Connect with us

Published

on

Liverpool will host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the BBC has announced.

It beat off Glasgow to win the chance to host the show, with the grand final taking place on 13 May 2023.

Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra won this year’s contest but organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), ruled it would be unsafe to host next year’s contest in the country.

The UK’s Sam Ryder came second, with the BBC stepping in to offer to host the contest instead.

The BBC’s Graham Norton, who commentates on the event on behalf of the UK, revealed the announcement live on The One Show.

In a statement, the EBU said Liverpool, which is twinned with the Ukrainian city of Odesa, “was chosen following a strong city bid process that examined facilities at the venue, the ability to accommodate thousands of visiting delegations, crew, fans and journalists, infrastructure, and the cultural offer of the host city in reflecting Ukraine’s win in 2022, amongst other criteria.”

The head of the Eurovision Song Contest, Martin Osterdahl, added the city was the “ideal place” to hold the competition next year, and that Liverpool’s arena “exceeds all the requirements” to put on the show.

More on Eurovision

Kalush Orchestra, reacting to the announcement, said: “We are very pleased that next year’s Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Liverpool.

“Though we haven’t had the privilege of visiting yet, the musical heritage of the city is known all over the world. Playing in the same place that The Beatles started out will be a moment we’ll never forget!

“Although we are sad that next year’s competition cannot take place in our homeland, we know that the people of Liverpool will be warm hosts and the organisers will be able to add a real Ukrainian flavour to Eurovision 2023 in this city.”

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan also congratulated Liverpool after the announcement, saying: “Huge congratulations to Liverpool. The city loves music and knows how to throw a party, so I’ve no doubt it will host a spectacular experience for the thousands in attendance and millions watching at home on the BBC.

“(Vladimir) Putin’s illegal war means the competition cannot take place in Ukraine, but Eurovision brings people together and, together with the government, I am sure Liverpool and the BBC will honour the country’s culture and creativity with an event to remember.”

Thoughts will now turn to planning the mammoth event, which consists of three live shows and countless rehearsals, and how it will be paid for.

Eurovision is usually paid for by the host broadcaster, the host city, and the government of the host country.

The BBC, which is the UK’s host broadcaster, has been forced to make cuts over the next few years, and the government is being faced with its own financial crisis, and it is not yet clear how the up to £20m bill will be footed.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

Liverpool City Council has said it will begin putting its plans into action, working with Ukrainian artists and creating an education programme.

Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson said: “I’m over the moon that Eurovision is coming to Liverpool!

“We knew that we faced strong competition from Glasgow, but we also knew that we had a great bid underpinned by the expertise of our award-winning Culture Liverpool team and supported by all our brilliant partners.

“This is a massive event and the eyes of the world will be on us in May, especially those of our friends in Ukraine.

“Now begins months of work to put on the best party ever. Ukraine – you have my promise we will do you proud.”

Continue Reading

UK

What women in prison miss most, the prison schemes helping them rebuild their lives and why fewer may end up going to jail

Published

on

By

What women in prison miss most, the prison schemes helping them rebuild their lives and why fewer may end up going to jail

In a workshop in the far corner of the Styal prison estate, glass, plastic and metal are being smashed to the beat of pumping music.

Women at workstations are dismantling electronics with the energy of gym enthusiasts.

TVs and laptops, discarded at local recycling centres across England, have ended up here, on the edge of Wilmslow, Cheshire.

But amid the whiz of drills, the crunch of screens being separated from their plastic casings and the clatter of electronic boards ripped out and chucked in big bins, something else is being recycled – women’s lives.

“You get a lot of frustration out, because obviously a lot of girls have got a lot of anger, you know,” says Joanne*, who is serving time for drug offences.

She has joined this activity not for the £10 per 70 TVs she breaks apart, but because the programme – called Recycling Lives – could give her the skills and the support to keep her out of jail in the future.

Only 12% of women are employed six months after leaving prison, compared to 25% of men. In the general population employment levels between men and women are 78% to 72%.

More on Prisons

Ex-prisoners with a job are far less likely to re-offend. So, women prisoners are at a disadvantage. Often a man is connected to the crime they committed.

“For 90% of the women in prison, there’s always a male involved in why they’ve committed crime, it is the case with me as well,” says Joanne, who tells me she was pressured into dealing drugs by her partner.

A Recycling Lives workshop in Styal Prison and Young Offender Institution, Wilmslow, Cheshire

Official Ministry of Justice statistics say that at least 60% of women in prison are victims of domestic violence and most will have experienced some form of abuse as a child.

Many, too, are mothers and they feel the guilt of separation every day. Joanne says of her son: “It’s my sister picking him up from school, not me.

