Dame Louise Casey, who led the government’s emergency programme to tackle rough sleeping earlier this year, warned that a series of economic pressures were now in danger of colliding. She said that while the campaign led by England and Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford had provided hope, and she urged ministers to act. “What we are facing here is a perfect storm of awfulness,” she told the Observer. “Everyone has been affected by COVID, millions have seen their income drop and even those who can weather that, are thinking twice. Rashford has pulled everyone together on the key and compassionate issue of making sure kids don’t go hungry or their parents don’t have to go hungry to feed them. The spirit of the Thursday clapping to show our support to the NHS and care workers lives on in his kind, honest leadership.  “The British public do really care. The rising levels of homelessness and (with) the reduction of universal credit on the horizon, it’s hard not to feel bleak about this winter. Rashford and those supporting his campaign give me hope. Now is not the time for political division and tribal loyalty – it’s the time to bring us all together again. The government needs to heed the mood of the country and take action now. Kids should not go hungry, people should not be on the streets and the elderly deserve only the best of care that we can give.” Her intervention came as the head of the CBI called for the government not to ditch the £1,000 increase in the basic universal credit allowance due to be axed in April. In a rare move, Carolyn Fairbairn said “having a strong safety net is going to be absolutely vital” in the months ahead, The Guardian reported. “A period of impoverishment in our country is unthinkable,” she said. “I think the idea that the £1,000 supplement would run out in March is something that should really be rethought. It’s also about fairness. There are going to be some people who have been kept in work through variations of the job support scheme, and others who are not so lucky. The gap between those two positions should not be so great.” Fairbairn is also calling for a new National Commission for Economic Recovery, involving business, unions, government and civil society, to plan how to revive the economy in the aftermath of the virus. Official figures last week revealed that there had been an increase in 16- to 25-year-olds sleeping rough in London between July and September, from 250 last year to 368. The previous quarter saw a similar 48% increase. Pressure is still mounting on the government over child hunger. A coalition of more than 50 public health directors, healthcare professionals, charities and local government figures have signed a letter to chancellor Rishi Sunak in support of a key element of Rashford’s child poverty campaign. They demand a major expansion of the Healthy Start scheme, which gives young pregnant women and low-income families with young children free vitamins and food vouchers to purchase vegetables, fruit, pulses and milk. They want the scheme to be enhanced and offered to more people, an increase in the value of vouchers and a publicity campaign to ensure it reaches those in need. “We are ready to help in whatever way we can,” they write. “We know that the nutrition and health of mothers and young children will have profound and life-long consequences for children’s futures. A fair start in life should be a key tenet of the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda. Now is the time to act.” A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “We are wholly committed to supporting the lowest paid families, boosting welfare support by £9.3bn in response to the pandemic as well as introducing income protection schemes, mortgage holidays and additional support for renters and constantly keep these measures under review.”

