Cambridge University colleges seek injunctions over protests
In written submissions, he said the university was "concerned about the environment of fear and intimidation created by masked protesters". He said the university did not wish to stop all protests but added that "some chanting was directly aimed at disrupting the examination season".Instead he suggested other options, such as a march or online and writing campaigns.Grant Kynaston, for the European Legal Support Centre, which supports the legal rights of pro-Palestine activists, said the court action had been rushed and that more time should be given, during which further evidence could be provided.Mr Kynaston asked the court to discontinue the injunction.He said if it were to be granted, it would be an "exceptionally wide-ranging and uncalibrated interference" with the protesters' human rights.He also said there was a trend of higher education institutions relying on court injunctions as a first rather than a last resort for enforcement against protests.Judge Andrew Twigger KC is expected to give his judgement in two to three weeks, during which time the temporary injunctions will remain in place.
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BBC News
6 minutes ago
- BBC News
Shrewsbury campaigner brands government 'disgraceful' over new driving laws
A campaigner whose teenage son died in a car crash has said it is "disgraceful" that the government will not consider more restrictions for young Owen's 17-year-old son Harvey died alongside three friends in 2023, when their car left the road in North Wales - and she has since been campaigning for graduated driving Minister Alex Davies-Jones told the BBC there were no plans to introduce such measures over concerns they might "unfairly discriminate" against young parents or carers."What more does it take? How many more young people have to die on our roads?" said Ms Owen, from Shrewsbury. A number of proposed changes to driving laws were set out on Monday, including potential driving bans for over 70s who fail compulsory eye plans have been welcomed by the AA, but the organisation said not including stronger laws for new drivers was a "major oversight."Graduated licences have long been called for by campaigners like Ms Owen, and would place limits on new drivers like not carrying peer-age passengers for an initial period after they pass their practical from the Department for Transport show a quarter of fatalities from road collisions involve at least one young a road safety charity, said young drivers were more likely to crash when carrying younger passengers, and were also more inclined to take risks on the road. Ms Owen said she has been left "very disappointed" by the government's stance."They're ignoring all the advice given to them," she said, "and they're not doing anything to protect [young drivers] or other road users which is absolutely disgraceful."The 40-year-old said graduated licences would give young people "valuable experience on all road conditions", which would "build up their confidence before they've got the added pressure of distractions."So just for a small inconvenience for a short amount of time to think that that could save so much heartache, it's just a no-brainer really." 'Frozen in time' Ms Owen said she felt "really disheartened", adding that she began campaigning just six weeks after Harvey's death."We just don't understand why the people at the top are not making the right decisions," she said. "Harvey and many, many others, their lives are frozen in time - Harvey will be forever 17 and the families that are left behind, our lives are absolutely destroyed." A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said that "every death on our roads is a tragedy and our thoughts remain with the families of everyone who has lost a loved one in this way."They confirmed that the government was "not considering graduated driving licences," but added they "absolutely recognise that young people are disproportionately victims of tragic incidents on our roads."The spokesperson added that the DfT was "considering other measures to address this problem and protect young drivers." Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Why poverty in the UK now is worse than 50 years ago and its grip is tightening every day
We're dealing with a divided Britain. We're dealing with a social crisis,' Gordon Brown said last week. It was a stark warning, yes, of the realities of a country steeped in instability – but it was also a recognition of something unnerving: regression. 'I live in the constituency in which I grew up,' the former prime minister continued telling the host of BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday. 'I still live here. I see every day this situation getting worse, and I did not think I would see the kind of poverty I saw when I was growing up; when we had slum housing, when we had travelling people coming to my school. 'This is a return to the kind of poverty of 60 years ago, and I think we've got to act now. And that's why it's urgent that we take action in this Budget,' he said. Brown's comments came as he backed reforms to gambling taxes in order to generate the £3.2bn needed to scrap the two-child benefit cap – a policy that is now estimated to affect the lives of more than 1.5 million children. And his admission carries with it an unsettling truth: that, in 2025, the UK is not only facing new forms of deprivation, but potentially circling back to old ones, too. Perhaps, half a century ago, it was easier to see. Back then, poverty appeared to live primarily in ghettoised estates – sprawling pillars of concrete; reeking stairwells, broken swings; kids playing outside in coats too small for them. In 1975, poverty had a physical presence in picket lines and soup kitchen queues, in a way that we'd like to imagine is now confined to sepia-tinged photos and 'gritty' ITV dramas or Ken Loach films. But the decades since have not only dramatically transformed wealth and living standards, but what poverty looks like, too. Things have, undoubtedly, improved – on the surface anyway. Average household incomes have doubled, moving the poverty line upwards. Lifespans have lengthened and rates of poverty among pensioners have seen considerable progress. Yet, the number of children living in relative poverty is not only slightly higher than it was in the 1970s, but double the rate at 31 per cent, or 4.5 million. An incredible 56 per cent of people living in poverty in the UK are in a working household, says the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), and deep poverty – where families live on less than 40 per cent of the median income – is significantly more widespread than ever. Now, families face more invisible barriers: digital exclusion (approximately 6 per cent of UK homes have no access to the internet), gentrification, unstable zero-hours contracts (1.05 million people), and the mental load that comes with managing survival every single day. Mind and the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute found last year that people living in poverty are twice as likely to experience mental health problems, while Turn2Us found that 7 in 10 low-income parents experience anxiety or depression as a direct result of financial stress. The last few decades – burdened by austerity, cuts, Covid, war, inflation, the cost of living crisis, more cuts – have given rise to deprivation that crosses social class lines and postcode borders. Today, living below the breadline could even look like a semi-detached house with a car on the drive. But those more visible – unignorable – markers are now coming back into play. According to the JRF's extensive research, as many as one in four people are going without basic needs and one in five are living in absolute low income after housing costs. More than one in 10 people – 11 per cent of the population, or 7.5 million – are struggling to eat. 