Labour accuses government of ‘ploughing on regardless’ with plans as letter talks of need to maintain momentum The government has been accused of “ploughing on regardless” with its restructuring of the health service in England after the head of the NHS told staff to “maintain momentum” for the planned changes during the listening exercise being undertaken by ministers. The timescale for implementing key parts of the health and social care bill , including handing over commissioning powers to GP groups from April 2013, remains the same despite the “pause” in the legislation going through parliament, according to David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS . His message in a letter to colleagues will fuel concerns that the government’s promise to take on board ways it might “improve” its plans during a “natural break” is little more than cosmetic. Labour said it was clear ministers planned to make little change, the head of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned against “things ploughing on”, and the leader of the British Medical Association said the government must not make “irreversible” decisions. Nicholson’s letter was dated 13 April, the day the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, echoed the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, in promising “substantive changes” to the legislation and apologised to members of the RCN for not communicating what he was setting out to do. It was sent days after the Guardian revealed Nicholson had already indicated in a confidential memo that there may be little room for manoeuvre in changing the bill. There are also reports that David Cameron takes his advice rather than Lansley’s. Nicholson’s letter stressed “very firmly that we need to continue to take reasonable steps to prepare for implementation and maintain momentum on the ground”. He admitted pressing on while increasing “levels of engagement” on the plans might seem paradoxical” – but denied it was – and stressed the importance of pathfinder bodies preparing for the changes to be at the heart of the process “because recent progress on the transition has been strong”. Nicholson recognised planning might change “subject to the results of the listening exercise” but the NHS continued to aim for the abolition of primary care trusts by April 2013 and for hospital trusts becoming foundation trusts by April 2014. There would, however, be a delay of at least three months, to July 2012, in statutory changes, including the abolition of strategic health authorities. Nicholson said many thousands of GPs, nurses, other clinicians and support staff were already involved in pathfinder consortia “now covering 88% of the population and proceeding ahead of schedule”. Nine in 10 local authorities had signed up to be “early implementers” of local health and wellbeing boards, according to the letter. Nicholson also warned that NHS bodies to be abolished by the reforms must ensure “sustainable solutions” over the coming year if they had deficits so successor organisations did not inherit debts or underlying financial problems. He said: “I know that to some the message to press on with implementation while significantly increasing our levels of engagement on our plans may seem paradoxical. I don’t believe that it is. Engaging, learning and adaptation should always be at the heart of effective implementation: good engagement is central to making change happen, it is not an alternative to change.” John Healey, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said: “This will do little to convince people that David Cameron’s promise of a ‘listening exercise’ is anything other than a PR stunt. It is clear from this letter that the Department of Health is planning for the health bill to go through largely unchanged, and that the government is set to plough ahead with its NHS reorganisation regardless of what ministers hear in the next few weeks.” Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said: “Overall it is a very confusing picture. We have got a pause and things seem to be ploughing on. Next week we are going to have to ask for clarification. Otherwise it is going to continue the kind of view some people have, that this is a bit of a cynical exercise to take the heat out of the situation.” Hamish Meldrum, chair of the council of the BMA, said it had “always maintained that changes in the NHS must not anticipate the legislative process and lead to irreversible decisions or unnecessary risks if some or all of the health bill is not implemented. “This is even more important given the delay created by the listening exercise which, if it really does indicate a willingness to listen and, more importantly, to make significant changes, may result in several elements of the policy being altered or delayed,” he said. The Department of Health said: “The message is clear. The principles remain the same but improvements will be made as we pause, listen and reflect.” NHS Health Health policy Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance James Meikle Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk
