On the second day of the long overdue public inquiry into the NHS Contaminated Blood scandal, leading Criminal Barrister Sam Stein caused a sensation by referring to the harm caused to haemophiliacs and the deaths of so many as “grievous bodily harm and murder”. He represents four clients, three being...
Cash incentives from the government that allow home owners to rent out a spare room at £6,000 a year tax free are creating a short-term let bubble that strangles the availability of lodgings in the city. Back in the day, lodgers, as they were known, often became hugely important members...
This June, in light of lack of public trust after the Grenfell disaster, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire promised that a green paper on social housing would be published before the parliamentary recess. Its failure to appear, despite a worsening housing crisis and...
The London Bridge attack on June 3 2017 was an atrocity all too familiar, in which three British Islamists, high on steroids and wearing fake explosive vests, brought terror to our streets. They drove a van into innocent pedestrians on London Bridge and then used knives to murder eight people. 48 people...
During his trip to London in 2005 to support the newly launched high-profile campaign #MakePovertyHistory, the late, great and hugely missed Nelson Mandela said, “Poverty is man-made and can, therefore, be unmade.” Today, 50 years after another great black civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, established the Poor People’s Campaign,...
In April 2000, I read the extraordinary story of hungry American, Kenneth Payne, who was given a 16 year jail term for stealing a one dollar Snickers bar. The American legal system saw him as a serial food thief. The American District Attorney tried Payne as a habitual offender, increasing the severity of a shoplifting...
We are almost at that time of year when the press office teams at the, increasingly corporate, food bank operators pump out the annual reports and latest figures for the millions who were helped by their food bank operation in 2017 .Their figure will give the main stream news the...
After five long months, my friend, fellow broadcaster and activist, Hisham Al-Omeisy was finally released by his Houthi captors on Sunday 14 January 2018. Nothing can explain the emotion this image of Hisham, now a free man, with his sons evokes in those of us who have campaigned for his freedom...
The war in Yemen has taken a fresh twist after extraordinary claims emerged that Saudi government agents infiltrated a humanitarian charity to kidnap the most high profile face of the Yemen conflict, Buthaina Al Rimi. Mohammad Ali Houthi, President of the high commissioner the revolutionary Houthis, has exclusively confirmed to...