Are we in a summer Covid wave?

There is some talk of a “summer Covid wave” at the moment. We all seem to know someone who has had it lately, or a friend who has been off sick.

Aurelia Foster www.bbc.co.uk 

But have cases really gone up and are there any new variants we should be worried about? What else do we know right now?

Is there a spike in infections?

Possibly, but it is difficult to tell.

We do know there has been a very small increase in the number of people being admitted to hospital with Covid.

The number went up to 3.31 admissions per 100,000 in the week to 16 June, compared with 2.67 per 100,000 in the previous week.

The largest group of people hospitalised with Covid were those aged 85 and over.

In terms of how many people have Covid and stay at home, it is difficult to say.

We no longer collect national data in the way we used to, as far less testing takes place now.

That means many cases of Covid are not being recorded.

The data, external we do have is based on laboratory tests taken across the country, mostly swabs taken from people in the healthcare system.

According to this data, about one in every 25,000 people had Covid on 26 June.

This may sound a lot but it is a tiny number compared with what we saw at the start of the pandemic. In March 2020, it was one in 13.

However, rates of Covid go up and down throughout the year, without necessarily becoming a cause for concern.

Prof Paul Hunter, an epidemiology expert from the University of East Anglia, told the BBC he did not believe the current Covid rates were concerning.

“I think we’re probably seeing about as much infection this year as we were seeing last year – a little bit less, but not hugely less.”

He believes that generally, we are seeing far fewer deaths and far fewer hospitalisations from Covid than last year.

In recent months, we have seen a new group of variants , externalof Covid emerge, collectively nicknamed as FLiRT.

Among them is the dominant JN1 variant and the KP2 variant. They account for many current Covid cases in England. The KP3 variant, which has driven a rise in cases in the US, has also been identified in the UK in small numbers.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it needed “more data” on the new variants to understand how severe and transmissible they might be.

The agency, which is responsible for public health, also said it was “impossible” to tell at this stage whether these variants were behind the small rise in hospital admissions.

As it does with all new strains, the UKHSA said it would “continue to monitor these variants” in the UK and internationally and would gather more information on how well the vaccines protect people against them.

But the agency said there was no current change to public health advice.

It is normal for a virus to change and mutate and the UKHSA says the healthcare system is still “getting to grips” with the ebb and flow of cases.

Prof Hunter said Covid was now part of life and should not be as alarming as it once was.

He said: “We are all of us going to get repeated Covid infections from births through to death.

“Generally what we’ve seen is that over the last three years, four years, the severity of illness associated with Covid has gone down a lot.

“Ultimately, it’s going to become another cause of the common cold and, for many people, that’s what it is now.”

He added: “To be honest, you can’t really avoid it because it’s so common.”

Have Covid symptoms changed?

The official list of Covid symptoms has not changed, according to the UKHSA.

General symptoms, external can include:

• High temperature or shivering
• New, continuous cough
• Loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
• Shortness of breath
• Feeling tired or exhausted
• Aching body
• Headache
• Sore throat
• Blocked or runny nose
• Loss of appetite
• Diarrhoea
• Feeling sick or being sick

What are the rules around Covid now?

There are no longer any legal restrictions requiring people to self-isolate if they have Covid. You also do not need to take a lateral flow test and there is no requirement to wear masks.

However, government advice, external is to try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for five days after testing positive.

People should also avoid meeting people who are more likely to fall seriously ill if they were to catch Covid, such as elderly people or those with weakened immune systems.

“If you are showing symptoms of Covid-19 or flu, help protect others by staying at home and avoiding contact with other people, especially those who are more vulnerable,” the UKHSA’s consultant epidemiologist Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal said.

Can you still get a Covid vaccine?

The vaccine programme has been scaled back since the initial rollouts early in the pandemic. Now, only certain people are entitled to jabs under seasonal booster programmes.

They are:

• Aged 75 or over
• People with a weakened immune system
• Adults who live in care homes

Vaccines are good at preventing severe Covid symptoms but they do not necessarily stop you becoming infected. NHS England previously urged anyone who was eligible for the jab, external to get vaccinated before the spring booster programme ended on Sunday, 30 June.

The latest data showed four million people – 59.6% of those eligible – had been vaccinated under the scheme since April, including two-thirds of care home residents.

Vaccinations are also available privately to anyone who can afford to pay for them.

Led By Donkeys @ByDonkeys (click link to watch video)

We just dropped in on Farage’s election rally with a beaming picture of Putin. Nigel was not pleased.

Consultation on EDDC local plan has just closed. 

There has been a tremendous response. (See EDDC Commonplace pages)

One major concern to emerge is that the current sustainability appraisal in the draft plan does not identify the water quality issues in river catchment areas caused by the combined impact of proposed and existing developments.

Watershed’s new pollution map, referred to in the previous post shows that ALL the main rivers in East Devon are in poor shape. Currently the Axe is so polluted in Somerset, it has been given an emergency level of protection by the Environment Agency. 

Much of the proposed new development will feed into either the Otter or the Clyst.

