BMA accuses Streeting of ‘scaremongering’ about NHS as strike looms

Doctors’ representatives have accused Wes Streeting of “scaremongering”, after he warned that strikes before Christmas could push the NHS to collapse as it grapples with an outbreak of flu.

In an indication that they plan to press on with devastating strike action, the British Medical Association (BMA) claimed the health secretary had acted in a “cruel and calculated” way and described a government offer intended to avert walkouts in the coming days as “poor”.

Mr Streeting had said in a broadcast round on Friday that he “could not guarantee patients would not come to harm” if resident doctors went ahead with their plan to go on strike in the middle of a major outbreak of flu.

He had offered to extend their mandate for strike action to allow doctors to go on strike in the new year instead but this had fallen on deaf ears.

Instead the BMA, which is pushing for an eyewatering 29 per cent pay rise for its members, appears to be ready to heap pressure on the NHS as it faces a crisis.

Strikes will take place for five consecutive days from 7am on December 17, unless resident doctors who are members of the union vote in favour of the deal.

In a new statement on Saturday, the BMA’s resident doctors committee chairman, Dr Jack Fletcher, said: “It is horrible for anyone to be suffering with flu, we are not diminishing the impact of that, but Mr Streeting should not be scaremongering the public into thinking that the NHS will not be able to look after them and their loved ones.”

He said the health secretary was “laying the blame for the failings of the NHS to cope with an outbreak of flu at the feet of resident doctors and yet he is strangely reluctant to turn that concern into action and come to the negotiating table”.

He added: “What is cruel and calculated is the way in which the Health Secretary fails to have any engagement with us outside strikes and then comes to us with an offer he knows is poor and expects us to just accept it within 24 hours.”

BMA chief Dr Tom Dolphin told The Independent that the NHS is facing a “year-round” crisis that is not isolated to the winter, insisting that senior doctors would be able to be drafted in to cover for the absent resident doctors to keep patients safe.

Addressing the winter flu crisis, he said: “On strike days, the hospitals arrange for senior doctors to cover for the absent resident doctors.

“Sometimes they’ll get people to come do that as extra shifts in their own time and sometimes they’ll redeploy people from doing planned care – care that can be postponed if the hospitals think that there is a need for extra staff … So the same model that has worked for all the previous strikes to keep patients safe will apply.”

He added: “They may need to do more of it, but the principle is still there, and it still keeps patients safe.”

But Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, warned that the “tidal wave of flu” facing the NHS means the health service needs “all-hands on deck to look after a huge number of patients”.

And Dr Jeanette Dickson, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AOMRC) said she is “concerned about the impact on patients of a further five days of industrial action at this critical time of year”, with the organisation pointing out that there are “10 times more patients in hospital beds with flu than there were at the same time two years ago”.

The government has said a further pay increase is off the negotiating table after resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, received pay rises totalling nearly 30 per cent in the past three years.

Polling suggests public support for strikes is low, with a new YouGov survey showing 58 per cent of respondents either somewhat or strongly oppose the industrial action while 33 per cent somewhat or strongly support it.

But the BMA’s words are also a slap in the face for Sir Keir Starmer.

Writing in The Guardian, the prime minister said the strikes were “reckless” and “beyond belief” as the NHS grapples with an outbreak of what experts say is a new mutated form of flu.

Ministers have said the latest offer to the BMA gives them the chance to defer strikes until after Christmas.

Figures published on Thursday showed flu cases at a record level for the time of year after jumping 55 per cent in a week to an average 2,660 patients in hospital each day last week.

Mr Streeting earlier said the health service is facing “probably worst pressure” since Covid and urged resident doctors to accept the deal.

“The whole NHS team is working around the clock to keep the show on the road. But it’s an incredibly precarious situation,” he wrote in the Times.

“Christmas strikes could be the Jenga piece that collapses the tower.”

The BMA’s online poll will close on Monday, just two days before the five-day strike is due to start.

