'I'm devastated': Leah Williamson on Mary Earps' retirement from England's Lionesses
England captain Leah Williamson reacted to Mary Earps' retirement from international football on Tuesday.
Williamson said: 'She's one of my closest friends in football in terms of what we've been through together, the journey that we've been on so I'm devastated just because I love her, I love being her teammate.'
Earps has been battling with Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton for the No. 1 jersey this season. Reports on the reasons behind Earps retirement decision have differed; some have accused Earps of quitting after allegedly being told she had been dropped while the Guardian understands Earps had weighed up the move for more than a year.
The England manager Sarina Wiegman refused to comment on the conversations she had with Earps before her decision. 'Of course I had a couple of conversations which I don't want to share here because that's between us.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
8 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Tuesday briefing: Is Britain's move to ‘war-fighting' readiness enough to ensure its security?
Good morning. The government's strategic defence review was launched on Monday and billed as a blueprint to modernise the military so that, in the words of Keir Starmer, the UK is 'safer and stronger, a battle-ready, armour-clad nation with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities'. Reviews like this one come along every decade or so – but the context now appears more urgent than at any time since the end of the cold war. In the place of the old consensus that the UK simply needed to be ready for (deeply questionable) deployments to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan is a view that the threats now are much closer to home, and much closer to existential. 'UK armed forces have begun the necessary process of change in response to this new reality,' the review said. 'But progress has not been fast or radical enough.' Even within its carefully conceived terms of reference – which insisted on maintaining a role in the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East, and did not allow for proposals to increase overall spending beyond what Starmer has already set out – the review amounts to a severe critique of the state of the armed forces. Today's newsletter explains the problems, the proposed solutions and the views of those who suggest that all of this is answering the wrong question. Here are the headlines. Israel-Gaza war | A series of recent deadly airstrikes on school buildings sheltering displaced people in Gaza were part of a deliberate Israeli military bombing strategy, the Guardian has learned. The strikes followed a loosening of controls on actions targeting Hamas operatives at sites with large numbers of civilians present, sources said. Health | The proportion of people surviving cancer in the UK has doubled since the 1970s amid a 'golden age' of progress in diagnosis and treatment, a report says. Half of those diagnosed will now survive for 10 years or more, up from 24%, according to the first study of 50 years of data on cancer mortality and cases. US news | Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and multiple other offences after he allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary devices to burn people in Boulder, Colorado who were raising awareness about Israeli hostages in Gaza. Iran | Tehran is on the brink of rejecting US proposals on the future of its nuclear programme after a US draft insisted on the suspension of enrichment of uranium inside the country. The US proposal also offered no clear route map for lifting sanctions. Scotland | A Scottish Labour councillor has defected to Reform UK on the eve of a pivotal Holyrood byelection, as the rightwing populist party's leader, Nigel Farage, defended a controversial advert attacking Anas Sarwar that has prompted accusations of racism. The review published yesterday is the first since 2010; John Healey, the defence secretary, says it is a departure from past iterations because it is externally led. When the review was launched, the government said it would 'consider the threats Britain faces, the capabilities needed to meet them, the state of UK armed forces and the resources available'. Led by Lord Robertson – a former defence secretary and Nato secretary general who conducted Labour's last defence review in 1998 – it has consulted 150 external experts, received 8,000 submissions to a call for evidence, and runs to 48,000 words. What is the current state of Britain's armed forces? Most judges of the UK's military readiness paint a dire picture of the armed forces as not being fit for purpose, and the review's call for a 'truly transformational' approach implicitly adopts the same view. In a report on the lessons from the Ukraine war published last year, the House of Lords' international relations and defence committee said that the armed forces 'lack the mass, resilience and internal coherence necessary to maintain a deterrent effect and sustain prolonged conflict'. Philip Stephens of the Financial Times wrote that (£) those