Experts say there is mounting evidence that a common virus is linked to these rare cases.
Adenovirus probable cause of mysterious child hepatitis
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Tories Accused Of Breaking Pre-Election Rules Over Prison Terror Crackdown
Labour have accused the Tories of breaking strict pre-election rules by preparing to announce a crackdown on terrorism in prison.
Justice secretary Dominic Raab is on Wednesday expected to unveil the government’s response to a report by Jonathan Hall QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
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According to The Times, Raab will announce that existing laws are to be strengthened to make it easier for convicted terrorists to be separated from the rest of the prison population.
He is also expected to introduce tougher measures to allow acts of terror inside prison to be punished more severely.
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But Labour say the announcement has been timed to “deflect attention” from the partygate scandal.
Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed has written to Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, to ask whether rules banning major government announcements in the run-up to elections have been broken.
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Voters across the country will go to the polls for the local elections on May 5.
The letter, seen by HuffPost UK, says: “The issuing of fixed penalty notices to the prime minister, the chancellor and other officials has shone a light on the government’s record on crime and an announcement such as this one could be perceived as an attempt to deflect attention away from these issues one week away from crucial local elections.
“Please will you confirm what consideration was given regarding the timing of this announcement, in line with guidance provided to all civil servants, including special advisers, and what specific advice was offered?”
Reed said: “This soft-on-crime Conservative government is trying to deflect from its own criminality.
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“Bungling Dominic Raab has been sat on this crucial report for six months, yet it’s only now, when the prime minister is mired in the partygate scandal and the Tory-made cost of living crisis, that his department issues its response to rampant radicalisation in prisons.
“The lord chancellor needs to tell the victims of terror offenders why it has taken him so long to take radicalisation in jails seriously.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “All announcements are made in accordance with government guidance.”
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Can We Ever Really Recover From Burnout?
You’re reading Life-Work Balance, a series aiming to redirect our total devotion to work into prioritising our personal lives.
“I’ve had splinters on my feet, I’m physically exhausted, I’ve had breakdowns. All the detox time in the world doesn’t change how burned out I am.”
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This is the experience of Anthony*, a tech worker, 34, from London. After being asked to work weekends, weeks of late shifts, only then to be swapped onto earlies without warning, Anthony’s job has left him totally drained. So much so he’s quit his job without securing another. “I just can’t take anymore of this.”
Anthony isn’t alone in this state of mind. By the end of 2021, burnout was affecting more than 79% of UK workers, according to research by the HR tech company Ceridian, with 35% of people reporting high or extreme levels.
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Nearly half (49%) of those surveyed in research cited an increased workload as a cause. The ongoing pandemic, post-Covid recovery, and the so-called Great Resignation, have left employers squeezing more out of their workers than ever before. And it’s causing a physical and mental health crisis.
Is there a chance of recovery? How long does it take to get over burnout?
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We’ve seen buzzwords like self-care, wellness weekends and digital detox become the norm, but they risk ignoring the broader picture – that short stints of respite or relaxation don’t counteract the strenuous, back-breaking and brain-fogging nature of work under capitalism.
So what can we do? The obvious solution – if the Great Resignation is anything to go by – is to leave workplaces, even professions, that are bad for our health.
It’s what Lana*, 26, a social services worker in New York City, had to do to get some relief from her burnout.
“I quit working in the most toxic field possible in which I was forced to travel all over the city to unsafe locations. I got no support while dealing with people in extreme suffering/people who are dying. So I decided to get out of the field,” she tells HuffPost.
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“Now I do my job and come home. No travel, no dying, I don’t stay late and I don’t take work home with me.
“My burnout was affecting me and my clients. I had to take a good hard look at myself and give myself the freedom to breathe again.”
Lana says she appreciates not everyone can leave their job immediately, especially given how expensive the cost of living is right now.
But if you are experiencing burnout, she says, it pays to make a change, rather than attempting simply to work through it.
“Finding new work definitely isn’t the only way to get over burnout, but you have to know when it’s time to take a break or reevaluate,” she says. “I feel like we owe it to ourselves.”
And while you might not completely be able to get over this block, there are some things you can do to mitigate burnout.
Jo Davidson, a business strategist who predominantly mentors female entrepreneurs, says she sees burnout among her clients all too often.
Recognise when you’re being pushed too much, she says. “Acknowledge that burnout is a result of the body telling us to stop. But we choose to ignore it, and don’t listen,” she tells HuffPost. “Taking changes is important because going back into exactly the same situation will only ever delay the healing.”
So how long can you expect to take to recover? Well, there is no right answer as the journey isn’t so linear.
“Recovery from burnout is definitely affected by how long it has been going on and how the individual recognises they have it and how actively they want to overcome it. For some it may be 10-12 weeks, however for others it can take years.”
