A new school set up to boost the number of doctors in England has been told it will not receive any funding for domestic students – meaning that in future it may only be able to give places to those coming in from overseas.

Anna Fazackerley www.theguardian.com

The government is refusing to fund a single place at Three Counties Medical School, University of Worcester, despite health bosses in the area saying they are spending £70m a year on agency staff to plug a chronic shortage of doctors.

The school was set up to boost doctor numbers across Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire – rural areas that struggle to compete with big city training centres such as Birmingham when recruiting medical staff. The centre is expected to be completed in about six weeks, and it has the agreement of the General Medical Council to start training doctors from September.

However, the Department for Health and Social Care, which maintains a strict cap on the number of university medical degree places it funds, is ignoring pleas from local health trusts, hospitals and Tory MPs to pay for students to come and train at the school.

Professor David Green, vice chancellor of Worcester University, told the Observer: “The chronic shortage of staff in the NHS means that doctors are constantly rushed, so delays and mistakes happen and that is leading to a crisis of excess deaths. The question is how bad do things have to get before the government will act?”

He said that there was “a desperate need” for more doctors to work in the three counties, adding: “All the local health services say the school is crucial. But we still have not been allocated a single funded place by the government.”

Simon Trickett, chief executive of the NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire integrated care board, said they were spending just over £70m this year on locum and agency staff because they don’t have enough doctors. He added: “That’s a massive premium to pay to get your shifts covered.”

He said: “It is really frustrating. The local system is 100% behind this medical school. The GP surgeries, the hospitals, the community services and the local councils all really want it. But it is being blocked from entering the market.”

Trickett said that as well as doctors working in hospitals the region urgently needed a “production pipeline” of new trainee GPs to fill the gaps as existing doctors retired, adding that this was particularly important as they had a high proportion of elderly residents.

It comes as the head of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, called on the government to increase the number of homegrown nurses and doctors trained at medical schools. “We are seeing universities having to turn away excellent people,” she told the Times.

In the absence of any government funding, the university has managed to raise the money for 20 UK medical students to start its fast-track four-year graduate medical training this September, with support from a local charity and a one-off contribution from local NHS trusts, which do not want to see the school fail. The school received 1,000 applications from students in the UK and across the world, with international students paying £45,100 a year to support all their own training costs.

The medical school has offered places to 48 students in total, but Green said that the university could “easily” have secured training placements locally for more than 100 students if the government would agree to pay for them.

Robin Walker, Conservative MP for Worcester and chair of the Commons education select committee, said: “I’ve been telling health ministers that it is irrational to have medical schools that can’t recruit domestic medical students when we know we need them.”

He added: “At the moment we are dependent on training centres like Birmingham and Bristol to recruit doctors but they have their own demands to meet. We urgently need a local supply of doctors.”

The Royal College of Physicians has been lobbying for an expansion in medical training places for years. Its president, Dr Sarah Clarke, said: “Training more doctors is crucial to creating a sustainable and efficient health service. There are thousands of UK students ready to take up places in medical school, we just need the government to fund them.”

Next year Worcester says it will have to recruit only international students, who are less likely to stay and work locally.

The government has also denied funding to two other new medical schools in England, at Brunel University and the University of Chester.

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “Since 2017, the government has provided funding for an extra 1,500 medical school places per year. We created five new medical schools as part of this process.

“We have commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term plan for the NHS workforce for the next 15 years. This will look at the mix and number of staff required across all parts of the country, including doctors.”

Isn’t he part of the problem? – Owl

Jeremy Hunt has been “captured” by the Treasury, according to a Westminster insider.

Caroline Wheeler www.thetimes.co.uk

The chancellor is seen as the stumbling block in talks with the unions over disputes that have brought Britain grinding to a halt.

The insider points to Hunt’s determination to boost growth by getting economically inactive people back into work while blocking pay rises for public sector workers.

It is understood that the Treasury has told Steve Barclay to find savings in his health department if he wants to give nurses a pay rise. He has resisted the idea after having to find £250 million to plough into social care to free up hospital beds and ease the A&E crisis.

Barclay believes nurses should be an exceptional case, but the Treasury has rebuffed his approach for more money. In talks with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) last week Barclay asked for this week’s strikes, on Wednesday and Thursday, to be called off while discussions continue. The union wants a 19 per cent pay rise.

Rishi Sunak had promised unions a fresh approach, and ministers were told to begin negotiations on pay deals for 2023-24. The RCN talks are still open but this week’s action — involving up to 100,000 nurses — is expected to go ahead after the government refused to talk about this year’s pay deal.

With no sign of a breakthrough, the RCN is set to announce further strike dates for the start of February.

In more bad news for the government, the National Education Union and the National Association of Head Teachers are expected to announce that their members have voted in favour of a strike.

One Westminster insider suggested the blockage was Hunt: “Last year he argued for more funding for the NHS in his book Zero. Now he has become the iron chancellor, saying no to everything.”

The prime minister is likely to come under more pressure to resolve pay disputes as May’s local elections loom. One former cabinet minister said a way to put more money into health could be to tap the Treasury’s £4 billion windfall from the Bank of England’s sale of the long-term gilts it bought to quell panic after Liz Truss’s mini-budget.

A settlement on the railways is said to be “within touching distance” as ministers scaled back their demand for driver-only trains. The deal on the table is a 9 per cent pay increase over two years.

The chance of a breakthrough brings a glimmer of hope after a gloomy start to the year, with public services on strike on a scale not seen since 1926. The disputes have added to the bleak economic landscape. The UK narrowly avoided a 2022 recession after a “surprise” 0.1 per cent rise in growth in November. The risk of recession still looms large, however, with the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility both forecasting a contraction in the first half of 2023.

Sunak and Hunt have told business leaders that tackling Britain’s shrinking workforce is a priority that will be at the heart of the budget in March. Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, has drawn up proposals to tempt Britain’s nine million economically inactive people back to work.

He aims to lure over-50s who have taken early retirement back into the office and has prioritised efforts to keep younger people in employment.

Stride is expected to meet Hunt this week to discuss his proposals, which are understood to include putting a duty on pension providers to offer “midlife financial MoTs”. It is believed many over-50s took early retirement using assumptions made before the cost of living crisis.

