Latest news with #Whitelaw
Daily Mirror
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Casualty fans left fuming as drama yanked from schedules 'totally unacceptable'
BBC Casualty fans aren't impressed that the show has been pulled off air for the Eurovision Song Contest - with many questioning why it can't be shown on BBC Two Casualty fans have been left disappointed as the long-running medical drama has been taken off the air due to the Eurovision song contest airing live from Basel on the BBC. This year's hopefuls for the UK, Remember Monday, are hoping to nail victory for the country following years of dry spells. Unfortunately, fans will have to wait a whole week for the 10th episode in the current run. However, it seems like the wait will be worth it for fans, as the synopsis for the next episode teases a whole load of drama. "Rida suffers a traumatic day when Mr Whitelaw's mask begins to slip, Flynn fights to save Anna's life, Rash defends a patient, and Indie helps Iain on a special mission," the synopsis reads. Casualty usually airs on BBC One at 8pm - the same time the Eurovision Song Contest kicks off. However, fans have been left fuming that they have to wait a whole week - questioning why the show can't be shown on Sunday - or on BBC Two. Taking to social media, one disappointed fan penned: "No casualty on Saturday 17th all because of the Eurovision song contest which we never win, not amused," as another wrote: "The BBC don't care that we love Casualty, they could have put Eurovision on BBC 2!" "Totally unacceptable - Can't Eurovision go on BBC2!!" agreed a third fan, as a fourth angry fan penned: "Why can they no put that on another channel!" There will be no Eurovision coverage on BBC Two tonight. Instead, the channel will be showing 2023 movie The Boys in The Boat from 8-10pm. Following that, they'll be airing another blockbuster, 1987 Thriller/Crime, The Untouchables. BBC isn't the only channel having a schedule shake up tonight. Britain's Got Talent has also been pulled from ITV, meaning the show not have to compete with the final of this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Earlier today, viewers tuned into ITV to watch the FA Cup Final as Crystal Palace and Manchester City went head to head at Wembley. The football match kicked off at 3pm, but scheduling bosses have allowed for any run over time. The match will be followed by Deal or No Deal Celebrity Special, Beat The Chasers, and The 1% Club, instead. However, fans of the ITV talent show won't have to wait as long as Casualty fans, as the penultimate semi-final will air tomorrow (Sunday, May 18).
Business Recorder
09-05-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
Chicago soybeans dip on rising competition; wheat rises on China dry weather
BEIJING: Chicago soybean futures eased on Friday due to weak demand and rising global competition from Latin American countries, amid caution ahead of the looming US-China talks this weekend and a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report next week. The most-active CBOT soybean contract fell 0.07% to $10.44 a bushel as of 0222 GMT and was set for the second straight week of losses. Caution prevailed ahead of the US-China trade talks in Switzerland this weekend, as investors hoped for the easing of tensions that have hurt US soybean and grain exports. 'The market will be looking to US-China relations after the UK-US trade agreement. Can the two nations find a solution to get their trade ties back on track?' said Andrew Whitelaw of agricultural consultants Episode 3. Adding to the bearish sentiment, Argentina's Buenos Aires Grains Exchange raised its 2024–25 soybean harvest forecast to 50 million metric tons from 48.6 million on Thursday, citing improved yields. Wheat gained 0.19% to $5.30 a bushel, supported by drought concerns in China's major wheat-growing areas, which raised hopes for stronger import demand. However, the contract was poised for a third straight weekly decline, as favourable weather in the US, Ukraine, and Russia curbed gains. Forecasts of rain across parts of Ukraine and Russia should help ease crop concerns, Whitelaw said. On Tuesday, China's Henan province, often called the country's wheat granary, issued a drought warning, as hot, dry winds threatened crops. Henan accounts for roughly a third of China's wheat output, with harvest typically occurring from late May through mid-June. Pakistan makes large US soybean purchase as tensions with India rise Although China was the world's largest wheat importer in 2022 and 2023, its imports fell sharply last year. Corn rose 0.17% to $4.48-2/8 a bushel, but hovered near a six-week low. While strong export demand lent support, favourable US weather and hopes for improved US-China trade relations tempered optimism. Traders are positioning ahead of the USDA's report on Monday for the first supply and demand estimates for 2025–26.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Sad plea to Aussie parents over deadly e-scooter reality: 'Higher than we expected'
