Parents protest over loss of lollipop lady at Peterborough school
Families have protested outside Eye Primary calling for Ms Bryan's job to be saved.She is temporarily continuing her job as a volunteer."There's not a lot I can do; I've just got to take it on the chin; I just feel sorry for the children and the parents," she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service."The traffic doesn't stop for me so what makes them thinks it will stop for parents, whether there is a zebra crossing or not?"In the mornings, it's a fighting battle every day."
'Nightmare'
Katie Berry, one of the parents, said: "The amount of accidents and near misses I've seen - it's almost daily. It's a complete rat-run."[An accident] is really now a matter of time. I know it sounds dramatic, but it is a 'when', not an 'if' now."She described Ms Bryan as a "lovely lady".Steve Allen, a Conservative councillor for Eye, joined parents at the protest and called the road "a total nightmare"."I know the council has to save money and I'm conscious council officers have been trying to close down the lollipop lady operations, but I think you have to look at each one in isolation," he said.The council said plans to cut school crossing services at four schools was agreed as part of the 2024-25 budget."It is one of a number of difficult decisions councillors have had to make to be able to balance the budget," said Ellis.
Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
James Cleverly billed taxpayers £20k for his website and comms consultants
His average monthly claim for his website was more than £400 a month - with the average among MPs just £67 Tory James Cleverly charged taxpayers £20,000 updating his website and hiring people to advise him on 'digital communications', documents have revealed. The former leadership contender, whom Kemi Badenoch named her Shadow Housing Secretary last month, claimed £7,000 on expenses for 'Digital Communications Constituency Services' in March (2025), according to watchdog IPSA. The same month he claimed a further £5,400 for 'Comprehensive constituency communications and videography services.' But unusually, IPSA's records don't say who the payments were made to. It comes after Kemi Badenoch admitted she'd snitched on a child at school and had them expelled Meanwhile, Mr Cleverly claimed a further £4,404 for 'website hosting and design' for his website between May 2024 and March 2025 - more than £400 a month. During the same period the average spend per month for MPs who claimed back the cost of their websites was £67. Again, the records don't say who the money was paid to. Mr Cleverly did not respond to requests for comment. Kemi Badenoch brought Sir James, her former cabinet colleague during Rishi Sunak's administration, back into the fold in a reshuffle last month. Sir James stood as a candidate in last year's Conservative leadership election, but lost out on the Tory top job ahead of the final heat between Mrs Badenoch and her now-shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick. Since the leadership contest, he has returned to the Tory back benches as the MP for Braintree. In 2023 The Mirror reported the former Cabinet minister joked about giving his wife a date-rape drug, just hours after announcing a crackdown on the growing epidemic of drinks spiking. The top Tory told female guests at a No10 reception that 'a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night' was 'not really illegal if it's only a little bit'. A spokesman for the ex-Home Secretary said at the time: "In what was always understood as a private conversation, James, the Home Secretary tackling spiking, made what was clearly meant to be an ironic joke - for which he apologises."
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Why ‘grifter' has become the go-to political insult of 2025
Our world is full of grifters. Or so it seems, considering how often that word is thrown around in public life these days. This year alone, Zarah Sultana, the former Labour MP and founder of a new left party with Jeremy Corbyn, called the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, a 'billionaire-backed grifter' (perhaps borrowing from the language of Coutts staff who referred to him as a 'disingenuous grifter' when his bank account was closed two years ago). Sultana, in turn, was accused of being a 'grifter' duping 'honest socialists' by the journalist Paul Mason. When giving evidence at the Covid inquiry, the Spectator editor and former cabinet minister, Michael Gove, called the lawyer Jolyon Maugham, whose Good Law Project campaign group pursued PPE contract cases, a 'politically motivated grifter'. Meanwhile, the journalist and author James Ball accused the New York University history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat of 'resistance grift' for suggesting the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is trying to control the population by spreading disease. In a recent podcast, the Atlantic writer David Frum called Donald Trump's presidency the 'grift machine', while the US president was also called 'grifter-in-chief' by Florida congressman Maxwell Frost. Two years ago, it was the Sussexes who were memorably called 'fucking grifters' by Spotify's head of podcast innovation, Bill Simmons, after their multiyear deal with the platform ended after just 12 episodes. From 2017-24, the written use of the word 'grifter' has more than doubled, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). But over the past few months in particular, it has been striking how often the term – both grifter and grift – is cropping up in our political discourse. In April this year, it made its debut in parliament: it was used in a House of Commons debate on the impact of digital platforms on democracy by the Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham, Max Wilkinson. 