India repeals outdated British-era sedition law. Experts call it a ‘repackaging’ exercise

Maroosha Muzaffar
Fri, 11 August 2023 

India’s outdated British-era sedition law will be entirely abolished, the government has announced.

The government has called the decision a comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system, but experts have criticised it saying it could introduce intricacies and have ramifications for thousands of ongoing trials.

Addressing the Lok Sabha or the lower house of the Indian parliament on Friday, the country’s federal home minister Amit Shah announced the complete repeal of the sedition offence from one of the three forthcoming bills set to replace the current criminal code, known as the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Crafted by the British in 1860, the IPC has served as the foundation of the nation’s criminal justice system for over 160 years.

Yet, legal experts have pointed out that the government is proposing a new bill that criminalises any acts that threaten the “sovereignty or unity and integrity of India”.

Under the new proposed bill, anybody who “excites or attempts to excite, secession or armed rebellion or subversive activities, or encourages feelings of separatist activities or endangers sovereignty or unity and integrity of India, or indulges in or commits any such act” could face either life imprisonment or imprisonment for up to seven years.

The dated sedition law has been abused by governments till date for decades to shut down any kind of dissent in the country.

Chitranshul Sinha, a legal expert, said the government’s new provision “doesn’t get rid of the British-era [sedition] law. They (the government) have rearranged the provision”.

“It’s just a change of name. Essentially, nothing has changed,” he told the Associated Press.

The three bills Mr Shah introduced are called the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, 2023, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanita Bill, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshva Bill, 2023.

They are aimed at replacing the existing framework, namely the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 respectively.

A standing committee has been asked to review all three proposed bills.

Legal analysts voiced concerns that if sanctioned by the legislature, the bills could trigger disruptions and introduce intricacies into the legal system. Experts also pointed out that courts would grapple with several procedural ramifications on the thousands of ongoing trials.

Mr Shah called the outdated 19th-century criminal laws in India as emblems of “gulami [subjugation]”, drawing a parallel to India’s history under British colonial rule.

Additionally, the home minister also disclosed the federal government’s intention to introduce capital punishment in cases of mob lynching.

While introducing one of the three bills to replace the old laws, Mr Shah underscored 313 changes being implemented within India’s criminal justice system.

“The laws that will be repealed... the focus of those law was to protect and strengthen the British administration, the idea was to punish and not to give justice. The new three laws will bring the spirit to protect the rights of the Indian citizen.”

Gang-rape can lead to imprisonment ranging from 20 years to a life term, while the new bills uphold the option of the death penalty.

The opposition and critics of the government have, however, lashed out at the Narendra Modi government, terming the new bills vague and for unveiling them without any discussion or consultation with the public.

One critic pointed out on X, formerly Twitter, that the government has just “repackaged and rebranded” the sedition law in the new proposed bill “with a pinch of nationalism in free India”.

“Wow! Three hugely important laws which will affect all of us, are introduced at the end of this session, without any disclosure or discussion. The colonial wolf of sedition brought back in sheep’s clothing,” Prashant Bhushan, a renowned lawyer and activist, wrote on X.

“This is New Democracy in Modi’s New India!”

Last year, Kapil Sibal, a prominent Indian lawyer and politician, informed the Supreme Court that approximately 13,000 individuals were facing charges under India’s current sedition law.

According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, out of the 548 individuals charged with sedition from 2015 to 2020, merely a dozen faced convictions.

Under India’s outdated sedition law, numerous scholars, writers and activists have been detained for expressing any kind of dissent.

The country’s Supreme Court in May last year asked the government to reconsider and reexamine the provisions of the law and urged the state to refrain from registering any First Information Reports – the first step to a police complaint – under the said provision of the law.

“The court should respect government, legislature, so as government should also respect the court. We have clear demarcation of boundary,” Kiren Rijiju, Mr Modi’s law minister, said at the time.

The Law Commission of India, in June this year, advocated for the retention of the sedition law, citing concerns over potential severe repercussions for national security and unity if the provision is revoked.

The commission had suggested that the provision – under section 124A that describes the sedition law – be amended instead, “so as to bring about more clarity in the interpretation, understanding and usage of the provision”.

Rishi Sunak: domestic RAF UK flights more frequent than previous three British Prime Ministers


Alex Nelson
Fri, 11 August 2023 

Rishi Sunak boards a plane at Stansted Airport as he departs for the Aukus meeting in San Diego in March 2023 (Photo: Leon Neal - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

The BBC has revealed that Rishi Sunak has utilised RAF jets and helicopters for domestic flights more frequently than the last three British prime ministers.

According to Ministry of Defence figures, during his first seven months in office, he took approximately one such flight per week.

Given his commitments to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, the prime minister has come under fire for acting hypocritically by taking short domestic flights. But Sunak has claimed that air travel is the "most effective use of my time".


In response to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, the BBC learned of the number of domestic flights on Command Support Air Transport aircraft, broken down per prime minister, between July 2016 and April 2023.

Command Support Air Transport is an RAF division - also known as 32 Squadron - that operates two Dassault Falcon 900LX planes and a helicopter, on which the PM and other ministers are flown domestically.

Over a 187-day period, Sunak boarded 23 domestic flights on these aircraft in total, or one every eight days on average. For comparison, Theresa May took one flight every 13 days, Boris Johnson every 20, and Liz Truss every 13 days (on average).

Of course, the briefness of Truss' tenure in Downing Street and the Covid-19 travel restrictions in place during the majority of Johnson's leadership are important considerations.

But separately, Sunak has accepted more than £70,000 in private plane and helicopter trips to Conservative Party events this year, and sometimes also has access to an RAF Voyager plane for international travel. The government also charters private flights aboard Titan Airways-operated planes.

Last month, Sunak argued that people who take the position that "no-one should take a plane" are "completely, and utterly wrong" in their handling of the issue of climate change.

Sunak's use of RAF aircraft for relatively short journeys to Newquay, Dover and Leeds this year has drawn criticism, with opponents questioning why he did not take the train instead.

The Labour Party's deputy leader Angela Rayner even went so far as to suggest Sunak may have violated the ministerial code, which states that he is expected to take scheduled flights unless "it is essential to travel by air."

Sunak said that honouring the UK's commitment to cut carbon emissions was "morally right" in his remarks at the COP27 climate summit last year. As part of worldwide efforts to prevent the worst effects of climate change, the UK has set a legally binding goal of attaining net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

As a result of burning fuel, flights produce greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), which contribute to global warming. Domestic flights have the worst emissions per km travelled of any kind of transportation, and private aircraft frequently emit more CO2 than commercial aircraft.