“It’s my sister there on Christmas day, not me. Birthdays, all the special occasions. It’s heart-breaking.

“People think prison is easy. You are ripped away from your family and your children. It’s not easy.”

As if in illustration, the glass cracks on an iPad, as she peels it away with her screwdriver.

Official figures say there are around 3,500 women in prison and it is estimated that about half are mothers.

‘I’m trying to give them a future’

The workshop manager Yvonne Grime knows this all too well. A former serial offender herself, she’s the first former inmate at Styal to now hold a set of keys to the prison.

“The biggest thing for me [as a prisoner] was leaving my children,” she says, “and I still carry that guilt round, but I have come through it.”

A Recycling Lives workshop in Styal Prison and Young Offender Institution, Wilmslow, Cheshire

Part of her redemption is to help the women in her workshop. The Recycling Lives programme transformed her life, and she wants to give back.

She says: “I’m trying to give them a future. I’m trying to give you some hope that they can that they can change.

“Get the children back, find a job, find a home. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Her work is part manager and part mentor. “When I first started, I thought I’m just going to come in and run this workshop,” she said.

“I didn’t realise I had to be their mum, their dad, their brother, their sister, the doctor, the nurse, the everything that comes with it.

“If I had a salary for every one of those professions, I’d be absolutely minted.”

Read more:
Justice secretary’s ‘ultimate ambition’ to close women’s prisons
Ex-prisoner shares what life’s like in a women’s jail

Recycling Lives workshop manager Yvonne Grime speaks to Jason Farrell
Image:
Yvonne Grime says ‘there is light at the end of the tunnel’ for female prisoners

Styal isn’t what you expect a prison to look like.

Inside the high fences and barbed wire are sixteen austere red-brick Victorian houses.

Once an orphanage, they’re now the prison’s accommodation blocks.

Ted the prison cat, wanders from block to block, and has already served several of his nine lives in the compound.

Ted the cat at Styal Prison and Young Offender Institution

Along with recycling TV sets, women can learn to guide and drive forklift trucks.

They are quick with their tools, spinning through one appliance after another with remarkable and methodical destructive pace.

But the real advantage of the programme is that it continues on the outside. Only 6% of people who go through Recycling Lives go on to commit further crime. The general reoffending rate is 25%.

In a warehouse in Preston, former inmates are involved in recycling food from supermarkets and farms, then sent to foodbanks.

A Recycling Lives depot in Preston

Here we meet Naomi Winter, who – three years since being released from jail – is now a manager at the food distribution depot.

The hardest thing about prison for her too was being separated from a child.

“I was put in prison when my baby is only three months old,” she said.

“So, it was like losing an arm, like losing a piece of my DNA.

“I still woke up for night feeds in the night and stuff like that.”

She says there wasn’t the mental health provision inside of prison to help her deal with post-natal depression, and she spent way too much time alone with her thoughts.

She was in and out of prison for drug offences and violence eight times by the age of 30 and first jailed aged 15, for breaching an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO).

She feels even short prison sentences can ruin lives, and says: “You take women who’s robbed a block of cheese to feed the child.

“They put them in prison for 28 days. They take the home, take the kids, they lose the family, and they get out with nothing. You just create a criminal right there.

“You’ve just created a woman who’s got nothing to lose. You’re also releasing them with a sleeping bag in a tent and telling them to go and sleep in the woods.”

Recycling Lives' Naomi Winter speaks to Jason Farrell
Image:
Naomi Winter feels even short prison sentences can ruin women’s lives

Alternatives to custody

The government recognises that prison isn’t working for many of the women who end up there.

It’s why, with women being mostly non-violent offenders and serving short sentences, the government is setting up a Women’s Justice Board to look at reducing the number who go into prison with alternatives such as community sentences and intervention projects tackling the root causes of re-offending.

The Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, told Sky News: “For many women, prison isn’t working. Most women in prisons are victims themselves. Over half are mothers, with a prison sentence separating parent and child.

“That’s why I am establishing a new Women’s Justice Board, tasked with reducing the number of women in prison by exploring alternatives to custody for female offenders.”

Styal Prison and Young Offender Institution, Wilmslow, Cheshire

Read more from Sky News:
Army officer charged over dummy grenade alert
The bizarre story of a fake carer in Hampshire

Chief Executive of Recycling Lives, Alasdair Jackson says: “There are certain things we all need as human beings: One is a place to live, one is a job to be able to pay for that place to live and then a support network.

“But there are a lot more factors that women have to contend with; there’s children, there is maybe domestic abuse, there’s everything that goes on around that, but when you give people a chance, when you give people the skills that they need, it is life-changing.

“And when you change a woman’s life, you are often changing the family’s life and the children’s life.”

