? Am I living in the upside down because this is mental.

Yes, bystanders can save women from sexual assault. But I know first-hand that’s not always enough. That judge should be fired

Two tribes are at war for the Tory leadership. How to choose? Let me help. I’ve been saying since the election that it’s going to be Robert Jenrick, I don’t think that when push comes to shove, the Tory Party members will vote for Kemi Badenoch. 

Add ice-lolly licking to England primary school curriculum, urge scientists. Hands on, fun practical’s always work better for embedding knowledge.

UK citizens travelling to EU next summer will have to pay €7 visa-waiver charge. Please do tell me again about how Brexit was going to make everything better and none of the travel restrictions predicted by

Revealed: Far higher pesticide residues allowed on food since Brexit. FFS…

Getting an allotment totally changed my summer – and radically altered my relationship with food. I know how that works…

Sunscreen is taxed as a ‘cosmetic’ in the UK. As a skin cancer survivor, I’m appalled. I didn’t realise and it’s really stupid. I also use factor 50 religiously on my face and arms (generally the only bits of me I actively expose to the sun) and recommend the Altruist range because it’s inexpensive for sunscreen and designed by a NHS dermatologist. I use the sun cream (for body and face) and the primer. I’m fond of the whole range and use the moisturisers too!

Jacob’s Creek, Campo Viejo … the wines I grew up with are suddenly as relevant as Blue Nun