Traders voice anger at Tube strike with city economy facing £230m hit

“It’s Monday lunchtime, we should be busy with queues – but we have just one customer inside.”

Traders in London say they are feeling the brunt of the huge Tube strike this week, as economists forecast the union action could deliver a £230m blow to the capital’s economy, with small businesses hardest hit.

The walkout over pay and conditions by Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) members started on Sunday, but it was on Monday morning when the city felt the impact, with few services operating across the Underground.

It disrupted city workers’ morning commute, with many deciding to work from home. Those who made the journey faced longer trips into the heart of the capital on buses, congested bicycle lines or in cars.

Meanwhile, cafes and restaurants in usually busy parts of the city at lunchtime reported huge drops in customers.

Business leaders described the strike as a “heavy blow” to retailers in the city, with the decision to strike “sending out a really poor message to visitors and investors”.

On Monday lunchtime, Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesperson issued a statement, demanding that the RMT, which wants a cut in the working week for members, and Transport for London (TfL) resolve the dispute and bring the industrial action to an end.

Inside La Dolce Vita Cafe, in Tower Hamlets, owner Khaled Semrani said he had just one customer on Monday at 1pm. The cafe, which he opened two years ago, is a short walk from Aldgate, an Underground stop on the Circle and Metropolitan lines.

It is also close to Tower Gate on the London Docklands Railway (LDR), which will have no services due to RMT members’ separate pay dispute.

“Usually we’d have queues, but today it’s very quiet, we don’t have the customers,” he told The Independent. “Our location is surrounded by mostly offices, so if people are not in, it makes a big difference.

“I wish the strike would end. They [RMT union members] get paid a lot in my view. You look around this morning at everyone trying to get to work, then the businesses like mine today. It has a big impact on everyone.”

In Farringdon, Roni Firat said his cafe, called Roni’s Cafe, was 25 per cent down in customers on Monday morning. The cafe is near Barbican Underground station, which sits on the Circle, Hammersmith and Metropolitan lines. “When you see the cafe quiet, it’s hard, really hard,” he said. “We want the strike to end.”

The cost of the strike action is expected to be at least £230m for the city’s economy, according to research by the London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). However, the real cost is likely to be much higher, with indirect impacts, including a fall in retail and tourism footfall, not included in the calculation.

“I think your SME (small or medium enterprise business) will be hit the hardest,” managing economist Pushpin Singh told The Independent. “Those who rely on footfall or sole traders who move around on the Tube will really feel the impact. Bigger businesses have facilities for home working, so they are in a better position.

“The last few years have been hard for SMEs. When things started looking rosier after Covid, with inflation coming down and interest rates loosening, they were hit by raids, with national insurance hikes and national living wages. So it’s hard when another thing comes that hits the small margins.”

Among the sectors fearing the impact is hospitality, which includes pubs, restaurants and cafes. UK Hospitality, the trade body for hospitality businesses in the UK, estimated the strike could cost the sector up to £110m.

Its chair, Kate Nicholls, called for an end to the strike action. She said: “Consumers will be forced to change or cancel their plans, impacting sales, and many hospitality teams will have difficulty making it to work.

“This level of impact comes at a time when businesses can least afford it, having just been hit with £3.4bn in additional annual cost.”

Warning the strike action will deliver a “heavy blow” to retail, Kris Hamer, director of insight at the British Retail Consortium, said: “This will be another blow to retail businesses who have already been hit by huge costs this year from rises to NICs, NLW, and other policy costs.”

Muniya Barua, deputy chief executive at BusinessLDN, added: “At a time when the economy is weak and firms are already reeling from a national insurance hike, the economic cost of these strikes could run into hundreds of millions of pounds. It also sends a really poor message to visitors and investors.”

The RMT union strike includes drivers, signallers and maintenance workers, and comes over a demand by members for a cut in the 35-hour working week. TfL has offered a 3.4 per cent pay rise, which it described as “fair”, and said it cannot afford to meet the RMT’s demand for reduced hours.

An RMT spokesperson said: “We are not going on strike to disrupt small businesses or the public.

“This strike is going ahead because of the intransigent approach of TfL management and their refusal to even consider a small reduction in the working week in order to help reduce fatigue and the ill-health effects of long-term shift work on our members.”

