England’s social care workforce shrinks for first time in 10 years

Experts say loss of 50,000 workers exposes ‘absolute crisis’ facing system still reeling from impact of Covid and Brexit

The social care workforce has shrunk for the first time in almost a decade despite rising demand and bed congestion in hospitals fuelled by a lack of care places.

England is projected to need close to 500,000 more care staff by the middle of the next decade, but last year there was a net fall in the workforce of 50,000 people, leaving about 165,000 jobs vacant, according to new figures from Skills for Care.

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GCHQ head: Putin making strategic errors due to unconstrained power

British spy agency director to say in rare public address that Ukraine is ‘turning the tide’ against Russia

Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday.

Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming is expected to add in a rare public address.

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UK’s lost leadership role hurts Somalia’s fight against famine, says drought envoy

Britain is no longer the key humanitarian player and ‘great ally’ it once was, says envoy trying to get support for Somalia’s drought

The UK has lost its leadership role in the world and is letting down its allies, a senior official in the Somali government has said.

Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the presidential envoy for Somalia’s drought response, said Britain used to be second only to the US as a key player in international forums and advocacy, but has since slipped, saying that countries such as Somalia were being left without support to face “the new climate reality”.

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Thousands of salaried Tesco workers forced to take real-terms pay cut

A 3% pay rise for team managers amid 10% inflation comes after a string of wage rises for hourly staff

Thousands of Tesco staff have been forced to take a large real-terms pay cut as the supermarket puts a squeeze on store managers while offering bigger wage rises for lower-paid workers.

In the latest pay battle amid the cost of living crisis, the retailer’s team managers, who earn about £30,000 a year, say they have received as little as a 3% pay rise. The official rate of inflation is close to 10%, and expected to hit 11% this month.

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Raw sewage in living room among complaints heard by property tribunal

Guardian analysis of hundreds of documents also finds complaints of rodents, bed bugs, overcrowding and fire safety issues

Raw sewage leaking into a living room, rodents, bed bug and mite infestations, overcrowding and fire safety issues make up just some of the complaints levelled at rogue landlords in tribunal filings in the past year.

The findings come after the Guardian analysed hundreds of documents from the first-tier property tribunal involving tenants renting house-shares of five or more people (or three or more in parts of London) sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities, known as houses of multiple occupation or HMOs.

Raw sewage leaking from a toilet and seeping through the living room ceiling, which had to be collected in plastic containers.

Multiple properties that had no fire detection system or smoke alarm; lacked an adequate central heating system; had infestations of rodents, bed bugs and pigeon mites, which were not adequately dealt with.

A London landlord renting out a property through a company the tribunal found did not exist.

A converted church rented to students was inadequately secured after a burglary and the burglar was later found to be living in the attic. At the same property, a fire took place when smoke alarms were not working.

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Man shot dead by officers in Derby police car park named as Marius Ciolac

Ciolac, 35, died in hospital after officer reportedly fired three shots at man armed with knife

A man who was shot dead by armed officers in the car park of a police station in Derby has been named as Marius Ciolac.

Armed officers were called at 9.55am on Friday after officers reported seeing a man armed with a knife in the secure car park of Ascot Drive police station.

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Liz Truss on verge of major U-turn on real-terms benefits cut

Exclusive: Tory MPs warn PM she would lose vote on increasing benefits only in line with earnings rather than inflation

Liz Truss is teetering on the edge of performing another big U-turn as Tory MPs warned she would lose a vote on delivering a real-terms cut to benefits while new research showed the move could push an extra 450,000 people into poverty.

Despite desperate pleas for party unity from senior ministers after weeks of bitter infighting, the row over welfare threatened to overshadow the prime minister’s attempt to reassert her authority when the Commons returns from recess on Tuesday.

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British engineer’s fight against Qatar extradition ‘a warning to World Cup fans’

Brian Glendinning’s case highlights peril for football fans travelling to the Gulf nation this year, experts warn

A British engineer is in jail in Iraq and facing extradition to Qatar over missed repayments on a small bank loan, in a case said to highlight the perils facing those travelling to the Gulf state for the World Cup.

Brian Glendinning, 43, who had been contracted to work on a BP refinery in Iraq, was arrested on an Interpol “red notice” at Baghdad airport on 12 September and has been in a police cell since awaiting an extradition hearing.

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Liz Truss travel bill in last months as foreign secretary hit nearly £2m

Exclusive: Lib Dems accuse PM of ‘taking taxpayer for a ride’ with expense of 20 overseas trips between January and June this year

Liz Truss racked up a bill of almost £2m on overseas visits during her final months as foreign secretary, according to new analysis that the Liberal Democrats said showed she had “quite literally been taking the taxpayer for a ride”.

In 20 trips during the first six months of the year, a total of £1.8m was spent, despite the now prime minister’s call for prudence with public money and government departments being told to find “efficiency savings”.

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Government ‘burying head in sand’ over health inequality, says bishop of London

Exclusive: UK’s most senior female bishop calls for long-awaited white paper promising ‘bold action’

The most senior female bishop in the country has launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of “burying its head in the sand” over “shocking” and “rampant” health inequalities.

Dame Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, spoke out after the Guardian reported that Thérèse Coffey was dropping the government’s long-promised white paper on health disparities.

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Protesters in Iran are ‘beautiful and inspiring’, says Persepolis creator

‘What I have lived, the youth is living now,’ says Marjane Satrapi, whose graphic novel depicted girl’s life in 1979 Islamic revolution

The creator of Persepolis, the acclaimed graphic novel depicting the childhood of an Iranian girl during and after the 1979 Islamic revolution that was made into an Oscar-nominated movie, has said today’s protesters are “beautiful and inspiring”.

