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“I was just on my way home after a trip to France. I was visiting my children in Plumstead and I had taken a 53 bus to get to Parliament Square where I was going to meet my children and walk to Victoria coach station before getting the coach to Helston in Cornwall.

“I was sitting on the lower deck and the bus stopped. I could clearly see a body in the road and a crashed car. I trained as a first aider when I was a Brownie leader, so I asked someone to watch my bag and then got off to see if I could help.

“I went over to the body where there was a lady sitting there and she said he was dead. She had comforted him by putting something under his back and a jacket over his head. I took his pulse and there was none. I couldn’t see the man’s face but I could see no evidence that suggested someone had tried to cut off his head. I could see nothing on him to suggest that he was a soldier.

“Then a black guy with a black hat and a revolver in one hand and a cleaver in the other came over. He was very excited and he told me not to get close to the body. I didn’t really feel anything. I was not scared because he was not drunk, he was not on drugs. He was normal. I could speak to him and he wanted to speak and that’s what we did.

“I spoke to him for more than five minutes. I asked him why he had done what he had done. He said he had killed the man because he [the victim] was a British soldier who killed Muslim women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was furious about the British army being over there.

“There was blood on the pavement by the car where the man on the ground had been hit by it.At first there was no blood by the body but as I talked to the man it began to flow which worried me because blood needs a beating heart to flow. But I didn’t want to annoy the man by going back to the body.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett

I asked him what he was going to do next because the police were going to arrive soon. He said it was a war and if the police were coming, he was going to kill them. I asked him if that was a reasonable thing to do but it was clear that he really wanted to do that. He talked about war but he did not talk about dying and then he left to speak to someone else.

“I went to speak to the other man who was quieter and more shy. I asked him if he wanted to give me what he was holding in his hand, which was a knife but I didn’t want to say that. He didn’t agree and I asked him: ‘Do you want to carry on?’ He said: ‘No, no, no.’ I didn’t want to upset him and then the other man came back to me. I asked him what he wanted to do next.

“At that point, there were so many people around that I didn’t want him to get scared or agitated. I kept talking to him to keep him occupied.

“Then I saw my bus was moving and I knew that the police would arrive very soon. I asked him if there was anything else I could do for him because my bus was about to leave and he said no.

“I got on the bus and, after 10 seconds, someone came on and told everyone to get down. I saw a police car pulling up and a police man and policewoman getting out. The two black men ran towards the car and the officers shot them in the legs, I think.

“When the shooting started, I was not scared. There was so many women screaming and crying on the bus, it took me a minute to calm them down. I didn’t have a moment to think of myself.

“I could see the man with the black hat on was badly hurt as he was being operated on but both were still moving.”The bus then started to move away. They dropped us in the middle of Lewisham which really annoyed me because I had no idea how to get from there to Parliament Square. “I am just happy that I managed to do something that might have prevented more trouble. I feel fine at the moment but I suppose the shock could hit me later.”

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/RnzxBBQW-wk/woolwich-first-person-account

“I was just on my way home after a trip to France. I was visiting my children in Plumstead and I had taken a 53 bus to get to Parliament Square where I was going to meet my children and walk to Victoria coach station before getting the coach to Helston in Cornwall.

“I was sitting on the lower deck and the bus stopped. I could clearly see a body in the road and a crashed car. I trained as a first aider when I was a Brownie leader, so I asked someone to watch my bag and then got off to see if I could help.

“I went over to the body where there was a lady sitting there and she said he was dead. She had comforted him by putting something under his back and a jacket over his head. I took his pulse and there was none. I couldn’t see the man’s face but I could see no evidence that suggested someone had tried to cut off his head. I could see nothing on him to suggest that he was a soldier.

“Then a black guy with a black hat and a revolver in one hand and a cleaver in the other came over. He was very excited and he told me not to get close to the body. I didn’t really feel anything. I was not scared because he was not drunk, he was not on drugs. He was normal. I could speak to him and he wanted to speak and that’s what we did.

