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Interest rates are up, house prices are down, the small boats are still coming, and NHS doctors are striking.

Labour are still 20 points ahead of the Conservatives in the poll of polls.

As he contemplates his political future and the lack of progress on his five pledges, it is understandable that the prime minister might want a summer holiday break from the day job.

Rishi Sunak’s desire to get away can only have increased as he suffers personalised indignities.

Veteran campaigners from Greenpeace have given Just Stop Oil a lesson in how protest can be done, attracting attention without antagonising the public, by draping the Sunaks’ Yorkshire mansion in black.

Greenpeace activists on the roof of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's house in Richmond, North Yorkshire after covering it in black fabric in protest at his backing for expansion of North Sea oil and gas drilling. Picture date: Thursday August 3, 2023.
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Greenpeace activists on the roof of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s house

Even the prime minister’s sartorial choices have come under attack with an arrows-point-to-defective-parts scrutiny of his made to measure suits.

“Sunak needs his suits to be nipped in – anything else would drown him,” the style editor of The Daily Telegraph concedes, “but the cropped proportions mean his trouser leg rides up to mid-calf.”

Crisis, what crisis?

Only a few miserable souls will begrudge the prime minister some time off, especially since we are told that he will be back at work, in Blighty, in only a few days.

The modest length of his holiday will not take targets off his back. Prime ministers struggle to hit the right note with their holidays and usually get it wrong.

Is it too flashy? Too boring? Too foreign? Bad for the environment? And who is really paying for it?

These delicate questions explain why Number 10 spokespeople made the mistake of refusing to give details of where the Sunak family were heading.

It was an error because denial will only perk up interest.

Past form shows that newshounds were bound to sniff out the location anyway and would then pap photos more enthusiastically than if they had been served up with a photo opportunity.

David Cameron learnt this lesson the hard way after having his man boobs snapped on a Cornish beach.

POLZEATH, ENGLAND - AUGUST 23:  British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha have a coffee outside the Galleon Beach Cafe following an early morning swim in the sea during his holiday in the small seaside resort of Polzeath on August 23, 2015 in Cornwall, England.
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British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha on holiday in Cornwall in 2015

From then on, Cameron holidays began with a posed picture, usually of the beshirted prime minister pointing at dead fish in a market.

It took less than 24 hours for Mr Sunak’s secret destination to be exposed.

The prime minister came clean in a rare extended radio phone-in which came across like a public request for permission to have a break afterwards. Sunak duly pleaded that this holiday is a “special trip”.

“We’re going to California, which is where I met my wife, so it’s very special to us,” he explained to listeners, “but the kids are very excited because I’m taking them to Disneyland”.

It later emerged that the Mickey Mouse visit may be as much for their father as for his daughters Krishna and Anoushka.

“They have sadly grown out of princesses,” the prime minister admitted – but “there’s a new, well not that new anymore, Star Wars bit of Disneyland which I’m very excited about”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, his wife Akshata Murty and daughters Anoushka and Krishna
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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, his wife Akshata Murty and daughters Anoushka and Krishna

Not much to complain about so far. Lots of Brits take their families Disneyward, though most opt for the shorter-haul flights to Disneyworld in Florida rather than Disneyland in California.

Sunak has long advertised his softer side as a Star Wars geek. He collects merchandise from the franchise including a toy lightsabre, and called in the cameras to film his visit to the last blockbuster episode, accompanying his then “boss” Sajid Javid.

A California beach holiday is a lot grander than Cornwall or the walks in the Alps and Snowdonia favoured by Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip.

The Sunaks are trying to muffle extravagance by flying “commercial” rather than indulging the prime minister’s predilection for private jets. That is canny of them – a “PJ” return trip for the family would cost around $300,000 (£235,000).

They’ll be more frugality because they’ll be no hotel or rental costs. The Sunak’s will be staying in the $5m (£3.9m) penthouse apartment they already own on Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica.

Though whether it will be big enough to accommodate the prime ministerial entourage, funded by the taxpayer, is another question.

