Steerpike

While Britain's NHS remains on its knees, with A&E waiting times still unacceptably long and bed-blocked preventing sick patients from accessing wards, you'd think that all hands would be on deck to help make patient passages through hospital even a little more comfortable. Not in the County Durham and Darlington hospital trust. The trust's LGBT network has instead been hard at work producing, er, a 36-page digital Pride Month calendar. Time well spent, eh? Inside, Pride Month 2025 contains graphics that tie each day of June to the celebration of a particular LGBT theme, showing flags representing a colourful variety of different genders and sexualities placed on different dates.

Well, well, well. At long last, the Westminster parliament has issued an update on where it stands over the Supreme Court ruling, which saw judges unanimously backed the biological definition of a woman. But despite the ruling being announced in April, it is only now that the UK parliament has published guidance on the subject for both visitors and staff. Talk about dragging your heels, eh? On its internal site, parliament issued a notice that read: The UK Supreme Court recently issued a decision regarding the legal definition of ‘men’ and ‘women’ for the purpose of the Equality Act 2010. Following the ruling, members of the public should use toilet facilities which correspond to their biological sex, or one of the gender-neutral facilities available.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Monday afternoon that the UK government had decided to proscribe activist group Palestine Action – and now it transpires that officials are investigating its funding over concerns that there may be an Iran link. As reported by the Times, Palestine Action's donations are being probed amid worries that the Iranian regime is funding the campaign group via proxies given their aims align.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced in the Commons this afternoon that the UK government will proscribe Palestine Action. The move comes after members of the activist group broke into RAF Brize Norton and graffitied two military planes. In a statement, Cooper said: ‘A draft proscription order will be laid in Parliament on Monday 30 June. If passed, it will make it illegal to be a member of, or invite support for, Palestine Action.’ And the Metropolitan police have taken no chances with them in London. The force has banned protests planned for today from taking place outside parliament, imposing an exclusion zone around Westminster. Meanwhile police have said that demonstrations by the group cannot begin before noon in central London and must wrap up by 3pm.

To the Beeb, which is once again making the news rather than breaking it. BBC presenter Martine Croxall caught the attention of viewers on Sunday as she read out a news report about a heart health study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Reading the autocue, the presenter hesitated as she got to a sentence about protecting vulnerable people from extreme weather. It transpires that her script had described those at risk as those with pre-existing health conditions, the elderly and, er, 'pregnant people'. Rolling her eyes, Croxall corrected the description on air – 'women' – before continuing on. Good to see some accuracy on BBC News, eh?

It seems the Labour lot has got themselves in quite a tizzy over events in the Middle East – and this morning saw an excruciating interview in which the defence minister couldn't answer the most straightforward question about Iran. Luke Pollard gave a car crash interview earlier today on Sky News, where the Labour minister appeared stumped over a simple question about Britain's stance on Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iran. If he can't answer on this, what does he know? Pollard squirmed as Sky's Wilfred Frost quizzed him three times about whether the Uk government is 'disappointed' in President Trump's move to strike Iran. Asked whether No. 10 is 'disappointed ultimately that the US felt it necessary to attack Iran over the weekend', Pollard decided to, er, obfuscate.

SNP MSP Mairi McAllan appears to be rated rather highly by First Minister John Swinney, who created an entirely new job for her on her return to Holyrood from maternity leave – but the Scottish government's new housing secretary hasn't had the smoothest start to the job. A rather awkward interview with STV this week highlighted the Cabinet minister isn't quite as on top of her brief as she should be. Oh dear… The SNP claims on its website that 'since taking office, we have delivered 96,750 affordable homes, nearly 67,000 of which were for social rent'. But on how many people are currently waiting for a social home in Scotland, it seems the Nats are a little less clear.

Scotland’s self-identifying ‘newspaper’ is at it again – and this time it has provoked the wrath of renowned writer JK Rowling. The National has chosen to dunk, yet again, on women's rights organisation Sex Matters, dubbing it an 'anti-trans campaign group' which is 'threatening' legal action after it raised concerns about how the Scottish government is – or, more to the point, is not – implementing the recent Supreme Court judgment that backed the biological definition of a woman. But feminist-in-chief Rowling has had enough – and was quick to slam the Nat-obsessed tabloid as 'anti-woman'. Ouch.

Baroness Casey’s landmark review into Britain’s grooming gangs contained some truly horrific revelations. The damning audit found that disproportionate numbers of Asian men were responsible for child sexual exploitation gangs. Shockingly, it revealed that the authorities failed to crack down on these men for fear of being racist. It has prompted outrage from those who had been vilified for suggesting particular groups of people were more likely to be perpetrators than others – and Mr S is curious about whether the organisations who were quick to cry racism will now retract their criticism.