There must be more support for young people who are seeking jobs | Letters

Regarding Polly Toynbee’s article (Young people want to work: now there may be jobs for them, 17 March), as a young person, I believe that the government must rebuild trust in its support, or young people will continue to be held back. I am now working, but I know what it’s like to leave university and face unemployment: constant rejection, confusion and anxiety about what comes next. It is scary. But what Polly describes isn’t unusual; it’s the reality for many, and repeated rejections knock your confidence.Support on offer has struggled to keep up with the growing challenges that young people face

Those who view voyeuristic nightlife videos are the issue | Letters

I was grateful for Emily Retter’s focus on the feelings and experiences of the women affected by voyeuristic nightlife content (‘They were comparing me to Bonnie Blue’: the disturbing rise of nightlife content, 18 March). Being “watched” in public is perhaps a uniquely female experience. Sadly many women can relate to being leered at from car windows or catcalled from scaffolding, with video content being the latest, depressing escalation of this kind of behaviour.What is new, however, is the scale of the audience for the content documenting such behaviour. I am struck by the lack of repercussions for the (presumably exclusively male) viewers and commenters of these videos

‘Luxury takes time. We don’t have time’: The former top military officer on a mission to fix the Dutch housing crisis

Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan is on a mission. The new housing minister of the Netherlands is charged with building 100,000 homes a year and breaking through a planning deadlock to combat one of Europe’s worst housing crises.The Irish-born 50-year-old is new to politics. Until a fortnight ago she was the country’s top female military officer, famous for getting flak jackets redesigned for women’s bodies and holding her own in a male-dominated sphere.Now she is clear

Ministers confirm locations for seven new towns in England

Ministers have confirmed the locations for seven new towns, which include under-developed inner-city land, a historic village and an existing new town.The programme is being billed by the housing and communities department as the most ambitious housebuilding project in England for half a century, with the planned construction of between 15,000 and 40,000 homes in each new town.The new towns are intended to be designed in a coordinated way, with schools, access to healthcare, public transport links and walking and cycling paths to be created at the same time as the homes.Only one of the locations will be created around a small existing community, as was the case with the various generations of new towns built after the second world war.Up to 40,000 homes are planned around the Bedfordshire village of Tempsford, which is near the A1, with the new building on a former RAF base

‘You lose yourself’: inside the mental health crisis hitting gen X women

My generation had great role models, free university and the morning-after pill. We should be running the world. Instead, two-thirds of us are facing mental health problems – and it’s not all about the menopauseLooking at the women in my own immediate friendship group, ranging in age from 50 to 63, we have lived through every flavour of chaos. Apart from the haywire hormones and feelings of invisibility, there are also the life-changing events that happen at this life stage – post-divorce relocation, caring for a parent with dementia, a breast cancer diagnosis, redundancy. Some of my friends are also supporting adult children with mental health problems, who are still living at home

Family courts in England and Wales ‘not good enough’ for women and children, minister says

Family courts are “not good enough” and have treated women and children unfairly for decades, a government minister has said.Announcing a major overhaul of the family justice system in England and Wales that will play a central role in “rebalancing” the family courts, Alison Levitt said often brutal legal showdowns will be replaced with a “problem-solving”, child-focused model.Part of a move across the Ministry of Justice to tackle court backlogs, the department said child focused courts – which centre on child welfare and seeks out-of-court resolutions – have reduced child trauma, cut a backlog of cases and reduced waiting times.They will now become the standard model for all section 8 cases, which involve child arrangements including where that child lives, who they have contact with and how long they spend with each parent.The Labour peer, who was Keir Starmer’s principal legal adviser when he was the director of public prosecutions, said that she had been repeatedly accused of sexism since she became a minister last autumn, including as a result of the proposed repeal of the legal presumption that both parents should be involved in their children’s lives in the Courts and Tribunal bill, which passed its second reading earlier this month