Crunching the data: are resident doctors in England badly paid?

Resident doctors have voted to strike over pay but how much has their real-terms earnings changed since 2008?

Resident doctors in England have voted to strike for five days from 25 July, reigniting one of the NHS’s most bitter industrial disputes.

At the heart of the row is pay: the British Medical Association (BMA) says resident (formerly known as junior) doctors have seen their real earnings fall by more than a quarter since 2008. The government says the union’s demands are unaffordable, and they’ve already received generous rises in recent years.

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MPs and political candidates face ‘industrial’ levels of abuse, minister says

Exclusive: Young people deterred from politics, Rushanara Ali warns, as government plans stricter punishments

MPs and political candidates are facing “industrial” levels of intimidation and harassment, a minister has warned, as the government outlines plans for stricter punishments for those found guilty of abuse.

Rushanara Ali, the minister for democracy, said her colleagues were suffering worse harassment than ever before and warned this was deterring many young people from becoming politically active.

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Church must ‘turn back’ public opinion on assisted dying, says archbishop

Stephen Cottrell tells General Synod assisted dying means assuming ‘authority over death that belongs to God alone’

Members of the Church of England should work to “withstand and even turn back” the forces of public opinion “that risk making … assisted dying a reality in our national life”, the archbishop of York has said.

Speaking to the church’s General Synod on Friday, Stephen Cottrell said permitting assisted dying would change “forever the contract between doctor and patient, pressurising the vulnerable and assuming an authority over death that belongs to God alone”.

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Resident doctors’ 29% pay claim is non-negotiable, BMA chair says

Exclusive: Tom Dolphin says rise needed to redress real-terms earnings loss since 2008 and strikes could last years

Resident doctors’ 29% pay claim is non-negotiable, reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS, the new leader of the medical profession has said.

Strikes to ensure resident – formerly junior – doctors in England get the full 29% could drag on for years, according to Dr Tom Dolphin, the British Medical Association’s new council chair.

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Minority ethnic and deprived children more likely to die after UK intensive care admission

Study shows such young people have higher risk of arriving at paediatric ICU severely ill and have worse outcomes

Minority ethnic children and children from deprived backgrounds across the UK are more likely to die following admission to intensive care than their white and more affluent counterparts, a study has found.

These children consistently had worse outcomes following their stay in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU), the research by academics at Imperial College London discovered.

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High-risk HIV groups facing record levels of criminalisation as countries bring in draconian laws

Curbs on LGBTQ+ rights and a halt to US funding may reverse decades of progress in fight to end Aids epidemic, warns UNAids

People at higher risk of HIV, such as gay men and people who inject drugs, are facing record levels of criminalisation worldwide, according to UNAids.

For the first time since the joint UN programme on HIV/Aids began reporting on punitive laws a decade ago, the number of countries criminalising same-sex sexual activity and gender expression has increased.

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Thursday briefing: Why young people fear ‘there’s nothing here for us’ in England’s coastal towns

In today’s newsletter: As a new Guardian project begins, we hear from the teenagers navigating deprivation, isolation and a sense of being forgotten

Good morning. A few weeks ago, 18-year-old Tamsin Jarman-Smith, born and raised in a small town just outside Blackpool, sat on a battered sofa at House of Wingz, a community youth organisation tucked down an alleyway a few streets from the beach, and explained what it felt like to be a young person growing up in a coastal town.

“I’m lucky because I found this passion for dancing and I come to this place, which has saved me I think, especially my creativity and hope for opportunities for myself, but lots of people my age feel like there is nothing here for them,” she said.

Europe | Talks over a British and French migration deal remained deadlocked on Wednesday night, as negotiators haggled over how much Britain will pay towards the cost of policing small boat crossings.

UK news | Campaigners have decried as “dangerously naive” the UK government’s sweeping deal with Google to provide free technology to the public sector.

Europe | Police have raided the headquarters of France’s far-right National Rally and seized documents as part of an investigation into alleged illegal campaign financing.

UK news | Thames Water has refused to claw back almost £2.5m paid to senior managers from an emergency loan that was meant to keep the failing utilities company afloat.

Housing | The Bank of England has rolled out looser mortgage rules that policymakers hope will help 36,000 more first-time buyers on to the housing ladder each year.

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ASA cracks down on online pharmacies advertising weight loss injections

Watchdog releases nine new rulings setting clear precedents for online selling

Online pharmacies are no longer allowed to run adverts for weight loss injections, the advertising watchdog has ruled, as part of a crackdown on what has been described as a “wild west” culture of online selling.

