The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has thrown out all 109 charges of aggravated trespass that were under review, leaving just 30 of the original 146 protesters arrested for occupying the central London department store on 26 March to face court on 9 November this year. The CPS said yesterday it was not in the public interest to pursue the case against the majority of the anti-cuts campaigners.

Police arrested 146 activists and detained them for up to 24 hours after they stormed Fortnum & Mason during the TUC anti-cuts rally. Two cases were dropped and five minors aged between 15 and 17 had their charges thrown out earlier this month. If convicted, the remaining activists face a maximum three-month prison sentence.

Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor of CPS London, said: “I have decided that the cases against 109 individuals who were charged after protesting in Fortnum and Mason on 26 March should be discontinued. However, we will continue to pursue the other 30 cases through the judicial process.”

Ms Saunders added that there was “sufficient evidence” to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for the offence of aggravated trespass against all defendants, but decided that a prosecution was not in the public interest because the sit-in had been a single incident, protesters had not been involved in similar offences before, they had played only a “minor role in the offending behaviour” and even if convicted the court would be likely only to impose a “nominal penalty.”

Mike Schwarz, a solicitor for Bindmans – the law firm representing about 110 of the UK Uncut protesters – said he thought it was “irrational” to drop cases against so many of the defendants but continue to prosecute 30 of the protesters, who were selected if they had banners, large quantities of leaflets, or if they had been involved in similar protests previously.

Daniel Garvin, a 26-year-old charity worker who was arrested and detained for 22 hours in Fulham police station after the occupation, said he was “relieved” to have his charges dropped but thought all of the cases should be thrown out. “If it’s not in the public interest to prosecute me, why is it in the public interest to prosecute another 30 simply because they had leaflets in their bags? It’s ridiculous.”

Supporters rallied round UK Uncut after a video emerged of chief inspector Claire Clark telling the group inside Fortnum & Mason that they had been “non-violent” and “sensible” minutes before the protesters were individually arrested outside.

The Independent has learnt that Ms Clark has confirmed in writing that she knew that all protesters would be arrested upon leaving the department store, but chose not to tell them to avoid a potential breach of the peace. She also said that she did not think everyone inside Fortnum & Mason had been involved in criminal activity. The Met has refused to comment on the case.

Raj Chada, a solicitor at Hodge Jones & Allen, who represents 6 of the defendants still facing trial, said lawyers would be mounting an “abuse of process” defense at the first court date, asking for the remaining cases to be thrown out of court. “This was clearly a political act of policing, rather than public order policing. The inspector deliberately deceived those present at the protest – they had a legitimate expectation that they would be dealt with in one way and then they weren’t,” he said.

Labour MP John McDonnell, who signed an early day motion congratulating UK Uncut last year, said: “It is blindingly obvious that hauling the UK Uncut protestors before the courts is not only a complete waste of court time and resources but serves no purpose but to undermine the right to protest. All the cases should now be dropped.”

Adam Ramsay, 25, one of the 30 defendants who faces court in November, said: “I am happy so many people got off, but it seems completely arbitrary and farcical that they decided that they are going to prosecute me and not other people when there is no difference at all in what we did and didn’t do. It’s frustrating.”

A shorter version of this article appeared here at The Independent.

Picket lines will be set up at London Metropolitan University from 8am this morning as members of UNISON and UCU unions agreed to a day strike at the institution on the same day as a board of governors meeting and a week before up to 750,000 public sector workers are set to strike in defence of their pensions.

Unrest amongst some staff and students has risen at the central London university since management announced plans to cut 70 per cent of its courses, closing subjects such as History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, and Performing Arts, as well as around 200 Business courses.

The only undergraduate Caribbean studies course in the country is also due to shut, with the University stating that 86 jobs are planned to be axed for support and administrative staff in the university’s first round of compulsory redundancies. Union members dispute these figures and said numbers of announced job losses are already closer to 200.

The two unions, who represent 970 staff, said the University has refused to enter into negotiations with them about providing a voluntary redundancy package or to clarify how many staff could lose their jobs. Lessons at the University have finished for the term, but it is thought strikes could delay the marking of students’ exams.

The university has been facing a major deficit after it lost £36 million of government money in 2009, which it had falsely claimed from the Higher Education Funding Council for England after providing inaccurate student data.