Stride is also looking at the childcare element of universal credit and is considering plans to increase the benefit.

“Mel wants there to be as radical a target as possible to help those with treatable conditions, including those with mental health and skeletal conditions, back into work,” a Whitehall source said.

‘Community’ is alive and well in fast emerging Cranbrook as locals share what it’s really like to live in the young town, according to this article. www.devonlive.com

However, the string of comments posted online still seems to paint a different picture:

Comments

1. Crimebrook, where the council took the back handers from councils with problem tenants from areas such as Birmingham and Liverpool and voila you’ve just spent a fortune on a house that will just about survive a windy day to find roaming neighbours whose hands are in everyone’s pockets bar their own
2. The houses there will no longer be fit for purpose in another 20 years, no real substance to them and shoddily built. People pay a small fortune for what they call a family home which is hardly big enough to swing a cat in.
   The only people who will make any money on these houses are the developers. Anyone else will be lucky if the house is still standing in a few years. Don’t even think about trying any DIY, it’s basically wood & paper keeping the place together.
3. Heating homes a major problem
   You must use natter boiler which you have no control
4. I love the place can buy all my gear there and no police
5. Looks awful. Another Luton.
6. Oh no social housing! So many snobs here.
7. You sure! Someone told me the local council received payments to take problem families from other areas and there are plenty of problems there!
8. We rented in Cranbrook when we sold our last house and whilst looking for new. Although there for 9 months none of the neighbours introduced themselves, smiled or wanted any conversation. As soon as we brought a house in the city we meet all our lovely polite neighbours within a week, . There certainly wasn’t any community spirit in the road I was in. Horrid place to live – luckily I never have to go back.
9. Cranbrook was ruined by the requirement to have a social housing allocation in new build estates. Imagine paying your life savings for your dream home and then find out that they have shipped all of the “problem families” out there out of sight, out of mind
10. The “journalist” appears to have only spoken to a couple people, all of which are working here. Of course they’re going to say they love it. You want to speak to the residents. Plenty aren’t happy at all.
11. No mention of the bus shelters getting constantly smashed up. No mention of the rats that are still prevalent. No mention of the cars and vans parking on the dropped kerbs restricting people getting in and out of their parking spaces. No mention of grass verges getting driven on as short cuts and also because people are being forced to because of the crazy parking. No mention of pets being run over and killed because people can’t seem to stick to the speed limits. No mention of the constant road blocks with traffic being diverted through the centre because EON can’t seem to do their job properly. Talking of EON, no mention of the heating constantly breaking down because they can’t do their job properly. No mention of the post office that’s rarely open. There’s a lot more I could mention.
    Yes, it’s a wonderful place to live if you can ignore all this…
12. Cranbrook is “convenient” with its close proximity to Exeter and excellent transport links, sadly the present facilities are poor – there are times when the staff at the pub cannot be bothered with serving its customers and overpriced food and staff in the co-op and post office are occasionally downright rude – pist office especially, that is when it is open! Speed of the traffic passing through is another problem!
13. Soulless, dull, depressing. But great if you want to live in jerry built, characterless, identikit rabbit hutches.

Boris Johnson’s Partygate testimony to be shown in full on live TV

Can he navigate (bluster) his way out? Is your blood pressure up for this? – Owl

Michael Savage www.theguardian.com

Boris Johnson’s loyal band of supporters continue to believe he is the only politician with the box-office appeal to turn around the Tory party’s ailing fortunes. Before he has any chance of plotting a comeback, however, he will have to endure another box-office encounter that represents his biggest obstacle.

In what will be a high-stakes spectacle, major broadcasters are planning to air the entirety of the former prime minister’s testimony to parliament’s privileges committee, which is examining whether he misled MPs about law-breaking parties during the Covid pandemic.

So much sensitive evidence has been submitted to the inquiry that the Observer has been told it is being kept in a “strong room”. Only those with proper passes and reasons for access are allowed in and out. One source said some of the claims about parties were “decidedly weird”, and that new information would come to light.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s eagerly anticipated appearance – which could be one of only a small number of public hearings – will happen later than originally planned as a result of the quantity of documents the committee has been given. He is now expected to appear before the cameras next month. This will be broadcast live on parliament’s televised feed, and Sky News is already understood to have decided to show his whole evidence session.

The stakes have been raised in recent weeks as Johnson has broken cover with a series of speeches and appearances, some designed to keep his supporters onside and others to cash in since leaving office – a process he has described to friends as putting “hay in the loft” before he can embark on a comeback.

Last week, he recorded a £1m donation to his office from Christopher Harborne, a Thai-based British businessman who had previously given millions of pounds to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. He and his family are also being supported by the billionaire Bamford family, who have provided Johnson with two homes declared as costing £10,000 each for the month.

The events that took place in Whitehall during the pandemic are already being raised ahead of the privileges committee examination. Last week, Johnson was accused of joking at one leaving party during lockdown that “this is the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now”. He repeatedly told MPs that he did not know gatherings broke Covid laws in place at the time.

A spokesperson for Johnson did not deny the comment but said the then prime minister had “worked constantly” to ensure the government did all it could to save lives and protect livelihoods during the pandemic.

Whatever happens during the live questioning of Johnson during the inquiry, some MPs believe there is also a serious problem ahead for Rishi Sunak over the parties inquiry. MPs will have to vote on any sanction on Johnson recommended by the cross-party committee. While it is likely to be a “free” unwhipped vote, some MPs said that, in reality, Tories would seek advice over how they should vote.

One Labour MP predicted the event would end up being a “win-win” for Keir Starmer. “Let’s say that the committee decides the House was misled and Johnson is either forced to apologise to the House or suspended,” they said. “The government has to table a motion on that. Will they be whipping people to support it, or to vote down a Labour amendment designed to increase the sanction against him? They will be terrified about what to do. If he doesn’t defend Johnson, Johnson could try to take Sunak down. If he does defend him, the voters will take a dim view.”

Should Johnson navigate the privileges inquiry and retain support within the Tory party, some MPs are speculating that he may attempt to switch seats as his current Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency is a winnable target for Labour.