In the UK, advertising prescription-only medications (POMs) – which includes all weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro – to the public is illegal. However, a Guardian investigation previously found some online pharmacies either breaking these rules outright, or exploiting grey areas to peddle the medications to the public.

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NHS bosses fear fresh resident doctors’ strikes could embolden other staff

The Royal College of Nursing and Unison are undertaking indicative ballots to assess members’ willingness to strike

A looming fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors could encourage other NHS staff including nurses to take industrial action over pay, health service bosses fear.

Resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, in England are threatening to stage stoppages until January in pursuit of their demand for a 29% pay rise, after 90% voted in favour in a ballot on a 55% turnout.

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Parents in Britain to be granted bereavement leave after miscarriage

Mothers and partners will gain the legal right if they lose a baby before 24 weeks, in Labour workers’ rights reform

Parents in Britain will be granted the right to bereavement leave after suffering a miscarriage as part of Labour’s changes to workers’ rights, it has been confirmed.

In a change to the law made via amendments to the employment rights bill, mothers and their partners will be given the legal right to at least one week’s bereavement leave if they have suffered a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks’ gestation.

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‘We’ve made progress’: environment secretary is upbeat despite Labour’s struggles

Steve Reed says changes to living standards are happening and will make a big difference to trust in government

It was probably easier for Steve Reed to feel more cheerful about Labour’s most torrid week in government while sitting on bales of hay in the blazing sunshine about 40 miles from Westminster.

The environment secretary might have sympathised with Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall – he has experience of bearing the flak for some of the government’s most controversial decisions on family farm taxes – but at Hertfordshire’s Groundswell festival, named the Glastonbury for farms, he may simply have been happy not to be pelted with manure by unhappy farmers.

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‘Will AI take my job?’ A trip to a Beijing fortune-telling bar to see what lies ahead

Amy Hawkins visits one of the many bars popping up across Chinese cities offering drinks, snacks and a vision of the future

In the age of self-help, self-improvement and self-obsession, there have never been more places to look to for guidance. Where the anxious and the uncertain might have once consulted a search engine for answers, now we can engage in a seemingly meaningful discussion about our problems with ChatGPT. Or, if you’re in China, DeepSeek.

To some, though, it feels as if our ancestors knew more about life than we do. Or at least, they knew how to look for them. And so it is that scores of young Chinese are turning to ancient forms of divination to find out what the future holds. In the past couple of years, fortune-telling bars have been popping up in China’s cities, offering drinks and snacks alongside xuanxue, or spiritualism. The trend makes sense: China’s economy is struggling, and although consumers are saving their pennies, going out for a drink is cheaper than other forms of retail therapy or an actual therapist. With a deep-rooted culture of mysticism that blends Daoist, Buddhist and folk practices, which have defied decades of the government trying to stamp out superstitious beliefs, for many Chinese people, turning to the unseen makes perfect sense.

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Labour’s 10-year health plan for the NHS is bold, radical – and familiar

The health service transformation proposed for England faces daunting challenges that overwhelmed earlier attempts at reform

The government’s 10-year health plan to revive, modernise and future-proof the NHS in England has arrived as the service is facing a dual crisis. It has been unable for a decade now to provide the rapid access – to GPs, A&E care, surgery, ambulances and mental health support – which people need and used to get.

Normalisation of anxiety-inducing, frightening and sometimes fatal delay has produced a less tangible, but also dangerous, crisis: of public satisfaction, born of a profound loss of trust that the NHS will be there for them or their loved ones when they need it.

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Streeting sets out digital overhaul of NHS centred on ‘doctor in your pocket’ app

Health secretary banks on resulting efficiencies to reduce number of frontline workers in 10-year health plan

Wes Streeting has staked the future of the NHS on a digital overhaul in which a beefed-up NHS app and new hospital league tables are intended to give patients unprecedented control over their care.

A dramatic expansion of the role of the NHS app will result in fewer staff than expected by 2035, with Streeting banking on digital efficiencies to reduce the number of frontline workers, a move described as a “large bet” by health experts.

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Starmer outlines plan to shift NHS care from hospitals to new health centres

Prime minister unveils 10-year health plan to ‘put care on people’s doorsteps’ and prevent illness in first place

The NHS will shift a huge amount of care from hospitals into new community health centres to bring treatment closer to people’s homes and cut waiting times, Keir Starmer will pledge on Thursday.