London Met Vice Chancellor Malcolm Gillies said he was “disappointed” with the union’s decision to strike. He said 80 per cent of students were on 80 per cent of the university’s courses and the reduction on offer from 557 to 175 was needed to meet the “deplorable” new government fee regimes. The University is due to charge fees of on average £6,850 from 2012.

Mr Gillies said: “We have had to balance four factors – the cost, demand, employability and affordability of our courses – to create our new curriculum, which contains a good tight body of subjects which will command good attention of the market…Denial would be the most dangerous course of all, it could lead to delusion.

“London Met is out in front of other British universities and is maybe a year ahead in making changes, because we have a financial penalty to pay, but all universities are going to have to take an extra hard look at their curriculum…so that they can reasonably defend the defined space they have in the best way they can.”

A student rally is also taking place at one of London Met’s campuses today, organised by Education Activist Network and including speeches by general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union Mark Serwotka.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, whose constituency includes one of London Met’s campuses, said the University has a “great record of providing university education for students from poor and minority ethnic backgrounds” as well as local adults “who would otherwise be denied University opportunities.”

He said: “I am appalled by the new round of cuts based on Government funding decisions but also disagree with the course reductions and opportunities for study made by the Board. [The] March and rally, which I will attend, is about the rights and opportunities for University education for everybody.”

A shorter version of this article appeared here in The Independent.

Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark unveiled drafts of his plans, in which local councils could “move to a system where the default answer to development is ‘yes’,” unless it would infringe key sustainable development principles set out in national planning policy to be consulted on next month.

But his announcement came under immediate scrutiny, as critics said the plans prioritised economic growth at the expense of the environment, failed to clearly define “sustainable development” and encouraged “speculative” planning models across England.

Simon Marsh, a member of the practitioner’s advisory group for the coalition’s National Planning Policy Framework, said the sustainability criteria outlined in the draft were “disappointing.” He said: “They are using this policy to try and drive growth and that’s fine, but I fear that this presumption leaves us to beg the question, ‘What exactly is sustainable development?’”

In the government statement, “sustainable development’ is defined as the “vision of stimulating economic growth and tackling the deficit, maximising well-being and protecting our environment, without negatively impacting on the ability of future generations to do the same.”

It said the policy should help to deliver a strong economy, protection of the natural environment and healthy communities. But, while the plan encourages planning authorities to “prepare local plans” for new development, they are also told to “grant permission where the plan is absent, silent, indeterminate or where relevant policies are out of date.”

Environment groups fear that this could encourage “speculative” development to be carried out without a considered assessment of the impact on nature.

Paul Miner, Senior Planning Campaigner for the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “This proposed policy is as insidious as it is misleading. It’s as if ministers believe that by using the word sustainable no one will think to question any of the details. In reality, this proposed presumption could open the floodgates to environmentally damaging development across the country.

Naomi Luhde-Thompson, planning and policy advisor at Friends of the Earth, said: “This is a total undermining of a plan-led system, where you collect evidence, know what happens where and then put out policies. Ministers are trying to sell this as sustainable development, but of course that is a certain type of development, which integrates economic, environmental and social issues to deliver on all three. Developers need a lot of context and a detailed framework to do that. What was released yesterday offers none of this – it is a massive step backwards.”

Monitor, the independent foundation trust regulator, wrote to health officials around the country to warn them that they might face a “substantial challenge” in trying to meet the coalition’s drive for efficiency.

The regulator suggested hospitals could have to make savings of up to 7 per cent a year to be granted foundation trust status compared to the four percent previously outlined by the Department of Health (DoH).

The government is trying to convert all hospital trusts into foundation trusts by 2014, meaning they would be free from central control. It wants to cut £20bn across the NHS by 2015 and reduce administrative costs in non-front line organisations by 33 percent over the same time period.

There are currently 137 foundation trusts and approximately 85 more NHS hospitals and mental health trusts that will need to make savings in order to be granted the status by the government’s deadline.

David Stout, deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Seven percent in one year would be hard for anyone and the majority of health service costs are based on staffing. With the best will in the world, to take seven per cent out of a cost-base whether you are a hospital, a local authority, or a private company, year-on-year would be challenging.”

