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The plot (and spoilers) of Impeachment II - BBC News
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2021-02-10
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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It feels like Groundhog Day but second time round will be quite different, argues Jon Sopel.
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US & Canada
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The rule of thumb in the cinema is that the original is invariably better than the sequel.
But then you get The Dark Knight getting far more acclaim than Batman Begins. Or Godfather 2 being better than the first movie - and personally I thought Toy Story 3 was the best. And don't get me started on Star Wars.
So, what should we expect from Impeachment II, Incitement of Insurrection, coming to a TV screen near you this week?
Some very general and obvious observations.
The plotlines in this second impeachment will be much easier to follow than the original.
A presidential call to his Ukrainian counterpart asking questions about an obscure energy company on which Joe Biden's son had served as a director, does not have the immediacy of the events of 6 January when a Trump supporting mob stormed Congress after listening to a speech delivered by the president.
What is not in question is that the MAGA-mob tried to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Five people died following the mayhem. There will not be an American who doesn't have a view on what unfolded.
The other quick observation I would make is this - the chamber where the Senate trial will unfold is also the crime-scene; the epicentre of this assault on America's most sacred democratic sanctum. And the corollary of that is that some of the people who will be 'trying' the former president will have felt themselves to be victims of the crime that unfolded.
So what chance is there that Donald Trump will get a fair trial?
Well, the first thing I would say about that is though the language of impeachment is replete with quasi-judicial terminology, the jurors are the 100 Senators - Republican and Democrat. This is political.
How many of those who will weigh the evidence for and against Donald Trump will be swayed by the evidence presented? I find it hard to imagine there will be a single one.
Democrats, I would guess, will vote as a block to convict. Republicans are split three ways - and this is a political split, not a schism based on the evidence.
There are those Republicans who remain firmly behind Donald Trump, and will not now, not ever, vote to find him guilty of "incitement of insurrection", the three words on the article of impeachment.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The policeman in a MAGA hat during the Capitol riots. What’s the real story?
There are those who would love nothing more to see the former president slip away from the national consciousness, and feel that he has been a corrosive force on the democratic norms and values of US democracy - but don't want to pick a fight with him for fear of the consequences. Their worst nightmare is Trump rallying support behind a Republican rival the next time they're up for election.
And there is a smaller number of Republicans who are ready to very publicly say they believe that the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan needs to be rid of the Trump legacy, that it is a cancer that needs to be cut out.
In other words, this will all be about political calculation. And the second order calculation will be how these senators will explain the decision to their voters.
Which brings us to this next question, how will this play itself out?
Democrats will make a case that evokes the drama of the day and the fears some of them had - they thought their lives were in danger as they cowered in offices while the mob went room to room. The blame for that will be laid squarely at the defendant's door.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The terror of being trapped in the US Capitol - three eyewitness accounts of politicians
The Trump defence will take two forms.
On the substance of the "incitement of insurrection" charge, his lawyers will argue that he was exercising his free speech, First Amendment rights - and they will point out that in that address on 6 January, the president told his supporters to march on Congress "peacefully and patriotically".
But the speech was notable for all its "We fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." And telling his supporters that they have to be tough and not weak.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial opens on Tuesday - but what's it all about?
And his case is not helped by the tweets and messaging around this time - urging his supporters to come to Washington on 6 January because it was "going to be wild".
In a video released on the night of the riots, Donald Trump told the mob that had descended on Congress that he loved them and they were special people. He tweeted that evening - seemingly to justify the actions of the insurgents - that this is what happens when you steal the result of the election.
He repeatedly claimed he had won the election by a landslide. There is no evidence for that.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick lies in honour at US Capitol
He repeatedly claimed that the election had been stolen. Judge after judge - many appointed by Donald Trump - rejected those legal arguments put by his campaign lawyers.
And the charges of fraud - again promoted by Mr Trump - were dismissed by the president's own Attorney General William Barr; the head of election security - another Trump appointee - also said the election had been fair.
So don't expect the president's words to be the backbone of the defence.
Instead it will focus on the constitutionality of impeaching a president once he's left office. The lawyers will argue that the weapon of impeachment is only to be used for a serving politician, not a private citizen (as Donald Trump now is).
How can you use the sanction of removing someone from office when they've already left office? And this is I suspect the justification (fig-leaf, I feel sure Democrats will insist) that Republicans will reach for as their justification for acquitting Donald Trump.
Of course, Democrats will point out the offence took place while he was president, and you don't get a free pass just because you've left office. Or as James Corden put it on his Late, Late Show, it's like being pulled over by a traffic cop for speeding, and saying to the officer "I might well have been going at 50mph back then, but now as I speak to you I am stationary, so you can't charge me now…"
Impeachment II will get big, big TV audiences - though they'd have been far greater if the president had testified, as Democrat impeachment managers had wanted.
But the outcome - and here I feel the need to issue a spoiler alert - is almost certainly going to be the same as Impeachment I.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55987600
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news_world-us-canada-55987600
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Climate change: Environment groups call for public inquiry into Cumbrian coal mine - BBC News
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2021-02-04
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Environmental groups say they are mystified No 10 has not intervened to stop the mine going ahead.
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Science & Environment
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Dozens of environmental groups have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for a public inquiry into plans for a new coal mine in Cumbria.
They say it is "mystifying" that No 10 has not stopped the mine from going ahead, when the UK is hosting the COP26 climate summit later this year.
A top climate scientist has warned the PM risks "humiliation" over the plans.
No 10 said the UK is a world leader in climate policy and it would not reverse the decision.
The letter, signed by groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Cumbria Wildlife Trust, criticises the decision not to intervene in the approval of the mine, when the UK's credibility - as summit host - is "at stake".
The letter to Mr Johnson describes the summit, which takes place in Glasgow in November, as "the largest global climate talks since the signing of the Paris Agreement".
The signatories acknowledge that whilst "new jobs need to be created", the government should "lead the way with low-carbon technologies, rather than looking to the polluting industries of the past".
The £165m West Cumbria Mining plan in Whitehaven was approved by Cumbria County Council in October. It would be the UK's first deep coal mine in 30 years.
The council said the government could have "called in" the plans for a public inquiry, but had chosen not to do so.
In an interview with the BBC, the local mayor welcomed the proposals.
Mike Starkie, the Conservative mayor of Copeland Borough Council, said: "I think the project is absolutely fantastic, it'll bring huge amounts of jobs and prosperity into the area.
"It's been broadly welcomed across Copeland. I've never known a project that has carried so much public support."
But the campaigners say "time is of the essence" for the government to act, before Cumbria County Council issues its final decision on the mine "very soon".
In the letter, they urge Robert Jenrick, the secretary of state for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to refer the plans to a public inquiry.
The government's chief planning officer previously defended Robert Jenrick's decision not to overrule consent for the mine
They write: "Reversing this decision would help restore confidence in the UK government's climate leadership both internationally and at home."
Stanley Johnson, the prime minister's father, told the BBC it was a "massive mistake in public relations terms".
He said: "How can we ask other countries to bring in their climate change reduction programmes when we are now reopening the whole coal argument here in Britain?"
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
It comes as Dr James Hansen, formerly Nasa's leading global warming researcher, urged Mr Johnson in a letter to halt production of the mine - or risk being "vilified".
Downing Street has previously defended the decision over the mine as a local planning matter and insisted the UK is cutting emissions faster than any major economy and would end the use of coal for electricity by 2025.
Justin Rowlatt, the BBC's chief environment correspondent, says when it comes to decarbonisation, the UK is a world leader.
Our correspondent says the UK's coal consumption has decreased by 90% in the last five years and just four power stations still burn coal.
Dr Hansen's letter follows earlier criticism from the government's advisory body on global warming, the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
It warned the mine would increase global emissions and compromise the UK's legally binding carbon budgets.
The CCC said: "The decision to award planning permission [for the mine] to 2049 will commit the UK to emissions from coking coal." The body said coking coal will have to stop by 2035 if the country is to meet its climate change targets.
CORRECTION 7 February 2021: An earlier version of this story wrongly stated that the Conservative Environment Network opposes the proposed mine. Stanley Johnson is an ambassador for the group but was not speaking on its behalf.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55942800
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news_science-environment-55942800
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Angela Wrightson: Teenage torture killers keep anonymity - BBC News
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2021-02-04
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The two girls were aged 13 and 14 when they subjected Angela Wrightson to a seven-hour fatal attack.
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Tees
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Angela Wrightson was subjected to a seven-hour attack in her home
Two teenagers who tortured and murdered a vulnerable woman in her own home have been granted lifelong anonymity.
The girls were 13 and 14 when they subjected Angela Wrightson, 39, to a vicious attack in Hartlepool.
Both were jailed for a minimum of 15 years in April 2016.
They were not named then because of their age and an interim injunction extended that anonymity after they turned 18. On Thursday, the High Court upheld the ban on naming the pair.
At a hearing in London last year, their barrister argued both teenagers suffer from "recognisable mental conditions" and were "extremely psychologically vulnerable", adding they would be at "a very significant risk" of being attacked if their identities were revealed.
In her ruling, Mrs Justice Tipples was unconvinced by arguments based on the threat of attack by others, but upheld the anonymity orders on mental health grounds and the risk of self-harm.
Miss Wrightson, pictured aged 34, had let her killers into her Hartlepool home
Miss Wrightson died after being subjected to an attack lasting seven hours.
She was hit with a shovel, a TV, a coffee table and a stick studded with screws after she let the pair into her Stephen Street home in December 2014.
The girls posted a photograph on Snapchat showing them smiling with Miss Wrightson pictured in the background shortly before her death.
In her judgement, in which the teenagers were referred to as D and F, Mrs Justice Tipples said the killing had "resulted in public outrage and revulsion, together with public concern about how these two young girls could commit such a brutal murder".
However, she went on to describe it as "an exceptional case in which the balance is tipped very firmly in favour" of protecting the pair's right to remain anonymous.
"The trial took place in public and was fully reported at the time it took place. All matters relating to this offence are in the public domain, except for the identities of D and F.
"I am clear on the evidence before me that revealing the claimants' identities is likely to cause each of them very serious harm.
"It is both necessary and proportionate to grant the injunctions sought so that both their identities are protected and not revealed."
Lifelong anonymity is so rare there are only nine convicted criminals who have this protection in England and Wales, plus a number of their descendants.
The individuals given this exceptional protection include the killers of James Bulger - the case that set the test for future orders - and, more recently, Britain's once-youngest teenager to be convicted of a terrorism plot.
Under the law, the state must take reasonable steps to protect everyone's right to life. In other words, the long-term personal safety of the offender outweighs the legal rights of the media and the public to identify them.
In the Wrightson case, there was another very important consideration. A member of court staff saved Child F from killing herself during the trial.
The compelling medical evidence for her anonymity application showed she would become suicidal again if she were named now she is an adult.
And so, under the law, it's that right to life - and perhaps a chance for rehabilitation - that means the two young women will never be named.
The court was told D's mental health had "deteriorated" as she approached being moved to an adult prison, while F had an "extensive history of mental health problems".
Mrs Justice Tipples concluded: "I will give judgment in favour of the claimants and grant permanent injunctions preventing them from being identified."
The ruling contains provision for a review "in the event there is a material change of circumstances".
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-55932915
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news_uk-england-tees-55932915
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Senedd election: Labour pledges energy revolution for Wales - BBC News
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2021-02-26
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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First Minister Mark Drakeford says "wind, water and wave" can be used to create jobs of the future.
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Wales politics
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Mark Drakeford says Wales is "so lucky" to have the natural resources for renewable energy
Labour will put Wales "at the forefront of the global energy revolution" if the party wins the Senedd election in May, the party's Welsh leader has pledged.
First Minister Mark Drakeford says Wales can use "wind, water and wave" to create "the jobs of the future".
In a pre-recorded speech to Welsh Labour's virtual spring conference, he also called for a "more powerful devolution settlement".
Mr Drakeford wants "home rule for Wales in a successful United Kingdom".
Leader of Welsh Labour and first minister since December 2018, Mr Drakeford has already said he does not intend to serve a full term if he is reappointed after the election.
In his recorded address on Friday - shared publicly on social media - he said a Labour government would put the "urgent need" to tackle climate change "at the heart of everything we do".
"We are so lucky, in our country, to have all the natural resources we need to put Wales at the forefront of the global energy revolution which the world will need," Mr Drakeford said.
"Wind, water and wave - the next Welsh Labour Government will make those assets work to create the jobs of the future and, in doing so, make our contribution to securing the future of our beautiful but fragile planet."
Mark Drakeford wants Wales to "break down barriers, not build them up" in terms of the UK's future
In response to a growing debate around Wales' future in the UK, Mr Drakeford said: "We need a more powerful devolution settlement, one in which we secure home rule for Wales in a successful United Kingdom - internationalist, not nationalist; outward facing, not inward looking."
With an apparent nod to the independence movement, he said: "Yes for Wales, of course - that's what I have been throughout my whole life - but yes to a Wales that takes ownership of its own destiny alongside working people in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland who share our progressive values.
"Yes to a Wales which has the confidence of knowing that we are at our best when we break down barriers, not build them up, where we create our future alongside others, not despite or against them."
On Friday, Mr Drakeford told BBC Radio Wales his party's manifesto would be both ambitious and credible.
"I'll be focusing on health because we will have to rebuild our health service post pandemic," he said.
"I'll be talking about jobs, particularly jobs for our young people, because this is an economic crisis as well as a health crisis.
"And I'll be talking about justice as well, so that we come out of all of this in a way that is fairer."
Mr Drakeford said he was "absolutely determined there will be no lost generation in Wales".
He added that if Labour wins the election he would remain as first minister for "beyond two years".
"When I first stood as a candidate for the leadership of the Labour Party... I said then that I expected to serve for around five years," he told Radio Wales Breakfast.
"So, if we are fortunate enough to win the confidence of Welsh people again... I will be the first minister in the full sense of that word.
"That's the plan that I had in the beginning - that's the plan I intend to stick to."
Labour has been in government in Wales since devolution began in 1999, forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2000 and Plaid Cymru in 2007.
The party won 29 of the 60 seats in the 2016 Senedd election and governs with the support of Liberal Democrat Kirsty Williams and independent member Lord Elis-Thomas.
Labour lost six Welsh seats to the Conservatives at the last UK general election in 2019.
The Senedd election is due to take place on 6 May, although a law has been passed in light of the pandemic to allow a delay of up to six months if two-thirds of members think it necessary for safety or other reasons.
In this speech Mark Drakeford is trying to address some of the big issues in the forthcoming election.
Firstly, the "it's time for a change" argument that will be made by Labour's opponents - the party has been in power in Wales for 20 plus years.
So he says it's only his team who have been "tested in the fire of experience" of governing through the Covid pandemic, which is "far from over".
Secondly independence, which has risen up the political agenda recently.
He uses the phrase "Yes for Wales" to tell left-wing voters thinking of turning to Plaid or the Greens that he wants to get more powers for Welsh devolution ("home rule") but he balances that by referencing traditional socialist concerns about working class solidarity across the UK.
And finally, he turns his fire power on the Conservative government in Westminster, presenting Welsh Labour as a bulwark against "inequality and austerity".
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56201108
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news_uk-wales-politics-56201108
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Man jailed for six years for Bournemouth car park one-punch death - BBC News
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2021-02-26
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Stephen Jeffries was found in a car park with a life-threatening head injury.
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Dorset
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Carl Woolley (pictured) punched Stephen Jeffries in the face, causing him to collapse
A man who admitted fatally punching another man after an argument in a car park has been jailed for six years.
Stephen Jeffries, 59, was found with a head injury at The Avenue car park, Bournemouth, on 13 September and died two days later in hospital.
Carl Woolley, 33, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in December.
Prosecutors accepted the plea and they did not seek a trial on a charge of murder.
Dorset Police said, prior to the assault, Mr Jeffries had been involved in a "verbal altercation" with a group of people close to the Flirt Cafe in The Triangle.
Woolley, who was part of the group, followed Mr Jeffries as he walked away and punched him in the face, causing him to collapse.
He presented himself to officers at the scene on the morning after the attack and told them he was responsible.
Following the sentencing at Bournemouth Crown Court, Mr Jeffries' family issued a statement describing him as "a kind and loving father, grandfather, brother, uncle and friend who loved life".
They said, because of the pandemic, they felt "cheated" of the opportunity to witness Woolley's sentencing and "see if he is filled with remorse".
Det Insp Wayne Seymour, of Dorset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team, said: "I hope the sentence handed out today will provide Mr Jeffries' family and friends with some closure and serve as a reminder to the public about the dangers that just one mindless and avoidable punch can have."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-56212129
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news_uk-england-dorset-56212129
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London violence: Sven Badzak 'could have been prime minister' - BBC News
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2021-02-08
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Sven Badzak's political ambitions were brutally cut short in a stabbing attack in north London.
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London
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Sven Badzak met Boris Johnson when his mother campaigned for him in the 2008 London mayoral election race
A 22-year-old man who was stabbed to death in north London "was going to be prime minister" his mother has said.
Sven Badzak was found fatally injured after he fled from a group of males in Kilburn on Saturday.
A 16-year-old boy remains in hospital in a critical condition following the attack. No arrests have been made.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his thoughts were with Mr Badzak's mother "and her family in mourning the loss of her son".
Jasna Badzak called on Mr Johnson, for whom she campaigned during the 2008 London mayoral race, to "help get justice for Sven".
Her son met other well-known Conservative politicians when he was younger, through her campaigning work with the political party.
Asked what she would say to Mr Johnson, she said: "This is a child and his mother who helped you get elected. You knew Sven. You were high-fiving him as your mate.
"I want to hear from him, from [David] Cameron, from [George] Osborne."
Sven had a lifetime of opportunities in front of him, his mother said
Mr Johnson pledged to do more to prevent young people from being "sucked in the nihilistic" gang culture.
The prime minister said there had been a big fall in crime figures, but that would be "no consolation to a grieving mother".
Police said Mr Badzak and his 16-year-old friend were attacked as they fled from a group of males at about 17.40 GMT.
Det Ch Insp Darren Jones said the pair became separated and Mr Badzak was attacked on the ground after he fell.
The teenager managed to seek sanctuary in a shop and survived, although he remains critically ill, Det Ch Insp Jones said.
Jasna and Sven Badzak with former chancellor George Osborne
Mr Badzak was a former pupil at Wetherby School in Notting Hill, which was also attended by Prince William and Prince Harry.
Mrs Badzak said her son, who was planning on becoming a lawyer, had been in the Willesden Lane area "to buy some orange juice and get a bagel".
"Sven was the person everyone was saying was going to be the prime minster," she said.
Her son "was a child who would never raise a hand unless he was going to lift you up", she said.
"He was that charming, spoke with a perfect voice and no-one could shut him up in an argument.
"He had a lifetime of opportunities in front of him.
"I keep expecting him to come through the door. I want him in my home and to never be away from me."
Police said there had been no arrests in either of the fatal stabbings in Croydon and Kilburn
Mrs Badzak called on anyone with information about the killing to come forward.
"Enough is more than enough," she said.
For more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55979796
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news_uk-england-london-55979796
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Climate change: Environment groups call for public inquiry into Cumbrian coal mine - BBC News
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2021-02-05
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Environmental groups say they are mystified No 10 has not intervened to stop the mine going ahead.
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Science & Environment
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Dozens of environmental groups have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for a public inquiry into plans for a new coal mine in Cumbria.
They say it is "mystifying" that No 10 has not stopped the mine from going ahead, when the UK is hosting the COP26 climate summit later this year.
A top climate scientist has warned the PM risks "humiliation" over the plans.
No 10 said the UK is a world leader in climate policy and it would not reverse the decision.
The letter, signed by groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Cumbria Wildlife Trust, criticises the decision not to intervene in the approval of the mine, when the UK's credibility - as summit host - is "at stake".
The letter to Mr Johnson describes the summit, which takes place in Glasgow in November, as "the largest global climate talks since the signing of the Paris Agreement".
The signatories acknowledge that whilst "new jobs need to be created", the government should "lead the way with low-carbon technologies, rather than looking to the polluting industries of the past".
The £165m West Cumbria Mining plan in Whitehaven was approved by Cumbria County Council in October. It would be the UK's first deep coal mine in 30 years.
The council said the government could have "called in" the plans for a public inquiry, but had chosen not to do so.
In an interview with the BBC, the local mayor welcomed the proposals.
Mike Starkie, the Conservative mayor of Copeland Borough Council, said: "I think the project is absolutely fantastic, it'll bring huge amounts of jobs and prosperity into the area.
"It's been broadly welcomed across Copeland. I've never known a project that has carried so much public support."
But the campaigners say "time is of the essence" for the government to act, before Cumbria County Council issues its final decision on the mine "very soon".
In the letter, they urge Robert Jenrick, the secretary of state for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to refer the plans to a public inquiry.
The government's chief planning officer previously defended Robert Jenrick's decision not to overrule consent for the mine
They write: "Reversing this decision would help restore confidence in the UK government's climate leadership both internationally and at home."
Stanley Johnson, the prime minister's father, told the BBC it was a "massive mistake in public relations terms".
He said: "How can we ask other countries to bring in their climate change reduction programmes when we are now reopening the whole coal argument here in Britain?"
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
It comes as Dr James Hansen, formerly Nasa's leading global warming researcher, urged Mr Johnson in a letter to halt production of the mine - or risk being "vilified".
Downing Street has previously defended the decision over the mine as a local planning matter and insisted the UK is cutting emissions faster than any major economy and would end the use of coal for electricity by 2025.
Justin Rowlatt, the BBC's chief environment correspondent, says when it comes to decarbonisation, the UK is a world leader.
Our correspondent says the UK's coal consumption has decreased by 90% in the last five years and just four power stations still burn coal.
Dr Hansen's letter follows earlier criticism from the government's advisory body on global warming, the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
It warned the mine would increase global emissions and compromise the UK's legally binding carbon budgets.
The CCC said: "The decision to award planning permission [for the mine] to 2049 will commit the UK to emissions from coking coal." The body said coking coal will have to stop by 2035 if the country is to meet its climate change targets.
CORRECTION 7 February 2021: An earlier version of this story wrongly stated that the Conservative Environment Network opposes the proposed mine. Stanley Johnson is an ambassador for the group but was not speaking on its behalf.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55942800
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news_science-environment-55942800
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Encrochat: Secret network messages can be used in court, judges rule - BBC News
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2021-02-05
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Police say Encrochat, a secret communications network, was used by criminals to trade guns and drugs.
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UK
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An attempt to stop prosecutors using messages from hundreds of phones that were part of the Encrochat secret communications network in court has been rejected by the Appeal Court.
Judges ruled the messages, obtained by French police by hacking the phones, were not gained by "interception".
Under British law, evidence from interception cannot be used in court.
The National Crime Agency believes Encrochat was mainly used by criminals, often to trade drugs and guns.
The judgement will have major implications for cases against suspected organised criminals around the country.
Due to legal restrictions, it is the first time the BBC can report the detail of arguments surrounding Encrochat, which was penetrated by police last summer resulting in more than 1,000 arrests.
The NCA, which obtained the evidence from France, said it was the biggest breakthrough ever in the fight against organised crime.
Senior officers described it "as akin to cracking the enigma code".
The messages, sent by suspects who did not know they were being monitored, detail alleged drug dealing and murder plots, and include images and videos.
Many of the cases based on "Encro" evidence are now going to court, and if this judgement had ruled the messages couldn't be used, some trials may have been abandoned.
Under long-standing British law, designed to protect intelligence techniques from scrutiny and make criminal trials manageable, intercepted evidence can't be used in court.
In 2016, Parliament passed the Investigatory Powers Act in a massive overhaul of surveillance law. The act introduced a "double lock" that requires interception warrants to be authorised by a secretary of state and approved by a judge.
In a 2015 factsheet on the bill before it became law, the Home Office defined interception as "making available the content of a communication to someone other than the sender or intended recipient during the course of its transmission. In practice that means listening to a phone call or reading an email".
But the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, Lord Justice Edis, and Mrs Justice Whipple dismissed an appeal by lawyers for Encrochat defendants.
The key legal argument centred on a piece of "malware" placed by French experts on Encrochat phones worldwide. It sent copies of every message to a police server.
France has refused to say how, what it called "the implant", worked, creating legal uncertainty in British courts.
Encrochat was a private messaging service that promised its users secure and secretive communications.
As well as the Encrochat messaging app, the company developed a modified version of the Android operating system and sold altered smartphones known as "carbon units" to run its software.
Switched on by pressing just the power button, the phones would load a "dummy" Android homescreen.
But activated another way they would boot into Encrochat mode.
Getting hold of an Encrochat phone was not cheap, and the subscription charges were more than £200 a month.
Messages sent between handsets were end-to-end encrypted: scrambled as they travelled across the internet, making them practically impossible to decode if intercepted.
But in June 2020, the company warned its users that an attack had comprised its handsets and advised them to "physically dispose of your device immediately".
If the implant had collected the messages as they were being transmitted, this would amount to interception of the communications.
The defence lawyers claimed the implant was taking messages from the phones' memory, milliseconds before being sent to their wifi or mobile data transmitters and therefore the data was "in transmission".
But the judges decided the data was in fact being stored temporarily on the devices as it was processed, before being transmitted.
They said this was evident because during the actual transmission the message were encrypted, and therefore couldn't have been read, as they were by the police.
The data collected also included crucial username information from the phone's storage memory, which is not sent as part of the transmission.
In Friday's judgement they compared the process with that of sending a letter: "The process involves the letter being written, put in an envelope, a stamp being attached and then the letter being placed in the post box.
"Only the last act involves the letter being transmitted by a system, but all the acts are essential to that transmission."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Tom Symonds is shown how a customised Android phone with EncroChat installed works
Families of those arrested during the fall-out from the Encrochat penetration have been arguing online that the NCA broke the law by accessing and reading messages "in real time", as they were being sent.
They say British law enforcement agencies effectively allowed a foreign power, France, to hack the phones of 9,000 UK Encrochat users.
Police claimed that in general, using an Encrochat phone, which cost thousands of pounds to own and operate, demonstrated a likely involvement in criminal activity.
But suspects' supporters say innocent family members were caught up in a race to make use of the Encro messages, because police feared they would be criticised if they were not seen to take action.
However the decision of the Appeal Court was that the evidence was collected lawfully.
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Covid-19: Avoid 'setting dates' for lifting lockdown, scientist warns - BBC News
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2021-02-05
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Leaders should not be "driven by a calendar", says a scientist advising the government.
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UK
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The UK government should avoid "setting dates" for when to lift lockdown and instead react to changing circumstances, a scientist has warned.
Prof Graham Medley, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said leaders should not be "driven by a calendar".
Meanwhile, the government has said all over-50s should be vaccinated by May.
And a senior Conservative MP has told the BBC that Downing Street should be "looking to open up" society.
Sir Graham Brady, who leads the 1922 Committee of Conservative Party backbenchers, cited the falling infection level and success of the vaccine rollout, telling the BBC the situation was "optimistic".
The government estimate of the R rate - the average number of people someone with Covid will go on to infect - has dropped slightly to between 0.7 and 1, from between 0.7 and 1.1 for the week before.
But Prof Medley - who chairs the modelling group SPI-M, which advises Sage - told the BBC's Today programme that the epidemic could still go in two directions, up or down, and "it's up to the government to decide which of those paths it takes".
He urged a strategy of "adaptive management so you actually change the control of the epidemic as it goes along rather than setting dates, for example".
This means rather than setting dates of when rules could ease, there would be some sort of threshold of what the government would do if certain criteria are met.
"To actually make decisions dependent on the circumstances, rather than being driven by a calendar of wanting to do things," Prof Medley added.
The government has always insisted it is guided by the science - but Prime Minister Boris Johnson has often given dates when expressing hope about the future of the pandemic, for example saying things will be better by Easter and being hopeful about summer holidays.
Asked what type of circumstances the decisions could be based on, Prof Medley said case numbers were important.
"Vaccination offers a way out and it does reduce the impact of infection, but it doesn't remove it completely," he said. "And so case numbers are still important because they represent the risk of having to go back into some kind of national measures.
"At the moment, we're in a relatively good position in a sense that the number of cases are falling, but they're still very high. So we only need one more doubling time, one more return to exponential growth, and we could be back in the same position we were in the beginning of January within two weeks."
"The lower the numbers of cases, the more time you will have to react if they start to increase."
Infection levels have been falling since early January, and newly-released data shows that cases are down in every UK nation apart from Wales.
Nearly 10.5 million people have received a first dose of the vaccine so far. And on Friday, the Cabinet Office issued a press release saying it plans to vaccinate all of the first nine priority groups - including the over 50s - by May, giving it confidence to press ahead with the local elections.
The government also announced a deal with biopharmaceutical company CureVac, which Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said would allow the UK to "swiftly tweak and roll out" existing vaccines to combat new variants, with 50 million doses placed in an initial order for later this year.
The latest figures show the UK recorded another 20,632 coronavirus cases on Thursday. A further 915 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were also reported, taking the total by that measure to 110,250.
And around one in 65 people in private households in England and Northern Ireland had Covid last week, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics. In Wales, that figure was one in 70, while in Scotland it was one in 115.
The ONS also found that almost six in 10 adults say they are following "stay at home" lockdown rules by only leaving home for their basic needs. The figure is less than during the first national lockdown, when around 81% of people said they obeyed, and higher than in November.
Now that more than 10 million of the UK's most vulnerable have been vaccinated, daily cases of the virus are falling, fewer people are being admitted to hospital and there are early signs of deaths coming down, there is pressure to start the process of returning to normal.
But what will that process look like? Relax restrictions too quickly and there's the risk that cases could start to rise again in the unvaccinated. Move too slowly and the economy, jobs, children's education and people's mental health could suffer unnecessarily.
Some advocate a responsive approach - keeping a close eye on infection levels, which experts warn are still worryingly high, and other data, then reacting quickly when relaxations appear to be making things worse.
This is in contrast to, for example, setting fixed dates for schools to open which may then have to be changed nearer the time.
Reopening schools has always been the priority. Making that happen safely while carefully opening up other parts of society is now the greatest challenge.
Sir Graham - who has previously opposed lockdown rules - told the BBC the argument for going into a third national lockdown was to stop the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed.
"The NHS has actually coped spectacularly well," he said. "Now that that threat is receding, we ought to be - and indeed we are, and the government says we are - looking to open up."
Other politicians are urging a cautious approach to lifting lockdown.
Former Conservative health secretary Jeremy Hunt told BBC Radio 4's World at One the country had to target getting cases "down significantly from their current levels", making a comparison with South Korea, which he said had about 400 cases per day.
He said: "If we really want to avoid going into a fourth lockdown, we're going to have to be much better at isolating and quarantining anyone who has the new variants."
Mr Hunt added he thought the "end of the pandemic is within sight" - but that the country needed to keep a "weathered eye one these vaccines and variants".
Earlier this week, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also warned against lifting restrictions too early.
On Friday, government minister James Cleverly said he was not able to give a timetable of restrictions easing, but said plans will take into consideration "the needs of the economy, people's mental health, the education of our children".
"The decisions will be based on the assessment of what is safe, as well as effective," he said.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said the government continues to follow advice from scientific and medical experts.
"As the prime minister has said, the government will set out a plan for taking the country out of lockdown during the week beginning 22 February, with the clear aim of taking a gradual, phase approach that is sustainable."
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Sam Burgess: Ex-Rugby League star guilty of intimidation in Australia - BBC News
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2021-02-05
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The ex-England captain has been convicted of intimidating his former father-in-law in Australia.
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Australia
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Sam Burgess was one of rugby league's biggest names
Former England Rugby League captain Sam Burgess has been found guilty of an intimidation charge against his former father-in-law in Australia.
A Sydney court on Friday ruled Burgess had intimidated Mitchell Hooke, his ex-wife's father, with the intention of causing physical or mental harm.
Burgess pleaded not guilty to the charge last year, relating to an incident at Mr Hooke's home in 2019.
He was given a conviction and placed on a two-year good behaviour bond.
The court heard competing accounts over the incident, which came as Burgess visited his children after separating from his ex-wife, Phoebe Burgess.
A row escalated after Mr Hooke asked Burgess to leave, the trial was told.
Mr Hooke said Burgess had said: "I'm going to get you. You've set all of this up."
Mr Hooke testified he had felt "absolute terror" that his former son-in-law would hit him during the argument.
Burgess told the court that Mr Hooke had threatened him by saying: "I'm going to destroy you and your career."
Magistrate Robert Rabbidge found in favour of Mr Hooke, ruling that he was an "impressive, believable and consistent" witness.
Mr Hooke is a high-profile political lobbyist in Australia who was previously head of the Minerals Council of Australia.
Burgess, one of Rugby League's biggest stars, was forced to retire in 2019 due to injury.
He was forced to step down from his assistant coach position at the South Sydney Rabbitohs club last October, after police began investigating other allegations against him.
The Australian newspaper reported that the National Rugby League (NRL) club had covered up alleged drug use and domestic violence by Burgess. Burgess has strongly denied the allegations.
The former Bradford Bulls player first joined the Rabbitohs in 2010, rising to become their star player and captain over 182 NRL appearances for the club.
He played 24 matches for England and two for Great Britain.
Burgess also had a short spell in Rugby Union and won five England caps.
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Barclays urges UK to focus on US and Asia post Brexit - BBC News
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2021-02-05
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Brexit gives one of the UK's most important sectors the chance to define its own agenda, he said.
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Business
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jes Staley: 'London needs to focus on New York and Singapore'
The UK financial services industry should focus on competing with the US and Asia rather than the EU.
That's the view of the boss of Barclays for the City after Brexit.
Jes Staley told the BBC that although jobs that would have been created here have been moved to the EU, Brexit gives one of the UK's most important sectors the chance to define its own agenda.
"I think Brexit is more than likely on the positive side than on the negative side," he said.
"What the UK needs and London needs, is to make sure that the City is one of the best places, whether [it is in terms of] regulation or law or language, or talent.
"I think what London needs to be focused on is not Frankfurt or Paris, [it] needs to be focused on New York and Singapore."
However, he said he was not a fan of widespread deregulation to achieve that - no regulatory bonfire for him.
In fact, he said the UK's robust regulation was a major strength, not weakness, and referred to the recent clampdown on firms offering buy now, pay later schemes as reassuring.
"You see what's happening right now with buy now, pay later, you know, the FCA is going to come in and start to increase the regulation of that marketplace. That's the right thing to do.
"And, in a funny way we've gotten pretty good at working inside the regulatory framework that is here. It protects the financial industry in London as we learn how to deal with this regulation, and it makes the bank safer."
He does admit that money and jobs have moved from the UK as a result of Brexit, but says the impact has been modest.
"Yes, there are some jobs that are going to Europe, that otherwise would have been in the UK, but it's in the hundreds. Barclays employs some 50,000 people in the United Kingdom, roughly 20,000 outside of the UK and 10,000 in the US.
"Some amount of capital has moved but London is still obviously the main centre for Barclays."
His message is that the UK should do everything it can to foster trust and good relations with the EU, but not at the cost of the UK becoming uncompetitive with the bigger fish in the global capital pool.
Mr Staley says financial centres like Singapore are London's competition
It's not everyone's favourite industry, but the financial services sector employs 1.1 million people, with two-thirds of them outside London. It is nearly 100 times more economically important than fishing and pays a whopping 11% of all taxes.
It was also almost totally ignored in the Brexit negotiations - access to EU markets enjoyed for decades ended in January. About £1 trillion in capital and assets and up to 10,000 jobs left the UK industry as firms set up EU subsidiaries. Big numbers, but in global financial terms, erosion rather than exodus.
Catherine McGuinness, head of policy at the City of London Corporation, said that while financial services didn't get much air time in Brexit negotiations, they were better placed because they started preparing years ago.
"We have been disappointed in the lack of focus on the financial professional services sector - this is a critical part of our economy, a critical part in itself for the jobs and tax that it generates.
"But the minute the referendum result was announced, the institutions started planning how they would be able to serve their customers in whatever circumstances developed"
She also agreed with Mr Staley that there is no need or desire for widespread deregulation to create what some have styled a Singapore-on-Thames.
"One reason why people want to come and do business here is because they trust the regulation. We're not hearing any great demand for a bonfire of regulation but we do need to look at how can we keep influencing and working with global standards to meet global challenges."
One of those global challenges is surely climate change and Mr Staley is convinced London can become a major global hub for green finance. He says these ideas are currently where the understanding of the impact of the internet was nearly 30 years ago.
"Climate today is like technology was in 1995. If you think about it… all the Amazons, the Googles, didn't really exist in 1995 and now it dominates 40% of the economy, I think it's a fair argument that dealing with climate and dealing with the environment is in the same position now."
Confident and controversial words for the boss of a bank that counts climate change activists as regular attendees at its annual shareholder meeting thanks to its involvement in financing fossil fuel projects.
But that's the curious thing about money. You would think it's hard to create new products out of it, but it happens.
The ability to raise money in dollars on EU markets was the key new thing that propelled London to worldwide significance in the post-war period.
Creating new products out of pools of sub-prime mortgages almost destroyed the world's financial system.
Harnessing the international demand for financing climate-based projects could be the next big - and hopefully good - thing.
It's harder to reinvent a fish or a sheep. Unlike fishing and farming, which got a lot of political attention, and whose businesses are really struggling to adjust, UK financial firms like Barclays seem confident they can adapt to a post-Brexit future.
As Mr Staley says, "you can't tax good ideas".
The UK government thought the powerful financial sector could look after itself. On this evidence, it seems they might have been right.
Rishi Sunak will certainly hope so. No Chancellor of the Exchequer in living memory has needed the tax revenue more.
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Mayday: How the White Helmets and James Le Mesurier got pulled into a deadly battle for truth - BBC News
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2021-02-27
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James Le Mesurier fell to his death in Istanbul in 2019 with a sense that Syrian and Russian disinformation had destroyed his reputation.
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Stories
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The British man behind the Syrian civil defence group, the White Helmets, found himself at the centre of a battle to control the narrative of the Syrian war. Russian and Syrian propagandists accused his teams of faking evidence of atrocities - and convinced some in the West. The battle for truth formed a backdrop to James Le Mesurier's sudden death in Istanbul in November 2019.
With the setting sun reflecting in the water and the lights of Istanbul twinkling on the horizon, the wedding guests sat around lantern-lit tables: diplomats from several countries, military officers, journalists and activists who had flown in from around the world to see James Le Mesurier get married.
A dashing former army officer in his 40s, Le Mesurier had made his name as the co-founder of the White Helmets - the group of several thousand young Syrian men and women who pulled survivors and bodies from the rubble of bombed-out buildings in rebel-held areas of the war-ravaged country.
The woman he was marrying, Emma Winberg, once worked for the UK Foreign Office but had latterly been helping him manage the White Helmets. She was his third wife.
The couple lived in a traditional white wooden house overlooking the Marmara Sea on Buyukada island, off the coast of Istanbul. The small island once had a reputation for hosting subversives and spies - Trotsky lived there in a similar wooden house a few years before his fateful meeting with the icepick in Mexico. These days it's popular with journalists, artists and those wanting to escape the chaos of the city.
The wedding party, in summer of 2018, was held in the garden of the couple's home with the bride and groom dressed like old-fashioned movie stars. Le Mesurier was carried on the shoulders of his Syrian guests as they bounced him around in a traditional arada sword dance - his face flushed and glowing.
It was a romantic setting and it was obvious the couple was very much in love. But if you had been able to listen in to the guests, you wouldn't have heard the usual wedding chatter - the main topic of conversation among the champagne and canapes was the ongoing conflict in Syria.
The war was always present - even on their wedding day. They found it impossible to separate their work and their private lives.
Emma knew their future together wouldn't be stress-free. "We often said, as bad as it gets, we will have each other. We knew it would be an adventure," she says.
And after the fairy-tale wedding things did get bad - far worse than Emma could have imagined. In just 18 months, James was dead.
Spoiler alert: This is the story told in the BBC's 11-part Mayday podcast - if you prefer to listen to the audio please click here, otherwise read on (this story is a 23-minute read)
On 11 November 2019 at around 05:00, a worshipper on his way to morning prayers discovered James Le Mesurier's crumpled body lying on the cobblestones in a narrow alleyway in Istanbul. He had apparently fallen from the apartment above his office, three floors up. Emma was still asleep in their bed when the police banged on the door and woke her.
Turkish detectives questioned her and took her DNA and fingerprints before forensically scouring the scene. There were concerns that Le Mesurier had also been murdered by foreign agents, like the Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi a year earlier, almost to the day.
As the news of the 48-year-old's death broke around the world, lots of people - including many friends and associates - assumed he had been murdered. The White Helmets were a thorn in the side of the Syrian and Russian governments, bearing witness to the bombing and killing of innocents and posting the videos online.
In Moscow the television news described his death as a "purely English murder" claiming he had been finished off by his "MI6 handlers" when he stopped being useful. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad later gave an interview where he likened Le Mesurier's death to that of Jeffrey Epstein, saying both men knew too many secrets to be allowed to live.
The British government was quick to dismiss such allegations.
"The Russian charges against him that came out of the Foreign Ministry that he was a spy - categorically untrue," said Karen Pierce, the UK ambassador to the UN. "He was a real humanitarian, and the world and Syria in particular is poorer for his loss."
Digging into his past it seems that at one point Le Mesurier did want to be a spy. After leaving the army he applied to join MI6 and - on paper at least - he looked a perfect fit. He aced the application process, but he was turned down at vetting; it took him months to recover from the disappointment.
An old friend, Alistair Harris, describes Le Mesurier as "Lawrence of Arabia-esque" - an image friends say he liked to cultivate. He had a taste for the finer things in life, and lived in a series of homes on islands. During several years living in the Gulf, he would regularly travel into town from his home on Futaisi island, Abu Dhabi, standing at the wheel of a boat wearing a suit and brogues, his tie flapping in the wind. But he was never in the Security and Intelligence Services says Harris, a former UK diplomat who worked with Le Mesurier on several projects in the Middle East.
The son of a decorated colonel, Le Mesurier earned a degree in international politics and strategic studies before graduating top of his class from Sandhurst military academy. Friends from that time describe him as an incredibly talented soldier, head and shoulders above the others in strategy and communications but "too much of a nice guy for anyone to begrudge him it".
He spent the next decade in the Army but left after becoming disillusioned with the failures of the West to prevent atrocities in Kosovo, where he served as an officer. By 2004 he was working as an adviser to the new Iraqi government, but again he became exasperated by what he saw as wasted opportunities and money squandered on projects which failed to rebuild the country or win the support of its people.
So when, in 2011, he was invited by Alistair Harris to move to Turkey and manage civil society projects across the border in Syria, he jumped at the chance. A democratic uprising, which the Syrian government had attempted to crush by force, had become a civil war, and government-run services were absent in rebel-held areas.
As head of the Istanbul office of Harris's organisation, Ark, one of the projects Le Mesurier's took on focused on training young Syrians to act as firefighters, ambulance drivers and rescuers. Young men and women were already rushing in to help their relatives and neighbours whenever a bomb landed on a residential area, flattening apartments and trapping the residents inside - but often without the necessary skills.
Le Mesurier felt that here at last was an inspiring Western-funded project. In a dark complex war, these were heroes: local people, instinctively trusted by their own communities, doing what they could in a time of crisis. He brought them all together in one organisation and got them professionally trained by the Turkish earthquake rescue specialists, Akut.
One of Le Mesurier's colleagues at Ark, Shiyar Mohammed, remembers that before this vital training, volunteers would rush into a bomb site wanting to help, but without any idea what they were doing - which sometimes made things considerably worse.
"They hadn't even heard of things like maintaining an open airway," says Mohammed. "Somebody with a neck injury would get picked up from his arms and legs and put on the back of a pickup truck."
Le Mesurier and his team pulled in funding from the British, French, Dutch, Japanese, German and Canadian governments: one of his talents was persuading diplomats to part with their country's money.
Once the trainees returned to their neighbourhoods with their new civil defence skills, Le Mesurier began securing funding for equipment - shovels, medical supplies and hard hats. There weren't enough of the red helmets meant for firefighters, so they ordered white ones - and these helmets would eventually earn the rescuers their nickname.
A White Helmet walks past the remains of a blasted building in al-Kalasa district of Aleppo (June 2016)
But at Ark the White Helmets were just one of many projects and Le Mesurier wanted to focus on them exclusively, so in 2014 - with Harris's blessing - he set up his own not-for-profit organisation, Mayday Rescue.
Speaking to the BBC in 2014, Le Mesurier described the rescuers as ordinary people: "Former bakers, former builders, former students who... chose to stay with very little equipment, and at the beginning with no training whatsoever, to respond to bomb attacks, respond to shellings and to try to save their fellow Syrian civilians."
While rescue operations were taking place in Syria, Le Mesurier was in Istanbul, hundreds of miles away. The only way he could find out what was happening on the ground was by watching videos of the new trainees in action. So he equipped the White Helmets with Go-Pro cameras attached to their hard hats.
Before long, films of the White Helmets' daring rescues were going viral on social media. You can still find them on their Facebook page: hundreds of videos showing men and women in fleece jackets digging, sometimes for hours, through rubble and blocks of concrete, to the sound of cries from those trapped below. Often they pull out corpses - many of them dead children, whose parents are seen wailing over their tiny bodies. Sometimes they manage to pull people out alive, dusty and blood-splattered, who are rushed into ambulances.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. White Helmet volunteers carry out a dramatic rescue of a girl trapped under rubble in 2017 in Damascus
Much of the footage showed the destruction caused by Syrian and Russian war planes. The Syrian Air Force's weapons of choice were oil barrels stuffed with explosives - barrel bombs - which were dropped from helicopters on to rebel neighbourhoods. Occasionally the rescuers themselves can be seen weeping - a reminder that they are local people and that the victims were probably people they knew.
One incident in Aleppo in 2014 was filmed in detail: It's night and a lot of people are panicking, frantically digging for their neighbours who are buried under concrete following an aerial attack. A woman caught in the rubble is rescued relatively quickly, but her two-month-old baby is still trapped under layers of debris.
The White Helmets are filmed removing the concrete piece by piece until they can see the baby's head, but they continue to dig until finally they can access the baby's body and a rescuer called Khaled Omar Harrah is able to pull him out.
"We saved a baby. It was an incredible accomplishment for all of us," says Shiyar Mohammed. He remembers it as a moment of elation, feeling that all their hard work and the training sessions had been worth it. But their joy was tempered by the realities of war.
"This was just one baby out of thousands and thousands of other babies who have died, who couldn't be reached," he says.
Khaled Omar Harrah died in an air strike two years after rescuing this baby
That scene of the baby's rescue had a huge impact in the West. It was the first time that a lot of people had seen the work of the White Helmets, and many were very moved.
Le Mesurier explained to the BBC that Khaled was a former painter and decorator, who became a civil defence volunteer after his own street was heavily bombed. The baby was under seven feet of concrete and the rescue took 19 hours to complete. "The work that they do is absolutely humbling," he said.
But for cynics, the baby-rescue drama seemed a little too slick. Could the whole thing have been stage-managed by Le Mesurier and the White Helmets to gain support and extra funding, they wondered? And in some more radical circles - where everything financed by the West was seen as tainted by an imperialist agenda - the White Helmets started being accused of producing propaganda to push for intervention in the war.
The videos were not stage-managed but the rescuers were deliberately documenting what they believed were war crimes, including the indiscriminate bombing of civilian apartment buildings, markets, schools and hospitals. And while the White Helmets were not calling for Western boots on the ground, they were pushing for the declaration of a no-fly zone enforced by foreign governments.
There is also no doubt that the videos were tremendously helpful for fund-raising.
By the time a Netflix documentary about the rescuers won an Oscar in 2017 Le Mesurier's organisation, Mayday Rescue, was receiving millions of dollars from states around the world including the USA, France, Britain, Germany, Holland, Japan and Qatar. The money was used to run training camps for the rescuers and to send equipment across the border into Syria, including fire trucks and ambulances.
But the Syrian and Russian governments insisted that James Le Mesurier and the White Helmets were manipulating the truth. According to their account the Syrian state, with Russia's help, was protecting a loyal and grateful population from evil jihadists, some of whom were dressed as White Helmets.
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad repeated these accusations in televised interviews and Russian diplomats began publishing what they said was evidence of the White Helmets using film sets to produce faked rescues. Two injured children - Omran and Aya - found themselves at the heart of this upside-down story of the war.
In the summer of 2016 a Russian bomb fell on the Al-Qaterji neighbourhood in rebel-held East Aleppo. When it exploded it took out the home of the Dagnish family.
When the White Helmets arrived on the scene they pulled five-year-old Omran from the debris along with his parents and baby brother. His older brother didn't survive.
There's footage of little Omran, being carried by a White Helmet and put into the back of an ambulance. He's tiny and monochrome - covered head to toe in brick dust like a little grey ghost. He sits there, expressionless, utterly dazed.
Omran's photo was on the front page of newspapers around the globe.
Another child whose face appeared on our TVs here in the West, was a little girl called Aya. The eight-year-old was filmed in a hospital in Homs, in western Syria. She had been hiding under a table when the ceiling of her home collapsed on her.
A week after Aya's story was broadcast on CNN, the Syrian president gave an interview to Swiss TV where he was confronted with a photo of Omran. Unflustered, he replied that Omran and Aya were just props, siblings being used by the White Helmets in fake videos. And he claimed the rescuers had used them not just once, but several times in different videos.
When journalists (including Channel 4 and France 24) looked into the claims, they found that they were false. Aya was confused with another child, pictured in the arms of three different people, but that was at a single rescue event where the pictures were taken moments apart. Journalists also tracked down witnesses, including Omran's father, who confirmed they had been involved in real bombings.
In another "discovery" of fake videos, the Russian Embassy in South Africa tweeted a photograph purporting to show the White Helmets mid-shoot, with dressing rooms in the background and a clapper board in front of the camera. The photograph was quickly identified as having been lifted from the set of a real film, called Revolution Man.
A still from the Revolution Man film's website
In a bizarre twist, the feature film, financed by the Syrian Ministry of Culture, was about a corrupt Western journalist who travels to rebel-held areas of Syria and finds himself helping the White Helmets to fake videos. The White Helmets in the photograph weren't actors working to discredit the Syrian state, they were actors working for the Syrian state.
What the Russian and Syrian governments say about the war is unlikely to have much influence on most people in the UK, but they are not alone in spreading these stories about the White Helmets - a network of sympathetic Western bloggers and activists have amplified their ideas. The most prolific among them is Vanessa Beeley, a British diplomat's daughter who quit her job in manufacturing about a decade ago in order to highlight what she saw as injustices in the Middle East.
Beeley began travelling to Gaza to report on the suffering of ordinary people there. She set up a citizen journalist blog and began posting articles about what she saw. When the war in Syria began in earnest she, along with a small group of other pro-Palestinian activists, became convinced that the uprising had been instigated by Western proxies.
She soon turned her attention to the White Helmets, accusing the organisation of being a Western-created disinformation operation masterminded by a British spy - James Le Mesurier. She took up the allegation that they were faking videos, and also put great emphasis on the idea that they were jihadists, who had been taking part in executions.
The Syrian state granted her visas and offered her government-guided tours of recently captured areas, where Islamist logos on the walls of White Helmets premises were pointed out to her.
