PM Meets Families Facing Poverty At Food Bank

By Ian Woods, Senior Correspondent

The Prime Minister has made a secret visit to his local food bank, after criticism that Downing Street does not understand the increasing role they are playing in 'Austerity Britain'.

Mr Cameron visited the charity, which operates out of a church hall in his constituency in Oxfordshire, and spoke to volunteers who supply up to 10 families each week with emergency food parcels.

Nationally, the use of food banks has grown, with the largest operator, the Trussell Trust, now running 310 centres. The trust helped 260,000 people in the past year, an increase of 60,000 on the year before.

The Witney food bank was set up by Jo Cypher, who told Sky News: "We've had people coming in saying 'we've had a choice this week, either we buy electric, we buy gas, we pay bills, or we eat'."

Her colleague Julie Walker-Lock said they were helping a variety of people. "We're seeing from the elderly down to the families with young children. We've had a barrister in - he'd been looking after his wife and she'd passed away and he'd lost everything, and he came here, and we helped him out."

Melody Hopkins is one of the those who has used the Witney food bank. She told Sky News she was a victim of domestic violence, and then lost her job as a carer for disabled people.

More and more people are relying on food banks

Despite receiving benefits and child tax credits, she said she struggles to pay rising food and heating bills, and care for her eight-year-old son Toby who requires daily medication for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. She found it difficult to make the transition from wage earner to welfare recipient.

"My wages had stopped, so I had to wait for the benefits to kick in. We were desperate. We didn't have any food. At one point I had a fiver, in my back pocket, to just go and get some food.

"It's sad to think that I used to work, I used to do three meals a day, it was great, and now it's come down to one meal a day, because Toby gets free lunch at school. So I haven't eaten today - I'll eat later with him. I have gone without because Toby comes first ... it's sad when I can't give Toby the food he wants."

Difficulties in finding childcare after school for a child with special needs mean Ms Hopkins cannot get a full-time job, so she does voluntary work instead.

"I don't want to be on benefits. I want to go back to work and do a job. I've always worked. This is the only one or two years I haven't had a job," she said.

The food bank in Witney is housed in a church hall

Ms Hopkins added that she shops for clothes once a year, gets furniture from charity shops and avoids big supermarkets. 

"Every aisle is temptation, you need to go around those shops and not even look at the prices. I can't do that. I go in with a basket and it's the bare essentials - can we make tea out of what we've got? And you see people walking out with big trolleys and you think OK, I haven't got that, we've got what we need and we will go," she explained.

To help as many people as possible, and to avoid dependency, food banks permit only three visits per year, and recipients have to have been referred by a charity or other agency. GPs are now prescribing food as well as medicine to patients.

Dr Raj Kohli, from the Deer Park Medical Centre in Witney, told Sky News: "I do come across families who are struggling to appropriately feed their children. Particularly with fresh fruit and vegetables, it's expensive.

"We're not necessarily seeing the physical effects of malnutrition at this stage, but they are struggling. We need to look at their immediate needs, and a food bank can help their immediate needs."

Food bank user Melody Hopkins prepares a meal

Witney is not the sort of place you might expect to find poverty. The Cotswolds town has only 909 people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance and its unemployment rate is less than half of the national average. 

But there are enough people struggling to make ends meet to mean the food bank has become a vital resource. Even the local Brownie pack saved loose change and then put all their money together to buy tins of food to give to the poor. Shoppers and supermarkets both donate groceries which can be used in food parcels.

The volunteers at the Witney food bank were sworn to secrecy about the Prime Minister's visit, and no cameras were present.

But they said that he listened to their comments about why the food bank was needed and their fears that changes to the benefits system in April could bring a fresh influx of people who find it hard to pay their bills.

Previously, a Downing Street spokesperson has said: "Benefit levels are set at a level where people can afford to eat. If people have short-term shortages, where they feel they need a bit of extra food, then of course food banks are the right place for that. But benefits are not set at such a low level that people can't eat."

Affluent Witney is not necessarily where you would expect to find poverty

Volunteer Julie Walker-Lock told Sky News: "I think that was a very ill-informed statement they made. There is a genuine need for us to be here." 

Ms Cypher said: "We were glad he came, because I think he was blind to the fact that, like everybody else, supposedly Witney is very rich. It's actually quite the opposite. It's not.

"I think he went away with a better understanding of how the system works and why we're here. I'm hoping that we went away with some of those thoughts, and he will act on them."

