- Helen Hayes (Lab)
- Sir Oliver Heald (Con)
- Bob Blackman (Con)
- Graham Stringer (Lab)
- Julian Sturdy (Con)
- Naz Shah (Lab)
- Jason McCartney (Con)
- Rebecca Long Bailey (Lab)
- Mary Kelly Foy (Lab)
- Matt Western (Lab)
- James Murray (Lab)
- Holly Mumby-Croft (Con)
- Bill Esterson (Lab)
Spare a thought for Northern Ireland’s civil servants, who are so overworked and under-slept they’re now being given lectures on beating stress and mindfulness to cope with the strains of it all… in the middle of the working day. A new internal memo reveals how miserable civil servants now have the opportunity to sign up for three separate lectures – each an hour in length – to soothe their minds as they go about their taxpayer-funded work. Is Rishi reading this?
The first lecture, “mindfulness for busy minds“, starts next Tuesday:
“Do you feel like you don’t have a minute for yourself, never mind time to do all the things you need to get done in a day? Do you find yourself thinking all the time? Find it hard to concentrate, or to get to sleep at night because your mind is still in overdrive? If the answer is yes to any of these, then this event is for you. Mindfulness for Busy Minds is an introduction to the calming benefits of mindfulness. In this session. Patrick Mcllwee of New Ways NI will show how you can release tension caused by overthinking. breathe through strong emotions and settle the mind for concentration or sleep.”
The next lecture is on “managing stress“, although they’ve really saved the best for last: “No Tweeting While You’re Eating“. Whilst specific details aren’t yet listed, Guido’s dug around to find previous lectures on the subject for other bodies, with one recently given to the Northern Ireland Safety Group. It does what it says on the tin. They’ll be taught how to stop aimlessly scrolling Twitter during their lunch breaks.
Civil servants are now presumably so distracted by social media at work that their managers are imposing an intervention during working hours. Save the date…
Big changes afoot over at Northcliffe House as Mail+ – the online branch of the Daily Mail definitely not to be confused with the Mail Online – makes some major changes to cut losses. Guido learns that Michael Crick has gone along with most of their video team being made redundant last month. Editor Gordon Thompson has also left, supposedly of his own accord. It is noticeable that the production of expensive original video content is being dropped at a number of digital media outlets. Clearly Lord Rothermere, like Guido, is unable to figure out how to make news-focused video content commercially viable…
The Mail mole who alerted Guido to the Mail’s de-Cricking also said that, amid rumours of a £20 million loss, Andrew Pierce and Sarah Vine are also facing the loss of their podcasts. No doubt they’ll be relieved not to do them…
Angela Rayner’s appearance on Marr’s LBC show last night was one for the ages. As if no one else remembers the last five years, Rayner suggested without a hint of irony that a Corbyn government “would have given” missiles to Ukraine, and that Jeremy was “very clear on his condemnation of Putin, long before it was popular to do that”. It’s amazing she kept a straight face.
Never mind the fact that Corbyn insisted the UK government send Novichock samples back to Russia for their own “testing” after Salisbury. Just ten days before the invasion of Ukraine last month, Corbyn signed this statement from the Stop the War coalition:
“…the British government has sent arms to Ukraine and deployed further troops to Eastern Europe, moves which serve no purpose other than inflaming tensions and indicating disdain for Russian concerns. It has also declared that Ukraine has a “sovereign right” to join NATO, when no such right exists to join it or any other military alliance.”
“We refute the idea that NATO is a defensive alliance, and believe its record in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Libya over the last generation, not to mention the US-British attack on Iraq, clearly proves otherwise.”
Russian concerns? Which way would Jeremy’s missiles have been firing?
UPDATE: Readers have also pointed out that elsewhere in the same interview Rayner also accused Putin of using nuclear weapons on British soil.
A bombshell threat from Robert Halfon this morning after yesterday’s boycott of his Eductation Committee by the NUS. The student union’s petulant move came after the scandal of them inviting notorious rapper Lowkey to their annual conference, then suggesting any offended Jews go and hide in one of their safe spaces. Responding to Halfon calling them out yesterday the organisation tweeted that the committee was “bullying them”. Turns out the National Union of Students have the temperament of primary, not university students…
Some MPs out there got it twisted today. Let’s set a few things straight
1. MPs and education leaders are accountable to us not the other way round
2. Old school bullying culture is never acceptable including at govt committees— NUS UK (@nusuk) March 22, 2022
On LBC this morning Halfon said if the group continues refusing to sit before his parliamentary committee they could be referred to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission for what appears to be a Corbynesque bout of Antisemitism. About time some would say…
UPDATE 11 April, 2022: Robert Halfon has today written to the Charity Commission calling together with Campaign Against Antisemitism for a statutory inquiry into the National Union of Students (NUS).
In his letter, Halfon writes to “voice my dismay at the actions and behaviour of the National Union of Students and its trustees, in regards to their treatment of Jewish students and the Jewish community’s concerns regarding antisemitism. Together with Campaign Against Antisemitism…I politely request that the Commission launch a Section 46 inquiry, pursuant to the 2011 Charities Act into the NUS and look forward to receiving your response.”
He enclosed a dossier of evidence by Campaign Against Antisemitism detailing how NUS has failed Jewish students, he is “particularly concerned about the enclosed dossier of antisemitic events that have taken place within the NUS over the past several years — and which come following decades of concerning trends — which was prepared by CAA.”
The full dossier on NUS, produced by Campaign Against Antisemitism, can be read at antisemitism.org/nus.
Inflation rose to a new 30-year high of 6.2% last month, at the very top end of expectations among analysts. Broader RPI inflation was 8.2%. This is data from February data, the full impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on prices had not fed through. Over to Rishi at 12.30…