While he said that the level of savings required would vary depending on the location of the trust, he said those based in areas that were already struggling would be worst hit by increased calls for efficiency. “It’s not easy and it does mean they will have to provide care in different ways. It is likely to mean changes in the way they provide clinical services – which takes time – and it is likely to mean changes in the way you see services being delivered.”

In the letter, Monitor said it had revised its figures upwards based on the Government’s spending review, inflation expectations set out by the Office of Budget Responsibility and new operating rules within the NHS.

A spokeswoman said: “The changes to the economic environment mean all trusts will need to plan accordingly and some savings will be required. However, we should be clear that these assumptions are a reflection of the risks in the external environment; they are not a directive to make cuts.”

She added: “It is going to be challenging definitely. We are working up a number of options for other trusts that may not be able to meet the deadline and one thing we are considering is merging them with foundation trusts already out there.”

While she said that Monitor would govern quality of care with just as much vigour as they would to hospital’s finances, she said the estimated cut of 7 percent was not the worst case scenario.”In some areas, things could get worse,” she said.

There are approximately 20 trusts around the country that would find it “extremely difficult” to become foundation trusts if they stayed as they are, according to Stout.

Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, covering hospitals in Suffolk and south London, is one of them. A spokesman for the trust said it would have had to face annual cuts of up to 12.7 percent, or £39.9m off its yearly £313m budget to become a foundation trust in its current form.

“We just couldn’t meet the financial standard being put forward by Monitor,” he said. “We are looking at alternatives for the hospitals, which might mean a demerger and then a remerger with other organisations.”

A spokeswoman for the DoH said: ” Monitor’s assessment of 6-7 per cent is its ‘downside case’, meaning it’s more pessimistic. But it is right that Monitor’s assessments are challenging – we want all hospitals to be able to meet Monitor’s standards and show that they can provide sustainable, high quality and efficient services for their patients.”

A shorter version of this article appeared here in The Independent. 

Lush cosmetics co-founder and managing director, Mark Constantine, has given his company’s largest charitable grant of £10,000 to Green & Black Cross, a volunteer-run group of activists, who are providing legal support to the 138 members of UK Uncut facing criminal charges next month.

Members of the anti-tax avoidance group, whose methods of direct action against high street stores culminated in mass-arrests at London department store Fortnum & Mason on 26 March, are facing charges of aggravated trespass and a maximum of three months in jail and or a £2,500 fine. 

Mr Constantine, 58, said he felt the group had been unfairly targeted by police and deserved support in their fight against the courts. He said Green & Black Cross were providing an admirable service in helping assist the group with their legal process.

“I really like what they do and I like to look after those people who try to look after others,” he said. “I am not interested in funding genuine criminal acts, like smashing windows and the rest of it, but I am very, very interested in looking after those who care so deeply about things that they have to go out and do something about it.”

Green & Black Cross, the anarchist movement that developed out of last year’s student protests, are providing free legal advice to UK Uncut, recommending lawyers and facilitating their defendant meetings. In a grant proposal to Lush’s charity scheme, Charity Pot, the movement said the funds would cover their set up and running costs for six to ten months.

Sophie Pritchard, Charitable Giving Manager at Lush, said: “We received an application from Green and Black Cross in February this year for funding to allow them to expand their support of activists through three main functions; first aid, legal support and kitchens.

“Their initial focus was to support student activists since there were many out on the streets for the first time unaware of their rights, but they are now expanding to people involved with cuts demonstrations, another new wave of activists.”

Charity Pot, a cocoa butter and almond oil body lotion that retails for £12.75, generates most of Lush’s charitable funds. Last year, Lush gave away more than £1m to organisations last year, with the average grant coming in at between £3,000 – £4,000.

According to Ms Pritchard, Lush is also in discussion with members of UK Uncut and is “quite keen” to support them directly if and when they need help. Mr Constantine said he would consider paying additional grants to the direct action group, if they required funding to cover legal fees or fines.

“I think the message UK Uncut are putting across is good and clear and really important to society,” he said. “It seems to me extraordinary that those citizens who go into companies and ask them to pay tax should get arrested. I doubt very much the court will issue fines, but if I am asked for help from those that were peacefully protesting, then I will certainly look into it.”

Mr Constantine paid the legal costs incurred by Plane Stupid after its members camped on the runway at Stansted in December 2008, effectively shutting down the airport. He has also funded Sea Shepherd, the direct action maritime conservation group that has attacked Japanese whaling ships.

