Former England coach David “Bumble” Lloyd has apologised to Azeem Rafiq and the “Asian cricket community” over comments he made.
It comes after Rafiq gave evidence to MPs on his experience of institutional racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club and within the sport as a whole.
He said the Sky Sports commentator tried to smear him in an attempt to suppress his allegations of racism.
“I sat in front of national TV and talked about the dark places this whole episode has got me into and what’s happened since then? Denial, briefings, cover-ups, smearing,” Rafiq told the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee hearing on Tuesday.
“High-profile media people messaging other members of the media who supported me saying stuff like ‘the club houses are the life blood of a club and Asian players don’t go in there’, ‘getting subs out of Asian players is like getting blood out of stone’.
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“And then personally this guy doesn’t even know me, has never spent any time with me, is talking about my personal drinking, going out and socialising.
“That was David Lloyd, he’s been an England coach, commentator, and I found it disturbing because Sky are supposedly doing this amazing work on bringing racism to the front and within a week of me speaking out that’s what I got sent to me. And I thought, “Gosh, there’s some closet racists and we need to do something about it”.”
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Lloyd released a statement on his Twitter account later on Tuesday, apologising to the wider Asian cricket community for his comments.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Lloyd said he was involved in a “private message exchange” during which he “referred to allegations” about the former Yorkshire cricketer and “made some comments about the Asian cricket community”.
The Sky Sports pundit added: “I deeply regret my actions, and I apologise most sincerely to Azeem and to the Asian cricket community for doing this, and for any offence caused.”
Sky has since issued a statement following Lloyd’s apology.
It said: “Sky is committed to actively championing inclusion in cricket – and in all sports – and opposing all forms of discrimination. We will be investigating the comments attributed to David Lloyd in today’s select committee hearing.”
At St Marie’s Catholic Church in Southport, small photos of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar stood on the altar. Candles burned next to them.
During lunchtime mass, Father John Heneghan, who gave Alice her first communion and then conducted her funeral, spoke quietly of the “three little angels” lost a year ago.
Image: (L-R) Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Bebe King.
Pic: Merseyside Police
A town and a community, in small and quiet ways, remembered a horror that still haunts them.
St Marie’s was one of the locations chosen for the people of Southport to come and reflect, pray or light a candle in memory of the awful events of 29 July last year.
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Throughout the day, a handful of people have paused for a moment at community centres, libraries and churches.
The town had opted for very little outward show of commemoration.
After discussions, including with the families of the victims, they asked for people to instead donate to local causes, including the charities set up by those families themselves – Elsie’s Story, Bebe’s Hive and Alice’s WonderDance.
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They requested no flowers at the scene of the attack or the schools the girls attended.
“Let us continue to honour the lives of Alice, Bebe and Elsie,” the leader and chair of Sefton Council said in a letter to the community, “not only through remembrance but by holding onto the values they embodied – joy, creativity, kindness, and love.”
Image: Flowers left at Town Hall Gardens in Southport, near where three children were fatally stabbed a year ago. Pic: PA
At 3pm, people stopped to observe the three-minute silence in the town centre.
A few wiped away tears before spontaneous applause broke out.
In Southport’s Town Hall Gardens, which was the focal point of the public mourning a year ago, people again came to place flowers, toys and cards in memory of the victims.
Stones bearing messages of support to the families were also placed there.
“God bless to you three little angels,” read one card.
Resident doctors are not ruling out further strike action as their current walkout comes to an end, with some demands still unmet.
The latest strike began on Friday amid an ongoing row over pay and is expected to last until 7am on Wednesday.
Hospital leaders have urged the British Medical Association (BMA) and the government to end the strikes, which caused widespread disruptions throughout the NHS in England.
The BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee (RDC) says it is ready for further talks with the government but has yet to be contacted by Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
Dozens of resident doctors, previously called junior doctors, took part in a picket line on Tuesday at King George Hospital in Ilford, a facility serving the constituents of the health secretary.
