Husband of Crooked House pub owner suffered major fire on firm’s landfill site

Jamie Bullen
Wed, 16 August 2023 

The Crooked House, known as the country’s wonkiest pub, was destroyed by fire on Aug 5 - Jacob King/PA

The husband of the owner of the burnt down Crooked House pub previously experienced a major fire on land belonging to a company of which he is a director, it has emerged.

Land Registry documents show that Adam Taylor – whose wife Carly bought the 18th century pub in Himley, near Dudley in the West Midlands, in July – is a director of AT Contracting and Plant Hire, which owns a Buckinghamshire landfill site where a huge blaze broke out five years ago.

In August 2018, eight fire crews from across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire tackled a fire at Finmere, where hundreds of tons of waste were engulfed by flames.


Firefighters pumped water from a nearby lake, with the incident happening during a spate of field fires across Oxfordshire in what was a hot and dry summer.

The cause of the Finmere fire was never established, a spokesman for Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue said.

A huge blaze broke out at the Finmere landfill site, in Buckinghamshire, in 2018

The Crooked House, known as the country’s wonkiest pub after it was affected by mining subsidence in the 19th century, was destroyed by fire on Aug 5 and demolished two days later without permission.

Staffordshire Police said it was treating the fire as arson, with calls growing for the pub to be rebuilt brick by brick. On Monday, hopes for a reconstruction were boosted when Historic England said it was considering “all possible avenues”.

“We offered our support to South Staffordshire Council last week and have been in regular contact with the council since to provide specialist advice as needed,” said a spokesman. “We are also happy to engage with the local community.”

The body said it had already received 36 applications for listed status for the pub site since the fire, but emphasised that no decision had yet been made. It had received two applications before the pub’s destruction.

Campaigners are calling for the Crooked House to be rebuilt brick by brick - Matthew Cooper/PA

Mrs Taylor, a 34-year-old former hair stylist, bought the 250-year-old building from Marston’s brewery in July. It had been listed for sale for £675,000.

The pub is accessed via a road owned by Himley Environmental, of which Mrs Taylor’s husband was a director until November 2021, and which operates as a landfill site a short distance from the Crooked House.

The couple are current or former directors of 18 companies, which include property development and waste management firms. They had previously bought another pub in the area with the aim of turning it into flats.

Locals have said they heard a “party with loud music” at the Crooked House hours before the fire was reported.

Tipton pub is now ‘Britain’s wonkiest’ boozer following loss of the Crooked House

Ed Chatterton
Wed, 16 August 2023

Carl Falconer who has been going to The Tilted Barrel pub for about 40 years.

 (Photo - Anita Maric / SWNS)

A Victorian Black Country boozer called The Tilted Barrel where pool balls ‘roll uphill’ is now Britain’s wonkiest pub following the loss of the Crooked House.

The 200-year-old pub in Tipton is just five miles away from its demolished counterpart which was burnt down in a suspected arson attack. The slanted premises is also wonky due to mining subsidence but unlike the Crooked House, the site is Grade II-listed, which will help protect its future.

Landlady Haych Mann, 38, who took over The Tilted Barrel in February, said it was ‘bitter sweet’ to possibly be the new ‘Britain’s wonkiest pub’. Haych has spent several months refurbishing the run-down premises - which has wonky door frames and tilted floors - to give it a new lease of life.

A Black Country boozer called The Tilted Barrel where pool balls ‘roll uphill’ is now Britain’s wonkiest pub (Photo - Anita Maric / SWNS)

She says she had to move the pool table to the other bar as it proved difficult to play in the lopsided room where balls seemingly roll uphill - just like the Crooked House.

But she’s vowed to keep the dartboard put as its slanted oche gives the pub’s darts team an advantage over visiting players.

Haych, from Smethwick, said: “It’s a bitter sweet moment to know we might be Britain’s wonkiest pub now.

“Most of our regulars drank in the Crooked House too. I’m a local girl so I knew the pub well and we have lost an iconic pub in the Crooked House. So I’m both sad and proud at the same time to learn we might now have that title.

Carl Falconer who has been going to The Tilted Barrel pub for about 40 years. He is standing next to the shelf where pool balls roll up instead of down. 

“It’s certainly not something I’m celebrating as the Crooked House was a landmark and a piece of Black Country history. Our pub is Grade II listed which should offer it more protection if, god forbid, the same thing would ever happen here.”

Haych took over her first ever pub on a 15 year lease after ‘falling in love’ with the quirky features of The Tilted Barrel, which was built in 1820.

It boasts a door more crooked than the building itself, an uneven bar and a shelf which features the illusion of items being able to roll up instead of down.

She added: “I just fell in love with the place. It was just really unique and quirky.