Harry speaks of ‘challenging’ sibling relationships during UK visit

The Duke of Sussex and the Prince of Wales have remembered their grandmother the late Queen Elizabeth II separately on the third anniversary of her death.

Harry and William were just seven miles apart as they paid their respects to the nation’s longest-reigning monarch.

But the estranged brothers did not meet on Monday while Harry carried out his first visit to the UK in five months, with their long-running rift showing no sign of abating.

Harry flew in from the US for a four-day run of charity visits, but began his solo trip with a poignant pilgrimage to his grandmother’s grave in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

The duke laid a wreath and flowers privately at Elizabeth II’s tomb in the King George VI Memorial Chapel on Monday morning.

Meanwhile, William and the Princess of Wales were a short car ride away in Sunningdale, Berkshire, as they visited the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (WI) in tribute to the late Queen’s decades-long association with the organisation.

Later in the day, Harry spoke about “challenging” relationships between siblings when he met WellChild award winners to celebrate their achievements.

Harry joked and laughed with youngsters ahead of a glittering awards ceremony recognising their efforts to succeed and thrive despite suffering from life-threatening conditions.

When he chatted to Declan Bitmead, 17 – winner of the inspirational young person 15-18 years award, he quizzed him about family life, asking if he had siblings and the teenager replied he had a younger brother.

“Does he drive you mad?” asked the duke, and Declan replied “no, we get on fine” – and Harry quipped with a smile “you know what – siblings”.

When told the 17-year-old, from Oxted in Surrey, and his brother went to the same school, the duke said “you’re at the same school, that sometimes makes it more challenging”.

Declan suffered permanent sight impairment and lost 96 per cent of his skin after developing a rare and life-threatening reaction to a common tonsillitis treatment.

Harry joked with the teenager and made him smile, after being told by the schoolboy he did not have much sight, by saying he was lucky not to see him.

“I’m bald and ginger,” he joked. “And worst of all I’ve got a ginger beard – you’re thinking phew.”

The prince, meanwhile, was in an upbeat mood as he and Kate joined WI members for a slice of cake, chatting fondly about his late grandmother’s passion for horses.

“I think she would have liked a few more winners,” William said, asking for members’ memories of the late Queen and telling them “can’t believe it’s three years – goes quite quick”.

Harry is reported to have not been offered a place at a royal palace and is said to be staying at a hotel at his own expense.

It is not known whether the duke will see his father the King, with whom he has a troubled relationship.

The King, who is currently at Balmoral in Aberdeenshire with Camilla, have no public engagements planned for this week.

Harry and Charles last met face to face more than a year and a half ago when the duke made a transatlantic dash to see the monarch in February 2024 after hearing of his cancer diagnosis, but they spent just over 30 minutes together before the King left to recuperate in Sandringham.

Harry has previously spoken of his hopes for a “reconciliation” with his family, saying: “Of course, some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book. Of course, they will never forgive me for lots of things.”

He added: “But you know, I would love reconciliation with my family,” and said there was “no point in continuing to fight anymore”.

Senior aides to the King and the duke were pictured together in London this July in what was reported to be an initial step towards opening channels of communication between the two sides.

How does your hospital rank in new NHS league tables?

The government has published “league tables” for NHS hospitals in England for the first time. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said the quarterly rankings will pinpoint where urgent support is needed and help end the “postcode lottery” of care for patients.

But experts have questioned the helpfulness of the tables, warning that hospital performance is “not as simple as good or bad”.

Experts at think tanks including the King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust have warned the new tables are of “questionable” and of “limited” use to patients.

Among the lowest ranked hospitals is Lucy Letby’s former trust, The Countess of Chester Hospital Foundation Trust.

The rankings score trusts based on a range of measures, including finances and patient access to care, as well as bringing down waiting times for operations and A&E, and improving ambulance response times.

The list is divided into three sections: acute trusts, non-acute trusts (mental health, learning disability and community), and ambulance trusts.

The lower the score, the better the performance.

Here is a full list of the new league tables for NHS trusts in England:

Top performers will be given greater freedoms and investment, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.

Under the plans by the DHSC, higher standards will also be set for leaders, with pay tied to performance.

