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Pedestrian dies after she and her daughter were hit by a car in Essex | UK News

A 52-year-old pedestrian has died after she and her daughter were hit by a car that had reportedly mounted the pavement in Essex.

Police were called to reports of a collision between a car and two pedestrians at the junction of Hamlet Court Road and St John’s Road in Westcliff just before 5.30pm on Thursday.

A 52-year-old woman and her 23-year-old daughter were taken to hospital, but the mother could not be saved despite the best efforts of medics.

Her daughter’s injuries are described as not life-threatening or life-changing.

Councillor Maxine Sadza said in a social media post: “On behalf of the Milton councillors, it is with deep sadness that we have heard this morning that a speeding car mounted the pavement and hit a mother and child in St John’s Road in Westcliff last night.

“Tragically the mother passed away in hospital. Our thoughts are with the family at this sad time.”

Essex Police said in a statement: “The 31-year-old driver of the car, a black Suzuki Splash, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drink or drugs. She remains in custody for questioning.”

The victim’s family are being supported by specialist officers.

Police are appealing for members of the public to send them any dashcam footage from the area at the time of the collision.

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Former Everton player sentenced to 20 years for bribery | World News

A former Premier League footballer has been jailed for 20 years for bribery, Chinese state media has reported.

Li Tie, who played in midfield for Everton more than 30 times between 2002 and 2006, went on to manage the China national team between January 2020 and December 2021.

It is alleged the 47-year-old received bribes of more than 50 million yuan (£5.4m).

He was found guilty of “leveraging his positions” as head coach of the national football and national selection teams by a court in the city of Xianning.

Li Tie was also charged with taking bribes between 2015 and 2019 while working for local football clubs.

He pleaded guilty to bribery and corruption in March following an investigation which began in November 2022.

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Everton's Li Tie sits on the bench.
Pic: Reuters
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Li Tie on the bench while at Everton in 2005. Pic: Reuters

His is the latest in a series of corruption cases within Chinese football.

In March Chen Xuyuan, a former president of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), was sentenced to life in prison for bribery.

Earlier this week, three other CFA officials received prison sentences for bribery, state media said.

How climate change and red tape could be jeopardising UK access to affordable food | Money News

It might be tempting, given how much coverage has focused on it recently, to assume the forthcoming changes to inheritance tax regime are the single biggest issue facing farmers these days. 

But the reality is these tax changes come at a moment of extraordinary pressure, with farmers having to contend with a swathe of unsettling issues, many of which could prove existential for their livelihoods.

Put them all together and you realise that for many of those marching in the streets in London, inheritance tax isn’t the only problem – it’s more like the last straw.

Why does this matter for the rest of us? In part because there’s a deeper story here.

For decades, this country’s level of food security has been more or less constant. This country has produced roughly 60 per cent of our own food for two decades (the figure was even higher in the 1980s). But farmers warn that given all the pressures they’re facing, that critical buffer could be about to be removed, with domestic production falling and dependence on imported food rising.

Whether that eventuates remains to be seen. As of 2023 the amount of food supplied domestically was still 62 per cent of everything we consumed. But now let’s consider the challenges facing farmers (even before we get to inheritance tax).

The first of them comes back to Brexit.

Following Britain’s departure from the EU, the government is making dramatic and far reaching changes to the way it supports farmers. For years, those payments, part of the EU-wide Common Agricultural Policy, were based on the amount of land farmed by each recipient.

Alongside these main farm payments there were other bolt-on schemes – Environmental Land Management schemes, to give them their category name – designed to encourage farmers to do more to look after local wildlife. But these schemes were always small in comparison to the main land-based farm payments.

There were problems aplenty with this old scheme. For one thing, all told, it amounted to a subsidy for land ownership rather than food production. Nonetheless, for many farmers it was an essential support, without which they would have had to sell up and stop producing food.

Under Michael Gove, Defra committed to far-reaching changes to these subsidies. Farms across the UK would get the same total amounts, he said, but instead of the majority being based on how much land they were farming, a growing portion would be environmental subsidies.

When Labour came into government it committed to accelerating this process, with the result that by 2027, fully 100 per cent of farm payments will be for environmental schemes.

Whether this is the right or wrong move is a matter of keen debate within the farming community. Many farmers argue that the net impact of environmental schemes is to reduce the amount of land being farmed for food, and that the schemes serve to reduce their crop yields rather than increasing them. Defra, and environmental advocates, argue that unless the soil and local habitats are preserved and improved, Britain faces ever diminishing harvests in future.

Speaking of harvests, that brings us to another issue farmers are having to contend with at the moment – poor crop yields. The past winter was exceptionally wet, with the upshot that the latest figures just released by Defra show 2024 was the second lowest wheat harvest since comparable records began in the early 1980s.