“It was a bit run down when I took it over, I couldn’t believe people were drinking in here in the state it was in but at the same time I thought it was brilliant. We’ve had a refurb and business is picking up as people have read about us online.

“I looked at a few pubs, which were probably nicer, but this one was different and it really appealed to me. I wouldn’t usually take over a pub which was doing badly but this one just seemed special and I thought ‘why not?’.

“The pool table was hard to play on, they built a stage to keep the balls running straight but because of the slanted walls it was a bit disorientating. So we have moved it into the back room but I’m keeping the darts board where it is.

“That’s because our darts team hardly lose. They know how to play on the slant but when other teams play it can really throw players off. We have two staff working here and I help out on weekends when it’s busier too. This is my first pub and I really enjoy it.

“Its just the floors in the back room that need doing now. But that’s proving a challenge because of the slanted floor. However we’re getting there and I’m looking forward to what the future holds for this other historic crooked pub.”

Pub regular Carl Falconer, 46, a plasterer from Tipton, has been going to the pub for 40 years since he was a young boy.

The dad-of-one said: “It’s a great pub. It’s very family orientated and everybody knows everybody. I’m used to it wonkiness now.

“But I imagine anyone who walks in there for the first time will think ‘wow this is crazy’. I’ve been going since I was a young boy with my dad as it’s on my doorstep. Way back when it used to have massive steel girders propping it up.

“The building itself goes back to the 19th century I believe but it started to drop in the 1930s. It now sits naturally as this strange angle. The funniest part is the darts teams who come here. The floor used to be much more slanted but it’s still on a slope now.

“When you threw a dart - you’d have to walk downhill to fetch it from the board. Away teams hated it so they tried levelling the floor off a bit but we still have the advantage. It’s got all these quirky features. I’ve also got to take my hat off to the tiler who did the tiles in the wonky gents toilet as those cuts could not have been easy.”

HINDU NATIONALISM IS FASCISM
Indian movies vilifying Muslims spark fear ahead of polls


Aishwarya KUMAR
Tue, 15 August 2023 


A fictitious tale of a Hindu woman who converts to Islam and then is radicalised, 'The Kerala Story' is the second-highest-grossing Hindi film of 2023 so far 

(INDRANIL MUKHERJEE)

With free tickets and false claims, "The Kerala Story" is one of a slew of polarising films sparking concern Bollywood is churning out cultural propaganda to bolster support for India's ruling party ahead of elections.

The trailer for the anti-Muslim box office hit claims to depict "innocent girls trapped, transformed and trafficked for terror", while declaring it was "inspired by many true stories".

A fictitious tale of a Hindu woman who converts to Islam and then is radicalised, the movie is the second-highest-grossing Hindi film of 2023 so far.


Critics have accused it and other recent releases of peddling lies and stoking divisions, including by vilifying the Muslim minority, ahead of next year's national elections.

"I would suggest all political parties to take advantage of my film... Use it for your political gain," director Sudipto Sen said, in response to an AFP question about its political leanings.

The world's largest democracy has a long history of film censorship, but detractors say the industry is increasingly pushing out films that share the ideology of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist government.

The mass appeal of cinema in India makes the medium an unrivalled means of reaching the public, said journalist and author Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.

During Modi's tenure, movies have increasingly been used to spread divisive messages reinforcing prejudices shared by political leaders, he told AFP.

"The same thing is being done by these films, to take hatred to the people... to create prejudice against the religious minorities," he added.

-'Medium of communication'-

The release of "The Kerala Story" in May coincided with elections in the southern state of Karnataka.

The polls, hotly contested by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), triggered stone-throwing clashes in neighbouring Maharashtra state in which one person died.

Modi endorsed the film during an election rally, while accusing the opposition Congress party of "supporting terrorism tendencies".

Critics said the low-budget movie taps into so-called "love-jihad" conspiracies, where predatory Muslim men seduce Hindu women.

The filmmakers have since retracted the false claim that 32,000 Hindu and Christian women from mixed-faith Kerala had been recruited by the Islamic State jihadist group.

BJP members organised free screenings of the movie, which party spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal said were part of "a medium of communication" but not official policy.

"How do you communicate your ideology? How do you communicate the life and story of your leader and their work? This is the way we do it... People from the party do it on an individual basis," Agarwal told AFP.

In a bid to encourage viewers, two BJP-led state governments slashed the tax on tickets.

The director said his film had "touched a chord" in India, which has one of the biggest Muslim populations worldwide -- about 14 percent of its 1.4 billion people.

"I believe in the power of truth, the truth which we said in the film, and this is what people want to see," he told AFP.

Sen's film is one of many shifting from Bollywood's usual song-and-dance routines.