conclusions 'are viewed within Whitehall as wholly uncontroversial'. There are plenty of numbers pointing to that conclusion. In 2010, the regular army was 110,000; now it is short of its target of 73,000, the smallest since the Napoleonic wars. Across all the armed forces, the number is down from 192,000 in 2010 to 136,000 today. Even before the war in Ukraine, ammunition stockpiles were in decline, and in 2023, Gen Sir Richard Barrons – who has been working alongside former US presidential adviser Fiona Hill on Robertson's review team – said the UK would probably use up its existing supplies in a 'busy afternoon' . RAF aircraft numbers fell from 724 in 2016 to 564 in 2023, a reduction of 22%. And the Royal Navy has two aircraft carriers that have had serious mechanical problems, without enough sailors to crew the ships needed to protect and supply them – or enough fighter jets to fill them. What does the defence review say is necessary? The review suggests that a military 'optimised for conflicts primarily fought against non-state actors' needs to be drastically rethought to contend with the prospect of 'state-on-state war' through ''whole-of-society' preparations'. It presents Russia as an 'immediate and pressing' danger to the UK, and China as a 'sophisticated and persistent challenge', while Iran and North Korea are termed 'regional disruptors'. To be ready to meet those challenges, the review lists 62 recommendations; the government has accepted every one in principle. The most eyecatching measures were trailed beforehand, from £6bn in spending on six 'always on' munitions factories to a new cyber command unit coordinating offensive digital operations. There will be a £15bn investment in modernising the production of nuclear weapons, and a pledge to build 'up to' 12 new attack submarines. And through the force multiplying effects of artificial intelligence and a £2bn investment in drones, the review promises a 'ten times more lethal British Army'. Ben Quinn has a more detailed breakdown. More conventionally, Healey had reportedly hoped to increase the size of the army by a few thousand. But he appears to have lost that fight with the Treasury, at least for now. And of the £350bn the UK is expected to spend on defence over this parliament, only £10bn is thought to be new spending committed through the strategic defence review. When will the new capacity come online? Part of the explanation of the disconnect between major announcements and new spending is the length of time that much of what is proposed will take to be enacted. The new submarines will not launch until the late 2030s. There is no timeline on the new munitions factories, while Healey said there would be no increase in the number of troops until after the next election. And on the fundamental question of how much the UK will spend on defence, Keir Starmer has promised 2.5% of GDP by 2027-28 but described 3% as an 'ambition' to be pursued at some point during the next parliament – that is, by 2034, if it materialises at all. As one source familiar with the budget process quoted by the Economist puts it: 'Basically, all their investment is for an era when Putin will be dead.' The UK's 2.5% pledge may soon start to look behind the pace against its European allies: defence ministers meeting in Brussels this week are expected to agree a 3.5% target, with the main question whether that should be scheduled for the early 2030s or later in the decade, the Economist reports. The review says that a rapid move to 2.5% and subsequent lift to 3% should make what is proposed affordable in the end – but warns that 'it may be necessary to go faster'. So is the plan enough to ensure the UK's security? The government pointed out that this is the first defence review since the end of the cold war that has not resulted in cuts. And it is important to note that, while the armed forces are undoubtedly weaker than they once were, the UK retains the world's sixth-largest defence budget. That puts it behind the US, Russia, China, India and South Korea – but the government is likely to observe that its alliance with other European countries means that it will have considerably greater impact. (The review describes a 'Nato first' outlook, and says: 'We will never, in the future, expect to fight a major, 'peer' military power alone.') Even if the threat from Vladimir Putin is far greater than might have been understood a decade ago, Russia's war in Ukraine has so depleted its resources that it is thought to be years away from being able to consider such a conflict. In this analysis, Dan Sabbagh writes that 'Britain is not under direct military threat and is not likely to be any time soon'. But there is still a sense of a military that is fundamentally overstretched. In 2023, David Richards, the former chief of the defence staff, said in the House of Lords: 'This country must stop deluding itself that it can have a global role. We are a medium-sized country with a faltering economy. 'The UK must focus ruthlessly on the Euro-Atlantic theatre, not state that this is our priority but then spread our efforts so thinly that we are strong nowhere.' In contrast, Robertson, Hill and Barrons describe 'the connection between Euro-Atlantic security and that of other regions such as the Middle East and Indo-Pacific'. