Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) outside St Thomas’ Hospital, London, January 3, 2024
BMA hits back at Streeting’s ‘juvenile delinquency’ and ‘moaning minnies’ accusations
HEALTH SECRETARY Wes Streeting put himself on the warpath with the BMA union today, [yesterday] saying he has “had it” while accusing doctors of “juvenile delinquency” and being “moaning minnies” as they prepare Christmas strikes.
His tantrum came as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned that a corridor care crisis could be repeated in English hospitals this winter.
BMA council chair Dr Tom Dolphin said: “It’s disappointing that, despite his comments about wanting to reach an agreement to call off this month’s strikes, the Secretary of State spent the morning making disparaging remarks about our members in the media rather than getting around the table with us.
“We’re surprised at the tone he’s taking, as we’re very much looking forward to meeting with him and his department to settle the various disputes for the good of both doctors and patients. We’re ready to meet him any time.”
Thames Water has been on the brink of collapse for more than a year, struggling under the weight of £17bn in net debt, built up over decades since privatisation. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
Debt-ridden utility company warns of ‘material uncertainty’ despite seeing profits rise to more than £400m
Thames Water has said crisis talks to secure its future with lenders are taking “longer than expected” and will drag into 2026 as it faces the prospect of a collapse into government control.
Britain’s biggest water company on Wednesday said it had swung to a profit of £414m for the six months to September helped by bills rising by nearly a third, after losing £149m in the same period in 2024.
Despite the jump in reported profits, the company said there was “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt” on its status as a going concern. A collapse into government control under a special administration regime (SAR) – a form of temporary nationalisation – “could occur in the very near term” if it is unable to agree the terms of a formal takeover by its controlling lenders.
Those creditors have asked the regulator, Ofwat, and the government for Thames to be let off future fines for pollution, arguing the prospect of hundreds of millions of pounds of extra costs is making a turnaround impossible.
The standoff has already continued for months longer than originally anticipated and the talks were expected to have concluded by the end of the year.
On Wednesday, the company said: “Discussions are taking longer than expected but this is a complex situation and the current phase of the restructuring plan will likely take a number of months to conclude.”
Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion Siân Berry. Image by Kelly Hill, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
Responding to the announcement from the Justice Secretary, David Lammy, that jury trials in England and Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years are set to be scrapped, Green Party MP, Siân Berry, said:
“The focus on victims’ rights is appreciated, but this Labour Government is taking the wrong steps to try to serve us better, and laying the groundwork for further crackdowns on dissent, whistleblowing and protest if it removes juries from so many charges that have state or corporate victims.
“Juries are also a safeguard against creeping bias and discrimination. Judges are not currently representative of our wider communities and, under these plans, individual decisions will be at risk of damaging politicisation, while individual judges who are women or from minoritised communities risk attacks from the far right.
“More than fifteen years of continuing austerity has caused a backlog in the courts, not juries. Instead of dismantling a centuries-old fundamental legal right, the Government must reverse the neglect and cuts that created this mess in the first place.”
A [man] with a bloody face and sunglasses askew suggests a violent arrest by masked US Customs and Border Patrol agents in New Orleans on December 3, 2025. (Photo by Adam Gray/AFP via Getty Images)
“Our city is not a stage for political theater,” said the Democratic congressman representing New Orleans. “Our people are not props.”
The Trump administration on Wednesday launched a major operation against what it said are “criminal illegal aliens” in New Orleans but that critics contend is political theater targeting what the Louisiana city’s mayor-elect called people “just trying to survive and do the right thing.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that it launched Operation Catahoula Crunch—which some Trump administration officials are also calling “Swamp Sweep”—because New Orleans is a sanctuary city that refuses to cooperate with the anti-immigrant crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump.
The blitz—which began on the same day as a similar operation in Minneapolis and follows federal invasions of cities including Charlotte; Chicago; Los Angeles; Memphis; Portland, Oregon; and Washington, DC—is expected to involve at least hundreds of federal agents and National Guard troops and reportedly aims for 5,000 arrests in Louisiana and Mississippi.
“Sanctuary policies endanger American communities by releasing illegal criminal aliens and forcing DHS law enforcement to risk their lives to remove criminal illegal aliens that should have never been put back on the streets,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Wednesday.
While McClaughlin claimed the targets of the operation will be “monsters” that “include violent criminals who were released after arrest for home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto, and rape,” examination of detention statistics of similar operations in other communities has shown that a large percentage of those swept up have no criminal record.
Academic studies and analyses by both left– and right-wing groups and have repeatedly affirmed that undocumented immigrants commit crime at a dramatically lower rate than native-born US citizens. The libertarian Cato Institute last week published data showing that nearly three-quarters of the 44,882 people booked into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since October had no criminal conviction and just 5% had been convicted of violent crimes.
Detention data published last month by the Department of Justicerevealed that just 16 out of 614 people arrested in the Chicago area during DHS’s Operation Midway Blitz had criminal histories that present a “high public safety risk.”
Elected officials representing New Orleans called the DHS operation an unnecessary and unwelcome stunt.
