The UK is not usually thought of as the kind of country that’s prone to a coup d’état. Yet in the UK too, power can change hands without a general election. Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Theresa May, Liz Truss – in each case, internal party dynamics determined who occupied 10 Downing Street.

In the current situation, all eyes are on the former mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. It’s widely expected that Burnham will become prime minister through an internal Labour party manoeuvre rather than a general election. But this would reinforce the same uncomfortable point. The UK accepts major political transitions without the electorate ever casting a vote. Once again, the public may simply be expected to accommodate the outcome.

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Why is the UK now changing prime minister every few years?

Keir Starmer won a landslide in the 2024 general election. But dissatisfaction within the party and across the country soon led to grumblings, cabinet resignations and a collapse in the PM’s public approval. In such a trigger-happy system, any political misstep (or series of missteps) becomes potentially fatal.

Normalising hierarchy

So why do voters accept pressure from within a PM’s own party as legitimate grounds for removal? The answer may lie in psychology, namely the human tendency to justify existing systems, defer to authority and treat hierarchy as normal. Understanding that process is the first step towards challenging it.

“Social dominance orientation” describes a preference for social hierarchy, in which some groups are seen as more deserving of power than others. People higher in this tendency are more comfortable with unequal relations and more likely to support policies, institutions or leaders that preserve hierarchy rather than reduce it. In social psychology, this matters because hierarchy survives when many people come to see it as normal.

One reason for this is that hierarchical settings themselves can make inequality feel natural. Military organisations, policing, workplaces that are structured around hierarchies and elite educational systems all expose people to repeated signals that some voices matter more than others. Over time, this can make hierarchy seem less like a political choice and more like common sense.

That helps explain why internal party decision-making can sometimes be accepted by the wider electorate. When groups such as the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs (which sets out the rules for Tory leadership contests) or a party’s national executive use internal rules to shape leadership outcomes, their language and formality can create an air of authority. This may make many voters more inclined to accept it.

But this raises a deeper democratic question: if people simply absorb the outcome of these elite processes, how representative is that democracy really? One way of thinking about this is through voter apathy and disengagement, which can leave surrogate decision-making unchallenged.

There are ways to push back against this. Meaningful interactions between people from differing social groups (known in psychology terms as “high-quality inter-group contact”) can reduce support for hierarchies. This is especially true when it takes the form of genuine one-to-one contact, rather than just symbolic interaction.

And so can “cultural humility”: the willingness to recognise that we do not fully know other people’s experiences and should approach difference with respect, curiosity and awareness of inequality. These are practical ways of loosening the hold of hierarchy on politics.

Internalised classism adds another layer. This is the process by which people absorb negative beliefs about their own social group and begin to see themselves, or those like them, as less entitled to lead. That can make the acceptance of unelected elites easier, especially when those elites come from the upper classes. The privileged upbringing of Eton-educated Johnson, for example, did not prevent him from appealing to some working-class voters to win a general election in 2019 and lead the UK through Brexit.

Of course, the easiest way to alleviate internalised classism is for the governing party to change its rules to ensure that any new prime minister must be elected via a public vote, rather than leadership challenge. However, this small change would have a seismic effect and is unlikely to happen.

Ultimately, the strongest defence against unelected leaders is democratic accountability. That means questioning backroom power, reducing political apathy and encouraging citizens to care about who governs them and how. If democracies fail in this, they risk normalising elite rule and weakening the foundations of democratic life.

You know that feeling when you walk into a room and immediately forget why you came in? Maybe you were there to fetch your keys. On your way to the room, you were thinking about grabbing your keys. But once you arrive, your keys have completely disappeared from your mind.

This is sometimes known as the doorway effect, since it often strikes when you walk into a new room. Why does it happen? The answer has a lot to do with a faculty called working memory. Information gets stored in working memory when we need it for the tasks that we are engaged in right now (like remembering to grab your keys).

What makes working memory so intriguing is its close link to consciousness. The doorway effect suggests that when information is removed from working memory, it immediately seems to leave consciousness. It also suggests that it is easy for information in working memory to be forgotten.

The link between working memory and consciousness is getting increasing attention in psychology, philosophy and neuroscience. Could working memory somehow give rise to consciousness? In my new book, I explore the complex relationship between the two.

Working memory: both rich and poor

To understand the doorway effect, we’ll need to know a bit about working memory. One thing that makes working memory so special is that it’s so rich, both in terms of the information it has access to, and its processing power. According to recent models of working memory, it can draw information from sensory channels (vision, touch, smell etc), as well as from other memory systems such as long-term memory and also the brain’s system for processing language. In other words, working memory is where a lot of the information in your brain comes together.

Once working memory has that information, there’s a lot it can do with it. Inside working memory are a host of different smaller systems for specific tasks, including visual and spatial reasoning (like solving a Rubik’s cube) and storing chunks of information (like a phone number). There’s even a “central executive” system (my favourite). The executive is like a merciless boss, assigning tasks to the different systems within working memory and keeping everything under control.

In other ways, what makes working memory so special is that it’s simultaneously very poor. Despite the riches of information available to it, working memory can only actually store a tiny amount of information at any one time.

