You’ve got me today!
Article 16
Express
LIZ TRUSS’S refusal to trigger Article 16 amounts to Brexit “capitulation”, former MEP Ben Habib has claimed.
And Mr Habib, who was one of 29 Brexit Party candidates elected to the European Parliament in 2019, fears the Foreign Secretary is poised to accept the European Court of Justice’s role in Northern Ireland – something completely unacceptable to him and many other stalwarts. Ms Truss was handed the role of Brexit negotiator last month after the resignation of Lord David Frost.
Since then, the Tory MP for South West Norfolk has talked of “picking up the pace” in Brexit negotiations with Brussels, and is hosting Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney on Thursday.
Omicron
ITV News
Troops are being deployed in London to support the NHS amid growing staff shortages due to Covid-19, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
Some 200 armed forces personnel are being made available to hospitals across the capital, which has been the epicentre of the Omicron outbreak with a huge upsurge in cases.
The announcement comes after Boris Johnson said this week ministers hoped to “ride out” the latest wave without the need for further restrictions in England.
The MoD said the deployment includes 40 military medics and 160 general duty personnel to help fill gaps caused by absences due to NHS staff unable to work because they are ill or having to self-isolate.
Sky News
Some 200 Armed Forces personnel are being deployed to support the NHS in London as hospitals grapple with staff shortages.
Military medics will assist NHS doctors and nurses with patient care, while general duty personnel will help fill gaps caused by other absences.
The Royal College of Nursing has said the deployment means the government can no longer deny there is a “staffing crisis” within the NHS.
Patricia Marquis, the RCN’s director for England, said: “The prime minister and others can no longer be dismissive of questions about the ability of NHS staff to deliver safe care.
“Once the military has been brought in, where does the government turn next in a bid to ‘ride out’ the wave rather than deal with it?”
Mail
Omicron ‘should be welcomed’ because the ultra-infectious variant could consign the days of Britain recording thousands of Covid deaths each day to history, according to experts who say mortality rates had already dipped 20-fold before the strain had really took off.
Despite cases skyrocketing to pandemic highs of over 200,000 because of the super-mutant strain — which has driven out deadlier rival variants — fatalities have stayed flat at around 110 since early December.
MailOnline analysis shows the UK’s case fatality rate — the proportion of confirmed infections that end in death — was dropping even before the variant took off. And intensive care admissions have yet to spiral, despite soaring hospital admissions.
Just 0.15 per cent of cases led to a death towards the end of December, compared to highs of over three per cent during the darkest days of last year’s second wave when the Alpha variant was in full motion and the NHS had yet to embark on its vaccination drive.
Telegraph
Coronavirus cases fell for the second day in a row in Britain on Thursday, with daily figures now lower than a week ago – leading to hopes the omicron wave is slowing.
A further 179,756 cases were added to official figures, down from 189,213 on December 30 – a four per cent drop.
Cases are continuing to fall in London and there is evidence that steep rises are beginning to tail off in the North West, the South East, the East Midlands and the East of England.
There were also 269 fewer people admitted to hospital in England on January 4, the most recent date for which figures are available, compared to the previous week.
Mail
The average length of a hospital stay for Covid patients over the age of 80 in the UK has more than halved in a major boost for the NHS, figures suggest.
During the third wave, from May 1 last year, over 80s were usually hospitalised for 11 days.
But since December 1 – and the onset of the Omicron wave – they have typically required a bed for around just five days.
It is a similar story for those in the 50 to 69 and the 70 to 79 categories. During the third wave, those aged 70 to 79 required a hospital bed for eight days and those aged 50 to 69 for seven days. Now they too are on five days.
Sun
BORIS Johnson has declared “we will get through this wave” as stats revealed a triple whammy of Covid good news.
In early signs the Omicron storm may be subsiding, UK Covid cases fell for the second day in a row.
The number of people being taken to hospital with Covid in London — Omicron ground zero — also tumbled.
And the number of people with the virus and on ventilation in hospitals in England also fell for the second day on the trot.
Hopes are growing inside Downing Street that all Plan B curbs will be ditched by the end of the month and Britain can get back on the road to normality.
All holiday tests are also expected to be axed at the end of the month in a huge boost for sun-thirsty Brits, The Sun has learned.
Eager Tory MPs urged Mr Johnson to go even further and become the first world leader to scrap all Covid legal restrictions.
