Politics
Unions welcome ‘Summer Savings’ plan but want it to go further
Trade unions have offered a guarded welcome to the government’s ‘Summer Savings’ plans. These include several measures which aim to ease summer holiday expense for families with children.
Labour affiliated transport union TSSA has welcomed as an ‘important first step’ the government’s introduction of free bus travel for under-16s in England across August.
This was part a series of measures that chancellor Rachel Reeves outlined, called ‘Great British Summer Savings’. It also includes a temporary reduction in VAT across Scotland, England and Wales from June to September. The reduction applies to admission tickets for family shows and attractions and children’s menu meals.
In April, TSSA called on ministers to tackle the cost of living crisis by making public transport free for a year.
Commenting, TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust said:
It’s good to see the government taking this important first step by providing free bus travel for young people for the summer months, along with other assistance.
We have been clear that action needed to be taken quickly to help the many people who are struggling simply to pay for the basics in life.
Undoubtedly measures like those which have been announced can make a real difference and this is what a Labour government should be doing.
However, the chancellor should now look at extending support as part of a wider package of help, well beyond the summer months. Not only would doing so assist those most in need, it will help the wider economy.
Performers should share in Summer Savings boost
Meanwhile, performing arts and entertainment trade union Equity has welcomed the announcement of government help for family days out over the summer school holidays. It wants to ensure that any increased revenue from the ‘Summer Savings’ scheme passes on to performers and creatives.
Equity points out that the industries in scope are responsible for employing or engaging large numbers of performers and creatives. It says many of them are in precarious, insecure and low-paid work. So, while a boost to ticket sales would be welcome, the union wants workers to share in the uplift.
An Equity spokesperson said:
We welcome government measures to boost the live performance, theatre and cinema sectors and promotions to help families become audiences at these events.
We want to see workers share in the uplift in sales and expect Society Of London Theatres, UK Theatre, theme park operators and others engaging performers and creatives to ensure increased sales and profits are passed on to the performers and creative workforce who are the heart of this industry.
Featured image via Getty Images
By The Canary
Politics
The House | We will be judged by how we responded to climate collapse, not Westminster psychodrama
5 min read
While we have yet another circus of internal party politics in Westminster, the Government has failed to keep its eye on the ball when it comes to some of the biggest threats facing the country.
After nearly a decade of Conservative psychodrama, we cannot afford more lost years where Parliament fails to address the big challenges facing the country. The most fundamental duty of a Government is to protect its citizens, in the here and now, while also protecting them from foreseeable risks in the future. And the Government is failing to meet the moment, distracted by by-elections and leadership challenges.
Even before they began plotting to remove the Prime Minister, this Labour Government had learnt all the wrong lessons from the Conservatives’ time in office, gradually chipping away at Parliamentary scrutiny and weakening democratic accountability. There have been too many key announcements made outside the Chamber, and too many important areas not given time for debate. The clearest example is the Government’s failure to give proper time to scrutinise reports in Parliament that go to the heart of our national security, our economy and, ultimately, our very way of life.
Take the Joint Intelligence Committee’s National Security Assessment on global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, which provides a clear picture of what the near future may hold. It shows that the loss of nature and biodiversity collapse is no longer just an environmental issue. It is now a direct threat to our national security, economy, and way of life. One of the most alarming projections is that a worsening global food supply could leave the UK food system increasingly vulnerable to hostile states. Another is that due to climate breakdown, the report says GDP could be 12% lower than it would otherwise have been by 2030. This fact, which was left out of the redacted report, was only revealed by ITV’s investigation, and is deeply problematic for the Government given that it has put so much stall on growth policy and failed to recognise that a healthy natural environment is fundamental to the operating of the economy. Climate-driven migration will also increase pressure on national infrastructure and contribute to more polarised politics.
The only reason we know anything about these redacted reports is because of a freedom of information request from Green Alliance, which forced the Government to release the information. I first called for Parliament to be given time to scrutinise the report on 22 January. Since then, I have written to the Leader of the House, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs asking for a response.