Senior managers at trusts that are persistently ranked poorly could see their pay docked, while NHS leaders will have extra pay incentives to go into challenged trusts and turn them around.

Meanwhile, those in the middle will be encouraged to learn from trusts at the top to help them improve their rankings.

Mr Streeting said: “We must be honest about the state of the NHS to fix it. Patients and taxpayers have to know how their local NHS services are doing compared to the rest of the country.

“These league tables will identify where urgent support is needed and allow high-performing areas to share best practices with others, taking the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS.

“Patients know when local services aren’t up to scratch and they want to see an end to the postcode lottery – that’s what this government is doing.”

From next summer, the tables will be expanded to cover integrated care boards, which are responsible for planning health services at a local level, and wider areas of NHS performance.

Sir James Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, said giving patients access to more data “will help to drive improvement even faster by supporting them to identify where they should demand even better from their NHS”.

However, Danielle Jefferies, senior analyst at The King’s Fund, warned that “a single ranking cannot give the public a meaningful understanding of how good or bad a hospital is”.

“Whether NHS trust league tables will be helpful to the public is questionable, because hospital performance is not as simple as good or bad,” she said.

Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS hospitals, said: “There’s more work to do before patients, staff and trusts can have confidence that these league tables are accurately identifying the best-performing organisations.

“For league tables to really drive up standards, tackle variations in care, and boost transparency, they need to measure the right things, be based on accurate, clear and objective data and avoid measuring what isn’t in individual providers’ gift to improve. Then they will drive improvement and boost performance.”

Drones to police Trump’s visit to UK when King welcomes US president

Flying drones over Windsor will be banned next week as part of a major policing operation for US president Donald Trump’s second visit to the UK.

The King is set to host the president and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, at Windsor Castle from Wednesday to Friday next week, where they will be feted with a ceremonial welcome and state banquet.

The round-the-clock policing operation will be in place in the Berkshire town, with a temporary order restricting the airspace from Tuesday – when the state visit rehearsal is to take place – until Thursday.

This means non-police drones and smaller aircraft cannot fly through the protected area, Thames Valley Police officers said during a drone-flying demonstration at the force’s training centre in Sulhamstead, Berkshire.

“It’s a significant policing operation for us,” Inspector Matthew Wilkinson, airspace bronze commander for Thames Valley Police, said.

“However, Thames Valley Police is proud to host these events and we have a good history of putting on these events for both the Royal family and the country.”

He said the drone operation was one of the larger ones compared with other high-profile events, adding: “It’s in line with other large-scale events we’ve put on as a force.

“Obviously every event carries on its own challenges and threats, and we’ll assess that and resource it accordingly.”

Insp Wilkinson stressed people in Windsor would be kept informed over the restricted airspace order.

“We are engaging with the local businesses, local communities, hobbyist drone enthusiasts, gliding schools and things like that, to try and share that message, so it’s not a surprise for anybody,” he said.

“Obviously it’s an offence to fly a drone in a restricted airspace and we will have resources to deal with any of those incursions.

“We will have plenty of capability in the sky when the time is appropriate,” he said, adding the drones would act as an “eye in the sky” during the event.

The DJIM 30T model to be involved is already used by police on a day-to-day basis, usually as part of missing persons inquiries and drug warrants.

Each drone can fly up to 120 metres (400ft) and is expected to stay up for 30 minutes at a time, with the replacement drone taking off shortly before the end of that period so as not to lose coverage.

The event will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK – an unprecedented gesture towards a US president, having previously been feted by a state visit in 2019.

During his first trip to the UK, thousands of people turned out on the streets in London in opposition, and protests are also expected next week.

The Stop Trump Coalition is planning a mass demonstration in central London on the first day of the trip, with further protests planned near Windsor Castle.

Boris Johnson accused of profiting from contacts while in office

Calls have been made for Boris Johnson to be stripped of his access to an allowance for former prime ministers over allegations he has profited from contacts he made while in office.

The Guardian published a series of stories based on leaked data provided by a non-profit organisation that suggest Mr Johnson profited from contacts and influence he gained in office.

Mr Johnson is alleged to have lobbied a senior Saudi official he met while in office to share a pitch with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and to have been paid more than £200,000 after meeting Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokesperson Sarah Olney MP said: “These allegations are extremely shocking.