"Please don't buy these for your kids." That is the desperate plea from an emergency doctor who has witnessed firsthand how devastating e-scooter collisions can be. Now, Dr Sarah Whitelaw is urging parents not to let their children anywhere near them. "They end up with lots of soft tissue and facial fractures, sometimes half or all of their teeth missing, and unfortunately sometimes really significant head injuries," Whitelaw told 7News. Her warning comes after the University of Melbourne (UoM) released shocking data revealing one in three e-scooter deaths in the last five years have been children. Experts believe youngsters' inexperience on busy roads and smaller stature, makes it easier for other road users to miss them. "The proportion [of child deaths] is much higher than we expected," Whitelaw said. 🛴 As cities axe e-scooters, personally owned ones are in a blind spot 👀 Little-known road rule could see you lose your licence 🥱 'Fed up': City's massive e-scooter call The number of Aussies dying from e-scooter usage continues to rise as the mode of transport surges in popularity. However, child fatalities are disproportionate to those of adults, and it is something experts desperately want to end. "We've identified a shocking over-representation of children... the fatalities that involve children, the vast majority of them have occurred in collisions with other vehicles," Associate Professor Milad Haghani from the UoM said. In the last five years, 30 people have died while using e-scooters in Australia— and 11 of these have been children. Queensland has the highest number of e-scooter tragedies with 15 deaths, while Western Australia and Victoria have experienced six each, NSW recorded two deaths and the ACT one. Last month a teenager was killed after colliding with a ute in Terang, a town 212km southwest of Melbourne. The fatality occurred only days after 12-year-old Summah Richards was killed in regional Queensland after colliding with another vehicle. E-scooter regulations vary from state to territory and there are calls to streamline nationwide rules in a bid to reduce the number of deaths across the country, while others want to see children completely banned from e-scooter use. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How ‘positive action' in police recruitment became anti-white discrimination
I was a special constable with Devon and Cornwall Constabulary for five years, giving me a front-line view of policing as I simultaneously worked as a senior civil servant at the Home very quickly learn two things about 'the job'. First, that when people are having the worst day of their lives the quality of your response makes a profound difference. Second, when the wheels fall off, you need a person in uniform standing next to you who can have your back. When you strip away all the progressive verbiage pumped out by policing quangos on what matters, the public expects two things, above all: moral and physical disclosure this week that West Yorkshire Police has put a temporary block on hiring white British candidates, as part of its attempt to boost the proportion of ethnic minority officers, might, however, suggest that the public's basic expectations are being overlooked by police debate over diversity in policing can be traced back to the 1981 Scarman report following the Brixton riots, in which an angry crowd of largely black, working-class young men attacked Metropolitan Police officers following tensions over the treatment of the country's black population by police, including the use of stop and search powers. Lord Justice Leslie Scarman, a senior judge tasked by William Whitelaw, the home secretary, with investigating the incident, concluded that while there was 'no doubt racial disadvantage was a fact of current British life', the Met Police as an institution was not did warn, however, as Whitelaw put it, that 'vigorous action is required if the composition of the police service is to become more representative of the community it serves'.Whitelaw told the Commons: 'I agree. He rejects quotas or a lowering of standards. I also agree. We need to look closely at why candidates from the ethnic minorities have difficulty with the entrance test. We need to be sure that these tests are free from cultural bias. New tests will, therefore, be scrutinised by independent experts before they are introduced. We must also ensure that where candidates fail the written English tests, but would otherwise stand a good chance, they do not for ever lose the opportunity to join.'He added: 'We must encourage more candidates to come forward. We shall also explore how best to help forces improve selection procedures so that we can be confident that recruits have the qualities of character, ability and impartiality needed for policing in the next two decades.' The discussion that followed included the importance of using the special constabulary of volunteer officers, which, in London, had a higher proportion of ethnic minority recruits, 'as a bridge for future recruitment for the regular police'.In the last decade in particular, though, that careful avoidance of blunt instruments appears to be contemporary push for diversity in policing has roots in the seminal Macpherson report, which was published in 1999 after the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. In that report, the Met, which bungled the homicide investigation, was labelled 'institutionally racist'. In 1998, only 2 per cent of officers in England and Wales were from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background and Jack Straw, Tony Blair's home secretary, set a target of 7 per cent by 2009 – a figure that was only attained a decade after that, when BAME people made up 17 per cent of the population at large. This strategy was replaced by the Equality Act in 2010 which permitted employers to take 'positive action' to help ethnic minorities to 'overcome certain barriers'. This could not, however, be done in a way which amounted to 'positive discrimination' – unfairly disadvantaging other groups – which remained against the police forces, positive action meant steps to level the playing field for non-white applicants, with initiatives including targeted recruitment fairs and mentoring or removing stringent requirements that disadvantaged ethnic minority recruits, such as the need to have a record of volunteering. But problems have arisen from these largely well-meaning policies due to their misapplication by some overzealous HR departments. In 2019, an employment