Boris Johnson has sparked outrage on the eve of the Conservative Party conference after saying “never mind” about cancer death rates and the recent fall in life expectancy.

www.independent.co.uk

Grilled about his plans for Britain’s recovery from the Covid crisis, the prime minister chose to emphasise economic growth over health measures.

Pointing to the recent growth in wages, Mr Johnson told the BBC: “I’ve given you the most important metric – never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes – look at wage growth.”

Opposition parties pounced on the prime minister’s remarks, with Labour accusing him of showing an “outrageous” disregard for the health of British citizens.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told The Independent: “Boris Johnson starts his conference with the most chilling words ever spoken from a prime minister dismissing the importance of cancer outcomes.”

The Labour MP added: “If cancer incidence and survival rates across the poorest matched the wealthier there would be 19,000 fewer deaths per year. Life expectancy has stalled for those in the poorest areas.

“There is no levelling up without levelling up health. It’s now clearer than ever that all Boris Johnson offers is just glib words and no action.”

The SNP’s Ian Blackford also shared the clip of Mr Johnson’s comments in an interview with BBC Northern Ireland. “Every citizen should see this insight into the thinking of our PM,” said the party’s Westminster leader.

Mr Blackford claimed the prime minister was “literally prepared to sacrifice our health”.

Dr Clive Peedle, a consultant clinical oncologist and NHS campaigner, said: “As a cancer doctor in the North East of England, I find Boris Johnson’s comments abhorrent.”

The NHS cancer specialist added: “Wage growth is only beneficial if wealth inequality is addressed, but his government has no intention of tackling this.”

Macmillan Cancer Support also responded to Mr Johnson’s remarks. “People facing the fear and trauma caused by disruption to their cancer treatment and care need to know that they are at the top of the government’s priority list and cannot be forgotten,” said Steven McIntosh, an executive director at the charity.

He added: “Any measure of ‘levelling up’ for our country must focus on urgent progress for people facing delayed cancer care, poorer cancer experience or outcomes.”

Among the many Labour MPs sharing the clip of Mr Johnson’s BBC interview, left-wing stalwart Ian Lavery tweeted: “Ghastly appalling disregard for our people.”

Labour frontbencher Wes Streeting – the shadow secretary for child poverty – said millions of people do mind about cancer outcomes. “This is stomach-turning, insightful and outrageous,” he tweeted on Mr Johnson’s remarks.

Life expectancy for men has fallen for the first time since records began, government figures revealed in September – as the higher-than-usual deaths caused by the pandemic begin to make an impact.

More than half a million cancer patients are missing out on vital healthcare support due to severe staff shortages across the NHS, new research from Macmillan Cancer Support revealed last month.

One in four people who were diagnosed with cancer in the last two years have gone without proper support from a specialist nurse during that time, equating to roughly 630,000 patients, the charity said.

The row over health measures comes as Mr Johnson drafts in a former senior military commander to carry out a far-ranging overhaul of leadership in the NHS and social care sector.

The government said General Sir Gordon Messenger, an ex-vice chief of the defence staff, would conduct the most far-reaching review the sector in England has seen in 40 years.

Elsewhere in his interview with BBC Northern Ireland, Mr Johnson said the Northern Ireland Protocol “could in principle work” but it will be a case of “fixing it or ditching it”.

The prime minister did not rule out triggering Article 16 to suspend the crucial part of his Brexit deal with the EU. Asked if he planned to trigger Article 16 during the Conservative Party conference next week, Mr Johnson replied: “That depends on the response from the EU.”

As Tories head to Conference the Mirror breaks these two stories

Quarter of Johnson Cabinet took Russia-linked cash as Tories head to Conference

Donors offered cosy dinner with ministers for £4,000 a table at Tory Conference

“There is a pattern here, if we’re only willing to see it. A populist government hobbling those bodies that exist to keep it in check, trampling on democratic conventions and long-held rights, all to tighten its own grip on power. We need to recognise it, even when it wears a smile and tousled hair, and speaks in the soothing cadences of Eton College.”

Jonathan Freedland www.theguardian.com 

If this wasn’t us, how would we describe it? If this was Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, or Poland, what language might we use? Would an announcer on the BBC World Service declare: “Amid fuel and food shortages, the government has moved to cement its grip on power. It’s taking action against the courts, shrinking their ability to hold the ruling party to account, curbing citizens’ right to protest and imposing new rules that would gag whistleblowers and sharply restrict freedom of the press. It’s also moving against election monitors while changing voting rules, which observers say will hurt beleaguered opposition groups … ”

It doesn’t sound like us. We like to tell ourselves that we live in a mature democracy, our institutions deep rooted. Political competition is brisk, never more so than at this time of year, as one party conference ends and another begins. This is not a one-party state. All it would require is Labour to get its act together – to which end it made a decent start this week – and, with a fair wind, the Conservatives would be out.

It’s a consoling thought, but not a reliable one. Almost unnoticed, perhaps because it’s done with an English rather than a Hungarian accent, our populist, nationalist prime minister is steadily setting out to weaken the institutions that define a liberal democracy: the ones that might act as checks and balances on him. And he’s moving, Orbán style, to make it ever harder for his government to lose power.

Start with the courts. After all, that’s what Boris Johnson did. It seems petty to suggest that he is out for revenge after the supreme court delivered an 11-0 humiliation over his unlawful suspension of parliament in 2019, but Johnson is acting like a man determined to settle a score.

