The Duchess of Cambridge gets better every day, in every way. With less than three months to go before her baby is born, she looks positively radiant.
At the weekend she gave a speech while visiting Naomi House at Sutton Scotney, to launch Children’s Hospice Week.
She spoke brilliantly. She encouraged everyone to donate to these hospices and I suspect her patronage will boost funds by millions. Rather like Princess Diana, Kate wins the hearts of everyone she meets wherever she goes.
Things are still going seriously wrong in our hospitals.
Friends have begged me to publish how appalling some things are at Northampton General.
Last week an elderly friend suffering from bladder cancer was admitted at 8pm. He was fitted with a catheter and left half naked on his bed until 2.30am when a nurse pulled his pyjamas on. In his words: “I’d never been in hospital in my life. I didn’t like to complain, but being left half naked meant I lost all my dignity”.
Another friend who has been visiting a relative in hospital said nurses were constantly chatting and ignoring requests for attention from the nursing staff.
On another occasion they noticed a sign which said nurses must wear long sleeves to cover up their arms and help the fight against MRSA. She was really shocked when a young female doctor did her rounds in a short-sleeved jumper.
One law for nurses and one for doctors? Surely not!
And a last word on Margaret Thatcher. When she came into power on May 3, 1979, the country was in a mess. The unions had crippled the economy with strikes. We were working a three-ay week. Unemployment was at an all-time high.
Margaret Thatcher came in like a tornado. First she took on the unions and defeated them. She did more to break down the class barriers than any other Prime Minster, by offering council house tenants the opportunity to buy their own homes.
After her death, she was accused of shutting down all the coal mines. This was not true as most were closed down by Harold Wilson in the 1960s.
She was a great leader. She used her position to improve the country she loved. Sadly, in the end, Margaret was betrayed by her own party.
Things could have been so different. In her biography, Margaret was selected as the Tory candidate for the safe seat of Finchley. But it was said that the vote was rigged.
Bertie Blatch, then chairman of Finchley’s Conservative Association, apparently told his son: “She didn’t actually win. The man (her rival, one Thomas Langton, did).
“But I thought ‘He’s got a silver spoon in his mouth. He’ll get another seat. So I ‘lost’ two of his votes and gave them to her.”
How would things have changed if she had not been selected for Finchley?