'Sailing towards an iceberg'

The Independent's Morning Headlines email [The Independent]( July 31, 2023 [View online](   [Morning Headlines]( 1 /[Tory winter plan could kill thousands]( Government plans to prepare the [NHS]( for [winter]( have been criticised by the UK’s most senior A&E doctor, who warned that inadequate provision could see thousands of people die needlessly this year. Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), warned that [plans drawn up this week]( are wholly insufficient, allowing for less than half of the beds needed to cope with the crisis. He said that at least 11,000 additional staffed beds should be provided at hospitals across the country, while the prime minister has only pledged 5,000. The NHS will also offer financial rewards to hospitals that hit waiting-time targets, which Dr Boyle said would mean they simply “game” the system and leave the most seriously ill patients waiting the longest. The senior doctor said vulnerable elderly patients and the mentally ill would be affected most by the government’s poor planning. He told The Independent: “If you just look at the figures, all the indicators of our target performance, 12-hour waits in hospital, are all going the wrong way. If we compare them to what was going on at the same time a year ago, it makes me anxious that we are heading towards a worse winter than we just had.” Dr Boyle warned the government that it was “blithely sailing towards an iceberg”, and that if it allows this winter to be as bad as the last, “it will break the very people who keep this broken system creaking along”.   2 /[Sunak set to stress North Sea energy opportunities in Scotland]( The prime minister is expected in Aberdeenshire for a series of announcements on energy 3 /[Home Office crackdown to block criminals getting citizenship]( Tougher application rules will be applied to anyone who has received a 12-month prison sentence 4 /[HS2 rail plans rated “unachievable” by official watchdog]( The rail project has experienced multiple delays and cost hikes 5 /[Sewage puts a quarter of people off swimming in the sea]( It comes after environment secretary Therese Coffey told MPs earlier this month that it was cheaper for water companies to pay a fine than to deal with problem THE BIG QUESTION [Can Blur really be cool again? Inside the strange rebirth of Britpop]( A few years ago, you’d have struggled to find someone with a kind word to say about [Britpop](. “Patronising, jingoistic and crass,” reckoned [Suede](’s Brett Anderson. “Grave-robbing necrophilia,” lamented writer Simon Reynolds, writes Ed Power. “Just awful,” said [Blur](’s own [Graham Coxon](. You wonder how Coxon feels today as Blur follow a nostalgia-soaked two-hander at Wembley in early July by claiming their seventh No 1 this week with [new album The Ballad of Darren.](That Wembley triumph – variously heralded as “glorious” and “momentous” – coincided with the acclaimed return of [Pulp](, led by Britpop’s resident eccentric professor [Jarvis Cocker](. Their comeback shows have been widely praised, too. The New Statesman credited Jarvis and company with “launching the second summer of Britpop”. The NME described Pulp’s first tour in a decade as “a reunion you never wanted to end”. 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