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David Harding 🔶💙

@drdrdrh.bsky.social
1.7K followers 3.4K following 125 posts

used to do science and health stuff. now do potholes. #MedSky #publichealth #healthpolicy #FBPE #NHS #NICU #Neonatology #academicsky , Be kind. Be able to change your mind- its why you have one.

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Reposted by David Harding 🔶💙
Alex Hall Hall @alexhh.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
He concludes it had “little impact” - but how does he know? The vote was so close that just a marginal impact on a small number of voters could have been decisive. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Russia did try to interfere in Brexit referendum, head of MI5 confirms
Ken McCallum says Kremlin attempted to influence vote through social media and TV reports but had little impact
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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Much of the coverage today is absolutely nuts. The facts are on Wikipedia. The full Intelligence and Security Committee (Russia) Report is online. Tory media & politicians once again banking on their average consumer/voter being too daft/busy/blinkered to notice...
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
NEW: Prime Minister Andy Burnham finally breaks a decade of UK govt silence…& reveals there was ‘clear’ Russian interference in the Brexit vote. 1/
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We Own It @weownit.org.uk · 11/10/2026
Barry Gardiner MP has the receipts; showing that England's water companies are persistently failing in their statutory duties. As Secretary of State for the Environment Angela Eagle already has the power to take them into Special Administration. "She can. She should."
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Rachel Fairbank @sweetsciencewriter.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
This isn’t a “controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr,” this is “playing with the lives of vulnerable infants in a developing nation, which is being pushed by malicious grifters who couldn’t care less about the innocent lives they hurt.”
theguardian.com
Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau
Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers
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Rachel Fairbank @sweetsciencewriter.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
“The children who are randomly selected not to receive the birth dose of the vaccine, those who “lost the lottery”, face in their earliest days the risk of contracting hepatitis B, which can cause irreversible lifelong damage.” No words. I am speechless. This violates all ethical boundaries.
theguardian.com
Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau
Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Trump is a goddamned coward and a traitor to his country
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We Own It @weownit.org.uk · 09/10/2026
It's not just the endless bill increases. It's not just that 1/3 of your bill goes to paying shareholder dividends and servicing debt. It's not just the 1/2 million sewage discharges in one year. It's the corrupt system, which rewards water bosses for failure, that people can't stand.
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martinbarrow.bsky.social @martinbarrow.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The Local Government Association protests that the cost of supporting children in care rise by £1 billion a year but cannot bring itself to mention profiteering. www.local.gov.uk/about/news/c...
local.gov.uk
Costs of supporting children in care rise by £1 billion a year
Spending on providing support for children in care is rising at a rate of £1 billion a year, according to new analysis by the Local Government Association.
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Leonardo Carella @leonardocarella.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
In other words, a 10 percent contraction in one of Britain’s most successful exports. If it were steel or fish or other infinitely less profitable sectors, people would be having a meltdown.
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
RFK Jr is funding a grotesquely unethical study on newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau; ethicists, pediatricians, clinical trial experts, & infectious disease experts are calling this horrific trial The New Tuskegee. It is unethical to withhold a life saving intervention from half of newborns FFS.
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Torsten Bell @torstenbell.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
So what this week has taught us is that the Conservative offer is to: - prioritise the wealthiest - blow up the public finances
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The Health Foundation @healthfoundation.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Young people’s health is an economic asset. Improving it could unlock an additional £7.3bn in economic output every year. Our new briefing sets out how earlier, joined-up support can help more young people stay in, or return to, education, employment and training ⬇️ bit.ly/4rw864F
A bar chart showing that the likelihood of not being in education, employment or training at age 23 for young people in the UK born in 2000 increased with the number of negative school experiences reported between ages 7 and 14.
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
For 14yrs, the Tories cratered our economy, added thousands to our cost of living, melted down public services and brexited us into decades of eye-watering expense and lost opportunity. That’s still their plan. With tax breaks for the super rich paid for by welfare cuts. So what TF is this headline?
THE TIMES