UK

How Rishi Sunak's Obsession With 'Wedge Issues' Risks Backfiring

Kevin Schofield
Fri, 11 August 2023 



Small boat crossing and rising NHS waiting lists have presented Rishi Sunak with a major headache.

If Rishi Sunak was planning to properly switch off from politics during his holiday in California, the last week has surely put paid to that.

It was supposed to be “small boats week”, when the government would set out what it was doing to realise the prime minister’s ambition of stopping migrant Channel crossings, while also attacking Labour’s stance on the issue.

In reality, however, it was a disaster, with Number 10′s carefully-constructed communications strategy being disrupted by bogus claims that asylum seekers could be deported to Ascension Island followed by a row over whether they should just “fuck off back to France” instead.

Then on Thursday it was revealed that the number of migrants who have crossed the Channel since 2018 had passed 100,000.

And to top off the government’s latest week from hell, all 39 of the migrants who had been placed on the Bibby Stockholm barge had to be evacuated yesterday - after less than a week on board - after legionella bacteria was found in the water supply.

No wonder Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson conceded that on immigration, the party “has failed” to achieve its objectives.

Nevertheless, Sunak still sees immigration as a so-called “wedge issue” that can be used to put Labour on the wrong side of public opinion.

The same goes for climate change, where the prime minister has hinted at watering down the government’s green policies while trying to paint Keir Starmer as a crazed eco-extremist.

According to former Conservative adviser Luke Tryl, Sunak is taking an enormous risk which may end up simply sealing his fate with the electorate.

Tryl is now the director of More in Common, which carries out opinion polling and focus groups to assess the public mood.

According to the group’s latest research, climate change comes third behind the NHS and the cost of living in the list of top issues for voters.

And the public are four times more likely to say the government is not doing enough to deal with climate change than to say they are doing too much.

On small boats, meanwhile, More in Common identified a high level of frustration among the public that the government keeps promising to deliver on the issue while failing to meet their promise.

Separate private polling seen by HuffPost UK suggests that more than a third of voters believe that no government will be able to stop the boats if those on board are sufficiently determined to make it to Britain.

The events of the last week are likely to have done nothing to alter that perception.

Tryl told HuffPost UK: “The problem with wedges is that it’s very easy to end up on the wrong side of them.

“If the Conservatives are able to convince the electorate they’ll do net-zero transition sensibly and show real progress on tackling Channel crossings they’ll be rewarded by the electorate.

“But there is instead a real danger the Conservatives end up instead appearing anti-green and failing to deliver on small boats, threatening to make the party’s already perilous electoral position even worse.”

The problem with wedges is that it’s very easy to end up on the wrong side of them

In a further blow to Sunak this week, new figures from NHS England revealed that waiting lists have now hit 7.6 million, the highest number ever recorded.

That is despite the PM’s promise in January to bring them down.

Tryl suggested that this is a far more significant failure in the eyes of the public than either stopping the boats or tackling climate change.

He said: “Neither [small boats or climate change] will matter very much if the government haven’t yet got a grip on the NHS and the cost of living.”

Sunak is due back from his family holiday in the coming days.

Unless he can convince voters that his government will deal with their most pressing concerns, he’ll find he has much time to devote to foreign travel after the next election.
Related...

Another Sunak Pledge In Tatters As Migrant Channel Crossings Hit Milestone


NHS Waiting Lists Hit Record High Despite Sunak Promise To Bring Them Down


Analysis: How Rishi Sunak's 'Small Boats Week' Was Blown Off Course

UK

Bibby Stockholm: Most asylum seekers housed on ‘deterrent’ barge are not small boat migrants

Lizzie Dearden
Fri, 11 August 2023

Most of the asylum seekers so far housed on the government’s controversial barge are not small boat migrants and arrived in the UK legally, The Independent can reveal.

Ministers have claimed the Bibby Stockholm and use of military bases as accommodation would “deter” English Channel crossings, but the majority of those so far selected for the vessel arrived by plane.

After speaking to charities and legal firms working with more than 30 asylum seekers ordered to move onto the barge by the Home Office, The Independent has been told of only two who arrived by small boat.

All others used regular passenger planes to reach the UK, with some claiming asylum at the airport shortly after landing - meaning they did not enter the country illegally.

A former Conservative minister called the situation “extraordinary”, adding: “The policy of reducing hotels is not working because they’ve got more people coming and they’re still using them.

“Even though they’ve got the barge and have been talking about tents and military bases and the rest of it nothing has changed. People are still coming so there’s no deterrent factor.”

The vast majority of people who have boarded the Bibby Stockholm, and those who successfully challenged their transfer notices through lawyers, are understood to have flown into the UK legally.

“Many of us entered Britain nine to 11 months ago, by airplane,” an Afghan asylum seeker told the BBC. “Some of us applied for asylum at the airport. We did not come by boat.”

An Iranian man now living on the barge toldThe Sun he had flown into Britain six months ago, and that others on board were mainly from his country and Afghanistan. Both nationalities have very high asylum grant rates.

Home Office guidance states that people can be accommodated on the Bibby Stockholm for a maximum of nine months, meaning that anyone whose claim is not granted in that time will have to be sent back to hotels or other government accommodation.

Labour said the barge had become a “symbol of Tory incompetence”, while other opposition MPs accused the government of using “sound bites” that do not match reality.

Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said: “This latest revelation that the majority of people staying on board the Bibby Stockholm arrived in the UK on a flight just proves it was never going to be the answer to the asylum backlog chaos, and the fact that government ministers have been touting it as such is frankly laughable.”

Mr Kinnock said the asylum system was “going from bad to worse”, as more boats arriving on Thursday pushed the number of crossings since 2018 past 100,000.

Alison Thewliss, the SNP’s home affairs spokesperson, said the government should be working to properly process the asylum backlog rather than pursuing accommodation with “major safety issues”.

“The number of people on the Bibby Stockholm who arrived by plane shows that for the UK government, ‘Stop the Boats’ is more of a soundbite than a solution,” she told The Independent.

(AFP via Getty Images)

“It is high time that this government dropped the rhetoric and focused on protecting the vulnerable people we have a duty to protect.”

The Liberal Democrats accused the government of “headline-chasing” to distract from figures showing rising Channel crossings and asylum claims, as it remains unable to deport anyone to Rwanda.

The party’s home affairs spokesperson, Alistair Carmichael, said: “Once again, the reality of the situation is simply not reflected in the Home Office's sound bite policies.