Amid all of this, in the last week, another report was published. This time, from the Government’s own watchdog, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), making it clear that we are dangerously ill-prepared for the impacts of climate change. After twenty years of successive Governments’ failure to properly confront the climate crisis, the CCC has now laid out a clear pathway for the action needed to better protect communities, infrastructure and essential services from the worsening impacts of extreme weather. Among the most dire warnings is that, in just a couple of decades, 9 in 10 of our homes are at risk of overheating. Water supply shortages may exceed five billion litres per day. And 40°C heatwaves will become the new normal across the UK, potentially leading to an additional 10,000 heat-related deaths per year. Without action, the Committee is clear that an increase of up to 4°C by the end of the century remains a possibility. To put it simply, if that happens, we won’t be able to adapt. There are no mitigations that will fully protect our food systems, infrastructure, economy or public health from the scale of disruption such a world would bring.
These are issues with profound long-term consequences, yet they have received no Parliamentary time and far too little media attention. The only logical conclusion is that the Government seems to have decided it is easier to avoid discussing these reports and confronting these warnings than to spell out what it plans to do. I understand the issues are very difficult, but it’s all the more reason to start addressing them sooner rather than later. Ministers know that the implications for food prices, the cost of living and national security are serious. Yet, instead of leading an open debate about how we respond and proposing a blueprint for where we go from here, they appear to be trying to avoid the issue and hoping it goes away.
Whoever leads this Government after September must have a laser focus on the transformative change needed to tackle the climate and nature emergency, and with it the cost of living crisis. The gravity of the warnings means there is no time to waste. The Government must focus on building the resilience of our food and energy systems to prepare the country for increasingly extreme conditions. While this is happening, we also need to heed the warnings of the dangers of ecosystem collapse.
What this would mean in practice is investing in flood defences, starting a programme of mass home insulation to cope with colder winters, and adapting buildings for hotter summers. All while preparing the public for what is coming, including opening mass cooling centres during extreme heat events and supporting communities in adapting their homes, workplaces, and daily lives to a rapidly changing climate.
We have a clear choice here: politicians can continue to be consumed by political theatre, or finally confront the realities of climate breakdown. Future generations will rightfully judge us on whether we rose to the moment, whether we acted on the warnings, or whether we kicked the can down the road yet again. The threats posed by our ecosystem’s collapse are no longer abstract, and the Government should take them with the seriousness they deserve. Ultimately, if the Government fails to prepare the country for it before the consequences become immeasurably worse. We will all pay the price.
We’re all about biodiverse gardens here at HuffPost UK, and no-mow May is a great time to rewild your backyard.
But sometimes, as is the case with invasive Japanese knotweed (which can cause structural damage to your home if not treated ASAP), certain plants are better off out of your yard.
So, we thought we’d ask the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)’s chief horticulturalist, Guy Barter, about which ones you should banish on sight (and others you should keep a careful eye on, as well as the ones you should bear with).
1) Plants not to let grow in the first place
“Some alliums, such as:
- three-cornered garlic, and
- crow garlic
are extraordinarily tricky to winkle out as they leave little bulbils behind when uprooted,” the gardening expert told us.
“Never let them gain a lodgement in the first place, ideally.”
Three-cornered garlic (AKA three-cornered leek) is an invasive species that can smother native wildflowers. It’s an offence to cause it to grow in the wild, and it can be removed by hand-weeding the bulbs.
Crow garlic, meanwhile, spreads very easily and can take over your garden if you’re not careful. Fork out seedlings or smother plants with e.g. cardboard and bark.
2) Plants to stop in their tracks
“In general, gardeners would be unwise to leave invasive weeds such as:
- bindweed,
- ground elder, and
- couch grass
to their own devices,” Barter told us.
“Not only are they very invasive, but [they] are [also] hard to dislodge.”
Bindweed, while sometimes beneficial for wildlife, can be very hard to remove from your garden due to its enormous and rapidly spreading roots. It can be controlled by placing physical barriers at least 45cm into the ground, deadheading flowers, smothering young plants, mowing often, and forking out seedlings.
Ground elder can lead to a “carpet of leaves”. Fork out plants, smother them, place a barrier 45cm or more deep around them, mow more, and pull off new growth.
And couch grass, which can spread like wildfire, can be forked out or smothered.
3) Plants to keep a close eye on
“Many garden plants are very ‘willing’ and although valuable in places where other plants won’t grow, can run amok in fertile, sunny, moist soil,” Barter said.
- Solidago,
- certain bamboos,
- montbretia,
- mind-your-own-business [Soleirolia soleirolii],
- borage,
- horseradish, and
- mint
“Come to mind,” he added.
That’s not to say they need to be removed, though.