A string of recent military-themed movies have been nationalistic, all-guns-blazing stories of heroics by soldiers and police -- usually Hindus -- against enemies outside and within India.

"Cinema has always been used as propaganda -- doesn't Hollywood?" said veteran director Sudhir Mishra, citing Sylvester Stallone's Rambo series.

"I definitely think that Bollywood is being attacked and singled out."

-'Strongly ideological'-

Ahead of the last national election in 2019, Modi glad-handed Bollywood stars, who posted selfies on social media generating thousands of views. Media reports said they discussed "nation-building".

"The Accidental Prime Minister", a biopic critical of Modi's predecessor and rival Manmohan Singh, was also released just a few months before the vote, although the hagiographic "PM Narendra Modi" had its release delayed by the Election Commission until after polls.

Those movies "seem relatively tame now", documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak said.

"The new crop of films is strongly ideological and shares the worldview of the ruling dispensation –- which is right-wing, Hindu-nationalist and Islamophobic."

More recent hits include the 2022 blockbuster "The Kashmir Files", depicting in harrowing detail how several hundred thousand Hindus fled Muslim militants in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1989-90.

Meanwhile, the upcoming film "Godhra" examines the 2002 train fire that killed 59 Hindu pilgrims and triggered deadly sectarian riots in Gujarat, with its trailer darkly suggesting the violence was a premeditated "conspiracy".

At the same time, the government has clamped down on critics, including banning a BBC documentary about Modi's role in the Gujarat violence.

It called the BBC reporting "hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage".

ash/pjm/gle/lb/cwl/aha

Climate change impacts history: Parks Canada monitors Grassy Island

Local Journalism Initiative
Wed, August 16, 2023 

CANSO – The province announced last month that it was investing $400,000 to mitigate climate change risks to vulnerable archeological sites, and has tasked the Cape Sable Historical Society with the implementation of a climate change adaptation strategy for the archeology sector.

One of the most significant archaeological sites in Nova Scotia is the Canso Islands National Historic Site, located in the waters off Canso, which includes the Grassy Island settlement, where French fishermen came as early as 1600 to pursue cod. By 1720, the area had changed hands and was predominantly an English settlement, which included a fort on Grassy Island.

An attack on the settlement in 1744 launched from the French Fortress of Louisbourg in Cape Breton saw the Grassy Island settlement raised to the ground.

The remains of this settlement – the subject of several archaeological digs under the auspices of Parks Canada, most recently in the early 1990s – given its location, in the Atlantic Ocean about half-a-kilometre from the Canso waterfront, are susceptible to coastal erosion.

The Journal asked Parks Canada, the government body responsible for the Canso Islands National Historic Site, what priorities and strategies have been identified to preserve the site and mitigate against the impact of climate change.

Matthew Cook, acting national historic site and visitor experience manager for the Canso Islands National Historic Site, told The Journal via email, “Parks Canada teams will continue to work together in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary manner with periodic monitoring of the island. Last year, Parks Canada found no disturbed archaeological resources during its visit.”

Cook added, “Parks Canada appreciates community involvement and encourages community members to share any concerns of exposed or degrading archaeological resources on Grassy Island’s shoreline. Parks Canada team members will work towards mitigating these issues on a case-by-case basis.”

More data and information are needed, Cook said, in order to understand how climate change will impact the site. “Parks Canada is quite receptive to also discussing opportunities with organizations and academics who are interested in exploring interdisciplinary research on Canso Islands National Historic Site. The management statement for this national historic site allows for–and encourages–these types of partnerships and collaborations, and we look forward to the prospect of exploring these opportunities further.”

Cook concluded, “Parks Canada aims to maximize opportunities to present the stories of Canso Islands National Historic Site by working together with key stakeholders, including the Canso Historical Society, Canso Area Development Association and the Municipality of the District of Guysborough.”

Lois Ann Dort, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Guysborough Journal

Wildfires burn in Tenerife, Canada and Portugal amid warning of 'alarming' speed of climate change

Sky News
Updated Wed, 16 August 2023

 


Wildfires raging across the world and record heatwaves are "really alarming" evidence of the speed of climate change, Europe's top space official has said.

He urged politicians not to abandon European leadership in combating global warming as it causes "enormous changes" to the planet.

Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, made the comments as wildfires burn in Portugal, Tenerife and Canada.

At least 106 people have died after devastating fires in Hawaii in recent days.

Spanish authorities ordered the evacuation of four villages on the Canary island on Wednesday after a fire broke out in a nature park surrounding the Mount Teide volcano.

The fire, which started on Tuesday night, was raging through a forested area in steep ravines in the northeastern part of Tenerife, making firefighters' task more difficult.

