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As the rain continues to fall with no sign of respite over the Olympic period, our floppy-haired London mayor, Boris Johnson, has attempted to keep our chins up as well as our umbrellas.
According to a tweet by Simon Harris, Olympics Correspondent for ITV’s London Tonight, Mr Johnson told international press that “it doesn’t rain in London 94 per cent of the time”, while on Mr Harris’ show yesterday.
With the sound of the recent coroner’s ruling on the death of 22 year-old Kane Gorey still ringing in the public ear, the Independent reported that the neglect at the heart of Mr Gorey's case may not have been an isolated incident highlighting a new study on the scale of preventable deaths in NHS hospitals.
The headline rang:
Earlier this week, the Telegraph and Daily Star reported that the UK was one of the most popular destinations for migrants in Europe, with as many as 2.3 million nationals from other EU countries living here.
Reporting the story, the Star told its readers that:
"A staggering 75% of Britain’s new jobs were snapped up by foreigners last year."
As the Olympic Games draw closer, so too do the logistical headaches that are part and parcel of staging the world's largest sporting event.
This morning's papers are full of reports that the armed forces are being asked by organisers to provide 3,500 soldiers to protect Olympic visitors after one of the firms contracted to provide security for the Games - G4S - admitted that it couldn't supply the staff needed.
Reporting yesterday on the release of the General Medical Council’s (GMC’s) new guidance for doctors on reporting child abuse, the Guardian cited some interesting statistics on the rising number of children taken into care.
In fact, according to the article the number of applications to the courts by local councils to take a child into care is at an “all time high”.
The paper wrote:
Arguments about the impact of Government policy on the men and women of the police force are one of the more well-trodden beats for Home Secretary Theresa May and her Labour Shadow Yvette Cooper.
However one particular statistic is frequently quoted in this debate: that police officers spend just 11 per cent of their time 'on the beat'.
It surfaced again during Home Office questions yesterday, when Conservative MP David Ruffley asked the Home Secretary:
Immigration is inevitably a contentious issue, both in terms of fact-checking and policy-making. Full Fact has had to look at several immigration-related claims, and has found that publicly-available data on the topic sometimes leaves much to be desired.
Earlier this year the Guardian ran an editorial attempting to debunk a 'convenient untruth' - the belief that there are potentially thousands of 'never-worked' families living on what have been termed the 'Shameless estates' of Britain.
MPs will today debate what form the proposed inquiry into the banking practices will take, after the recently-deposed Barclays' chief executive Bob Diamond brought a political dimension to the Libor fixing scandal at his appearence before the Treasury select committee yesterday.
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