In April, shortly after the Bibby Stockholm’s use as asylum accommodation was announced, immigration minister Robert Jenrick claimed it would “deter” small boat crossings.

“We must suffuse the entire system with deterrents, and that includes our national approach to how we accommodate illegal migrants,” he told parliament.

“In the short term, that means switching to cheaper and more appropriate forms of accommodation, such as disused military sites and vessels.”

(AFP via Getty Images)

In recent weeks, several ministers refuting concerns about the safety and suitability of the Bibby Stockholm have said “illegal migrants” should not be given a choice of accommodation.

After being forced to reverse transfer notices for at least 20 asylum seekers, which had been issued in violation of official guidance, the Home Office issued “threatening” letters telling selected people to move onto the barge or face having government housing withdrawn.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick claimed on Wednesday that a “significant” number of asylum seekers who initially objected had since changed their minds and moved on board, but the Home Office has refused to give numbers.

Senior Tories have defended Conservative Party deputy chair Lee Anderson’s statement that asylum seekers who resist moving onto the barge should “f*** off back to France”, although many did not travel fromt here.

“They're illegal migrants - they're not genuine asylum seekers,” he claimed on Thursday.

Official figures show that 92 per cent of small boat migrants arriving since 2018 have claimed asylum, and most of the cases decided were granted.

The Home Office said it does not differentiate between methods of entry when allocating asylum accommodation, and that the primary aim of the Bibby Stockholm was to reduce spending on hotels.

A spokesperson added: “The first asylum seekers are now being housed on the vessel in Portland after it successfully completed all health, fire and safety checks. The number of people on board will increase gradually with more arrivals later this week and in the coming months, as part of a carefully structured phased approach.”

Bibby Stockholm: Tory ministers face calls to resign after Legionella bacteria found on barge housing migrants



Updated Sat, 12 August 2023

Conservative ministers are facing calls to resign after Legionella bacteria was discovered in the water supply of the Bibby Stockholm.

A senior Tory figure has told the i newspaper that Home Secretary Suella Braverman "should be sacked" after the 39 migrants on board the vessel were removed over safety concerns.

A Home Office insider described the saga - which comes less than a week after the first asylum seekers were transferred onto the barge - as "embarrassing".

And Scott Benton - a former Conservative MP who now sits as an independent - said that the barge had become a "complete and utter farce".

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he added: "As if having porous borders isn't bad enough, we can't even move 39 illegal immigrants onto a barge properly."

Campaigners from No To The Barge have also said immigration minister Robert Jenrick should stand down from his government position with "immediate effect" after promising just days ago that the barge was safe.

Ms Braverman is now under growing pressure to scrap plans to house asylum seekers on barges altogether, following a significant setback to a policy that has been beset with controversy and delay from the very start.

Care4Calais, which said it stopped 20 migrants from being moved onto the floating accommodation on Monday, said the discovery of bacteria shows their "concerns over the health and safety of the barge are justified" as they called on ministers to axe the policy.

Steve Smith, chief executive of the charity, said: "The Bibby Stockholm is a visual illustration of this government's hostile environment against refugees, but it has also fast become a symbol for the shambolic incompetence which has broken Britain's asylum system.

"The government should now realise warehousing refugees in this manner is completely untenable, and should focus on the real job at hand - processing the asylum claims swiftly, so refugees may become contributing members of our communities as they so strongly wish."

Legionella bacteria, which is commonly found in water, can cause a serious type of lung infection known as Legionnaires' disease.

None of those on the barge have shown signs of having the disease and are all being provided with a health assessment, the Home Office said.

It was not clear where the migrants would be moved to on Friday night.

Putting them in hotels would likely cause fresh embarrassment for the government, which procured the barge alongside other budget sites in an effort to reduce the £6m-a-day cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels.

The Home Office insisted disembarking those on board was a "precautionary measure" while further tests are carried out - but questions remain about who knew what and when.

Sky News understands routine testing of the water supply was initially carried out on Tuesday 25 July but the results did not come back until Monday 7 August - the same day asylum seekers began to board the Bibby Stockholm, which is docked in Portland Port.

However the Home Office was not made aware of the results until two days later on Wednesday 9 August. Six people boarded the vessel a day later but were later removed on the advice of the UK Health Security Agency, with a decision taken on Friday to remove everyone.

Labour's shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said it was "extraordinary" that it appeared proper checks had not taken place before migrants were moved on board.

"It's absolutely right that the barge has to be evacuated but what a complete and utter shambles. This is a catalogue of catastrophe and government ministers should hang their heads in shame," he told Sky News.

He said the government would not need to use "barges, hotels or military bases" if they tackled the backlog in the asylum system which has reached more than 173,000 - outstripping the 50,000 units he said were in the UK's asylum estate.

He called the Bibby Stockholm "a floating symbol of Conservative incompetence".

Read More: 

Is the government's new Illegal Migration Bill legal?

'F*** off back to France' comment 'shows Tory failings on immigration'

On Wednesday, Mr Jenrick told Sky News the barge was "perfectly decent accommodation" - despite earlier warnings from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) that the vessel was a potential "death trap".

The union reiterated its position in the wake of the latest development as they accused the government of ignoring their concerns.

Assistant general secretary Ben Selby said: "We wrote to Suella Braverman more than a week ago to demand a meeting to discuss these issues. We have had no response to that letter, and our fire safety and operational safety concerns remain.

"It remains our professional view that it's a potential 'death trap' and an accident waiting to happen.

"However, Suella Braverman and her ministerial colleagues are hellbent on confining vulnerable people in jail like conditions on what is effectively a prison ship."

It comes at the end of the government's "small boats week" which was supposed to highlight new hardline policies for stopping Channel crossings.

The announcements were somewhat overshadowed by a row involving Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson saying asylum seekers who don't like barges should "f*** off back to France" and later admitting the government had "failed" to tackle illegal immigration.

Mr Sunak has made "stopping the boats" one of his five key priorities in government.

However, he faced a further blow this week after 775 people were recorded crossing the English Channel on Thursday - the highest daily number so far this year.

It pushed the cumulative total of the number of people who made small boat journeys from France to the UK to more than 100,000 since 2018, when records began.

Asylum seekers leave Bibby Stockholm amid fears over bacteria


Sky News
Updated Fri, 11 August 2023 


Asylum seekers have been removed from the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset after Legionella bacteria was found in the vessel's water system.

It is not clear where they are being moved to but the Home Office said all 39 migrants on board would be disembarked on Friday as a "precautionary measure".