Ultimately the responsibility lies with the strength of legislation and its enforcement determined by central government. 

The Rivers Trust has this to say about each of the main party commitments made in their manifestos:

Preventing Pollution 

Conservatives

The Rivers Trust is concerned to see that the Conservatives intend to scrap nutrient neutrality rules following widespread outcry [by developers – Owl] against this move last year. These vital environmental laws protect our most sensitive natural sites from additional pollution. The Rivers Trust continues to urge political leaders not to undermine these protections.

Labour

The Rivers Trust is glad to see that Labour is committed to making nutrient neutrality rules work for development as well as nature and will retain these vital environmental protections. Unfortunately, the manifesto does not tackle other sources of pollution, such as agricultural and road run-off, which are causing havoc for our waterways.

Liberal Democrat

The Rivers Trust is glad to see the Liberal Democrat commitment to increasing funding for the Environment Agency and Natural England, and strengthening the role of the Office for Environmental Protection. These environmental agencies play a vital role in holding polluters to account and protecting our natural environment; proper resourcing will enable fair and effective regulation of all kinds of harm including sewage, agricultural, and chemical pollution.

Thousands of polluted landfills across England could be leaking toxic chemicals into the environment and harming people who live nearby, experts have warned.

Rachel Salvidge www.theguardian.com 

A few decades ago, the method for getting rid of industrial and domestic waste was to stick it in a hole in the ground, cover it up and hope for the best. It was known as “dilute and disperse” and it assumed toxic substances would seep into the surrounding soils, air and water and become harmless.

There are more than 21,000 of these “historic” landfills across England, with contents that are largely unknown. A report in the British Medical Journal found that 80% of the British population lives within 2km of a functioning or closed landfill site. The location of historic landfills and current waste sites can be viewed on a new pollution map published by Watershed Investigations, along with thousands of other potentially polluting sites.

The landfills are not distributed evenly; analysis of the government’s scrappy historic landfill database by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations reveals that the most deprived parts of the country contain five times more old landfills as a proportion of their area than more affluent places, and three times more operational waste sites.

The forensic environmental scientist Dr David Megson, a contaminated-land expert, said he was “not surprised that many of these sites tend to be in less affluent areas. They are often left as a public open space, as a developer wouldn’t be able to obtain planning permission to build houses on them due to the high levels of chemical pollution.

“Many back on to council estates and it’s not uncommon for children and teenagers to use these sites. These guys are not sticking to the paths and only using the sites occasionally, they are out there regularly exploring and digging in the dirt, I’ve even seen evidence of people lighting ground-gas monitoring boreholes on fire due to the high levels of methane present.”

Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas and exposure to high levels of it can lead to mood changes, slurred speech, vision problems, memory loss, nausea, vomiting, facial flushing and headaches. In severe cases, it could affect breathing and heart rate, and cause balance problems, numbness, unconsciousness and even death.

It is also known that landfills can leach a range of nasty substances into the environment, including banned toxic chemicals.

Environment Agency data obtained by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations reveals that long-lasting toxic carcinogens known as “forever chemicals”, such as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have recently been found in the ooze, known as leachate, from dozens of old and existing landfills, along with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and brominated diphenyl ether (BDE) flame retardants. In some cases the leachate is captured and treated, but this is not always the case.

“PFAS is pretty much ubiquitous and found in all [the sampled] sites, BDEs also come up quite a bit,” said Megson. “These are of interest as they have been emerging pollutants over the last two decades, compared to more traditional pollutants – such as heavy metals, PCBs and dioxins – that we have known about for much longer.

“Treatment procedures, if present at all at these sites, are not designed to deal with PFAS and BDEs. We’ve only been monitoring these pollutants recently, so there could be many large historic landfill sites that were deemed safe under previous investigations, but these investigations did not test for PFAS or BDEs – so they could actually be deemed contaminated land if we were to test them now.”

The environmental scientist Dr Daniel Drage examined the data and noted that the “fact that we are seeing PFAS in landfills that haven’t received waste in 20 to 30 years, and are seeing the highest levels now, shows what a challenge we are facing in tackling the issue. Dealing with PFAS-contaminated waste over the next five to 10 years is going to be a multi-billion pound industry, and landfill simply isn’t an appropriate method for its disposal. There is plenty of evidence to show that PFAS will not remain in landfill, and much of it would end up re-entering the environment.”

Particularly of concern are the thousands of landfill sites situated in flood zones and on the coast; flood water mobilises chemicals, and waves batter and erode landfills built on shorelines.

Councils are supposed to be responsible for looking after old landfills if an owner cannot be identified. Responsibility shifts to the Environment Agency only when a site is considered to present a risk. But since the government withdrew the contaminated land fund in 2017, cash-strapped local authorities rarely have the resources to seek out or actively manage sites.

