Nurses strike

Guardian
The biggest nursing strike in NHS history is set to take place before Christmas after union officials said that “large swathes of the country” had voted for industrial action.
Patients who are already facing record waiting lists are now likely to see operations and appointments delayed or cancelled. This is set to be the first national strike in the history of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
One union source said this weekend: “This will see the majority of services taken out, and picket lines across the country.”
The prospect of nurses across the NHS taking strike action over pay will be a huge challenge to prime minister Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who are confronted with a fiscal hole in the nation’s finances of up to £50bn.
It will also be a big test of the government’s resolve over pay constraints as it deals with strike threats across the public sector in the face of the highest inflation since the 1980s.

BBC News
The Royal College of Nursing is due to unveil the results of its ballot, which ended last week, in the next few days.
The final results are being counted but RCN sources say a large majority of nurses have voted in favour of action in a dispute over pay.
The RCN had recommended to its 300,000 members that they walk out. If strikes take place, they would affect non-urgent but not emergency care.
The vote has involved a series of individual workplace-based ballots across the UK and if nurses do not back action at a local level it is possible some hospitals and services will not be involved.
The government had appealed to nurses to “carefully consider” the impact on patients.

Evening Standard
Nurses across the UK have voted to strike in the first ever national action over a pay dispute.
The strike ballot among more than 300,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) was the biggest ever in the union’s 106-year history.
Its general secretary Pat Cullen said: “Our strike action will be as much for patients as it is for nurses – we have their support in doing this.”
Although counting was still under way on Saturday night, it was understood shortly before 10.30pm that RCN officials believe enough members have voted for winter industrial action which is set to take place within a few weeks, possibly before Christmas.
The exact nature of the strike action is yet to be determined, but it will likely see patients face disruption to operations and appointments while already facing record NHS waiting lists.

Mail
Thousands of nurses will strike before Christmas after the union’s members voted in favour of a first ever mass NHS walk-out.
Britain’s nursing union, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), closed its historic strike action ballot of its 300,000 members on Wednesday.
The union is demanding nurses receive a cost-of-living pay rise of 5 per cent above  inflation which currently sits at 12.3 per cent.
It is set to be the first national strike in the 106-year-old history of the RCN.
‘This will see the majority of services taken out, and picket lines across the country,’ a union source told The Guardian.

Eco-protests

Express
Eco protesters must be hit with tougher sentences as part of a crackdown to stop them causing chaos across the country, a report has warned.
Ministers should also close legal loopholes that allow activists to disrupt our roads and damage buildings, it said. The protest tactics, which have seen demonstrators glue themselves to highways, have provoked widespread anger in recent years.
Now, think tank Policy Exchange has compiled a report urging ministers to review sentencing and bail guidelines.
It also calls for Parliament to bring in legislation that will reverse a 2021 Supreme Court judgment that is leaving police forces hamstrung from acting quickly to prevent disruption.
The report warns: “The Met should be acting more quickly to remove protesters, with other police forces also still taking far too long to act.
“Sentencing and bail guidelines must also be overhauled. One protester has boasted of being arrested on 16 different occasions.”

Illegal migrants

Mail
Albanian migrants placed in hotels after crossing the Channel are picked up by relatives within hours, a Mail on Sunday investigation can reveal.
The MoS monitored one migrant hotel – the Crowne Plaza near Heathrow Airport – and saw British-based Albanians collecting relatives from there in expensive cars.
The hotel, which has a gym and swimming pool, is entirely occupied by migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats.
On Friday, Sadik Mura, 42, an Albanian businessman based in Wigston, Leicester, arrived to pick up his two cousins from the 465-room hotel, which used to charge £150 per night for a standard room before it began to be used to house asylum seekers over a year ago.

Telegraph
Riot police confronted armed immigration centre detainees who caused a disturbance after a power cut at Europe’s largest detention centre left them without heating.
Dozens of men held at the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre, near Heathrow Airport, left their rooms after the lights and heating went out following a power outage in the wider area.
The disturbance is understood to have broken out as the centre’s occupants were being transferred to three other centres on Saturday following the overnight loss of electricity.
The Home Office said: “A group of detainees left their rooms and went out into the courtyard area armed with various weaponry. Territorial Support Police were sent to the scene.”

Mail
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is set to revive the British Bill of Rights as part of the Government’s strategy to deal with the crisis of migrant small boats crossing the Channel.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the legislation – giving the UK courts supremacy over the European Court of Human Rights – will return to Parliament ‘in the coming weeks’.
When it was introduced under then-premier Boris Johnson, ministers said it would prevent judges in the Strasbourg court from interfering in the Government’s controversial policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed.
However, the Bill was shelved by Liz Truss when she became prime minister in September after Government sources warned it was ‘unlikely to progress in its current form’.

