Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 4 January 2023

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1. Doctors attack ‘delusional’ Sunak
2. China threatens Covid revenge
3. House stalemate after Reps rebel
4. Woman lied about grooming gang
5. Sunak plans maths reform
6. Strict security for Harry’s book
7. Government makes migrant concession
8. Israeli mosque visit sparks anger
9. Apple value dips below $2tn
10. Tue-to-Thur is ‘new working week’

published 4 January 2023

1. Doctors attack ‘delusional’ Sunak

Doctors have accused Rishi Sunak of being “delusional” after he denied the NHS was in crisis. The prime minister’s spokesperson insistence that “we are confident we are providing the NHS with the funding it needs” prompted “scorn, anger and disbelief”, said The Guardian. “To try to reassure us that ministers are confident the NHS has all the funding it needs, at a time when families are seeing relatives left in pain at home or on trolleys in hospital, is taking the public for fools,” said Dr Vishal Sharma, the chair of the consultants committee at the British Medical Association.

Beijing has threatened to impose counter-measures on the UK following the introduction of new Covid restrictions on passengers arriving from China. “We believe that the entry restrictions adopted by some countries targeting China lack scientific basis, and some excessive practices are even more unacceptable,” said the foreign ministry spokesperson. People arriving from China into Britain need to present a negative Covid test before entry but travellers testing positive after arriving from China will not be forced to quarantine.

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Republican leader Kevin McCarthy repeatedly failed in his bid to be elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives on a day of “political drama not seen in Congress for a century”, said The Guardian. The House adjourned without a speaker on Tuesday night as McCarthy faced a rebellion from within his own ranks. House members cannot be sworn in until the stalemate ends but neither McCarthy nor the Republicans voting against him “appear ready to back down”, said CNN.

A 22-year-old woman has been found guilty of perverting the course of justice by telling “malevolent” lies about being trafficked by an Asian grooming gang. Eleanor Williams claimed on social media that she had been beaten and raped by men who took her to sex “parties” around the north-west. Sky News reported that her allegations were “shared more than 100,000 times and led to demonstrations in her hometown and a visit by English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson”. Men she falsely accused were spat at, ostracised and called “peado” in the street. Williams will be sentenced in March.

5. Sunak plans maths reform

All children will have to study maths until they are 18 under Rishi Sunak’s plans to reform the education system. The prime minister will attempt to seize control of the political agenda with a speech announcing that giving young people more advanced training in maths will leave them better placed for the data-intensive jobs of the future and will help them manage their finances as adults. However, his “attempt to strike an optimistic tone comes as he is buffeted by severe difficulties”, said The Times.

Security arrangements around release of Prince Harry’s memoir are as high as those around publication of JK Rowling’s final Harry Potter book, according to the Daily Mail. An “enormous logistics operation” is under way around the “bombshell biography” Spare, said the paper. The Duke of Sussex and his publishers Penguin Random House are “going to great lengths” to ensure it is published simultaneously around the world next Tuesday. The last time publishers went to such effort and expense was to try to stop the final Harry Potter plot leaking.

Ministers have reportedly conceded that there is an “infinite” number of migrants from countries other than Albania hoping to reach Britain. “Even if you stopped any more Albanians coming across, the boats would still travel,” said a government source. “Their places on the boats would be filled by Somalis, Eritreans or Afghans who can’t afford to pay as much as the Albanians.” Even opponents within government of the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda now believe that it is necessary to do something “big and bold” to make Britain “a less attractive destination”, said The Times.

A visit by a far-right Israeli minister to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem has provoked fury across the Arab world. The compound, one of the most sensitive flashpoints in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the third holiest site in Islam and is also the most sacred site for Jews. In the aftermath of the visit by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli national security minister, the White House said that “any unilateral action that jeopardises the status quo is unacceptable”. Palestinian leaders said the visit to the compound was an “unprecedented provocation”.

There are no longer any companies left that are worth more than $2tn after over $1tn was wiped off the value of Apple in the last 12 months. Shares in the tech giant dropped as much as 4.3% due to mounting concerns over its global supply chain and a wider sell-off in the US. This left the company’s value at $1.98tn, down from a peak of $3tn at the start of 2022. Nikkei reported that Apple has told several suppliers to make fewer components for some products, including AirPods, the Apple Watch and MacBooks.

Analysis of mobile phone activity suggests that a typical week in the office now runs from Tuesday to Thursday. Examining anonymised phone data from more than 500 UK high streets from 2019 to 2022, researchers found increased activity in many suburban and small towns, which it connected to the trend for working from home. Seaside towns were “significantly busier” than before the Covid pandemic, said the BBC. “We’re not going back to how things were pre-Covid,” said Mark Allen, chief executive of property firm LandSec.

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