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The Guardian
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Stepmothers, relax, you'll always be wicked but true love is worth it
Stepmothers have always been witches. Long before the Brothers Grimm gave us Snow White's usurping queen (and long before Gal Gadot's toe-curling recent turn in the role), there was Medea, witch of classical myth. Medea is best remembered for killing her own children but, according to Ovid, she went on to acquire a stepson, the hero Theseus, and attempted to kill him too. (Poison, of course, and with an eye on his inheritance: Witchy stepmothering 101.) Two millennia after Ovid, modern women still let our lives be limited by such stories. A new survey says that 43% of single mothers are deterred from dating other parents by 'negative stereotypes of stepmothers portrayed in popular culture'; 37% explicitly cite the fear that their partners' children will view them as a 'wicked stepmother'. One should approach such a survey with caution – it is commissioned by a dating app for parents – but these findings are mirrored in academic studies the world over. A 2018 survey from New Zealand found that stepmothers altered their behaviour, fearful of setting boundaries with their stepchildren, for fear of the 'wicked stepmother' tag. Not even royals are safe from this psychic shadow. When Prince Harry published his memoir Spare, he didn't quite say, as tabloids claimed, that his father's wife Camilla had proved a wicked stepmother. What he did say, talking of their first meeting, was: 'I recall wondering, right before the tea, if she'd be mean to me. If she'd be like all the wicked stepmothers in storybooks. But she wasn't.' Plenty of children share Harry's naive preconceptions, particularly if they've grown up on Disney. A study from Anglia Ruskin University, published with last week's dating survey, assessed 450 hours of classic TV and cinema to find that stepmothers are frequently depicted as 'bossy', 'strict', 'neglectful', 'heartless' and 'manipulative'. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion Blended families are not new. For much of history, given high maternal mortality in childbirth, fathers married a second time in hope of finding a woman to saddle with their existing childcare. Nonetheless, even the most self-sacrificing stepmothers are easy to hate. Forget practical considerations, like the threat a stepmother poses to your inheritance. She's sleeping with your father. Weird. No wonder stepmothers must be witches. Snow White's shape-shifting stepmother reveals the classic dichotomy. Only a love potion could have cast a spell on the loins of your benighted Dad; you can see the hag beneath. The good news for stepmothers is that we're primed to hate our mothers just as much. When the Grimms codified Snow White, they introduced a stepmother to an oral tradition that usually featured a monstrous biological mother. In his 1976 treatise on fairytales, The Uses of Enchantment, the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim argued that the Grimms' versions took off because their stepmother-heavy adaptations allowed children to physically 'split' confused emotions about our biological mothers. Our innate love for a mother is expressed in the idealised, dead woman exemplified by Snow White's late mother; our conflict with the real-life woman telling us to tidy our rooms by the 'stepmother'. Dead woman, good; live woman, bad. So if you're a mother looking to date, don't let fear of being a wicked stepmother hold you back. Your partner's teens can't hate you more than your own inevitably will. Kate Maltby writes about theatre, politics and culture
The Guardian
16-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
The Observer view: NHS job cuts may exacerbate health service's challenges
On Thursday, Keir Starmer pledged to streamline the 'flabby state' and take on a 'cottage industry of blockers and checkers' to deliver better outcomes for citizens. The centrepiece of the prime minister's intervention was an announcement that he would be abolishing NHS England, merging it into the Department of Health. NHS England was created in 2012 by the then Conservative health secretary, Andrew Lansley, as part of his ill-judged, expensive structural 'reform' of the NHS. Its purpose was to put the day-to-day operational management of the NHS at arm's length from ministers, supposedly insulating it from the short-termism that afflicts governments of all colours. Since 2012, it has swelled through multiple mergers, and today oversees a huge range of functions for the English NHS, including allocating funding, sharing good practice, coordinating national programmes such as vaccination and screening, planning around future staffing, and negotiating contracts such as the price the NHS pays for medicines. In practice, research suggests that since 2012 ministers have retained a significant degree of political control over the NHS, and rightly so. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion In principle, there is nothing wrong with abolishing NHS England and merging its functions with the Department of Health; this should generate some savings, albeit marginal. However, the government appears to want to make much more radical cuts to the managerial headcount of the NHS: to cut the number of jobs not just within the central structure of the service by half – 10,000 roles – but also to cut running costs of regional integrated care boards (ICBs) by half, and to reduce the number of roles in HR, finance and communications at the NHS trusts that are directly responsible for running hospitals. This could amount to a total of between 20,000 and 30,000 fewer jobs. ICBs have already had to make 20% cuts; some leaders say this further round would compromise their ability to offer services such as vaccination programmes and blood pressure checks. These cuts could represent a medium-term incremental saving for the NHS in the grand scheme of things – perhaps at most £1bn a year from an annual budget of close to £200bn – but, as health policy thinktanks such as the King's Fund and the Health Foundation have warned, such a significant and rapid