Tonight:
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So far, 29 people in Britain have died of swine flu. By comparison, between 6,000 and 8,000 people die of seasonal flu in a normal year.
So while it is right for the Department of Health to take seriously the threat of swine flu to vulnerable groups, including children and pregnant women, it is important to put this risk into some sort of sane perspective.
That was not quite the approach adopted by the former Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, when he opined that the threat to the population from swine flu is greater than that from terrorism.
Mercifully few people die of terrorist-related offences either, but the comparison hardly helps to put the nation's mind at rest.
On the credit side, the Government's establishment of a National Pandemic Flu Service at the end of this week, administered by phone and internet, to advise people about whether or not they have swine flu, is a useful response.
It will take pressure off GP surgeries and may help travellers decide whether or not they should use public transport and planes - though airlines are already using their discretion to refuse travel to would-be passengers who appear to have flu symptoms.
Advice to pregnant women has, so far, been less useful. The Royal College of Midwives has suggested that they avoid crowded places - advice that anyone working in central London and reliant on public transport would find it almost impossible to follow.
The National Childbirth Trust has even said that the Department of Health is advising women to delay conception until the pandemic is over, a piece of grossly disproportionate and misleading advice.
The Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, now says pregnant women "should consider avoiding crowded places", which is hardly helpful.
The best policy for the Government is to provide us with sober facts. This pandemic should not be allowed to bring normal life and economic activity to a standstill.
If we have flu-like symptoms, the sensible approach is not to come to work. Otherwise, it should be business as usual.
Osborne's analysis
The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, writing on this page, has quite rightly said we should not forget the scale of the calamity that resulted from the banking crisis, which has taken more than a trillion pounds of public money to remedy in part.
Yet his prescription for avoiding a repeat of the crisis is to do away with the tripartite system of banking supervision altogether and give the powers of the Financial Services Authority to the Bank of England - a role it does not, in fact, want.
This would be a mistake. The Bank does not have the expertise and manpower to conduct the micro-management of the banks; the FSA does.
What's more, the FSA has, unlike most institutions, taken the lessons of the banks' collapse to heart; the report by its head, Lord Turner, on the crisis is the best available blueprint for reform.
The Bank, moreover, is only as good as its Governor and it cannot be said that the present Governor, Mervyn King, has had a particularly good war in terms of the credit crunch.
This paper agrees with Mr Osborne that the Bank should have an overall role in determining the direction of the financial services industry and, in particular, in establishing whether the banks are engaging in behaviour that risks destabilising themselves and the wider economy. But this is a very different matter from micro-managing banks' business plans.
Mr Osborne's policy is an attempt to return to the way the City was managed 12 years ago; it won't work now.
Knives out
Fingers were made before forks, as the saying goes. But who would have thought that, as we report today, knives would be outstripped in popularity among Londoners by forks?
But while forks may be good enough for pasta, a steak will always need a knife. This is one social trend that can go only so far.
Reader views (1)
I cannot understand how a diagnosis of swine flu can be made over the telephone by someone who is possibly, or even likely, to have no medical qualifications.
The symptoms I have seen described are identical with a couple of days flu like symptoms I suffered from last month. Some hot drinks and paracetemol sorted me out. Today I could ring the help line and probably be prescribed TamiFlu which I did not need at great expense to the NHS.
I think that the media and Government,who have dragged 65,000 possible deaths out of thin air are being hysterical and a large part of the population are joining in.
- Charles, Stanmore. London, 20/07/2009 16:51
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