One of his options is to secure a seat from one of the supporters he has placed in the House of Lords. They include Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams, both of whom have safe Tory seats. Their elevation to the Lords is understood to have been delayed until closer to the election, to avoid hard byelections for the government.

Current rules allowing government ministers to enjoy less scrutiny of their financial interests than backbench MPs “can’t be right”, parliament’s outgoing standards chief has said.

Andy Gregory www.independent.co.uk

Appointed commissioner for standards in 2017, Kathryn Stone’s term came to an end in December, after a bruising series of high-profile investigations into ex-Commons speaker John Bercow and former Tory MP Owen Paterson, whose case triggered the collapse of Boris Johnson’s premiership.

In her first interview about the role, Kathryn Stone said that one of her “real frustrations” has been failing to persuade the government to ensure that those in both MP and ministerial roles are held equally accountable.

But the retiring watchdog hailed the “hugely important” move to hand the members of the public who sit on the Commons standards committee, known as “lay members”, the power to vote on investigations, enacted after its MPs blocked her attempt to probe bullying claims against Mr Bercow in 2018.

And speaking after revelations that Tory MPs have pocketed a total of £15.2m on top of their salaries since 2019, Ms Stone hit out at parliamentarians for whom being an MP is their “second, third or fourth job”.

While ordinary MPs have to register their financial interests with the standards commissioner within 28 days, with a new list published every fortnight, ministers can choose to declare some gifts and hospitality under their department’s name instead, in less detailed lists published quarterly.

This “ministerial exemption” saw Mr Johnson opt not to declare a free holiday at Zac Goldsmith’s luxury Spanish villa in 2021, enabling him to keep the gift’s value private.

Meanwhile, his home secretary Priti Patel took five months to declare attending the No Time To Die premiere as a guest of the Jamaican tourist board, resulting in an ally suggesting she used the “exemption” because the nature of the fictional film related to her ministerial role.

“One of my real frustrations has been not being able to persuade government, parliament about the need to have a kind of equality of arms, if you like, between ministers’ financial interests, and backbench MPs’ financial interests,” Ms Stone told The Times.

“For me, it can’t be right that ministers are held to a different level of accountability. In fact, a lower level of accountability than backbench MPs. That can’t be right because ministers are in an elevated position and much more, it seems to me, at risk of there being a perception of influence.

“And I really do believe that ministers should be held to the same level of accountability as backbench members of parliament.”

MPs on the standards committee are in agreement, having repeatedly called on the government to close the accountability gap, most recently last May, as part of a series of recommendations aimed at cracking down on “sleaze” in the wake of the scandals involving Tory MPs Geoffrey Cox and Mr Paterson.

The committee also called for a ban on MPs acting as consultants, providing “paid parliamentary advice or strategy services”, a move backed in September by Liz Truss’s short-lived government.

Ms Stone was supportive of MPs having other paid roles, however, saying that their “outside interests can bring a very rich seam of knowledge, skill and experience” to Westminster.

“When it tips over to the point where being a member of parliament is your second, third or fourth job, then that’s problematic for me,” said Ms Stone.

“And it’s also problematic for members of the public who elect a representative and expect their interests to be the priority of the member of parliament and not somewhere down the pecking order.

“So I think when MPs are thinking about outside interests, there needs to be a consideration of what that means for their ability to carry out their democratically elected mandate here, which brings enormous responsibility and is an enormous privilege.”

On Sunday it will be five years since the outsourcing giant Carillion collapsed under the weight of £1.5bn debt.

by Rachel Wearmouth go.pardot.com 

The mega-firm held around 450 separate public-sector contracts, spanning schools, prisons, transport and hospitals. 

Its bosses were paid huge six-figure salaries and bonuses before the companycollapsed; 3,000 jobs were lost and 7,000 suppliers and contractors were affected.

Carillion’s collapse was particularly catastrophic because the firm was so deeply embedded in public life. Vital infrastructure projects were delayed; schools suddenly found themselves with no cleaning or catering services.

The accounting firm KPMG was later fined £14.4m for misleading the accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, during inspections of its audits of Carillion and another company. A new watchdog to shake up the audit market and rebuild trust in corporate governance was promised, but after a number of reviews the draft legislation is still buried in a lengthy consultation.

To examine what lessons the government has failed to learn about outsourcing more generally, it is worth looking at children’s social care.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a review of the sector in 2021 amid concern the high cost of private sector children’s care homes was draining council budgets while demand was steadily rising.

In England 79 per cent of places for children are provided by the private sector. The Scottish and Welsh governments are aiming to end for-profit care for looked-after children, but there is no such plan for England. This is despite the landmark Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, published last May, which criticised rampant profiteering and warned that “without a dramatic whole-system reset” of family services there could be 100,000 children in care (up from 80,000) by 2032.

If that unhappy prediction comes to pass, the companies involved in care provision stand to make a lot of money. The service providers considered by the CMA averaged profit margins of 22.6 per cent between 2016 and 2020. Most councils in England have at least one looked-after child whose private placement costs at least £10,000 a week, and in some extreme cases that number can run to £60,000 a week.

It recommended bringing some aspects, such as fostering agencies (many of which rely on agency workers, who can demand higher rates), back in-house, as councils were paying high prices for a service they could provide and save money on long-term, given extra investment. More worryingly, the CMA warned some large providers were “carrying high levels of debt”, especially those run by private equity firms, increasing the “risk of disorderly firm failure, with children’s homes shutting their doors abruptly”. Sound familiar?

There are broader questions as to why asset-strippers continue to prowl the public sector while investment in the wider economy is weak, but Carillion’s ruinous failure should have pushed the government to act half a decade ago. There is scant evidence it has.

A Wiltshire Council gritting yard is being used as a make-shift morgue after its local hospital hit capacity. Bodies are being stored at High Post Salt Store near Salisbury in response to an increase in need across Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.

Hannah Currie www.wiltshirelive.co.uk

The trust has confirmed that security guards will monitor refrigeration units at the site, used to cope with an increase in demand, for 24-hours a day. They added that despite the location, it will treat “deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless”.

