Viv sends her apologies.  She is unwell today so here is a brief outline of today’s news.

Read the front pages here.

Small boats

Mail
Scores of migrants were seen heading for beaches in northern France last night, apparently undeterred by the deaths of six Afghan men in the Channel.
Within just a few minutes the Daily Mail witnessed three groups of up to 50 people, all laden with bags, emerging from the undergrowth beside the motorway near Dunkirk, and heading for a bus stop in the direction of the Channel coast.
A police van pulled up opposite the bus stop, but did nothing to stop the groups.
Those heading for the beach as the sun went down included a woman in a full-face veil, an elderly man and a toddler being carried upon an adult’s shoulders.
French authorities warned yesterday that people smugglers were ‘saturating’ the coast of Northern France with migrants desperate to reach Britain.
Around 1,000 migrants were said to be waiting to cross the Channel in small boats despite the latest tragedy in which six people died and more than 50 had to be rescued after their overcrowded boat sank off the French coast.
Some 65 people were crammed onto the inflatable dinghy without emergency equipment or life jackets – one of several such craft to have set off from France in the early hours of Saturday.
French authorities said smugglers had launched boats from several different beaches in an apparent attempt to stretch police resources and maximise their chances of success.
More than 500 people crossed the Channel on Saturday, making it the fourth busiest day of 2023 so far and meaning more than 1,600 made the journey in just three days at the end of last week.

Telegraph
Ministers are frustrated that the French are not doing more to stop boats carrying migrants as Belgium interventions have succeeded in blocking crossings from its shores.
The concerns have emerged after six Afghan migrants died on Saturday when their overcrowded dinghy sank around four miles off the coast of France.
The Times reported that gunfire broke out and there were clashes between migrants seeking places on boats to Britain in Dunkirk in the hours before the boat sank.
The French have succeeded in increasing the number of migrants being intercepted on the beaches, before they set sail, after Rishi Sunak agreed a £480 million deal with President Emmanuel Macron to put more officers on the ground and boost French-UK cooperation.
Once the boats have left the beaches, however, the French maintain a policy of not intervening in the water unless a dinghy is in distress and the migrants are believed likely to cooperate.
It has resulted in French navy patrol vessels shadowing or escorting boats to British waters in the centre of the Channel because of migrants’ refusal to be rescued by the French and the risks if their officers tried to do so.
A source admitted there was “frustration” within the Government over the approach. “That is a different policy to Belgium for example, which does intervene in the water, manages to do so safely and has largely ended small boat crossings from its shores,” said the source.

Observer
The government’s controversial asylum policy faced renewed criticism on Saturday when at least six people died after a small boat crossing the Channel capsized and sank.
Another two people are still believed to be missing after the sinking, prompting fresh calls for the government to urgently introduce safe routes for asylum seekers to prevent further tragedies.
As the search for survivors continued, anger quickly switched to the Home Office’s reluctance to introduce measures that would deter migrants from risking their lives crossing the world’s busiest shipping lane.
The tragedy also created a dreadful ending for Rishi Sunak’s “small boats week”, which was meant to reinvigorate his stuttering strategy to tackle Channel crossings, but has been repeatedly marred by blunders and humiliation, including the forced evacuation of the Bibby Stockholm barge and record small boat arrivals.
News of the latest tragedy emerged in the early hours of Saturday when a passing ship raised the alarm that an overloaded boat was in difficulty off the coast of Sangatte, near Calais.
In the hours that followed, British and French coastguards rescued about 65 people from the vessel. France’s Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said it believed two were possibly still missing at sea. Of those rescued, six were recovered in serious condition, one of whom was flown by helicopter to a Calais hospital and later declared dead. The remaining five were taken on to a boat, but subsequently died.

ITV News
The government is under renewed pressure to tackle the crisis of migrant crossings in the Channel following the deaths of six people after a boat sank off the coast of France.
Campaigners described the incident as an “appalling and preventable tragedy” while MPs called for action to stop criminal gangs profiting from the dangerous journeys.
Some 59 people were rescued by British and French coastguards on Saturday after an overloaded vessel carrying migrants got capsized near Sangatte. Two people may still be missing at sea.
At least 22 people were dropped off at Dover by UK crews, while 36 were taken to the port of Calais on a French boat, France’s Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said.
Six people were recovered in a serious condition with one, who was evacuated by helicopter to hospital in Calais, later pronounced dead. An updated statement said the other five, who were taken in by boat, also died.
According to the accounts of survivors, around 65 or 66 had originally boarded the boat, France’s Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said.
A statement from the French authorities suggested it had been one of a number of migrant vessels which set off in hopes of reaching the UK coast.
Reports suggest most onboard were from Afghanistan and some were Sudanese.
On the same day, a total of 509 people crossed the English Channel in 10 boats, the latest Home Office figures show.
The figures take the provisional total for the past three days alone to more than 1,600, with more than 16,600 having made the journey so far this year.
They mark a further setback for the Government’s “stop the boats” pledge, which is one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s five key priorities for his leadership. More than 100,000 people have now made the journey since 2018, according to the figures.