Sun
BRITAIN is bringing back plans for a Bill of Rights to crack down on illegal immigration, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
It will finally allow the Government’s flagship plan to deport Channel migrants to  Rwanda to take off after meddling Euro judges blocked it.
The move comes as Britain’s broken immigration system is plunged into its biggest crisis in a generation.
Violent riots have broken out at removal centres while spiralling numbers are arriving in small boats – nearly 40,000 this year alone.
Embattled Home Secretary Suella Braverman has admitted illegal immigration is “out of control”.
Deputy PM and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said the Bill of Rights will “reinject a healthy dose of common sense to the system and end abuse of our laws”.

Evening Standard
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to revive the British Bill of Rights as part of his Government’s strategy to deal with the crisis of migrant small boats crossing the English Channel.
Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said the legislation – giving the UK courts supremacy over the European Court of Human Rights – will will return to Parliament “in the coming weeks”.
When it was introduced under then-premier Boris Johnson, ministers said it would prevent judges in the Strasbourg court from interfering in the Government’s controversial policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed.
However, the Bill was shelved by Liz Truss when she became prime minister in September after Government sources warned it was “unlikely to progress in its current form”.

Energy

Times
Whitehall officials are investigating possible profiteering by energy companies amid claims that some suppliers of gas and electricity are charging inflated prices for fixed-rate deals.
Ministers launched the Energy Bill Relief Scheme last month to help businesses cope with soaring energy prices.
However, the trade body UKHospitality complained that the difference between the price that energy companies were paying for power on the wholesale market and how much they were charging their customers had soared, despite government intervention. This had resulted in businesses being quoted deals “substantially” above the wholesale cost, it claimed.

COP27

Mail
Rishi Sunak will urge world leaders to move ‘further and faster’ on climate change at the Cop27 international summit.
The Prime Minister travels to Egypt on Sunday with a warning that tackling global warming is ‘fundamental’ to future prosperity and security.
In his address on Monday, he will argue the ‘shock’ to the oil and gas markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines the need to move to cheaper, cleaner and safer sources of energy.
He will urge leaders assembled at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh not to ‘backslide’ on commitments made at last year’s Cop26 summit in Glasgow intended to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels.

Express
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to transform Britain into a ‘clean energy superpower’.
The Conservative leader says the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows why the UK must go “further and faster” to secure cleaner, cheaper and safer sources of power. Ahead of a major international summit, the PM has condemned the Kremlin’s “contemptible manipulation of energy prices”.
Mr Sunak on Sunday will travel to the COP27 global climate summit in Egypt where he will promise to accelerate Britain’s switch to renewable energy in pursuit of high-wage jobs and energy security.
The summit in Sharm el-Sheikh will be the biggest gathering of world leaders in the fight against climate change since COP26 in Glasgow.
Mr Sunak said: “When the world came together in Glasgow last year, nations agreed on a historic road map for preventing catastrophic global warming. As I travel to COP27 in Egypt on Sunday, it is more important than ever that we deliver on those pledges.

Guardian
Rishi Sunak attempted an extraordinary volte-face on green policy on the eve of the Cop27 climate summit on Saturday, saying he would attend in order to “galvanise” world leaders to save the planet.
The prime minister – who had been criticised for saying he was too busy with domestic commitments to attend – also adopted precisely the same language on renewable energy that Labour leader Keir Starmer has been using for months, declaring that he now wanted to turn the UK into a “clean energy superpower”.
Sunak’s efforts to present himself as a world leader on the environment and a champion of clean energy brought deep scepticism as political leaders, diplomats and NGOs gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for the latest UN-led attempt to tackle global heating.

ITV News
Rishi Sunak will urge world leaders to move “further and faster” in transitioning away from damaging fossil fuels as he pledges to make the UK a “clean energy superpower”.
The prime minister travels to Egypt on Sunday ahead of the COP27 international climate change summit with a warning that tackling global warming is “fundamental” to future prosperity and security.
In his address on Monday, he will argue the “shock” to the oil and gas markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines the need to move to cheaper, cleaner and safer sources of energy.
He will urge leaders assembled at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh not to “backslide” on commitments, made at last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, intended to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels.

Morning Star
THE world is standing at a crossroad as killer floods, fires and famine destroy people’s lives, according to one of the leaders of the Climate Justice Coalition.
Over 40,000 people from nearly 200 countries are expected to gather from tomorrow in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.
Delegates at the conference, themed “climate implementation,” will come under pressure from NGOs and the global South at the 13-day event to deliver on the promises they have made at previous gatherings.
Asad Rehman, director of War on Want and co-founder of the Climate Justice Coalition, said: “Pakistan, Nigeria, and Kenya are just the latest to face the realities of extreme weather events fuelled by structural inequalities rooted in systems of injustice that since colonialism have been baked into the global economy.