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion What is the broader economic context? Others suggest that the plans should be subjected to a much more fundamental critique. Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies noted yesterday that if the UK plans to spend an additional £10-15bn on defence while spending more on other priorities like health and pensions, 'the only choice that is available … is some really quite chunky tax increases'. Meanwhile, claims that military spending can boost the economy may look questionable when compared with the impact that the same money might have if spent on green energy or healthcare, among other priorities. (This Greenpeace analysis makes that case.) Unsurprisingly, others, like the Stop the War Coalition, the Green party and some within Labour, question whether a boost to defence spending can possibly be the right priority at a time when public services are generally agreed to be creaking. They also note that cutting the international aid budget to serve the military may have unintended consequences. Ellie Chowns, the Greens' defence spokesperson in the House of Commons, said yesterday: 'Security is not just based on arms expenditure and threats, but on real leadership that uses diplomacy and development too.' Mark O'Connell's long read about Mr Beast is gimlet-eyed, quietly droll, and utterly convincing that his subject is worth the intention. He is 'some type of genius,' O'Connell writes – 'a prodigy of a form that, as degraded as it is, deserves to be taken seriously as one of the signature artefacts of our time'. Archie They're free to use, refreshing to the mind and body and transcendentally beautiful – so who would want to harm America's national parks? Donald Trump, comes the inevitable reply. Margaret Sullivan explains why his administration is so determined to despoil the things that make life worth living. Alex Needham, acting head of newsletters Henry Hill has an essential column on the Conservative party's impatience with Kemi Badenoch: 'The balance of opinion inside the party seems to be not whether there will be a challenge ... but when.' Archie He wrote Jerusalem, saw angels in his local park and inspired artists ranging from Gilbert and George to Patti Smith. Now the poet William Blake is being celebrated, in an exhilarating piece by Philip Hoare, as a queer icon centuries ahead of his time. Alex From ChatGPT to Google, artificial intelligence is an increasingly inescapable part of our daily lives. Emine Saner speaks to the film-makers, writers and academics who are doing their best to avoid it, given its impact on the environment and even, potentially, on human nature itself. Alex Tennis | Jack Draper missed out on the chance of a place in the French Open quarter-finals, losing in four sets to the inspired world No 62, Alexander Bublik. Draper's compatriot Cameron Norrie was beaten by Novak Djokovic in straight sets. In the women's draw, French wildcard Lois Boisson beat third seed Jessica Pegula to reach the French Open quarter-finals and send shock waves around Roland Garros. Formula One | Max Verstappen has issued a veiled apology for his crash with George Russell by admitting it 'was not right and should have not happened'. The four-time world champion was hit with a 10-second penalty by the stewards for causing a collision with Russell with two laps remaining of Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix. Football | Lisa Nandy has removed herself from the final decision over who will lead the new football regulator, after it emerged the preferred candidate had donated to the culture secretary's Labour leadership campaign. David Kogan revealed last month that he had given money to Nandy during her bid to succeed Jeremy Corbyn in 2020. 'Starmer pledges to make Britain 'battle-ready' with drones and AI' says the Guardian, while the Times has 'Tax rises loom to put Britain on war footing'. The i paper leads with an interesting angle: 'British over-18s offered taste of military life with 'gap year' in army, navy and RAF'. The Express naturally finds cause to criticise: 'Budget delay won't 'cut the mustard' as Russia threaten'. 'Police in major new hunt for Madeleine' – that's the Telegraph and the Mirror also covers that with 'New Maddie search'. The Mail goes with 'Tory warnings over 'backdoor blasphemy law''. The Financial Times splashes on 'Musk launches $300mn share offer for xAI in bid to refocus on business'. A terrible case from an inquest leads Metro: ''Bullied' soldier dead 3 weeks in bed at barracks'. Keir Starmer needs you: Britain readies for war Former Guardian security editor Richard Norton-Taylor talks through the strategic defence review and Britain's new plans to be ready for war A bit of good news to remind you that the world's not all bad In Indonesia, the architecture firm Shau created the Microlibrary Project to promote literacy but its inventive, ecologically minded structures offer much more, including respite from the heat. The Hanging Gardens microlibrary, completed in 2019, has a rooftop garden, while another, Bima, has a facade of 2,000 discarded ice-cream buckets providing natural lighting and cross-ventilation. Shau co-founders Daliana Suryawinata and Florian Heinzelmann, who have built eight libraries since 2012, call the spaces 'laboratories for experimentation', and they are popular with young people who come to read, learn, garden and play. Their goal is to increase the number of libraries to 100 by 2045. And finally, the Guardian's puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