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10 steps to dealing with burnout
Davidson says there are ways you can aid your own recovery, whether that ultimately means leaving a job – or not. Here are some of those steps:
1. Acknowledge that it exists
2. Track stress levels (use an app, journal)
3. Identify the stressors and step away from these situations
4. Seek professional help. This is a strength not a weakness
5. Create a work life balance that includes time to have fun and rest
6. Change jobs if it is really badly affecting your mental health
7. Be kinder to yourself and keep a gratitude journal
8. Own it and believe that you can change it
9. Create a healthy sleep schedule and diet
10. Set boundaries.
While these are ways as individuals that we can ameliorate our conditions, remember that setting personal boundaries may not change the demands of your job wholesale.
This requires a company-wide push, or if you’ve got enough seniority in your role, a persistence in demands to change the wider work culture. Work should be a complementary part of our lives, not the thing that makes it unliveable.
*Names have been changed and surnames omitted to offer anonymity.
Life-Work Balance questions the status quo of work culture, its mental and physical impacts, and radically reimagines how we can change it to work for us.
HuffPost UK/ Isabella Carapella
Keir Starmer Says ‘Difficult’ To See Jeremy Corbyn Getting Labour Whip Back
Keir Starmer said it is “difficult” to see how Jeremy Corbyn could have the Labour whip restored following his comments on Nato.
Last week Corbyn suggested military alliances like Nato could build up “greater danger” in the world and should ultimately be disbanded.
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The former Labour leader was stripped of the whip in 2020 over his response to the equalities watchdog’s report into anti-Semitism in the party.
He was reinstated as a Labour member after a suspension, but Starmer has refused to readmit him to the parliamentary party.
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Corbyn’s allies in the party have repeatedly demanded that their ally be allowed to sit as a Labour MP again so he can stand for the party at the next election.
But asked on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme whether Corbyn could be restored as a Labour MP following the comments, said: “It is very difficult to see how that situation can now be resolved.
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“He lost the whip because of his response to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in relation to anti-Semitism but I made it very clear, the first thing I said as party leader was that I was going to tear out anti-Semitism by its roots in our party.
“I’ve also made it clear that our position in the Labour Party is not to accept the false equivalence between Russian aggression and the acts of Nato.”
Told that it sounded as if he was against Corbyn returning as a Labour MP, Starmer replied: “I’m very clear on my positions on those two issues, very clear.”
Corbyn, the MP for Islington North and a long-standing critic of Nato, told Times Radio last week that he did not blame Nato for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine but questioned: “Do military alliances bring peace?”
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He acknowledged the transatlantic alliance was not going to be scrapped immediately but added that people should “look at the process that could happen at the end of the Ukraine war”.
Corbyn has described the choice to remove the Labour whip from him as a “totally unjustified decision”.
Asked if he could start his new own political party, he said: “I don’t know what the future is going to bring.”
Last week Boris Johnson accused Starmer of being “a Corbynista in a smart Islington suit”.
But Starmer responded: “I think you’ll find Mr Corbyn doesn’t have the whip.”
How Soon Is Too Soon To Quit A New Job?
The urge to quit a relatively new job can be an uncomfortable feeling, but it is not uncommon. According to a 2018 survey from the recruiting service Jobvite, 30% of new employees leave their jobs within the first 90 days of getting hired.
The top three reasons quitters gave were that the role did not meet expectations from the job interview process (43%), a one-time incident that made them want to leave (34%), and bad company culture (32%).
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During the Great Resignation, more of us may be saying our farewells sooner. “Talent has a little bit more of an upper hand,” and old-school rules of sticking it out at a hard job may no longer apply in certain cases, said Mary Abbajay, president of the leadership development consultancy Careerstone Group and author of “Managing Up: How to Move Up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss.”
But before you give notice and join the league of early quitters, consider why you want to leave so soon after starting. Sometimes it can take a few months to feel comfortable in a new role and with new colleagues. And if you’re at the beginning of your career, it’s helpful to know that first-job blues are typical.
“You want to make sure you are not leaving just because you don’t like working, as you are getting used to the difference to being in school and being at work,” Abbajay said. If it is indeed the first-job blues, she recommends sticking it out for a year to gain experience you can talk about in future interviews.
But you should also trust your gut if something feels off.
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“We have to dispel this myth that we have to sit in agony if it’s not working out,” said career coach Jasmine Escalera, who does not subscribe to the “stick it out” mentality.
Here are three scenarios in which it is definitely not too soon to quit a job:
1. You find yourself in a toxic job.
Nothing drives people out quicker than a toxic work environment. According to a FlexJobs survey from February and March of more than 2,000 U.S. employees, “toxic company culture” was the top reason people cited who felt they had to quit their jobs in the past six months.
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This is for good reason. A difficult boss like a micromanager can be annoying to deal with, but they can be managed. A toxic boss, on the other hand, will corrode your soul and is an active threat to your health.
Abbajay noted that a difficult boss “may be impulsive, they may be poor communicators. Their style of working just isn’t aligned with your style of working. A toxic boss is a boss that is dehumanizing, a boss that is abusive, a boss that is screamer, a shouter… [With] a toxic boss, you are going to start to feel less than, you are going to be consumed with the stress of dealing with this person.”
