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Baroness Mone allowed to collect rent on property after freeze order amended

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/baroness-mone-allowed-collect-rent-property-after-freeze-order-amended

Entrepreneur Michelle Mone is admiited to the House of Lords as Baroness Mone of Mayfair, after being made a Tory peer, October 2015

A FORMER Conservative peer under investigation for her alleged role in a £148 million Covid equipment scandal was allowed to continue collecting an estimated £15,000 a week in rent.

A court amended a previous order to freeze £75m of British assets belonging to Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband after one of his companies received £122m in government contracts for unsuitable medical gowns.

Baroness Mone and Doug Barrowman will now be allowed to keep the estimated £15,000-a-week in rent from a £25m mansion in Belgravia, central London, as the inquiry continues.

The National Crime Agency opened an investigation into the Covid-era deal, which supplied 25 million defective surgical gowns to the government, which Mr Barrowman’s firm imported from China.

A court first ordered the couple’s assets to be frozen two years ago, while the NCA looked into the deal with PPE Medpro.

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MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/22/mps-question-uk-palantir-contracts-security-concerns-investigation

The UK defence secretary, John Healey (left), signs a £1.5bn strategic investment deal in September with Palantir’s chief executive, Alex Karp. Photograph: Lucy North/PA

Journalists find Swiss government rejected company over fears US intelligence might gain access to sensitive data

UK MPs have raised concerns about the government’s contracts with Palantir after an investigation published in Switzerland highlighted allegations about the suitability and security of its products.

The investigation by the Zurich-based research collective WAV and the Swiss online magazine Republik details Palantir’s efforts, over the course of seven years, to sell its products to Swiss federal agencies.

Palantir is a US company that provides software to integrate and analyse data scattered across different systems, such as in the health service. It also provides artificial intelligence-enabled military targeting systems.

The investigation cites an expert report, internal to the Swiss army, that assessed Palantir’s status as a US company meant there was a possibility sensitive data shared with it could be accessed by the US government and intelligence services.

British MPs have voiced concerns over the US data company in light of the report.

“Palantir … is an organisation that the British government, in terms of the NHS, in terms of contracts, should stay very far away from … I think the Swiss army is right to be suspicious,” said the Labour MP Clive Lewis.

The government “needs to undertake transparent due diligence” on the conduct of Palantir and other big tech companies, said Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central.

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/22/mps-question-uk-palantir-contracts-security-concerns-investigation

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Doctors call for ‘less name-calling and more deal-making’ from Health Secretary Wes Streeting

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/doctors-call-less-name-calling-and-more-deal-making-health-secretary-wes-streeting

 Resident doctors on the picket line outside Leeds General Infirmary, on the first day of a five-day walkout over pay and jobs, which could see up to half of the medical workforce in England could stop work, December 17, 2025

RESIDENT doctors are keen to resume talks with the government to avoid further strikes but “must see less name-calling and more deal-making” from Health Secretary Wes Streeting, said the British Medical Association (BMA) today.

Medics will enter 2026 a “renewed can-do spirit,” added the union as they returned to work after a five-day walkout in England as part of their long-running dispute over jobs and pay.

The BMA’s resident doctors committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher said: “What we need is a proper fix to this jobs crisis and a credible path towards restoring the lost value of the profession.

“That must mean the creation of genuinely new jobs, and it could involve a responsible multi-year approach to restoring doctors’ pay.

“Those are solutions that mean we can build out our future workforce to end the current crisis, solutions which are very much within government’s power.”

The strike followed 83 per cent of resident doctors voting to reject a government offer for more specialist training places but no extra pay. Turnout was 65 per cent.

Dr Fletcher said that medics are “frustrated by the year that has just passed,” which saw Mr Streeting compare them with juvenile delinquents and “moaning minnies.”

“There have been plenty of opportunities for strike action to have been avoided but all too often the government has moved too little and too late,” he added.

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Patient survival ‘clearly linked’ to nursing numbers

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/patient-survival-clearly-linked-nursing-numbers

ALANDMARK study into excess patient deaths across NHS hospitals has found a “very clear and consistent” link between nurse staffing and patient mortality — and that replacing them with lower-paid workers makes no difference.

Dramatic variations in patient death rates were revealed in the first-ever analysis of staffing and death rates over time, sparking calls for NHS England to investigate trusts where deaths have risen.

Study leader Professor Alison Leary told the Sunday Times that the data across 122 NHS trusts over four years showed “a very clear and consistent relationship between the absence of registered nurses available to patients and excess deaths.”

“Although organisations have tried to make up for the lack of registered nurses with other staffing groups, this has not improved survival,” added the chair of workforce modelling at London South Bank University and a senior consultant for the World Health Organisation.

The study, covering December 2020 to May 2024, found that hospitals with lower-than-expected death rates had the highest nurse staffing, with an average of 5.65 hours of registered nurse care per patient per day.

Those with higher-than-expected deaths meanwhile had significantly fewer nurses available to care for patients, with just 4.59 hours of nurse care per patient per day.

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Article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/patient-survival-clearly-linked-nursing-numbers

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Streeting warned ‘irresponsible’ public tirades won’t avert plans for doctor strikes

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-warned-irresponsible-public-tirades-wont-avert-plans-doctor-strikes

 Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) outside Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, January 3, 2024

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NHS campaigners issued a furious response after he told LBC: “I cannot guarantee, I honestly don’t want to catastrophise or sensationalise, I cannot sit here and look you in the eye and tell you that no patient will come to harm.”

BMA resident doctors’ committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher said: “Ultimately, the health secretary has far more power to prevent NHS strikes than he gives himself credit for; not through confrontation, but by rebuilding trust and putting an offer on the table that creates sufficient brand-new training places for doctors, not changing the names of existing roles. 

“His current offer does not create any more capacity for us to treat patients, or do anything to help clear waiting lists; let’s be clear about that.”

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Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr Tony O’Sullivan told the Morning Star: “It is the height of irresponsible behaviour from the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, to go to war with doctors and the BMA amid the flu epidemic and this, the second winter crisis since the Starmer–Streeting administration took office. 

“The government cannot pretend that they had no warning, that they didn’t see it coming. Nor should they deny that it is their responsibility to deal with it. 

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“The government must take action to give NHS resident doctors, and other staff, the remuneration they deserve.

“But instead, as with the scapegoating of migrants and asylum-seekers as the cause of multiple ills, the government’s self-serving reaction is to scapegoat doctors and their union, the BMA, for the NHS crisis Labour was voted into office to solve.”

Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-warned-irresponsible-public-tirades-wont-avert-plans-doctor-strikes

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