Category Archives: Society

Urgent action needed to prevent surge in digital violence in Africa, experts say

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A huge rise in internet users under the age of 30 has fuelled an increase in online violence against women and girls with devastating real-life effects, activists say

Activists and lawyers in Africa are calling for urgent action to protect women, girls and boys as digital violence surges across the continent.

A massive rise in internet users, coupled with huge numbers of people aged under 30, has fuelled an increase in gendered online violence across the continent, according to experts, by giving perpetrators new tools to control and silence women and girls, and influence boys.

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Keir Starmer to launch local elections campaign with focus on cost of living

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PM will also cite Iran war as reason to stick with Labour, as party adopts new slogan: ‘Pride in Britain’

Keir Starmer will say that a vote for Reform UK will put at risk progress Labour is making on the cost of living, arguing that Britain’s values are being tested in a volatile world.

Launching the party’s local elections campaign with a new slogan: “Pride in Britain”, Starmer will urge voters to stay the course with Labour. A dire set of results are predicted for the party in Wales, Scotland and English councils, especially in the north-east of England and London.

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NHS restructure is greatest danger to Streeting’s effort to revive service

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Health secretary still confident of success but critics say scrapping of NHS England has been ‘a total car crash’

In the Great Hall at the University of East London last Wednesday, the perennially upbeat Wes Streeting was exuding even greater positivity than usual. After years of neglect under the Conservatives, he said, the NHS was starting to revive thanks to Labour’s medicine.

In a bravura performance in front of an audience of health service bosses, policy experts and student nurses in their blue and green uniforms, Streeting reeled off a long list of improvements in his 20-month tenure as health secretary.

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Schools in England must be compelled to offer pupils healthy food, not junk

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School dinners have suffered at the hands of politics and economics for almost 50 years

Almost a generation has passed since Jamie Oliver’s four-part Channel 4 documentary series Jamie’s School Dinners exposed the unhealthy reality of the food served to pupils at lunchtime, including – notoriously – fat-heavy, meat-light Turkey Twizzlers. It proved a shaming and effective intervention. His ensuing Feed Me Better campaign led the then prime minister, Tony Blair, to pledge to make school lunches more nutritious and hand schools more money to do that, given the average lunch at that time cost just 45p to make.

Problem solved? Unfortunately not.

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Keep under-fives’ screen time to no more than an hour a day, UK advice says

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Keir Starmer promises to help parents limit children’s online activity as government issues guidance to families

Children under five should spend no more than an hour a day on screens, new government advice says.

Screen time for children under two should be avoided except for shared activities encouraging interaction, families are advised.

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Spanish woman who won legal battle for right to euthanasia has assisted death

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Noelia Castillo, 25, a paraplegic, had suffered from psychiatric illness and lived in constant pain

A Spanish woman who spent months fighting her father for the right to euthanasia after being sexually assaulted and becoming paraplegic has finally ended her life on her own terms by means of an assisted death.

Noelia Castillo, 25, had struggled with psychiatric illness since she was a teenager and tried to kill herself in October 2022 after being sexually assaulted. The attempt left her in constant pain and using a wheelchair. Eighteen months later, she used Spain’s euthanasia law, which was introduced in 2021, to secure permission to end her life.

In Spain, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 900 525 100. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie

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Man who murdered pregnant girlfriend has 42-year term increased to whole-life order

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Shaine March killed Alana Odysseos in 2025, having been released on licence after killing a teenager in 2000

A man who murdered his pregnant girlfriend after being released from prison on licence must spend the rest of his life in jail, the court of appeal has ruled after finding that the original 42-year sentence was “too lenient”.

Alana Odysseos, 32, was in the early stages of pregnancy with her third child when Shaine March, now 48, killed her at her home in Walthamstow, east London, in July last year. She died at the scene from 23 slash and stab wounds.

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Brussels opens investigation into Snapchat amid concern over children’s safety

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European Commission says social messaging app is exposing children to grooming and sexual exploitation

Brussels has opened an investigation into Snapchat over concerns the social messaging app is exposing children to grooming, sexual exploitation and other criminality.

In a separate decision on Thursday, the European Commission also said four pornographic websites were failing to prevent minors seeing adult content, harming young people’s mental health and fuelling negative gender attitudes.

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Resident doctors in England to begin six-day strike after rejecting offer in pay dispute

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British Medical Association blame government for longest proposed walkout so far, with NHS leaders warning it could cost £300m

Resident doctors in England will strike for six days after Easter after rejecting what they said was the final offer by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end the long-running pay and jobs dispute.

The British Medical Association blamed the government for its decision to undertake its longest stoppage so far, from 7am on Tuesday 7 April to 6.59 on Monday 13 April.

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King Charles made patron of charity protecting Jewish communities

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Charles announced as patron of Community Security Trust hours after attack on another Jewish charity’s ambulances

King Charles has been made patron of a charity that protects Jewish communities in the wake of the firebomb attack on ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in north London.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which provides protection to Jewish communities, said Charles’s acceptance of the position highlighted his support for the “fight against antisemitism”.

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Meningitis B vaccine scheme widened to include some year 11 pupils in Kent

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Scheme expanded to four schools with known or suspected cases, as UKHSA figures show number has fallen to 23

The meningitis B vaccination programme will be expanded to include year 11 pupils at schools affected by the outbreak in Kent, health officials have said.

Figures from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) show the number of cases of the illness have fallen.

