Mr Motivator urges government to treat ’bed poverty’ as a national crisis
Mr Motivator is lobbying the government to tackle the number of children in the UK who have no bed of their own as Barnardo’s reveals demand for furniture from struggling families has surged by 40% in the last year.The children’s charity said beds had become“like a luxury item” as the war in Iran threatens to exacerbate cost of living pressures.Meanwhile, TV and online fitness coach Mr Motivator, real name Derrick Evans, who lives in Greater Manchester, is urging government to treat “bed poverty” as a national crisis and include it in child poverty planning.The former GMTV star said: “I have always hated the fact that it’s merged into poverty in general, which means it gets lost.“Beds can end up at the bottom of the list for families in a desperate position, and the consequences are enormous.
Not having a proper bed or getting a good night’s sleep affects children’s health, their mood, their learning ability, behaviour and emotional stability.”In the first quarter of 2025, 187 households accessed Barnardo’s’ services for “essential furniture”.But from January to 16 March this year, 261 households came to the charity for beds, cots, tables and chairs, sofas, food and window coverings – a rise of nearly 40%.In 2023, polling commissioned by Barnardo’s and YouGov found 226,000 families in the UK had children sharing a bed with an adult or sibling, because of financial pressures.Ruth Welford, Barnardo’s head of special projects, said: “Families are still really struggling to meet basic needs – and I can’t imagine current events are going to make it any easier.
“Beds, a fundamental right for every child, have become almost like a luxury item.”Welford said problems included children sleeping on pallets on the floor, older children in toddler-sized beds, and beds becoming mouldy in houses with no floor coverings.“There are children who aren’t dry at night sharing beds with children who are, and families don’t have the money to put the water on to wash clothes before they go to school.“There are issues with temporary accommodation, issues with overcrowding – and life having become so expensive that working families are simply trying to feed children and struggling to do that.”Leon Evans, head of Year 7 at Canons High School in Edgware, north London, is among teachers seeing the impact of cost of living and housing pressures, which have lingered since the Covid pandemic.
He said: “On a yearly basis we have families who get kicked out of their homes and then councils have to relocate them far away from school.And often these kids will then have to share a room, won’t have a bed to themselves and get up very early, because they’ve had to move 30 miles outside London, but still value education and come to the same school.And so we have students that come to school tired.“Sleep allows students to learn.Not having a bed, not having a secure place to sleep impacts that.
Across five years, that problem is going to be multiplied – and so the equity that education provides, the opportunities that students would have, can be lost or degraded.”Evans has started a charity, Mr Motivator’s Bed Bank, to address bed poverty and launched a petition to call on the government to formally recognise the issue.Meanwhile Barnardo’s has been working with beds and bedding brand Simba to distribute bed bundles – including mattresses, duvets and pillows – to children and families in need.The Department for Work and Pensions said the removal of the two-child limit for universal credit claimants, which restricted support for third and subsequent children, would put 450,000 children “on a pathway out of poverty” and was “the single most cost-effective measure” to drive down poverty rates.The removal of the limit passed into law this month and will take effect from 6 April.
The government is also expanding free school meals to every family on universal credit from the start of the 2026 school year, is promising that 500,000 more children will benefit from free breakfast clubs from September, and has said 1,000 Best Start family hubs will be created across every local authority in England by 2028, offering free classes, events and activities and advice on finance and housing.