Mirror
A new set of symptoms has officially overtaken a temperature and a cough as the most common sign of Covid-19, fresh studies have shown.
Covid cases have been growing exponentially for the past two weeks, with 218,705 cases being confirmed on a single day on Tuesday.
In the last seven days 1,281,588 people have been confirmed to have the virus, and concerns are growing about how the workforce can function with so many people needing to isolate.
For almost two years the most common signs of Covid have been a high temperature and a cough, but now it appears a different set of symptoms are reigning supreme with the outbreak of the Omicron variant.
Education
Telegraph
Schoolchildren are refusing to wear face masks in the classroom, a union official said as the Government’s own study does not justify the policy.
Just five per cent of pupils at one school agreed to take a lateral flow test at the start of the term and wear a mask, according to Damien McNulty, a national executive member of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT).
“Sadly, we have had reports in the last 24 hours of at least six secondary schools in the north-west of England where children, in huge numbers, are refusing to take lateral flow tests or to wear masks,” Mr McNulty told the BBC.
“We’ve got one school in Lancashire where only 67 children out of 1,300 are prepared to have a lateral flow test and wear masks. This is a public health emergency.”
Mail
Officials have admitted they do not definitely know whether face masks are effective in preventing the spread of Covid in schools.
The Government yesterday said evidence is not ‘conclusive’ although studies show they may help reduce transmission.
The revelation comes despite all secondary school pupils being asked to wear a mask in class from this week.
On Wednesday, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said masks in school will ‘help reduce transmission at a time when rates of infection are high’.
He highlighted data from a sample of 123 schools which suggested ‘there was a greater reduction in Covid absence’ among schools using coverings.
Sun
TEACHERS are being told to IGNORE government guidance and enforce tougher Covid rules in schools.
Gloomy union bosses have urged staff to stagger start times, reintroduce bubbles, avoid mixing classes if there are absences and continue using PCR tests.
The advice from the National Education Union contradicts that of ministers, who have dubbed “keeping schools open” their absolute priority as cases of the Omicron variant surge.
Government insiders have said there are no plans to toughen Covid rules as a string of hugely positive studies show Omicron IS milder than other strains.
Guardian
Schools in England are “teetering on the edge” with more than a third (36%) struggling with staff absence rates in excess of 10%, according to a snap poll by a headteachers’ union.
Almost one in 10 heads (9%) who took part in the survey said more than 20% of their teaching staff were absent on the first day of term for Covid-related reasons.
The staffing situation is already so critical in some schools that 4% of heads have had to send classes or year groups home for online learning, while almost 7% have combined classes or year groups in response to teacher absence.
Half of school leaders said they were already dependent on supply teachers to cover classes, and more than a third (37%) were unable to source the supply staff they need, even via agencies – almost certainly because of high demand.
Times
A study used to justify the introduction of masks in English schools implied they had at best a marginal effect, according to documents released by the Department for Education.
From this term pupils in England will join those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in wearing masks in secondary schools, in an attempt to combat the spread of Omicron.
However, the documents show the government’s own research failed to find they had a significant effect in lowering transmission.
Despite this, other scientists said that the broader evidence on the use of masks remained strong.
iNews
The number of schools sending classes and year groups home because of teacher absences is set to rise rapidly in the weeks ahead, the Government has been warned.
Just a few days into the term, more than a third of schools are already reporting that one in 10 staff are off sick – with one school leader saying that 20 per cent will be the crucial threshold at which many schools cease being able to function as normal.
According to a poll of 2,000 school leaders in England by the National Association of Head Teachers, 36 per cent said they had more than 10 per cent of their total staff absent on the first day of term due to Covid-related reasons.
Ninety-five per cent had pupils absent because of Covid, with 29 per cent saying they had more than one in 10 pupils absent.
With 37 per cent of schools struggling to source supply teachers to cover gaps, the NAHT said schools were “teetering on the edge”.
BBC News
Some older pupils in England are refusing to take lateral flow tests and wear face coverings in classrooms as they head back to school, parents and other pupils say.
Charities say they are worried about the effects on vulnerable students of this advice being ignored.
However, other parents say masks impact on their children’s learning.
The government says schools “can decide how best to encourage” pupils to take tests and wear masks.
The Department for Education (DfE) stressed that pupils should not be “denied education” on the basis of whether or not they wear a mask.