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick is understood to be chairing meetings about the situation.

Legionella bacteria, which is commonly found in water, can cause a serious type of lung infection known as Legionnaires' disease.

None of those on the barge have shown signs of having the disease and are all being provided with "appropriate advice and support", said the Home Office.

The Bibby Stockholm is one of the new forms of asylum seeker accommodation the government is using to cut the costs of hotels.

Ministers are facing questions about when the tests were carried out and who knew what and when.

Sky News understands routine testing of the water supply was initially carried out on Tuesday 25 July but the results did not come back until Monday 7 August, the same day asylum seekers began to board the Bibby Stockholm, which is docked in Portland Port.

However the Home Office was not made aware of the results until two days later on Wednesday 9 August.

The government said it was only yesterday - Thursday 10 August - that it was advised by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to remove people on board, and then only the six individuals who embarked that day.

The decision was taken to remove all 39 individuals as a "further temporary precaution" on Friday.

Labour's shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said it was "extraordinary" that it appeared proper checks hadn't taken place before migrants were moved on board.

'Utter shambles'

He told Sky News: "It's absolutely right that the barge has to be evacuated but what a complete and utter shambles. This is a catalogue of catastrophe and government ministers should hang their heads in shame."

He suggested the government had "rushed" to try to get everybody on to the barge quickly "because the whole thing was becoming such public relations disaster for them" after the opening of the vessel was beset by a number of delays.

"It's once again an example of Tory ministers putting their own interests ahead of the interests both of the community there and of the people that they're putting onto the barge."

A Home Office spokesperson said the health and welfare of those on board the vessel "is our utmost priority".

They confirmed environmental samples from the water system on the Bibby Stockholm "have shown levels of legionella bacteria which require further investigation".

The government department added the bacteria samples relate "only to the water system on the vessel itself" and not fresh water entering the barge.

'No health risk to wider community'

It stressed there is no health risk to the wider community of Portland and that the disease "does not spread from person to person".

The Home Office said it was working with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Dorset council's environmental health team and Dorset NHS.

With a capacity of more than 500, the government hopes using the Bibby Stockholm, together with former military bases, will help reduce the £6m a day it is spending on hotel bills for asylum seekers waiting for claims to be processed.

The first 15 asylum seekers boarded the barge on Monday and a small number also arrived on Tuesday.

However several refused to board the vessel amid warnings from the Home Office that they would face having government support removed.

On Wednesday, Mr Jenrick described the barge as "perfectly decent accommodation" that was similar to that used by British oil and gas workers.

But speaking to Sky News, Dr Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter, disputed Mr Jenrick's comparison.

Asked how common it was for the bacteria to be present, Dr Pankhania said: "They should not be present in a place like that and when Robert Jenrick says we house oil workers on similar barges, he is definitely not comparing like with like.

"When you accommodate oil workers...there wouldn't be 500. And when you have a large number of people accommodated you need better plumbing systems so the water temperature is maintained at the right temperature."

Dr Pankhania said the disease would most likely have spread through the showers used on the vessel.

He said those most likely to be negatively affected were older people, smokers, and those who are immune suppressed.

Read more on the Bibby Stockholm:
What's it like inside the barge?
Asylum seekers face withdrawal of government support if they don't board barge
Asylum seeker says barge reminds him of hiding from Islamic State group.

Campaigners were also quick to hit out at the government over the development.

The charity Care4Calais, which represents asylum seekers, said the bacteria discovery shows its concerns over the barge are "justified", adding: "The Bibby Stockholm is a visual illustration of this government's hostile environment against refugees, but it has also fast become a symbol for the shambolic incompetence which has broken Britain's asylum system."

The campaign group No to the Barge said the news was "another example of the haphazard, incompetent way our government has approached this scheme from start to finish" and called on Mr Jenrick to stand down.

The discovery of Legionella on board the Bibby Stockholm is the latest embarrassing setback in a plan beset with controversy and delay from the very start.

The barge faced considerable opposition due to concern about asylum seekers' welfare and the impact on local services, while the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) warned the vessel is a potential "death trap" - an assessment they have stood by today.

The government argues the Bibby Stockholm and its other new accommodation sites will act as a vital deterrent to small boat crossings.

But in a further blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the number of people who have crossed the English Channel in small boats in the past five years has now passed 100,000.

The latest Home Office figures showed 755 migrants were detected in the Channel on Thursday, the highest daily figure so far this year.

However, the total number of small boat arrivals so far this year is around 15% below the equivalent number at this point last year.

UK

Union leader urges PM to return ‘to real world’ to settle doctors’ pay dispute

Junior doctors’ strikes have cost NHS £1bn, according to health chief


Lucas Cumiskey, PA
Fri, 11 August 2023 

A junior doctors’ union leader has urged the Prime Minister to “come back to the real world” from his Disneyland holiday to break the deadlock amid the latest strikes in the NHS.

Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairman of the the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, spoke as protesters rallied outside Downing Street on Friday, while Rishi Sunak was thought to be on a family holiday in California still.

The demonstration comes as junior doctors from the British Medical Association (BMA) embarked on a fresh four-day walkout from Friday amid a bitter dispute with the Government over pay.

Junior doctor members of the British Medical Association held a rally outside Downing Street on Friday (Victoria Jones/PA)

Mr Sunak departed for a family summer holiday to the United States on Wednesday and said his daughters, Krishna and Anoushka, were “very excited” about heading to Disneyland.

Asked by the PA news agency about a senior health boss’s claim that junior doctor strikes had cost the NHS about £1 billion, Dr Laurenson said: “What I would say is it cost the Government £1 billion to cover 15 days of strike action and back last October, when we started our trade dispute, the cost of full pay restoration is £1 billion, so now the Government is just wasting money rather than settling.

“And it doesn’t make sense, because if Rishi Sunak believes that this is fuelling inflation, does that not mean Rishi Sunak is now the leading cause of inflation?

“He’s not at home, he’s in Disneyland, Disneyworld, and to be honest he needs to come back to the real world to sort out the real issues.”

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said earlier that hospital trusts were having to “pay premium rates to consultants” to cover the roles of junior doctors while they were on picket lines, as a fifth round of industrial action threatens further disruption to patient care.

Scores of placard-wielding junior doctors staged the rally outside Downing Street and speeches were delivered from a stage.

The song Vossi Bop by Stormzy – which features the lyrics “f*** the Government and f*** Boris” – was one of the tracks played over the speakers.