“This is yet another reminder of how deep the rot in the Conservative Party goes — it is riddled by sleaze and scandal.

“The Government must suspend Boris Johnson’s access to the former prime minister public duty cost allowance pending a full and proper investigation.”

The files also raise questions about whether the company he set up after leaving Downing Street, the Office of Boris Johnson, blurred the lines of how his ex-prime minister’s allowance was used.

It is not supposed to be for private or commercial activities.

The files were obtained by Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS), a US-registered non-profit that archives leaked and hacked documents.

They mostly concern the period of time after Mr Johnson’s term as prime minister, from September 2022 and July 2024, along with some documents from when he was in No 10.

The Public Duty Costs Allowance is to help with the costs incurred by former prime ministers who are still active in public life.

It affords former prime ministers up to £115,000 a year to cover office and secretarial costs arising from public duties.

Mr Johnson’s office was contacted for comment.

The funniest, strangest, and best things from this year’s Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe is a place where British eccentrics take centre stage and the country’s weirdest most wonderful talents get to explore the craziest outreaches of their creativity, whether it’s staging immersive theatre in a bathroom, or performing a show on a treadmill.

For all the silliness, though, there’s a seriousness to the whole thing: the Fringe is the breeding ground for Britain’s comedy trendsetters: The Mighty Boosh and The League of Gentlemen first found audiences here and the international phenomena that are Fleabag and Baby Reindeer got their first outings on the stages of the Fringe.

This year, as ever, the festival’s packed schedule sees Edinburgh veterans rubbing shoulders with dozens of emerging voices on the hunt for an audience, many of them willing to perform anywhere from the backroom of a pub to a book shop, or even a bathtub.

The summer of 2025 is looking like it’s going to be a particularly strong year for established heroes of the Fringe. Winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award back in 2009, Tim Key returns to the Fringe with a new show Loganberry, likely to be informed, in part, by his recent experiences starring in the film The Ballad of Wallis Island and appearing as pigeon in Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17. Expect deadpan poems and much hilarity.

Following the success of her smash hit Channel 4 show The Change, about a menopausal woman rediscovering herself in the Forest of Dean, Fringe-favourite and 2013 winner Bridget Christie returns to Edinburgh with a work in progress at the Monkey Barrel. Also showing a work in progress is Ahir Shah, who has pedigree when it comes to licking a show into shape at the festival – when he did so in 2023, he won the main prize. Television presenter and podcaster Nish Kumar is back on his old stomping ground too with a new show Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe at the Gordon Aikman Theatre.

For all the tried-and-tested performers who pretty might guarantee laughs, one of the real joys of the Fringe is to be found in taking a risk on an up-and-coming comedian in the hope you stumble across a star of the future.

In some cases that might mean checking out a Fringe first-timer like Toussaint Douglass, who makes his Edinburgh debut with his hotly-tipped show Accessible Pigeon Material, which promises to be joyfully absurd and very pigeon-heavy in terms of content. Or popping in to see if promising young talents can pull off that tricky second album: having scooped a Best Newcomer gong at last year’s Fringe, Joe Kent-Walters is reprising his gloriously demonic working men’s club owner, Frankie Monroe, at the Monkey Barrel Comedy venue (Cabaret Voltaire).

Also keen to build on a promising start will be Leila Navabi, a television writer from South Wales, whose 2023 musical comedy show Composition included a song about having her ears pierced in Claire’s Accessories. This year, she’s back with Relay, which blends jokes and songs to explore her attempts to make a baby with her girlfriend and a sperm donor.

Whether they’re promising young tyros or established names, for many comedians the creative freedom and outright silliness of the Fringe has them coming back time and time again. Take, for example, Ivo Graham whose show this year is called Orange Crush and is described by the man himself as “a show about hats, haters and hometown heroes, from a man who promised everyone he loved that he wouldn’t do Edinburgh in 2025, but then came back anyway, because he simply had to do this show.”

If you are planning to join Ivo in Edinburgh to soak up the comedy chaos in person, don’t forget provisions. The average Fringe day involves walking 15,000 steps, climbing 43 hills and sitting through at least one show in a sauna-like attic with no ventilation. So, pack accordingly: a bottle of water, a sturdy fan and a packet of Maynards Bassetts Wine Gums or Jelly Babies to keep your blood sugar and national pride intact. Nothing says “I’m here for the arts” quite like chuckling through a late-night experimental mime while chewing on a Jelly Baby’s head.