structural reorganisation could jeopardise the NHS's focus on improving health. Large-scale reorganisations come with short-term costs – including making so many staff redundant – and the impact of a high degree of uncertainty on managers whose energy would be better focused elsewhere. It is also a huge number of people for ministers to decide to lay off during a cost of living crisis, underpinned by stagnating living standards: barely discernible in the macho government briefing about radical cuts is that there are real people doing these jobs, with real lives. What cutting these jobs absolutely will not do is tackle the long-term challenges facing the NHS: namely, that we spend significantly less per capita on healthcare than countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and France. This is despite having an ageing population with rising health and care needs, underpinned by relatively poor levels of public health, with higher-than-average obesity levels and sharp health inequalities. Nor will they fix the NHS's frontline staffing shortages. There is a risk that, if poorly executed, a structural reorganisation could make those challenges even harder to confront. Ministers need to be clear what it will help them achieve: more devolution? More integration of health and social care? More focus on prevention? At the moment that is not at all clear; this feels more like a bid to try to mitigate the multibillion-pound overspend NHS trusts are collectively forecasting for next year.
The Guardian
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Housemates review – a dynamic rock'n'roll riff on a global gamechanger in neurodivergent care
Housemates – people banding together to share a living space. What could be more normal? Back in the 1970s, it wasn't; or not for the 100,000 people deemed 'sub-normal' and, under the feeble-minded (control) bill of 1912, segregated and put into institutions – often for life. Two groups of young people challenged this situation: residents of one of those institutions, Cardiff's Ely hospital, and students from the city's university. Together, they brought about a revolution that resulted in the closure of about 90-plus institutions and the creation of a model of supported living that today is copied around the world. Tim Green's play Housemates tells their story as an agit prop-style educational entertainment, combining fast-flowing action, snappy narration, sharp characterisations and live music. Joe Murphy (artistic director of the Sherman) and Ben Pettitt-Wade (artistic director of Hijinx, a theatre company specialising in inclusivity for neurodivergent artists) are the production's joint directors; they showcase the form at its best, putting across a clear message with dramatic impact. We settle into our seats; 1970s hits are belted out by a rocking pub band (made up, it turns out, of the actors/characters we are about to meet). We sing along. The keynote of the evening is fun-inflected, collective engagement, counterpointed by highs of emotion and lows of horror and indignation. The story centres on the friendship between student Jim Mansell and hospital resident Alan Duncan and their shared love of rock'n'roll – and its consequences. The two meet on the day when Alan and his friend Heather discover they are to be taken out somewhere they have never been by someone they have never met. The place is the park; the person is Jim. First among equals in the impressively well-balanced, nine-strong ensemble are Peter Mooney's brilliant Jim and Gareth John's determined Alan – the strength of their connection radiates from the stage. Production and subject matter alike show, practically and affectively, how individuals taking action can transform lives and society. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion Housemates is at the Sherman theatre, Cardiff, until 8 March, then touring at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre and the Torch theatre, Milford Haven
The Guardian
23-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
School breakfast clubs in England ‘will be used to justify keeping the two-child benefits cap'
The government is trumpeting its policy of introducing free breakfast clubs into all primary schools in England as key to its efforts to cut child poverty, as ministers appear to have ruled out meeting the estimated cost of £3bn a year to end the two-child cap on benefits. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, announced the first 750 schools that will become 'early adopters' of breakfast clubs, saying that 67,000 of the 180,000 pupils set to benefit come from the most disadvantaged areas of England. The policy is now being sold not only as a way to improve school attendance, educational performance and attainment, but also as a primary lever for reducing poverty. One of Labour's general election pledges was to roll out the plan across the whole of England during its first term in office to drive up standards and improve opportunities for all. Announcing the first 750 schools to join the pilot scheme, the Department for Education said that breakfast clubs had 'an important role to play in the government's commitment to remove the stain of child poverty'. Breakfast clubs have been shown to improve children's reading, writing and mathematics, with improved concentration and focus. But Labour MPs said that while they strongly supported breakfast clubs, it was clear that the emphasis on the clubs helping to end child poverty was evidence of a wider initiative to 'soften us up' to be told that the two-child benefit cap would remain. They said there were now signals that ministers would reject scrapping the cap this summer despite the fact that most experts and charities say it would be by far the most effective way of reducing poverty. Introduced by the Tories in 2017, the two-child limit prevents families from claiming child tax credits or universal credit for more than two children. A group of Labour MPs has been pressing for the government to meet them halfway by extending the cap from two to three children, which they claim would cost very little. But government insiders suggested that the idea had already been rejected by the government's own child poverty taskforce which is chaired jointly by Phillipson and the work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall. It is due to report before the spending review this summer. But with Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, facing the prospect of having to raise taxes or cut spending as a result of deteriorating public finances, sources suggest there is no hope of lifting the cap in the foreseeable future. One Labour source said: 'There is a need to prepare the ground a bit and make clear that in the current financial position we are in, we cannot realistically do it. What we can do is talk about what else we are doing to limit child poverty.' Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion Last week The Observer reported that some headteachers of primary schools in England were declining to take part in the pilot schemes for breakfast clubs because they feared they would lose money by doing so. They said the fact that the government was only providing 60p per pupil would leave them with a large deficit if they took part. Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders union NAHT, said the pilot scheme was welcome but concerns about funding needed to be addressed: 'We have already heard from some school leaders who are worried that funding for the scheme will fall short of the cost of delivering it. Last July seven Labour MPs were suspended from the whip for voting in favour of scrapping the two-child limit which has been criticised by several senior figures in the party as punitive and indefensible. But while ministers have suggested they would like to see it lifted they have said this can only be done if the public finances allow. Labour's general election manifesto last year committed to spending £315 million on breakfast clubs in 2028–29. But there are now concerns over funding, with some charities warning that the government's apparent insistence on having clubs of at least 30 minutes before school, as opposed to 'grab and go' food offers or breakfast in the classroom will prove too expensive as they will mean employing extra staff.
The Guardian
09-02-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Successful special educational needs complaints in England quadruple in four years
Successful complaints about councils' special educational needs and disability (Send) services in England have quadrupled in four years, in the latest evidence of the crisis facing the system. The local government and social care ombudsman (LGO), which handles complaints about English councils, upheld 1,043 cases regarding Send provision in 2024 – nearly 40% more than in 2023, and four times more than the 258 upheld in 2021. The Send system – for children with disabilities and conditions such as autism and ADHD – always faced challenges, but has been in crisis since the coalition government increased the age range of young people entitled to Send support without giving councils the necessary funding. Rising needs among children have outpaced increases in government funding, leaving a toxic combination of ballooning council deficits, legally required provision going unfulfilled and children and parents left in crisis, sometimes without any schooling. Covid exacerbated the problems faced by children with Send, with Ofsted reporting in 2021 that they had been disproportionately affected. 'These figures provide yet more evidence that the English Send system is circling the drain,' said Matthew Keer, of the Special Needs Jungle website. 'Families don't make these complaints lightly – they usually have to exhaust local procedures first before they can turn to the ombudsman. 'The compensation that councils pay out to families is almost always far less than the cost of delivering provision in the first place – so even though most complaints are justified, local Send practice rarely improves. 'These complaints mostly describe incidents that happened in 2022 and 2023. The Send system has got a lot worse since then, and there's no sign that things are starting to get better.' Many of the complaints regard delays in creating education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which set out the legally required provision to meet a Send child's needs. Only half of all EHCPs are produced within the 20-week legal time limit. In one complaint upheld by the LGO in 2024, Suffolk council took 18 months to create an EHCP, with the complainant's daughter missing out on education during that time. Overall, there were 1,527 Send complaints to the LGO last year including cases that were not upheld, compared with 1,086 in 2023 and 391 in 2021. The success rate of complainants has remained relatively consistent during that time. 'We know there are significant issues with the wider system for Send children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families,' said Amerdeep Somal, the local government and social care ombudsman. 'The system is broken and we know this situation will not be resolved without sweeping changes. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion 'The recommendations we make are fair and pragmatic. In some cases we have required a local authority to provide us with an action plan on how they will improve their services for children with special educational needs where we have found significant and recurrent fault. 'We track compliance with all the recommendations we make, and we will take further action if there is a failure to comply. In the overwhelming majority of cases (more than 99%) we are satisfied the authority has put in place the improvements we have required.' The Department for Education said it was investing £1bn into the Send system and an additional £740m into creating specialist school places. 'In a system that is too skewed towards specialist provision and over-reliant on EHC plans, we know families are too often forced to fight to get the right support,' a spokesperson said. 'We are determined to rebuild families' confidence in a system so many rely on. The reform families are crying out for will take time, but with a greater focus on mainstream provision and more early intervention, we will deliver the change that is so desperately needed.'
