The test can find traces of a tumour’s DNA before a full relapse, allowing treatment to start early, experts say.
New blood test ‘can predict’ breast cancer return
Reply
Labour Denies Claims It Is Offering Peerages To Left-Wing MPs Who Promise To Step Down
Labour’s Yvette Cooper has denied claims the party is offering peerages to left-wing MPs who step down to make way for Keir Starmer’s preferred candidates.
The shadow home secretary rejected a new report from The Times which claims some people who were Labour MPs– up until parliament was dissolved last week – could be elevated to the House of Lords if they gave up their seats.
Advertisement
She told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “No party can do that, it’s not the way the system works.”
She said there is a “whole process” where an independent committee vets nominations to the Lords, so no one cannot be promised a seat there by any party leader.
The report comes after a tumultuous week for the frontrunners in the general election as Labour has faced several accusations of trying to purge any left-wing candidates.
Advertisement
Former leader Jeremy Corbyn, Faiza Shaheen and Lloyd Russell-Moyle were all prevented from standing for Labour in recent weeks.
Starmer faced further backlash after refusing to say whether veteran MP Diane Abbott would be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate – prompting her and her supporters to accuse him of “culling” the Labour left over the last week.
Abbott lost the whip in 2023 after claiming Irish, Traveller and Jewish people only experienced “prejudice” not racism – a claim she later apologised for and withdrew.
The whip was returned to her in May but there was widespread speculation the party was planning to ban her from standing.
Starmer denied all claims of a purge, saying he just wants”the highest quality candidates”.
He also said that the decision around Abbott was up to the party’s national executive committee, and not him.
Advertisement
Then even Starmer’s deputy Angela Rayner said publicly that Abbott should be allowed to stand.
In an embarrassing U-turn, he finally said on Friday that the left-winger was free to represent his party.
Abbott is yet to confirm whether she will represent the party and said she will not be making a comment until she is officially endorsed by Labour’s National Executive Committee next week.
However she told Sky News that the “narrative does look positive”.
Cooper also told Phillips on Sunday that she assumes Abbott will be the Labour candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, the seat she has held since 1987.
‘Are You Proud?’ Laura Kuenssberg Skewers Minister With Brutal Reminder Of Tory NHS Legacy
Laura Kuenssberg slammed the Conservatives’ handling of the NHS this morning and asked the health secretary Victoria Atkins if she is “proud” of the huge waiting lists in England.
Rishi Sunak vowed at the start of 2023 to cut NHS waiting lists – but he admitted only in February that his government has failed with that pledge.
Advertisement
On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC host presented Atkins with a graph showing just how much waiting times have actually increased since the Conservatives took over in 2010.
It shows that even before Covid and before the NHS strikes, the waiting lists for hospital treatment in England were already rising.
Kuenssberg said: “As our viewers can see, since the Conservatives have been in charge, waiting lists have gone up and up and up.
Advertisement
“Are you proud of that?
“Because to many of our viewers, everybody knows in their real life somebody who is waiting, somebody who is in pain.”
The health secretary replied by saying how Covid made waiting times worse, but Kuenssberg hit back: “This was happening before the pandemic!”
The BBC journalist added: “The point is people do not feel reassured by statistics.
“They feel upset that they are waiting longer.
“They feel upset that over a year of many years, many believe the level of healthcare that they can expect to get has declined despite record amounts of cash going in.”
Atkins just said waiting lists have fallen since she got the job in November.
Kuenssberg also pressed the health secretary over GP services and pharmacies.
She said: “Today you’re announcing 100 new GP surgeries.
“But we’ve checked the figures and you’ve shut 450 since 2013, so aren’t you trying to fix your own mistakes?”
Atkins said that government is funding new GP surgeries, refurbishing 150 others and expanding pharmacy services to free up doctor appointments.
Advertisement
But Kuenssberg noted that funding for pharmacies is down a third on 2015 and more than 1,000 of them have shut.
She continued: “In both of these cases, it might be all very well that you’re promising this now but I think it’s going to sound to a lot of people like you’re just trying to unpick the mistakes the Tories have already made.”
