Emergency services searching for child missing in the Thames
Emergency services are responding to reports of a child missing in the Thames.
In a statement, His Majesty's Coastguard said it was responding to a report of two children in difficulty in the water near the Royal Terrace Pier, Gravesend.
One child has been rescued, however, the search is ongoing for a second.
Metropolitan Police boats are attending, alongside the RNLI lifeboat from Gravesend, Kent Police, and a police helicopter.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
36 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The Government's ill-judged prisoner-release scheme puts the public at risk
SIR – I, along with the majority of my countrymen, am appalled by the Government's decision to release certain prisoners early (' Met chief: Starmer's early release scheme will lead to more crime ', report, May 28). This is to compensate for the shortage of prison spaces, as our population grows ever larger, in part due to poorly controlled immigration. First, the punishment meted out by the courts should match the gravity of the crime. Stricter sentencing would surely act as a deterrent to help reduce criminality, whereas the present system allows certain sentences to be commuted or for the prisoner to be granted parole. This in itself creates too much recidivism, and it is now to be exacerbated by the early release of offenders, many of whom are likely to reoffend. This is not the decision of a sensible government that is weighing up all the facts with balanced judgment. Secondly, we should consider our already overworked police officers, many of whom do a fantastic job and lack the high regard they deserve, particularly given the much wider range of policing responsibilities they are now expected to undertake compared to 20 years ago. Policing the streets is of paramount importance, especially in inner-city areas, where regard for the law is often lax. Presumably the Government will now expect the police to monitor those on early release. What has happened to our once highly regarded system of justice and policing? It appears to be yet another casualty of this ludicrous Labour Government. Tony Millard Redhill, Surrey SIR – Week after week, our local magistrates' court deals with an endless list of people who have been caught driving drunk or high on drugs. At present, they are fined and disqualified from driving for a period. Isn't it time that our society made people wholly responsible for their actions, by imposing a lifetime driving ban on them if caught? It may make them think twice before getting behind the wheel when they are drunk or stoned, and consider the devastating impact that such selfish behaviour could have on others. It would also save the magistrates from having to deal with repeat offenders. The roads are dangerous enough without people who view driving as a right, rather than as a privilege with enormous responsibilities. Andy Breare Plymouth, Devon
Daily Mail
38 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Migrant rescues in English Channel meant coastguard was too busy to come to aid of stricken yacht
The coastguard were too busy dealing with migrant rescues yesterday morning to assist a yacht and kayak who believed they were in trouble in the English Channel. Border Force, RNLI and several French vessels scrambled with the coastguard at around 5am on Saturday to deal with reports of 15 small boats attempting to reach UK shores. At least seven of the dinghies left the coast of Gravelines - which lies between Calais and Dunkirk - where a group of men, women and children were seen boarding a dinghy at a beach. And while maritime resources were being designated to stop these small boats, a yacht on the Channel had issued an alert to say that it begun taking on water. HM Coastguard told The Times it had been 'responding to small boats activity in the Channel' but added that 'the co-ordination of multiple, simultaneous incidents is not unusual, and at no time was public safety compromised'. The coastguard added that they were also satisfied the yacht and kayakers did not need assistance. A Home Office spokesperson also told the newspaper they want to 'end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security' and that the government had a 'serious plan' to do so. Before the migrants began heading towards Britain, French police were seen watching on as they piled onto the beaches with one officer even appearing to take pictures on his phone. After the boat was loaded, French authorities were then pictured escorting a small boat from aboard their own. There have not been any arrivals of asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats for a week, the latest Home Office figures show. But new data did reveal that France is intercepting fewer potential migrants than at any time since the phenomenon began, despite a £480 million deal with the UK's neighbour to help stop crossings. Around 38 percent of people attempting to make the dangerous crossing have been intercepted so far this year, some 8,347 compared to 13,167 who have arrived in the UK. This is compared to authorities preventing 45 percent of crossings last year and 46 percent in 2023. It is in spite of a £480 million, three-year deal with the French, secured by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in March 2023, to double the number of officers patrolling beaches from 400 to 800. The deal also involved setting up a joint command centre and a detention centre. The fall is believed to be due to a change in tactics by the heartless people smuggling gangs taking advantage of young families' desperation. Instead of loads boats right next to the shore, smugglers instead now inflate the boat and get it out to sea before people wade towards it, often reaching up to the chest or neck in water before they are pulled on board. This prevents police making arrests on the shoreline and means Britain is instead relying on the French Coastguard to conduct rescues and returning people to France after these instead. In a possible sign of hope for the government an ongoing series of legal challenges has the potential to stem the flow of migrants through Europe, while France recently changed its laws to allow police officers to use their own boats and intercept crossings in shallow waters. But 2025 is on course to set a record for Channel crossings, with more than 13,000 people having arrived so far, up 30 percent on the number recorded at this point last year, according to the latest data. It comes after Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to