Whittington – it just gets worse………..
Rumours are emerging that the planned merger of the Whittington and Royal Free Hospitals will not be enough to satisfy NHS bosses and that there may instead be a forced marriage between the Whittington, Royal Free and UCLH Hospitals. This raises interesting questions, because UCLH is a Foundation Trust. I believe this may mean that the proposed 'merger' will be nothing of the sort, but will instead be a take-over by UCLH of the other two hospitals - a wonderful Xmas present for UCLH, which has been dreaming of this for years.... This disaster just goes on and on...." Meanwhile, lots of denials by NHS bosses about intentions to close or reduce A&E departments at the Wh

Rise Festival to rise again?
Met with UpRise (London United Against Racism Festival) a group formed to reinstate the Rise Festival that Boris scrapped as one of his first acts to bring London together and spread the love. This was an annual anti-racist, free, music festival in Finsbury Park each summer. It was indeed supported by that spawn of the devil (as far as Boris is concerned) ex-Mayor Ken - which may be the reason that Boris pulled the plug on it. However, at the risk of extending the 'plug' analogy - it plugged a good message - and it is a shame that Boris wasn't big enough to understand the importance of that message in this very diverse part of London. And with the abhorrent rise of the BNP - my o

The Whittington – who is making the decisions?
I think the Government speaks with forked tongue! Here is the parliamentary question that I put down for written answer last week - and the answer itself. Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat) To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether all of the proposals made to the North Central London Service and Organisa

So much for an ‘exemplar’ Bill
Harriet Harman declared that the Equality Bill would be exemplar. Part of its examplarness (if that's a word) would be that the Government would consult the opposition benches over how to handle the debate when it came to the floor of the House for Report Stage and Third Reading - which it does next Wednesday. However, there had been no discussions, consultations or anything - just an announcement that the Bill would be on the floor of the House on 2 December - a derisory one day only. This means that the dozens of amendments and New Clauses that are down for debate won't even get discussed. For only one day - and almost certainly a statement after Wednesday's PMQs on Afghanista

Postcodes belong to us – or should do!
Ernestmarples.com doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue and is not that well known. However, it is a vital part of making information that you or I might want not only accessible – but relevant – because it can relate to the locations we are interested in. There are (or rather, were) websites that we can access when we want to know, for example, if there is a planning application near us. There are websites that can take the information about jobs available through the Job Centre and send us that information. It is that very special feature – being postcode driven, so that information can be given in the geographical locations w