“Constant vigilance and an occasional going round with a spade ensure these plants stay in [their] lane. Repeat transgressors must go, however.”
4) Plants to let grow, despite being a bit of a pain
Slightly annoying plants can still be worth it, considering how useful they are to your garden’s ecosystem.
“Some unwanted plants like:
- nettles,
- green alkanet,
- thistles,
- sow thistles, and
- hedge mustard,
although apt to spread, can be given a little slack in view of their value to insects.”
Reform lost the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, but the Thatcherite bigots are still trying to call this massive defeat into question. How? With racist dog-whistles, and by talking about something different that some other people reportedly did somewhere else in Greater Manchester…
Farage’s not-so-subtle dog-whistle
Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, no stranger to dodgy tricks itself, reportedly got fake independent candidates to run in Tameside’s local elections to split the vote in its favour. And on 21 May, police arrested five people in connection to the controversial events in St Peter’s ward (which isn’t in the Gorton and Denton constituency).
In a clear response to the news, Farage spoke about the events in relation to Gorton and Denton – a different election in a different place – and avoided mentioning St Peter’s ward entirely. He said:
I have warned repeatedly over many years about election fraud and always been ignored.
The Gorton & Denton by-election was a disgrace, but at last there have been some arrests in Greater Manchester.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 22, 2026
In other words, he carefully hinted at a connection without specifically alleging that the same thing had happened in the same place.
Farage’s aim seemed clear: to use the Tameside arrests exposing Labour’s dirty tactics to resurrect Islamophobic lies about “family voting”, instead of admitting that the Greens battered Reform fair and square in Gorton and Denton.
Reform’s tantrums
In Gorton and Denton, Farage’s party lost by well over 4,000 votes. But it had a tantrum anyway. It quickly blamed ‘family voting‘ for the result, trying to sow seeds of suspicion, particularly about Muslim backers of the Green Party, by suggesting men had told their wives how to vote.
Greater Manchester Police ended its investigation into Reform’s allegations a month later because there was no reliable evidence.
That hasn’t stopped Reform voices continuing to spread smears and misinformation, though. Because like Farage, racist Gorton-and-Denton-by-election-loser Matt Goodwin also responded to the news of the Tameside arrests by referring back to the Islamophobic lies about Gorton and Denton and failing to mention Tameside itself.
Other far-right agitators have joined in the ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ dog-whistle campaign too.
They know exactly what they’re doing. And they don’t care. Because truth gets in the way of spreading hate and division.
Featured image via Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
By Ed Sykes
‘I think of you as very young’, said Judge Nicholas Rowland to a trio of Traveller teenage boys in Southampton Crown Court yesterday. ‘None of you have been in any big trouble before… You have all done very well with the restrictions put in place throughout the trial.’ He assured the minors – the youngest of whom was just 14 years old – that ‘none of you need to go to prison today’.
This show of empathy might have been commendable, had the unnamed teens been convicted of graffitiing a bus stop. Given that the trio are, in fact, guilty of the premeditated gang rape of two schoolgirls, the three youth-rehabilitation orders that were given out instead of jailtime feel sickeningly inadequate.
The aforementioned rapes took place in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in late 2024 and early 2025. The first victim, 15, had been engaged in an online ‘relationship’ with one of the boys, and had agreed to meet him in person for the first time. They spent time together in town. They then made their way to an underpass by the River Avon, where they engaged in consensual sexual activity. That’s when two of the boy’s friends showed up with the intention of joining in.
The victim relayed to a jury the pressure exerted on her to have a ‘threesome’, fearing that she would be hurt if she did not agree. ‘I was so scared’, she said of the 90 minutes of sexual abuse to which she was subjected. The boys took it in turns to humiliate her, laughing and filming the attack on their phones.
The second victim, 14, was approached by the three boys in town. They encouraged her to spend time with them, and told her to drop off her phone and portable tracking device in a local supermarket so her mother wouldn’t know her whereabouts. They then took her to an empty field and threatened to kill her if she ran. One of the boys produced a knife. He later used it to cut holes in her clothing so he and his friends could rape her.
This attack, too, was videoed by the perpetrators. It was then shared on social media, inviting members of the victim’s peer group to mock her and call her a ‘slag’.
