Osprey died of old age, post-mortem examination finds

Police Scotland confirmed on Tuesday that ‘no criminality had been established’ after the discovery of remains on May 3.

PA Media  Osprey LM12 who was found dead in May

PA Media
Posted inPerth and Kinross

An osprey found dead on a nature reserve died of old age, a post-mortem examination has confirmed.

Osprey LM12 was found dead in May, on the Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve, near Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross, run by the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

Police Scotland confirmed on Tuesday that “no criminality had been established” after the discovery of the male bird’s remains on May 3.

A spokesperson said: “It is believed the protected species, which is thought to have been nesting at Loch of the Lowes, close to where it was found, died from natural causes.”

The bird was thought to be around 15 years old, and died of bleeding from stomach ulcers, with no traces of poison found.

It returned to the wildlife haven in March for his 13th breeding season, and raised 21 chicks.

For the past five years, it has bred with female osprey NC0, with whom it raised seven chicks. It had also found a new mate.

Sara Rasmussen, the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Perthshire ranger, said: “The post-mortem has revealed that the male osprey died of bleeding from stomach ulcers. There was no indication of lead or any other poisoning – evidently, old age played its part.

“We think he was at least 15 years old.

“This finding is a great relief to the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and I’m sure to our visitors, staff, volunteers and the thousands of people who tune into the Loch of the Lowes osprey webcam each week and have followed LM12 over the years.”

European Movement UK delivers 30,000+ signatures to new Prime Minister 

European Movement calls on the government to take concrete steps to reset the UK's relations with European leaders

byNorth East Bylines

 20-08-2024 17:07

in European News

Reading Time: 3 mins

European Movement presents petition

European Movement UK has presented the new Prime Minister with a petition signed by over 30,000 people, calling for immediate steps to rebuild the UK’s relationship with the European Union. 

This comes as recent polls show 59% of Britons now favour rejoining the EU, signalling a clear shift in public opinion on the UK’s relationship with the EU. 59% of Brits now support rejoining the EU 

The organisation is urging the new Prime Minister to capitalise on the momentum generated by the European Political Community Summit, calling on the new government to take concrete steps to reset the UK’s relations with European leaders. 

The petition, an open letter to Keir Starmer, outlines the key points of European Movement UK’s Manifesto on Europe, a blueprint for rebuilding UK-EU relations published during the general election campaign.  

European Movement’s manifesto

The four points of the Manifesto urge Starmer to: 

1. Promote a pragmatic foreign policy which has at its heart the UK working in much closer collaboration with all our European neighbours. 
2. Commission an independent ‘State of the Nation’ assessment of our future relations with Europe, with clear, objective analysis and recommendations to the Government as to how any improvements can be made, and proposing remedies for negative impacts Brexit is having on the UK economy and key cultural and societal sectors. 
3. Seek deeper agreements with the EU on shared issues from defence to food safety to fighting climate change, establishing a new working framework with the European Union. 
4. Put the rights of a generation hit hardest by Brexit first by opening negotiations with the European Union to restore the UK’s inclusion in Erasmus+ and accept the invitation to negotiate a bilateral youth mobility scheme. 

Handing-in the petition were representatives of European Movement UK, European Movement in Scotland, Wales for Europe and Young European Movement UK. 

A South London Council Is Firing Its Two Key Union Organisers, Before Making £25m of Cuts

Activists allege ‘union busting’ and ‘institutional racism’.

by Michael Chessum
20 August 2024

Justine Canady and Jay Kidd-Morton. Photo: Lewisham Unison

Lewisham, in south London, is a de-facto one-party state. Labour has won all but one of its 54 council seats for the past decade. The last time the party lost control, the Beatles had yet to release Abbey Road. The council is self-consciously progressive, emphasising co-production and community development. But despite cuts of £173m in the ten years to 2020, its main union branch, Unison, was notoriously placid and inactive.

Then, in the spring of 2023, a new generation of trade unionists took the helm. Justine Canady cut her teeth in the McStrike campaign and student activism. She had started working for the council in 2021, and brought together an alliance to rejuvenate the branch. “I think a lot of things came together at once,” she says. “It was the cost of living crisis and there was a national strike wave happening. Both because of that and because of their own personal situation, people were desperate to have an active union.”

At the age of 25, Canady became the youngest Unison branch secretary in the country. The new leadership quickly got results. Lewisham didn’t reach the 50% turnout threshold required to take part in strike action over pay (only two of Unison’s local government branches, Knowsley and Lambeth, did) but it did achieve one of the best ballot results in the country.