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: “We provide expert technical and regulatory support to local authorities to help them carry out their responsibilities for regulating contaminated land in England. Where contaminated land needs to be remediated, we work with partners to reduce unacceptable risks to human health and the environment.”Historic landfills and operating waste sites can be viewed on Watershed’s new pollution map

Here are some illustrations of the sort of information available:

Above – land fill sites

River quality – example

Farming intensity – example

Electoral Calculus continues to put Richard Foord ahead with 37% of the vote. But his lead is very much dependent on a sharply divided right wing. Unlike Exmouth & Exeter East, Reform is predicted to be polling on a par, if not ahead, of Simon Jupp. This looks potentially volatile to Owl

Turnout is predicted around 70% (compared to 57% in Exmouth & Exeter East), reflecting the much greater observed interest in this constituency. Low turnout usually benefits Conservatives with their strong tribal loyalty.

Betting on the election is very much in the news, so Owl has been checking out the odds for Exmouth & Exeter East to see what the betting community makes of this first past the post race.

Not that Owl was considering a bit of a flutter, you understand.

This confirms the view, emerging from the polls, that this is seen as a two horse race.

The most popular bets seem to give the Lib Dems, at the moment, a bit of a “nose” over the Tories and confirms that Labour is very much one of the outsiders.

[For those like Owl unfamiliar with the betting scene and wanting to convert odds to implied probabilities here is an online calculator.]

The most popular bets being cast at the moment (in descending order of bets being placed) are:

Lib Dems (13/8)

Reform (10/1)

Labour (10/1)

Conservatives (15/8)

Green (300/1)

Dear Owl, 

I hate to be boring but in this beautiful hot weather Surfers Against Sewage gives Budleigh Salterton a SEWAGE ALERT again.

But the Environment Agency information solar panel, displayed by the Longboat, says there is no pollution warning available.

Who is the bather to believe? I know which I do.

As I walked the dog yesterday I saw so many enjoying playing in the sea, especially children. 

Meanwhile, the tankers full of “non-hazardous waste?” sewage still rattle along the Parade and destroy the surface of the High Street.

What is happening? I have heard so many different rumours. Do we have a crack in the Lime Kiln car park storage tank? Is there a blame game happening with SWW laying the this at the door of the LORP project? Who will pay for to have this mess sorted? (drawn- out litigation comes to mind) How long will BS and our vital tourism have to suffer? 

Residents appear to have been posting their own alert that this could be an ongoing problem all summer !

A week ago Electoral Calculus (the gold standard for MRP seat by seat predictions) gave Paul a small lead over the Tories (30% – to 29.2%). Their latest poll shows David Reed, the blow- in Tory, bucking the trend and increasing his vote share to 32.4%, overtaking Paul who also continues to gain ground. Reform in this constituency appears static. Labour has dropped from 17.8% to 11.7% and is now given only a 2% chance of winning. Olly Davey, Green, has increased his vote from 2.8% to 9.5%.

Obviously these seemingly precise numbers are surrounded by substantial uncertainty. We need to read them with caution. In these small sample predictions what usually has statistical significance are consistent trends. So over three polls we have the Conservative vote going up and down, Labour has been falling consistently, Lib Dems and Greens have been rising consistently.

Overall conclusion This is a two horse race, too close to call at the moment, but only Paul Arnott can beat the Tories. Voting Labour or Green is likely to hand the seat to David Reed.

For Comparison here are the previous predictions

Electoral Calculus prediction 14 June

Electoral Calculus prediction 21 June

A correspondent received this communication from Greenpeace which is equally applicable to Exmouth & Exeter East – Owl

‘At this election, Honiton and Sidmouth could be a close race so your vote is powerful.  To help you cut through the political spin, we’ve teamed up with Friends of the Earth to comb through the parties’ manifestos and reveal who’s really standing up for the future of our planet. Everyone has to make their own choice about how to vote. But if climate and nature is a priority for you, we hope you find this helpful.  Key points to know:  Across the main UK-wide parties, the Green Party tops our list for its climate and nature plans, followed by the Liberal Democrats, Labour, and lastly, the Conservatives. A poll last week suggests it is most likely to be either the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives that win in your area.[1]  We found a big gap between these two parties on their plans and have scored the Liberal Democrats over six times higher than the Conservatives on climate and nature. Commitments from the Liberal Democrats that are particularly promising include raising money through wealth taxes to invest in green homes, better public transport, nature restoration and more support for developing countries. The party also has an excellent plan to tackle sewage in our rivers and seas. Sadly, they have not committed to an end to oil and gas licences or to ratify the Global Oceans Treaty – both areas they need to go further on.  The Conservative Party’s manifesto is worrying reading. They’re doubling down on oil and gas when increased dependence on gas will result in higher bills, more energy price shocks and an increase in our climate-wrecking emissions. It’s good news that they would ratify the Global Oceans Treaty swiftly, but there’s no credible plan to stop sewage in our rivers and seas. Polling day is Thursday 4 July – use your vote and remember you need ID.

Want to get the full picture on where parties stand?