In one classic experiment reported in 1997 people were asked to view a screen with several coloured shapes on it, which they were told to remember. The shapes then disappeared for about a second, and a new set of coloured shapes appeared. One of the new shapes might have changed colour. Participants were asked to spot whether there had been any changes between the two sets of shapes. This is called “change-detection”.

People were almost perfect at this when there were only 1-3 shapes involved in each set, but got steadily worse as the number of shapes was increased from 4-12. The experimenters argued that this is because it gets harder to store information as the number of shapes increases. This is because the capacity of working memory isn’t big enough to store lots of shapes. The experimenters concluded that the capacity of working memory is only about four “slots”. Once those slots are taken, working memory is full up: there’s simply no more room for any new information.

The idea that working memory has “slots” is closely related to something called “chunking”. Here are two strings of letters (nine in each). Try to memorise them both:

BBC FBI WWF

ZQK EWP WLJ

I bet you find the first string of letters easier to memorise. This is because they’re familiar, and so naturally your brain sorts them into three chunks. They can then be stored as three different chunks in working memory. For this reason, the first set only takes up three slots in working memory. The second string of letters is unfamiliar, and so requires us to store all nine letters as individual chunks. This is difficult because working memory quickly runs out of slots.

But like many features of working memory, its capacity is a hotly debated issue. A growing number of scientists have rejected the idea that it has “slots”, arguing instead that its capacity is more of a flexible resource that can be differently distributed across different pieces of information. According to this view, working memory’s capacity – far from being four rigid slots – might be more like a tank of water to be used in watering your garden: you can give a little bit of water to lots of different areas, or lots of water to just one or two areas.

In the same way, working memory might be able to store a little bit of information about lots of objects, or very detailed information about just one or two of them.

One study from 2004 supports this flexible resource view over the slots view. This experiment also used change-detection with shapes.

Crucially, the experimenters tried this with different kinds of shapes. Sometimes they used only very simple shapes, sometimes very complicated ones. They found that people seem able to store information about more of the simpler shapes in working memory. They were much worse at storing information about the complicated shapes. In fact, the experimenters suggest that the capacity of working memory for a very complicated object (like a cube with many different coloured sides) might only be between 1 and 2.

This seems to show that the capacity of working memory is “soaked up” much more when it tries to remember very complicated objects. This suggests that working memory doesn’t have a fixed number of slots, but that its capacity depends on how complicated the information you’re trying to store is.

To me, there’s something romantic about how rich working memory is in terms of how much information is available to it, and how poor it is in terms of its small capacity. It’s like it can always see the vast riches available to it, but can only ever sample a tiny portion at a time.

The low capacity of working memory can help us understand why the information it stores is so easily forgotten, like in the doorway effect. There’s not much room in working memory, so when new information comes in, old information needs to go.

As I mentioned at the beginning, research suggests that the very action of walking through a doorway might trigger forgetting. One experiment showed that people find it harder to remember things when they walk through a doorway, compared to people who walk the same distance but don’t cross a threshold. When we enter a new room, its like the brain flushes away the old facts from working memory, to get ready for the fresh information that we might need in our new setting.

From an evolutionary perspective, the doorway effect makes sense: forgetting old information is important in helping us to stay open and alert to novel information in the new environment.

Thinking about the capacity of working memory can help shed light on why it’s so easy to forget things, even when we were just this second thinking about them. But there’s an even more tantalising possibility here. When we forget things like our keys, they seem to drop away from our consciousness entirely. This raises the suggestion that working memory and consciousness might go hand in hand.

Working memory and consciousness

Consciousness is perhaps the biggest mystery facing both science and philosophy today. By “consciousness”, I mean the subjective experiences that we have of the world. Consciousness includes the visual image of a beautiful sunset, or the taste of chocolate, as well as emotions like love and anger.

Many philosophers and scientists have thought that working memory can help us understand consciousness..

The close link between consciousness and working memory is clear from some of the major theories of consciousness in psychology and neuroscience today. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the global neuronal workspace theory, which suggests that consciousness arises as a result of information being “broadcast” in a “global workspace” in the brain. This workspace is like a central information store, which can process information and distribute it globally to many different systems in the brain.

Does that sound like working memory to you? If it does, that’s no coincidence: the global workspace and working memory are similar notions. Their similarity can even be seen in the brain. There are still lots of open questions about where working memory is located in the brain but one important area is the prefrontal cortex. This is at the front of your brain, just above your eyes and behind your forehead. The same area also seems to be important for the sort of global broadcasting that global workspace theorists think is responsible for consciousness.

Scientists friendly to the global neuronal workspace theory have suggested that when we pay attention to information that is stored in working memory, that information gets boosted in volume and is broadcast across the brain – and that is what makes it conscious. According to this view, consciousness arises when working memory and attention work together.

The idea that attention and working memory might both be important for consciousness seems to fit with our own experience. When you’re trying to remember a phone number in your head, your attention stays on the phone number and you’re conscious of it. If someone distracts you by asking you a question, your attention is pulled away from the phone number and it immediately gets deleted from your consciousness. According to this picture, no attention = no consciousness.