It comes after the Canary Islands were hit by a heatwave that left many areas bone dry, increasing the risk of wildfires.

In Canada's Northwest Territories, the authorities have declared a state of emergency due to wildfires that have largely destroyed a remote community and now pose a risk to the territorial capital, Yellowknife.

There have been 265 wildfires in the Northwest Territories this year, much higher than its 10-year annual average of 185.

Wildfires have engulfed parts of nearly all 13 Canadian provinces and territories this year, forcing home evacuations, disrupting energy production, and drawing in federal as well as international firefighting resources.

The World Meteorological Organisation said July had the highest global average temperature for any month on record.

"This is really alarming," Mr Aschbacher, a leading expert on environmental observation, said.

"It just confirms that climate change is the biggest threat to our planet, to humankind, and will remain so for the next decades and we do need to do everything we can to mitigate the effects."

Read more:
Countries worst affected by extreme water stress
Factors behind Hawaii's devastating wildfires
Scientists predict how often heatwaves will now occur

Scientists say climate change is making heatwaves more frequent, intense and likely to happen across seasons, not just in what were regarded as the summer months.

But pressure is growing on some governments over the cost of net-zero commitments on emissions, and analysts say looming elections in Europe could put future measures at risk.

In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has warned of climate policies that "unnecessarily give people more hassle and more costs".

Mr Ashbacher said long-term costs were likely to be far higher unless governments respond to "crystal clear" evidence, including satellite measurements, of the recent heat emergency in southern Europe.

French wildfires see 3,000 holidaymakers evacuated from campsites

Henry Samuel
Tue, 15 August 2023 

A campsite in Saint-Andre destroyed by the wildfires in south-west France - Charly Triballeau/AFP

Thousands of holidaymakers have been evacuated from campsites in France as wildfires swept through the country’s south-west, near the Spanish border.

About 500 hectares (1,235 acres) of land were scorched as 450 firefighters backed up by surveillance aircraft fought to keep the flames in check south of the city of Perpignan.

“The fires have been contained,” senior regional official Rodrigue Furcy told local radio. But he added the worst affected area was “under close surveillance and firefighters were still battling the blaze”.


Up to 3,000 people staying at four campsites in the region had been evacuated on Monday evening as a precaution amid the blazes.

With the exception of “350 to 400” people, the holidaymakers had been able to return to their campsites on Tuesday, said Mr Furcy.

Some had lost their documents, money and cars in the fires, officials said.

The wildfires scorched about 500 hectares (1,235 acres) of land south of the city of Perpignan - Raymond Roig/AFP

The wildfires initially broke out on Monday afternoon near the villages of Saint-Andre, Sorède and the seaside resort of Argelès.

The flames had spread rapidly because of “extremely hot weather, drought and strong winds”.

Nineteen firefighters had sustained light injuries, mainly from smoke inhalation, and one was admitted to hospital after a fall “but the good news is that there have been no fatalities”, added Mr Furcy.

Thirty houses were damaged, along with a warehouse and a campsite.

Several roads were closed and the train service from Perpignan to the Spanish border was suspended for several hours.

French interior minister Gérald Darmanin said that the situation was under control and paid tribute to firefighters.
Region hit by intense heat and drought

Bordering Spain, the Pyrenees-Orientales region has been worse affected than any other French region by a devastating drought. The lack of water and high heat has seen various towns impose water restrictions and ban the construction of new swimming pools.

The area was vulnerable because of “intense heat, dryness and tumultuous winds of up to 180km/h”, said authorities.

Climate change is being blamed as a factor for a rash of wildfires in Europe and around the globe this summer.

Fires forced tens of thousands of people in Greece, Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe to evacuate earlier this year, while in western Canada smoke from a series of severe fires blanketed a vast swath of the American Midwest and East Coast.

In Hawaii, last week’s devastating wildfires on the island of Maui have killed at least 99 people, forced tens of thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate the island and devastated the historic resort city of Lahaina. It is the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century.

Scientists discover cause of smoking addiction – and how to cure it

Joe Pinkstone
Tue, 15 August 2023 a

Smoking is the single biggest cause of cancer in the UK

A cure for smoking could be on the horizon after scientists discovered how the brain becomes addicted to nicotine.

Smoking is the single biggest cause of cancer in the UK and is responsible for more than a quarter of all cancer deaths.

University of Cambridge scientists studied brain scans of more than 800 people taken when they were 14, 19 and 24 and analysed any impact smoking had.

They found that smokers were more likely to have a smaller region in the frontal lobe called the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

This part of the brain is linked to rule breaking and the study suggests people with a naturally smaller lobe are likely more inclined to break rules and be a renegade.