The branch turned its attention to organising low-paid migrant workers, especially cleaners and refuse workers, winning better in-house conditions and preventing cuts to overtime work. “It was slow progress,” Canady says, “but it was a start and we ended up with a team of activists and a branch committee that was much more representative of the diversity of the workforce”. In March this year, she was joined as joint-branch secretary by Jay Kidd-Morton, formerly the branch’s Black members’ officer.

A protest outside Lewisham council. Photo: Michael Chessum

Local government was once the cutting edge of progressive politics. Long before the Daily Mail complained of the “woke mob” and Tory “common sense minister” and GB News presenter Esther McVey banned civil servants from wearing rainbow lanyards, the Tory press marked out the Greater London Council as the home of the “loony left” over its support for gay rights and innovations in democratic community politics. The rate-capping rebellions of the late 1980s and the Poplar Rebellion of 1921 were the product of local administrations that were deeply rooted and, as a result, politically ambitious and antagonistic towards the status quo.

Since the 1980s, however, changes to the Labour party’s rules have meant a much tighter central grip on the councillor selection process. Meanwhile, the decline of the wider labour movement has pushed many once-powerful trade union branches into disrepair. Then came austerity. Between 2010 and 2024, council funding per capita fell by 18%, with many areas experiencing more than double that. Now, with a change of government at Westminster, a new generation of trade unionists should be capable of turning the tide – but not without a fight.

On 21 June, things started to get messy for Canady and Kidd-Morton. Lewisham council staff received an email from chief executive Jennifer Daothong informing them that, because of overspending, the council would be making £25m of cuts. Children’s services and adult social care are expected to be the hardest hit, though council leaders have yet to set out exactly where the axe will fall.

Shortly after the cuts were announced, the council moved against both of the union’s branch secretaries. In May, Canady had been summoned to a meeting and informed that her substantive post, a communications role in fostering recruitment, was being deleted. As she was on full-time release for union activities, Lewisham clarified that she could stay on as branch secretary, as had been the case with her predecessor. Managers also agreed to postpone the issuing of any redundancy notice until March 2025.

But in July, management suddenly u-turned, insisting that the deletion of her post would remove her from the council entirely. “It completely changed,” Canady says. “One minute they were reassuring me and then suddenly they’re asking how quickly Unison could hold a meeting to elect my replacement”. Lewisham served her formal notice of redundancy on 29 July. As things stand, she will be unemployed on 10 September.

At around the same time, Jay Kidd-Morton and her colleagues in the legal department were set to return to work. In an overwhelmingly white department, her team is predominantly Black and Asian. They are legally trained but do not have practising certificates, and so must have their work supervised by a ‘principal’ lawyer. In November 2023, they were put on special leave when it emerged that their work had gone unsupervised for around two years. An investigation, which ended in April 2024, concluded that the workers had done nothing wrong, effectively placing the blame for the situation with the council. But when the team of lawyers arrived at their ‘return to work arrangements’ meeting on 9 July, managers read them a script informing them that they would be dismissed.

A spokesperson for Lewisham council said: “As a council we have strong and valued relationships with our unions and work constructively with them to ensure our staff have access to union representation. We also have a responsibility to provide value for money for our residents and to ensure that our staff and structures are fit for purpose and delivering high-quality services.

“We cannot comment on specific employment issues but can confirm we are following our normal HR processes, as we would for any member of staff in similar circumstances. In the meantime, we are in active dialogue and discussions with Unison to ensure it can continue its important role in supporting our staff.”

When asked directly, Lewisham declined to comment on why, in contrast to previous precedent, it is insisting that union reps on full-time release cannot remain in post if their original jobs are deleted. It also declined to comment on why and when it had changed its position on the use of lawyers without practising certificates. Perhaps its decision to dismiss both Justine Canady and Jay Kidd-Morton is coincidental and unrelated to their trade union work, or to the £25m of cuts announced around the same time.

Either way, Lewisham’s roughly 3,000 employees could now be left without a functioning Unison branch just as a major round of cuts gets underway. For many of them, recent events have been a spur to action. Regular demonstrations have congregated outside Lewisham town hall for a number of weeks, and earlier this month Lewisham Unison voted to move towards a ballot for strike action. “You think you’re safe in a Labour council to have an open union membership and be an activist,” says Canady. “A lot of people have been shocked by what’s happening, and new people get involved or indicate their support pretty much every day.”