What Beeley's videos show is evidence that a variety of groups, some of them jihadists, have operated in the same areas as the White Helmets and possibly used the same buildings - not that the rescuers and Islamists ever worked together.
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Nevertheless, there are other photographs and videos online that seem to show individual White Helmets supporting jihadists - from the so-called Islamic State group or the al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda's representatives in Syria) - either cheering their arrival in an area, or appearing to assist in an execution by removing the body afterwards.
"There's no way to deny it," says Nur (not his real name) who helps manage the White Helmets' media online. "Former volunteers were in pictures waving flags."
In the early days, in a few isolated cases, rescuers joined the White Helmets having left jihadist organisations, he says. In other cases individuals might have seen the jihadists as a possible solution to the bombs that were raining down on them from Syrian government aircraft - but he says the organisation quickly sacked anyone who showed such sympathies. Le Mesurier helped put a code of conduct in place which required independence from all armed groups, among other things, and all the rescuers were trained to understand its importance.
As for the executions, Nur explains, one of the jobs of the White Helmets is to replace undertakers in rebel-controlled areas. "Someone has to respectfully deal with the bodies and get them to their families," he says, adding that they were just informed when and where an execution would take place
The White Helmets say their impartiality and adherence to humanitarian principles has been the secret to their survival as an organisation through so many years of war and in so many different areas with different groups in control.
White helmets rescue an injured fighter in a Damascus suburb in 2017
"There have been multiple different examples of White Helmets teams, responding to buildings, not knowing who is trapped inside, and they continue regardless," James Le Mesurier told Dutch TV in 2015.
"They have rescued regime soldiers from under piles of rubble, and they do so neutrally and they do so impartially. For them what is important is saving a life. It doesn't matter who that life belongs to."
One video in 2016 left the White Helmets wide open to Vanessa Beeley's accusations of fakery.
The mannequin challenge was an online fad where people pretended to be mannequins - frozen mid-action before suddenly starting to move, like a mannequin coming to life. The White Helmets had filmed a mannequin challenge of their own. In it they are frozen mid-rescue about to pull a young man out of the rubble. For their detractors this was further proof that the organisation were expert fakers.
Speaking on the Russian state-funded channel Russia Today (RT), shortly after her first visit to Moscow, Vanessa Beeley called the video bizarre. "Whatever reason the White Helmets had for doing this extraordinary event, we've seen a reaction that I believe… massively backfired on them," she said, adding that the stunt made a mockery of the suffering of the Syrian people.
When the whole scandal broke James Le Mesurier was furious. His wife, Emma, says she had never seen him so angry.
"He just thought it was the most stupid own goal. James was very frustrated because this would keep getting used and recycled on a routine basis by the White Helmets' antagonists."
I managed to track down the young Syrian who filmed the video. He wasn't a White Helmet - he was a media activist. He hoped the mannequin challenge might help people in the West connect to what was going on in Syria. It never occurred to him that it would be used as proof that the White Helmets' videos were fake.
Vanessa Beeley is so convinced that the White Helmets are working for Western intelligence (and with Islamist militant groups) that she has even argued they are legitimate targets for the Syrian military.
"The White Helmets cannot be considered a humanitarian organisation, when they are embedded with a designated terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, and of course, ISIS and various other armed groups... They do not behave in any way like a humanitarian organisation inside Syria, and therefore… they themselves are a legitimate target in a war situation," she said in an interview to UK Column News in October 2020, repeating a view she had expressed before.
James Le Mesurier was horrified when he saw her tweet this idea.
"I don't really have words for it. It was clearly legitimising the targeting of civilians," says his wife, Emma. "And the fact that Beeley was a UK national, and was hosted on Russia Today as an independent investigative journalist, put them at even greater risk."
Vanessa Beeley taking part in a joint Russian and Syrian presentation at the UN in December 2018
Even before Vanessa Beeley's comments, Syrian and Russian states had begun employing double and triple-tap strikes in what appear to be deliberate efforts to bomb the rescuers. After a bomb falls the planes circle around waiting for the rescuers to arrive at the site before bombing a second time and sometimes delaying again before bombing a third time. Almost a quarter of all the White Helmets - there were around 4,300 at the height of the war in 2016/17- have been killed or seriously injured in the course of their work; it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
But perhaps Vanessa Beeley's most bizarre claim is that James Le Mesurier was involved in an organ-harvesting racket. In 2018 she was invited to speak at a joint Russian and Syrian presentation at the United Nations, sharing the floor with a Russian researcher.
Apparent witnesses were shown in videos being interviewed by the researcher and saying that they had seen the White Helmets return the bodies of injured victims back to their families with all their organs missing. It is impossible to know whether the people who provided these accounts were speaking freely, and no other evidence was presented. The White Helmets say they have never heard any such claims from anyone in the areas where they operate.
White Helmets investigate a collapsed house in countryside west of Aleppo in February 2020
The accusation that Le Mesurier was involved in murder and organ theft might sound far-fetched but the fact that the ideas were presented at the UN gave them the veneer of officialdom. Misinformation about the Syrian war has become so ubiquitous it has resulted in what psychologists have called the "illusionary truth effect" where most people end up absorbing some of the false narratives, even on an unconscious level. When I first began looking into the White Helmets I had a feeling they were a bit dodgy, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you why or where I had heard that.
All this was beginning to have a real effect on Le Mesurier. At one point, his colleagues say, when he tried to open a new bank account he was turned down because of concerns he might be involved in organ-trafficking. His wife Emma says he worried that after the war was over his reputation might be so damaged that he would never work again.
Vanessa Beeley has denied being pro-Assad despite singing the praises of the presidential couple and the Syrian Army on social media. These days she lives in Damascus and drives around the city in a bright pink 1970s VW Beetle with a picture of Bashar al-Assad pasted in the back window.
The pink VW with a portrait of Bashar al-Assad in the rear window
She declined to give me an interview but we did exchange emails. She told me she is not incentivised by any government, that she is self-funded and that her concern is getting to the truth. She also made it clear that she believes the BBC is a mouthpiece for the British government and is engaged in deliberate anti-Assad propaganda.
Beeley sometimes claims to have been a finalist for the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. But when I contacted a member of the prize committee, James Fox, he told me: "There are no finalists of the Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, and no 'runners up'. The prize does not draw up or publish such a list. The judges publish only winners or special commendations."
There are other British Assad sympathisers. One is Peter Ford, the UK ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006, who says the White Helmets have faked all but a handful of rescues, have been involved in beheadings, and played a crucial role in the faking of chemical attacks - all of which he believes were hoaxes. He argues that the Syrian revolution was instigated by Western governments with the intention of toppling President Assad.
Ford co-chairs the British Syrian Society with Assad's father-in-law, Fawaz Akhraz, who lives in London and has recently come under US sanctions as one of the state's "enablers… in perpetuating their atrocities". These days the organisation is seen by many as a propaganda operation for the Syrian leadership, though Peter Ford is at pains to make it known that he isn't paid by the society. He has also made it clear he believes the BBC was commissioned "by Le Mesurier's handlers" to whitewash the White Helmets.
Peter Ford is a former UK ambassador to Syria
Ford has shared a platform with The Working Group on Syria Propaganda and the Media, led by a group of British professors from some of the country's top universities, which also argues that chemical attacks in Syria have probably been faked.
In 2020 three members of the Working Group gave a presentation at Portcullis House, part of the Houses of Parliament complex, focusing on a chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma in April 2018. It argued that dead bodies and gas canisters had been moved and manipulated in photographs that had been presented as evidence of a chemical attack, and that this staging would have required the active participation of the White Helmets.
The Douma attack is one of the most contested events in the Syrian war, with both the Syrian government and their Russian allies claiming it was a "false-flag" attack, perpetrated by the rebels against their own side, so that the Syrian government would be blamed - and on this occasion the US, France and the UK did in fact respond with a punitive missile strike.
An investigation into the Douma incident by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded - in characteristically careful language - that there were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was used and that it was delivered from the sky, which would indicate it had been dropped by Syrian or Russian government forces, as no other parties to the conflict possess aircraft.
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But two members of the OPCW investigation team rejected this report, alleging that the US had pressured the organisation to reach this conclusion. They questioned whether the limited amount of gas that had apparently been dropped would have killed people where they lay, and also whether the canisters could have crashed through a concrete ceiling without showing more damage. The OPCW said these former employees had not been involved in the full investigation and had not had access to all the facts and independent reports. Despite this, the Working Group found the whistleblowers' arguments convincing - but then had to explain how the more than 40 victims who had been filmed at the location of the attack had died at the same time from the same cause.
One of the Working Group's members, Prof Paul McKeigue of Edinburgh University - whose area of expertise is genetic epidemiology and statistical genetics - suggested that the most likely scenario was that the victims had been executed in a gas chamber and then carried to the apartment building and posed to look as if they had died there.
I contacted the spokesman of the Working Group - a former professor from Sheffield University, Piers Robinson - who told me they did not accept that their assertions were conspiracy theories. He said their output was objective and rigorous and that they consulted widely when expertise outside their own research areas was needed.
James Le Mesurier's wife, Emma, says attacks like these made during his lifetime were putting him under a great deal of stress.
She believes it is likely that he was also suffering from trauma after years of watching distressing videos of the White Helmets' rescues. Most of those they pulled out of the rubble were already dead, including a disproportionate number of children.
In making the podcast series Mayday I ended up watching dozens of these videos - there are hundreds on their Facebook page. This stuff sticks with you, and it left people like Le Mesurier's colleague at Ark, Shiyar Mohammed, traumatised.
"Because I was subjected to so much graphic footage and so much violence. I ended up with sort of basically horrific scenes stuck in my head. Instead of the victims, I'm imagining myself to be in their place," he says.
There was a macho culture, Mohammed says, in which Le Mesurier and his colleagues saw themselves as too tough to be affected by all the horror of the war. Mohammed admits he was naive. By the time he left Ark he was no longer able to function in his daily life, suffering from panic attacks for three or four minutes every couple of hours.
How close was Le Mesurier to experiencing this kind of trauma? I asked Emma about that and instead of answering me she showed me the photos and videos he had on his mobile phone when he died.
There are happy times at home on Buyukada island, hanging out with his dog Balloo, and weekends spent entertaining his two young daughters from his previous marriage. But interspersed with all these domestic scenes are images the White Helmets sent him, of tiny shroud-wrapped dead children, videos of parents wailing over corpses, a lot of horrifying images of cruelty and death.
And it wasn't just the horror of the war - it was the denial of all that horror that got to him. The Syrian and Russian governments were flipping everything on its head, as he saw it, and turning the war's heroes into villains.
That's why, among all those awful images on Le Mesurier's phone at the end of his life there were also countless screenshots of online messages doubting whether any of it was true and calling him a liar, an organ harvester and a jihadist.
In the end, though, it was misinformation from inside his own organisation that was apparently the final straw.
Although Le Mesurier excelled in wooing donors, finances proved to be his Achilles' heel. He had never been across the books at Mayday Rescue, which was dealing with tens of millions of dollars a year - he left that to his colleagues. And it was the financial fallout following a major rescue mission that proved his undoing.
James Le Mesurier (right) with the leader of the White Helmets, Raed Salah
This time the people being rescued were the White Helmets themselves. In the summer of 2018, rescuers in the south of the country were caught between President Assad's forces and the Islamic State group.
In a daring plan dubbed Operation Magic Carpet Le Mesurier organised the evacuation of 800 White Helmets and their families through three border crossings into Israel - a country which had been at war with Syria for decades. To make this happen he helped orchestrate high-level discussions with the governments of Canada, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as Jordan and Israel. The discussions continued at his and Emma's wedding, attended by some of the key players - a detailed plan was cooked up among the canapes and lamb shanks.
Emma crafted a clever seating arrangement for the reception, grouping together people who needed to speak to each other. Five days later, Le Mesurier flew to Amman, Jordan, to help oversee the huge operation. He was in his element - all his talents in strategising, learned at Sandhurst and honed over his decade in the military, came into play.
White Helmets and their families had been hiding for days in a town near the razor-wire fences and concrete watch towers that marked the disputed border with Israel on the Golan Heights. They had fled their homes as the Syrian military advanced on their towns. Fear of arrest and torture - they had seen videos of "confessions" colleagues had been forced to make - had them running with only the clothes on their backs, carrying crying, hungry children.
Le Mesurier was determined to get them out. Finally, on 21 July 2018, just as the sun was setting, the Israeli military cranked open the huge metal gates at two of the border crossings to let the families through.
A Russian airstrike inside Syria, seen from the Israeli Golan Heights on 23 July 2018
It had taken just a few weeks to mobilise the huge international operation but it wasn't fast enough. One exit route had already become too dangerous - in the previous days it had fallen under the control of Islamic State - and half of those they hoped to rescue didn't make it out. It is not clear what happened to these 400 people, but they were advised to burn their uniforms and hide. Senior members of the White Helmets told me they believe many of those left behind were captured and tortured or killed.
Le Mesurier had managed to save 400 White Helmets, but at a huge political cost. Now he and the whole organisation appeared directly connected to Israel and his detractors - ever prone to see conspiracies involving the hidden hand of Zionism - had more fuel than ever.
"It was extremely frustrating, not just that there was this relentless personal attack on him, but that some people would believe it. I remember him saying, 'Will I ever work again after this?' So I think it was a huge strain on him," says Robin Wettlaufer, then Canada's Special Representative to Syria and one of the people who made the rescue happen.
Le Mesurier returned to Istanbul utterly depleted. He hadn't slept for days and in this exhausted state he made a fatal mistake.
To cover any expenses during the rescue mission Le Mesurier had withdrawn $50,000 in cash from Mayday Rescue's safe. In the event, he only spent around $9,000. Months after his return to Istanbul his head of finance, a Dutchman named Johan Eleveld, asked where the remaining cash had gone. James Le Mesurier couldn't remember.
"He might have lost it, he might have left it at the airport. He couldn't remember," admits his wife Emma. "James had made a mistake."
He would make an even bigger one. At a meeting with several senior staff members, including Eleveld, Le Mesurier took the decision to repay the missing cash out of his salary. But fearing he would look unprofessional if he publicly admitted he had misplaced such a large amount, he also decided to fake a receipt making it look as if he had replaced the unspent cash as soon as had returned from Jordan.
In November 2019 an audit firm was checking operational changes at Mayday Rescue, with Johan Eleveld assisting them with their work. At some point they turned their attention to the organisation's cash books and came across the faked receipt. When they questioned Le Mesurier about it he immediately confessed. The audit firm also flagged loans and advances that had been taken by his wife, Emma, and warned Le Mesurier that he was leaving himself open to some difficult financial questions.
Emma Le Mesurier says that their relationship with Johan Eleveld had been deteriorating for some time and he was avoiding their calls. Meanwhile, colleagues at Mayday Rescue say Eleveld was telling them the loan Emma had taken, which she had paid back within days, and the faked receipt amounted to fraud - and that there was a high chance Le Mesurier would face a prison sentence.
Johan Eleveld said a non-disclosure agreement prevented him from talking to me, but in an email he denied saying that James might be jailed.
Two nights before his death Le Mesurier wrote to the governments supporting the White Helmets saying that he took responsibility for any financial wrongdoing and offering to resign. The donors did not accept his resignation but said they would need a forensic audit and that would involve freezing Mayday Rescue's operations until a full investigation had been concluded. This meant the White Helmets' salaries, training and equipment would be withheld at a time when they were facing an escalating bombing campaign.
Emma says Le Mesurier spent three tortured days believing that a stupid mistake he had made would result in harm and suffering to the most vulnerable people in Syria - those he had spent years trying to protect.
He also believed that he would be publicly humiliated, and thought it was true that he might go to prison.
Perhaps after years of fighting an increasingly personal disinformation campaign and seeing the brutality of war close up, James Le Mesurier was too tired to fight any more.
The couple spent the evening of 10 November in their flat above the Mayday Rescue offices in central Istanbul. They had a difficult night. James went to bed and left Emma pacing the flat thinking. Around 04:00 he got up and offered her a sleeping pill and stood by the window smoking a cigarette, waiting for her to fall asleep. An hour later Emma was woken by police banging on her door.
In the end, the Turkish police concluded that James's death was suicide. The detective in charge of the investigation told me a high-tech security system meant no-one else could have entered the apartment, and they found no evidence of a struggle.
Six months later, an extensive independent financial investigation by Grant Thornton would conclude that Mayday Rescue's book-keeping was shoddy - but they could find no evidence of financial mismanagement or fraud by either Emma or James Le Mesurier.
Trawling through years of correspondence, they unearthed emails from Le Mesurier to the finance department in the summer of 2018, soon after he had returned from the rescue mission. It turned out the money had never been missing. The emails show he kept the cash and asked the accountants to offset it from his salary. But he was so tired he had completely forgotten what he had done.
Mayday Rescue went into administration in July 2020 and these days the White Helmets' finances are all managed by an American organisation called Chemonics - but as a commercial operation they charge considerably more for their services than Mayday Rescue did so the White Helmets get less of the funds.
When someone kills themselves, that single act, that one moment in the thousands of moments that made up their life, ends up colouring everything. It inverts their biography so we look back at all they did through the lens of their death. And that is not always fair.
James Le Mesurier was a man who lived several lives. He was a soldier, he was a Middle East traveller and an island dweller, a father and a husband and he was a humanitarian. And, like the people of Syria, he was a victim of disinformation.
These days his wife Emma lives alone in Amsterdam, in an apartment they bought together on an island in the centre of the city. She spends hours sitting by a shrine she has built for James; a photograph of him, holding a bottle of wine with a cheeky lopsided smile, sits on top of the wooden box containing his ashes, surrounded by flowers and candles.
"I talk to him, and he talks back," she says, her voice breaking.
"He was an extraordinarily robust and resilient person. But he was exhausted and we were on the losing side. But I don't want to speculate on what James was thinking [in his final moments]. I don't think anyone has the right to do that."
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HS2: Next phase of controversial rail network gets green light - BBC News
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2021-02-11
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Legislation needed to clear the next stage of the controversial project has passed through Parliament.
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Business
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The go-ahead for the next phase of Britain’s controversial HS2 high-speed rail network has been approved.
Phase 2A of the project will be built from the West Midlands to Crewe, and was given Royal Assent on Thursday.
Supporters of HS2 say it will spur economic growth, help level up the country, and provide greener transport.
But environmentalists say it will increase carbon emissions and can’t be justified now people have embraced video conferencing such as Zoom.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "Whatever your view of this project, HS2 is now a reality - heading north, creating jobs and building a brighter future for our country.
"This vital project is at the heart of the government's commitments to build back better from the pandemic, tackle the North-South divide and drive growth across the country.
"I look forward to seeing spades in the ground to get this section built and deliver the benefits of high-speed rail to the North as swiftly as possible."
But critics argue that the justification for building HS2 was ever-increasing rail passenger numbers. And the government now admits future passenger growth is unknowable.
HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson recently said: "If the first reaction to the pandemic is to cancel major infrastructure projects committed to by successive governments now for more than a decade… that would have a chilling impact on the construction sector in the UK and inward investment.”
A year since the prime minister announced that HS2 would be built, another phase has been given the go ahead. But this project still has more hurdles to go.
While phase 2a was anticipated to be signed off, the rest of the proposed route - from Crewe to Manchester and the eastern leg, connecting Birmingham and Leeds - are both still in the works. Businesses and local politicians campaigning for these routes have called on the government to commit to the rest of the project to avoid an east-west divide in transport in the North.
The project still has its critics, from environmental campaigners to those who argue new capacity isn't needed with new remote ways of working.
Passenger services won't start on the first parts of the line until at least 2029, and arguments about the project aren't over yet.
MPs voted overwhelmingly for the project, but some still question its value for money.
Chesham and Amersham MP Dame Cheryl Gillan asked whether the cost could be justified when ministers “have not established that the future use of public transport will be at a level that will make this railway viable in any way, shape or form?”
Green MP Caroline Lucas called it a “vanity project”. She says travel patterns have been revolutionised during Covid, and won't return to previous levels. And she complained: “It’ll take decades for the project to have even a chance of becoming carbon neutral because of the emissions from building the line.
"Meanwhile dozens of ancient woodlands are being put at risk or damaged – the very woodlands we should be protecting to help tackle climate change.”
Green campaigners are still hiding out in tunnels under Euston station to make their protest against the scheme’s impact on the climate and wildlife.
Tony May, Emeritus Transport Professor at Leeds University, said: “Even on optimistic predictions HS2 takes 65 years from its completion before its carbon saving (through low-carbon trains) has offset the carbon costs of construction.
“So up to 2050 (the critical deadline for achieving nearly zero emissions) HS2 is a carbon burden on the country. It doesn't save carbon at all.” The company says it is working on smarter designs to reduce the carbon impact of the materials it uses.
The first phase of HS2 between London and the West Midlands is already well underway. There are 240 sites now active along the Phase One route.
HS2 says it employs over 13,000 people with 400 apprenticeships, and tens of thousands more jobs supported through the supply chain.
Campaigners have staged anti-HS2 protests in London and elsewhere.
Passenger services are scheduled to start between stations at London’s Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street between 2029-33. Phase 2A’s opening will coincide with the London–Birmingham route. HS2 A will carry six long-distance high speed services per hour.
Sara Williams, chief executive of Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “Extending the high speed line northwards will generate thousands of contract opportunities for local businesses and provide a vital boost for the Staffordshire economy.”
Critics say the government could have created far more jobs for the same amount of money by developing a labour-intensive national scheme to renovate leaky homes – an activity that would actively reduce carbon emissions.
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Trump impeachment: Prosecution rests its case against Donald Trump - BBC News
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2021-02-11
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Prosecutors rest their impeachment case against Donald Trump - his defence will begin on Friday.
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US & Canada
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Lawyers Bruce Castor and David Schoen will set out Trump's case Image caption: Lawyers Bruce Castor and David Schoen will set out Trump's case
Now that Democratic prosecutors have finished setting out their case, it’s time for Donald Trump’s lawyers to have their say.
Attorneys Bruce Castor and David Schoen will have up to 16 hours over the next two days to set out their defence, although they are not expected to use all that time.
On the opening day of the trial, they argued that Trump was exercising his right to free speech, both in tweets and when he took to the stage in front of supporters on 6 January. We are likely to hear more of this line of argument from them.
Earlier today, Schoen accused the Democrats of making "movies" and presenting the case as an "entertainment package" with the video and audio footage they showed the Senate.
After Trump’s team concludes their case, the Senate will have up to four hours to ask written questions of both sides.
Witnesses could also be called but it is not yet clear if that will happen. If there are no witnesses, we could see a vote on conviction this weekend, or by Monday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-56027491
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Brexit: London loses out as Europe's top share trading hub - BBC News
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2021-02-11
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Amsterdam ousts London in the wake of Brexit changes, as the Bank of England warns over EU financial rules.
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Business
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Amsterdam ousted London as the largest financial trading centre in Europe last month as Brexit-related changes to finance rules came into force.
About €9.2bn (£8.1bn) worth of shares were traded on Amsterdam exchanges each day, against €8.6bn in London.
Following new Brexit rules, EU-based banks wanting to buy European shares currently cannot trade via London, meaning a loss of fees for City firms.
Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey has warned the EU not to cut off London.
On Wednesday, Mr Bailey said there were signs that the EU planned to cut the UK off from its financial markets.
Following the new Brexit trading rules coming into effect, there are talks to harmonise rules over financial regulations - so-called equivalence
Both sides are working towards a March deadline to agree an "equivalence" regime under which the UK and Europe would recognise the other's regulations.
Number 10, said it remained "open" to discussions with the EU on the equivalence issue.
"Despite the fact that we've supplied all of the necessary paperwork and are one of the world's most preeminent financial centres, with a strong regulatory system, the EU still haven't granted us full equivalence."
"This has meant that some EU shares that were previously traded on UK venues have moved to the EU venues on advice of the European regulator, but our position is fragmentation of share trading across financial centres is in no one's interest," it added.
It's called invisible trade - but selling services abroad is something the UK excels in, particularly when it comes to banking.
Financial services makes up about 7% of the UK's income in total, and about 40% of banking and investment's business abroad is with the EU.
But its needs were largely invisible from the deal struck with the EU at the end of last year. The diversion of share trading is the first visible, if inevitable, sign of the impact.
And that business may not return to London. Even if the UK government and Brussels can ultimately reach agreement that financial services can get more access to each others markets, on the basis the UK's standards can be deemed "equivalent" to the EU's, share dealing may not be part of that.
The UK government hopes Brexit will enhance the City's dominance, with scope to deepen relationships with other financial centres. But that's a work in progress.
The boss of one share exchange described a recently-struck deal that allows Swiss shares to be traded in London as being like a free kick in a football match rather than an equaliser: it doesn't compensate for what has been lost in loosening ties with Europe.
Mr Bailey said the City wanted to reach an agreement on financial rules, but would not accept being "dictated" to by Brussels. He said EU demands had so far been unreasonable.
"I'm afraid a world in which the EU dictates and determines which rules and standards we have in the UK isn't going to work," the governor said in his annual Mansion House speech to the City, this year held virtually.
"Is the EU going to cut the UK off from itself? There are signs of an intention to do so at the moment but I think that would be a mistake," he added.
"We have to state the argument for global standards and markets and openness and if we all sign up to that then there's no need to go in that direction."
Financial services - a key driver of the UK economy - were largely omitted from the last-minute Brexit trade deal agreed in December.
The City generates about £135bn in business annually, with financial institutions earning big fees from trading stocks and shares. But London's financial centre has been cut off from EU markets since 1 January.
But Brussels says it will not be rushed into decisions on granting access for UK financial firms, as it wants to see how far UK rules will diverge from its own.
It follows fears the UK will adopt a low-regulation Singapore-style model that would undercut the EU.
Mr Bailey said the EU was holding the UK to unrealistically high standards on the issue of divergence, saying it would in effect make the City a "rule taker".
He added that while some UK rules would change post-Brexit, sudden deregulation was not on the cards.
"Let me be clear, none of this means that the UK should or will create a low-regulation, high-risk, anything-goes financial centre and system," he said.
"We have an overwhelming body of evidence that such an approach is not in our own interests, let alone anyone else's."
Despite the current situation, Mr Bailey said that London would "undoubtedly continue as one of the world's leading if not the leading financial centre".
Last month Mr Bailey said up to 7,000 finance jobs had so far been relocated from London to rival centres in the EU - well down on predictions of as many as 50,000 losses.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56017419
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Covid: Dominic Cummings defends polling contract - BBC News
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2021-02-15
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The PM's ex-adviser says he did not recommend Public First because he is friends with its founders.
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UK Politics
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The government's decision to hire a firm with links to the PM's ex-chief adviser Dominic Cummings has been challenged at the High Court.
Campaign group The Good Law Project has complained of "apparent bias" in the decision to recruit Public First for Covid-19 opinion polling last year.
During a hearing on Monday, the group's lawyer argued emergency rules used to award the work should not have applied.
But Mr Cummings said the £540,000 contract had been "entirely justified".
In a written statement, he said although he was "friends" with the company's founding directors, he had not recommended them for that reason.
He added there had been "no time" to follow usual procurement rules, and the work was "crucial" to the government's early pandemic response.
Public First was founded by James Frayne and Rachel Wolf, whom Mr Cummings said he knew from previous roles both inside and outside government.
According to a November report into Covid-19 contracts by the National Audit Office, it was initially hired "on an informal basis" in March 2020 to do focus group research.
The spending watchdog added the company was then given a "retrospective contract" in June, covering work from March and "potential future work".
The Cabinet Office's decision to award the work under emergency tendering rules is subject to a legal challenge from The Good Law Project.
At a High Court hearing on Monday, the group's lawyer Jason Coppel QC told judge Mrs Justice O'Farrell that "no other provider was considered" for the work.
He added that although other firms already working for the government had been able to bid, "no thought was given to any other provider because Dominic Cummings wanted Public First to have the contract".
Arguing that rules allowing the "direct award" of contracts did not apply, he added awarding the contract without open competition had not been "strictly necessary".
Mr Cummings, who was working as Boris Johnson's senior adviser at the time the work was awarded, did not give evidence in person during the hearing.
But in a written statement, he defended his decision to recommend the firm for the work.
He said he was friends with both Mr Frayne and Ms Wolf, as well as ex-civil servant Gabriel Milland, who is also a partner at Public First.
He said he had not met Mr Frayne since 2016, and had "no involvement" in the "contractual arrangements" with the firm.
"Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing," he added.
He said he had recommended the firm because he knew the company was "very good" at running focus groups, and he could "rely on them to make an extra effort".
Although he added he was not allowed to "direct" civil servants, he said he expected Public First to be hired "as a result of my suggestion," adding that he was an "expert in the interaction between policy, mass communication and focus groups".
"Civil servants could have disagreed and did disagree with my suggestions all the time, and my response depends on my expertise of the matter in hand and other circumstances."
"On this occasion, I was an expert," he added.
Mr Cummings said the company was brought in to inform government communication during the pandemic.
Arguing for the legal challenge to be dismissed, lawyers for the Cabinet Office told the judge Mr Cummings made a recommendation, not a decision, on awarding the work.
Representing the Cabinet Office, Michael Bowsher QC said Mr Frayne and Ms Wolf had "professional and personal connections" with Mr Cummings, as well as Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove.
But it was "emphatically denied" that there was "any bias, or apparent bias" in the award of the work to Public First, he added.
He said: "At a time of national emergency Dominic Cummings recommended a firm he knew could get the job done."
He added Mr Gove did not have any involvement in the decision or influence it in any way.
In an outline argument earlier this month, government lawyers said it was "clear" that the conditions for allowing emergency procurement rules to apply had been met.
They said the research Public First had been hired to do was required "immediately," and there was "no time to conduct even an accelerated procurement exercise".
Former Labour MP Natascha Engel, who is now a partner at Public First, defended the firm's involvement.
Speaking after the hearing, she said: "Given James Frayne hasn't spoken to Dominic Cummings in several years and neither he nor Rachel Wolf spoke to Dominic Cummings or Michael Gove about Covid research, the idea this was some sort of quiet arrangement between friends is clearly wrong."
"Everyone in government knows which research agencies can deliver in a crisis, and it's no surprise Public First was chosen given our record."
Having heard rival arguments, Mrs Justice O'Farrell said she would deliver a ruling on a date to be fixed.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56073038
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Vaccine rumours debunked: Microchips, 'altered DNA' and more - BBC News
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2021-02-01
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We've looked at four false Covid vaccine claims that won’t go away.
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Reality Check
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We've looked into some of the most widely shared false vaccine claims - everything from alleged plots to put microchips into people to the supposed re-engineering of our genetic code.
The fear that a vaccine will somehow change your DNA is one we've seen aired regularly on social media.
The BBC asked three independent scientists about this. They said that the coronavirus vaccine would not alter human DNA.
Some of the newly created vaccines, including the one now approved in the UK developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, use a fragment of the virus's genetic material - or messenger RNA.
"Injecting RNA into a person doesn't do anything to the DNA of a human cell," says Prof Jeffrey Almond of Oxford University.
It works by giving the body instructions to produce a protein which is present on the surface of the coronavirus.
The immune system then learns to recognise and produce antibodies against the protein.
Claims that Bill Gates plans to use a vaccine to "manipulate" or "alter" human DNA have been widely shared
This isn't the first time we've looked into claims that a coronavirus vaccine will supposedly alter DNA. We investigated a popular video spreading the theory back in May.
Posts have noted that messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology "has never been tested or approved before".
It is true that no mRNA vaccine has been approved before now, but multiple studies of mRNA vaccines in humans have taken place over the last few years. And, since the pandemic started, the vaccine has been tested on tens of thousands of people around the world and has gone through a rigorous safety approval process.
Like all new vaccines, it has to undergo rigorous safety checks before it can be recommended for widespread use.
In Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials, vaccines are tested in small numbers of volunteers to check they are safe and to determine the right dose.
In Phase 3 trials they are tested in thousands of people to see how effective they are. The group who received the vaccine and a control group who have received a placebo are closely monitored for any adverse reactions - side-effects. Safety monitoring continues after a vaccine has been approved for use.
Next, a conspiracy theory that has spanned the globe.
It claims that the coronavirus pandemic is a cover for a plan to implant trackable microchips and that the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is behind it.
There is no vaccine "microchip" and there is no evidence to support claims that Bill Gates is planning for this in the future.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation told the BBC the claim was "false".
One TikTok user created a video about being "microchipped" and called a vaccine the "mark of the beast"
Rumours took hold in March when Mr Gates said in an interview that eventually "we will have some digital certificates" which would be used to show who'd recovered, been tested and ultimately who received a vaccine. He made no mention of microchips.
This led to one widely shared article headlined: "Bill Gates will use microchip implants to fight coronavirus."
The article makes reference to a study, funded by The Gates Foundation, into a technology that could store someone's vaccine records in a special ink administered at the same time as an injection.
However, the technology is not a microchip and is more like an invisible tattoo. It has not been rolled out yet, would not allow people to be tracked and personal information would not be entered into a database, says Ana Jaklenec, a scientist involved in the study.
The billionaire founder of Microsoft has been the subject of many false rumours during the pandemic.
He's been targeted because of his philanthropic work in public health and vaccine development.
Despite the lack of evidence, in May a YouGov poll of 1,640 people suggested 28% of Americans believed Mr Gates wanted to use vaccines to implant microchips in people - with the figure rising to 44% among Republicans.
We've seen claims that vaccines contain the lung tissue of an aborted fetus. This is false.
"There are no fetal cells used in any vaccine production process," says Dr Michael Head, of the University of Southampton.
One particular video that was posted on one of the biggest anti-vaccine Facebook pages refers to a study which the narrator claims is evidence of what goes into the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. But the narrator's interpretation is wrong - the study in question explored how the vaccine reacted when introduced to human cells in a lab.
Confusion may have arisen because there is a step in the process of developing a vaccine that uses cells grown in a lab, which are the descendants of embryonic cells that would otherwise have been destroyed. The technique was developed in the 1960s, and no fetuses were aborted for the purposes of this research.
Many vaccines are made in this way, explains Dr David Matthews, from Bristol University, adding that any traces of the cells are comprehensively removed from the vaccine "to exceptionally high standards".
The developers of the vaccine at Oxford University say they worked with cloned cells, but these cells "are not themselves the cells of aborted babies".
The cells work like a factory to manufacture a greatly weakened form of the virus that has been adapted to function as a vaccine.
But even though the weakened virus is created using these cloned cells, this cellular material is removed when the virus is purified and not used in the vaccine.
We've seen arguments against a Covid-19 vaccine shared across social media asking why we need one at all if the chances of dying from the virus are so slim.
A meme shared by people who oppose vaccination put the recovery rate from the disease at 99.97% and suggested getting Covid-19 is a safer option than taking a vaccine.
A meme using images of rapper Drake has been used to promote false vaccine claims
To begin with, the figure referred to in the meme as the "recovery rate" - implying these are people who caught the virus and survived - is not correct.
About 99.0% of people who catch Covid survive it, says Jason Oke, senior statistician at the University of Oxford.
So around 100 in 10,000 will die - far higher than three in 10,000, as suggested in the meme.
However, Mr Oke adds that "in all cases the risks very much depend on age and do not take into account short and long-term morbidity from Covid-19".
It's not just about survival. For every person who dies, there are others who live through it but undergo intensive medical care, and those who suffer long-lasting health effects.
This can contribute to a health service overburdened with Covid patients, competing with a hospital's limited resources to treat patients with other illnesses and injuries.
Concentrating on the overall death rate, or breaking down the taking of a vaccine to an individual act, misses the point of vaccinations, says Prof Liam Smeeth of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It should be seen as an effort by society to protect others, he says.
"In the UK, the worst part of the pandemic, the reason for lockdown, is because the health service would be overwhelmed. Vulnerable groups like the old and sick in care homes have a much higher chance of getting severely ill if they catch the virus".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/54893437
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The plot (and spoilers) of Impeachment II - BBC News
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2021-02-09
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It feels like Groundhog Day but second time round will be quite different, argues Jon Sopel.
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US & Canada
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The rule of thumb in the cinema is that the original is invariably better than the sequel.
But then you get The Dark Knight getting far more acclaim than Batman Begins. Or Godfather 2 being better than the first movie - and personally I thought Toy Story 3 was the best. And don't get me started on Star Wars.
So, what should we expect from Impeachment II, Incitement of Insurrection, coming to a TV screen near you this week?
Some very general and obvious observations.
The plotlines in this second impeachment will be much easier to follow than the original.
A presidential call to his Ukrainian counterpart asking questions about an obscure energy company on which Joe Biden's son had served as a director, does not have the immediacy of the events of 6 January when a Trump supporting mob stormed Congress after listening to a speech delivered by the president.
What is not in question is that the MAGA-mob tried to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Five people died following the mayhem. There will not be an American who doesn't have a view on what unfolded.
The other quick observation I would make is this - the chamber where the Senate trial will unfold is also the crime-scene; the epicentre of this assault on America's most sacred democratic sanctum. And the corollary of that is that some of the people who will be 'trying' the former president will have felt themselves to be victims of the crime that unfolded.
So what chance is there that Donald Trump will get a fair trial?
Well, the first thing I would say about that is though the language of impeachment is replete with quasi-judicial terminology, the jurors are the 100 Senators - Republican and Democrat. This is political.
How many of those who will weigh the evidence for and against Donald Trump will be swayed by the evidence presented? I find it hard to imagine there will be a single one.
Democrats, I would guess, will vote as a block to convict. Republicans are split three ways - and this is a political split, not a schism based on the evidence.
There are those Republicans who remain firmly behind Donald Trump, and will not now, not ever, vote to find him guilty of "incitement of insurrection", the three words on the article of impeachment.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The policeman in a MAGA hat during the Capitol riots. What’s the real story?
There are those who would love nothing more to see the former president slip away from the national consciousness, and feel that he has been a corrosive force on the democratic norms and values of US democracy - but don't want to pick a fight with him for fear of the consequences. Their worst nightmare is Trump rallying support behind a Republican rival the next time they're up for election.
And there is a smaller number of Republicans who are ready to very publicly say they believe that the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan needs to be rid of the Trump legacy, that it is a cancer that needs to be cut out.
In other words, this will all be about political calculation. And the second order calculation will be how these senators will explain the decision to their voters.
Which brings us to this next question, how will this play itself out?
Democrats will make a case that evokes the drama of the day and the fears some of them had - they thought their lives were in danger as they cowered in offices while the mob went room to room. The blame for that will be laid squarely at the defendant's door.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The terror of being trapped in the US Capitol - three eyewitness accounts of politicians
The Trump defence will take two forms.
On the substance of the "incitement of insurrection" charge, his lawyers will argue that he was exercising his free speech, First Amendment rights - and they will point out that in that address on 6 January, the president told his supporters to march on Congress "peacefully and patriotically".
But the speech was notable for all its "We fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." And telling his supporters that they have to be tough and not weak.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial opens on Tuesday - but what's it all about?
And his case is not helped by the tweets and messaging around this time - urging his supporters to come to Washington on 6 January because it was "going to be wild".
In a video released on the night of the riots, Donald Trump told the mob that had descended on Congress that he loved them and they were special people. He tweeted that evening - seemingly to justify the actions of the insurgents - that this is what happens when you steal the result of the election.
He repeatedly claimed he had won the election by a landslide. There is no evidence for that.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick lies in honour at US Capitol
He repeatedly claimed that the election had been stolen. Judge after judge - many appointed by Donald Trump - rejected those legal arguments put by his campaign lawyers.
And the charges of fraud - again promoted by Mr Trump - were dismissed by the president's own Attorney General William Barr; the head of election security - another Trump appointee - also said the election had been fair.
So don't expect the president's words to be the backbone of the defence.
Instead it will focus on the constitutionality of impeaching a president once he's left office. The lawyers will argue that the weapon of impeachment is only to be used for a serving politician, not a private citizen (as Donald Trump now is).
How can you use the sanction of removing someone from office when they've already left office? And this is I suspect the justification (fig-leaf, I feel sure Democrats will insist) that Republicans will reach for as their justification for acquitting Donald Trump.
Of course, Democrats will point out the offence took place while he was president, and you don't get a free pass just because you've left office. Or as James Corden put it on his Late, Late Show, it's like being pulled over by a traffic cop for speeding, and saying to the officer "I might well have been going at 50mph back then, but now as I speak to you I am stationary, so you can't charge me now…"
Impeachment II will get big, big TV audiences - though they'd have been far greater if the president had testified, as Democrat impeachment managers had wanted.
But the outcome - and here I feel the need to issue a spoiler alert - is almost certainly going to be the same as Impeachment I.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55987600
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news_world-us-canada-55987600
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Cwmbran lockdown killer got 'unduly lenient' jail term, say MPs - BBC News
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2021-02-19
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MPs have called for the Court of Appeal to review Cwmbran killer Anthony Williams' case.
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Wales
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Ruth Williams was killed by her husband of almost 50 years at their home
A group of MPs are calling for the case of a man who killed his wife in lockdown to be reviewed because of its "unduly lenient" five year sentence.
Labour's Harriet Harman, Jess Phillips and Alex Davies-Jones have all written to the attorney general to look at Anthony Williams' case.
Williams, 70, was jailed for the manslaughter of his wife Ruth, 67, at their home in Cwmbran, Torfaen.
He admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility, saying "I flipped out".
However, he was found not guilty of murder after a trial at Swansea Crown Court.
All three are asking the attorney general Suella Braverman for the case to be passed to England and Wales' most senior court, the Court of Appeal, and expressed concern about the use of Williams' depression in his defence against the more serious charge of murder.
Ms Harman, a former solicitor general and minister for justice, tweeted she would ask the attorney general to refer it to the Court of Appeal as an "unduly lenient sentence".
Harriet Harman was the first MP to call for the sentenced to be reviewed
The former solicitor said she hoped it would lead to an increase in Williams' sentence and criticised what she said was a "loophole" in the law which allowed Williams' defence barrister to argue his depression was a defence against being convicted of murder.
"If he went out in the street and killed a neighbour, there would be no question of him facing a murder charge," she said.
"You get a discount for it being your wife and you get a discount for it being in her own home where she should feel safe."
Jess Phillips said is a concern that Williams will only serve half his sentence
Meanwhile, Jess Phillips tweeted her support for Ms Harman, expressing concern that Williams may only serve half his sentence.
The MP for Birmingham Yardley said: "We're looking at somebody serving around 18 months in prison when there is a woman who is dead.
"The areas in which I think this case needs to be examined are the difference between how men and women pleading such a defence of diminished responsibility are managed, and the way that plays out, specifically in cases of alleged domestic murder.
"I want some assurances as somebody who is always seeking to improve criminal justice outcomes for victims of domestic violence, about how this case was managed both by the courts, but also by the Crown Prosecution Service."
Pontypridd MP Alex Davies-Jones, also wrote on Friday to the attorney general, urging her to intervene and refer the case to the Court of Appeal.
In the letter she posted on Twitter, she said she was "horrified" that Williams was "given such a lenient sentence at a time where so many are struggling with the mental strain of the pandemic".
She wrote that the UK government's Domestic Abuse Bill was a "landmark piece of legislation," but added: "Sadly, there are cases such as Mr Williams' whereby the law is failing victims."
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She added that she was worried the sentence could "act as a catalyst" and that "we're going to see even more extremes happening, with perpetrators thinking they have an excuse or a cover".
Ms Davies-Jones also said she was concerned that Ms Braverman is due to go on maternity leave this month, with the UK government yet to announce a replacement for her.
Williams' daughter had told the court he was "spiralling out of control" with worry during the lockdown
During his Swansea Crown Court trial, the jury heard how Williams strangled his wife of 46 years after an argument on 28 March, days after the start of the first lockdown began.
Williams had not slept for several days after the start of restrictions in March because he was worrying over money, coronavirus and his health.
A psychiatrist told the court the defendant's mental health had dramatically deteriorated after retiring in 2019, and the coronavirus pandemic had made things worse.
No evidence was heard during the trial that Williams had a history of domestic abuse.
Mrs Williams was found slumped in the porch of their home with keys in her hand - she was later pronounced dead at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport.
While being driven to the police station, Williams told officers: "It wasn't murder and I didn't mean to murder her.
"I just flipped, it wasn't me. I wouldn't hurt a fly, it wasn't me, I'm not like that and I don't know what came over me."
As he sentenced Williams, Judge Paul Thomas said: "The overwhelming greatest tragedy is that a lady of 67 years who was in good health had her life ended at the hands of a man she had loved for nearly 50 years."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56122903
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Covid: Matt Hancock acted unlawfully over pandemic contracts - BBC News
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2021-02-19
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The health secretary breached his "legal obligation" to publish details of deals, the High Court rules.
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UK
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Matt Hancock is the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Matt Hancock acted unlawfully when his department did not reveal details of contracts it had signed during the Covid pandemic, a court has ruled.
A judge said the health secretary had "breached his legal obligation" by not publishing details within 30 days of contracts being signed.
The public had a right to know where the "vast" amounts spent had gone and how contracts were awarded, he added.
The government said it fully recognised the "importance of transparency".
But Labour claimed the government's awarding of contracts was "plagued by a lack of transparency, cronyism and waste".
The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has struck deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds during the coronavirus pandemic.
Campaign group the Good Law Project and three MPs - Labour's Debbie Abrahams, Green Caroline Lucas and Lib Dem Layla Moran - took legal action against the department over its "wholesale failure" to disclose details of the contracts agreed.
Under the law, the government is required to publish a "contract award notice" within 30 days of the awarding any contracts for public goods or services worth more than £120,000.
The Good Law Project also claimed that the government breached its own transparency policy, which requires the publication of details of public contracts worth more than £10,000.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Chamberlain said: "There is now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the secretary of state breached his legal obligation to publish contract award notices within 30 days of the award of contracts.
"There is also no dispute that the secretary of state failed to publish redacted contracts in accordance with the transparency policy."
The judge said the health secretary had spent "vast quantities" of public money on Covid-related goods and services during 2020.
"The public were entitled see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded," he added.
He said this was important so that competitors of those awarded contracts could understand whether the obligations had been breached.
The judge also said publishing the details allowed bodies such as the National Audit Office, as well as Parliament and the public, to "scrutinise and ask questions about this expenditure".
Mr Justice Chamberlain acknowledged that the situation faced by the DHSC during the first few months of the pandemic had been "unprecedented".
He said it was "understandable that attention was focused on procuring what was thought necessary to save lives".
But he added that the DHSC's "historic failure" to publish details of contracts awarded during the pandemic was "an excuse, not a justification".
However, the judge dismissed the Good Law Project's argument that there had been a department-wide "policy of de-prioritising compliance" with the law and guidance.
"This judgement is a victory for all of us concerned with proper governance and proof of the power of litigation to hold government to account," the Good Law Project said in a statement.
"But there is still a long way to go before the government's house is in order."
The DHSC said the government had been "working tirelessly" to deliver what was needed to protect health and social care staff during the pandemic.
"This has often meant having to award contracts at speed to secure the vital supplies required to protect NHS workers and the public."
A spokeswoman added: "We fully recognise the importance of transparency in the award of public contracts and continue to publish information about contracts awarded as soon as possible."
For Labour, shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves called the judgement "troubling and unsurprising, and a perfect example of how this government believes it is one rule for them another for the rest of us".
She added: "This government's contracting has been plagued by a lack of transparency, cronyism and waste and they must take urgent steps to address this now - by winding down emergency procurement, urgently releasing details of the VIP fast lane, and publishing all outstanding contracts by the end of the month."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56125462
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Encrochat: Secret network messages can be used in court, judges rule - BBC News
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2021-02-06
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Police say Encrochat, a secret communications network, was used by criminals to trade guns and drugs.
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UK
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An attempt to stop prosecutors using messages from hundreds of phones that were part of the Encrochat secret communications network in court has been rejected by the Appeal Court.
Judges ruled the messages, obtained by French police by hacking the phones, were not gained by "interception".
Under British law, evidence from interception cannot be used in court.
The National Crime Agency believes Encrochat was mainly used by criminals, often to trade drugs and guns.
The judgement will have major implications for cases against suspected organised criminals around the country.
Due to legal restrictions, it is the first time the BBC can report the detail of arguments surrounding Encrochat, which was penetrated by police last summer resulting in more than 1,000 arrests.
The NCA, which obtained the evidence from France, said it was the biggest breakthrough ever in the fight against organised crime.
Senior officers described it "as akin to cracking the enigma code".
The messages, sent by suspects who did not know they were being monitored, detail alleged drug dealing and murder plots, and include images and videos.
Many of the cases based on "Encro" evidence are now going to court, and if this judgement had ruled the messages couldn't be used, some trials may have been abandoned.
Under long-standing British law, designed to protect intelligence techniques from scrutiny and make criminal trials manageable, intercepted evidence can't be used in court.
In 2016, Parliament passed the Investigatory Powers Act in a massive overhaul of surveillance law. The act introduced a "double lock" that requires interception warrants to be authorised by a secretary of state and approved by a judge.
In a 2015 factsheet on the bill before it became law, the Home Office defined interception as "making available the content of a communication to someone other than the sender or intended recipient during the course of its transmission. In practice that means listening to a phone call or reading an email".
But the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, Lord Justice Edis, and Mrs Justice Whipple dismissed an appeal by lawyers for Encrochat defendants.
The key legal argument centred on a piece of "malware" placed by French experts on Encrochat phones worldwide. It sent copies of every message to a police server.
France has refused to say how, what it called "the implant", worked, creating legal uncertainty in British courts.
Encrochat was a private messaging service that promised its users secure and secretive communications.
As well as the Encrochat messaging app, the company developed a modified version of the Android operating system and sold altered smartphones known as "carbon units" to run its software.
Switched on by pressing just the power button, the phones would load a "dummy" Android homescreen.
But activated another way they would boot into Encrochat mode.
Getting hold of an Encrochat phone was not cheap, and the subscription charges were more than £200 a month.
Messages sent between handsets were end-to-end encrypted: scrambled as they travelled across the internet, making them practically impossible to decode if intercepted.
But in June 2020, the company warned its users that an attack had comprised its handsets and advised them to "physically dispose of your device immediately".
If the implant had collected the messages as they were being transmitted, this would amount to interception of the communications.
The defence lawyers claimed the implant was taking messages from the phones' memory, milliseconds before being sent to their wifi or mobile data transmitters and therefore the data was "in transmission".
But the judges decided the data was in fact being stored temporarily on the devices as it was processed, before being transmitted.
They said this was evident because during the actual transmission the message were encrypted, and therefore couldn't have been read, as they were by the police.
The data collected also included crucial username information from the phone's storage memory, which is not sent as part of the transmission.
In Friday's judgement they compared the process with that of sending a letter: "The process involves the letter being written, put in an envelope, a stamp being attached and then the letter being placed in the post box.
"Only the last act involves the letter being transmitted by a system, but all the acts are essential to that transmission."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Tom Symonds is shown how a customised Android phone with EncroChat installed works
Families of those arrested during the fall-out from the Encrochat penetration have been arguing online that the NCA broke the law by accessing and reading messages "in real time", as they were being sent.
They say British law enforcement agencies effectively allowed a foreign power, France, to hack the phones of 9,000 UK Encrochat users.
Police claimed that in general, using an Encrochat phone, which cost thousands of pounds to own and operate, demonstrated a likely involvement in criminal activity.
