Good morning. Last Sunday was a bright and scorching day in southern England; it was also the busiest day of the year so far for people arriving in small boats across the Channel, with 616 men, women and children making the crossing to the Kent coast, according to the Home Office.
The journey – often in poor-quality inflatable dinghies supplied by organised criminals – is always perilous, and frequently leads to tragedy. All of which makes the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and its volunteers more important than ever.
This week, for the first time, the charity has released figures showing that last year it saved the lives of more than 100 desperate people who were attempting to cross the Channel to England – urgent humanitarian work that has frequently seen it criticised. Some of the harrowing testimony of what its volunteers frequently encounter is below. It does not make easy reading.
Ahead of the publication later today of a report by the immigration watchdog into the government’s treatment of people arriving on small boats, I spoke to the Guardian’s Steven Morris, who has been out on the sea with RNLI volunteers learning about the challenges of their lifesaving work. That’s after the headlines.
Five big stories
Science | Researchers have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, in a groundbreaking advance that sidesteps the need for eggs or sperm. The structures do not have a beating heart or the beginnings of a brain, but include cells that would typically go on to form the placenta, yolk sac and the embryo itself. It is not clear whether they could develop fully, and it would be illegal to do so. The work raises serious ethical and legal issues.
Greece | At least 79 people have died and scores more are missing in the deadliest migrant shipwreck off Greece this year. The victims, almost all men from Afghanistan and Pakistan, drowned when the boat they were travelling in capsized. The vessel, thought to have been carrying several hundred people, had set out from eastern Libya for Italy.
Economy | Jeremy Hunt has said the UK has no alternative but to raise interest rates to bring down inflation, as households brace for the Bank of England to increase borrowing costs further next week.
Media | ITV’s chief executive Carolyn McCall has denied that management may have been motivated to cover up Phillip Schofield’s affair with a younger member of staff to avoid potential commercial harm to its flagship This Morning programme.
Telecoms | Vodafone and the owner of Three have agreed to merge their British telecoms networks, in a move that will create the UK’s largest mobile phone operator. The newly combined company will, if the merger is completed, have more than 27 million subscribers.
In depth: ‘Our greatest terror is not if, but when’
“I’ve seen parents throw their babies across. I’ve seen others trampling neighbours to the floor. I’ve seen men fighting as they struggle to hold one another back. I’ve seen terror as old women hold up clasped hands in prayer, not looking to us but instead to the sky.
“Recently, we have received extra training in not only how to assist a childbirth at sea, but also what to do should we come across tens of bodies floating face down in the water. Our greatest terror is not if, but when.”
Those words of an RNLI volunteer last year, describing the scenes he and his fellow crew members sometimes encounter when they arrive to help a dinghy in trouble in the Channel, are highly distressing to read. Sadly, what they detail is far from a rare occurrence.
The RNLI is tasked by the coastguard with carrying out sea rescues, and almost exactly 200 years after it was founded, its 5,700 volunteer crew members still follow the principles set by its founder Sir William Hillary. Their aim is to help “those whom they have never known or seen, perhaps of another nation, merely because they are fellow creatures in extreme peril”.
As Steven observed earlier this week, innovative new equipment will help them save more lives – something some critics, astonishingly, would prefer they didn’t do.
***
What the figures say
In 2022, the RNLI was asked by HM Coastguard to help vessels in distress in the Channel, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, on 290 occasions.
This represents just 3% of the total number of lifeboat launches by the charity last year, but without them, 108 people would have died, it said yesterday.
This is the first time the RNLI has released figures on its Channel rescues. It did so to show that its work was “genuinely lifesaving”, adding – remarkably – that it was “unashamed and makes no apology” for saving lives.
“They’ve acknowledged that these are sensitive figures because they do get some stick from some people for helping people,” Steven said. In 2021, Nigel Farage and others accused the RNLI of being “a taxi service for illegal immigration” – leading to a 3,000% increase in donations to the charity.
“It obviously isn’t the case,” Steven added. “It’s a terribly dangerous thing that these people are attempting to do. But they are being sensitive about whether to release this information.”
This is just a tiny fraction of the 45,746 people who made the crossing last year, according to Home Office figures. The majority of them would have been eligible for asylum, a Refugee Council analysis has found.
***
Could new equipment save more lives?
Steven took to the water earlier this week on an RNLI lifeboat near its base in Poole, Dorset, to see how innovations in equipment could save more lives. “It was a beautiful, calm, peaceful day, thank goodness, whereas most of these crossings tend to take place at night and often in much rougher seas,” he said.
“Obviously people are under huge stress, and there’s panic and fear when they find themselves in the water. Often they’re fearful of authority so may not be so keen to get on a lifeboat.” Rescuers approach the scene carefully, they told him, “so as not to cause more panic and chaos in the water”.
One innovation is a compact green package which can be thrown to people in the water, and which inflates on impact. “They transform into horseshoe life rings, which means that maybe three people can grab on to them – that saves them from drowning.”