Read the guideRead and share this guide on voting for climate and nature at this election

Thank you for joining me in demanding a greener, healthier country for us all.  In hope and solidarity, BeckyGreenpeace UK  P.S. Have you signed up to be a climate voter? Our movement will be holding the new government to account beyond the election and we need your help to do it. Join us here. [1] Polling from YouGov released on 19 June

Party doesn’t respond to issue

A Devon Reform UK candidate appears to have posted controversial social media posts, including one alluding to prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Indian heritage.

Bradley Gerrard, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

Paul Quickenden, who is standing in the new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency, has a mocked-up picture of Mr Sunak with the heading ‘Dahl Boy’ on his Facebook page.

The image places Mr Sunak’s head on the body of sitcom wideboy from Only Fools and Horses, Del Boy, and also features Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and London mayor Sadiq Khan as ‘grandad’ and ‘Rodney’, respectively, from the show.

The famous yellow Robin Reliant is also in the image, but rather than ‘Trotters’, the surname of Del Boy in the show, it says the word ‘Traitors’, and has 666 as the number to telephone.

666 is a biblical reference popularly known as the number of the beast, or devil.

Mr Sunak is a British Sikh of Punjabi Indian heritage.

It’s unclear who originally created the image that Mr Quickenden is promoting to his Facebook followers.

The image came to light as part of an investigation by ITV which claimed that four Reform UK candidates belonged to a public Facebook group that regularly posts racist messages.

Mr Quickenden has also posted comments and shared Facebook posts, including one with 24,400 followers saying: “Cultural Jihad , happening now in plain site and encouraged by both main parties.”

Mr Quickenden uses this post to advance his campaign in Honiton and Sidmouth, inviting followers to vote for Reform UK in the constituency.

The ITV report also referenced two other unnamed Reform candidates who had posted potentially racist posts, with one allegedly commenting in 2016 that ‘Hitler founded Israel’, and then another posting the image of Mr Sunak, which has since been reproduced on Mr Quickenden’s profile.

Discussing the issue from a national perspective, Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage told ITV it hired a vetting agency, vetting.com, to perform background checks on its candidates, but the firm said the speed with which the general election was announced meant its process had to be rushed.

“Our candidates are not sophisticates or Oxbridge graduates,” Mr Farage told ITV.

“Our candidates may have a sense of humour that is a bit rough and ready, but we believe in free speech.”

Mr Quickenden has a GoFundMe campaign to help him pay for election costs, and has raised £1,170 from 16 donations out of his £2,000 target as of 24 June.

A Devon spokesperson for Reform UK has not responded to requests for comment.

A Labour party member has been arrested in connection with the “honeytrap” scandal which rocked Westminster.

Archie Mitchell www.independent.co.uk

The man, in his mid-twenties, was taken into custody from an address in Islington on Wednesday morning, the Metropolitan Police said.

Multiple victims have been told by the force that he was arrested on suspicion of offences under the Online Safety Act and harassment. Labour is understood to have suspended him after it was notified of his arrest.

Earlier this year a high-profile MP William Wragg was suspended by the Conservatives over his role in the scandal.

He admitted giving the phone numbers of colleagues to the scammer after he shared explicit images of himself when they began talking on a dating app.

Mr Wragg told the Times he was “scared” because the man had compromising information on him.

In April the Met had launched an investigation after “unsolicited messages” were sent to a number of MPs, staffers and political journalists working in Westminster.

It came after Politico reported that political figures had received the unsolicited messages from someone using two unfamiliar numbers calling themselves “Abi” or “Charlie”.

The messages would include details of the MPs and staffers’ careers and campaigns they had worked on to build rapport with victims. They would then descend into sexually explicit messaging, with “Abi” or “Charlie” sending graphic images to victims and asking for nude photographs in return.

It is understood that two of the individuals targeted responded by sending an explicit image of themselves, with the attack described as an attempt at spear phishing. Spear phishing involves scammers pretending to be trusted senders in order to steal personal or sensitive information.

Other senior figures targeted by the honeytrapper included Conservative MP Dr Luke Evans, who said he had received unsolicited explicit images and messages over WhatsApp. It is believed that at least 12 men in political circles received the unsolicited messages.

In a statement, the Met said: “Police executed a warrant at an address in Islington.

“A man was arrested on suspicion of harassment and committing offences under the Online Safety Act. He was taken into custody where he remains.

“The arrest relates to an investigation being carried out by the Met’s Parliamentary Liaison and Investigation Team following reports of unsolicited messages sent to MPs and others.

“The investigation remains ongoing.” The investigation has seen officers interview all those who received messages from the scammer, which included Labour and Conservative MPs.

Historically, in Devon, there have always been tensions between the walled city of  Exeter and the County beyond, though you may have to be a 300 year old Owl to know it.

Are we seeing an action replay in this election where Exeter labour activists seem to be under the illusion that they can “take over” the new constituency of Exmouth and Exeter East? Despite only a small fraction of Exeter’s suburbs being added to the Exmouth side of the old constituency.  

Labour’s candidate in 2019 was Dan Wilson, an EDDC councillor for Exmouth Halsdon. This time he stands as an Independent.