tribunal found that Cheshire Police had discriminated against a potential recruit because he was a white heterosexual often personnel departments appear to believe that the 'protected characteristics' in the Equality Act pertain only to minorities, when in fact people of all colours and nationalities are covered by the legislation. It is an expensive mistake to make. Last year, a tribunal found that a positive action scheme at Thames Valley Police resulted in the discrimination of three white police officers. The policing and crime commissioner for the force ordered a review of Thames Valley practices and found that the operation of the positive action scheme there resulted in 'uncertainty and divisions among colleagues in the force'.In the most recent controversy this week, whistleblowers within West Yorkshire Police (WYP) alleged that applicants are being quietly ranked according to their ethnicities, with white applicants being at the back of the queue when it comes to filling training spaces. WYP dispute this characterisation and insist that they have an obligation to improve the representation of non-white officers while still operating a policy of selection on is, however, unclear what impact these schemes are having on the ability to recruit and retain white officers in the most challenging policing environment for a generation. In an inspection last year, WYP was praised for its inclusivity strategy and criticised for its performance in investigating crime. The people who pay for policing in that locality might expect a different balancing of the force's priorities. We still have an undeniable and troubling underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in policing. In 2024, 8.4 per cent of officers in England and Wales were from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to around 18 per cent of the population. In London the disparity is even worse: the proportion of ethnic minority officers in the Met is 11.7 per cent, compared to 46.2 per cent of London residents overall who identify with Asian, black, mixed or 'other' ethnic should this shortfall be rectified by opaque and sometimes unlawful catch-up strategies that can alienate white officers? Alex Marshall, the former chief executive of the College of Policing quango, which issues guidance on recruitment, thought that the law needed to be changed to speed things up. He called for legal changes to allow positive discrimination – that is, explicitly favouring less qualified candidates on the basis of their ethnicity, for rapid diversity gains. Far from solving the problem of underrepresentation, though, such a move would surely destroy rank-and-file morale, already in these efforts only tinker at the edge of the calamity facing policing in this country. Public confidence in policing has collapsed to a record low of 54 per cent. The moral injury of expecting too few front-line officers to do too much with too little, while many lawyers and politicians champion the rights of perpetrators over the police, is driving people out of policing in record numbers – whatever their skin turnover has undermined the Conservatives' claims to have added 20,000 officers to our forces since 2010. Last year alone, an unprecedented 56 per cent of officers who left the force did so through resignation as opposed to retirement, nearly five times the rate in to this a cadre of police chiefs staggering under the weight of misconduct allegations, and permanently distracted and mesmerised by policing thought over deeds, and you have the real crisis. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
How ‘positive action' in police recruitment became anti-white discrimination
I was a special constable with Devon and Cornwall Constabulary for five years, giving me a front-line view of policing as I simultaneously worked as a senior civil servant at the Home Office. You very quickly learn two things about 'the job'. First, that when people are having the worst day of their lives the quality of your response makes a profound difference. Second, when the wheels fall off, you need a person in uniform standing next to you who can have your back. When you strip away all the progressive verbiage pumped out by policing quangos on what matters, the public expects two things, above all: moral and physical courage. The disclosure this week that West Yorkshire Police has put a temporary block on hiring white British candidates, as part of its attempt to boost the proportion of ethnic minority officers, might, however, suggest that the public's basic expectations are being overlooked by police chiefs. The debate over diversity in policing can be traced back to the 1981 Scarman report following the Brixton riots, in which an angry crowd of largely black, working-class young men attacked Metropolitan Police officers following tensions over the treatment of the country's black population by police, including the use of stop and search powers. Lord Justice Leslie Scarman, a senior judge tasked by William Whitelaw, the home secretary, with investigating the incident, concluded that while there was 'no doubt racial disadvantage was a fact of current British life', the Met Police as an institution was not racist. Scarman did warn, however, as Whitelaw put it, that 'vigorous action is required if the composition of the police service is to become more representative of the community it serves'. Whitelaw told the Commons: 'I agree. He rejects quotas or a lowering of standards. I also agree. We need to look closely at why candidates from the ethnic minorities have difficulty with the entrance test. We need to be sure that these tests are free from cultural bias. New tests will, therefore, be scrutinised by independent experts before they are introduced. We must also ensure