A slight case of overblogging

Posted by Denis Campbell and Michael Goodier

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/14/wes-streeting-nhs-hospitals-england-key-target-improved-waiting-times

Outgoing health secretary declares Labour’s ‘plan for the NHS is working’, though experts question how goal was reached

Hospitals in England have hit a key target for improving the time it takes patients to get treatment, which prompted Wes Streeting to declare that Labour’s “plan for the NHS is working” before departing as health secretary.

Streeting had told the NHS to ensure that hospitals treated at least 65% of patients within 18 weeks by the end of March. New NHS England figures published on Thursday showed that hospitals did so, treating 65.3% of people on the NHS waiting list within that timeframe in March.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/14/wes-streeting-nhs-hospitals-england-key-target-improved-waiting-times

Posted by Scott Murray (now) and David Tindall (later)

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/may/14/us-pga-championship-day-one-live

️ Updates from the first round at Aronimink Golf Club
️ Official live leaderboard | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Scott

Bryson’s touch is all over the shop. He overcooks his downhill 30-foot putt from the fringe at the back of 11 … and the ball catches the slope of the green, rolling 60 feet past! So nearly off back down the fairway! That leads to an inevitable bogey. Also dropping a shot: Jon Rahm on 1. His approach disappears down a swale to the right of the green, and he can’t get his ball back up with his first chip. Rory also bogeys, the result of that errant drive and skulled wedge, and for a course supposedly there for the taking, Aronimink sure is baring its teeth.

It Can Happen To The Best Of Them dept. Rory McIlroy’s ball, having hit a tree down the right of 1, comes straight down and disappears into thick rough. He lashes at it with great force, but the ball only squirts out of the cabbage, a topper that dribbles 100 yards down the fairway. We’ve all done it, Rory on fewer occasions than most. But here he is. So much for his pre-tournament claim that “strategy off the tee is pretty non-existent”, huh. And there’s no blaming a blister on his pinky toe for that one.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/may/14/us-pga-championship-day-one-live

Posted by Andrew Sparrow

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/may/14/angela-rayner-says-starmer-should-reflect-on-stepping-aside-after-hmrc-clears-her-over-tax-affairs-uk-politics-live

Streeting calls on PM to resign and implies that he would stand as a candidate in a leadership contest

Al Carns, the defence minister first elected in 2024, will launch his own leadership bid if a contest starts, Sky News is reporting.

Asked about this last night, Carns told Sky: “I’m just a humble junior minister.”

Unless Labour understands that insecurity on an emotional level as well as on an economic one, we will continue to lose voters who would naturally align with us. Working-class voters have not simply left Labour. Many feel Labour stopped understanding their lives, and so they looked elsewhere.

What is the point of Labour if it does not represent Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley, Swansea and Aberdeen? What is the point of the Labour party if it cannot replace despair and frustration with hope, stability and purpose? The party was founded to give ordinary working people security, dignity and bargaining power over their lives.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/may/14/angela-rayner-says-starmer-should-reflect-on-stepping-aside-after-hmrc-clears-her-over-tax-affairs-uk-politics-live

Posted by Denis Campbell and Michael Goodier

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/14/wes-streeting-nhs-hospitals-england-key-target-improved-waiting-times

Outgoing health secretary declares Labour’s ‘plan for the NHS is working’ as hospitals hit key target

Hospitals in England have hit a key target for improving the time it takes patients to get treatment, which prompted Wes Streeting to declare that Labour’s “plan for the NHS is working” before departing as health secretary.

Streeting had told the NHS to ensure that hospitals treated at least 65% of patients within 18 weeks by the end of March. New NHS England figures published on Thursday showed that hospitals did so, treating 65.3% of people on the NHS waiting list within that timeframe in March.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/14/wes-streeting-nhs-hospitals-england-key-target-improved-waiting-times

Posted by Clive Paget

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/may/14/martinu-symphonies-1-6-album-review-bamberg-symphony-jakub-hrusa

Bamberg Symphony/Hrůša
(Deutsche Grammophon)
The first appearance of these distinctive works on the Deutsche Grammophon label is a red-letter day

Written in exile between 1942 and 1953, all but one of Bohuslav Martinů’s six symphonies were commissioned or premiered by US orchestras, yet each exudes the vigorous spirit of the composer’s Czechia homeland. Too often neglected, their first appearance on Deutsche Grammophon is a red-letter day for these distinctive, eminently likable works.