'You find a mad and hateful narrative. You tell everyone it is free speech, and before you know it, you might be lucky enough to become a successful online grifter with your top off,' he said. 'Perhaps you will be an MP, or maybe even the president of America.' 'Grifter', according to the OED, is a variant of the US slang 'grafter': someone who 'makes money by shady or dishonest means; a thief; a swindler' – or 'one who practises 'graft', especially in public life; a politician, official, etc, who misuses his or her position in order to reap dishonest gain or advantage'. That second meaning has clearly captured the political zeitgeist. 'It's a kind of shorthand for inviting suspicion about the methods and motivations of someone with an opposing viewpoint,' Fiona McPherson, an executive editor at the OED, told me. Why is it that we're not only disagreeing with our political opponents, but assuming they are con artists somehow profiting from what we deem to be their bad opinions, policies and rhetorical style? Spivs who are in it for nefarious ends rather than simply wrong-headed? When you search the term 'grifter' on sites such as Reddit and TikTok, it is often used in relation to influencers – wellness gurus, pickup artists, life coaches, crypto bros. So many online subcultures now dabble in essentially the same business model: sowing insecurity and then charging people with the promise to rid them of it. Wherever the algorithm leads you, from sleep coaches for knackered new mums to gym rats for lonely boys, you are likely being exposed, day in, day out, to some form of grift. When politicians themselves mimic such influencers – Farage and the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, for example, now trade in to-camera vertical videos that gain millions of views – it is hard to ignore the similarities. Suspicions of British politicians' motives in general are high, sparked by the 2009 expenses scandal and intensifying over the past few years of crony Covid contracts and ministers bagging freebies. The rise of the 'true scam' genre also reveals our morbid fascination with grift. From the Tinder Swindler to Fyre festival, and Theranos to the Captain Tom Foundation, stories of the hubris and humiliation of people perceived to be on the make with our money dominate TV documentaries, long-form journalism and investigative podcasts. All this and you can barely open your banking app today without warnings about the nefarious means used by scammers to winkle money out of you. Fraud is the most common crime in England and Wales, with the highest number of cases recorded last year. In the resulting atmosphere of ambient paranoia, perhaps it's little wonder we're on the lookout for 'grifters' – and why the insult appears to resonate. So welcome to the Age of Grift: if you're not spotting it, you're probably on the end of it. Anoosh Chakelian is Britain editor of the New Statesman
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Labour develops AI to predict parliamentary rebellions
Labour is developing a computer model to predict future rebellions after Sir Keir Starmer was humbled by his own backbenchers over welfare reforms. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is funding an Artificial Intelligence (AI) programme to scour debate records for signs of MPs who will vote against the Government. The move comes amid concern that the Prime Minister is being pushed around by his party following a series of mutinies. Parlex is billed as software that can 'forecast parliamentary reaction' by analysing records of past debates in the Commons. It will allow civil servants to draw up dossiers for Cabinet ministers saying which MPs, including those in their own ranks, are likely to oppose specific policies. A project page on the government website said: 'By analysing years of parliamentary debate contributions from MPs and Peers, Parlex offers insights into how Parliament might react to a new policy if it were debated tomorrow. 'This tool helps policy professionals gauge parliamentary sentiment towards specific issues, determining whether a policy will be well-received or face significant opposition. 'This allows policy teams to understand the political climate and anticipate potential challenges or support for a policy before it is formally proposed and to build a parliamentary handling strategy.' Sir Keir faced the biggest crisis of his premiership in July when more than 120 Labour MPs threatened to revolt against changes to sickness benefits. The Prime Minister was eventually forced to abandon the reforms, which would have saved £5bn a year, after a significant blow to his authority. It was not the first time that he had been humbled by a backbench rebellion. In 2023, while he was leader of the opposition, he was defied by 56 of his MPs who broke the party whip to vote for a ceasefire in Gaza. This month, Sir Keir announced he planned to recognise a Palestinian state after again coming under heavy pressure from backbenchers and the Cabinet. With many Labour MPs sitting on wafer-thin majorities and fearing defeat at the next election, there are expectations that party discipline could break down further. The science ministry announced that it was developing Parlex earlier this year as part of a new suite of AI tools known as Humphrey. It has been named after Sir Humphrey Appleby, the permanent secretary at the 'Department of Administrative Affairs' in the 1980s TV satire Yes, Minister. Ministers said that the system was 'still in early-stage user testing' but had already cut the amount of time it took officials to research an MP.
