Det Supt Andrew Wadey says force has ‘let women and girls down badly’ and service must be improved to restore faith
Victims of domestic abuse have lost confidence in Britain’s biggest police force after a series of scandals, a senior officer has admitted.
Det Supt Andrew Wadey, the Metropolitan police’s lead for domestic abuse and stalking, acknowledged the force had “let women and girls down badly in the past” but insisted they were committed to rebuilding trust.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Officially commissioned research lays out effects of shelving anti-obesity pledges
Children in England are at risk of diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems because ministers have shelved anti-obesity policies until 2025, according to a damning report commissioned by the government.
The independent report says that ultra-processed foods (UPF) and products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) have become “normalised” in children’s diets, with poorer parents powerless to curb them.
Continue reading...Government has shelved policies that could have helped to change landscape weighted in favour of unhealthy food options
Less than three weeks into her new role as health secretary, Victoria Atkins left health campaigners aghast when she suggested her approach to tackling obesity would largely focus on dietary advice.
Obesity is a devastating public health problem harming millions of people in the UK that will never be resolved by tips on what to eat and what to avoid. Two in three adults are overweight or obese and the problem costs £100bn a year.
Continue reading...There are 121,327 in short-term housing, while 261,189 homes are empty long-term, say Lib Dems
England has more than twice as many long-term empty homes this Christmas as there are children living in temporary accommodation, the Liberal Democrats have said, calling this a stark indication of a “broken” housing market.
The numbers of families without a permanent home and in short-term housing, whether hotels and B&Bs or temporary rental properties, has hit a record high this year, with the latest statistics showing it now affects 121,327 children, according to data collated by the House of Commons library.
Continue reading...Experts link 44% increase in four years to a growing mental health crisis and underinvestment in health services
More than half a million young people in the UK say they are out of work due to long-term illness, a 44% increase in just four years.
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that more than 560,000 people aged between 16 and 34 were economically inactive – meaning they were not in work or seeking work – in the first three months of 2023 due to long-term sickness.
Continue reading...And churches used to dwindling congregations are delighted to see numbers boosted by worshippers of all ages
Father Happy Jacob has a reason to be cheerful. When he started St Thomas’s Indian Orthodox Church in Liverpool in 2002, his congregation numbered about 60 families, and stayed at that level for almost two decades.
Then, a few years ago, things began to change. “We have seen a massive increase in families coming to the church,” says Jacob, 48. At his last count, there were 110 families, with worshippers including NHS workers, international students and about 100 school-age children.
Continue reading...Home secretary said secret of a long marriage was sedating spouse on the same day a new policy on spiking was announced
James Cleverly has apologised for joking about spiking his wife’s drink with a date rape drug in comments made at a Downing Street reception.
The home secretary’s remarks came just hours after the Home Office announced plans to crack down on spiking, when someone puts drugs into another person’s drink or directly into their body without their knowledge or consent.
Continue reading...Senior Conservative and Labour figures said they would back changes to legislation on the issue in England and Wales
Two former health secretaries on Saturday night became the latest senior figures to join the growing demands for a new attempt to legalise assisted dying, as a prominent Tory said he is willing to champion the legislation in parliament.
With both former Conservative minister Stephen Dorrell and Labour’s Alan Milburn stating they back changing the law in England and Wales, the Observer understands that a Labour government would make time and expert advice available for an assisted dying bill should MPs back it in a free House of Commons vote.
Continue reading...The actor, who has played characters on both sides of the debate, says the UK needs a conversation about euthanasia and assisted suicide
About a decade ago, Dame Harriet Walter, the 73-year-old star of stage and screen, decided to make a living will. The will, also known as an advance decision, informs family, carers and doctors of a person’s wish to refuse specific treatments should they become too ill to communicate those choices. (It stops short of requesting help with end of life; euthanasia and assisted suicide remain illegal in the UK.) But, when it came to actually completing the details of her living will, Walter always found something else to do.
“I had the will sitting in my filing cabinet for about three or four years before I got round to it,” says Walter, who made her name in the theatre but has recently had eye-catching roles in the TV shows Succession, Killing Eve and Ted Lasso. “It’s not something you really want to look at, it’s not something you want to think about. But it will be good to know that there’s something in place that you could use when the time comes. Then you close that filing cabinet.”
Continue reading...People vent their frustration on social media as many given just beans and biscuits to eat, and donated food is found for sale in markets
A couple of biscuits and a can of beans is all that many Palestinians in Gaza say is being given to families to live on, if they receive aid at all, and that they are finding donated items for sale in the markets.
The risk of famine is increasing every day, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which said this week that Gaza’s entire population is suffering “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity”, the highest proportion of a population with acute food insecurity the monitor has ever recorded.
Continue reading...Research found little ones typically begin to distinguish fantasy from reality during preschool years
• ‘I cried for hours’: the moments people realised truth about Father Christmas
From empty glasses of sherry on the mantelpiece to sooty footprints leading to the bedroom door, evidence of Santa’s existence is clearly irrefutable. Yet most children will begin to question it at some point – and many parents anticipate this moment with dread. Now psychologists have identified the average age when Santa scepticism creeps in, and which children are at greatest risk of harbouring negative feelings when it does.