Telegraph
14 minutes ago
- Telegraph
How Starmer became Reeves's biggest enemy
Rachel Reeves has one eye on the bond market and the other on her own backbenchers. The Chancellor has been forced to spend the last few weeks focusing on rebellions over benefit cuts and spending plans that she must stick to if she wants to balance the books. Now, though, her authority is starting to be undermined much closer to home. The latest challenge is not coming from investors, the Red Wall or Reform UK. Instead, it is the man next door – her partner at the top of the Government – the Prime Minister. Two bold announcements from Sir Keir Starmer shed some light on the issue. Starmer's pledge to restore the winter fuel allowance to pensioners and his hint that the cap on benefits for families with more than two children will be removed were welcomed by the party faithful. However, they have left Reeves to count the cost, putting Britain on a path to higher taxes in the autumn. Restoring winter fuel payments to all pensioners and scrapping the two child benefit cap entirely would cost a combined £5bn a year if each policy was fully reversed, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank. That's a significant amount considering Reeves only has a £10bn buffer to meet a self-imposed goal of ending borrowing to fund day-to-day spending. But with less than a fortnight until she locks in Whitehall spending plans for the next three years, Starmer appears to have decided that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. For the Government, though, it will be seen as a sign of a breakdown in relations. This chaotic approach to policy-making is understood to have stemmed from growing tensions in Downing Street, particularly in the leader's office itself. Some blame Liz Lloyd, No10's director of policy, delivery and innovation. Lloyd, who also served as Sir Tony Blair's deputy chief of staff, is being singled out as the trigger of a wave of recent adviser departures, including one who was accused of 'mansplaining' the economy to Reeves. Lloyds is said to have clashed with Stuart Ingham, Starmer's longest-serving aide, who was appointed alongside career civil servant Olaf Henricson-Bell to run the No10 policy unit. 'They're all in each other's business,' says a source. 'Stuart threatened to resign if Liz was appointed. Yet they are both there and have a toxic relationship with each other. Olaf is fed up with both.' Several others in the unit are said to feel frozen out, although Labour Party HQ says it doesn't recognise the tensions and insists it is business as usual. However, few can deny that it is resulting in incoherent policymaking, including a flat-out denial of reports detailing changes to the winter fuel allowance that were subsequently vindicated just weeks later, and a Downing Street that doesn't look like it has anywhere near a majority of more than 170 seats. Another battle is under way over a cap on benefits that means that families can only claim child tax credit and universal credit for their first two children if they were born after April 2017. Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir's chief of staff, is said to be against the policy. Many of the Labour Left are making it their mission to reverse it. One Labour source summarises the party's dilemma. 'The two child cap is a political bind,' they say. 'On the one hand, how can the state subsidise poor people to have three kids when it's too costly for middle class couples to have one? On the other, how is it morally ethical for a Labour government to choose to keep kids in poverty?' At the same time, Starmer is facing the biggest rebellion of his premiership over £5bn in welfare cuts that will affect hundreds of thousands of people claiming disability benefits. Reports suggest another £500m climbdown is on the cards, in a move that could allow up to 200,000 people to keep their cash. However, it is understood that while options for further tweaks to the policy are on the table, changes are being kept on the back burner for now as Starmer and Reeves focus on other electoral carrots. Part of this will come from big spending in infrastructure in Red Wall seats to combat the threat of Reform. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) highlights that choices around health spending until 2030 will also determine how much other Whitehall departments receive. For example, if Reeves chooses to raise health spending by 3.4pc per year in real terms – or roughly the long-run average, departments outside defence face a 1pc real terms cut to their budgets. That's less funding for schools, policing and prisons. What's more, if Starmer wants to get defence spending to 3pc of GDP by 2030, it implies real terms cuts of 1.8pc. While it would not be anything like the austerity presided over by George Osborne as chancellor, for some departments where the low-hanging fruit was plucked a decade ago, it will feel like it. 