“I spoke to him for more than five minutes. I asked him why he had done what he had done. He said he had killed the man because he [the victim] was a British soldier who killed Muslim women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was furious about the British army being over there.

“There was blood on the pavement by the car where the man on the ground had been hit by it.At first there was no blood by the body but as I talked to the man it began to flow which worried me because blood needs a beating heart to flow. But I didn’t want to annoy the man by going back to the body.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett

I asked him what he was going to do next because the police were going to arrive soon. He said it was a war and if the police were coming, he was going to kill them. I asked him if that was a reasonable thing to do but it was clear that he really wanted to do that. He talked about war but he did not talk about dying and then he left to speak to someone else.

“I went to speak to the other man who was quieter and more shy. I asked him if he wanted to give me what he was holding in his hand, which was a knife but I didn’t want to say that. He didn’t agree and I asked him: ‘Do you want to carry on?’ He said: ‘No, no, no.’ I didn’t want to upset him and then the other man came back to me. I asked him what he wanted to do next.

“At that point, there were so many people around that I didn’t want him to get scared or agitated. I kept talking to him to keep him occupied.

“Then I saw my bus was moving and I knew that the police would arrive very soon. I asked him if there was anything else I could do for him because my bus was about to leave and he said no.

“I got on the bus and, after 10 seconds, someone came on and told everyone to get down. I saw a police car pulling up and a police man and policewoman getting out. The two black men ran towards the car and the officers shot them in the legs, I think.

“When the shooting started, I was not scared. There was so many women screaming and crying on the bus, it took me a minute to calm them down. I didn’t have a moment to think of myself.

“I could see the man with the black hat on was badly hurt as he was being operated on but both were still moving.”The bus then started to move away. They dropped us in the middle of Lewisham which really annoyed me because I had no idea how to get from there to Parliament Square. “I am just happy that I managed to do something that might have prevented more trouble. I feel fine at the moment but I suppose the shock could hit me later.”

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/RnzxBBQW-wk/woolwich-first-person-account

MI6 spent the present-day equivalent of more than $200m bribing senior Spanish military officers, ship owners and other agents to keep Spain out of the second world war, files released today disclose.

More and more money was delivered, mainly via a Swiss bank account in New York, as Sir Samuel Hoare, Britain’s ambassador in Madrid, warned London that unless it was paid, there was a real and immediate danger of Spain abandoning its neutrality and of Franco joining forces with Nazi Germany.

In June 1940, Hoare was demanding an initial $1m. “I personally urge authority be granted without delay, and that if you have doubts, the prime minister be consulted,” he told the Foreign Office in London. “Yes indeed,” Churchill initialled on a copy of Hoare’s deciphered telegram in red ink.

One file names “Senores Jose Jorro Andreo and Rasado Silva” Torres as recipients of British funds sent, in their case, to the Bank of Portugal in Lisbon.

“It may well be that Spain’s entry in the war will depend on our quick action,” telegraphed Hoare in another urgent plea for MI6 cash to spend on agents. The situation was “cricial”, he insisted: “I cannot spend spare time to explain the position in detail.”

Hoare claimed that British money was responsible for the arrest of people plotting to persuade the Spanish dictator to join the war on Germany’s side. Hoare succeeded in persuading ministers in London. A top secret message from Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, referred to British contact with guerrillas in the event of Spain being invaded by Germany. “Please burn this letter when you have read it,” he told Hoare.

British agents later made contacts in Lisbon with an unnamed Spanish Republican leader and representatives of the Allianza Democratica Española. Churchill’s concerns that British agents were “contacting ‘Reds’ with the object of stirring up a revolution” were allayed by Hugh Dalton, the minister for economic warfare, the files show.

At least $14m, some $200m in today’s value, from MI6′s secret vote was spent on Spanish agents during the second world war, according to the documents. At one point, British ministers persuaded the US to unblock cash for Spanish agents held in banks in New York.

Franco seemed determined throughout the war to remain neutral, though was on close terms with Germany behind the scenes.

