SORT IT OUT ON STATINS

Constantly conflicting medical advice makes me sick. Take statins. Which I do.

Some experts say these cholesterol-busters are miracle drugs and should be swallowed by everyone aged 40-75 facing the risk of either heart disease or stroke.

Others warn of the increased likelihood of diabetes, liver failure, brain damage, back disorders, obesity, cataracts, cancer... and impotence. Yikes.

I should have known this was a controversial treatment when my GP breezily told me there were no side-effects. Gee, did he take the pee. I was kept awake for weeks with muscle pain. Yet when former Cabinet minister Theresa Villiers asked last week for a proper study, Health Minister Caroline Dinenage told her: “It’s not usual practice to ring-fence funds for particular topics.”

Do give over, Caroline. With eight million of us popping these pills this topic is of particular interest to one in six of the adult population.

And instead of so-called experts squabbling we want some definitive publicly funded advice. Is Chingford Skinhead Norman Tebbit, 87, mellowing with age? The nickname combined his former Commons seat and being Maggie Thatcher’s bovver boy when she wanted to privatise everything. Now he tells the House of Lords that ownership of track and trains on the railways should be under one body “whether public or private”. One more nudge, Norm, to give you some momentum and we’ll have you on Jeremy Corbyn’s nationalisation bandwagon.