Chief Executive of Recycling Lives Alasdair Jackson OBE speaks to Jason Farrell
Image:
Alasdair Jackson says ‘when you change a woman’s life, you are often changing the family’s life’

Prison is supposed to be part punishment, part repair job. But there are limited programmes like Recycling Lives, and for many women entering jail currently, the only recycling is back into criminality.

* names have been changed

Continue Reading

UK

World’s oldest man John Tinniswood dies aged 112, Guinness World Records says

Published

on

By

World's oldest man John Tinniswood dies aged 112, Guinness World Records says

The world’s oldest man has died at the age of 112, the Guinness World Records has announced.

John Tinniswood was born in Liverpool on 26 August 1912, the year the Titanic sank. He was a lifelong Liverpool FC fan, born just 20 years after the club was founded.

He died on Monday at a care home in Southport, Guinness World Records said.

In a statement, his family said: “His last day was surrounded by music and love.

“John always liked to say thank you. So on his behalf, thanks to all those who cared for him over the years, including his carers at the Hollies Care Home, his GPs, district nurses, occupational therapist and other NHS staff.”

In April 2024, aged 111, he became the world’s oldest living man, following the death of 114-year-old Juan Vicente Perez from Venezuela.

Mr Tinniswood as a younger man. Pic: Guinness World Records
Image:
Mr Tinniswood was born in Liverpool on 26 August 1912, the year the Titanic sank. Pic: Guinness World Records

Mr Tinniswood’s key advice for staying healthy was to practice moderation. “If you drink too much or you eat too much or you walk too much; if you do too much of anything, you’re going to suffer eventually.”

More from UK

But when asked the secret to his longevity after turning 112 in August, Mr Tinniswood put it all down to “just luck”.

“I can’t think of any special secrets I have,” he said. “I was quite active as a youngster, I did a lot of walking.

“Whether that had something to do with it, I don’t know. But to me, I’m no different [to anyone]. No different at all.

“I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.”

John Alfred Tinniswood 
Pic: Guinness World Records
Image:
Mr Tinniswood was named the world’s oldest man in April this year.
Pic: Guinness World Records

Apart from a portion of battered fish and chips every Friday, Mr Tinniswood did not follow any particular diet, and said earlier this year he felt “no different” turning 112.

“I don’t feel that age, I don’t get excited over it. That’s probably why I’ve reached it.

“I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.”

He lived through both world wars and was a Second World War veteran – having worked in an administrative role for the Army Pay Corps.

In addition to accounts and auditing, his work involved logistical tasks such as locating stranded soldiers and organising food supplies. He went on to work as an accountant for Shell and BP before retiring in 1972.

He met his wife, Blodwen, at a dance in Liverpool. They were together for 44 years before Blodwen died in 1986.

John Alfred Tinniswood  
Pic: Guinness World Records
Image:
Mr Tinniswood was the oldest surviving male Second World War veteran.
Pic: Guinness World Records

Mr Tinniswood is survived by his daughter Susan, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and lived to be the fourth-oldest British man in recorded history.

His family added: “John had many fine qualities. He was intelligent, decisive, brave, calm in any crisis, talented at maths and a great conversationalist.

“John moved to the Hollies rest home just before his 100th birthday and his kindness and enthusiasm for life were an inspiration to the care home staff and his fellow residents.”

The oldest ever man was Jiroemon Kimura from Japan, who lived to the age of 116 years 54 days and died in 2013.

The world’s oldest living woman, and oldest living person, is Japan’s 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka.

Continue Reading

UK

Barry Island: Two boys arrested after 12-year-old girl injured in ‘serious assault’

Published

on

By

Barry Island: Two boys arrested after 12-year-old girl injured in 'serious assault'

Two teenage boys have been arrested after the suspected stabbing of a 12-year-old girl.

South Wales Police were called to Barry Island in the Vale of Glamorgan at around 5pm on Sunday to a report of an assault near the Harbour Road car park in the seaside resort.

The girl, whose condition is described as not life-threatening, was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff with serious injuries.

Police say they have arrested two local boys, aged 13 and 15, on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and they both remain in custody.

The younger of the two has also been arrested on suspicion of possession of a bladed article.

Detective Inspector Phil Marchant from South Wales Police said the incident and “the ages of those involved” would “cause worry within the community”.

He said the two suspects are “known to the victim” and were arrested within an hour.

More on Wales

“At this stage we are not looking for anyone else in connection with the assault,” he added.

Read more from Sky News:
Conor McGregor speaks after losing civil rape case
Teen who crashed into woman while driving with knees jailed

South Wales Police said tackling knife crime was a priority for the force and it was providing support to parents, teachers and community groups.

The police investigation into the alleged assault is ongoing.

Continue Reading

Trending