Last Friday morning Nicola and I got up at the unearthly hour of 3.30am and drove out to Luton Airport to catch a 6.00am flight for a wonderful weekend in Budapest.  We parked the car in a car park a couple of miles from the airport and with the other people gathered there boarded a bus for the last bit of the journey.   I hulked the suitcase up onto the rack – bit heavy but I could manage it.  If I had had difficulty I am not sure what I would have done as prominently placed as you boarded the bus was a notice saying “please do not ask the driver to help with the loading of bags – for reasons of health and safety help cannot be provided”.  Whose health and whose safety makes it worth banning the giving of a helping hand? 

A couple of years ago, Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger gave the Rabbi David Goldstein Memorial lecture for Liberal Judaism. Now President of Liberal Judaism, on the national stage Rabbi Neuberger was best known as the Chief Executive of the Kings Fund - an expert in the provision of health care and social services.  And it was on these subjects that she enlightened a large audience for her lecture entitled "the moral state we are in".