The biggest challenge can be helping large numbers of panicking people on board at once. In response, the charity has developed an inflatable set of steps which it lowers to the water, with a crew member on either side to help passengers on to the lifeboat. “You could see how they could get people so easily out of the water, compared to having to drag them over the rails,” said Steven.
***
The challenges ahead
The RNLI’s important work aside, this is an enormous crisis that won’t be solved by inflatable staircases. It’s also a sizeable political headache for the government, which has been heavily criticised for its response to the many thousands arriving in Kent.
Lawyers and campaigners have been highly critical of conditions in Manston asylum centre, where initial checks are carried out on people who arrived by small boats. There have been multiple cases of diphtheria, and an instance where asylum seekers were removed from the site and dumped in central London, amid dangerous levels of overcrowding.
There have been calls for a public inquiry into conditions there, and staff recently warned that an expected increase in small boat arrivals could lead to it rapidly being overwhelmed again. The report – to be published later today by David Neal, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration – is expected to be highly critical of the government.
The Home Office has said it “takes the welfare of detained individuals extremely seriously, treating all those in detention with dignity and respect”.
What else we’ve been reading
There is a lot wrong with our working culture: low wages, poor conditions and bad work-life balance have left many people feeling unsatisfied and unsupported. Viv Groskop has set out 10 ways to be more content with your job – it won’t fix the huge problems but it may just help with difficult times. Nimo
Miriam Margoyles is “Britain’s naughtiest national treasure”, Vogue says in this characteristically eccentric interview (she’s also one of its cover stars this month). Her frankness about sex and farts also extends to her new book: “I’m writing it because I’m being paid!” Esther
After Robert F Kennedy Jr announced he was running for president in the Democratic party primaries this April, the general consensus has been to ignore and dismiss him. Naomi Klein explains why that is a mistake. Nimo
Worried about having hairy pits for summer? Or unhappy to be hair-free? Don’t be! More men are going fuzz-free, writes Morwenna Ferrier, while fashion is more accepting of women’s furry armpits. And about time too. Esther
In this moving report, Abené Clayton spoke to the parents and family members of young people killed in shootings in the US, who are attending their graduations and accepting diplomas on their children’s behalf. Nimo
Sport
Obituary | Former Chelsea player and manager John Hollins has died aged 76. Hollins (above, in 1968) made almost 600 appearances for the west London side, mainly between his first spell from 1963 and 1975, before a three-year stint as manager from 1985. Chelsea board member Daniel Finkelstein said: “He was a hero to the fans of this club, and very much that to me. He was at the heart of one of Chelsea’s greatest teams and, as well as contributing to its trophy success, he expressed its spirit.”
FPP rules | Everton face legal action from Leicester, Leeds, Southampton and Burnley that could run into tens of millions of pounds if they lose their case for an alleged breach of the Premier League’s financial fair play rules, which the Guardian understands will be heard on 25 October.
Football | Real Madrid have completed the signing of Jude Bellingham from Borussia Dortmund. The England midfielder has agreed a six-year contract at the Bernabéu. Dortmund confirmed in a statement last week that Madrid had agreed to pay an initial €103m (£88.5m) for the 19-year-old.
The front pages
“Scientists create synthetic human embryos in stem cell breakthrough” is the Guardian’s splash this morning. A vigil in the mourning city of Nottingham is shown, and that’s the lead story in other papers. The Daily Mirror has “United in love – families of stab victims share grief” while the Times carries a grieving father’s plea, “Look after each other – and love everyone”. “Families united in grief” says the Daily Express, dedicating its entire front page, while the Daily Mail has “Two fathers lost in grief”. “United in love” – that’s how Metro puts it. There’s a Nottingham picture on the front of the Daily Telegraph where the lead is “Johnson accuses MP on partygate committee of hypocrisy”. The Financial Times’ top story is “Sunak feels heat as rapid mortgage increases add to cost of living crisis” and the i takes up the theme: “Tories losing support from home owners – as Hunt backs new rate hike”.
Today in Focus
Is it time to decriminalise abortion in the UK?
After a distressing and controversial case in which a woman was jailed for taking abortion pills after the UK time limit, is it time to change the law?
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
After years of careful work, researchers from Flinders University found a fossilised version of what is by far the largest skink, a type of lizard, discovered so far. Its official name is Tiliqua frangens, or Frangens for short, and is about 1,000 times bigger than most skinks. It walked the Earth about 50,000 years ago, alongside other extinct mega fauna. Frangens was the size of a human arm and has been comically dubbed the “Mega Chonk” or “Chonkasaurus”. Dr Kailah Thorn, the palaeontologist who discovered Frangens, said she hoped people would have some fun with the discovery. “There’s a bit of a meme trend around large ‘chonky’ animals with phrases like, ‘Oh lawd, he/she comin,’ associated with their arrival,” she said. “I’m keen to see what kind of memes come out when this animal is released on the world.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
