Latest news with #Lambeth
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Syphilis Britain! Cases of Victorian-era STI hit record highs, new data reveals...do you live in a UK hotspot?
One in every 1,000 people in parts of England have the sexually transmitted infection (STI) syphilis, as officials warn cases have reached the highest level since 1948. Lambeth, in South London, was the nation's syphilis capital with almost 138 cases per 100,000 people last year. This is equivalent to just over one in every 1,000 people in the borough having the STI which can cause life threatening problems if left untreated. Officials from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said a total of 9,535 syphilis cases were detected in 2024, an increase of 1.7 per cent compared to the year prior. They added the number cases was the largest number in 76 years. MailOnline has now created a fascinating map allowing to see how your area compares for multiple STIs in the current outbreak. Officials also raised the alarm about a rise in drug resistant super-gonorrhoea. While overall cases of this STI fell 16 per cent—from 85,370 in 2023 to 71,802 last year—cases of antibiotic resistant strains have recently soared. UKKSA said a total of 14 cases of drug resistant gonorrhoea had been reported as of May this year, which is more than 13 recorded in the entirety of 2024. Even more concerning is that six of cases recorded in 2025 are what experts call 'extensively drug resistant'—or XDR gonorrhoea. This strain of the infection is resistant to both ceftriaxone— the frontline antibiotic normally used to combat gonorrhoea—as well as other medications, surviving and even thriving in patients despite treatment. Officials said the majority of cases drug resistant gonorrhoea were linked to travel to or from the Asia-Pacific region where such strains are more prevalent. After Lambeth, other hotspots for syphilis were also London boroughs with Westminster recording 131.4 cases per 100,000 people and Southwark with 107.4. The next highest area outside of the capital was Brighton and Hove with 49 cases per 100,000. In contrast, the part of England was the Isles of Scilly which recorded zero syphilis cases, followed by North Lincolnshire with 2.4 cases per 100,000. The national syphilis rate for the entirety of England was 16.5 cases per 100,000 people. Nationally, heterosexual men accounted for the largest jump in syphilis with cases jumping 23.8 per cent from last year to 1,380. However, men who have sex with men still accounted for the largest portion of cases of the STI at 6,330 cases, despite this being a small drop of 1.6 per cent compared to the year prior. Syphilis typically causes small sores to develop on or around the genitals and/or anus, and white warty growths in the same areas. It usually takes three weeks from infection to develop symptoms from infection. Left untreated it can cause extremely serious and life-threatening health problems, harming the function of the heart, brain, nerves and other organs. Dr Hamish Mohammed, consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA, urged Britons to follow safe sex guidance and use condoms with new or casual partners. 'These infections can have a major impact on your health and that of any sexual partners – particularly if they are antibiotic resistant,' he said. 'If you've had condomless sex with new or casual partners – either in the UK or overseas - get tested for STIs and HIV at least yearly, even if you don't have symptoms. Regular testing protects both you and those you're having sex with.' Data for other STIs show rates of chlamydia fell 13 per cent to 168,889 diagnoses in 2024, while cases of genital warts also dropped. The latest annual data on the STI rates in England comes just a few weeks after the NHS announced it was launching a world-first a vaccine for gonorrhoea. Responding to the data, The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils responsible for commissioning sexual health services, warns that the system is struggling to keep pace with soaring demand for STI checks. Cllr David Fothergill, chairman of the LGA's community wellbeing board, said: 'These statistics show that local sexual health services are grappling with significant increases in demand.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
I saved hundreds of pounds by DIY-ing my daughter's birthday cake – it only cost me £18 and people think it's ‘genius'
