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With Bio-Waste Spreader: "The high court has ruled that chicken manure must be classified as 'waste' under environmental regulations that apply to farming, in a defeat for the National Farmers Union (NFU) and a victory for Herefordshire council and the charity River Action. The case came to court after Herefordshire council classified chicken manure as waste in its minerals and waste local plan…"
With M.D.: "Labour has been cagey about precise targets in its 10-year plan for the NHS. But both Keir Starmer and Streeting are 'determined that this generation will be the one that ends new cases of HIV within England by 2030'. Thus £27m has been ringfenced for all emergency department blood tests to include screening for HIV and hepatitis B and C, unless patients opt out. But those who work in sexual health believe these and other targets will be missed…"
With Dr B Ching: "The Office of Rail and Road regulator will have its wings clipped when Great British Railways (GBR) becomes the network's 'directing mind'. But that's a couple of years off – enough time for ORR to inflict yet more complication and misery on train travellers. The basic problem is not ORR but the rail privatisation bureaucracy cooked up by the Tories in the 1990s and embraced by subsequent Labour, coalition and Tory governments…"
With Remote Controller: "Most of the brutal reviewers of Ms Markle's – whoops, Meghan Sussex's, as she corrects a dead-naming courtier in episode two – have clearly watched not far beyond that nominal correction in With Love, Meghan, the former Suits star's handbook on having the lifestyle of a British royal exiled in LA. Viewing all eight episodes, though, reveals a series that goes beyond boredom and bad to reach a hypnotic weirdness…"
With Old Sparky: "The long-awaited civil case against tree-burning electricity firm Drax, brought by sacked former lobbyist Rowaa Ahmar, kicked off in a London employment tribunal last week. 'The case is of public interest,' said the judge. Ahmar, who is claiming unfair dismissal after raising concerns with executives over Drax's shaky sustainability claims, has evidenced a catalogue of shocking behaviour by senior management…"
With Lunchtime O'Boulez: "The review ordered by the Bishop of Winchester into shenanigans at the cathedral last year has just reported. Laughably, not only does it apparently find no one's to blame, but even as the bishop's summary admits the review spotted a damaging 'culture of secrecy', he makes clear neither the review nor its 46 recommendations will see the light of day…"
With Slicker: "Ukraine may not have received any of the promised cash, but it has not been all bad news over the £2.5bn proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC by its sanctioned Russian oligarch owner Roman Abramovich to a group of US investors in May 2022. For while the money – believed to be £2.35bn after deal expenses – has been sitting in a frozen UK bank account held by Fordstam (the Abramovich company which owned the Premier League club), interest rates have more than quadrupled..."
Letter from Damascus
From Our Own Correspondent: "Despite his past as an Al-Qaeda leader, our warlord-turned-president Ahmed al-Sharaa has promised to respect democratic processes and minorities, things Syria hasn't known in modern times. Many were nervous about his real long-term intentions, but it seemed nothing could be worse than the old regime. Now the slaughter this month by Sharaa's troops of hundreds of Alawite civilians, members of erstwhile dictator Bashar al-Assad's sect, has raised fears…"