New Labour is serious about people’s opera and people’s ballet and clearly want national companies to be just that from now on.But there remain many questions to be asked. Foremost, what will happen to the London Coliseum, one of the most distinguished opera houses in Europe Mr Smith says vaguely that there are many options. That is too vague.Second, does Lord Chadlington remain chairman of the Royal Opera House and Mary Allen its chief executive or do they become chairman and chief executive of either or both the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet companies? Again, Mr Smith is vague.Certainly, neither person will have a job with the same power that they have now. With one announcement last night Mr Smith signalled the end not just of Covent Garden’s self-perpetuating oligarchy, not just of two opera houses in London, but also of the 50-year-old power of the unelected Arts Council to manage cultural life in this country.When I asked Mr Smith where the Royal Ballet might be during times when it is not in Covent Garden, he waxed lyrical about spaces in Salford and Bristol.

Increasingly, Mr Smith has been working behind the scenes to ensure that cash for the arts from the lottery is used to benefit the nation. Significantly, he said last night: “We must stop getting fixated with buildings. We are taking money out of bricks and mortar and putting it into cultural activity.”Reflect on the words “we are taking.” The Government was not meant to “take”, give or move any National Lottery money in the arts All that came under the Arts Council. With all public sympathy for the ROH extinguished, the opera and ballet companies have simply been taken away from that ROH board by Mr Smith, and the English National Opera, for so many years a junior partner in London, has been bought in on an equal footing.The second factor is the National Lottery. First, the shambolic state of affairs at the Royal Opera House, whose board was accused by the chairman of a select committee as being “a self-perpetuating oligarchy”.No longer. In making this dramatic change he has been helped by two things. His third announcement, that in his words “stonemasons will remove the words Royal Opera House” from that building and it will simply be called Covent Garden will have the cultural establishment reeling.It is Mr Smith who is now making cultural policy.

His proposal that the Royal Opera House become a receiving house for three “equal partner” companies – the Royal Opera, the Royal Ballet and English National Opera – was radical enough.
His further proposal that all three become true “people’s companies” and tour the country and run education schemes was a further cultural intervention by the Government. Initially the alarm that she had meningitis was not raised as tests were negative and it was not until after her death that a second lot of tests confirmed the disease.After the first five cases, 1,200 first year students at Wessex Lane were given antibiotics and vaccinations. Yesterday the university said the antibiotics and vaccination programme had been extended to include all first year students, those living in halls of residence and staff working in them.. Never before has a government minister transgressed so publicly and blatantly the 50-year-old `arms length’ principle of arts funding. David Lister, Arts News Editor, examines the background to last night’s announcement by Chris Smith on future of the Royal Opera House last night

The Culture Secretary dropped more than one bombshell. A vaccine against the C strain exists but protection is short lived.A spokeswoman for the National Meningitis Trust said: “Students who have been immunised still need to be aware of meningitis and septicaemia and shouldn’t rely on the vaccine – it is just a second line of defence.”Development of a vaccine against the B strain of the disease, which accounts for 60 per cent of cases, will not be available until the next century.There have been six confirmed cases of meningitis at the university in three weeks, all affecting first year students.The first five victims lived in the Wessex Lane halls of residence but the latest case involved a student at the Gateley Hall, some distance away.She was admitted to hospital on Thursday and died yesterday morning. This will include a new vaccine against the C strain of the disease, which is becoming increasingly prevalent among teenagers and now accounts for 40 per cent of all meningitis cases in this age group.

In what is the worst outbreak at a British university in terms of the number of people who have died, staff are also being offered tablets and immunisation.
The decision to extend the vaccination programme comes as it was revealed that a vaccine to protect students against a common strain of meningitis should be available by 2000.The Government yesterday announced a pounds 1m boost to research projects to speed up the development of vaccines against meningitis. All 14,000 students at Southampton University have either been given, or are being offered, vaccination and antibiotics following the third death of a female student from meningitis. The breast screening service began in 1988 and operated to national standards from the start.. All breast units have been told to review their arrangements for securing a high quality service and submit reports by next January.Historically, the cervical screening service has had the greatest problems because it grew slowly from the 1960s with each local service operating its own system. And the failure to have in place a system which could identify promptly things that were going wrong and then put them right was also a disgrace,” he said.All health authorities and trusts have been ordered to institute a new programme by next February to ensure all screening programmes meet national standards. He has been suspended and disciplinary proceedings have been started against him.

Dr Urquhart has been moved from breast screening and all his radiological work is being checked.In a statement to the Commons, Mr Dobson said the failures in the East Devon service paralleled those identified in last month’s inquiry into the cervical screening scandal at Canterbury hospital in which five women died and 90,000 smears had to be re-checked.He blamed the internal market for the absence of arrangements to secure national standards and legal obstacles which prevented interference in the affairs of trusts even when they were falling down on the job.”The breast cancer screening service in Exeter and the cervical cancer screening service in Canterbury .. were a disgrace. They are understood to have failed to send women with evidence of microcalcification – tiny deposits of calcium in the breast which can signal the start of cancer – for further tests.Dr Brennan, who was in charge of the breast unit, mounted a legal challenge last week to try to prevent publication of the report. The faith of women in cancer screening has been undermined by serious failures affecting the programmes and reforms are now necessary to restore public confidence, Frank Dobson, the Secretary of State for Health, told the Commons yesterday.
Speaking after publication of a report on the East Devon breast screening service which found that 229 women out of 1,920 were misdiagnosed, Mr Dobson blamed the NHS internal market for the failure of those in charge to pick up the problem and act on it earlier.The report, by Sir Kenneth Calman, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer, said the two radiologists running the Exeter service, Dr John Brennan and Dr Graham Urquhart, had failed to provide care of the standard that could reasonably be expected. Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor, reports on the latest government moves to improve the quality of a service that has been beset by scandal. Tougher checks on breast and cervical cancer screening were ordered by Frank Dobson yesterday after the Health Secretary condemned the programmes in Kent and Devon as a `disgrace’.