Leading cancer specialist Professor Karol Sikora, who contributed to the report Cancer 2025 published this week, believes that there will be rapid improvements in drugs and treatments. “We will be able to do many things we couldn’t do in the past but it will be expensive so that the postcode lottery for cancer care could come back in a very different form, but much worse and with an elite class getting the best and the poor that won’t. That’s the worry ”. He believes that the explosion in costs will cause politicians huge problems with their short-term goals based on a three to five-year focus. “Cancer is an emotional disease and we’re all frightened of it,” he says. Professor Sikora loves climbing mountains with his wife Alison. He’s expecting mountaineering equipment for his birthday. His celebration supper will be “in the open air in Covent Garden off the £6 menu, where the wine will cost more than the food”. Afterwards there’s a visit to the ballet to see Onegin. Karol Sikora is 56 today. RGT
John Amis, music journalist and broadcaster, 82; Simon Bowes Lyon, Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire, 72; Viscount Cowdray, 60; Professor John Craven, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, 55 Sir Edward Downes, conductor, 80; Sir Patrick Duffy, Labour MP for Colne Valley, Yorkshire, 1963-66 and Sheffield, Attercliffe, 1970-92, 84 ; Laura Duncan, Sheriff of Glasgow and Strathkelvin, 57; Sir Patrick Fairweather, Ambassador to Angola, 1985-87 and Ambassador to Italy and (non-resident) to Albania, 1992-96, 68; Sir Gerald Gordon, Sheriff of Glasgow and Strathkelvin, 1978-99, 75; Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, 59; Kenneth Loach, television and film director, 68; Hugh MacMahon, Labour MEP for Strathclyde West, 1984-99, 66; Barry Manilow, singer and composer, 58; the Very Rev Henry Stapleton, Dean of Carlisle, 1988-98, 72; Lord Sudeley, writer, 65; Professor Sir Alan Walters, economist, 78.