Image: Health Secretary Wes Streeting visits the NHS National Operations Centre in London to see the response to the industrial action. Pic: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire
“Unfortunately, we haven’t heard from him yet. That doesn’t mean that he’s not going to call us tomorrow – our door is always open,” said Dr Melissa Ryan, who co-chairs the committee alongside Dr Ross Nieuwoudt.
Dr Nieuwoudt said: “There does not need to be a single other day of industrial action at all.
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“All Wes Streeting needs to do is come to us now and talk to us now, because that’s what doctors want and that’s what patients need.”
The union has also launched a related dispute with the government over limited training spots, as this year, over 30,000 resident doctors competed for only 10,000 specialty places.
A recent poll of 4,400 doctors found that 52% finishing their second training year lack confirmed employment for August.
Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at NHS Confederation, said: “Resident doctors have recently had a very substantial increase in their pay and the government has been pretty clear that at the moment, there isn’t more money to be negotiated.”
Dr McCay said the government “is keen” to discuss non-pay issues, such as workforce conditions.
Image: NHS resident doctors outside St Thomas’ Hospital. Pic: PA.
“I think that the hope of all healthcare leaders is that the BMA will get around the table with the government and figure out a solution to this, because what absolutely nobody wants to see is any further cases of industrial action after this one.”
Streeting has said the union can’t “hold the country to ransom” following a 28.9% pay increase over the past three years, the highest in the public sector.
The BMA has said pay for resident doctors has declined by a fifth since 2008, once inflation is taken into account, despite this uplift.
Meanwhile, health workers represented by the GMB and Unite unions have also turned down a government offer, raising the likelihood of additional industrial action within the NHS.
Nurses are also expected to turn down the pay deal later this week.
The Royal College of Nursing, which represents hundreds of thousands of nurses across the NHS in England, is balloting its members on the 3.6% pay award offered for 2025/26 in England.
A recent YouGov poll found that public opinion in Britain is divided over nurses striking for better pay. Among 4,300 adults surveyed, 19% “strongly support” nurse strikes, while 28% offer some support. In contrast, 23% “strongly oppose” the strikes, and 20% “somewhat oppose” them.
The PM has a lot of form now for bowing to pressure from Labour MPs poised to rebel against government policy.
The demand to the PM in the letter orchestrated by Labour MP Sarah Champion, who chairs the all-party international development select committee, was for the government to recognise Palestine at the United Nations conference on the Middle East currently taking place in New York.
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Foreign Secretary David Lammy was cheered and applauded when he repeated the pledge made by Sir Keir in a near-empty room in Downing Street to TV cameras and just two journalists.
But there are conditions. And the early response from the Israelis was not encouraging.
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First, the PM said, “end the appalling situation in Gaza“, then “a ceasefire, no annexation in the West Bank and a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution”.
Good luck, as they say, with that.
If the shift in the PM’s position wasn’t the result of pressure from MPs, was it a potential mutiny inside the cabinet?
It followed a lengthy cabinet meeting after ministers were dragged from their sun beds and allowed to dial in remotely rather than turn up at 10 Downing Street in person.
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It was reported before the meeting that seven cabinet ministers, including big hitters Mr Lammy and the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, backed recognising Palestine.
So yes, the PM could see that the way cabinet ministers were moving and holding out against recognition was becoming unsustainable.
Asked what difference recognising Palestine would make in practice, Sir Keir said the aim was that it would help improve conditions on the ground in Gaza.
Ahead of his statement, the PM briefed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the King of Jordan, whose country is spearheading the air drops of aid into Gaza. More phone calls with world leaders are planned in the coming hours.
Sir Keir wouldn’t answer a question about what assurances he’d received from President Trump during their talks in Scotland about using his influence with the Israeli PM to allow aid into Gaza.
That is the most urgent priority, as the PM acknowledged. And since President Trump, speaking about the horrible TV pictures from Gaza, memorably said “you can’t fake that” and “every ounce of food” should be allowed in, it seems he did indeed listen to Sir Keir’s pleas in Scotland.
So even if he has indeed bowed to pressure from MPs and cabinet ministers, Sir Keir has achieved a significant breakthrough in the past 48 hours or so.
He won’t please everyone, obviously, but no politician ever did in the Middle East.