'We've got poverty data going back to 1961,' says Peter Matejic, a chief analyst for JRF, 'and what we've seen is that for working-age adults and children, poverty rates have increased quite a lot over the last 50 years. If you had a profile of people in poverty 50 years ago and now, you'd have a very different mix of people in the room [in terms of class and education]. I think there'd be some success stories – like the quality of housing would be a lot higher now than it was there. 'But, certainly in the last decade or so, the more visible forms of poverty and deeper forms of poverty have actually increased. For all the progress we've made, we're now looking at regression.' It's particularly true in schools where poverty is becoming impossible to miss. A recent report by the National Education Union (NEU) documented the reality of teaching today in horrors witnessed by teachers – one such example found that more than a third of teachers are personally providing essentials like toothpaste, sanitary products or warm clothing for their students. Back in January, The Independent reported from a primary school in Lincolnshire where young children are in such desperate situations that they are living in tents, and teachers are now 'first responders', rather than educators. 'We have to provide food, clothing, sometimes even pay for bus fares,' one teacher quoted in the findings explained. 'We're not just teaching any more – we're crisis managing.' In the mid-1970s, just 14 per cent of people fell below the relative poverty line – the official line drawn at 60 per cent of median household income after housing costs. Today it stands at 22 per cent in England. Essentially, says Matejic, much of the difference can be traced back to the 1980s – a pivotal decade defined by rising unemployment and significant tax reforms (particularly the reduction of higher tax rates for top earners). 'Higher rates of taxes were reduced for very high-income people, and there was quite a lot of growth of incomes at the very top of the income distribution as well,' continues Matejic. As a result, those on the bottom rungs of the ladder fell further behind into joblessness or because of benefit cuts, while those at the top surged ahead. The gap between the rich and the poor grew, as did that between lower- and middle-income households. There have been periods of reprise – noticeably at the dawn of New Labour in the years after Tony Blair's 1997 election – and of escalation. 'Destitution more than doubled between 2017 and 2022,' explains Matejic – by the end of 2022, 3.8 million people (including 1 million children) experienced it, largely due to inadequate social security, rising costs of essentials and high levels of debt. 'The deeper you go, the worse it gets. Destitution – what we define as going without two of seven essentials like food, toiletries or shelter, or having such a low income that you can't afford them – is rising faster than deep poverty.' Even record employment levels haven't been able to touch poverty, which has either flatlined or worsened for many. More than 8 million people are trapped in what is now routinely referred to as 'in-work' poverty, with 60 per cent of low-paid workers regularly skipping meals (according to a study by The Living Wage Foundation); half are falling behind on bills despite being employed. The country is teetering on breaking point: one in three low-income workers say they are 'one unexpected expense away' from being in crisis. Further cuts to the welfare system – particularly to those unable to work, like carers and the disabled – have left millions more below the poverty line. Between 2010 and 2020, the poorest tenth of households saw their income fall by over 11 per cent, while the richest tenth lost just 2 per cent. And when the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) compared cuts in the most and least deprived 10 local authorities just over five years ago, they found the poorest places were hit six times harder. The two-child cap is only exacerbating the entire situation for millions of children in the UK. The original justification for the policy, which denies financial support for third and subsequent children born after April 2017, was to promote 'responsibility' in family planning, cutting the benefit was short-sighted. In reality, the decision failed to acknowledge the reality of modern living: illness, separation, redundancy and other unexpected events that life throws at us all, and that render us vulnerable. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it also disproportionately affects marginalised groups like single mothers and ethnic minority families. Worsening deprivation is in what happens next: right now, we're raising millions of children growing up with less opportunity, less security and, crucially, less hope than the generations before them. And this isn't simply rhetoric – it's a return to Dickensian levels of poverty, actively playing out in classrooms and kitchens across the country, and will be for years to come yet. Scrapping the policy, most experts agree, is an imperative to improve rates of poverty and lives in the UK right now: this single change would lift a quarter of a million children out of poverty, and reduce the path of hardship for many more. But it can't stop there, says Matejic. 'You have to invest in social security to lower poverty,' he explains: uprating benefits in line with inflation, for example, restoring lost disability payments, and making universal support systems work with – not against – the rhythms of working life. Investing in the labour market and in communities surviving on threadbare infrastructure, too, should be a priority: hollowed-out local authorities, oversubscribed schools, deteriorating hospitals and non-existent libraries. But, to make a difference long term, there needs to be a long-term plan in place. Social mobility is now at a standstill, workers' rights (especially those caught in the grift of exploitative zero-hours contracts) are worsening and a genuine living wage is still not in sight. As long as poverty is treated like a personal failing rather than a systemic outcome, that won't change. Until politicians stop weaponising hardship and, instead, start addressing it with honesty and urgency, things will only continue to worsen. The face of poverty may have changed in the last 60 years – sometimes we might not even recognise it. But the insecurity, powerlessness and injustice it brings only tightened its grip.
