The Thin End

The combination of companies abandoning 'fairtrade' commitments and the UK government's determination to scrap the DFID pose a significant threat to ethical trade. 
Support for co-operatives and Fairtrade risks being diluted and diverted with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s "reckless" proposal to scrap DFID (Department for International Development), Labour has warned. Abandoning DFID isn't a new idea.  The Tories have been targetting it for some time.  Their arguments against it are that it spends far too much money,  but there is another,  more sinister reason.  It gets in the way of trade based on poverty wages.  There lies the rub of it.   They don't really want ethics to block trade deals. 




In 1997, the then Labour government set up a dedicated Department for International Development, and over the next decade, the UK development budget tripled.  Support was targeted at the poorest, with work to promote good governance, encourage growth and economic dev…

This is a powerful story of Mary, a single teenage mother, living on a housing estate plagued with predatory abuse and prostitution, and Annie, an innocent girl whose ghostly presence links the central characters over two generations, bringing the events that led to her death, the loss of innocence and the unfolding story to a dramatic, thrilling conclusion.
The characterisation in the book is brilliant and entirely believable. From page one, I was completely drawn into the story and found the book difficult to put down.This is a stunning first time novelAn intense, gripping and highly personal thriller, with a modern ghostI found it hard to put down the book and the story very compelling.

Some thoughts on the Chancellor's measures for recovery.



The Chancellor's measures are a big package, but likely to be not big enough. There is much to be welcomed, even if it is a commitment with some half-measures. The government should not allow political philosophy to get in the way of doing what is required. Now more than ever, we need a unity of purpose across the political divide. That is never easy. We did it once before in what became known as the 'post-war consensus' on the need for spending on social infrastructure.

It helped us recover from the ravages and debt of war. Far from increasing national debt, the social investment-led recovery helped stimulate demand and the national debt tumbled. All the main parties, Tory, Labour and Liberal put employment at the heart of the strategy.

Merely urging people to spend is not the answer. In the long term, we need an investment-led recovery. Investment creates jobs, increases earnings and thus spending people can aff…

New research indicates that taking vitamin D supplements may help prevent a potentially serious side effect of a revolutionary form of anti-cancer therapy. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS).


An important capacity of the immune system is its ability to distinguish between normal cells in the body and those it sees as “foreign.” This lets the immune system attack the foreign cells while leaving the normal cells alone. To do this, it uses “checkpoints.” Immune checkpoints are molecules on certain immune cells that need to be activated (or inactivated) to start an immune response.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors help the immune system recognize and combat cancer cells, and although these treatments have helped many patients and have prolonged lives, they can cause side effects such as colitis, an inflammatory reaction in the colon.
 “Immune checkpoint inhibitor-induced colitis can limit the use of such life-saving dru…