The news that healthy life expectancy is in decline in Britain exposes a serious truth about the state we’re in
M
y guess is you keep across the news. You know Andy Mountbatten-Windsor has just had the worst birthday ever; that tall hotels in Dubai don’t make for a great holiday right now; and that Keir Starmer’s engagements diary for 2027 will be remarkably clear.
Still, there is one headline I’ll bet you haven’t seen, even though it directly affects your life. It’s about your life, and mine, and those of our families and friends and neighbours. I didn’t spot it either, until a few days ago when the Guardian ran a reader’s letter.
It came from Alan Walker, a retired professor at the University of Sheffield. Why, he asked, hadn’t this newspaper made more of the latest “shocking” figures on healthy life expectancy? I looked up the report from the Office for National Statistics, and he’s absolutely right: the findings are indeed “momentous”, and they should be on the front pages, because they expose a serious truth about the state we’re in.
