Senior local government leaders did not hold back yesterday in telling stories of the abuse they and family members have faced, both online and offline.
He wrote, simply: “Deeply saddened to see this announcement”.
It was the first of hundreds of messages from councils, leaders, mayors and chief executives that expressed sadness at the Duke of Edinburgh’s passing, and gratitude for his many years of public service.
Leading figures from other royal boroughs marked the news. Dan Thorpe (Lab), leader of Greenwich RBC, paid tribute to help the duke had given after a devastating fire, tweeting: “Prince Philip was deeply connected to our borough & we give thanks for all he helped to achieve, particularly the restoration of The Cutty Sark. #greenwich”.
And Ian Thomas, the chief executive of Kingston upon Thames RBC, marked the duke’s death by retweeting the royal family’s announcement, adding “RIP”.
Government accused of ‘cat and mouse’ game over public health funding
Health secretary Matt Hancock has moved to allay fears over the future of councils’ public health teams following a pitch from the body representing NHS trusts to take over some public health services.
But his department is also facing mounting pressure to reveal exactly how much funding public health teams will be getting next year, with just three weeks to go until the beginning of the new financial year.
There is growing concern in the sector of an attempted NHS land grab following an NHS Providers report published last month which argued that the NHS should take over the commissioning of key public health services.
The government has finally published the prioritisation methodology for its £4.8bn levelling up fund, prompting protest from many who suspect it is designed to favour areas that are electorally important to the Conservative party.
Experts and politicians have criticised the methodology for not incorporating social deprivation measures and giving a large weight to factors more common in rural areas.
Since its announcement in the recent Budget, the fund has been heavily criticised for the way areas have been prioritised, with relatively affluent places such as chancellor Rishi Sunak’s constituency of Richmond given a higher priority than more deprived urban areas such as Barnsley, Hackney and Sheffield. LGC analysis found that three quarters of areas given the top priority have at least one Conservative MP.