IF your child's birthday is coming up and the thought of splashing the cash on a lavish cake sends shivers down your spine, fear not, you've come to the right place. Many parents will know that ordering a personalised birthday cake can often end up costing hundreds of pounds. 3 3 3 But in a bid to save cash, one savvy mum took matters into her own hands and was able to cut costs by DIY-ing her little darling's birthday dessert. Posting on social media, a mother named Amy shared a step-by-step tutorial of how she DIY-ed her daughter Myla's pink birthday cake - and it cost her less than £20. So if you're on a budget and your purse is feeling tighter than ever before, then you'll need to listen up. The UGC content creator explained that to celebrate her daughter turning one, she decorated the Pretty in Pink Lambeth Cake, which she bought from Waitrose. The pink coloured golden sponge cake, which is filled with raspberry jam and topped and decorated with pale pink and dark pink buttercream, cost Amy just £18. Then, using some pink icing and ribbons she already had, she was able to personalise the cake - and we think it looks incredibly professional. Alongside a short clip shared online, the influencer penned: 'Making my daughter's first birthday cake, saving £100s!' Showing off the box-fresh vintage-style cake, which is decorated with whirls and swirls of piping, Amy beamed: 'Come with me to DIY my daughter's first birthday cake for only £18!' Amy confirmed that she used letter cutters to cut out 'Myla is one' in pink icing, which she placed on top of the cake. Following this, she attached pretty pink bows, which she already had from Shein, and was able to stick these to the cake with cocktail sticks. The simple chocolate cake recipe using only TWO ingredients - it's sweet and you won't even need to put it in the oven We think Amy's DIY cake looks brilliant and is a great way for those strapped for cash to save money, without having to scrimp on the celebrations. The TikTok clip, which was posted under the username @ mummyandmylaa, has clearly left many open-mouthed, as it has quickly racked up 178,600 views. Not only this, but it's also amassed 2,782 likes, 31 comments and 780 saves. Social media users were impressed with the jaw-dropping cake and many eagerly raced to the comments to express this. Time-saving mum hacks Morning Routine Nighttime Preparation: Set out clothes for yourself and the kids, pack lunches, and organise backpacks before bed. Effortless Breakfasts: Keep simple, healthy breakfast options on hand, such as overnight oats, smoothie packs, or pre-made breakfast burritos. Meal Planning Weekly Meal Prep: Dedicate time each week to plan your meals to eliminate daily decision-making. Bulk Cooking: Prepare larger quantities and freeze portions for future use. Hands-Off Cooking: Make use of slow cookers or Instant Pots for easy, unattended meal prep. Ready-to-Use Veggies: Purchase pre-chopped vegetables or chop them all at once to save time during the week. Household Chores Daily Laundry: Do a load of laundry every day to prevent a buildup of dirty clothes. Continuous Cleaning: Encourage kids to clean up after themselves and perform small cleaning tasks throughout the day. Efficient Multitasking: Fold laundry while watching TV or listen to audiobooks/podcasts while cleaning. Organisation Family Command Centre: Set up a central hub with a calendar, to-do lists, and important documents. Daily Decluttering: Spend a few minutes each day decluttering to maintain an organised home. Organised Storage: Use bins and baskets to keep items neat and easy to locate. Kid Management Prepared Activity Bags: Have bags packed with essentials for various activities (e.g., swimming, sports). Routine Visuals: Implement visual charts to help kids follow their routines independently. Task Delegation: Assign age-appropriate chores to children to foster responsibility and reduce your workload. One person said: 'Love that. Wish I hadn't already ordered a cake almost the exact same.' Another added: 'This is genius!' A third commented: 'Super cute!' Not only this, but another parent beamed: 'Omg that cake is adorable, I wish I knew about it before!' At the same time, one user wondered: 'What it nice? I worry that supermarket cakes can be dry inside as they are sat on the aisle for a while.' To this, the content creator replied and confirmed: 'Not dry at all!!! 'Honestly, it tasted AMAZING, no regrets!!!'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Worried about weed: should London follow New York and decriminalise cannabis?