All bosses seem invincible until suddenly they aren’t. Many of them are tempted by the idea that active trade unionism is an anachronism, and that people like Canady and Kidd-Morton are ghosts from another era. But, like many of the self-professed modernisers in public life, they may soon find that it is they who are swimming against the historical tide.


Michael Chessum is a socialist activist and writer based in London.

Are the majority of British people ‘settled’ on leaving the ECHR?

20 August 2024

What was claimed

A majority of the British public are settled on leaving the ECHR.

Our verdict

It was reported last year that a poll found that a majority of people were in favour of leaving the ECHR, but the poll in question didn’t explicitly ask about the Convention. Recent polls which directly asked about the ECHR found a small majority of respondents said the UK should remain a member.

“She’s [Priti Patel MP] proud of her record of emboldening mass immigration between 2021 until now, and she won’t even leave the ECHR. These are things about which actually the majority of the British people, I think, are settled”.

Richard Tice MP, 18 August 2024.

During an interview on GB News on 18 August Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice MP suggested he thought “the majority of the British people” were “settled” on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The ECHR is an international agreement that has been in force since 1953 and is overseen by the European Court of Human Rights. All European countries, with the exception of Belarus and Russia, are members of the Convention.

We’ve asked Mr Tice what his comments were based on. 

Last year it was reported that a poll found that a majority of people were in favour of leaving the ECHR.

However, it’s worth noting that the poll, which was conducted by Whitestone Insights on behalf of the New Conservatives (a parliamentary group of Conservative MPs), did not explicitly reference the ECHR.

Instead, respondents were asked to what extent they’d support a policy to “replace the current European system of human rights laws applied in Britain with new British laws that protect rights like free speech but enable the Government to promptly deport illegal migrants”.

30% of respondents answered “support strongly”, with a further 24% answering “tend to support”, for a combined 54% of respondents who expressed support for this policy.

But a number of polls conducted by YouGov which did directly ask about the ECHR found that a majority of respondents were not in favour of leaving the Convention.

In June this year, a poll found that 54% of respondents said the UK “should remain a member” of the ECHR, while a poll in November 2023 found 51% of respondents said the UK should remain a member.

We’ve written in the past about why the way survey questions are phrased can impact poll results.

• By Hannah Smith

UK
Pro-Palestinian activists jailed over weapons equipment factory protest
Getty Images
A group of activists set off smoke bombs during the protest

BBC

Five pro-Palestinian protesters who caused more than £1m of damage to a weapons equipment factory in Glasgow have been jailed.

The group scaled a roof, unfurled banners and set off pyrotechnics at the Thales UK building in Govan on 1 June 2022.

Two of them entered the building itself and a smoke bomb was thrown into an area where staff were being evacuated, Glasgow Sheriff Court was told.

Stuart Bretherton, 25, Eva Simmons, 25, Calum Lacy, 23, Erica Hygate, 23 received 12-month sentences, while Sumaya Javaid, 22, was jailed for 14 months.

Getty Images
Some protesters managed to scale the roof of the Thales building


There were shouts of "free Palestine" and "you are preventing genocide" by supporters in the public gallery as the five were led into custody.

The French firm Thales manufactures a wide range of military equipment including drone components.

It has often been targeted by activists because it has partnerships with Israeli companies, although it denies it supplies the Israeli military.

Sheriff John McCormick said the group had been spotted at the site early in the morning, dressed in red overalls, as they scaled the security fence.

They made it onto the roof of the main building where they unfurled banners and flags, as more protesters gathered outside.

"Miss Hygate and Miss Javaid entered the building through the roof and caused damage including to parts essential to submarines," the sheriff said.

"Fire alarms were activated which caused an evacuation and confusion as well as panic among staff.

"You set off pyrotechnics and smoke bombs - some thrown in the area where staff where evacuated. The smoke was dangerously close to the members of staff."

Some protesters remained on the roof overnight and glued their hands to the building to prevent police removing them.

The damage was estimated at £1,130,783 and the site was shut due to safety concerns.

The sheriff said the figure did not include the cost the public purse of the police operation which involved more than 20 officers.

He said everyone had a right to lawful protest but he disputed a claim in a background report that the group's actions were "non-violent".

"Throwing pyrotechnics at areas where people are being evacuated to cannot be described as non violent," he said.

