Pro-Palestinian groups gather near Israeli embassy while pro-Israelis attend vigil in Westminster
Thousands of people have attended vigils and protests in London over the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the boarded-up Israeli embassy in Kensington on Monday night, chanting “Israel is a terrorist state” and “free Palestine” while letting off flares and fireworks.
Continue reading...Arif Ahmed pledges to remain politically neutral in his role and to ensure academic freedoms are maintained
England’s newly appointed university free speech tsar says his role is not to conduct “culture wars” and has pledged to be politically neutral in his efforts to combat threats to academic freedom.
Arif Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Cambridge University, said he would measure his success or failure by surveys of students and by the number of complaints made under procedures being created by the Office for Students (OfS), England’s higher education regulator.
Continue reading...Warnings issued for across the country, with a month’s worth of rain in 36 hours expected in some areas
Flooding in Scotland could present a danger to life, the Met Office has said, as heavy rain led to train services being suspended.
A number of rail lines and roads, including the M9 motorway, were hit by flooding on Saturday morning, and rain is expected to continue into Sunday.
Continue reading...Labour leader’s pledge for English primaries as part of a wider dental plan labelled ‘window dressing’ by union chief
School leaders have accused Labour of “window dressing” after Keir Starmer pledged to introduce supervised toothbrushing for young children in England’s primary schools.
While the policy has long been supported by the dentistry profession as a way of curbing decay, headteachers said it was not appropriate for their staff to check whether pupils had cleaned their teeth.
Continue reading...Figures raise questions about safeguarding at college given ‘outstanding’ for welfare by Ofsted
Nine rapes at the Harrogate military college, which trains 16- and 17-year-olds for careers in the British army, were reported to civilian police over a 13-month period to the middle of August, figures show.
Disclosed under freedom of information legislation, the figures raise questions about safeguarding at Harrogate, and why its welfare arrangements are rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted.
In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...Research reports vulnerable women targeted for grooming into sex work and calls for ‘gendered response’
Female drug users are at risk of being groomed into sex work and other forms of exploitation when they attend treatment programmes with men, according to new research.
Some women reported feeling vulnerable to “predatory males” in mixed groups where they were often outnumbered two-to-one by men, but said they were not given an option to access women-only treatment programmes.
Continue reading...Oak floorboards discovered at St George’s Guildhall, King’s Lynn, believed to be only surviving stage from Shakespeare’s time
Boards trodden by the Bard have been discovered under layers of flooring at England’s oldest medieval guildhall as it undergoes a big refurbishment.
The 600-year-old oak floorboards are believed to be the only surviving stage from William Shakespeare’s time.
Continue reading...Quarter of UK private renters spending over 40% of income on housing amid warning people are ‘trapped in poverty’
England is now “the most difficult place to find a home in the developed world”, housebuilders have claimed in a snapshot of the housing crisis that also found a greater proportion of people in England live in substandard properties than the European Union average.
The Home Builders Federation (HBF), an industry group representing companies that build for private sale, found that England has the lowest percentage of vacant homes per capita in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 38 nations, including most of the EU the US, Japan and Australia.
Continue reading...Red Cross warns 28-day ‘move-on’ process is not enough time for asylum seekers to find new accommodation
More than 50,000 refugees in the UK could be made homeless by the end of the year unless ministers take urgent steps to support them as it clears the asylum backlog, the British Red Cross has warned.
The government has pledged to process all “legacy” asylum applications – made before 28 June 2022 – by the end of the year. Based on those currently in asylum accommodation the charity estimates that 53,100 refugees will be at risk of homelessness if the government meets its target.
Continue reading...Head of National Education Union says new qualification would need 5,300 additional teachers in England
Rishi Sunak wants to scrap A-levels and replace them with a single qualification that includes compulsory English and maths, bringing upheaval to sixth-form education in England that would last a decade.
The new baccalaureate-style Advanced British Standard, which Sunak announced in his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester, would also kill off the T-level vocational qualification the government launched just three years ago.
Continue reading...Female, black, Asian or less well-off patients are less likely to receive the life-saving procedure in England
Patients who are female, black, Asian or less well-off are significantly less likely to be offered heart valve surgery on the NHS in England, according to a report that experts say is “deeply concerning”.