The last time London dabbled in decriminalising cannabis, it brought one part of the capital to a brief but giddy high. In 2001, an enterprising Scotland Yard borough commander empowered his officers in Lambeth to caution rather than arrest those carrying small amounts of the drug for personal use – freeing them, according to the scheme's proponents, to concentrate on more serious crimes. The softly-softly approach was controversial in some political and policing quarters, but wildly popular in the borough – and some of its results were dramatic. Over six months, more than 2,500 hours of police officers' time were saved on processing cannabis arrests, while arrests for dealing class A drugs rose by almost a fifth. Non-drug crime fell by 9% overall, with sharp declines in burglaries and street robberies. Almost two-thirds thought it had improved relations between the police and the community. The Lambeth experiment would end after a year, however, after the man behind it, Brian Paddick, was transferred following newspaper allegations about his private life – later acknowledged to be false. Lambeth's residents may have been dismayed, organising public meetings and petitions to call for Paddick's reinstatement ('He's not a very naughty boy, he's the Messiah,' read one poster) but Metropolitan police plans to introduce the measures across the capital were quietly shelved. Almost a quarter of a century on, could decriminalisation be back on the cards for London? Sadiq Khan this week indicated his support, after an independent commission into cannabis regulation, promised by the mayor in his 2021 election manifesto, published its findings. Classifying cannabis as a class B drug was disproportionate to its harms, it said, and the sanctions users were subject to for personal possession 'cannot be justified'. Instead, the panel recommended, 'natural' (but not synthetic) forms of the drug should be re-classified, allowing Londoners to use small quantities without penalty. They did not, however, call for full legalisation: those producing or supplying the drug would still be breaking the law. The move, the report said, would have the important added benefit of addressing racial inequalities in the way the Met polices cannabis possession by stop and search. Black people are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, according to 2021 figures – but are no more likely to be carrying cannabis. 'It is clear a fundamental reset is required,' said the commission's chair, Lord Falconer, and Khan agreed: 'I've long been clear that we need fresh thinking on how to reduce the substantial harms associated with drug-related crime in our communities.' As both men know, however, the mayor has no power to change drugs laws in the capital, and the government was quick to slap down any such suggestion. 'We have no intention of reclassifying cannabis from a class B substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act,' the Home Office said in a statement. The fact that, 24 years after the Lambeth experiment, the debate over cannabis feels so familiar may be a feature of the drug's ambivalent place in British consciousness. Legislators may be immovable on the issue today, but cannabis was briefly reclassified as a less harmful class C drug in 2004, only to be moved back to class B five years later – arguably, the report suggests, for political reasons. The British public are broadly in favour of loosening restrictions – but not overwhelmingly so. A YouGov poll this week found 54% supported decriminalising cannabis possession for personal use, with 34% opposed and 13% unsure. Asked if decriminalisation would lead to more drug use, almost exactly the same proportion (42%) said yes as those who said it would make no difference (43%). While almost a third of people have tried it at some point, cannabis use is actually falling across England and Wales – particularly sharply in London, where the proportion of those aged 16-59 who had used the drug in the past year was 6.2% in 2022-3, compared with 14.3% in 2001-2. From a health point of view, discussion of the harms of cannabis is nuanced. 'If you're looking at harm at a population level, the vast majority of the millions of people who've ever smoked cannabis in this country since the Beatles have not come to any real harm,' noted Harry Shapiro, director of the drug information service DrugWise. But while most health professionals agree that a low or moderate use of the drug is likely to be minimally harmful for most people, others are anxious to emphasise the risk to a minority, especially from the much stronger forms of the drug that increasingly dominate the market. Dr Emily Finch, chair of the addictions faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), said: 'It's obvious to say that many people with cannabis have no problems at all, but there are several circumstances where it can be incredibly dangerous.' Most seriously, for a small proportion, she continued, cannabis greatly increases the risks of developing psychosis, but even among other users, there can be other risks. 