Messi’s India tour descends into chaos as fans hurl seats onto pitch

Lionel Messi‘s tour of India kicked off on a chaotic note on Saturday as fans ripped up seats and threw them onto the pitch after his brief visit to the Salt Lake stadium in Kolkata, the ANI news agency reported.

Messi is in India as part of his ‘GOAT’ tour during which he is scheduled to attend concerts, youth football clinics, a Padel tournament and launch charitable initiatives at events in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi.

According to reports in Indian media, the 2022 World Cup winner walked around the pitch at the stadium waving to the fans, but was closely surrounded by a large group of people and left 20 minutes after arrival.

Video from ANI showed fans throwing ripped up stadium seats and other objects onto the field and the athletics track at the site, with several people that had climbed over a fence surrounding the playing field hurling objects.

“Only leaders and actors were surrounding Messi… Why did they call us then? We have got a ticket for 12 thousand rupees [$132.51, £99], but we were not even able to see his face,” a fan at the stadium told ANI.

The organisers of Messi’s tour of India did not immediately reply to a request for a comment.

Kolkata is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, which along with the states of Kerala and Goa, has long had a large football fanbase in an otherwise cricket-crazed country.

Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona twice visited Kolkata and in 2017 unveiled a statue of himself holding the World Cup, in the presence of thousands of fans.

Messi, who played a friendly match at the Salt Lake stadium in 2011 in which Argentina defeated Venezuela 1-0, virtually unveiled a 70-foot statue of himself in the city earlier on Saturday.

Reuters

Second round of Epstein photos released after first tranche features Trump and other high-profile figures

President Donald Trump said newly released photos showing he and Jeffrey Epstein mingling with several women were “no big deal,” but later claimed he had not seen them.

“Everybody knew this man [Epstein] – he was all over Palm Beach,” he told reporters Friday evening. “He has photos with everybody… there are hundreds and hundreds of people that have them.

“That’s no big deal… I know nothing about them.”

Trump has not been criminally charged or accused of wrongdoing and has consistently denied close involvement with Epstein in the later years of the convicted sex offender’s life.

It comes after House Democrats shared two tranches of photos from Epstein’s estate, which include numerous famous faces such as the president, former president Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and Britain’s former Prince Andrew.

The faces of some of the women who feature in the photos have been redacted by the Democrats, who have vowed to continue releasing photos.

“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” Abigail Jackson, White House Deputy Press Secretary, told The Independent.

The release of the photos comes ahead of a deadline set for next Friday December 19 for the Department of Justice to release the full files.

‘Our young daughter caught flu. What happened next left her in a coma’

For the family of Sienna Dunion, the first indication that something was amiss came after she asked to return home just five minutes after heading out to play with her scooter.

A happy and excitable four-year-old, she and her older sister had just been told of a trip to Lapland for Christmas, and while she was delighted, she had also complained of feeling “cold and chilly”.

Her parents, Gary and Angelina Dunion, decided to keep her off school on Monday 17 November as she had a rising temperature, but given that she was still playing with her Barbies, they weren’t overly concerned.

On Wednesday morning she became unresponsive, with an emergency trip to A&E in Kettering turning into every parent’s worst nightmare as Sienna was placed into an induced coma and diagnosed with the rare brain disease Acute Necrotising Encephalitis (ANE).

Three weeks later, Sienna’s family are facing the prospect that their daughter will never return to her old self, and that she requires years of intense rehabilitation to learn how to walk and talk again.

ANE is a rare, severe, and potentially fatal brain disorder that causes rapid neurological deterioration following a viral infection, usually caused by flu or Covid-19. Given that there have only been a handful of cases globally, there is no single, universally accepted treatment and management can be challenging.

Speaking to The Independent, Mr Dunion, 41, said: “For us, it’s really important that people can understand this has happened to a really healthy four-year-old girl who had no underlying issues.

“It has completely changed our lives overnight. What started as a flu has turned into a complicated brain disease and the last three weeks have just been horrendous.”