Protesters held signs with messages including “strike to save the NHS” and “14/hr to save your life”.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay called on the BMA to end its industrial action (Aaron Chown/PA)

An ambulance driver beeped their horn as they drove past to cheers from those assembled.

Asked if he felt bad for ill or injured people who might not get the care they needed during the four-day strike, Dr Robert Laurenson told PA: “Of course, always, and that’s precisely why this strike is happening.

“Doctors are patients too, are families, are patients too. We see behind the curtain. We know how bad care is on a normal working day and we’re not going to put up with it any more. No-one is holding this Government to account, so we will.”

On the rise in cancelled appointments, he said: “You can’t deliver care without doctors. We’ve seen it over the last 13 years with waiting lists ballooning, and it’s because the Government are cutting our pay and driving doctors away – that needs to come to a stop now.

“These strikes don’t have to happen. The Government needs to recognise all of its decisions over the last 10 years have led to this moment, they have eradicated any sense of relationship between doctors and government and they need to start building steps to build back that relationship.”

The latest round of strike action from BMA junior doctors in England will end at 7am on Tuesday August 15.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has claimed strike action by doctors “serves only to harm patients” and puts “further pressure” on their colleagues.

He told broadcasters on Friday: “I am concerned about the impact strikes are having on patients and that is why I call on the BMA to end their industrial action.

(PA Graphics)

“Junior doctors will receive up to 10.3%, an average of 8.8%, in terms of their pay deal. We have accepted in full the recommendations of the independent pay review body, but we are also investing more widely.

“The first ever workforce long-term plan, to expand workforce training, the biggest ever investment in the NHS estate, over £20 billion of work, investing record sums in the NHS.

“We have accepted in full the recommendations of the independent pay review body process, and it is also right that we balance that with our wider commitment to bring inflation down, because that matters to NHS staff just as it does to the community.”

Junior Doctor On Strike Claims Tories Have Made NHS Among The Worst Health Systems In Europe

Kate Nicholson
Fri, 11 August 2023 

NHS strikes over pay and conditions have been rocking the health service for months now.

NHS strikes over pay and conditions have been rocking the health service for months now.

A junior doctor has slammed the government, claiming the Conservatives have made the NHS “among the worst in Europe”.

Dr Andrew Meyerson was on Sky News on Friday shortly after junior doctors in England launched their fifth round of industrial action over pay and working conditions.

Members of the British Medication Association will strike until 7am next Tuesday in a move which could result in appointment cancellations due to the industrial action reaching one million.

Since December, the strikes are estimated to have cost the NHS close to £1 billion – but PM Rishi Sunak has refused to engage in more pay negotiations.

Pressed on the reasons why junior doctors are striking again, Meyerson said: “Can I be brutally honest with you? I don’t believe the British people are safe with this government running the NHS.

“I firmly believe that – they have allowed the system to go from the best in the world from 10 years ago to among the worst in Europe now.

“I think that’s just awful. They do not deserve to look after the NHS any longer.”

The Tories have been in power since 2010, and have been accused of persistently underfunding the NHS over the years until the service seems to be on its last legs.

Responding to claims from health secretary Steve Barclay that the strikes are only worsening the quality of care for patients, Meyerson said: “This is very much a last option for us. We do not want to be here, we are desperate to go back and work.

“You see that the government in Scotland handled it in a very different way, making a reasonable offer to our BMA colleagues in Scotland, to signal to them that their work is important, that their labour is important.

“We have not had any similar commitment from this government to any aspect of patient care in this country for a very long time.”

He said patient waiting lists were “pushing five million” even before Covid hit, and then they were exacerbated by the government’s “disastrous pandemic response”.

On Thursday, it was revealed NHS waiting lists have reached 7.6 million, a record high, even though the prime minister vowed back in January that he would cut waiting times.

Meyerson continued: “This is the crux of it: no matter what we do in the last 10 years, no matter how many experts in this country tell the government their health policy is wrong – it’s wasting your money – no matter what, they refuse to listen.

“And despite all of our best efforts to avoid any strike action, this is now the fifth time this government is allowing this to happen.

“Rishi Sunak is the son of an NHS GP. You’d think he’d actually care about the health service, but he’s going to be responsible for seeing its demise.

“It’s heartbreaking for us on the frontline to see the patient experience as awful and terrible as it is right now.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has defended the 6% pay rise it has offered to junior doctors, along with an additional consolidated £1,250.

The government has said this is “fair and reasonable” and “above what most in the public and private sectors are receiving”, as it works out to a supposed “average increase of around 8.8%”.

BMA accused of ‘political motivated campaign’ after leader says union works better with Scotland


Laura Donnelly
Fri, 11 August 2023

Vivek Trivedi (left) and Rob Laurenson, co-chairmen of the BMA’s junior doctors committee - YUI MOK/PA

The British Medical Association (BMA) has been accused of trying to bring down the Government in an increasingly bitter pay dispute.

The union was accused on Friday of making a “clear admission” of being politically motivated after suggesting that it preferred doing business with the SNP-led Scottish Government.

Dr Rob Laurenson, co-chairman of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, suggested that the union would not accept the kind of deal it has backed from the Scottish Government, should it be put forward by the Westminster Government.


The union was questioned on its stance as tens of thousands of junior doctors took part in a fifth round of strikes in its long-running pay dispute.

The Scottish Government has recommended a 12.4 per cent pay rise for 2023/24, which the BMA has backed and put to its members for consideration.

Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, “You would not accept the kind of deal that your Scottish members are thinking of accepting?”, Mr Laurenson said the union would not.

He said: “No, because the governments are very different. So the Scottish Government, there’s a basis to work forwards and have a relationship and a working relationship to negotiate in the future. The Government that we have today are hell bent on using the rigged, independent pay review bodies.”

Asked if this position amounted to an “ideological” reason not to do a deal, Mr Laurenson insisted otherwise, saying: “I think what’s ideological is the Government cutting our pay for fifteen consecutive years.”

A source close to Steve Barclay, the Secretary of State for Health, said: “This is a clear admission from the BMA junior doctors’ leadership that their strikes are part of a politically-motivated campaign aimed at bringing down the Government.

“This industrial action is not in the interests of ordinary doctors in training or of patients.

“We are delivering a fair pay award averaging 8.8 per cent for doctors in training with 10.3 per cent for the lowest earners. The BMA should end their strikes immediately.”

Junior doctors rally near Downing Street during their latest strike - CHRIS J. RATCLIFFE/BLOOMBERG

Mr Barclay has said strike action by doctors “serves only to harm patients” and puts “further pressure” on their colleagues.

