As tens of thousands return to the streets for the first national Palestine march of 2026, this movement refuses to be sidelined or silenced, says PETER LEARY
Latest editorial
The health service emergency is no accident
If you need a hospital now, you may not realise you are being robbed at the door as private firms cash in on A&E – with Labour waiting in the wings to bring in even more privatisation, warns SOLOMON HUGHES
If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE
MATT KERR takes a winter journey through poetry, labour and memory, from Glasgow to Newcastle, arguing that our radical past isn’t something to revere from a distance, but a tool still meant to be used
One of Canada’s most revered politicians is a native of Falkirk but is relatively unknown in his original homeland. KENNY MacASKILL tells his story
Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
PRIVATE healthcare firms are now so embedded in the NHS that they literally guard the entrance to A&E. And they are using their strategic position of controlling access to A&E to extract millions for their shareholders.
Back in 2017, NHS England ordered a “standardisation” of urgent treatment centres. This encouraged a movement from a variety of community-based minor injuries-type clinics to a growing number of privately run urgent treatment centres, which are “typically based at the front of A&E, where they divert these minors away from A&E.”
NHS England believes this scheme might reduce demand on A&Es, by taking the least urgent injuries out of the emergency ward. Health companies see it as a major business opportunity.
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