Politics

Doctors will vote on whether or not to strike over plans to reduce their pensions. If a strike does go ahead it will be the first time that doctors have taken industrial action since 1975. In 1975 consultants suspended all goodwill activities and worked to contract while walk in clinic doctors worked to a 40 hour week.

The British Medical Association (BMA), will send ballot papers to their 103,000 members. The result will be known by the end of the month.

By 2014, some doctors will see deductions of 14.5% from their pay for their pensions, compared to 7.35% for senior civil servants on similar salaries, to receive similar pensions, said the BMA.

The BMA say that doctors at the beginning on their careers will be most affected by the new change as they will have to pay hundreds of thousands of extra pounds in lifetime pensions contributions.

Home Secretary Theresa May has banned the proposed English Defence League’s march in London on the request of Scotland Yard.

All marches in east London have been banned for a 30-day period after Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin spoke to Theresa May.

Mrs May said: “Having carefully considered the legal tests in the Public Order Act and balanced rights to protest against the need to ensure local communities and property are protected, I have given my consent to a ban on all marches in Tower Hamlets and four neighbouring boroughs for a 30-day period.
“I know that the Metropolitan Police are committed to using their powers to ensure communities and properties are protected.

“We encourage all local people and community leaders to work with the police to ensure community relations are not undermined by public disorder.”

Director of the anti-extremist campaign group Searchlight, Nick Lowles said: “This decision is a victory for common sense. The EDL clearly intended to use the proposed march to bring violence and disorder to the streets of Tower Hamlets. Their plan has been foiled.”

“We congratulate Theresa May and the Metropolitan Police on their decision, as well as those ordinary Londoners who have joined with Searchlight and local community groups in opposing this divisive demonstration. Legitimate protest is healthy. Violence and intimidation are not.”

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: “The commander for the event makes a request to the assistant commissioner, who makes a written request to the Home Secretary. The authority to make this request can be delegated from the Commissioner to an assistant commissioner under section 15 of the Public Order Act 1986.”

New research shows reductions in local government funding will lead to cuts worth over £100 million to thousands of voluntary groups and charities.

Anti-cuts website False Economy revealed that some groups are losing their funding completely.

Cuts have already amounted to over £10 million over the last twelve months but that figure is likely to rise dramatically as authroities finalise and announce their plans.

Cuts will affect charities working for disabled people, the elderly, children and adult care.

Clifford Singer, campaign director for the group said: : “These cuts go deep into the voluntary and community sectors. These are not just nice to have groups but organisations providing vital services for older people trying to maintain independent lives, vulnerable children and abused women.

“With so many of the cuts simply resulting in further pressure on the NHS or other statutory services, they are truly a false economy.

“Ministers talk up localism and say services will be better shaped locally, but the huge front-loaded cuts to councils mean that local decision-making simply gives councils the choice of which vulnerable people they should make suffer for an economic crisis they did nothing to cause.”

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary added: “These deep cuts to voluntary groups across the UK show that Government claims that charities can replace direct services currently provided by central or local government are false.

“It sounds great, but in practice the Big Society is looking more and more like a big con”.

Ed Miliband has undergone a successful operation to address his sleep apnoea.

The Mr. Miliband had the operation at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in central London.

The labour leader admitted in April that he suffered from the condition that interrupts breathing during sleep.

Sources close to Mr. Miliband threw out claims from the media that he was hoping that the procedure would make his voice less nasal. One source said “I’ve spoken to him since the operation and his voice sounds exactly the same. It wasn’t done in terms of changing his voice at all”.

A Labour spokeswoman said: “Ed Miliband had an operation this morning to correct a deviated septum in order to help with his sleep apnoea.

“The hour-long operation was done with the National Health Service and was performed at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in central London.

“He is now recovering for a few days before going on holiday with his family.”

The respiratory condition sleep apnoea is a repeated narrowing of the throat during sleep which prevents air getting into the lungs and causes the afflicted person to wake up.

Symptoms can include day-time fatigue and heavy snoring. William Shatner, Christopher Hitchens and Billy Connolly all suffer with the condition.

Anyone caught brandishing a knife will be jailed for six months the Prime Minister declared today.

Mr Cameron announced the automatic jail sentence in the wake of rows over soft sentencing. Although the new ‘aggravated knife carrying’ law will apply to anyone using a knife alongside threatening or intimidating behaviour the Prime Minister has not quite held up his pre-election promise of an automatic sentence for anyone caught carrying a knife.

The announcement was one of many that signal a move by the Government to take a strong position on law and order. Mr Cameron said: “My mission is to make sure that families can feel safe in their homes, and they can walk the streets freely, without fear.”

Consultations will be held over the following intended measures:

• The ‘Tony Martin’ law to enable homeowners to defend their property, named after the Norfolk farmer who famously shot dead a burglar.
• Stripping squatters of their right to legal assistance, including a major shake-up of the archaic laws surrounding squatting.
• A review of indeterminate prison sentences
• Results-based reward system for bodies running rehabilitative programmes in the community or in prison

Following such high profile cases as the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, five teenagers have been stabbed in London this year alone.

