'Austerity has inflicted real damage on Britain's health'

Britain is a poorer, sicker place. No wonder disability claims have trebled in a decade

Polly Toynbee in The Guardian

There has been an "astonishing" threefold rise in people on disability benefits, writes Polly Toynbee, and the key reasons are obvious. The government's own figures tell a "miserable story" of how austerity has "inflicted real damage" on the health of the nation and our healthcare system. "Battered" by cuts, and with "public services reduced to emergencies only", little wonder that "we are a sicker country".

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South Africa goes to war against Israel at the ICJ

Amotz Asa-El for The Jerusalem Post

"Hitler's death was just several hours away when he dictated the will in which he tried to disown the war that was his," writes Amotz Asa-El for The Jerusalem Post. Now, while the "scales" of the conflicts "are different", the "absurdity is all the same", as "Israel, while facing a genocidal enemy, is the one dragged to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for that very charge".

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A knighthood would undermine everything Alan Bates has fought for

Symon Hill on the i news site

Former sub-postmaster Alan Bates and others who challenged the "outrageous" Post Office convictions should "certainly be celebrated", writes author and activist Symon Hill for the i new site. Yet the push for Bates to be given a knighthood will "do nothing to stop something like this from happening again", but rather "just papers over the cracks".

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The cult of diversity is becoming dangerous

Allison Pearson in The Telegraph

How "deeply depressing" that "diversity is trotted out as the answer to a problem which urgently requires a lot of good men", writes The Telegraph's Allison Pearson, after Defence Secretary Grant Shapps suggested women are the solution to the Armed Forces recruitment crisis. Diversity hires are "not exactly looking that clever at the moment", with the "unremarkable" and now disgraced Paula Vennells surely having only "secured the top job at the Post Office because she ticked a box".

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