Category: news

A trek across the Arctic by Prince Harry and four disabled servicemen is getting under way.

The men arrived at the Borneo Ice Airfield about 200 miles (320km) from the North Pole on Monday for the start of the charity walk.

The prince will stay with the four-week mission, aimed at raising £2m to help injured troops, until Thursday.

Team member Edward Parker said they had only got four hours sleep in their tents but were “raring to go”.

In an audio message on the Walking With The Wounded website, Mr Parker, one of the charity’s founders who is also taking part, said their first view of the frozen Polar Ocean ahead of landing was “one of the most remarkable sights any of us have ever seen”.

He said: “The sheer beauty of the place that we ended up being put down in is so difficult to describe white everywhere but thousands of different colours, the sun was in the sky and it was incredibly uplifting for all of us.”

He added that temperatures were “remarkably warm” for the Arctic at -20C, with the wind chill factor taking it down to -30C.

“We were fine from a temperature point of view,” he said.

The team were due to depart from the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, where they had been preparing, on Sunday. But gales at the landing site delayed their departure.

They finally left on a flight at 2330 local time on Monday and were then taken by helicopter to the trek’s start point.

As a result of the delays, the expedition has been slightly shortened but Harry said the challenge was still “remarkable”.

The prince said: “The miles may have to be minimised only by a little bit, but it’s not going to make a difference to what these guys are doing.

“It’s truly inspirational and truly remarkable, so let’s keep the support going.”

Harry, who is patron of the Walking With The Wounded charity, will return home to military commitments.

The four servicemen, who were all injured in combat in Afghanistan, hope to enter the record books as the first disabled team to walk unassisted to the North Pole.

The men are: Capt Martin Hewitt, 30, whose right arm is paralysed after being shot; Capt Guy Disney, 29, whose right leg was amputated below the knee after he was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG); Sgt Stephen Young, 28, who suffered a broken back in a roadside bombing; Pte Jaco Van Gass, 24, who had his left arm amputated and suffered significant tissue loss to his left leg after being hit by an RPG.

As well as Mr Parker, they are also being joined by another of the charity’s founders, Simon Dalglish, and polar guide Inge Solheim.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Labour says benefit cuts coming into force later will make it a “Black Wednesday” for families across Britain.

As the new tax year begins, a series of tax rises and benefit cuts come into force aimed at tackling the budget deficit, estimated at £146bn this year.

Labour highlights the freeze in child benefit, changes to tax credits and the way benefits are linked to inflation.

But the Treasury says the poorest 80% of households will, on average, gain from the changes.

A series of tax and benefit changes begin on Wednesday – including a 1% rise in employees’ National Insurance contributions. Credit Action, a financial education charity, has calculated they will leave households £200 a year worse off.

Labour are focusing on the changes to the way benefits are linked to inflation – they will be uprated in line with the consumer price index, rather than the retail price index – which is usually higher.

And they have flagged up changes to working tax credits, child tax credit and the freezing of child benefit for three years.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said reductions to what parents could claim in childcare costs through the working tax credit alone would leave some families worse off by up to £1,560 a year.

“This little noticed change will have a huge impact on hundreds of thousands of families but particularly women with children who work part-time and on low pay.”

He accused Chancellor George Osborne of going “too deep and too fast” with spending cuts and said they would hit families on low and middle incomes “hardest of all”.

“All the pain, all in one go, aimed at families with children, is not just deeply unfair it will hamper our economy too.

“By going too deep and too fast George Osborne is damaging consumer confidence – which is now at a near 20-year low – and holding back an economy which should be growing strongly this year.”

Other changes due to come into force on Wednesday include a £1,000 rise in the threshold at which people start paying income tax, a freeze in the inheritance tax threshold, an extra 5% on stamp duty for homes worth more than £1m and restrictions on tax relief on pension contributions for those on more than £150,000 a year.

The Treasury accepted that the average impact across the population of all the changes was a “marginal loss” but said the figures were “heavily skewed” by the losses at the top of the income range.

It said that the top 10% of households would suffer the most as they do not gain from the increase in personal allowances and would pay the most increased NI contributions.

Treasury Minister Justine Greening said: “Labour left behind a complete mess with no plan to deal with it apart from run up more debts for the next generation to pay off. They want to hand over their financial mess to our children, when instead what we need to do is start sorting out the problem now.”

She added: “This government has come up with a credible plan to reduce the deficit which is keeping interest rates lower and managing to ensure that the burden falls on those with the broadest shoulders.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.