Bretherton, of Kilmacolm, Simmons, of London, Lacy of Edinburgh, Hygate and Javaid - both from Birmingham - admitted conducting themselves in a disorderly manner.

Hygate and Javaid admitted malicious mischief charges, while Javaid also pled guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner.

Pro-Palestinian protesters jailed for £1m damage at weapons factory

The five protesters scaled the Thales UK building in Govan and unfurled banners and erected flags in the incident in 2022.

Palestine Action ScotlandThe group have been jailed for five years and two months.

STV News
Glasgow City


A group of Pro-Palestinian protesters who caused over £1m of damages at a weapons factory have been jailed for a total of five years and two months.

Stuart Bretherton, 25, Eva Simmons, 25, Calum Lacy, 23, Erica Hygate, 23 and Sumaya Javaid, 22, scaled the Thales UK building in Govan on June 1, 2022.

The five protesters remained on the roof, unfurled banners and erected flags as well as ignited pyrotechnics.

The building had its fire alarm activated after Hygate and Javaid entered which prompted an evacuation.

Palestine Action Scotland

A smoke bomb was thrown into the area staff were being evacuated to which caused panic.

Two of the protesters remained at the building overnight and glued themselves to the roof after refusing to engage with police.

A total of £1,130,783 of damage was caused and the premises were shut due to safety concerns.

Bretherton, of Kilmacolm, Inverclyde, Simmons, of London, Lacy of Edinburgh as well as Hygate and Javaid of Birmingham, pled guilty to conducting themselves in a disorderly manner.

Hygate further admitted at Glasgow Sheriff Court to malicious mischief while Javaid separately pled to malicious mischief and behaving in a threatening or abusive manner.

Palestine Action Scotland

All bar Javaid received 12-month sentences while she was jailed for 14 months.

Sheriff John McCormick said: “At 6.25am, police saw you in the perimeter dressed in orange or red overalls, some had rucksacks and balaclavas.

“Police saw you quickly scale the fence using ladders which you discarded.

“You were confined to the roof of the main building, you attempted to climb on a derelict water tower and beckoned others.

“You unfurled banners and unveiled flags. Palestinian protesters gathered adjacent to the site and showed support for you.

“Multiple police resources arrived and were positioned around the building.

“Ms Hygate and Ms Javaid entered the building through the roof and caused damage including to parts essential to submarines.

“Fire alarms were activated which caused an evacuation and confusion as well as panic among staff.

“You set off pyrotechnics and smoke bombs – some thrown in the area where staff where evacuated.

“The smoke was dangerously close to the members of staff.

“Mr Bretheron, Ms Simmons and Mr Lacy were seen to move back and forth on the rooftop. They were seen to gather their belongings and stated their intention was to climb down a ladder.

“Ms Hygate and Ms Javaid of you refused to desist and remained overnight after refusing to engage with a police liaison.

“You glued your hands to the edge of the roof and remained there until officers were able to take your hands away.

“Ms Javaid was obstructive and required leg restraints.

“The court has to have regard to the major impact this had – the impact on employees as well as police and emergency services resources.

“A total of 20 constables, one inspector and two sergeants were there over two days or four shifts.

“The premises were shut due to safety concerns and disrupting business activities which included matters of nationwide security.

“The damage caused cost £1,130,783 which does not include the cost to the public purse, police or emergency service personnel.”

The sheriff stated that in one background report, one of the protesters claimed that their actions were non-violent.

He responded: “Throwing pyrotechnics at areas where people are being evacuated to cannot be described as non-violent.”

The sheriff told all five that they were “young and intelligent” and that everyone had the right to lawful protest.

However, Sheriff McCormick added: “You expressed a high level of regret to your actions and I give weight to that.

“Due to the gravity and the consequences, there is no suitable alternative to custody.”

Five Palestine Action activists jailed for occupying weapons factory

By

 5Pillars (RMS)

 -

20th August 2024

Five activists from Palestine Action Scotland have been jailed after they occupied a weapons factory owned by a French firm which has partnerships with Israeli weapons manufacturers.

Stuart Bretherton and Eva Simmons, both 25, Calum Lacy, 23, Erica Hygate, 23 and Sumaya Javaid, 22, scaled the Thales UK building in Govan, Glasgow, on June 1, 2022.