He set his sights early on a bill to reform judicial review, the process by which courts can overturn unlawful decisions by the government and others. The language is less overt than it was, but that bill stays true to its initial aim of declaring entire categories of government action off limits to judges – and it explicitly bans a particular, 11th-hour form of judicial review often used in immigration cases. No wonder the Law Society has been sounding the alarm, warning of a threat to essential curbs on “the might of the state”.

If that enrages you, think twice before taking to the streets. Under the new police bill, ministers will have the power to suppress pretty well any protest they don’t like. It makes it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in jail, merely to cause “serious annoyance” to the public. The police will be able to clamp down on a demonstration, or ban it altogether, on the flimsiest basis. If they deem a demo sufficiently loud to cause someone in the vicinity “serious unease”, that would be enough.

Of course, no one goes on a march unless they know about whatever outrage the government or others has committed. That can take a whistleblower or journalist or both, and Johnson is moving against them too. He wants to widen the scope of the Official Secrets Act, applying it to more areas of government activity and increasing the punishment for breaking it. Crucially, he refuses to add any kind of public interest defence for journalists or their sources. Even the Sun calls the move a “licence for cover-up”, adding that a society where journalists and whistleblowers face jail even over leaks that are clearly in the public interest is “in the grip of oppression”.

But Johnson is bent not only on preventing his government from being held to account. More sinister, he is taking steps to ensure it can’t easily be replaced. He wants to tilt the playing field of electoral competition permanently in the government’s favour, and his first target is the referee.

The Conservatives’ elections bill hands ministers powers over what has, until now, been an independent Electoral Commission. Suddenly, ministers will be able to deploy the commission as they see fit, using it to define what counts as election campaigning. A minister could order the commission to impose a criminal penalty on a group that had been campaigning for, say, higher NHS pay, six months before an election was called, by retroactively defining that effort as election spending. It’s not hard to imagine ministers using that power selectively to hurt their opponents. Little wonder that an alliance of charities and trade unions, convened by the Best for Britain group, has called the change “an attack on the UK’s proud democratic tradition and some of our most fundamental rights”.

The same bill would require voters to show photo ID before being handed a ballot, a remedy for the nonexistent problem of voter fraud – and a practice known to exclude poorer voters less likely to back the Conservatives. Meanwhile, note who got the money from a £1bn fund set aside by the government for struggling towns: in a remarkable coincidence, 39 of the 45 towns chosen are in constituencies with a Conservative MP, even when that meant cash going to a Tory-held seat rather than the poorer place next door. That looks a lot like using public money as an electoral war chest to keep Tory seats Tory.

And let’s not forget a trick straight out of the Orbán or Donald Trump playbook. Ofcom, like the Electoral Commission, is meant to be independent. But Johnson persists in his determination to install in the chair an ideological ally: the former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre.

There is a pattern here, if we’re only willing to see it. A populist government hobbling those bodies that exist to keep it in check, trampling on democratic conventions and long-held rights, all to tighten its own grip on power. We need to recognise it, even when it wears a smile and tousled hair, and speaks in the soothing cadences of Eton College.

A room cancellation due to the fuel crisis was the last straw for pub owners in Devon who said they have been affected by the consequences of Brexit, the pingdemic and house prices every day.

“Build back better – Getting on with the job”. This year’s slogans at the Tory Party Conference – Owl

Charlotte Becquart www.devonlive.com

The owners of the Bull Inn in Totnes decided to post a rant on their pub’s social media after the fuel shortage England has been experiencing because of people panic buying prevented guests from enjoying a weekend stay in the Devon pub.

They said it’s another blow for the pub which has been hit by alcohol and staff shortage for a while due to a range of issues currently affecting the country.

They wrote: “We have a cancellation! Due to fuel! – See RANT below – Can you ruddy believe! Anyway Room 4, a gorgeous super king room, with a bath, is now free for this weekend, until Monday. If it sells via Insta I’ll give the booker/bookee/bookster (I think they are actually called a guest!) a complimentary meal for two, which I reckon is what it would cost for fuel from here to London/midlands/ maybe even Manchester! And if you come on the train I’ll add a bottle of fizz.

“Now the rant. This post is in part an opportunity to dig at the government and the media for creating chaos through a) the shortage of workers and b) stirring up bloody hysteria. I mean seriously, this is one tiny inconsequential impact, rooms chop and change all the time but when all the impacts on our business seem to have be created or mismanaged into existence and exasperated by the bunch of donkeys we’ve got governing us it becomes infuriating and depressing.

“Every day of the week we are dealing with something directly connected to this sh*t show, whether it’s booze not turning up (no drivers/deliveries slowed at border) staff off ad infinitum (pingdemic/baffling ever changing guidelines = endless risk assessments/rota changes) to staff shortages (Brexit/ house or rental prices meaning you can’t afford to live where they bloody live!). Oh, I could go on, but I won’t, not now but me and Geetie are determined to start being more vocal about all the things that matter to us, as we all should. “

Pubs and the hospitality industry have been hit hard since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

They had to deal with successive lockdowns and restrictions, the pingdemic which saw staff having to self-isolate countless times, and supply issues due to slower border controls and a shortage of drivers linked to Brexit.

Now pubs are also impacted by the fuel crisis. From Monday, military drivers will be deployed to deliver fuel to forecourts as the crisis at the pumps continues.

Almost 200 military personnel – including 100 drivers – have been undertaking training at haulier sites and will start deliveries to help relieve the situation at petrol stations, which ministers insist is stabilising, PA reports.

The Government also announced that a temporary visa scheme for nearly 5,000 foreign food haulage drivers that was due to expire on December 24 will now be extended to the end of February.

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) – representing independent filling stations – warned queues at forecourts were set to continue unless fuel supplies increased, and said the independents had been particularly hard hit.