The importance of both working memory and attention also fits with experimental data. One of my favourite experiments studied people walking across a courtyard on a spring afternoon. It was found that 75% of people who were on their mobile phones completely failed to spot a purple and yellow clown unicycling around the courtyard. This is even though the clown could have crossed their path, potentially causing a dangerous collision. They were on their phones, their attention was elsewhere, so the clown didn’t get into their consciousness. Again, this suggests that no attention = no consciousness.

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I have a lifelong fear of clowns. The idea that there might be a clown nearby that I just haven’t spotted fills me with dread. (I mean come on, they’re clearly terrifying).

But like everything to do with consciousness, the link between consciousness and working memory is controversial. Some think that there’s just too much consciousness to fit into working memory. Others say that some bits of working memory aren’t conscious at all. Let’s have a look at these arguments.

Is working memory too small for consciousness?

We’ve seen that working memory has a small capacity. This raises an obvious question: if working memory is responsible for consciousness, doesn’t that mean that consciousness must have a small capacity as well?

This can be a difficult idea to swallow. Imagine you’re looking out at a countryside scene. You see rolling hills, the vibrant sunshine and a herd of cows. You hear the birds, smell the fresh cut grass and feel the wind on your skin. Surely you are conscious of this whole scene all at once. But we know that working memory has a capacity that is far too tiny to fit all of this information in at one time. If consciousness arises from working memory, then how can I be conscious of all this stuff at once?

Indeed, some philosophers and scientists have argued in just this way, saying that consciousness overflows the capacity of working memory. If this is true, it would be a problem for those who think that consciousness arises from working memory.

In response to this problem, supporters of the link between working memory and consciousness have argued that consciousness isn’t as big as you might think. With the countryside scene, you might think that you’re conscious of all those sights, sounds and smells together. However, according to this view, really you’re only ever conscious of a few scraps at any one time. The reason it feels like you’re conscious of more is because, whenever you pay attention to something, that attention boosts the information into consciousness.

This is known as the refrigerator light illusion. Imagine someone who thought the light in their fridge was always turned on, because whenever they open the door to check, the light is on. Obviously, the problem is that the very act of opening the door causes the light to come on.

In the same way, the very act of checking to see if you’re conscious of birdsong causes you to direct attention to it, which brings the birdsong to consciousness. According to this view, we are only ever conscious of a few little bits at a time, but the ease with which attention can make things conscious fosters the illusion that we’re conscious of a lot more.

As if it weren’t bad enough that doorways make us forget, or that phones make us ignore unicycling clowns, now we have to deal with our fridges hoodwinking us about our own consciousness.

Working memory without consciousness?

Another area where consciousness and working memory might come apart concerns unconscious information. We know that lots of processing in our brains occurs unconsciously. When it comes to information in the brain, we only get to be conscious of the very tip of a large iceberg. Some psychologists have suggested that some of the information in working memory is completely unconscious. If this is true, this would mark an important difference between consciousness and working memory (since by definition, unconsciousness can’t be part of consciousness).

One key experiment from 2011 involves showing participants an image of a rippled patch, tilted at a specific angle. In the psychology world, this is called a Gabor patch. This patch was only shown to the participants for the tiniest flash of time. It’s there on the screen for only 16.67 milliseconds, about 17 thousandths of a second. This is about as long as a bee takes to flap its wings three times.

Flashing the patch on the screen so briefly prevents the patch from being consciously seen. Because of the brevity with which the patch appears, information about the patch enters the participants’ eyes, and participants see the patch but are not consciously aware of it. They see it, but unconsciously.

Still, we know that information about things we’re not conscious of must be processed at quite a high level in the brain. After the first patch disappeared, they were shown another different patch. This one was shown for longer, so it could be seen consciously. Participants were asked to indicate (by clicking a button) whether this second patch was tilted to the left or the right of the first patch that they had not consciously seen. Amazingly, they were able to do this at a level above chance. Even though the first patch was unconscious, people could still use information about it to make comparison judgements.

This is crucial for working memory and consciousness. The experimenters claimed that information about the briefly flashed patch must be stored in working memory, even though participants were completely unaware of it. From this, the experimenters concluded that some information in working memory is not conscious. If so, the link between consciousness and working memory is weaker than we might hope.

My idea: not all-or-nothing thing

When it comes to the experiment just discussed, I want to close with some of the ideas that I’ve been exploring in my book. I think that working memory might not be an all-or-nothing thing, that information might not have to be either “in” or “out” of working memory.

Sometimes, we can slip into the trap of thinking that everything in the human mind must be either one thing or another. This mindset is very natural, but in my book I argue that it must be rejected.

I suggest that there could be some information that is not “in” or “out” of working memory, but somewhere in between. I argue that working memory comes on a spectrum. Some information is definitely in working memory, and some is definitely not. But in between (I argue) is a large grey area where there is some information in our minds that falls in between being fully stored in working memory and not being stored.

This is certainly an unusual suggestion. But I argue that thinking about working memory as a spectrum sheds new light on the experiments I talked about above. Remember the patch that was flashed up in three beats of a bee’s wing – so fast you couldn’t consciously see it and preventing it from being fully encoded in working memory? I argue that this information sits in the grey area between being fully in and fully out of working memory.

This raises an interesting possibility with respect to consciousness. If we think that working memory is closely linked to consciousness, an obvious question is whether there can be a grey area between something being conscious and not being conscious. Indeed, some philosophers have suggested that there might be such a grey area.