The five occupied the roof of the arms maker and dropped banners to disrupt production. Two of them also damaged weaponry inside the building. In total, they cost Thales’ over £1million in losses.

The activists pled guilty to conducting themselves in a disorderly manner.

Hygate further admitted at Glasgow Sheriff Court to malicious mischief while Javaid separately pled guilty to malicious mischief and behaving in a threatening or abusive manner.

Three who were convicted of breach of the peace were given 12 month custodial sentences, whereas two who were convicted of breach of the peace and malicious mischief were given 14 months and 16 months custodial sentences.

They are expected to serve half of their sentences in prison.

The judge stated the aim of the sentences was to deter further activism against weapons companies in Scotland.

Thales is one of the world’s largest arms companies – producing armoured vehicles, missile systems and military UAVs (drones). According to Palestine Action, Thales works in partnership with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company, to produce military drones in their joint owned factory in Leicester called UAV Tactical Systems.

Sheriff John McCormick said: “The court has to have regard to the major impact this had – the impact on employees as well as police and emergency services resources. A total of 20 constables, one inspector and two sergeants were there over two days or four shifts.

“The premises were shut due to safety concerns and disrupting business activities which included matters of nationwide security. The damage caused cost £1,130,783 which does not include the cost to the public purse, police or emergency service personnel.”

There are now 16 Palestine Action activists in prison, detained for what they say is “taking action against complicity with colonialism and genocide.”

A Palestine Action spokesperson said: “Imprisoning activists for taking action against Scotland’s arms trade with Israel only serves to protect companies enabling genocide. Such sentences will urge more people to acknowledge Scottish complicity with the ongoing Gaza genocide and motivate them to take action against it. It is those who arm the massacres of the Palestinian people who are guilty, not those who take action to stop them.”

Thales denies supporting the Israeli military.

World will reflect on Gaza conflict as ‘time of dark shame’ – Taoiseach

The world has not done enough to bring about a ceasefire, Simon Harris said.


Simon Harris called for an urgent review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement (Brian Lawless/PA)

PA Wire
Cillian Sherlock

TODAY


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The world has not done enough to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, the Irish premier has said.


Simon Harris called for an urgent review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement as he said human rights clauses in the trade pact were being breached.


Mr Harris warned that the world would look back on the conflict as a “time of dark shame”.


The Taoiseach said he asked himself “every single day” what more the Irish Government could do.


When we look back at this period of time, it will be a time of dark shame for the world

Simon Harris


Speaking in Dublin on Tuesday, he said: “I find the scenes that are happening in the Middle East to be grotesque and almost unimaginable in terms of the scale of catastrophe.

“I’ve called it a war on children, I believe it to be that. The actions of Israel are utterly disproportionate.


“I’m also very conscious when it comes to things like trade, that is done at an EU level.


“To be clear, I do not believe the world, the European Union, has done enough to bring about a ceasefire.



“I believe when we look back at this period of time, it will be a time of dark shame for the world.


“Because there are levers that could be pulled at the European level that have not yet been pulled.”


Mr Harris said there was more that the European Union could do immediately, adding there are “levers that could be pulled”.



Human rights clauses are not there just to make the document longer

Simon Harris


He said he and the prime ministers of Spain and Slovenia were calling for the EU-Israel Association Agreement to be reviewed.



Mr Harris said: “I hope other colleagues will join us should these talks not progress in the hours and days ahead. That is a very practical measure that we can take.


“What message do we send out to the world when we have human rights clauses in trade association agreements that don’t seem to kick in?


“I mean, they’re not there just to make the document longer – they have to have meaning.”

NGOs call for UK government to ban arms sales to Israel over Gaza onslaught

UK lawyers have brought claims of Israeli war crimes to court to stop the British government from supplying arms to Israel following Gaza onslaught.

Anam Alam
20 August, 2024

The case features 14 witness statements spanning over 100 pages from Palestinian and western medical workers, detailing claims of Israeli war crimes [GETTY]

A group of NGOs are seeking an arms embargo on Israel by the UK government due to the onslaught on Gaza, which has seen at least 40,173 people killed.

Lawyers have put forward a case detailing claims of Palestinians being tortured, left untreated in hospital, and unable to escape Israel's continuous assaults on Gaza to the high court in London, The Guardian reported.

The lawyers are acting on behalf of a group of NGOs, including Al-Haq, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), and Human Rights Watch.

It is the first attempt to put such "graphic testimony of alleged Israeli war crimes in front of a British judge" since 7 October, according to the publication.