A spokesperson for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said: “We can confirm that we have opened additional mortuary capacity to accommodate an increase in need across the local community.

“Our mortuary service operates to the national standards treating the deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless of location. All our additional capacity provides privacy and has 24/7 security” it added.

Cllr Richard Clewer, Leader of Wiltshire Council, added: “We are supporting our partners at Salisbury District Hospital during this period of extreme pressure for the NHS.

“The site at High Post is private and is an appropriate location to provide this facility, and it is guarded by security at all times. Our staff are specially trained to work in a professional and proper manner, and behave respectfully and sensitively at all times.”

East Devon leads the way in showing how essential it is for the “ABCs” (anyone but the conservatives) to form alliances and coalitions – they work! – Owl

The Conservatives will continue running Plymouth City Council despite suffering a twin by-election defeat.

www.bbc.co.uk

Will Noble gained a seat for Labour in Moor View and the Greens’ Lauren McLay took Plympton Chaddlewood.

Following the election on Thursday, Labour has 25 seats and the Conservatives 23.

However, neither party has the 29 councillors needed for an overall majority.

Conservative leader Richard Bingley said he would not resign.

He blamed the defeats on “national issues” for his party and said the results were a “litmus test” for the Conservative government.

Will Noble, who won the Moor View ward for Labour, said: “There’s a lot of worry and disappointment at the way things have been run and the way things are going and it’s about trying to offer people a bit of hope that actually services and things can improve and that things won’t just get worse.”

Analysis from Ewan Murrie, Political Reporter

It was a set of results that many Conservatives had privately expected – but the party will still be worried about the direction of travel.

Last night, the Greens clinched their second council seat in less than a year in the previously blue ward of Plympton Chaddlewood.

Labour says its win has bolstered hopes of winning back the Moor View parliamentary seat – which it lost to the Conservatives in 2015.

The Tory council leader has pinned blame for the defeats on his party’s national woes, calling the by-elections a “litmus test” for the government.

But infighting among the local Tory ranks will not have gone unnoticed. The group’s on its third leader since 2020 and has also lost scores of councillors.

Plymouth remains under no overall control.

Labour is unlikely to call a no confidence vote before the May elections – leaving the Tories to push through a difficult budget in February.

Lauren McLay said: “It means that we can hold the administration to account better.

“It means that we can scrutinise more. And it also means that we will be able to stand up and present our ideas a little bit more. But ultimately, I just hope that it means that the people that we represent have better representation.”

The election was prompted after the previous councillors stood down following complaints they had moved out of the area and could no longer serve local residents.

Turnout in Plympton Chaddlewood was 23.76% and in Moor View it was 26.04%.

As reported earlier, the Down and Carter families, who own land between Crealy Theme Park and Greendale, are lobbying hard.

Their preferred site for a new garden village didn’t make the EDDC short list.

No doubt they miss the influence the East Devon Business Forum (EDBF) once had.

[All you need to know on the EDBF can be found here on this 2014 post, one or two of the old members are still lurking around in addition to Down and Carter such as Conservative leader Cllr Philip Skinner. They are all name checked on the referenced post.]

They have had to resort to using facebook and this attractive and official looking marketing website https://www.greenhayes.info/

This is Mark Hawkins’ constructive comment on Planning permission sought to raise Exmouth football pitches::

Could the two councils, County and District, perhaps work with the applicant on this?

There’s not enough on the application to explain to me why it might be necessary to actually raise the ground level here, and it doesn’t really tell me anything at all about their plans.

This is the pitch 2 area which is already above the level of the internal road and houses at the south eastern end.

It’s not accurate to describe this as poor drainage. It is failed drainage, despite there having been a clear maintenance obligation on the lease between former leaseholder Exmouth Amateurs and landlord East Devon District Council. I have seen evidence of polite requests, complaints, and even a partial rent strike, going back well before the 2008 financial crash, before the lease was forfeited with highly selective justifications in 2016.

Then there was a further period with bad faith being shown to numerous other sporting organisations before the current administration returned it to the community in the form of Exmouth Town Youth in 2020, with the decision being taken by decent members of all parties. I understand that all officers involved acted in good faith on this occasion, including the one who had been apparently unable to fulfil specific promises in 2016, though the legal aspects took a surprising amount of time.

The new lease has apparently transferred the drainage obligation to the tenant, but although the council has undone part of the wilful harm of its predecessors one would hope they could do more.

The reason I believe the County Council have an obligation in this is that it is substantially their water, the main incursion being from the dip in Halsdon Avenue being piped under a bungalow and into the ground, leading me to speculate that the other “springs ” in the bank are from the other Halsdon Avenue gullies. So taking short cuts in the development of Halsdon Avenue apparently created a problem for those coming after.

Another breach of leaseholder obligation was in failing to deal with trespass from neighbouring properties, including to fly tip gardening waste. Some of which may well have contributed to the silting of the drains.

One would assume that East Devon have plans of the existing draining system, and indeed that those were given to the surveying engineers in 2018/19(?), in order that they didn’t cause more damage by drilling.

Neglect of this lovely facility has been going on for 20 years, often despite the best efforts of leaseholders and with the active obstruction of the landlord. Despite this it has provided so many of us with very happy memories. What better summer evening for a dad with his teenage son to kick a ball purposefully for an hour or so and then relax watching the fox cubs play. I do hope they manage to achieve the functional restitution of the facilities but retain enough space for the wildlife.

It is ironic that this has cropped up just as Cllr Skinner has commenced the Conservatives’ campaign for this year’s district elections, telling us how we need a change of administration. There couldn’t be clearer evidence that the recent history here of how the change of administration has been a gain for the community, and of course Skinner himself was significantly implicated in the shameful events of 2016.

Boris Johnson has received a donation of £1m from a Thai-based British businessman who had previously given millions of pounds to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, the newly released register of MPs’ interests has shown.

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com 

Christopher Harborne, a tech industry investor who had previously donated to the Conservatives but gave the Brexit party £6m before the 2019 general election, handed the £1m donation to Johnson’s personal office, set up after he left No 10.

The Office of Boris Johnson Ltd was established in October last year. Companies House records show its sole original director was Johnson’s long-time aide Shelly Williams-Walker.