At first sight, the experiments I’ve talked about might look a bit strange and obscure. When I tell people about these experiments at parties, they sometimes ask me how I can spend so much time thinking about doorways, unicycling clowns, or how we remember random shapes. I get visibly excited talking to people about all this, and I can almost see them making a mental note not to invite me back.

But these experiments are exciting. To see this, we need to step away from the technical details of these experiments and take a broader view. These experiments and others continue to unearth the mechanics of working memory. There is still much more to find out, such as where and how it is brought about in the brain, and the ways in which injury to the brain can impact on working memory. As these mysteries are slowly explained, perhaps we will be in a better place to tackle the arguably biggest conundrum in science: consciousness itself.

Within the current rules ministers have the option to use emergency powers to remove control from the health board as a last resort.

The health minister has not gone that far today.

In fact, his statement explicitly states that the existing board members and executive team “must take ownership of the long-standing issues”.

Today’s move “strengthens expectations” of the health board bosses he said, rather than absolving them of responsibility.

NHS Wales Performance and Improvement has been asked to support the health board with reducing long waits for cancer treatment, tackling ambulance handover delays and two-year waits for planned care.

A team will also be set up to make improvements in urgent and emergency care.

We have previously seen resignations and replacements within the leadership of the health board, however the minister will also be aware that wholesale changes at the top risk further delay and confusion.

But he will also be keen to show action on an issue that has plagued successive governments and caused long-term concern for patients, even if a tangible difference is unlikely to be felt by staff or patients for some time.

He said there were still plans to review the effectiveness of the current escalation and intervention framework for health boards, which have “clearly shown to be wanting by the chronic issues at Betsi”.

In a statement, Edwards said: “We welcome the opportunity to work collaboratively with the Welsh government and NHS Performance and Improvement to ensure we continue making improvements for the people of North Wales.”

He added the board remained “committed to delivering safe, high-quality care” and would use independent expertise to help “strengthen” the organisation.

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump has tried many ways to tighten his grip on U.S. elections, from signing executive orders to pushing restrictive legislation in Congress. Monday’s Supreme Court ruling siding with states that accept late-arriving mail ballots was the latest example showing the limits of his reach.

It followed back-to-back rulings last week that barred his two sweeping executive orders seeking to change national election rules, more court rulings preventing his Department of Justice from obtaining detailed state voter data and his stalled attempts to get the Senate to pass the SAVE Act. That measure would eliminate nearly all absentee voting, require citizenship documents to register to vote and impose photo identification requirements nationwide right before the midterm elections.

“It’s been a mixed bag for Republicans,” said University of Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller. But the president, he added, “has come up mostly empty-handed.”

Trump’s efforts have not been entirely fruitless. Republican-run states have satisfied his demands to redraw congressional district lines, efforts buoyed by the Supreme Court striking down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, and he has been directing his Department of Justice to investigate voting and election operations, which Democrats see as a possible prelude to their involvement in November.

All the activity around how the nation votes and runs its elections is a reflection of the Republican president’s long fixation on his false claim that his 2020 election defeat was rigged. He has been so frustrated by the inability of the Senate to pass the SAVE Act that he has refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill.

He weighed in again Monday after the Supreme Court’s decision in the mail ballot deadline case, saying on his social media account that he is trying to “save America from crooked elections.” Voting rights groups and Democrats see him abusing power and attempting to suppress legal voters to gain an advantage in the midterms, when control of Congress is at stake.

Regardless, Muller said Trump faces legal and political realities: The Constitution gives the states and Congress authority over elections while providing no such role for the president.

“That’s how federalism works,” Muller said.

Here’s a look at Trump’s efforts to reshape election rules and what options he might have left for the November midterms.

Focus on noncitizens and voter data has met roadblocks

The president has repeatedly said U.S. elections are riddled with fraud in part because of noncitizen voting. Research shows the problem to be rare, accounting for a minuscule percentage of fraud cases. Convictions are measured in the hundreds over periods in which tens of millions of ballots are cast.

Trump’s view resulted in a multiagency push to nationalize voter data and use federal resources to help states remove voters from the rolls. The Department of Justice has sought detailed voter files from multiple states, data that would include dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers. Democratic and some Republican secretaries of state balked, and federal lawsuits followed. The administration has lost every case so far.

Homeland Security citizenship check rejected in court

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, with help from the DOGE effort led by Elon Musk, revamped a government tool called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements). The program has been a key pillar of his efforts to cull potentially ineligible voters from state rolls.

Last week, a federal judge blocked its use as a mass citizenship check.

The administration, according to its own news releases, had allowed local election administrators to search users by the thousands, using a wider range of metrics rather than DHS-issued identification numbers. At least 67 million registrations, primarily in Republican-controlled states, were analyzed. Tens of thousands were flagged as potential noncitizens or people who have died, but some voters were wrongly identified as ineligible.

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ruled that Trump’s changes aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from the rolls.

“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan said in her order.

Executive orders used in place of legislation

As presidents before him, Trump signed executive orders when Congress would not enact his policy preferences.