In a statement, Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, the fellow co-chairman, said: “The junior doctors strike in England is not aimed at ‘bringing down’ the Government as sources close to Steve Barclay are suggesting; our focus is on bringing the Government to the table to find a way of restoring 15 years’ worth of underpayment in real terms.

“The Prime Minister could end this dispute today with a credible offer to address the pay doctors have had taken from their pockets over the last 15 years. A change of Government wouldn’t end this dispute, only a fair pay deal will.”

On Friday ministers said the Government “can’t move on the pay settlement,” as they urged the union to accept the pay award they have been given.

Ministers are braced for junior doctor strikes to continue through the winter as a bitter standoff continues, with the BMA calling for a pay increase of 35 per cent, which it says is needed to restore real terms cuts.

John Glen, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said on Friday that the Government “can’t move” on the pay settlement.

Asked if he was prepared to see doctor strikes through the winter, Mr Glen said he was “very unhappy with their decisions to strike, but it will be their decision”.

The latest walkout by BMA junior doctors is due to last for four days, finishing at 7am on Tuesday Aug 15.

Even before the latest strikes got underway, the NHS costs of the walkouts are estimated to have reached around £1 billion, of which around one third has been spent paying “premium” rates for consultants to stand in for juniors.

The BMA is currently reballoting its members to extend its mandate for strike action by a further six months as it seeks “pay restoration”.

John Glen, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said the Government ‘can’t move’ on the pay settlement - Wiktor Szymanowicz/Shutterstock

Mr Glen said the strikes are “not good for the economy” and “not good for patients” as he urged the BMA to accept the Government’s pay offer.

He told Sky News: “We as a government have to be responsible in the pay settlements that we give and we listened to the independent pay review body and that means giving junior doctors in their first year over 10 per cent increase.

“On average junior doctors will have just under nine per cent increase in the amount of money that they are having and that is in a situation where we have got to manage inflation.”

“So we have also tried to address other wider concerns around pensions in the medical sector, the BMA wanted us to remove the lifetime allowance, we did that, and we will continue to be open to talk to them about working conditions.

“But what we can’t move on is additional pay given that we have listened to their independent pay review body.”

Asked if he was prepared to see doctors striking through the winter, Mr Glen said: “Well, I am very unhappy with their decisions to strike but it will be their decision. I urge them to reflect on the overall situation in the economy and the fact that patients need them to conduct their operations.”

Junior doctors rally near Downing Street as the four-day strike begins - Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Speaking at a BMA rally at Downing Street, Dr Laurenson said the Government could have ended the dispute with junior doctors by spending the £1 billion it has cost to cover the strikes.

The Government has said it would cost £2 billion a year in total to fund the pay rises the BMA seeks.

Dr Laurenson said: “The cost of full pay restoration is £1 billion, so now the Government is just wasting money rather than settling. And it doesn’t make sense because if Rishi Sunak believes that this is fuelling inflation, does that not mean Rishi Sunak is now the leading cause of inflation?

“He’s not at home, he’s in Disneyland, Disneyworld, and to be honest he needs to come back to the real world to sort out the real issues,” he added.

UK
NHS waiting lists climb to record high of 7.6 million


Storm Newton and Ian Jones, PA
Thu, 10 August 2023

NHS waiting lists in England have climbed to a new record high of 7.6 million.

Data published by NHS England on Thursday revealed 7.6 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of June, up from 7.5 million in May.

The figure is the highest since records began in 2007.


A total of 383,083 people had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of June, down slightly from 385,022 at the end of May.

Elsewhere, some 7,177 patients are estimated to have been waiting more than 18 months, down from 11,446 at the end of May.

The Government and NHS England vowed to eliminate all waits of more than 18 months by April 2023 – excluding exceptionally complex cases or patients who choose to wait longer – with the aim of stopping waits of more than a year by March 2025.

(PA Graphics)

The publication of the figures comes after the NHS announced that patients affected by backlogs could skip the queue at their local hospital if they are willing to travel to other parts of England.

The health service is extending the use of a “matching platform” where patients are “matched” with providers of the service they need outside their local area.

The system was initially launched in January for patients needing a hospital admission, but will now include cancer, diagnostic checks and outpatient appointments.

Earlier this month the Government also revealed it would expand its use of private sector capacity in a bid to ease pressure on the NHS.

Thirteen new community diagnostic centres (CDCs) will open across England, eight of which will be privately run. The facilities will carry out an additional 742,000 scans, checks and tests per year.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay said: “We must use every available resource to deliver life-saving checks to ease pressure on the NHS.”

The Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) chief nursing officer Nicola Ranger warned the health service “is falling into a deeper crisis”.

“A decade of underinvestment in the NHS has led to dire consequences for patients and pushed many nursing staff out of the profession they love and with unrelenting pressure on those who remain,” she added.

(PA Graphics)

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made cutting waiting lists one of his priorities for 2023, pledging in January that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.

However, he has said strikes across the health service are making the task “more challenging”.

Industrial action has been ongoing since December 2022 in the NHS, leading to the postponement of almost 835,000 appointments.

Junior doctors are set to stage their fifth strike in the dispute on Friday, walking out for four days from 7am. Consultants will strike for two days from August 24, and have threatened to walk out for a further 48 hours on September 19 if the Government continues to “refuse to agree to pay talks”.

In July, the Government said all public sector workers will get a pay rise in line with pay review body recommendations.

Junior doctors will receive 6%, as well as an additional £1,250 consolidated rise, while consultants will be given 6%.

Mr Sunak said “there will be no more talks” on pay and that the Government’s proposed deal is “fair”.

In A&E departments in England, figure showed the number of people waiting more than 12 hours from a decision to admit to actually being admitted was 23,934 in July, down 10% from 26,531 in June.

Patients waiting at least four hours has also fallen from 113,834 to 109,515, a drop of 4%.

Some 74.0% of patients in England were seen within four hours at A&Es last month, up from 73.3% in June.

The NHS recovery plan sets a target of March 2024 for 76% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, said the NHS is “under significant strain” and the “latest figures paint a grim picture”.

He added: “Tomorrow, thousands of NHS staff will again be on strike and these figures are now starting to show the impact industrial action is having on the NHS’s ability to clear the backlog.

“The longer the strikes go on, the less and less likely it is that the Prime Minister will meet his pledge to reduce waiting lists.

“For the sake of patients, it is imperative that all parties get around the table to resolve this issue. This emphasises how staffing issues make or break almost any target set for the service.”