She has since been replaced by Ann Sindall, another close ally of the former PM, who was his secretary when he edited the Spectator magazine and went on to work with him when he was London mayor.

The Companies House entry lists the purpose of the company only as “other business support service activities”. Former prime ministers often set up offices to manage their post-Downing Street activities.

However, the size of the donation, one of the biggest recorded to an individual UK politician rather than a party, and from a strong Brexit supporter, will increase speculation that Johnson could be planning some sort of comeback.

Harborne, who began as a management consultant, has lived in Thailand for about 20 years, where he is also known under the Thai name of Chakrit Sakunkrit.

The register of interests, updated monthly, shows that in addition to this donation Johnson earned just over £250,000 for two speeches in December, meaning he has made more than £1.2m from speeches since leaving No 10 in September.

It also shows that Johnson and his family are still being supported by the billionaire Bamford family who are close friends of the former PM and also strong Brexit backers. Anthony and Carole Bamford provided two homes during December, declared as costing £10,000 each for the month.

The Bamfords – Anthony Bamford chairs the eponymous family digger firm – have provided the Johnsons with free accommodation since he left Downing Street.

Johnson also declared the free use of a VIP suite at Heathrow airport on two occasions in late November and December. He has used such VIP facilities at Heathrow or Gatwick 15 times since August.

This is a story about lobbying.

The Down and Carter families who own land between Crealy Theme Park and Greendale are behind plans to support their proposals for a site for a new town in East Devon.

Unfortunately for them, this site they have called “Greenhayes”, has not made it onto the EDDC short list.

According to this report, more than 70 local people have already submitted comments in support of Greenhayes. To put this in perspective, Owl understands that the number of comments on the Local Plan are running in excess of 6,000.

FWS Carter and Sons are regular donors to Simon Jupp. – Owl

“Greenhayes is an opportunity to build the homes East Devon needs in the right way, in the right location and with the right character, facilities and infrastructure. All in a way that is sensitive to the environment.”

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com

Developers are calling on the public to support a discounted proposal for a new town in East Devon. East Devon District Council is consulting on their local plan for where homes will be built across the district, with Sunday the closing date for submissions.

A ‘second Cranbrook’ as a new town on the edge of Exeter is among the plans for new homes as part of the East Devon Local Plan. The new development could include up to 8,000 new homes along with a range of community facilities and amenities.

The preferred site for the new town would span land north of the A3052 near Crealy Adventure Park to the A30 near Exeter Airport. The indicative boundary would see it spread towards Farringdon in the east, and out towards Westpoint to the west. To the north, it would run towards the junction between the A30 and Exeter Airport, and across the farmland between the sites. A site spanning from the edge of Clyst St George to the west, to Woodbury Salterton to the east is listed as an alternative.

But prior to the Draft Local Plan being published, a third location was discounted as a potential new town site. This site – Greenhayes – would have bordered the A3052 next to Crealy, running out towards Greendale Business Park to the south of the road, and out towards Farringdon and around Hill Barton Business Park to the north of the A3052.

The option would have been a zero-carbon community known as Greenhayes, which is proposed near Exeter close to Crealy Theme Park and Greendale Farm Shop. Campaigners and developers behind the site are asking East Devon District Council to look at the location again.

The council is instead proposing to makeup a shortfall of 1,800 homes by identifying sites they class as second-rate including across Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Honiton and Axminster. More than 70 local people have already submitted comments in support of Greenhayes.

Greenhayes development masterplan

A spokesperson for Greenhayes said: “The council is proposing to shoehorn around 1,800 new homes into sites it classes as second-rate across East Devon’s towns and villages. Why put additional pressure on these communities? There is a better way.

“As local residents ourselves, we understand the concerns about spreading development across our towns and villages. We have an alternative that will help the council build the homes East Devon needs whilst protecting the environment and delivering vital infrastructure – that alternative is Greenhayes.

“We’re excited by the support we’ve already received. We encourage anyone else who doesn’t want to see unnecessary development in their towns and villages to come forward and tell the council they support the alternative before it’s too late.

“Greenhayes is an opportunity to build the homes East Devon needs in the right way, in the right location and with the right character, facilities and infrastructure. All in a way that is sensitive to the environment.”

Greenhayes will be zero-carbon and create a 20% net gain in biodiversity. The plans include a new school and healthcare facilities, along with a park and ride and a village centre anchored by the award-winning Greendale Farm shop. The proposed community is directly adjacent to several thousand already existing jobs, with good connectivity into Exeter, Exeter Airport and across the district.

Plans for Greenhayes are driven by two local farming families who own the land between Crealy Theme Park & Resort and Greendale Farm Shop and Café as well as the Greendale Business Park. You can visit www.greenhayes.info to find out more and to submit comments that will be passed onto the council for consideration as part of the consultation. The team can also be contacted on 0800 148 8911.

East Devon District Council’s consultation runs until by 15 January 2023.

Richard Foord MP Tiverton and Honiton www.devonlive.com 

It’s January, a time to look to the future and consider what we want to build in 2023 while the year is still young. I have heard many people speculate that we may see some political boredom this year, following on from the ‘excitement’ of 2022.

Some of that drama was beyond the control of the Conservative Government, such as the conflict in Ukraine, but much of it was of their own making – with the return of sleaze, a lack of integrity at the top and stark mismanagement of the economy through the September mini budget.

This cocktail of issues caused energy bills to soar and mortgage rates to rise. It caused some people to sit in the cold because they couldn’t afford to put the heating on. Bills are set to climb even higher in March, with the only consolation that we hope to use less energy as the weather warms.

This doesn’t just affect residents and families; it also hurts local high street businesses across our towns and villages, and those living off-grid – many of whom are still waiting for financial support. I have raised this delay many times in Parliament, and yet we are still waiting to see when it will actually land in people’s bank accounts.

I don’t want to watch the Government continue to shirk their responsibility to act in the interest of rural areas like ours. We need action to bring down ambulance waiting times, boost NHS dental appointments, invest in local high street businesses, strengthen our public transport links, and deliver real long-term support with the cost of living.