While Sienna had been unwell on the Monday and Tuesday, it was the 19 November when her condition changed for the worse, with Mrs Dunion realising that she was unresponsive when she tried to wake her.

Doctors at A&E had initially thought she was dehydrated after she tested positive for influenza, but a CT scan returned with a few anomalies, including white lesions, while test results were inconclusive.

By 11pm, it was decided she should be transferred to the intensive care unit at Nottingham’s Queen Medical Hospital, where an MRI led to her ANE diagnosis.

Given the rarity of the disease, doctors have created a tailored treatment programme which includes plasma exchange that effectively “washes her brain”.

However on the Saturday, 22 November, an ultrasound revealed that she had large amounts of fluid in her stomach and Sienna had to undergo a surgery to remove 60 per cent of her intestines, in what her father described as the “hardest night” of his life.

She has since had a further two surgeries on her stomach after air was discovered, and has now been given a stoma bag and will have short bowel syndrome for the rest of her life.

“The one guarantee that doctors have made is that she will not be the same person when she wakes up and will have to go through an extensive rehab,” Mr Dunion said.

“She’s awake but doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, she’s floppy, can’t track her eyes, can’t eat.”

Now that she is no longer in an induced coma, the family have been warned she will soon be transferred to a neurology ward with less individual support than received in ICU, and that it is likely she will remain there for several months.

They are now fundraising to ensure she receives the best rehabilitation care, from physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, feeding support and to cover the cost of their home adaptations.

“We have another daughter who is seven years old they are honestly absolute best friends,” he said. “She’s been asking me so many questions ‘where is Sienna, when can we be a family again?’.

“I can’t tell her the severity of what’s going on, and that she won’t be able to speak to her sister for a really long time.”

He added: “She was just the most caring and relaxed four-year-old I’ve ever known. Even when she had a temperature she was checking ours to see that we were okay.

“She’s a social butterfly, she is just with all the different kids all the time, she absolutely loves being with her friends.

“She’s got this infectious belly laugh and we don’t know if we’ll heard it again.”

Pulp Fiction villain Peter Greene dies at 60

Peter Greene, who played memorable villains in Nineties classics including Pulp Fiction and The Mask, has died at the age of 60.

The actor was found unresponsive in his New York apartment, his manager confirmed, with a cause of death to be determined. Police told The New York Post that no foul play is suspected.

Greene won the Best Actor prize at the 1994 Taormina International Film Festival for his star-making role in Lodge Kerrigan’s Clean, Shaven, in which he played a man with schizophrenia. He later parlayed his success into villain roles in numerous films, including The Mask, where he played mafia kingpin Dorian Tyrell, and The Usual Suspects and Under Siege 2.

But it was Pulp Fiction that loomed largest, with Greene playing Zed in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino classic, a security guard who holds captive characters Butch and Marcellus, played by Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames. In one of the most disturbing scenes from Nineties cinema, Zed orders his accomplice – a masked sex slave known only as The Gimp – to watch over Butch while he rapes Marcellus.

After a violent confrontation, Butch steals Zed’s prized motorcycle and gives it to his girlfriend, telling her that “Zed’s dead, baby – Zed’s dead.”

In a rare interview in 2011, Greene admitted that he initially turned down the role due to its content. “When I got the script, I was thoroughly disappointed,” Greene said. “The way it was written wasn’t my cup of tea. If you ever saw Deliverance, you never saw the guy who took Ned Beatty and made him ‘squeal like a pig’ ever again, so I didn’t think it was a great career move.”

However, Tarantino kept pursuing him to take the role, and eventually allowed Greene to alter the scene to his preference. “We kept the language that was there, but it was originally a much more graphic scene.”

“He was a terrific guy,” Greene’s manager Gregg Edwards said in a statement. “Truly one of the great actors of our generation. His heart was as big as there was. I’m going to miss him. He was a great friend.”

Greene’s other credits include the action film Judgment Night, the Halle Berry thriller The Rich Man’s Wife and the Jennifer Aniston action comedy The Bounty Hunter.