According to Cherie Blair, her husband’s prime ministerial vacations required the presence of “three garden girls (the Downing Street secretaries) to do shifts because he has to have a 24-hour office, the comms people to take in secure lines to the White House and No 10, the detectives who come every day with the red boxes”.

Mr Sunak may get by with a smaller team since he is only expecting “daily updates from his private office”.

The Blairs did not have the wealth of Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy.

Read more:
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Sunak family stroll along California pier in holiday photos

Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, shelter under an umbrella at St Bees in Cumbria where they took a break from their holiday with their children to meet the media. *......They are expected to stay in the county, which is still recovering from the devastating effects of last year's foot and mouth disease, until Sunday before going to France for two weeks.
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Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, on holiday in Cumbria in 2002

Cherie admits the family were “house bandits” inviting themselves as guests in other people’s property.

Blair’s image was damaged by the hospitality he accepted from Sir Cliff Richard, the Bee Gee Maurice Gibb, the Bamford JCB dynasty and the Italian aristocrat Prince Girolamo Strozzi, among others.

Having pitched her tent on a campsite in Cornwall, the Labour MP Caroline Flint was surprised to see the then prime minister walking by.

That year, following the foot and mouth outbreak, the Blairs fitted in an unconvincing “holiday at home” away from the sun.

Margaret Thatcher used to impose on a friend as well. She spent several summer breaks away from Number 10 at the Swiss lakeside schloss of Lady Elenore Glover, the widow of a Tory MP.

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By all accounts she did not enjoy her leisure time and packed in as many official trips and visitors as she could.

The surprising exception was when she turned up in Cameron territory on a Cornish beach with a spaniel called Polo on a lead, and her husband Dennis.

It was the day after she had surgery on her hand, and the purpose was to demonstrate that the Iron Lady still had an iron grip under the bandages.

John Major and Gordon Brown did not attract attention with their holidays because they did not amount to much.

Major watched cricket and bought a second home in Norfolk.

A glum looking Brown took off his red tie in Suffolk but rushed back to London at the first news of anything happening.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah walk through Whitlingham Country Park in Trowse
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Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah walk through Whitlingham Country Park in Trowse in 2008

Like much else during his premiership, Boris Johnson’s holiday diary was chaotic – including Perugia, Greece, Mustique and Margate.

It remains a mystery who picked up the tap for some of his luxury trips with Carrie.

He almost certainly did pay himself for their memorable budget trip to a remote Scottish cottage in 2020 with their new baby. That idyll was cut short when photographers took unauthorised pictures of the couple.

Prime Minister Sunak has not done himself any damage with this year’s family holiday.

He claims not to have had a proper one for four years. Efforts to get away last summer were certainly blighted by his leadership battle with Liz Truss and the death of the Queen.

He has not notched up any points as a man of the people either, with the well-heeled trip to California.

The choice confirms what the world already thought of the couple who met at the elite Stanford University, not far from Disneyland.

No score with the holiday can be seen as a win for this prime minister facing the live possibility that the next general election could free him “to spend more time with the family”, as ministers thrust out of office like to put it.

Otherwise, expressed in the cruder words to errant underlings of an old Sky News boss, “go on holiday permanently, mate!”.

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Child who died in Minehead school coach crash was 10-year-old boy, police say

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Child who died in Minehead school coach crash was 10-year-old boy, police say

The child who died in a school coach crash in Somerset on Thursday was a 10-year-old boy, Avon and Somerset Police have said.

A specially trained officer is supporting the child’s family, the force said, adding that two children taken to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children by air ambulance remain there as of Friday.

Four children and three adults also remain in hospital in Somerset.

There were between 60 to 70 people on board when the incident happened near Minehead, just before 3pm on Thursday.

The coach was heading to Minehead Middle School when it crashed on the A396 between Wheddon Cross and Timbercombe.

Flowers outside school
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Pic: PA

Police said that 21 people were taken to hospital, including two children who were taken via air ambulance.