Royal Mail owner pushes back against criticisms that service has declined
Daniel Křetínský, the Czech billionaire who bought Royal Mail’s parent company for £3.6bn last year, has insisted that service has not declined under his ownership, despite heavy criticism of late deliveries and price rises.In a defensive and sometimes impassioned performance in front of MPs on the business select committee, Křetínský said he was “deeply sorry” for any letters that arrive late.Since his takeover, Royal Mail has battled trade unions over working conditions, raised first-class stamp prices from £1.70 to £1
Crispin Odey: I can’t remember telling female employee ‘I could attack you now’
Facing a litany of questions over sexual harassment allegations that have left his career in tatters, the hedge fund tycoon Crispin Odey has told a court he does not remember cornering a female employee after a boozy lunch and saying to her “I could attack you now”.The 67-year-old made the comments during his first day in the witness box as part of a three-week court case that Odey hopes will overturn the City regulator’s decision to ban him from the UK’s financial services industry.Odey, who appeared in the London courtroom wearing a pink tie and braces, said that while he remembered the employee as an “attractive girl”, he did not recall the alleged incident, which lawyers for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said had been recorded in the employee’s diary.The entry referring to Odey, dated 24 January 2020, said: “Comes back from boozy lunch and corners me in the corridor. Him: I could attack you now
Baltimore sues Elon Musk’s AI company over Grok’s fake nude images
The mayor and city council of Baltimore, Maryland, filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI company on Tuesday, alleging that its Grok chatbot violated consumer protections by generating nonconsensual sexualized images.Baltimore’s lawsuit argues that xAI deceptively marketed Grok as a general-purpose AI assistant and X as a mainstream social media site, failing to disclose the risks, limitations and exposure to harm that come with using the platform and chatbot. The suit, filed in the circuit court for Baltimore city, argues that the court has jurisdiction over xAI given that the company advertises and operates in Baltimore.“Grok has flooded the feeds of Baltimore’s X users with NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) and CSAM (child sexual abuse material),” the city’s complaint states. “Grok further exposed Baltimore residents to the risk that any photograph they uploaded – of themselves or of their children – could be ingested by Grok and transformed into sexually degrading deepfakes without their knowledge or consent”
Protect men and boys from manosphere influencers, Labour MPs tell Ofcom
Men and boys need as much protection as women and girls from harmful influencers and “the worst parts of the internet”, a group of MPs have told Ofcom as they called for the regulator to give specific guidance to online platforms.More than 60 Labour MPs have written to the Ofcom chief executive, Melanie Dawes, urging her to protect men and boys from “manosphere” influencers who may expose them to gambling, sextortion and violent pornography.The Online Safety Act forced Ofcom to give tech platforms guidance on how to tackle “harmful content and activity that disproportionately affects women and girls”, but MPs argued that men and boys are also targeted in specific ways.According to the Gambling Commission, 53% of 11- to 17-year-old boys see gambling adverts online each week, compared with 31% of their female peers, while 91% of sextortion victims are male, according to the Internet Watch Foundation.Alistair Strathern, the MP for Hitchin and a co-chair of the Labour group for men and boys, said the Louis Theroux documentary Inside the Manosphere was “another reminder of a particular way some of the worst of the internet can prey on young men and boys”
World Cup-winning captain Johnson urges England to think about summer break for players
England’s legendary World Cup-winning captain Martin Johnson says the current management should consider resting key players this summer to boost the chances of history being repeated in Australia next year. Johnson was among several senior squad members who did not tour Argentina in the buildup to their 2003 global triumph and suggests a similar policy could assist England’s 2027 campaign.In 2002 England beat the Pumas 26‑18 in Buenos Aires with only eight of their subsequent World Cup-winning squad involved. Johnson is fully aware that post-game recovery and conditioning techniques have moved on significantly but believes the current captain, Maro Itoje, and others require careful handling if they are to prosper in 2027.“If it’s the right thing for a guy who’s just had a big Lions tour to have a summer off and not go on the trip, that’s just managing your player with the World Cup in mind,” said Johnson, who also led a British & Irish Lions squad to Australia in 2001
Ben Duckett pulls out of £200,000 IPL deal in bid to save England Test spot
Ben Duckett has pulled out of the upcoming Indian Premier League and now faces a three-year ban from the tournament after deciding he needs county cricket to shore up his place in England’s Test team.The opener was signed by Delhi Capitals at the IPL auction in December in a deal worth £200,000 and, with the competition starting on Saturday, he was due to miss the first two months of the English season.But a combination of a poor Ashes series – playing all five Tests in the 4-1 defeat for a highest score of 42 – and heavy travel after reserve duties at the recent T20 World Cup has convinced Duckett to turn out for the county champions Nottinghamshire instead.“It was a very difficult decision, and I want to apologise to everyone at Delhi that I won’t be coming,” Duckett told the Telegraph.“I’ve spent a lot of time away from home in different places, and it felt like the best thing for me to do to be ready to play for England is to be here right now, at home, refreshing my mind and body
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