Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports
IN A MOVE that has sent shockwaves through disabled communities across the country, the Labour government is considering a policy that would slash vital financial support for young disabled people aged 18 to 21.
As the campaign group Benefits and Work has pointed out, “One of the proposals in the Pathways to Work green paper was to delay access to the UC [universal credit] health element until age 22, meaning that younger people would not be eligible. The claim is that this would make it less likely that young people would be trapped in a life on benefits. The proposal is pencilled in for 2027/28.”
This has sparked a firestorm of criticism from disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), which warn of a “devastating financial impact” that will push a vulnerable generation further into poverty and away from the very employment opportunities the government claims to be promoting.
The government’s rationale for this drastic measure is to prevent young people from being “trapped in a life on benefits.” However, this narrative has been widely condemned as a gross misrepresentation of the reality faced by young disabled people.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Nigel Farage has so far refused to apologise for what he says was ‘banter’ during his time at school. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
[Guardian] Exclusive: Dulwich college contemporaries say Reform leader often used antisemitic language and racial epithets
Thirty-four school contemporaries of Nigel Farage have now come forward to claim they saw him behave in a racist or antisemitic manner, raising fresh questions over the Reform leader’s evolving denials.
One of those with new allegations is Jason Meredith, who was three years below Farage at Dulwich college, a private school in south-east London. He claims that Farage called him a “paki” and would use taunts such as “go back home”.
Meredith, 58, who is of Anglo-Indian heritage and has lived in Switzerland where he works as a product manager since 1999, said it was support for anti-racism that motivated him to come forward.
He told the Guardian: “What really irked me was the denial [by Farage] of being racist.”
“The word ‘paki’ was bandied by him – by Farage – there was kind of an entourage, if I remember right, hangers on,” Meredith said. “‘Go back home.’ The taunts is something I remember, the word ‘paki’, ‘go back home’ being used, certainly more than once. Simple taunts like ‘Jason is a paki’. I was 15, 16, something like that.”
Meredith is one of several contemporaries to have alleged to the Guardian they were victims of targeted abuse by Farage, who has come under sustained pressure from politicians belonging to various parties to “own up” and apologise. So far, Farage has refused to do so.
MPs have called out comments by courts minister Sackman during a fiery debate on jury reforms Source: Michael Cross
The government would still curb jury trials even if the criminal courts were not in crisis, the courts minister revealed yesterday – as MPs demanded yet again to see the impact assessment for the proposal.
When the plan to axe a quarter of jury trials was announced last month, justice secretary David Lammy said the reforms were necessary ‘to tackle the emergency in our courts’.
Defending the proposals in a Commons debate yesterday, courts minister Sarah Sackman said: ‘People ask me, “Sarah, would you be doing this if there was not a crisis in our courts?” I say yes, because we need a better system. One in which courts, not criminals, triage cases.
‘We need a system that makes better use of jurors’ time and ensures that someone accused of shoplifting is not in the same queue as a victim of another crime. No one has had the guts to take on a programme of reform of this scale, but this government have the guts. The Conservatives had 14 years to fix the system, but they ran it into the ground. We make a different choice, we are bringing forward change.’
The 150m long mountain of rubbish that has been illegally dumped beside the A34 and near the River Cherwell in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, December 12, 2025
THE government and regulators may have failed to comply with key laws on protecting water quality in rivers, lakes and seas, the environmental watchdog said today.
The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) confirmed it had identified possible failures by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency to comply with rules designed to protect and improve water quality.
Under the regulations, water quality plans have to be in place for individual water bodies.
But the OEP said it found the plans tended to be too generic, did not address specific issues at individual sites and were being put in place despite low government confidence their objectives could be met.
As a result, key targets for improvement of water bodies by 2027 are highly likely to be missed, the watchdog said.
The OEP has sent both Defra and the Environment Agency “information notices” setting out the suspected failures, and they have two months to formally respond.
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
Tony Blair hosted Hugo Chávez at Downing Street months before the coup. (Photo: Gerry Penny / Alamy)
Exclusive: UK embassy feared backlash from “wealthier residents of Caracas” if it helped save Venezuelan president’s life in 2002
Britain’s embassy in Caracas rebuffed appeals to help Venezuela’s democratically elected president during a right-wing coup, newly unearthed documents reveal.
The coup that ousted Hugo Chávez on 11 April 2002 was orchestrated by dissident military officers and opposition figures, with support from Washington.
After 47 hours, however, Chávez had been reinstated as Venezuela’s president following massive popular mobilisations against his removal.
Newly released documents reveal how, during those two tumultuous days, Chávez appealed to the British embassy in Caracas to help save his life.
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[T]he British embassy in Caracas was reluctant to help him during the coup.
UK officials worried about the possible reaction from Venezuela’s upper classes, who had overwhelmingly supported the coup against Chávez.
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After appealing for Britain’s help, Chávez was arrested and taken to a military base during the early hours of 12 April.
“As Chavez is now under arrest”, the Foreign Office noted later that day, “the question” of helping him travel safely to the airport “no longer arises”.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Venezuela 2002
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a 2003 film focusing on events in Venezuela leading up to and during the April 2002 coup d'état attempt, which saw President Hugo Chávez removed from office for two days.
While the makers of this film are scrupulous in avoiding attributing the origins of the coup against the popular and progressive, democratically elected, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his constitutional government, this contemporary film footage makes it abundantly clear that the imperialist government and state agencies of the United States of America are behind this illegal and anti-democratic coup.
It is particularly important and timely to relive and remember this anti Chávez coup, at the present moment in early 2019, as the US is again attempting to remove the democratically elected president, and close comrade of Chavez, Nicholas Maduro.
There is no crime that capital will not commit to secure a high profit margin, and Venezuelan proven oil reserves are the largest on Earth. Larger even than Saidi Arabia's, and they are in Uncle Sam's back Yard.
The arrogant Monroe doctrine, that the American hemisphere 'belongs' to the US imperialists is the living creed of the billionaire parasites who grow fat by ensuring the poverty of the masses of the Latin American people.
They are aided and abetted by local elites throughout Latin America and accross the world. This documentary footage is a primary source that reveals the truth of their shady and conspiratorial dealings to cheat humanity of our rights - a share of the wealth that our labour generates, and the beautiful and harmonious society it could bring to the benefit of all.
The Venezuelan people deliver a mighty popular lesson that is recorded live in this film: that the people when organised and united hold real power, but require courageous and revolutionary leadership. This film is a tribute to the Venezuelan masses, and to Hugo Chávez! It is compelling viewing. Watch it and share. Be inspired to fight for a better world.
"The people, united, will never be defeated!"
With particular emphasis on the role played by Venezuela's private media, the film examines several key incidents: the protest march and subsequent violence that provided the impetus for Chávez's ousting; the opposition's formation of an interim government headed by business leader Pedro Carmona; and the Carmona administration's collapse, which paved the way for Chávez's return.