It has previously said it is determined to keep schools open, despite more staff absences being expected.
Pupils in England have been asked to take in-school Covid tests before heading back into class this week, and to wear face coverings in lessons.
However, these are recommendations and are not mandatory.
Dementia
Mail
Dementia cases will triple by 2050 unless people adopt healthier lifestyles and education improves, a major study suggests.
Experts warn of a potential dementia time bomb, with 153million living with the condition worldwide within decades.
This is up from 57million in 2019, with the soaring numbers fuelled by growing and ageing populations as well as poor diets and a lack of exercise.
Researchers are now calling for ‘more aggressive prevention efforts’ to limit the disease.
This includes improvements to education, diet and physical activity, better access to health and social care and reduced rates of smoking. More funding is also needed to discover effective drugs, according to the Global Burden of Disease study.
Times
More than one in 50 people in Britain will be living with dementia by 2050, scientists have warned, with the global toll set to triple within 30 years.
In 2019, an estimated 907,000 people in Britain had dementia, about one in 74 people. By 2050, this number is projected to increase by 75 per cent to 1.6 million people, or about one in 46 people.
The population is predicted to increase by just 10 per cent to 74 million over the same period.
Globally, the number of cases is projected to rise from 57.4 million to 152.8 million cases by 2050, or from one in 138 people to one in 64 people.
Express
DEMENTIA cases are set to almost triple globally in a shocking new report by the Global Burden of Disease, with the UK alone set to see a 75 percent rise in cases by 2050.
The number of adults living with dementia worldwide is expected to nearly triple, from an estimated 57 million in 2019 to 153 million in 2050, according to a study. Researchers suggest this is due to population growth and population ageing. They looked at four risk factors for dementia – smoking, obesity, high blood sugar, and low education – and the impact they will have on future trends. For example, improvements in global education access are projected to reduce global dementia prevalence by 6.2 million cases by 2050.
But this will be countered by anticipated trends in obesity, high blood sugar, and smoking, which are expected to result in an additional 6.8 million dementia cases.
Dementia cases will rise in every country, with the smallest estimated increases in the high-income Asia Pacific (53 percent) and western Europe (74 percent), the study suggests.
Sun
DEMENTIA cases worldwide are set to triple by 2050, researchers warn.
The devastating illness could impact 153 million people in 2050, against the 57 million in 2019.
In the UK, the number of dementia cases is projected to increase by 75 per cent, from just over 907,000 in 2019 to almost 1.6 million in 2050.
But this is relatively small compared to places with the largest growth estimates, of 367 per cent in north Africa and the Middle East and 357 per cent in eastern sub-Saharan Africa.
The study, published in The Lancet Public Health, should be a “wake-up call”, charities said.
Dementia is an umbrella term for the deterioration of mental ability so severe that it impacts daily life, causing problems with memory, behaviour and coordination, to name a few.
There are several types, with Alzheimer’s being the most common and accounting for up to 80 per cent of all dementia cases.
Blair
Express
SIR TONY Blair has been savaged for “creating ISIS” as a petition calling for the former Prime Minister to have his knighthood withdrawn surpasses 900,000 signatures.
Iraqis who grew up in the shadow of the war are outraged at the British Government’s decision to award a knighthood to former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair. They are not alone in their fury as a petition calling for the former Labour leader to have the honour withdrawn is edging closer to a million signatures, with 934,529 at the time of writing. The petition denounces Sir Tony as the “least deserving person of any public honour” and calls for him to be held accountable for “war crimes”.
The ex-Labour Party leader may have won more elections than any other Labour leader and been a force for good over national minimum wage and gay rights. But his support for George Bush’s 2003 invasion tarnished his legacy and made him synonymous with the thousands of lives lost as a result of the war.
Mail
Victims of IRA atrocities condemned Tony Blair‘s knighthood yesterday over his secret deal to provide ‘get out of jail free’ cards to almost 200 suspected terrorists.
Families torn apart by Republican attacks hit out at the former prime minister for ‘providing an effective amnesty to murderers and bombers’ as part of the 1998 Northern Ireland peace deal.
Tory grandee Lord Tebbit, who was severely injured in an IRA bomb attack during the 1984 Conservative Party conference, said Sir Tony’s agreement to release terrorists early and provide immunity to others should ‘demerit him from any honours’.