But suspects' supporters say innocent family members were caught up in a race to make use of the Encro messages, because police feared they would be criticised if they were not seen to take action.
However the decision of the Appeal Court was that the evidence was collected lawfully.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55953247
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Joe Neguse delivers prosecution's closing argument at Trump trial - BBC News
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2021-02-12
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Democrat Joe Neguse presents the prosecution's closing argument at Donald Trump's impeachment trial.
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Democrat Joe Neguse presented the prosecution's closing argument at the former president's impeachment trial.
"If we let this go unanswered, who's to say it won't happen again?"
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Trump impeachment: Prosecution rests its case against Donald Trump - BBC News
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2021-02-12
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Prosecutors rest their impeachment case against Donald Trump - his defence will begin on Friday.
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US & Canada
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Lawyers Bruce Castor and David Schoen will set out Trump's case Image caption: Lawyers Bruce Castor and David Schoen will set out Trump's case
Now that Democratic prosecutors have finished setting out their case, it’s time for Donald Trump’s lawyers to have their say.
Attorneys Bruce Castor and David Schoen will have up to 16 hours over the next two days to set out their defence, although they are not expected to use all that time.
On the opening day of the trial, they argued that Trump was exercising his right to free speech, both in tweets and when he took to the stage in front of supporters on 6 January. We are likely to hear more of this line of argument from them.
Earlier today, Schoen accused the Democrats of making "movies" and presenting the case as an "entertainment package" with the video and audio footage they showed the Senate.
After Trump’s team concludes their case, the Senate will have up to four hours to ask written questions of both sides.
Witnesses could also be called but it is not yet clear if that will happen. If there are no witnesses, we could see a vote on conviction this weekend, or by Monday.
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Manchester Arena Inquiry: Terror offender 'unfit to give evidence' - BBC News
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2021-02-16
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Abdalraouf Abdallah risks harm if he gives evidence to the Manchester Arena Inquiry, a lawyer says.
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Manchester
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Abdallah has cited a privilege against self-incrimination as a reason to refuse to appear at the inquiry
A convicted terror offender who was the Manchester Arena bomber's friend "is unfit to give evidence" to the inquiry into the attack, his lawyer has said.
Abdalraouf Abdallah was visited by the bomber Salman Abedi in prison in the months before the 2017 attack.
He has refused to appear at the inquiry but families of the attack's victims want to know why he cannot be forced.
A hearing was told a decision on whether the families could access his medical reports would be made later.
Abdallah, who is in prison, is refusing to give evidence to the Manchester Arena Inquiry even though he has been described as having had a significant relationship with Abedi.
Abedi detonated a homemade device in the foyer of Manchester Arena as people left a concert on 22 May 2017, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds more.
The families of those who died have been told there are medical reasons why Abdallah cannot be forced to give evidence, but they want to see the reasons for themselves.
After giving a "no comment" interview to lawyers before the inquiry began, forensic psychiatrist Dr John Kent was instructed to interview Abdallah in prison but he refused and instead was interviewed by a psychiatrist suggested by his legal team, Dr Richard Latham, whose report was then reviewed by Dr Kent.
Dr Latham's report concluded Abdallah was unfit to give evidence and making him do so could risk self-harm.
Abdallah wants only a "gist" of both reports to be disclosed and his lawyers on Tuesday applied for the full report to be withheld.
Abdallah was jailed in 2016 after being found guilty of helping people travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group and was returned to prison in January, a few weeks after being released on licence.
The bomb was detonated at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people
The inquiry heard he has cited a privilege against self-incrimination as a reason to refuse to questions from the inquiry.
Rajiv Menon QC told the inquiry that Abdallah was "not involved in any way" in the attack.
"He did not groom or radicalise Salman Abedi," he said.
"He had no knowledge whatsoever of the planning and preparation of the terrorist attack at Manchester Arena.
"He heard about the attack for the very first time in prison after it had been reported in the press. He is unfit to give evidence."
He said his client did not believe he would be treated fairly by the inquiry, adding that he had been legally advised "in the strongest possible terms" to exercise his right to silence.
Pete Weatherby QC, representing some of the families, said Abdallah had crucial evidence to give the inquiry about the radicalisation of Abedi and "whether the plot went further than the Abedi brothers themselves".
He said Abdallah was an "important" witness who should be called to give evidence and the medical reports were "central" to whether he should be excused from going into the witness box.
The inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders will publish his decision on whether the reports should be disclosed at a later date to be confirmed.
Any argument about whether Abdallah will be called as a witness to the inquiry will take place at a later date.
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Covid: Dominic Cummings defends polling contract - BBC News
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2021-02-16
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The PM's ex-adviser says he did not recommend Public First because he is friends with its founders.
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UK Politics
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The government's decision to hire a firm with links to the PM's ex-chief adviser Dominic Cummings has been challenged at the High Court.
Campaign group The Good Law Project has complained of "apparent bias" in the decision to recruit Public First for Covid-19 opinion polling last year.
During a hearing on Monday, the group's lawyer argued emergency rules used to award the work should not have applied.
But Mr Cummings said the £540,000 contract had been "entirely justified".
In a written statement, he said although he was "friends" with the company's founding directors, he had not recommended them for that reason.
He added there had been "no time" to follow usual procurement rules, and the work was "crucial" to the government's early pandemic response.
Public First was founded by James Frayne and Rachel Wolf, whom Mr Cummings said he knew from previous roles both inside and outside government.
According to a November report into Covid-19 contracts by the National Audit Office, it was initially hired "on an informal basis" in March 2020 to do focus group research.
The spending watchdog added the company was then given a "retrospective contract" in June, covering work from March and "potential future work".
The Cabinet Office's decision to award the work under emergency tendering rules is subject to a legal challenge from The Good Law Project.
At a High Court hearing on Monday, the group's lawyer Jason Coppel QC told judge Mrs Justice O'Farrell that "no other provider was considered" for the work.
He added that although other firms already working for the government had been able to bid, "no thought was given to any other provider because Dominic Cummings wanted Public First to have the contract".
Arguing that rules allowing the "direct award" of contracts did not apply, he added awarding the contract without open competition had not been "strictly necessary".
Mr Cummings, who was working as Boris Johnson's senior adviser at the time the work was awarded, did not give evidence in person during the hearing.
But in a written statement, he defended his decision to recommend the firm for the work.
He said he was friends with both Mr Frayne and Ms Wolf, as well as ex-civil servant Gabriel Milland, who is also a partner at Public First.
He said he had not met Mr Frayne since 2016, and had "no involvement" in the "contractual arrangements" with the firm.
"Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing," he added.
He said he had recommended the firm because he knew the company was "very good" at running focus groups, and he could "rely on them to make an extra effort".
Although he added he was not allowed to "direct" civil servants, he said he expected Public First to be hired "as a result of my suggestion," adding that he was an "expert in the interaction between policy, mass communication and focus groups".
"Civil servants could have disagreed and did disagree with my suggestions all the time, and my response depends on my expertise of the matter in hand and other circumstances."
"On this occasion, I was an expert," he added.
Mr Cummings said the company was brought in to inform government communication during the pandemic.
Arguing for the legal challenge to be dismissed, lawyers for the Cabinet Office told the judge Mr Cummings made a recommendation, not a decision, on awarding the work.
Representing the Cabinet Office, Michael Bowsher QC said Mr Frayne and Ms Wolf had "professional and personal connections" with Mr Cummings, as well as Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove.
But it was "emphatically denied" that there was "any bias, or apparent bias" in the award of the work to Public First, he added.
He said: "At a time of national emergency Dominic Cummings recommended a firm he knew could get the job done."
He added Mr Gove did not have any involvement in the decision or influence it in any way.
In an outline argument earlier this month, government lawyers said it was "clear" that the conditions for allowing emergency procurement rules to apply had been met.
They said the research Public First had been hired to do was required "immediately," and there was "no time to conduct even an accelerated procurement exercise".
Former Labour MP Natascha Engel, who is now a partner at Public First, defended the firm's involvement.
Speaking after the hearing, she said: "Given James Frayne hasn't spoken to Dominic Cummings in several years and neither he nor Rachel Wolf spoke to Dominic Cummings or Michael Gove about Covid research, the idea this was some sort of quiet arrangement between friends is clearly wrong."
"Everyone in government knows which research agencies can deliver in a crisis, and it's no surprise Public First was chosen given our record."
Having heard rival arguments, Mrs Justice O'Farrell said she would deliver a ruling on a date to be fixed.
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Covid: Matt Hancock acted unlawfully over pandemic contracts - BBC News
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2021-02-20
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The health secretary breached his "legal obligation" to publish details of deals, the High Court rules.
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UK
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Matt Hancock is the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Matt Hancock acted unlawfully when his department did not reveal details of contracts it had signed during the Covid pandemic, a court has ruled.
A judge said the health secretary had "breached his legal obligation" by not publishing details within 30 days of contracts being signed.
The public had a right to know where the "vast" amounts spent had gone and how contracts were awarded, he added.
The government said it fully recognised the "importance of transparency".
But Labour claimed the government's awarding of contracts was "plagued by a lack of transparency, cronyism and waste".
The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has struck deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds during the coronavirus pandemic.
Campaign group the Good Law Project and three MPs - Labour's Debbie Abrahams, Green Caroline Lucas and Lib Dem Layla Moran - took legal action against the department over its "wholesale failure" to disclose details of the contracts agreed.
Under the law, the government is required to publish a "contract award notice" within 30 days of the awarding any contracts for public goods or services worth more than £120,000.
The Good Law Project also claimed that the government breached its own transparency policy, which requires the publication of details of public contracts worth more than £10,000.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Chamberlain said: "There is now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the secretary of state breached his legal obligation to publish contract award notices within 30 days of the award of contracts.
"There is also no dispute that the secretary of state failed to publish redacted contracts in accordance with the transparency policy."
The judge said the health secretary had spent "vast quantities" of public money on Covid-related goods and services during 2020.
"The public were entitled see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded," he added.
He said this was important so that competitors of those awarded contracts could understand whether the obligations had been breached.
The judge also said publishing the details allowed bodies such as the National Audit Office, as well as Parliament and the public, to "scrutinise and ask questions about this expenditure".
Mr Justice Chamberlain acknowledged that the situation faced by the DHSC during the first few months of the pandemic had been "unprecedented".
He said it was "understandable that attention was focused on procuring what was thought necessary to save lives".
But he added that the DHSC's "historic failure" to publish details of contracts awarded during the pandemic was "an excuse, not a justification".
However, the judge dismissed the Good Law Project's argument that there had been a department-wide "policy of de-prioritising compliance" with the law and guidance.
"This judgement is a victory for all of us concerned with proper governance and proof of the power of litigation to hold government to account," the Good Law Project said in a statement.
"But there is still a long way to go before the government's house is in order."
The DHSC said the government had been "working tirelessly" to deliver what was needed to protect health and social care staff during the pandemic.
"This has often meant having to award contracts at speed to secure the vital supplies required to protect NHS workers and the public."
A spokeswoman added: "We fully recognise the importance of transparency in the award of public contracts and continue to publish information about contracts awarded as soon as possible."
For Labour, shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves called the judgement "troubling and unsurprising, and a perfect example of how this government believes it is one rule for them another for the rest of us".
She added: "This government's contracting has been plagued by a lack of transparency, cronyism and waste and they must take urgent steps to address this now - by winding down emergency procurement, urgently releasing details of the VIP fast lane, and publishing all outstanding contracts by the end of the month."
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Mandelson urges Starmer to begin Labour policy review - BBC News
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2021-03-21
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The former cabinet minister says the Labour leader still has the "2019 manifesto round his neck".
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UK Politics
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The former cabinet minister Lord Mandelson, a key architect of New Labour, is urging Sir Keir Starmer to begin a review of the party's policies.
The Labour peer said Sir Keir needed to start the process as "he still has the 2019 manifesto around his neck".
The manifesto, written under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, advocated nationalisation of key industries.
In the 2019 general election, Labour suffered its worst election result since 1935.
The party won 203 seats, and saw its vote share fall by eight points.
Lord Mandelson said "it would be wrong to make too many specific commitments early in the parliament", but his party needed polices which were "radical, credible, affordable".
His comments come as Sir Keir's first anniversary as Labour leader approaches next month.
When Lord Mandelson was Labour's director of communications, a previous Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, launched a two-year review in 1987.
It led to the party ditching its support for unilateral disarmament.
Neil Kinnock, pictured at a Sheffield rally in 1992, led Labour in the general election that year
Lord Mandelson was instrumental in changing Labour's image and in moving its policy offer towards the centre ground.
He has been talking to members of Sir Keir Starmer's team who want to chart a route from opposition to government.
Lord Mandelson said Sir Keir "radiates competence" and praised his stance in some of the internal battles during his first year as Labour leader.
He said he had shown courage by suspending Jeremy Corbyn but that his leadership will be "tested and tested again" and he had to be willing to take "a lot more risk".
Lord Mandelson argued that the Covid crisis had overshadowed normal politics.
He said: "Covid eclipsed everything else. Without it, Keir would have been able to do more in day-to-day politics. We have lived through abnormal times, and although he has been tested by it, there is clearly a lot more to do.
"He needs to now pick up speed and work out a real argument and point of difference with the government"
He played down expectations for the forthcoming local elections in England adding: "I am not expecting a seismic bounce as people are still focussed on putting Covid behind us."
But he remained optimistic for the party's future, describing Sir Keir as "a great asset" and said under his leadership Labour is "now firmly back in the ring".
Many on Labour's Left are concerned that the party will try to move away from some of the radical policies which were adopted under Jeremy Corbyn who remains suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party.
The former MP Laura Smith, who lost her Crewe and Nantwich seat in 2019, told the BBC she blamed Brexit, rather than the party's last manifesto, for the election defeat.
She argued it would be wrong to move away from policies that were a clear alternative to those offered by the government.
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Toronto van attack: Minassian guilty of killing 10 people - BBC News
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2021-03-03
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A judge ruled against Alek Minassian, whose lawyers said he was not criminally responsible due to autism.
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US & Canada
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A Canadian man who killed 10 people by ploughing a van into pedestrians in Toronto has been found guilty on all 26 charges related to the 2018 attack.
Alek Minassian had admitted the attack, but his lawyers argued he was not criminally responsible due to his autism spectrum disorder.
Justice Anne Malloy has dismissed this claim, saying the attack was the "act of a reasoning mind".
Minassian faced 10 charges of murder and 16 charges of attempted murder.
Throughout the ruling, Justice Malloy refused to name the attacker, 28, referring to him instead as John Doe, and said she would not give him the notoriety "he sought from the start".
Ms Malloy accepted his diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but ruled that he was capable of understanding his actions on April 2018 were both legally and morally wrong.
At trial, defence lawyer Boris Bytensky said ASD had left his client without the ability to develop empathy, saying in closing arguments the attacker had no conception of the damage his actions caused.
On Wednesday, Justice Malloy rejected this line of argument.
"Lack of empathy for the suffering of victims, even an incapacity to empathise for whatever reason, does not constitute a defence," she said.
Police arrested Alek Minassian within half an hour of the attack
Minassian rented the van some three weeks before he used it as a weapon on a major Toronto street. He told investigators he had set out to kill as many people as possible and that he drew inspiration from the misogynistic "incel" movement of mostly online groups of young men who blame their lack of sexual activity on women.
Asked by investigators how he felt about the harm he had caused, the attacker replied: "I feel like I accomplished my mission".
Witnesses described seeing a white van mount the pavement on Toronto's busy Yonge Street on 23 April 2018 and run down pedestrians. Victims of the attack ranged in age from 22 to 94.
Delivering the verdict on Wednesday, Justice Malloy said the killer had selected the van with a particular goal in mind - picking a vehicle small enough to be mobile, but large enough to inflict "maximum damage".
Minassian was arrested shortly after crashing the van near the scene of the attack.
His victims included 80-year-old grandmother Dorothy Sewell, 45-year-old single mother Renuka Amarasinghe and Ji Hun Kim, 22, a student from South Korea.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. People gather the day after the attack to remember the victims
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Budget: Rishi Sunak set to spend but hopes to return to caution soon - BBC News
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2021-03-03
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The chancellor won't go for austerity in the Budget, but what path can he set for the economy?
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UK Politics
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The never knowingly under-hyped Rishi Sunak will give what he has already described as a "Budget like no other".
The Covid crisis has certainly led him to do things that no other Conservative chancellor has.
The government shut down much of the economy, meaning shops were shuttered, tills were empty, incomes collapsed.
It filled much of the gap with an alphabet soup of what the Treasury would drily term "interventions" - CBILS, CJRS, SEISS, the CCFF, and so on - essentially different ways of filling people's pockets with enormous amounts of cash in a time of crisis.
Alongside that there have been the huge costs of PPE, the test-and-trace programme and vaccines.
Some people, some of the self-employed for example, have not been caught by the safety net stitched together at high speed.
But there is no doubt that it has made a huge difference in the last year. One senior minister, perhaps not that modestly, suggests: "One day we will be through this, and we will look back and realise that we prevented mass unemployment."
There was a feeling at the start of the pandemic that there was no choice. And, with the country still in lockdown, that logic persists.
So, however the chancellor presents his decisions on Wednesday, extending emergency support is a political no-brainer, over which he has simply had not much choice.
And this time, perhaps, he has to get out ahead of the argument, rather than risk being dragged there as schemes get close to their end dates.
George Osborne was a rather different chancellor, at a rather different time
Mr Sunak's warm-up slogan is "We're using the full measure of our fiscal firepower to protect the jobs and livelihoods of the British people".
The Budget won't just be about carrying on the emergency support, however, with a hefty dollop of Brand Sunak, with a TV press conference and sofa chat on Wednesday evening, on top of the traditional red box doorstep and green bench moments.
It will also be about how he hopes to return the Tories to their more traditional trademark - being careful with the country's cash.
There won't be a return to the kind of political argument over the deficit and the debate that David Cameron and George Osborne dominated in the early part of the last decade.
As one Treasury minister said: "Austerity? You just can't do it now." That's partly because the Tories made lots of pricey commitments in their election manifesto, and partly because Boris Johnson is, for a Conservative, a spender not a saver (even hypothetical bridges don't come cheap).
But the economic conversation is different this time. Interest rates are rock-bottom. Much of the debt the government has run up has been bought by the Bank of England.
And governments around the world have been spending and borrowing eye-watering amounts to get through this emergency. There's a really good explanation of how it all works here.
In short, there isn't unbearable pressure on the chancellor to start saying how, and when, he'll start trying to close the gap between what the government's been spending, and what it takes into its coffers.
And no-one, not even the self-described hawk former Chancellor Lord Hammond, thinks that the overall debt will be paid off for decades.
But, conscious of the Tory trademark, Mr Sunak will start talking about how to start balancing the books too.
There has been a lot of speculation (it's the Budget) about raising taxes, and in particular corporation tax - the tax firms pay on their profits.
That's notable because it would be a reversal of one of his predecessor Mr Osborne's flagship policies.
But also he would face a lot of opposition in his party, and outside, not just on the principle of raising taxes on business from Conservatives, but for doing so during what is still a huge economic emergency.
One prominent economist even told me it was "economically bonkers" to consider raising taxes now, in the hope of then cutting them in a couple of years.
It is indeed, despite public protestations that he hasn't said this to his MPs, at least part of the Treasury's calculation that it would be better to increase taxes soon, to ensure that 2024's is a tax-cutting, pre-election Budget.
One Treasury minister suggests that raising taxes, while also looking like you are concerned with balancing the books in the long term, neutralises Labour: "If we take all the New Labour clothes, where do they go?"
Labour's angst over what to tax and when in the last few days bears some of that out.
But, as with any Budget, the calculations are not just for the carefully choreographed "grid" of announcements and speculation in the run-up to the moment itself, not even for the speech itself and the spreadsheets that get pored over in the hours after, but for setting a path, political and economic, for months - and years - to come.
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BBC Three will return to TV screens after six-year break - BBC News
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2021-03-03
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The channel will make a comeback, after scoring hits with Normal People and Fleabag online.
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Entertainment & Arts
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BBC Three is set to return as a TV channel
BBC Three will return as a fully-fledged TV channel in January 2022, six years after it moved online.
The channel has since been responsible for major hits including Fleabag, Normal People and Killing Eve - prompting calls for its resurrection.
Last year, BBC research concluded there was a "strong case" for it to come back as a regular TV channel, focusing on younger audiences.
MP Julian Knight said the move showed the BBC had "failed" those viewers.
"I question whether putting the clock back five years is the right way to win over 18-35s," said Mr Knight, who chairs the select committee for the department for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS).
"The BBC needs to back success and make sure its programmes reach as many young people as possible wherever they live in the UK," said the BBC's chief content officer, Charlotte Moore.
"So regardless of the debates about the past, we want to give BBC Three its own broadcast channel again."
As announced in the BBC's Annual Plan last year, the channel's budget will also be doubled over the next two years - a decision that was also criticised by Mr Knight, who accused the BBC of putting extra investment into programmes while "those over 75 are being chased to pay up for their TV licences".
The BBC ended the provision of free TV licences for most over-75s last year, after the government decided to stop paying for the benefit.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK, currently in its second season, has proved a runaway success
When it returns, BBC Three will be targeted at audiences aged 16-34, broadcasting from 19:00 to 04:00 each day.
As a result, CBBC's broadcast hours will revert to closing at 19:00 - as was the case before 2016. It currently runs until 21:00.
The move will still need approval from media regulator Ofcom before it can go ahead.
Seven years ago the BBC announced that BBC Three would become digital only. The main reason given was the need to save money. The public narrative was: Young audiences congregate online rather than watch linear TV, so there's no point providing a linear service.
Since then, three things have happened. The flight of young audiences to digital platforms, and away from scheduled TV, has accelerated. BBC Three has produced a big range of huge, global hits. And the pressure on the BBC, not least from Ofcom, to prove that it still appeals to young people has grown sharply.
This last point is critical. The BBC commissioned research showing that there is still a market of young people - albeit smaller than years ago - on linear platforms. Given the success of the shows commissioned by BBC Three, the feeling at the top of the organisation was that putting them back on a linear platform would create upside in terms of audience numbers, for relatively low cost.
Despite the need for more savings today, that cost can be justified because when the BBC negotiates with the government over the future of the licence fee, it needs the strongest possible argument on its relevance and universal appeal.
BBC Three was originally taken off air in March 2016. The corporation said the move would save £30m a year, helping it to reduce its spending after cuts imposed by the government in 2010.
Much of the budget was reallocated to fund drama on BBC One, while BBC Three was expected to target younger audiences online.
But the plans caused controversy, prompting the Save BBC Three campaign which saw more than 300,000 people sign a petition to keep it on air.
Journalist and founder of the campaign Jono Read said the channel's return was "great news".
"It became clear that the decision to to take it off air was a counter-productive move that bosses had taken to sacrifice the station under the guise of budget cuts, and one that was deeply unpopular with its audience.
"Nonetheless the online move has shown real potential for BBC Three and I think it will thrive when it is once again given the chance to combine traditional and new media when it returns to TV in 2022", he says.
Many of BBC Three's commissions have ended up on linear TV, with shows like Killing Eve and Fleabag attracting huge audiences on BBC One.
Normal People, about the tangled love lives of two Irish teenagers, also became the breakout hit of the first lockdown. It was requested on the BBC iPlayer 62.7 million times last year, more than any other programme.
Other hit shows on the channel include Man Like Mobeen, This Country, Ru Paul's Drag Race UK and the Jesy Nelson documentary Odd One Out.
In its online incarnation, BBC Three has won a raft of awards, including RTS Channel of the Year in 2017 and Digital Channel of the Year 2019 at the Edinburgh TV Festival. It is currently Broadcast Digital Channel of the Year.
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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Johnson: Defence reforms 'will help make UK match-fit' - BBC News
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2021-03-17
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Boris Johnson promises more investment and jobs ahead of his long-awaited update on the military.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson has promised to help make the UK "match-fit" when he unveils his plan for modernising the armed forces and foreign policy.
The prime minister said there would be "more investment" in infrastructure and skills around the country.
He also announced that 500 Foreign Office jobs would be moving from London to East Kilbride.
The government publishes its Integrated Review of the UK's defence and foreign relations capabilities on Tuesday.
But a group of MPs has warned that "general ineptitude" over the last 20 years has undermined attempts to re-equip the Army.
The Integrated Review, first announced in 2019, will set out the UK's defence and foreign affairs priorities for the next decade or so, during which cyber warfare in particular is expected to become a greater threat.
Some details are being pre-released, including the plan to move 500 jobs to the Foreign Office's East Kilbride hub - which follows news that the Cabinet Office will transfer at least 500 civil servants to nearby Glasgow by 2024.
The government has promised "further commitments" to "strengthening the UK's core industrial base" in the Integrated Review, including building ships in Scotland and armoured vehicles in Wales.
There will also be a focus on lithium mining in Cornwall and manufacturing satellites in Northern Ireland, it added.
The Integrated Review is billed as the most radical reassessment of Britain's place in the world since the end of the Cold War.
But the prime minister wants the new strategy to make a difference at home as well as abroad. He is promising new investment in domestic industries such as defence, science and technology.
And, crucially, he argues that this will provide jobs across the United Kingdom.
Ministers argue it's only by combining the resources of the union that the UK is able to respond to global challenges and project its influence abroad.
The test will be whether that argument is accepted by those calling for a fresh independence referendum in Scotland.
Mr Johnson said: "The foundation of our foreign policy is who we are as a country: our values, our strengths and - most importantly - our people.
"So I am determined to ensure we have a foreign policy that delivers for those people."
He added that the UK's "international ambitions must start at home", with investment in regional industry "ensuring the UK is on the cutting-edge of innovation and creating an entire country that is match-fit for a more competitive world".
The government has said "further jobs" will be created outside London by the establishment of the National Cyber Force HQ in the North of England.
It has also promised an increase in spending on defence of 2.6% above the rate of inflation between 2019/20 and 2020/21, with the overall figure expected to rise to £41.5bn during this time.
From 2010 to 2017, annual defence spending fell by £6.6bn in real terms, but, since then, it has increased by £3bn in real terms.
A report by the Commons Defence Committee, published on Sunday, warned that the Army was at "serious risk" of being outmatched by the UK's adversaries.
It described efforts to modernise its fleet of armoured fighting vehicles as "woeful" and criticised what it called "bureaucratic procrastination" and "general ineptitude" over the past two decades.
In a speech last month, Labour's shadow defence secretary, John Healey, said the Integrated Review should "refocus our defence efforts on where the threats are".
He added that unless it confirmed a reduction in potential dangers to the UK, it would be "very hard to accept the case for reducing the strength of our full-time forces".
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Rangers' Premiership win: 'Anger' over celebrating Rangers fans - BBC News
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2021-03-07
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Nicola Sturgeon joins criticism of crowds who gathered to celebrate Rangers' Premiership win.
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Glasgow & West Scotland
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Crowds gathered in George Square to celebrate Rangers winning the Scottish Premiership
Police say arrests were made and fines issued after crowds of fans gathered to celebrate Rangers winning the Scottish Premiership.
Large numbers of supporters made their way to Ibrox Stadium and Glasgow's George Square to mark the achievement despite warnings to stay at home.
Nicola Sturgeon said the crowds were "infuriating and disgraceful" and could delay the end of the Covid lockdown.
Rangers took the title after Celtic failed to beat Dundee United.
The result gave Rangers an unassailable 20-point lead and the title for the first time in 10 years.
Under current guidance, public gatherings are banned and a maximum of two people from two households are allowed to meet outdoors.
Football games are taking place behind closed doors with no fans in the stadium.
However, following Sunday's game, crowds of fans took to the streets, as some let off flares while others chanted and waved flags outside the club ground. In Glasgow city centre fans flocked to George Square to celebrate being crowned Scottish champions.
In a tweet, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon congratulated Rangers on the title win, but added: "Gathering in crowds just now risks lives, and could delay exit from lockdown for everyone else."
"If those gathering care at all about the safety of others & the country, they will go home," she said.
In a later tweet she said: "I share folks' anger at this."
She added it was "infuriating and disgraceful" to see the crowds "risk our progress" after everyone complying with lockdown rules has made "so many sacrifices".
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Ch Supt Mark Sutherland said officers attended gatherings at both George Square and outside Ibrox stadium.
Arrests were made and fixed penalty notices issued for breaches of the Covid restrictions, disorder incidents and the use of pyrotechnic devices, he added.
In a statement published shortly before 21:00, he urged fans to make their way home.
The PA news agency reported that by 21:30 police officers had encircled a depleting group of fans at the base of the Scott Monument in George Square.
Last May thousands of Liverpool fans flouted social distancing guidelines and gathered outside Anfield to celebrate the club's first Premier league title in 30 years.
And in November hundreds of Celtic supporters defied the level four restrictions and converged on Celtic Park to call for the removal of the club's then manager Neil Lennon.
David Hamilton, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, said he was "appalled" by the scenes.
He also told the BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that officers, many of whom have not been vaccinated, were put in "jeopardy" by the supporters' actions.
Mr Hamilton said he understood why people were frustrated by the Police Scotland response but said that was an operational matter for the force, which would have considered factors such as wider public order issues and road safety.
He highlighted that it can take up to 20 minutes to issue a fixed penalty fine for breaches of the Covid restrictions.
Mr Hamilton said: "If we were to ticket everybody in George Square yesterday we would still be doing it just now."
But he also criticised the club for being "silent" and failing to address the mass gatherings on its social media accounts.
He added: "There is a responsibility to the club here. It should not take the government to have to ask the club to tell people to go home.
"That should have been something the club should have taken on themselves proactively."
The club tweeted or retweeted more than 50 times in the hours after they were crowned champions but did not address the mass gathering of fans.
Social psychology expert Prof Stephen Reicher said the celebrations were "completely predictable" and "in some ways encouraged".
The St Andrews University academic said it was "disappointing that the club did not have a dialogue with the fans about how one can celebrate but in ways that are safe, in ways that don't endanger the public, that don't endanger and, indeed, don't endanger Scottish football".
He warned that it undermined the argument for safely reopening mass events including the Euros championship in Scotland.
Glasgow Kelvin MSP Sandra White described the celebrations as "absolute chaos" and questioned what plans were in place to prevent mass gatherings.
She told Good Morning Scotland: "They [the fans] should never have been allowed to leave Ibrox and march into the city centre in large numbers. It could have been stopped there and then.
"People have lost loved ones and people can't visit loved ones and yet this is being facilitated."
Rangers fans in Northern Ireland also breached lockdown rules, with a large crowd gathering on Belfast's Shankill Road to celebrate on Sunday evening.
Police Service Northern Ireland urged people to celebrate "at home safely and within the current health regulations".
Earlier on Sunday Scotland's justice secretary urged fans not to put lives at risk by flouting lockdown rules.
Humza Yousaf also warned that Uefa would be paying "close attention" in anticipation of the European Championships coming to Scotland.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'From 10 years of misery to this... bouncing' - Rangers fans celebrate at Ibrox
Following their win, some Rangers players made their way to the fence to celebrate in sight of fans outside.
Speaking on BBC Scotland's Sunday Show, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross called the actions of fans outside Ibrox "completely wrong".
He added: "We've all done so much to get the virus rates down.
"I understand passions run high with football fans, but it clearly didn't match what we expect people to do during a Covid period, while many people still can't even leave their homes."
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PM's vaccines comments set tongues wagging - BBC News
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2021-03-25
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But Boris Johnson's remarks on "greed" and "capitalism" were accidental, MPs say.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson had his first jab a few days ago
After a day of silence and song, candles and condolence, when the country stopped to try to absorb the enormity of what's happened this last year, a more familiar, and easy-to-digest political fuss emerged.
After a press conference in Downing Street where, alongside the chief medics, the prime minister was more open, in tone at least, about the things that might have gone wrong in the last year, he went off to address a group of Tory MPs in private, on Zoom, in the Cabinet Room.
The chief whip was alongside him, I'm told, having his takeaway sandwich. (He also happens to be a farmer - but more of that later.)
With an important vote on Thursday that will extend the government's powers during the coronavirus crisis, you might have expected that the PM would have been verbally pushed and shoved a little by some of his backbenchers, frustrated by the pace of easing restrictions.
In actual fact, what has got tongues wagging was remarks that Boris Johnson made about the UK's success with vaccines, first reported in the Sun newspaper.
Discussing why the programme was doing so well, he told colleagues it was down to "greed" and "capitalism".
Several of those present have told me he quickly realised his words could be taken out of context and urged MPs to "remove that comment from your collective memory".
He then went on to spend much of the meeting repeatedly praising AstraZeneca, pointing out that it was providing the vaccine at cost.
One MP said: "I have never seen anyone withdraw something so fast."
Another of those present told me the prime minister's "greed" comments had been intended to poke fun at the chief whip, who was gobbling his cheese and pickle while sitting next to him.
Believe it or not, the party boss of discipline, Mark Spencer, has been christened with the nickname "Big Farmer", like "Big Pharma" - the pharmaceutical companies.
And it's vehemently denied that the PM's comments were designed to stir up anything in the row with the EU.
Downing Street didn't want to comment and sources are adamant that Mr Johnson was not intending to be critical of the pharmaceutical companies in any way.
The UK government has no intention of stirring up a row with the EU over vaccines
The government has no desire to exacerbate the argument between the EU and AstraZeneca over vaccines.
With the notable exception of the Foreign Secretary's remarks last week in response to the EU Commission, ministers have been at pains to keep things calm.
The prime minister has been trying to prevent a dramatic bust-up in phone calls to EU leaders before their summit on Thursday.
And officials on both sides have been talking to see if any accommodations can be made.
But while Mr Johnson's words may have been intended as a friendly jibe at a colleague, tensions are high, and any even accidental noises off are unlikely to help.
PS A government source stressed on Wednesday morning that the PM was not talking about the UK vaccine programme in general. It's unusual to get any comment on private MPs' meetings, and shows how sensitive this all is.
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Nicola Sturgeon cleared of breaching ministerial code over Alex Salmond saga - BBC News
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2021-03-22
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An independent report says the first minister's involvement in the Alex Salmond saga did not break the rules.
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Scotland politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon spoke of her relief after the inquiry cleared her of wrongdoing
Nicola Sturgeon has been cleared of breaching the ministerial code over her involvement in the Alex Salmond saga.
An independent inquiry by senior Irish lawyer James Hamilton had been examining whether the first minister misled the Scottish Parliament over what she knew and when.
His report said Ms Sturgeon had given an "incomplete narrative of events" to MSPs.
But he said this was a "genuine failure of recollection" and not deliberate.
Mr Hamilton said he was therefore of the opinion that Ms Sturgeon had not breached any of the provisions of the code.
The code sets out the standards expected of Scottish government ministers, and states that anyone who deliberately misleads Holyrood would be expected to resign.
Mr Hamilton concluded in his report, some parts of which were heavily redacted, that Ms Sturgeon did not breach the ministerial code in respect of any of the four issues he considered.
These included allegations that Ms Sturgeon had failed to record a series of meetings and telephone discussions with Mr Salmond and others in 2018.
Mr Hamilton concluded that the meetings were government business - contrary to Ms Sturgeon's claims that they were a party matter - but accepted her reasoning that "it would have been impossible to record such meetings or discussions without a risk of prejudicing the proceedings or interfering with their confidentiality".
He also looked at whether the first minister "may have attempted to influence the conduct of the investigation" into the harassment complaints made against Mr Salmond, her predecessor as first minister and SNP leader.
The lawyer said the key point was that Ms Sturgeon had not intervened, and said that had Mr Salmond really believed she had agreed to it during a meeting on 2 April 2018 then, "one might have expected him to follow it up and to press home his advantage" - but that no further contact was made for three weeks.
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond have been embroiled in an increasingly bitter war of words over the affair
The third issue centred on whether Ms Sturgeon misled the Scottish Parliament in relation to the meetings in 2018.
The first minister insisted she had first learned of the complaints from Mr Salmond at her home on 2 April, but later said she had had "forgotten" about a meeting with his former chief of staff four days earlier, on 29 March.
Mr Hamilton said it was "regrettable" that Ms Sturgeon had not told MSPs about this meeting, but that he found it "difficult to think of any convincing reason" for her to deliberately conceal it.
He said she had given parliament "an incomplete narrative of events", but added: "I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate."
The fourth ground of investigation alleged that Ms Sturgeon was in breach of her duty to comply with the law in relation to Mr Salmond's successful legal challenge against the Scottish government.
Mr Salmond has pointed to external legal advice warning that the government may be at risk of losing the case as early as October 2018, but ministers decided to fight on until January 2019 - and ultimately had to pay Mr Salmond more than £500,000 in legal costs.
Mr Salmond was later cleared of 13 charges of sexual assault against nine women after a separate High Court trial in March of last year.
Mr Hamilton said Ms Sturgeon had relied on advice from the law officers, as she was "fully entitled" to do, and said Mr Salmond "appears to be under the misapprehension that the government is under a duty to withdraw a case if advised that there is less than an evens chance of winning".
The lawyer's 61-page report concluded: "I am of the opinion that the first minister did not breach the provisions of the ministerial code in respect of any of these matters."
Mr Hamilton is a former head of Ireland's prosecution service and the Scottish government's independent advisor on the ministerial code
Ms Sturgeon welcomed the findings, and said she had "sought at every stage in this issue to act with integrity and in the public interest".
She added: "As I have previously made clear, I did not consider that I had broken the code, but these findings are official, definitive and independent adjudication of that."
Ms Sturgeon again apologised to the women who made the complaints, saying they had been let down by the government.
But she said: "I was determined at the time these complaints emerged that they should not be swept under the carpet, and that I would not intervene in the process."
The first minister also called on opposition parties to respect the outcome of Mr Hamilton's inquiry, and said she would continue to devote "all of my time and energy to leading Scotland and to helping the country through the pandemic".
James Hamilton's conclusions are undoubtedly a significant boost for the first minister and her party.
In two days, the starting gun will be fired on the Scottish election campaign.
Ms Sturgeon will go into it saying her independent advisor cleared her. Her team see it as "complete vindication".
Remember there is another report to be published tomorrow morning, by the Holyrood committee.
We know a majority of the committee believe Ms Sturgeon misled them in her evidence - so the issue of trust will no doubt continue to be part of the election campaign.
But Team Sturgeon is very happy tonight - going into an election campaign which could prove very important in determining whether there is another independence referendum.
The Scottish Conservatives plan to hold a vote of no confidence in the first minister on Tuesday afternoon.
But it looks doomed to fail after the Scottish Greens said they would not support it on the basis that "the Tories have shown that they have no interest in establishing the truth."
Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the first minister had been "given a pass" by Mr Hamilton because he had judged that her failure of recollection was not deliberate.
Mr Ross said: "I respect Mr Hamilton and his judgement but we cannot agree with that assessment. Nicola Sturgeon did not suddenly turn forgetful.
"She is not free and clear. The first minister promised to respect the decisions of both inquiry reports, not to pick and choose which one suits her and try to discredit the other.
"This report does not change the overwhelming evidence that Nicola Sturgeon misled parliament, her government badly let women down and wasted more than £500,000 of taxpayers' money."
A separate report by a cross-party committee of MSPs that has been examining the government's botched handling of the complaints against Mr Salmond is expected to be published on Tuesday morning.
Details of the report that were leaked last week said that members voted by five to four that Ms Sturgeon had misled its inquiry during a marathon evidence session earlier this month.
It is also expected to be critical of the government's handling of the complaints against Mr Salmond.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said his party had been clear that it would not prejudge the outcome of the inquiry, and would now await the findings of the parliamentary committee.
Mr Sarwar said it was clear that the saga had deeply damaged public trust in politics at a time of national crisis, and that there were "absolutely no winners today"
He added: "At the heart of this are two women who have been badly let down by the government, and it remains the case that nobody has taken responsibility."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said Ms Sturgeon's "errors of judgement still make resignation a live consideration".
Nicola Sturgeon could not have hoped for a better outcome from this inquiry.
She effectively placed her reputation and political future in the hands of James Hamilton and he has cleared her of acting improperly. She has no intention of resigning.
That will not stop the Conservatives trying to force her out in a vote of no confidence on Tuesday - but that's a vote the first minister is expected to win with help from the Greens.
She faces further criticism in the separate Holyrood inquiry report, also due on Tuesday - with the opposition majority on that committee deciding she misled them.
Ms Sturgeon rejects that conclusion as partisan - which is how some see the decision of SNP members of the committee not to endorse it.
The arguments will continue into the Holyrood election campaign. The ultimate verdict on the Scottish government's handling of harassment complaints and its wider record will be made by Scottish voters.
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A big week ahead for Nicola Sturgeon - BBC News
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2021-03-22
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The findings of two investigations are to be published which could decide the political future of the first minister.
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Scotland politics
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The spotlight is firmly on Nicola Sturgeon. With just days to go before the Holyrood election campaign, Scotland's first minister will learn on Monday whether an independent review has found she broke the rules of her office.
That's not this week's menu in the Holyrood canteen but an unofficial summary of the possible outcomes of the independent inquiry upon which Nicola Sturgeon's political future depends.
The inquiry by Ireland's former chief prosecutor, James Hamilton, is to decide whether or not the first minister misled parliament or otherwise broke conduct rules for ministers.
It's his job to say if there has been a breach of the ministerial code, what punishment or remedy - if any - should apply and what changes might be needed to the code itself.
He has big calls to make just days before the start of a Holyrood election campaign.
In referring herself to Mr Hamilton for investigation, Nicola Sturgeon has effectively placed her reputation and political future in his hands. His conclusions cannot be easily dismissed or ignored.
If he decides she has broken the code by knowingly misleading parliament, for instance, she would be toast. That is to say, she would be expected to resign as first minister.
Alternatively, if he decides she had done her best in a difficult situation and does not have a serious case to answer, Nicola Sturgeon would, in effect, be cleared.
James Hamilton served as Irish Director of Public Prosecutions until 2011
In judging the competing claims of Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and their respective supporters Mr Hamilton may find it difficult to reach such a clear cut conclusion.
That leaves a great deal of scope for fudge - a blend of criticism for Nicola Sturgeon's opponents to use against her and caveat for her to deploy in her defence.
That, to many observers, seems like a likely outcome.
We know that when Nicola Sturgeon told parliament she first heard about the investigation into harassment complaints against Alex Salmond from him, she did not give the full picture.
She has subsequently acknowledged a meeting, a few days earlier, with Mr Salmond's former chief of staff during which the subject came up.
She has sought to distinguish between a general discussion which raised her suspicions and what she described as a shockingly detailed account from Mr Salmond which may have overwritten any prior knowledge.
If Mr Hamilton doesn't buy this account and decides the first minister misled parliament, he would probably struggle to conclude that she did so knowingly - the offence which would ordinarily require her resignation.
Why? Because Nicola Sturgeon claims to have forgotten the earlier meeting and only to have been reminded of it after she told parliament what she knew and when. It would be difficult for anyone to prove otherwise.
This is just one of several alleged breaches of the ministerial code James Hamilton has to adjudicate.
To be clear, no one except Mr Hamilton and those working closely with him, knows for sure what he will conclude.
His report is expected to be published and released on Monday.
It will be delivered first to the Scottish government because Mr Hamilton has been commissioned by them as the first minister's independent adviser on the ministerial code.
As the publisher, the Scottish government needs to check the text for any legal and data protection issues and redact it if necessary.
I am told they also need to get consent from those named in the report before publication which has the potential to cause delay.
However, the first minister has undertaken to publish on the same day as the report is received.
This week she will also have to deal with the findings of the Holyrood committee that's been investigating the Scottish government's mishandling of the original harassment complaints.
Nicola Sturgeon gave eight hours of evidence to the committee looking at what went wrong with the Alex Salmond harassment probe
We already know from a leak that the opposition majority on the committee has concluded that Nicola Sturgeon misled them in her account of a key meeting she had with Alex Salmond.
He and his lawyer claim she offered to intervene in the investigation in support of a mediated settlement. She and a member of her team deny that but the first minister has acknowledged she may not have been blunt enough in doing so.
Ms Sturgeon has sought to dismiss this finding as a partisan attack. Which is pretty much how she feels about the Tory approach too.
As the main opposition party, the Conservatives have already reached their verdict.
The party leader, Douglas Ross has been calling for Nicola Sturgeon's resignation since the eve of her eight-hour evidence session before the Holyrood inquiry.
Unless she has quit by Tuesday, he will demand a vote of no confidence in parliament on Wednesday, which the first minister could be expected to survive with the support of the Greens.
And with that, the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament will end and the parties will take their arguments into a six-week election campaign.
Alongside coronavirus recovery and Scotland's constitutional future, truth and trust is likely to become one of the defining issues.
Last year, Nicola Sturgeon told me in an interview she would definitely lead her party into this contest and would definitely serve a full term as first minister if the SNP are re-elected.
At the time, when the first minister was being lauded for her handling of the pandemic, my questions probably seemed a bit daft. Not so now.
The toxic feud between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond has the potential to cause the first minister and her party serious political damage.
The extent of that and the potential for recovery will depend, of course, on the findings of the independent inquiry and how Nicola Sturgeon responds to them.
As Holyrood election campaign curtain-raiser's go - there has not been one as dramatic or highly charged as this.
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Sarah Everard: What went wrong at the Clapham vigil? - BBC News
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2021-03-14
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Maintaining public order at protests is one of the hardest jobs in modern policing.
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UK
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Met officers were accused of oppressing women on Clapham Common on Saturday night
Maintaining public order at protests is one of the hardest jobs in modern policing. If everything goes well, the public won't notice how commanders and demo organisers have worked out how to make an event safe.
But when it goes wrong, then the inevitable accusations of failure come piling in.
Sunday dawned badly for the Metropolitan Police's commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick. Her officers were accused of oppressing women and politicians waded in calling for her head.
But the seeds for Saturday's PR disaster for the force were sown in the legal dispute over whether a vigil could take place at all - and how events then seemed to run out of control.
The question is whether the police should have foreseen that happening. That, time and again, is the great challenge of public order policing.
Earlier in the week it became increasingly clear that people up and down the UK wanted to hold vigils for Sarah Everard.
Women in London, organising under the Reclaim These Streets banner, approached Met commanders for their help in setting up a vigil on Clapham Common in south London, close to where Ms Everard was last seen alive.
The police said a demo would be illegal under the coronavirus lockdown regulations.
And so the women and their lawyers asked the High Court to make a declaration that would force the police to think again.
The problem is that the law is not that clear cut.
For almost a year, the ambiguities and omissions within the coronavirus restrictions have left both the police and the public grasping for answers as to what is possible in public. It's so complex we've even seen people fined for walking while holding a cup of tea.
People laid flowers and paid tribute to Ms Everard at the common throughout Saturday
Gatherings in public are generally banned in England but, at the same time, the rules recognise there are "reasonable excuses" to be outside.
But the law doesn't specify whether a demonstration on a major issue of public importance - such as this vigil - is one of those excuses.
No matter what the Covid regulations say, there is an overarching right to freedom of expression that is enshrined in the Human Rights Act. That means the police have a legal duty to help make safe protests possible.
But that right is not an absolute trump card - it can be interfered with if the police can show they have good reason to stop an event happening.
And after hours of difficult legal argument on Friday, the judge refused to intervene and basically told the two sides to work it out for themselves with all those legal principles in mind.
In the absence of further legal clarity, the organisers claimed victory. They said the police had to now negotiate a sensible well-run vigil.
Then, the police pushed back hard. They said they too had been vindicated. They could not authorise a potentially unlimited demonstration that would become an enormous Covid-spreading event. Stay at home, they said.
By Saturday morning, the organisers abandoned their plans amid a very serious risk they could each face a £10,000 fine for organising a lockdown-breaking gathering.
But by that point, it was inevitable that people would turn up at Clapham Common, whether or not there was going to be a public event. It was the talk of social media.
So given that racing certainty, and the lack of official marshals that Reclaim These Streets said they would have provided had the police agreed to a vigil, what was the police's plan to keep people safe?
There was a lot of anger on the common as police removed people
The turning point in Scotland Yard's tactics appears to have been the start of speeches from the bandstand, around 18:00 GMT. People pressed forwards to hear.
Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball said: "At this point, officers on the ground were faced with a very difficult decision.
"Hundreds of people were packed tightly together, posing a very real risk of easily transmitting Covid-19."
And so, they tried to break up that part of the gathering and remove people whom they believed were contributing to the crowding.
Patsy Stevenson, the red-haired woman caught on camera being handcuffed on the ground at the bandstand, received a £200 Covid fine as police tried to remove her from the area.
She has not been accused of, or charged with, violence - but was there any elsewhere?
There was definitely a lot of anger - with some of the crowd chanting obscenities at the police at one point.
The Metropolitan Police Federation, representing frontline officers, says 26 of them were assaulted yesterday at Clapham - punched, kicked and spat at.
Pictures obtained by the Press Association clearly show three instances of officers being forcibly pushed and a van's wing mirror being deliberately vandalised. Guess what? All three instances involved men, not women.
Dame Cressida joined officers on Clapham Common on Friday night - the night before the vigil
Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball has said the Met did not want to be in the position where it had to turn to enforcement. But what's not clear is why this demonstration was considered to be so much more of a Covid risk than others that commanders couldn't find a way to make it possible.
Police forces elsewhere in the UK were waiting for a lead from the Met. But those that saw DIY vigils - albeit far smaller ones - appeared to take a stand-back approach.
The better comparison is Black Lives Matter last summer, when there were large crowds in London and elsewhere that were clearly not socially distancing.
Why the difference? That, and other questions about how the operation unfolded, may have been answered in the report that's been sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel.
She's now asked Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to carry out its own external review of the event - and what Ms Patel ultimately concludes may dictate whether Dame Cressida survives calls for her to go.
While the commissioner is accountable to the Mayor of London, who has raised his own serious concerns after a meeting with Dame Cressida, the Home Secretary is jointly responsible for deciding who gets the job - and when they should go.
Dame Cressida is highly respected both in policing and government - far more so than some of her predecessors - but she remains a controversial figure for many others.
She commanded the 2005 operation that led to the shooting dead of Jean Charles De Menezes, after he was mistaken for a suicide bomber - although a jury exonerated her of any personal wrongdoing.
More recently, she called for better powers to deal with Extinction Rebellion's repeated occupations of parts of London. The government agreed - and the home secretary's proposals to greatly expand the police's ability to curtail demonstrations goes before Parliament on Monday.
Ask most police officers who have experience of covering public protests, and they will tell you they often feel - individual mistakes besides - it is a no-win situation when things go wrong. (Just last week I was talking about this very dilemma on BBC Newscast.)
It would be something of a terrible twist of fate for the commissioner - the first woman in the post - to lose her job in these circumstances.
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The art dealer, the £10m Benin Bronze and the Holocaust - BBC News
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2021-03-14
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Western museums are under pressure to return looted treasure, but what of those in private collections?
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Africa
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This Benin Bronze sold to a private collector for a record fee of £10m
Countless historic artefacts were looted from around the world during the colonial era and taken to Europe but there is now a growing campaign to return them. Among the most famous are the Benin Bronzes seized from modern-day Nigeria. Barnaby Phillips finds out about one family's dilemma.
