FROM the cradle to the grave’. Wasn’t that what Winston Churchill said in a 1943 speech broadcast to the nation in response to the Beveridge Report? It acknowledged the need for a ‘national compulsory insurance for all classes for all purposes’, paving the way for the post-war establishment of the NHS.

WHEN Hamas terrorists gleefully recorded themselves kidnapping, raping and killing Israeli civilians on October 7 2023, their actions were accompanied by unmistakeable cries of ‘Allahu Akbar!’

HAVING been diagnosed with depression and anxiety well over a decade ago, I have no illusions about how hard mental illness can hit.

YET another example, were it needed, of the unintended human cost of lockdown: figures released this week show alcohol-related deaths jumped by a third between the start of the pandemic and the end of 2022.

THE NHS is a service, not a shrine.’ I couldn’t have put it better myself.

JK Rowling has chosen her hill to die on, and it’s fair to say it’s becoming more crowded by the minute.

ON MONDAY, after it was revealed that China had hacked the personal details of up to 40 million British voters, the Foreign Secretary — Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton — described the regime’s conduct as ‘completely unacceptable’.

ONE week on from that disastrous Mother’s Day photo debacle, and a brief, unofficial video-clip of the Prince and Princess of Wales emerging from a Windsor farm shop at the weekend has finally provided a reassuringly mundane answer to the question that has been dominating the internet for weeks now: ‘Where is Kate?’

A FEW days on from that Mother’s Day photo, I must confess I’m none the wiser about what on earth is going on with the Prince and Princess of Wales.

WHEN the case of Keira Bell, a teenage girl who had been prescribed puberty blockers by the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), first hit the headlines a few years ago, I remember thinking: this could be the tip of a very nasty iceberg.

AS A mid-life Gen X‑er, I must confess I’ve always had a huge soft spot for Bridget Jones.

FAIR to say, I think, that I am not the best at relationships. A failed marriage and before that, a series of ill-advised partners. I make bad choices and stupid decisions, and I have an idiotic tendency to let my heart lead my head.

HERE’S the thing. It is quite possible that, come next Christmas, both America and the UK will have new political administrations.

MAGGIE OLIVER is the former Greater Manchester Police detective who, along with councillor Sara Rowbotham and ex-Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal, exposed the failings of the police and local authorities in the Rochdale child sex-abuse ring. She deserves a gong. They all do.

ONE of the biggest challenges of being a parent these days is having to keep up to speed with an ever-changing digital landscape.

ONE of the biggest challenges of being a parent these days is having to keep up to speed with an ever-changing digital landscape.

ONE of the few political triumphs for the Government last year was passing the Online Safety Act.

MERRY Twixtmas, one and all. Cut yourself a slice of leftover turkey, microwave a clump of figgy pudding — and join me for my totally random and completely biased awards of 2023.

SINCE death is an inalienable part of life, it’s remarkable how little time we spend thinking about it.

HAVING been something of a live topic in recent years, the over-prescription of antidepressants is an issue that has recently slipped beneath the radar.

DESPITE all the provocation, Buckingham Palace has so far maintained a dignified silence on the latest ‘revelations’ in Omid Scobie’s new oeuvre, Endgame, which finally hit bookshops yesterday following weeks of carefully orchestrated ‘leaks’.

FOOTBALL teaches you a lot about life. When my son was barely three, I signed him up for my local club, Little Foxes. He hated it at first, of course — but he soon got into it, and so began his enduring love affair with the beautiful game.

A FELLOW ex-political spouse messages: ‘The Chipping Snorton set on the loose in Chevening [the Foreign Secretary’s country residence]? Me sees trouble ahead.’ I reply with a laughing emoji, then add: ‘Who knows? But one thing’s for sure: you can’t keep a good toff down.’

WHENEVER the armies of the righteously woke encounter someone who dares to dispute their world view, one of their favourite retorts is to tell that person to ‘educate’ themselves.

WHENEVER the armies of the righteously woke encounter someone who dares to dispute their world view, one of their favourite retorts is to tell that person to ‘educate’ themselves.  