The Bamberg Symphony was founded in 1946 by musicians driven out of Bohemia and Moravia. The music is thus deeply embedded in their DNA and Jakub Hrůša knows just how to draw it out. Martinů’s idiosyncratic sound world incorporates orchestral piano and bristling percussion, while his neo-classical pastoralism is regularly subverted by a bustling rhythmic energy. Tempos accordingly are brisk but never rushed, while crisp, crunchy textures are clean and meticulously detailed.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/may/14/martinu-symphonies-1-6-album-review-bamberg-symphony-jakub-hrusa

Posted by As told to Rachel Aroesti

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/may/14/beth-orton-interview-ai-creativity-craft-david-bowie

Ahead of her new album, the singer-songwriter answers your questions on big 90s nights out, financial survival and the time a whole tube carriage serenaded her

I’m curious how you found out you could sing, how you developed your voice and what singing means to you? VladimirS
I found out I could sing while I was doing experimental theatre in 1989 – it was a cultural crossover between Ukraine and the UK. My biggest fear was singing in public and I wanted to do something I was afraid of, so I turned a Rimbaud poem into what I imagined was a blues song. And I loved it. Afterwards, I met this producer, William Orbit – I was 19 and he was 37 – through one of the women in the play whose husband was the manager of the Pogues. William decided: “She can sing. I will make a star of her.” He hooked me up with a wonderful singing teacher. But I probably will never see myself as a singer. Even last week I was like: “Oh yeah, I guess I am a musician, that’s ended up being what I do.” I still can’t quite get my head around that.

When making a new song up, do you have a job to do, or are you inspired? And in which order do the songs come, regarding melody, chords, words? gin007
I get inspired and that’s why I write. I could be walking in nature or having a conversation and it’ll spark something in my head and I’ll make notes. Then I’ll go to the piano or guitar and often if I’ve got something percolating, that will find its way into the chords. So, melody, words and chords often come together at once. Then I do the work, which is the filling it in. The easy part is the la la la, here’s the idea, here’s the shape, here’s the form, and then it’s like: this all came unconsciously, how do I write to that standard consciously? That can be really, really challenging. It can make your skin crawl because it’s hard to write a good song.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/may/14/beth-orton-interview-ai-creativity-craft-david-bowie

Posted by Fiona Sturges

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/14/seascraper-by-benjamin-wood-audiobook-review-a-shore-thing

A wannabe folk singer’s humdrum life as a shrimp catcher is upended by the arrival of a mysterious American stranger in the Booker-listed tale

Seascraper opens with Thomas Flett rising at five in the morning, eating a cooked breakfast made by his mother and pulling on his oilskins. Thomas is 20, though the ache in his bones makes him feel considerably older – a symptom of the hard physical labour of his job. That job is shanking: dredging the seashore for shrimps at low tide using a horsedrawn cart. Thomas does the same work that his grandfather did decades before him and men from the north-west of England have been doing for 500 years. But his heart is no longer in it: the pay is poor and the work is solitary and dull. He dreams of being a folk singer, playing to audiences in pub backrooms and parlours, and, unbeknown to his mother, has been working on some songs.

Benjamin Wood’s novel, which spans two days, brims with atmosphere and detail; you can practically smell the fish guts and seaweed as Thomas stands on the beach and picks over the morning’s haul. The audiobook is narrated by Wood, whose gentle and evocative delivery underlines Thomas’s hard-bitten existence and his quiet longing for a different future.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/14/seascraper-by-benjamin-wood-audiobook-review-a-shore-thing

Posted by Tom Knowles

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/14/uk-economy-records-surprise-growth-first-month-iran-war-ons-data

Chancellor says ‘now not the time to put economic stability at risk’ as ONS records 0.3% growth in first month of Iran war

• Business live – latest updates

• Analysis: Reeves says ‘if economy ain’t broke, don’t fix it’

The chancellor has seized on official figures showing the UK economy was more resilient than feared at the start of the Iran war as evidence to keep the current Labour leadership in place.

Rachel Reeves hailed the fact that the economy unexpectedly grew in March, during the first month of the conflict in the Middle East, as proof the government had “the right economic plan”.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/14/uk-economy-records-surprise-growth-first-month-iran-war-ons-data

Posted by Jakub Krupa (now) and Taz Ali (earlier)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/may/14/russia-ukraine-strikes-poland-defence-talks-latest-news-updates

Evika Siliņa said she was frustrated by the response to the incident and late alerts for the population

German chancellor Friedrich Merz has strongly condemned the Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight, and rejected Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that one of his predecessors could play a role negotiating a peace settlement.

In a speech in Aachen, Merz said that while Ukraine and Europe “want to help end this terrible war as quickly as possible,” the Russian attacks “speak a different language” to that of Putin’s suggestions the war could be nearing an end.

“Last but not least, we Europeans decide for ourselves who speaks for us. No one else.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/may/14/russia-ukraine-strikes-poland-defence-talks-latest-news-updates