One morning in April 2016, a woman walked into Barclays Bank on London's exclusive Park Lane, to retrieve a mysterious object that had been locked in the vaults for 63 years.
Attendants ushered her downstairs. Three men waited upstairs, perched anxiously on an uncomfortable sofa, watching customers go about their business.
Twenty minutes later the woman appeared, carrying something covered in an old dishcloth. She unwrapped it, and everyone gasped.
A youthful face cast in bronze or brass stared out at them. He had a beaded collar around his neck and a gourd on his head.
The men, an art dealer called Lance Entwistle and two experts from the auctioneers Woolley and Wallis, recognised it as an early Benin Bronze head, perhaps depicting an oba, or king, from the 16th Century.
It was in near-immaculate condition, with the dark grey patina of old bronze, much like a contemporary piece from the Italian Renaissance. They suspected it was worth millions of pounds. The bank staff quickly led them into a panelled room, where they placed the head on a table.
The woman who went down into the vaults is a daughter of an art dealer called Ernest Ohly, who died in 2008.
I have chosen to call her Frieda and not reveal her married name to protect her privacy.
Ernest's father, William Ohly, who was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany and was prominent in London's mid-century art scene.
William Ohly's exhibitions in the late 1940s attracted aesthetes and celebrities
William Ohly lived "at the nexus of culture, society and artists", says Entwistle.
His "Primitive Art" exhibitions attracted collectors, socialites, and artists such as Jacob Epstein, Lucian Freud, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
He died in 1955. Ernest Ohly inherited his love of art, but was a more reserved character.
"A very, very difficult man to know. He didn't let anything out. You did not know what he was thinking," said Entwistle.
Ernest Ohly's death provoked a ripple of excitement at the lucrative top end of the ethnographic art world. He was rumoured to have an extensive collection. His statues from Polynesia and masks from West Africa were auctioned in 2011 and 2013. And that, dealers assumed, was that.
But his children knew otherwise. In old age, he had told them he had one more sculpture. It was in a Barclays safe box and not to be sold, he specified, unless there was another Holocaust.
In 2016 matters were taken out of the children's hands. Barclays on Park Lane was closing its safe boxes; it told customers to collect their belongings.
I met Lance Entwistle in 2019, in his library lined with books on African sculpture. His website said his company has been "leading tribal art dealers for over 40 years".
"Tribal art" is a term that Western museums now avoid, but is still common in the world of auctions and private sales.
I was bowled over. It was beautiful, moving and its emergence from obscurity was so exciting" Lance Entwistle
Art dealer on the "Ohly head" sold to a collector for £10m
Entwistle has rarely been to Africa, and never to Nigeria, but he's well connected. The British Museum, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris and the Metropolitan in New York have all bought pieces from him.
I asked him how he had felt when Frieda pulled the cloth away from the Benin Bronze head in the bank.
"I was bowled over," he said. "It was beautiful, moving, and its emergence from obscurity was so exciting. I'm very used to being told about a Benin head, a Benin plaque, a Benin horse and rider. Generally I'm not excited because 99 times out of 100 they're fake, and often the remaining 1% has been stolen."
Provenance is everything in Entwistle's world. This time, thanks to the Ernest Ohly connection, he was confident he was dealing with a bona fide piece.
He told Frieda the Benin Bronze head was significant and unusual, and convinced her to take it home in a taxi, to her terraced house in Tooting, south London.
The Benin Bronzes were brought to Europe in the spring of 1897, the loot of British soldiers and sailors who conquered the West African kingdom of Benin, in modern day Nigeria's Edo state.
Although they are called Benin Bronzes, they are actually thousands of brass and bronze castings and ivory carvings. When some were displayed in the British Museum that autumn, they caused a sensation.
Africans, the British believed at the time, did not possess skills to produce pieces of such sophistication or beauty. Nor were they supposed to have much history.
But the bronzes - some portrayed Portuguese visitors in medieval armour - were evidently hundreds of years old.
They were our documents, our archives, the 'photographs' of our kings. When they were taken our history was exhumed"
Benin had been denigrated in British newspapers as a place of savagery, a "City of Blood". Now those newspapers described the Bronzes as "surprising", "remarkable" and admitted they were "baffled".
Some of these bronzes are still owned by descendants of those who pillaged Benin, while others have passed from owner to owner.
Victor Ehikhamenor, an artist from Edo state, told me the bronzes were not made only for aesthetic enjoyment.
"They were our documents, our archives, the 'photographs' of our kings. When they were taken our history was exhumed."
But as their value in the West has increased, they've also become prestige investments, held by the wealthy and reclusive.
London auction sales tell the story. In 1953, Sotheby's sold a Benin Bronze head for £5,500. The price raised eyebrows; the previous record for a Benin head was £780.
In 1968 Christie's sold a Benin head for £21,000. (It had been discovered months earlier by a policeman who was pottering around his neighbour's greenhouse and noticed something interesting amidst the plants).
In the 1970s, "Tribal Art" prices soared, and Benin Bronzes led the way. And so it went on, all the way to 2007 when Sotheby's in New York sold a Benin head for $4.7m (£2.35m).
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Find out how the ancient trade of Benin bronzes lives on
Entwistle kept an eye on that 2007 sale. The buyer, whose identity was not publicly revealed, was one of his trusted clients.
Nine years later, presented by Frieda with the challenge of selling Ernest Ohly's head, Lance knew where to turn.
"It was the first client I offered it to, which is what you want, there was no need to shop around," he said.
There was only a minor haggle over price. The client, Entwistle insisted, was motivated by his love of African art.
"He will never sell, in my view." Whoever he is, wherever he is, he paid another world record fee.
The "Ohly head", as Entwistle calls it, was sold for £10m - a figure not previously disclosed.
If you envisaged the woman who sold the world's most expensive Benin Bronze, you might not come up with Frieda.
We met in the Tate Modern gallery, overlooking the Thames. She had travelled from Tooting by underground. She is a grandmother, with grey close-cropped hair and glasses. She used to work in children's nurseries, but is retired.
"My family is riddled with secrets," she said. "My father refused to speak about his Jewish ancestry."
She did her own research on relatives who were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Ernest Ohly was haunted, "paranoid", says Frieda, by the prospect of another catastrophe engulfing the Jews.
Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust - and, according to the Jewish Claims Conference, the Nazis seized an estimated 650,000 artworks and religious items from Jews and other victims.
The artworks produced in Benin City still seek to chronicle events - like this one depicting the slave trade
Ernest Ohly distrusted strangers and lived in a world of cash and secret objects. He kept a suitcase of £50 notes under the bed.
"Ernie the Dealer" was the family nickname. The children grew up surrounded by art. But by the end he was tired of life.
His house was chaotic, his Persian rugs infested with moths. The family found the suitcase of banknotes but discovered they were no longer legal tender.
Ernest Ohly may have let things slide, but he had been a formidable collector.
"He and my grandfather never went to Africa or the South Pacific, but got their knowledge from being around objects," said Freida.
"There was a whole group of European dealers in London, in the 1940s through to the 1970s."
The British Empire was ending, and the deaths of its last administrators and soldiers brought rich pickings.
"I never understood why my father was so interested in reading obituary pages. The Telegraph, the Times, really studying them. If they were Foreign Office, armed forces, anything to do with Empire, he wrote to the widows."
Ernest Ohly listed his buys in ledger books. That's how Entwistle found what he was looking for: "Benin Bronze head... Dec 51, £230" from Glendining's - a London auctioneers where he also bought coins and stamps.
Ernest Ohly's ledger showed how much he paid for the Benin Bronze in 1951
In today's money, that is just over £7,000. In other words, a substantial purchase. But Ernest Ohly knew what he was doing. He had a steal. He put the head in the safe box in 1953, and it stayed there until 2016.
"It was like a lump of gold," said Frieda. The windfall was not quite as large as it might have been.
Ernest Ohly's affairs were a mess, and the taxman took a substantial amount. Still, Frieda says, she can sleep easy now. The Benin head bought care for her family, and property for her children.
Frieda is married to a man of Caribbean descent - and her son is a journalist.
A few years ago he wrote an article about how the Edo - the people of the Benin Kingdom - tried to stop the sale at Sotheby's of a Benin ivory mask.
In fact, although he did not know this, it was a mask that his great-grandfather, William Ohly, displayed at his gallery in 1947.
The article described Edo outrage that the family who owned the mask - relatives of a British official who looted it in 1897 - should profit from what they regarded as theft and a war crime.
Frieda is too intelligent and sensitive not to appreciate the layers of irony behind her story. She had followed the arguments about whether the Benin Bronzes should be returned to Nigeria.
Britain has laws to enable the return of art looted by the Nazis, but there is no similar legislation to cover its own colonial period.
"Part of me will always feel guilty for not giving it to the Nigerians… It's a murky past, tied up with colonialism and exploitation."
"But that's in the past, lots of governments aren't stable and things have been destroyed. I'm afraid I took the decision to sell. I stand by it. I wanted my family to be secure."
Frieda is not the only owner of Benin Bronzes who has wrestled with their conscience in recent years.
Mark Walker, a doctor from Wales, returned two Bronzes which had been taken by his grandfather, an officer on the 1897 expedition.
Mark Walker (R) was feted in 2014 when he returned an oro bird and a bell to call ancestors stolen by his grandfather
He received a hero's welcome in Benin City.
Others are hesitant. In an imposing west London mansion block I met an elderly woman whose grandfather also looted Bronzes in 1897.
Ten, or even five years ago, it would not have been difficult to get somebody in her position to talk. But today the owners of Benin Bronzes are cautious, and I agreed to hide this woman's identity.
She showed me two brass oro "prophecy birds". I asked if they made her feel uncomfortable.
"I've felt misgivings, considerations that crossed my mind… Maybe misgivings is too strong a word. I don't feel like giving them anything." There was a long silence.
"You know," she said, "one bumbles along for 77 years, and suddenly this has become a sensitive subject. It never was before."
Frieda and I left the Tate and were walking along the Thames.
I was about to say goodbye. Unprompted, she returned to the Benin Bronzes.
Sometimes, she said, she wished her father had sold that head when he was still alive.
A dilemma would have been taken out of her hands.
"It was difficult for me," she said again. "Part of me felt we should have given it back." Then she was gone.
Barnaby Phillips is a former BBC Nigeria correspondent. His book Loot; Britain and the Benin Bronzes will be published on 1 April.
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Covid-19: UK rejects 'false' vaccine export ban claim by EU - BBC News
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2021-03-10
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An EU diplomat is summoned to the Foreign Office following comments by the bloc's top official.
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UK Politics
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A diplomatic row has broken out after the EU's top official claimed the UK had imposed an "outright ban" on the export of Covid vaccines.
European Council President Charles Michel said it applied to all vaccines and components produced in the UK.
But Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described the suggestion as "completely false", the BBC understands.
The EU's deputy ambassador to the UK, Nicole Mannion, was summoned to the Foreign Office for "discussions".
An EU spokesperson said there would be "no further comment" on the meeting "at this stage".
The argument over vaccines comes with European leaders under pressure over the slow distribution of jabs.
In the UK, meanwhile, 22.5 million people - a third of the population - have received their first dose.
In his weekly briefing note, Mr Michel said he was "shocked" to hear the 27-member bloc being accused of "vaccine nationalism" following changes it made to export rules earlier this year.
"Here again, the facts do not lie," he wrote. "The United Kingdom and the United States have imposed an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced on their territory.
"But the European Union, the region with the largest vaccine production capacity in the world, has simply put in place a system for controlling the export of doses produced in the EU."
In response, Mr Raab has written to Mr Michel to "set the record straight", saying the "false claim has been repeated at various levels within the EU and the Commission".
His letter is understood to say: "The UK government has not blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine or vaccine components."
After news of the row broke, Mr Michel tweeted that there were "different ways of imposing bans or restrictions on vaccines/medicines".
But he did not elaborate on this comment.
The EU has faced production problems with the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.
In January, it introduced a system of controls on exports, requiring manufacturers to seek permission from national governments for planned sales.
The EU also drafted regulations which would have overridden the Northern Ireland Protocol - agreed with the UK last year - potentially allowing it to stop vaccines bound for Northern Ireland.
But it backed down following widespread criticism.
Earlier this month, Italy blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia.
The UK, which is expected to have a large surplus of vaccines after ordering 400 million doses, has said it will donate most of those left over to poorer countries.
France's President Emmanuel Macron has urged richer countries to put aside up to 5% of their current supplies for this purpose.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56339188
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PMQs: As it happened - PM challenged on NHS pay - BBC News
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2021-03-10
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Johnson and Starmer clashed on proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff, and PM hits back at EU claims over vaccine exports.
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UK Politics
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Amid the blizzard of figures from the prime minister in response to Sir Keir Starmer's questions about NHS pay was a significant sentence or two.
He said the government would look at what the independent pay review body had to say.
Perhaps a simple statement of fact but perhaps also a signal that if the body recommends a higher pay rise than ministers suggested, the government would not oppose it.
Other than that it didn't seem that Sir Keir Starmer was able to break any new ground in his argument that nurses deserve more.
Boris Johnson stressed the importance of recruitment and retention along with pay and sound management of the economy.
The Labour leader couldn't resist a couple of digs at the money spent on a TV studio in Downing Street and renovations of the flat above number 10.
And months after his departure, mention of Dominic Cummings' shows Labour clearly see his legacy (and pay rise) as a potent weapon against Boris Johnson.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-56335277
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news_live_uk-politics-56335277
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Covid-19: UK hasn't banned export of vaccines, says PM - BBC News
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2021-03-10
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Boris Johnson "corrects" the European Council president over claims about the government's stance.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The UK has not "blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine or vaccine components", the PM tells the Commons
Boris Johnson has "corrected" European Council President Charles Michel after he claimed the UK had imposed an "outright ban" on the export of Covid-19 vaccines.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said the government had "not blocked" any sales to other countries.
Mr Michel had said his claim about the UK's position was based on "facts".
But the Foreign Office summoned an EU official to explain what it called the president's "incorrect assertions".
The argument over vaccine exports comes at a time when European leaders are under pressure over the slow distribution of jabs.
In the UK, meanwhile, more than 22.5 million people - around a third of the population - have received their first dose.
Mr Johnson told MPs he was "proud" of the progress made, adding that the UK had also donated £548m to the Covax initiative, set up to distribute vaccines around the world.
The Gavi vaccines alliance, which co-runs the scheme, told the BBC this would pay for "more than 70 million" of the two billion doses expected to be given this year.
Mr Johnson said he wanted to "correct the suggestion from the European Council president that the UK has blocked vaccine exports", adding: "Let me be clear: we have not blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine or vaccine components."
Mr Johnson said he was against "vaccine nationalism in all its forms" and called on all countries to "work together to tackle this pandemic".
After heavy criticism over their handling of the procurement and delivery of vaccines, EU leaders are trying to point to the bigger picture.
Charles Michel paints the EU as leading the effort to vaccinate the globe.
Analysis by the New York Times suggests the EU exported 25 million doses in February, despite production problems in Europe, and that eight million of these were despatched to the UK.
Brussels bosses remain deeply frustrated the UK is, as they see it, racing to vaccinate its own citizens before thinking about the wider world. London rejects this.
Mr Michel's bitterly disputed "outright ban" claim follows Ursula von der Leyen's assertion last month that Britain had a system that effectively blocked the export of vaccines.
But the European Commission's chief spokesman said he was aware of no restrictive measures concerning vaccines leaving the UK.
In his weekly briefing note on Tuesday, Mr Michel said: "The United Kingdom and the United States have imposed an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced on their territory."
After the UK government insisted this was not true, Mr Michel tweeted that there were "different ways of imposing bans or restrictions on vaccines/medicines". But he did not elaborate on this.
At the European Commission's press briefing in Brussels, spokesman Eric Mamer declined to comment on Mr Michel's statements.
He added that Mr Johnson and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had had a phone call "some time ago", during which he had "assured her the UK did not have any issue when it came to the delivery of vaccines to the European Union".
The EU was a "very, very active exporter of vaccines, and that is not necessarily the case of all our partners", Mr Mamer said.
The EU has faced production problems with the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.
In January, it introduced a system of controls on exports, requiring manufacturers to seek permission from national governments for planned sales.
The EU also drafted regulations which would have overridden the Northern Ireland Protocol - agreed with the UK last year - potentially allowing it to stop vaccines bound for Northern Ireland.
But it backed down following widespread criticism.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56347716
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Covid in Scotland: Sturgeon objective 'to eliminate' virus - BBC News
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2021-03-10
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Nicola Sturgeon tells MSPs that an elimination strategy is the only way to keep the virus under control.
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Scotland
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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said Scotland's objective must be "to eliminate" coronavirus.
She told Holyrood's Covid-19 committee that striving to get new case numbers as low as possible was the only way to keep it under control.
Ms Sturgeon said "the virus won't play ball" with any effort to maintain case numbers at a "medium level".
The Scottish government has begun to ease some lockdown restrictions, although a stay at home order remains.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Gregor Smith said he did not believe coronavirus could be "eradicated", but said an elimination strategy of driving case numbers as low as possible would make outbreaks more manageable.
The government has brought forward some "relatively minor" easing of restrictions, with an increase in the number of people who are allowed to mix outdoors to begin on Friday.
Ms Sturgeon will set out a more detailed timetable for lifting lockdown next week, with the government aiming to return to a regional "levels" system of local restrictions by late April.
She told MSPs that the country was "heading firmly in the right direction right now", but said "we cannot afford to take our foot off the brake too soon".
The vaccination programme is widely seen as being one of the key ways out of the pandemic
The first minister told Holyrood's Covid-19 committee that the exit from lockdown "may be slower than everyone wants it to be".
She said her focus was for easing to be "steady and one-directional", rather than going too quickly and taking "one step forward and two steps back".
Ms Sturgeon backed an "elimination" strategy of driving virus levels as low as possible.
She said: "With a virus like this, what you absolutely can't do is just say we're going to let it simmer at this medium level, like a gently simmering pot.
"You can't just say you'll accept X number of cases a year and X number of deaths and X number of hospitalisations a year. The virus won't behave, it won't play ball with you like that.
She added: "You have to have an approach, in my view, where our objective has to be to eliminate. Even if you don't quite achieve elimination it is the act of trying to get it as low as possible that keeps it under control."
The Scottish Greens believed that if elimination was achievable there had to be a "step up" on testing and better support for those who needed to self-isolate.
MSP Mark Ruskell, who sits on the committee, said: "It is welcome that the first minister has moved away from talking about suppression of the virus and is now talking about eliminating it. The Scottish Greens support an elimination strategy, as pursued by countries like New Zealand, but to get there we need to see more ambition on testing and support to self-isolate."
He added that when restrictions are "gradually lifted", workplaces would need the support of a "robust testing regime" to prevent the virus from spreading.
The change to the rules will allow four people from two households to meet anywhere outdoors, including in gardens
Dr Gregor Smith said driving case numbers low would allow for outbreaks to be managed, in the same way as outbreaks of infectious diseases like measles.
He said: "What we mean by eliminate is not to eradicate the virus. Its my view that we won't eradicate Coronavirus.
"But what we can do on a regional basis and gradually expand that internationally is to drive these numbers down to as low a level as possible so it has as little impact on communities as is possible in morbidity and mortality.
"If we can do that then we can then manage the outbreaks, just as we do when we manage measles."
Ms Sturgeon faced a range of questions during the committee session, with Conservative MSP Donald Cameron saying there was a "strong argument" for taking stock of whether emergency powers should be extended.
The first minister said she did not want emergency legislation to be in place "for a minute longer than it needs to be", but said the country was still in a difficult situation and that the government needed flexibility to act.
Meanwhile, Labour's Monica Lennon highlighted the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on people from lower income backgrounds.
Ms Sturgeon replied that there had been "targeted investment" to help those who needed most, saying there was "a need for us to continue to look with a fresh eye at some of the new inequalities that have been created by the pandemic".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56347695
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FM promises not to delay ministerial code report - BBC News
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2021-03-04
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Nicola Sturgeon pledges to release a report into whether she breached the code on the same day she receives it.
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Scotland politics
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The report into whether Ms Sturgeon breached the code is expected to be published later this month
Nicola Sturgeon has promised to release a report into whether she breached the ministerial code on the same day that she receives it.
Irish lawyer James Hamilton is examining whether Ms Sturgeon lied to the Scottish Parliament over the Alex Salmond saga.
He is expected to have finalised his report within the next three weeks.
The first minister has repeatedly refused to say whether she will quit if Mr Hamilton finds against her.
But the code states that any government minister who is found to have knowingly misled parliament will be expected to resign.
At First Minister's Questions, Ms Sturgeon was asked by new Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar whether she would give a "cast-iron guarantee" that Mr Hamilton's report into whether she lied to parliament would be released by the government "without delay or obstruction on the day it is handed over."
The first minister gave the one-word reply: "Yes".
Mr Sarwar said he welcomed the first minister's answer, and pledged to hold her to that commitment.
He added: "We need to remove party and personality from this.
"A minister - any minister - who is found in breach of the Ministerial Code should resign."
James Hamilton is the government's independent advisor on the ministerial code
In her foreword to the ministerial code, Ms Sturgeon describes it as "guidelines for living up to the seven principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership."
She goes on to say: "All Scottish ministers, including myself, are bound by its terms.
"I will lead by example in following the letter and spirit of this code, and I expect that ministers and civil servants will do likewise."
Mr Salmond has accused Ms Sturgeon of committing multiple breaches of the code - all of which she denies.
There have been claims that Ms Sturgeon misled parliament over when she first knew of the allegations against her predecessor, and that the name of a woman who made a complaint against Mr Salmond was disclosed to his former chief of staff.
Anas Sarwar was speaking at FMQs for the first time as Scottish Labour leader
There have also been accusations that Ms Sturgeon wasted more than £500,000 of public money by continuing a doomed legal fight with Mr Salmond over a judicial review into its handling of the complaints against him.
The government's legal counsel warned that it was likely to lose the case several weeks before it conceded defeat.
The legal advice was only released on Tuesday evening after opposition parties threatened to hold a vote of no confidence in Deputy First Minister John Swinney.
Some additional documents were published by the government on Thursday after opposition parties questioned why they were missing from the original batch - with Mr Swinney suggesting more could be released on Friday.
Mr Swinney said the new documents showed that there had not been an attempt to delay the judicial review so that it would overtaken by criminal proceedings against Mr Salmond, as the former first minister has claimed.
"I have instructed officials to consider whether further documents should be released, subject to essential statutory checks and notifications, and to do so as a matter of urgency," he said.
But Mr Salmond later said the documents confirmed that postponing the judicial review was "under active consideration" by the Scottish government in September 2018.
He added: "John Swinney must now be the only person in Scotland who believes that the piecemeal release of these extraordinary legal documents have done anything other than demolish the government's pretence that they were not warned months in advance that they were on course to lose the judicial review."
Mr Salmond was cleared of all of the allegations against him after a trial at the High Court in March of last year.
Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the "limited" release fell "far short" of the demands of parliament, which has voted on two previous occasions for the legal advice ahead of the judicial review case to be published in full.
Mr Ross said there were still no documents from November 2018 - two months before the government admitted it had acted unlawfully - and he called on it to "end the secrecy and release all the legal advice".
The investigation by Mr Hamilton is separate to the inquiry by a committee of MSPs into the government's unlawful handling of sexual harassment complaints against Mr Salmond.
Ms Sturgeon gave evidence to the committee in a marathon eight-hour session on Wednesday, with Mr Salmond appearing last Friday.
The Scottish Conservatives have already called on Ms Sturgeon to resign, despite neither of the inquiries having published their conclusions yet, and have threatened to hold a no confidence vote in the first minister.
There were angry exchanges over the affair at First Minister's Questions, with Conservative group leader Ruth Davidson claiming: "There is no argument if Nicola Sturgeon broke the ministerial code - the argument is only about how badly she broke it."
Ms Sturgeon responded by saying she would wait for the inquiries to do their job, adding: "I've not prejudged them - Ruth Davidson clearly has."
Mr Sarwar said the row between Ms Sturgeon and Ms Davidson showed "the worst of Scottish politics".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56282889
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Budget 2021: 'Scrooge Sunak not levelling with people' on cuts - BBC News
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2021-03-04
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The Budget leaves the chancellor looking more Scrooge than Santa, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
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Business
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Campaign groups say half a million people risk being dragged into poverty
Public spending cuts in Rishi Sunak's Budget mean the chancellor "isn't really levelling with people", the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has warned.
The Treasury said the cuts, worth £4bn, were "a purely mechanical change", but Paul Johnson of the IFS said they were set to cause more pain.
At the same time, big tax rises were "screeching U-turns", Mr Johnson said.
"Santa Sunak" was now looking more like "Scrooge Sunak", he added.
Meanwhile, "pressure will mount" on Mr Sunak not to cut universal credit by £20 a week after September, Mr Johnson said.
He said that going for such a "cliff-edge reduction" was "remarkable".
In his post-Budget analysis, Mr Johnson highlighted freezes in income tax allowances and rises in corporation tax.
The corporation tax rise to 25% would take the UK "well up the international league table" for revenues, he said, but it was "50-50 at best" whether it would actually happen without additional concessions.
"This was, of course, a tale of two Budgets," said Mr Johnson in response to Mr Sunak's economic plans.
"By the end of the forecast period, we are looking at a fiscal tightening of over £30bn relative to previous plans.
"Take account of the cuts to planned spending announced in the autumn and Santa Sunak, purveyor of billions today, looks more like Scrooge Sunak, cutting spending and raising taxes to the tune of nearly £50bn relative to his pre-pandemic plans of March 2020."
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The income tax allowance freezes were set to raise about £9bn, while the corporation tax changes could see revenues rise by more than £17bn by 2025, Mr Johnson said.
He was sceptical that the plans to cut a further £4bn from public spending could be delivered, saying they would cause "additional pain" if they went ahead.
"Now these are not firm plans, but they are the basis for the future public finance estimates. They are a very shaky basis," Mr Johnson said.
"This isn't just a mechanical change and presenting it as such means the chancellor isn't really levelling with people about the choices the government is making to repair the public finances."
The 24 hours after a Budget can be a perilous time for a chancellor. They can be undone even on the back of relatively small tax rises, let alone the biggest ones in more than a quarter of a century.
The "post-match" analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies can condemn a Budget in the history books. The chancellor has a massive challenge and a tumultuous uncertain backdrop, but he has the benefit of a solid majority, unlike his recent predecessors.
So it is with some relief that Number 11 will have seen the analysis of the respected institute and others such as the Resolution Foundation. They point to plenty of gaps. The plans imply further cuts to unprotected public spending. That includes social care spending within local authorities, for example. There is some doubt that the hike in corporation tax will really yield £17bn a year. Difficulties here, or in the post-pandemic recovery in general, will lead to further spending squeezes and tax rises.
However, it is not really possible to assert that unequivocally. The chancellor has not constrained himself to meet borrowing targets as part of a set of rules. He outlined some principles around borrowing only to invest. But if he were facing pressure to increase taxes further in the year before an election, for example, it is equally plausible that higher-than-expected borrowing would take the strain.
The world is too uncertain to be wearing fiscal straitjackets. And every time it has been required, on more than a dozen occasions, the chancellor has extended spending on rescue support schemes. That has set up an expectation about, for instance, the new expiry of the £20 uplift to Universal Credit in October (now extended by six months). As Paul Johnson of the IFS puts it: "He has given us a sense of where he wants to go [on fixing the public finances], but he still has a lot of work to do and his spending plans in particular don't look deliverable, at least not without considerable pain."
That argument will be settled in the run-up to a Spending Review. If anything, the medium-term pressures on public services will be higher, reflecting issues such as big NHS waiting lists. For now, the Budget has achieved its two strategic aims: borrowing more now to extend immediate crisis support, then post-dating a huge cheque, paid for mainly by big business, to cover part of the bill. Most of the other parts in these plans can move and, if necessary, dramatically so.
"It is, by the way, remarkable that while the chancellor felt the need for a gradual phase out of furlough, business rates support, stamp duty reductions and VAT reductions, he is still set on a cliff-edge reduction in [universal credit] such that incomes of some of the poorest families will fall by over £80 between one month and the next.
"Whatever the case for cutting generosity into the longer term, if you're going to do so, the case for doing it gradually rather than all at once looks unanswerable."
In a BBC interview, the chancellor rejected suggestions that he should have tapered the ending of the £20-a-week universal credit increase in order to minimise its effect on families.
"We have extended it generously and in full, but it's important to remember that it's one of many things that we're doing to support people," Mr Sunak said.
These included increases in the National Living Wage and offering help with council tax payments, he added.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rishi Sunak says it will take "the work of many years, decades and governments" to pay back Covid debt
Earlier, the government came under fire from campaigners for doing too little in the Budget to address inequality.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Resolution Foundation said the cut in universal credit would bring the incomes of benefit recipients down to levels not seen since the early 1990s.
It would also pull half a million people into poverty, just as unemployment was expected to peak.
Mr Sunak's decision to spend even larger sums to support the economic recovery now and put off raising taxes until later was broadly welcomed in the Resolution Foundation's analysis of the Budget.
But it noted that while GDP is set to grow this year by 4%, that might not feed through to better living standards, with wages by the middle of the decade set to remain £1,200 a year - or 4.3% - below where they would have been without the coronavirus pandemic.
Austerity would drag on for some, it added, with day-to-day spending on government departments such as transport and local government set to fall in real terms next year and remain almost a quarter lower than a decade ago.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an anti-poverty charity, said the universal credit changes meant single recipients of it would see their incomes cut by £20 a week, just as the furlough scheme is ended and unemployment was expected to rise to its peak, the foundation said.
It predicted that would pull half a million people into poverty, including 200,000 children, adding that the Budget was silent on helping 700,000 households who have fallen behind on rent because of the pandemic and are now at risk of eviction.
Responding to the Resolution Foundation's analysis, Mr Sunak told the BBC that it had hailed his decision to freeze income tax thresholds as a "progressive measure" and "a fair way to do what we need to do".
• None Ten ways the Budget will affect you
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Former SNP leader Alex Salmond launches new political party - BBC News
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2021-03-26
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The former first minister said he would be among the candidates standing for the pro-independence Alba Party.
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Scotland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alex Salmond says his new party wants to build "a supermajority for independence"
Former SNP leader Alex Salmond has announced the creation of a new pro-independence party which will contest the Scottish Parliament election.
The former first minister said he would be among the candidates who will stand for the Alba Party on regional lists.
Mr Salmond said the aim was to build "a supermajority for independence" at Holyrood after the election in May.
Other parties described Mr Salmond as "discredited" and questioned his suitability for public office.
The announcement came at the end of a dramatic week at Holyrood.
On Wednesday, Mr Salmond said he would take fresh legal action over the conduct of the Scottish government's top civil servant.
A report by MSPs on Tuesday described the government's handling of harassment complaints against Mr Salmond as "seriously flawed".
The previous day, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was cleared of breaching the ministerial code over her involvement in the Alex Salmond saga.
Alex Salmond is no stranger to making a political comeback - he was twice elected leader of the SNP and served for two separate spells as an MSP.
On the day he stood down from Holyrood for the second time, he told me he would consider returning if Scotland became independent.
Five years later, he's decided to attempt a comeback anyway - on the basis that the SNP and Greens need his help to make independence happen.
The SNP has questioned the appropriateness of his return to public life given the controversy over his personal conduct in recent years.
When I asked him today if he owed an apology to any or all of the women who have complained about his behaviour, Mr Salmond said he accepted the outcomes of the two court cases and three inquiries and wanted to move on.
Mr Salmond was acquitted of all charges in a criminal trial and successfully challenged the Scottish government's process for handling harassment complaints against him in the civil court.
That his reputation has suffered damage along the way would come as no surprise. But it will now be for voters to decide whether or not they want one of the biggest figures in modern Scottish politics back in the frontline.
Mr Salmond said that under his leadership, the Alba Party was seeking to "build a supermajority for independence in the Scottish parliament".
"The party's strategic aims are clear and unambiguous - to achieve a successful, socially just and environmentally responsible independent country," he said.
"We intend to contribute policy ideas to assist Scotland's economic recovery and to help build an independence platform to face the new political realities."
It plans to field at least four candidates on the regional lists in every part of the country.
People have two votes in Holyrood elections - one for a constituency MSP, and another in a regional ballot designed to make the overall result more proportional.
Mr Salmond claimed that if Alba won regional list seats, this could lead to there being 90 or more MSPs at Holyrood who support independence.
What elections are happening? On 6 May, people across Scotland will vote to elect 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The party that wins the most seats will form the Scottish government. Find out more here.
What powers does the Scottish Parliament have? MSPs pass laws on most aspects of day-to-day life in Scotland, such as health, education and transport. They also have control over some taxes and welfare benefits. Defence, foreign policy and immigration are decided by the UK Parliament.
How do I vote? Anyone who lives in Scotland and is registered to vote is eligible, so long as they are aged 16 or over on the day of the election. You can register to vote online.
He said Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has already dismissed the SNP's request for a second independence referendum, would "find it much more difficult to say no to a parliament and a country."
The SNP said there were "real questions" about Mr Salmond's suitability to return to public office.
A spokesperson said: "This is perhaps the most predictable development in Scottish politics for quite some time.
"At this time of crisis, the interests of the country must come first and should not be obscured by the self interest of someone who shows no sign whatsoever of reflecting on serious concerns about his own conduct."
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: "Alex Salmond is a discredited figure who admitted appalling behaviour towards women during his time as SNP first minister and right-thinking people will want nothing to do with him or his new party."
He added that his party would do "everything possible" to block another independence referendum and "ensure the Scottish Parliament works towards rebuilding and recovery after the pandemic".
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the people of Scotland deserved more than "score settling" and "old politics".
He said: "We are still in the midst of a pandemic. Lives and livelihoods are still at risk.
"This election must be about our national recovery and the people of Scotland's priorities, not the old arguments between personalities who believe their interest matters more than the national interest."
The Scottish Liberal Democrats chair Alistair Carmichael MP said the move was evidence of a feuding within the Nationalist movement.
He said: "There are no questions about Scotland's future to which Alex Salmond is the answer.
"This astonishing announcement shows just how divided the SNP are. A few years ago no one could have imagined that the former first minister and his protege would be at one another's throats."
The Scottish Greens' Ross Greer told the BBC News Channel: "This is the very public meltdown of a thoroughly disgraced individual."
He said the election should be about the future and described Mr Salmond as "a man from Scotland's past who is obsessively pursuing personal vendettas".
"Alex Salmond is less popular in Scotland than Boris Johnson. I'm quite sure that very quickly after today we can go back to ignoring what is a very sad sideshow."
In 2019, the Scottish government admitted it had acted unlawfully while investigating allegations of sexual harassment against Mr Salmond, which he strongly denied.
The following year he was acquitted of all 13 charges of sexual assault after a trial at the High Court.
Giving evidence, Mr Salmond said that in hindsight he wished he had been "more careful with people's personal space".
His defence lawyer, Gordon Jackson, told the court Mr Salmond had not always behaved well and could have been "a better man on occasions" - but had never sexually assaulted anyone.
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Liberty Steel: Government must step in to save steel jobs, says Ed Miliband - BBC News
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2021-03-18
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The shadow business secretary tells the BBC the company is too vital for the UK to collapse.
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Business
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nationalise Liberty Steel if necessary, says Miliband
The government should step in to save Liberty Steel, says shadow business secretary Ed Miliband
He said the situation was "urgent and worrying" and nothing should be off the table, including nationalisation, to save thousands of jobs in a key strategic industry.
"These are crucial jobs for communities up and down this country," he said.
Liberty owns 12 steel plants in the UK, including at Rotherham, Motherwell and Newport, and employs 5,000 people.
Mr Miliband told the BBC the plants are "a crucial part of our strategic infrastructure, are crucial for the aerospace sector to automotive. Let's hope that Liberty steel can find that the refinancing that it's looking for but the government needs a plan B to make sure whatever happens, these jobs are saved."
The collapse of the company's main financial backer, Greensill Capital, last week has sparked grave concerns about the future of those jobs.
Mr Miliband said the government needed a to consider every option available to save the company. "If there's one lesson we learned from this pandemic it's that our strategic infrastructure, our resilience really matters. And steel is a key part of our strategic infrastructure and resilience.
"We cannot afford to let these jobs go. Government has got to make sure it doesn't happen."
Mr Miliband added it was a demonstration of the need for a comprehensive industrial strategy; a strategy he accused the government of abandoning with the recent abolition of the industrial strategy council of senior business leaders.
"We absolutely need an industrial strategy. Because we face such massive challenges as a country like the green transition, we have to undertake. And we can only do that without proper partnership between public and private sectors. Now, that does mean a clear roadmap, government showing the direction which is going, it also means public finance."
Speaking to The Times, the Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, hinted that the government could intervene in the Liberty Steel crisis.
"We have done in the past. I think Liberty Steel is consonant with our decarbonisation agenda. I think it's a fundamentally good product... I can't anticipate or guarantee forms of intervention.
"The management has their own plan as well and I've got to see how that works out."
On Tuesday, the government announced a plan to cut industrial carbon emissions by two-thirds by 2035 - allocating a billion pounds of money announced in the government's ten point plan to hit net zero by 2050.
Its strategy for fostering private investment in offshore wind is a roaring success and we have just witnessed the largest state intervention in the private sector outside of wartime.
Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, hinted that the government could intervene in the Liberty Steel crisis
I asked Mr Milliband whether the Labour Party had been outflanked on green investment and state intervention? He unsurprisingly disagreed.
"We're generating the offshore wind here but we're not manufacturing many turbines here, the world leader is Denmark. Why are they the world leader, because they have a proper industrial strategy, where government is willing to put its might alongside the private sector behind it.
"Businesses are deeply frustrated, angry even, that the government has torn up the work that was being done on an industrial strategy. If the government doesn't want to have one, we'll have one. Because we know we've got to work with business on the challenges we face."
He insisted that the people who presided over the last ten years were unlikely to be able to deliver transformation over the next ten years - and Britain was falling behind the US, France and Germany on investment.
Many businesses do indeed say they liked the old industrial strategy - the sector deals that made them feel the government was holding their hand while setting big policy targets. Some feel we have destinations but no detailed map. But it is also true that the government has a trump card to play in this debate - and we can expect them to play it often.
Ministers and officials point to the vaccine response as an exemplar of how the public and private sector can work together successfully. They also use it as an example of how a government freed from the meeting rooms of Brussels can be nimble when required.
When asked what the UK will do with its supposed new found freedoms, insiders will find it difficult to make a list but would point to the vaccine success of "knowing it when you see it".
That argument works less well of course on the government's PPE procurement and the eye watering sums poured into test and trace.
The government insists it does have an industrial strategy - it just doesn't want to call it that. It prefers a "plan for growth", "build back better" - and it prefers its run by Number 10 and the Treasury rather than the Department for Business. It also says it is monitoring the Liberty Steel situation very closely.
Labour's dilemma perhaps is that it has never had to fight against a conservative party in a situation like this. Unprecedented intervention in the private sector, running a huge budget deficit and choosing to pay for some of it with a whopping hike in business taxes in 2023.
It's been a strange year for everyone.
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Covid-19 nearly disabled NHS says hospital boss - BBC News
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2021-03-18
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The outgoing chief executive of a London trust warns the health service needs more capacity to avoid crisis.
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Health
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The NHS in England was ill-prepared for the seismic shock of the Covid pandemic, a hospital chief has said.
The service was already running at nearly full capacity with long waits for non-urgent operations even before coronavirus arrived, according to Prof Marcel Levi, the University College London Hospitals trust's chief executive.
Prof Levi leaves his role at the end of March, after four years, to return to his native Holland to become chief scientific adviser to the Dutch government.
In a BBC interview, he argues that it could take "a very long time" to clear the backlog of routine surgery and procedures which has built up because of cancellations during the pandemic. He says more money will be needed quickly to run weekend and evening sessions in operating theatres.
Prof Levi also believes the most successful responses to the pandemic were those under the control of the NHS - in contrast to those which were run by independent contractors.
"If you want to get something done, ask the NHS and don't outsource it to all these private companies," he said.
Prof Levi started his job in London having been chairman of the executive board of the Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam.
A magazine in the Netherlands named him as Dutchman of the year in 2016. He is a practising consultant, and continued seeing patients as well as carrying out his chief executive role.
He believes hospitals coped extremely well in the face of intense pressure when infection rates surged during the second wave in early 2021.
"I do not think there is any country with such a high number of Covid patients presenting with such a steep rise like we've seen in January and February, that were dealt with in any health system in such a proper way," he said.
"So I'm very proud of how the NHS behaved and acted with the skill available to provide sufficient hospital care for what patients needed."
However, the first wave was a very different story. He says the NHS was not as robust as it should have been, a key factor being that the UK was one of the countries with the lowest number of intensive care beds per 1,000 of population.
"You cannot run a healthcare system at the capacity we run the NHS. We are always 95% full, so it's impossible to quickly respond to an emergency situation."
Every winter with influenza circulating there are peaks in demand, resulting in cancellations of operations because there is not enough intensive care space.
"We should have seen that and said this is just flu, what would happen if we had a real pandemic - and then we would probably have been better prepared."
The same argument applies to routine surgery and procedures: there were already long waiting lists even before the pandemic started.
More than 300,000 patients have waited more than a year in England, but Prof Levi points out they had waited a long time before Covid forced hospitals to postpone operations.
"Covid is actually a magnifying glass, making it clear that capacity in the NHS is not sufficient - that has now become very obvious. It's going to take, I am afraid, a very long time to get where we want to be."
Prof Levi's comments came as Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced £6.6 billion extra for health and care in England in the first half of the 2021/22 financial year.
Mr Hancock told MPs the money was in addition to funding committed as part of the spending review to help the NHS meet additional Covid costs and starting work on the elective recovery.
Prof Levi's analysis makes sobering reading, because he has experience of other health systems, and has seen the front line in the UK with a fresh perspective.
But he also believes that the NHS has many strengths - and takes a swipe at the use of private contractors in some areas of the Covid response.
"Everything that has been a big success - addressing these massive peaks for patients needing intensive care and also vaccination - was the part done by the NHS.
"Everything that was actually not so successful - test-and-trace, PPE provision, all these things - was outsourced to companies which failed to deliver what they promised.
"That is a reminder for the future - the NHS is a very strong organisation. If you want to get something done ask the NHS and not outsource it to all these private companies."
And the best thing about the NHS? The people who work in it, he said.
"The resilience and the quality and the camaraderie of people I have been working with - doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, porters, cleaners, teamwork - that's something I have never encountered before."
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Backlash grows against cut to electric car grants - BBC News
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2021-03-18
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A government decision to reduce subsidies is criticised by the motor industry and UK businesses.
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Business
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The government is to cut grants aimed at encouraging people to buy electric vehicles in a move that has been criticised by the motor industry.
The Department for Transport will reduce the grant from £3,000 to £2,500 and restrict it to cars under £35,000.
But Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said it is "the wrong move at the wrong time".
It said the decision goes against the government's zero emissions ambitions.
"This sends the wrong message to the consumer, especially private customers, and to an industry challenged to meet the government's ambition to be a world leader in the transition to zero emission mobility," said SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes.
Ford of Britain said the grant cut was "disappointing and is not conducive to supporting the zero emissions future we all desire."
"Robust incentives - both purchase and usage incentives - that are consistent over time are essential if we are to encourage consumers to adopt new technologies," the carmaker's chairman Graham Hoare said.
Business group the CBI also criticised the move, saying "this is the wrong time to stunt a green recovery by making a sudden change to the grants on offer."
Matthew Fell, CBI chief UK policy director, said "we must avoid sending mixed messages to consumers and businesses."
"Switching to an electric vehicle still has many barriers, including high upfront costs and availability of reliable charging points.
"A clear and consistent pathway for incentives will ensure business can continue to deliver the government's ambitions for reducing transport emissions," Mr Fell added.
The government said that higher-priced vehicles are typically bought by drivers who can afford to switch to electric vehicles without a subsidy.
It said the changes will allow funding for the grant to go further.
Transport minister Rachel Maclean said: "We want as many people as possible to be able to make the switch to electric vehicles."
"The increasing choice of new vehicles, growing demand from customers, and rapidly rising number of chargepoints means that while the level of funding remains as high as ever, given soaring demand, we are re-focusing our vehicle grants on the more affordable zero emission vehicles."
The government will also alter how it calculates the plug-in van grant, and change the eligibility for the grant to vehicles that are able to travel for 60 miles without any emissions.
The plug-in car grant was introduced a decade ago, and was designed to reduce the price of electric cars, which generally cost more to make than petrol or diesel equivalents, to encourage more people to buy them.
Electric cars are expensive to make and expensive to buy compared with traditional vehicles.
The grant was introduced to reduce the price difference between electric models and conventional cars, to encourage people to buy them.
The government's argument is that now battery prices are falling, and with a range of cheaper cars coming onto the market, the size and scope of the grant can be reined in, and the available money can be better spent.
The market has certainly changed since the grant was introduced a decade ago. Electric car sales are now rising rapidly and relatively affordable vehicles with a practical range are becoming much more common.
With the government now planning to ban the sale of new non-hybrid petrol and diesel cars from 2030, it seems to be relying less on incentives and more on compulsion to bring about change.
Less carrot and more stick.
But the industry believes this approach is wrong and that reducing the grant threatens to choke off the growth in electric car use, at a time when many other countries are offering much bigger subsidies.
Since 2018, the government has been narrowing the scope of the grant, bringing the level down in stages from £5,000 and tightening the eligibility criteria.
It said in 2018 that it wanted to gradually get rid of the grants. In March 2020, it extended the grant schemes for three years with £582m funding.
Sales of electric cars have increased rapidly over the past year, but remain a relatively small proportion of all cars sold.
The government says that by 2030 it wants to ban the sale of new cars powered only by petrol or diesel engines.
As part of a plan to make the UK carbon neutral, it unveiled a £2.8bn package to support the switch to greener cars, including £1.3bn for charging infrastructure.
But in February, the Policy Exchange think tank said the rollout of charging points had fallen behind what was needed to meet the planned ban on diesel and petrol cars.
It said there was a risk of "charging blackspots" in small towns and rural areas unless the rollout speeds up.
Price comparison site Carwow said cutting the subsidy for electric vehicles was a "strange direction" for the UK to take.
"For the most part, electric vehicle variants still carry a notable price premium versus traditional petrol or diesel variants," said Sepi Arani, commercial lead at Carwow.
"The lowering of the cap to £35,000 limits the support to a much smaller proportion of cars, which in turn will no doubt have an effect on the UK's electric vehicle adoption.
"It's difficult to see why the grant scheme does not instead work on a tapered scheme, where the amount offered is staggered for different price points instead," Mr Arani added.
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Alex Salmond inquiry affects more than just Nicola Sturgeon's future - BBC News
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2021-03-18
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Decisions reached by Scottish politicians has implications for the whole of the UK.
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UK Politics
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As I write, nine members of the Scottish Parliament are still in a virtual meeting, discussing, voting, likely indeed arguing, over their conclusions on the future of the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Their inquiry is part of the machinations of a long running dispute between one of the most successful political duos this country has seen for decades, as the first minister and her predecessor, and very much former friend, have come to blows. Remind yourself what the very sorry saga is all about here.
What we know from inside that committee room is that the MSPs have voted by a margin of one vote, 5-4, that Nicola Sturgeon misled them.
Before we see the final report, which may not come for a while, it's hard to know what caveats they have applied, precisely what the circumstances are that they describe. The details will matter.
Ms Sturgeon's team is already trying to dismiss the findings as a partisan attack, a predictable political play from a committee of MSPs, designed to damage the first minister, whose popularity they envy, who has been almost untouchable for so long.
The findings they really fear are from the separate Hamilton Inquiry, being carried out by an independent lawyer in to whether she broke the rules that govern ministers' behaviour.
If she's found to have done that, convention suggests she would have to resign.
It is clear that Nicola Sturgeon has no intention of giving into opposition demands out there to get her to quit on the basis of the MSPs' conclusions.
Of course this is intensely political, it's not just about who said what, when and where.
Ms Sturgeon gave evidence to the committee earlier this month
But a public finding from a parliamentary committee that she misled them can't just be brushed away.
It's a serious accusation from a group of senior politicians after an investigation that looked at thousands of pages of evidence.
It's a huge distraction just before the official start of vital Scottish elections. It underlines the bitter lines drawn inside the SNP during this saga.
And it's damaging to the reputation of one of the country's most important politicians, whose personal standing is key not just to what happens in Scotland, but what happens to the whole of the UK.
The SNP has been all powerful under Ms Sturgeon's leadership. And her personal profile has been a vital part of creating a powerful political sense, although importantly never a certainty, that another referendum on Scottish independence was somehow inevitable.
The SNP hope to hold another referendum on independence
If the SNP clinches a majority in May, it's her intention to use that to claim a mandate for another ballot. (Remember, it is also the UK government's firm intention to say no, which is, as things stand, its legal right.)
But in turn, anything that tarnishes her, could damage the SNP's standing in those May elections.
And anything that harms her credibility, chips away at the sometimes lazy political sentiment, that the events of the last few years have set Scotland firmly on a path out of the UK.
The arguments of a group of politicians won't settle all of this.
But what they decide is one part of the overall wrangle over the future of the union itself.
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Rangers' Premiership win: 'Anger' over celebrating Rangers fans - BBC News
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2021-03-08
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Nicola Sturgeon joins criticism of crowds who gathered to celebrate Rangers' Premiership win.
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Glasgow & West Scotland
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Crowds gathered in George Square to celebrate Rangers winning the Scottish Premiership
Police say arrests were made and fines issued after crowds of fans gathered to celebrate Rangers winning the Scottish Premiership.
Large numbers of supporters made their way to Ibrox Stadium and Glasgow's George Square to mark the achievement despite warnings to stay at home.
Nicola Sturgeon said the crowds were "infuriating and disgraceful" and could delay the end of the Covid lockdown.
Rangers took the title after Celtic failed to beat Dundee United.
The result gave Rangers an unassailable 20-point lead and the title for the first time in 10 years.
Under current guidance, public gatherings are banned and a maximum of two people from two households are allowed to meet outdoors.
Football games are taking place behind closed doors with no fans in the stadium.
However, following Sunday's game, crowds of fans took to the streets, as some let off flares while others chanted and waved flags outside the club ground. In Glasgow city centre fans flocked to George Square to celebrate being crowned Scottish champions.
In a tweet, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon congratulated Rangers on the title win, but added: "Gathering in crowds just now risks lives, and could delay exit from lockdown for everyone else."
"If those gathering care at all about the safety of others & the country, they will go home," she said.
In a later tweet she said: "I share folks' anger at this."
She added it was "infuriating and disgraceful" to see the crowds "risk our progress" after everyone complying with lockdown rules has made "so many sacrifices".
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Ch Supt Mark Sutherland said officers attended gatherings at both George Square and outside Ibrox stadium.
Arrests were made and fixed penalty notices issued for breaches of the Covid restrictions, disorder incidents and the use of pyrotechnic devices, he added.
In a statement published shortly before 21:00, he urged fans to make their way home.
The PA news agency reported that by 21:30 police officers had encircled a depleting group of fans at the base of the Scott Monument in George Square.
Last May thousands of Liverpool fans flouted social distancing guidelines and gathered outside Anfield to celebrate the club's first Premier league title in 30 years.