That those who conducted such vile assaults have earned little more than a slap on the wrist is horrifying. Yes, these boys are minors. But this was not a drunken fumbling encounter between teenagers. These attacks involved grooming, premeditation, threats of violence and sustained humiliation. ‘#Gangsters’, one of the boys, suited and booted, posted to his social-media account a month after the first rape. Clearly, these teenagers felt neither shame nor remorse.
Why on Earth were these boys given youth rehabilitation orders as ‘punishment’? These are community-based sentences. They typically involve supervision, curfews, unpaid work or some combination of the three. They are certainly not an appropriate response to rape and assault at knifepoint. Judge Rowland, however, wished to avoid ‘criminalising’ the boys, who he added had ‘limited understanding of consent’ and were susceptible to ‘peer pressure’.
Jess Phillips, the former Home Office minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, has remarked that the sentencing ‘seems unduly lenient’, and warned against the ‘message that it sends’.
This was a welcome stand from the Labour MP. All too often the likes of Phillips have preferred to focus on misogynistic language and Andrew Tate videos rather than violent sex attacks against women, especially if they’re committed by the ‘wrong’ type of perpetrator. Indeed, the soft treatment of the three teens involved in this case points precisely to this warped sense of priorities – a world in which horrific, real-world sex attacks are no longer seen for the grave crime that they are.
‘All I want to do is die’, the first victim said in an impact statement. ‘I no longer have fear for when that comes… No one deserves the trauma of being raped.’ The second victim added in her own statement that she has suffered nightmares since the incident, at times finding herself unable to attend school. ‘I feel ashamed, insecure and uncomfortable in my own body.’
These girls suffered immeasurably at the hands of these violent teenage rapists. That they have been denied justice by a system sworn to protect them brings shame on our legal system and the culture that supports it.
Georgina Mumford is a content producer at spiked.
Minister Chris Bryant had an unenviable job on Wednesday. He had to tell his fellow MPs that the government had made a mistake.
A rather big one, it turned out.
“We have handled this rather clumsily,” he told the Commons. “I think we have ended up giving the wrong impression of what we are trying to do…”
He was, on this occasion, referring to Labour’s confused messaging around the UK’s sanctions against Russian oil, which had caused international bewilderment earlier in the week.
But the minister could have been talking about a number of Labour’s major policies from its two years in office.
This latest saga started when the Department of Business and Trade incorrectly suggested it was going to be easing its sanctions against Russia on Tuesday.
Successive governments have taken pride in the UK’s robust support for Ukraine following Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion.
Ministers have regularly announced fresh rounds of penalties against Russia and its lucrative oil industry to squeeze its economy.
So, the apparent decision to effectively water down years of hard work caused instant outrage.
STEFAN ROUSSEAU via POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch then accused Keir Starmer of “losing his moral compass” during prime minister’s questions.
Labour MP and chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee Emily Thornberry slammed the decision, telling the BBC: “People feel very let down.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office even approached Downing Street for clarity, amid fears the UK’s support was waning.
It turns out, the initial messaging was wrong.
In reality, Labour was keeping its old sanctions, but had decided to phase in its next batch of penalties – meant to stop Russian oil reaching the UK via third countries – at a slower rate than usual.
The decision stemmed from ongoing concerns about the impact of the Iran war on jet fuel supplies.
Ministers have insisted they still plan on closing that loophole, but not until January 1, due to the uncertainty in the Middle East.
Once Bryant cleared up the confusion in the chamber, concerned Labour MPs told HuffPost UK they felt somewhat reassured – but would be keeping a close eye to make sure the loophole is still closed in the end.
Thornberry wrote on X that she was “relieved” to see clarification from the government, but added: “I only wish there could be a complete ban sooner.”
Even so, Keir Giles, associate fellow of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, told HuffPost UK: “It’s all a mess.”
He said the government had sent “mixed messages” and that the “comms cock-up is just horrendous”.
“I could imagine, quite plausibly, that the conversation might have gone, Ukraine saying to the UK, ‘what the hell are you doing?’,” he claimed.
“Our messaging has been terrible”
– David Skaith, Labour mayor of York and North Yorkshire
The government also wasted time recovering from another self-inflicted wound this week, after curiously briefing plans to introduce price caps on key supermarket products.
Treasury secretary Dan Tomlinson subsequently told the media they would, in fact, not install a mandatory cap after all.
Even when the government had the opportunity to celebrate what some might see as good news, such as its success with bringing net migration figures down to the lowest rate since the Covid pandemic on Thursday, ministers got distracted.