History was repeating itself in the protests sweeping across the country, Marjane Satrapi told the Guardian. “What I have lived, the youth is living now. My hope is that the situation will go towards something beautiful that is called freedom and democracy.

Persepolis book art will be auctioned on 19-25 October as part of Sotheby’s online 20th century art/Middle East sale. The works will be exhibited in Sotheby’s London galleries from 21 October

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Chicken farms may explain decline of the River Wye, tests suggest

Citizen scientists find high phosphorous levels in the soil could be polluting the river in Herefordshire

Campaigners have revealed the results of farmland testing which provides new evidence of the potential link between intensive poultry units and the decline of the River Wye.

Citizen scientists sampled farmland along public footpaths near a tributary to the river in Herefordshire. They discovered the soil with the highest levels of phosphorus, which can blight a river, were close to intensive poultry units.

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Cutting his teeth: how Bram Stoker found his inner Dracula in Scotland

Author’s method acting approach to writing terrified local people in Aberdeenshire as he perched on the rocks like a bat

In August 1894, at the end of a month-long stay to research his embryonic novel, Bram Stoker wrote in the visitors’ book at the Kilmarnock Arms on the Aberdeenshire coast that he had been “delighted with everything and everybody” and hoped to return soon.

According to new research, though, the feeling was not entirely mutual. Stoker, a genial Irishman usually known for his cheeriness, was experimenting with what would become known as “method acting” to get under the skin of his new character, one Count Dracula. Local historian Mike Shepherd, who has spent seven years researching Stoker, says the author’s links with the London theatre inspired Stoker to try inhabiting his character in a different way.

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Gene-edited sheep offer hope for treatment of lethal childhood disease

Roslin Institute engineered a flock to help research into the genetics of Batten disease

A flock of gene-edited sheep has been used by scientists to pinpoint a promising treatment for a lethal inherited brain disease that afflicts young children. The researchers, based in the UK and US, say their work could lead to the development of drugs to alleviate infantile Batten disease.

In the UK, Batten disease affects between 100 and 150 children and young adults and is inherited from two symptomless parents who each carry a rare recessive gene mutation.

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Older people at risk from overcharging and mis-selling ‘scandal’

Unnecessary policies and overpayments for services are draining the accounts of vulnerable customers

Elderly and vulnerable customers are being routinely overcharged by utility and insurance firms in a hidden scandal highlighted today by one of the country’s senior financial services executives. Unfair practices are putting them at risk of being unable to afford food and heating, he warns.

Michael Donald, a former director of Visa UK, said he was staggered to discover hundreds of pounds of overcharging when he carefully checked the direct debits on his 79-year-old mother’s accounts.

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Teaching assistants quitting schools for supermarkets because of ‘joke’ wages

Headteachers fear impact on children of unfilled vacancies as support staff say rising bills force them to leave jobs in education

Headteachers across the country say they cannot fill vital teaching assistant vacancies and that support staff are taking second jobs in supermarkets to survive because their wages are “just a joke”.

Schools are reporting that increasing numbers of teaching assistants are leaving because they will not be able to pay for high energy bills and afford food this winter. And with job ads often attracting no applications at all, heads fear they will be impossible to replace. They warn this will have a serious impact on children in the classroom, especially those with special educational needs, and will make it increasingly hard for teachers to focus on teaching.

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Truss and Kwarteng will face fury of Tory MPs in week of crisis meetings

The PM and chancellor will try to stop panic spreading through the party after their high-risk economic plan threatens a ‘death spiral’

The prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, will face the wrath of Tory MPs at a succession of crisis meetings in parliament this week as their high-risk economic policies hit their poll ratings and spread panic in all wings of the party.

After a turbulent first five weeks at No 10 and an ill-disciplined, chaotic annual conference in Birmingham last week, Truss is expected to address the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers on Wednesday evening after taking on Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions.

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Conor Burns sacked after being seen ‘touching young man’s thigh’, witness says

Tory minister, who denies any wrongdoing, reported for incident in hotel bar during party’s conference

The trade minister Conor Burns was sacked from the government and suspended as a Conservative MP after he was seen touching a young man’s thigh in a Tory conference hotel bar, it has been claimed.

According to the BBC on Saturday, an eyewitness said the former minister was seen with the man in the early hours of Tuesday in the Hyatt Regency hotel bar in Birmingham, which was a popular venue for conference attenders. Burns has denied any wrongdoing.

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Octopus Energy reportedly closing in on takeover of Bulb

Deal to acquire rival’s 1.6m customers would end total cost to taxpayers at an estimated £4bn

Octopus Energy is reportedly closing in on a takeover of its rival Bulb in a deal that will set the final bill to the taxpayer at an estimated £4bn.

Ministers at the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have been informed that a sale of Bulb’s customer base of 1.6 million would be the most favourable outcome, according to Sky News.

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Liz Truss approval ratings reach new lows after Tory conference

PM’s -47 net rating in Opinium poll worse than Boris Johnson’s at height of Partygate scandal

Liz Truss’s personal ratings are now even worse than those recorded for Boris Johnson at the height of the Partygate scandal, according to another Observer poll which will cause alarm among Tory MPs.

Truss’s personal approval rating of -47 is now the worst ever recorded for a prime minister in an Opinium poll for the Observer. It is a worse rating than that recorded for Johnson during Partygate and Theresa May in the weeks before her resignation.

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