And in November hundreds of Celtic supporters defied the level four restrictions and converged on Celtic Park to call for the removal of the club's then manager Neil Lennon.
David Hamilton, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, said he was "appalled" by the scenes.
He also told the BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that officers, many of whom have not been vaccinated, were put in "jeopardy" by the supporters' actions.
Mr Hamilton said he understood why people were frustrated by the Police Scotland response but said that was an operational matter for the force, which would have considered factors such as wider public order issues and road safety.
He highlighted that it can take up to 20 minutes to issue a fixed penalty fine for breaches of the Covid restrictions.
Mr Hamilton said: "If we were to ticket everybody in George Square yesterday we would still be doing it just now."
But he also criticised the club for being "silent" and failing to address the mass gatherings on its social media accounts.
He added: "There is a responsibility to the club here. It should not take the government to have to ask the club to tell people to go home.
"That should have been something the club should have taken on themselves proactively."
The club tweeted or retweeted more than 50 times in the hours after they were crowned champions but did not address the mass gathering of fans.
Social psychology expert Prof Stephen Reicher said the celebrations were "completely predictable" and "in some ways encouraged".
The St Andrews University academic said it was "disappointing that the club did not have a dialogue with the fans about how one can celebrate but in ways that are safe, in ways that don't endanger the public, that don't endanger and, indeed, don't endanger Scottish football".
He warned that it undermined the argument for safely reopening mass events including the Euros championship in Scotland.
Glasgow Kelvin MSP Sandra White described the celebrations as "absolute chaos" and questioned what plans were in place to prevent mass gatherings.
She told Good Morning Scotland: "They [the fans] should never have been allowed to leave Ibrox and march into the city centre in large numbers. It could have been stopped there and then.
"People have lost loved ones and people can't visit loved ones and yet this is being facilitated."
Rangers fans in Northern Ireland also breached lockdown rules, with a large crowd gathering on Belfast's Shankill Road to celebrate on Sunday evening.
Police Service Northern Ireland urged people to celebrate "at home safely and within the current health regulations".
Earlier on Sunday Scotland's justice secretary urged fans not to put lives at risk by flouting lockdown rules.
Humza Yousaf also warned that Uefa would be paying "close attention" in anticipation of the European Championships coming to Scotland.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'From 10 years of misery to this... bouncing' - Rangers fans celebrate at Ibrox
Following their win, some Rangers players made their way to the fence to celebrate in sight of fans outside.
Speaking on BBC Scotland's Sunday Show, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross called the actions of fans outside Ibrox "completely wrong".
He added: "We've all done so much to get the virus rates down.
"I understand passions run high with football fans, but it clearly didn't match what we expect people to do during a Covid period, while many people still can't even leave their homes."
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Covid in Scotland: Rules around outdoor mixing set to ease next week - BBC News
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2021-03-05
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The first minister says it will be the first step out of lockdown, but urges people not to get carried away.
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Scotland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rules around the number of people who can meet outdoors are set to be eased
Rules around outdoor socialising are likely to ease next week, the first minister has said.
Nicola Sturgeon said more opportunities to see loved ones would be the "first steps" taken out of lockdown.
Only two people from two households are currently allowed to meet outdoors, with people being urged to stay at home apart from for essential reasons.
Ms Sturgeon said she hoped to announce "relatively minor but important" changes on Tuesday.
She said these would relate to restrictions on meeting outdoors and how young people are able to interact with friends.
The government's recent plan for easing lockdown said that allowing four people from two households to meet outdoors was unlikely to happen before 15 March.
Ms Sturgeon said the progress with the vaccine programme and the decline in hospital admissions and case number should give encouragement that "greater normality is firmly on the horizon".
But she added: "It's really important we don't get carried away yet.
"The overall stay at home message needs to stay for a bit longer so that we don't send our progress into reverse.
"But I'm very keen if we can we should all get a bit more opportunities to see loved ones as the first steps we take out of this lockdown."
The Scottish government has been considering accelerating its exit plan out of lockdown, which currently says that the country will return to a levels system towards the end of April.
However, new rules are set to make it harder for areas to drop down to lower tiers of these restrictions.
If an area is to see restrictions lifted, the number of positive cases will need to be far lower than when the system operated last year.
It is also expected that non-essential retail, hospitality and services such as gyms and hairdressers will reopen as part of the levels system.
But business leaders have said a return to this framework would be "devastating" and have called for more clarity on how the system would work.
The first minister and Chief Medical Officer haven't quite started playing Ian Dury's Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 3 during the daily briefing, but the change of tone in recent days has been dramatic.
Frankly, the figures are improving far faster than anyone dared hope.
The rolling death toll is falling and is at its lowest since early October. The number of patients in hospital with Covid - while still high - is falling rapidly, as are new Covid admissions.
There is growing confidence this is down to the vaccination programme as well as lockdown.
Virtually everyone over 65 has now had their first jab as have nearly 40% of those between 60 and 64 and a third of those aged 55 to 59.
Positive tests are falling and the proportion of positive tests is consistently below the crucial 5pc benchmark.
Because those most at risk are being vaccinated first, jabs should mean far fewer hospital admissions or deaths. The portion of positive tests where the patient is asymptomatic or only mildly unwell may rise. Vaccinations also appear to cut transmission rates.
While some scientists argue for a strategy based around the complete elimination of Covid, the argument made to the public has always been about saving lives and protecting the NHS.
There is a question over whether the public would support harsh measures if the risk of death and hospitalisation had been greatly reduced.
The challenge for those responsible for regulations is to strike the right balance between persuading people that difficult measures are still needed, ensuring people follow the rules and offering the tantalising prospect that the dark clouds may now be lifting and the sun will soon shine again.
As part of the lockdown easing plans, it was announced on Tuesday that all secondary school pupils in Scotland will return to classrooms part-time from 15 March - a month earlier than originally planned.
The latest statistics showed that further 498 people have tested positive for Covid-19 - the lowest daily figure since 27 September - representing 3.1% of the tests carried out.
The FM said 11 new deaths had been reported of people who had tested positive for coronavirus within 28 days, bringing the total under that measure to 7,409.
A further 29,064 people received the first dose of the vaccine while 8,139 received the second dose.
And the number of people in hospital with the virus has fallen by 52 to 666, with 64 patients in intensive care - three fewer than yesterday's figures.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar welcomed the improving statistics, but said the number of vaccinations and tests being carried out was "nowhere near" the level it should be.
He added: "The vaccine is the way that we try to defeat the virus - or defeat it as best we can.
"The target was 400,000 vaccinations a week and we are nowhere near that.
"But the vaccine is only one part of this. People need to see that testing and tracing is still a huge, huge part of getting back some level of normality."
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Former SNP leader Alex Salmond launches new political party - BBC News
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2021-03-27
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The former first minister said he would be among the candidates standing for the pro-independence Alba Party.
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Scotland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alex Salmond says his new party wants to build "a supermajority for independence"
Former SNP leader Alex Salmond has announced the creation of a new pro-independence party which will contest the Scottish Parliament election.
The former first minister said he would be among the candidates who will stand for the Alba Party on regional lists.
Mr Salmond said the aim was to build "a supermajority for independence" at Holyrood after the election in May.
Other parties described Mr Salmond as "discredited" and questioned his suitability for public office.
The announcement came at the end of a dramatic week at Holyrood.
On Wednesday, Mr Salmond said he would take fresh legal action over the conduct of the Scottish government's top civil servant.
A report by MSPs on Tuesday described the government's handling of harassment complaints against Mr Salmond as "seriously flawed".
The previous day, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was cleared of breaching the ministerial code over her involvement in the Alex Salmond saga.
Alex Salmond is no stranger to making a political comeback - he was twice elected leader of the SNP and served for two separate spells as an MSP.
On the day he stood down from Holyrood for the second time, he told me he would consider returning if Scotland became independent.
Five years later, he's decided to attempt a comeback anyway - on the basis that the SNP and Greens need his help to make independence happen.
The SNP has questioned the appropriateness of his return to public life given the controversy over his personal conduct in recent years.
When I asked him today if he owed an apology to any or all of the women who have complained about his behaviour, Mr Salmond said he accepted the outcomes of the two court cases and three inquiries and wanted to move on.
Mr Salmond was acquitted of all charges in a criminal trial and successfully challenged the Scottish government's process for handling harassment complaints against him in the civil court.
That his reputation has suffered damage along the way would come as no surprise. But it will now be for voters to decide whether or not they want one of the biggest figures in modern Scottish politics back in the frontline.
Mr Salmond said that under his leadership, the Alba Party was seeking to "build a supermajority for independence in the Scottish parliament".
"The party's strategic aims are clear and unambiguous - to achieve a successful, socially just and environmentally responsible independent country," he said.
"We intend to contribute policy ideas to assist Scotland's economic recovery and to help build an independence platform to face the new political realities."
It plans to field at least four candidates on the regional lists in every part of the country.
People have two votes in Holyrood elections - one for a constituency MSP, and another in a regional ballot designed to make the overall result more proportional.
Mr Salmond claimed that if Alba won regional list seats, this could lead to there being 90 or more MSPs at Holyrood who support independence.
What elections are happening? On 6 May, people across Scotland will vote to elect 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The party that wins the most seats will form the Scottish government. Find out more here.
What powers does the Scottish Parliament have? MSPs pass laws on most aspects of day-to-day life in Scotland, such as health, education and transport. They also have control over some taxes and welfare benefits. Defence, foreign policy and immigration are decided by the UK Parliament.
How do I vote? Anyone who lives in Scotland and is registered to vote is eligible, so long as they are aged 16 or over on the day of the election. You can register to vote online.
He said Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has already dismissed the SNP's request for a second independence referendum, would "find it much more difficult to say no to a parliament and a country."
The SNP said there were "real questions" about Mr Salmond's suitability to return to public office.
A spokesperson said: "This is perhaps the most predictable development in Scottish politics for quite some time.
"At this time of crisis, the interests of the country must come first and should not be obscured by the self interest of someone who shows no sign whatsoever of reflecting on serious concerns about his own conduct."
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: "Alex Salmond is a discredited figure who admitted appalling behaviour towards women during his time as SNP first minister and right-thinking people will want nothing to do with him or his new party."
He added that his party would do "everything possible" to block another independence referendum and "ensure the Scottish Parliament works towards rebuilding and recovery after the pandemic".
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the people of Scotland deserved more than "score settling" and "old politics".
He said: "We are still in the midst of a pandemic. Lives and livelihoods are still at risk.
"This election must be about our national recovery and the people of Scotland's priorities, not the old arguments between personalities who believe their interest matters more than the national interest."
The Scottish Liberal Democrats chair Alistair Carmichael MP said the move was evidence of a feuding within the Nationalist movement.
He said: "There are no questions about Scotland's future to which Alex Salmond is the answer.
"This astonishing announcement shows just how divided the SNP are. A few years ago no one could have imagined that the former first minister and his protege would be at one another's throats."
The Scottish Greens' Ross Greer told the BBC News Channel: "This is the very public meltdown of a thoroughly disgraced individual."
He said the election should be about the future and described Mr Salmond as "a man from Scotland's past who is obsessively pursuing personal vendettas".
"Alex Salmond is less popular in Scotland than Boris Johnson. I'm quite sure that very quickly after today we can go back to ignoring what is a very sad sideshow."
In 2019, the Scottish government admitted it had acted unlawfully while investigating allegations of sexual harassment against Mr Salmond, which he strongly denied.
The following year he was acquitted of all 13 charges of sexual assault after a trial at the High Court.
Giving evidence, Mr Salmond said that in hindsight he wished he had been "more careful with people's personal space".
His defence lawyer, Gordon Jackson, told the court Mr Salmond had not always behaved well and could have been "a better man on occasions" - but had never sexually assaulted anyone.
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All Scottish councils agree to tax freeze - BBC News
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2021-03-11
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Stirling and Glasgow were the last of the 32 authorities to consider a council tax freeze in meetings on Thursday.
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Scotland
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All of Scotland's 32 local authorities have frozen council tax rates at last year's levels.
The Scottish government offered councils incentives in return for not raising the cost of the bills.
Glasgow and Stirling were the last authorities to consider council tax levels when they set their 2021/22 budgets on Thursday.
Other councils had been through that process since last month, with all agreeing to a freeze.
Local authorities are to receive a cash equivalent of a 3% council tax increase in return for not putting up levels.
The move forms part of the Scottish government's spending plans for the coming year, which Finance Secretary Kate Forbes said were aimed at striking a balance between raising revenue to pay for public services and helping Scotland recover from the Covid pandemic.
Ms Forbes said she was pleased the freeze had been agreed by all the councils.
She said: "With people facing unprecedented challenges and extra pressures, now is a time to work together to provide stability and certainty.
"I am pleased that councils have taken advantage of this additional support and have protected household finances. This will make a real difference to people across Scotland."
Points to note: Band D is highlighted above as the average council tax bill for householders in Scotland. The Band D figures do not include water and sewerage charges. Therefore, the final household bill will be bigger.
It will come as a relief to the Scottish government when they are finally able to confirm that council tax bills will not rise anywhere in Scotland this year.
The SNP believes it will be a popular measure at a time when some families are facing financial pressures because of the pandemic.
So it will be a relief for the government - but no real surprise.
If any council were to decide to put up the council tax, the rise would need to be significant to be worthwhile. This is because they would have lost out on some government funding if they put up bills.
The Scottish government will be hopeful that a new council tax freeze proves as popular with the public as they think the first one did.
Between 2007 and 2017 the basic council tax rate didn't rise anywhere in Scotland. Since then councils have been able to put it up within agreed limits, though it's worth noting that some still opted for lower rises and even freezes.
The basic argument between some in local government and Holyrood is not over whether voters will welcome another freeze - most accept they will. The argument is over whether councils have enough money overall and if they are too dependent on government cash.
Most council income either comes directly from the government or, like council tax, is heavily influenced by it.
Councils had already been given extra government money to cope with the pandemic but have also lost income - sports centres have been closed, facilities cannot be hired out and they have lost income from car parking.
The underlying issue is whether the council tax itself is fit for purpose and whether councils should have a broader range of ways to raise finances.
Fourteen years ago when the SNP first took control of Holyrood, a council tax freeze was meant to be a temporary measure while a way to replace the council tax was found.
Finding an alternative or finding palatable ways of giving councils more financial independence from central government is easier said than done.
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Sarah Everard: What went wrong at the Clapham vigil? - BBC News
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2021-03-15
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Maintaining public order at protests is one of the hardest jobs in modern policing.
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UK
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Met officers were accused of oppressing women on Clapham Common on Saturday night
Maintaining public order at protests is one of the hardest jobs in modern policing. If everything goes well, the public won't notice how commanders and demo organisers have worked out how to make an event safe.
But when it goes wrong, then the inevitable accusations of failure come piling in.
Sunday dawned badly for the Metropolitan Police's commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick. Her officers were accused of oppressing women and politicians waded in calling for her head.
But the seeds for Saturday's PR disaster for the force were sown in the legal dispute over whether a vigil could take place at all - and how events then seemed to run out of control.
The question is whether the police should have foreseen that happening. That, time and again, is the great challenge of public order policing.
Earlier in the week it became increasingly clear that people up and down the UK wanted to hold vigils for Sarah Everard.
Women in London, organising under the Reclaim These Streets banner, approached Met commanders for their help in setting up a vigil on Clapham Common in south London, close to where Ms Everard was last seen alive.
The police said a demo would be illegal under the coronavirus lockdown regulations.
And so the women and their lawyers asked the High Court to make a declaration that would force the police to think again.
The problem is that the law is not that clear cut.
For almost a year, the ambiguities and omissions within the coronavirus restrictions have left both the police and the public grasping for answers as to what is possible in public. It's so complex we've even seen people fined for walking while holding a cup of tea.
People laid flowers and paid tribute to Ms Everard at the common throughout Saturday
Gatherings in public are generally banned in England but, at the same time, the rules recognise there are "reasonable excuses" to be outside.
But the law doesn't specify whether a demonstration on a major issue of public importance - such as this vigil - is one of those excuses.
No matter what the Covid regulations say, there is an overarching right to freedom of expression that is enshrined in the Human Rights Act. That means the police have a legal duty to help make safe protests possible.
But that right is not an absolute trump card - it can be interfered with if the police can show they have good reason to stop an event happening.
And after hours of difficult legal argument on Friday, the judge refused to intervene and basically told the two sides to work it out for themselves with all those legal principles in mind.
In the absence of further legal clarity, the organisers claimed victory. They said the police had to now negotiate a sensible well-run vigil.
Then, the police pushed back hard. They said they too had been vindicated. They could not authorise a potentially unlimited demonstration that would become an enormous Covid-spreading event. Stay at home, they said.
By Saturday morning, the organisers abandoned their plans amid a very serious risk they could each face a £10,000 fine for organising a lockdown-breaking gathering.
But by that point, it was inevitable that people would turn up at Clapham Common, whether or not there was going to be a public event. It was the talk of social media.
So given that racing certainty, and the lack of official marshals that Reclaim These Streets said they would have provided had the police agreed to a vigil, what was the police's plan to keep people safe?
There was a lot of anger on the common as police removed people
The turning point in Scotland Yard's tactics appears to have been the start of speeches from the bandstand, around 18:00 GMT. People pressed forwards to hear.
Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball said: "At this point, officers on the ground were faced with a very difficult decision.
"Hundreds of people were packed tightly together, posing a very real risk of easily transmitting Covid-19."
And so, they tried to break up that part of the gathering and remove people whom they believed were contributing to the crowding.
Patsy Stevenson, the red-haired woman caught on camera being handcuffed on the ground at the bandstand, received a £200 Covid fine as police tried to remove her from the area.
She has not been accused of, or charged with, violence - but was there any elsewhere?
There was definitely a lot of anger - with some of the crowd chanting obscenities at the police at one point.
The Metropolitan Police Federation, representing frontline officers, says 26 of them were assaulted yesterday at Clapham - punched, kicked and spat at.
Pictures obtained by the Press Association clearly show three instances of officers being forcibly pushed and a van's wing mirror being deliberately vandalised. Guess what? All three instances involved men, not women.
Dame Cressida joined officers on Clapham Common on Friday night - the night before the vigil
Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball has said the Met did not want to be in the position where it had to turn to enforcement. But what's not clear is why this demonstration was considered to be so much more of a Covid risk than others that commanders couldn't find a way to make it possible.
Police forces elsewhere in the UK were waiting for a lead from the Met. But those that saw DIY vigils - albeit far smaller ones - appeared to take a stand-back approach.
The better comparison is Black Lives Matter last summer, when there were large crowds in London and elsewhere that were clearly not socially distancing.
Why the difference? That, and other questions about how the operation unfolded, may have been answered in the report that's been sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel.
She's now asked Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to carry out its own external review of the event - and what Ms Patel ultimately concludes may dictate whether Dame Cressida survives calls for her to go.
While the commissioner is accountable to the Mayor of London, who has raised his own serious concerns after a meeting with Dame Cressida, the Home Secretary is jointly responsible for deciding who gets the job - and when they should go.
Dame Cressida is highly respected both in policing and government - far more so than some of her predecessors - but she remains a controversial figure for many others.
She commanded the 2005 operation that led to the shooting dead of Jean Charles De Menezes, after he was mistaken for a suicide bomber - although a jury exonerated her of any personal wrongdoing.
More recently, she called for better powers to deal with Extinction Rebellion's repeated occupations of parts of London. The government agreed - and the home secretary's proposals to greatly expand the police's ability to curtail demonstrations goes before Parliament on Monday.
Ask most police officers who have experience of covering public protests, and they will tell you they often feel - individual mistakes besides - it is a no-win situation when things go wrong. (Just last week I was talking about this very dilemma on BBC Newscast.)
It would be something of a terrible twist of fate for the commissioner - the first woman in the post - to lose her job in these circumstances.
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Johnson: Defence reforms 'will help make UK match-fit' - BBC News
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2021-03-15
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Boris Johnson promises more investment and jobs ahead of his long-awaited update on the military.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson has promised to help make the UK "match-fit" when he unveils his plan for modernising the armed forces and foreign policy.
The prime minister said there would be "more investment" in infrastructure and skills around the country.
He also announced that 500 Foreign Office jobs would be moving from London to East Kilbride.
The government publishes its Integrated Review of the UK's defence and foreign relations capabilities on Tuesday.
But a group of MPs has warned that "general ineptitude" over the last 20 years has undermined attempts to re-equip the Army.
The Integrated Review, first announced in 2019, will set out the UK's defence and foreign affairs priorities for the next decade or so, during which cyber warfare in particular is expected to become a greater threat.
Some details are being pre-released, including the plan to move 500 jobs to the Foreign Office's East Kilbride hub - which follows news that the Cabinet Office will transfer at least 500 civil servants to nearby Glasgow by 2024.
The government has promised "further commitments" to "strengthening the UK's core industrial base" in the Integrated Review, including building ships in Scotland and armoured vehicles in Wales.
There will also be a focus on lithium mining in Cornwall and manufacturing satellites in Northern Ireland, it added.
The Integrated Review is billed as the most radical reassessment of Britain's place in the world since the end of the Cold War.
But the prime minister wants the new strategy to make a difference at home as well as abroad. He is promising new investment in domestic industries such as defence, science and technology.
And, crucially, he argues that this will provide jobs across the United Kingdom.
Ministers argue it's only by combining the resources of the union that the UK is able to respond to global challenges and project its influence abroad.
The test will be whether that argument is accepted by those calling for a fresh independence referendum in Scotland.
Mr Johnson said: "The foundation of our foreign policy is who we are as a country: our values, our strengths and - most importantly - our people.
"So I am determined to ensure we have a foreign policy that delivers for those people."
He added that the UK's "international ambitions must start at home", with investment in regional industry "ensuring the UK is on the cutting-edge of innovation and creating an entire country that is match-fit for a more competitive world".
The government has said "further jobs" will be created outside London by the establishment of the National Cyber Force HQ in the North of England.
It has also promised an increase in spending on defence of 2.6% above the rate of inflation between 2019/20 and 2020/21, with the overall figure expected to rise to £41.5bn during this time.
From 2010 to 2017, annual defence spending fell by £6.6bn in real terms, but, since then, it has increased by £3bn in real terms.
A report by the Commons Defence Committee, published on Sunday, warned that the Army was at "serious risk" of being outmatched by the UK's adversaries.
It described efforts to modernise its fleet of armoured fighting vehicles as "woeful" and criticised what it called "bureaucratic procrastination" and "general ineptitude" over the past two decades.
In a speech last month, Labour's shadow defence secretary, John Healey, said the Integrated Review should "refocus our defence efforts on where the threats are".
He added that unless it confirmed a reduction in potential dangers to the UK, it would be "very hard to accept the case for reducing the strength of our full-time forces".
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The art dealer, the £10m Benin Bronze and the Holocaust - BBC News
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2021-03-15
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Western museums are under pressure to return looted treasure, but what of those in private collections?
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Africa
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This Benin Bronze sold to a private collector for a record fee of £10m
Countless historic artefacts were looted from around the world during the colonial era and taken to Europe but there is now a growing campaign to return them. Among the most famous are the Benin Bronzes seized from modern-day Nigeria. Barnaby Phillips finds out about one family's dilemma.
One morning in April 2016, a woman walked into Barclays Bank on London's exclusive Park Lane, to retrieve a mysterious object that had been locked in the vaults for 63 years.
Attendants ushered her downstairs. Three men waited upstairs, perched anxiously on an uncomfortable sofa, watching customers go about their business.
Twenty minutes later the woman appeared, carrying something covered in an old dishcloth. She unwrapped it, and everyone gasped.
A youthful face cast in bronze or brass stared out at them. He had a beaded collar around his neck and a gourd on his head.
The men, an art dealer called Lance Entwistle and two experts from the auctioneers Woolley and Wallis, recognised it as an early Benin Bronze head, perhaps depicting an oba, or king, from the 16th Century.
It was in near-immaculate condition, with the dark grey patina of old bronze, much like a contemporary piece from the Italian Renaissance. They suspected it was worth millions of pounds. The bank staff quickly led them into a panelled room, where they placed the head on a table.
The woman who went down into the vaults is a daughter of an art dealer called Ernest Ohly, who died in 2008.
I have chosen to call her Frieda and not reveal her married name to protect her privacy.
Ernest's father, William Ohly, who was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany and was prominent in London's mid-century art scene.
William Ohly's exhibitions in the late 1940s attracted aesthetes and celebrities
William Ohly lived "at the nexus of culture, society and artists", says Entwistle.
His "Primitive Art" exhibitions attracted collectors, socialites, and artists such as Jacob Epstein, Lucian Freud, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
He died in 1955. Ernest Ohly inherited his love of art, but was a more reserved character.
"A very, very difficult man to know. He didn't let anything out. You did not know what he was thinking," said Entwistle.
Ernest Ohly's death provoked a ripple of excitement at the lucrative top end of the ethnographic art world. He was rumoured to have an extensive collection. His statues from Polynesia and masks from West Africa were auctioned in 2011 and 2013. And that, dealers assumed, was that.
But his children knew otherwise. In old age, he had told them he had one more sculpture. It was in a Barclays safe box and not to be sold, he specified, unless there was another Holocaust.
In 2016 matters were taken out of the children's hands. Barclays on Park Lane was closing its safe boxes; it told customers to collect their belongings.
I met Lance Entwistle in 2019, in his library lined with books on African sculpture. His website said his company has been "leading tribal art dealers for over 40 years".
"Tribal art" is a term that Western museums now avoid, but is still common in the world of auctions and private sales.
I was bowled over. It was beautiful, moving and its emergence from obscurity was so exciting" Lance Entwistle
Art dealer on the "Ohly head" sold to a collector for £10m
Entwistle has rarely been to Africa, and never to Nigeria, but he's well connected. The British Museum, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris and the Metropolitan in New York have all bought pieces from him.
I asked him how he had felt when Frieda pulled the cloth away from the Benin Bronze head in the bank.
"I was bowled over," he said. "It was beautiful, moving, and its emergence from obscurity was so exciting. I'm very used to being told about a Benin head, a Benin plaque, a Benin horse and rider. Generally I'm not excited because 99 times out of 100 they're fake, and often the remaining 1% has been stolen."
Provenance is everything in Entwistle's world. This time, thanks to the Ernest Ohly connection, he was confident he was dealing with a bona fide piece.
He told Frieda the Benin Bronze head was significant and unusual, and convinced her to take it home in a taxi, to her terraced house in Tooting, south London.
The Benin Bronzes were brought to Europe in the spring of 1897, the loot of British soldiers and sailors who conquered the West African kingdom of Benin, in modern day Nigeria's Edo state.
Although they are called Benin Bronzes, they are actually thousands of brass and bronze castings and ivory carvings. When some were displayed in the British Museum that autumn, they caused a sensation.
Africans, the British believed at the time, did not possess skills to produce pieces of such sophistication or beauty. Nor were they supposed to have much history.
But the bronzes - some portrayed Portuguese visitors in medieval armour - were evidently hundreds of years old.
They were our documents, our archives, the 'photographs' of our kings. When they were taken our history was exhumed"
Benin had been denigrated in British newspapers as a place of savagery, a "City of Blood". Now those newspapers described the Bronzes as "surprising", "remarkable" and admitted they were "baffled".
Some of these bronzes are still owned by descendants of those who pillaged Benin, while others have passed from owner to owner.
Victor Ehikhamenor, an artist from Edo state, told me the bronzes were not made only for aesthetic enjoyment.
"They were our documents, our archives, the 'photographs' of our kings. When they were taken our history was exhumed."
But as their value in the West has increased, they've also become prestige investments, held by the wealthy and reclusive.
London auction sales tell the story. In 1953, Sotheby's sold a Benin Bronze head for £5,500. The price raised eyebrows; the previous record for a Benin head was £780.
In 1968 Christie's sold a Benin head for £21,000. (It had been discovered months earlier by a policeman who was pottering around his neighbour's greenhouse and noticed something interesting amidst the plants).
In the 1970s, "Tribal Art" prices soared, and Benin Bronzes led the way. And so it went on, all the way to 2007 when Sotheby's in New York sold a Benin head for $4.7m (£2.35m).
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Find out how the ancient trade of Benin bronzes lives on
Entwistle kept an eye on that 2007 sale. The buyer, whose identity was not publicly revealed, was one of his trusted clients.
Nine years later, presented by Frieda with the challenge of selling Ernest Ohly's head, Lance knew where to turn.
"It was the first client I offered it to, which is what you want, there was no need to shop around," he said.
There was only a minor haggle over price. The client, Entwistle insisted, was motivated by his love of African art.
"He will never sell, in my view." Whoever he is, wherever he is, he paid another world record fee.
The "Ohly head", as Entwistle calls it, was sold for £10m - a figure not previously disclosed.
If you envisaged the woman who sold the world's most expensive Benin Bronze, you might not come up with Frieda.
We met in the Tate Modern gallery, overlooking the Thames. She had travelled from Tooting by underground. She is a grandmother, with grey close-cropped hair and glasses. She used to work in children's nurseries, but is retired.
"My family is riddled with secrets," she said. "My father refused to speak about his Jewish ancestry."
She did her own research on relatives who were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Ernest Ohly was haunted, "paranoid", says Frieda, by the prospect of another catastrophe engulfing the Jews.
Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust - and, according to the Jewish Claims Conference, the Nazis seized an estimated 650,000 artworks and religious items from Jews and other victims.
The artworks produced in Benin City still seek to chronicle events - like this one depicting the slave trade
Ernest Ohly distrusted strangers and lived in a world of cash and secret objects. He kept a suitcase of £50 notes under the bed.
"Ernie the Dealer" was the family nickname. The children grew up surrounded by art. But by the end he was tired of life.
His house was chaotic, his Persian rugs infested with moths. The family found the suitcase of banknotes but discovered they were no longer legal tender.
Ernest Ohly may have let things slide, but he had been a formidable collector.
"He and my grandfather never went to Africa or the South Pacific, but got their knowledge from being around objects," said Freida.
"There was a whole group of European dealers in London, in the 1940s through to the 1970s."
The British Empire was ending, and the deaths of its last administrators and soldiers brought rich pickings.
"I never understood why my father was so interested in reading obituary pages. The Telegraph, the Times, really studying them. If they were Foreign Office, armed forces, anything to do with Empire, he wrote to the widows."
Ernest Ohly listed his buys in ledger books. That's how Entwistle found what he was looking for: "Benin Bronze head... Dec 51, £230" from Glendining's - a London auctioneers where he also bought coins and stamps.
Ernest Ohly's ledger showed how much he paid for the Benin Bronze in 1951
In today's money, that is just over £7,000. In other words, a substantial purchase. But Ernest Ohly knew what he was doing. He had a steal. He put the head in the safe box in 1953, and it stayed there until 2016.
"It was like a lump of gold," said Frieda. The windfall was not quite as large as it might have been.
Ernest Ohly's affairs were a mess, and the taxman took a substantial amount. Still, Frieda says, she can sleep easy now. The Benin head bought care for her family, and property for her children.
Frieda is married to a man of Caribbean descent - and her son is a journalist.
A few years ago he wrote an article about how the Edo - the people of the Benin Kingdom - tried to stop the sale at Sotheby's of a Benin ivory mask.
In fact, although he did not know this, it was a mask that his great-grandfather, William Ohly, displayed at his gallery in 1947.
The article described Edo outrage that the family who owned the mask - relatives of a British official who looted it in 1897 - should profit from what they regarded as theft and a war crime.
Frieda is too intelligent and sensitive not to appreciate the layers of irony behind her story. She had followed the arguments about whether the Benin Bronzes should be returned to Nigeria.
Britain has laws to enable the return of art looted by the Nazis, but there is no similar legislation to cover its own colonial period.
"Part of me will always feel guilty for not giving it to the Nigerians… It's a murky past, tied up with colonialism and exploitation."
"But that's in the past, lots of governments aren't stable and things have been destroyed. I'm afraid I took the decision to sell. I stand by it. I wanted my family to be secure."
Frieda is not the only owner of Benin Bronzes who has wrestled with their conscience in recent years.
Mark Walker, a doctor from Wales, returned two Bronzes which had been taken by his grandfather, an officer on the 1897 expedition.
Mark Walker (R) was feted in 2014 when he returned an oro bird and a bell to call ancestors stolen by his grandfather
He received a hero's welcome in Benin City.
Others are hesitant. In an imposing west London mansion block I met an elderly woman whose grandfather also looted Bronzes in 1897.
Ten, or even five years ago, it would not have been difficult to get somebody in her position to talk. But today the owners of Benin Bronzes are cautious, and I agreed to hide this woman's identity.
She showed me two brass oro "prophecy birds". I asked if they made her feel uncomfortable.
"I've felt misgivings, considerations that crossed my mind… Maybe misgivings is too strong a word. I don't feel like giving them anything." There was a long silence.
"You know," she said, "one bumbles along for 77 years, and suddenly this has become a sensitive subject. It never was before."
Frieda and I left the Tate and were walking along the Thames.
I was about to say goodbye. Unprompted, she returned to the Benin Bronzes.
Sometimes, she said, she wished her father had sold that head when he was still alive.
A dilemma would have been taken out of her hands.
"It was difficult for me," she said again. "Part of me felt we should have given it back." Then she was gone.
Barnaby Phillips is a former BBC Nigeria correspondent. His book Loot; Britain and the Benin Bronzes will be published on 1 April.
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Nicola Sturgeon cleared of breaching ministerial code over Alex Salmond saga - BBC News
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2021-03-23
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An independent report says the first minister's involvement in the Alex Salmond saga did not break the rules.
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Scotland politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon spoke of her relief after the inquiry cleared her of wrongdoing
Nicola Sturgeon has been cleared of breaching the ministerial code over her involvement in the Alex Salmond saga.
An independent inquiry by senior Irish lawyer James Hamilton had been examining whether the first minister misled the Scottish Parliament over what she knew and when.
His report said Ms Sturgeon had given an "incomplete narrative of events" to MSPs.
But he said this was a "genuine failure of recollection" and not deliberate.
Mr Hamilton said he was therefore of the opinion that Ms Sturgeon had not breached any of the provisions of the code.
The code sets out the standards expected of Scottish government ministers, and states that anyone who deliberately misleads Holyrood would be expected to resign.
Mr Hamilton concluded in his report, some parts of which were heavily redacted, that Ms Sturgeon did not breach the ministerial code in respect of any of the four issues he considered.
These included allegations that Ms Sturgeon had failed to record a series of meetings and telephone discussions with Mr Salmond and others in 2018.
Mr Hamilton concluded that the meetings were government business - contrary to Ms Sturgeon's claims that they were a party matter - but accepted her reasoning that "it would have been impossible to record such meetings or discussions without a risk of prejudicing the proceedings or interfering with their confidentiality".
He also looked at whether the first minister "may have attempted to influence the conduct of the investigation" into the harassment complaints made against Mr Salmond, her predecessor as first minister and SNP leader.
The lawyer said the key point was that Ms Sturgeon had not intervened, and said that had Mr Salmond really believed she had agreed to it during a meeting on 2 April 2018 then, "one might have expected him to follow it up and to press home his advantage" - but that no further contact was made for three weeks.
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond have been embroiled in an increasingly bitter war of words over the affair
The third issue centred on whether Ms Sturgeon misled the Scottish Parliament in relation to the meetings in 2018.
The first minister insisted she had first learned of the complaints from Mr Salmond at her home on 2 April, but later said she had had "forgotten" about a meeting with his former chief of staff four days earlier, on 29 March.
Mr Hamilton said it was "regrettable" that Ms Sturgeon had not told MSPs about this meeting, but that he found it "difficult to think of any convincing reason" for her to deliberately conceal it.
He said she had given parliament "an incomplete narrative of events", but added: "I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate."
The fourth ground of investigation alleged that Ms Sturgeon was in breach of her duty to comply with the law in relation to Mr Salmond's successful legal challenge against the Scottish government.
Mr Salmond has pointed to external legal advice warning that the government may be at risk of losing the case as early as October 2018, but ministers decided to fight on until January 2019 - and ultimately had to pay Mr Salmond more than £500,000 in legal costs.
Mr Salmond was later cleared of 13 charges of sexual assault against nine women after a separate High Court trial in March of last year.
Mr Hamilton said Ms Sturgeon had relied on advice from the law officers, as she was "fully entitled" to do, and said Mr Salmond "appears to be under the misapprehension that the government is under a duty to withdraw a case if advised that there is less than an evens chance of winning".
The lawyer's 61-page report concluded: "I am of the opinion that the first minister did not breach the provisions of the ministerial code in respect of any of these matters."
Mr Hamilton is a former head of Ireland's prosecution service and the Scottish government's independent advisor on the ministerial code
Ms Sturgeon welcomed the findings, and said she had "sought at every stage in this issue to act with integrity and in the public interest".
She added: "As I have previously made clear, I did not consider that I had broken the code, but these findings are official, definitive and independent adjudication of that."
Ms Sturgeon again apologised to the women who made the complaints, saying they had been let down by the government.
But she said: "I was determined at the time these complaints emerged that they should not be swept under the carpet, and that I would not intervene in the process."
The first minister also called on opposition parties to respect the outcome of Mr Hamilton's inquiry, and said she would continue to devote "all of my time and energy to leading Scotland and to helping the country through the pandemic".
James Hamilton's conclusions are undoubtedly a significant boost for the first minister and her party.
In two days, the starting gun will be fired on the Scottish election campaign.
Ms Sturgeon will go into it saying her independent advisor cleared her. Her team see it as "complete vindication".
Remember there is another report to be published tomorrow morning, by the Holyrood committee.
We know a majority of the committee believe Ms Sturgeon misled them in her evidence - so the issue of trust will no doubt continue to be part of the election campaign.
But Team Sturgeon is very happy tonight - going into an election campaign which could prove very important in determining whether there is another independence referendum.
The Scottish Conservatives plan to hold a vote of no confidence in the first minister on Tuesday afternoon.
But it looks doomed to fail after the Scottish Greens said they would not support it on the basis that "the Tories have shown that they have no interest in establishing the truth."
Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the first minister had been "given a pass" by Mr Hamilton because he had judged that her failure of recollection was not deliberate.
Mr Ross said: "I respect Mr Hamilton and his judgement but we cannot agree with that assessment. Nicola Sturgeon did not suddenly turn forgetful.
"She is not free and clear. The first minister promised to respect the decisions of both inquiry reports, not to pick and choose which one suits her and try to discredit the other.
"This report does not change the overwhelming evidence that Nicola Sturgeon misled parliament, her government badly let women down and wasted more than £500,000 of taxpayers' money."
A separate report by a cross-party committee of MSPs that has been examining the government's botched handling of the complaints against Mr Salmond is expected to be published on Tuesday morning.
Details of the report that were leaked last week said that members voted by five to four that Ms Sturgeon had misled its inquiry during a marathon evidence session earlier this month.
It is also expected to be critical of the government's handling of the complaints against Mr Salmond.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said his party had been clear that it would not prejudge the outcome of the inquiry, and would now await the findings of the parliamentary committee.
Mr Sarwar said it was clear that the saga had deeply damaged public trust in politics at a time of national crisis, and that there were "absolutely no winners today"
He added: "At the heart of this are two women who have been badly let down by the government, and it remains the case that nobody has taken responsibility."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said Ms Sturgeon's "errors of judgement still make resignation a live consideration".
Nicola Sturgeon could not have hoped for a better outcome from this inquiry.
She effectively placed her reputation and political future in the hands of James Hamilton and he has cleared her of acting improperly. She has no intention of resigning.
That will not stop the Conservatives trying to force her out in a vote of no confidence on Tuesday - but that's a vote the first minister is expected to win with help from the Greens.
She faces further criticism in the separate Holyrood inquiry report, also due on Tuesday - with the opposition majority on that committee deciding she misled them.
Ms Sturgeon rejects that conclusion as partisan - which is how some see the decision of SNP members of the committee not to endorse it.
The arguments will continue into the Holyrood election campaign. The ultimate verdict on the Scottish government's handling of harassment complaints and its wider record will be made by Scottish voters.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56482878
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Covid-19: Critical care beds shortage prompts calls for review - BBC News
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2021-03-01
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The UK has 7.3 critical care beds per 100,000 people, compared to Germany's 33.8 and the US's 34.3.
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UK
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The NHS's "insufficient" critical care capacity has been laid bare by the pandemic, with the UK having one of the lowest number of beds per head in Europe, NHS Providers has said.
The group, which represents trusts in England, is calling for a review of the health service's capacity.
The UK has 7.3 critical care beds per 100,000 people, compared to Germany's 33.8 and the US's 34.3, analysis found.
The government said it was investing £72bn in the next two years in the NHS.
The east of England, South West and South East are areas of key concern.
"The UK is towards the bottom of the European League table for critical care beds per head of population," NHS Providers said.
The group added that the UK had comparatively fewer critical care beds than France, Italy, Australia and Spain.
"It's neither safe nor sensible to rely on NHS hospital trusts being able to double or triple their capacity at the drop of a hat as they've had to over the last two months, with all the disruption to other care and impossible burdens on staff that involves."
Seeking a review into critical care capacity in England, the organisation said it wanted the government to commit to providing additional finances in areas where it was needed.
"There have been too many reviews of NHS capacity in the past where huge amounts of time have been wasted because the government has not been willing to fund the results of what's been found," the group said.
When reviews and a public inquiry at some stage look at lessons to be learned from the handling of the pandemic in the UK, the question of the readiness of the NHS is sure to be considered.
NHS Providers has highlighted one key part of this - the relative lack of critical care beds in hospitals, reflecting in part insufficient investment going back many years.
The UK has fewer hospital beds for seriously ill patients relative to the population than leading European economies such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
So going into the pandemic the health service was in some ways not as well resourced as it might have been.
The NHS coped astonishingly well last April and in the most recent surge, and hospitals were not overwhelmed.
But sufficient critical care beds were created for Covid patients only by using wards which could not therefore be used by others - much routine and non urgent care had to be postponed.
The argument now being made is that there needs to be a review of what is needed as a safety net for future crises - and funding to go with it.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "The government is determined to back the NHS in every possible way in its fight against this virus, investing £52bn this year and £20bn next.
"This is on top of £9.4bn capital funding to build and upgrade 40 new hospitals and £3bn earmarked for supporting recovery and reducing the NHS waiting list."
They added that the government was on track to deliver 50,000 more nurses by the end of this parliament.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56234898
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Covid-19: UK rejects 'false' vaccine export ban claim by EU - BBC News
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2021-03-09
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An EU diplomat is summoned to the Foreign Office following comments by the bloc's top official.
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UK Politics
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A diplomatic row has broken out after the EU's top official claimed the UK had imposed an "outright ban" on the export of Covid vaccines.
European Council President Charles Michel said it applied to all vaccines and components produced in the UK.
But Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described the suggestion as "completely false", the BBC understands.
The EU's deputy ambassador to the UK, Nicole Mannion, was summoned to the Foreign Office for "discussions".
An EU spokesperson said there would be "no further comment" on the meeting "at this stage".
The argument over vaccines comes with European leaders under pressure over the slow distribution of jabs.
In the UK, meanwhile, 22.5 million people - a third of the population - have received their first dose.
In his weekly briefing note, Mr Michel said he was "shocked" to hear the 27-member bloc being accused of "vaccine nationalism" following changes it made to export rules earlier this year.
"Here again, the facts do not lie," he wrote. "The United Kingdom and the United States have imposed an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced on their territory.
"But the European Union, the region with the largest vaccine production capacity in the world, has simply put in place a system for controlling the export of doses produced in the EU."
In response, Mr Raab has written to Mr Michel to "set the record straight", saying the "false claim has been repeated at various levels within the EU and the Commission".
His letter is understood to say: "The UK government has not blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine or vaccine components."
After news of the row broke, Mr Michel tweeted that there were "different ways of imposing bans or restrictions on vaccines/medicines".
But he did not elaborate on this comment.
The EU has faced production problems with the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.
In January, it introduced a system of controls on exports, requiring manufacturers to seek permission from national governments for planned sales.
The EU also drafted regulations which would have overridden the Northern Ireland Protocol - agreed with the UK last year - potentially allowing it to stop vaccines bound for Northern Ireland.
But it backed down following widespread criticism.
Earlier this month, Italy blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia.
The UK, which is expected to have a large surplus of vaccines after ordering 400 million doses, has said it will donate most of those left over to poorer countries.
France's President Emmanuel Macron has urged richer countries to put aside up to 5% of their current supplies for this purpose.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56339188
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Lockdown killing sentence referred to Court of Appeal - BBC News
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2021-03-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Anthony Williams was found not guilty of murdering his wife but admitted manslaughter.
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Wales
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Anthony Williams "flipped" and strangled his wife during the first coronavirus lockdown, a court heard
A five-year jail term for a man who killed his wife during the first Covid lockdown has been referred to the Court of Appeal as being "unduly lenient".
Anthony Williams, 70, was found not guilty of murdering his wife Ruth, 67, at their home in Cwmbran, Torfaen, after a trial at Swansea Crown Court.
But Williams, who had anxiety and depression, admitted to manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
The attorney general Michael Ellis wants the sentence length reviewed.
A spokesman for Mr Ellis said he was "shocked by this case".
"After careful consideration he has decided to refer the sentence of Anthony Williams to the Court of Appeal as he believes the sentence is unduly lenient," added the official.
"It is now for the court to decide whether to increase the sentence."
Ruth Williams died due to pressure to the neck and had three fractured bones
During the trial earlier this year, the court heard Williams, of Brynglas, Hollybush, had not slept for several days due to worries over money, coronavirus and his health.
A psychiatrist told the jury his mental health had dramatically deteriorated after retiring in 2019, and the coronavirus pandemic had made things worse.
He told police he had "choked the living daylights" out of Mrs Williams after an argument on 28 March 2020.
Judge Paul Thomas called it "a tragic case on several levels".
Ruth Williams was found slumped in the porch of her home in the Hollybush area of Cwmbran
He added: "The overwhelming greatest tragedy is that a lady of 67 years who was in good health had her life ended at the hands of a man she had loved for nearly 50 years.
"It is also a tragedy that an act of a couple of minutes and one you immediately repented will define you for the rest of your life. And tragic that you have now left your daughter without her beloved mother."
Home Secretary Priti Patel had already ordered an inquiry is carried out into the death, adding she was "not satisfied" with Torfaen council's decision not to carry out a domestic homicide review.
After writing to the council, Ms Patel said: "This was an appalling case and my thoughts are with the family and friends of Ruth Williams."
The local authority's public service board said it would now carry out the inquiry.
Labour's Harriet Harman, Jess Phillips and Alex Davies-Jones all wrote to attorney general Suella Braverman in February, calling on her to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.
Ms Braverman has since gone on maternity leave, and new attorney general Mr Ellis has now taken the action.
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Alex Salmond inquiry affects more than just Nicola Sturgeon's future - BBC News
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2021-03-19
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Decisions reached by Scottish politicians has implications for the whole of the UK.
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UK Politics
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As I write, nine members of the Scottish Parliament are still in a virtual meeting, discussing, voting, likely indeed arguing, over their conclusions on the future of the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Their inquiry is part of the machinations of a long running dispute between one of the most successful political duos this country has seen for decades, as the first minister and her predecessor, and very much former friend, have come to blows. Remind yourself what the very sorry saga is all about here.
What we know from inside that committee room is that the MSPs have voted by a margin of one vote, 5-4, that Nicola Sturgeon misled them.
Before we see the final report, which may not come for a while, it's hard to know what caveats they have applied, precisely what the circumstances are that they describe. The details will matter.
Ms Sturgeon's team is already trying to dismiss the findings as a partisan attack, a predictable political play from a committee of MSPs, designed to damage the first minister, whose popularity they envy, who has been almost untouchable for so long.
The findings they really fear are from the separate Hamilton Inquiry, being carried out by an independent lawyer in to whether she broke the rules that govern ministers' behaviour.
If she's found to have done that, convention suggests she would have to resign.
It is clear that Nicola Sturgeon has no intention of giving into opposition demands out there to get her to quit on the basis of the MSPs' conclusions.
Of course this is intensely political, it's not just about who said what, when and where.
Ms Sturgeon gave evidence to the committee earlier this month
But a public finding from a parliamentary committee that she misled them can't just be brushed away.
It's a serious accusation from a group of senior politicians after an investigation that looked at thousands of pages of evidence.
It's a huge distraction just before the official start of vital Scottish elections. It underlines the bitter lines drawn inside the SNP during this saga.
And it's damaging to the reputation of one of the country's most important politicians, whose personal standing is key not just to what happens in Scotland, but what happens to the whole of the UK.
The SNP has been all powerful under Ms Sturgeon's leadership. And her personal profile has been a vital part of creating a powerful political sense, although importantly never a certainty, that another referendum on Scottish independence was somehow inevitable.
The SNP hope to hold another referendum on independence
If the SNP clinches a majority in May, it's her intention to use that to claim a mandate for another ballot. (Remember, it is also the UK government's firm intention to say no, which is, as things stand, its legal right.)
But in turn, anything that tarnishes her, could damage the SNP's standing in those May elections.
And anything that harms her credibility, chips away at the sometimes lazy political sentiment, that the events of the last few years have set Scotland firmly on a path out of the UK.
The arguments of a group of politicians won't settle all of this.
But what they decide is one part of the overall wrangle over the future of the union itself.
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Covid deaths: Why is the UK's death toll so bad? - BBC News
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2021-03-19
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As the number of people who died reaches six figures, the factors that led to this terrible total.
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Health
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More than 100,000 people in the UK have died from a virus, that, this time last year, felt like a far-off foreign threat. How did we come to be one of the countries with the worst death tolls?
There is no quick answer to that question, and there is sure to be a long and detailed public inquiry once the pandemic is over. But there are plenty of clues that, when pieced together, help build a picture of why the UK has reached this devastating number.
Some will point a finger at the government - its decision to lock-down later than much of western Europe, the stuttering start to its test-and-trace network and the lack of protection afforded to care home residents.
Others will spotlight deeper rooted problems with British society - its poor state of public health, with high levels of obesity, for example.
Others, still, will note that some of the UK's great strengths - its position as a vibrant hub for international air travel, its ethnically diverse and densely-packed urban populations - exposed its vulnerability to a virus that spreads effortlessly between people.
In some people's eyes, the UK's island status might have helped it. New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan managed to stop the virus getting a foothold and deaths have been kept to a minimum - Australia has seen fewer deaths throughout the pandemic than the UK is recording every day on average.
All introduced strict border restrictions immediately and lockdowns to contain the virus before it had spread. The UK did not. It was not until June that quarantine rules were introduced for all arrivals and even then travel corridors were soon set up, relaxing the rules for travellers from certain countries. Only this month were these scrapped.
Prof Devi Sridhar, an expert in public health from Edinburgh University, is one of those who has been critical of the approach the UK has taken from the start.
She says the UK, like much of Europe, was "complacent" about the threat of infectious disease - choosing to treat the new coronavirus "like flu" and allowing it to spread, while talking about the desire to achieve herd immunity.
This all changed in late March, when a full lockdown eventually came. But there was a crucial delay of a week which is estimated to have cost more than 20,000 lives, according to government modeller Prof Neil Ferguson, because of how quickly infection rates were doubling at that point.