The prime minister will outline radical plans to give patients in England much easier access to GPs, scans and mental health support in facilities that are open 12 hours a day, six days a week.

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Planned Parenthood CEO warns budget bill could devastate group and slash abortion access in blue states

Alexis McGill Johnson says nearly 200 health centers could close if US House passes sweeping tax-and-spending bill

Planned Parenthood stands to lose roughly $700m in federal funding if the US House passes Republicans’ massive spending-and-tax bill, the organization’s CEO said on Wednesday, amounting to what abortion rights supporters and opponents alike have called a “backdoor abortion ban”.

“We are facing down the reality that nearly 200 health centers are at risk of closure. We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, said in an interview Wednesday morning. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”

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Welfare bill climbdown will have ‘a cost’ at budget, says senior minister

Pat McFadden says U-turn will change calculations, as IFS says tax rises in autumn look increasingly likely

There will be “a cost” to the government’s climbdown on welfare changes at the budget, one of Keir Starmer’s senior ministers has said, as a leading fiscal thinktank said new tax rises appeared increasingly likely.

Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, defended Starmer and the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, after the second reading of the government’s main welfare bill passed its first Commons test only after a central element was removed.

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Wednesday briefing: ​​Has Starmer’s welfare reform bill victory left a fractured Labour party in its wake?

In today’s newsletter: After frantic late negotiations, the government’s welfare overhaul has ​passed – now saving almost none of the money that the government said was crucial to its success

Good morning. To his loveless landslide, Keir Starmer can now add a vapid victory. Last night, the government’s flagship welfare reform bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons by 335 votes to 260 – a majority of 75. But after last-minute concessions from the government to secure the bill’s passage, a set of measures whose intended savings had already fallen from £5bn to £2.5bn a year, now looks like recouping much closer to nothing.

The central climbdown, where plans for deep cuts to the personal independence payment (Pip) in the future were shelved, has been celebrated by disabled people and the charities who represent them. They had feared that the support they rely on was about to be ripped away. But it is also a measure of how disastrous the whole process has been for Starmer.

Israel-Gaza war | Donald Trump says that Israel has accepted conditions of a ceasefire after US-Israeli talks and urged Hamas to agree. The US president did not give details of the terms and there is no indication that Hamas will accept them.

NHS | Three bosses at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, police have said. The three, who have not been named, were arrested as part of the investigation into the actions of leaders at the Countess of Chester hospital.

UK news | The home secretary is coming under increasing pressure to abandon plans to ban Palestine Action, as UN experts and hundreds of lawyers warned that proscribing the group would conflate protest and terrorism.

US news | The jury in the high-profile federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs concluded the day without a verdict on Tuesday, unable to come to a decision on one of the five counts. The judge advised the jury to “keep deliberating”.

Extreme heat | Outdoor working has been banned during the hottest parts of the day in more than half of Italy’s regions, as an extreme heatwave that has smashed June temperature records in Spain and Portugal continues to grip large swathes of Europe.

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No 10 guts welfare bill in big new concession as minister says Pip cuts planned for 2026 shelved until after Timms review – UK politics live

Switch to four-point Pip eligibility rule may never happen at all as Stephen Timms says government will ‘remove clause five from the bill’

Compass, the leftwing group urging Labour to be more pluralistic, has put out a statement condemning the UC and Pip bill. Its director, Neal Lawson, said:

If your own friends are telling you to put the brakes on, then something has clearly gone wrong. Despite the government’s line, this legislation does not advance Labour values. It is fundamentally at odds with them, and with the views of the mainstream of the party and civil society.

MPs from across the House, and especially the Labour side, must back Rachael Maskell’s reasoned amendment. This bill’s creation of a three-tiered social security system would condemn thousands to poverty and could lose Labour the next election.

A bill of this magnitude should have been co-produced with disabled people and our organisations from the very start.

Now, ministers scramble to promise ‘consultation’ as one small part of the process. That is too little, too late. Co-production is not a rushed tick-box exercise tagged onto legislation already steaming through Parliament. It means disabled people shaping the system at every step – not just commenting on the detail of changes already baked in.

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Man, 92, jailed for 1967 rape and murder of Louisa Dunne in Bristol

Ryland Headley sentenced to minimum of 20 years after what is thought to be oldest cold case solved in modern English policing history

A 92-year-old man has been jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years after being convicted of the rape and murder of a woman in Bristol 58 years ago.

The sentencing judge, Mr Justice Sweeting, told Ryland Headley that he would spend the rest of his life in prison for killing Louisa Dunne at her home in 1967.

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