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The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found that between 1940 and 2018, some 390 people employed by the church, as clergymen or in trusted positions, were convicted of child sex abuse, RT reported.  They were ‘forgiven’ for their crimes by the church and allowed to continue their duties, often in close proximity to children, the IICSA found.  “The culture of the Church of England facilitated it becoming a place where abusers could hide,” the report read.  The inquiry found the church repeatedly failed to respond in a consistent manner to victims and survivors of abuse, compounding their trauma over a period of decades. In 2018 alone, there were some 2,504 concerns raised about possible abuse of children or vulnerable adults, including 449 allegations of recent sexual abuse.  “Over many decades, the Church of England failed to protect children and young people from sexual abusers, instead facilitating a culture where perpetrators could hide and victims faced barriers to disclosure that many could not overcome,” chair of the inquiry, professor Alexis Jay stated. The IICSA lambasted the church for regarding forgiveness “as the appropriate response to any admission of wrongdoing”. One such case highlighted is that of Timothy Storey, a man who was permitted to continue working with children after apologising “for everything he had done wrong”. Storey is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for multiple offences against young girls, including rape.  As part of the findings announced Tuesday in the damning report, the panel found that record-keeping of abuse claims was “almost non-existent”. The panel decried the church's willingness to pervert the course of legal justice by meting out its own 'forgiveness', precluding sex offenders from being held responsible for their crimes and prevented from re-offending. The church was also blasted for its handling of the reverend Ian hughes scandal, in which he was convicted in 2014 of downloading 8,000 child porn images, including 800 in the most serious category.  At the time, Bishop Peter Forster claimed Hughes had been “misled into viewing child pornography”. The report further condemned what it dubbed as “tribalism” within the church, which placed loyalty to its own over the safety and wellbeing of children. It cited a “culture of fear and secrecy within the Church about sexuality” which then facilitated a climate of sex abuse. The church issued an apology and expressed shame after the inquiry’s findings were released.  “The report makes shocking reading and while apologies will never take away the effects of abuse on victims and survivors, we today want to express our shame about the events that have made those apologies necessary,” noted the Bishop of Huddersfield, Jonathan Gibbs. “The whole Church must learn lessons from this Inquiry. Our main focus in response must be recognising the distress caused to victims and survivors by the Church’s failures in safeguarding,” Gibbs added. The inquiry held public hearings in July 2019, which led in part to the findings of the report.  The panel made eight recommendations, including an improved complaints process for victims of abuse, the reintroduction of immediate expulsion from the church for anyone convicted of child sex offences and improved funding and support for victims and survivors.

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According to estimates, by the start of May, 16,000 people had died in the UK due to missed medical treatment, including 6,000 who did not seek help at A&E services due to fears of catching the virus. The report noted that its “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives” message prompted patients to avoid attending emergency rooms. During the same period, 25,000 people died as a direct consequence of contracting COVID-19. The figures, calculated by the Department of Health, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the government Actuary's Department and the Home Office, also showed that 10,000 more people died in care homes after they were discharged from hospitals during the virus’ peak. The figures also suggest that a further 26,000 people could lose their lives in the coming months due to healthcare restrictions imposed on the NHS by the pandemic. However, the report estimates that the lockdown acted as a positive force by saving at least 2,500 lives through reductions in road deaths, via more people adopting healthier lifestyle and by generally lowering pollution rates, as well as a fall in infectious diseases among children. The estimates come amid criticisms from British medical workers directed towards the UK government’s alleged overemphasis on coronavirus response with a subsequent reduction in some NHS services. The report estimates that 1,400 people are expected to die in the next five years due to late diagnosis with cancer. Overall, the recession caused by coronavirus and longer waiting times for non-urgent medical care services would put at risk an additional 81,500 lives in the next 50 years, the group said. According to Johns Hopkins University's latest figures, there have been now 46,596 deaths registered in the United Kingdom from COVID-19. However, figures published by the ONS said that coronavirus could have actually taken the lives of 56,600 people across the country throughout the whole period of the pandemic.