Thursday October 8 2026 | thetimes.com | No 75158

Tories will make you better off
Badenoch vows to scrap inheritance tax on family homes and abolish Labour's levy on properties worth more than £2m
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Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Kemi Badenoch wants to exempt the family home from inheritance tax. But that creates a perverse incentive for elderly people to *upsize* to save IHT. That could double the cost of the policy, and push £100bn+ from savings into housing. A 🧵 on bad tax cuts.
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Andy Brown @andybrown1951.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Anyone else think having British care homes sold off for over a billion by a very wealthy man to a consortium from California is not a healthy way to provide a service? www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/del...
yorkshirepost.co.uk
'Delighted': Yorkshire businessman's care home company seals £1.1bn deal with US firm
A Yorkshire company which develops UK care homes and owned by one of the region’s wealthiest entrepreneurs has sealed a £1.1bn deal to sell 45 properties to a Californian investment firm.
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Credit to the US for making the point the conference was trying to make about US foreign interference in European democracies for them, and bringing more attention to the conference and its themes than they could have possibly hoped for. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...
politico.com
EU, Canada and Lithuania pull out of disinformation conference after US pressure
The Trump administration was bothered by panels that referred to the U.S. as a disinformation threat.
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martinbarrow.bsky.social @martinbarrow.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The cost to councils of looking after children in care is rising by £1bn a year, according to new analysis by the Local Government Association. www.lgcplus.com/services/chi...
lgcplus.com
Children in care costs soaring by £1bn a year, LGA says
The cost to councils of looking after children in care is rising by £1bn a year, according to new analysis by the Local Government Association. The
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David Harding 🔶💙 @drdrdrh.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
🤔🤔
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The Sutton Trust @suttontrust.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
🚨 NEW: Poorer students have the most to gain from university, but they’re the least likely to go. Our brand-new best practice guide argues universities should redouble efforts to support disadvantaged students 🧵
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David Harding 🔶💙 @drdrdrh.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Same old kool-aid Tories!
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We Own It @weownit.org.uk · 08/10/2026
Andy Burnham has said he wants to reverse Thatcher’s 40 year legacy of privatisation. Now is the time for him to seize the moment, anchored by a set of principles that are uncompromising enough to make a difference to people's lives. Our new report sets out how to do it. vist.ly/5mh3j
"“If water companies cannot invest without raising our bills, they should be allowed to go bust and then taken into public ownership. The public has had enough of the rising bills, service cuts, hosepipe bans and sewage dumping. It is time for water to be taken into public ownership like 90% of the world.”
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David Harding 🔶💙 @drdrdrh.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Terrible!
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Richard Murphy @richardjmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Neoliberalism is failing, but what is it? This is a new version of our infographic on neoliberalism. AI drew the image. I wrote the text.
An infographic on neoliberalism
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Badenoch speech: The Tory leader is having an argument with herself and she's losing inews.co.uk/opinion/bade...
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Liberal Democrats @libdems.org.uk · 07/10/2026
JUST IN: Latest from the Liz Truss Supporters' Club
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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I'm old enough to remember the 'free trade with Trump will save us' phase of Brexity derangement (enjoy your coffee, tea and bananas while you can, US friends 😀)
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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
“Whether policies, polls or performances, the gulf between the reality I think I inhabit and the world according to Kemi seems almost inconceivably enormous, and yet so complete is her belief in her own brilliance that I frequently find myself checking whether my own memory of events is accurate.”
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martinbarrow.bsky.social @martinbarrow.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
More than a quarter of children on NHS community health waiting lists in England have been waiting over a year for treatment, making them 38 times more likely than adults to experience such lengthy delays, according to new King’s Fund analysis www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/articles/chi...
nationalhealthexecutive.com
Children face record NHS community care delays as long waits surge | National Health Executive
More than a quarter of children on NHS community health waiting lists in England have been waiting over a year for treatment, ma
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We Own It @weownit.org.uk · 07/10/2026
LET THEM GO BUST ! Last year, Thames Water took out a £3bn loan - at 9.75% interest. And now they want another £2.4bn to keep going?! ENOUGH. If water companies can't survive without rip-off loans, they should be declared insolvent and brought into public hands through special administration.
Screenshot from The Daily Telegraph, 2nd October 2026: "Thames Water seeks £2.4bn lifeline after rescue plan stalls Troubled utility risks more financial turmoil if its army of hedge fund backers do not provide emergency cash", above a graphic of the Thames Water logo swirling down a drain.
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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Shadow chancellor vows to cut tax in every Tory budget As always, it would be tax cuts for the rich. No mention of corporate welfare, equitable distribution of income/wealth. We haven't recovered from previous Tory follies. NHS queues, potholed road, crumbling schools. What will they cut next?
bbc.co.uk
Shadow chancellor vows to cut at least one tax in every Tory budget
Shadow ministers unveiled a series of policies on day two of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.
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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Drax’s planned datacentre to burn 4.9m tonnes of wood to produce its electricity, nearly double the CO2 emissions of all flights from London Gatwick airport. Drax, a highly profitable company gets subsidies to burn wood and produce electricity How many lives will it ruin?