Mr Cameron said: “Even after all these tragedies; far too many people still think they can go out armed with a knife. We need to send the clearest possible message that this simply has to change. So we will introduce for the first time in legislation a compulsory jail term for anyone threatening someone with a knife.”

The Prime Minister placed himself in danger of further heat over poverty by attacking families who have children before they have the means to support them.

David Cameron voiced the concerns of some of his constituents who compared their decision to hold off from having children until ready financially to those on benefits having “as many children as they want”.

“I get people coming to my constituency surgery saying just that to me: ‘We waited before we got married until we could afford it, we waited til we could afford to have children, we waited and then we managed to get a house and I see someone down the road do none of those responsible things and they get put up in a council house, they have as many children as they want.’ ”

The Prime Minister said he was resolute in his conviction to “change values” in Britain, ensuring the hard-working family units are reward. This came a day after the Archbishop of Canterbury challenged the Government’s policies on welfare, warning against the “resurgence of the seductive language of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor”.

A spokesman for Labour said: “Today we have the Prime Minister lecturing people about whether they can afford to have children. The Government should concentrate on creating jobs and not cutting too far, too fast. It’s creating a vicious circle in our economy which is hitting families.”

The Government will today announce the biggest police shake-up in 50 years with
the launch of a new US-style crime division. Home Secretary Theresa May will set out
plans for The National Crime Agency, which will tackle serious and organised crime
and protect the UK’s borders.

Labour announced similar plans for ‘Britain’s FBI’ with the launch of the Serious
Organised Agency (Soca) in 2006. Just 5 years later, however, the coalition
government is replacing Soca with The National Crime Agency.

Due to come into force from 2013, The National Crime Agency (NCA) will also take
over the work of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) and will
include a border policing command.

The Government have addressed initial concerns that Ceop’s work would be harmed
by being part of a larger agency with a wide range of priorities, saying that it will
retain a separate budget and its ‘unique brand, model and operational control’.

The NCA will form the basis of the most radical changes to the British policing system
in 50 years, which will see existing authorities replaced by directly elected police and
crime commissioners from May 2012.

The new plans come as the Government announces organised crime costs of up to
£40 billion a year in the UK, with many of the 38,000 individuals and 6,000 groups
involved escaping justice.

Critics are warning the NCA will be too large an organisation to be effective, but the
Home Office argues it will be a ‘powerful new body of operational crime fighters’
that will ‘strengthen the fight against the serious and organised criminality that
threatens the safety and security of the UK’.

A sex attack victim slammed Ken Clarke on the air over plans concerning shorter prison terms for rapists.

The victim, named Gabrielle, was attacked during her training for the London Marathon and broke down during the phone-in as she recounted the incident. She claimed that the proposed reductions, cutting sentences in half for early guilt pleas, would be a “disaster” that would ‘justify’ other women being attacked.

Ken Clarke was forced to admit that he hadn’t consulted rape victims following Gabrielle’s emotional interjection. She described her 688-day ordeal after her attacker changed his plea from not guilty to guilty and saw his sentence cut by a third. She claimed that he went on to reoffend on release and added that “It is a known fact that the absolute vast majority – in excess of 90 per cent of sex offenders – reoffend,”

“So to let them out early is just saying that any other female who is minding their own business, going about their lawful business, can be a victim and that’s justified. And in my personal view that cannot be justified.”

“I wouldn’t wish what I went through, fighting the criminal justice system for 688 days, on my worst enemy.”

Allegedly Mr. Clarke shoved a cameraman as he left the radio studio where the phone-in took place.

The Government attempted to distance David Cameron from the plans. An insider claimed that “this rape policy is still all under discussion. It’s not a government policy as yet.”

The source added that Mr. Clarke has briefed them on the plans and explained the ‘logic’ of reduced sentences through early pleas but insisted that the Government certainly wouldn’t action anything that weakened deterrents for rape.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron are resolute that the coalition is to continue despite the Liberal Democrat election drumming and the AV referendum.

The Liberal Democrat leader conceded that the overwhelming rejection of voting reform was a ‘bitter blow’ but “if, in a democracy, you ask someone a question and get an overwhelming answer, you just have to move on.” His disappointment was exacerbated by the fact that the Lib Dems lost approximately 700 councillors in England and retained only 5 seats in Scotland.

The results brought the inevitable grassroots calls for Mr Clegg to step down and for the coalition to disband early but Mr. Cameron insisted he wants it to run for a full five-year term. Furthermore senior Lib Dem members have rubbished the calls and Mr. Clegg’s deputy Simon Hughes claimed he was “personally and politically strong as when he joined government”.

Mr. Cameron admitted the heated exchanges surrounding the AV debate had been ‘difficult’ for the Government but he reiterated that: “The coalition agreement set out that we were going to ask the British people a very straightforward question and they have given the most clear and resounding answer.

“I believe that what the British people want us to do now is to provide a good, strong, decisive Government in the long-term national interest of this country, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats working together.

“That is what we have been for this last year and that is what we are going to be for the rest of this Parliament.”