I want 2023 to be the year that, post-pandemic, our part of Devon comes roaring back. This may seem difficult, but with firm decisive action the Government can start to make progress.

The first chance for this is at the end of January, when will see the Government announce successful bids for the next wave of Levelling Up funding. I am proud to back the bid for East Devon, that will see the sea front at Seaton renovated and more business facilities created in Axminster.

I am a serial optimist – I believe that if we work together and challenge the status quo we can achieve so much good. And we are fortunate that this year poses another opportunity for us to help shake things up.

In May, we get to elect a new wave of local Councillors to represent our communities. East Devon District Council manages some of the key services we rely upon, from Council Tax to recycling, bin collections to the state of our roads. So who we elect really can make a difference.

Just as my election sent shockwaves through Westminster, these elections can make waves here in our part of Devon. The Conservatives have repeatedly neglected our communities – with even the current Conservative leader of Devon County Council saying his Council is not getting the funding they need from their own Government in London.

By working together, we can elect a wave of hard-working local champions to make change happen. Only by doing this can we deliver the transformational work that we need and send a clear message that our part of Devon will not be taken for granted anymore.

Patients in the South West of England are having to wait nearly three and a half times longer to get out of ambulances and into A&E compared to the national average.

Dan Whitehead news.sky.com 

Analysis of NHS data by Sky News has found in the week ending 1 January 2023, it took an average of two hours and 39 minutes to hand over patients to hospitals in the region, compared to 46 minutes nationally.

The target in England is 15 minutes.

Figures also show the six NHS Hospital Trusts with the longest handover times in England are all in the South West.

They are: University Hospitals Plymouth, Torbay and South Devon, Great Western Hospitals, Royal Cornwall Hospitals, North Bristol and Gloucestershire Hospitals.

So bad is the problem, that hospitals in the region have begun discharging patients who are well enough into local hotels, usually used by tourists, in a bid to free up bed space.

Sky News also found 55% of ambulances in the South West had handover delays of more than an hour, twice as bad as the England average of 26%.

An older population, spread more remotely, is part of the reason, but NHS England told Sky News that staff recruitment and illness, the number of sick patients and delays in discharging patients from hospital are all causes.

In Helston in Cornwall, 85-year-old Koulla Mechamikos is recovering from a broken hip.

She fell in her hallway last August – and had to wait 14 hours for an ambulance to arrive – and then another 26 hours in the back of an ambulance outside the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

‘I would have been better to die’

“They said we are just waiting for an ambulance to free up to come to you – we don’t know how long it’s going to be as we are so busy,” said Koulla’s daughter, Marianna Flint.

“It was a bit panicky because with that length of time, mum was then getting to a point of looking quite pale and was in a great amount of pain,” she added.

While she praised the care the paramedics and hospital staff gave her mother, having to wait in the back of an ambulance for more than an entire day was worrying.

“Basically the ambulances are now waiting rooms – because there’s no room in the hospital to take them – there’s no extra wing, there’s no bed space.”

Koulla told Sky News she remembers being “freezing” while on the floor. “It was scary, more scary than anything. I lost my mind completely. I would have been better [to] die…so many hours.”

The Royal Cornwall Hospital offered its “sincere” apologies to Koulla and Marianna.

Anne-Marie Perry is CEO of AbiCare, a company that has run so-called ‘Care Hotels’ since the COVID outbreak.

“One of the blockages coming out of hospital is community care provision, social care,” she said.

“So, if there’s no provision in the community, you can’t get people home, if you can’t get people home, they stay in hospital. If they stay in hospital, there’s a whole host of challenges associated to that hospital acquired dependency.”

She told Sky News the care offered can be cheaper than hospital beds.

“These are people that are deemed medically fit to get out of hospital to go home, but they can’t go home because there isn’t a package of care to wrap around them.

“We offer rehabilitation, we offer exercise classes, we offer social activity as well. So we’re a great interim.”

What the NHS had to say

Responding to the situation in the South West, a spokesperson for NHS England South West said: “There are multiple interdependent reasons for ambulance handover delays including the number of sick patients being seen at hospital, staffing recruitment and staff sickness, as well as delays with discharging patients when they are well enough.

“We are working hard with integrated care boards, hospital trusts and our ambulance service to address these delays and ensure patients are handed over at hospitals in a timely way, to ensure ambulance crews can get back on the road to help other patients as quickly as possible.”

From a Correspondent:

I spotted this tribute to Paul Diviani from EDDC Chief Executive in www.devonlive.com:

“EDDC’s Chief Executive Mark Williams added: “Paul was a joy and an inspiration to work with and I have many happy memories of much fun and laughter at the various events and meetings we attended together as leader and CEO over the years that I knew and worked with him.”

I too have memories of Paul Diviani and Mark Williams, slouched in their seats, laughing and talking together (they appeared very convivial and it was just after lunch) whilst a councillor was arguing the case for EDDC to cooperate with Dorset in the bid for a combined East Devon and Dorset National Park. As a member of the public I found this behaviour between the committee chairman, Paul Diviani, and the Chief Executive to be  totally unprofessional, indeed unacceptable. It was obvious that they couldn’t care less about what was being said.

I felt so strongly at the time, but who could I complain to? All channels of complaint flow through Mark Williams!

Do we know where all these historic landfill sites are? Most estuaries were a soft option, some are now covered by car parks. Extraordinary that this was deemed an acceptable practice as late as the 1970s. Lyme Regis is an obvious example of erosion spewing old landfill onto the beach from the cliffs above.- Owl 

Sandra Laville www.theguardian.com 

Hundreds of ageing landfill dumps on the coast of England containing plastics, chemicals and other waste are a ticking timebomb threatening to leach pollution on to beaches and into the sea, new research shows.

The waste sites date back 100 years in some cases, and little is known about what has been dumped in them. Climate breakdown with associated rising sea levels and flooding are increasing the risk of a cocktail of pollutants entering the sea.

More than three-quarters of the landfill dumps identified in a survey by the local government association are adjacent to designated environmentally protected areas.

The survey, by the Local Government Association coastal special interest group (LGA Coastal SIG), in collaboration with coastal group network, shows that 26 coastal councils have sites already spilling large amounts of waste on to cliffs and beaches.