Dan quit the party in March, citing amongst his reasons: Labour’s reneging on the Green New Deal and turning a blind eye to whistleblowing on candidate behaviour. Dan says “When I was in the Labour Party, that’s the kind of thing I expected of the Conservatives, and I felt [the Labour party] should hold itself up to higher standards.”

As has been reported and commented on by Owl, Labour have drawn false conclusions on their strength from polls attempting seat by seat predictions on small samples. Their illusion is beginning to dawn, though Owl can find no evidence of their campaigning cutting through in the constituency heartland in Exmouth.

Nationally, both Labour and the Conservatives are losing votes with Reform and the Lid Dems gaining.

The tectonic plates continue to move.

Martin Shaw @martinshawx

Disappointing (but predictable?) that EEE Labour has switched off replies to this. Not only has Electoral Calculus projected the Lib Dems to beat the Tories, but now the FT – whose outdated figures Labour uses on its leaflets – has the LDs moving ahead to become the challenger.

Huge sums of taxpayers’ money literally has gone up in flames. – Owl

An estimated £1.4bn-worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) bought by the government in single a deal has been destroyed or written off, according to new figures described as the worst example of waste in the Covid pandemic.

Matthew Weaver www.theguardian.com 

The figures obtained by the BBC under freedom of information laws showed that 1.57bn items from the NHS supplier Full Support Healthcare will never been used.

They were part of a £1.78bn deal the firm struck with the government to supply masks, aprons, eye protectors and respirators in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic. It was the government’s largest PPE order during the pandemic accounting for 13% of the government’s spend.

Out of total of 2.02bn items provided by Full Support Healthcare in the deal, only 232m were sent to the NHS or other care settings, the figures show. About 749m items have already been destroyed and a further 825m of excess stock is being considered for disposal or recycling, the disclosure revealed.

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, described the deal as a “staggering waste”.

He said: “We know that billions of pounds were wasted during the pandemic on corruption and incompetence by the Conservatives, but this is the worst example I have ever seen.

“£1.4bn on one contract, paying for PPE that was never used, and Rishi Sunak’s fingerprints are all over it. That is money that could have been used to pay the salaries of 37,000 NHS nurses.”

Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said it was “colossal misuse of public funds”.

She added: “This is just the latest in a series of damning revelations on the Conservatives’ record of mishandling Covid contracts.

“Instead of this troubling pattern of waste, shortcuts and lack of oversight, the public deserve transparency on the true cost of these failures.”

The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, said the £1.4bn figure was “not accepted” but her department has not provided an alternative estimate.

She defended the government’s procurement of PPE during the pandemic as “the right thing to do”. Challenged on the disclosure during a press conference on Tuesday, she said: “The whole country wanted us to get the PPE that our frontline staff needed both in healthcare and in social care, and we managed to procure billions of pieces of PPE equipment.”

In January, the Department of Health and Social revealed that of the £13.6bn spent on PPE during the pandemic, items worth £9.9bn had been written off as defective or unusable.

There is no suggestion that Full Support Healthcare, or its co-directors, Sarah and Richard Stoute, have done anything wrong.

The couple’s lawyers told the BBC: “Full Support Healthcare stock arrived quickly by summer 2020, much earlier than most and in larger quantities. It had either a two- or three-year shelf life. This means the PPE products are more likely to have passed their use-by date.”

The couple’s business is based offshore in Jersey, “solely to maintain privacy”, the lawyers told the BBC.

The couple and their company remain registered in the UK for tax.

A Conservative cabinet minister claimed that he won more than £2,000 betting on a July general election.

Joe Pike www.bbc.co.uk

Shortly after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the election date, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack told the BBC he had made £2,100 after betting on June and July election dates. He claimed one of the bets was placed at odds of 25/1.

Last week, Mr Jack told the BBC the comments were “a joke… I was pulling your leg”.

Today, the Scottish Secretary said in a statement he “did not place any bets on the date of the general election during May”.

Rishi Sunak made his surprise election announcement on 22 May.

“I am very clear that I have never, on any occasion, broken any Gambling Commission rules”, said Mr Jack.

“I did not place any bets on the date of the general election during May – the period under investigation by the Gambling Commission.

“Furthermore, I am not aware of any family or friends placing bets. I have nothing more to say on this matter.”

A spokesperson for the Gambling Commission said: “We are not confirming or denying the identity of any individuals involved in this investigation.”

Alister Jack had been telling colleagues and journalists for at least a year that he thought a June or July election made the most strategic sense for his party.

He has represented Scotland in the UK cabinet since 2019, under the premierships of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

His controversial decision in 2021 to block the Scottish government’s gender self-ID reforms was seen as a significant moment in the demise of Nicola Sturgeon’s period as Scotland’s First Minister.

In February 2024, he expressed “regret” after deleting all of his WhatsApp messages from during the pandemic.

He said he erased his files to free up storage capacity on his phone in November 2021.

