Peter Hill

BRITAIN has one of the poorest cancer treatment programmes in the civilised world but things could get even worse. From July only Nice, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, will be able to authorise drugs. Until now thousands of people denied by Nice have been helped by the separate Cancer Drugs Fund.

Nice has an appalling record of rejecting treatments which it considers not cost-effective and cancer charities fear that up to 20,000 patients in England will be denied even more of the drugs available in other parts of the world and in Scotland and Wales.

“Not a single breast cancer drug has been considered cost-effective by Nice in the past seven years,” says Baroness Morgan, chief executive of Breast Cancer Now. The boss of Nice, Sir Andrew Dillon, claims it has made changes but be very afraid.

The NHS overspent its drug fund by £160million last year. As the complexity and cost of treatments increases the budget will always be bust, but there is a way the NHS could recoup more than enough cash: by making other countries repay us for treating their citizens.

Last year Britain paid £670million to other European health services but collected only £50million back “because we had not got our act together” admits Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. In other words NHS managers just couldn’t be bothered. Disgraceful. q SOME idiot at the Treasury had the bright idea that penalising buy-to-let landlords with heavy taxes would enable more people to become home owners. It won’t because prices are unlikely to fall enough to make a difference, but rental property is bound to become scarcer and more expensive as landlords recoup extra costs. A Tory minister said last week that buy-to-letters should be “made to squeal”. Yes, a Tory minister. No need for Labour supporters to worry that Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable – we’ve already got a socialist Government. q IF you doubt what I’ve just said, our allegedly Tory Prime Minister said last week that we should continue to hand out aid to countries he described to the Queen as “fantastically corrupt”. Not only that but aid to the worst offenders, Afghanistan and Nigeria, is to be increased by 50 per cent.

The theory is that aid should be concentrated on “fragile” countries to counter extremism and mass migration. This perverse logic dictates that billions more will fall into the hands of criminal politicians and gangsters while more worthy countries have their funding reduced.

Since David Cameron came to power Britain has boosted aid to Afghanistan and Nigeria by 35 per cent – £435million last year.

Our hard work ends up in a sinkhole of bribery, misappropriation and money laundering to make Cameron and his posh pals feel good about themselves. q TALKING of aid, I bet the Queen spends the £50 Tesco voucher she won. Her Maj is known to be careful with money, even repairing her wellies and only turning on one bar of her electric fire (I reckon).

The really rich don’t throw their money around. That’s why they have it and why fools like me are soon parted from it. q A GROUP of German lawyers warns that Britain will be powerless to stop the EU moving to ever closer union and the opt-out negotiated by the Prime Minister “will do nothing to protect Britain from judicial activism by the European Court of Justice”.

That’s why Boris Johnson is right to say the Euro elite aims to do exactly what Napoleon and Hitler wanted. I shall be voting to leave because I want my children and grandchildren to be free from an organisation intent on controlling every aspect of life from kettles to corporations.

Since its inception the EU has made tens of thousands of laws that no one saw the need for before, more than 3,500 in the past three years alone. It employs at least 50,000 bureaucrats on top pay, expenses and pensions.

The European Parliament where MEPs waste their time planning to build a new gym at a cost of £395,000 is a sham: the real power is in the hands of officials and politically driven judges whose principal motive is selfperpetuation and expansion. I’d vote Out even if I believed it would make me worse off. Which I don’t. q SOME parents are celebrating last week’s court decision that it’s okay to take children out of school for holidays but they might not be so happy when the exam results come in. Short-term gain – long-term pain. q A PUNCH and Judy show has been banned by Barry council, South Wales, because it contradicts their policy on domestic violence.

A spokesman said: “It has elements of hitting” and treads “a fine line between entertainment and what is not appropriate”.

I’ve come to hate that word and its now all too common cousin “inappropriate” used to outlaw many harmless activities not already prevented on the grounds of health and safety.

Punch and Judy is extremely violent – the characters are obnoxious – but I don’t believe a single child has turned into a spouse beater as a result of seeing it, no more than after watching Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Children are perfectly capable of understanding what is appropriate in real life. q RUSSIA is considering boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest after the blatantly political vote which handed the trophy to Ukraine.

That’s a relief. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had started World War Three. Or perhaps I’m just nervous after the PM’s warning about Brexit.