Odd ‘demon’ particle found inside superconductor may help demystify ‘holy grail’ of physics


Vishwam Sankaran
Fri, 11 August 2023

Odd ‘demon’ particle found inside superconductor may help demystify ‘holy grail’ of physics

Scientists have finally found a “demon” subatomic particle that was predicted to exist nearly seven decades ago and speculated to play an important role in the behaviours of a range of metals and alloys, including superconductors.

Physcist David Pines in 1956 theorised that electrons, which normally have a mass and negative electric charge, can under some conditions combine to form a composite “demon” particle that is massless, neutral and does not interact with light.

These theorised interesting properties, however, made these particles elude detection – until now.

After a nearly 70-year search for these subatomic entities, researchers, including those from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have finally found signatures of Dr Pines’ “demon” particles in the metal strontium ruthenate.

“Demons have been theoretically conjectured for a long time, but experimentalists never studied them. In fact, we weren’t even looking for it. But it turned out we were doing exactly the right thing, and we found it,” study co-author Peter Abbamonte said.

Electrons – which are distributed in different energy bands within atoms – are known to lose their individuality in solids with electric interactions making the particles combine to form collective units.

With some threshold energy, studies have also shown electrons can form composite particles called plasmons with a new charge and mass.

However, the mass is so large that these plasmon particles cannot form with the kind of energies available at room temperature. Revelations on room-temperature semiconductors are considered to be one of the “holy grails” of physics.

But Dr Pines theorised that if a solid has electrons in more than one energy band, as many metals do, their respective plasmons may combine in an out-of-phase pattern to form a new plasmon that is massless and neutral – a demon.

Since these special particles are massless, he argued they can form with any energy and may exist at all temperatures – leading to speculation that the demons have important effects on the behaviour of some metals with multiple energy bands.

“The vast majority of experiments are done with light and measure optical properties, but being electrically neutral means that demons don’t interact with light,” Dr Abbamonte explained.

So a completely new experiment was needed to detect them.

In the research, scientists were studying the compound strontium ruthenate as it is similar to high-temperature superconductors – a special kind of material where electrical resistance vanishes.

For a survey of the metal’s electronic properties, they synthesised high-quality samples of the metal.

They then applied a technique to study the metal that uses energy from electrons shot into the metal to directly observe the metal’s features, including plasmons that form.

During their observation of the electron interactions, scientists found something unusual – an electronic mode with no mass.

“At first, we had no idea what it was. Demons are not in the mainstream. The possibility came up early on, and we basically laughed it off. But, as we started ruling things out, we started to suspect that we had really found the demon,” Ali Husain, another author of the study, said.

Researchers then sought to calculate how electrons are distributed across bands inside strontium ruthenate.

Predictions by Dr Pines indicate there are specific conditions when “demons” are likely to form, and it remained unknown whether strontium ruthenate would have the particle.

“We had to perform a microscopic calculation to clarify what was going on. When we did this, we found a particle consisting of two electron bands oscillating out-of-phase with nearly equal magnitude, just like Pines described,” found Edwin Huang, another author of the study.

“Our study confirms a 67-year-old prediction and indicates that demons may be a pervasive feature of multiband metals,” scientists wrote in the study.

Opinion
Britain’s surging deer population is causing an ecological disaster. I have a solution: wolves

George Monbiot
Fri, 11 August 2023

Photograph: Javier García/Rex/Shutterstock

What’s missing from this picture? I mean the picture of rural Britain many of us hold in our heads, whether it be a thatched and mullioned idyll, or the bare hills fetishised by naive nature writers? Well, quite a lot. Trees in the uplands; soft boundaries between habitats (ecotones) that are crucial for thriving food webs; dead wood, of which there’s a dearth in this country; scrub (a vital but derided habitat); undrained wetlands; and wild, healthy rivers. But there’s something else, something whose absence is less visible but just as important. Wolves.

Not just wolves, but any large or middling terrestrial predators. We talk here of wolves and lynx as “top” predators. But our native top predators, until modern humans finished them off, were lions, hyenas, bears and scimitar cats. Wolves and lynx would better be described as mesopredators. The wolf that didn’t howl helps solve the mystery of how this country, for all its love of nature, remains one of the most ecologically barren places on Earth.

A few years ago, and centuries after the last definite record in Britain (an animal killed in Sutherland in 1621), we started talking about wolves again. We also flirted with the idea of reintroducing lynx. Then we forgot again. While rewilding has spread further and faster in the past 10 years than I could have dreamed, it follows a certain pattern, described by ecologists as “non-trophic”. Trophic rewilding means bringing back important missing species, to restore ecological processes and create self-regulating systems. Instead, most of our rewilded places, while now much richer in nature, remain closely managed by people. People assume the role of wild predators, limiting the number of herbivores and moving them around. That’s fine as far as it goes. But we’re not very good at it.

‘Elsewhere in Europe, wolves have spread back into much of their former range.’ Photograph: Arterra Picture Library/Alamy


Until the early 20th century, deer were absent from much of Britain. The roe deer was extinct in England, the red deer confined to isolated pockets, and non-native fallow deer to deer parks and grand estates. A century later, Britain has six species of deer, four of them exotic: red, roe, fallow, Reeves’ muntjac, Chinese water deer and Japanese sika. Up to a point, the expansion of the deer population was a great success. Beyond that point, it’s a tremendous failure. Deer have done so well (except in Wales) that they now present a major problem.

There are no reliable estimates of deer numbers in Britain, but there’s no doubt they’ve grown massively and continue to rise. There are several reasons: more affordable food (until recently), which meant less poaching; new woodlands and plantations; warmer winters; and autumn sowing, which ensures there are crop plants for deer to eat all year round. But above all, their numbers grow because there are no effective means of controlling them. The result is success of the kind you wouldn’t expect in nature: one study estimates the survival rate of muntjac born in the UK at 60-70% and of roe deer at an astonishing 83%.

The result is ecological disaster. In many parts of the country, deer make the establishment of new woodlands or even maintenance of existing ones nigh on impossible. They browse out young trees and regrowth from cut stumps. The woods that aren’t overgrazed by livestock are overgrazed by deer. The effect is the same: as mature trees die, they’re not replaced. In the Scottish Highlands, trees return only when deer numbers are below around five per square km. But in some places, there are 15 or 20.

Heavy grazing in woods reduces the numbers of small mammals, of nightingales and other warblers, willow tits, dunnocks and many other species.