Education for all: How your skills could make you a great teacher

From construction and engineering to hospitality and beauty, Further Education teaching opens up doors to a wide range of careers. Encompassing a range of technical and vocational courses and qualifications for those over 16 who aren’t studying for a degree, it offers a more hands on, industry-led approach to learning.

Further Education offers a more focused, vocational approach and a fast-track into the workplace. It allows you to build on your existing skills and experience while shaping the next generation of professionals in your field. To find out more, we spoke to Further Education students and teachers about how it works and what they get out of it.

Further Education qualifications can be started from the age of 16. “It’s a step up from school but it doesn’t involve so much independent learning and research as many Higher Education degrees,” explains Susan Simmonds, 52, a Further Education lecturer in Land and Wildlife Management at Sparsholt College Hampshire. “During this time, learners gain so much maturity and a qualification that can take them out into industry,”

Sometimes this study might be full-time in college, while other Further Education opportunities offer apprenticeships, with students gaining qualifications while working on the job. Overall, the courses are generally more practical and directly linked to industry and preparing learners for their future careers. “These courses give students a wide range of relevant experience, knowledge and skills during a time when they’re maturing, and becoming ready to transition into the world of work,” Susan says.

There are often myths and misconceptions about the world of Further Education. From the learner side, many people don’t necessarily realise the opportunities available to them through Further Education, as Meri, 17, who is studying an Extended Technical Diploma in Land and Wildlife Management Level 3 at Sparsholt College, explains. “Many people I have spoken to don’t realise there are multiple ways to prepare for a career in industry, and that courses like mine can open those doors.”

For Meri, it’s been a really positive experience, and one that has helped prepare her for the workplace. “The college has a lot of contacts with industry and the assignments we do are similar to professional reports.” Meanwhile, Zach, 17, who is on the same course, has also thrived at the Further Education college: “I have been able to meet far more friends and great people and I feel as though it has helped me grow. It’s also provided many opportunities to experience real-world practical work.”

For those training or working as Further Education teachers, often after years spent in a specific industry sector, it’s the students that make their new career so rewarding. David Hobson, 54, who teaches the Motor Vehicle course at Stockton Riverside College, found that the job satisfaction he gets from sharing his personal know-how with the next generation of workers has kept him in Further Education teaching for 16 years. “The benefits of passing on my skills to young people keep me going. It’s an opportunity for me to equip learners with the industry skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their careers”

Susan, who teaches Further Education part-time alongside her work as a Community Ecologist, has had a similar experience: “I find the work really energising. Young people are so full of life and enthusiasm that I come home feeling uplifted.”

Whether it’s part-time alongside your current job or a switch to full-time teaching, Further Education teaching can be a really rewarding and valuable career move.

Teaching in a mixture of colleges (often General Further Education Colleges or Sixth Form Colleges) and Adult and Community Learning Centres, as well as workplace and apprenticeship settings, it can fit around your life and other commitments. While typical full-time contracts are around 35 hours a week, there are also some part-time or flexible options available.

Real world industry experience across a wide range of jobs can set you on a path to becoming a Further Education teacher, with opportunities in everything from construction and healthcare, to engineering, digital, hospitality, tourism and beauty. You don’t always need teaching qualifications to start teaching in further education, you can undertake training on the job which is often funded by your employer.

If, like Susan and David, you see the appeal of sharing the industry knowledge and skills you’ve developed with the next generation, exploring the option of becoming a Further Education teacher can be a great next step. As David points out, “You won’t know how enjoyable it is until you try it.”

Looking for a new role that’s rewarding, flexible and draws on your current career? Why not consider sharing your experience where it matters most – helping inspire the next generation of workers in the field you love? Visit the Further Education website to find out more

Gateshead grooming gang jailed for rapes and sexual assaults of girls

A grooming gang in Gateshead who raped and sexually abused a number of teenage girls have been jailed for between 18 months and 14 years.

