Linda Nolan to start new cancer drug after brain tumours stop responding to treatment
Linda Nolan has said she will start a new cancer drug after scans showed the tumours in her brain stopped responding to regular treatment.
The 65-year-old singer, who attained fame as part of the family pop group The Nolans, revealed last year that the secondary breast cancer she was being treated for had spread to her brain, impacting her balance and leaving her in need of a wheelchair.
She has since been undergoing regular treatment which initially shrunk the tumours and then stabilised them.
The singer, who said last year she was preparing for “the inevitable”, said she “sobbed” to her consultant when she got the news the treatment was no longer effective.
“I had feared something was wrong. My balance has been getting worse and my memory – my sisters have to prompt me when I get lost in the middle of a sentence,” she told The Mirror in an update published on Wednesday.
“Maureen came with me to the appointment and my Macmillan Cancer Support nurse was in the room, and I could just tell. I asked my consultant straight away: ‘Has it spread?’
“When he told me, I immediately asked: ‘What do we do now?'”
The singer is set to start new treatment this week which will include the drug Enhertu, according to The Mirror.
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Nolan said: “To be able to try a new drug is amazing, I just wish everyone could have this opportunity.
“To be able to try this is hope – it’s a plan B not everyone is being allowed. To take this drug away from women is to take away their hope.”
Nolan was initially diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and the disease resurfaced in 2017 and has since spread to her brain, bones and liver.
Speaking about the potential side effects of the drug, she said: “I asked my consultant ‘will I lose my hair again’? and it is a possibility.
“I told him: ‘That will be five times I’ve lost my hair!
“But if it happens, I’ll just shave it again. Thankfully, he is not saying ‘we can’t do anything for you’.
“We have more places to go. I am ready to try anything. I have done this before and I can do it again.”
The life-extending drug for incurable breast cancer is not currently available on the NHS after its manufacturers and the NHS spending watchdog failed to reach an agreement on price.
Nolan revealed she had liver cancer in 2020, having been previously treated for breast cancer in 2006 and secondary cancer on her pelvis in 2017.
Her sister Anne, who she joined on TV series The Nolans Go Cruising, was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 2020 and is now cancer-free.
The Nolans in 1983: (L to R) Linda, Anne, Bernie, Coleen and Maureen. Pic: PA
Another sister, Loose Women star Coleen, revealed she was diagnosed with skin cancer last year and said her sister Maureen would often point at a “tiny bit of skin” on her shoulder that was a “bit red” before she decided to see a doctor.
Their sister Bernie died of breast cancer in 2013 aged 52.
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
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In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
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Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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