Gavin Ellis, chief fire officer for Devon and Somerset, said the coach “overturned onto its roof and slid approximately 20ft down an embankment”.

Rachel Gilmour, MP for Tiverton and Minehead, said the road where it happened is “very difficult to manoeuvre”.

“You have a very difficult crossing at Wheddon Cross, and as you come out to dip down into Timbercombe, the road is really windy and there are very steep dips on either side,” she told Sky’s Anna Botting.

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Tearful MP reacts to coach crash

It comes after a teacher at Minehead Middle School praised the “incredibly brave” pupils for supporting each other after the coach crash.

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“You have looked after each [other] in what was a life-changing event, we will get through this together,” they wrote on Facebook.

“I feel so lucky to be your teacher. I am so grateful to my wonderful colleagues during this time who were also fighting to help as many people as we could.”

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Woman handed criminal conviction despite ‘unlawful’ strip search by police in Greater Manchester

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Woman handed criminal conviction despite 'unlawful' strip search by police in Greater Manchester

Maria’s treatment by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) was so shocking the chief constable described it as “undefendable” and yet a year after a high-profile inquiry found she had been “unlawfully” arrested and strip-searched, Maria now has a criminal conviction for the crime the inquiry said she should never have been arrested for.

Warning: This story includes graphic descriptions of strip searches and references to domestic violence.

The Baird Inquiry – named after its lead Dame Vera Baird – into GMP, published a year ago, found that the force made numerous unlawful arrests and unlawful strip searches on vulnerable women. A year on, the review has led to major changes in police processes.

Strip searches for welfare purposes, where the person is deemed at risk of harming themselves, are banned, and the mayor’s office told Sky News only one woman was intimately strip-searched to look for a concealed item by GMP last year.

Women had previously told Sky News the practice was being used by police “as a power trip” or “for the police to get their kicks”.

However, several women who gave evidence to the Baird Inquiry have told Sky News they feel let down and are still fighting for accountability and to get their complaints through the bureaucracy of a painfully slow system.

The case of Maria (not her real name) perhaps best illustrates how despite an inquiry pointing out her “terrible treatment”, she continues to face the consequences of what the police did.

'Maria' said she was treated like a piece of meat by GMP
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‘Maria’ said she was treated like a piece of meat by GMP

‘Treated like a piece of meat’

The story begins with an act of poor service. A victim of domestic violence, Maria went to the police to get keys off her arrested partner but was made to wait outside for five-and-a-half hours.

The Baird Inquiry said: “This domestic abuse victim, alone in a strange city, made 14 calls for police to help her.

“She was repeatedly told that someone would contact her, but nobody did. The pattern didn’t change, hour after hour, until eventually she rang, sobbing and angry.”

The police then arrested her for malicious communications, saying she’d sworn at staff on the phone.

Inside the police station, officers strip-searched her because they thought she was concealing a vape. Maria told Sky News she was “treated like a piece of meat”.

The Baird Inquiry says of the demeaning humiliation: “Maria describes being told to take all her clothes off and, when completely naked, to open the lips of her vagina so the police could see inside and to bend over and open her anal area similarly.”

GMP's Chief Constable Stephen Watson
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Chief Constable Stephen Watson said the actions towards Maria were ‘inexplicable’

After the inquiry found all this not only “terrible” but “unlawful”, Chief Constable Stephen Watson described the actions of his officers towards Maria as “an inexplicable and undefendable exercise of police power”.

He added: “We’ve done the wrong thing, in the wrong way and we’ve created harm where harm already existed.”

Despite all of this, the charges of malicious communication were not dropped. They hung over Maria since her arrest in May 2023. Then in March this year, magistrates convicted her of the offence, and she was fined.

Dame Vera’s report describes the arrest for malicious communications as “pointless”, “unlawful”, “not in the public interest” and questions whether the officer had taken “a dislike to Maria”. Yet, while Maria gained a criminal record, no officer has been disciplined over her treatment.