crack down on small boat crossings including with measures targeting smuggling gangs. The Home Secretary has previously said gangs have been taking advantage of a higher number of calm weather days to make crossings. The new crossings come just weeks after the Prime Minister announced plans for 'return hubs' to send migrants back to the country they came to the UK from more easily. The Prime Minister is eyeing up deals with Balkan countries, and some in Africa, to house failed asylum seekers. Labour is looking to strike deals with the likes of Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sir Keir had hoped Albania would join the scheme but was left embarrassed earlier this month when he travelled there, only to be publicly rebuffed by PM Edi Rama. Speaking in Albania earlier this month, Sir Keir said: 'What now we want to do and are having discussions of, talks of, is return hubs which is where someone has been through the system in the UK, they need to be returned and we have to make sure they're returned effectively and we'll do that, if we can, through return hubs. 'So that's what the talks are about. I would say in this area no single measure is going to be the measure that is, if you like, a silver bullet. 'By putting it all together - arrests, seizures, agreements with other countries, returning people who shouldn't be here, and return hubs, if we can through these talks to add to our armoury, will allow us to bear down on this vile trade and to make sure that we stop those people crossing the Channel.' Downing Street said the plans were 'entirely different' to the last government's flagship Rwanda deportation scheme. The new plan will involve sending paying to send potentially thousands of failed asylum seekers to the Balkans, rather than holding them in the UK until they can be removed. In some cases, those involved will be from countries like Afghanistan which are deemed too dangerous to return people to. Sir Keir was criticised by some earlier this month after delivering a speech in which he pledged to crack down on immigration and said the UK was at risk of becoming an 'island of strangers'. But liberals said his words had echoes of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968, which was accused of stoking years of racism and division in the UK. Speaking on May 12, Sir Keir said he would give Brits what they had 'asked for time and time again' and 'significantly' reduce eye-watering immigration that has been inflicting 'incalculable damage'. The Home Office estimates the government's package will bring down annual inflows by around 100,000. This figure reached a record of nearly one million under the Tories. In a pivotal moment, he also rejected the Treasury orthodoxy that high immigration drives growth - pointing out the economy has stagnated in recent years. Under the blueprint, skills thresholds will be hiked and rules on fluency in English toughened. Migrants will also be required to wait 10 years for citizenship rather than the current five, and face deportation for even lower-level crimes. Graduate visas will be reduced to 18 months, and a new levy introduced on income that universities generate from international students. Requirements that sponsoring institutions must meet in order to recruit international students are also being tightened. Official figures showed net long-term inflows into the UK were 431,000 in the year to December, compared with 860,000 across 2023. Numbers had dropped to 739,000 in the year to last June - just before the election - with the peak remaining 906,000 in the 12 months to June 2023.
Reuters
40 minutes ago
- Reuters
UK faces choice next week between health and other spending, IFS think tank warns
LONDON, June 1 (Reuters) - British finance minister Rachel Reeves' key decision in next week's multi-year spending review will be how much to spend on healthcare versus other public services, the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said on Sunday. Reeves is due to set out day-to-day spending limits for other government departments on June 11 which will run through to the end of March 2029 - almost until the end of the Labour government's expected term in office. Britain has held periodic government spending reviews since 1998, but this is the first since 2015 to cover multiple years, other than one in 2021 focused on the COVID pandemic. The non-partisan IFS said this spending review could prove to be "one of the most significant domestic policy events" for the current Labour government. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's announcement in February that defence spending would reach 2.5% of national income by 2027 had already used the room for further growth in public investment created in Reeves' October budget, it said. "Simultaneously prioritising additional investments in public services, net zero and growth-friendly areas ... will be impossible," said Bee Boileau, a research economist at the IFS. Non-investment public spending is intended to rise by 1.2% a year on top of inflation between 2026-27 and 2028-29, according to budget plans which Reeves set out in October - half the pace of spending growth in the current and previous financial year. The IFS sees no scope for this to be topped up, as Reeves' budget rules leave almost no room for extra borrowing and tax rises are now limited to her annual budget statement. This forces Reeves and Starmer to choose between the demands of the public healthcare system - plagued by long waiting times and a slump in productivity since the COVID-19 pandemic - and other stretched areas. In past spending reviews, annual health care spending has typically risen 2 percentage points faster than total spending. If that happened this time - equivalent to an annual increase of 3.4% - spending in other departments would have to fall by 1% a year in real terms, the IFS forecast. Raising healthcare spending at roughly the same pace as other areas - a 1.2% rise - would only just keep pace with an ageing population and not allow any reversal of recent years' deterioration in service quality, the IFS said. Spending cuts could be achieved by scaling back services provided by the state, reducing public-sector employment or real-terms cuts in public-sector pay, it added. But it warned the government needed to be specific about how it planned to make cuts, or risk financial markets losing confidence in its ability to keep borrowing under control. The review does not cover spending on pensions or other benefits, which the government is tackling separately.