Owl’s view is that tactical voters need to to stop following illusions and swing behind the other candidate with Claire Wright’s endorsement, Paul Arnott in Exeter & Exeter East as well

seatonmatters.org 

At tonight’s Axminster hustings (pictured above), Green Party candidate Henry Gent said, ‘Vote for the candidate best placed to defeat the Conservative’ – that is, for Richard Foord. Jake Bonetta. the Labour candidate, has previously said, ‘We cannot let the Tories win here’, but he did not make a clear statement like Henry Gent’s tonight. Yet that is what is needed – Richard is not sure of beating the Tory, who some projections still back to win. Every vote counts – as Henry indicated, there will be another day when it makes sense to vote Green or Labour, but not now.

A “Deaf old Buffer” writes:

Dear Owl,

My hearing aids stopped working four weeks ago, just before the Spring Bank Holiday. Chime at RD&E audiology repaired them that week and returned them by post on 30 May.

In Budleigh Salterton our household received no post, other than tracked post from the Bank Holiday until a huge bundle was delivered on 20 June, three weeks later. (Social media reported delivery desserts in Sidmouth over the same period).

Unfortunately, this did not include the hearing aids but, excitingly, did contain a letter from RD&E informing my wife of her RD&E appointment for the Monday June 3 – eighteen days previously.

Yesterday afternoon, the hearing aids suddenly turned up but after a lunch time delivery.

I have suffered over three weeks of unnecessary silence and am left utterly speechless at this failure of an essential service on which so many of us depend, especially as we get older.

Deaf Old Buffer

PS. What impact could this have on the postal vote?

[Owl adds that since 2011, Royal Mail’s universal service obligations have included offering to deliver letters Monday-Saturday and parcels Monday-Friday as well as offering two delivery speeds for its main universal service products: First Class (next day) and Second Class (within three days).]

Executive summary ifs.org.uk 

English councils saw big cuts to their funding during the 2010s, with spending on some services down between 40% and 70% over the decade. And although like virtually all public services, funding for local government was increased during the 2019–24 parliament, councils’ finances are still under significant pressure. This reflects increases in demands and costs for key services that have often far outpaced economy-wide inflation, and has led to a growing number of councils requiring exceptional financial support.

Despite this, the main parties’ manifestos were virtually silent on their plans for council funding post-election. This means there is significant uncertainty about exactly what to expect over the next five years. This report therefore looks at a number of scenarios for councils’ funding – and what these might mean for service delivery and financial sustainability given the spending pressures councils face. It finds that, given the current fiscal environment and overall spending plans implicit in the main parties’ manifestos, cuts to some council services are highly likely unless spending pressures abate – even with big increases in council tax, and particularly in poorer parts of the country. There is also a real risk of significantly more councils being pushed to financial breaking point, joining the likes of Birmingham, Thurrock and Woking. 

How might central government funding change?

The next government will have to decide how much grant funding will be provided to local government. None of the main parties has made commitments on this, unlike in 2019. 

Existing indicative spending envelopes for 2025–26 onwards imply that ‘unprotected’ spending – which in the 2010s included grant funding for councils – could see cuts averaging 2% to 3½% in real terms per year, if the next government wanted to fully fund the NHS workforce plan and meet existing childcare, defence and overseas aid commitments. However, this may not provide a good guide for how grant funding for councils will change in the next parliament. 

First, overall UK government spending totals are likely to be revised more significantly than suggested in party manifestos, when detailed plans are set at a post-election Spending Review; the trend since 2015 has been for budgets to be revised upwards. Second, the extent to which councils will share in any pain imposed is uncertain; in principle, they could fare better or worse than the average unprotected area. The public finance situation and major parties’ overall tax and spending plans mean that grant funding is likely to be more constrained in the coming parliament than over the last few years though.

Will reliance on council tax increase?

There is also uncertainty about the outlook for council tax, the biggest single source of funding for English councils. 

Councils have increased their council tax by an average of 4.4% per year since 2019. But this has barely been enough to keep up with inflation, leaving council tax at the same real-terms level as in 2019–20 and just 2% higher in real terms than in 2010–11. In future, 5% increases (the overall maximum allowed without a referendum over the last two years) would mean a 3% per year real-terms increase in bills over the next parliament, the fastest rate since the 2001–05 parliament (when they averaged 6% a year). 

Whether 5% increases in council tax are a good guide for the future is unclear though. On the one hand, both central and local government may feel uncomfortable with such above-inflation increases. On the other hand, an incoming government could decide to remove council tax referendum limits as part of devolution plans. Experience from Wales suggests that this could see bigger increases in council tax, especially by those councils that have traditionally set low tax rates.

Scenarios for funding changes

Uncertainty about both grant funding and council tax increases means that it is not possible to predict the funding councils will receive in the next parliament with confidence. However, it is possible to look at a range of more optimistic and more pessimistic scenarios using different assumptions about how both grant funding and council tax revenues may change over the next five years. This is done in Table A, which includes three scenarios for grant funding (flat in real terms; 2.7% real-terms cuts per year; 7.0% real-terms cuts per year), reflecting uncertainty about the priority placed on council funding by the next government, as well as two scenarios for council tax increases (5% and 3% per year). 

