With hoods pulled up to fend off the relentless rain, the dreary weather in Birmingham this week matched the mood of many in England’s second biggest city.
Dubbed Britain’s “capital” for youth unemployment to the “epicentre” of England’s “benefits crisis” – residents are among the hardest hit by a nationwide cost of living crisis at the centre of next week’s Budget.
It is the latter moniker that prompted The i Paper to visit Perry Barr, a constituency in north-west Birmingham about 15 minutes’ drive from the city centre.
Australian MP’s legs amputated after ‘politically-motivated attack’
Doctors have amputated both of Australian MP Helen Haines’s legs after she was repeatedly hit by a car in an apparent act of political violence, her husband said.
What happened?
Haines remains in critical condition. The 65-year-old independent politician is receiving treatment in a Melbourne hospital where she was flown by helicopter.
Haines’s husband said her left leg was amputated on Monday and her right leg was amputated on Wednesday after doctors abandoned hope of saving it.
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What her husband said
The good news in all this is that Helen is alive and she’s stable. That is the most iortant thing for our family… We are grateful and thankful that at this stage, both her heart and her mind are in good shape.
Phil Haines
The alleged attacker
Brendan Nugent, a 43-year-old man from nearby Tarrawingee, has been charged with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury and causing harm to a federal official.
- Police have yet to determine a motive.
- Witnesses say the driver rammed his victim, pinning her against her own car before reversing and ramming her a second time.
- Nugent’s lawyer Chirag Patel said he was suffering from potential mental health issues but had never been diagnosed with any mental health problem.
- Patel said Nugent suffered from a concussion and a neurological condition, idiopathic transverse myelitis, which disrupts nerve signals between the brain and body, leading to rapid muscle weakness and sensory loss.
Nigeria confirms Ebola case
Nigeria reported its first Ebola case in more than a decade on Tuesday, becoming the fourth African country to be affected by the outbreak.
Where has Ebola been detected?
- Ebola disease from the fast-moving outbreak in Congo has now spread to four other countries.
- This is including two where it’s active.
- It was first declared in eastern Congo in mid-May.
- Nigeria confirmed an Ebola infection in its capital, Abuja.
- This was in a woman who arrived from Uganda about two weeks ago.
- Uganda has reported 20 cases but none are active.
A closer look at confirmed cases so far
- Kenya announced its first Ebola case on 6 October, involving a man who traveled from Congo via Uganda before arriving in the capital, Nairobi, on 3 October.
- France confirmed a positive case of Ebola in June in a doctor travelling back from Congo.
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Should Britons be worried?
The World Health Organization has said it is the fastest-growing outbreak of Ebola in history. However, France is still the only country outside Africa to have recorded a case in this outbreak. The UK Health Security Agency says the current outbreak “poses a low risk to the UK population”.
Imported cases are extremely rare, only four confirmed cases have been reported in the UK since 1976, and there have been no UK deaths from the disease.
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UK approves drilling in Jackdaw gas field
Gas from the Jackdaw field will start flowing within weeks after the Government approved the project in an effort to improve domestic energy security and grow the economy.
Why has it been approved?
The Government says the approval of Jackdaw will increase domestic gas production by around 6 per cent at its peak, protect hundreds of jobs and provide an estimated £2.9bn economic boost.
- Tax revenues from North Sea oil and gas will also go into a new energy wealth fund, backed with an initial £2bn, which will invest in renewable and low carbon projects.
- Ministers argue that while UK households and businesses are still using gas, it makes more economic and environmental sense to increase domestic production rather than rely on imports shipped from other countries.
Why is the project controversial?
The approval of Jackdaw has been criticised by environmental campaigners who want to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels. Both Jackdaw and the Rosebank field were approved for drilling licences in June 2022, but these were overturned by the Scottish courts after a challenge from campaigners.
New public consultations on the proposals took place this year and closed in August. The Government has not yet greenlit Rosebank.
What does this mean for your energy bills?
The approval of Jackdaw will not bring down soaring bills because gas prices are set by global markets, and energy minister Michael Shanks acknowledged “we will not stop being a net importer of fossil fuels because of this decision”.
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Actor Noel Clarke in court over sexual offence allegations
Actor Noel Clarke is expected to appear in court today charged with sexual offences against five women.
What has he been accused of?
Clarke, who has appeared in and is accused of two counts of sexual assault, three of voyeurism and one of exposure between 2007 and 2016.
The offences are alleged to have taken place in London and Dorset. Clarke has previously denied any allegations of inappropriate behaviour or sexual misconduct.
What do police say?
Bethan David, deputy chief Crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to do so.”
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Drinking tea may be good for your heart
Tea drinking is good for your heart, and drinking it regularly reduces the risk of vascular disease by 11 per cent, research has found.
What did the study find?
A study in China published in the Journal of Internal Medicine looked at the risk of vascular disease in 485,934 people.
- Those who drank about six to eight cups per day were found to be at the lowest risk of vascular disease among weekly tea drinkers.
- Vascular disease can include heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary heart disease and peripheral artery disease.
- Tea consumption combined with not smoking and exercising was associated with the lowest risk.
The expert view
This doesn’t prove that a daily cuppa protects your heart. This was an observational study and other differences in people’s diets and lifestyles could help explain the findings… We need further evidence before assuming the findings apply in the same way to people in the UK.