Spaniards were not the only beneficiaries of MI6 money approved by FO ministers. “We recently put forward to our ambassador in Baghdad a suggestion for the adoption of large-scale bribery of politicians and other leading personalities in Iraq,” says a file dated January 1941. The file suggests that Britain had to keep up with the Italians and Germans, placing an initial £100,000 at the embassy’s disposal. The document then adds: “We have been trying by hook or by crook to dislodge the Iraqi prime minister” – a reference to the pro-Axis Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.

The spy who cross-dressed

An MI6 officer was arrested by police in Madrid during the second world war dressed “down to a brassiere, as a woman”, a file disclosed today recalls. Dudley Clarke, masquerading as a Times journalist, said he told Spanish police he was a “novelist and wanted to study the reactions of men to women in the streets”. He later explained that he was taking the “feminine garments to a lady in Gibraltar and thought that he would try them on “for a prank”.

An anxious report to C, the head of MI6, in London reported that among the items in his suitcase was a “roll of super fine toilet paper, which particularly excited the police, who are submitting the sheets to chemical tests”.

Communications intercepted by the British revealed that German officials described the case as a “first class espionage incident”.

But Clarke was released, and quickly made for Gibraltar. “Please keep him under strict surveillance and despatch to Middle East by next plane,” C told Gibraltar’s governor. “If he shows signs of mental derangement, he should however be sent home by first ship.”

He did not. Clarke “went on to have a brilliant career in deception”, wrote Keith Jeffrey in his official MI6 history.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/nqiuwjxurXM/mi6-spain-200m-bribes-ww2

MI6 spent the present-day equivalent of more than $200m bribing senior Spanish military officers, ship owners and other agents to keep Spain out of the second world war, files released today disclose.

More and more money was delivered, mainly via a Swiss bank account in New York, as Sir Samuel Hoare, Britain’s ambassador in Madrid, warned London that unless it was paid, there was a real and immediate danger of Spain abandoning its neutrality and of Franco joining forces with Nazi Germany.

In June 1940, Hoare was demanding an initial $1m. “I personally urge authority be granted without delay, and that if you have doubts, the prime minister be consulted,” he told the Foreign Office in London. “Yes indeed,” Churchill initialled on a copy of Hoare’s deciphered telegram in red ink.

One file names “Senores Jose Jorro Andreo and Rasado Silva” Torres as recipients of British funds sent, in their case, to the Bank of Portugal in Lisbon.

“It may well be that Spain’s entry in the war will depend on our quick action,” telegraphed Hoare in another urgent plea for MI6 cash to spend on agents. The situation was “cricial”, he insisted: “I cannot spend spare time to explain the position in detail.”

Hoare claimed that British money was responsible for the arrest of people plotting to persuade the Spanish dictator to join the war on Germany’s side. Hoare succeeded in persuading ministers in London. A top secret message from Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, referred to British contact with guerrillas in the event of Spain being invaded by Germany. “Please burn this letter when you have read it,” he told Hoare.

British agents later made contacts in Lisbon with an unnamed Spanish Republican leader and representatives of the Allianza Democratica Española. Churchill’s concerns that British agents were “contacting ‘Reds’ with the object of stirring up a revolution” were allayed by Hugh Dalton, the minister for economic warfare, the files show.

At least $14m, some $200m in today’s value, from MI6′s secret vote was spent on Spanish agents during the second world war, according to the documents. At one point, British ministers persuaded the US to unblock cash for Spanish agents held in banks in New York.

Franco seemed determined throughout the war to remain neutral, though was on close terms with Germany behind the scenes.

Spaniards were not the only beneficiaries of MI6 money approved by FO ministers. “We recently put forward to our ambassador in Baghdad a suggestion for the adoption of large-scale bribery of politicians and other leading personalities in Iraq,” says a file dated January 1941. The file suggests that Britain had to keep up with the Italians and Germans, placing an initial £100,000 at the embassy’s disposal. The document then adds: “We have been trying by hook or by crook to dislodge the Iraqi prime minister” – a reference to the pro-Axis Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.

