Priti Patel doesn’t deserve constant denunciation just for doing her job
Priti Patel is the kind of home secretary who likes nothing better than accompanying the police on a drugs raid. Yet once again she has found herself on the receiving end of a battering ram, this time from the Police Federation of England and Wales. The organisation, which represents rank-and-file officers, declared it had no confidence in Ms Patel after she imposed a pay freeze. So she can include the police on her list of haters, along with “anyone on the Left” and “people who are opposed to misogyny and racism unless it is levelled at a Right-wing Asian female politician they disagree with”.
Whitehall sources have accused the federation of “politicking”, pointing out that it flies in the face of those who have lost their job as a result of lockdown. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the pay issue, if the police have no confidence in a home secretary who once voiced her support for the death penalty, who would they rather have in the role? Someone soft on law and
‘Do the police want to replace her with someone soft on law and order?
order, who doesn’t want to deport violent criminals and keeps the borders as open as a 24-hour branch of Tesco?
My heart sinks when I see an obese child, because there is rarely any excuse for it.
While I appreciate that some children with health issues may struggle to keep their weight down, parents who overfeed their children are abusing them.
One way of clocking 10,000 steps in the right direction would be to heed Tanni Grey-thompson’s advice and open up school playing fields and sports facilities this summer. Ukactive, the body chaired by the Paralympic champion, says almost 40 per cent of community sport facilities in England are locked behind school gates, and cannot be reached in the holidays. Why?
Activity levels have slumped since lockdown, with almost a third of children doing less than half an hour’s exercise daily, and a third obese or overweight by the time they leave primary school. Nike is already running “Open Doors” schemes in ten schools in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, but rapid expansion is needed.