This, of course, is said with the benefit of hindsight. Government modellers themselves acknowledge the data was "really quite poor" making it difficult to make a decision that would have significant repercussions. It is a point acknowledged by Prof Chris Whitty, the UK's chief medical adviser. Speaking in the summer he said there had been "very limited information" in early March.
By then, the virus was ripping through care homes. Around 30% of deaths in the first wave happened in care homes; 40% if you include care home residents who died in hospital.
Those at the heart of government acknowledge mistakes were made. UK chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said recently: "The lesson is go earlier than you think you want to, go harder than you think you want to, and go a bit broader than you think you want to in terms of applying the restrictions."
By May, restrictions were beginning to be eased. But was this too soon?
The government seized on the relative lull to focus on building what the prime minister promised would be a "world-beating" test-and-trace system. The idea was that new outbreaks could be nipped in the bud, with comprehensive tracking by a centralised team of tracers.
The mere fact this had to be done some months after the virus had struck, illustrates another factor behind the high number of deaths - the UK was simply not prepared for a pandemic of this nature in the way some Asian nations had been. Countries such as South Korea and Taiwan had established test-and-trace systems in place that were ready to be activated.
The UK had a chance to bed in its system in the summer but it was riven with teething problems, with tracers struggling to reach many contacts and the testing capacity slowing down as demand rose.
Low levels of infection over the summer had created a false sense of security.
Desperate to boost the economy, the government launched the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, offering people discounted meals out during August. To what extent it contributed to the rise in the autumn is much argued about but certainly some doctors blame it in part for an increase in patients seen.
The truth is the virus never went away. Testing in the summer showed even at the lowest levels there were still around 500 cases a day being diagnosed - and random testing in the population subsequently showed the true level may have been twice that.
In late August around 1,000 people a day were testing positive. By mid-September that had trebled and from there it rose five-fold to 15,000 by mid October. The numbers testing positive have never returned below 10,000 a day on average since.
Another decision that has been heavily criticised was the refusal of ministers to introduce a short two-week lockdown, or "circuit breaker", in September - despite their advisers on Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) recommending such a step. The argument was it would have set the spread of the virus back by at least a month, giving test and trace time to regroup.
Wales, however, did introduce its own "fire-breaker" - a 17-day lockdown in October. It got infection rates down, but as soon as it was lifted they rebounded. This is, of course, why lockdowns have been criticised.
Edinburgh University infectious diseases expert Prof Mark Woolhouse, one of the modellers who feeds data into Sage, is on the record in the autumn questioning the logic of them for this very reason. It remains up for debate how effective a circuit-breaker would actually have been.
This after all is the time of year when respiratory illnesses start to increase. Schools had returned as had university students, creating new environments for the novel coronavirus to spread.
When a lockdown was eventually introduced in England in November it was to last four weeks, with Sage members lamenting the delay. "The absence of a decision is a decision in itself," says Wellcome Trust director Sir Jeremy Farrar.
But even before that lockdown was lifted cases had started going up in the south-east of England. Within weeks it became clear what was happening. The virus had mutated and a new faster-spreading variant was on the rise.
By mid-December the clamour for lockdown was growing again, but the plan for a Christmas relaxation of restrictions had already been announced. In every nation of the UK, ministers waited.
At the start of 2021, with hospital admissions rising rapidly, the UK's four chief medical officers intervened, issuing a joint statement warning the NHS was at "material risk" of being overwhelmed. Within hours the UK was back in lockdown.
What has struck some is just how similar the mistakes have been in terms of locking down late.
"It will take years to unpick why Covid has gone so badly in the UK," says University College London infectious diseases expert Dr Neil Stone. "But the failure to learn from wave one stands out."
But it must also be recognised that there are factors outside the control of the government - certainly in terms of its pandemic response - that have contributed to the high number of deaths.
One of the reasons the virus was able to take a hold and spread so quickly was because of geography and the fact the UK - and London in particular - is a global hub. Genetic analysis has shown the virus was brought into the UK on at least 1,300 separate occasions, mainly from France, Spain and Italy, by the end of March.
It was here before we knew it. That's not something Australia or New Zealand had to deal with on such a scale.
Density of population is also a factor. The UK is among the 10 most densely populated big nations - those with populations of more than 20 million. What is more, our cities are more inter-connected than they are in many places.
It meant the virus was able to seed everywhere quite quickly. Contrast this with Italy which saw the vast majority of cases in the north of the country in the first wave.
The ageing population also needs to be taken into account. Once you do this, and adjust for the size of the population - known as age-standardised mortality - deaths have risen, but not by as much as some of the headline figures suggest.
The health of the nation has also been a factor. The UK has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. And obesity increases the risk of hospitalisation and death, according to Public Health England. One study found the risk of death was almost double for those who are severely obese.
Conditions such as diabetes, kidney disease and respiratory problems also increase the risk - a fifth of Covid deaths have listed diabetes on the death certificate.
Again the UK has relatively high rates of these illnesses.
But many have argued that these high levels of ill-health have been compounded by the levels of inequality in the UK.
Levels of ill health and life expectancy have always been worst in the poorest areas, but the pandemic certainly seems to have exacerbated this.
Office for National Statistics data shows mortality rates have been twice as high in deprived areas as they have been in wealthy areas. The Health Foundation is carrying out its own inquiry into the issue, arguing the Covid death toll needs to be seen through the "lens" of inequality to fully understand it.
It is something that has also been raised by Prof Michael Marmot, one of the country's leading experts on health inequalities. "The UK's dismal record is telling us something important about our society."
If you, or someone you know, have been affected by bereavement, here is a list of organisations that may be able to help.
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Nicola Sturgeon rejects claims over Alex Salmond inquiry evidence - BBC News
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2021-03-19
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Nicola Sturgeon says she stands by "every word" of her evidence to the Alex Salmond committee.
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Scotland politics
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Nicola Sturgeon has said she stands by "every word" of her evidence to the Alex Salmond committee amid renewed pressure from political opponents.
A spokesperson for the first minister accused the committee of politically-motivated smears and rejected some of the findings which have emerged from the unpublished report.
The Scottish Conservatives have called for Ms Sturgeon to resign.
The committee's convener has expressed "dismay" at the leaks to the media.
The full report is due to be published on Tuesday.
Those parts which are critical of Ms Sturgeon were agreed by five votes to four, with the SNP members on the cross-party committee voting against.
The committee said it was "hard to believe" that Ms Sturgeon did not know of concerns of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Salmond before November 2017 - which is when she says she was first alerted to any issues.
The BBC understands that the report will say that if Ms Sturgeon did have such knowledge, then she should have acted upon it.
The report also concluded that Ms Sturgeon gave an "inaccurate account" of what happened when she met Mr Salmond at her home on 2 April 2018, and had misled the committee.
The report says permanent secretary Leslie Evans should have been informed earlier
And the committee said it was concerned that Ms Sturgeon did not notify the government's permanent secretary, Leslie Evans, about that meeting until 6 June 2018.
The report says: "She should have made the permanent secretary aware as soon as possible after the 2 April 2018 meeting, at which point she should have confirmed she would cease contact with Alex Salmond."
The report is also expected to be highly critical of Ms Evans.
A spokesperson for the first minister said on Friday that she had told the truth to the committee, and stood by "every word of her evidence".
The spokesperson said the suggestion that the committee had found it "hard to believe" that she did not previously know about allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Salmond was "not supported by a single shred of evidence".
"On this, the committee appears to have resorted to baseless assertion, supposition and smear - that is not how serious parliamentary committees are supposed to work, and in behaving this way they are simply exposing their base political motives," said the statement.
The spokesperson also accused the committee of ignoring and suppressing evidence which supported Ms Sturgeon's evidence that she told Mr Salmond in April 2018 that she would not intervene on his behalf.
However, the Scottish Conservatives say that if the first minister does not resign by Tuesday, they will seek to hold a vote of no confidence in her on Wednesday.
The party's Holyrood leader Ruth Davidson said: "If Nicola Sturgeon has a shred of integrity, she should be considering her position. She has every opportunity to do the right thing and resign.
"No first minister is above the fundamental principles of honesty and trust. There is no question that Nicola Sturgeon has misled parliament and broken the promises she made to tell the truth.
"The SNP's erratic outburst today against the committee shows the panicked spiral they are now in."
Alex Salmond gave evidence to the committee last month
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would not "prejudge" the outcome of the report
But he said that if the report found the first minister had misled parliament, and potentially broken the ministerial code, then it would be "incredibly serious".
"The code itself is clear, if the code has been breached the individual should resign," he said.
However, Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the process had "turned into a complete farce", with "party politics over-riding the public interest".
Within a week, Holyrood will be on a break for the election and a six-week campaign for votes will be under way.
We know there will be arguments over coronavirus recovery and indyref2, but there will also be another major theme: truth and trust.
That debate will feed off the two reports due in the next few days on the Scottish government's mishandling of harassment complaints against Alex Salmond.
When the Holyrood committee publishes its findings on Tuesday, we know the opposition majority will conclude that Nicola Sturgeon gave them a misleading account, which the first minister denies.
A separate independent investigation by Ireland's former prosecution chief, James Hamilton, will decide whether or not the first minister broke conduct rules and recommend sanctions, if required.
The Conservatives have already decided Ms Sturgeon lied to parliament and should resign, and they intend to hold a vote of no confidence in her on Wednesday if she does not quit.
With the continued support of the Scottish Greens, the first minister can survive what she regards as a nakedly political attempt to oust her and let the public decide whether she should remain in office.
There has never been a Holyrood election campaign curtain-raiser anything like this.
The committee's convener, SNP MSP Linda Fabiani, expressed her anger that "accounts of the conclusions of the draft report" had been leaked to the media.
"I am dismayed by the damage this may do to the value of the committee's work, which I have long hoped would improve the treatment of the complainers of sexual harassment," she said.
"The selective leaking of particular committee recommendations has shifted the focus away from these goals, and the recommendations which seek to achieve it, and onto party political terrain which will likely frustrate, not assist, the women at the heart of this."
The inquiry is examining the Scottish government's botched handling of sexual harassment complaints made against Mr Salmond by two female civil servants.
The former first minister was awarded more than £500,000 in legal expenses following a judicial review, and was subsequently acquitted of sexual assault charges in a High Court trial.
A separate inquiry into whether Ms Sturgeon breached the ministerial code is being carried out by James Hamilton, a senior Irish lawyer. He is also expected to publish his report in the coming days.
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PM's vaccines comments set tongues wagging - BBC News
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2021-03-24
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But Boris Johnson's remarks on "greed" and "capitalism" were accidental, MPs say.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson had his first jab a few days ago
After a day of silence and song, candles and condolence, when the country stopped to try to absorb the enormity of what's happened this last year, a more familiar, and easy-to-digest political fuss emerged.
After a press conference in Downing Street where, alongside the chief medics, the prime minister was more open, in tone at least, about the things that might have gone wrong in the last year, he went off to address a group of Tory MPs in private, on Zoom, in the Cabinet Room.
The chief whip was alongside him, I'm told, having his takeaway sandwich. (He also happens to be a farmer - but more of that later.)
With an important vote on Thursday that will extend the government's powers during the coronavirus crisis, you might have expected that the PM would have been verbally pushed and shoved a little by some of his backbenchers, frustrated by the pace of easing restrictions.
In actual fact, what has got tongues wagging was remarks that Boris Johnson made about the UK's success with vaccines, first reported in the Sun newspaper.
Discussing why the programme was doing so well, he told colleagues it was down to "greed" and "capitalism".
Several of those present have told me he quickly realised his words could be taken out of context and urged MPs to "remove that comment from your collective memory".
He then went on to spend much of the meeting repeatedly praising AstraZeneca, pointing out that it was providing the vaccine at cost.
One MP said: "I have never seen anyone withdraw something so fast."
Another of those present told me the prime minister's "greed" comments had been intended to poke fun at the chief whip, who was gobbling his cheese and pickle while sitting next to him.
Believe it or not, the party boss of discipline, Mark Spencer, has been christened with the nickname "Big Farmer", like "Big Pharma" - the pharmaceutical companies.
And it's vehemently denied that the PM's comments were designed to stir up anything in the row with the EU.
Downing Street didn't want to comment and sources are adamant that Mr Johnson was not intending to be critical of the pharmaceutical companies in any way.
The UK government has no intention of stirring up a row with the EU over vaccines
The government has no desire to exacerbate the argument between the EU and AstraZeneca over vaccines.
With the notable exception of the Foreign Secretary's remarks last week in response to the EU Commission, ministers have been at pains to keep things calm.
The prime minister has been trying to prevent a dramatic bust-up in phone calls to EU leaders before their summit on Thursday.
And officials on both sides have been talking to see if any accommodations can be made.
But while Mr Johnson's words may have been intended as a friendly jibe at a colleague, tensions are high, and any even accidental noises off are unlikely to help.
PS A government source stressed on Wednesday morning that the PM was not talking about the UK vaccine programme in general. It's unusual to get any comment on private MPs' meetings, and shows how sensitive this all is.
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Covid in Scotland: Places of worship can open now after court win - BBC News
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2021-03-24
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A judge rules Scottish government ministers acted beyond their powers when places of worship were closed for lockdown.
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Places of worship, including St Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow, have faced tough restrictions over the past year
Places of worship in Scotland can reopen immediately after Covid regulations forcing their closure were deemed unlawful.
A group of 27 church leaders launched a judicial review at the Court of Session arguing the Scottish government acted beyond their emergency powers.
Lord Braid agreed the regulations went further than was lawfully allowed.
The ruling was issued with "immediate effect" so churches - but also mosques, synagogues and temples - can open now.
It comes just two days before communal worship is due to resume under the next phase of lockdown easing.
Lawyers for the Scottish government had argued that it was forced to make the changes as the Kent variant of Covid was more transmissible.
The Scottish government said it would carefully consider the findings and its implications.
Lord Braid said those who brought the judicial review were entitled to have the regulations declared unlawful.
He said the Scottish government regulations disproportionately interfered with the freedom of religion secured in the European Convention on Human Rights.
He added: "It is impossible to measure the effect of those restrictions on those who hold religious beliefs. It goes beyond mere loss of companionship and an inability to attend a lunch club."
However, the judge emphasised that he was not saying that coming together for worship was safe.
"I have not decided that all churches must immediately open or that it is safe for them to do so, or even that no restrictions at all are justified," he said.
"All I have decided is that the regulations which are challenged in this petition went further than they were lawfully able to do, in the circumstances which existed when they were made."
The judicial review was brought by 27 church leaders from a number of Christian denominations in Scotland, including the Free Church Continuing and the Baptist Church
Rev Dr William Philip, senior minister at the Tron Church in Glasgow, welcomed the ruling.
He said: "From the outset we have recognised the serious decisions the Scottish Ministers had to take in response to the pandemic.
"However, its approach to banning and criminalising gathered church worship was clearly an over-reach and disproportionate and if this had gone unchallenged it would have set a very dangerous precedent.
"However well intentioned, criminalising corporate worship has been both damaging and dangerous for Scotland, and must never happen again."
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said she was "thankful and relieved" that the court had recognised what she described as a "dangerous interference".
She added: "The fundamental principle of freedom has prevailed with a strong dash of good old common sense."
Additional party Canon Tom White's argument that the regulations were disproportionate on constitutional grounds was also found to be the case by Lord Braid.
Canon White, parish priest of St Alphonsus Church in Glasgow, said: "I'm overjoyed to hear that the court has understood the essential need to protect not only the physical and material health of our society but also its spiritual needs and therefore overturned the disproportionate, unnecessary and unlawful blanket ban on public worship."
On hearing that the restrictions would be lifted immediately, Canon White confirmed he would hold a Covid-safe Mass at St Mary's RC church in the east end of Glasgow on Thursday morning.
Communal worship was already due to resume from Friday in time for Passover, Easter, Ramadan and Vaisakhi.
Up to 50 people will be able to attend if the place of worship is large enough to facilitate 2m social distancing, an increase from the limit of 20 people which had applied pre-lockdown.
A Scottish government spokeswoman said: "We acknowledge this opinion and will now carefully consider the findings, its implications, and our next steps. Court proceedings are ongoing and it would be inappropriate to offer any further comment at this stage."
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Johnson: Defence reforms 'will help make UK match-fit' - BBC News
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2021-03-16
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Boris Johnson promises more investment and jobs ahead of his long-awaited update on the military.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson has promised to help make the UK "match-fit" when he unveils his plan for modernising the armed forces and foreign policy.
The prime minister said there would be "more investment" in infrastructure and skills around the country.
He also announced that 500 Foreign Office jobs would be moving from London to East Kilbride.
The government publishes its Integrated Review of the UK's defence and foreign relations capabilities on Tuesday.
But a group of MPs has warned that "general ineptitude" over the last 20 years has undermined attempts to re-equip the Army.
The Integrated Review, first announced in 2019, will set out the UK's defence and foreign affairs priorities for the next decade or so, during which cyber warfare in particular is expected to become a greater threat.
Some details are being pre-released, including the plan to move 500 jobs to the Foreign Office's East Kilbride hub - which follows news that the Cabinet Office will transfer at least 500 civil servants to nearby Glasgow by 2024.
The government has promised "further commitments" to "strengthening the UK's core industrial base" in the Integrated Review, including building ships in Scotland and armoured vehicles in Wales.
There will also be a focus on lithium mining in Cornwall and manufacturing satellites in Northern Ireland, it added.
The Integrated Review is billed as the most radical reassessment of Britain's place in the world since the end of the Cold War.
But the prime minister wants the new strategy to make a difference at home as well as abroad. He is promising new investment in domestic industries such as defence, science and technology.
And, crucially, he argues that this will provide jobs across the United Kingdom.
Ministers argue it's only by combining the resources of the union that the UK is able to respond to global challenges and project its influence abroad.
The test will be whether that argument is accepted by those calling for a fresh independence referendum in Scotland.
Mr Johnson said: "The foundation of our foreign policy is who we are as a country: our values, our strengths and - most importantly - our people.
"So I am determined to ensure we have a foreign policy that delivers for those people."
He added that the UK's "international ambitions must start at home", with investment in regional industry "ensuring the UK is on the cutting-edge of innovation and creating an entire country that is match-fit for a more competitive world".
The government has said "further jobs" will be created outside London by the establishment of the National Cyber Force HQ in the North of England.
It has also promised an increase in spending on defence of 2.6% above the rate of inflation between 2019/20 and 2020/21, with the overall figure expected to rise to £41.5bn during this time.
From 2010 to 2017, annual defence spending fell by £6.6bn in real terms, but, since then, it has increased by £3bn in real terms.
A report by the Commons Defence Committee, published on Sunday, warned that the Army was at "serious risk" of being outmatched by the UK's adversaries.
It described efforts to modernise its fleet of armoured fighting vehicles as "woeful" and criticised what it called "bureaucratic procrastination" and "general ineptitude" over the past two decades.
In a speech last month, Labour's shadow defence secretary, John Healey, said the Integrated Review should "refocus our defence efforts on where the threats are".
He added that unless it confirmed a reduction in potential dangers to the UK, it would be "very hard to accept the case for reducing the strength of our full-time forces".
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Six Nations 2021: Wales face France in Paris for Grand Slam in unfamiliar circumstances - BBC Sport
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2021-03-20
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Wales seek their fifth Grand Slam of the Six Nations era on Saturday but the experience will be very different from previous years.
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Last updated on .From the section Welsh Rugby
How to follow on Saturday: Watch live coverage & highlights on BBC One, BBC iPlayer, Connected TV's and online; listen on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Radio 5 Live, Sports Extra and BBC Sounds; text coverage on the BBC Sport website and mobile app.
Wales rugby fans are all set for another potential Grand Slam Saturday - but it will be a day unlike any others.
Scotland host Italy and England travel to Dublin as the Six Nations appetisers before the main course in Paris with only France and unbeaten Wales still able to win the tournament.
A win would clinch Wales' fifth Grand Slam of the Six Nations era.
But because of Covid-19 this would be the first without fans at the game or in pubs and rugby clubs across Wales.
Whether events will be resolved on 'Super Saturday' remains to be seen with Scotland still to travel to Paris on 26 March, six days after the anticipated end of the tournament.
The original game in February was called off because of Covid-19 cases in the France camp which has potentially spoiled the concept of everything being finalised on the last day.
• None What Wales need to do to win the Six Nations - permutations & standings
• None 'He is like Superman' - Jones sets for Grand Slam history bid
• None Boom and bust Wales chase more Grand Slam glory in France
Wales draw and they are crowned champions while there is a scenario where they could lose but still claim the title, if they pick up a bonus point and France do not. After that it could get complicated and go to the final fixture.
What is not in doubt is Wayne Pivac's men can take away all the uncertainty by triumphing in Paris and winning a 13th Grand Slam to equal England's tally.
There has been something special about Six Nations finales in Wales. After all, Cardiff has had a lot of practice in hosting this defining day in recent years, with Wales winning more Six Nations Grand Slams than anybody else.
The pubs would normally be full and streets thronging with supporters celebrating the achievements of their rugby heroes.
Few will forget the sun-soaked magical March day in 2005 when hundreds of thousands of people crammed into Cardiff.
There were supporters clambering up trees outside City Hall to get a glimpse of the game on a large screen as the nation went crazy to mark the end of a 27-year wait for a Grand Slam.
Not on this occasion. No congregating in the Principality Stadium, on the city streets or rugby clubs across Wales.
No hugging random strangers decked in red, no singing the plethora of Welsh rugby anthems, no shoes sticking to the floor of packed pubs.
Instead, witnessing the prospect of a fifth Grand Slam victory in 16 years, fans will be confined to their living rooms across the country for this sofa-bound rather than stadium-bound Six Nations spectacular.
It is 50 years since Wales last completed a clean sweep away from Cardiff when all-time greats Barry John, Gareth Edwards and JPR Williams helped the class of 1971 defeat France in Paris.
Since those heady times, the Grand Slam carnival days have all been at home, with six successes in the Welsh capital from 1976 to 2019.
Four of those wins came against France, with two victories in 2005 and 2019 against Ireland, and they made legends of favourites such as Edwards, Phil Bennett, Gethin Jenkins, Gavin Henson, Shane Williams, Martyn Williams and Alun Wyn Jones.
Today the streets in cities, towns and villages in Wales will be largely quiet with Pivac's team having to travel to Paris achieve the Grand Slam goal.
They will have to complete the feat in the intimidating Stade de France stadium, although minus the 81,000 French crowd. The arena will be only populated by players, backroom teams, stewards and a handful of media.
Wales captain Jones says the players will be thinking about the country when singing the anthems.
"It's not lost on you, there is a slight difference with it being away," said Jones.
"I, as an individual, and the team have not needed reminding of what everyone is facing and what we are representing."
It is also a Grand Slam day few had expected after a disappointing 2020 where Wales finished fifth in the Six Nations and Autumn Nations Cup, and only won three out of 10 games.
Pivac found it tough replacing fellow New Zealander Warren Gatland, who had overseen three Grand Slam successes and two World Cup semi-finals.
Difficult calls have been made. Pivac parted ways with his defence coach and long-time ally Byron Hayward last November with Gethin Jenkins taking over.
He dropped George North in the autumn campaign and then brought him back into the fold and switched him from wing to centre.
In this tournament North has surpassed 100 Wales caps and today is part of the nation's most experienced side in history led by world record cap holder Alun Wyn Jones.
The coach also blooded young players such as Kieran Hardy, Louis Rees-Zammit, Callum Sheedy and James Botham who have featured in this Six Nations campaign.
Pivac will also admit Wales have had their share of luck with some labelling it the "Jam Slam" and questioning the quality of their campaign so far.
The opening two victories against Ireland and Scotland were achieved against 14 men with Peter O'Mahony and Zander Fagerson sent off, while there were two controversial tries awarded against England.
The fortune argument fails to recognise the 17 tries scored in four games or a record 40 points amassed against Eddie Jones' 2020 champions.
Wales' 2021 Six Nations success so far is due to firmer foundations with a solid set-piece, clinical finishing and outstanding discipline. And they have a remarkable record in recent Grand Slam showdowns.
The stars continued to align for Wales when England managed to do them a favour by defeating France, leaving Pivac's side as the only team that could complete the clean sweep.
So despite all the doubters and detractors, if events unfold in Wales' favour in Paris, a Six Nations Grand Slam will still be wildly celebrated. Just perhaps not in the same traditional fashion as years gone by.
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Covid: Rich states 'block' vaccine plans for developing nations - BBC News
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2021-03-20
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Vaccine production proposals are being stalled, WHO documents leaked to BBC Newsnight show.
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World
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Many experts say equitable access to vaccines is essential for global population immunity
Wealthy countries - including the UK - are blocking proposals to help developing nations increase their vaccine manufacturing capabilities, documents leaked to BBC Newsnight show.
Several poorer countries have asked the World Health Organization to help them.
But richer nations are pushing back on provisions in international law that would enable them to achieve this.
This is according to a leaked copy of the negotiating text of a WHO resolution on the issue.
Among those richer nations are the UK, the US, as well as the European Union.
"Where we could have language in there that would make it easier for countries to produce more vaccines and more medicines within their country, it would include initiatives that would finance and facilitate that. The UK is on the opposite side of the argument of trying to remove those kinds of progressive proposals from the text," says Diarmaid McDonald, from Just Treatment, a patient group for fair access to medicines.
A spokesperson for the UK government says "a global pandemic requires a global solution and the UK is leading from the front, driving forward efforts to ensure equitable access around the world to Covid vaccines and treatments".
The spokesperson says the UK is one of the largest donors to international efforts to ensure over one billion doses of coronavirus vaccines get to developing countries this year.
If and when governments should intervene to ensure affordable supplies of medicines is a long-standing issue.
But the ability of different countries to source vaccines and drugs has been highlighted by the pandemic.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid vaccine safety: How does a vaccine get approved?
Many experts say equitable access to vaccines is essential to prevent cases and deaths and to contribute to global population immunity.
But the global capacity for producing vaccines is about a third of what is needed, says Ellen t'Hoen, an expert in medicines policy and intellectual property law.
"These are vaccines that are produced in wealthy countries and are in general kept by those wealthy countries.
"Developing nations are saying we need to have a share of the pie, not only the share of the vaccines, but also the share of the right to produce these vaccines," she adds.
To make a vaccine you not only need to have the right to produce the actual substance they are composed of (which is protected by patents), you also need to have the knowledge about how to make them because the technology can be complex.
The WHO does not have the authority to sidestep patents - but it is trying to bring countries together to find a way to bolster vaccine supplies.
The discussions include using provisions in international law to get around patents and helping countries to have the technical ability to make them.
But the drug industry argues that eroding patents would hinder its ability to invest in future treatments for Covid and other illnesses.
Earlier this month, representatives of the US drug industry wrote to US President Joe Biden to share their concerns.
"Eliminating those protections would undermine the global response to the pandemic," they wrote, including ongoing efforts to tackle new variants.
It would also create confusion that could potentially undermine public confidence in vaccine safety, and create a barrier to information sharing, the representatives said.
"Most importantly, eliminating protections would not speed up production," they added.
Others agree. Anne Moore, an expert in vaccine immunology, worries about what impact undermining patents will have on future research.
"Over time we see fewer and fewer organisations and commercial companies being in the vaccine field because there's so little return on it," she says.
Drug companies point out they have also donated financially and given medicines to help tackle the pandemic.
But campaigners argue that about £90bn ($125bn) of public money has gone into developing Covid treatments and vaccines so the public should have a stake. Once the pandemic ends, there is a lot of money to be made, they say.
"It's obvious that there are longer-term plans to increase the price of these vaccines once the most urgent phase of the pandemic is over. So that is another reason why developing countries are saying we need to gain the ability to produce these vaccines ourselves now," Ms t'Hoen says.
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Nicola Sturgeon rejects claims over Alex Salmond inquiry evidence - BBC News
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2021-03-20
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Nicola Sturgeon says she stands by "every word" of her evidence to the Alex Salmond committee.
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Scotland politics
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Nicola Sturgeon has said she stands by "every word" of her evidence to the Alex Salmond committee amid renewed pressure from political opponents.
A spokesperson for the first minister accused the committee of politically-motivated smears and rejected some of the findings which have emerged from the unpublished report.
The Scottish Conservatives have called for Ms Sturgeon to resign.
The committee's convener has expressed "dismay" at the leaks to the media.
The full report is due to be published on Tuesday.
Those parts which are critical of Ms Sturgeon were agreed by five votes to four, with the SNP members on the cross-party committee voting against.
The committee said it was "hard to believe" that Ms Sturgeon did not know of concerns of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Salmond before November 2017 - which is when she says she was first alerted to any issues.
The BBC understands that the report will say that if Ms Sturgeon did have such knowledge, then she should have acted upon it.
The report also concluded that Ms Sturgeon gave an "inaccurate account" of what happened when she met Mr Salmond at her home on 2 April 2018, and had misled the committee.
The report says permanent secretary Leslie Evans should have been informed earlier
And the committee said it was concerned that Ms Sturgeon did not notify the government's permanent secretary, Leslie Evans, about that meeting until 6 June 2018.
The report says: "She should have made the permanent secretary aware as soon as possible after the 2 April 2018 meeting, at which point she should have confirmed she would cease contact with Alex Salmond."
The report is also expected to be highly critical of Ms Evans.
A spokesperson for the first minister said on Friday that she had told the truth to the committee, and stood by "every word of her evidence".
The spokesperson said the suggestion that the committee had found it "hard to believe" that she did not previously know about allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Salmond was "not supported by a single shred of evidence".
"On this, the committee appears to have resorted to baseless assertion, supposition and smear - that is not how serious parliamentary committees are supposed to work, and in behaving this way they are simply exposing their base political motives," said the statement.
The spokesperson also accused the committee of ignoring and suppressing evidence which supported Ms Sturgeon's evidence that she told Mr Salmond in April 2018 that she would not intervene on his behalf.
However, the Scottish Conservatives say that if the first minister does not resign by Tuesday, they will seek to hold a vote of no confidence in her on Wednesday.
The party's Holyrood leader Ruth Davidson said: "If Nicola Sturgeon has a shred of integrity, she should be considering her position. She has every opportunity to do the right thing and resign.
"No first minister is above the fundamental principles of honesty and trust. There is no question that Nicola Sturgeon has misled parliament and broken the promises she made to tell the truth.
"The SNP's erratic outburst today against the committee shows the panicked spiral they are now in."
Alex Salmond gave evidence to the committee last month
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would not "prejudge" the outcome of the report
But he said that if the report found the first minister had misled parliament, and potentially broken the ministerial code, then it would be "incredibly serious".
"The code itself is clear, if the code has been breached the individual should resign," he said.
However, Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the process had "turned into a complete farce", with "party politics over-riding the public interest".
Within a week, Holyrood will be on a break for the election and a six-week campaign for votes will be under way.
We know there will be arguments over coronavirus recovery and indyref2, but there will also be another major theme: truth and trust.
That debate will feed off the two reports due in the next few days on the Scottish government's mishandling of harassment complaints against Alex Salmond.
When the Holyrood committee publishes its findings on Tuesday, we know the opposition majority will conclude that Nicola Sturgeon gave them a misleading account, which the first minister denies.
A separate independent investigation by Ireland's former prosecution chief, James Hamilton, will decide whether or not the first minister broke conduct rules and recommend sanctions, if required.
The Conservatives have already decided Ms Sturgeon lied to parliament and should resign, and they intend to hold a vote of no confidence in her on Wednesday if she does not quit.
With the continued support of the Scottish Greens, the first minister can survive what she regards as a nakedly political attempt to oust her and let the public decide whether she should remain in office.
There has never been a Holyrood election campaign curtain-raiser anything like this.
The committee's convener, SNP MSP Linda Fabiani, expressed her anger that "accounts of the conclusions of the draft report" had been leaked to the media.
"I am dismayed by the damage this may do to the value of the committee's work, which I have long hoped would improve the treatment of the complainers of sexual harassment," she said.
"The selective leaking of particular committee recommendations has shifted the focus away from these goals, and the recommendations which seek to achieve it, and onto party political terrain which will likely frustrate, not assist, the women at the heart of this."
The inquiry is examining the Scottish government's botched handling of sexual harassment complaints made against Mr Salmond by two female civil servants.
The former first minister was awarded more than £500,000 in legal expenses following a judicial review, and was subsequently acquitted of sexual assault charges in a High Court trial.
A separate inquiry into whether Ms Sturgeon breached the ministerial code is being carried out by James Hamilton, a senior Irish lawyer. He is also expected to publish his report in the coming days.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56459301
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news_uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56459301
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Budget 2021: Furlough set to be extended - Kwasi Kwarteng - BBC News
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2021-03-02
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Kwasi Kwarteng says help for firms and workers will continue, as Chancellor Rishi Sunak prepares to unveil the Budget.
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UK Politics
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Business support including furlough and the VAT cut for hospitality firms will continue "while lockdown persists", the business secretary has said.
With Covid-19 restrictions set to end by June at the earliest, Kwasi Kwarteng told the BBC it was important not to "crush" any potential recovery.
Ahead of Wednesday's Budget, Rishi Sunak said he would protect jobs using the "full firepower" at his disposal.
But he also promised honesty about his plans to "fix" the public finances.
He faces a potential row with some Conservative MPs if he imposes tax increases, amid warnings they could stifle economic growth. And Labour is urging him to abandon planned council tax rises in England.
In his Budget statement, which is due to get under way at around 12.30 GMT on Wednesday, the chancellor will commit the government to doing "whatever it takes to support the British people and businesses through this moment of crisis".
He is set to extend the £20-a-week top up to universal credit for six months to help struggling households, a government source told the BBC.
The chancellor spoke to people who have benefitted from government schemes to support employment from the Treasury
Other support is expected to include:
He is also expected to set out his plans to tackle the huge hole in the government's balance sheet - caused by the high levels of borrowing and debt built up during the pandemic, and the hit to tax revenues from the closure of many sectors of the economy.
"Once we are on the way to recovery, we will need to begin fixing the public finances - and I want to be honest about our plans to do that," he is expected to say.
The Budget won't just be about carrying on the emergency support, with a hefty dollop of Brand Sunak, with a TV press conference and sofa chat on Wednesday evening, on top of the traditional red box doorstep and green bench moments.
It will also be about how he hopes to return the Tories to their more traditional trademark - being careful with the country's cash.
There won't be a return to the kind of political argument over the deficit and the debate that David Cameron and George Osborne dominated in the early part of the last decade.
As one Treasury minister said: "Austerity? You just can't do it now."
The Budget comes at a very difficult time for businesses and government finances.
Official figures show the UK economy contracted by 9.9% last year and unemployment rose to 5.1% in the three months to December - the worst rate since 2015.
With its takings down and its spending up, the government is expected to borrow £394bn during the current financial year - the highest figure seen in peacetime.
The furlough scheme, currently paying up to 80% of six million people's salaries, is scheduled to stop at the end of April.
But the prime minister's "roadmap" for easing Covid-19 restrictions says the final legal limits on social contact and business activity will end no earlier than 21 June.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What factors could shape Rishi Sunak's thinking in his 2021 Budget?
Asked on BBC Breakfast if the job support scheme would continue, Mr Kwarteng said the chancellor had "already indicated that we will be extending furlough".
And he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think it's a fairly good assumption that, while lockdown persists, there will be additional support."
Mr Kwarteng said there would "perhaps be an extension" of the reduced - 5% - rate of VAT for the hospitality sector, also due to end in 31 March.
If vaccines continued to be rolled out "efficiently" and the roadmap was followed, there was "every chance that the economy can bounce back", he argued.
"We can see strong growth at the end of 2021, and that will be the best way to deal with the growing deficit or to try and reduce it," Mr Kwarteng said.
The chancellor will promise help to save endangered pubs
Mr Sunak is reportedly planning to increase corporation tax to as much as 25%, from the current 19%, to reduce pressure on public finances.
Some Conservative MPs, including former Brexit Secretary David Davis, say this would impede recovery and are warning they will resist this or any similar moves.
But former Conservative leader Lord Hague wrote in the Daily Telegraph that, after 12 months of heavy public borrowing to pay for furlough and other schemes, "at least some business and personal taxes" would have to rise.
For Labour, shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said now was "not the time" for tax rises, but has signalled the opposition could support an increase in corporation tax in the future.
She has said the planned council tax rise of up to 5% in England in April should not go ahead at a time "when people are losing jobs".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56247455
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news_uk-politics-56247455
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Scottish government lawyers had 'reservations' about Salmond case - BBC News
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2021-03-02
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Concerns were raised about the legal battle more than two months before the government conceded the case.
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Scotland politics
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Alex Salmond was awarded £500,000 in legal costs after the government conceded its investigation of him had been unlawful
Scottish government lawyers had "reservations" about its court battle with Alex Salmond more than two months before it conceded the case.
The judicial review was examining whether the government's handling of harassment complaints against the former first minister was legal.
Mr Salmond has said the government was told in October 2018 that it was likely to lose the case.
But it did not admit it had acted unlawfully until January 2019.
The government ultimately had to pay Mr Salmond's legal fees of more than £500,000 on top of its own costs.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney has now admitted that concerns were raised ahead of the government admitting defeat.
But he insisted there were "good public policy arguments and reasonable grounds" to continue contesting the case for a further two months.
There have been claims that continuing to contest the case after being given legal advice that it was unlikely to succeed would be a waste of public money and potentially a breach of the ministerial code.
The government is to release key papers - including external legal advice - to the Holyrood inquiry committee that is investigating the saga, with Mr Swinney saying the unusual move was to "counter false claims being made by some".
The Scottish Conservatives said they would press ahead with a vote of no confidence in the deputy first minister, saying he was "releasing only the evidence he wants us to see".
There has been a long-running row over the legal advice given to the Scottish government after Mr Salmond launched judicial review proceedings in 2018 over the way internal harassment complaints against him had been investigated.
The government admitted in January 2019 that its approach had been unlawful, because its investigating officer had had prior contact with the two complainers - in breach of a newly-designed procedure.
Mr Salmond had claimed that ministers were given legal advice on 31 October 2018 which "indicated that on the balance of probability, the government was going to lose the judicial review".
He said that "if the case was continued in the knowledge of the first minister against that legal advice, that would be a breach of the ministerial code".
The Holyrood committee investigating the government's botched handling of the complaints has been pushing to see the full legal advice for some time, and MSPs have twice voted to say it should be handed over.
On Monday, Mr Swinney confirmed that key papers would be handed over - after it became clear that all opposition parties were set to back a motion of no confidence in his position.
John Swinney may still be facing a vote of no confidence
He confirmed that concerns had been raised about the issue which ultimately collapsed the government's case, but insisted there were other reasons to fight on.
The committee has previously been shown a memo summarising legal advice, which said external counsel had threatened to resign on 28 December 2018 and that Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans was told the next day that "the only sensible and defensible position is to concede the petition".
In a letter to the committee published on Tuesday, Mr Swinney said: "The documents confirm that, whilst reservations were raised about the judicial review following the identification of the issue of prior contact with the complainers in late October, there were good public policy arguments and reasonable grounds for the government to continue to defend the judicial review and to seek a determination from the court on the matters raised, until the events of late December 2018."
Mr Swinney also told the committee that the documents being released should be with them by Tuesday afternoon.
However the Scottish Conservatives said they would not be withdrawing their motion of no confidence until the committee was satisfied that all of the advice had been handed over.
Leader Douglas Ross said: "Recklessly continuing with the judicial review when it was doomed would clearly be a breach of the ministerial code. The public deserve to know exactly what mistakes were made.
"John Swinney is not getting away with releasing only the evidence he wants us to see. We will press ahead with the vote of no confidence until all the legal advice is published."
In his letter, the deputy first minister said that the release of the material meant "the Scottish government will have responded to all of the committee's requests for specific documents within our legal and other obligations".
He said he hoped that it would "assist the committee in fulfilling its remit and address some of the allegations that have been raised, without evidence, in the past few days".
Lord Advocate James Wolffe has given evidence to the inquiry on several occasions
On Tuesday morning, Lord Advocate James Wolffe - the government's top legal advisor and head of the prosecution service - mounted a defence of the role of the Crown Office in the various rows over Mr Salmond's submissions.
Mr Wolffe told the inquiry committee that "any suggestion from any quarter" that the prosecution service had not acted independently "would be wholly without foundation".
He said the parliament had been "right" to redact one of Mr Salmond's written statements after the Crown Office raised concerns that "certain parts of the submission were liable to be a breach of a court order".
He added: "Mr Salmond has stated that the Crown has tied his hands in respect of the use of information that he holds - it is the law, not the Crown, that stays his hands".
The Lord Advocate also denied that there was a conflict between his post combining the roles of government minister and independent prosecutor, saying: "My fundamental responsibility is to the rule of law and the administration of justice - that fundamental principle underpins all of the functions I have."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56251165
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news_uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56251165
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BBC Three will return to TV screens after six-year break - BBC News
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2021-03-02
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The channel will make a comeback, after scoring hits with Normal People and Fleabag online.
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Entertainment & Arts
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BBC Three is set to return as a TV channel
BBC Three will return as a fully-fledged TV channel in January 2022, six years after it moved online.
The channel has since been responsible for major hits including Fleabag, Normal People and Killing Eve - prompting calls for its resurrection.
Last year, BBC research concluded there was a "strong case" for it to come back as a regular TV channel, focusing on younger audiences.
MP Julian Knight said the move showed the BBC had "failed" those viewers.
"I question whether putting the clock back five years is the right way to win over 18-35s," said Mr Knight, who chairs the select committee for the department for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS).
"The BBC needs to back success and make sure its programmes reach as many young people as possible wherever they live in the UK," said the BBC's chief content officer, Charlotte Moore.
"So regardless of the debates about the past, we want to give BBC Three its own broadcast channel again."
As announced in the BBC's Annual Plan last year, the channel's budget will also be doubled over the next two years - a decision that was also criticised by Mr Knight, who accused the BBC of putting extra investment into programmes while "those over 75 are being chased to pay up for their TV licences".
The BBC ended the provision of free TV licences for most over-75s last year, after the government decided to stop paying for the benefit.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK, currently in its second season, has proved a runaway success
When it returns, BBC Three will be targeted at audiences aged 16-34, broadcasting from 19:00 to 04:00 each day.
As a result, CBBC's broadcast hours will revert to closing at 19:00 - as was the case before 2016. It currently runs until 21:00.
The move will still need approval from media regulator Ofcom before it can go ahead.
Seven years ago the BBC announced that BBC Three would become digital only. The main reason given was the need to save money. The public narrative was: Young audiences congregate online rather than watch linear TV, so there's no point providing a linear service.
Since then, three things have happened. The flight of young audiences to digital platforms, and away from scheduled TV, has accelerated. BBC Three has produced a big range of huge, global hits. And the pressure on the BBC, not least from Ofcom, to prove that it still appeals to young people has grown sharply.
This last point is critical. The BBC commissioned research showing that there is still a market of young people - albeit smaller than years ago - on linear platforms. Given the success of the shows commissioned by BBC Three, the feeling at the top of the organisation was that putting them back on a linear platform would create upside in terms of audience numbers, for relatively low cost.
Despite the need for more savings today, that cost can be justified because when the BBC negotiates with the government over the future of the licence fee, it needs the strongest possible argument on its relevance and universal appeal.
BBC Three was originally taken off air in March 2016. The corporation said the move would save £30m a year, helping it to reduce its spending after cuts imposed by the government in 2010.
Much of the budget was reallocated to fund drama on BBC One, while BBC Three was expected to target younger audiences online.
But the plans caused controversy, prompting the Save BBC Three campaign which saw more than 300,000 people sign a petition to keep it on air.
Journalist and founder of the campaign Jono Read said the channel's return was "great news".
"It became clear that the decision to to take it off air was a counter-productive move that bosses had taken to sacrifice the station under the guise of budget cuts, and one that was deeply unpopular with its audience.
"Nonetheless the online move has shown real potential for BBC Three and I think it will thrive when it is once again given the chance to combine traditional and new media when it returns to TV in 2022", he says.
Many of BBC Three's commissions have ended up on linear TV, with shows like Killing Eve and Fleabag attracting huge audiences on BBC One.
Normal People, about the tangled love lives of two Irish teenagers, also became the breakout hit of the first lockdown. It was requested on the BBC iPlayer 62.7 million times last year, more than any other programme.
Other hit shows on the channel include Man Like Mobeen, This Country, Ru Paul's Drag Race UK and the Jesy Nelson documentary Odd One Out.
In its online incarnation, BBC Three has won a raft of awards, including RTS Channel of the Year in 2017 and Digital Channel of the Year 2019 at the Edinburgh TV Festival. It is currently Broadcast Digital Channel of the Year.
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56251020
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news_entertainment-arts-56251020
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Downing Street scraps plans for White House-style press briefings - BBC News
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2021-04-21
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After spending £2.6m on the new briefing room, it will now be used by Boris Johnson and officials instead.
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UK Politics
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Allegra Stratton is to become spokeswoman for COP26
Downing Street has scrapped plans to launch new White House-style press conferences after spending £2.6m on a venue to host them.
The PM's media chief Allegra Stratton - who had been due to front the briefings - has confirmed the move to the BBC.
She will instead become the spokeswoman for the COP26 climate summit.
The government was criticised for the price tag of its new facilities at 9 Downing Street, which will now be used by the prime minister and officials.
Responding to the news, Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner accused Boris Johnson of "running scared of scrutiny".
She added: "Instead of wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on a pointless vanity project, the prime minister should have used the money to give our NHS heroes a pay rise."
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden insisted the venue was "not a waste of money" adding that the room previously used for press conferences had been too small and was "not fit for purpose".
He said the "modern press facility" was similar to what other leaders around the world have and would be used by future governments, not just the current one.
Mr Johnson used the room to host a Covid press conference on Tuesday.
The plan to hold televised press conferences, similar to those seen in the United States, was announced by Mr Johnson in July last year.
He said the daily televised coronavirus briefings being held at the time showed the public wanted "more direct, detailed information from the government".
I lived through a million daily televised briefings by the European Commission, when I worked at the BBC's Brussels bureau.
I saw how much work officials did to prepare them and how much time was wasted by journalists trying to get spokespeople to deviate from the prepared script.
I assumed something similar would happen when Westminster got its own version.
There have long been rumours that some in Number 10 thought the same way and it seems that they've won the internal argument.
It's also surely no coincidence that Downing Street has just appointed a new director of communications, who seems to have a more traditional view of how the government should interact with the media than some previous staffers in Number 10.
The total cost of the refit of the briefing room was revealed by a Freedom of Information request from the Press Association - £2,607,767.67, largely excluding VAT.
Costs included £1,848,695 for the "main works", £198,024 on "long lead items", and £33,395 on broadband equipment.
Labour attacked it as a "vanity project" which threatened to "unbalance" British politics, and the party's leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said the opposition should be given a right of reply.
The briefing room at 9 Downing Street cost £2.6m to refit
The briefings fronted by Ms Stratton had been due to start in October last year, but the government said they had been delayed because ministers were continuing to hold coronavirus briefings.
Ms Stratton has been given the job of the government's spokeswoman for COP26 - a UN climate change conference due to take place in November in Glasgow, chaired by former business secretary Alok Sharma.
She said: "I am delighted to be starting this new role.
"The COP26 climate conference is a unique opportunity to deliver a cleaner, greener world and I'm looking forward to working with the prime minister and Alok Sharma to ensure it is a success."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56818750
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George Floyd death: Five key moments from the Derek Chauvin trial - BBC News
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2021-04-21
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Here are key elements of a trial that gripped the US.
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US & Canada
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The critical moments of the trial so far
The death of George Floyd, a 48-year-old black man, while he was being restrained by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, during an arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020, shocked the world and sparked global protests about racism and police brutality.
Chauvin's three-week trial - on charges of murder and manslaughter - has now resulted in his conviction.
Here are five key moments from the trial which heard from 45 witnesses and saw hours of video footage filmed by bystanders.
Some of the most powerful testimony came in the first days of the trial when witnesses spoke of what they saw that day.
Darnella, who was 17 at the time of Mr Floyd's death, filmed the video that went viral around the world. She told the jury there were nights when she stayed up "apologising to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life".
"When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad. I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles. Because they are all black," she said.
Emotional testimony also came from Charles McMillian, 61, who had been among the first on the scene and had tried to persuade Mr Floyd to get in the police car.
He broke down in tears watching graphic footage of the arrest in court, saying he had felt "helpless" as events unfolded and explained that he had confronted Chauvin after Mr Floyd was taken away in an ambulance because "what I watched was wrong".
The defence has argued that the presence of bystanders influenced Chauvin's actions that day. The court heard from one Minneapolis police officer, Peter Chang, that the crowd had been "very aggressive to the officers", while Nicole McKenzie, who trains the city's police on providing medical care, said the presence of bystanders at an arrest could make it harder for officers to see signs of distress in those they detained.
Another powerful moment came when Mr Floyd's girlfriend of three years, Courteney Ross, took the stand.
She described their first meeting, in the lobby of a Salvation Army homeless shelter, where Mr Floyd worked as a security guard, and how he had been devastated by his mother's death in 2018.
Ms Ross also told the court they both suffered from chronic pain, which led to an off-and-on struggle with opioid addiction.
"We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times," she testified.
One of the defence's arguments has been that Mr Floyd died largely because of complications from the opioids and methamphetamine he had in his system at the time of his arrest.
Another key issue at the heart of this trial has been whether Derek Chauvin violated policies on restraint when he kneeled on George Floyd's neck for nine and a half minutes.
The head of Minneapolis police, Chief Medaria Arradondo, was one of the prosecution's most high-profile witnesses and had fired Chauvin a day after the arrest.
He told the court that the police officer should have stopped applying "that level of force" the moment Mr Floyd stopped resisting. "It's not part of our training and it's certainly not part of our ethics or values" to continue with such force, he said.
Some 45 people gave evidence during the trial including (from left to right) Dr Martin Tobin, Charles McMillian and Courteney Ross
Defence witness Barry Brodd, a use-of-force expert, said Chauvin had been "justified" and acted "with objective reasonableness" because of the "imminent threat" Mr Floyd posed in resisting arrest.
However, he did concede under cross-examination that the dangers of positional asphyxia - not being able to breathe in a certain position - were well-known among law enforcers.
The cause of Mr Floyd's death was arguably central to this trial, with the prosecution maintaining he died from asphyxia while the defence pointed to Mr Floyd's drug use and general poor health.
Dr Martin Tobin, an expert in pulmonary medicine, used video footage to explain what was happening to Mr Floyd's breathing during the nine and a half minutes he lay under Chauvin's knee.
Even "a healthy person, subjected to what Mr Floyd was subjected to, would have died," he said.
A key witness for the defence, forensic pathologist David Fowler, said Mr Floyd's death should have been classified as "undetermined" rather than as a homicide, because there were "so many conflicting different potential mechanisms".
Complicating factors included Mr Floyd's drug use and possible exposure to carbon monoxide poisoning from the police car's exhaust, said Dr Fowler, who was chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland until his retirement in 2019.
However, under cross-examination he agreed that Mr Floyd should have been given immediate medical attention when he went into cardiac arrest, as there still was a chance to save his life.
Just before the defence rested its case, the man on trial - Derek Chauvin - confirmed to the judge that he would not testify.
"I will invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege today," he said, referring to the constitutional right to remain silent in fear of self-incrimination.