Trump’s first order reflected his emphasis on noncitizens. Like the SAVE Act pending on Capitol Hill, it sought to require would-be voters to document their citizenship to be able to register to vote.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper put a temporary block on the order last year as she considered the case and last week made her decision permanent. The Constitution, Casper wrote, “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.”

Trump issued a second order in March, as the SAVE Act’s rough path in Congress became obvious. He called for a national voter list using data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration. Further, the order would have empowered the U.S. Postal Service to determine who gets an absentee ballot and threatened local elections officials with prosecution.

Absentee voting is a staple of U.S. elections, but Trump describes the practice, incorrectly, as allowing fraud — even as he has used it himself. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast.

Democratic secretaries of state sued, and U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani made the same legal assessment as Casper. The provisions, she wrote last week, “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”

The White House has indicated it will appeal.

Even Trump says the SAVE Act has long odds

Trump on Monday called the Senate logjam “crazy” and one of the holdouts, Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, “Trump-deranged.”

It’s the latest legislative tussle that prompted Trump to demand Republicans scrap the filibuster, which requires most major legislation to get support from 60 of the 100 senators. But that likely wouldn’t matter in this case, with four of the Senate’s 53 Republicans declaring their opposition to the bill itself: Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

The president acknowledged Monday that the SAVE Act is “probably not going to happen.”

Trump still has options for the November elections

Both major parties have national operations to monitor elections, including legal teams ready to file challenges.

Despite the Republican National Committee losing the mail ballot case, Chairman Joe Gruters on Monday alluded to those efforts: “We are not going to be deterred by this decision, and the RNC will keep fighting to have elections end on Election Day,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump has been developing a possible roadmap for more aggressive actions.

His U.S. attorney in Los Angeles said in June that he had opened multiple election fraud investigations, and he sent a prosecutor to the county’s vote-tabulation center after California’s June primary. Six months earlier, FBI agents executed a warrant and seized ballots and other records from the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County, which includes Atlanta.

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Muller, the law professor, said local elections officials “already are having conversations about chain of custody disputes” for ballots as they are cast, collected, counted and stored.

He and UCLA law professor Rick Hasen noted that judicial warrants are required for the kinds of actions that happened in Fulton County. Muller predicted “the bar would be even higher” for any warrant the administration requests during a live election.

Hasen added that he’s working to educate judges around the country on the importance of chain of custody for ballots.

“Republicans believe him when he says the election is rigged. And then when Republicans try to change voting rules to tighten things up, that causes Democrats to also think that the election system is being rigged,” Hasen said. “So, if what he’s trying to achieve is undermine voters’ confidence in the election process, he seems to have succeeded spectacularly.”

___

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

A woman who suffered spinal fractures after a child crashed into her on a Lime bike has called on the mayor of London to clamp down on the ‘Wild West’ E-bike industry.

Jane Ouartsi was walking through a pedestrianised square in central London in August 2023 when she was hit by a young boy, understood to be around ten years old.

She was left like ‘a broken china doll’, with a fractured collarbone, two spinal fractures and a broken femur.

Since then, Ms Ouartsi has spent 36 days in hospital, had three operations and been forced to learn to walk again.

Police took statements from witnesses at the time but pursued no further action. Ms Ouartsi said no compensation has been offered by Lime, which has around 40,000 bikes in London.

‘If an elderly person had got my injuries, they wouldn’t have survived,’ she said. ‘I heard my spine and my body split… I was just a broken china doll.’

Recalling the incident, she told BBC London: ‘We’d had a lovely lunch and seen a light exhibition and next minute, [there was] the impact. I thought, “Oh my God what’s gone into me?”

After the crash, she was ‘terrified’ of going on the pavement. ‘I still am,’ she added. ‘It’s like the Wild West with the Lime bikes. They’re still zooming… how are under-age kids getting them?’

Since then, she has spent 36 days in hospital, had three operations and been forced to learn to walk again

Ms Ouartsi has called for the mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan to clamp down on dockless E-bikes using the English Devolution Bill, which recently received royal assent.

This could create a tighter set of parking and licensing rules across the capital to replace the different regulations that exist across individual boroughs.

Sir Sadiq previously said the sector was ‘like the Wild West’ and that ‘we desperately need regulation’. The Bill, he added, shows that ‘lobbying [the Government] has paid off’.

Ms Ouartsi’s partner Dave Mathias said new legislation could not come quickly enough.

‘If you ride any other motorised vehicle, you have to have a licence and cannot ride them on the pavement. It should be no different for Lime bikes,’ he said.

‘[The rider] was going as fast as they can go. I turned round and Jane was falling to the ground in slow motion. It was a real shock. She was screaming.

‘I know they have the technology to slow down these Lime bikes in certain areas so why not do that so this doesn’t happen?’

Riders pay to use the bikes by the minute, and Lime says it provides users with free third-party liability insurance, though Ms Ouartsi has not received any compensation

Lime is one of a number of dockless hire E-bike operators, which pay councils to operate in their borough.

Riders pay to use the bikes by the minute, and Lime says it provides users with free third-party liability insurance, though Ms Ouartsi has not received any compensation.

A spokesman for the company said: ‘Our thoughts are with Jane and her family, and we are sorry for the distress this incident has caused. We take incidents like this extremely seriously. This situation has been carefully reviewed and handled in line with our policies.

