Are the young really so down on democracy? | Letters

It’s naturally concerning that a recent poll on which you report (13 January), and which Owen Jones refers to (Young people are abandoning democracy for dictators. I can understand their despair, 14 January), suggests that one in five young Britons would prefer an unelected dictator to democracy. However, comparing this with a 2022 poll gives rise to a more optimistic view: that among young Britons, support for unelected dictators appears to be falling, while support for democracy appears to be modestly increasing.In the 2022 poll, by the thinktank Onward, only 72% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 76% of 25- to 34-year-olds agreed that democracy is a fairly or very good system of government (as against 94% of those aged 65-plus), while an astonishing 60% of 18- to 44-year-olds agreed that “a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections” is a fairly or very good system of government (as against 27% of those aged 65-plus). That poll didn’t ask respondents to choose between democracy and dictatorship, so comparison requires caution, but on any view the generation gap on support for democracy and dictatorship is not new, and the appeal of unelected dictatorship among the young appears to be on the wane

Woman with ‘distorted notion of revenge’ sentenced for stabbing transgender woman

A woman who carried out a transphobic stabbing attack motivated by a “distorted notion of revenge” has been sentenced to more than eight years in youth detention.The victim, a transgender woman who was 18 at the time, was stabbed nine times in Harrow last February in an attack involving five young people wearing masks, the Old Bailey heard.She only survived because passersby stepped in to help, the court was told.After stabbing the victim nine times, Summer Betts-Ramsey, 20, told a friend: “It deserved it.” She admitted possessing a knife and causing grievous bodily harm with intent

Ryan Wellings jailed after partner Kiena Dawes took her own life

A violent and controlling “monster” who subjected his late partner, Kiena Dawes, to repeated assaults, bullying and belittling has been jailed for six and a half years.A jury at Preston crown court found Ryan Wellings, 30, guilty of assault and coercive and controlling behaviour on Monday.His victim for two years was Dawes, 23, who took her own life, blaming Wellings from “beyond the grave” for her death. The same jury found him not guilty of manslaughter.On Thursday, the honorary recorder of Preston, Judge Altham, jailed Wellings, a man described by the prosecution as an “entitled, aggressive bully” and by Dawes’s friends as a “horrible little bastard” with a jealous streak who did not like being answered back to

Incapacity benefit cuts consultation was ‘misleading’ and unlawful, judge rules

Labour’s plan to push through £3bn of cuts to incapacity benefits has received a setback after a judge ruled an official consultation setting out the proposals was misleading and unlawful.The high court said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had presented UK-wide incapacity benefit assessment reforms as a way to support disabled people into work without making clear the “primary rationale” of the proposals was cost savings.The consultation, which was carried out by the previous government in autumn 2023, failed to mention that 424,000 disabled people would see their benefits cut, many losing £416 a month, the judge found.Documents released to the court also revealed that internal DWP estimates suggested the reforms to the “fit for work” test known as the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) would push 100,000 highly vulnerable disabled people into absolute poverty.Ellen Clifford, a disability activist who launched the legal challenge, said the proposed cuts had been “prioritised over lives”

Hospital patients dying undiscovered in corridors, report on NHS reveals

Patients are dying in hospital corridors and going undiscovered for hours, while others who suffer heart attacks cannot be given CPR because of overcrowding in walkways, a bombshell report on the state of the NHS has revealed.So many patients are being cared for in hospital corridors across the UK that in some cases pregnant women are having miscarriages outside wards while other patients are unable to call for help because they have no call bell and are subjected to “animal-like conditions”, said the Royal College of Nursing.The RCN warned that patients were “routinely coming to harm” and in some cases dying because vital equipment was not available and staff were too busy to give everyone adequate care.Dr Adrian Boyle, the leader of Britain’s A&E doctors, said the nurses’ testimonies on which the report was based were so horrendous that it “must be a watershed moment, a line in the sand” and must prompt the government to redouble its efforts to get the NHS working properly again.Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “I am shocked, appalled and so saddened that this is the level of care we as clinicians are being forced to provide to our patients – people who turn to the NHS and its staff when they are most vulnerable and in need

‘Absolute pandemonium’: stories of ‘corridor care’ from the NHS in England

John, 42, said he was “quite angry” after spending about 24 hours in a hospital corridor in south-west England, having arrived in A&E on Monday afternoon with chest pain. “It was very clear that the hospital was running beyond capacity.”At the time of writing, he had moved to a different hospital in the area and was waiting for an angiogram on Wednesday. Messaging from his corridor hospital bed he said: “It’s narrow, cramped and there is zero patient privacy.”John is one of dozens of people who shared their experiences of the corridors of A&E with the Guardian, after a hospital in north London posted adverts calling for nurses to take on 12-hour “corridor care” shifts