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High court proposes four test case hearings as Sienna Miller offered £100,000 to settle Scotland Yard has accepted for the first time the extent of the phone-hacking scandal when it told a court the number of potential victims whose voicemails were targeted by the News of the World is likely to be “substantially” more than 91. A high court hearing to timetable and organise the growing civil claims for damages against Rupert Murdoch’s News International heard that the new police investigation believed the scale of potential victims was much higher than leading officers had previously said. Previously the Metropolitan police said they had found a total of 91 pin numbers – necessary to access a mobile phone’s voicemail – in the possession of the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. But Jason Beer QC, representing the Met, told the hearing the number of potential victims is “substantially” higher than 91. “It is wrong to say that 91 is the answer, that that is the maximum [number of victims]. It may be on a bigger scale.” In other developments: • The judge, Mr Justice Vos, recommended that four test cases for those alleged to have been victims of hacking – Sky Andrew, Kelly Hoppen, Sienna Miller and Andy Gray – should be heard no later than February 2012. • News International said it had offered Miller £100,000 in damages for the repeated hacking of her phone. • Her former partner, Jude Law, was set to issue his own proceedings, the high court heard. The actor’s spokeswoman refused to comment. • Comments made eight years ago by Rebekah Brooks, now News International’s chief executive, could prompt a further criminal inquiry led by the Met. Detectives are still trawling through 9,200 pages of mainly handwritten material seized from Mulcaire, who was convicted of intercepting voicemail messages in January 2007, along with the News of the World journalist Clive Goodman. During the original investigation, police seized paperwork and records from Mulcaire, who was employed by the tabloid. John Yates, the Met’s acting deputy assistant commissioner, who handled a previous phone-hacking investigation, said that the police had only identified 10 to 12 victims. The fresh investigation team is under the leadership of deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers. Yates said earlier this month that he had quoted the figure on at least four occasions because prosecutors had told police they needed to prove not only that voicemail had been intercepted but also that this had been done before the messages had been heard by the intended recipient. That claim was contested by Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions. In a letter to the Commons home affairs select committee, Yates said lack of first-hand knowledge may explain why he and Starmer gave different accounts of the legal advice. “Both Keir Starmer and I are conscious that we are somewhat hindered in our efforts to assist your committee further in this matter by the very fact of our not being involved in any way until we came into our current posts – in my case in 2009.” Beer, the Met’s lawyer, said that since last week, when News International admitted liability in eight cases, police had been “flooded” with people inquiring if they might have been victims of what lawyers of the victims described yesterday as a “conspiracy”. Michael Silverleaf QC, for News Group Newspapers, said the £100,000 the company had offered Miller was the maximum she could expect to win. “She cannot realistically recover more than we are offering,” he told the judge. “The civil litigation process does not exist for people to vent their feelings in public. It provides a remedy for wrongs. We have admitted the wrong and agreed to pay her the maximum sum.” The offer was made on 6 April. Miller’s team indicate her action is “continuing” and that she wants to find out exactly what the NoW did, which so far, her legal team says, the newspaper is refusing to do. Although the company’s offer of damages is higher than the £20,000 to £70,000 that many had expected the cases to settle at, the extra sum reflects the fact that Miller had been making claims of breach of privacy and harassment, and that any damages owing to phone hacking were only part of that sum. The actor had also been heavily targeted by the News of the World. At the hearing, lawyers for the victims claimed that calls to hack the voicemails had been made from phone numbers registered to the paper. A News International spokesperson said: “We made clear last week that our intention was to apologise and to deal with these cases in the most fair and efficient way possible. We believe the judge’s recommendations support that.” A lawyer for one of the hacking litigants, who asked not to be named, said the hearing had gone badly for the publisher. The lawyer said: “News Group have suffered a devastating blow today to their latest strategy to close down the phone-hacking litigation. “The judge entirely rejected their contention that their narrow ‘admissions’ were sufficient to bring all the liability issues in the nine leading cases to an end