Universal Credit and debt
08 Oct 2021
The Universal Credit extra payments helping people through Covid have ended, amid fears that many lives will get worse not better this winter. 29-year-old Lynton Lockett is embarrassed to show people his kitchen. A leaking kitchen tap caused mould on the floor and walls. The dampness has brought an infestation of fruit flies. Lynton showed the kitchen to plumber James Anderson who runs a community initiative called DEPHER CIC that provides free heating and plumbing services to people who can't pay for them. James anticipates a 50% increase in calls for help this winter. He has started giving food parcels to struggling families. He said that the end of payments, the higher cost of living, a rise in gas prices and the end of furlough puts too much financial pressure on families. He added, ‘You can't hide the truth. If this continues, people are going to die.’ See also
Christian nurse suing NHS trust
08 Oct 2021
Mary Onuoha, an operating theatre specialist at Croydon University Hospital, was bullied and pressured to remove her cross necklace while on duty. Mary says she was forced out of the job she loved after working there for 18 years. She is challenging the NHS trust for harassment, victimisation, and constructive unfair dismissal as they had breached her freedom to express her faith under the European Convention of Human Rights and the Equality Act. In August 2018 bosses ordered her to remove the cross which was a breach of NHS dress code and a ‘health risk’ to her and to patients. Mary argues that the dress code was applied inconsistently. Other nurses were not asked to remove jewellery, hijabs, saris, turbans or religious bracelets. Also Mary wore several lanyards at the same time with no anti-strangle clasps, yet her cross supposedly posed ‘a risk of injury or infection’.
Concerns over transgender patients in hospitals
08 Oct 2021
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is to review guidance on transgender patients, following a newspaper investigation which discovered that male sex offenders who self-identify as women are placed on female-only wards. Despite instructions from the Department of Health to eliminate mixed-sex wards, guidance from hospitals states that patients should be admitted based on the gender they identify with and can choose which ward, lavatories and facilities they use. A whistleblower nurse warned, ‘If patients question why there is a male-bodied person on a female-only ward, medics are told to say that there are no men present. Staff raising safeguarding concerns may be threatened with disciplinary action. The NHS is influenced by the controversial LGBT charity Stonewall.’ See
National Grid power cut warning
08 Oct 2021
Britain faces a greater risk of blackouts this winter after a fire on 15 September knocked out a cable importing electricity from France. National Grid’s electricity system operator (ESO) believes supply will meet demand, but has cut its forecast of buffer supply. Its officials are also warning of high costs for getting power generators to fire up at short notice to help balance the grid. Those costs are ultimately passed onto household bills - a further pressure when bills are climbing due to soaring wholesale costs of natural gas and electricity. The ESO warned in July that Britain should prepare for constrained power supplies over winter, with nuclear power plants shutting down and demand bouncing back from the pandemic. Its director said, ‘Our analysis shows that we expect sufficient margins over the winter and the system is within the reliability standard. Throughout the coming months the situation may change, as it does every winter.’
Government must curb internet pornography
08 Oct 2021
CARE has urged ministers to curb internet pornography, to prevent more cases of sexual violence. During proceedings at the Old Bailey this week, it emerged that rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens viewed ‘brutal pornography’ before committing his crimes. A former colleague noted his attraction to ‘brutal sexual pornography’. The Government’s own research in February found that the majority of frontline workers spontaneously mentioned pornography as an influential factor for harmful sexual behaviour towards women and girls. CARE campaigned successfully for legislation to curb porn sites and restrict access by children. However, these measures were scrapped by the Government in 2019. CARE said that the Couzens case is an example of where porn obsession can lead. If we want to avoid more such cases, the Government must stop men accessing sites which glorify rape and violence.
Canary Islands volcano ‘much more aggressive’
08 Oct 2021
The Canary Islands volcano has blown open two more fissures, and intense activity has worsened, three weeks after the original eruption. The prompt evacuation of more than 6,000 people since the 19 September eruption helped prevent casualties. By 3 October the lava had destroyed or partially destroyed 1,000+ buildings, including homes and farming infrastructure. By 7 October it had destroyed 21 miles of roads and entombed large areas of land, with no indication of lessening.
Germany: changes in leadership
08 Oct 2021
On 26 September voters elected the Bundestag's parliamentary seats. The dominant political parties - SPD, CDU and CSU - finished only ten seats apart. Angela Merkel’s departure has opened up a large void. Many older MPs have been replaced by people in their thirties or even twenties. This rejuvenation will bring many openings for renewal and innovation in the current technological and global transformation, but will also pose potential risks that need prayer. Will Germany manage to keep its leadership in Europe, or will France supplant it? What can the EU expect from the new Chancellor and coalition on climate change, trade, and technology? How do the elected candidates see Europe’s place in the world? What will the results mean for Germany’s relationships with France, the USA, Russia, or China?
A report has shown that the Church prioritised protecting the institution over victims who were urged to stay silent. The number of abused minors rises to an estimated 330,000 when including victims of people with other links to the Church, like Catholic schools and youth programmes. Between 2,900 and 3,200 abusers worked in the Catholic Church between 1950 and 2020, out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics. ‘The Church is the place where the prevalence of sexual violence is at its highest, other than in family and friend circles’, said the report, which found that children were also more likely to be abused within Church settings than in state-run schools or summer camps. This report follows similar ones from other countries.