The table shows that, in any of these scenarios, overall funding will increase by less than the average over the 2019–24 parliament (2.9% per year in real terms). These scenarios also show that across the local government sector as a whole, the increases that are made to council tax will likely matter more for trends in overall funding than changes in grant funding. This reflects the much larger contribution that council tax makes to overall funding (57% in 2024–25) than grant funding (15%) (with retained business rates making up the remainder). 

Table A. Scenarios for English council funding

_{Source: Table 2 in the main text. The first figure in parentheses relates to the increase in council tax for general services, and the second the additional increase for social care services.} 

Potential impacts of these scenarios

Councils in more deprived areas can raise relatively less in council tax than those in more affluent areas and in turn rely more on grant funding. This means that unless grant funding were redistributed towards deprived areas, councils in such areas may fare financially worse. For example, with cuts to grants of 7% a year and 5% council tax increases, councils in the most deprived tenth of areas in England would see overall funding increases averaging 0.6% a year, compared with 2.6% a year for councils covering the least deprived tenth of areas.

In order to offset this pattern, the government would need to redistribute grant funding from less deprived to more deprived areas. For example, under the scenario just described, councils in the most deprived tenth of areas would need to see their grant funding increase slightly in cash terms over the next four years, while those in the least deprived areas would need to see cuts averaging two-thirds, to equalise the cut in overall funding in 2028–29. 

The impact of any future funding scenario on councils’ service provision and financial sustainability will depend crucially on the cost and demand pressures councils face. Recent Local Government Association analysis suggests that if recent demand and cost pressures continued, real-terms increases of 4.5% a year would be needed to maintain services – far outpacing the funding increases in even our optimistic scenario. Even with a significant slowdown in cost and demand growth, councils in more deprived areas could struggle under even our most optimistic funding scenario, given that they can raise less from council tax than those in richer areas. If grants are cut significantly and/or council tax increases are closer to 3%, councils across the country would need to cut back service provision and could potentially face severe financial stress, even if cost and demand pressures ease. 

Several public services are at risk of suffering “sharp cuts” under either a future Labour or Conservative government, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

Richard Wheeler www.independent.co.uk

The IFS said the manifestos of the major parties provided little information about the funding outlook for individual services, which makes it easier for them to stay silent on the cuts to unprotected budgets.

The IFS said it did not expect the parties to conduct comprehensive spending reviews for a potential five-year Parliament in their manifestos.

But it added parties could have provided more details on their priorities and rough minimums or totals for different areas of spending in a bid to “give a sense of what we can realistically expect from them” in the next Parliament.

Existing government departmental spending plans run until the end of March 2025.

The IFS noted the two main parties have provided costings for specific policies, such as Labour’s commitment to free breakfast clubs and the Conservatives’ bid to modernise GP services.

But it said the broad priorities of each party “do not tell us anything about overall spending on each public service”.

In a new briefing note, the IFS said: “At the time of the March 2024 Budget, the baseline day-to-day resource spending envelope for all government departments was growing at 1% in real terms per yearafter this year.

“Neither main party has changed overall resource spending plans in significant ways with their manifestos: Labour’s £5 billion top-up in 2028–29 means real-terms resource spending will now grow at 1.2%, rather than 1%, on average per year.

“The Conservatives left total spending plans virtually unchanged, topping up total departmental spending in 2029–30 by around £500 million.

“We have already discussed the fact that the lack of department-by-department plans after this year means that we are uncertain about the path of spending on particular public services, andthat we are unable to evaluate the ‘cost’ of committing to a given path of spending.

“But the lack of department-by-department plans also means that parties can commit in their manifestos to overall spending plans that imply sharp real-terms cuts to a range of areas, without spelling out where those cuts will fall or how they are to be achieved.”

IFS research economist Bee Boileau, an author of the report, said: “Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have made a lot of their fully funded pledges in the manifestos this election campaign.

“But, in practice, these pledges mean almost nothing for the funding that individual public services might expect in the next Parliament.

“We do not know how total spending will be allocated between public services after next March, and, with a few exceptions, neither manifesto offered much light.

“The manifestos did tell us that neither party is planning to top up total public service spending by enough to avoid very difficult choices for many public services in the next parliament.

“But the manifestos provided no information on which areas would actually bear the brunt of these choices, continuing the main parties’ conspiracy of silence when it comes to public service spending plans.”

Mark Franks, director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, said: “The public should be informed about whether the parties aiming to form the next government have credible plans for funding the essential public services that people rely on.

“In this election, voters are being asked to make their decision without adequate and clear information on this critical issue.

“This lack of clarity should be addressed, both in the remaining two weeks before the election and in future electoral processes.”

I hear the Mediterranean is revolting this time of year. It certainly will be for some this summer. A growing anger, from Barcelona to the Balearics, is threatening to turn the most popular holiday hotspots into hostile ground for the tourists they once welcomed.