and ordered a trial of the generic issues, including whether they entered into a conspiracy with Glenn Mulcaire to hack voicemails.” Last week, police arrested the NoW’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, and its former head of news, Ian Edmondson. On Thursday a senior reporter, James Weatherup, became the third journalist who had worked at the newspaper to be questioned and released on police bail. Vikram Dodd Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Take a walk down memory lane with me to the time in 2009 during the health care debate when the Tea Party/AFP contingents were hand-wringing over death panels. Remember that? Sarah Palin was sure Grandma was going to have her plug pulled, and Chuck Grassley et al joined in the fun. Oh yes, that was a summer never to forget. Hot, humid, and stupid. But. It was 2 years ago, after all, and so everything old is new again in reverse. Yesterday, Rep. Woodall of Georgia got all verklempt about those mean, mean, bad Democrats scaring seniors over their health care. A really interesting little verbal brawl ensues between Chris Van Hollen and Woodall, who ends up waggling his finger and shouting “shame on you!” Here we are today, in 2011. Paul Ryan has introduced his proposal to kill Medicare for anyone under age 55 right alongside Social Security, and they’re worried that seniors are scared? Click here to view this media They damn well ought to be scared. We all ought to be scared enough to never, ever let Republicans have a majority in either branch of Congress ever again. Even though Van Hollen focuses primarily on the donut hole closure, anyone 55 and older should understand that if they break the Medicare compact for the under-55ers, it’s only a question of time before they come back to the House floor claiming they have no money and break it for over 55ers. If you’re planning to live another ten years, you ought to be stone-cold shaking-in-your-boots scared and looking for a house in Canada. Or Sweden, which are the two countries Republicans cited in their arguments today as countries who made “deep cuts” and now have thriving economies. Two countries with single-payer universal health coverage . Two countries with higher marginal tax rates than the US and established procedures for promoting outcomes-based treatments in order to contain health care costs. Sweden and Canada, cited as models of cost-cutting success by Republicans. What interesting times we live in. [ Sweden : 48.3% effective income tax rate Canada: 31.6% effective income tax rate ]
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PR guru regains control of Freud Communications from Publicis Groupe in deal thought to value business at up to £100m Matthew Freud has regained control of his eponymous PR and marketing agency from French company Publicis Groupe in a deal that is thought to value the business at up to £100m. Freud, who is married to Elisabeth Murdoch – who recently sold her business Shine Television to her father’s News Corporation – has bought back Publicis’s majority stake in a deal thought to value Freud Communications somewhere between £75m and £100m. He has been attempting to engineer a deal with Publicis, which took a 50.1% stake in Freud Communications almost six years ago, since late last year , but talks broke down over the valuation of the business. “We are grateful for the support of Publicis Groupe as a shareholder since 2005 and look forward to our future as an independently owned company,” said the Freud Communications chief executive, Nicola Howson. Publicis, which has advertising clients including Cadbury and Asda, said it will continue to provide PR services for its clients in the UK and globally through its own communications network MSLGroup. “I enjoyed working with Matthew and I have a lot of respect for his skills,” said the MSLGroup chief executive, Olivier Fleurot. When in 2005 Freud sold a controlling stake in the business, which has worked for clients including Nike, Pepsi, Sony and the London 2012 Olympics, the deal valued the company at €70m to €80m (£61m to £69m). Companies House figures for 2009, the most recently available, show that Freud Communications’ reported revenues were up 23% to £33m, pre-tax profits increased 28% to £6.7m and operating profits increased by about 30% to £6.7m. At the time, the business was running on an impressive 30% margin. No figures are publicly available for 2010, but profits are thought to be in the region of £8m given the improvement in the market compared with 2009. This is the second time that Freud has sold and bought back his company: in 1994 Freud Communications was acquired by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. Following AMV’s acquisition by US marketing group Omnicom, Freud and his partners bought the agency out in 2001. Freud also owns stakes in agencies M&C Saatchi and Engine Group. •
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Video: Join Bill Nighy, who supports the Robin Hood Tax campaign, as he visits a Trussell Trust food bank in London
