Screen time guidance does not go far enough | Letters

While I fully support the government’s guidance to parents of under-fives to keep screen time to under an hour a day (Keep under-fives’ screen time to no more than an hour a day, UK advice says, 27 March), this does not go far enough. Children do not only experience screens at home; they also encounter them in early childhood settings and schools.Contrary to the advice given in the new guidance for parents, the government requires all children to complete a screen-based test within their first six weeks at primary school. The Reception Baseline Assessment takes up 20 minutes of their daily screen time. Teachers are not able to interact with the child while doing the test as they must follow a script

Overthinking is rarely an advantage | Letter

I was delighted to read Polly Hudson’s article on overthinkers like me (Faithful, sensitive, forgiving: overthinkers like me make the best partners, 29 March). I am 51 now and have spent most of my life at the mercy of my ability to “turn even the most pleasant, benign interaction into a horrifying encounter that definitely caused offence”.Someone once described me as a sentinel – forever observing and analysing myself and, as a result, never actually living in the moment and enjoying the freedom from guilt and shame and self-loathing that the under- and perfect-level thinkers around me appeared to achieved without effort.Advice to just “be myself” fell on deaf ears. I couldn’t simply “turn off” my thinking – in the same way that someone who is diabetic cannot think their way to producing more insulin

‘We’re trapped’: developer’s unpaid debt leaves London flat owners unable to sell

Leaseholders in east London have said they are “trapped in unsellable homes” because of an £850,000 debt owed by the building’s developer to Hackney council, who have let it go unpaid for eight years.The 17 leaseholders, who live in a block of flats in Upper Clapton, have appealed to the council for help but their pleas, including requests for a meeting, have been ignored.Rich Bell, 38, is one of the owners. He was expecting to move out of his one-bedroom flat last year, having outgrown it after having his first child. He was in a “pretty advanced stage” of the selling process but was halted when the solicitors encountered an issue

Resident doctors accuse Keir Starmer of sabotaging talks to end pay and jobs dispute

Resident doctors have accused Keir Starmer of damaging the prospects of a deal to end their pay and jobs dispute by threatening to cut 1,000 new jobs for medics in the NHS.The claim from the British Medical Association leaders came just before the Thursday deadline given by the prime minister for the union to accept the government’s final offer.Barring a late change of heart by the BMA, resident doctors in England will stage a six-day strike from 7am on Tuesday. The union’s resident doctors committee last week rejected the government’s detailed plan to end their long-running dispute.It included a pledge to increase the number of places available in specialist medical training by up to 4,500 over the next three years to help more early-career doctors start training in their chosen speciality

Starmer’s threat to resident doctors is a grave mistake | Letters

While I totally disapprove, as I did last time, of the doctors’ strike but completely support their demands and grievances, it is the prime minister’s response which has made me write this letter (Keir Starmer gives resident doctors 48 hours to call off strike or lose training offer, 31 March). His threat of not creating extra training posts is shocking, inappropriate and impulsive. Though on the face of it it sounds like an innocuous response showing irritation, it is probably the most convincing evidence so far of his unfitness to govern among the litany of his other missteps.It has laid bare his government’s lack of strategy and lack of sincerity. Does he understand that, by not creating training posts, he is not only going to harm doctors’ careers, spoil thousands of young doctors’ lives and deter others from adopting this noble and vital profession, but also harm the NHS, and thus patient care? The NHS is desperately understaffed

High times or low blows? Experts fail to clear air over German drug legalisation

It was a landmark piece of legislation passed by Germany’s previous, centre-left-led government: a measure that legalised the personal recreational use of cannabis for over-18s despite warnings from critics it would cause a steep rise in the drug’s use, including by teenagers, and boost criminal gangs.Two years on, controversy over the move has still not been stubbed out, with critics and proponents at odds over its impact on consumption, youth welfare and organised crime.Preliminary results from an ongoing study into the policy’s consequences, released on Wednesday, provided a mixed picture, with enough ammunition for each side to claim vindication.The MPs Carmen Wegge and Christos Pantazis of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) said the analysis to date showed that partial legalisation was the right approach.“The dramatic negative effects on consumption patterns or public health feared by critics have not materialised