The government chose to release the files on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s past as a UK trade envoy on the same day, overshadowing migration news.
With more than a dozen U-turns in under 23 months of government, it’s no wonder Labour was thrashed in the elections in England, Wales and Scotland earlier this month.
These policy mix-ups and a conflicted approach to strategy are symptomatic of the primary flaw with Starmer’s government: an inability to communicate.
Even at this most perilous moment for his premiership, he and his ministers are struggling to stay on message – or even decide what that message is.
David Skaith, the Labour mayor of York and North Yorkshire, even admitted to Times Radio that he condemned his party’s approach.
“We’ve not been connecting with the people well enough and our messaging has been terrible,” he said.
“I think hope and belief and confidence in politicians and politics is probably as low as it’s ever been.”
Starmer has also been described as the least popular prime minister of modern times by the pollster Ipsos.
It’s unsurprising wonder that desperate Labour MPs are looking to Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, the party’s most popular politician, to stage a coup.
He has been praised for taking a direct approach to criticism and for his slick social media presence.
If Burnham wins the hotly-contested Makerfield by-election next month, MPs are hoping he will take a more radical approach to government.
But the Labour candidate promised on Friday that he would honour the party’s 2024 manifesto until the next general election.
“The main change Burnham would bring is just… vibes,” a Labour insider said. “Though vibes-based politicians are what people want these days.”
Considering a source within party headquarters told HuffPost UK this week that Labour atmosphere is “like a morgue, if that morgue was on a space ship that was hurtling towards certain destruction”, it’s no surprise MPs wants to head in a new direction.
A government insider also admitted Burnham would be “better at the personality side of things and he’s of a more political player,” than Starmer.
However they warned: “His politics won’t be that different”.
“You can only get so far on vibes alone,” another Labour campaigner said.
But, as evidenced this week, it’s often the communication, not the policy, which is the main obstacle for the government.
If Burnham manages to cut through with his more effective “vibes-based” approach, insiders have their fingers crossed that Labour’s fortunes may turn around.
As a senior Labour source added: “Do we have Keir Starmer problem or a Labour problem? We’ll soon find out.”
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
The AUKUS programme, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is intended to “promote a free and open Indo-Pacific that is secure and stable.” (Credit: Malcolm Park/Alamy Live News)
4 min read
The publication of the Defence Committee’s report on Aukus confirmed what many in the defence community have long known: the strategic rationale remains unassailable.
Aukus will bolster security in the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic, strengthen our most trusted alliances, and secure a vital technological advantage. Indeed, the Defence Committee found the partnership is more necessary than ever.
There is, too, a positive domestic story. Delivering a brand-new class of nuclear-powered submarines – the SSN-AUKUS class – to provide a common fleet for both the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy represents a crucial revitalisation of our industrial base. Aukus is not merely a foreign policy pact; it is a significant blueprint for British industrial expansion and economic growth.
Some 21,000 people will be working on the SSN-AUKUS in UK shipyards and across the supply chain at its peak. To meet the broader demands of the Defence Nuclear Enterprise, Britain’s nuclear workforce is forecast to increase by 40,000 by 2030. We are already seeing world-leading, highly oversubscribed skills academies stepping up to this challenge, creating highly skilled, high-wage jobs that will sustain families for decades.
The establishment of Defence Technical Excellence Colleges and the Defence Universities Alliance will better align education with our long-term industrial needs. A Defence Skills Passport will allow this highly trained workforce to move across the sector.
But delivering Aukus will require far more people than current plans can provide. This means new, innovative approaches to skills development are needed. We must build on what we already do well and use the unique recruitment opportunity to spread skilled jobs across the country.
Some £4 billion in contracts has already been signed for the design and prototyping of the SSN-AUKUS, alongside a £3 billion investment into advanced manufacturing capabilities. In 2025, a £9 billion contract was signed with Rolls-Royce to cover reactor design, manufacturing, and service. However, delivering SSN‑AUKUS requires steady government funding over many years and across multiple parliaments. This must be a cross-government priority, with an annual review comparing planned and actual investment.
As MP for Barrow and Furness, I see the transformative power of the Aukus partnership every day. We are targeting £1 billion in investment for the rapid overhaul of local infrastructure. This means building thousands of high-quality new homes, improving educational outcomes, regenerating the town centre, and upgrading healthcare and transport. This is not just about building submarines; it is about permanently rebuilding a community.