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The government is preparing to transform the country’s economy as Fidel Castro says the Cuban model no longer works These days the battle is for shade as pink tourists hop across baking sands seeking refuge from the sun, but half a century ago a more momentous struggle unfolded in the Bay of Pigs. Cuba’s infant revolution routed a US-backed invasion force in what Fidel Castro termed the first defeat for American imperialism in the western hemisphere. Amid the drama, he declared for the first time that the revolution was socialist. A museum in the bay, with more guides than visitors, has frozen in time the moment euphoric revolutionary forces took over farms and industries. “The victory of socialism,” says a banner. Drive north to Havana, however, and the landscape tells of a bleak sequel: idle fields abandoned to weeds and derelict tractors. The capital too reeks of decay. Ancient cars putt-putt past crumbling buildings. Obsolete machinery gathers dust in factories. Evidence, as Castro himself said in a recent interview, that “the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us any more”. Which is why on Saturday the Communist party will inaugurate its first congress in 14 years to cement radical changes to the economy and, intentional or not, to Cuban society. “The narrative is really Thatcherite,” said one senior western diplomat in Havana. “It’s all about cutting rights and welfare and putting greater emphasis on personal responsibility and hard work.” Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother as president in 2008, has said Cuba cannot continue blaming the US embargo for all its problems and must liberalise its moribund economy to “save socialism”. Timing the four-day congress to coincide with the Bay of Pigs anniversary has given authorities an excuse to fill TV screens with stirring archive footage and to plan a big military parade: reminders of glory and continued power. “This congress is huge. It will put the seal on a series of reforms and decide strategy for the next five to 10 years,” said Stephen Wilkinson, a Cuba expert at London Metropolitan University. Can the government transform the economy, rewrite Cuba’s social contract and remain in power? Despite an average state salary of just $20 a month there is little sign of Arab-style rebellion threatening the Castros’ tight control. An older population, curbs on social media and dependence on the state for 80% of jobs have muffled dissent. The question is what will happen as the state slashes subsidies and sheds a million workers – a daunting target delayed by bureaucratic resistance – and crosses its fingers that a liberated private sector soaks them up, Vietnam-style. In recent months budding entrepreneurs have taken out more than 171,000 licences for approved businesses such as restaurants, DVD stalls and taxis – about two-thirds of this year’s target of 250,000 licences. “Is socialism renewable?” Estado Sats, a recently formed group of thinkers and artists, asked at a seminar. The conclusion, said Antonio González-Rodiles, a founder, was no. “At least not in the way they are currently going about it.” Taxes and red tape threatened to strangle new ventures because central planners could not truly let go. “It’s like expecting torturers to become shepherds.” Some new businesses have swiftly folded – a phenomenon hardly unique to Cuba – but others are doing well and injecting bustle into pockets of Havana. Restaurants known as paladares , in some cases little more than family living rooms, offer pizza and traditional Cuban fare. Many of Havana’s Del Boys – fast-talking street traders who dodge authorities – are becoming legitimate. Rodolfo Mera used to carry flowers in a zipped shoulder bag and sidle up to people, hissing “flores” , but now he has a licence pinned to his chest and a corner on 25th street where his bicycle cart displays bouquets in six buckets. A born salesman, he convinced one sceptical middle-aged woman to part with 20 pesos (43p) for wilting tulips. “They’ll perk up when you get them home, love.” On San Lorenzo street Rubio, a former black-market watch seller, had just opened a barber shop – a chair and table with brushes and scissors – in an apartment block hallway. Tacked to the wall was his “special touch” – photos of pouting near-naked models – to lure customers from porn-free competitors. “It’s good to offer something extra,” he said. Such entrepreneurs may be the antithesis to Che Guevara’s 1960s vision of a “new man” motivated by socialist values rather than personal gain but they are hardly new, just more visible. Inequality remains an official taboo but a sizeable minority – thanks to remittances and shadier means – has designer clothes, iPods and cash to enjoy restaurants with tourist prices. The final draft of Raul’s proposed economic changes has not been published but there is little doubt the party congress will rubber-stamp what will be, in effect, a transition to a new Cuba. The government has released virtually all political prisoners but stepped up harassment of dissidents and verbal attacks on foreign media. A battening of the hatches, say some, in case of squalls to come. While many