A generation of children’s mental health
Shelter states that two-thirds of families living in temporary accommodation (TA) have been there for over a year; some families have lived in TA for more than ten years. TA is usually overcrowded and of very poor quality. Children share beds with siblings or parents, with little to no space for belongings. Youngsters have no room to play safely or even learn to walk. Older children have no privacy, nowhere to do homework or have friends over. Parents struggle to feed their children nourishing meals without suitable cooking facilities, relying on expensive, unhealthy takeaways or what they can heat up with a kettle or a microwave if they have one. Children attend school tired, or late, or hungry; many travel long distances from their TA. Families are cut off from support networks. Families live in limbo. They move frequently. Uncertainty and insecurity hang over them. Their children’s mental health suffers.
Escaped criminal: prisons scandal
Khalife, a former soldier who was on remand at HMP Wandsworth, a category B prison rather than a high-security prison, escaped by clinging to the bottom of a delivery van. Professor Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and head of security at HMP Wandsworth, called it a ‘catastrophic system failure that actually starts with the allocation of Khalife to Wandsworth’. He said: “It’s pretty odd because what you would expect in terms of the allocation process is that somebody who was charged with terrorist offences under the Official Secrets Act, who’s an alleged fake bomb maker and is collecting information of use to terrorists, all of that package would lead you - I think reasonably - to conclude that this person is a flight risk, is an escape risk. The place that he should have ended up in, by all estimations, is Belmarsh prison. Wandsworth is filthy and infested with vermin; 44% of staff are off sick, and morale is awful.’
Average price of a home falls by £14,000 in a year
House prices fell at their fastest annual rate in 14 years in August as rising mortgage rates affected the market. ‘We may be seeing a greater impact from higher mortgage costs flowing through to house prices,’ said the Halifax director of mortgages. ‘The market will continue to rebalance until it finds an equilibrium where buyers are comfortable with mortgage costs in a higher range than seen over the previous fifteen years.’ First-time buyers have welcomed a fall in prices but face relatively high repayment costs, alongside other cost-of-living pressures such as higher prices in the shops. On the flip side, wage growth has helped affordability. Despite the fall in property values, the Halifax said that prices were only back to the level seen at the start of last year, and still £40,000 higher than before Covid.
Finland: Christian MP on trial for Bible tweet
In April 2022, Finnish MP and former government minister Päivi Räsänen was declared innocent of all charges over her beliefs on sexuality, but the prosecutors appealed the verdict. The latest trial involves expressions of her Christian faith in a tweet, in a church pamphlet twenty years ago, and in a 2019 radio interview. She is accused under the ‘War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity’ for ‘agitation against a minority group’. She says it is a very important verdict for freedom of speech and religion in Finland, which has consequences across Europe. Räsänen’s tweet challenged her church leadership for sponsoring a Pride event, and included a picture of a Bible verse from Romans. The prosecutor said she wasn’t putting God in the dock, but rather those who interpret what the Bible says: ‘You can cite the Bible, but it is Räsänen’s interpretation and opinion about Bible verses that are criminal.’ The court will deliver a verdict by 30 November.
