The Education Minister, Nadhim Zahawi, has dismissed last night’s calls by England’s Children’s Commissioner to outlaw slapping and smacking, saying parents must be trusted to know how to discipline their children. He added that there was “nothing wrong with a light slap on the arm”. Last night, Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, called on […]
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With daily coronavirus infection rates as high as ever, the positive tones uttered by the NHS on the effectiveness of antiviral treatments should indeed be good news. Patients have reported a relief in symptoms only hours after taking them. The trouble is only high-vulnerability patients are eligible, and some doctors are having difficulty accessing the […]
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The Ockenden report on maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust is damning. Nearly 300 babies died or were born brain-damaged and over a dozen mothers died due to poor care. The Trust often blamed mothers for the avoidable deaths. The report also found that many women were made to have natural births […]
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The government has announced its response to last year’s Augur review. The review proposes 53 measures and changes to the UK’s current post-18 education and funding system. The government publicised its reforms to the student loan scheme on Thursday, but they’ve quickly earned criticism. To begin with, the income threshold for repayments has been reduced […]
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From the end of next week in England, people who test positive for coronavirus will no longer have to self-isolate, Downing Street has said. Next week, the Prime Minister will unveil his “living with Covid” plan. According to Sky News, he is set to tell MPs that vaccination alongside testing and new treatments suffice to […]
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The NHS has been instructed to “urgently secure” private resources for patients whose treatment has been delayed by the pandemic. Staff shortages and rising numbers of Covid patients has seen a growing number of hospital trusts declaring “critical incidents” and Sajid Javid has told the NHS to boost capacity by making “use of the independent […]
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Angela Rayner has accused the prime minister of “corruption, plain and simple” and said Boris Johnson has “questions to answer” over allegations of cash-for-access to ministers relating to the Downing Street flat refurbishment. The latest allegations of Tory sleaze surround reports that the Conservative peer who helped pay for the costs of decorating the Downing […]
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Schools in England could fit air purifiers in every classroom – “which scientists and campaigners say would significantly reduce the spread of Covid” – for less than half the cost of the new royal yacht. Boris Johnson’s £200-£250 million “pet project” to replace the royal yacht Britannia (decommissioned in 1997) with a new ship, is […]
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The government’s Christmas Eve announcement that it will relax immigration rules for care workers – to bolster a sector double hit by the pandemic and Brexit and left struggling to keep and attract staff – has been denounced as “a sneaky admission of failure” by the Labour party. High vacancy rates and staff turnover is […]
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Boris Johnson’s authority has been so weakened by recent events that he appears willing to gamble the nation’s health service and people’s lives in order to appease right wing Tory tabloids and his own backbench MPs. The embattled prime minister’s personal nightmare before Christmas – featuring the key resignation of a staunch Brexit ally, a […]
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