However, data also show that the right-hand side of the same brain region is also affected by smoking. This section is involved in controlling willpower and triggering feelings of pleasure and the scans reveal it shrinks in smokers.

“There was a reduction in brain grey matter volume in the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex which likely causes impulsive behaviour and rule breaking that leads to the initiation of cigarette smoking,” study author Prof Barbara Sahakian, from the University of Cambridge, told The Telegraph.

“Cigarette smoking leads to reductions in brain grey matter volume in the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with sensation seeking and pleasurable experiences that reinforces and maintains future cigarette smoking. This eventually leads to addiction.”

The study, published in Nature Communications, looked at any brain changes that happened after people started smoking and found nicotine was associated with significant changes.

Vaping addiction

Although the study only looked at smoking of cigarettes the scientists think the changes in the brain could also be caused by vaping.

“The nicotine effect we found with smoking cigarettes may also apply to e-cigarettes,” Prof Sahakian told The Telegraph. “Both e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes contain nicotine. Nicotine is highly addictive. There is an increasing concern about adolescents becoming addicted to vaping.”

The scientists believe they have discovered a “neurological mechanism” which underpins how people start smoking and what makes it so hard to quit.

The team says that now they know where, and how, nicotine is warping the mind then it could be possible to treat addiction.

Some therapies, such as psychotropic drugs, could stop the brain shrinking or keep the frontal lobe working normally, they write in their paper.

Another option could be using brain-zapping technology to target this region of the brain as a “potential treatment for addiction”, the team added.

BECAUSE IT IS A FASCIST STATE

Why is Poland increasing military presence on its streets?

Euronews
Wed, 16 August 2023 

In Poland, the presence of the military in public spaces has increased significantly.

Politicians put on green shirts and visit borders and military bases. This year, the celebrations of the Army Day lasted several days and ended with a great military parade in Warsaw.

Experts estimate that it was the most expensive Army Day in history.

The military has become one of the most important topics in the country.

Opinions on whether this is due to a real security threat or just part of a political campaign before the upcoming elections are divided.

Representatives of allied U.S. troops march in a massive military parade that was to show NATO member Poland's defense potential as war is raging in neighbouring Ukraine. - Czarek Sokolowski/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved

"If you want peace, prepare for war. As far as financial and human capabilities allow, which also have to be taken into account, we need to keep defence in mind all the time, and defence is the modernity of the army," said Przemyslaw, a Polish national, as he attended the military parade with his son.

Experts' opinions are also divided: some say that the presence of the army in public life today is justified and that the authorities' reactions are adequate.

"In the ranking of social trust, the army ranks high. In addition, the outbreak of war in Ukraine makes citizens watch the situation with great concern. And here, the appropriate steps have been taken," said Beata Gorka-Winter, a security expert at the University of Warsaw.

If you want peace, prepare for war

"Fighters of the Wagner group have appeared in Belarus, they are putting pressure on the borders, and we do expect all sorts of incidents, including those of a military nature. Therefore, the government cannot ignore it," she added.

Other experts point out that the army and tensions in the region are used for internal political purposes.

"We are dealing with a political and electoral campaign use of a real threat. This government is playing, using the army to ensure security. Around this, politics is made, but this has nothing to do with security, it is to help the authorities maintain the power. Regarding the constitution, this should not be the case - the army should be apolitical, and it is very clearly politicised," explained Jaroslaw Kociszewski, a security expert at Kolegium Nowa Europa Wschodnia, Stratpoints.

People wait for a massive military parade during the Polish Army Day, which commemorates the 1920 battle in which Polish troops defeated advancing Bolshevik forces, in Warsaw.

 - Czarek Sokolowski/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved

Those who did not go to the military parade point to its political nature.

"The organisers, i.e. the government, and the president, are certainly not those who are close to me, they actually work to my disadvantage, and I try to distance myself from their decisions. I watched the speech of both the president and the Minister of Defence, and it was very political, very "as in the election programme", so there was “spitting” at the opposition and their actions, well, so this is not the Poland I would like," said Maciej Przygoda.

Poland is a strongly polarised country, and when it comes to the military it is no different. But despite divided opinions, the army will remain an important topic of the election campaign.

Brexit trade deal failures are revealed by the government’s own research

Adam Forrest
Tue, 15 August 2023 


British firms are increasingly pessimistic about the benefits of post-Brexit free trade deals, according to the government’s own research.

The Department for Business and Trade’s survey of more than 3,000 companies revealed that three out five (58 per cent) now think the free trade deals will have no positive impact on their business.

That’s up from 54 per cent in the previous year – a sign of growing dismay about the opportunities the agreements can offer, despite promises that Brexit can help boost “global Britain”.