But we must also accelerate the integration of our supply chain. By proactively integrating SMEs directly into advanced capability projects, we can turn agile tech firms into industrial heavyweights, but only if the government moves faster to remove the bureaucratic hurdles blocking their entry.
Aukus is a phenomenal success story of cutting-edge innovation and local economic regeneration. However, to sustain and accelerate a multi-decade programme of this magnitude, we must ensure it enjoys unshakeable public support.
In recent years, there have been repeated calls for a more open and honest conversation with the public on defence and security issues. This is where parliamentarians can – and must – do more. As part of a wider conversation about the role of defence in society, Aukus provides a strong opportunity to show the real, practical benefits that a successful defence industry can bring to local economies across the UK.
MPs have an important role to play in delivering this message locally, but to do so the MOD should take a more open and proactive approach to working with MPs and engaging with the media to support this shared aim.
The Defence Committee inquiry has highlighted how important the Aukus partnership is, while also making clear the scale and complexity of what is needed to deliver it. For Britain, Aukus brings significant challenges as well as major opportunities. As parliamentarians, we must play our part to build public understanding and secure the sustained political commitment and investment needed for this long-term national endeavour.
Michelle Scrogham is Labour MP for Barrow and Furness and chair of the Aukus APPG
Politics
The House | Protecting a national legacy: why spinal cord injury care must not be fragmented
(Pixel-shot/Alamy)
4 min read
Every year, Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day serves as a vital moment to reflect on the lives of the estimated 105,000 people living with spinal cord injury (SCI) across the UK.
It is a day to celebrate the resilience of the community and to raise awareness of a condition that is truly life-altering, occurring every two hours in this country. But this year, the day carries a heavy weight of urgency. As the Officers of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Spinal Cord Injury, we are using this occasion to issue a stark warning, the very foundation of specialist care in England is under threat from a proposed administrative shift that risks dismantling decades of clinical excellence.
Last year, our APPG published a landmark report, From Fragmented to Coordinated: Building a National Spinal Cord Injury Strategy. Our inquiry heard from hundreds of patients, clinicians, and charities who described a system that has tragically “vacated” its position as a world leader. We found that SCI care in the UK is currently a “postcode lottery”, defined by complexity, inconsistency, and dangerous delays.
The findings were sobering. Despite the tireless work of healthcare professionals, only one in five patients referred to a specialist SCI centre are actually admitted for rehabilitation. Many are “lost” in the system, repatriated to local hospitals that lack the specialist knowledge to manage life-threatening complications like Autonomic Dysreflexia. We found that 20% of patients are being discharged into care homes, not because they need that level of clinical care, but because they are effectively homeless due to a lack of accessible housing.
Our report was clear, to fix this we need less fragmentation, not more. We called for a National Strategy to stabilise the system and embed national standards.
Instead of the national coordination we recommended, NHS England has announced plans to transfer the commissioning of adult and paediatric SCI services away from national oversight. By April 2027, responsibility for planning and funding these highly specialised services is set to be handed to 36 individual Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).
Under this new model, funding will be allocated to regional offices, known as Offices for Pan-ICB Commissioning (OPICs), on a “weighted capitation” basis. In plain terms, this means funding will be distributed based on local population size rather than the specific, complex needs of a rare patient group.
The issues this decision will cause are profound. SCI is a low-volume, high-complexity condition. It requires a “critical mass” of expert knowledge that local boards simply do not possess. By splitting commissioning among multiple ICBs, we risk deepening the very inequalities our report sought to end.
The threat to our Specialist Spinal Cord Injury Centres is particularly acute. If their funding becomes dependent on dozens of separate local negotiations, these centres face financial uncertainty, workforce depletion, and the very real risk of closure.
When specialised services are forced to compete for resources against local priorities like GP access or A&E wait times, rare conditions almost always lose out. The result will be a fragmented pathway where the quality of your life-long care depends entirely on your postcode.
We want to be clear, everyone is against this decision. In a recent meeting facilitated by Spinal Injuries Association (SIA), clinical, senior leaders from every SCI centre in the country expressed “serious concern” and frustration that they were not even consulted on these plans. Charities SIA, Aspire, and Back Up have joined clinicians in an open letter to the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, urging him to intervene.
