NHS sponge will suck up care cash

ANYONE fearful that most of the £36billion raised from this week’s National Insurance rise will be poured into the bottomless pit that is the NHS and NOT into social care is right to be worried.

Boris has promised it won’t happen – but then he promised there’d be no tax rises either. And news that the NHS is hiring 42 new execs on salaries of £270,000 isn’t just obscene, it’s sticking two fingers up at a government that is currently ploughing billions more into an NHS budget that already costs us nearly £3billion a week.

Add to that the fact that nearly half of all NHS staff aren’t doctors, nurses or medically trained people but chief executives, managers and administrators, and it’s clear the organisation is in desperate need of reform.

And until a prime minister has the guts to do that the elderly won’t get the social care they need and the rest of us won’t get the treatment we pay for.

■ BOOKER Prize winner Hilary Mantel, right, is quitting Britain for Ireland because she hates Brexiteers (we’re very small people apparently). She doesn’t like the way we treat migrants (does she mean rescuing, giving food and accommodation to the thousands pouring across the Channel every month, most of whom aren’t refugees but illegal economic migrants?). Oh, and she’s not keen on the monarchy either, even though she accepted a Damehood from Prince Charles in 2015.

Still, good riddance to her. People who hate this country and are forever slagging it off should leave.

Ms Mantel says she wants to live in a republic again, which presumably means Southern Ireland. Isn’t it the South where writers and artists are exempt from tax? But, of course, that couldn’t possibly be her REAL reason for leaving Britain – could it?

■ JAMIE Oliver has bought all his male staff underpants by a company called Saxx because he thinks they’re so fantastic: “If you want to have your balls cradled by an angel all day, these pants are life-changing.”

Jamie says he’s not being paid to promote Saxx: “I have no relationship with the company.” I’m guessing he soon will have… and free underpants for life.