A GMP spokesperson said: “The court has tested the evidence for the matter that Maria was arrested for, and we note the outcome by the magistrate. We have a separate investigation into complaints made about the defendant’s arrest and her treatment whilst in police custody.”

The complaint was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in August 2023 and Maria was told several months ago the report was completed, but she has not heard anything since.

Dame Vera Baird of the Baird Inquiry into GMP
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Dame Vera Baird’s report catalogues the ‘unlawful’ arrest and strip search of various individuals by GMP

‘There’s been no accountability’

Dame Vera’s report also catalogues the “unlawful” arrest and strip search of Dannika Stewart in October 2023 at the same police station. Dannika is still grinding through the police complaints service to get a formal acknowledgement of their failings.

She told Sky News: “Everyone involved in it is still in the same position. There’s been no accountability from the police. We’re still fighting the complaint system, we’re still trying to prove something which has already been proved by an independent inquiry.”

Body cam footage of Dannika Stewart being arrested in October 2023
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Body cam footage of Dannika Stewart being arrested

Asked if anyone had been disciplined, Chief Constable Watson told Sky News: “There are ongoing investigations into individual failings, but for the most part the Baird review talked about systemic failings of leadership, it talked of failings in policy and failings of systems.

“In some cases, those people who may have misconducted themselves at the level of professional standards have retired. There are no criminal proceedings in respect of any individual.”

He added: “Every single element of the Baird inquiry has been taken on board – every single one of those recommendations has been implemented – we believe ourselves to be at the forefront of practice.”

Greater Manchester Police bulding and logo

‘It’s been three years’

Mark Dove who was also found by the inquiry to have been unlawfully arrested three times and twice unlawfully stripped-searched says he’s been in the complaints system for three years now.

He told Sky News: “There have been improvements in that I’m being informed more, but ultimately there’s no timeline. It’s been three years, and I have to keep pushing them. And I’ve not heard of anyone being suspended.”

Mark Dove was found by the Baird Inquiry to have been unlawfully arrested three times
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Mark Dove was found to have been unlawfully arrested three times and unlawfully strip-searched twice

Sophie (not her real name), a domestic violence victim who was also found by the review team to have been unlawfully arrested by GMP, told Sky News that although most of her complaints were eventually upheld they had originally been dismissed and no officer has faced any consequences.

She said: “They put on record that I’d accepted a caution when I hadn’t – and then tried to prosecute me. Why has no one been disciplined? These are people’s lives. I could have lost my job. Where is the accountability?”

Since the Baird Inquiry, every strip search by GMP is now reviewed by a compliance team. GMP also provides all female suspects in custody with dignity packs including sanitary products, and they work with the College of Policing to ensure all officers are trained to recognise and respond to the effects of domestic and sexual trauma on survivors.

Kate Green, deputy mayor for Greater Manchester for policing and crime
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Kate Green, deputy mayor for Greater Manchester for policing and crime

The deputy mayor for Greater Manchester for policing and crime, Kate Green, says the lessons of the Baird Inquiry should reach all police forces.

She said: “I would strongly recommend that other forces, if they don’t already follow GMP’s practise in not conducting so-called welfare strip searches, similarly cease to carry out those searches. It’s very difficult to see how a traumatising search can be good for anybody’s welfare, either the officers or the detainees. We’ve managed to do that now for well over a year.”

Ms Green also suggests a national review of the police complaints system.

Read more:
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What Baird Inquiry revealed

Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods, of GMP, said: “Our reformed Professional Standards Directorate (PSD) has increased the quality of complaints handling and improved timeliness.

“Where officers have been found to breach our standards then we have not hesitated to remove them from GMP, with more than 100 officers being dismissed on the chief constable’s watch.

“Out of 14 complaints relating to Dame Vera’s report, four have been completed. Our PSD continues to review and investigate the other complaints.

“We’re committed to being held to account for our use of arrests and our performance in custody.

“By its nature, custody has – and always will be – a challenging environment.