Less than one third (31 per cent) of businesses believe trade deals would have a positive effect, down from 33 per cent the previous year.

It comes as the latest public polling shows most voters are gloomy about Brexit’s impact on Britain’s juddering economy. Some 61 per cent believe the UK’s exit from the EU has left the country worse off.

The annual government survey of British companies’ exporting behaviour shows that concerns relating to the UK’s exit from the EU “continued to be prominent” – with firms citing red tape and supply chain issues.

In 2017, almost three in four (73 per cent) companies said there was a lot of demand for UK goods and services – but the figures dropped to 55 per cent in the latest survey. And 49 per cent cent said there had been less demand for goods and services since Brexit, an increase from 39 per cent in the previous survey.

William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “It doesn’t surprise me that companies feel pretty sore about things and that is what our survey data shows as well.

“But it is also true that we’re in a better place than we were last year and the government has been listening to some of our concerns,” he said.

Dover has seen increased congestion since Brexit red tape was imposed, hitting UK businesses (PA)

Tina McKenzie of the Federation of Small Businesses said the findings “paint a mixed picture of exporting”, before calling on ministers to reduce post-Brexit red tape as much as possible.

She added: “It is, however, encouraging to see that 42 per cent of all businesses believed UK exports would increase over the next five years, and the government should keep this momentum up by making international trade easier for firms.”

The government business survey did show there is still some optimism about the future. The proportion of firms which say that there is a lot of opportunity for their business to grow internationally increased to 58 per cent – up from 52 per cent in 2021.

A spokesman for the Department for Business and Trade said UK exports rose to £852bn in the year to the end of June. The government also expected to see the fruits of recently struck deals with Australia and New Zealand in the months and years ahead.

The government hopes for trade spikes from UK deals with Australia and New Zealand (PA)

“Selective use of polling stats only paints half a picture,” said a spokesperson for the department. “Fifty-eight per cent of these same businesses said there is a lot of opportunity to grow internationally. And the majority of companies who are ready to export, or export already, are using our expert support services to grow their business.”

Meanwhile, Brexit border checks on food, animal and plant products imported from the EU are expected to be delayed for a fifth time. The rules had been set to begin in October but are to be pushed back again by the government over fears they will fuel inflation.

Ms McKenzie said it “might be helpful news for some, [but] small firms are still waiting for official word from government”. She added: “They need certainty to be able to plan ahead, especially when approaching Christmas.”

It comes as the latest public polling revealed growing support for a second Brexit referendum on EU membership. Nearly half of Britons want another in the next 10 years, the latest YouGov survey showed.

More than a quarter of people (26 per cent) support a referendum by as soon as the end of 2023. And some 20 per cent of people who voted Leave want another referendum within the next 10 years.

When asked how they would vote if there was a referendum on rejoining the EU, half of the participants said they would vote to rejoin. By contrast, only 30 per cent said they would vote to stay out, while seven per cent said they would not vote.

UK

Labour committed to creating more supportive transgender process – Angela Rayner


David Lynch, PA Political Staff
Wed, 16 August 2023 

Trans rights do not “conflict with women’s rights”, Angela Rayner has insisted, after Labour scaled back its commitment to self-identification for transgender people.

The deputy Labour leader said the party was still committed to creating a more “supportive process” to help people transition, after Sir Keir Starmer claimed last month that a system which would allow people to legally identify as their chosen gender without a medical diagnosis would not be the “right way forward”.

Sir Keir’s approach to gender ID emerged from the party’s national policy forum last month, and was confirmed by shadow women and equalities secretary Anneliese Dodds in a Guardian article.


It leaves the UK party at odds with Scottish Labour, which backed the SNP-led Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

In January, the Bill was blocked from becoming law by the UK Government over fears it could create contradictions in UK-wide equality law.

The Scottish Government will have the opportunity to challenge this through the courts in September.

Asked about Labour’s changing position on trans rights, Ms Rayner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I still stand by they are not in conflict with women’s rights.

“We have talked about the Gender Recognition Act, we have talked about reform, we have talked about a process. Of course there has to be a process for people that is supportive and that is when you get into the weeds of how you ensure that we do have trans rights that are compatible and compassionate and humane.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and deputy Labour Party leader Angela Rayner with Labour candidate Alistair Strathern during a visit to Shefford in the constituency of Mid Bedfordshire (Jacob King/PA)

“At the moment the process isn’t, and we have acknowledged that, that there are problems with the process, and therefore there has to be a process that is a supportive process that recognises that people can transition and that we do that in a way that is supportive of those people.”

She added: “But we have also, in the Equality Act that the Labour government introduced, had the safeguards within that for women-only spaces.

“That is absolutely appropriate and we have seen the conflict of what happens when those safeguards are not put in place.”