Sun
PEOPLE smugglers failed to give lifejackets to migrants who later drowned in the Channel — then just hours later tried to lure more into making the deadly crossing.
Six Afghan men died when their rickety dinghy — on the way to England — took on water off the French coast. Fifty-nine others had to be rescued.
And within hours of Saturday’s deaths, an undercover reporter was assured the crossing was safe and offered passage costing thousands.
On the morning the boat sank, witnesses claimed gunshots could be heard at a camp near Dunkirk when Afghan migrants desperate for a seat on the doomed overcrowded vessel clashed with Kurdish people smugglers after being turned away.
Muhamad, 15, from Afghanistan, told The Times: “There was screaming too. I think there was a fight between Kurds and Afghans, but I am not too sure. I just hid.”
The callousness of the trafficking gangs yesterday sparked calls for PM Rishi Sunak to keep up the pressure on delivering the Rwanda deportation and barge deterrents, to dissuade would-be migrants from risking their lives.
On the same day the six Afghan men died, 509 people made the crossing — with some treated by paramedics and taken to hospital
French officials said the gangs were “saturating” the coastline with boats in order to stretch police resources.

Doctors’ strikes

Telegraph
The British Medical Association (BMA) refused a request from a hospital for a junior doctor to work a night shift during the strikes.
At first, the union accepted the request to permit one of its members to work a night shift at the obstetrics and gynaecology unit at The Rosie Hospital in Cambridge, but on Saturday evening the BMA reversed the decision.
A hospital spokesman said that the request had been made because of low staffing levels.
“The consultant team responded to the needs of the unit and we are very grateful to them for that in keeping our patients safe,” said a spokesman for the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
A BMA spokesman said that “new information which was not included on the original request form” led to the union revoking the derogation approval.
“After careful deliberations on this request, a decision was taken last night [Saturday] to not grant this request,” the union said.
The news comes as junior doctors have been on strike since Friday on a four-day walkout finishing at 7am on Tuesday, the fifth so far over pay.
Ministers are prepared for the strikes to continue throughout the winter as the Government has said it will not improve the pay offer made to doctors which could mean the dispute will continue into the colder months.
John Glen, chief secretary to the Treasury, said on Friday that the Government could not move on the pay settlement. Asked if he would see doctors strike in the winter, he said he was “very unhappy with their decisions to strike, but it will be their decision”.
“I urge them to reflect on the overall situation in the economy and the fact that patients need them to conduct their operations,” he added.
The BMA is currently re-balloting members to extend its mandate for strike action by another six months.
The Government has said that the pay rise for junior doctors of six per cent with an additional consolidated £1,250 increase was “fair and reasonable” but the BMA has said this is not enough and wants further talks.
Official figures suggest that strikes by junior doctors have cost the NHS around £1 billion so far.

Covid

Mail
Now that the dust has settled on Covid, experts are warning that the fallout from the pandemic might kill more people than the virus ever did.
Increasingly, evidence shows that lockdowns, mask mandates, school closures and cancelled hospital appointments triggered a mental health crisis, robbed children of vital learning and created a ticking time bomb scenario for cancer and heart disease patients.
But those pandemic measures appear to have made the US population more vulnerable to pathogens — both old foes, novel viruses and even ancient diseases thought to have been resigned to history.
A hepatitis outbreak in 2021 was linked to lower immunity due to less social mixing during the Covid pandemic, killing 22 children. It was linked to a virus that, before lockdowns, rarely caused sickness in people.
Not mixing socially meant no exposure to common germs, which train the immune system to fight off future infections. It is crucial for everyone but particularly children.
A surge in leprosy cases, a chronic bacterial infection, was also pinned on lockdowns, as they led to fewer cases being picked up. The rise in Florida was the first-time leprosy cases peaked since 1983.
And childhood vaccination rates across the US plummeted from 66 percent to 50 percent during the pandemic — blamed on a mixture of vaccine hesitancy caused by concern about the Covid jabs and hospitals going down to reduced capacity.
The result is that children are left without the natural armor to defend against new viruses their immune system encounters.