Northumbria Police launched an inquiry into offending against six girls who were aged 13-16 between 2014 and 2019.

The girls were sometimes plied with alcohol or cocaine before they were sexually abused.

The victims were targeted by teenagers a few years older than them, the investigation found, with the girls sometimes thinking they were in a relationship, before older men exploited them.

Some of the offending centred around Saltwell Park where the men would meet to play football.

The inquiry led to the convictions of four Romanians and an Albanian following an eight-week trial at Newcastle Crown Court in October.

They were:

Bogdan Gugiuman, 44, of Westbourne Avenue, Gateshead, who was found guilty of three counts of rape and supplying a Class A drug. He was jailed for 14 years and was in his mid-30s and married when he committed the offences.

Codrin Dura, 27, of Ripon Street, Gateshead, who was found guilty of four counts of rape, four counts of sexual activity with a child, blackmail, attempted rape, serious sexual assault, supplying a Class A drug and arranging or facilitating commission of a child sex offence. He was jailed for 13 years.

Albanian Klaudio Aleksiu, 28, of Church Terrace, Windsor, who was found guilty of rape. He was jailed for six years.

Leonard Paun, 23, of Windsor Avenue, Gateshead, who was found guilty of five counts of rape, two counts of arranging or facilitating commission of a child sex offence, sexual activity with a child, sexual assault, supplying a Class A drug and distributing photos of a child. He was jailed for five years and one month.

Stefan Ciuraru, 22, of Brinkburn Avenue, Gateshead, who was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault, sexual activity with a child and causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. He was jailed for 18 months, given his youth at the time of the offending.

Judge Tim Gittins said the victim impact statement from one of the victims, who was sexually exploited after becoming addicted to cocaine, was “nothing less than haunting”.

Addressing the defendants, he said: “You all to a greater or lesser extent have deeply traumatised her and psychologically scarred her.”

The judge paid tribute to all the victims’ courage, their resilience in seeing it through the court system and their dignity.

He added: “It is not for me to say but I hope they come to see themselves, as I do, as survivors and not just as victims.”

Earlier, one victim read a statement to the judge in which she said Dura had controlled her.

“It was like he had a spell on me,” she said.

“It was like I was held hostage and had to play a role.”

She added: “I feel like he has taken so much away from me, I always try to bury it.”

Dura raped her by luring her to his home on the pretext he would delete an intimate photo he had been threatening to show to her parents.

A second victim read her statement to the court in which she said: “I was naive and impressionable, and it made it easy for me to be preyed upon.”

The victim who became addicted to cocaine said in her statement: “This whole experience has massively changed my view of men for life.

“I am petrified of all men.

“There are so many things that trigger my pain, I don’t know if I will ever lead a normal life.”

Josh Normanton, for Dura, said he came to the UK as a boy with his family who were economic migrants from Romania and he was unable to speak English when he arrived.

“He was someone who was more immature than his age,” his barrister said.

“He comes from a family who are hard-working, polite and extremely concerned for him.”

Glenn Gatland, for Paun, said his client came to the UK with just his mother and his father died after joining them later.

He has since become a caring father, Mr Gatland said.

“He is someone quite capable of rehabilitation,” he said.

Sue Hirst, for Gugiuman, who is Paun’s cousin, said he was of previous good character and is married with three teenage boys.

Shada Mellor, for Aleksiu, said the delay in bringing the case to trial had impacted his mental health.

He has since moved to the south of England and has a partner and a child, she said.

Ciuraru was said to have had limited schooling and low intellect, and he hoped to return to Romania.

The judge also praised the police investigation, noting there had been previous criticism “of the response in the past by authorities to cases such as this and their victims”.

He commended Northumbria Police’s care for the victims in this case.

Starmer finally understands the damage of Brexit – and is ready to act

At last, Labour is waking up to the damage done by Brexit and seems intent on doing something about it.

