Tenants who complain of dangerous or potentially deadly faults in privately rented homes are being let down by councils. When landlords fail to fix hazards - including serious faults that pose an immediate risk to health - councils have a legal duty to act. But the number of times councils use enforcement powers is far lower than the number of reports made. In the last five years 135,687 hazards were recorded, including 42,654 which posed an immediate risk to safety, but council action was only taken on 25,243 occasions, while less than 1% of the registered faults led to a prosecution. The housing charity Shelter said the whole system was ‘a car crash’. The private rented sector is home to 11 million people: many are young professionals who are close to buying, but there are also families and older people who will be renting for many years.

The number of patients waiting for routine hospital treatment in England has reached seven million, and 387,257 have been on the list for over a year. One in every 18 has waited more than a year to begin treatment, and 2,646 people (down from 23,778 in January) have been waiting over two years. Ambulance waiting times are also high, and the number of people waiting longer than twelve hours in A&E for a bed after being seen by a doctor also reached a new high of 32,776. Of 255,055 urgent cancer referrals made by GPs in August, only 75.6% saw a specialist within the two-week target time, the second worst performance on record. Patients hospitalised with Covid have more than doubled since September to over 10,000.

Nicola Sturgeon has been accused by Nadhim Zahawi of using ‘really dangerous’ language after she decried the Tories at last week’s Scottish National Party conference. Addressing whether she would prefer a Labour or Tory government, Ms Sturgeon said, ‘I detest the Tories and everything they stand for, so it's not difficult to answer that question’. On Labour politicians, she commented, ‘Being better than the Tories is not a high bar to cross right now. I think we need to see more of a radical alternative from Labour rather than just a pale imitation’. Ian Murray, Labour's shadow Scottish secretary, said the next electoral contest in Scotland will be a UK general election between this rotten Tory government and a new energised Labour Party fit to govern the country. Pray for our politicians to demonstrate the Kingdom values of honour, righteousness and integrity, and that they all will be united with God-given insights.

Russians are closing evangelical Protestant churches claiming ‘only one faith would be tolerated - Orthodoxy’. They raided Grace Baptist Church while a worship service was being broadcast live. Viewers watched online while they halted the service, registered the names of all present, detained several ministers, and gave the pastor 48 hours to leave the city. They closed Melitopol’s largest Protestant charismatic church with a 1,000-seat auditorium. They tore down its cross and turned the building into a ‘cultural sports entertainment complex’. They are doing the same as they did when they seized and annexed Crimea: they raided places of worship, closed churches, banned missionary activity, fined people for leading worship meetings, seized religious literature, and forced religious communities to re-register with the state, refusing re-registration to the majority. Christians were also driven to the underground churches in the Soviet era, surviving seventy years of Soviet totalitarian rule - demonstrating that persecution can often strengthen the Church.