that where candidates fail the written English tests, but would otherwise stand a good chance, they do not for ever lose the opportunity to join.' He added: 'We must encourage more candidates to come forward. We shall also explore how best to help forces improve selection procedures so that we can be confident that recruits have the qualities of character, ability and impartiality needed for policing in the next two decades.' The discussion that followed included the importance of using the special constabulary of volunteer officers, which, in London, had a higher proportion of ethnic minority recruits, 'as a bridge for future recruitment for the regular police'. In the last decade in particular, though, that careful avoidance of blunt instruments appears to be waning. The contemporary push for diversity in policing has roots in the seminal Macpherson report, which was published in 1999 after the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. In that report, the Met, which bungled the homicide investigation, was labelled 'institutionally racist'. In 1998, only 2 per cent of officers in England and Wales were from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background and Jack Straw, Tony Blair's home secretary, set a target of 7 per cent by 2009 – a figure that was only attained a decade after that, when BAME people made up 17 per cent of the population at large. This strategy was replaced by the Equality Act in 2010 which permitted employers to take 'positive action' to help ethnic minorities to 'overcome certain barriers'. This could not, however, be done in a way which amounted to 'positive discrimination' – unfairly disadvantaging other groups – which remained against the law. For police forces, positive action meant steps to level the playing field for non-white applicants, with initiatives including targeted recruitment fairs and mentoring or removing stringent requirements that disadvantaged ethnic minority recruits, such as the need to have a record of volunteering. But problems have arisen from these largely well-meaning policies due to their misapplication by some overzealous HR departments. In 2019, an employment tribunal found that Cheshire Police had discriminated against a potential recruit because he was a white heterosexual man. Very often personnel departments appear to believe that the 'protected characteristics' in the Equality Act pertain only to minorities, when in fact people of all colours and nationalities are covered by the legislation. It is an expensive mistake to make. Last year, a tribunal found that a positive action scheme at Thames Valley Police resulted in the discrimination of three white police officers. The policing and crime commissioner for the force ordered a review of Thames Valley practices and found that the operation of the positive action scheme there resulted in 'uncertainty and divisions among colleagues in the force'. In the most recent controversy this week, whistleblowers within West Yorkshire Police (WYP) alleged that applicants are being quietly ranked according to their ethnicities, with white applicants being at the back of the queue when it comes to filling training spaces. WYP dispute this characterisation and insist that they have an obligation to improve the representation of non-white officers while still operating a policy of selection on merit. It is, however, unclear what impact these schemes are having on the ability to recruit and retain white officers in the most challenging policing environment for a generation. In an inspection last year, WYP was praised for its inclusivity strategy and criticised for its performance in investigating crime. The people who pay for policing in that locality might expect a different balancing of the force's priorities. We still have an undeniable and troubling underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in policing. In 2024, 8.4 per cent of officers in England and Wales were from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to around 18 per cent of the population. In London the disparity is even worse: the proportion of ethnic minority officers in the Met is 11.7 per cent, compared to 46.2 per cent of London residents overall who identify with Asian, black, mixed or 'other' ethnic groups. But should this shortfall be rectified by opaque and sometimes unlawful catch-up strategies that can alienate white officers? Alex Marshall, the former chief executive of the College of Policing quango, which issues guidance on recruitment, thought that the law needed to be changed to speed things up. He called for legal changes to allow positive discrimination – that is, explicitly favouring less qualified candidates on the basis of their ethnicity, for rapid diversity gains. Far from solving the problem of underrepresentation, though, such a move would surely destroy rank-and-file morale, already in freefall. But these efforts only tinker at the edge of the calamity facing policing in this country. Public confidence in policing has collapsed to a record low of 54 per cent. The moral injury of expecting too few front-line officers to do too much with too little, while many lawyers and politicians champion the rights of perpetrators over the police, is driving people out of policing in record numbers – whatever their skin colour. The turnover has undermined the Conservatives' claims to have added 20,000 officers to our forces since 2010. Last year alone, an unprecedented 56 per cent of officers who left the force did so through resignation as opposed to retirement, nearly five times the rate in 2012. Add to this a cadre of police chiefs staggering under the weight of misconduct allegations, and permanently distracted and mesmerised by policing thought over deeds, and you have the real crisis.