Now you’re in the know, don’t forget to set the juice loose with Maynards Bassetts – grab a bag today!

Scotland stay on course for World Cup with win over Belarus

Scotland kept on a steady course for the 2026 World Cup with a solid 2-0 win over Belarus on a surreal evening in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary.

After an encouraging 0-0 draw for Steve Clarke’s side in their opening qualifier in Group C against Denmark on Friday night, the closed-doors match in the ZTE Arena was an unwelcome throwback to the Covid-19 era of football.

Players and management shouts echoed around the ground with loud Scottish celebrations heard when striker Che Adams scored from close range two minutes before the break.

Belarus threatened at points but had the wind taken out of their sails when defender Zakhar Volkov headed into his own goal in the 65th minute to seal a crucial win for the Scots.

Scotland go into the home double-header against Greece and Belarus at a packed Hampden Park next month with four points from six on the road, two clean sheets and the chance to build on a strong start, while Denmark’s 3-0 win in Greece also takes them on to four points but with a slightly better goal difference.

After a demanding evening in Copenhagen, Clarke freshened his side up and, as the Tartan Army hoped, winger Ben Gannon Doak came in. There were also places for Max Johnston, Scott McKenna and Billy Gilmour, with Aaron Hickey, Grant Hanley, Lyndon Dykes and Ryan Christie dropping out.

As a UEFA sanction for the support shown by Belarus to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, their games have to take place in a neutral stadium with no supporters inside. There were a couple of dozen Tartan Army outside when Clarke and his squad arrived, but the travelling fans had to make do with watching on TV screens elsewhere.

Scotland had a penalty shout 15 minutes in when Gilmour went to ground inside the Belarus box under a challenge from Kiryl Pechenin but Montenegrin referee Nikola Dabanovic was not interested.

At the other end, a header from Pechenin required a save from Scotland keeper Angus Gunn.

The match was warming up and Gilmour, defender John Souttar and midfielder Scott McTominay all had various efforts on the Belarusians’ goal – and the Napoli midfielder claimed unconvincingly for a penalty when he clashed with Yegor Parkhomenko inside the Belarus box – but the opener would not come.

In the 39th minute Belarus skipper Maks Ebong raced away from Johnston down the left but took a touch too many and his angled drive was blocked by Gunn.

Three minutes later Gannon Doak set up Gilmour and his powerful drive from 20 yards was tipped on to the post and away by Fyodor Lapoukhov.

The Belarus keeper was eventually beaten when John McGinn’s searching delivery to the back post was headed back by McTominay with Adams bundling the ball in from a yard out, his first goal since scoring a hat-trick against Liechtenstein in the June friendly.

McTominay had a header saved by Lapoukhov soon after the restart and then fired a drive high over the bar.

A second goal was needed to ease the nerves which surfaced with sporadic Belarus attacks and it came when the luckless Volkov redirected a header from Gilmour’s cross into his own net.

If not resigning themselves to defeat, Belarus did little to suggest there would be a comeback.

In the 80th minute Lapoukhov made a brave save from McGinn after the Scots had sliced through the Belarus defence and Adams then had a shot from a tight angle cleared off the line by Pavel Zabelin.

But it was enough to seal a valuable three points, leaving Scotland second in the group and level on points with leader’s Denmark, and in a promising position to book their first appearance in a World Cup since 1998.

Why I want my child to be able to opt out of any homework set online

Just as I sat down to write this piece, I received an email from my son’s school informing me that he, my husband and I have all been given accounts to a “personalised, quiz-based learning programme” with an “AI-powered tutor” to help students if they’re stuck. Gone are the days when children used to be issued with a textbook and the first days of terms would be spent covering them with bits of old wallpaper to preserve them.

Today, children are issued with passwords, digital logins, dashboards and any number of online resources to help them with their school work and learning. Nearly all of my twelve-year old son’s homework must now be completed online.

No one, quite literally, signed up for this. I would love an alternative, and it turns out I am not alone.

