‘If we keep going like this, we'll have no doctors left.’ This is the message from junior doctors on the picket line of a four-day industrial strike. Speaking outside Stoke Mandeville Hospital, they said the NHS is facing an exodus of doctors unless conditions are improved: ‘It’s about improving the NHS and improving patients’ safety, improving worker retention and making workers feel valued again.’. Their comments were repeated outside hospitals everywhere by junior doctors claiming wage cuts of over 25% since 2008/9. They want a 35% pay rise. Downing Street said the proposed increase was ‘unreasonable and not affordable for the British taxpayer’. A London junior doctor, who is not striking, said the 25% cuts are based on questionable assumptions. The Nuffield Trust calculates the 8% pay cuts up to 2021-22 based on actual earnings. Also, many junior doctors opt to work part-time, then pick up additional shifts at high locum rates. A junior doctor in London earns in the region of £55,000, and that’s before locum shifts.

Dr Martin Hanbury has quit as an Ofsted inspector, saying he felt his role could cause more harm than good. Teachers in the National Education Union are also being urged to refuse to do inspections for England's regulator. But Ofsted said most school leaders found them constructive and collaborative. Last month the Department for Education said inspections were hugely important and a legal requirement. Mr Hanbury told the BBC that regulating schools was important, but the current system was ‘scrutinising’ schools without giving them support. He called the one-word grading system ‘totally unfit for purpose. It's a very simplistic way of describing a really complex system. It's like trying to measure a cloud with a ruler. An inadequate school is very rarely inadequate in everything it does and, equally, an outstanding school is never outstanding in everything it does.’

MP Scott Benton was stripped of the party whip after reporters posing as investors secretly filmed him saying he was prepared to leak market sensitive information to their bogus investment fund and ask parliamentary questions on its behalf, in breach of parliamentary rules. Under those rules, MPs are forbidden from advocating a particular matter in the House or raising it with ministers in return for payment. They are also prohibited from serving as paid parliamentary advisers or consultants or guiding firms on ways to influence Parliament. In a meeting, Mr Benton said he could support the fund, which he believed was set up by an Indian businessman looking to make investments in the UK betting and gaming sector, by attempting to water down proposed gambling reforms. This scandal comes as the Government carries out a major review of gambling laws, considering stricter regulations which could affect operators’ profits.

Through Haggai, the Lord calls His people to ‘consider their ways’. Despite their best efforts, Israel’s ‘agricultural economy’ is failing, because they have neglected the ‘house of the Lord’ (Haggai 1:1-11). In Hosea, ‘the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish’, because of the sins and apostasy of the people, particularly the priests and prophets (who should know better) (Hosea 4:1-11). Then and now, the state of the land and its inhabitants is an indicator of the spiritual condition of (God's) people. Many current issues in rural life (and society in general) are symptoms of the underlying spiritual malaise in the nation and church and its leadership. Diverse wings of the church are capitulating to the spirit of the age by uncritically adopting its consumerism, ‘celebrity culture’, and ’woke’ agenda or even consorting with the ‘gods of the nations’ by mixing New Age / pagan practices with Christian worship.

The shift in tone and mood was unmistakable as US president Joe Biden visited the Republic of Ireland, having spent a short time in Northern Ireland. Baseball cap on, and into a pub. ‘It feels like I'm coming home,’ he said in Dundalk, County Louth. The NI politics tightrope negotiated, it seems it is now time to unwind a little. His sister and son were in tow: it was not diplomacy but a return to family roots and a sense of belonging. 30 million Americans also have Irish ancestry, and Biden hopes for a political dividend the year before a presidential election. Meanwhile his visit to Northern Ireland, although talked about for months, only lasted 17 hours. There is no such thing as a low-key trip for an American president, but this came close. Quick, short, with Rishi Sunak's input minimal, not even appearing at Biden's only public appearance - raising some eyebrows in government.

The House of Lords debated a bill on 11 April, and if wise amendments are not made before it receives royal assent it is regarded as the gravest threat to our wildlife in decades by a number of wildlife and conservation charities. A new bill, officially called the Retained EU Law Bill, threatens to wipe out thousands of crucial laws which protect wildlife by the end of the year. This will lead to even more pollution poisoning rivers, more wild places at risk of being damaged - and potentially destroyed - and more wildlife threatened with extinction. It is an attack on nature, and environmentalists are urging the Government to bin it before it’s too late. The Government wants to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2030. If this bill is passed without change, it will undermine any possibility of achieving that goal. A Rocha believes the bill should be abandoned in its current state.

Ukraine’s president Zelensky has urged world leaders to act after the emergence of footage showing Russian soldiers beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war. A second video shows the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers next to a destroyed military vehicle. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, it has committed widespread abuses. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin’s alleged war crimes. Ukraine’s foreign minister tweeted, ‘A horrific video of Russian troops decapitating a Ukrainian prisoner of war is circulating online. It’s absurd that Russia, which is worse than Isis, is presiding over the UNSC’ - referring to the UN Security Council, where Russia took up the rotating presidency this month. ‘The terror group Isis released a number of videos showing beheadings when it controlled swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and be held accountable for their crimes, and the International Criminal Court must ‘immediately investigate yet another atrocity of the Russian military.’

Norway’s foreign ministry has said it has decided to expel fifteen Russian embassy officials in Oslo, claiming that they were intelligence officers operating under the cover of diplomatic positions. In a statement, the ministry said: ‘The government’s decision is in response to the changed security situation in Europe, which has led to an increased intelligence threat from Russia. The officers must leave Norway shortly.’. Norway’s foreign minister, Anniken Huitfeldt, said: ‘This is an important step in countering, and reducing the level of, Russian intelligence activity in Norway, and thus in safeguarding our national interests.’ Russia’s foreign ministry said it would respond to Norway’s expulsion of its diplomats, according to state media.

Following two nights of violence between police and ‘agitators’ at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, 34 rockets were launched into Israel’s civilian population from southern Lebanon terrorists. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said 25 of the projectiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system. See Israel’s military then carried out air strikes on Hamas targets in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Gaza retaliated with dozens more rockets. IDF warplanes struck Hamas’ infrastructures in Lebanon and Gaza, including an underground shaft to construct weapons, three weapons workshops and an underground terrorist tunnel. Another 44 rockets from Gaza towards southern Israel were intercepted. See On Good Friday, two British-Israeli sisters were killed and their mother later died after being shot in the West Bank. The next day, an Italian tourist was killed and seven others injured in a Tel Aviv car-ramming. Benjamin Netanyahu has called up army and police reservists.

The Senate in Florida has passed a bill to ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The ‘Heartbeat Protection Act’ would prohibit physicians from knowingly performing or inducing a pregnancy termination after the gestational age of the foetus is over six weeks, as opposed to 15 weeks at present. Last year the state’s governor signed a law which bans abortion after 15 weeks, with no exception for rape or incest. It is being challenged in Florida’s supreme court. A decision is not expected until May. The Heartbeat Protection Act provides ‘an exception if the woman obtaining the abortion is a victim of rape, incest or human trafficking, subject to certain conditions’. Two Republicans joined all Democrats in voting against the legislation. The bill is expected to have the legislation signed, and Republicans are expected to pass their own version of the bill in the coming days.