“However, basic provisions and processes must always be met and, while we’re confident our progress is being recognised across policing, we stand ready to act on feedback.”

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One child dies after coach crashes in Somerset on way back from school trip

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One child dies after coach crashes in Somerset on way back from school trip

One child has died after a coach bringing children back from a school trip crashed and overturned near Minehead, Somerset, police have said.

A major incident was declared after the vehicle, which had 60-70 people on board, crashed on the A396 Cutcombe Hill, between Wheddon Cross and Timbercombe, shortly before 3pm on Thursday afternoon.

The coach was heading to Minehead Middle School at the time.

At a news conference on Thursday night, officials confirmed one child died at the scene.

A further 21 patients were taken to hospital, including two children who were transported via air ambulance. “Several” other people were treated at the scene, they added.

A police officer near the scene of a coach crash in Somerset. Pic: PA
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A police officer near the scene of the coach crash in Somerset. Pic: PA

“This has been an incredibly challenging scene for all emergency services,” Chief Superintendent Mark Edgington said.

“Today’s events are truly tragic, we know the whole community and wider area will be utterly devastated to learn of this news.”

An investigation into what caused the crash will be carried out, he added.

Gavin Ellis, the chief fire officer for Devon and Somerset Fire & Rescue Service, said the coach “overturned onto its roof and slid approximately 20ft down an embankment”.

He praised an off-duty firefighter who was travelling behind the vehicle for helping at the scene, before crews then arrived to carry out rescues “in extremely difficult circumstances”.

“I’m grateful for the tireless effort and actions of the crews in doing everything they could for those who were trapped and as quickly as safely as possible,” he said.

“I’m extremely proud of the efforts that my firefighters took today at this tragic event.”

Eight fire engines were sent to the scene, with two specialist rescue appliances and around 60 fire personnel, Mr Ellis said.

A total of 20 double-crewed ambulances, three air ambulances and two hazardous area response teams were also sent to the scene, a representative for the South Western Ambulance Service said.

Emergency services near the scene in Minehead
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Pic: PA

Ch Supt Mark Edgington said: “Many passengers either sustained minor injuries or were physically unharmed and were transferred to a rest centre.

“Work to help them return to Minehead has been taking place throughout the evening.

“An investigation into the cause of this incident will be carried out.”

Minehead Middle School has pupils aged between nine and 14, and is five days away from the end of term.

‘I don’t have words,’ says local MP

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‘From one mother to another, I feel your pain’

Rachel Gilmour, MP for Tiverton and Minehead, has said the road where the coach crashed is “very difficult to manoeuvre”.

Speaking to Sky News chief presenter Anna Botting, Ms Gilmour said she visited Minehead Middle School recently, where she “met the children and they were full of joy, enthusiasm and were very positive”.

“I know many of their parents,” she said. “I don’t have words.”

Describing the scene, Gilmour continued: “You have a very difficult crossing at Wheddon Cross, and as you come out to dip down into Timbercombe, the road is really windy and there are very steep dips on either side.

“If the coach, as the police are saying, went 20ft off the road, you are literally on a really, really steep bank.”

The MP, whose constituency is partly in Devon and partly in Somerset, said there is a “really, really close community”.

“We will pull together, but it would be crass of me to say to a parent who’s just lost their child that I could make things better, I can’t,” she said.

“All I can say is that from one mother to another, I feel your pain.”

Cutcombe Hill near Minehead, where the accident took place. Pic: Google Maps
Image:
Cutcombe Hill near Minehead, where the accident took place. Pic: Google Maps

Sir Keir Starmer said in a post on X: “There are no adequate words to acknowledge the death of a child. All my thoughts are with their parents, family and friends, and all those affected.

“Thank you to the emergency workers who are responding at pace – I’m being kept up to date on this situation.”

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson wrote: “It is heartbreaking to hear that a child has died and others are seriously injured following the incident in Minehead earlier today.

“My thoughts are with their friends and families, and all those affected by this tragic event.”

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