Dell Stanford, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation
Judi Dench: Cats film was a waste of talent
Actor Dame Judi Dench has described the 2019 film , the adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, as a “waste” of “goodwill and talent”.
She starred as the wise moggy Old Deuteronomy and has so far declined to watch the movie.
What she said
Oh God, I can’t bear it, and [Lloyd Webber] had waited so long for it to be made. What a waste of all that goodwill and talent. I understand the critics were rather hostile to the film. I never saw the final cut so I can’t judge. All I’ll say is nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film. You do your best… and hope that people will get on board and join the party.
Details revealed in new memoir
In her forthcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, Dench said she felt “ill at ease from the beginning – I just didn’t feel right in the role”, reports.
She said young dancers were ignored at the end of each take. However, she said she enjoyed meeting co-star Taylor Swift and receiving 50 everlasting roses, spraypainted gold, from Jason Derulo, another co-star.
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Why was the film panned?
The director, Tom Hooper, has been criticised for how he adapted the musical, including error-prone use of CGI. He has not made a film since.
Lloyd Webber has said “the whole thing was ridiculous”, “off-the-scale wrong” and that it caused him to become a dog owner.
Analysis by the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) found the suburb’s spending on welfare now costs nearly £4,000 per resident, one of the highest in the country.
The area also has among the fastest growth in benefits spending, increasing by 37.1 per cent in just over two years.
John O’Connell, TPA chief executive, told The i Paper that Birmingham is “standing as the epicentre of Britain’s benefits crisis”.
As a constituency, Perry Barr spent a combined £499,964,384 on the six main benefits in the year to March, according to the TPA analysis. This includes universal credit, personal independence payments (PIP) and housing benefit.
With a population of 125,283, based on the Office for National Statistics’ most recent estimate, that equates to an annual welfare spend of £3,991 per resident, the TPA found.
The same amount was spent in nearby Birmingham Erdington.
The neighbouring areas now rank among the highest spending constituencies in England and Wales after huge welfare spending rises over recent years.
Perry Barr recorded an increase of 37 per cent, narrowly behind Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (37.1 per cent) in top spot and ahead of Birmingham Yardley (36.9 per cent).
Five of the top 10 constituencies with the largest percentage increase in total benefits payments over the past two years were in Birmingham.
O’Connell added: “When areas like Birmingham see welfare spending growth outstripping wages and topping billions, it shows a system that is fundamentally broken.”
Matt, a 35-year-old local resident, said the spend was “shocking”, but added there are “people out there that need help”.
Matt, like other residents, did not share his surname.
“You’ve got plenty of people living on the streets, and it’s not nice. I’ve been there and done it, I know how they feel,” he said.
“It’s hard – I’m on universal credit and I’m not employed at the minute. I have tried applying for some jobs, but I’m getting nowhere – no responses whatsoever.”
Nafeesa, a 20-year-old university student, echoed the sentiment that jobs are hard to come by in the area.
“Everyone is struggling to find employment right now,” she said. “All of my friends, those who don’t go to university, they’re not doing anything right now. It is so hard to find jobs here.
“I’m younger so I don’t know about the past as much, but it’s really bad. Nobody can find a job, everyone’s begging for money.”
Ministers are looking at wide-ranging reforms to welfare policies, including giving young people who rely on benefits less money in exchange for intensive health and job support.
Separate research by the TPA recently found that over two thirds of universal credit (UC) claimants in their twenties were not in work across England and Wales.
Of those, Birmingham Perry Barr was the constituency with the highest proportion of unemployed UC claimants aged 20 to 29, at 79.8 per cent.
Nine of Birmingham’s 10 parliamentary constituencies were among the top 20.
‘Where is the money going?’
Nafeesa added: “Our area is a bit run-down. There are a lot of HMOs [Houses in Multiple Occupation], different people moving in, so I do understand how benefits are increasing. But to hear the actual number is a bit crazy. It’s way higher than I thought it would be.
“Then you hear benefit spending is rising but you don’t even see it – I don’t know where it is, to be honest, where that money is going.”
Other residents, like Matthew, said he knows “so many” people on benefits in the “struggling” area.
The 35-year-old has been out of work for two years, but is “always” on the look out for employment opportunities.
‘£4k on benefits but can’t get my bin emptied’
Matthew said the Government needs to “incentivise more people” getting back into work, rather than see them resort to claiming benefits and remaining unemployed.
A woman in her forties, who asked not to be named, agreed “more needs to be done in terms of trying to encourage people [into work]”.
“There’s no work ethic anymore,” she said. “My husband and I are employed, but if you can stay at home and have the same disposable income as us at the end of the month, and have bills paid for you or discounted, why would you go to work?”
“It does wind me up a little bit that £4,000 goes into benefits and I can’t get my bins emptied or can’t get a doctor’s appointment.”
Last year, residents saw heaps of rubbish sit on their pavements for months as refuse workers went on strike over a pay dispute.
Paddy, a 76-year-old pensioner, added: “Everything is going up and up and up – everywhere. But that spending needs to come down.”
O’Connell has urged ministers to “urgently grip this crisis, tighten eligibility, and bring welfare spending under control”.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “We are already reforming the welfare system across the country by narrowing the gap between universal credit standard and health rates, restoring face-to-face assessments, and investing £3.5bn in employment support to end the culture of people being signed off and written off.”
They said an increase in PIP caseload has slowed. Reforms from the Timms and Milburn Reviews will “put work and opportunity at the heart of the system”.
Birmingham City Council was contacted for comment.