For those who use the food banks, items like pasta and tins of soups can be an essential part of their diet. But sometimes it's having an occasional treat which can lift people out of depression. An unexpected Christmas hamper made all the difference to Ms Hopkins and her son.

"To everybody else they're not luxuries, but to me and my son they were luxuries. They were things I wanted to buy but couldn't afford to buy, and it brought some tears to our eyes.

"Christmas Day we just had a standard chicken. Most people have turkey, we didn't, we had tinned veg. I mean, it was OK, but we had the little extras like a cracker each, and mince pies. My son was like 'I got sweeties' and I actually wrapped them up and put them in his stocking - that's how important it is to us," she said.

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Cameron Vows To Stay The Course

David Cameron has said there will be no "lurch to the right" by the Conservatives in the wake of the party's drubbing in the Eastleigh by-election.

The British Prime Minister insisted he would "stick to the course we are on" despite seeing the Tories beaten into third place by the Liberal Democrats and UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Mr Cameron has come under pressure by some in his own party to offset the rise of UKIP by shifting toward the right, especially on issues of Europe and immigration.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister said he fully understood the concerns of voters impatient for change.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage

"I know who these people are. They are people who feel that Britain, this great country we love, was going downhill for years under Labour and is not being fixed fast enough by the Government I lead," he wrote.

"If they were concerned about welfare, they were accused of not caring. If they were worried about out-of-control immigration, they were called racist. If they wanted to talk about Britain being great again, they were made to feel nostalgic and old-fashioned.

"These people - hard-working, decent, patriotic people - are who the Conservative Party has always been for. We are on the side of those who want to work hard and get on in life.

"But the battle for Britain's future will not be won in lurching to the right, nor by some cynical attempt to calculate the middle distance between your political opponents and then planting yourself somewhere between them."

He called this "lowest common denominator politics", citing instead the "common ground" of politics invoked by Margaret Thatcher's ideological mentor Keith Joseph.

However, in an apparent move to appeal to voters who abandoned the Conservatives for UKIP, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling indicated the Tories would abolish the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the European Convention on Human Rights in British law, if they won the next general election.

Chris Grayling wants the Human Rights Act abolished

The move will be welcomed by Tory MPs frustrated by controversial rulings by the Strasbourg-based court, including blocking the deportation of the radical cleric Abu Qatada and ruling that prisoners must be given the vote.

But it threatens to exacerbate tensions within the coalition, since the Liberal Democrats are committed to defending the Human Rights Act.

"We cannot go on with a situation where people who are a threat to our national security, or who come to Britain and commit serious crimes, are able to cite their human rights when they are clearly wholly unconcerned for the human rights of others," Mr Grayling told the Sunday Telegraph.

"We need a dramatically curtailed role for the European Court of Human Rights in the UK."

Labour accused Mr Cameron of being a weak leader who was caving in to the Tory right over the Human Rights Act.

"It's clear David Cameron's response to his disastrous result in Eastleigh is a big lurch to the right," a spokesman said.

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Councils 'Not Providing Enough Childcare'

More than two thirds of councils are failing to provide enough childcare for working parents, campaigners for families' rights have warned.

Only one in five local authorities have enough childcare for parents with children under two, and just one in three for school-age children, according to the Daycare Trust and Family and Parenting Institute.

And just one in seven have enough childcare for disabled children - a figure that has not improved in five years, it said.

The charity's chief executive, Anand Shukla, said the shortage is linked to the financial squeeze.

"Councils across England and Wales are failing families by presiding over a continuing shortage of high-quality, affordable childcare," he said.

"Local authorities have a legal duty to ensure a sufficient supply of childcare in their areas, but no doubt their failure to do so is linked to the tight financial squeeze they find themselves in, with ever more austere funding settlements.

"Only the Government can address this situation by investing more in providing support for parents."

Britain has some of the highest childcare costs in the world.

Figures published recently by the Department for Work and Pensions showed that a third of parents who want to work more cannot because they are unable to find affordable childcare.

The Government is set to announce childcare reforms

As part of coalition efforts to cut childcare costs, staff are to be able to take charge of six two-year-olds rather than four, while the ratio for children under the age of one will go up from three to four

But the charity's Childcare Costs Survey 2013 suggests such plans will have little impact on childcare costs.

Mr Shukla said: "Staffing costs are only part of a complicated picture, so allowing adults to look after more children at once is not only a risky idea, but an ineffective one too.