The spy who cross-dressed

An MI6 officer was arrested by police in Madrid during the second world war dressed “down to a brassiere, as a woman”, a file disclosed today recalls. Dudley Clarke, masquerading as a Times journalist, said he told Spanish police he was a “novelist and wanted to study the reactions of men to women in the streets”. He later explained that he was taking the “feminine garments to a lady in Gibraltar and thought that he would try them on “for a prank”.

An anxious report to C, the head of MI6, in London reported that among the items in his suitcase was a “roll of super fine toilet paper, which particularly excited the police, who are submitting the sheets to chemical tests”.

Communications intercepted by the British revealed that German officials described the case as a “first class espionage incident”.

But Clarke was released, and quickly made for Gibraltar. “Please keep him under strict surveillance and despatch to Middle East by next plane,” C told Gibraltar’s governor. “If he shows signs of mental derangement, he should however be sent home by first ship.”

He did not. Clarke “went on to have a brilliant career in deception”, wrote Keith Jeffrey in his official MI6 history.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/nqiuwjxurXM/mi6-spain-200m-bribes-ww2

MI6 drew up plans for clandestine operations, including the “liquidation of selected individuals” and “kidnapping of high ranking Communist personalities” as the second world war led to the cold war, secret intelligence files released Thursday at the National Archives reveal.

The prime targets of the secret intelligence service were leading Soviet personalities. A file from 1947 entitled Covert Propaganda, listed “plants” and “fictitious indiscretions” as potential weapons.

The file notes said: “Action could be taken to discredit prominent Communist and other public figures, and to propagate dissension in Communist parties and organisations by (i) dispatch of forged letters through the post, and (ii) the planting of manufactured evidence.”

Referring to the head of MI6, known, as that person still is, as “C” for chief, an intelligence officer told Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary: “C’s organisation should be given a free hand to carry out such special operations as are possible in peacetime in the Soviet Union itself and in Soviet zones of Germany and Austria.”

To the irritation of MI6 and military chiefs, Bevin, like the prime minister, Clement Attlee, was squeamish about what the MI6 papers euphemistically called special purposes and subterranean work.

Responding to the MI6 memo, Bevin wrote: “I have grave objections to this. We are letting loose forces difficult to control … I did not regard it too successful (sic) in the war.”

Ministers later softened their opposition to such MI6 operations in Europe and elsewhere, and “licensed to kill” was not officially abandoned until the mid 1950s.

During the later stages of the second world war, the files show, MI6 drew up a list of key German figures, included senior Gestapo officers, to be assassinated before the planned D-Day Normandy landings, at the request of US officers at the HQ of the allied commander, General Dwight Eisenhower.

Field Marshal Rommel, the “desert fox” who had been defeated in North Africa but who was commanding German troops in northern France, was a candidate for assassination.

However, the plan was dropped before D-Day amid concerns it would lead to what an MI6 officer called “a wave of murderings”. He warned against reprisals against civilians and allied prisoners of war held by the Germans. The officer advised: “It is likely that for every successful assassination, there will be two or three failures, as past records of these attempts show.”

Stewart Menzies, who was C, agreed, as did Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. “Not out of squeamishness”, he said, “as there are several people in this world whom I could kill with my own hands with a feeling of pleasure and without that action in any way spoiling my appetite, but I think that it is the type of bright idea which in the end produces a good deal of trouble and does little good.”

But in June 1944 British agents received reports of a plot to kill Hitler and of his having been spotted in the southern French town of Perpignan disguised and fleeing to north Africa.

Defence chiefs told Winston Churchill they were “unanimous that, from the strictly military point of view, it was almost an advantage that Hitler should remain in control of German strategy, having regard to the blunders that he has made, but that on the wider point of view, the sooner he was got rid of the better”.

MI6 believed the Middle East could provide fertile ground for its covert activities. In a file marked oral propaganda, it reported in 1947: “The widespread illiteracy among the people of the Middle East … points to the value of the spoken word as an effective means of propaganda. This kind of propaganda could be put across by the Moslem clergy, both Sunni and Shia, in the Arab countries and in Persia.”

The MI6 noted added: “But they will need to be supplied with the compelling arguments based on a comparison of Communist tenets with Moslem and Christian principles and teaching.”