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A letter from Britain’s Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, seen by The Guardian, urged Congress to support initial spending on the warhead, the W93. The letter, sent in April but not previously reported, draws the UK into a US political debate, pitting the Donald Trump administration against many Democrats and arms control groups over whether the the $14bln W93 programme is necessary. The US navy already has two warheads to choose from for its submarine-launched Trident missiles. The close cooperation on the W93 casts further doubt on the genuine independence of the UK deterrent – parliament first heard about it when US officials accidentally disclosed Britain’s involvement in February – and the commitment of both countries to disarmament. The UK is also supporting the administration’s efforts to speed up work on the warhead and its surprise $53mln request for initial weapon design work in the 2021 budget, two years ahead of the previous schedule. Sceptics believe the rush is intended to lock in funding before the election. A Joe Biden administration would be likely to review or even cancel the W93 programme. “These are challenging times, but it is crucial that we demonstrate transatlantic unity and solidarity in this difficult period,” Wallace told members of the House and Senate armed services committees. “Congressional funding in [2021] for the W93 program will ensure that we continue to deepen the unique nuclear relationship between our two countries, enabling the United Kingdom to provide safe and assured continuous-at-sea deterrence for decades to come,” he added. The British intervention comes as the initial funding for the warhead hangs in the balance. It was approved by the House and Senate armed services committees but blocked at least temporarily, by a House energy and water subcommittee last month. Congressional staffers said they could not recall such a direct UK intervention in a US debate on nuclear weapons. “We’ve never had a letter of this sort before, so it was a little bit surprising that this is the issue that they chose to weigh in on,” a committee aide said. The UK insists its Trident nuclear deterrent is autonomous, but the two countries share the same missiles and coordinate work on warheads. The current UK Trident warhead, the Holbrook, is very similar to the W76 warhead, one of two the US navy uses in its own Trident II missiles. The US and UK versions of the W93 are also expected to resemble each other closely. Both countries will use the same new MK7 aeroshell, the cone around the warhead that allows it to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere, which will cost another several hundred million dollars. Little has been disclosed about the W93, but it is thought to be based on a design that was tested during the cold war but not made part of the US stockpile at the time. It will potentially be the first new warhead design in the US stockpile since the cold war and is expected to be of considerably higher yield than the current W76, which is already six times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima 75 years ago next week. The demand for funding for the W93 is particularly controversial in the US as the W76 and a higher-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warhead, the W88, have already been subject to multibillion-dollar upgrades. “This is excess on top of excess,” Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said," adding, “We already have two SBLM warheads. The W76 just went through a major life extension programme and is slated to be good into the early 2040s, and the W88 is going through a major alteration. “The US can continue to assist the UK’s arsenal without rushing the development of an unnecessary, at least $14bln new-design, third SLBM warhead,” Reif added. The total cost of the US nuclear weapons modernisation programme is expected to be far in excess of $1tln. The US and Russia, which is also upgrading its arsenal and developing new weapons, together account for more than 90% of all the nuclear warheads on the planet, and both countries are putting increasing emphasis on them in their rhetoric and defence postures. Under Trump, the US has now left three nuclear agreements and his administration is reluctant to extend the last major arms control deal with Russia, the 2010 New Start treaty, which is due to expire in February. The bonfire of nuclear accords, combined with the huge amounts spent on weapons like the W93, are a threat to the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the fundamental bargain by which countries without nuclear arms pledged not to acquire them on condition the recognised nuclear powers (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) took steps to disarm, under article six of the treaty. “When I look at something like the W93, it’s not, in and of itself, a violation of article six,” said Daniel Joyner, a University of Alabama law professor specializing in nuclear treaties, adding, “It’s just a further data point to evidence, the current non-compliance of the US and UK with article six.” In his letter to the congressional committees, Wallace wrote, “Your support to the W93 program in this budget cycle is critical to the success of our replacement warhead programme and to the long-term viability of the UK’s nuclear deterrent and therefore, the future of Nato as a nuclear alliance.” Alexandra Bell, a former state department official and now senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said the US-UK special relationship had shown greater solidarity in promoting new weapons than in arms control. “The UK is noticeably missing when it comes to emphatic support for New Start extension, but yet at the same time it feels comfortable directly telling members of Congress what they should do about our own modernization plans,” Bell said, adding, “I think that’s weird.” Asked about the purpose of Wallace’s letter, a UK defense ministry spokesman said, “The UK’s existing warhead is being replaced in order to respond to future threats and guarantee our security. We have a strong defence relationship with the US and will work closely with our ally to ensure our warhead remains compatible with the US’s Trident missile.” According to official figures, the US W76 warhead is viable until 2045 at least - and the UK version is expected to last until the late 2030’s, so there is no urgent technical need for replacement. Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, said nuclear weapons hawks at the Pentagon, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Los Alamos National Laboratory were pushing to lock in spending in case there is a change of administration. “They would like to get this program endorsed by Congress this year, and they’re very close to it,” Mello said, adding, “Once it is a programme of record, it will take more for a future administration to knock it out.” 