"With private and non-profit childcare providers exposed to the full force of a harsh business economy, we doubt whether parents will ever see any of the money saved by cutting nursery staff."

Ministers have still not finalised a much-heralded, wider shake-up of childcare funding and tax breaks.

The Government will make an announcement soon, a spokesman said.

"We are reforming the childcare system so that providers have more flexibility when they have highly qualified staff and childminders are better supported," he said.

"Ratio changes, which are not compulsory, will allow providers to have the flexibility to increase pay for better qualified workers.

"High quality providers will be able to expand and more childminders will enter the market - this will mean parents have more affordable childcare."

The charity's study will be published on Wednesday.

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Crufts To Include New Crossbreeds Class

By Emma Birchley, Sky News Correspondent

The world's greatest dog show is to include a class just for crossbreeds for the first time ever.

Crufts is to host the final of Scruffts, which will see four dogs battling for the title of Family Crossbreed Dog of the Year.

The decision comes five years after the event organiser, The Kennel Club, was accused of promoting breeding practices that left animals with health problems - an accusation it fiercely denied.

Rascal, a 10-year-old Jack Russell and Norfolk Terrier cross, is one of the four finalists and her owner, Anne Worthington, from Dereham in Norfolk, is delighted they have the chance to be involved.

"The Kennel Club have been running Scruffts for some years now and I think they have taken the opportunity to move it to Crufts because it will broaden the audience.

"It also means that the various people in the dog community who have crossbreeds can now aspire to something different."

But despite the new category, the RSPCA is still not ready to reinstate its support, after withdrawing its backing in 2008 for what it called "morally unjustifiable" breeding methods.

Breeder Jan Fletcher opposes the move

"Including a crossbreed competition in Crufts is a step in the right direction because some of the categories move away from judging dogs on their appearance and they focus more on the positive aspects of dog ownership and awarding owners who have dogs that are happy, healthy and friendly," said scientific officer Lisa Richards. 

"But it's important to remember that Scruffts is just a really tiny part of Crufts and we still have serious concerns that Crufts and other dog shows like it are still beauty pageant type shows with that emphasis on appearance and that dogs being bred to win these shows, their welfare is being seriously affected by that."

The finalists will be judged on personality and general health.

The final is being held on Friday. Rascal is up against Alfie, the Most Handsome Crossbreed Dog; Prettiest Bitch, Becky, and Child's Best Friend, Barley.

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Nurses Who Raise Concerns 'Fear Consequences'

A majority of nurses who raise concerns over patient care believe they are being ignored or punished for speaking out, a survey has found.

Research for the magazine Nursing Times suggested that an NHS attitude of discouraging staff from reporting problems is putting patients at risk.

Many nurses are afraid of being labelled troublemakers or being ostracised by senior staff if they highlight concerns, the research found.

More than 800 nurses were questioned in the survey.

Half of nurses who had raised concerns about the NHS said they were not dealt with properly, while a third felt they were likely to face negative consequences or be ignored as a result of raising concerns.

The survey revealed that 84% of respondents had previously raised concerns about a colleague's practice or attitude - of which 23% said they had done so "several times" or "regularly", and 23% "at least once".

But of those who had raised such concerns, 52% said there had been no appropriate outcome as a result of speaking out and a similar percentage said doing so had led to them suffering negative consequences.

Almost 30% of nurses said being viewed as a troublemaker was the biggest barrier to speaking out, with inaction by managers cited by 23%.

Eight out of 10 nurses said the ability to raise concerns in the NHS could be a lot better.

Nursing Times editor Jenni Middleton said: "I have personally spoken to nurses who, having raised concerns, have been sidelined and ostracised by their employers, bullied and marginalised by their colleagues - and end up feeling ashamed and guilty, as well as concerned that their careers are over."

Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said the findings were "extremely worrying" and called for greater transparency.

Health minister Dr Dan Poulter said: "We are determined that staff who have the courage and integrity to speak out in the interests of patient safety are protected and listened to."

He listed measures taken by the Government to support whistle-blowers in the NHS, such as funding a national helpline, and said the NHS Commissioning Board will be required, starting in April, to include a contractual duty of openness in all commissioning contracts.

"We are now considering the recommendations of the Francis Report in full and whether we need go further," he added, referring to the report on the care provided by Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust after an inquiry by Robert Francis QC.

Dean Royles, chief executive of the NHS Employers organisation, said that while "enormous efforts" had been made by employers to encourage staff, more needed to be done.