C wondered whether to assign an officer after the war to the British embassy in Paris to spy on the French. He agreed to do so, the files show, in a letter which he instructed the recipient to burn.

But C wondered what cover his officer should have. After dismissing the labels of cultural attache and commercial secretary, the decision was made to call him “military adviser to the ambassador”.

The man chosen for the task was AJ Ayer, who became well-known as a philosopher. Ayer did not stay long in Paris before he was replaced by MI6 and returned to Britain.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/VT59Vhe3ynY/wartime-mi6-targets-national-archives

MI6 drew up plans for clandestine operations, including the “liquidation of selected individuals” and “kidnapping of high ranking Communist personalities” as the second world war led to the cold war, secret intelligence files released Thursday at the National Archives reveal.

The prime targets of the secret intelligence service were leading Soviet personalities. A file from 1947 entitled Covert Propaganda, listed “plants” and “fictitious indiscretions” as potential weapons.

The file notes said: “Action could be taken to discredit prominent Communist and other public figures, and to propagate dissension in Communist parties and organisations by (i) dispatch of forged letters through the post, and (ii) the planting of manufactured evidence.”

Referring to the head of MI6, known, as that person still is, as “C” for chief, an intelligence officer told Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary: “C’s organisation should be given a free hand to carry out such special operations as are possible in peacetime in the Soviet Union itself and in Soviet zones of Germany and Austria.”

To the irritation of MI6 and military chiefs, Bevin, like the prime minister, Clement Attlee, was squeamish about what the MI6 papers euphemistically called special purposes and subterranean work.

Responding to the MI6 memo, Bevin wrote: “I have grave objections to this. We are letting loose forces difficult to control … I did not regard it too successful (sic) in the war.”

Ministers later softened their opposition to such MI6 operations in Europe and elsewhere, and “licensed to kill” was not officially abandoned until the mid 1950s.

During the later stages of the second world war, the files show, MI6 drew up a list of key German figures, included senior Gestapo officers, to be assassinated before the planned D-Day Normandy landings, at the request of US officers at the HQ of the allied commander, General Dwight Eisenhower.

Field Marshal Rommel, the “desert fox” who had been defeated in North Africa but who was commanding German troops in northern France, was a candidate for assassination.

However, the plan was dropped before D-Day amid concerns it would lead to what an MI6 officer called “a wave of murderings”. He warned against reprisals against civilians and allied prisoners of war held by the Germans. The officer advised: “It is likely that for every successful assassination, there will be two or three failures, as past records of these attempts show.”

Stewart Menzies, who was C, agreed, as did Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. “Not out of squeamishness”, he said, “as there are several people in this world whom I could kill with my own hands with a feeling of pleasure and without that action in any way spoiling my appetite, but I think that it is the type of bright idea which in the end produces a good deal of trouble and does little good.”

But in June 1944 British agents received reports of a plot to kill Hitler and of his having been spotted in the southern French town of Perpignan disguised and fleeing to north Africa.

Defence chiefs told Winston Churchill they were “unanimous that, from the strictly military point of view, it was almost an advantage that Hitler should remain in control of German strategy, having regard to the blunders that he has made, but that on the wider point of view, the sooner he was got rid of the better”.

MI6 believed the Middle East could provide fertile ground for its covert activities. In a file marked oral propaganda, it reported in 1947: “The widespread illiteracy among the people of the Middle East … points to the value of the spoken word as an effective means of propaganda. This kind of propaganda could be put across by the Moslem clergy, both Sunni and Shia, in the Arab countries and in Persia.”

The MI6 noted added: “But they will need to be supplied with the compelling arguments based on a comparison of Communist tenets with Moslem and Christian principles and teaching.”

C wondered whether to assign an officer after the war to the British embassy in Paris to spy on the French. He agreed to do so, the files show, in a letter which he instructed the recipient to burn.

But C wondered what cover his officer should have. After dismissing the labels of cultural attache and commercial secretary, the decision was made to call him “military adviser to the ambassador”.