'People say – would tell you – that cannabis isn't addictive. There's really good evidence that that isn't true, and that there is a significant group, maybe 5% of cannabis users, who do become dependent on cannabis use.' In addition, she said: 'We need to understand that it's not helpful for 11- to 15-year-olds to use large amounts of cannabis.' About a third of people who use cannabis develop a problem with the drug at some point in their lives, according to the RCPsych. The drug's increasing potency in the market has significantly increased the risk of it causing psychosis and other harms, agrees Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at King's College London. 'People need to know that cannabis, particularly modern cannabis, is a risky drug to take every day … Probably a couple of joints at the weekend is not going to do you much harm, but certainly daily cannabis carries an increased risk. If you take skunk-like cannabis every day, you're about nine or 10 times more likely to go psychotic.' Finch broadly rejects the suggestion that cannabis is a gateway drug to stronger substances, however: 'For some people, it might be part of a pattern of overall illicit drug use but I don't think that's necessarily the case. For many people, it isn't.' Perhaps the most striking thing about Britain's agonised discussions of its drug laws is the degree to which the country is increasingly an international outlier. In recent years, Portugal, South Africa, and Luxembourg, the Australian Capital Territory and many states in the US are among places to have partially decriminalised or fully legalised recreational cannabis use and, in some cases, permitted the development of a new, entirely legal market. 'Cannabis is a commodity, it is circulated in markets and has a supply chain,' said Toby Seddon, professor of social science at University College London, who has researched international models of regulation and advised Khan's commission. 'The question we have as societies is: how do you want to regulate this? For the last 100 years, we've regulated it through using the criminal law. And we've observed how that's worked and not worked. 'If you prohibit something, you're trying to reduce it to as close to zero as possible. And that manifestly hasn't worked because it's still really easy under prohibition to get hold of cannabis.' Which has led many other countries to try another way. Non-medical cannabis is legal in Canada, where the federal government controls production licences but each territory can decide how it manages its sale. In Uruguay, the first country to legalise cannabis sales in 2013 to counter drug-related crime, there is a state-run, not-for-profit model, in which the government issues licences, sets prices and oversees the potency of products. Germany legislated last year to permit individual consumption and cultivation, though critics say its implementation has been hampered by red tape. A similar critique has also been levelled in New York, where recreational marijuana use was legalised in 2021. For a measure of how far apart the UK and US are on this issue, it is striking to recall that Kamala Harris, three weeks before last year's presidential election, pledged to fully legalise recreational marijuana at the federal level if elected; Donald Trump too has said he would support the measure in Florida. Any move towards that position in Britain, let alone Seddon's suggestion that the UK should nationalise cannabis production and control its sale as a state-run enterprise, seems inconceivable at present, as he acknowledged. As a result of that, he said, 'you might think, this [report] is just a waste of time. 'But you could also make a case that these things, in the long run, contribute to turning the dial a little bit,' he added. A similar critique, Seddon pointed out, was made of a major study in Canada in the 1970s that recommended legalising personal use and was largely ignored by the then prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. Decades later, his son Justin steered a similar measure into law.
BBC News
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Man denies breaking restraining order to contact James Bond boss
A man has denied 11 counts of breaching a restraining order by contacting former James Bond producer Barbara Wilson, 36, was banned from contacting Ms Broccoli in an order issued by Isleworth Crown Court in is alleged Mr Wilson acted in breach of that order by trying to contact Ms Broccoli "without reasonable excuse"11 times between April 2022 and April last Wilson, of Mostyn Road, Lambeth, appeared via video link and pleaded not guilty to each charge at Southwark Crown Court. Ms Broccoli started working for the James Bond franchise when she was 17 - working her way up to producer shortly before the death of her father Albert "Cubby" was announced in February that Amazon MGM Studios will gain creative conditions put in place at an earlier hearing - including that Mr Wilson has no devices to access the internet, and must sleep in a location decided by the NHS - will trial was set for July 2027 - a date the judge said was "the earliest available".The 007 film franchise had been controlled by members of the Broccoli family, either single-handedly or in partnership with others, since the first 007 movie Dr No in 1962.
