The NHS lottery leaves patients waiting months for urgent care
SIR – Some 20 years ago, my girlfriend persuaded me to have my Zapata-style moustache (Letters, May 29) shaved off for a cancer charity. This raised some £250, which certainly made it worthwhile.
It was only some time later, when I was thinking about growing it back again and met with sustained and vociferous resistance, that I realised that the original idea had been triggered by more than a single motive.
Tom Stubbs
Surbiton, Surrey
SIR – In 1977, my great friend Stephen Denyer was warned by the careers adviser at Durham University that he wouldn't get a job with a City law firm sporting a beard. We stopped teasing Stephen about this when he became a senior international partner at Allen and Overy, and later director of strategic relationships for the Law Society of England and Wales. Stephen retained his handsome facial hair until his untimely death last year.
John Jenkins
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Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
UK to build weapons factories and buy thousands of missiles in £6bn push to rearm
The UK will buy up to 7,000 long-range missiles, rockets and drones and build at least six weapons factories in a £6bn push to rearm at a time of growing threats. The plan, announced by the government over the weekend, will form part of Sir Keir Starmer's long-awaited Strategic Defence Review, which will be published on Monday. However, it lacks key details, including when the first arms plant will be built, when the first missile will be made, or even what kind of missiles, drones and rockets will be purchased. The government is yet to appoint a new senior leader to take on the job of "national armaments director", who will oversee the whole effort. Andy Start, the incumbent head of Defence Equipment and Support - the branch of defence charged with buying kit - is still doing the beefed-up role of national armaments director as a sluggish process to recruit someone externally rumbles on. Revealing some of its content ahead of time, the Ministry of Defence said the defence review will recommend an "always on" production capacity for munitions, drawing on lessons learned from Ukraine, which has demonstrated the vital importance of large production lines. It will also call for an increase in stockpiles of munitions - something that is vitally needed for the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force to be able to keep fighting beyond a few days. Some £1.5bn will be invested in the new factories, the government said. It said this additional funding will lift total expenditure on munitions to £6bn this parliament. Sky News will launch a new podcast series on 10 June based around a wargame that simulates an attack by Russia against the UK to test Britain's defences "The hard-fought lessons from [Vladimir] Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine show a military is only as strong as the industry that stands behind them," John Healey, the defence secretary, said in a statement released on Saturday night. "We are strengthening the UK's industrial base to better deter our adversaries and make the UK secure at home and strong abroad." The UK used to have a far more resilient defence industry during the Cold War, with the capacity to manufacture missiles and other weapons and ammunition at speed and at scale. However, much of that depth, which costs money to sustain, was lost following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when successive governments switched funding priorities away from defence and into areas such as health, welfare and economic growth. Even after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and a huge increase in demand from Kyiv for munitions from its allies, production lines at UK factories were slow to expand. Sky News visited a plant run by the defence company Thales in Belfast last year that makes N-LAW anti-tank missiles used in Ukraine. Its staff at the time only worked weekday shifts between 7am and 4pm. Under this new initiative, the government said the UK will build at least six new "munitions and energetics" factories. Energetic materials include explosives, propellants and pyrotechnics, which are required in the manufacturing of weapons. There were no details, however, on whether these will be national factories or built in partnership with defence companies, or a timeline for this to happen. There was also no information on where they would be located or what kind of weapons they would make. In addition, it was announced that the UK will buy "up to 7,000 UK-built long-range weapons for the UK Armed Forces", though again without specifying what. It is understood these weapons will include a mix of missiles, rockets and drones. Sources within the defence industry criticised the lack of detail, which is so often the case with announcements by the Ministry of Defence. The sources said small and medium-sized companies in particular are struggling to survive as they await clarity from the Ministry of Defence over a range of different contracts. One source described a sense of "paralysis". The prime minister launched the defence review last July, almost a year ago. But there had been a sense of drift within the Ministry of Defence beforehand, in the run-up to last year's general election. The source said: "While the government's intentions are laudable, the lack of detail in this announcement is indicative of how we treat defence in this country. "Headline figures, unmatched by clear intent and delivery timelines which ultimately leave industry no closer to knowing what, or when, the MOD want their bombs and bullets. "After nearly 18 months of decision and spending paralysis, what we need now is a clear demand signal from the Ministry of Defence that allows industry to start scaling production, not grand gestures with nothing to back it up." As well as rearming the nation, the government said the investment in new factories and weapons would create around 1,800 jobs across the UK.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes wow crowd at Kansas City charity event... but Taylor Swift is nowhere to be seen after major announcement
Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes wowed the Kansas City crowd as two of the big names involved in Big Slick, an annual charity event that raises money for Children's Mercy, a pediatric hospital. The Chiefs duo appeared at the 'Big Slick Show' at T-Mobile Center, the final event of the weekend alongside several celebrities with local ties. Not in Missouri for the event was Taylor Swift, days after she announced she bought back the rights to her first six albums. One huge non-Kansas-City-affiliated personality to arrive at the show was Jason Kelce, who strolled onto the stage to the song 'Bad to the Bone' by George Thorogood & The Destroyers. Mahomes and Travis Kelce made their entrance together just before the Philadelphia Eagles legend with plenty of big names waiting for them. The Kansas City celebrities most notably included Jason Sudeikis, Paul Rudd, and David Koechner. Also on stage were Eric Stonestreet, Rob Riggle, and Heidi Gardner, who rounded out the six celebrities with local ties on the advertisements for each Big Slick event throughout the weekend. The Kelce brothers and Mahomes were on stage to entertain the crowd, as there is no sports team more popular in Western Missouri than the Chiefs. The extravaganza kicked off on Thursday night with a 'Just Us' event, which was a cocktail party with the six celebrities. Friday saw a celebrity softball game, with plenty of suite tickets available, with the Kansas City Royals playing the Detroit Tigers at Kauffman Stadium directly following the diamond festivities. The Big Slick's showpiece event on Saturday night featured the Kelce brothers and Mahomes, where the total raised for Children's Mercy will be announced. Since the start of Big Slick in 2010, the event has raised more $24million for Kansas City area pediatric health. Special guests to this year's Big Slick include Curt Menefee, all three stars of TBS' Impractical Jokers, Kansas City native Tom Pestock, who is best known for his time in WWE as Baron Corbin, Will Forte, Johnny Knoxville, and more. With a letter to her supporters on her website on Friday, Swift announced that she had bought back control of her first six albums, which had most previously been owned by hedge fund Shamrock Capital. Swift teased the news on her Instagram by posing alongside all six album covers. She captioned the post 'You belong with me,' a reference to one of her hit songs, before writing: 'Letter on my site :).' Eagle-eyed fans spotted that Kelce liked the post on Instagram, while his friend and teammate, Patrick Mahomes, even re-posted the news on X. Patrick's wife, Brittany, also re-posted Swift's announcement to her Instagram story, writing: 'Just so amazing.' Since the pair started dating in the summer of 2023, Kelce has been an avid supporter of Swift's music, following her on her Eras Tour last summer and even making an onstage cameo at Wembley Stadium. For her part Swift said of the development: 'To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it. 'To my fans, you know how important this has been to me — so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them Taylor's Version. 'The passionate support you showed those albums and the success story you turned The Eras Tour into is why I was able to buy back my music. I can't thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Arm prison officers against violent and terrorist inmates, says Tories' Jenrick
The Conservatives have called for some prison officers to have access to firearms to counter 'out of control' Islamist gangs and violent prisoners. The shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, said specialist teams should be armed with Tasers, stun grenades, and in some circumstances lethal weapons. He also called for high-collar stab vests to be provided to frontline officers right away, citing the threat from inmates after recent attacks on prison officers. 'Islamist gangs and violent prisoners in our jails are out of control. It's a national security emergency, but the government is dithering,' he said in the Telegraph. 'If they don't act soon, there is a very real risk that a prison officer is kidnapped or murdered in the line of duty, or that a terrorist attack is directed from inside prison.' Jenrick said he had commissioned Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, to carry out a rapid review. 'We have to stop pussy-footing around Islamist extremists and violent offenders in jails,' Jenrick wrote. 'That means arming specialist prison officer teams with Tasers and stun grenades, as well as giving them access to lethal weapons in exceptional circumstances. 'If prison governors can't easily keep terrorist influencers and radicalising inmates apart from the mainstream prisoners they target, then we don't control our prisons – they do. We must take back control and restore order by giving officers the powers and protection they need.' It come after attacks by high-profile inmates. The Manchester Arena plotter Hashem Abedi targeted prison staff with boiling oil and homemade weapons in a planned ambush last month. The Southport killer Axel Rudakubana allegedly attacked a prison officer with boiling water at HMP Belmarsh this month. The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has ordered a snap review into whether stab vests should be used more routinely, and a trial that will give specialised officers dealing with serious incidents Tasers is due to be launched in the summer. Officers already have access to batons and Pava spray, a synthetic form of pepper spray, in men's prisons in the public sector. A Ministry of Justice source said the government has a 'zero-tolerance approach' to violence and extremism in prisons. 'The last government added just 500 cells to our prison estate, and left our jails in total crisis. In 14 years they closed 1,600 cells in the high-security estate, staff assaults soared, and experienced officers left in droves. Now the arsonists are pretending to be firefighters. 'This government is cleaning up the mess the last government left behind. We are building new prisons, with 2,400 new cells opened since we took office. And we take a zero-tolerance approach to violence and extremism inside.'