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Rape T-Shirt Company Boss Says: 'I'm Sorry'

The founder of design brand Solid Gold Bomb has posted an online apology after T-shirts advocating rape and domestic violence appeared for sale on Amazon's website.

The US company was behind tops sloganed 'Keep Calm And Rape' and 'Keep Calm And Hit Her' which prompted a furious response from shoppers and led to their withdrawal from the site.

Michael Fowler, Solid Gold Bomb's founder, headed his lengthy apology: "I am sorry."

He went on to say: "As the party responsible within our company for scripting and creating this automated process that created the matched slogans for this 'Keep Calm' series, I apologise for the offensive response this has created across the world.

"No words can express how I feel about what has occurred and in no way do I condone or promote this serious issue."

Mr Fowler detailed how the slogans on the 'parody series' of Keep Calm T-shirts was generated adding: "These items sat online and on non-indexed servers for the last year and myself and our company had no idea of the issue."

The Keep Calm and... T-shirts were withdrawn from sale on Saturday

He added: "We simply do not produce poor humour or offensive products."

Repeating his apology, Mr Fowler said: "Currently, our listings have been fully removed and we are working to delete the entire parody series."

Critics of the T-shirts quickly let their feelings be known by posting hundreds of negative comments on the relevant Amazon pages and Twitter.

One online customer, Jody, said: "Your on a roll now Amazon. So not content with supporting and encouraging rape your also advocating violence against women.

"Domestic violence is a crime. Real men don't beat there partners."

Meanwhile, former Labour deputy leader Lord Prescott, tweeted: "First Amazon avoids paying UK tax. Now they're make money from domestic violence."

An e-petition was set up titled "Amazon: Stop Encouraging Gropers", while Labour MP Roberta Blackman-Woods tweeted that "these amazon t shirts are terrible & we must speak out against them".

Solid Gold Bomb said it sends its T-shirts from Worcester in Massachusetts to throughout the US, UK, Germany, Canada and 79 other countries daily.

Amazon typically charges companies 7% of the price, postage and any taxes to list and sell items through its website.

Prior to withdrawal the 'Keep Calm' shirts retailed in Britain for between £14.99 to £16.99 - excluding postage - allowing Amazon to make more than £1.18 on each sale.

Last year Amazon came under fire from MPs and the public over tax avoidance, after it was claimed the company generated UK sales during three years of between £7.6bn and £10.3bn, but paid virtually no corporation tax.

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Retired Cop Found Shot Dead Alongside Partner

A man found shot dead alongside his female partner was a retired police inspector of 30 years' service, a detective has said.

The pair were found dead at a property in Wiltshire on Saturday morning after neighbours alerted the police having heard gunshots.

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Saunders said Bill Dowling retired about five or six years ago.

The detective also confirmed that the woman was the man's partner.

Mr Saunders said the bodies were discovered inside the porch.

"The investigation has so far identified that yesterday morning some neighbours overheard a number of gunshots from the address," he said.

"The investigation continues to try and establish what led to this tragic incident."

He added that formal identification would happen later on Sunday.

"We understand him to be a retired police officer - he retired some five years ago from Wiltshire Police Service," said Mr Saunders.

"The female was not the wife of the retired officer, she is his partner.

"We have recovered a weapon from the scene. My working assumption is that weapons were discharged and the victims had sustained some form of gunshot wounds."

One man who lived near property said he believed Mr Dowling had a firearms licence.

He said: "I have known him for more than a decade and he was into shooting.

"I'd seen him load what looked like a big gun case into his car a few times, I think he went pheasant shooting.

"It was a big gun - it looked like it could've been a shotgun or something.

"He had long had an interest in shooting but over the last couple of months I saw him in his shooting gear a lot more."

The neighbour added: "It just doesn't make sense. They were a lovely couple, and he had recently spent a lot of money doing up the house."

Post-mortem examinations will be carried out on Sunday.

Officers are not looking for anybody else in connection with the shootings, which happened on Moonrakers estate in Devizes.

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UK Explorer: Green Campaigning Has Failed

By Tom Rayner in Ushuaia, Argentina

One of Britain's leading polar explorers has told Sky News that decades of campaign efforts to get people engaged with climate change have failed.

Robert Swan, who was the first man to walk to both the North and South poles, was speaking in Argentina on the eve of the launch of his latest expedition to Antarctica - one which he hopes will help turn the tide of public apathy towards green issues.

