Hannah Barnes

London

Associate Editor and Writer at The New Statesman

Associate Editor @NewStatesman; Author, Baillie Gifford & Orwell shortlisted “Time to Think” https://t.co/tGHnbC8Iq7; ex BBC; https://t.co/LTuuBeEFMH

Featured in: Favicon

bbc.co.uk

hyperallergic.com Favicon

newstatesman.com

Articles

Wes Streeting’s maternity revolution

5 days ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

Less than a week after meeting with families failed by English maternity services, Wes Streeting has announced a rapid national investigation into the care received by women and their babies across the country. Starting this summer, the investigation will urgently look at up to ten of the worst-performing hospital trusts in the country, as well as examining the maternity system at large, and bringing together the findings of past reviews into one clear national action plan.
The anger of the Leeds maternity families

1 week ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

It was November 2020 when Fiona Winser-Ramm first raised safety concerns about maternity services in Leeds to the healthcare watchdog. Her daughter, Aliona Grace, had died at Leeds General Infirmary in January that year, 27 minutes after she was born. An inquest into the death in 2023 a “number of gross failures of the most basic nature that directly contributed to Aliona’s death”. The family experienced “neglect by the midwives”, and a “gross failure in care”. Aliona should not have died.
Keir Starmer’s grooming gang cowardice

1 week ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

A prime minister who only acts when forced to do so by others inspires neither confidence nor respect. But this is something we have seen repeatedly with Keir Starmer and this Labour government. The latest – and arguably most egregious – example is the U-turn on holding a full national inquiry into grooming gangs. In January, Starmer accused politicians calling for such an inquiry of jumping on the “bandwagon of the far right”. Robust debate, he said, “can only be based on the true facts”.
Do our politicians understand the supreme court’s gender ruling?

2 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

It was ironic that Sarah Owen MP opened her public questioning of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chair by telling the public that the Women and Equalities Committeeprided itself on “listening, understanding and challenging respectfully to find progress on the matters we hold dear”. Over the two-and-a-bit hours that followed, there was little respect shown and not much listening going on at all. The hostile tone was set from the start.
Australia is no model for assisted dying

2 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

Australian laws on voluntary assisted dying (VAD) are deemed so similar to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill that three quarters of overseas witnesses invited to give evidence to MPs were from Australia. “This is not a revolutionary law reform,” Alex Greenwich, a politician from New South Wales, told the bill’s scrutiny committee earlier this year.
Lucy Connolly is not a political prisoner

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

The more I read about Lucy Connolly’s 31-month sentence for inciting racial hatred, the less I think it is a matter of freedom of speech at all. Ever since Connolly, then 41, was charged and received a lengthy prison sentence for posting a vile message on X in the hours after three young girls were murdered in Southport last July, the case has divided opinion.
Exclusive: Why Wes Streeting changed his mind on cross-sex hormones

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

It emerged last week that the health secretary was “actively reviewing” whether to restrict or ban the prescription of cross-sex hormones to children who want to transition to another gender. On 28 April, a group of clinical specialists was established to explore the issue, including NHS England specialist commissioners and paediatric endocrinologists, some of whom prescribed the drugs to children attending the now closed Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock clinic.
Stained by shame: Britain’s hygiene poverty crisis

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

Walk through the entrance of Discovery Primary School in Greenwich, south-east London, down a corridor and through a set of doors, and the building bursts with light. The sun shines through two giant skylights. Children’s work adorns the walls; flags representing different countries hang overhead. But enter a Year 6 classroom – for pupils aged ten and 11 – and you start to get a sense of what schools are contending with today.
Not in my name

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

My dad messaged me yesterday morning, a little after 8am. “How do we,” he asked, “as reasonable, caring, intelligent Jews – who totally support the principle of Israel as the only Jewish state in the world – find a way to condemn Netanyahu and his supporters and show our revulsion at the senseless slaughter, in a way that makes a difference?” A big question to start the day.
The birth trauma taboo

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Hannah Barnes

Giving birth in England is not safe. Half of all maternity units are rated either inadequate or requiring improvement. Just 5 per cent – one in 20 – are outstanding. The UK is performing worse than many of our European neighbours when it comes to deaths of mothers within 42 days of the end of pregnancy. And gross inequalities remain: black women are twice as likely to die in childbirth than white women; women aged 35 or older are three time more likely to die than those in their early twenties.