She claimed that the Tories are replacing services in the UK which have “disappeared” and added: “Voters know that, they see that in their own communities, so why should they trust the promises you’re making to them now?”
The minister said the Tories have already exceeded their target from the 2019 general election with 62 million GP appointments made in the last year.
Kuenssberg then cornered the minister over Boris Johnson’s previous promise to open 40 new hospitals.
Advertisement
The journalist said only 11 of them would be deemed new hospitals, and only a handful of those have actually opened.
She added: “So why would people believe your promises now when that huge promise that Boris Johnson used to get the crowd to chant, that has not been kept?”
Atkins replied: “That promise was made in 2019, the pandemic hit us pretty much immediately after that.”
She added that they got building as soon as they could, with 18 currently in construction.
Tories Accused Of Squandering £130bn Of Taxpayer Money Since The Last General Election
The Conservatives have been accused of spending £130 billion of taxpayer funds wastefully since the last general election.
According to the Best for Britain’s Scandalous Spending Tracker – which monitors suspect government spending – the government has spent more £6 billion of that total in just the last two months.
Advertisement
The news, first reported by The Mirror, is yet another blow for Rishi Sunak because he has been at the top of government for the majority of last four years.
He served as chancellor between February 2020 and July 2022, and has been prime minister since October 2022 – amid a cost of living crisis, no less.
Some of this wasteful spending includes the £32,000 bill the taxpayer paid to cover the legal costs after the science secretary, Michelle Donelan, wrongly accused an academic of being a Hamas sympathiser.
Liz Truss racked up a £15,000 bill for food and alcohol on a single flight to Australia when she was foreign secretary.
Advertisement
The government also spent £33 million on delaying the general election by two months.
Brexit checks brought in at the end of April, meanwhile, cost £4.7 billion.
Best for Britain calculated that the Tories have wasted, on average, £26 billion per year since being re-elected in 2019.
That is 30 times the estimated cost of the Liberal Democrats’ proposal to increase GP appointments, said to cost £800 million per year, and more than the total cost of the Green Party’s plan to insulate 10 million homes, said to cost £25 billion per year.
All that wasted cash from the last few years is also enough money to carry out Keir Starmer’s six key pledges more than five times.
Chief executive of Best for Britain, Naomi Smith, and founder of tactical voting website, GetVoting.org, said: “Rishi Sunak has presided over years of delinquent government spending and while his reign of egregious waste may soon be over, we cannot risk the Tories getting their hands back in the public piggy bank in five years time.
“That’s why we’re asking people to vote tactically at the next election and get it right with GetVoting.org.”
Advertisement
A mega-poll from Electoral Calculus and Find Out Now for GB News and the Daily Mail suggested the Tories are on track for just 66 seats next month.
The same poll suggested Labour could win a staggering 493 seats, nearly 300 more than they won at the 2019 election.
Tories pledge new GP surgeries in community care boost
The party says allowing pharmacies to treat more conditions will also free up GP appointments.
At-home saliva test may catch deadly prostate cancers
Research suggests cheap and simple spit tests may be better at catching the disease than blood tests.
Hugh Jackman Spills On ‘Hardest Bit’ Of Preparation For His Wolverine Return
Hugh Jackman has opened up about the “hardest” adjustment he made while gearing up to play Wolverine again this summer.
The Australian actor — who stars alongside Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming superhero film Deadpool & Wolverine — told People magazine that he was pumped to prepare for his big screen return as the iconic mutant.
Advertisement
“My body was a little sore at the beginning, but I was thrilled that my body was still responding. And I realised how good it is for your brain. But the hardest bit… the food,” said Hugh, who initially decided that he’d retire from playing Wolverine after Logan in 2017.
Hugh, who shared a snapshot of his apparent 8,000-calorie diet days on social media early last year, acknowledged that he had to “eat a lot” for the role.
“For me, for my body type, I’m naturally skinny. To get the size on, that’s the hardest bit. That’s the bit that does my head in,” said the Greatest Showman star, who previously told CNN’s Chris Wallace that he’d make it his “job” to train for the part in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Ryan noted that five or six meals a day might sound “great” to some people.
“But it’s not like the type of food that you would really necessarily enjoy,” he said.