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MPs threaten fresh inquiry into carers allowance scandal amid redress delays

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Unpaid carers say they remain ‘in limbo’ as DWP continues to pursue discredited repayment bills

MPs have threatened to launch a fresh inquiry into the handling of the carers allowance scandal after unpaid carers spoke of being “stuck in limbo” by the government’s response.

The warning came amid concerns over delays in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans to offer redress to tens of thousands of carers who were unfairly issued with overpayment bills based on discredited official guidance.

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‘Her warmth filled the kitchen every morning’: the magic – and tenacity – of Jenni Murray

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The Woman’s Hour host, who has died aged 75, could talk about hydrangeas, campaign against domestic abuse, then tear a strip off a politician – all within a few minutes

Before she took over Woman’s Hour in 1987, Jenni Murray was a presenter on the Today programme. She had joined the BBC in Bristol in 1973, and became a TV reporter and presenter for South Today, so arrived with solid news credentials. But Today in the 1980s was inveterately sexist – the guys took the politics, the women mopped up the rest – that the format was just too small for her.

Woman’s Hour, on the other hand, was absolutely reshaped in her image: there was no preconception of tone, and nothing was too serious or too light for it. Murray, who has died at the age of 75, could tear a strip off a politician, talk about hydrangeas, then campaign against domestic abuse, all within a few minutes. She was instinctively open and generous about her personal experience, but never solipsistic – an incredibly fine balance.

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Tory peer accuses Nick Timothy of ‘instilling fear’ over Islamic prayers

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Exclusive: Tariq Ahmad says he has raised concerns with party leadership after shadow justice secretary’s remarks

The shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, has been accused by a Conservative peer and former counter-extremism minister of “instilling fear” among Muslims with his comments about public prayer.

British Muslims were openly talking about leaving the Conservative party, added Tariq Ahmad, who said he had raised his concerns with the party leadership and expected action to be taken.

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House of Lords has ‘signed its own death warrant’ by stalling assisted dying bill, says MP

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Kim Leadbeater joins protest against delaying of bill to allow assisted dying in the UK and says people are ‘extremely angry’

The House of Lords “signed its own death warrant” over its stalling of the UK assisted dying bill, the MP Kim Leadbeater said as she joined more than a dozen terminally ill and bereaved people in protest outside parliament.

Marking the second anniversary of the death at Dignitas of the prominent assisted dying campaigner Paola Marra, Leadbeater, whose private member’s bill for England and Wales looks set to run out of time, said many MPs, who had already voted by a majority to pass the bill, were “angry and upset” by the addition of about 1,200 amendments in the Lords, which will probably result in the bill falling without a vote.

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Meningitis vaccine eligibility expanded after Kent outbreak rises to 27

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Anyone who was at Club Chemistry in Canterbury from 5 March to 15 March advised to get antibiotics and vaccination

The government has announced a major expansion in vaccination against meningitis in Kent after seven new cases of the disease were confirmed in the county, taking the total number of cases to 27.

On a visit to the University of Kent, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, said anyone who attended the Club Chemistry nightclub in Canterbury from 5 March until 15 March should come forward for antibiotics and vaccination.

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Plans to cut NHS international workforce appear overambitious, say MPs

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Health service in England has saved more than £14bn hiring from overseas, report says, as doubt is cast on aim to reduce international recruitment to 10%

Ministers’ plans to cut the international workforce within NHS England appear overambitious, MPs have said, as a report reveals the health service saved more than £14bn by recruiting doctors, nurses and midwives from overseas.

Many of the countries recruited from were struggling with staff shortages, and the UK had a moral duty to offer support, rather than simply extracting what it needed, the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on global health and security found.

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More than 100 Labour MPs call on PM to stop assisted dying bill being blocked

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Letter sent to Starmer claims ‘small number of peers have been using procedural tactics’ to stymie its progress

More than 100 Labour MPs have called on Keir Starmer to stop the House of Lords from blocking the assisted dying bill and give it more time to return to the Commons, with the legislation now certain to fall owing to lack of time.

The private member’s bill, sponsored by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, will fall when the parliamentary session comes to an end in May because peers have used multiple amendments and lengthy debates to prevent it from being put to a vote.

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Fewer Britons giving to charity, study says, with donations down by £1.4bn

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Charities Aid Foundation says giving no longer a ‘deeply embedded cultural norm’ amid rising cost of living

Britain is rapidly losing the charity habit, with public donations to good causes plummeting by more than £1.4bn last year and millions of people saying they can no longer afford – or do not want – to give, according to an analysis.

The Charities Aid Foundation (Caf) said in its annual report that, while the British remained generous at heart, society was witnessing a big transformation in attitudes towards charitable giving. Just half of people gave to charity in 2025, down from 61% a decade earlier.

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London’s Burning actor John Alford, 54, dies in prison

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Death comes two months after Alford was jailed for eight-and-a-half years for sexually assaulting two teenage girls

The actor John Alford has died in prison two months after being jailed for sexually assaulting two teenage girls.

Alford, 54, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years in January after he was found guilty of the assaults which occurred during a party at a friend’s home.

The actor, who appeared in the drama London’s Burning and BBC show Grange Hill, died at HMP Bure, Norfolk, on Friday, the Prison Service said.

Alford, who was tried under his real name, John Shannon, was convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl and charges of sexual assault and assault by penetration relating to a 15-year-old girl at a property in Hertfordshire in 2022.

Jurors heard during the trial that he had sexually assaulted the girls while they were drunk after a night out at the pub.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “John Shannon died in prison on March 13 2026.

“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”

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