The man chosen for the task was AJ Ayer, who became well-known as a philosopher. Ayer did not stay long in Paris before he was replaced by MI6 and returned to Britain.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/VT59Vhe3ynY/wartime-mi6-targets-national-archives

Doctors‘ leaders and the health secretary are on a collision course over claims the government is using “anti-GP rhetoric” to mask its own failure to effectively reform the NHS.

In a speech on Thursday at the King’s Fund Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, will attack “inaccessible” GPs for leaving the frail and the elderly with no alternative but to fill up hospital accident and emergency waiting rooms. Hunt will call for a new chief inspector of GPs to crack down on poor performers.

Hunt points to “GP surgeries where it is often impossible to get an appointment the next day; same-day appointments but only if you call at 8 o’clock in the morning sharp and are lucky getting through; long waits on the phone to get through, sometimes at premium rates”.

The health secretary will also call for a new Ofsted-style rating system for hospitals, pointing out that the King’s Fund found almost three-quarters – 73% – of NHS professionals do not think that quality of care in the health service is given enough priority. In its first look at the NHS since the Francis report into scandalous levels of poor care at the Stafford hospital, said trust boards “must demonstrate that they give sufficient priority to quality and patient safety”.

However, doctors have hit back – and are producing posters to be placed in surgeries defending the profession, emblazoned with the words: “GPs want to spend more time with you, not red tape” – a dig at the health reforms which have increased their managerial responsibilities.

Michelle Drage, the leader of London’s GPs, wrote on her website: “No doubt you are as sick as us of the anti-GP rhetoric in some of the media. We think it’s time we put the record straight about general practice.”

Drage said the health secretary’s comments were demoralising GPs and causing fear among patients. “GPs are on the edge and we are seeing this when no one appears to be getting a grip on the NHS. Who is running the NHS? Is it the GPs? Is it NHS England? Is it the secretary of state?”

Hunt’s speech will come as GPs gather for their annual conference, which Drage says will be “electric”. She said: “Either [Hunt] does not get [the NHS] or he gets it and does this deliberately. Either way it’s a pretty bad situation out there.”

Hunt has already faced criticism for linking the crisis in hospital AE departments with GPs opting out of out-of-hours care. Mike Farrar, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, the body representing organisations commissioning and providing health services, questioned Hunt’s assertion that Labour was to blame for a public loss of confidence in alternatives to casualty by agreeing a new contracts with family doctors in 2004. Farrar was the person who negotiated the contract with GPs.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the health secretary was not “doing GP bashing. We are not proposing to tear up the GP contract. We want to work with the GP community to reduce bureaucracy and get rid of the targets that make it difficult for them to get on and treat patients quickly.”

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/yqpCv0dkSAU/government-anti-gp-rhetoric-failings

Doctors‘ leaders and the health secretary are on a collision course over claims the government is using “anti-GP rhetoric” to mask its own failure to effectively reform the NHS.

In a speech on Thursday at the King’s Fund Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, will attack “inaccessible” GPs for leaving the frail and the elderly with no alternative but to fill up hospital accident and emergency waiting rooms. Hunt will call for a new chief inspector of GPs to crack down on poor performers.

Hunt points to “GP surgeries where it is often impossible to get an appointment the next day; same-day appointments but only if you call at 8 o’clock in the morning sharp and are lucky getting through; long waits on the phone to get through, sometimes at premium rates”.

The health secretary will also call for a new Ofsted-style rating system for hospitals, pointing out that the King’s Fund found almost three-quarters – 73% – of NHS professionals do not think that quality of care in the health service is given enough priority. In its first look at the NHS since the Francis report into scandalous levels of poor care at the Stafford hospital, said trust boards “must demonstrate that they give sufficient priority to quality and patient safety”.

However, doctors have hit back – and are producing posters to be placed in surgeries defending the profession, emblazoned with the words: “GPs want to spend more time with you, not red tape” – a dig at the health reforms which have increased their managerial responsibilities.

