How Bridget Phillipson can improve the climate for having children
Given that anxiety can either transform into purposeful action or malign and perverse despair if left to fester unaddressed, the curriculum review due to report in the autumn should integrate climate education across all subjects so that all our students understand the nature of the crisis and the debates about what we can do about it.
Anything less will leave them stranded with a Holocene education in an Anthropocene world.Paul AtkinNational Education Union Climate Change Network
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The Guardian
43 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Met police arrest activists holding signs referring to Palestine Action
Twenty-nine people have been arrested after protesters gathered in central London holding signs referencing Palestine Action a day after the group was banned as a terrorist organisation. The direct action protest group was banned on Friday after a last-minute legal attempt to suspend the group's proscription under anti-terrorism laws failed. It means that, from Saturday, being a member of, or expressing support for, the organisation became a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. The campaign group Defend Our Juries, which organised the demonstration, said 'a priest, an emeritus professor and a number of health professionals' were among those arrested. More than two dozen people gathered close to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square, holding signs that appeared to express support for the group. At about 1.40pm, Metropolitan police officers began arresting people who were holding the signs. In a statement on X, the Met said: 'Officers have arrested more than 20 people on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000. They have been taken into custody. Palestine Action is a proscribed group and officers will act where criminal offences are committed.' The force posted another update on X on Saturday evening to say 29 arrests had been made and added that those arrested remain in custody. A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said: 'We commend the counter-terrorism police for their decisive action in protecting the people of London from some cardboard signs opposing the genocide in Gaza and expressing support for those taking action to prevent it. It's a relief to know that counter-terrorism police have nothing better to do.' On Friday, the group wrote to the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, to give him advance warning of the demonstration. Before officers made arrests, the Guardian spoke to some of the demonstrators. Tim Crosland, of Defend Our Juries, said: 'What we're doing here as a group of priests, teachers, health workers, human rights lawyers [is] we're refusing to be silenced. Because it goes to the core of what we believe in: that we oppose genocide – I didn't think that was that controversial – and we support the people who resist genocide. 'In theory we are now terrorist supporters and can go to prison for 14 years, which is kind of crazy. I think what we are here to do is just expose the craziness of that.' An environmental campaigner, Donnachadh McCarthy, said: 'To proscribe an organisation of peaceful direct action as terrorists is a huge red line for our democracy. It means that all the rest of us, whether we're climate activists, Greenpeace, women's suffragettes, disabled activists, it means that the government can now declare any act of property damage to be terrorism, which gives you a sentence of 14 years. 'This is worse than Putin's Russia. I don't say that lightly. It's 10 years for doing what we're doing today in Russia; it's 14 years in the UK, because of Yvette Cooper's outrageous betrayal of democracy, liberalism, and what is in my view a step towards fascism.' A retired priest, Sue Parfitt, 83, said the group's ban was 'a very dangerous move that has to be challenged'. 'We are losing our civil liberties, we must stop that for everybody's sake. Whatever you want to protest about,' she said. Cooper, the home secretary, announced plans to ban Palestine Action late last month, days after activists from the group broke into RAF Brize Norton and defaced two military aircraft with spray paint. MPs voted in favour of proscribing the group on Wednesday. The House of Lords backed the move without a vote on Thursday. UN experts, civil liberties groups, cultural figures and hundreds of lawyers have condemned the ban as draconian and said it sets a dangerous precedent by conflating protest with terrorism. The ban means Palestine Action has become the first direct action protest group to be banned under the Terrorism Act, placing it in the same category as Islamic State, al-Qaida and the far-right group National Action.
Glasgow Times
an hour ago
- Glasgow Times
Family hubs to be rolled out across every council in England
The Department for Education is putting £500 million targeted at disadvantaged communities into the scheme, to put a Best Start family hub in every local authority by April 2026. The Education Secretary has said that the scheme will 'give a lifeline' to families. Family hubs were originally rolled out across 75 local authorities at the start of 2024 by the then-Conservative government. Officials say that the hubs will be rolled out in every local authority by April 2026, and there will be expanded so there are up to 1,000 of them by the end of 2028. Among the services available at the locations will be birth registration, debt advice, midwifery services and support for parents who are separating or have separated. Officials hope that the spaces will also provide families access to other services and social care. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson praised the scheme (Ben Whitley/PA) Bridget Phillipson said: 'It's the driving mission of this government to break the link between a child's background and what they go on to achieve – our new Best Start family hubs will put the first building blocks of better life chances in place for more children. 'I saw firsthand how initiatives like Sure Start helped level the playing field in my own community, transforming the lives of children by putting in place family support in the earliest years of life, and as part of our plan for change, we're building on its legacy for the next generation of children. 'Making sure hard-working parents are able to benefit from more early help is a promise made, and promise kept – delivering a lifeline of consistent support across the nation, ensuring health, social care and education work in unison to ensure all children get the very best start in life.' The Conservatives have said that the announcement 'brings little clarity on what's genuinely new and what simply rebrands existing services'. Shadow education secretary Laura Trott (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Shadow education secretary Laura Trott said: 'That lack of clarity is part of a wider pattern. 'This is a Government defined by broken promises and endless U-turns.' Charity Save The Children has said it is 'pleased' to see the Government 'making it easier for families to get the help they need'. Dan Paskins, executive director of Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns at Save The Children UK, said: 'Focusing on family services for the under-fives will be vital in securing better outcomes for children, and we welcome the Best Start In Life announcement. 'We know from our work in local communities that bringing together parenting, healthcare and education support services in one place is an approach which works, so we are pleased to see the UK Government making it easier for families to get the help they need. 'With ministers now demonstrating an increasingly ambitious plan for children in the UK, we hope this drive for change continues when the child poverty strategy is released in autumn. 'This must include scrapping the two-child limit to Universal Credit, which is the only meaningful way to reduce the UK's record child poverty rate.' The head of the NAHT union welcomed the move. General secretary Paul Whiteman said: 'This is a positive step forward towards ensuring all children get the best start – and we are pleased to see tangible investment following this week's announcement of new targets for school readiness.'