“It’s one thing if you would have a real strategic approach on going after people… who have criminal felonies or are being accused of some very serious and violent crimes. But that’s not what the public is seeing,” Democratic New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Morena told the Washington Post on Wednesday.
“They’re seeing people who are just trying to survive and do the right thing—and many of them now have American children who are not causing problems in our community—treated like they are violent, violent criminals,” she added.
Moreno’s website published a “know your rights” resource page with tips from the National Immigrant Justice Center—a move that could possibly run afoul of a state law cited by Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill to threaten felony prosecution of people who nonviolently resist Trump’s crackdown. On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the law is a violation of the right to free speech.
Congressman Troy Carter (D-La.) said in a statement Tuesday that “if the administration truly wants to support public safety in New Orleans, they can help us recruit and retain well-trained local officers, invest in modern policing tools, and build transparent partnerships with city and parish leaders.”
New Orleans welcomes partnership. We do not welcome occupation.What we are seeing unfold in our community is not public safety; it is a political stunt wrapped in badges, armored vehicles, and military uniforms.
“Dropping armed federal agents and National Guard troops into our communities without coordination is not cooperation—it is chaos,” Carter continued. “As Congressman for New Orleans, I want to be clear: We will always stand for the rule of law. We will always stand for safe communities. And we will always stand against tactics that terrorize families and undermine public trust.”
“Our city is not a stage for political theater,” he added. “Our people are not props. If the administration wants to be a partner, then act like one; share the plan, respect local law, and work with us, not around us.”
Hundreds of New Orleans residents took to the streets Monday night despite cold, heavy rain to protest the impending DHS operation. Demonstrators shared umbrellas and held signs showing support for immigrants. They chanted messages, including “No ICE! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!” and “Chinga la Migra”—roughly translated as “Fuck the Border Patrol.”
“We have to fight for the rights of everyone. I’m out here to support the immigrant community because it’s an integral part of New Orleans. New Orleans was built by immigrants,” protester Jamie Segura toldGambit.
Addressing the crowd at Monday’s rally, resident Mitch Gonzalez said: “This is my home. My trans sister was kidnapped and taken from me. Now she has to fight from Mexico, not even her home country, because they’re snatching people.”
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As New Orleans residents anticipated the impending operation, mutual aid groups kicked into action in defense of immigrant communities, citing effective rapid response efforts in Chicago.
“What we’ve learned is that even a street witness who is not recording makes these interactions less traumatic and less violent,” Beth Davis, press liaison officer at Indivisible NOLA, told the Washington Post on Wednesday. “So we need to get eyes on these people.”
The New Orleans branch of Democratic Socialists of America—which is hosting training sessions—said ahead of the federal blitz: “We call upon all of New Orleans to get organized and resist this fascist occupation. Protect your neighbors and make these troops and federal agents feel unwelcome in every part of our city.”
Other Orleanians prepared by closing or displaying signs telling the federal invaders that they are not welcome.
“We’re going to make sure that any hotel that they stay at, any neighborhood that they try to terrorize, we’re going to bring as many people there to stop them in their tracks, whether it’s in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Chicago—anywhere in this country,” Antonia Mar of Freedom Road Socialist Organization toldVerite News during Monday’s protest.
Suggesting that the crackdown could backfire, Mar added that “if there’s one thing Trump does well, he gets people organized against him.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is seen before President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the US Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“His obsession with me is creepy,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American ever elected to the US Congress.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American ever elected to the US Congress, said Tuesday that she hopes President Donald Trump “gets the help he needs” after he ended a Cabinet meeting with a bigoted tirade against Somali immigrants.
Trump specifically attacked Minnesota’s Somali community—falsely claiming that “they contribute nothing”—and singled out Omar (D-Minn) by name, calling her “garbage” and a “terrible person.”
Omar hit back in a brief social media post, characterizing the president’s remarks as clear evidence that he’s unwell.
Trump’s comments came as his administration prepared to target Somali immigrants with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region. Around 80,000 Somalis live in Minnesota.
The New York Timesreported Tuesday that the directive for ICE raids in Minnesota “came immediately after” Trump used his social media platform to launch an appalling attack on Somalis and others in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard members. The man charged with the shooting is an Afghan national who worked as a member of a CIA-backed “Zero Unit” during the war in Afghanistan before resettling in the US.
Kristi Noem, head of the US Department of Homeland Security, has exploited the shooting to ramp up the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, proposing what she called “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,” echoing Trump’s white nationalist rhetoric.
Following Trump’s latest attack on Somalis, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellisonsaid in a statement that the president’s “disgraceful attacks on Minnesota’s Somali community are injecting more of his poisonous racism into our beloved home state.”
“Hearing him single out our people based solely on their race and country of origin is downright disgusting,” Ellison said. “Minnesotans stand up for our neighbors when they’re under attack. And as Minnesota’s attorney general, I will use every tool I have to protect all our neighbors, including our vibrant Somali community, from these dangerous, racist threats. Our neighbors deserve no less.”
Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) outside St Thomas’ Hospital, London, January 3, 2024