Asked by the judge whether this was his decision alone, and whether anyone else had unfairly influenced his decision, Chauvin responded: "No promises or threats, your honour."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The three key arguments used by Chauvin's defence
Chauvin pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree unintentional murder - for which he could be jailed for up to 40 years - third-degree murder, and manslaughter.
The jury took under a day to return a unanimous verdict convicting him of all charges.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56802198
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news_world-us-canada-56802198
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Sandy Row riot: Leaders appeal for calm after Belfast riot - BBC News
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2021-04-03
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Petrol bombs, bricks and bottles were thrown at police during sustained rioting on Friday night.
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Northern Ireland
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Trouble began before 20:00 BST on Friday, when fireworks and other missiles were thrown at police
The Northern Ireland secretary and first minister are among those who have appealed for calm after a night of disorder in south Belfast.
NI Secretary Brandon Lewis said the unrest on Friday evening was "completely unacceptable".
First Minister Arlene Foster warned young people not to get "drawn into disorder".
Petrol bombs, bricks and bottles were thrown at police during sustained rioting in the Sandy Row area.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said 15 officers were injured and eight people arrested.
Three teenage boys aged 13, 14 and 17 have since been charged with riot.
Three men and a woman have also been charged, while another man has been released on bail pending further enquiries.
"Violence is never the answer," said Mr Lewis. "There is no place for it in society.
"It is unwanted, unwarranted and I fully support the PSNI appeal for calm."
He said his thoughts were with the officers injured.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Petrol bombs, bricks and bottles were thrown at police
Mrs Foster, who is leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), said many young people were "hugely frustrated by the events of this last week" but that causing injury to police officers would not make things better".
"I appeal to our young people not to get drawn into disorder which will lead to them having criminal convictions and blighting their own lives."
Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey blamed the disturbances on the "reckless rhetoric from political unionism".
The Sinn Féin MLA said the DUP and others had "fed young people with misinformation and lies that their identity is under threat when it isn't".
Damage from the disorder was visible on Saturday morning
Up to 100 people had gathered in the Shaftesbury Square area, where a loyalist protest had been expected.
Trouble began before 20:00 BST, when fireworks and other missiles were thrown at police.
Ch Supt Simon Walls, Belfast district commander, said 15 officers were injured after being subjected to "a sustained attack by rioters who threw a number of objects at police including heavy masonry, metal rods, fireworks and manhole covers".
Ch Supt Walls said four officers were unable to report for duty on Saturday due to their injuries.
He appealed to anyone who had "any influence in communities" to use it to ensure young people are kept safe and away from harm.
Within 12 hours of the riot, the streets had been cleaned and normal life resumed.
Belfast is quick to recover. The city has had plenty of practice.
The ugly scenes on Friday night were a reminder of the old Belfast. The trouble came on the 23rd anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Political divisions remain and have been exacerbated by the row over Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol and the controversy over the funeral of the senior republican and former head of IRA intelligence Bobby Storey.
Before Friday night, violence on the streets had been avoided in recent months.
Efforts are now being made to ensure the Sandy Row riot is not repeated.
Mark Lindsay, chairman of the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said: "There's a lot of frustration and a lot of anger, because once again we see ourselves being pulled into the middle of political and social argument.
"These are police officers trying to do their best on a day and daily basis, but they find themselves at the butt of attacks and criticism and they're very, very annoyed and very frustrated about that."
He said the actions had an impact on the families of officers, and some would have to take time off work to recover from their injuries.
The "political rhetoric and the social rhetoric" had built over the last week, and it was "no great surprise" it had resulted in violence, he added.
Ulster Unionist Party assembly member Mike Nesbitt said the scenes must not be repeated.
Mr Nesbitt, who also represents the party on the Policing Board, said anyone taking part was "making a huge strategic mistake".
"Tell me any time when street violence has advanced the cause that you purport to support," he said.
"It was a huge error and it must not be repeated."
Sinn Féin West Belfast MP Paul Maskey said it was "deeply concerning to see these types of incidents at the height of the Covid pandemic and as we are beginning to make good progress".
"This is a time for calm heads and responsible leadership," he added.
South Belfast MP Claire Hanna blamed what she described as "usual suspects with no vision" for creating "tension for electoral gain".
"History repeats, people lose hope, kids get criminal records, communities pull apart. There's a better way," she said.
Stormont's Justice Minister Naomi Long, who is the leader of the Alliance Party, said the disorder was "in no-one's best interests".
"It's incumbent on leaders to behave responsibly and dial down the inflammatory rhetoric over recent days," the Alliance Party leader tweeted.
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Duke of Edinburgh: Scotland remembers Prince Philip - BBC News
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2021-04-17
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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A gun salute is fired at Edinburgh Castle and other tributes are paid to mark Prince Philip's funeral.
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Scotland
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The Duke of Edinburgh has been remembered in a series of events across Scotland as his funeral took place at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.
A gun salute at Edinburgh Castle marked the beginning and end of the national pause for reflection at 15:00.
At Prince Philip's former school - Gordonstoun in Moray - pupils fell silent for three minutes in tribute.
They also laid a wreath in the sea off Hopeman Harbour where he learned to sail as a boy.
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The duke died at Windsor Castle on Friday 9 April, aged 99. He was married to the Queen for 73 years.
Prince Philip's long association with Scotland began with his schooldays in Moray and continued with family trips to Balmoral in Aberdeenshire every summer.
A photograph shared by the Queen ahead of his funeral shows the couple smiling at the top of Coyles of Muick - a beauty spot close to the Scottish estate - in 2003.
The photograph of the couple was taken by the Countess of Wessex and published on the Royal Family's Twitter account
A series of remembrance events took place across Scotland to mark the day of the duke's funeral.
Young sailors on board Gordonstoun school's 80ft training boat, Ocean Spirit of Moray, laid a wreath in a tribute that recognised his lifelong connection to the sea.
A wreath was laid at sea by pupils of Gordonstoun, where Prince Philip learned to sail
On the shore, a lone student piper played whilst displaying the Duke of Edinburgh's coat of arms on a banner presented to the Gordonstoun pipe band by the Queen in 2019.
In Aberdeen, a beach sand artist created a large sand picture in tribute to the duke while veterans gathered in remembrance.
The Duke of Edinburgh was fond of Scotland and enjoyed attending the Braemar Gathering highland games
Elsewhere, the Royal Standard was raised at the peak of Ben Nevis by members of the Outward Bound Trust to mark the duke's support of the charity.
The trust also raised flags at Snowdon in Wales, and Scafell Pike in the Lake District.
In Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon observed the minute's silence at 15:00 on the steps of the first minister's official residence, Bute House.
After the funeral Ms Sturgeon said: "The many tributes paid to the Duke of Edinburgh in recent days have shown the depth of his contribution to public life over more than 70 years as well as his longstanding ties to Scotland.
"Many have reflected on his distinguished wartime record, his commitment to countless charities and organisations, and his love and support for The Queen throughout their marriage.
"Today, as The Queen and the Royal Family mourn the death of a loved one, we take this opportunity to celebrate and honour an extraordinary life."
Seven Scottish Cup fourth-round ties had been moved to avoid a clash with the funeral, including the Rangers v Celtic match which will now be held on Sunday.
In horse racing, the Scottish Grand National at Ayr has also been delayed by 24 hours from its traditional Saturday slot.
Prince Philip at the helm of Diligent when he was around 15
Meanwhile new pictures of the duke sailing a boat during his teenage years at Gordonstoun have been released.
Philip was captured on camera in 1937 - when he would have been around 15 - at the helm of one of Gordonstoun's boats, a two-mast, 14-ton boat named Diligent.
In another shot, he grins at the cameraman while helping with the washing up.
Philip's time at the prestigious boarding school under the eye of his eccentric headmaster Dr Kurt Hahn, inspired him to start his Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme.
The images were taken by the great-uncle of a former pupil, who then contacted the school.
Another previously unseen image shows a young Prince Philip doing the washing up
On Friday, Gordonstoun pupils took part in an early-morning run by way of tribute to Philip.
Morning runs were compulsory at the school until the 1990s and more than 100 students and staff, in household groups, ran a 3.5km route from Gordonstoun House to the nearby coastguard watchtower which Philip reopened in 1955.
The watchtower replaced a wooden hut which the duke, a member of the "Watchers" - a precursor to the Coastguard - helped build in 1935.
The Duke of Edinburgh's affinity with the north east of Scotland has also been highlighted by the minister of Crathie Kirk, the church used by the royal family when at Balmoral Castle.
Rev Kenneth MacKenzie is the minister of the parish of Braemar and Crathie and domestic chaplain to the Queen, who visits the church for Sunday services with members of her family, when staying at the castle.
He said: "Over the last few days, many different tribes and nations have, with some justification, laid claim to the duke, and while I seek no argument with those who claim that he was 'thoroughly European', 'archetypically British', 'adopted by the Commonwealth', 'Baptised Orthodox', 'Confirmed Anglican' or whatever - let me try to set the record straight.
"I think HRH The Duke of Edinburgh was one of us."
Rev McKenzie added he was a "man of faith with an active and enquiring mind" and said he had a keen interest in the church a national and institutional level, including the decisions and discussions of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
The minister recalled: "He was never slow to question how this 'so-called faith' was being lived out in any given parish and community - and speaking for myself, I loved him for it."
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Prince Philip: An extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life - BBC News
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2021-04-17
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The Duke of Edinburgh's life was filled with contradictions but will be remembered most for his unstinting support of the Queen.
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UK
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In public, Prince Philip always took second place
He outlived nearly everyone who knew him and might explain him.
And so we have been left with a two-dimensional portrait of the duke; salt-tongued and short-tempered, a man who told off-colour jokes and made politically incorrect remarks, an eccentric great-uncle who'd been around forever and towards whom most people felt affection - but who rather too often embarrassed himself and others in company.
With his death will come reassessment. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man.
His mother and father met at the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. At a time when all but four of Europe's nations were monarchies, his relatives were scattered through European royalty. Some royal houses were swept away by World War One; but the world into which Philip was born was still one where monarchies were the norm. His grandfather was the King of Greece; his great-aunt Ella was murdered along with the Russian tsar, by the Bolsheviks, at Ekaterinberg; his mother was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
His four older sisters would all marry Germans. While Philip fought for Britain in the Royal Navy, three of his sisters actively supported the Nazi cause; none would be invited to his wedding.
When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. And as the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable.
Eighteen months after his birth, his family was in exile
His childhood quickly taught him the values of self-reliance
He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his sister Sophia later described it.
In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress; and his four sisters married and went to live in Germany. In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him.
"I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.
By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea.
Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, an exile from Nazi Germany.
Prince Philip became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy
But he had to give up his career to support the Queen
The Duke of Edinburgh's children would not bear his name, Mountbatten
That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".
And at Gordonstoun was born one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.
And yet he was throughout his life, first in the navy and then in the many decades of life in the Palace, tightly bound by rules of tradition, of precedent, of command and hierarchy. He had little, if anything, in the way of agency. Did he say one thing and do another, as members of the Royal Family are often accused of? Or was his first choice - to serve - by necessity his last?
The navy ran deep in the Duke of Edinburgh's family. He is pictured sitting at the wheel of the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Churchill
Prince Philip gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests
At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.
The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".
Others had their reservations about the brilliant and ambitious young officer. In peace, once he had his own command, he drove his men hard, much too hard for some. "If he had a fault, it was a tendency to intolerance," wrote one biographer. That kind of comment would recur. Contemporaries were more blunt. "One of his crew," writes another biographer, "said he would rather die than serve under him again."
In Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.
When King George VI toured the Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.
Prince Philip with his uncle, Earl Mountbatten, at the Royal Marines Barracks in 1965
The Queen, with one of the Royal corgis, chats with polo-playing Prince Philip at Windsor Great Park
Their engagement was announced in July 1947
Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.
He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a tonne of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.
For someone who almost never displayed anything close to self-pity, and rarely spoke of his own emotions, he was by his own standards candid about the loss of his naval calling. "There's never been 'if only'," he said once, "except perhaps that I regret not having been able to continue a career in the navy". Those who knew the man and his passions are blunter. The former First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord West, says Philip did his duty; but of the end of his time in the navy he says, "I know it was a huge loss to him. I know it."
That moment, when princess became Queen, revealed another great contradiction of Philip's life. He was born and brought up in a world almost entirely run by men. He was a rugged, physical man who was brought up and then worked in an entirely male environment. He celebrated masculinity, telling Mike Parker on the birth of his first son Charles, "It takes a man to have a boy." But literally overnight, and for 65 years to follow, it became his life to support his wife, the Queen.
He would walk behind her. He would give up his job for her. He would apologise if he came into a room after her. At her coronation he knelt before her, his hands enclosed by hers, and swore to be her "liege man of life and limb". His children would not bear his name, Mountbatten. "I'm nothing but a bloody amoeba," he exclaimed at that. But there was nothing to be done. She was the Queen. He was her husband.
Prince Philip talked of the upending of circumstance little. "Within the house," he said of the time before the Queen's accession, "I suppose I naturally filled the principal position. People used to come and ask me what to do. In 1952 the whole thing changed very, very considerably."
Prince Philip had hundreds of patronages and projects with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport
The transition to life in the Palace was brutal. "Philip," said his equerry, "was constantly being squashed, snubbed, ticked off, rapped over the knuckles... I felt Philip did not have any friends or helpers." Philip may not have helped himself; one biographer writes that in the early years Palace staff felt he was "difficult to deal with... prickly... arrogant... defensive". He was looked upon with suspicion by some in the court, as something of an adventurer, as perhaps a fortune hunter. He had German blood, and this was just after the herculean effort of defeating Nazi Germany.
In response, Philip began what would become a lifetime of near-ceaseless activity; abroad he was at the side of the Queen on the long tours they undertook, sometimes breaking off to pursue interests particular to him - sporting, industrial or research. She nearly always travelled with him as her companion; but he also travelled alone. It was he, not she, that made the farewells to colonial possessions in the 1950s and 1960s.
At home there were patronages and projects, hundreds upon hundreds of them, with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport. He played cricket, squash, polo; he swam, sailed, rowed and rode horses and carriage drove. He learnt to fly, and developed his own photographs.
Within the Palace he was a moderniser, striding the corridors, rootling around the cellars, trying to find out what everyone did. He took over the management of the estate at Sandringham and over the years significantly redeveloped it.
"He believes he has a creative mission," wrote an early biographer, "to present the monarchy as a dynamic, involved and responsive institution that will address itself to some of the problems of contemporary British society."
He was young and very good looking; he smiled and joked and was at ease in front of the cameras. When he visited a boys' club in London in the late 1950s, a photo shows him with a broad smile on his face, looking crisp in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, his hair slicked back with brilliantine, surrounded by the upturned faces of boys and their mothers all shoving and trying to get close to him. There is more than a whiff of Beatlemania to the moment.
In his study on the first floor of Buckingham Palace, overlooking the gardens and Green Park, surrounded by thousands of books, with a model of his first command HMS Magpie to one side, he would research and write and type out his speeches. (In 1986 he would buy, always the moderniser, what he called a "splendid gadget" that he called "a miniature word processor".) He gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests.
Out of the speeches comes a picture of the man. For someone who sat through so much of it, he was clearly impatient with ceremony. "A lot of time and energy," he told students and staff at the Chesterfield College of Technology, "has been spent on arranging for you to listen to me to take a long time to declare open a building which everyone knows is open already."
Reflecting his dizzying range of interests, there was sometimes a touch of the gentleman-farmer to his thoughts - well-organised arguments that don't really go anywhere, a lot of anecdotal evidence ("it seems to me...") garnered from his extensive travels.
Despite modernising instincts, he was a conservative, somewhat suspicious of the machinations of the big city. He spoke of "urban dwellers" and of the "average citizen" dumping rubbish from their car. He preferred practical solutions to highfalutin theory - "The enterprise is doomed," he told the Commonwealth Conference on Industrial Relations, "if it is allowed to enter the rarefied atmosphere of theory."
He was an environmentalist before anyone really knew what that was. He warned of the "greedy and senseless exploitation of nature." And in 1982 he brought up a topic that now grips us, but back then was almost never spoken of, "a hotly-debated issue directly attributable to the development of industry... the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," which he referred to as the "greenhouse effect".
His relationship with his eldest son improved in later years
And he constantly did himself down, shrugging as to why anyone should want to hear him speak: "I have very little experience of self-government," he told one audience, "I am one of the most governed people you could meet...." His example of irrational behaviour? - "making and listening to speeches on important occasions". Or speaking before the Brussels Expo in 1958 - "I feel I can claim to be an expert at going round exhibitions." He knew most speeches were a dull formality that had to be got through - and he was happy to let his audience have a laugh at his expense.
It is another contradiction in a life of them; that someone who cared so much about how we live our lives, about how to pursue a good and moral life, about how government and society might try to channel our instincts, should end up being popularly portrayed as a saloon-bar bore, his retirement from public life in 2017 accompanied by lists of his "gaffes", off-colour comments and salty jokes.
That he could be rude, startlingly so at times, there is no doubt. Part of it was impatience, that dynamo whirring away, the desire to get things done double-quick. Part of it may have been deafness, inherited from his almost wholly deaf mother. But part of it was just plain bad manners, a disregard for what others felt and a thoughtlessness that came from position and temperament.
There was for a long time a fair amount of barking and shouting at those who failed to please him, and not a lot of thanking those that did.
Looking back down the decades, two great contrasts stand out. The first, that between a life led in the public eye, and a really quite private man. The boy shuttling between guardians and schools and countries quickly learnt to seal off his private side from public view. Inside the Palace it became his world view. Most of his biographers' personal queries were met with a shrug, as if to say "I don't know why you are bothering". He once said of his son Charles: "He is a romantic, I am a pragmatist. And because I don't see things as a romantic would, I'm [perceived as] unfeeling." There can be little doubt that he was stung by the accusation. But his inner thoughts were not for public consumption.
And the second great, related, contrast is that between the near unceasing whirl of his public life, and a degree of solitude in his private. Of course there was family, though all his sisters pre-deceased him. But few, if any, great friendships are recorded, a corollary of his private nature and the pattern of his many decades. "Life," wrote one biographer, "hasn't enabled him to build up friendships. He is going round the world at such a lick." And royalty is its own curious cage, repelling outsiders. "What the royal family offers you is friendliness," said the late James Callaghan, prime minister in the 1970s, "not friendship."
Major General Charles Stickland of the Royal Marines, of which for 64 years Philip was Captain General, tells of when the duke flew into an exercise in Norway. He was supposed to say a quick hello to the enlisted men and then have lunch with the commanding officer. Instead he "asked two of the corporals to spoon food into his mess tin, sat on a Bergan [rucksack], told stories and chatted away with my troops when he was supposed to be having a posh lunch and then got back on the helicopter, having inspired a group of young men as to why it was great to be a Royal Marine".
It was vintage Philip; no ceremony, hierarchy pushed to one side, the big group over the more intimate gathering.
Because of his desire for privacy, because of his position, and because nearly all who knew him best have gone, our understanding of him will always be incomplete. But that's also because of what kind of person he was, because of the contradictions and contrasts that emerged over the decades. "A mercurial man like His Royal Highness," said the artist and architect Sir Hugh Casson, "needs a loose fit portrait."
He was asked once what his life had been about (the sort of question that normally received an incredulous snort). Had it been about supporting the Queen? "Absolutely, absolutely," he replied. He didn't see himself as a leader, though lead he could. And his own achievements he consistently played down. Accepting the Freedom of the City of London in 1948, he spoke for himself and for what he called other "followers", with trademark modesty. "Our only distinction," he said, "was that we did what we were told to do, to the very best of our ability, and kept on doing it."
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American bulldogs killed Widnes mother after row with daughter - BBC News
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2021-04-07
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Elayne Stanley was mauled by two American bulldogs following an argument at her home, an inquest hears.
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Liverpool
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Elayne Stanley was pronounced dead at the scene of the attack in 2019
A mother-of-three was attacked and killed by her "protective" American bulldogs following an argument with her daughter, an inquest has heard.
Elayne Stanley, 44, was mauled by the two dogs at her home in Widnes, Cheshire, on 24 September 2019.
An inquest at Parr Hall in Warrington heard the pets had previously been owned by her partner Paul Leigh.
Court orders requiring him to take steps to keep the dogs under control were made in 2016.
Miss Stanley's daughter Louise Smith told the court the dogs, DJ and Billy, had lived with her mother for about three years.
She said: "My mum was happy with it, she had them around her two children and my two."
Photographs posted online show two dogs believed to be those involved in the attack
The inquest heard Ms Smith, who was pregnant, had been having a "heated discussion" with her mother when, as she went to leave, DJ bit her mother on the leg.
Ms Smith said she tried to put Billy into the kitchen but the dog joined in the attack so she went for help.
The inquest heard neighbours threw bricks at the dogs and eventually managed to contain them in the back garden but Miss Stanley was pronounced dead at the scene.
DJ was put down at the scene while Billy was taken away and also later euthanised after two attempts to sedate him were unsuccessful.
Jason Lennox, lead dog legislation officer for Cheshire Police, said American bulldogs were "guarding dogs" and could pick up on body language during arguments.
He said: "DJ has interpreted this as a potential problem and has tried to stop any physical contact."
Asked by Ms Smith if the dogs may have detected she was pregnant, he said: "He may well have sensed you were pregnant and may well have been trying to protect you, or trying to protect you and the baby."
Coroner Peter Sigee said Mr Leigh had been called to give evidence but had not attended.
The inquest heard a transcript of a police interview in which he claimed he was not the owner of the dogs, although he had admitted owning them during court proceedings in 2016.
Ms Smith said she was unaware of previous incidents involving the dogs including an attack on another dog, which had to be put down, and an incident where another dog owner was injured.
She also said she did not know if her mother was aware Mr Leigh had been convicted in 2016 under the Dangerous Dogs Act.
Recording a narrative conclusion, Mr Sigee said Miss Stanley died as a result of multiple dog bite injuries sustained when she was attacked by her two dogs within her home.
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Schools 'a lifeline to many students' in past year' - BBC News
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2021-04-07
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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School staff helped families struggling financially during pandemic, says the National Education Union.
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Family & Education
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School staff have been giving clothing, food and furnishings to families that have been struggling financially in the coronavirus pandemic, teachers say.
Some pupils have gone to school without winter coats, while others have been worried about having enough to eat, a National Education Union poll suggests.
The findings come as the NEU begins its annual conference on Wednesday.
The Department for Education says it has invested £2bn to help pupils in England in the wake of the pandemic.
The NEU surveyed 10,696 members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in March and concluded that schools and colleges had been a "lifeline" to many disadvantaged students during the past year.
Asked about the poverty they had witnessed, one union member said: "We have children that aren't clothed properly, without coats in winter, or have holes in shoes, and my school's inclusion team are excellent at working with the families to get them the support they need quickly and efficiently.
"We also have a stock of spare clothes that on occasion we can give to families."
Another NEU member said: "I called home during the first lockdown and spoke to an older sibling who was panicking because the free school meals vouchers email hadn't arrived.
"It was the evening before a bank holiday weekend and there was no food in the house - I will never forget the panic in that girl's voice."
Another responded: "We have had pupils and their families move into hostels during the pandemic when they were evicted.
"They were re-housed - but literally were given a house. No furniture, oven, fridge, washing machine, no carpets. Nothing. We rallied as a school and furnished two homes."
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU, said: "It is now beyond doubt that child poverty is on the rise. The effects can last a lifetime, and young people have one chance in education.
"There is no doubt, too, that schools and colleges have been going beyond the call of duty for them during this past year, as they always do.
"The government, by contrast, spent much of 2020 voicing warm words about its concern for the disadvantaged, including when mounting arguments for the wider opening of schools and colleges in September and January."
Yet it had "persistently failed to deliver for the young people in poverty", Dr Bousted said.
The NEU survey also asked members about plans to help pupils catch up on lost learning over the past year.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made £1.7bn of "catch-up" funding available in England to help children who have faced disruption from school and college closures during the pandemic.
As part of the recovery package, summer schools will be introduced this year for pupils who need it most, and tutoring schemes will be expanded.
But only one in five (21%) of NEU members surveyed thought tuition programmes were an important mechanism for supporting recovery, according to the teaching union poll.
There are concerns that children have fallen behind academically during the pandemic
Only 2% thought lengthening the school day or school term were important ways of supporting pupils who have missed in-person learning.
More than four in five (82%) said schools and colleges should be given the flexibility to decide what is important for pupils' learning and well-being.
Around two in three teachers believe pupils should be supported through sport and exercise (68%) and increased creative and practical learning (66%).
Asked about the benefits that they feel have emerged from the pandemic and what should be retained, more than a third of union members (37%) appreciated the greater levels of communication they had experienced with families by telephone and video link, while 57% said online parents' evenings had been a positive step.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Education said: "We have already invested £1.7bn in ambitious catch-up plans, with the majority of this targeted towards those most in need, while giving schools the flexibility of funding to use as they believe best to support their pupils.
"We are working with parents, teachers and schools to develop a long-term plan to make sure all pupils have the chance to recover from the impact of the pandemic - and we have appointed Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner to specifically oversee these issues."
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Welsh election: Lib Dems pledge to tackle 'climate emergency' - BBC News
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2021-04-07
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Leader Jane Dodds says the party is putting "recovery" first as she launches their election campaign.
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Wales politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. “The planet needs our help right now,” party leader Jane Dodds said
The Welsh Liberal Democrats promised to spend £1bn a year on tackling the "climate emergency", as they launched their Senedd election campaign.
Speaking at the event, the party's leader Jane Dodds said the Lib Dems are the "only party" that would "put recovery first".
The Liberal Democrats head into the election having held one seat in the Senedd since 2016.
The Liberal Democrats are the last of the main parties to launch their election campaign.
At the event in Cardiff, Ms Dodds outlined some of the party's main policies.
What elections are happening? On 6 May, people across Wales will vote to elect 60 Members of the Senedd (MSs). The party or parties that can command the support of a majority of members will form the Welsh government. Find out more here.
What powers does the Welsh Parliament have? MSs pass laws on many aspects of day-to-day life in Wales, such as health, education and transport. They also have control over some taxes. Defence, foreign policy and immigration are decided by the UK Parliament.
How do I vote? Anyone who lives in Wales and is registered to vote is eligible, so long as they are aged 16 or over on the day of the election. You can register to vote online.
Ms Dodds said: "The past year has been tough, life as we know it has changed, but I know Wales is a resilient country and we have the chance to build a better future for our children and our children's children.
The Welsh Lib Dems plan to put recovery first says leader Jane Dodds
"The Welsh Liberal Democrats are the only party pledging to put recovery first.
"We will secure our economic recovery, an environmental recovery and a recovery for our mental health services.
"The next Welsh government will face a huge challenge in the problems that already existed in our country and which have been made worse as a result of Covid.
"With ambitious and fully achievable policies ranging from building 30,000 new homes, to investing in our high streets, and freezing the business rates which cripple so many small and medium sized firms, the Welsh Liberal Democrats are presenting radical yet realistic options for Wales' future.
"Wales cannot afford for any party or any government to put anything other than our recovery first."
The promise to spend £1bn a year on the "climate emergency" meets a call made by the Future Generations Commissioner Sophie Howe.
The Welsh Government's annual budget is about £18bn.
Asked how the party would fund its pledge, Ms Dodds said: "We're not going to cut anything".
She explained that the party would use money that is currently used "in a different way".
"We also want to be able to access private funding and entrepreneurship in order to make sure that we've got the infrastructure there to put the climate at the heart of everything we do.
"We have a well-costed, very clear-funded way of doing that," Ms Dodds added.
Challenged on her claim that the Liberal Democrats are the only party that would prioritise post-pandemic recovery, Ms Dodds said: "I don't think there's any other party that has as it's headline, 'put recovery first'.
"That is our very clear message right now in the middle of this pandemic."
The Liberal Democrats are defending one seat at this election.
That was held by Kirsty Williams who has served as education minister in the Labour-led Welsh government since 2016.
Ms Williams is standing down at this election.
This is a big election for the Liberal Democrats, who are fighting to maintain a presence in the Senedd.
They say the achievements of their single retiring Senedd member, Kirsty Williams, who has been education minister in the Labour government, prove that holding even one seat can still make a difference.
The big question is whether that argument will convince their supporters to transfer their allegiance to Ms Williams' successor.
This may be a national campaign launch, but the battle for the Lib Dems will be intensely local.
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Scottish election 2021: Can unionists block another independence referendum? - BBC News
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2021-04-22
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In the second of two Scottish election pieces, we look at the parties opposing another vote on independence.
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Scotland politics
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In the 2014 referendum 55% of people in Scotland voted "no" to independence
In the second of a two-part series looking at the Scottish election, we explore the strategies of the parties who want to stop another independence referendum.
Scotland goes to the polls in a couple of weeks' time - and the result could have a significant impact on the future of the union.
The SNP and Scottish Greens back another referendum in the next five years. Alex Salmond - who is leading the new Alba Party - wants even more urgency. I wrote about it earlier this week.
But unionist parties - those who favour Scotland staying part of the UK - are going into this election trying to stop them holding the balance of power, and arguing a debate on Scotland's constitutional future would be a distraction when the country is trying to recover from coronavirus.
So what's their plan to convince voters?
If you look at most election campaigns, the main question is normally a simple one. Who do you want to run the country?
Things are slightly different in Scotland just now. The main opposition parties don't really argue that they are going to form the next Scottish government. Instead, they are asking voters to back them to stop the SNP winning a majority - and to stop another independence referendum.
Douglas Ross wants to avoid another referendum by preventing the SNP from winning a majority
The Scottish Conservative pitch at this election relies heavily on their unionist credentials. In the last few years, opposition to independence has given the party a new lease of life in Scotland, leading them to leapfrog Scottish Labour into second place last time around.
Douglas Ross, the party's new leader, told me for Radio 4's PM programme: "If we can stop that SNP majority again we can stop another referendum and really get our parliament and Scottish politics focussed on recovery - and I think that's where the public want to see their politicians really focussing all their efforts."
There's a bit of an irony in that answer. While the Conservatives are opposed to a referendum - they are happy to talk about independence because it is one of their main selling points to the electorate.
There's also the fact that Boris Johnson has made clear that he will refuse to grant the Scottish Parliament the power to hold another referendum - even if there's a pro-independence majority.
I asked Douglas Ross: doesn't the prime minister saying he'll block a referendum undermine the argument that you need to vote Conservative at Holyrood to stop one?
"The SNP have said they don't care what a Tory PM or a UK government says - they will go ahead regardless with a wildcat, illegal referendum," he said, referring to the SNP's suggestion it would pass a referendum bill and dare Westminster to challenge it in the courts.
He added: "Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed she wants a referendum in the next couple of years. She has accepted that means campaigning to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK during our recovery phase from this pandemic - and I don't want to see that division and arguments breaking up families and workplaces and communities again".
Scottish Labour's new leader Anas Sarwar does not want to go over "old arguments" on the constitution
Opposition to independence has reinvigorated the Tories in Scotland - they have in the past urged people to lend them their votes to stop another referendum and in the past it seems to have worked.
The opposite is true for Labour, the party who once dominated Scotland.
Their apparent lack of clarity on the constitution is seen as one of the main reasons their support has fallen. I've written before about the party's Scotland problem.
But there is some optimism under new leader Anas Sarwar. There are even some whispers about the party maybe retaking second place as an alternative to both the SNP and Conservatives (those whispers are played down by Labour strategists - and dismissed as fanciful by many Tories too).
A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections Who won in my area? Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster' A really simple guide to the 2021 elections
Mr Sarwar told me: "The mistake that both Douglas Ross and Nicola Sturgeon make is they think they can only talk to the half of the country that agrees with them and not the other half. I'm not willing to do that."
The problem is - Labour has tried to move beyond the constitution before. It's position has, the argument goes, left it in a bit of a constitutional no man's land; nationalists disliked that it didn't support independence, unionists thought it was too soft.
Mr Sarwar added: "People know my view. I don't support independence - I don't support a referendum. I think it would be wrong for us to come through this collective trauma of Covid and go back to those old arguments where we seek to divide people across the country. Instead I want to focus on rebuilding our NHS, restoring our economy, renewing our education system so that it works for everyone across the country."
What's happening? On 6 May, people across Scotland will vote to elect 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). The party that wins the most seats will form the government. Find out more here.
What powers do they have? MSPs pass laws on aspects of life in Scotland such as health, education and transport - and have some powers over tax and welfare benefits.
Who can vote? Anyone who lives in Scotland, is registered to vote and aged 16 or over on 6 May is eligible. You can register to vote online.
I've been speaking to quite a few candidates in the last couple of weeks. On the unionist side - many would admit tactical voting is a big part of this election.
If the Conservatives are the biggest pro-union party in an area, some Labour voters are considering lending them their vote or vice versa. Many candidates would argue it has worked in the past.
But there are some unionist strategists who are nervous. They believe the SNP have a decent chance of forming a majority on their own. Even if they don't there is likely to be a pro-referendum majority when you factor in the Scottish Greens (and maybe Alex Salmond's Alba).
So being the biggest unionist party in the next parliament really matters. The leader of that party will play a big part in framing the debate over another referendum. If one does happen they'll be a key voice in framing the arguments which could decide the future of the union
Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, says he wants to "put the recovery first"
There is another unionist voice in this debate too. The Scottish Liberal Democrats. In the early years of devolution, they were in power with Labour as a coalition. In the last Holyrood parliament, they were the fifth party.
Their leader, Willie Rennie, told me: "What we want to do is put the recovery first. We want to tackle the issues that we're really strong on in terms of investing in mental health services, education, climate, jobs. Those are the top priorities for the Liberal Democrats. You won't get that with the Conservatives - because they want to spend the next five years arguing with the SNP about independence."
He added: "We need partnership and we need to make sure we put that dark division of the last five years certainly - the poisonous atmosphere that's developed - behind us and work together in partnership."
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You'll notice the pitch is quite similar among the three major unionist parties: vote for us so we can focus on recovery from the pandemic instead of independence.
The SNP say the opposite - independence is crucial to controlling that recovery
In two weeks' time we'll find out which of those visions Scottish voters prefer.
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Prince Philip: An extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life - BBC News
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2021-04-10
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The Duke of Edinburgh's life was filled with contradictions but will be remembered most for his unstinting support of the Queen.
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UK
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In public, Prince Philip always took second place
He outlived nearly everyone who knew him and might explain him.
And so we have been left with a two-dimensional portrait of the duke; salt-tongued and short-tempered, a man who told off-colour jokes and made politically incorrect remarks, an eccentric great-uncle who'd been around forever and towards whom most people felt affection - but who rather too often embarrassed himself and others in company.
With his death will come reassessment. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man.
His mother and father met at the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. At a time when all but four of Europe's nations were monarchies, his relatives were scattered through European royalty. Some royal houses were swept away by World War One; but the world into which Philip was born was still one where monarchies were the norm. His grandfather was the King of Greece; his great-aunt Ella was murdered along with the Russian tsar, by the Bolsheviks, at Ekaterinberg; his mother was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
His four older sisters would all marry Germans. While Philip fought for Britain in the Royal Navy, three of his sisters actively supported the Nazi cause; none would be invited to his wedding.
When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. And as the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable.
Eighteen months after his birth, his family was in exile
His childhood quickly taught him the values of self-reliance
He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his sister Sophia later described it.
In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress; and his four sisters married and went to live in Germany. In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him.
"I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.
By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea.
Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, an exile from Nazi Germany.
Prince Philip became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy
But he had to give up his career to support the Queen
The Duke of Edinburgh's children would not bear his name, Mountbatten
That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".
And at Gordonstoun was born one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.
And yet he was throughout his life, first in the navy and then in the many decades of life in the Palace, tightly bound by rules of tradition, of precedent, of command and hierarchy. He had little, if anything, in the way of agency. Did he say one thing and do another, as members of the Royal Family are often accused of? Or was his first choice - to serve - by necessity his last?
The navy ran deep in the Duke of Edinburgh's family. He is pictured sitting at the wheel of the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Churchill
Prince Philip gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests
At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.
The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".
Others had their reservations about the brilliant and ambitious young officer. In peace, once he had his own command, he drove his men hard, much too hard for some. "If he had a fault, it was a tendency to intolerance," wrote one biographer. That kind of comment would recur. Contemporaries were more blunt. "One of his crew," writes another biographer, "said he would rather die than serve under him again."
In Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.
When King George VI toured the Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.
Prince Philip with his uncle, Earl Mountbatten, at the Royal Marines Barracks in 1965
The Queen, with one of the Royal corgis, chats with polo-playing Prince Philip at Windsor Great Park
Their engagement was announced in July 1947
Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.
He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a tonne of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.
For someone who almost never displayed anything close to self-pity, and rarely spoke of his own emotions, he was by his own standards candid about the loss of his naval calling. "There's never been 'if only'," he said once, "except perhaps that I regret not having been able to continue a career in the navy". Those who knew the man and his passions are blunter. The former First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord West, says Philip did his duty; but of the end of his time in the navy he says, "I know it was a huge loss to him. I know it."
That moment, when princess became Queen, revealed another great contradiction of Philip's life. He was born and brought up in a world almost entirely run by men. He was a rugged, physical man who was brought up and then worked in an entirely male environment. He celebrated masculinity, telling Mike Parker on the birth of his first son Charles, "It takes a man to have a boy." But literally overnight, and for 65 years to follow, it became his life to support his wife, the Queen.
He would walk behind her. He would give up his job for her. He would apologise if he came into a room after her. At her coronation he knelt before her, his hands enclosed by hers, and swore to be her "liege man of life and limb". His children would not bear his name, Mountbatten. "I'm nothing but a bloody amoeba," he exclaimed at that. But there was nothing to be done. She was the Queen. He was her husband.
Prince Philip talked of the upending of circumstance little. "Within the house," he said of the time before the Queen's accession, "I suppose I naturally filled the principal position. People used to come and ask me what to do. In 1952 the whole thing changed very, very considerably."
Prince Philip had hundreds of patronages and projects with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport
The transition to life in the Palace was brutal. "Philip," said his equerry, "was constantly being squashed, snubbed, ticked off, rapped over the knuckles... I felt Philip did not have any friends or helpers." Philip may not have helped himself; one biographer writes that in the early years Palace staff felt he was "difficult to deal with... prickly... arrogant... defensive". He was looked upon with suspicion by some in the court, as something of an adventurer, as perhaps a fortune hunter. He had German blood, and this was just after the herculean effort of defeating Nazi Germany.
In response, Philip began what would become a lifetime of near-ceaseless activity; abroad he was at the side of the Queen on the long tours they undertook, sometimes breaking off to pursue interests particular to him - sporting, industrial or research. She nearly always travelled with him as her companion; but he also travelled alone. It was he, not she, that made the farewells to colonial possessions in the 1950s and 1960s.
At home there were patronages and projects, hundreds upon hundreds of them, with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport. He played cricket, squash, polo; he swam, sailed, rowed and rode horses and carriage drove. He learnt to fly, and developed his own photographs.
Within the Palace he was a moderniser, striding the corridors, rootling around the cellars, trying to find out what everyone did. He took over the management of the estate at Sandringham and over the years significantly redeveloped it.
"He believes he has a creative mission," wrote an early biographer, "to present the monarchy as a dynamic, involved and responsive institution that will address itself to some of the problems of contemporary British society."
He was young and very good looking; he smiled and joked and was at ease in front of the cameras. When he visited a boys' club in London in the late 1950s, a photo shows him with a broad smile on his face, looking crisp in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, his hair slicked back with brilliantine, surrounded by the upturned faces of boys and their mothers all shoving and trying to get close to him. There is more than a whiff of Beatlemania to the moment.
In his study on the first floor of Buckingham Palace, overlooking the gardens and Green Park, surrounded by thousands of books, with a model of his first command HMS Magpie to one side, he would research and write and type out his speeches. (In 1986 he would buy, always the moderniser, what he called a "splendid gadget" that he called "a miniature word processor".) He gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests.
Out of the speeches comes a picture of the man. For someone who sat through so much of it, he was clearly impatient with ceremony. "A lot of time and energy," he told students and staff at the Chesterfield College of Technology, "has been spent on arranging for you to listen to me to take a long time to declare open a building which everyone knows is open already."
Reflecting his dizzying range of interests, there was sometimes a touch of the gentleman-farmer to his thoughts - well-organised arguments that don't really go anywhere, a lot of anecdotal evidence ("it seems to me...") garnered from his extensive travels.
Despite modernising instincts, he was a conservative, somewhat suspicious of the machinations of the big city. He spoke of "urban dwellers" and of the "average citizen" dumping rubbish from their car. He preferred practical solutions to highfalutin theory - "The enterprise is doomed," he told the Commonwealth Conference on Industrial Relations, "if it is allowed to enter the rarefied atmosphere of theory."
He was an environmentalist before anyone really knew what that was. He warned of the "greedy and senseless exploitation of nature." And in 1982 he brought up a topic that now grips us, but back then was almost never spoken of, "a hotly-debated issue directly attributable to the development of industry... the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," which he referred to as the "greenhouse effect".
His relationship with his eldest son improved in later years
And he constantly did himself down, shrugging as to why anyone should want to hear him speak: "I have very little experience of self-government," he told one audience, "I am one of the most governed people you could meet...." His example of irrational behaviour? - "making and listening to speeches on important occasions". Or speaking before the Brussels Expo in 1958 - "I feel I can claim to be an expert at going round exhibitions." He knew most speeches were a dull formality that had to be got through - and he was happy to let his audience have a laugh at his expense.
It is another contradiction in a life of them; that someone who cared so much about how we live our lives, about how to pursue a good and moral life, about how government and society might try to channel our instincts, should end up being popularly portrayed as a saloon-bar bore, his retirement from public life in 2017 accompanied by lists of his "gaffes", off-colour comments and salty jokes.
That he could be rude, startlingly so at times, there is no doubt. Part of it was impatience, that dynamo whirring away, the desire to get things done double-quick. Part of it may have been deafness, inherited from his almost wholly deaf mother. But part of it was just plain bad manners, a disregard for what others felt and a thoughtlessness that came from position and temperament.
There was for a long time a fair amount of barking and shouting at those who failed to please him, and not a lot of thanking those that did.
Looking back down the decades, two great contrasts stand out. The first, that between a life led in the public eye, and a really quite private man. The boy shuttling between guardians and schools and countries quickly learnt to seal off his private side from public view. Inside the Palace it became his world view. Most of his biographers' personal queries were met with a shrug, as if to say "I don't know why you are bothering". He once said of his son Charles: "He is a romantic, I am a pragmatist. And because I don't see things as a romantic would, I'm [perceived as] unfeeling." There can be little doubt that he was stung by the accusation. But his inner thoughts were not for public consumption.
And the second great, related, contrast is that between the near unceasing whirl of his public life, and a degree of solitude in his private. Of course there was family, though all his sisters pre-deceased him. But few, if any, great friendships are recorded, a corollary of his private nature and the pattern of his many decades. "Life," wrote one biographer, "hasn't enabled him to build up friendships. He is going round the world at such a lick." And royalty is its own curious cage, repelling outsiders. "What the royal family offers you is friendliness," said the late James Callaghan, prime minister in the 1970s, "not friendship."
Major General Charles Stickland of the Royal Marines, of which for 64 years Philip was Captain General, tells of when the duke flew into an exercise in Norway. He was supposed to say a quick hello to the enlisted men and then have lunch with the commanding officer. Instead he "asked two of the corporals to spoon food into his mess tin, sat on a Bergan [rucksack], told stories and chatted away with my troops when he was supposed to be having a posh lunch and then got back on the helicopter, having inspired a group of young men as to why it was great to be a Royal Marine".
It was vintage Philip; no ceremony, hierarchy pushed to one side, the big group over the more intimate gathering.
Because of his desire for privacy, because of his position, and because nearly all who knew him best have gone, our understanding of him will always be incomplete. But that's also because of what kind of person he was, because of the contradictions and contrasts that emerged over the decades. "A mercurial man like His Royal Highness," said the artist and architect Sir Hugh Casson, "needs a loose fit portrait."
He was asked once what his life had been about (the sort of question that normally received an incredulous snort). Had it been about supporting the Queen? "Absolutely, absolutely," he replied. He didn't see himself as a leader, though lead he could. And his own achievements he consistently played down. Accepting the Freedom of the City of London in 1948, he spoke for himself and for what he called other "followers", with trademark modesty. "Our only distinction," he said, "was that we did what we were told to do, to the very best of our ability, and kept on doing it."
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Boris Johnson's flat: Top official to review funding of revamp - BBC News
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2021-04-26
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Top official Simon Case will conduct the probe - but Labour wants to call in the elections watchdog.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson lives in Downing Street with his fiancee Carrie Symonds
The UK's top civil servant says Boris Johnson has asked him to review how the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat was paid for.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case was responding to MPs' questions about how the work was funded.
The row escalated after Mr Johnson's ex-adviser Dominic Cummings claimed the PM once planned to have donors "secretly pay" for the revamp.
The PM has said any relevant donations will be declared "in due course".
Labour has called on the Electoral Commission, which regulates political donations in the UK, to launch a formal investigation.
The watchdog has said it is talking to the Conservative Party about whether the spending on the flat falls within its remit.
Appearing before a Commons committee on Monday, Mr Case said a review into the refurbishment would look at "how this has been done".
Asked repeatedly whether he was aware if private donations covered any of the costs, he said he had "not been involved directly in this".
"I do not have all of the facts and details at my disposal," he said, adding that his review would probably take "a matter of weeks".
Another day, another denial. Another 24 hours when rather than making their arguments, the government is embroiled in arguments about the past.
Whether it's the prime minister's alleged frustrations about lockdown, attacks from his former adviser Dominic Cummings, or the mystery over his expensive flat renovation, as one senior Tory put it, it matters, because it all relates to Boris Johnson's judgement.
Many Conservatives have been confident however that the prime minister's reputation, his enjoyment for pushing convention, is something that many voters are even attracted to.
But there's a risk that confidence could turn to complacency.
There is a belief in the Labour Party that the unhappy mess is starting to be noticed by voters.
And no one knows when, or what might next emerge.
One cabinet minister told me "there's nothing we can do to control it."
The claims about the flat are contained in a blog posted by Mr Cummings on Friday, his first since leaving his role in No 10.
In the blog, Mr Cummings also denied he was behind the leaking of details of November's second coronavirus lockdown in England.
Mr Case told MPs that an internal inquiry into that leak was ongoing, but it was "probable" officials working on it would fail to identify any sources.
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson has denied reports he said he would rather "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" than order a third lockdown.
The Daily Mail reported the prime minister made the remarks during heated conversations within government in the autumn over lockdown restrictions.
Sources familiar with the conversation have told the BBC Mr Johnson suggested he would rather see "bodies pile high" during the discussions.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Simon Case was asked whether private donations funded work at the flat
Like several of his recent predecessors, the PM is living in the flat above No 11 Downing Street, which is larger than the one above No 10.
Speaking earlier, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the prime minister had paid for the revamp "from his own money" .
He said this came "on top of" public money from the annual £30,000 taxpayer grant available to all prime ministers for the upkeep of their accommodation.
In a written statement on Friday, the government said no money from this grant was spent in the 2019/20 financial year. Figures for this year are expected to be published in the summer.
"At all times the prime minister has complied with the rules. He's paid for it out of his own money, " he said.
Michelle Obama visited Samantha Cameron in the 11 Downing St flat back in 2011
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged a "full and transparent investigation" into the allegations about the Downing Street flat, arguing they risked undermining trust in government.
"It's all very well the prime minister saying now 'I paid for it', the critical question was: what was the original arrangement - and why is it so complicated?"
"If there's a straightforward answer, well give it. And if there isn't, then there are very serious questions to be asked," he added.
A No 10 spokesperson said: "At all times, the government and ministers have acted in accordance with the appropriate codes of conduct and electoral law."
Donations and loans to political parties of more than £7,500 must be reported to the Electoral Commission.
The Conservative Party has previously said that all "reportable donations" are "correctly declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them and comply fully with the law".
The party said "gifts and benefits received in a ministerial capacity" are declared in government transparency returns.
Mr Case was also asked by MPs about the case of businessman Lex Greensill who was a part-time unpaid government adviser in David Cameron's government.
The civil servant boss said that situation was not "acceptable" and that it "looks like there were conflicts". He added that he didn't think there was anything of that equivalent happening in the civil service now.
The prime minister has already appointed the lawyer Nigel Boardman to hold a review into all the issues surrounding Greensill Capital.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56883078
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news_uk-politics-56883078
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Champions League: Plans for revamped tournament agreed - BBC Sport
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2021-04-18
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The revamped 36-team Champions League is agreed with the new format due to start in 2024.
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Last updated on .From the section European Football
The revamped 36-team Champions League was agreed on Monday.
It comes the day after 12 clubs, including six from England, announced plans to join a new, separate European Super League (ESL) instead.
The controversial new Champions League format is due to start in 2024 and run until at least 2033.
A planned announcement last month was scrapped amid arguments over club involvement in the running of the tournament.
The new format will see 36 clubs qualifying for an expanded 'first phase', where all clubs will play against 10 opponents of varying strengths.
This will result in a league table, with the top eight qualifying for the knockout phase and the next 16 going into a play-off for the remaining eight slots.
The format has been criticised by fans' groups, not least because two of the additional four slots will be allocated on the basis of past performance, to the clubs with the highest Uefa co-efficient that did not qualify for the Champions League automatically - but did qualify for another European competition.
If the process was in existence this season, Liverpool - depending on the outcome of the domestic cup competitions - and Chelsea would have been the clubs who stood to benefit.
The criticism around this format is that it would strip away the basis of qualification being around league position as a team could qualify for the Champions League despite finishing lower in the table than a team in the same league that missed out.
• None Big Narstie explores the impact of the Brixton Riots
• None Find out on the Bad People podcast
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56771500
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rt_football_56771500
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Boris Johnson's flat: Top official to review funding of revamp - BBC News
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2021-04-27
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Top official Simon Case will conduct the probe - but Labour wants to call in the elections watchdog.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson lives in Downing Street with his fiancee Carrie Symonds
The UK's top civil servant says Boris Johnson has asked him to review how the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat was paid for.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case was responding to MPs' questions about how the work was funded.
The row escalated after Mr Johnson's ex-adviser Dominic Cummings claimed the PM once planned to have donors "secretly pay" for the revamp.
The PM has said any relevant donations will be declared "in due course".
Labour has called on the Electoral Commission, which regulates political donations in the UK, to launch a formal investigation.
The watchdog has said it is talking to the Conservative Party about whether the spending on the flat falls within its remit.
Appearing before a Commons committee on Monday, Mr Case said a review into the refurbishment would look at "how this has been done".
Asked repeatedly whether he was aware if private donations covered any of the costs, he said he had "not been involved directly in this".
"I do not have all of the facts and details at my disposal," he said, adding that his review would probably take "a matter of weeks".
Another day, another denial. Another 24 hours when rather than making their arguments, the government is embroiled in arguments about the past.
Whether it's the prime minister's alleged frustrations about lockdown, attacks from his former adviser Dominic Cummings, or the mystery over his expensive flat renovation, as one senior Tory put it, it matters, because it all relates to Boris Johnson's judgement.