The lawyers submitting the claim are seeking an order to prevent the UK government from continuing to grant arms export licences to British companies selling arms to Israel.

The case consists of 14 witness statements spanning over 100 pages coming from Palestinian and Western medical doctors working in hospitals in Gaza, as well as ambulance drivers, civil defence, and aid workers.

The "graphic evidence" is reportedly made to support a request for a court order that the UK government has acted "irrationally" when refusing an arms ban to Israel, asserting there is no risk the weapons used are violating international law.

Unlike the US, the UK government grants individual licenses to companies exporting arms overseas.

The UK government has a statutory test to determine whether to grant these licenses; if there is a clear risk the weapons might be used to violate international humanitarian law, then exports will not be granted.

The Labour government is reviewing this test, but activists have accused it of deliberately prolonging a decision while Israel's war on Gaza continues.

"The UK Government continues to allow the sale of arms to Israel, despite knowing that they are likely being used to commit war crimes," Magnus Corfixen, Oxfam's humanitarian lead, told The New Arab.

"This threshold has long been met. The UK government must immediately halt all arms sales, on both new and existing licences, whether sold directly to Israel or via a third party. A partial suspension of exports to Israel will not be enough," Corfixen adds.

The UK still grants arms exports to Israel despite continuous calls for arms to be withheld amid mass civilian casualties and the destruction of schools, shelters for refugees, and whole neighbourhoods.

The Israeli military says it is acting within humanitarian law and in "self-defence" although this claim has been widely disputed by NGOs and legal experts.

Following the killing of three British aid workers in April by a targeted Israeli strike, the UK concluded it would not suspend arms exports after reviewing a further three months of Israeli bombardment.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians also alleged that the engine used in the Hermes 450 drone responsible for the killing of the aid workers was UK-made.

The UK has licensed at least £576 million ($740 million) worth of arms exports to Israel since 2008.

UK

Academics warn Goldsmiths damage done despite agreement

Some staff had already taken redundancy before union strike threat forced deal

By Chris Parr

Image: mikecphoto, via Shutterstock

Staff at Goldsmiths, University of London, have called off strike action after the institution ruled out further compulsory redundancies—but one former employee has said the damage has already been done in some departments.

On Friday the UCU said continuous strike action due to start on 23 September would not take place, after an agreement was reached with university managers. Multiple strikes have already taken place at the South London campus.

The UCU said the agreement guarantees that 14 staff at risk of compulsory redundancy will now keep their jobs, and that no staff will be made compulsorily redundant during the 2024-25 academic year. A planned marking and assessment boycott has also been cancelled, it added.

‘Hard-won agreement’

Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, said that by taking sustained industrial action, union members had “not only protected many more jobs, as well as courses, they have also saved an institution that was in danger of burning down its own house”.

“This hard-won agreement is a testament to their strength,” she said. “Vice-chancellors across the country must learn from this dispute and realise that wherever they try to make staff pay the price for financial mismanagement and a failed funding model, we will organise relentlessly to defend jobs and protect student provision.”

‘Workloads will be high’

Emma Jackson, former director of the Centre for Urban and Community at Goldsmiths, said that while she was “delighted for the 14 people whose jobs this will save”, more than 60 academics—including herself— had already taken redundancy “as we were told it was that or be made redundant”.

“A win for the union is that the senior management team have agreed not to carry out any compulsory redundancies next academic year, so at least those who are staying have a year without that hanging over their head,” she said.

“However, in my former department of sociology, over 50 per cent of staff have been made redundant and workloads will be very high for remaining staff.”

‘Difficult times’

A spokesperson for Goldsmiths said: “These are difficult times for universities, and we are doing everything we can to protect what makes Goldsmiths a special and unique place. We recognise the important role our campus unions play in this and will continue working with them for the good of our students and staff.”

Should employees get 'unhappy leave'?

 Boss at Chinese company lets workers take up to ten days off a year if they're feeling sad and 'need to relax'Yu Donglai, CEO of Pang Dong Lai, to grant workers 10 days of additional leave

It comes as the new Labour government in UK pushes 'right to switch off' plan

By Jowena Riley
20 August 2024

A company in China has introduced a groundbreaking new policy to ensure employees achieve a better work-life balance - but should it be adopted by businesses in the UK?

Yu Donglai, founder and chairman of retail chain Pang Dong Lai, has established 'unhappy leave', which enables employees to apply for an additional ten days off if they're hit by mental health problems.