Cubans relish the incremental, unfolding changes, many are anxious they will lose subsidised food and goods and state jobs, however badly paid. In Marianao, a gritty Havana district, a living room TV showed grainy stills from the Bay of Pigs invasion. Fidel was leaping from a tank – a famous image – but the Acosta family paid no heed. Conversation had turned to a recurring, all-consuming topic: what would Gabriela, 36, do if laid off from her state film company job? “They say half of us will go, but not which half.” Miami remembers the Bay of Pigs invasion In the anti-Castro stronghold of Calle 8, the centre of Miami’s Little Havana, a small monument with an ever-lit flame remembers the “Martyrs of Girón”. Just before midnight on 16 April 1961, a group of about 1,350 Cuban exiles, backed by the CIA, launched an invasion of Cuba from the sea in the Bay of Pigs – known in Cuba as Playa Girón – aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro and the revolution. The invasion turned out to be a victory for Castro and a humiliating defeat for President Kennedy. “About 2,000 mortar rockets fell around us in just four hours. That was something truly dreadful. I can still hear them falling”, says 74-year-old José “Pepe” Hernández, who was involved in the fiasco. For Hernández, who fled Havana to Miami when he was a university student a few months after the triumph of Castro’s revolution, their main mistake was the faith they placed in “the support and experience we thought our ally, the United States, had. That turned out to be a terrible tactical failure” which helped cement Castro’s rule. “Looking back one asks oneself why Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution are still in power,” says Hernández, who now heads a powerful Miami-based exiles group, the Cuban-American National Foundation. “There are several reasons, one can say several errors, for that. Certainly, one of the biggest ones was the invasion of Playa Girón. I hope now us Cubans on both sides of the straits can find peaceful solutions to our differences.” Andres Schipani Cuba Fidel Castro United States Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) begged reporters Wednesday to “take the bat” to a 76-year-old lawmaker for collecting a pension and a paycheck. Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a widow, said she was forced to begin collecting her pension after her financial advisor invested all her savings in Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme. “After a major financial setback resulting from my so-called ‘Financial Advisor’ investing all my money (including my IRA) with a man I never heard of (read: Bernie Madoff) a colleague suggested that I would most likely qualify for my pension,” Weinberg wrote in a blog post . “Though I never went in to public service to make money, I am grateful for this income at this time of my life, because of the situation Bernie Madoff created for me,” she said. Christie became livid at Weinberg when she was quoted by The Star-Ledger as saying he was guilty of double standards. At the time, Christie had not yet spoken out against Essex County Executive Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. for receiving a pension from the same job where he was also receiving a paycheck. “That’s just gamesmanship,” Christie said at a press conference. “As you can see from folks like Loretta Weinberg, who by the way, if you guys don’t give Loretta Weinberg the hypocrisy award…” “I mean can you guys please take the bat out on her for once?” he asked reporters. “The hypocrisy meter has got to tilt on her.” Christie, who is known for his trademark rants, also recently told a teacher to quit after she criticized his attacks on the teachers union.
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Crackdown on dissent continues with apparent detention by authorities in China of two more associates of activist-artist A lawyer linked to Ai Weiwei went missing on Thursday night and a designer from the company handling the artist’s affairs was taken by police six days ago, according to supporters. Friends have not been able to reach Liu Xiaoyuan for almost 24 hours. The rights lawyer posted a message on a microblog at 8pm on Thursday saying he was being “followed by identified people”. His phone is switched off. Last week he said he would “of course” act for Ai if requested. He spent several hours at a police station on the day Ai disappeared, although his brief detention did not appear to relate to the artist. It occurred after he requested to visit a female activist and officers reportedly berated him for tweeting about another missing lawyer. Separately, a letter issued online on Friday said plainclothes police seized designer Liu Zhenggang, 49, at his home in Beijing on 9 April and no one had been able to reach him since. Liu worked for FAKE, the design and architecture firm that handles Ai’s affairs and belongs to the artist’s wife. Police did not respond to queries about the two men. Ai’s detention has sparked an international outcry, and his case is far from alone. The last two months have seen dozens of lawyers, dissidents and