Russia

Mail
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has alarmed Western leaders by referencing the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a conversation with French president Emmanuel Macron, diplomatic sources have said.
According to the sources, Putin expressed the view that the bombings – which triggered the Japanese surrender and the end of the Second World War – demonstrated that ‘you don’t need to attack the major cities in order to win’.
The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively.
The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 15.
The reported remarks come amid growing concern that the Russian leader could be prepared to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, where Russian forces have suffered increasing setbacks in the conflict.

Telegraph
The United States has said it is “increasingly concerned” after it emerged senior Russian military officials discussed when and how to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
US intelligence monitored the conversations, which did not involve Vladimir Putin but caused unease in Washington in the wake of aggressive nuclear rhetoric from the Russian president.
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said there was “no indication” the Russian president had decided to use a nuclear weapon – but warned: “We may not pick up every single indicator.”
He added: “We have grown increasingly concerned about the potential as these months have gone on. It’s increasingly unsettling in terms of the degree to which he feels he has to stretch to prosecute this war.”

Express
Ukraine: Putin threatens UK with extraordinary ‘unpredictable and dangerous’ response
Russia made the threat after accusing the UK of being involved in a key defeat it suffered in the Black Sea.
Vladimir Putin has launched an extraordinary threat against the UK after bizarrely accusing it of being involved in a humiliating Russian defeat in the Black Sea. The UK’s ambassador to Russia was summoned by Moscow to answer for unfounded allegations that Britain was involved in the attack last weekend, which sank four Russian warships.
The British ambassador Deborah Bronnert denied any British involvement in the attack – but Russia responded with a serious warning that the UK could face “unpredictable and dangerous” consequences for their so-called “confrontational actions”.

Star
Vladimir Putin is facing more mutinies against his brutal war in Ukraine.
The latest comes as up to 2,500 mobilised Russian men faced down a “drunk” general in a protest over their training camp conditions and rusty weapons.
The latest rebellion in Kazan highlights how disgruntled draftees are bravely challenging the authorities amid fears they face being sent to the front as cannon fodder.
It follows two more mutinies in Ulyanovsk and annexed Luhansk region signally a breakdown of discipline and morale in Putin’s army.
A new night video shows a crowd of angry enlisted soldiers in Kazan staging a rally before riot police were called.
But it was in posts on social media that they vented their fury over the grim reality of Putin’s call-up and being treated “like pigs”.

Bank Holiday

Express
The UK will enjoy a holiday fit for a King to mark the historic coronation of Charles III next year.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has proclaimed an additional bank holiday for Monday May 8 to mark the event, with the coronation taking place in Westminster Abbey two days earlier. It will allow families across the country to come together and celebrate, as they did when a bank holiday was declared for the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Royalist Rishi chose to give the nation a day off, even though the King had privately made it clear he was not insisting on it.
The Prime Minister said: “The Coronation of a new monarch is a unique moment for our country.
“In recognition of this historic occasion, I am pleased to announce an additional bank holiday for the whole United Kingdom next year.
“I look forward to seeing people come together to celebrate and pay tribute to King Charles III by taking part in local and national events across the country in his honour.”

Mail
Britons will get a special ‘Coronation’ bank holiday next year, Rishi Sunak has revealed.
The Prime Minister yesterday declared there would be an extra UK-wide bank holiday on Monday, May 8, ‘in recognition of this historic occasion’.
King Charles’s Coronation will take place two days beforehand, at Westminster Abbey, on Saturday, May 6.
The move follows a debate among Tory MPs over whether to move the early May 1 bank holiday or create an extra one. But it also comes amid reports the Government was worried an additional day off could cost the economy more than £1 billion.
Mr Sunak said the extra bank holiday – like that of the holiday that marked Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953 – would be an opportunity for families and communities across the country to come together.
‘The coronation of a new monarch is a unique moment for our country,’ he said.
‘In recognition of this historic occasion, I am pleased to announce an additional bank holiday for the whole United Kingdom next year.

Guardian
The government has announced an additional bank holiday to mark the coronation of King Charles III next year.
Downing Street said the UK-wide holiday will fall on Monday 8 May after the  coronation at Westminster Abbey two days earlier.
Rishi Sunak said the day would be an opportunity for families and communities across the country to come together to celebrate.
The announcement follows calls from Tory MPs for the government to either move the early May bank holiday from 1 May to coincide with the coronation weekend or to declare an extra day off.

Telegraph
Britain will receive an extra bank holiday for King Charles III’s coronation after concerns about the effect on the economy were put aside by Downing Street.
Rishi Sunak has designated Monday May 8 as an official day of rest – two days after the coronation and just a week after the May Day bank holiday at the start of the month.
It is understood that the decision to hold a bank holiday was taken by Downing Street, not by Buckingham Palace, and sources in the Palace declined to comment on the news last night

Print Friendly, PDF & Email