Telegraph
Children are being silenced by the Covid Inquiry and must not be ignored, more than 40 leading charities and experts have warned.
Save the Children UK and the NSPCC are among the groups that have come together to write to Baroness Hallett, the chairman of the inquiry, to demand an explanation for “unacceptable delays” in examining the impact of the pandemic on young people.
They also raise concerns that children are unable to submit statements about their experience of the pandemic to the inquiry, unlike over-18s who have been invited to do so.
It comes despite mounting evidence of the negative effects of lockdown on children, with a recent study revealing that restrictions damaged the emotional development of almost half of children.
Dan Paskins, director of UK impact at Save the Children, said Baroness Hallett must urgently hear evidence on the impact of government decisions on pupils.
“Children are being silenced by this inquiry,” he said.
“They must not be ignored. Despite repeated promises from chair, the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Hallett, that she would urgently ensure children’s memories are captured and that the issue matters to her, no measures are in place to make this happen.
“Children are not an afterthought or an inconvenience in this inquiry process. Their lives were turned upside down by government decisions and any barriers in the way of them having their say need to be removed immediately.”
The impact of the pandemic on children was initially omitted from the scope of the inquiry, but Baroness Hallett committed to examining it after the issue was brought to light by The Telegraph.

Cancer

BBC News
Two-thirds of NHS cancer waiting time targets are expected to be scrapped in England, in a move the health service says aims to catch cancers earlier.
NHS bosses want to reduce the number of targets, most of which have been routinely missed in recent years, from nine to three.
They say the plan is backed by leading cancer experts and will simplify the “outdated” standards.
But the head of the Radiotherapy UK charity said she is “deeply worried”.
Pat Price, who is also an oncologist and visiting professor at Imperial College London, said current performance was “shockingly bad”, and while too many targets could be disruptive, “the clear and simple truth is that we are not investing enough in cancer treatment capacity”.
The changes have been under consultation since last year, and an outcome is expected within days. NHS leaders are understood to be keen to press on with the plan as first announced – but it is still subject to final approval by Health Secretary Steve Barclay.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Barclay said: “What we have is a consultation at the moment with leading clinical figures in the cancer world and with the cancer charities asking whether the checks we have got are driving the right outcomes in terms of cancer survival or whether there are better ways of measuring those.
“This is something led by clinicians working in cancer – it is not something being imposed by the government.”
Three targets are set to be kept:
diagnosis of cancer within 28 days of referral
starting treatment within two months of an urgent referral
starting treatment one month after a decision to treat.
Six other targets, such as a two-week wait for a first consultant appointment, will be dropped.
An NHS England spokesperson said: “By making sure more patients are diagnosed and treated as early as possible following a referral and replacing the outdated two-week wait target with the faster diagnosis standard already being used across the country, hundreds of patients waiting to have cancer ruled out or diagnosed could receive this news faster.”
They added the changes will allow more patients to be referred “straight to test” and enable the wider use of diagnostic technologies like artificial intelligence.

Independent
Groundbreaking cancer trials are producing “incredibly impressive” results, with seriously ill people going into remission for months and years, according to a leading hospital.
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester said its experimental work into blood cancers such as myeloma is seeing the vast majority of patients responding to treatment with seriously ill people going into remission for months and years.
At the moment, the trust has around 30 clinical trials in progress for blood cancer, including five for myeloma, a disease that develops from plasma cells in the bone marrow.
Many of the patients in the trials have run out of other treatment options or are down to their last few, making the results even more astounding.
Dr Emma Searle, consultant haematologist at the Christie, said a raft of new immunotherapy drugs, which are so experimental they do not yet have a name, mean some patients, such as those with myeloma, are seeing their cancer drop to undetectable levels.
“The results for this kind of trial – using drugs that enable the immune system to see and attack the myeloma – are incredibly impressive,” she said.
“Using the drugs on their own, we are seeing responses in over two-thirds of patients who have no standard treatment options left.
“And when using the drugs in combination… we are seeing responses in over 90 per cent of patients.”
She said immunotherapy drugs, which are already used in some other cancers, will “absolutely” change the face of treatment for blood cancer.
Dr Searle added: “These drugs are a huge breakthrough in this type of cancer, allowing patients without standard treatment options to achieve remission, in many cases for months or years.

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