‘Safety informs everything we do at Lime — from how we design and maintain our vehicles, to our rider education, and how we work with cities.’

The rise of E-bikes has been controversial, with concerns over inconsiderate parking and dangerous riding.

Last year, it was reported that trauma surgeons had even coined the term ‘Lime bike leg’ as they were seeing so many severe lower-leg injuries in patients who were crushed under the weight of heavy electric bikes that had tipped over.

Ms Ouartsi is not the first victim to have gained attention. 

Sandy Peters – a single mother in her 50s – was walking to her son’s 21st birthday celebrations in Carshalton, Sutton, when a teenager riding a Forest bike smashed into her last October.

She was sent flying into a brick wall – suffering a broken nose, upper jaw, cheek bones, and a misaligned lower jaw.

There was so much blood gushing from her nose and mouth her son feared she would die.

The court heard how he grabbed a recently boiled kettle and poured the scalding water over the officer

A 58-year-old Birmingham man has been sentenced to more than 14 years in prison after launching a violent assault on two police officers, which included throwing boiling water over one of them.

John Davies, of Talbot Street, Winson Green, was jailed for 14 years and six months at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday (26 June). Due to the severity of the offence, the judge also imposed an extended license period of four years.

According to West Midlands Police, the incident unfolded after officers responded to reports of a disturbance in the garden of Davies’ home, where they discovered him cornering another man against a fence.

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After an officer separated the pair, Davies retreated inside his house. The second man then alerted police that Davies was armed with a knife.

According to police accounts, when confronted by officers about the weapon, Davies denied having it. He then suddenly threw the contents of a hot drink into the face of the man he had been arguing with.

As officers moved in to make an arrest, a violent struggle ensued. Davies punched one officer in the face before grabbing a recently boiled kettle and pouring the scalding water over a female officer.

The officer sustained severe blistering across her shoulders, back, and neck.

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Davies was eventually restrained and arrested by responding backup units. He later pleaded guilty to maliciously wounding the scalded officer with intent to resist arrest, assaulting the officer he punched, and assaulting the civilian involved in the initial dispute.

Detectives noted the extreme nature of the encounter, which required multiple officers to bring Davies into custody.

“This was a horrendous attack on two officers going about their duties,” said Detective Constable Manpreet Sidhu, from the Bournville neighborhood crime team. “One of the officers involved suffered significant injuries and has only recently been able to return to work following this assault.

“No one should have to face this level of violence simply for doing their job.”

While officials acknowledged the attack will leave a lasting impact on the individuals involved, West Midlands Police confirmed that both officers have since returned to active duty.

Sara Cox revealed she got revenge on her biggest childhood bully when she called into Radio 1 to ask for a shoutout. 

Apparently unaware of the misery she had put upon Sara growing up, she was shocked to have received the request. 

She told the Sunday Times: ‘I was outraged that she thought she could do that like we were friends. Couldn’t she remember? 

‘That horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach, that cortisol bubbling around as you walk up the corridor wondering if you’re going to get tripped up or elbowed. 

‘The whispering in class. I was, like, “Sure, I’ll give you a shoutout.” And she did. It began with, “You were a big bully.”‘

Sara spent her early years living on a farm near Bolton. 

But when she was aged six, her parents divorced and she moved into a flat above a pub in Bolton.

She said: ‘I was outraged that she thought she could do that like we were friends. Couldn’t she remember? That horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach… wondering if you’re going to get tripped up or elbowed’  (pictured in 1997) 

Sara says she was bullied each time she moved schools because of her ‘height and her knobbly knees’ and found solace in reading Shakespeare. 

During the interview, Sara was asked if she had used humour as a form of defence but she said that’s not the case. 

She noted that bullying ‘didn’t change the course of her life’, rather ‘it just made school unpleasant.’

Elsewhere, Sara has announced her first Radio 2 Breakfast Show will launch on Monday July 6 as she replaces Scott Mills.

It was announced in April that the presenter would take over the Breakfast Show this summer, after Scott was sacked after it was discovered he had been the subject of allegations of ‘serious sexual offences’ against a teenage boy under 16. 

And on Monday morning Sara appeared on Vernon Kay‘s Radio 2 show to share the news as she took on fellow presenter Jeremy Vine in the programme’s popular quiz, Ten to the Top.

Sara also revealed that her first guest will be none other than Hollywood star Tom Hanks, who will be joining her to talk about his new film Toy Story 5.

Speaking to Vernon, Sara said: ‘OK, my big news is…god, I’ve gone all hot and excited. My big news is that…there’s been quite a lot of mystery about when the brand new Sara Cox Breakfast Show begins on BBC Radio 2. 

Elsewhere, Sara has announced her Radio 2 Breakfast Show will launch on Monday July 6

‘I’ve been quite mysterious and going, “it’s in the summer” and waggling my eyebrows mysteriously. 

‘But I can now announce, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and everyone in between, please do join me for my very first Breakfast Show on Radio 2 on 6th of July. Three weeks today! Very very excited. It is 6.30am. The date is the 6th of July.’

Jeremy asked Sara: ‘How many alarm clocks are you going to use?’