Now, the whole point of farming is that it’s weather dependent – no two years are alike. It’s quite conceivable that 2025’s harvest bounces back from this year’s. But one projection made by climate scientists is that the coming decades could be wetter and more volatile, spelling more trouble for farmers.

On top of this is another challenge: trade competition. Following Brexit, the UK has signed two trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, which raise the quotas of how much food each country can export to the UK. Look at trade data and you see a sharp increase in beef and dairy imports from Australia and New Zealand.

In other words, UK farmers are having to contend with more competition even as they contend with worse weather and drastic changes to their funding model.

Nor is this where the challenges end. Because we might also be in the midst of something else: a secular slowdown in farming productivity.

Look at a very, very long-range historic chart of crop yields in the UK. You see a few interesting features. For most of our history, from the Middle Ages through to today, the amount of wheat we could grow in a given hectare of land was pretty low and pretty constant.

Now look at what happened in the second half of the 20th century. Thanks to a combination of artificial fertilisers, combine harvesters and other technological leaps, yields leapt by 200 per cent.

This extraordinary leap is the story of British farming for the parents and grandparents of those family farms tending the land today: ever increasing yields even as the government provided large subsidies for farmers. It was, in terms of pure yields, the golden age for farms – fuelled in part by chemicals.

But now look at the far right hand side of the chart – the past 20 years or so. The line is no longer rising so fast. Farm productivity – at least based on this measure – has slowed quite markedly. Yields are no longer leaping in the way they once were.

Or, to put it another way, it’s getting tougher to generate a return for each hour of work and each pound of investment.

Over 300 tractors will descend on Westminster this week as farmers from across the UK ramp up protests against government policies they see as harmful to British agriculture.

Tractors from areas like Exmoor, Somerset, Shropshire, Kent, and Lincolnshire will arrive in central London on Wednesday, December 11, for a demonstration organized by Save British Farming (SBF) and Kent Fairness for Farmers.
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Farmers have staged protests at government plans

This might all seem miles away from the day-to-day debates on farming today. But each of these factors matters. Together, they help explain why things are getting tougher for farmers.

But there’s a broader issue at hand here. Despite having left the EU and implemented far reaching policies such as these, this country hasn’t really had a proper debate about food.

Do we prefer to subsidise farmers in an effort to maintain our domestic food supplies at 60 per cent of our consumption? Would we rather ditch those subsidies and rely on imports instead? Should we favour the long-term health of the environment over short term food production?

These are chewy questions – and ones we really ought to be debating a little more. This isn’t just about inheritance tax…

Several people injured after fairground ride ‘failed and crashed’ in Birmingham city centre | UK News

Two people have been taken to hospital and several others injured after a fairground ride “failed and crashed” in Birmingham.

West Midlands Fire Service said the ride “dropped to ground level whilst in operation” in an incident around 7.30pm on Thursday.

According to West Midlands Ambulance Service, paramedics found 13 patients in need of help when they arrived at the scene in Centenary Square.

An ambulance pictured in Birmingham city centre on the night of the incident involving a fairground ride.
Pic: X/Kannyzee
Image:
An ambulance pictured in Birmingham city centre on the night of the incident involving a fairground ride.
Pic: X/Kannyzee

Two women were treated by ambulance staff for injuries “not believed to be serious” and taken to hospital, a spokeswoman said.

Around a dozen others were assessed and discharged at the scene, they added.

West Midlands Fire Service said: “We assisted ambulance colleagues with treatment of a number of casualties, whose injuries are not life-threatening.

“We are not working on the rescue of any further casualties.”

Local police said they had responded to reports of an issue with a ride.

They added that a “small number” of people were being treated by paramedics but “no serious injuries have been reported”.

Body found in search for missing diver | UK News

The family of a diver who went missing off the North Wales coast have paid tribute to him after a body was found.

Imrich Magyar, 53, from the Warrington area of Cheshire, was discovered in the Llangwnnadl area of Pwllheli on 7 December, police have now confirmed.

North Wales Police appealed for information last month after HM Coastguard received a report concerning the safety of a “possible diver” off Porth Ysgaden on the Llŷn Peninsula.

An extensive search was carried out along the coastline and on land in the surrounding area.

Officers said the circumstances surrounding his death were not thought to be suspicious.

A member of Mr Magyar’s family thanked the coastguard, RNLI and “all others” who helped look for him.

“The family are very grateful for all the efforts made and for people who came out in their own time to help,” they added.

“Thank you to the police and coroner’s office for their continued support and consideration to the family. Thank you all.”

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Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Gibson from North Wales Police said the force’s “deepest condolences” were with Mr Magyar’s family and friends.