There is political pragmatism involved, which is that a clear majority of voters now say they regard leaving the EU as a mistake. For a party desperate to put distance between themselves and Reform, plus the Tories, this has obvious merit. It’s a yawning ideological divide – and one that is simply argued.

Of course, there is the past to contend with, when Labour went along with the decision to exit, conscious that the Brexiteer Tories were making inroads in its blue-collar heartlands. There is also the present, which is that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves insist they were and are listening to business, when virtually the entire business community was and is anti-Brexit – and worse, they went and imposed tax rises that have hit businesses hard.

Still, they do seem, finally, to have come round to the idea that Brexit was a catastrophic mistake economically, one that was self-imposed and Britain would be far better off if relations with the EU were repaired and barriers against the free movement of goods and people were scrapped.

Starmer this week lambasted the “wild promises” made by Brexit campaigners and said the UK was “still dealing with the consequences today, in our economy, and in trust”. He added: “The idea that leaving the EU was the answer to all our cares and concerns has clearly been proved wrong.”

This being Starmer, as ever he injected a note of fence-sitting caution, emphasising that he would “always respect” the outcome of the referendum.

David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, was more forthright, saying that Turkey, which is in a partial customs union with the EU, was “seemingly benefitting and seeing growth in their economy”. He said that rejoining the EU customs union was “not currently where we are” but that it was self-evident that Brexit had “badly damaged the economy”.

The first step towards even a partial customs union, could be, ought to be, a youth mobility scheme designed to enable the easy passage of young British and EU citizens so they can live and work in each other’s countries. It’s an opportunity that has been denied to Britons since we departed and at the same time, businesses will be able to recruit the workers they need and plug the gaps they cannot fill domestically.

The youth scheme is therefore a win-win and what is more, finds approval with more than 70 per cent of voters, a figure that Labour, given its current low rating, would be foolish to ignore.

Talks between the government and its EU counterparts are taking place. There will be caps placed on the time people are allowed to remain – said to be two years – and on the numbers involved, likely to be in the tens of thousands.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister leading the negotiations with Europe, is due to meet his EU equivalent, Maroš Šefčovič, in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss progress.

The signs then are positive. If it goes ahead, the pact will be hailed as paving the way for agreements in other areas over the coming months. From employers, there will be a cry of “hallelujah”! For six years, their cries and pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

It’s tentative. Labour is hamstrung by a manifesto pledge not to return to the customs union or single market in this parliament. There is a body of opinion, too, that for some members of the EU this would be equally unwelcome.

Nevertheless, a new direction is being set. But Labour is taking a gamble – it’s prepared to lose Leave supporters in the hope that sufficient of the electorate would back the move, that this would outweigh the refuseniks and make the switch worthwhile.

Polling suggests that would be the case. Inevitably, though, there is the storm that will be unleashed. Reform and the Tories are bound to scream that democracy is being undone, that Labour is intent on taking us back into Europe via some sort of back door. Out would come all the old arguments about the EU suppressing British cherished freedoms, that once again we were allowing ourselves to be tied to the Brussels yoke.

To which the riposte should be that it is hard to see what independence from the EU has brought us. It’s true that in some instances, such as AI, we have pursued a path of lighter tough regulation but the gains have been marginal – other EU nations are matching Britain where development and investment is concerned.

We’ve struck some trade deals that we could not otherwise have secured. In truth, those agreements amount to barely anything – they do not anywhere near replace what has been lost, trade-wise, from ditching the EU.

Much will be made of the timing, that here is Britain trying to curb the tide of immigration from across the Channel while allowing in foreigners holding an EU passport with open arms. That is why the limits are so important and the government must be able to demonstrate that permanent net migration will not be adversely affected.

The claim will be made that the EU is suffering economically, that Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is in trouble, and that France is also struggling. That is so, but this is about providing tangible benefits for Britain, for our businesses – by restoring membership of a vast free trading bloc that in a suicidal moment we chose to abandon.

Starmer and his colleagues must hold their nerve. They can rest assured, that in this instance, business is right behind them.