Ms Rayner also defended UK Labour’s differing position to the Scottish party, telling Sky News that Sir Keir “believes in devolution and the Scottish Government and their right to determine their laws”.

“We were the party of devolution and it is right that we respect that,” she added.

Scottish Labour has said it remains committed to the “de-medicalisation” of the process for trans people to obtain legal recognition in their preferred gender.

In contrast, Sir Keir last month said: “We don’t think that self-identification is the right way forward. We’ve reflected on what happened in Scotland.

“We’ve set out that we want to modernise the process, get rid of some of the indignities in the process, keep it a medical process.”

UK

Welcome to Rishi-land: barren of attractions, bar a wavering chorus of ‘at least we’re not Labour’

Marina Hyde

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 15 August 2023

Photograph: Emma McIntyre/PA

As Rishi Sunak tooled around Disneyland last week on his family holiday, I tried to imagine his government as a theme park. Instead of a rollercoaster, there would be a sign reading “Keir Starmer doesn’t want you to have a rollercoaster”. Instead of a log flume, there would be an artlessly defensive attempt to convince you that “the blob” says you can’t even not have a log flume any more. There would be no foot-long churros; foot-long churros are woke. The wrong type of visitors would be invited to “fuck off back to Disneyland Paris”. I know what you’re thinking: “Ooh, where is this place? Take all my money right now! Oh, wait, you already have.” But fun-wise, we’re looking at an empty field round which various off-brand cartoon characters (the cabinet) are stumbling ineffectually in search of today’s slogan. In short: imagineers wanted.

Imagineer was the name Walt Disney used for those of his employees he charged with realising his vision – creating ideas and then bringing them to life by building them. You may like the Disney vision; you may not. But you can’t deny it is phenomenally successful and as competently executed as it is coherent. It seems very unfair that some people’s epithet for something you can’t take seriously is “Mickey Mouse”. Have they not heard of “Rishi Sunak”?

The prime minister and governing party are now so reflexively negative that they increasingly seem capable only of telling you what they aren’t. This is an administration that feels so totally out of ideas that it is hard to remember the last time the government gave the impression of doing anything that a normal person would recognise as governing. Instead, it apparently has its eye fixed unwaveringly on the next general election. Quite bizarrely, the Conservative party’s sole actual policy seems to be that it would be a very good idea if the Conservative party won it. But why? To do what? In Martin Amis’s novel The Information, there’s one character who always feels like he desperately wants a cigarette even while he is actually smoking a cigarette. The Tories seem obsessed to the exclusion of all else with the remote possibility they could form the next government, even when they are actually the current government. Guys, live a little! Maybe even govern a little?

Living in permanent campaign mode was one of the many diseases gifted to our politics by Boris Johnson, whose sole political philosophy was “I should be prime minister”. Once he became prime minister, he didn’t have a thought in his head as to what he wanted to do with the job, and anyway wasn’t any good at it. Yet Johnson’s sole political philosophy became “I should stay prime minister”. These days, his sole political philosophy is “I should be prime minister again”.

There is a similar failure of imagination at the heart of this entire current government, whose intellectual and ideological underpinnings these days amount to asking: “Don’t you realise Labour would be worse?” I’m sure we all hate to break it to the Conservatives, but the British people are well into the “so what?” phase of their engagement with that particular question. As far as turning things around goes, Sunak’s administration seems to have decided that posturing is in order. Thus not a day passes without being able to read somewhere about why some pose is being adopted by the government. Huge amounts of time and focus are being lavished on “hitting Starmer where it hurts”, “opening up a clear dividing line” and “hammering our attack lines”.

I’m sorry they’ve become so mindbogglingly unmoored from reality, but almost all of this sounds totally mad to people outside the bubble who require real solutions to a mushrooming range of real problems. Every time I read some Conservative strategist honking out this nonsense in an off-the-record quote, I am sure I am not alone in thinking: “Have you thought of simply … being a government?” Apparently not. Instead, we have this form of complete affectation – style over substance at a time of struggle for much of the country, when true substance is desperately needed. Almost everything people can see the government doing is not policy in any meaningful sense. At best, it is policy-effect, a pseudopolicy designed to give the impression of policy.

Take the Bibby Stockholm. The moral objections to housing asylum seekers on this accommodation barge in a Dorset harbour are well documented. But parking that for a moment, what even is this policy, practically speaking? There were 39 people on the barge, who were removed on Friday after legionella bacteria were discovered on board. Between Thursday and Saturday last week, 1,608 migrants arrived in the UK on small boats. Nobody, at all, thinks this “policy” is going to work even on its own grim terms.