This is not a partisan issue, it is a clinical and moral one. As a cross-party group of MPs, we have already met with Ministers and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to demand that SCI services remain nationally commissioned. We are calling for the 2022 SCI Rehabilitation Standards to be made mandatory, ensuring a consistent framework of care across the country, regardless of any administrative changes.
The UK pioneered the global gold standard for spinal cord injury care. We cannot allow that legacy to be traded for administrative convenience. People living with SCI do not need multiple different local plans, they need one national vision that connects the parts and ensures no one falls through the cracks.
We need closer, better-coordinated services that are led by national expertise. We urge the government and NHS England to listen to the experts, the charities, and most importantly, the patients. Specialist care must stay national. Anything less is a betrayal of the 105,000 people who rely on these services for their dignity, their independence, and their lives.
Andy McDonald MP is chair of the APPG on Spinal Cord Injury. John Glen MP, Helen Morgan MP and Gill Furniss MP are officers of the APPG.
We’ve all been there: you’re doing a food shop on your phone or pinging an email to a colleague, and your child asks you something.
You’re so engrossed that you don’t really hear them. Then you look up and see your kid just standing there, looking at you and your phone. You have no idea what they’ve said.
If you haven’t phubbed – that’s a portmanteau of “phone” and “snubbed” – your kids, you’re probably in the minority.
One survey found 62% of people reported looking at their phone while having a face-to-face conversation with someone else. Partners, friends and siblings were most likely to be phubbed, followed by children.
Psychotherapist Anna Mathur tells HuffPost UK that the act of phubbing is “extremely common” – we’re living in an age where our phones are designed to demand our attention, she says, “and most parents are also trying to stay on top of work, admin and the relentless scroll of modern life”.
“Phubbing is rarely a sign that a parent doesn’t care. It’s a sign that we are all navigating a technology landscape that our brains and bodies weren’t designed for,” adds the author of How To Stop Snapping At The People You Love (As Well As the Ones You Don’t).
“If we’re really honest with ourselves, for a lot of us it’s a genuine battle, a conflict between our values and our behaviour. We value presence… we want to be there for our kids (and for each other), and yet we reach for the phone anyway. That dissonance is real.”
The impact of phubbing on children
While phubbing the kids once or twice probably isn’t going to have much of an impact overall, making a habit of deliberating ignoring them in favour of your phone can certainly be harmful over time.
One study into parental phubbing found it had a “significant” effect on social withdrawal in young children. Some researchers suggest it could also contribute to kids feeling unloved, which can impact wellbeing.
“Children learn about their own worth through the attention of their caregivers. When a phone consistently wins the competition for our gaze, children can begin to absorb the message that they are less important, less interesting, less worthy of attention than whatever is on that screen,” says Mathur.
“Over time this can impact self-esteem, emotional regulation, and the way they relate to others.”
Children who grow up in homes where screens take priority over people are more likely to repeat those patterns themselves, adds the therapist.
Malte Mueller via Getty Images/fStop
How to kick your phubbing habit
The good news is that small, consistent, conscious changes can make a difference.
One of the biggest things that has helped Mathur is using an app blocker (called App Block) so she physically can’t access apps before and after her kids are home from school. (She has a window to check her phone once they’re in bed.)
“It sounds strict but it has been genuinely life-changing – I’d pay the subscription fee over and over! It takes the decision out of my hands,” she says.
“Our impulse control around phones is often low (even more so I find as an often hormonal, often overwhelmed, neurodivergent woman!), and that’s not a personal failing, it’s by design.”
Putting up physical barriers then can really help.
If she is using her phone – for example, to do a food shop – she’ll also name what she’s doing when her kids are around.
″‘I’m just adding something to the shopping’ creates accountability, because once I’ve said it out loud, I’m more likely to put it down once I’ve done that one thing rather than find myself on social media/email,” she explains.
“And if I do need to do something for work when apps are blocked, I go to my laptop, which makes it a much more intentional (and speedy) act.”
One other top tip is to reclaim certain spaces in your home as phone-free to put some distance between you and the addictive device demanding your time.
“Leaving it in another room, keeping it out of the bedroom, putting it on the kitchen counter rather than in your pocket – it sounds small but it creates that important physical and psychological distance,” she says.
“If you want to use it, you have to proactively go and get it, which gives you time to realise what you’re doing, and to question the motivation/need.”
The therapist urges parents to make one commitment that when your child enters the room or speaks, you look up at them, make eye contact, and acknowledge them.
