Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on funding the NHS, a puzzling sign and taking the shame out of term-time holidays

PREPARE yourselves for one of the great contradictions in modern life. In countless opinion polls, we say we love the NHS and are willing to pay more tax to support it. But God help the government that tries to collect it.

Published
Come again...?

THE latest prediction is that, merely to fund the NHS at its present level, every household will pay an average £1,200 a year extra. Which means your well-deserved family holiday may have to be sacrificed to treat your neighbour's self-inflicted obesity. Still love the NHS?

I SUGGESTED a few days ago that Loch Lomond might be rather bonnier and litter-free if it were transferred to England. I cannot guarantee, however, that the signposting by the English authorities would be any better. A reader points out an English Heritage sign at an ancient monument with the confusing instruction: "You need to purchase a ticket beyond this point. Please obtain your tickets from the shop behind you."

UNINTENDED consequences. Research in Wales shows that fining parents for taking children out of school in term time not only has no effect on overall absence rates but the number of unauthorised family holidays actually increased after £60 fixed penalty notices were introduced five years ago. How can this be?

I RECALL a conversation in the barber's where a mum, just back from Spain, was describing her dream family holiday, in term time. It was obvious she saw the fine as just another holiday expense, like airport taxes or a sea view. By charging for something, the education authorities make it look like they're selling something. No guilt, no shame, just a £60 deal.

A READER accuses this column of going quiet on Brexit. Not really. It's just that Brexit has gone a bit quiet and descended into complex economics when, for me, the issue is about politics and peace. Personally, the referendum was never about refugees, wages or the wider economy. It was an historical feeling, a gut instinct that Britain should be friendly with Europe but not totally immersed in it. Call me a little Englander but I want my country's borders to be at Dover, not somewhere on the Iraq or Syrian frontier. I know, from having friends in France and Germany, that we Brits will never feel like citizens of the EU in the way that they do. For them it spells destiny and security. For me, the EU is just another European superstate, an unpredictable empire in waiting. And that's not a sudden, retreating change of heart. I wrote those words just before the referendum two years ago and I stand by them.

AND now, the last word on the Royal Wedding sermon by Bishop Michael Curry which seems to have divided the nation into supporters and cynics. A Daily Telegraph reader tells the tale of a worshipper who at the end of a service congratulated the vicar on "a very good sermon." The vicar replied: "And what are you going to do about it?"