If you feel stuck with toxic bosses and colleagues, don’t linger. “Once you recognize the toxicity, or the organization’s toxicity, you should think about getting out,” Abbajay said.
Escalera agreed with this assessment. Having escaped a toxic work environment in the past, she finds that toxic work cultures cause trauma and make it impossible for you to be confident and capable in your professional life.
“The longer you are there, the deeper those cuts are going to be, and the harder it is going to be to leave, because you start to change the perspective of how you think about yourself,” she said.
2. The job is a radical mismatch with what you were promised in interviews.
You shouldn’t wait too long for circumstances to improve if the job you were sold by recruiters and hiring managers is radically different in reality. This likely means there’ll be no learning opportunities ahead, no internal mobility and no alignment with your planned career future.
If you believe a mismatch in roles is fixable, talk to your manager and colleagues about what you feel you deserve and what you need to see change, Escalera advised. But don’t put undue pressure on yourself to stay in a job that isn’t suitable.
Escalera said she experienced a mismatch when a leadership and mentorship role she interviewed for at a hospital turned out to be different than what was discussed. She tried to talk with her supervisor to get her responsibilities more aligned with the expectations she had from the interview process but was basically told, “‘This is what it is,’” she said.
She left the job within five months and has no regrets: “If I could’ve left in five days, I would have.”
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3. You get a better offer that aligns with your goals.
If you get a dream job offer soon after you start a new job, you should reflect on whether the new opportunity is the better choice for your future career success, regardless of how short your current tenure is, Escalera said.
If the new opportunity is “going to get you to that end goal quicker and faster, you have to do what’s in best service to you,” she said.
Abbajay warned, however, that too many one-year-and-under stints on your resume can be a bad look to prospective employers. Your next potential employer may think, “Why should I invest in you if you’re not going to invest in me?” she said.
Still, there’s a way to positively spin this in job interviews. When Escalera was asked in interviews about her short stint in the mismatched hospital job, she was candid about how the role was different than promised and didn’t align with where she wanted to go. Her advice to job seekers is to be transparent about past mismatches, while also being clear that as a result of the experience, you now know that this new opportunity is the best role for you, she said.
“You have to be internally very strong and internally have a purpose to move your career in the direction that you want.”
– Jasmine Escalera, career coach
If you are wrestling with guilt about bailing on a relatively new job for something better, that’s normal. Escalera said she has experienced this guilt as a Latina who grew up in public housing and whose parents wanted safety and stability for her career.
“It puts a ceiling on what you believe is possible for you when you come from backgrounds like that. It makes you feel like, ‘If I got this, then I should just settle in it, and I should just keep it… because this is better than where I came from, this is better than even what my parents have at the age of 60 years old, and I am 40,’” she said. “You have to be internally very strong and internally have a purpose to move your career in the direction that you want, and you have to make decisions coming from that purpose, but that is really hard when there are really a lot of external voices.”
In the end, you are in the driver’s seat of your career — not your new boss, or your new company, or your family. If you have a gut feeling that a job is not going to be good for your well-being or future, you should listen to that feeling, regardless of whether the warning comes in the first few months of the job.
Often, there are times “when you knew something wasn’t right, and instead of connecting with that feeling, you tried to push that feeling down,” Escalera said, noting that’s a mode of thinking she has moved away from. “What I try to do now is entertain the feeling.”
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Love Actually Star Bill Nighy Recalls Hilarious Incident Involving A US Customs Official And His Most Famous Line From Rom-Com
There are plenty of memorable moments in Love Actually (and not all of them for the right reasons, these days), but actor Bill Nighy had arguably the best line in the whole movie.
The British actor played ageing rocker Billy Mack in the 2003 Christmas rom-com and there’s one particular line that has followed him everywhere. Literally.
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In one of the film’s most memorable scenes (watch below), Billy appears on a kid’s TV show fronted by a youthful Ant and Dec when he addresses the young viewers at home with an important message.
“Hiya kids, here’s an “important” message from your uncle Bill,” he begins. ”Don’t buy drugs. Become a pop star and they give you them for free.”
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In a new interview with GQ magazine, Bill says the scene and Billy’s seriously dodgy advice has become so well known that it he still gets reminded of it regularly by complete strangers in the most unexpected places.
“I was once going through immigration from Canada to America in the middle of the night, like 4am, and there was no one in the immigration hall except me and there was this guy and I went forward,” Bill recalled.
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“And as I was going forward he said ‘hey, kids don’t buy drugs…’, this is the customs guy right… ‘don’t buy drugs, become a rockstar and people give you them for free. Am I right? Am I right?’ I was like, drugs? No, I don’t have any drugs. So it got me into America!”
He added: “When I die, if I get an obituary, it will say: ‘Hey kids, don’t buy drugs. Become a rock star, people give you them for free’.”
Watch the full video interview with Bill in the video at the top of this story.