Michelle Drage, the leader of London’s GPs, wrote on her website: “No doubt you are as sick as us of the anti-GP rhetoric in some of the media. We think it’s time we put the record straight about general practice.”

Drage said the health secretary’s comments were demoralising GPs and causing fear among patients. “GPs are on the edge and we are seeing this when no one appears to be getting a grip on the NHS. Who is running the NHS? Is it the GPs? Is it NHS England? Is it the secretary of state?”

Hunt’s speech will come as GPs gather for their annual conference, which Drage says will be “electric”. She said: “Either [Hunt] does not get [the NHS] or he gets it and does this deliberately. Either way it’s a pretty bad situation out there.”

Hunt has already faced criticism for linking the crisis in hospital AE departments with GPs opting out of out-of-hours care. Mike Farrar, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, the body representing organisations commissioning and providing health services, questioned Hunt’s assertion that Labour was to blame for a public loss of confidence in alternatives to casualty by agreeing a new contracts with family doctors in 2004. Farrar was the person who negotiated the contract with GPs.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the health secretary was not “doing GP bashing. We are not proposing to tear up the GP contract. We want to work with the GP community to reduce bureaucracy and get rid of the targets that make it difficult for them to get on and treat patients quickly.”

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/yqpCv0dkSAU/government-anti-gp-rhetoric-failings

A colourful description of how Winston Churchill spent a night drinking with Joseph Stalin in Moscow during a wartime meeting is contained in a letter from Sir Alexander Cadogan, a top official at the Foreign Office, contained in a highly classified document released on Thursday.

He described how at mealtimes between the meetings in August 1942, Churchill “engaged the company in irreverent and irresponsible discourse”.

Cadogan’s account is contained in a letter to Lord Halifax, a former foreign secretary, when he was UK ambassador in Washington in the late 1940s.

“Nothing can be imagined more awful than a Kremlin banquet, but it has to be endured,” wrote Cadogan.

“Unfortunately Winston didn’t suffer it gladly. However, next morning he was determined to fire his last bolt and asked for a private talk, alone with Stalin. This was fixed for 7pm.”

Cadogan said he was himself summoned to Stalin’s room. “There I found Winston and Stalin … sitting with a heavily laden board between them: food of all kinds crowned by a suckling pig, and innumerable bottles.”

Cadogan continued: “What Stalin made me drink seemed pretty savage: Winston, who by that time was complaining of a slight headache, seemed wisely to be confining himself to a comparatively innocuous effervescent Caucasian red wine.”

Cadogan added that “everything seemed to be as merry as a marriage-bell” as Stalin went on about the benefits of the Soviet system. The party broke up at 3am.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/AonMXsGjyrA/winston-churchill-jospeh-stalin-night-drinking

A colourful description of how Winston Churchill spent a night drinking with Joseph Stalin in Moscow during a wartime meeting is contained in a letter from Sir Alexander Cadogan, a top official at the Foreign Office, contained in a highly classified document released on Thursday.

He described how at mealtimes between the meetings in August 1942, Churchill “engaged the company in irreverent and irresponsible discourse”.

Cadogan’s account is contained in a letter to Lord Halifax, a former foreign secretary, when he was UK ambassador in Washington in the late 1940s.

“Nothing can be imagined more awful than a Kremlin banquet, but it has to be endured,” wrote Cadogan.

“Unfortunately Winston didn’t suffer it gladly. However, next morning he was determined to fire his last bolt and asked for a private talk, alone with Stalin. This was fixed for 7pm.”

Cadogan said he was himself summoned to Stalin’s room. “There I found Winston and Stalin … sitting with a heavily laden board between them: food of all kinds crowned by a suckling pig, and innumerable bottles.”

Cadogan continued: “What Stalin made me drink seemed pretty savage: Winston, who by that time was complaining of a slight headache, seemed wisely to be confining himself to a comparatively innocuous effervescent Caucasian red wine.”

Cadogan added that “everything seemed to be as merry as a marriage-bell” as Stalin went on about the benefits of the Soviet system. The party broke up at 3am.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/AonMXsGjyrA/winston-churchill-jospeh-stalin-night-drinking