Laughing, Sara replied: ’42. And it’s the first-ever Sara Cox Breakfast Show. I can’t wait – it’s so exciting.’

Jeremy said: ‘We can’t wait. We’re so proud of you.’

Fellow Bolton-born presenter Vernon shared his delight, saying: ‘Amazing!’

Sara said: ‘And, you know, I mentioned the Toy Story news as well. I mean, I don’t know where we go from here because I think we’ve started almost too big. My very first guest on the Sara Cox Breakfast Show will be…Mr. Tom Hanks.’

Vernon said: ‘Awh legend. The nicest man in showbusiness.’

A pleased Sara said: ‘Woody at Breakfast. Yes, cannot wait!’

Excited for her breakfast debut, Sara told fans: ‘Roll on the 6th July! For generations to come people will (probably) say ‘”where were YOU when the Sara Cox Breakfast Show was launched on Radio 2 featuring the legendary Tom Hanks?” and hopefully they’ll reply ‘listening and laughing along with a nice brew’.

Three Americans have died in the Venezuela earthquakes and 12 remain missing, the State Department has said, as rescue teams continued to search for survivors in the rubble on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the State Department said officials were in contact with the family of three Americans killed when twin earthquakes devastated the country last Wednesday. Their identities have not been revealed.

The official death toll has surpassed 1,700 people, according to the government, which maintains tight control over news media.

Rescue teams from Ecuador ⁠and the US halted operations early on Tuesday in Macuto, a town in La Guaira state — the area hardest hit by the 24 June earthquakes — after more than 40 hours of work, when they stopped receiving responses from a mother and ⁠her three children trapped beneath a ​nine-storey building.

“In ⁠the end, we believe the days have already passed and that what we will find now is death,” said Major ⁠Jorge Montanero, leader of the EQ11 team from Guayaquil, located on Ecuador’s Pacific ​coast.

“Unfortunately, ⁠things haven’t developed favourably,” he ‌said as he stood amid rubble after cutting through four concrete slabs of the building in an effort to locate the four trapped victims.

Some 59,000 ‌buildings were damaged or destroyed by the ‌twin earthquakes — which hit just seconds apart with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 on June 24 — according to NASA estimates. The widespread devastation can be seen from space.

A State ‌Department task force has fielded more than 300 inquiries from Americans seeking advice. ​A second official said they estimate there are approximately 5,000 US citizens in Venezuela.

Not all collapsed ⁠buildings have had professional rescue teams on site, with relatives and neighbours working to remove debris to pull out survivors or bodies, according to survivors and residents from various areas.

“There is no doubt we are facing a figure higher than what has already been reported. I can offer an estimate: we are procuring — and this has been agreed with local authorities — 10,000 ‌body bags,” Gianluca Rampolla, the United Nations’ resident coordinator in ​Venezuela, said on Monday from his office in Venezuela’s capital, ‌Caracas.

The government of acting President Delcy ⁠Rodriguez says at least 1,750 people have died and thousands ⁠have been injured as a result of the earthquakes. About 16,000 people were left homeless.

A website ‌promoted by the country’s ​political opposition puts the number of ‌people still missing at around 43,000.

Limescale is a common problem in UK households, but cleaning enthusiast Lynsey has shared a simple trick to remove it from your kettle using just two cheap ingredients that you might already own

Limescale is a familiar problem in most British homes, commonly building up on taps, toilet bowls, showers and kettles. Given their constant exposure to water, these appliances are particularly susceptible, and if you happen to live in a hard water area, the build-up can occur even more rapidly due to the high concentration of dissolved minerals, especially calcium and magnesium.

Left untreated, limescale can eventually cause a host of problems, including reduced water flow, leaks and drips from taps, damage to kettle heating elements, and a knock-on effect on your dishwasher’s performance.

While taps and bathroom fixtures can be tackled with shop-bought chemical cleaners, you can also whip up your own effective cleaning solutions using just two ingredients that work equally as well.

To demonstrate just how powerful these homemade remedies can be, cleaning enthusiast and author Lynsey, who has previously appeared on ITV’s This Morning and Good Morning Britain, has shared her own experience with the two-ingredient solution.

In her video, Lynsey showed her pink kettle, which was covered in white limescale stains on the inside.

“The easiest way to descale your kettle,” she wrote in the on-screen text of the video, before revealing her straightforward cleaning technique.

How to descale a kettle

In the clip, Lynsey was filmed filling her kettle to the quarter mark with a mixture of white vinegar and water. The general recommendation is one part white vinegar to three parts water. She then left the solution to sit for about 30 minutes.

Should the spout of your kettle be particularly plagued by limescale, she also suggests soaking a piece of kitchen roll in white vinegar and wrapping it around the spout while the vinegar does its job.

“After 30 minutes, boil the kettle, empty it, then rinse thoroughly with fresh water,” she explained in the caption of her post. “Your kettle will be sparkling clean and ready for a well-earned cuppa!”.

Lynsey then revealed an impressive before-and-after shot of the kettle, with the unsightly white patches of limescale that had previously coated the inside nowhere to be found.

How does vinegar help remove limescale?

Vinegar is an affordable, natural and highly effective solution for dissolving limescale. As limescale is an alkaline mineral deposit, the mild acid found in white vinegar breaks it down on contact.