The new policy is part of a broader effort to prioritise employee well-being, and comes alongside other benefits such as a seven-hour workday and 30 to 40 days of annual leave.

In the UK, Labour this week announced that it was considering a 'right to switch off' plan that could help employees draw a line between their work and home life.

As outlined in the party's campaign pledge, workers who are relentlessly contacted by their bosses outside of work hours could be entitled to compensation.

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A company in China has introduced a groundbreaking new policy to ensure employees achieve a better work-life balance - but should it be adopted by businesses in the UK?

The government is looking to push out a code of practice which sets out normal working hours and clarifies when an employee can expect to be contacted by their employer.

The policy, believed to be spearheaded by deputy PM Angela Raynor, includes the right for workers to refuse taking on extra work on weekends or to carry out work-related tasks while on annual leave.

Pushy bosses who repeatedly breach the agreement could be taken to an employment tribunal and forced to pay thousands of pounds in compensation.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in China, helping employees achieve a good work-life balance is currently down to employers, but the idea of 'unhappy leave' could catch on.

According to South China Morning Post, the company behind it, Pang Dong Lai, currently employs 7,000 workers, and each of them will benefit from Yu's newly introduced "unhappy leave."

The policy ensures staff can apply for an additional 10 days of leave to freely determine their own rest time and have sufficient relaxation outside of work.

As well as weekends off and 30 to 40 days of annual leave, employees are also entitled to a further five days off during the Lunar New Year.⁠

Yu said: 'We do not want to be big. We want our employees to have a healthy and relaxed life, so that the company will too. Freedom and love are very important.

Yu Donglai (pictured), founder and chairman of retail chain Pang Dong Lai, has established "unhappy leave," which enables employees to apply for an additional 10 days of leave

As well as weekends off and 30 to 40 days of annual leave, Yu's employees are also entitled to a further five days off during the Lunar New Year

'I want every staff member to have freedom. Everyone has times when they're not happy, so if you're not happy, do not come to work.'

He added: 'This leave cannot be denied by management. Denial is a violation.'

The idea has since garnered support on mainland China social media, with people taking to platform Weibo to praise the company.

One person wrote: 'Such a good boss and this company culture should be promoted nationwide.'

The push for a work-life balance has steadily become a talking point as reports indicate that work-related stress remains a significant issue in the UK.

The Labour government is looking to introduce the 'right to switch off' in a plan believed to be spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor (pictured)

According to Champion Health, the most common cause of stress in the UK is work-related - with 79 per cent of Brits reporting that they frequently experience it.

As of 2022, 13.7 million working days are lost each year in the UK because of work-related stress, anxiety and depression, costing £28.3 billion yearly.

As the UK government considers Labour Party’s 'right to switch off' proposal, the question arises: should the concept of "unhappy leave" be explored as well?

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Artificial intelligence: A reading list

Research Briefing
Published Tuesday, 20 August, 2024

This briefing provides a selection of reading on artificial intelligence, including UK Government policy.

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What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) can take many different forms and there is no single, universally agreed, definition. The term is frequently used as a shorthand to refer to technologies that perform the types of cognitive functions typically associated with humans, including reasoning, learning and solving problems.

To perform these types of functions, AI systems generally rely on vast amounts of data. This data may be ‘structured’ or ‘unstructured’. Structured data is typically stored in a fixed format and can be more easily analysed and processed, such as financial transactions that have a date, time and amount. Unstructured data includes images, videos and text files; it is not organised according to a predefined structure, it is generally unformatted and is much harder to analyse.

Both types of data can be used to ‘train’ AI so that it can recognise patterns and correlations. This is achieved by the AI system applying rules (algorithms), based on the training dataset, to interpret new data and perform a specific task. In some instances, the AI is supervised and trained with data sets labelled by humans, as explained in this example from IBM:

A data scientist training an image recognition model to recognize dogs and cats must label sample images as “dog” or “cat”, as well as key features—like size, shape or fur—that inform those primary labels. The model can then, during training, use these labels to infer the visual characteristics typical of “dog” and “cat.”

This is useful for AI systems designed to look for specific things, such as spam emails.

In other instances, the system is unsupervised and the data is left unlabelled. Under these conditions, the system autonomously identifies patterns in the data. This is useful where the AI is designed to find something that is not known in advance, such as online shopping recommendations.

