How hot is too hot to work?

Gold standard

The Paralympics were instigated in 1948 and first held alongside the Olympics in Rome in 1960. But disabled athletes were competing in the Olympics long before that – notably George Eyser, a German who settled in St Louis, USA. That he had lost a leg after being run over by a train and wore a wooden prosthetic did not stop him taking up athletics and gymnastics. When the Olympics came to his city in 1904 he won three golds: in the parallel bars, long horse vault and 25ft rope climb. He won three other medals, on the pommel horse, horizontal bars and in a team event. He also competed in the triathlon, which in those days consisted of a 100m run, the long jump and shot put – but came last.

Ship shape

How dangerous is it at sea? Incidents involving ships bearing European flags:

– In 2022 there were 2,510 ‘incidents’ involving 2,701 ships; 6 ships were lost, with 612 severe casualties and 38 fatalities.

– The seas seem to be becoming safer, as in 2014-22 inclusive there was an annual average of 2,646 incidents, 20 ships lost, 753 severe casualties and 67 fatalities.

Source: European Maritime Safety Agency

Good buy

It is more than a decade since the Cameron government revived the right to buy. How popular is it with social housing tenants?

– In 2023/24, 6,275 properties were sold under the right to buy. The sales raised £618m, or £98,454 per property, and funded 3,046 replacement properties.

– In the decade to 2022/23, 14% of those sold were one-bed, 33% two-bed and 53% three-bed or more. Of replacement dwellings built, 25% were one-bed, 43% two-bed and 32% three-bed or more.

Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Hot line

The Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union proposed that the government should set a ‘maximum working temperature’, with workers put on ‘heat furlough’ (and their wages paid by employers or the taxpayer) if the temperature exceeded 27°C for manual work and 30°C for sedentary work. How often would workers have to be furloughed?

– At Heathrow airport, one of the warmest places in Britain, the temperature exceeded 30°C on an average of 7.9 days per year from 2014-23.

– In 2018 office workers would have had to be sent home on 18 days. The last year in which there would have been no heat furlough was 2008.