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Public sector reform may be the only route left for Labour
It is more than a quarter of a century since Tony Blair complained about the 'scars on my back' from two years of trying to reform the public sector. As the Cabinet Office supremo, Pat McFadden, noted in a speech on the same subject in December, Blockbuster Video and Toys R Us were still in operation at the time of Blair's comments, while Airbnb, WhatsApp and Spotify had yet to be born. Twenty-six years later, creative destruction has reshaped the private sector, in some ways unrecognisably, but the same old arguments swirl about modernising government. The case for public sector reform has become more urgent after the reversals of the past few weeks. A partial U-turn on cuts to winter fuel payments, at a cost of almost £1.3 billion, turned out to be a mere appetiser for a near-total capitulation on attempts to cut welfare by nearly £5 billion. Those surrenders, plus a possible downgrade of the independent fiscal watchdog's productivity forecasts and other revisions, could blow a £30 billion hole in the public finances. After £40 billion of tax rises in October's budget — which put the UK on course for a record postwar haul of 37.7 per cent of GDP — the drums are beating to the rhythm of more taxes this autumn. Breaking a manifesto promise not to increase the burden on 'working people' could cost the chancellor her job. Cranking up taxes even further on businesses — which have swallowed £25 billion of extra national insurance contributions — and on capital gains, carried interest and inheritances would place another drag on already sluggish growth. Labour may have been handed an ugly fiscal picture by the Conservatives last year, but it is getting worse. Much valid criticism has been made of Rachel Reeves, Sir Keir Starmer and senior colleagues for their failure to persuade a recalcitrant parliamentary party of the need for realism in spending cuts. Although the winter fuel business was handled badly politically, reducing payments was right in principle, and £5 billion should have been just the start in controlling a benefits bill that is predicted to swell to £378 billion by 2030. The simple fact is that Labour is showing itself incapable of getting the nation's costs down, and higher taxes would stifle the economy. Sharpening public sector productivity is the only plausible third way. Three articles we carry today offer a way forward. Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, argues that the present model of 43 county-based forces has not been fit for purpose 'for at least two decades' and should be replaced by 12 to 15 regional forces. He says this would reduce back-office duplication and allow the enlarged groups to make better use of technology. Rowley also makes the point that creaking social services are frequently forcing police officers to take on the role of social workers, especially in cases of children missing from local authority care. Penny Dash, the new chairwoman of NHS England, says the health service's dysfunctional bureaucracy makes her 'just want to cry'. There are examples of brand-new scanners lying idle, unused buildings on the NHS estate, operating theatre times routinely slipping and appointment letters being sent out to patients after they were due to be seen. Dash wants to open up data on NHS performance, including on individual doctors and teams, saying the institution should go 'really big on transparency'. Today we also report on the scandal of HS2, a rail project that could end up costing more than £100 billion despite suffering repeated delays. We reveal how contracts were struck with the private sector, on behalf of the taxpayer, that contained no element of risk. This meant that there was no incentive for many of the contractors to operate efficiently, as they were safe in the knowledge that if the costs over-ran, the taxpayer would pick up the tab. The new boss of HS2 has pledged to renegotiate the contracts. His approach should be replicated across Whitehall. In truth Labour has so far taken the easy options for improving public sector performance, awarding workers above-inflation pay rises and increasing capital budgets. Sensible cabinet ministers now accept in private that those pay deals should never have been struck without some kind of union commitment to workplace reform. The next steps will now be harder, involving confronting vested interests, including Starmer's own backbenchers. Blair, with his record landslide in 1997, was prepared to sustain scars in pursuit of reform — and even he made limited progress. The big question is whether Starmer and his team are up for and up to the challenge.