People develop aortic stenosis when their aortic valve narrows as a result of calcium buildup, impeding normal blood flow. This causes shortness of breath, light headedness and chest pain.
Continue reading...Most schools had policies before government’s plan, and there are concerns about safety and implications for carers of outright ban
Glyn Potts, head teacher at Newman Roman Catholic College in Oldham, could not hide his irritation at the morning headlines announcing a government ban on mobile phones in state schools in England.
His school, like the vast majority, already has a mobile phone policy. “All banned and have been for 10 years,” he said, dismissing the announcement by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, as a “smokescreen” to distract from the real challenges facing schools, such as underfunding, teacher recruitment and providing for pupils with special educational needs.
Continue reading...LSE research suggests faith-based admissions requirements deter disadvantaged children
Church of England and Roman Catholic primary schools take fewer pupils with disabilities or special needs than other local schools in England, according to research that suggests faith-based admissions requirements deter pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The findings led the author, Dr Tammy Campbell of the London School of Economics, to conclude that faith schools “serve as hubs of relative advantage” for children from more affluent families who were less likely to have special needs.
Continue reading...Saturday train services halted as Aslef drivers begin industrial action in long-running pay dispute
Rail passengers are facing another day of disruption as a strike by train drivers halts virtually all national rail services in England.
Members of the Aslef union have started a 24-hour walkout in the long-running pay dispute, targeting the start of the Conservative party conference in Manchester.
Continue reading...Danger-to-life warning issued as first named storm of autumn damages buildings and disrupts travel
Gusts of 70mph were recorded as the first named storm of the autumn, Agnes, swept across Britain and Ireland, damaging buildings, causing travel delays and leaving homes without power.
The Met Office issued severe weather warnings covering much of the UK, where strong winds and heavy rain were expected on Wednesday evening and into Thursday.
Continue reading...Coalition of experts publish action points including tackling inequality, poor housing and child poverty
Ministers must tackle poverty, poor housing and air pollution to improve England’s worsening mental health, a coalition of charities, thinktanks and staff groups has urged ministers.
Their blueprint for better mental health also includes a crackdown on racism, reforms to the benefits system and action to end the stark inequality whereby people with severe psychiatric conditions die up to 20 years sooner than the general population.
A new Child Poverty Act to banish child poverty by 2030.
The creation of a minimum income guarantee and reforming sick pay.
Action against junk food, smoking, alcohol and gambling.
The end of “hostile environment” immigration policies.
Continue reading...Latest figures show 1,015,067 ‘episodes of care’ have been postponed since end of last year
More than 1m outpatient appointments and operations have been cancelled since strikes began in December across the NHS in England, figures reveal.
Last week’s four-day stoppage by consultants and junior doctors forced hospitals to reschedule 129,913 more “episodes of care”, taking the total to just over 1m, NHS England said.
Continue reading...Patients have been left confused and frustrated with no centralised system for obtaining medicines
Changes to the way Covid treatments are obtained by those most at risk from the disease could lead to a “postcode lottery” for access, experts have said, with charities warning patients have been left confused and frustrated by the new system.
Previously, people eligible for Covid treatments in England were contacted by their local Covid Medicines Delivery Unit (CMDU) once they reported testing positive for the virus.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Concerns over patient safety after NHS figures show less-qualified staff attending urgent calls
One in three life-or-death 999 ambulance calls in some parts of England are not attended by a paramedic, NHS figures obtained by the Guardian reveal.
The disclosure has prompted fears that seriously unwell or badly injured patients may receive inadequate care from a less-qualified member of ambulance staff lacking a paramedic’s skills.
Continue reading...Studios behind Harry Potter films to undergo 400,000 sq ft expansion by 2027, in boost to struggling industry
The Warner Bros studios behind the Harry Potter film series are to undergo a major expansion, creating 4,000 jobs and providing a boost to Britain’s beleaguered film and TV production industry.
The development in Hertfordshire, expected to be complete in 2027, will add 400,000 sq ft (37,000 sq metres) to Warner Bros Studios Leavesden (WBSL).
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