Advertisement
Ryan, who is set to star in his third Deadpool movie, noted to People that he “couldn’t believe” Hugh’s change in physicality.
“Just the sheer relentlessness that you dedicated yourself towards stunts, choreography. It was the first time I’d ever seen how invaluable a background in song and dance is when you are doing an action movie,” he said.
Ryan continued: “You hit your marks in those fight scenes with speed and confidence, the likes of which I have never seen. I don’t care if you were 25, 35, 45 or 55. It was lightning.”
Deadpool & Wolverine is set to hit cinemas on July 26.
Jeremy Renner Finally Explains The Real Reason He Left The Mission: Impossible Franchise
Jeremy Renner had a pretty good reason to exit the Mission: Impossible franchise.
“I had to leave that,” the actor told Collider in an interview published on Monday. “I was supposed to do more with them. I love those guys. I love Tom [Cruise] so much. We had so much fun, and I love that character a lot.”
However, he noted that making the films “requires a lot of time away”.
“It’s all in London,” he added. “I had to go be a dad.”
Jeremy had starred as William Brandt in 2011′s Ghost Protocol and 2015′s Rogue Nation amid reports that he might replace Tom Cruise as the Mission: Impossible lead.
Advertisement
But Renner left the action film series before its highest-grossing entry, 2018′s Fallout. Director Christopher McQuarrie said at the time that a scheduling conflict had prevented Jeremy from appearing in the film.
Speaking to Collider, though the actor emphasised that reprising his role “just wasn’t gonna work out then” since he was raising a young child, Ava Berlin Renner.
“Maybe now that my daughter is older that could happen,” Jeremy said. “I’d always jump into a Mission: Impossible anytime and back into Brandt. It’s great.”
Stephen Lovekin via Getty Images
Advertisement
The first Mission: Impossible movie was released in 1996, and although it was a hit, later entries turned the franchise into a bona fide box-office behemoth.
Not only has Mission: Impossible raked in billions worldwide, but helped make Tom Cruise perhaps the most famous Hollywood star turned stuntman with his death-defying showstoppers.
Meanwhile, in the years following Rogue Nation, Jeremy would continue to appear as the superhero Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
He proved to be a real-life superhero at the start of 2023 when he reportedly prevented a snowplough from hitting his nephew.
Though the actor nearly died in the incident, he recently told late night host Jimmy Fallon that it taught him some valuable lessons.
Advertisement
“I won’t have a bad day for the rest of my life,” he said. “It’s impossible.”
Tories Heading For Election Wipeout As Mega Poll Predicts They Could End Up With Just 66 Seats
The Tories are heading for wipeout after a new mega poll predicted they are on course to win just 66 seats at next month’s general election.
The survey of more than 10,000 people suggests Keir Starmer is on course for power with a Commons majority of 336.
Advertisement
Among the big-name Tories who would lose their seats are deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, home secretary James Cleverly and defence secretary Grant Shapps.
According to the poll, by Electoral Calculus and Find Out Now for GB News and the Daily Mail, Labour is on 46% – a staggering 27 points ahead of the Conservatives, who are on just 19%.
Converted into seats, that would leave Labour on 493 – nearly 300 more than they won at the 2019 election.
The Tories would plummet to just 66 seats, leaving them with just seven more MPs than the Lib Dems on 59.
Advertisement
The SNP is also on course for a bad night, dropping more than 20 seats to 26.
Electoral Calculus said: “Our figures indicate a substantial Labour landslide, with Keir Starmer gaining a majority of over 300 seats at Westminster.
“The Conservatives would have fewer than 100 seats. They would be the official opposition, but they would have less than half of the opposition MPs – 72 out of 157.”
The result would be even better than Tony Blair achieved in the New Labour landslide of 1997, when the party won 419 seats.
By contrast, the Tories would suffer their worst result since at least 1900.
Other cabinet members on course to lose their seats are potential leadership contenders Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch, as well as Claire Coutinho, Mel Stride, Gillian Keegan and Mark Harper.
‘By the time my pension’s sorted, will I be here?’
A former police officer fears she may not live to see the pension boost she has been promised.
