Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English, writes: We can all probably remember the first time we met a Scouser [= ‘person from Liverpool’] face to face. Leafing through Tony Crowley’s excellent Liverpool English Dictionary immediately transported me back to 1983 and a fellow first year student in halls of… read more
Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education, responding to the Government’s announcement they will resume plans to sell off the student loan book, said
“Time and again, this Government is returning to the same failed policies. They have repeatedly tried to privatise the student loan book, only to abandon the idea when it became clear that it was a bad deal for taxpayers and a bad deal for students.
“This new attempt at privatisation is typical of the short-sighted approach to financial management we have seen under the Tories, desperately swapping future income for a one-off boost to flatter their terrible record on our national debt, which has almost doubled since 2010. “The next Labour Government will address the real issues in student finance, by scrapping tuition fees and bringing back maintenance grants as we build a National Education Service that will transform Britain into a country for the many, and not the few.”
read moreDefence Minister Harriett Baldwin has today launched a new Science and Technology Strategy to counter evolving threats and adapt to rapidly changing technology. read more
Justin Madders MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, responding to today’s Royal College of Midwives report on agency spending in the NHS, said:
“The Government’s management of the NHS workforce has been a disaster for both staff and patients. The country is now 3,500 short of the number of midwives needed and the RCM say almost £100m is being used to plug the gaps with temporary staff.
“It’s essential that hospitals are able to get the right number of midwives in place to keep mothers and their babies safe. Labour’s research published earlier this year showed a huge rise in temporary closures of maternity units because of short staffing. The Government’s underfunding of the NHS is failing families in their time of need.
“Ministers must step in with a long term workforce plan for the NHS and they should put an end to the self-defeating pay cap. At the moment too much money is going to employment agencies when it should be going to frontline patient care.”
read moreXi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and other CPC leaders on Tuesday afternoon visited the site in Jiaxing, east China’s Zhejiang Province, where the first CPC National Congress was held in 1921. The … read more