The cosmetics company was censored by the Advertising Standards Authority last year for misleading the public in a series of claims about fox hunting in an in-store leaflet titled “Hunting ban, what hunting ban?”.

Suzy Blackwell (not her real name), 25, a member of UK Uncut, facing aggravated trespass charges, said: “This is really good news. The fact that so many have been willing to help out protesters is not only a sign that we’ve been treated unfairly – it’s a sign that protesting the government’s cuts is a position many support.”

A shorter version of this article appeared in the i.

Barada TV, a pro-democracy Syrian news channel based next to Vauxhall Park in south London, started broadcasting in April 2009. It is reportedly one of a number of Syrian anti-government organisations that have received as much as $6m (£3.7m) from the US government.

Documents published by WikiLeaks suggest that the State Department has been funding opposition groups including the 24-hour free satellite channel for the past five years. The channel covers what it calls “oppositional” politics in Syria in a bid to overthrow the country’s long running autocratic regime, led by Bashar al-Assad.

Protests have been sweeping the country over the past month, as Syrians have started to revolt against the emergency laws imposed in 1963, which last week the President promised to lift. Human rights organisations estimate the death toll to be in the region of 200, while the Syrian government blames “armed gangs.”

Barada TV was set up by Malik al-Abdeh, who is also co-founder of the London-based Syrian-exile network Movement for Justice and Development (MJD), a political opposition group that is banned in Syria and chaired by his brother, Anas.

According to diplomatic cables, money was allocated to the network in September last year.

Mr Abdeh, 30, said he set up the satellite channel to empower the Syrian people and support peaceful revolution in the country. He denies that Barada TV or the MJD has ever taken any funding from the State Department, adding that the TV station receives its $1m budget from a Californian-based non-profit organisation, the Democracy Council, and several Syrian businessmen who cannot be named for security reasons.

“Barada TV would accept any unconditional donations from NGOs, but we have had no direct dealings with the US State Department,” he said. “I think this is an attempt to delegitimise the independence of our content because many in the Arab world don’t trust America. We are non-ideological and just want to break the regime’s stronghold over the media.”

The channel currently runs two-hour live interactive news programmes along with shows by the Dubai-based Orient TV, which since last week has carried news coverage of the protests in Syria.

This article appeared here in The Independent

James Hoggarth, 36, a civil servant from London: Last April, a van driver deliberately swerved at Mr Hoggarth while he was cycling through central London. Mr Hoggarth reported the driver to his boss, who sacked the driver after reviewing CCTV evidence.

“It was shocking: you don’t expect someone to use half a ton of metal to win an argument,” he says. “This is an absolutely brilliant campaign. Cyclists are quite vulnerable road users as they don’t have that shield of metal to protect them from harm. The more cyclists on the road, the more aware drivers will be. Ultimately, that’s better for everybody.”

Michael Sayburn, 51, accountant from Winchester: Mr Sayburn was thrown off his bike 11 weeks ago after slipping on diesel that a van sprayed in front of him. He had three pins placed in his hip, and can now walk only with a stick.

“I am itching to get back on my bike,” he says. “Accidents sort of go with the territory of cycling… but nothing can put me off. What we need is more awareness on the part of the drivers. They need to give cyclists a wider berth and we need more cycle lanes. Campaigns like these are fantastic. The thing that scares people off cycling is the state of the roads and the way that car drivers and truck drivers behave. You can ride along lit up like a Christmas tree and you still get: ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see you.’”

Jill Truman, 75, from east London, a cyclist for more than 60 years: “In London, it comes down to the fact that there really aren’t any safe places to cycle. The cycle lanes are rubbish and cars drive in and out of them. I almost never go on a busy road and feel like cyclists are treated as third-class citizens. Transport for London has put the cart before the horse by encouraging the use of bicycles before the roads are safe. The “cycling superhighways” turn out to be car, lorry and bus superhighways, with patches of bright blue paint and pictures of bicycles on the tarmac, and a few timid signs.”

Graeme Hitchen, 51, from Sheffield: Mr Hitchen was knocked off his bike in 2008. “I lost all the feeling in my leg. I had on a luminous jacket, a helmet, and had my lights on. I just don’t know how the driver didn’t see me. All I can remember saying is: ‘Why didn’t you see me?’ I am much more wary and defensive now; some people on the road are completely inconsiderate.”