Telegraph
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Kneecap, review: Provocateurs goad everyone from Israelis to Badenoch as they mock terror charge
There are two reasons why the Wide Awake festival in south London's verdant Brockwell Park almost didn't happen – and the most mundane involves an Oscar-winning actor and a High Court judgement. Local campaigners backed by Academy Award-winner Sir Mark Rylance argued that the festival was damaging the much-loved park, and last week a judge ruled that local Lambeth Council didn't have the correct planning permission. However new paperwork was speedily submitted and the festival was allowed to proceed. The other reason was headliner Kneecap, the Irish language hip hop group whose member Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, who goes by the stage name Mo Chara, was this week charged with a terror offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig last year. The 27-year-old, who denies the offence, will appear in Westminster Magistrates' Court on June 18. The charge marked the pinnacle of mounting controversy over the west Belfast group. The Republican rappers hit the headlines in April after they displayed a message at California's Coachella accusing Israel of 'committing genocide against the Palestinian people'. When distressing footage later emerged of a band member apparently urging people to kill their local MP – drawing criticism from the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess – the group became bona fide media folk devils, with even the Sex Pistols' snarling former frontman John Lydon saying the trio need 'a bloody good kneecapping', referring to Republican paramilitaries' favoured method of vigilante justice after which they're named. The band later apologised. All of which made this concert in front of 20,000 people – the biggest show of Kneecap's career and their first gig since Coachella, barring a small warm-up show on Thursday – freighted with anticipation. As they took to the stage to video clips of negative news stories about themselves (including shadow home secretary Chris Philp condemning the 'despicable evil' of their comments about MPs), it was immediately clear that Kneecap were uncowed. Although there was no repetition of earlier alleged comments or actions, Chara and his bandmates Naoise Ó Cairealláin (stage name Móglaí Bap) and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (DJ Próvaí, a former teacher who wears a balaclava in the colours of the Irish tricolour) presided over a 90-minute carnival of mayhem, defiance and controversy. 'You've no idea how close we were to being pulled off this gig,' said Chara before suggesting that 'it wasn't even me!' Gallows humour about his upcoming court case featured heavily. 'Do any of you know any good lawyers?' he said at one point. The Coachella banner about Israel committing genocide was briefly displayed again on the screen behind them. The next slide read: 'It is being enabled by the British Government.' Chants of 'Free Palestine' rang out among a multi-generational audience peppered with Palestinian flags. A healthy number of fans were wearing tricolour balaclavas, which the band sell as merchandise. Festival lasers and Republican-style headgear co-mingling at a Coldplay-sized mega-concert in London. Who would have thought it? The controversies only seem to have fired up Kneecap's supporters. Much of the rapping was in Irish, as one of Kneecap's aims is to reclaim their Irish culture. The lolloping funk of Better Way to Live, a duet with Fontaines D.C.'s Grian Chatten (not present), was an early highlight while Your Sniffer Dogs Are S---e and Fenian C---s provided the most improbable mass sing-alongs I think I've ever heard. The band also debuted a new song, The Recap, which seemed to mock Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch's attempt last year to block arts funding to the band. Chara claimed the reason he's been given a court date of June 18 is so that Kneecap won't be able to perform at Glastonbury a week later. 'They're trying to silence us from speaking on-stage at Glastonbury the way we did at Coachella,' he claimed, they being the establishment. 'F--- them.' He then urged fans to turn up at his court date with a 'big bag of ket' (the drug, ketamine). I can't defend Kneecap. There's reclaiming your culture and there's saying stupid things, and in trying to do the former they've done a lot of the latter. The Wide Awake festival suffered too: ticket sales 'flatlined' over the past two weeks due to all the uncertainty, organisers said. But the energy at this concert was genuinely phenomenal, particularly on pulsating old tracks C.E.A.R.T.A and Get Your Brits Out. An Irish friend believes Kneecap's attempt to spread the Irish language around the world represents an exciting and positive force for change. 'It's the new Riverdance. Punk version,' he says. On the strength of this concert, I agree. It didn't really matter what was happening outside the park. Inside there were no divisions – it was one big party.