Oh come on Colin, I wasn,t criticising Debbie’s News Review ,
I was only lamenting the content and the consequences
Just read on the BBC news site that the 4th vaccination booster will not be required yet. Not yet…….judging by the daily figures of those receiving the third vaccination it is going down and down. I think Johnson will have a hard job to convince the population to have a fourth jab when so many haven’t had the third one yet. And why are we still wearing these blasted face masks if the cases are continuing to rise although it has slightly abated in recent days……..
It will not matter how many signatures there will be on the Change.org petition, as the issue of Tony Blair’s knighthood will not gain a written response from HM government nor will it be debated in parliament. I checked the UK Government petitions website and there is no similar petition listed there, so it begs the question why the person who started the ball rolling for the Change.org petition didn’t do it on the UK Government petition website instead. However I found a note on the UK Government Petitions website that petitions other than those on the Government website will not be considered for debate or otherwise, and Change.org was used as an example. So, as it stands in excess of 900,000 have signed that particular petition on the Change.org website administered from San Francisco in the USA, and all for nothing.
Dementia. 2 points. Vernon Coleman says facemasks cause dementia which is likely because they deprive the wearers of oxygen..
Plus do doctors like to give dementia diagnoses willy nilly , since do they get money for that? Plus if you are diagnosed with it , doesn’t it give hospitals an excuse to “Do Not Resuscitate” you if you end up in hospital?
Who can be really surprised that Liz Truss has not triggered Article 16 in respect of the Northern Ireland protocol. She was a Remainer and campaigned for the UK to remain part of the European Union on the run up to the 2016 referendum. No doubt if the truth be known she would like the UK to be more closely aligned to the EU, and will not do anything that will lead to the opposite happening. Apart she is climbing the greasy pole with ambitions at some point to be Conservative Party leader so will not do anything that might blot her copy book. Truss is so typical of most politicians in the House of Commons no matter what party they represent. They only act if it is in the best interests of their own personal political careers, and certainly. The best interests of the nation and its citizens comes well down the list of priorities in their eyes. Besides which I don’t recall Ord Frost activating Article 16 either.
typo error above. Eighth line down delete ‘and certainly’
Absolutely..The EU must not be allowed anything. A poliyician must not be allowed to put a foot wrong. And the Civil Service must not be allowed to be multiple Tony Blairs.
All`s right with the world.
Debbie is back.
Mind you I wasn`t very happy with her first offering.
Truss has already vetoed our signing article 16 and is poised to accept the European Court of Justice.
I`m afraid not unexpected, but in effect the final nail in our coffin that we have not technically left the EU
and an open door for the disestablishment of Northern Ireland from the UK union.
which then makes it more unlikely that we will be able to resist the importuning Sturgeon.
anyway, lovely to see you Debbie, any chance of having the daily email back in our letter box?
Leave that thought with me Roger.
I can’t see anything wrong with todays News View, Debbie has done a pretty good job to me. However, will it appear every day from now on?
Thanks Colin. I try to find items that will interest readers of Independence Daily, not necessarily items they will like.
Every day? We’ll see.
“Some older pupils in England are refusing to take lateral flow tests and wear face coverings…”
Only some? What’s the matter with all the rest, who meekly put up with all this abuse? Don’t they realise that if they don’t scotch it now, they’ll be muzzled like dogs for the rest of their lives…..
Great to see you back Debbie.
Re Lisa “Cynical me is suspicious of the army being deployed…” Well it’s fusion doctrine being played out isn’t it, Getting us used to seeing military on the streets and to living in a biosecurity police state, where military health police etc are fused. . Plus i’ts theatre to make us believe that there’s “still a terrible pandemic out there. State of Emergency.”
They’ve been itching to do this for ages.
Those youngsters at the school in Lancs deserve three cheers for refusing to wear masks and regular LFT tests. Wish more kids would refuse to wear them and put the teachers unions on the back foot.
Sounds about right to me. But their type of stability is not ultimately wanted by us. In the meantime the narrative wobbles.
Welcome Debbie. Any chance of going back to both you and Viv each edition?
Just one thing that strikes me about the Covid Scamdemic and Omicron:- The common cold never used to ‘overwhelm the N.H.S.’ did it. If I remember rightly 80% of common colds are caused by a corona virus. Omicron has been said to be so mild that it is indistinguishable from the common cold.