activists being criminally detained and arrested or simply going missing in one of the toughest crackdowns for years . It appears to have been sparked by anonymous calls on websites overseas for “jasmine revolution” protests inspired by the Middle East uprisings. Ai was stopped at Beijing airport on 3 April and has been incommunicado ever since. Officials have said he is under investigation for economic crimes but police have still not informed his family that he is detained. Also missing are his friend Wen Tao, 38; driver and cousin Zhang Jinsong, also known as Xiao Pang, 43; and accountant Hu Mingfen, 55. An open letter to the ministry of public security and Beijing police, signed by Ai’s wife, Lu Qing, as well as colleagues and relatives of the missing, urged an investigation into the disappearances. The Guardian was unable to reach Lu but a friend of Ai’s posted a link to the letter and a studio assistant confirmed it was genuine. “The people … all disappeared or got kidnapped in a very short period of time and we request that the public security bureau investigate the matter. We are deeply concerned about the situation Ai Weiwei and his colleagues are in now,” the letter said. “Kidnapping citizens or making them disappear is a severe crime and it immensely hurts people, relatives and friends around them. “We believe justice can only exist if every administrative procedure is carried out in accordance with the law. Otherwise any conclusion or result that’s been drawn does not hold water … We hope that the public security bureau can act according to the law and protect people’s rights.” Reuters reported that a third person had been sent to re-education through labour after taking pictures of police officers at a site proposed for a “jasmine revolution” protest on 6 March. Wang Yuqin said her husband Yang Qiuyu, 48, a campaigner for the rights of petitioners, was seized by police at Xidan in Beijing. She said she would hire a lawyer and sue authorities for sending him to a labour camp without trial. “They want to use labour camps to crush dissent,” she said. Rights groups say that lawyer Ni Yulan, who was taken by police a few days ago, has been criminally detained for “creating a disturbance”. A person close to her, who did not want to be named, told Reuters: “She has nothing to do with it [the "jasmine revolution" call] … She was very careful about not getting involved. “The innocent are being taken away. It’s getting more and more terrifying out there.” The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institution warned in a statement: “An expanding catalogue of abductions by the Chinese authorities [is creating] a climate of fear. The IBAHRI calls on the Chinese government to release all illegally detained human rights lawyers; cease all forms of harassment of the same; and to make a public statement on the whereabouts of ‘disappeared’ lawyers, the reasons for their arrest and their treatment in detention.” China Ai Weiwei Human rights Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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Nat Cary’s statement at inquest into G20 protest death contradicts findings of another specialist Ian Tomlinson is likely to have died from injuries sustained when he was pushed from behind by a police officer at the G20 protests in London, a forensic pathologist has told an inquest. Dr Nat Cary conducted his postmortem a few days after video footage showed PC Simon Harwood striking Tomlinson with a baton and pushing him to the ground near the Bank of England two years ago. Tomlinson, 47, collapsed and died less than three minutes later. Cary said he believed the way Tomlinson fell to the ground was likely to cause a “blunt force trauma” to his abdomen. He said damage to the liver was the “most likely” cause of the internal bleeding, but the blood loss could have been caused by other burst veins. He believed this led to rapid internal bleeding, which would have caused Tomlinson to collapse to the ground and go into cardiac arrest. Cary said the video footage showed that Tomlinson was unable to properly break his fall, and his elbow became trapped between his body and the pavement. He said bruises on the outside of his body, as well as those to his abdomen, were consistent with this. “There is every prospect that the elbow has basically made contact with the ground and there has been a transmitted force through to the contents of the abdomen,” he said. Cary’s findings contradict those of another pathologist, Dr Freddy Patel, who was the first to examine Tomlinson’s body in the presence of four police officers after his death. Two other pathologists, Dr Kenneth Shorrock and Dr Ben Swift, have concluded the newspaper seller died of internal bleeding. In his evidence earlier in the week, Patel said he spent several hours looking for a cause of the internal bleeding but, when he could not find a source, concluded through the “process of elimination” that Tomlinson had died of natural causes. He specifically concluded that Tomlinson, a father of nine, died from sudden “arrhythmic” heart attack caused by coronary artery disease. However, Patel