Different but equally valid questions are being asked about the supposed policy of using disused RAF bases to house migrants for between three to five years, or longer. I suppose the lesson of the past few years in British politics is that it can always get worse. Consequently, we are this week looking at a situation in which former home secretary Priti Patel is able to take the moral high ground with the current home secretary, Suella Braverman, over this plan. (This is the same Priti Patel who was once hugely taken with the idea of using wave machines to push back migrant dinghies in the Channel.) Dame Priti – she was recently made a dame for services to total uselessness – has just written to Braverman effectively accusing her and the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, of being “evasive”, and offering an “alarming and staggering” lack of clarity over their plans for a site near her constituency. Patel’s assumption is that the Home Office pair are being “secretive” – yet perhaps the more troubling reality is that there is no secret plan for anything at the department. There is merely a home secretary flak jacket, a press release machine, and a single swinging lightbulb where the institutional brain should be.

Presumably Priti Patel will now be added to the list of entities conspiring against Sunak’s government coming anywhere close to adequacy, after a full 13 years of Conservative prime ministers. She would join the aforementioned blob, lefty lawyers, the opposition, and no doubt multiple other impediments yet to be unveiled on Sunak’s long run-up to the election. And yet, everything being someone else’s fault is surely not the most appealing strategy (certainly not in leaders you’d wish to emulate, anyway). Imagine having all those enemies and still being your own worst one.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Pig kidney works in a donated body for over a month, a step toward animal-human transplants

Wed, August 16, 2023 



NEW YORK (AP) — Surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man and for over a month it's worked normally — a critical step toward an operation the New York team hopes to eventually try in living patients.

Scientists around the country are racing to learn how to use animal organs to save human lives, and bodies donated for research offer a remarkable rehearsal.

The latest experiment announced Wednesday by NYU Langone Health marks the longest a pig kidney has functioned in a person, albeit a deceased one -– and it’s not over. Researchers are set to track the kidney’s performance for a second month.

“Is this organ really going to work like a human organ? So far it’s looking like it is,” Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone’s transplant institute, told The Associated Press.

“It looks even better than a human kidney,” Montgomery said on July 14 as he replaced a deceased man's own kidneys with a single kidney from a genetically modified pig — and watched it immediately start producing urine.

The possibility that pig kidneys might one day help ease a dire shortage of transplantable organs persuaded the family of the 57-year-old Maurice “Mo” Miller from upstate New York to donate his body for the experiment.

“I struggled with it,” his sister, Mary Miller-Duffy, told the AP. But he liked helping others and “I think this is what my brother would want. So I offered my brother to them.”

"He’s going to be in the medical books, and he will live on forever,” she added.

It’s the latest in a string of developments renewing hope for animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation, after decades of failure as people's immune systems attacked the foreign tissue. What’s different this time around: Pigs are being genetically modified so their organs better match human bodies.

Last year, University of Maryland surgeons made history by transplanting a gene-edited pig heart into a dying man who was out of other options. He survived only two months before the organ failed for reasons that aren’t fully understood but that offer lessons for future attempts.

Now, the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to allow some small but rigorous studies of pig heart or kidney transplants in volunteer patients.

And it’s critical to answer some remaining questions “in a setting where we’re not putting someone’s life in jeopardy,” said Montgomery, the NYU kidney transplant surgeon who also received his own heart transplant — and is acutely aware of the need for a new source of organs.

More than 100,000 patients are on the nation's transplant list and thousands die each year waiting.

Previously, NYU and a team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham had tested pig kidney transplants in deceased recipients for just two or three days. An NYU team also had transplanted pig hearts into donated bodies for three days of intense testing.

But how do pig organs react to a more common human immune attack that takes about a month to form? Only longer testing might tell.

The surgery itself isn't that different from thousands he's performed “but somewhere in the back of your mind is the enormity of what you're doing ... recognizing that this could have a huge impact on the future of transplantation," Montgomery said.

The operation took careful timing. Early that morning Drs. Adam Griesemer and Jeffrey Stern flew hundreds of miles to a facility where Virginia-based Revivicor Inc. houses genetically modified pigs — and retrieved kidneys lacking a gene that would trigger immediate destruction by the human immune system.

As they raced back to NYU, Montgomery was removing both kidneys from the donated body so there'd be no doubt if the soon-to-arrive pig version was working. One pig kidney was transplanted, the other stored for comparison when the experiment ends.

“You're always nervous,” Griesemer said. To see it so rapidly kickstart, “there was a lot of thrill and lot of sense of relief.”

The University of Maryland’s Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin cautions that it’s not clear how closely a deceased body will mimic a live patient's reactions to a pig organ — but that this research educates the public about xenotransplantation so “people will not be shocked” when it’s time to try again in the living.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Lauran Neergaard, The Associated Press