Digested week: Recession, a shabby state of affairs – and a wait after a fall | John Crace

Monday

There was a time not so long ago when Rishi Sunak used every available moment to talk about his Five Promises. Now he has gone rather quiet on the subject. Presumably not unrelated to the fact that four of them are dead in the water. Only the promise to halve inflation has been kept, and that is the one over which he had no control.

The latest promise to die a slow death was the one to grow the economy. Last week the UK fell into a recession of two successive quarters of negative growth. “Um,” said Jeremy Hunt. “It’s not a real recession. It’s a technical recession.” A message to Jezza. Stop digging. A recession is a recession.

Now you might have thought the government would have been keen to update parliament about this latest turn of events at the earliest opportunity. To let us know they had a plan to get the country out of recession. But not a bit of it. So when the Commons returned after the February recess, Rachel Reeves had to table an urgent question to ask Hunt to explain what was going on.

Only there was no sign of the chancellor. Jezza had a dancing class booked that he couldn’t move. Nor was there a sighting of his No 2, the hapless Laura Trott. She is still getting remedial lessons in understanding debt after being humiliated by the BBC’s Evan Davis. So it was left to the lowest of the low, Bim Afolami to take the hit. AKA Dim Bim.

He might never recover. First he tried to say that growing the economy had never been part of the plan. A recession was just a cunning way of dealing with inflation. Mmm. That wasn’t the way Rishi had explained it. In the end all Dim Bim could do was to say that a recession wasn’t ideal and the Treasury would try to do a bit better. Worst of all, he had to cope with the Labour frontbench openly laughing at him for 45 minutes. There is no worse fate for a minister.

Tuesday

A couple of weeks or so ago, I was tripped – accidentally – as I was leaving White Hart Lane in London. I am officially now one of those old people who has had “a fall”. It was a cold night and my hands were in my pockets so I landed heavily on my shoulder. I almost immediately knew I had done some serious damage. But, like most people, I would do almost anything to avoid going to A&E so I just took some ibuprofen for a few days and hoped the pain would go away. It didn’t. It got worse. So bad I could barely move my arm in some directions. Eventually I gave in and went to hospital. On arrival at A&E, I was re-directed, through corridors lined with patients waiting on trolleys, to the urgent care centre. There I checked in and the next part of my adventure began.

As expected, the waiting area was already full. Some families had come prepared for the long haul, having brought sandwiches and soft drinks along with their relatives. Others were there purely because they either didn’t have a GP or couldn’t get an appointment at their surgery. We all eyed one another up, trying to work out what was wrong and how long they might take to get treated. Everyone doing the maths, calculating their chances.

The hours ticked by. There was no logic to the queue. Sometimes three people would be summoned in the space of 15 minutes, then no one for half an hour. Patients would be taken into the treatment area only to return to join the queue. Around about midnight, after roughly a five-hour wait, I was seen by a doctor. He couldn’t have been kinder and was impervious to the chaos around him. Each patient got precisely as long as each patient needed. It turned out that I hadn’t broken my shoulder but I had torn a tendon. There was no quick fix. My arm was going to carry on hurting for a while.

But here’s the thing. My A&E experience might have felt endless, but really this was a good night at St George’s. I was lucky not to have a 12-hour stay. And the government have the nerve to boast about their record with the NHS. Perhaps the health secretary might like to spend a night in A&E so she can appreciate how well she is doing.

Wednesday

The state we’re in. We’re no longer a serious country. First, the Prince of Wales writes that too many people have already been killed and he would like to see an immediate ceasefire. Words that had been vetted by both the palace and the prime minister to make sure they had no political overtones. Words with which almost any normal person would have no problem. But apparently not. This has been all too much for some who have accused the prince of interfering in politics. Seriously? For a start, does anyone believe Israel and Hamas are waiting to hear what William thinks? And what do they think he should say?

Then we get to the shithousery in Westminster. Where the three largest parties are unable to hold an adult debate on Gaza without resorting to partisan politics. They all wanted a ceasefire. But it had to be their own ceasefire, not anyone else’s. So we had the SNP trying to embarrass Labour and Labour desperate to persuade the speaker to break with convention by allowing their amendment to be heard. Then the Tories, furious at being outmanoeuvred, pulled out the nuclear option at the last minute when their amendment was in danger of being voted down.

Labour did at least sound a bit contrite the next day. The Tories not at all. Penny Mordaunt chose the moment to launch her own sanctimonious leadership bid by rewriting history. Penny has never been the same since she held the sword at the coronation. She now believes in her own divinity. Westminster has seldom looked so shabby.

Thursday

Sometimes the NHS can surprise you. Way back, during the height of the Covid pandemic, I found out that I had a couple of kidney stones. The consultant phoned to say one would need an operation. Given that most hospitals were like war zones at the time – the ITV drama Breathtaking, based on the book by Rachel Clarke, which has been broadcast this week, has been a grim reminder of just how bad things were – I rather assumed I would be waiting months, if not years, to be treated.

Not a bit of it. St George’s had commandeered the spare capacity in a nearby private hospital and could operate in a couple of weeks. So while Covid patients were dying in corridors and doctors and nurses were having to cobble together their own PPE, I got the five-star treatment and was in and out of hospital in a day.

The surgery was a success. Though I never did discover why they never bothered to remove the second kidney stone while they were at it. After all, they had done the hard part of accessing the kidney. As it is, this second stone had been the subject of annual ultrasound monitoring. It works like this. I get a letter from the radiology department for my appointment. And I then get a second letter to say that a consultant will be phoning me with the results. Which up till now has always been that the stone has got no bigger and hasn’t moved. A good thing.

This year, things haven’t gone entirely to plan. First I got a phone call from the consultant saying I hadn’t been for my ultrasound so he had no results to give me. I explained that I hadn’t received a letter from the radiology department and that it must have got lost in the post. “Ah,” he sighed. “That happens the whole time. I will book you another appointment.” Which he did. Only this time I got a letter saying that my results telephone call for February had been cancelled. I could have another one in March. Today I got a further letter moving the call to May. Let’s hope the stone is still in the same place.

Friday

The Baftas came and went without me paying too much attention. I always find any televised awards ceremony a bit tedious as I am hopeless at identifying movie stars and don’t know who almost anyone is and haven’t seen most of the films or TV shows. Obviously David Beckham was there: he will turn out for anything these days. Though it was a surprise not to see his son Brooklyn, who has joined the global showbiz elite without apparently doing much of interest. Or maybe I’ve missed something.

It occurred to me that acting must be the most award-heavy industry going. Is it because most actors tend to be a bit needy and narcissistic and can’t stand a week out the limelight, or is it just mission creep? It’s that time of year when, for about three months, the acting industry appears to close down as its stars fly round the world for a different awards ceremony every week. Imagine if other professions were to get the same idea. Like the annual doctor of the year awards coming to you live from La Scala, Milan. And the winner of the best cardiologist in a supporting role goes to …