“It takes three seconds and it tells them everything about where they sit in your world,” she says.
How To Stop Snapping At The People You Love (As Well As the Ones You Don’t): A compassionate guide to rage, regulation and repair by Anna Mathur is available for pre-order now (publishing 2 July from Penguin Life).
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Haven’t you heard, it’s the year of whimsy? Although, admittedly it’s hard to maintain a whimsical attitude when I just left my house for two hours and came back drenched in sweat. Seriously.
If it wasn’t for the fact I’m wearing head to toe cotton, I would have possibly passed out on the bus. And that’s not even me being dramatic.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially reached the point in the year when it’s socially acceptable to wear as little as possible.
And while I can’t say I love the aspect that means I get severe boob sweat when I walk even a few paces, I am an avid dress lovers, so I’m pleased to say I’ve mastered the art of choosing what to wear to keep me as cool as humanly possible.
To help you hack even the most intense of heatwaves, I’ve rounded up 13 summer dresses I’ll be wearing to frolic inall season long.
The Greens for Palestine group has issued a strong demand to its party functionaries: stop throwing our candidates under the bus to pander to the Israel lobby.
The message comes after the Greens’ Makerfield by-election candidate stepped down – presumably pressured – for sharing a post about Golders Green. The group of party members wants to know – who is selecting Green candidates, party members or the Israel lobby, the Zionist Labour party and hostile press?
Greens for Palestine call out cowardice dressed as pragmatism
It reads:
Yesterday, we witnessed yet another chilling example of the same press that has spent over a year providing apologia for the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people, releasing smear pieces against members of Manchester’ Green Party to bend the Makerfield by-election to their will.
We have seen multiple instances of this playbook throughout the recent local elections. Local and national party figures, rather than standing with their own comrades, have believed what is written in the press and thrown fellow party members under the bus at the whim of the Zionist lobby. This is cowardice veiled in pragmatism.
So we ask, plainly and with deep frustration: Who is in control of who the Greens select as candidates? Is it Green members? Is it the press? Is it the Labour Party? Or is it the lobby? It should be Green members themselves. And if that is truly our party’s principle, then we strongly suggest that the party massively, step up its support for anti Zionist candidates. Not silently or reluctantly. But publicly, robustly, and without apology.
Greens For Palestine provided extensive support to candidates smeared in the recent local elections. We will continue to do so whenever and wherever we are needed. We will show up where the party will not.
We need to hit back
The letter goes on to demand the party’s cowardly executives “hit back” to protect members and candidates and stand up against the horrors of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians:
It is apparent that the party has not provided this support. It is a failure of nerve. And it leaves our members exposed to a coordinated, well-funded campaign gf misinformation and prejudice that the party seems unwilling to confront.
When the Green Party capitulates, we will lose future MPs and councillors who have called out Israel’s genocide, and speak up for Palestinians’ self-determination. This is by design.
More than ever we need bold people in British politics and a government who can end the UK’s complicity in the genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine. As we can so obviously see, the public want this too. They have supported Zack Polanski and the Green Party’s unwavering stance.
We need to hit back. We must be brave and forthright in our defence of our candidates. Silence will not protect them. Steadfast support will.
We have watched a livestreamed Genocide. We are seeing the extermination of the Palestinian people. Dogs used to rape Palestinians, children targeted by snipers, torture, death and mass destruction.. We are letting the people that defend this force our party to turn its back on the democratic decisions of our membership.
Let us be unequivocal:
Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.
Palestine must be freed.
Zionism is racism.
We are an anti-racist party and will not tolerate anti-Palestinian racism.
Justice, not a racist veto
It ends:
These are not fringe positions, they are core matters of justice, rooted in international law, human rights and the very anti-colonial values this party claims to stand on.
We call on the Executive to issue clear, public solidarity with any Green candidate smeared for their principled support for Palestinian freedom. We call on you to fund and resource that solidarity. And we call on you to stop acting as if the press or the lobby have a veto over our democratic processes.
In solidarity and resolve,
Greens For Palestine
The call is badly needed. Party leader Zack Polanski started strongly against the witch-hunt by a Zionist establishment terrified by the popularity of the Greens and Polanski’s firm statements against Israel’s genocide and colonialism. But that has given way to an increasing tendency of the party to cave to lobby attacks rather than stand their ground.
That has to change. And it needs to start right the hell now.
Featured image via Getty/Leon Neal
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