He said they had asked for their privacy to be respected at a difficult time.

“I would like to thank the community for their support during the searches,” he added.

‘Festive flu’ warning: ‘Tidal wave’ of infections leads to 70% jump in hospital cases | UK News

A “tidal wave” of flu infections has led to a 70% increase in hospital cases in England in just seven days, the NHS has said.

An average of 1,861 patients with flu were in hospital every day last week – up from 1,099 in the previous week and 3.5 times higher than the same time last year.

Flu cases are currently highest among 5 to 14-year-olds, according to the UK Health Security Agency, but adult cases are expected to rise when schools and nurseries close.

Norovirus (the winter vomiting bug) and RSV (a common cause of coughs and colds, and a cause of chest infections in babies) are also on the rise.

The NHS said norovirus cases were up 10% on the previous week and 64% on last year, while 152 children were in hospital with RSV each day – up from 107 this time in 2023.

There are fears of a so-called “quad-demic” this winter.

It refers to the “four very common viral illnesses that circulate every winter in different peaks,” Dr David Lloyd, a GP, told Sky News Breakfast.

The risk and complication rate of people catching all four at once heightens this time of the year as people are spending more time indoors with friends and family.

Eligible people are urged to get vaccinated as soon as possible to avoid picking up a bout of festive flu.

The NHS provides vaccinations against flu, COVID and RSV.

Pic: iStock
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Certain groups can get a free vaccination. Pic: iStock

Over-65s, pregnant women, and people with certain health condition are among those who can get a free flu vaccination at a pharmacy.

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Jabs are also being administered at places such as Christmas markets, football clubs, and supermarkets.

RSV vaccines are recommended during pregnancy – to protect the baby when it’s born, and for adults aged 75 to 79.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, boss of NHS England, said: “The tidal wave of flu cases and other seasonal viruses hitting hospitals is really concerning for patients and for the NHS – the figures are adding to our ‘quad-demic’ worries.”

He added: “With one week left to book your vaccine, I cannot stress enough the importance of getting booked in to protect yourself against serious illness and to avoid ‘festive flu.'”

Government demands ‘immediate, mandatory’ housing plans from councils to build 1.5m homes | Politics News

The government is today demanding “immediate, mandatory” housing targets from councils as part of its plans to build 1.5 million houses by the next general election.

During its election campaign Labour promised to build swathes of new housing to address lack of affordability and supply.

And it will today release its latest version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), setting out the government’s homebuilding plans.

Under the NPPF, councils will have just 12 weeks to commit to a timetable for providing new homes in their area.

And if they fail to do so, ministers will “not hesitate” to impose a plan upon them, the government said, after less than a third of local authorities accepted a plan in the past five years.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “Our Plan for Change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planning system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people’s pockets.

“We’re taking immediate action to make the dream of homeownership a reality through delivering 1.5 million homes by the next parliament and rebuilding Britain to deliver for working people.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said: “I will not hesitate to do what it takes to build 1.5 million new homes over five years and deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.

“We must all do our bit and we must all do more. We expect every local area to adopt a plan to meet their housing need. The question is where the homes and local services people expect are built, not whether they are built at all.”

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner answers MPs questions.
Image:
Ms Rayner says she will do ‘what it takes’ to get Britain building

Labour’s plans involve an annual target of 370,000 new homes in England, in a bid to find living space for 1.3 million households on social housing waiting lists.

Councils with the most unaffordable housing and “greatest potential for growth” will have increased targets for building – and “stronger action” will be used to make sure plans are up to date.

What is the ‘grey belt’

Part of the plans also includes a presumption that building on brownfield land will be approved.

However, Labour is also looking to target building on the green belt – including on the so-called “grey belt”.

According to Ms Rayner, this includes “disused car parks, petrol stations and low quality green belt”.

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Councils will also be required to “review their green belt boundaries to meet targets, identifying and prioritising lower quality ‘grey belt’ land”.

Building on the green belt will have to abide by Labour’s so-called “golden rules”: Brownfield first, grey belt second, affordable homes, boost public services and infrastructure, improve genuine green spaces.

As part of the scheme, there will be an extra £100m available for local authorities to hire staff and consultants – and more resources to carry out studies and site assessments.

This comes on top of a previous increase in planning fees to cover extra planning officers.

Councillor Adam Hug, the housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said housebuilding must take a “collaborative approach”.

He called for “any national algorithms and formulas” to be “supplemented with local knowledge”.

Mr Hug added that housing reform needs to be supported with work to “tackle workforce challenges” as well as the costs of construction.

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Why hasn’t the UK built more houses?

Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative’s shadow housing secretary, says Labour have “consistently failed to deliver on housebuilding”.

“Labour will bulldoze through the concerns of local communities,” he said.