Every so often, a “major initiative” is launched to control deer numbers. Working groups, strategies and action plans are announced, then promptly abandoned. A few years later, someone else in government will discover the problem and launch a “major initiative” of their own.

There are three ways of controlling deer, and none of them work in the UK. The first is exclusion. Hard fencing is extremely expensive and no barrier to muntjac. Electric fences need constant maintenance and, for reasons that remain mysterious, roe deer scarcely mind them. Contraception is useless: you need to approach within 40 metres to fire a dart. There are no other safe means of delivering the chemicals to a deer population.

‘One study estimates the survival rate of roe deer born in the UK at an astonishing 83%.’ Photograph: FLPA/Alamy

All that remains is shooting. In some European countries, it works. The state decides how many deer should be shot, and landowners, working together, must implement the plan. But the British disease is the elevation of private interests above the common interest. Governments ensure no one can constrain the behaviour of major landowners, however grave its impacts. The House of Lords, where owners of overstocked deer estates are 10,000 times as populous as in the nations they’re deemed to represent, historically ensured that the interests of society can never override the interests of the lairds.

Governments have repeatedly sought to stimulate a market in venison to encourage more culling, but the only sure result has been to stimulate deer farming, especially in New Zealand, from which we now import 3,000 tonnes of this meat a year. It’s crazy in a country overrun with wild deer. Some of it is sold in Scotland as “Highland Game”.

After years of this nonsense, it’s obvious that humans in Britain are an unreliable control agent. They announce plans but don’t follow them through. They propose incentives, but either fail to deliver them or generate the wrong results. They fret about the problem, but constantly fail to solve it.

Wolves and lynx, by contrast, get on with the job. Wolves may hunt by committee, but they begin with a consensus position that hunting should happen. They require no incentives or action plans, strategy documents or working groups. Lynx, as solitary hunters, don’t even need to discuss the issue.

Elsewhere in Europe, these mesopredators, especially wolves, have spread back into much of their former range. Where wolves return, the outcome is less Little Red Riding Hood than Robin Hood: a redistribution of ecological wealth to the benefit of the whole system. Here, we stubbornly insist that their return is “unrealistic”. The “realistic” option, apparently, is to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results: ever more working groups, until the last tree falls and no saplings are left with which to replace it.

Bring back the wolf and the lynx and all the other native species that people in this country are prepared to accept. Our living systems – and our lives – will be the richer for them.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Christianity Today Editor: Evangelicals Call Jesus “Liberal” and “Weak”

Tori Otten
Thu, August 10, 2023 



The editor in chief of Christianity Today is warning that evangelical Christianity is moving too far to the right, to the point that even Jesus’s teachings are considered “weak” now.

Russell Moore resigned from the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021, after years of being at odds with other evangelical leaders. Specifically, Moore openly criticized Donald Trump, whom many evangelical Christians embraced. Moore also criticized the Southern Baptist Convention’s response to a sexual abuse crisis and increasing tolerance for white nationalism in the community.

Now he thinks his religion is in crisis.

Moore told NPR in an interview released Tuesday that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”

“What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,’” Moore said. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”

Moore said he thinks a large part of the issue is how divisive U.S. politics are, which is now spilling over into the church. He pointed to how a lot of issues are “packaged in terms of existential threat,” leading to the belief among everyone, not just evangelical Christians, that “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

It makes sense, then, that evangelical Christians would embrace Trump, who portrayed himself as the answer to many of those supposed existential threats. Trump both campaigned and governed on a largely evangelical Christian platform. He moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; he cracked down on immigration from majority-Muslim countries; and he appointed multiple conservative judges, including to the Supreme Court, which has swung sharply right.

He made good on his anti-abortion promises when the high court removed the nationwide right to the procedure in June. Many LGBTQ protections were rolled back under his watch, and during the June 2020 protests over George Floyd’s murder by police, he tear-gassed demonstrators so he could take a heavily posed picture with a Bible in front of St. John’s Church near the White House.

And as Trump swings ever further right, it makes sense that people who believe he will solve their problems will follow blindly.

WAIT, WHAT?!

Texas questions rights of a fetus after a prison guard who had a stillborn baby sues

JAKE BLEIBERG
Updated Fri, August 11, 2023 

DALLAS (AP) — The state of Texas is questioning the legal rights of an “unborn child” in arguing against a lawsuit brought by a prison guard who says she had a stillborn baby because prison officials refused to let her leave work for more than two hours after she began feeling intense pains similar to contractions.

The argument from the Texas attorney general's office appears to be in tension with positions it has previously taken in defending abortion restrictions, contending all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court that “unborn children” should be recognized as people with legal rights.

It also contrasts with statements by Texas' Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, who has touted the state's abortion ban as protecting “every unborn child with a heartbeat.”

The state attorney general's office did not immediately respond to questions about its argument in a court filing that an “unborn child” may not have rights under the U.S. Constitution. In March, lawyers for the state argued that the guard's suit “conflates” how a fetus is treated under state law and the Constitution.


“Just because several statutes define an individual to include an unborn child does not mean that the Fourteenth Amendment does the same,” they wrote in legal filing that noted that the guard lost her baby before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion established under its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

That claim came in response to a federal lawsuit brought last year by Salia Issa, who alleges that hospital staff told her they could have saved her baby had she arrived sooner. Issa was seven months' pregnant in 2021, when she reported for work at a state prison in the West Texas city of Abilene and began having a pregnancy emergency.

Her attorney, Ross Brennan, did not immediately offer any comment. He wrote in a court filing that the state’s argument is “nothing more than an attempt to say — without explicitly saying — that an unborn child at seven months gestation is not a person.”

While working at the prison, Issa began feeling pains “similar to a contraction” but when she asked to be relived from her post to go to the hospital her supervisors refused and accused her of lying, according to the complaint she filed along with her husband. It says the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's policy states that a corrections officer can be fired for leaving their post before being relived by another guard.

Issa was eventually relieved and drove herself to the hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery, the suit says.

Issa, whose suit was first reported by The Texas Tribune, is seeking monetary damages to cover her medical bills, pain and suffering, and other things, including the funeral expenses of the unborn child. The state attorney general's office and prison system have asked a judge to dismiss the case.

Laura Hermer, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, described Texas' legal posture as “seeking to have their cake and eat it too.”

“This would not be the first time that the state has sought to claim to support the right to life of all fetuses, yet to act quite differently when it comes to protecting the health and safety of such fetuses other than in the very narrow area of prohibiting abortions,” Hermer said.

Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower recommended that the case be allowed to proceed, in part, without addressing the arguments over the rights of the fetus.