1. Fresh clashes at China protests
Hundreds of demonstrators and police clashed in Shanghai as protests over China’s strict Covid restrictions raged on for a third day and spread to several cities. People are “angry” at President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy, which involves “mass testing, quarantines and snap lockdowns”, said the BBC. However, said the South China Morning Post, authorities show “little sign of relenting on the zero-Covid approach” as “case numbers and the personal toll mount”.
How long can China’s strict Covid laws last?
2. Brexit worsens doctor shortage
Brexit has led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, worsening the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care, a new study has found. In 2021, some 37,035 medics from the EU and European free trade area were working in the UK. However, said the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, there would have been 41,320 – or 4,285 more – if Brexit had not caused a “slowdown” in medical recruitment from the EU and the EFTA nations of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
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Can the NHS’s ‘worst ever crisis’ actually be fixed?
3. Hancock ‘cons British public’
Matt Hancock has finished in third place on the reality game show I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! The former health secretary, who was beaten by footballer Jill Scott and Hollyoaks actor Owen Warner during Sunday’s final, said: “I know it was controversial, me coming in here... but we’ve all got lots of sides to our personalities.” Families who lost loved ones to Covid said his presence on the show was “sickening”. One told the inews site that “the British public have unfortunately been conned and fallen for this well-crafted publicity stunt hook, line and sinker”.
I’m a Celebrity: do the public like Matt Hancock after all?
4. Sunak ‘not in control’
Rishi Sunak has been warned by former chancellor George Osborne that he is “not in control of events” in government. It is understood that the prime minister is considering U-turning on his promise to ban onshore wind to placate backbenchers. Osborne told Channel 4: “There’s a general sense the Government’s not in control of events and that is so dangerous for a Government.” The added pressures come at a sensitive time for the prime minister, who is facing a series of “crunch” decisions on energy, housing, migration, policing and transport.
Rishi Sunak’s plans to tackle climate change
5. Arrests after babies’ bodies found
There have been three arrests after the bodies of two babies were found at a home in Wales. Officers were called to a house in Wildmill, Bridgend, on Saturday evening. Two men aged 37 and 47, and a 29-year-old woman, were arrested on suspicion of concealing the birth of a child and they remain in custody, South Wales Police said. Superintendent Marc Attwell said: “This is very distressing incident and we are appealing for anyone with information to please get in touch.”
6. Labour accused of ‘spite’ school measure
Labour has been accused of trying to price families out of private schools. Keir Starmer pledged to retain Jeremy Corbyn’s policy of scrapping the institution’s charitable status, a policy described as a “spite measure” by Tories. If the schools lost the status, it is claimed that more than 90,000 pupils would have to switch to state schools because their parents would be priced out. “All pupils would suffer” under “socialist” Starmer, said the Daily Mail.
Prime ministers and private schools
7. Abandoned pet numbers soaring
The number of pets being abandoned because owners cannot afford to keep them has risen by 25% this year, according to the RSPCA. The charity “is facing additional challenges this year because of rising prices”, said the Daily Mail and has had to deal with 13,159 abandonments in the year to October and 30,500 cases of neglect, including three eight-week-old puppies, one of which died, which were abandoned in a food waste bin in Kent. It also saved two cats abandoned after giving birth in the West Midlands and nine rabbits dumped in a bin in Nottinghamshire.
8. Maxwell’s ex blocking her appeal
Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal against her 20-year prison sentence is on the “brink of collapse” after her estranged husband refused to pay her legal fees, said The Sun. Scott Borgerson, 46, who married Maxwell, 60, in secret in 2016 ended the relationship over the phone while she was held on remand and has ignored her requests to pay her fees. Meanwhile, said The Times, victims of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein are suing Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase, accusing the banks of facilitating his sex-trafficking ring and ignoring warnings about their client.
Ghislaine Maxwell sentenced to 20 years: from high society to ‘hell-hole’ Brooklyn jail
9. Just Stop Oil to hit central London
Activists from Just Stop Oil are planning to target roads across central London, police have warned. The climate protesters are expected to unleash a wave of “Christmas chaos” which will see them blocking major roundabouts, glueing themselves to the tarmac and marching slowly in front of traffic, said The Telegraph. The plans are “likely to result in widespread frustration among motorists”, who face being “trapped in gridlock in the busy build up to Christmas,” said the paper. The group said it is “doing what the Suffragettes did and what the Civil Rights movements did.”
Just Stop Oil: Do radical protests turn the public away from a cause? Here’s the evidence
10. Riots after Morocco beat Belgium
There were riots in several Belgian and Dutch cities after Morocco shocked Belgium by winning 2-0 in a World Cup tie. Police arrested about a dozen people after using water cannons and tear gas to disperse crowds in Brussels, said Sky News, holding eight more in the northern city of Antwerp. There were also reports of disturbances in Amsterdam and The Hague. Morocco’s victory was “the latest shock at a World Cup that has been full of surprises”, said the BBC.