10 ways to keep safe

Avoid lorries

Never wait between the kerb and a lorry. If it turns left, the driver may not see you.

Don’t kerb-crawl

Staying in the middle of the lane forces drivers to steer around you rather than scrape past.

Show your face

Eyeballing drivers helps them view you as a fellow road user. Smiling helps, too.

Use your neck

Learn how to look over your shoulder without wobbling and do so regularly.

Obey the code

Egregious violation of the Highway Code can damage you – and the image of cyclists.

Overtake buses

Look over your shoulder and move to overtake. If you can’t, wait. Never undertake.

Be bright

Reflective clothing and strong lights, while rarely cool, will help you get noticed.

Wear a helmet

You’re better off with a helmet. Just don’t think it will protect anything else.

Don’t get cross

Banging on windows just re-inforces the dangerous view that cyclists are the enemy.

Keep it clean

And well-oiled – to avoid, say, a chain jam at 20mph when there’s a bus on your tail.

By Simon Usborne, who writes The Independent’s cycling column, Cyclotherapy

A pub at the centre of a dispute over a gay kiss shut its doors last night as hundreds of demonstrators converged on it to hold a kiss-in.

James Bull, 23, and Jonathan Williams, 26, were enjoying their first date on Wednesday evening when they said they were forcibly removed from the John Snow pub in Soho, central London, by management who described their behaviour as “obscene”.

Word of the ejection caused a storm on social networking sites and a protest was quickly organised on Facebook for demonstrators to fill the John Snow and start a kiss-in. But after learning of the event, the pub management decided to close for the evening.

Up to 300 demonstrators, not all of them gay, arrived at the John Snow to find the doors locked. But they went ahead with the planned mass kiss in the street at 7pm. A rainbow flag was hung across the door of the pub and the doorstep became a platform for kissing couples.

Many of those who had turned up to express their anger at the pub regarded the locked doors as a victory, especially because it was on one of the most lucrative nights of the week.

Amy Ritchie, 29, said: “It’s excellent that the pub closed. Everybody who has worked in a bar or a restaurant knows you never close it down on a Friday. It’s a triumph.”

Peter Tatchell, the veteran gay rights campaigner, added: “It’s a huge disappointment that the brewery chain has not yet made a public statement or an apology. It is a sure sign of weakness.”

Another protester, Steve Erskine, said: “It was a real shame the pub closed. They really should have come out and made a statement. I mean, this is a pub in Soho, which has its own community of gay people, and the fact they have made no apology is outrageous.”

The gay couple at the centre of the expulsion row had chosen the John Snow because it served their favourite cider. They said yesterday they were overwhelmed by the support they had received from complete strangers.

Mr Bull said: “This is about people being comfortable with who they are and displaying it. For me tonight isn’t just about gay people, it’s about everybody being out here together.” He added: “I don’t think I want to take legal action. For me it’s enough that people have come down here and shown their support. It shows me that the majority don’t agree with what happened. For me, that’s enough.”

Mr Williams described the protest as “an amazing reaction” and added: “The fact the pub closed says it all, really. What do they have to hide? Surely they should have welcomed us all, had a drink with us and apologised if mistakes were made.”

Paul Shetler, who had organised the event on Facebook, was delighted with the response to his call for a kiss-in. “They were humiliated in a way that nobody should be humiliated and that’s why we’re here,” he said.

The pub, which is one of 300 operated by the Samuel Smith’s brewery, is close to the heart of London’s “gay village” but does not style itself as a gay bar. Thomas Paget, the licence holder of the pub, refused to comment on the row. “I don’t have anything to say,” he said. And no one in the brewery’s Tadcaster head office was available for comment.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “We are investigating an incident which occurred at approximately 10.50pm on 13th April at a venue in Broadwick Street, W1. There have been no arrests and inquiries are ongoing.”

Earlier, Jamie Morton, 23, who was also told to leave the pub after jumping to the couple’s defence, said: “You just don’t expect people to be treated like that. It wasn’t even like they were kissing in any way that could be construed as raunchy. It was their first date for God’s sake.”

Lucy Clements, 27, a TV production manager from Brixton, said she had been ordering a drink when she saw the men being verbally attacked.