accepted that any heart attack may have been triggered by Tomlinson’s encounter with the police officer 150 seconds earlier, conceding there was a “compelling association” between the two incidents. The jury has heard that Patel has twice been suspended by the General Medical Council in the past seven months after disciplinary hearings into his botched postmortems. They include cases where he was found guilty of dishonesty, clinical failings and refusing to abandon his original conclusions of a heart attack. Patel conceded he sometimes got things wrong but denied being deliberately dishonest or lying. Cary, who is also a specialist in coronary artery disease, said there was no evidence from his postmortem that heart attack was the cause of death. Whereas Patel believed Tomlinson’s most blocked coronary artery was 80% to 90% blocked, a body tissue expert said that the same artery was 50% blocked. Cary’s opinion was that the same artery was between 60% and 70% blocked, which he said was very unlikely to have triggered a heart attack. “This is not the sort of blockage in atheroclerotic disease in coronary arteries that causes sudden death,” he said. A pivotal element within the inquest is the extent to which three litres of fluid found in Tomlinson’s abdomen consisted of blood. Patel was the only pathologist to observe the fluid, which he described as “a large-volume intra-abdominal bleed”. However 12 months later, after reading how other pathologists had found Tomlinson died of internal bleeding in the abdomen, Patel changed his description to “[bodily] fluid with blood”. Patel told the inquest he did not know what proportion was blood but believed it was mostly bodily fluid. He said a sample he took of the fluid was inadvertently discarded. Cary told the jury that he could not be sure from photographs of the amount of blood. But he added that despite Patel’s altered findings he was confident the quantity of blood in the abdomen was “substantial” and enough to cause Tomlinson’s collapse and subsequent death. “Clearly at the time Dr Patel took that sample, he must have thought that a significant proportion of it was blood, because he was going to submit it for toxicology as blood.” Ian Tomlinson Police Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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With their shouty, novelty pop, these cheeky girls are only one ironic wink away from being the next Cheeky Girls Hometown: London. The lineup: Alex and Jade. The background: Oh My! are two northern girls – Alex (20) and Jade (19) – who met at dance school and don’t use surnames because surnames aren’t very pop. They decided to call themselves Oh My! after the 2002 hit Oops (Oh My) by Tweet ft Missy Elliott, although they’re not touting a homegrown version of R&B – of the new girl groups, that would be Soundgirl’s territory . They’ve signed to 679, where they’re currently working with rapper Example, who is writing and producing their first songs. 679 is probably their ideal home – a little bit edgy, a little bit street/Streets. The label specialises in prole disco with a hint of arty attitude, and Oh My! are a tidy acquisition alongside Little Boots (its electro diva), Marina (its pop kook) and Spark (its punk-lite girl). This would mark out Oh My! as its straight chart act. But is there actually a place in the charts for shouty girl-pop with the whiff of novelty that revels in its cheesy cheekiness, lack of class and sheer girl-next-door exuberance? Case for the defence: Spice Girls. On the other hand, there’s Shampoo, who fluked one hit, Trouble, and we say “fluked” because they were almost too arch to be true, and too good to sustain a whole career. Jade and Alex aren’t quite as smart as Shampoo, they don’t seem as steeped in pop as Jacqui and Carrie, but they are more knowing than, say, Saturdays. Their closest contemporary comparison would be Mini Viva , who also had one top 10 entry before disappearing, but Oh My! have more of a tacky, jokey quality. Their music is perky fizz-pop for mini divas: Dirty Dancer bubbles with memories of Mickey by Toni Basil and features a rap, Ting Tings style, about how the girls want to meet a saucy groover. Inevitably, it rhymes Patrick Swayze with crazy, and it reeks of Primark and cheap perfume. Sleeping With the Lights On is tacky but hooky, the vocals Auto-Tuned to the point where they’re just another sound effect. The first single is Run This Town , which is feisty enough and references all the right teen preoccupations, including MSN. We’re trying hard not to call them the female Jedward. Would that be so bad? The buzz: “Oh My! are going to Run This Town” – themusicfix.co.uk . The truth: These cheeky girls are only one ironic wink away from being the next Cheeky Girls. Most likely to: Sell more than 679 records. Least likely to: Get matching vertical quiffs. What to buy: Run This Town is released by 679 in May. File next to: Mini Viva, Shampoo, Bananarama, Daphne & Celeste. Links: ohmyofficial . Monday’s new band: Unouomedude. Pop and rock Paul Lester guardian.co.uk
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