“If Labour really want homes to be built where they are needed, they must think again.”

Thousands of LGBT veterans ejected from military can receive up to £70k compensation to right ‘historic wrongs’ | UK News

Thousands of veterans who were ejected from the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity will be able to receive up to £70,000 each in compensation to correct “historic wrongs”.

John Healey, the defence secretary, described the past treatment of LGBT soldiers, sailors and aviators as a “moral stain on our nation”.

Between 1967 and 2000, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) personnel were banned from serving in the armed forces, leading to people being dismissed or discharged and in some cases harassed.

Everyone who is eligible can apply to receive a £50,000 payout from Friday under what is being called the LGBT Financial Recognition Scheme.

On top of being dismissed or discharged, those who also endured harassment or ill-treatment while serving because of their sexuality or gender orientation – including being sent to military prison – can also apply for up to an additional £20,000.

All impacted veterans can request to have their rank restored and discharge reason amended.

“The historic treatment of LGBT veterans was a moral stain on our nation,” Mr Healey said in a statement.

He added: “Our government is determined to right the wrongs of the past and recognise the hurt that too many endured.”

The number of impacted veterans is not clear but government modelling has produced estimates of less than 4,000 personnel. It is not known how many will apply.

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An earlier review made a series of recommendations to correct the “historic wrongs” suffered by LGBT personnel.

They were accepted by the previous Conservative government and are being implemented under the new Labour administration.

The Ministry of Defence said the money set aside to compensate veterans under the new scheme will be £75 million – 50% higher than had been suggested by the Etherton Review.

Alistair Carns, the veterans minister, said: “The treatment of LGBT people is a shameful chapter in the history of our armed forces and we are working hard to address the wrongs of the past.

“We fully welcome our LGBT veterans back into defence and acknowledge their vital contribution to keeping the nation safe.”

‘Dozens of people’ being investigated over Post Office scandal, police chief reveals | UK News

Police are investigating “dozens of people” at the Post Office and Fujitsu, the head of a nationwide operation has announced.

A team of 100 officers nationwide are looking at potential suspects and their involvement in the Post Office scandal.

Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted for stealing from their branches between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon software caused accounting errors.

Last month, Sky News exclusively revealed that at least four suspects were being investigated and the offences being considered were those of perverting the course of justice and perjury.

A meeting has been held between senior Metropolitan Police officers and victims, including Sir Alan Bates.

They were informed that officers are currently sifting through at least 1.5 million documents involving thousands of victims.

Commander Stephen Clayman, leading Operation Olympos, said “dozens” of people at the Post Office and Fujitsu were being investigated.

He added: “We will go where the evidence takes us… our ongoing goal is the pursuit of justice”.

Three people have been interviewed under caution so far, with plans to question more suspects in 2025.

If the Criminal Prosecution Service decides that the evidence standard is met, any potential trial would not be until at least 2027.

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‘What 13-year-old wants to hold their mother as she dies?’

Former sub-postmistress Jess Kaur was wrongly accused of 36 counts of theft from her Post Office in Aldridge in the West Midlands.

She suffered a mental breakdown and attempted to take her own life as a result.

Ms Kaur said it was “quite disgusting” that any trial would be years away but said she understood that the police need time to properly investigate.

“There’s not just one or two of them [to investigate] so it will take time,” she told Sky News. “I hope they do a good job, we don’t want to rush them.”

She added, however, that “hundreds were put behind bars straight away” when they were falsely accused of stealing from the Post Office.

“We will never know what was going on behind the scenes but it’s all coming out,” she said.

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Officers from police forces across the UK and the National Crime Agency are working together to investigate potential crimes.

Commander Stephen Clayman described former sub-postmasters and their families as being “at the heart of this investigation”.

“The scale of the task ahead is unprecedented,” he said, adding that officers are being supported by “cutting-edge technology” to help work through evidence in documents.

“I cannot make promises that this will be a fast process. An investigation of this size must continue to be undertaken meticulously and methodically and will take time.

“However, I speak on behalf of our whole team when I say we will approach it with independence, precision and integrity.”

Missing schoolgirl, 13, last seen leaving Edinburgh shopping centre found ‘safe and well’ | UK News

A schoolgirl who disappeared after leaving a shopping centre has been found “safe and well” following a public appeal.

The 13-year-old girl was reported missing from Pathhead in Midlothian after failing to return home on Tuesday night.

She was last seen at around 9.25pm in Edinburgh’s Lady Road, having left Cameron Toll shopping centre.

Police Scotland appealed for help, and in an update later on Wednesday confirmed the teenager had been “traced safe and well”.

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A force spokesperson added: “Thank you to everyone who shared and responded to our appeal.”