The councils that responded to the survey identified 195 coastal landfill sites as being at risk of tidal flooding and/or erosion. But it is thought there are approximately 1,200 to 1,400 historical coastal waste dumps in the UK currently at risk of erosion and flooding, according to the LGA Coastal SIG.

Mark Stratton, officer lead for coastal landfill at the group, said: “There are hundreds of coastal landfill sites at risk of tidal flooding and erosion. During visits to sites, I have been overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, especially the threat of waste eroding or leaching out on to the often-designated natural coastal environment.

“The landfill sites have been inherited by councils, and stretch from the north to the south of England.”

The councils are asking for government help to tackle the threat, shore up the dumps to stop the leaching of pollution from sites that are already eroding or being flooded, and carry out an investigation into what the sites contain.

David Renard, Local Government Association environment spokesperson, said: “Our coastlines need urgent support. This problem will not go away, and funding is needed to prevent hundreds of disasters on our shores. Councils want to protect their local environments but need urgent support from the government to save our coastlines from this ticking timebomb.”

A spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We are committed to working closely with local authorities, who have the responsibility of ensuring historic landfill sites are managed in a consistent and environmentally friendly way. Findings from the LGA survey will help inform our planned national assessment on the impacts of coastal erosion and flooding at historic coastal landfill sites, which will help improve management of these sites in the future.”

The result of 13 years of Conservative government – Owl

Fifty thousand more people died last year than normal, with NHS delays blamed for one of the most deadly 12 months on record.

Chris Smyth, Kat Lay www.thetimes.co.uk

Excluding the pandemic years, 2022 brought the highest excess deaths total since 1951, according to an analysis by The Times.

There were 1,600 more deaths than usual during Christmas week as long waits for ambulances, cold weather and surging flu infections increased mortality rates by a fifth.

Covid accounts only for a minority of recent extra deaths, focusing attention on “compelling” evidence that the crisis in the NHS is killing hundreds of people a week.

Untreated health problems as people were urged to stay away from surgeries and hospitals during the pandemic are also thought to be contributing to the deaths. Experts have also cited lingering after-effects of Covid infection.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics yesterday showed the third consecutive week of more than 1,000 excess deaths in England and Wales and confirmed that last year one of the highest death totals in Britain was recorded.

Ministers say that countries across Europe had high excess deaths last year, pointing to a big increase in flu. But others pinned the blame on the government’s handling of the NHS, where there are long waits for 999 ambulances and emergency treatment in hospitals.

Today 999 call handlers will join paramedics in a second day of strikes in the ambulance service as an estimated 25,000 staff walk out. With ministers publishing draft laws to restrict strikes in the NHS and other public services, health leaders have accused the government of using the powers to “silence workers in their hour of need”.

Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the latest death figures were “shockingly high”. He acknowledged it was “extremely difficult to determine the causes” but pointed to studies showing deaths rose with longer waits at A&E.

“Our own analysis indicates that an estimated 300-500 patients are dying per week across the UK associated with long waiting times in emergency departments,” he said. “This is awful, distressing and completely unacceptable. The health system is not functioning as it should. Our priority should not be to quibble about the data, but to mitigate the harm of this crisis.”

Overall the 656,735 UK deaths last year were 51,159 above the pre-Covid five-year average. The figure was exceeded only in four years prior to 1951 since records began 130 years ago.

Although 2020 and 2021 brought higher excess death totals as the pandemic hit, excess deaths last year were predominantly not driven by Covid. Stuart McDonald, a partner at LCP Health Analytics who works on the Faculty of Actuaries’ Continuous Mortality Investigation, said that even looking at figures adjusted for age, 1963 was the last time deaths had jumped so much above the rate three years earlier.

“Had we not just had two years of very extreme mortality, 2022 would really stand out,” he said, adding that it was most unusual for there to be month after month of high deaths. “At the start of the year we were seeing fewer deaths among older people because a lot of those people had frankly already died [of Covid], but it was clear even then that we were seeing higher deaths among younger people. Since the spring and beyond we’ve had fairly consistently high levels at all ages”.

McDonald said “it’s undeniable that the NHS crisis is part of the story”, adding: “Access to healthcare has been a problem all year and that’s been increasing — waiting times for ambulances [and] A&E. We also know there are people who should have got diagnosed with high blood pressure or should have had a statin who missed out [when the pandemic began].”

The Times reported last year that Professor Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, had been raising alarm in government about an increase in heart deaths in the middle age linked to missed care during the pandemic.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at Cambridge University, said it was “very difficult to divide up the causes of the excess, but I find evidence around delayed admissions compelling”.

He said that since the summer there had been more than 40,000 excess deaths in England and Wales. Adjusting for an ageing population and subtracting Covid “still leaves an average of around 450 excess non-Covid deaths each week since June”. Spiegelhalter said “multiple factors will be contributing to this: early flu, Covid, the impact of disrupted care in the pandemic, and the acute crisis in the NHS”.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, blamed “13 years of Conservative mismanagement of our health service”, saying: “The NHS is in the biggest crisis in its history and the crisis has a cost in lives.”

The Department of Health said: “There are a wide variety of factors that may be contributing to excess deaths and the health and social care secretary continues to receive regular briefings on Covid and flu cases.”

Britain’s largest housebuilder, Barratt Developments, has introduced a hiring freeze and is “significantly” cutting back on buying land as it steels itself for a further slump in the UK housing market.

Kalyeena Makortoff www.theguardian.com

Barratt said it was responding to a “marked slowdown” in the UK housing market after a rise in interest rates that had made mortgages more expensive for prospective homebuyers.

The company said the average weekly net number of private reservations of properties fell in the second half of last year, down from 259 to 155.

It was also forced to scrap building plans for 3,293 land plots, cancelling out the 3,003 plots that proceeded with construction. The net cancellation of 290 plots compares with the net addition of 8,869 a year earlier.

“The first half of the financial year has … seen a marked slowdown in the UK housing market,” said Barratt’s chief executive, David Thomas.

