THE PERSONAL is most certainly political for me generally and never more so than right now. 

As the Tories declare themselves the party of the NHS — yes, and I’m a Carlsberg-drinking Crystal Palace fan who has never missed a single Coldplay gig — I have been experiencing its care at first hand. 

I was very worried but was seen quickly and reassured and I am so grateful.

I still have to have a camera up my urethra though, which sounds like one of those awful reality TV programmes — Ant & Dec present Camera Up The Urethra. Payback for 50 years of knob gags, I suppose.

Wish me luckBut seriously, the NHS is the greatest thing the working people of this country has ever achieved. 

Labour should fund it properly by scrapping Trident and taxing the rich. Not just common sense but a vote-winner too.

On the good news front, 33 years ago London indie label Cherry Red Records launched me on my way by releasing my first two LPs and three singles and I am very happy to announce that they will be publishing my autobiography Arguments Yard in September. 

It will be good to work once again with an active and friendly bunch who, as well as bringing out a constant stream of interesting new releases from the left field of the music scene — recent albums by The Fall and The Membranes among others — and many interesting retrospective compilations, are very much involved in promoting and supporting grass-roots football. It’s certainly an all-round winner as far as I’m concerned.

On the dark and heart-rending side of football, the truth about what happened at Hillsborough, where 96 Liverpool fans died, is finally coming out after all these years. It is time that there was a fresh investigation into that other dreadful ’80s tragedy, the Bradford fire disaster at Valley Parade. 

Martin Fletcher, a Bradford fan who lost three generations of his family in the stadium inferno, has just written a book Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire in which he reveals that there had been at least eight other fires at business premises owned by or linked to Bradford’s then chairman Stafford Heginbotham in the previous 18 years. They all resulted in huge insurance claims.

Fletcher claims that at the time the chairman was in severe financial trouble and had learned just two days before the fire happened that it would cost £2 million to bring the ground up to the required safety standards. 

But this information did not feature in the Popplewell inquiry, which concluded that the fire was probably started by a smoker discarding something onto litter which had built up under the stand over a long period.It’s time for a fresh investigation, that’s for sure.

As at Hillsborough, the victims and their families deserve it. And another investigation which needs to be conducted in an open manner is the one into the behaviour of the police at Orgreave during the miners’ strike. 

At a meeting on April 14, the Independent Police Complaints Commission decided that access to its report, completed earlier this year, should be severely limited and those who read it bound by strict terms of confidentiality. 

This is a disgrace. The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign demands a full transparent public inquiry, and they are right to do so.

End the cover-up!attilathestockbroker.com