Paul Clements www.independent.co.uk 

The islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera have already been hit by protests, with 10,000 locals marching through Palma. Earlier this month, sunbathing tourists on an isolated beach popular with Instagram influencers were jeered and forced off it so that residents could have it to themselves for a change. The Balearic president has declared that Mallorca’s 20 million tourists a year “is not sustainable”, and that measures to limit visitors can no longer be ruled out.

Then, last weekend, the mayor of Barcelona restated his opposition to the short-term letting site Airbnb – a lightning rod for protests about the “crime” of over-tourism – by pledging that there will be no rental apartments for visitors in his city by the end of the decade.

His refusal to issue new licences and not renew existing ones comes amid public outcries against the mass tourism that has seen a city of 1.6 million residents receive more than 30 million visitors a year.

In 2016, Barcelona became the first major European city to fine Airbnb for users letting out unregistered properties and, later, to ban short-term private room rentals altogether, as part of its campaign to crack down to dissuade tourists from using short-let booking apps and to push visitors back into hotels. Some 3,500 apartments are already said to have been returned to the city’s local housing market.

In clamping down, you might say Barcelona is taking back control of its private rental sector from the disruptor platform – and there are plenty of places in Britain that would like to follow their lead, too.

Since it launched across Europe in 2010, Airbnb has dramatically reshaped short-term lettings markets, depleting housing stock with a negative knock-on for residents’ rents. It has warped neighbourhoods, too. Family-run supermarkets that for generations have catered for locals have been inched out by tourist cafes, bike rentals and souvenir shops.

Yes, the app helped create new demand and enabled billions to flow into local economies. It has stretched the average tourist’s length of stay, which has only added to local incomes and enabled more than $10bn in tourism taxes to be generated around the world. But with hordes of visitors comes great irresponsibility.

The revolving door of tourists can shatter the peace, from the notorious “party pads” with hot tubs in quiet villages, to the unwelcome sound of wheelie suitcases being trundled down the corridor of a residential apartment block in the middle of the night.

Initially, Airbnb was sold as the place to find a room going spare or a sofa to surf. But the trouble with “democratising” travel is that everybody can do it. The freedom to live like a local and explore a neighbourhood like it’s your own means you can also misbehave like you own the place, too – to drive it like you stole it.

Just ask the residents of Britain’s prettiest seaside villages – if you can find them. Out of season, the likes of Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire, Whitstable in Kent and Mousehole in Cornwall are often pitch dark; nobody’s home, because few can afford to live there these days, thanks to all the holiday lets that no one much fancies in deepest February. These towns are becoming like a ghost town.

Meanwhile, in London, cash-strapped councils have accused holiday platforms of not doing enough to prevent local authority housing from being illegally sublet to tourists for vast profits – and at a time when thousands of people are on waiting lists for full-time accommodation. (One housing association tenant was reportedly found to have made £4,000 a week from subletting their property to tourists.)

There was a time when we used to love a market disruptor. In a similar way that the arrival of “no-frills” airlines in the 1990s rapidly brought down the price of return flights, and Uber ended black cabbies’ nice little earner, holiday rental app revolution – made possible by smartphones and sleek online booking interfaces – seemed to pull a rug from beneath hotels that could once overcharge for a bed for the night.

But there’s always a catch – and it’s not just the vast council tax shortfall involved. In my experience, Airbnb and its rival platforms are rarely fuss free.

Tim Dillon, a US stand-up and podcaster, has a nice line about the downside of staying in the spare rooms advertised on Airbnb, which has misanthropic echoes of Jean-Paul Sartre: “The problem is that people are terrorists – their homes are filthy and disgusting. There are 150 rules including ’Don’t wake the neighbour. She’s works nights!” Or dumb recommendations: ‘Try Claudia’s Pancake Hut – local fav!’ Just buy a van and sleep in that.”

I might do just that. These days, I am allergic to Airbnb, ever since I was kicked out of an apartment in Alghero in high season, for complaining about the gabba DJ broadcasting into the night at the open-air funfair next door, a facility unmentioned in the listing description.

You’d think I’d have learned my lesson, but this summer I’ve booked to go to Mallorca. I’ll be sure to pack an “Ocupem les Nostres Platges” T-shirt, just to throw the anti-tourist protesters off the scent.

• Consultation request: Erection of temporary wooden shelter in corner of playground at Offwell Primary School.Offwell C Of E Primary School Offwell Honiton EX14 9SARef. No: 24/1198/CM | Validated: Wed 12 Jun 2024 | Status: Awaiting decision
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• T1, birch – dismantle and fell. T2, birch – formative prune – shortening longer growth by approximately 0.5m to leave a natural form. 4 Rolle Barton Church Hill Otterton EX9 7HRRef. No: 24/1210/TCA | Validated: Fri 14 Jun 2024 | Status: Awaiting decision
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• 
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  T1: Field Maple: crown lift by removing approximately 5 low limbs, MDC 50mm; tip prune eastern aspect to achieve a 1.5m clearance from 4 Fore St. G2: 2 no. of declining conifers to remove. The Rolle 2 Fore Street Budleigh Salterton Devon EX9 6NG
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