The relentless march to digitise education is frustrating parents and harming children. We have all heard of the campaign to make schools smartphone-free. More than 350,000 parents in the UK support the Smartphone Free Childhood movement to delay smartphones and social media until children are past puberty.

It is a no-brainer, resulting in better behaviour, improved attendance, higher educational attainment, and happier children. A “smartphone-free schools rating” has even been designed by headteachers to help schools become genuinely smartphone-free.

So, how ironic is it that while on one hand, schools are alert to the dangers of too much screen time, often lecturing parents and pupils, all this good work is being undermined by the pervasive use of screens in and out of the classroom.

Children as young as five are being set online homework. It is now routine for children to be issued a tablet when they start secondary school. In some places, this happens in Year 5 or 6 in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to “get children ready for secondary school”.

Does my child have homework? He does not know unless he logs onto his school-issued tablet. I do not know unless I do the same, which I hardly ever do because it inevitably requires an app or a portal and, without fail, a new password. It is overwhelming for everyone.

Intentional use of technology can bring extraordinary benefits to children’s learning, whether it is helping dyslexic children read or using 3D printers in secondary school DT classes. But screens should be the exception, not the norm.

I know many parents who have successfully kept screens out of bedrooms and limited screen time, but are now tearing their hair out that the way school work is set and monitored is demanding more screen time, not less.

Yes, this might be educational screen-time, but asking teenagers to log on – and ignore the itch to reply to their mates on Snap, or a Discord chat or the constant prodding by the online game they have just tried to pause – is akin to giving a smoker a pack of cigarettes and asking them not to smoke them.

Parents are increasingly pushing back, asking schools for analogue alternatives. The reasons are hard to ignore. First, there is the physical harm of dry eyes and deteriorating eyesight from staring at screens. Every additional hour of screen time daily increases myopia risk by 21 per cent, studies suggest. In children already diagnosed with myopia, an extra hour raises the risk of progression by 54 per cent.

Next, the gamification of online education leads to shallow learning and reduced attention spans. Children struggle to absorb and retain information. Reading longform is increasingly rare, just 1 in 3 (32.7 per cent) children and young people aged 8 to 18 said that they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2025 – a 36 per cent drop since 2005.

Then there is the agitation that comes from using dopamine-inducing ed-tech. The most gamified versions of which produce dopamine spikes similar to social media and video games. This all combines to rewire growing minds.

The tech companies and digital literacy industry tell us our children need to be online as young as possible to learn the skills of the future. Have they met British teenagers? They are digital natives, they live and breathe this stuff and teens could out-skill most teachers when it comes to honed digital skills.

Earlier this year, a survey commissioned by Berkshire-based independent girls’ school Downe House found more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of those who answered admitted to using AI tools to help complete their homework. A 2024 survey of teachers by the National Literacy Trust found that nearly half (48.9 per cent) believed students’ use would have a negative impact on children’s writing skills, while more than half (56.6 per cent) were concerned generative AI could stop children from thinking for themselves.

Thriving in the digital world requires maturity, critical thinking, and impulse control, skills that are best honed in the real world away from addictive-by-design platforms. And to those suggesting it is up to our children to manage their use of technology and learn to use it for better, not for worse, I would ask: why are we expecting more of children than we do of ourselves?

Most adults know how habit-forming a lot of digital behaviour is. We would never sit a drug addict down at a table with loads of drugs and tell them to “make good choices. Expecting children to manage their own screentime is the same thing.

This threat to our children’s learning and development demands political courage.

Sweden reversed its classroom digitisation programme in 2023. The Quebec National Institute of Public Health undertook a review of existing research and found no learning benefits and, at worst, cognitive harm, prompting a change in education policy.

From this month, Spain is banning device-based homework in primary schools. The government has also set a two-hour maximum per week for tablet use in schools. This is inspiring stuff.

So, bravo to the Conservatives who are this week tabling an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, giving parents the statutory right to opt out of online homework for their children. This should garner cross-party support. Our children’s brain development, safety and wellbeing should not be lost to party politics, and the time has come for the UK to hit the pause button on ed-tech. Parents are on the march and the prime minister should know, there is only one thing more relentless than the tech companies, and that is mums and dads.

Jennifer Powers is director of the Unplugged Coalition