theguardian.com
Drax datacentre could create nearly twice the yearly emissions of all Gatwick flights
Exclusive: Campaign group’s analysis of North Yorkshire plans finds datacentre would have to burn 4.9m tonnes of wood a year
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Trifluoro acetic acid persists in the environment for 1000s of years It's a breakdown product of refrigerant gases, & of pesticides like flufenacet Present in all England's surface waters, nearly 90% of groundwater 2/5 water sites tested breached new limits set by EU inews.co.uk/news/forever...
inews.co.uk
Forever chemical linked to fertility issues found in rivers in England
Data shared exclusively with The i Paper reveals trifluoroacetic acid has been detected in areas that supply drinking water
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders"
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
As long as the Tories are threatening to leave the ECHR, they aren’t a serious party. Consider it the ultimate red flag. Any party who’d take this entirely unnecessary and ruinous risk with our rights and our country’s security and wellbeing should never get its hands on power. (Letter, Times)
Value of the
ECHR
Sir, In dangerous times, serious countries do not retreat into splendid isolation. They build alliances, multiply their influence and strengthen institutions. Key among those is the 46-member Council of Europe, at its heart the European Convention on Human Rights.As former independent reviewers of terrorism legislation we have seen at close quarters that the ECHR is not just a human rights instrument. It is a national security asset. Terrorist networks, hostile states, organised crime gangs and people smugglers do not respect borders. Tackling them requires arrangements for the closest possible co-operation with our neighbours, including through joint investigations and police access to European passenger, fingerprint, DNA and vehicle data.These arrangements expressly depend on internationally agreed human rights standards, applied by a supranational court. We detect no political willingness to excuse the UK from compliance with standards to which the rest of Europe already subscribes. As authoritarian powers grow more aggressive and democratic institutions face mounting pressure, Britain should not be abandoning one of its greatest postwar achievements.
The question is not whether we can afford to remain within the ECHR. It is whether, in an increasingly perilous world, we can afford not to.
Lord Carlile of Berriew, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, Sir Max Hill
Independent reviewers of terrorism legislation, 2001-18
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Patrick Barlow @patrick-barlow.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Why A&E is broken Not enough hospital beds
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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I see that Kemi Badenoch will finally unveil the long lost magic money tree at Conservative conference. Well, either that or make a lot of promises that like the last government she couldn't deliver.
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Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"Dear Diary, There were six by-elections in England and Scotland this week and Reform lost all of them. Two of them were seats we previously held. The problem with running councils is that people can see how useless we are."
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Adam Brown @adamlbrown.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
The well organised and well funded far right have spent decades building an unassailable global disinformation machine, whilst liberals are still stuck flapping on about 'surely if we just debate them fairly then our better evidenced arguments will win out in the marketplace of ideas'
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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 01/10/2026
French President Emmanuel Macron: "If the British want to come back and if the Prime Minister is moving in that direction, I think that is very good news, both for his country and for the Europeans." ♥️
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Was interviewed by a US journalist today who asked if we were all panicking about terrorists at Fairford, which ended with me trying to explain dogging.
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Shaun Lintern @shaunlintern.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Burnham confirms social care reforms will deliver a service free at point of use, with everyone contributing to pay for it, but changes won't begin for years and rest on him winning the next election. He's pushed it back to same timetable as Starmer. No solution for 5 years+?
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Liam Thorp @liamthorp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I do find this country mad. Anyone can see that social care is in a state of devastating crisis in this country and that it is the key source of the NHS crisis as well. There is no feasible way to solve it without everyone contributing. Burnham is honest about that and is already getting pelters.
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Anti-Reform @antireform.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"... In Worcestershire, they even sought permission for an almost 9% rise before losing control of the council Then there are the services being cut Care homes targeted for closure in Lancashire And now all 10 council-run nurseries being closed in South Tyneside ..." via Reform Are Not Your Friends
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Anti-Reform @antireform.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
'It's a mystery, isn't it' via Christopher Warner
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Tim Schofield 🌹 @timschofield.org.uk · 24/09/2026
Nigel Farage says an attack on Russia pushing disinformation in the UK is an attack on Reform UK When they tell you who they are, believe them.
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Liam Thorp @liamthorp.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The NHS is the greatest thing this country has dreamt up and delivered, I don’t think the politicians of today would have the courage or the fortitude to create it. We must protect it at all costs from the vultures who would love nothing more than to break it up and sell it off. Anyway that’s me.
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Anyone wondering what ‘two tier policing’ was? Now we know.
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Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If only there was some way of knowing why Nigel Farage is so against a new national centre to tackle disinformation and deepfakes from hostile states such as Russia
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Peter Smith @redpeter99.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Unaffordable housing is caused by young people drinking too many lattes and spending money on Netflix Poverty is caused by benefit claimants buying booze and ciggies. The world is a simple place for the Tories.
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