This makes the budget-friendly, natural ingredient ideal for reviving taps, showerheads, kettles and toilet bowls without the need for harsh chemicals.

If you find that your limescale build-up is particularly stubborn, warming the vinegar slightly before use can give its cleaning power a welcome boost.

Mollie King and Stuart Broad opted for matching cream suits as they attended day two of the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Club on Tuesday.

The radio presenter, 39, and the former professional cricketer, 40, led the star-studded arrivals before taking their place in the Royal Box on Centre Court.

Mollie looked lovely in her neutral skirt suit, which featured black detailing on the cuffs and collar, styled with a black quilted Chanel bag and shades.

Stuart was sporting pale double breasted-linen jacket with matching trousers, over a white shirt and orange tie with brown suede loafers for the occasion. 

The couple, who have two daughters Annabelle, three, and Liliana, 18 months, are regular attendees at the annual tennis event.

Jameela Jamil, who attended day one on her own, was today joined by her long-term partner James Blake for another day of tennis action.

The radio presenter, 39, and the former professional cricketer, 40, led the star-studded arrivals before taking their place in the Royal Box on Centre Court

Jameela Jamil, who attended day one on her own, was today joined by her long-term partner James Blake for another day of tennis action

Another returning guest of the club was Katherine Jenkins, who was spotted on Monday in the Royal Box, attending again with her husband Andrew Levitas

The actress cut a stylish figure in a tan and navy polka dot dress, which she accessorised with a pair of cream stilettos and a leather bag.

Another returning guest of the club was Katherine Jenkins, who was spotted on Monday in the Royal Box, attending again with her husband Andrew Levitas.

Katherine wore a white summer dress with gold buttons and strappy raffia wedges with a matching bag. 

Other notable names who were invited to sit in the prestigious box were actresses Celia Imrie and Fiona Shaw.

The veterans of TV and film were spotted catching up, joined by Fiona’s wife Sonali Deraniyagala.

Other guests included TV host and author Richard Osman and his actress wife Ingrid Oliver, who looked chic in a cream and navy pinstripe suit.

Day two is underway at the All England Club, with many first-round matches still taking place after the prestigious competition began yesterday.

The actress cut a stylish figure in a tan and navy polka dot dress, which she accessorised with a pair of cream stilettos and a leather bag

Katherine wore a white summer dress with gold buttons and strappy raffia wedges with a matching bag

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Emma and Katherine posed in their matching white looks

Other notable names who were invited to sit in the prestigious box were actresses Celia Imrie and Fiona Shaw (pictured)

The veterans of TV and film were spotted catching up, joined by Fiona’s wife Sonali Deraniyagala

Celia looked lovely in a printed shirt dress and shades

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Centre Court features defending women’s champion Iga Swiatek against Taylor Townsend, followed by Alexander Zverev.

The headline event of the day is the singles return of Serena Williams, who is playing her first Grand Slam singles match in four years against Maya Joint.

British interest centres on Katie Boulter and Jacob Fearnley after a difficult opening day for the home players.

Stuart and Molly took their place in the box

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Fiona appeared to be very amused by something

Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath, looked stunning in a sleeveless tweed jacket

Lady Amelia Spencer and Lady Eliza Spencer coordinated their looks, posing in their chic coords and cream accessories combos 

Lady Eliza was also spotted arriving with Misse Beqiri, who looked gorgeous in a yellow tweed mini dress and kitten heels 

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Jameela caught up with Richard Gadd while at the match with her boyfriend James Blake

Richard sat alongside Taron Egerton, Christine Egerton and Noah Jupe (L-R) 

Noah looked trendy in utility-inspired shades 

He kept things cool as he reclined in his chair

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Taron threw himself into the action as he jeered courtside

Nicky Hilton Rothschild was summery in a blue and white striped dress for her arrival at SW19 

Range Rover celebrated The Championships at Wimbledon with an exclusive event featuring a host of actors and creatives in partnership with Esquire and Noah was pictured there 

James and Jameela also popped inside the Range Rover event for a photo opp

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Jameela looked stunning in her polka dot dress and heels 

Taron Egerton was suited and booted for the occasion

Paapa Essiedu kept things casual in cargo pants and a denim bomber 

Other Wimbledon guests included TV host and author Richard Osman and his actress wife Ingrid Oliver, who looked chic in a cream and navy pinstripe suit

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Greg James looked smart in a navy jacket with camel trousers

Richard, who was sporting a pale plue suit, waved to fans as he passed by

Chris Robshaw and Camilla Kerslake were also seen arriving at the club

It wouldn’t be Wimbledon without an appearance from devout attendee Cliff Richard

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Sir Cliff, 85, was in great spirits as he arrived arm in arm with a frriend and looking dapper in a blue printed blazer and striped tie

A smiling Dermot O’Leary dressed up in a suit and tie as he posed at the entrance

Jessica Gunning enjoyed the hospitality, looking chic in a navy and white coord

Traitors star Cat Burns enjoyed the Champagne Lanson suite with her makeup artist and influencer girlfriend Sarah New

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(L to R) Chris Robshaw, Camilla Kerslake, Sarah New, Henry Holland, Cat Burns and Dermot O’Leary