Our Christmas appeal received a huge boost today thanks to a £250,000 donation from the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund. This takes the total amount raised by our Winter Survival Appeal to £1.5 million. The grim reality is that this money is needed more than ever. The Trussell Trust predicts that demand on food banks is set to soar and that this will be their “busiest winter ever”.
The Dispossessed Fund was established in 2010 to tackle poverty, inequality and exclusion in the capital. Its donation will go to eight charities helping Londoners through the cost-of-living crisis.
The appeal has also been bolstered by two London stars — rapper and grime artist Big Zuu as well as the actress and singer Hannah Waddingham — who have thrown their considerable stardust behind it. When times get tough, Londoners come together. That will be the case this Christmas, and into the future. If you can, visitcomicrelief.com/wintersurvival to make a donation.
Call off doctors’ strike
No one, from patients to policymakers, has any doubt about the value junior doctors bring to the National Health Service. It is tough work over long hours on the frontline of a health crisis. Yet junior doctors must not use their influence — or exhaust that goodwill — in a way that brings the system to a grinding halt and puts lives at risk.
Junior doctors in England are set to stage further walkouts this December and January, after talks between the Government and the British Medical Association collapsed. They have been offered a three per cent increase on top of the average 8.8 per cent rise already provided in the summer. Junior doctors are to strike for nine days in total — contributing to the longest consecutive strike in NHS history.
Any industrial action by health professionals inevitably presents a threat to patients. Such a long strike over the Christmas period poses an even greater danger, which junior doctors know only too well.
For the sake of the very people they have dedicated their lives to serving, junior doctors ought to call off the strike, come back to the negotiating table and put patients first.
Toast of the toon
A Prime Minister facing political difficulty at the same time as the blockbuster Barbie movie was sweeping the world? The Standard’s brilliant cartoonist, Christian Adams, had only one option: “Rishie” the doll.
And now Adams has been recognised once again for his talents, picking up the Political Cartoon of the Year for his efforts at the Ellwood Atfield Political Cartoon of the Year Awards.
You can enjoy his funny, incisive and only occasionally cruel cartoons in the newspaper and on the website (almost) every day.