“It was just so blatant,” she said. “Everybody knows that subtle discrimination happens all the time, but it was shocking to see it so obviously being directed at this lovely couple sitting next to me.”

Chanting, raging arguments which escalated to scuffles, and shareholders carried out sideways by security – BP’s 2011 annual general meeting, held in London yesterday, broke corporate conventions.

The company’s first meeting with shareholders since last year’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst oil spill in history, saw its executives face questions over their own basic competence and high pay, as well as the company’s safety and environmental records.

In an unusual shareholder rebellion, there was a sizeable protest vote against the pay deals handed to the company’s top bosses. Seven per cent of BP investors voted against the re-appointment of the company’s unpopular chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, and 25 per cent voted against the re-election of Sir Bill Castell, the non-executive director who heads BP’s safety committee. Eleven per cent voted against the remuneration report.

Many of the protesters had bought shares in BP hoping to get into the meeting. One such, a fourth-generation Texan fisherwoman called Diane Wilson, who disrupted a US Senate hearing with the former BP chief executive Tony Hayward last year, was arrested for a breach of the peace after she poured an oil-like substance over herself and refused to leave the entrance to the Excel Centre in east London.

While being removed by police, Ms Wilson, 62, said that the only way to stop the kind of accident that had happened in the Gulf of Mexico was to make corporate officers responsible and bring manslaughter charges against Mr Hayward. “I have travelled all the way over from the Gulf Coast and I just wanted to talk those responsible for destroying my community,” she said, holding back tears.

“My community is dead. We’ve worked five generations there and now we’ve got a dead community. I’m angry, I’ve been angry a long time.”

A separate group of activists wearing T-shirts that spelled out “No Tar Sands” tried to form a human shield in front of the stage during an argument between indigenous groups and the board of directors over the extraction of oil in the Canadian tar-sands. Critics say the oil source is far more polluting than conventional oil. The group were dragged out of the hall by security guards, while pleading with the company’s shareholders to “Vote No” to BP’s annual report.

Speaking outside the meeting, Tracy Kuhns, a Louisiana shrimp fisherwoman, said she was angry and embarrassed at having been “treated like a criminal” and turned away from the meeting, which she planned to attend as a proxy shareholder. She said BP had damaged her community, its businesses, the environment and people’s health through the spill and the chemicals used to disperse the oil, and was not paying for what it had done.

BP’s chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, said he realised there were people with “strong emotions” in attendance, but he had every right to refuse access to those who posed a threat to security. He listened to Antonia Juhasz – director of the San Franciscan human rights group Global Exchange and representative of the residents of the Gulf – as she read a message from Keith Jones, the father of one of the men who died on the rig.

Mr Jones said BP could have prevented the blowout if it had spent more money and time making its rigs safe. His statement ended: “You were rolling the dice on behalf of my son’s life and you lost.”

BP’s chief executive Bob Dudley stressed the company’s swift clear-up of the spill, adding that BP had set up a multibillion-dollar trust fund to pay for damages and had overhauled its approach to risk management.

A thorn in BP’s side

Diane Wilson, a shrimp fisherwoman from Texas, is a tenacious protester whose favourite trick is to smear herself with a syrup that is designed to look like oil. She made the long trip to London with three other Gulf Coast residents, but they were refused entry to yesterday’s BP meeting.

She used her oil tactic in the US twice last year, once at a meeting of the Senate energy committee, where she stood up and poured a jar of the substance over herself, and again while Tony Hayward, who was then chief executive of the oil giant, gave evidence to a congressional committee.

She shouted at him: “You need to be charged with a crime.”

Women have been particularly affected by unemployment as part-time posts, and jobs in the service and retail sectors, which have traditionally been held by women, have been among the first to be axed.

Changes to benefit rules have also seen women switching from income support to Jobseeker’s Allowance over the past two months. If current trends continue, more women in the UK will be unemployed than men for the first time since records began, a woman’s campaigning group has claimed.

According to a forthcoming report by the Fawcett Society and the Women’s Budget Group, the situation for women will get worse with public sector job losses as they hold 65 per cent of positions in the sector.

They predict job cuts in the public sector could run into the hundreds of thousands.

“For the first time, after decades of steady progress, we will be turning the clock back on women’s access to the jobs market,” said Fawcett’s chief executive, Anna Bird.

This article appeared here in The Independent.