The NHS is (, and to the glory of ) . the last of the nationalised industries,.All of which existed for the benefit of their unions. Together with the moronic hatred of Grammar schools, and the invention of substandard.education has been the Glory of Labour and the left over 80 years.
Thank you both. What struck me today about the news is the suggestion that whereas the jabs may give some protection, that protection is very transient and when it wears off after a few months, it takes all our natural immunity with it. This is why in general those who were inoculated some time ago are more vulnerable to Covid, and especially severe Covid, than those who haven’t had the jab at all. What a mess!!
Yes. Good point there Debbie.
There is something very fishy about the Covid jabs. Previous vaccinations, so far as we know, did not harm our innate immune systems but these do.
Good to see you back Debbie. My take of newspapers today is that the Establishment in the lowest rungs of power ( like Professors and Deans, , Bank Directors, Mandarins, Ministers,, Peculiar committees Chairmen, Union Mandarins , etc), is now. battling to our death, Battling our allies the;-statistically benevolant Omicron, and a slightly more troubling flue varient ( Which nobody has noticed yet ),,, which offer herd immunity and protection, against the monster abortion of politics and big pharma and mob rule.
The total of our silly ( potentialy murderous ) situation is down to one thing. The ponderous protectionism of the afore mentioned establishments to accept the statements from South Africa,, and insist on our professions superiority in the face of reality and thought.. So we lost months and confused everybody.
And whilest these preposterous personages stumble around, ( Oh Dear ! I didn’t notice , All our currency has happily flowed uninterrupted into the Super super Establishments assets, and a tiny bit into pockets of the aforementioned. So All is good, Stability is King , no change here, Keep argueing , kick the can, More and lovely power and assets. Have a war if you must, but my interests must not be touched )
Good to see you back Debbie I have missed your reviews. Cynical me is suspicious of the army being deployed at hospitals which are paying staff to stay home on the flimsiest of evidence. Before covid a social worker went off sick and following her “allowed” sick days then went on holiday skiing. Mental health time-bomb, that will be all the crackheads in the sixties and seventies which I managed to avoid. Comprehensive schools probably helped too. A lot children were written off as hopeless cases. A careers adviser who visited our school didn’t even look up from his notebook and suggested I try Woolworths for a job. It just so happened I had been doing a Saturday job there since I was 15 but it was not a career choice. One teacher thought I could do better and my mother pushed the boat out to send me to a private college for a year and I never looked back and was never out of work, even head-hunted at one point. My husband’s school wrote him off too but he worked and paid for further education which saw him out- perform all his peers. We paid for as much of our children’s education as we could and we have been well rewarded. Politicians don’t want an educated population, it upsets the status quo.
Yes Lisa. It is very suspicious about deploying the armed forces in Khanland. Someone, (I wonder who) is saying ‘Don’t worry whatever Covid throws at us we know what to do’.
Or is it ‘the sacred cow’ angling for yet more money?
Hi Lisa.
You said ” comprehensive schools helped too”
I entirely agree with you, my father was a housemaster at one of the first Comprehensive Schools and some days I would pick him up from School and got there a bit early.
on the question “what sort of day did you have dad”?
“Oh the last period wasn`t too bad at all, I`ve just finished teaching the third stream Maths”
“That`s a bit hard isn`t it?” (he is, or was a Maths master)
“Oh! it`s not that hard, I read them a story”
He once remarked about one of my girls “she`ll learn a little in a long time” – Both my girls have a degree, one became a teacher and the other a Speech Therapist.
He was dead eye Dick with a piece of chalk and the occasional board rubber.
But yes mixed ability taken willy-nilly from a catchment area was a problem, I think the result was to teach to the lowest common denominator.
Perhaps it improved over time and they learned how to sort out the wheat from the chaff, but in this case which was a heavily industrialised Midland town there were plenty of factory jobs available and a good technical college and it was known as “boom Town” and working “on the track” could result in very very high family incomes – it wasn`t uncommon for Mum, Dad and two adult children to work at the same factory
Roger Turner. Did Comprehensive Schools mix ability and teach to the lowest common denominator?
I thought, from the start they at least had the sense to ‘Stream’ the pupils. That would mean one could be top stream in say Science but bottom in Maths.
Not that I’m in support of comprehensive education but I had assumed some common sense had managed to get in to the policy.