He said: "People are really sick and tired of seeing pictures of another glacier melting, another forest dying.

"This whole approach of the doomsday scenario is not working because people switch off and they think - 'well we can't do anything'.

"It's not working, this whole showing endless pictures saying there is a problem, I think anyone in the real world knows there's a problem, what we've got to do now is say, how can we inspire people?"

Mr Swan will be leading a group of 80 young people from 28 countries across the world to the Antarctic Peninsula.

His mission is to impress upon them the importance of maintaining the current international legal frameworks that protect the frozen continent from mining and drilling for energy resources.

Mr Swan hopes the expedition members will take plans of action back to their own countries after seeing Antarctica for themselves.

"We've got 80 people coming together to get a really good story that they can take back with them. They can go to Antarctica, come back, and then inspire people with ideas about change and solutions, not doomsday scenarios."

Made up of high-flyers from industry, business, banking, politics, NGOs and education, the expedition is comprised of young people from across the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa and America.

Some have had travel paid for by their companies or organisations, others have personally raised money through private sponsorship to pay for a place on the expedition.

The group, described as 'decision-makers of the future', will travel from the most southerly city in the world, the Argentinian port of Ushuaia, across the notoriously stormy sea channel known as Drake's passage, and then finally onwards to the Antarctic Peninsula.

Mr Swan's campaign is known as 2041 - a reference to the year when the international community could begin to re-evaluate the international treaty and environmental protocols which currently ban all exploitation of Antarctica's natural resources.

The continent, which is governed by an international treaty and not owned by any one state, is known to have significant reserves of minerals such as iron ore and coal, and scientists believe there are likely to be oil and natural gas reserves too, although they have not yet been identified.

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Gazza: I've Never Been As Bad As This Before

Paul Gascoigne says he is not ready to give up his fight against alcohol addiction after his emergency admission to a US rehab clinic.

The Sunday Mirror reported that the former football star told his friend Jimmy Gardner: "The drink nearly finished me off this time.

"I know I've never been as bad as this before. But I'm not ready to give up the fight.

"I'm getting better now. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there."

Friends of Gascoigne, 45, clubbed together to pay for his £6,000-a-week detox treatment, after a relapse in January.

He was transferred to a hospital following a seizure, where he spoke to Mr Gardner, 46, from his ward.

Mr Gardner told the Sunday Mirror: "Paul sounded frail and weak and scared.

"But I could hear something else in his voice too. I could hear grit and determination.

"No one knows Paul like I do and I can tell you, he's not for throwing in the towel.

"I love him to his bones. I can't think about him not being here. He'll beat the booze. He's done it before and he'll do it again."

He will now spend time in isolation in rehab, and has had his phone taken away as part of his therapy.

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Queen Treated In Hospital Over Stomach Bug

The Queen has been taken to hospital after suffering symptoms of gastroenteritis.

Her Majesty, who is 86, is being assessed by doctors at the King Edward VII Hospital in central London.

The monarch is in "good spirits" and is otherwise in "good health", according to her spokesman.

She was driven to the hospital around 3pm and is expected to remain there for a couple of days.

The spokesman said: "This is a precautionary measure. She was not taken into hospital immediately after feeling the symptoms.

"This is simply to enable doctors to better assess her."

All official engagements planned for this week will be postponed or cancelled, Buckingham Palace said.

She was due to attend a military celebration in Swansea yesterday for St David's Day celebrations, but was forced to cancel because of the sickness.

The Duchess of Cambridge was treated at the same hospital last year

She and the Duke of Edinburgh were due to fly out to Rome for a two-day visit on Wednesday, which will now not go ahead.

A Palace spokesman said: "The Queen is being assessed at the King Edward VII's Hospital, London, after experiencing symptoms of gastroenteritis.

"As a precaution, all official engagements for this week will regrettably be either postponed or cancelled."

The Queen's sickness was first announced on Friday, and she spent Saturday resting at Windsor Castle.

She has undertaken a number of engagements during the last week.

On Tuesday she met the Archbishop of Canterbury at Buckingham Palace, and on Thursday she presented a host of Olympic stars with honours during an investiture ceremony.

Her Majesty has rarely missed a royal engagement due to ill health in recent years.

She was last forced to pull out of an investiture ceremony in October last year after suffering with a bad back.

She also missed a visit to the British Museum in October 2011 because of a cold.

The Duchess of Cambridge was treated at the King Edward VII hospital for acute morning sickness late last year.

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