UK Government policy and regulation

The UK does not have any AI-specific regulation or legislation covering the technology. Instead, AI is regulated in the context in which it is used, through existing legal frameworks, such as financial services legislation.

Some regulators, however, have oversight of the development, implementation, and use of AI more broadly. For example, the Information Commissioner’s Office (the UK’s independent body established to uphold information rights) has guidance on its website covering AI and data protection and explaining decisions made with AI.

The Johnson and Sunak governments started developing a more comprehensive regulatory framework for AI. This included publishing strategy documents and a white paper on AI.

As part of its aim to “ensure the UK gets the national and international governance of AI technologies right” the government ran a public consultation on regulating AI in 2022. A white paper – A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation – followed in March 2023.

In the paper, the government proposed that AI would continue to be overseen by existing regulators covering specific sectors, such as Ofcom (the UK’s communications regulator), Ofgem (the energy regulator in Great Britain), and the Financial Conduct Authority (the UK’s conduct regulator for financial services). This context-based approach to regulation was favoured by the government, rather than creating a single regulatory function, and uniform rules, to govern AI.

The government proposed that AI regulation would be informed by five, cross-sector principles which regulators will “interpret and apply within their remits in order to drive safe, responsible AI innovation”. The principles are:Safety, security and robustness
Appropriate transparency and explainability

Fairness
Accountability and governance
Contestability and redress

While the Conservative government decided against creating a single regulatory function to govern AI, it proposed that existing regulators would be aided by “central support functions”, established by the government, such as horizon scanning for emerging risks and trends, and monitoring the overall regulatory framework. The government also proposed that the five principles would not, at least initially, be subject to new regulation, but instead would be implemented by existing regulators.

A further consultation accompanied the publication of the white paper. The government’s response was published in February 2024 and confirmed that it remained committed to its cross-sector principles and “context-specific” approach to regulation. It said that it would seek to build on this in the future, only legislating when it was “confident that it is the right thing to do”.

Both the Labour Party’s 2024 election manifesto and the King’s Speech indicate that the Labour government is looking to take a different approach to the previous government towards regulating AI. In its 2024 manifesto (PDF) the Labour Party said it would “ensure the safe development and use of AI models by introducing binding regulation on the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models”. Similarly, in the King’s Speech, the Labour Government said that it would “harness the power of artificial intelligence as we look to strengthen safety frameworks” and signalled that it would “place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models”.

Use of AI in different sectors

AI is currently being used across many different industries, from finance to healthcare. In 2022, the UK Government reported that “around 15% of all businesses (432,000 companies) had adopted at least one AI technology”. AI is also used in the public sector. The NHS AI Lab, for example, is focused on developing and deploying AI systems in health and care. In 2023, the government provided funding of £21 million to roll out AI imaging and decision support tools to help analyse chest X-rays, support stroke diagnosis and manage conditions at home.

The Food Standards Agency uses an AI tool to help local authorities prioritise inspections by predicting which establishments “might be at a higher risk of non-compliance with food hygiene regulations”. The government also announced in January 2023 that it would be using AI to help “find and prevent more fraud across the public sector”.

Safety and ethics

The UK Government interprets AI safety to mean the prevention and mitigation of harms (whether accidental or deliberate) from AI. Harms may arise from the ethical challenges that complex AI can present. These include the ‘black box problem’, where the inputs to and outputs from an AI system are known but humans cannot decipher – and the AI cannot explain – the process it went through to reach a particular conclusion, decision, or output. The AI’s decision-making process, in other words, is not transparent nor accountable to humans.

Such decisions may, in addition, be susceptible to biases, such as ’embedded bias’. Embedded biases arise from relying on training data that reflects social and historical inequalities. These inequalities are then perpetuated in the outputs from the system. As IBM explains, “using flawed training data can result in algorithms that repeatedly produce errors, unfair outcomes, or even amplify the bias inherent in the flawed data”. In addition, there are concerns about the privacy and security implications of AI, including the use of sensitive data to train AI systems, as well as the ability of those systems to infer personal information.

The UK Government and others have also considered “loss of control risks” in which human oversight and control over a highly advanced, autonomous AI system is lost, leaving it free to take harmful actions. There is an ongoing, contentious debate about such ‘existential risks’ and their likelihood. The Ada Lovelace Institute has emphasised that we should not lose sight of the harms that can arise from existing (rather than futuristic) AI systems.