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.

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.

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.

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.”

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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.

“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.

“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.

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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.

“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.

At the weekend, Downing Street said recognition of Palestine was “a matter of when, not if”.

So why now?

“We will recognise the state of Palestine in September before the United Nations General Assembly”, Sir Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday, in what looks like another U-turn.

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Was it pressure from the more than 250 MPs, most of whom are Labour, who wrote to the prime minister last week calling for recognition? Almost certainly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Was it the result of pressure from President Macron. That was certainly a major factor too. After “le bromance” during the president’s state visit, the two leaders spoke at length at the weekend.

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.

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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.