Seeds of prayer - Hope restored
'I will never betray you', Peter declared at the Last Supper. And indeed he stayed close to Jesus all through his arrest and trial, albeit in the shadows. Yet, before the cock crowed he had denied Jesus three times. Knowing this secret he had to watch and wait three agonising days with the other disciples, sharing their anxiety and sorrow. No wonder he ran to the garden on the third day when Mary brought the news that the tomb was empty; the beginning of hope restored. Back on the shores of Galilee where he had first met Jesus, he is embraced, forgiven and recommissioned. Pray for any feeling disqualified or who have lost their way with Jesus, or are facing the sifting Satan demands of us all. May they know His love and be aware of His presence.
Gender pay imbalance
Figures show that very little has changed when it comes to addressing the gender pay gap in Great Britain. Women in the UK were paid just 90p for every £1 earned by a man, according to the latest figures released through the government’s gender pay gap reporting mechanism. Among those high-profile companies reporting particularly large gender gaps was EasyJet. According to data filed by the company’s larger arm, Easyjet Airline Company, women’s median wage stood at just 36p for every £1 that men earned last year. Other companies reporting that median male earnings were at least double that of female employees include HSBC Bank along with several academy trusts. A spokesperson for EasyJet said its ‘gender pay submission does not represent a complete picture because the data in April 2021 included pilots, while the majority of our predominantly female UK cabin crew community remained on furlough’.
Boris Johnson on transgender issues
Boris Johnson has said he does not think ‘biological males should be competing in women’s sports and the ‘sensible’ view was that transgender athletes - such as Lia Thomas, a swimmer who won America’s top trophy in university sports - should not be allowed to compete alongside cisgendered women and that children should not be allowed to decide their own gender without parental assistance. His most comprehensive comments yet on transgender issues came days after the Government decided not to ban trans conversion therapy, as the Conservative Party promised at the last election. Conversion therapy attempts to change or suppress someone’s sexuality or gender identity. Mr Johnson also said he thought it was important to have women-only spaces in hospitals, prisons and changing rooms but admitted there were ‘complexities and sensitivities’ around transgender issues that ‘still need to be worked out’. It is already outlawed in several other countries.
A&E staff ‘crying with anger’
Senior managers have written to executives at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust saying lives have been put at risk and patients left to die without dignity because of long waits. The letter, reported by Health Service Journal, says, ‘For the past few months we have on a regular basis had more than 50 patients waiting for a bed and that wait being in excess of 60 hours. This means that at most times there is limited or no space to accommodate newly acutely ill patients, causing ambulance handover delays of over four hours and delay in treatment.’ They reported an increase in clinical incidents, pressure sores, detrimental outcomes, and occasions where patients ‘die without the dignity of privacy’. ‘We have witnessed senior experienced staff crying with frustration and anger,’ in increasingly precarious situations.