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The trove of secret files was previously withheld from an ongoing High Court legal case by the government, causing a judge to demand an explanation from defense secretary Ben Wallace. Communications from within high ranks of the special forces reveal huge concern for the killings of over 33 Afghan people in 11 different night raids on homes by the same unit. The documents, seen by The Sunday Times Insight team, expose one signficant incident that has been alleged to be a quadruple murder by UK troops, and is now at the centre of the case. On February 16, 2011, the unnamed SAS unit arrived by Chinook helicopter at the village of Gawahargin in Southern Helmand province. They were looking for a young man named Saddam, suspected of being a member of an enemy gang that was planting roadside bombs. With laser gunsights trained, they raided his family home, with family members including his 19-year-old brother Saifullah stepping out into the night with their hands up. The women and children were tied up, with black hoods placed on their heads as they were detained in one part of the small compound. In the next minutes, they heard gunfire.  After the special forces soldiers took off, Saifullah went back into the house in search of his father. He found him, and later his brothers and cousin, dead and with several bullet holes in their heads. Two years later, Saifullah’s uncle made a claim against the UK government for unlawful detention and mistreatment, as he had been imprisoned for 20 days after the raid by the SAS and then released without charge. As part of the litigation, the allegation about the four civilian killings was passed on to the special investigation branch of the Royal Military Police (RMP), who felt the claims were sufficiently serious to launch an investigation in March 2014.  But in extraordinary communications between members of the unit and senior special forces figures revealed in court, the circumstances of the trip are thrown into obscurity. When a computer link to the mission report was circulated earlier that morning, one SAS troop sergeant-major inquired by email at 6:56 am, "Is this about . . . latest massacre! I’ve heard a couple of rumours." But in response, a senior non-commissioned officer sent back a note, laying out what appears to be the official line on the details. Describing the death of Saifullah’s cousin Ahmad Shah, he writes, "Basically, for what must be the 10th time in the last two weeks, when they sent a B [Afghan man] back into the A [a building], to open the curtains(??) he re-appeared [sic] with an AK [AK-47 assault rifle]." Then describing the death of his father, he noted that they went to a different building, denoted as "A", with another Afghan man "B" to "open the curtains", when the man grabbed a grenade and threw it at them. Luckily it didn't go off, but the man was shot.  The email ends with a reference to the shooting outside the compound of one of Saifullah’s two brothers, Saddam. "And finally they shot a guy who was hiding in a bush who had a grenade in his hands. You couldn’t MAKE IT UP!" it added. But the strange details of the deaths, where Afghan men magic up AK47s and grenades from beds and behind the curtains that officers had told them to open has raised eyebrows higher up the chain of command. In one note written on the day of the killings, an officer said he had had a "very difficult" meeting with the colonel in charge of an Afghan partner unit (APU) about the incident. The colonel brought along nine of his soldiers, one of whom was a relative of Saifullah’s family and who gave assurances that the dead men were teachers and farmers, not Taliban supporters. The colonel stated his soldiers had reported that nobody had fired at the coalition forces, but the men "were shot anyway".  The officer's note added, "He suggests that 2 men were shot trying to run away, and that the other 2 men were 'assassinated' on target after they had already been detained and searched." There is also concern that of the 33 deaths, 10 were near-identical in their circumstance, where a captured male family member is back into his empty home to clear the way for a search of the premises, only to get their hands on a weapon and attack the soldiers in "clearly impossible odds". In response to The Sunday Times' story, the Ministry of Defence said, "This is not new evidence, and this historical case has already been independently investigated by the Royal Military Police as part of Operation Northmoor. It has also been subject to four reviews conducted by an independent review team." "These documents were considered as part of the independent investigations, which concluded there was insufficient evidence to refer the case for prosecution. The Service Police and the Service Prosecuting Authority of course remain open to considering allegations should new evidence, intelligence or information come to light," it added.

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