PRINCE CHARLES has urged people recovering from Covid to practise Yoga to “build a roadmap to hope and healing”.
He also advised doctors to work together with “complementary healthcare specialists”, reported The Guardian.
“This pandemic has emphasised the importance of preparedness, resilience and the need for an approach which addresses the health and welfare of the whole person as part of society, and which does not merely focus on the symptoms alone,” Charles said in a video statement to the virtual yoga and healthcare symposium Wellness After Covid
“As part of that approach, therapeutic, evidenced-informed yoga can contribute to health and healing. By its very nature, Yoga is an accessible practice which provides practitioners with ways to manage stress, build resilience and promote healing," Prince Charles was quoted as saying in the newspaper.
'When we work together with a common interest we can build on each other’s ideas and, perhaps, build a roadmap to hope and healing. I seem to have got away with it quite lightly … unfortunately, that is not the case for millions of people in the UK and across the globe.”
The event was co-organised by the Yoga In Healthcare Alliance and the Give Back Yoga Foundation.
Dr Adrian James, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has said that Yoga, group gardening, art classes and other physical activities and training courses improve patients’ physical and mental wellbeing.
“It’s vital for services to be evenly available across the country, and that social prescribing [referring people to non-clinical activities] is made available in community and inpatient mental health services and not limited to primary care only,” he told The Guardian.
“Social prescribing is used to complement existing treatments and not as a substitute for talking therapies or medical interventions," he added.
In 2019, the Prince of Wales said Yoga had “proven beneficial effects on both body and mind”, and delivered “tremendous social benefits” that help build “discipline, self-reliance and self-care”.
According to the report, Charles is not the only Yoga fan in the royal family. His wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, has said “it makes you less stiff” and “more supple”, while Prince William has also been pictured doing Yogic poses.
FILE PHOTO: A general view shows British Steel's Scunthorpe plant, in Scunthorpe, northern England, Britain, March 31, 2025. REUTERS/Dominic Lipinski
The FBU is planning to introduce new internal policies and wants the TUC to take action as well. (Representational image: iStock)
FBU chief raises concern over rise in racist online posts by union members
THE FIRE Brigades Union (FBU) and other trade unions are increasingly concerned about a rise in racist and bigoted online comments by their own members and officials, according to Steve Wright, the FBU’s new general secretary, speaking to the Guardian.
Wright said internal inquiries have revealed dozens of cases involving members using racist slurs or stereotypes, often aimed at asylum seekers.
He said similar issues were reported in other unions, prompting a joint campaign to counter false narratives around immigration and race promoted by far-right groups online.
“People with far-right views are becoming more brazen in what they do on social media, and I’ve witnessed it with my own union around disciplinary cases and the rhetoric of some of our own members,” Wright said to the newspaper.
He added, “Some of our members and sometimes our reps have openly made comments which are racist and bigoted. In my time in the fire service, that has gone up.”
The FBU is planning to introduce new internal policies and wants the TUC to take action as well. A formal statement addressing far-right narratives will be launched at the union’s annual conference in Blackpool next month.
Wright cited the influence of social media and figures like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage as factors contributing to these incidents. “It feels like an itch that we’ve got to scratch,” he said.
The FBU barred a former official last year for allegedly endorsing racist content on X, including posts from Britain First and Tommy Robinson.
Wright also warned that the union could strike if the government moves to cut frontline fire services.