Former business secretary urges Royal Mail to shape up if Saturday post is scrapped

By Calum Muirhead

Updated: 06:53 EDT, 10 September 2023

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Biden urges Congress to avoid a government shutdown with a short-team deal that includes $1.4 BILLION in food aid for low-income families

• Government will shutdown at end of September without a funding resolution
• Short-term funding measure would give the two parties more time to negotiate
• New poll shows 90% of Americans do not want a shutdown 

By Emily Goodin, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Updated: 12:50 EDT, 31 August 2023

King Charles last night urged the Lionesses to ‘roar to victory’ as the England women’s football team stood on the brink of history.

An expectant nation will today cheer on manager Sarina Wiegman and her players as they strive to become the first England football team to triumph in a World Cup Final since 1966.

In a dramatic rallying cry ahead of today’s clash against Spain in Sydney, King Charles declared: ‘Good luck today Lionesses, and may you roar to victory!’ His stirring message on social media was signed Charles R.  

With the country gripped with excitement, Football Association president Prince William apologised for not travelling to Australia.

Both he and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have come under fire for opting to stay at home, while Queen Letizia of Spain and her 16-year-old daughter Infanta Sofia have jetted out to Sydney to cheer on the team.

Appearing in a video alongside his eight-year-old daughter Charlotte, Prince William said he was sorry he could not watch today’s match ‘in person’, but wanted to send ‘huge good luck’ to the Lionesses. Clutching an apparently well-used football in her lap, an excited Princess Charlotte added: ‘Good luck, Lionesses!’

In an impassioned letter to ‘Sarina and all our Lionesses’ overnight, Mr Sunak heaped praise on the team for securing ‘a lasting legacy’ for women’s sport – and said he recognised the huge challenges some of them faced on their way to the top.

‘For many of you, the honour of putting on that England shirt was earned against the odds,’ Mr Sunak wrote. ‘It should never have been like that. At times, some of you were even stopped from playing. But you faced down outdated attitudes and fashioned your own opportunities to play.’

Mr Sunak, who will watch the match in a pub in his North Yorkshire constituency, said the Lionesses had made his daughters Krishna, 12, and Anoushka, ten, connect with the game.

‘For my daughters, and for every girl in this country, you have made football something for them; you have made them feel they belong on the pitch. So – in a way – you’ve already brought football home.’

The Lionesses reached the final at the 83,500-seat Stadium Australia with a resounding 3-1 victory against Australia in Wednesday’s semi-final. Up to 14 million are expected to tune into the BBC One or ITV coverage of today’s match, which kicks off at 11am.

It is thought the final will boost the UK economy by £185 million. Demand has jumped at supermarkets, with Waitrose stocking more breakfast items and English sparkling wine for the game, and Aldi expecting sales of crisps, burgers and prosecco to be significantly higher than usual.

Online fashion giant Boohoo revealed that searches for ‘Lionesses kit’ exploded by 3,981 per cent in the hours following the semi-final victory.

The King’s motivational message is a break with centuries of tradition.

When Queen Elizabeth wished the England men’s team good luck for the final of the Euro championships in 2021, she sent an official letter addressed to the team’s manager Gareth Southgate.

In a video posted online last night, Southgate told the Lionesses: ‘You are doing a brilliant job. There is of course no advice because you have done more than us already and you know what is needed to win.’

Charles III’s good-luck message to the women’s team was posted online at 9.30pm to coincide with dawn in Australia and appeared alongside a majestic picture of a lioness and the Royal crest. A Buckingham Palace source said: ‘Both Their Majesties will be following events with the greatest interest.’ Prince William and his family are expected to watch the final at Anmer Hall.

England men’s captain Harry Kane also urged the Lionesses to ‘bring home the trophy’.

‘It’s been an amazing journey so far and you should be really proud of yourselves,’ he wrote on Instagram. ‘We’re all behind you, we’re all supporting you and we know you can do it. So go and get that World Cup win and bring that trophy home.’