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The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
How the HS2 shambles could have been avoided – if we'd copied the Swiss
'Eighteen years in, we still don't have a design for Euston,' laments Thomas Ableman. 'And then we wondered why the cost ballooned.' He is, of course, talking about HS2: the high-speed railway linking London Euston with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Regrettably, you can forget about the last two cities; those crucial spurs were scrapped under the last government in an attempt to save money amid ballooning costs, while seeking votes from motorists. You can also forget for now about trains starting and ending at Euston in central London. With no design for the terminus station (and currently no cash to build it), when HS2 finally opens a decade or more from now, it will be a shuttle between a place called Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham. Whether you are a passenger, a taxpayer or a resident of one of the locations being dug up for ever-diminishing national benefits, you have the right to be furious at a succession of politicians who have created the world's greatest example of how not to manage a vast infrastructure project. Within the transport world, everyone has an opinion on who is to blame. But Mr Ableman is different. He has had a distinguished career with Transport for London, Chiltern Railways and National Express, and created an intercity start-up named Sn-ap. He writes and podcasts about delivering better mobility. And his best blog this summer is called: ' This is how the Swiss would have done HS2 '. They wouldn't start with a grandiose project with 'a glossy brand or separate company', says Mr Ableman. 'No HS2 Ltd with its own culture and operating model and interface challenges. Just a series of connected but self-contained projects, each delivered by Network Rail as part of normal business. 'They pick a year in the future – 2045, say – and ask: what should the national train timetable look like then, if we want to meet our national objectives as a country? They work out what a good timetable looks like in that future. Then they build backwards from there. 'It sounds simple – even obvious – but it leads you to a very different way of working.' What is also crucial: a fund that guarantees a certain amount of spending on rail infrastructure every year, rather than a hand-to-mouth dependence on the Treasury and volatile politicians. Mr Ableman contemplates how the Swiss approach would have worked in the UK. Planners would have identified that key regional hubs – Birmingham New Street, Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly – are desperately short of decent rail connections from the suburbs because they don't have enough platform space. They would understand that the line between Coventry and Birmingham has a hopelessly inadequate timetable for the many prospective passengers who live along the route, because suburban trains must share the pair of tracks with intercity expresses. Across the whole country, to improve the service for millions: 'The fast tracks need to be used by slower trains, so the fastest trains need to run somewhere else.' The Swiss would take those problems and create a timetable that solves them. 'And then they'd ask: what infrastructure do we need to make this timetable possible?' Guess what: the solution to Britain's rail needs looks rather like HS2. 'However, because they know exactly what they can afford, every year, forever, they could immediately identify that it's too expensive. 'Because they know what they can afford, they can now value-engineer a version that fits. In the UK, no one really knows how much money the Treasury will be willing to release, or when. In Switzerland, there's a budget envelope. It's predictable. 'So having come up with an unaffordable infrastructure plan to deliver a perfect timetable, they'd go back, iterate the timetable, tweak the infrastructure plan and adjust things until it all fits. And then they'd start building.' Rather than a big bang, a rolling programme of cumulative upgrades would deliver key benefits early along the way to that timetable tuned for the needs of the nation. 'I can't promise every part will be delivered on-time and on-budget but it's much more likely,' he writes. 'And if something isn't late, it doesn't mean that the whole shebang is late – just that one project.' Mr Ableman's conclusion is chilling: that the Treasury's refusal to commit to long-term funding 'creates exactly the conditions that make infrastructure expensive'. Unintentionally, he says, the Treasury is 'the biggest driver of waste and inefficiency in UK infrastructure'. Politicians who really care about mobility – the economic and social benefits it unlocks – should accept that the problems of Britain's decrepit rail network are rooted in a timetable that works for almost nobody. Swiss railways work for everyone.