ONE of my abiding memories of Covid was a conversation I had early on, in the run-up to the first lockdown, with my then husband, Michael Gove.

THERE’S always someone who spoils it for everyone else, isn’t there?

WE’RE all familiar with those ‘cashmere Communists’ who virtue signal their support for the poor and oppressed from the comfort of their million-pound mansions. But the past few days have seen the emergence of a whole new breed of hypocrite: the Rolls-Royce revolutionaries.

POETS have a way of expressing emotions in a manner that we mere mortals cannot. Watching the unspeakable horrors of the past few days, I have not been able to get the famous words, written in 1946 by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, out of my mind.

Poets have a way of expressing emotions in a manner that we mere mortals cannot. Watching the unspeakable horrors of the past few days, I have not been able to get the famous words, written in 1946 by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, out of my mind. 

WELL, blow me down with my desk fan. It turns out that, as a middle-aged woman going through something all middle-aged women must go through at some point, I’m not just menopausal, I’m also disabled.

Well, blow me down with my desk fan. Turns out that, as a middle-aged woman going through what all middle-aged women must at some point go through, I’m not just menopausal, I’m also disabled.

THERE is a certain irony to the predicament in which Russell Brand, former ‘comedian’ and now self-appointed guardian of ‘truth’ (lately a highly contested concept) finds himself.

POSTPONED, cancelled, suspended: the Russell Brand scandal is following a now-familiar trajectory.

THREE years ago, American rap duo Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion released their single, WAP. It became a huge global hit, racking up tens of millions of downloads and earning the pair the fawning approval of the entire music industry.

AFTER a dismal summer, Britain is finally basking in a few days of September sunshine. Across the country, people will be unbuttoning their shirts, throwing off their shoes and generally stripping off in the hope of finally catching a few rays.

... and it’s because too few seem to want to put the effort in any more

A GROUP of travel agents, along with the consumer rights group Which!, have called on Rishi Sunak to crack down on airlines that fail to help passengers sufficiently when planes are delayed or cancelled.

WHETHER you think Rupert Murdoch is a dastardly villain or a captain of industry, you can’t deny his stamina.

YESTERDAY’S revelations — unearthed by the Mail’s brilliant investigative team — that corrupt immigration lawyers are charging up to £10,000 to lodge fake asylum claims make for sobering reading.

THE scandal surrounding the highly paid, still-unnamed BBC star — which has dominated the headlines over the past few days — is emblematic of the battle raging between the civilised values of our past and the Wild West of the new digital landscape.

FROM a feminist perspective, it seems like an extreme case of coercive control. A wife stands by the husband who slit her wrists in bed and then attempted to kill himself. What kind of beaten-down soul even thinks of forgiving a man who does something like that, let alone tells the arresting police officers that he had done it ‘out of a place of love’?

DAISY GOODWIN’S account of being groped by Daniel Korski, a former special adviser to David Cameron and now one of three Conservative candidates for Mayor of London, is quite shocking.

THERE are times when I miss having small children instead of hulking young adults around the place: no empty beer bottles down the back of the sofa; no fag butts in my geraniums; no midnight McDonald’s.

ABORTION is a deeply complex issue. On the one hand it’s right that a woman should be able to control her fertility, and pregnancy should never be imposed on anyone.

Abortion is a deeply complex issue. On the one hand it’s right that a woman should be able to control her fertility, and pregnancy should never be imposed on anyone. 

THE Cabinet Office now has until 4pm tomorrow to clarify whether it does, in fact, have access to Boris Johnson’s personal WhatsApp messages, and if these should be released to the Covid inquiry led by Baroness Hallett.

LET me tell you a story. I knew an old man once, in Italy, who used to work for a management consultancy firm.

LIFE can be odd. Some people bring their family into disrepute, embarrass themselves in front of the world, cost their relatives a fortune — and still keep their vast grace-and-favour mansions with hot-and-cold-running servants.

ONE can’t help feeling that Prince Harry’s ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, was speaking for all of us when this week he revealed his exasperation at having to deal with Prince Harry’s edits to his memoir, Spare.