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also sent a letter cheering on the Lionesses and recalled the impact that seeing them in action last year had on his daughter: ‘Last summer, when I took my daughter to watch your Euros semi-final game, she was immediately absorbed. Seeing how much you have inspired her has filled me with pride.’

In their final press conference before the match, Wiegman and England captain Millie Bright urged England to play the game of their lives. ‘We have felt the support, we have felt the support here, but also from the other side of the world in the UK,’ Wiegman said. ‘That’s something that you dream of.’

The players visited Stadium Australia yesterday ahead of their crunch match. Ella Toone, who scored England’s first goal in the semi-final, said: ‘One game to go, baby.’

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has urged climate activists to be ‘much more aggressive’ as they plan a campaign of blocking highways and chaotic protests later this summer, DailyMail.com can reveal.

DailyMail.com gained access to private talks in which Tlaib, a member of Congress‘s leftist ‘Squad,’ gave a pep talk to some 125 hardliners from Climate Defiance, Declare Emergency and other environmental groups.

The activists have already blocked US highways, vandalized an artwork in Washington, and heckled politicians at speaking engagements. They’re understood to be plotting much larger European-style climate protests later this summer.

‘We have to be much more aggressive in regard to fossil fuel expansions,’ Tlaib, a Detroit Democrat, told the online gathering.

‘If we don’t get the policies we need, if our legislative process is failing us, then direct action gets the goods.’

Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, spoke as more smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted across New York City and other parts of the US northeast in the latest ominous sign of unchecked global warming.

The congresswoman praised the groups’ ‘civil disobedience actions’ and urged them to ‘use the bullhorn,’ saying Congress and the White House would not cut pollution enough until ‘the streets demanded it.’ 

Tlaib was joined by filmmaker Adam McKay, who pledged $100,000 to fund climate activism in the US, the environmental journalist David Wallace-Wells, and activists who had broken laws and served jail time for their protests.

They include Tim Martin, who faces jail over a protest at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in April, when he and Joanna Smith allegedly daubed paint on the case protecting Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

His group, Declare Emergency, wants President Joe Biden to declare a climate crisis and use his executive powers to radically cut emissions of planet-heating gases, which are linked to worsening storms, droughts, flooding and other devastating weather events.

The group was created last year by Roger Hallam, the British co-founder of Extinction Rebellion (XR), which in 2019 staged a week-long series of rallies in London that shuttered much of the city center, causing millions of dollars of losses

Hallam says he wants to create a similar ‘large-scale civil disobedience campaign on the climate catastrophe in the United States,’ but it remains unclear if he can replicate his success on this side of the pond.

Climate Defiance, meanwhile, has grabbed headlines by heckling and disrupting politicians’ speaking events, including Democratic senators Amy Klobuchar and Joe Manchin, and White House climate adviser John Podesta.

In the online session, Declare Emergency’s Seattle-based mobilizer Donald Zepeda unveiled plans for the protests on federal properties that the group plans to stage in New York City and Washington in August.

‘We aim for whatever causes the most kerfuffle, everyone has to see it. Everyone is impacted,’ Zepeda said.

‘Doing massively disruptive, nonviolent civil disobedience, it’s a necessary and important part of getting us to where we need to be.’

Adam McKay, a writer, director and producer behind such movies as The Big Short and Don’t Look Up, said: ‘Nothing cuts through the BS and rigmarole more than straight-up disruptive activism.’

‘I’m talking about the power of the people,’ he added.

‘I’m talking about the people that created democracy, that threw the kings out of power.’

Though many people support efforts to tackle global warming, others eschew the tactics of XR and other hard-line outfits, which have shuttered roads, highways, airports, offices, and other public venues.

The FBI did not answer DailyMail.com’s request for comment.

UN experts say planet-heating gases are making Earth dangerously hot, but the US, China, and other world governments have set ambitious targets to reduce the risk by switching to clean energy sources over the coming years.

Americans are less worried about climate change than their European counterparts.

While 31 percent in the US want to rapidly switch to renewable energy sources, another two thirds want to continue using oil, coal and natural gas as well as the cleaner alternatives, according to Pew Research Center polling.