While most adults have fallen for the myth that Santa doesn’t exist, many children still believe – even if the idea of a single individual visiting the homes of billions of children in a single night is at odds with their wider reasoning skills.
Continue reading...After 11-year wait for inquest into his death in custody, relatives say Devon and Cornwall police still need to admit mistakes
One of the most poignant moments for Alison Orchard came when she was sorting out her son Thomas’s room after his fatal collapse while in police custody.
Over the years, Thomas Orchard had experienced mental health problems and had not been allowed to fulfil one of his ambitions: to drive.
Continue reading...NHS Employers writes to British Medical Association warning of dangers of proposed six-day stoppage
Patients have been harmed as a result of doctors striking this year, and others needing time-critical treatment will be at risk during next month’s walkout in England, hospital bosses have said.
Cancer patients and women having induced or caesarean section births will be in danger of damage to their health unless junior doctors in those areas of care abandon their plans to strike for six days in January, they said.
Continue reading...Murder-obsessed 16-year-olds convicted of killing girl who was stabbed 28 times in Warrington park
Two 16-year-olds have been found guilty of the “senseless” murder of Brianna Ghey, a “witty, funny and fearless” transgender girl who was stabbed 28 times in a Warrington park this year.
The murder-obsessed teenagers, known as Girl X and Boy Y to protect their identities, were found guilty unanimously by a jury at Manchester crown court on Wednesday after it deliberated for four hours and 40 minutes.
Continue reading...Matthew Taylor says there is a risk of health service becoming overwhelmed early in new year as pay row continues
Strikes by junior doctors increase the risk that the NHS will become overwhelmed by winter pressures early in the new year, a senior health service leader has warned.
Their walkouts, happening at the same time as hospitals are struggling with the usual surge in cold weather illness, could propel the NHS towards a tipping point, said Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation.
Continue reading...How to make sense of some of the key passages from long-delayed guidance
The UK government finally published its long-delayed guidance for England’s schools on youth transition. The document promises a clear set of principles for teachers and staff as they wrestle with the needs of children who are questioning their gender identity. According to the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, the guidance “puts the best interests of all children first”.
But while the guidance has been broadly welcomed by those who believe that it is too easy for young people to “socially transition” at school, there are others who disagree vehemently. They see the government’s approach as informed by an underlying hostility to trans people, and scepticism about whether they even exist. And although the guidance does not include an outright ban on allowing social transition (said to have been under consideration until it was found to be unlawful), it clearly creates new barriers for teenagers who want to talk to teachers about their gender without fear of being outed at home.
In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of children questioning the way they feel about being a boy or a girl … This has been linked to gender identity ideology, the belief that a person can have a ‘gender’ that is different to their biological sex.
We have not used the term transgender to describe children. Under UK law children cannot obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate and therefore cannot change their legal sex.
As part of testing whether this is a sustained request, schools and colleges should seek to understand societal or other factors that may have influenced the child, for example:
Has the child been influenced by peers or social media?
Parents should not be excluded from decisions taken by a school or college relating to requests for a child to ‘socially transition’.
Schools and colleges should engage parents as a matter of priority, and encourage the child to speak to their parents, other than in the exceptionally rare circumstances where involving parents would constitute a significant risk of harm to the child.
[Schools] may conclude that the impact on the school and college community is such that it may not be possible to agree to support a request [for a change in how a pupil is treated at school].
Schools and colleges should only agree to a change of pronouns if they are confident that the benefit to the individual child outweighs the impact on the school community. It is expected that there will be very few occasions in which a school or college will be able to agree to a change of pronouns.
This is non-statutory guidance from the Department for Education. Its focus is to provide practical advice, which we expect schools and colleges to follow.
Continue reading...Exclusive: ‘Significant’ number of staff sacked from digger firm after drug and alcohol tests
JCB, one of the UK’s biggest manufacturers, is investigating a spate of drug use among workers based at its headquarters and has sacked a “significant” number of staff, the Guardian can reveal.
A message sent to UK employees last week by the digger-maker’s group human resources director, Max Jeffery, seen by the Guardian, said it had been conducting a “series of investigations into substance misuse” over the past two months. This had resulted in a “small but significant number of people leaving JCB”.
Continue reading...Housing secretary aims to bring end to delays, as weakening of housing targets is confirmed
Michael Gove will threaten to take action against councils that miss deadlines to submit their housing plans in a speech on Tuesday designed to highlight the government’s commitment to build new homes across England.
The housing secretary will say he will “call out” local authorities that fail to publish their future development plans with a threat to intervene if necessary.
Continue reading...Focusing on poorer children’s social and emotional learning barely helps their results catch up with those of better-off peers
Teaching character, grit and resilience in schools is valuable to children but is unlikely to play a major part in eradicating the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers, according to research.
In recent years, policymakers in England and elsewhere in the world have focused on social and emotional learning, and the importance of developing character, determination and self-belief as a way of improving learning, particularly among children from lower income backgrounds.
Continue reading...Teenager whose disappearance, aged 11, sparked an international police hunt, flies home after being found in France
Teenager Alex Batty has returned to the UK six years after disappearing while on holiday in Spain with his mother and grandfather, police said on Saturday.
Detectives told a press conference at Greater Manchester police HQ that the teenager, who was 11 when he went missing, met his step-grandfather at Toulouse airport earlier on Saturday before flying back to the UK.
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