'Sharp trade-offs are unavoidable,' the IFS warns in a report. Public sector pay continues to be a headache for the Chancellor. An announcement that public sector workers in England will receive a pay rise of between 3pc and 5pc this year – higher than the 2.8pc budgeted for by the Chancellor – will cost about £3bn. Reports suggest that as many as 50,000 civil service jobs could go as Reeves wields the axe as part of the Spending Review on June 11. But stopping the public sector workforce growing further above the current level of 6m will be a hard task. Keeping costs down while allowing those already on the payroll to be paid more is in theory a good idea. The IFS estimates that if public sector employment stayed constant between now and 2028–29, and the pay pot grew at 1.2pc each year in real terms in line with the overall spending envelope that has already been set out, pay awards could average 2.6pc per year in cash terms. However, Bee Boileau, an economist at the IFS, says this may not be realistic. 'Constraining the growth of the overall public sector will be tricky in the context of an NHS workforce plan that implies growth in the health service workforce of 3.1pc to 3.4pc per year, a manifesto promise to hire 6,500 more teachers, and a likely reluctance to reduce the number of police officers, prison officers or members of HM Forces,' she says. There is also a bigger problem: weak growth. JP Morgan believes Starmer's trio of trade deals with the US, EU and India will reduce borrowing by around £2.5bn. However, it thinks this will be more than offset by a tariff hit of £7.3bn and weaker growth delivering another £9bn blow to the public finances. This, together with a reversal on winter fuel, benefits for families and another fuel duty freeze is expected to turn a £9.9bn borrowing buffer into a black hole of around £15bn. Capital Economics says higher UK bond yields and expectations that interest rates will remain higher for longer also currently imply £4.4bn more will be devoted to servicing the Government's interest payments by 2030. It also warns that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is likely to say the Government's policy to cut migration 'by up to around 100,000 per year', will reduce growth 'and therefore raise the OBR's borrowing forecast by £6bn in 2030'. In short, there could be another £25bn of extra tax rises coming this autumn. With the threat of more tax raids around the corner, Starmer has voiced concerns about the fiscal watchdog itself. While its authority is not being questioned, the Prime Minister has asked why Reeves faces adjusting taxes and spending twice a year if she is deemed to have missed her borrowing rules when she only has one Budget. There is little appetite within Downing Street to change fiscal rules that have already been altered nine times in 16 years. 'Ripping up her so called 'iron-clad' and 'non-negotiable' rules only a year after introducing them could erode the Chancellor's political credibility,' says Ruth Gregory at Capital Economics. However, some in government are now thinking about whether one official economic forecast a year is more sensible. Such a move would require legislation. Either way, Reeves is likely to keep coming under pressure to spend more in the next few years. The bond vigilantes may be watching. But so is Starmer.
BBC News
17 minutes ago
- BBC News
Meet the Guernsey mother championing mums in rugby
A mother-of-two from Guernsey is championing rugby among mums in the Channel Islands and further Raiders forward Daisy Travers set up the Mums who play rugby Facebook group earlier this year, which already has more than 500 she has set up a mums-only invitational rugby team - and is aiming for them to play their first tournament later this Travers said: "It's been overwhelming, it's really lovely to connect with mums from literally all over the world." Mrs Travers, who was the Raiders' players' player of the season last year, said there was an "amazing sense of community" among both mums and rugby players."The two combined feels like there's this really great support network out there."It was "early days", but the new team already has players from the Channel Islands and the UK, she hoped the team - which is open to first-time players as well as people returning to rugby after having kids - would "raise the profile of rugby for mums". Mums get things done Mrs Travers said "juggling childcare with training" could be challenging, but it was "important" to for mums to have time for themselves."Switching the mum off" for a few hours helped her and others "go home and be a better parent", she said."Some of those tough days it really does make a difference, no matter how tired you are," she Travers said motherhood and rugby had many crossovers. "Mums get things done", which was a useful quality on pitch, she said."If you fancy it, come and give it a go."