“Political and economic uncertainty impacted the first quarter; this was then compounded by rapid and significant changes in mortgage rates, which reduced affordability, homebuyer confidence and reservation activity through the second quarter.”

Barratt is warning that the outlook for the first half of 2023 is “uncertain”, adding that the health of the UK housing market would depend on homebuyer confidence and the availability of competitively priced mortgages.

Lenders have increased mortgage borrowing costs in response to rising UK interest rates, which have increased nine times in the past year. Lenders raised mortgage rates even further in the wake of the government’s disastrous mini-budget in September, as the resulting market turmoil led some lenders to pull their mortgages off the shelf, while others raised the costs of borrowing in response to the uncertainty.

The turmoil has increased costs for those needing to remortgage their homes, and depressed appetite among homebuyers, with the latter pushing down house prices across the UK.

Halifax, which is part of Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s biggest high street bank, reported last week that the average UK house price had fallen for the fourth month in a row in December.

Last month, the lender predicted that rising interest rates as well as the broader cost of living crisis would dampen house prices by about 8% over the course of 2023.

Soaring interest rates have already had an impact on the construction sector, which contracted in December as housebuilders took on fewer projects.

However, Barratt said the group was still in a strong financial position. “This provides us with a robust platform and gives us flexibility to continue to respond to market conditions as they evolve throughout the coming year,” the company said.

“This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.” – Rishi Sunak

This is the sort of thing you expect from dictatorships, but is now happening in Tory Britain. A “Secretary of State”, no less thinks, this behaviour is OK. Nothing “bizarre” about it. What next? – Owl

Boris Johnson bizarrely photoshopped out of picture Grant Shapps tweeted about space launch

Poppy Wood inews.co.uk 

Grant Shapps has denied doctoring a photograph of himself on a visit to Spaceport Cornwall in which former prime minister Boris Johnson appears to have been digitally deleted.

The Business Secretary shared a picture of himself visiting the rocket site in June 2021 ahead of Virgin Orbit’s unsuccessful satellite launch last night.

It showed Mr Shapps speaking to Virgin Orbit chief executive, Dan Hart, and another member of the space team in front of the LauncherOne rocket.

But canny observers on Twitter noticed that an almost-identical picture previously shared by No 10 had also featured then prime minister, Mr Johnson, standing in between the space scientists and Mr Shapps.

The pair visited the Spaceport site in Cornwall almost two years ago to discuss how Virgin Orbit would “help boost the UK’s incredible space industry, inspire the next generation, and enable vital environmental monitoring”.

The Business Secretary shared a picture of himself visiting the rocket site in June 2021 ahead of Virgin Orbit’s unsuccessful satellite launch last night

An almost-identical picture shared in June 2021 showed Mr Johnson standing between Mr Shapps and the space scientists (Photo: Grant Shapps/Twitter)

Mr Shapps has since deleted the tweet in which Mr Johnson appears to have been erased.

A source close to Business Secretary said: “Grant wasn’t aware anyone had edited the picture. He removed it as soon as it was pointed out. Obviously he wouldn’t endorse anyone rewriting history by removing the former PM from a picture.”

It comes as senior Tory MPs continue to distance themselves from the former prime minister as they attempt to rehabilitate the Conservative Party’s reputation following a slew of scandals embroiling Mr Johnson.

A Labour Party source said: “The Tories might want to erase their own leaders — but the country is stuck with the consequences of their appalling record: a crashed economy, a broken health service, and an asylum system that doesn’t work.”

The debacle comes after Virgin Orbit’s first space launch from UK soil ended in failure last night despite a promising start.

The evening had started out successfully with LauncherOne taking off at around 10pm while operators at Spaceport Cornwall blasted out the Rolling Stones hit Start Me Up.

But shortly before midnight, the US space company announced there had been an anomaly which meant the rocket containing nine satellites was heading back down to Earth. The rocket is assumed to have burned up on reentry, destroying all the satellites on board.

A former Conservative minister has quit the party, claiming it is dominated by “ideology and self-obsession”, and has instead thrown her support behind Keir Starmer.

Aubrey Allegretti www.theguardian.com 

Claire Perry O’Neill, who was part of Theresa May’s cabinet and was briefly retained by Boris Johnson to help run preparations for the Cop26 summit, praised the Labour leader’s “sober, fact-driven, competent political leadership”.

Perry O’Neill, who was a Tory MP from 2010 to 2019, said she liked and admired the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. But in an article, she said the pair had become too beholden to inter-party factions to “deliver the big changes we need in a fact-based, competent way”.

“I spend most of my time now working in the private sector and this is not the way to build back confidence and deliver investment, especially in the crucial energy sector,” Perry O’Neill wrote in the Times.

Since leaving the government, she has held senior advisory positions – including at the consultancy firm McKinsey & Co, as well as Scottish Power. Perry O’Neill said she had quit the Conservatives earlier this month.

“My former party’s often cavalier approach to business and academia coupled with a post-Brexit reluctance to strategically engage with our European neighbours has damaged our ability to deliver the energy system we need,” she said.

However, Perry O’Neill lavished praise on Starmer. She said Labour had put “energy at the top of their proposed new government inbox”, and applauded its ambitions for green technologies and a national low-carbon wealth fund.

She added: “Even more important is their proposed focus on a new way of governing, focused on measurable outcomes not short-term shout-outs.

“Building a low-carbon, secure, affordable energy system for the UK is an immense challenge that needs sober, fact-driven, competent political leadership. I sense that is exactly what we will get should Labour win the next general election.”

The move risks undermining Sunak’s attempt to cast himself as the leader of a united party.

Starmer addressed Labour MPs in a private meeting to kick off the party’s 2023 strategy on Monday night, saying the year would be spent “setting out the plan” for Labour in government.

He said of the two speeches given last week – by Starmer and Sunak – there were “competing visions for Britain … the prime minister setting the bar so low for his promises to the country that he could hardly fail to flop over it”.

Starmer insisted Labour was the party of hope, change and optimism – and had a “proper plan to make all that change happen”, referencing a pledge for further devolution, as well as policies on jobs, skills and the NHS workforce.

He said the prize at the end was “massive” – a chance to “add ‘24 to ‘45 and ‘97 in the history books”.