Many Conservatives have been confident however that the prime minister's reputation, his enjoyment for pushing convention, is something that many voters are even attracted to.
But there's a risk that confidence could turn to complacency.
There is a belief in the Labour Party that the unhappy mess is starting to be noticed by voters.
And no one knows when, or what might next emerge.
One cabinet minister told me "there's nothing we can do to control it."
The claims about the flat are contained in a blog posted by Mr Cummings on Friday, his first since leaving his role in No 10.
In the blog, Mr Cummings also denied he was behind the leaking of details of November's second coronavirus lockdown in England.
Mr Case told MPs that an internal inquiry into that leak was ongoing, but it was "probable" officials working on it would fail to identify any sources.
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson has denied reports he said he would rather "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" than order a third lockdown.
The Daily Mail reported the prime minister made the remarks during heated conversations within government in the autumn over lockdown restrictions.
Sources familiar with the conversation have told the BBC Mr Johnson suggested he would rather see "bodies pile high" during the discussions.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Simon Case was asked whether private donations funded work at the flat
Like several of his recent predecessors, the PM is living in the flat above No 11 Downing Street, which is larger than the one above No 10.
Speaking earlier, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the prime minister had paid for the revamp "from his own money" .
He said this came "on top of" public money from the annual £30,000 taxpayer grant available to all prime ministers for the upkeep of their accommodation.
In a written statement on Friday, the government said no money from this grant was spent in the 2019/20 financial year. Figures for this year are expected to be published in the summer.
"At all times the prime minister has complied with the rules. He's paid for it out of his own money, " he said.
Michelle Obama visited Samantha Cameron in the 11 Downing St flat back in 2011
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged a "full and transparent investigation" into the allegations about the Downing Street flat, arguing they risked undermining trust in government.
"It's all very well the prime minister saying now 'I paid for it', the critical question was: what was the original arrangement - and why is it so complicated?"
"If there's a straightforward answer, well give it. And if there isn't, then there are very serious questions to be asked," he added.
A No 10 spokesperson said: "At all times, the government and ministers have acted in accordance with the appropriate codes of conduct and electoral law."
Donations and loans to political parties of more than £7,500 must be reported to the Electoral Commission.
The Conservative Party has previously said that all "reportable donations" are "correctly declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them and comply fully with the law".
The party said "gifts and benefits received in a ministerial capacity" are declared in government transparency returns.
Mr Case was also asked by MPs about the case of businessman Lex Greensill who was a part-time unpaid government adviser in David Cameron's government.
The civil servant boss said that situation was not "acceptable" and that it "looks like there were conflicts". He added that he didn't think there was anything of that equivalent happening in the civil service now.
The prime minister has already appointed the lawyer Nigel Boardman to hold a review into all the issues surrounding Greensill Capital.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56883078
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news_uk-politics-56883078
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Prince Philip: An extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life - BBC News
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2021-04-15
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The Duke of Edinburgh's life was filled with contradictions but will be remembered most for his unstinting support of the Queen.
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UK
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In public, Prince Philip always took second place
He outlived nearly everyone who knew him and might explain him.
And so we have been left with a two-dimensional portrait of the duke; salt-tongued and short-tempered, a man who told off-colour jokes and made politically incorrect remarks, an eccentric great-uncle who'd been around forever and towards whom most people felt affection - but who rather too often embarrassed himself and others in company.
With his death will come reassessment. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man.
His mother and father met at the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. At a time when all but four of Europe's nations were monarchies, his relatives were scattered through European royalty. Some royal houses were swept away by World War One; but the world into which Philip was born was still one where monarchies were the norm. His grandfather was the King of Greece; his great-aunt Ella was murdered along with the Russian tsar, by the Bolsheviks, at Ekaterinberg; his mother was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
His four older sisters would all marry Germans. While Philip fought for Britain in the Royal Navy, three of his sisters actively supported the Nazi cause; none would be invited to his wedding.
When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. And as the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable.
Eighteen months after his birth, his family was in exile
His childhood quickly taught him the values of self-reliance
He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his sister Sophia later described it.
In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress; and his four sisters married and went to live in Germany. In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him.
"I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.
By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea.
Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, an exile from Nazi Germany.
Prince Philip became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy
But he had to give up his career to support the Queen
The Duke of Edinburgh's children would not bear his name, Mountbatten
That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".
And at Gordonstoun was born one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.
And yet he was throughout his life, first in the navy and then in the many decades of life in the Palace, tightly bound by rules of tradition, of precedent, of command and hierarchy. He had little, if anything, in the way of agency. Did he say one thing and do another, as members of the Royal Family are often accused of? Or was his first choice - to serve - by necessity his last?
The navy ran deep in the Duke of Edinburgh's family. He is pictured sitting at the wheel of the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Churchill
Prince Philip gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests
At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.
The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".
Others had their reservations about the brilliant and ambitious young officer. In peace, once he had his own command, he drove his men hard, much too hard for some. "If he had a fault, it was a tendency to intolerance," wrote one biographer. That kind of comment would recur. Contemporaries were more blunt. "One of his crew," writes another biographer, "said he would rather die than serve under him again."
In Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.
When King George VI toured the Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.
Prince Philip with his uncle, Earl Mountbatten, at the Royal Marines Barracks in 1965
The Queen, with one of the Royal corgis, chats with polo-playing Prince Philip at Windsor Great Park
Their engagement was announced in July 1947
Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.
He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a tonne of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.
For someone who almost never displayed anything close to self-pity, and rarely spoke of his own emotions, he was by his own standards candid about the loss of his naval calling. "There's never been 'if only'," he said once, "except perhaps that I regret not having been able to continue a career in the navy". Those who knew the man and his passions are blunter. The former First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord West, says Philip did his duty; but of the end of his time in the navy he says, "I know it was a huge loss to him. I know it."
That moment, when princess became Queen, revealed another great contradiction of Philip's life. He was born and brought up in a world almost entirely run by men. He was a rugged, physical man who was brought up and then worked in an entirely male environment. He celebrated masculinity, telling Mike Parker on the birth of his first son Charles, "It takes a man to have a boy." But literally overnight, and for 65 years to follow, it became his life to support his wife, the Queen.
He would walk behind her. He would give up his job for her. He would apologise if he came into a room after her. At her coronation he knelt before her, his hands enclosed by hers, and swore to be her "liege man of life and limb". His children would not bear his name, Mountbatten. "I'm nothing but a bloody amoeba," he exclaimed at that. But there was nothing to be done. She was the Queen. He was her husband.
Prince Philip talked of the upending of circumstance little. "Within the house," he said of the time before the Queen's accession, "I suppose I naturally filled the principal position. People used to come and ask me what to do. In 1952 the whole thing changed very, very considerably."
Prince Philip had hundreds of patronages and projects with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport
The transition to life in the Palace was brutal. "Philip," said his equerry, "was constantly being squashed, snubbed, ticked off, rapped over the knuckles... I felt Philip did not have any friends or helpers." Philip may not have helped himself; one biographer writes that in the early years Palace staff felt he was "difficult to deal with... prickly... arrogant... defensive". He was looked upon with suspicion by some in the court, as something of an adventurer, as perhaps a fortune hunter. He had German blood, and this was just after the herculean effort of defeating Nazi Germany.
In response, Philip began what would become a lifetime of near-ceaseless activity; abroad he was at the side of the Queen on the long tours they undertook, sometimes breaking off to pursue interests particular to him - sporting, industrial or research. She nearly always travelled with him as her companion; but he also travelled alone. It was he, not she, that made the farewells to colonial possessions in the 1950s and 1960s.
At home there were patronages and projects, hundreds upon hundreds of them, with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport. He played cricket, squash, polo; he swam, sailed, rowed and rode horses and carriage drove. He learnt to fly, and developed his own photographs.
Within the Palace he was a moderniser, striding the corridors, rootling around the cellars, trying to find out what everyone did. He took over the management of the estate at Sandringham and over the years significantly redeveloped it.
"He believes he has a creative mission," wrote an early biographer, "to present the monarchy as a dynamic, involved and responsive institution that will address itself to some of the problems of contemporary British society."
He was young and very good looking; he smiled and joked and was at ease in front of the cameras. When he visited a boys' club in London in the late 1950s, a photo shows him with a broad smile on his face, looking crisp in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, his hair slicked back with brilliantine, surrounded by the upturned faces of boys and their mothers all shoving and trying to get close to him. There is more than a whiff of Beatlemania to the moment.
In his study on the first floor of Buckingham Palace, overlooking the gardens and Green Park, surrounded by thousands of books, with a model of his first command HMS Magpie to one side, he would research and write and type out his speeches. (In 1986 he would buy, always the moderniser, what he called a "splendid gadget" that he called "a miniature word processor".) He gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests.
Out of the speeches comes a picture of the man. For someone who sat through so much of it, he was clearly impatient with ceremony. "A lot of time and energy," he told students and staff at the Chesterfield College of Technology, "has been spent on arranging for you to listen to me to take a long time to declare open a building which everyone knows is open already."
Reflecting his dizzying range of interests, there was sometimes a touch of the gentleman-farmer to his thoughts - well-organised arguments that don't really go anywhere, a lot of anecdotal evidence ("it seems to me...") garnered from his extensive travels.
Despite modernising instincts, he was a conservative, somewhat suspicious of the machinations of the big city. He spoke of "urban dwellers" and of the "average citizen" dumping rubbish from their car. He preferred practical solutions to highfalutin theory - "The enterprise is doomed," he told the Commonwealth Conference on Industrial Relations, "if it is allowed to enter the rarefied atmosphere of theory."
He was an environmentalist before anyone really knew what that was. He warned of the "greedy and senseless exploitation of nature." And in 1982 he brought up a topic that now grips us, but back then was almost never spoken of, "a hotly-debated issue directly attributable to the development of industry... the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," which he referred to as the "greenhouse effect".
His relationship with his eldest son improved in later years
And he constantly did himself down, shrugging as to why anyone should want to hear him speak: "I have very little experience of self-government," he told one audience, "I am one of the most governed people you could meet...." His example of irrational behaviour? - "making and listening to speeches on important occasions". Or speaking before the Brussels Expo in 1958 - "I feel I can claim to be an expert at going round exhibitions." He knew most speeches were a dull formality that had to be got through - and he was happy to let his audience have a laugh at his expense.
It is another contradiction in a life of them; that someone who cared so much about how we live our lives, about how to pursue a good and moral life, about how government and society might try to channel our instincts, should end up being popularly portrayed as a saloon-bar bore, his retirement from public life in 2017 accompanied by lists of his "gaffes", off-colour comments and salty jokes.
That he could be rude, startlingly so at times, there is no doubt. Part of it was impatience, that dynamo whirring away, the desire to get things done double-quick. Part of it may have been deafness, inherited from his almost wholly deaf mother. But part of it was just plain bad manners, a disregard for what others felt and a thoughtlessness that came from position and temperament.
There was for a long time a fair amount of barking and shouting at those who failed to please him, and not a lot of thanking those that did.
Looking back down the decades, two great contrasts stand out. The first, that between a life led in the public eye, and a really quite private man. The boy shuttling between guardians and schools and countries quickly learnt to seal off his private side from public view. Inside the Palace it became his world view. Most of his biographers' personal queries were met with a shrug, as if to say "I don't know why you are bothering". He once said of his son Charles: "He is a romantic, I am a pragmatist. And because I don't see things as a romantic would, I'm [perceived as] unfeeling." There can be little doubt that he was stung by the accusation. But his inner thoughts were not for public consumption.
And the second great, related, contrast is that between the near unceasing whirl of his public life, and a degree of solitude in his private. Of course there was family, though all his sisters pre-deceased him. But few, if any, great friendships are recorded, a corollary of his private nature and the pattern of his many decades. "Life," wrote one biographer, "hasn't enabled him to build up friendships. He is going round the world at such a lick." And royalty is its own curious cage, repelling outsiders. "What the royal family offers you is friendliness," said the late James Callaghan, prime minister in the 1970s, "not friendship."
Major General Charles Stickland of the Royal Marines, of which for 64 years Philip was Captain General, tells of when the duke flew into an exercise in Norway. He was supposed to say a quick hello to the enlisted men and then have lunch with the commanding officer. Instead he "asked two of the corporals to spoon food into his mess tin, sat on a Bergan [rucksack], told stories and chatted away with my troops when he was supposed to be having a posh lunch and then got back on the helicopter, having inspired a group of young men as to why it was great to be a Royal Marine".
It was vintage Philip; no ceremony, hierarchy pushed to one side, the big group over the more intimate gathering.
Because of his desire for privacy, because of his position, and because nearly all who knew him best have gone, our understanding of him will always be incomplete. But that's also because of what kind of person he was, because of the contradictions and contrasts that emerged over the decades. "A mercurial man like His Royal Highness," said the artist and architect Sir Hugh Casson, "needs a loose fit portrait."
He was asked once what his life had been about (the sort of question that normally received an incredulous snort). Had it been about supporting the Queen? "Absolutely, absolutely," he replied. He didn't see himself as a leader, though lead he could. And his own achievements he consistently played down. Accepting the Freedom of the City of London in 1948, he spoke for himself and for what he called other "followers", with trademark modesty. "Our only distinction," he said, "was that we did what we were told to do, to the very best of our ability, and kept on doing it."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50589065
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news_uk-50589065
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Assisted dying inquiry essential, leading brain surgeon says - BBC News
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2021-04-01
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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A brain surgeon, left shocked and frightened by his cancer diagnosis, says the law needs changing.
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UK
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Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh is supporting calls for an inquiry into assisted dying
One of the UK's leading brain surgeons, who has advanced prostate cancer, has said an inquiry into assisted dying is "absolutely essential".
Henry Marsh, a retired neurosurgeon and bestselling author, received his diagnosis six months ago.
He has supported a call by politicians for the government to hold an inquiry.
The Care Not Killing alliance, which opposes assisted dying, said the law protected the vulnerable "from being pressured into ending their lives".
Mr Marsh is backing a group of more than 50 MPs and peers who have written a joint letter to Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, arguing the UK's laws on assisted dying have fallen behind the rest of the world.
Currently, assisting a suicide is a crime in England and Wales and is punishable by up to 14 years in jail.
Intentionally helping another person to kill themselves is known as assisted suicide - this can include buying someone a ticket to Switzerland - where assisted suicide is legal - to end their life.
Signatories of the letter include politicians who previously voted against changing the law.
The letter was organised by Humanists UK, which Mr Marsh is an advocate of, and campaign group My Death, My Decision, of which he is a patron.
Speaking publicly for the first time about his own cancer diagnosis, Mr Marsh said he felt "deeply shocked and terribly frightened and upset" as it "gradually dawned on him how serious the situation was".
The surgeon said in the past he had in "theory" been an advocate of assisted dying in "one form or another" but said he hadn't thought it might one day apply to him.
"It is extraordinarily difficult to think about your own death," he said.
The 71-year-old, who is due to start radiotherapy treatment in a few months' time, believes "something should be done to change the law in this country".
"My own suspicion as to why the opponents to assisted dying oppose a public inquiry is they fear that actually the evidence is so strong that their hypothetical arguments against it don't hold water, that they will lose the debate," he said.
Humanists UK's chief executive Andrew Copson said he was "deeply sorry" to hear about Mr Marsh's diagnosis.
"The ability to choose how, where, and when we die is a fundamental freedom, which cuts across party political and ideological lines," he added.
"In coming together to demand an inquiry, Henry and the lawmakers who have signed this letter have put the voices of the terminally ill and incurably suffering at the centre of the debate."
Jean Farrer's sister-in-law, Anne Vickers, 75, travelled to Dignitas in Switzerland in 2015 after being diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer which couldn't be treated.
Ms Farrer said her sister-in-law was an "active, independent, funny, joyful person" who decided to end her life when she felt the quality wasn't good enough any more.
Anne Vickers, 75, travelled to Dignitas in Switzerland in 2015 after being diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer which couldn't be treated
Supporting calls for a public inquiry, Ms Farrer said she understood it was a "complex area" with many safeguarding issues, but said her family had been caused so much pain and distress because it was not legal.
"There were so many other things we could have been doing in the last 12 months with her to make her year the best it could have been," she said.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, said he was disappointed there was another "push" to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia in the midst of the Covid pandemic.
"Our current laws protect the most vulnerable in our society, the elderly, the sick and disabled from feeling pressured into ending their lives, exactly as we see in the handful of places around the world that allow assisted suicide or euthanasia.
He added: "At a time when we have seen how fragile our NHS is, how underfunding puts pressure on services, and when up to one in four Brits who would benefit from palliative care, but does not currently receive it, to be pushing this ideological policy, seems out of touch, dangerous and desperate."
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "Any change to the law in an area of such sensitivity and importance must be for individual MPs to consider rather than a decision for government."
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Climate change: Net zero targets are 'pie in the sky' - BBC News
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2021-04-01
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Indian minister lashes out at plans to cut emissions dramatically over the next three decades.
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Science & Environment
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Sharp divisions between the major global emitters have emerged at a series of meetings designed to make progress on climate change.
India lambasted the richer world's carbon cutting plans, calling long term net zero targets, "pie in the sky."
Their energy minister said poor nations want to continue using fossil fuels and the rich countries "can't stop it".
China meanwhile declined to attend a different climate event organised by the UK.
Trying to lead 197 countries forward on the critical global issue of climate change is not a job for the faint hearted, as the UK is currently finding out.
As president of COP26, this year's crucial climate meeting due to take place in Glasgow in November, Britain is charged with ensuring a successful summit of world leaders and their negotiators.
To that end, the UK team have embarked on a series of meetings to find the building blocks of agreement, so that the world keeps the temperature targets agreed in Paris in 2015 within reach.
To have a decent chance of keeping the increase in global temperature under 1.5C - which is now considered as the gateway to dangerous warming - carbon emissions need to reach net zero by 2050.
Net zero refers to balancing out any greenhouse gas emissions produced by industry, transport or other sources by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.
A range of major carbon-producing countries, including the US, the UK, Japan and the EU, have signed up to the idea. Last September, China said it would get there by 2060.
India, the world's fourth largest emitter, doesn't seem keen to join the club.
"2060 sounds good, but it is just that, it sounds good," Raj Kumar Singh, India's minister for power, told a meeting organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
"I would call it, and I'm sorry to say this, but it is just a pie in the sky."
To the discomfort of his fellow panellists, Mr Singh singled out developed countries where per capita emissions are much higher than in India.
"You have countries whose per capita emissions are four or five or 12 times the world average. The question is when are they going to come down?"
"What we hear is that by 2050 or 2060 we will become carbon neutral, 2060 is far away and if the people emit at the rate they are emitting the world won't survive, so what are you going to do in the next five years that's what the world wants to know."
Mr Singh pointed out that while it was the richer countries who had burned most of the fossil fuels that have caused the problems, they now wanted developing countries to stop - that was unfair, he said.
"The developed world has occupied almost 80% of the carbon space already, you have 800 million people who don't have access to electricity. You can't say that they have to go to net zero, they have the right to develop, they want to build skyscrapers and have a higher standard of living, you can't stop it," he told the meeting.
China's minister Zhang Jianhua told the IEA virtual event that his country wanted "increased mutual understanding and mutual trust to work as one", on the issue of climate change.
However, that desire to work as one didn't stretch as far as the UK, with China declining an invitation to take part in a key climate and development ministerial meeting for vulnerable countries.
India has made significant progress in solar and wind energy installations
There was a feeling among officials that diplomatic arguments with China over human rights were spilling over into the climate arena.
US special envoy on climate change, John Kerry, went out of his way to pour oil on troubled waters when speaking at the IEA event.
Both India and China see themselves as developing economies and want to retain some sense that richer Western nations have to take the lead on climate.
The former secretary of state was keen to say that there wouldn't be just the same carbon-cutting plan for every country, but everyone would have to do more.
"We can't just willy-nilly ignore the next 10 years because the scientists tell us that if we don't do enough in the next 10 years we cannot keep the Earth's temperature at 1.5C, we cannot even get on a roadmap to net zero by 2050," he said.
"So my plea is to avoid the 'happy talk' and recognise that this challenge is global and never has there been a challenge that requires the unity of countries all across the planet than now."
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Prince Philip: An extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life - BBC News
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2021-04-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The Duke of Edinburgh's life was filled with contradictions but will be remembered most for his unstinting support of the Queen.
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UK
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In public, Prince Philip always took second place
He outlived nearly everyone who knew him and might explain him.
And so we have been left with a two-dimensional portrait of the duke; salt-tongued and short-tempered, a man who told off-colour jokes and made politically incorrect remarks, an eccentric great-uncle who'd been around forever and towards whom most people felt affection - but who rather too often embarrassed himself and others in company.
With his death will come reassessment. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man.
His mother and father met at the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. At a time when all but four of Europe's nations were monarchies, his relatives were scattered through European royalty. Some royal houses were swept away by World War One; but the world into which Philip was born was still one where monarchies were the norm. His grandfather was the King of Greece; his great-aunt Ella was murdered along with the Russian tsar, by the Bolsheviks, at Ekaterinberg; his mother was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
His four older sisters would all marry Germans. While Philip fought for Britain in the Royal Navy, three of his sisters actively supported the Nazi cause; none would be invited to his wedding.
When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. And as the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable.
Eighteen months after his birth, his family was in exile
His childhood quickly taught him the values of self-reliance
He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his sister Sophia later described it.
In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress; and his four sisters married and went to live in Germany. In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him.
"I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.
By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea.
Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, an exile from Nazi Germany.
Prince Philip became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy
But he had to give up his career to support the Queen
The Duke of Edinburgh's children would not bear his name, Mountbatten
That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".
And at Gordonstoun was born one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.
And yet he was throughout his life, first in the navy and then in the many decades of life in the Palace, tightly bound by rules of tradition, of precedent, of command and hierarchy. He had little, if anything, in the way of agency. Did he say one thing and do another, as members of the Royal Family are often accused of? Or was his first choice - to serve - by necessity his last?
The navy ran deep in the Duke of Edinburgh's family. He is pictured sitting at the wheel of the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Churchill
Prince Philip gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests
At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.
The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".
Others had their reservations about the brilliant and ambitious young officer. In peace, once he had his own command, he drove his men hard, much too hard for some. "If he had a fault, it was a tendency to intolerance," wrote one biographer. That kind of comment would recur. Contemporaries were more blunt. "One of his crew," writes another biographer, "said he would rather die than serve under him again."
In Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.
When King George VI toured the Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.
Prince Philip with his uncle, Earl Mountbatten, at the Royal Marines Barracks in 1965
The Queen, with one of the Royal corgis, chats with polo-playing Prince Philip at Windsor Great Park
Their engagement was announced in July 1947
Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.
He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a tonne of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.
For someone who almost never displayed anything close to self-pity, and rarely spoke of his own emotions, he was by his own standards candid about the loss of his naval calling. "There's never been 'if only'," he said once, "except perhaps that I regret not having been able to continue a career in the navy". Those who knew the man and his passions are blunter. The former First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord West, says Philip did his duty; but of the end of his time in the navy he says, "I know it was a huge loss to him. I know it."
That moment, when princess became Queen, revealed another great contradiction of Philip's life. He was born and brought up in a world almost entirely run by men. He was a rugged, physical man who was brought up and then worked in an entirely male environment. He celebrated masculinity, telling Mike Parker on the birth of his first son Charles, "It takes a man to have a boy." But literally overnight, and for 65 years to follow, it became his life to support his wife, the Queen.
He would walk behind her. He would give up his job for her. He would apologise if he came into a room after her. At her coronation he knelt before her, his hands enclosed by hers, and swore to be her "liege man of life and limb". His children would not bear his name, Mountbatten. "I'm nothing but a bloody amoeba," he exclaimed at that. But there was nothing to be done. She was the Queen. He was her husband.
Prince Philip talked of the upending of circumstance little. "Within the house," he said of the time before the Queen's accession, "I suppose I naturally filled the principal position. People used to come and ask me what to do. In 1952 the whole thing changed very, very considerably."
Prince Philip had hundreds of patronages and projects with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport
The transition to life in the Palace was brutal. "Philip," said his equerry, "was constantly being squashed, snubbed, ticked off, rapped over the knuckles... I felt Philip did not have any friends or helpers." Philip may not have helped himself; one biographer writes that in the early years Palace staff felt he was "difficult to deal with... prickly... arrogant... defensive". He was looked upon with suspicion by some in the court, as something of an adventurer, as perhaps a fortune hunter. He had German blood, and this was just after the herculean effort of defeating Nazi Germany.
In response, Philip began what would become a lifetime of near-ceaseless activity; abroad he was at the side of the Queen on the long tours they undertook, sometimes breaking off to pursue interests particular to him - sporting, industrial or research. She nearly always travelled with him as her companion; but he also travelled alone. It was he, not she, that made the farewells to colonial possessions in the 1950s and 1960s.
At home there were patronages and projects, hundreds upon hundreds of them, with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport. He played cricket, squash, polo; he swam, sailed, rowed and rode horses and carriage drove. He learnt to fly, and developed his own photographs.
Within the Palace he was a moderniser, striding the corridors, rootling around the cellars, trying to find out what everyone did. He took over the management of the estate at Sandringham and over the years significantly redeveloped it.
"He believes he has a creative mission," wrote an early biographer, "to present the monarchy as a dynamic, involved and responsive institution that will address itself to some of the problems of contemporary British society."
He was young and very good looking; he smiled and joked and was at ease in front of the cameras. When he visited a boys' club in London in the late 1950s, a photo shows him with a broad smile on his face, looking crisp in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, his hair slicked back with brilliantine, surrounded by the upturned faces of boys and their mothers all shoving and trying to get close to him. There is more than a whiff of Beatlemania to the moment.
In his study on the first floor of Buckingham Palace, overlooking the gardens and Green Park, surrounded by thousands of books, with a model of his first command HMS Magpie to one side, he would research and write and type out his speeches. (In 1986 he would buy, always the moderniser, what he called a "splendid gadget" that he called "a miniature word processor".) He gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests.
Out of the speeches comes a picture of the man. For someone who sat through so much of it, he was clearly impatient with ceremony. "A lot of time and energy," he told students and staff at the Chesterfield College of Technology, "has been spent on arranging for you to listen to me to take a long time to declare open a building which everyone knows is open already."
Reflecting his dizzying range of interests, there was sometimes a touch of the gentleman-farmer to his thoughts - well-organised arguments that don't really go anywhere, a lot of anecdotal evidence ("it seems to me...") garnered from his extensive travels.
Despite modernising instincts, he was a conservative, somewhat suspicious of the machinations of the big city. He spoke of "urban dwellers" and of the "average citizen" dumping rubbish from their car. He preferred practical solutions to highfalutin theory - "The enterprise is doomed," he told the Commonwealth Conference on Industrial Relations, "if it is allowed to enter the rarefied atmosphere of theory."
He was an environmentalist before anyone really knew what that was. He warned of the "greedy and senseless exploitation of nature." And in 1982 he brought up a topic that now grips us, but back then was almost never spoken of, "a hotly-debated issue directly attributable to the development of industry... the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," which he referred to as the "greenhouse effect".
His relationship with his eldest son improved in later years
And he constantly did himself down, shrugging as to why anyone should want to hear him speak: "I have very little experience of self-government," he told one audience, "I am one of the most governed people you could meet...." His example of irrational behaviour? - "making and listening to speeches on important occasions". Or speaking before the Brussels Expo in 1958 - "I feel I can claim to be an expert at going round exhibitions." He knew most speeches were a dull formality that had to be got through - and he was happy to let his audience have a laugh at his expense.
It is another contradiction in a life of them; that someone who cared so much about how we live our lives, about how to pursue a good and moral life, about how government and society might try to channel our instincts, should end up being popularly portrayed as a saloon-bar bore, his retirement from public life in 2017 accompanied by lists of his "gaffes", off-colour comments and salty jokes.
That he could be rude, startlingly so at times, there is no doubt. Part of it was impatience, that dynamo whirring away, the desire to get things done double-quick. Part of it may have been deafness, inherited from his almost wholly deaf mother. But part of it was just plain bad manners, a disregard for what others felt and a thoughtlessness that came from position and temperament.
There was for a long time a fair amount of barking and shouting at those who failed to please him, and not a lot of thanking those that did.
Looking back down the decades, two great contrasts stand out. The first, that between a life led in the public eye, and a really quite private man. The boy shuttling between guardians and schools and countries quickly learnt to seal off his private side from public view. Inside the Palace it became his world view. Most of his biographers' personal queries were met with a shrug, as if to say "I don't know why you are bothering". He once said of his son Charles: "He is a romantic, I am a pragmatist. And because I don't see things as a romantic would, I'm [perceived as] unfeeling." There can be little doubt that he was stung by the accusation. But his inner thoughts were not for public consumption.
And the second great, related, contrast is that between the near unceasing whirl of his public life, and a degree of solitude in his private. Of course there was family, though all his sisters pre-deceased him. But few, if any, great friendships are recorded, a corollary of his private nature and the pattern of his many decades. "Life," wrote one biographer, "hasn't enabled him to build up friendships. He is going round the world at such a lick." And royalty is its own curious cage, repelling outsiders. "What the royal family offers you is friendliness," said the late James Callaghan, prime minister in the 1970s, "not friendship."
Major General Charles Stickland of the Royal Marines, of which for 64 years Philip was Captain General, tells of when the duke flew into an exercise in Norway. He was supposed to say a quick hello to the enlisted men and then have lunch with the commanding officer. Instead he "asked two of the corporals to spoon food into his mess tin, sat on a Bergan [rucksack], told stories and chatted away with my troops when he was supposed to be having a posh lunch and then got back on the helicopter, having inspired a group of young men as to why it was great to be a Royal Marine".
It was vintage Philip; no ceremony, hierarchy pushed to one side, the big group over the more intimate gathering.
Because of his desire for privacy, because of his position, and because nearly all who knew him best have gone, our understanding of him will always be incomplete. But that's also because of what kind of person he was, because of the contradictions and contrasts that emerged over the decades. "A mercurial man like His Royal Highness," said the artist and architect Sir Hugh Casson, "needs a loose fit portrait."
He was asked once what his life had been about (the sort of question that normally received an incredulous snort). Had it been about supporting the Queen? "Absolutely, absolutely," he replied. He didn't see himself as a leader, though lead he could. And his own achievements he consistently played down. Accepting the Freedom of the City of London in 1948, he spoke for himself and for what he called other "followers", with trademark modesty. "Our only distinction," he said, "was that we did what we were told to do, to the very best of our ability, and kept on doing it."
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Covid: Small towns 'set to benefit from pandemic recovery' - BBC News
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2021-04-06
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Small towns "can be very resilient and very sustainable," an academic says.
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Wales
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Small towns are set to benefit from a post-Covid recovery, but middle-sized town could struggle, says academic
Small towns are set to benefit from a post-pandemic recovery as more people work from home and support independent businesses, a retail expert has said.
Prof Cathy Parker said larger cities in Wales such as Cardiff and Swansea could also recover well with the right planning and resources.
But she warned middle-sized towns could face the biggest challenges.
The Welsh government has a target of 30% of people working "at or near home" after the pandemic is over.
That could mean working at home or a co-working office where space is rented by the day or month.
That may change depending on the outcome of the Senedd election on 6 May.
Many people are expected to adopt "hybrid" working after the pandemic is over - working some days at home, others in the office.
Gone are the days of people working from an office at all times, retail experts predict
But more people working from home raises questions, including whether people can easily adapt their homes for work, the standard of broadband across Wales and the potential impact on shops and cafes.
On the other hand, fewer people travelling to and from work could help tackle congestion and benefit the environment.
A recent report by the Senedd's economy committee warned the effects of remote working would need to be monitored to ensure they did not increase inequality by "favouring more highly-skilled and affluent workers".
It also called for a retail strategy to address the challenges faced by businesses and workers in light of more remote working.
Prof Cathy Parker says small towns "can be very resilient and very sustainable"
Prof Parker, of Manchester Metropolitan University, said it was not an argument about towns versus cities, but rather about each place having an individual recovery plan based on data which showed what worked best for them.
"Small places, if they are serving the needs of the small catchment that's around them, can be very resilient and very sustainable," she explained.
"It's not all about growing, it's about serving the people that live around your town so small places have got it a little bit easier."
She pointed to places such as Porthcawl in Bridgend county which had seen a 20% drop in footfall last year compared with much larger drops in other places, because it was serving a local community.
Cities such as Cardiff will have more adjusting to do, but have better resources, according to Prof Parker
Cities have traditionally relied on lots of workers coming into the centre and spending money in businesses there, Prof Parker said.
"The larger places will have more adjusting to do but they've probably got the resources to do it.
"It's probably perhaps some of those medium-sized places that might struggle more because they are affected by the changes in commuting patterns, and perhaps they haven't got the partnerships there to sort of manage that over the next few years."
More people are setting up small businesses and large companies are looking for smaller offices, or deciding what to do with surplus space once workers return for only part of the week.
Gareth Jones says demand is coming from people who want to work both at home and the office
Work will be more about "flexibility" after the pandemic, according to Gareth Jones, chief executive of the co-working offices business Town Square Spaces.
"Now we've all had this experiment [of] working from home, we realised working from home is great a couple of days a week, but it's not always ideal, especially if you've got cats jumping on your Zoom and things like this," he said.
"We're finding a lot of demand is not people wanting to come in five days a week, it's one or two days here and there.
"And the demand from the corporate side is interesting because there are companies saying: 'We've got more space than we need, how can we use this in a different way'?"
Creditsafe will not now expand its Cardiff offices, says chief executive Cato Syversen
Credit reference company Creditsafe manages offices in 14 countries from its Cardiff headquarters.
Staff have been largely working from home and have told bosses they want a 50:50 split between working at home and the office after the pandemic.
"A lot of people were spending an hour each way to work. So, you know, their lives changed. There are lots of positive to this as well," said chief executive Cato Syversen.
The planned expansion of the company's Cardiff offices will not now go ahead.
Self-employed graphic designer Emma Jones says she "can't wait to get out the house"
Emma Jones, a graphic designer from Wrexham, gave up her full-time job to set up her own business in February 2020 - just before the pandemic hit.
She is looking forward to going back to a co-working hub in the town in order to be surrounded by a support network.
"I can't wait to get out the house," she said, adding it was important for workers to return to towns like Wrexham to "help the economy" and "help each other sort of get back into the swing of things".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56639402
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Prince Philip: An extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life - BBC News
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2021-04-16
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The Duke of Edinburgh's life was filled with contradictions but will be remembered most for his unstinting support of the Queen.
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UK
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In public, Prince Philip always took second place
He outlived nearly everyone who knew him and might explain him.
And so we have been left with a two-dimensional portrait of the duke; salt-tongued and short-tempered, a man who told off-colour jokes and made politically incorrect remarks, an eccentric great-uncle who'd been around forever and towards whom most people felt affection - but who rather too often embarrassed himself and others in company.
With his death will come reassessment. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man.
His mother and father met at the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. At a time when all but four of Europe's nations were monarchies, his relatives were scattered through European royalty. Some royal houses were swept away by World War One; but the world into which Philip was born was still one where monarchies were the norm. His grandfather was the King of Greece; his great-aunt Ella was murdered along with the Russian tsar, by the Bolsheviks, at Ekaterinberg; his mother was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
His four older sisters would all marry Germans. While Philip fought for Britain in the Royal Navy, three of his sisters actively supported the Nazi cause; none would be invited to his wedding.
When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. And as the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable.
Eighteen months after his birth, his family was in exile
His childhood quickly taught him the values of self-reliance
He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his sister Sophia later described it.
In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress; and his four sisters married and went to live in Germany. In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him.
"I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.
By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea.
Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, an exile from Nazi Germany.
Prince Philip became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy
But he had to give up his career to support the Queen
The Duke of Edinburgh's children would not bear his name, Mountbatten
That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".
And at Gordonstoun was born one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.
And yet he was throughout his life, first in the navy and then in the many decades of life in the Palace, tightly bound by rules of tradition, of precedent, of command and hierarchy. He had little, if anything, in the way of agency. Did he say one thing and do another, as members of the Royal Family are often accused of? Or was his first choice - to serve - by necessity his last?
The navy ran deep in the Duke of Edinburgh's family. He is pictured sitting at the wheel of the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Churchill
Prince Philip gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests
At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.
The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".
Others had their reservations about the brilliant and ambitious young officer. In peace, once he had his own command, he drove his men hard, much too hard for some. "If he had a fault, it was a tendency to intolerance," wrote one biographer. That kind of comment would recur. Contemporaries were more blunt. "One of his crew," writes another biographer, "said he would rather die than serve under him again."
In Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.
When King George VI toured the Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.
Prince Philip with his uncle, Earl Mountbatten, at the Royal Marines Barracks in 1965
The Queen, with one of the Royal corgis, chats with polo-playing Prince Philip at Windsor Great Park
Their engagement was announced in July 1947
Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.
He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a tonne of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.
For someone who almost never displayed anything close to self-pity, and rarely spoke of his own emotions, he was by his own standards candid about the loss of his naval calling. "There's never been 'if only'," he said once, "except perhaps that I regret not having been able to continue a career in the navy". Those who knew the man and his passions are blunter. The former First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord West, says Philip did his duty; but of the end of his time in the navy he says, "I know it was a huge loss to him. I know it."
That moment, when princess became Queen, revealed another great contradiction of Philip's life. He was born and brought up in a world almost entirely run by men. He was a rugged, physical man who was brought up and then worked in an entirely male environment. He celebrated masculinity, telling Mike Parker on the birth of his first son Charles, "It takes a man to have a boy." But literally overnight, and for 65 years to follow, it became his life to support his wife, the Queen.
He would walk behind her. He would give up his job for her. He would apologise if he came into a room after her. At her coronation he knelt before her, his hands enclosed by hers, and swore to be her "liege man of life and limb". His children would not bear his name, Mountbatten. "I'm nothing but a bloody amoeba," he exclaimed at that. But there was nothing to be done. She was the Queen. He was her husband.
Prince Philip talked of the upending of circumstance little. "Within the house," he said of the time before the Queen's accession, "I suppose I naturally filled the principal position. People used to come and ask me what to do. In 1952 the whole thing changed very, very considerably."
Prince Philip had hundreds of patronages and projects with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport
The transition to life in the Palace was brutal. "Philip," said his equerry, "was constantly being squashed, snubbed, ticked off, rapped over the knuckles... I felt Philip did not have any friends or helpers." Philip may not have helped himself; one biographer writes that in the early years Palace staff felt he was "difficult to deal with... prickly... arrogant... defensive". He was looked upon with suspicion by some in the court, as something of an adventurer, as perhaps a fortune hunter. He had German blood, and this was just after the herculean effort of defeating Nazi Germany.
In response, Philip began what would become a lifetime of near-ceaseless activity; abroad he was at the side of the Queen on the long tours they undertook, sometimes breaking off to pursue interests particular to him - sporting, industrial or research. She nearly always travelled with him as her companion; but he also travelled alone. It was he, not she, that made the farewells to colonial possessions in the 1950s and 1960s.
At home there were patronages and projects, hundreds upon hundreds of them, with a focus on youth, science, the outdoors and sport. He played cricket, squash, polo; he swam, sailed, rowed and rode horses and carriage drove. He learnt to fly, and developed his own photographs.
Within the Palace he was a moderniser, striding the corridors, rootling around the cellars, trying to find out what everyone did. He took over the management of the estate at Sandringham and over the years significantly redeveloped it.
"He believes he has a creative mission," wrote an early biographer, "to present the monarchy as a dynamic, involved and responsive institution that will address itself to some of the problems of contemporary British society."
He was young and very good looking; he smiled and joked and was at ease in front of the cameras. When he visited a boys' club in London in the late 1950s, a photo shows him with a broad smile on his face, looking crisp in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, his hair slicked back with brilliantine, surrounded by the upturned faces of boys and their mothers all shoving and trying to get close to him. There is more than a whiff of Beatlemania to the moment.
In his study on the first floor of Buckingham Palace, overlooking the gardens and Green Park, surrounded by thousands of books, with a model of his first command HMS Magpie to one side, he would research and write and type out his speeches. (In 1986 he would buy, always the moderniser, what he called a "splendid gadget" that he called "a miniature word processor".) He gave between 60 and 80 speeches every year, decade after decade, on topics that reflected his vast range of interests.
Out of the speeches comes a picture of the man. For someone who sat through so much of it, he was clearly impatient with ceremony. "A lot of time and energy," he told students and staff at the Chesterfield College of Technology, "has been spent on arranging for you to listen to me to take a long time to declare open a building which everyone knows is open already."
Reflecting his dizzying range of interests, there was sometimes a touch of the gentleman-farmer to his thoughts - well-organised arguments that don't really go anywhere, a lot of anecdotal evidence ("it seems to me...") garnered from his extensive travels.
Despite modernising instincts, he was a conservative, somewhat suspicious of the machinations of the big city. He spoke of "urban dwellers" and of the "average citizen" dumping rubbish from their car. He preferred practical solutions to highfalutin theory - "The enterprise is doomed," he told the Commonwealth Conference on Industrial Relations, "if it is allowed to enter the rarefied atmosphere of theory."
He was an environmentalist before anyone really knew what that was. He warned of the "greedy and senseless exploitation of nature." And in 1982 he brought up a topic that now grips us, but back then was almost never spoken of, "a hotly-debated issue directly attributable to the development of industry... the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," which he referred to as the "greenhouse effect".
His relationship with his eldest son improved in later years
And he constantly did himself down, shrugging as to why anyone should want to hear him speak: "I have very little experience of self-government," he told one audience, "I am one of the most governed people you could meet...." His example of irrational behaviour? - "making and listening to speeches on important occasions". Or speaking before the Brussels Expo in 1958 - "I feel I can claim to be an expert at going round exhibitions." He knew most speeches were a dull formality that had to be got through - and he was happy to let his audience have a laugh at his expense.
It is another contradiction in a life of them; that someone who cared so much about how we live our lives, about how to pursue a good and moral life, about how government and society might try to channel our instincts, should end up being popularly portrayed as a saloon-bar bore, his retirement from public life in 2017 accompanied by lists of his "gaffes", off-colour comments and salty jokes.
That he could be rude, startlingly so at times, there is no doubt. Part of it was impatience, that dynamo whirring away, the desire to get things done double-quick. Part of it may have been deafness, inherited from his almost wholly deaf mother. But part of it was just plain bad manners, a disregard for what others felt and a thoughtlessness that came from position and temperament.
There was for a long time a fair amount of barking and shouting at those who failed to please him, and not a lot of thanking those that did.
Looking back down the decades, two great contrasts stand out. The first, that between a life led in the public eye, and a really quite private man. The boy shuttling between guardians and schools and countries quickly learnt to seal off his private side from public view. Inside the Palace it became his world view. Most of his biographers' personal queries were met with a shrug, as if to say "I don't know why you are bothering". He once said of his son Charles: "He is a romantic, I am a pragmatist. And because I don't see things as a romantic would, I'm [perceived as] unfeeling." There can be little doubt that he was stung by the accusation. But his inner thoughts were not for public consumption.
And the second great, related, contrast is that between the near unceasing whirl of his public life, and a degree of solitude in his private. Of course there was family, though all his sisters pre-deceased him. But few, if any, great friendships are recorded, a corollary of his private nature and the pattern of his many decades. "Life," wrote one biographer, "hasn't enabled him to build up friendships. He is going round the world at such a lick." And royalty is its own curious cage, repelling outsiders. "What the royal family offers you is friendliness," said the late James Callaghan, prime minister in the 1970s, "not friendship."
Major General Charles Stickland of the Royal Marines, of which for 64 years Philip was Captain General, tells of when the duke flew into an exercise in Norway. He was supposed to say a quick hello to the enlisted men and then have lunch with the commanding officer. Instead he "asked two of the corporals to spoon food into his mess tin, sat on a Bergan [rucksack], told stories and chatted away with my troops when he was supposed to be having a posh lunch and then got back on the helicopter, having inspired a group of young men as to why it was great to be a Royal Marine".
It was vintage Philip; no ceremony, hierarchy pushed to one side, the big group over the more intimate gathering.
Because of his desire for privacy, because of his position, and because nearly all who knew him best have gone, our understanding of him will always be incomplete. But that's also because of what kind of person he was, because of the contradictions and contrasts that emerged over the decades. "A mercurial man like His Royal Highness," said the artist and architect Sir Hugh Casson, "needs a loose fit portrait."
He was asked once what his life had been about (the sort of question that normally received an incredulous snort). Had it been about supporting the Queen? "Absolutely, absolutely," he replied. He didn't see himself as a leader, though lead he could. And his own achievements he consistently played down. Accepting the Freedom of the City of London in 1948, he spoke for himself and for what he called other "followers", with trademark modesty. "Our only distinction," he said, "was that we did what we were told to do, to the very best of our ability, and kept on doing it."
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Downing Street scraps plans for White House-style press briefings - BBC News
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2021-04-20
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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After spending £2.6m on the new briefing room, it will now be used by Boris Johnson and officials instead.
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UK Politics
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Allegra Stratton is to become spokeswoman for COP26
Downing Street has scrapped plans to launch new White House-style press conferences after spending £2.6m on a venue to host them.
The PM's media chief Allegra Stratton - who had been due to front the briefings - has confirmed the move to the BBC.
She will instead become the spokeswoman for the COP26 climate summit.
The government was criticised for the price tag of its new facilities at 9 Downing Street, which will now be used by the prime minister and officials.
Responding to the news, Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner accused Boris Johnson of "running scared of scrutiny".
She added: "Instead of wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on a pointless vanity project, the prime minister should have used the money to give our NHS heroes a pay rise."
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden insisted the venue was "not a waste of money" adding that the room previously used for press conferences had been too small and was "not fit for purpose".
He said the "modern press facility" was similar to what other leaders around the world have and would be used by future governments, not just the current one.
Mr Johnson used the room to host a Covid press conference on Tuesday.
The plan to hold televised press conferences, similar to those seen in the United States, was announced by Mr Johnson in July last year.
He said the daily televised coronavirus briefings being held at the time showed the public wanted "more direct, detailed information from the government".
I lived through a million daily televised briefings by the European Commission, when I worked at the BBC's Brussels bureau.
I saw how much work officials did to prepare them and how much time was wasted by journalists trying to get spokespeople to deviate from the prepared script.
I assumed something similar would happen when Westminster got its own version.
There have long been rumours that some in Number 10 thought the same way and it seems that they've won the internal argument.
It's also surely no coincidence that Downing Street has just appointed a new director of communications, who seems to have a more traditional view of how the government should interact with the media than some previous staffers in Number 10.
The total cost of the refit of the briefing room was revealed by a Freedom of Information request from the Press Association - £2,607,767.67, largely excluding VAT.
Costs included £1,848,695 for the "main works", £198,024 on "long lead items", and £33,395 on broadband equipment.
Labour attacked it as a "vanity project" which threatened to "unbalance" British politics, and the party's leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said the opposition should be given a right of reply.
The briefing room at 9 Downing Street cost £2.6m to refit
The briefings fronted by Ms Stratton had been due to start in October last year, but the government said they had been delayed because ministers were continuing to hold coronavirus briefings.
Ms Stratton has been given the job of the government's spokeswoman for COP26 - a UN climate change conference due to take place in November in Glasgow, chaired by former business secretary Alok Sharma.
She said: "I am delighted to be starting this new role.
"The COP26 climate conference is a unique opportunity to deliver a cleaner, greener world and I'm looking forward to working with the prime minister and Alok Sharma to ensure it is a success."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56818750
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George Floyd death: Five key moments from the Derek Chauvin trial - BBC News
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2021-04-20
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Here are key elements of a trial that gripped the US.
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US & Canada
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The critical moments of the trial so far
The death of George Floyd, a 48-year-old black man, while he was being restrained by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, during an arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020, shocked the world and sparked global protests about racism and police brutality.
Chauvin's three-week trial - on charges of murder and manslaughter - has now resulted in his conviction.
Here are five key moments from the trial which heard from 45 witnesses and saw hours of video footage filmed by bystanders.
Some of the most powerful testimony came in the first days of the trial when witnesses spoke of what they saw that day.
Darnella, who was 17 at the time of Mr Floyd's death, filmed the video that went viral around the world. She told the jury there were nights when she stayed up "apologising to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life".
"When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad. I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles. Because they are all black," she said.
Emotional testimony also came from Charles McMillian, 61, who had been among the first on the scene and had tried to persuade Mr Floyd to get in the police car.
He broke down in tears watching graphic footage of the arrest in court, saying he had felt "helpless" as events unfolded and explained that he had confronted Chauvin after Mr Floyd was taken away in an ambulance because "what I watched was wrong".
The defence has argued that the presence of bystanders influenced Chauvin's actions that day. The court heard from one Minneapolis police officer, Peter Chang, that the crowd had been "very aggressive to the officers", while Nicole McKenzie, who trains the city's police on providing medical care, said the presence of bystanders at an arrest could make it harder for officers to see signs of distress in those they detained.
Another powerful moment came when Mr Floyd's girlfriend of three years, Courteney Ross, took the stand.
She described their first meeting, in the lobby of a Salvation Army homeless shelter, where Mr Floyd worked as a security guard, and how he had been devastated by his mother's death in 2018.
Ms Ross also told the court they both suffered from chronic pain, which led to an off-and-on struggle with opioid addiction.
"We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times," she testified.
One of the defence's arguments has been that Mr Floyd died largely because of complications from the opioids and methamphetamine he had in his system at the time of his arrest.
Another key issue at the heart of this trial has been whether Derek Chauvin violated policies on restraint when he kneeled on George Floyd's neck for nine and a half minutes.
The head of Minneapolis police, Chief Medaria Arradondo, was one of the prosecution's most high-profile witnesses and had fired Chauvin a day after the arrest.
He told the court that the police officer should have stopped applying "that level of force" the moment Mr Floyd stopped resisting. "It's not part of our training and it's certainly not part of our ethics or values" to continue with such force, he said.
Some 45 people gave evidence during the trial including (from left to right) Dr Martin Tobin, Charles McMillian and Courteney Ross
Defence witness Barry Brodd, a use-of-force expert, said Chauvin had been "justified" and acted "with objective reasonableness" because of the "imminent threat" Mr Floyd posed in resisting arrest.
However, he did concede under cross-examination that the dangers of positional asphyxia - not being able to breathe in a certain position - were well-known among law enforcers.
The cause of Mr Floyd's death was arguably central to this trial, with the prosecution maintaining he died from asphyxia while the defence pointed to Mr Floyd's drug use and general poor health.
Dr Martin Tobin, an expert in pulmonary medicine, used video footage to explain what was happening to Mr Floyd's breathing during the nine and a half minutes he lay under Chauvin's knee.
Even "a healthy person, subjected to what Mr Floyd was subjected to, would have died," he said.
A key witness for the defence, forensic pathologist David Fowler, said Mr Floyd's death should have been classified as "undetermined" rather than as a homicide, because there were "so many conflicting different potential mechanisms".
Complicating factors included Mr Floyd's drug use and possible exposure to carbon monoxide poisoning from the police car's exhaust, said Dr Fowler, who was chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland until his retirement in 2019.
However, under cross-examination he agreed that Mr Floyd should have been given immediate medical attention when he went into cardiac arrest, as there still was a chance to save his life.
Just before the defence rested its case, the man on trial - Derek Chauvin - confirmed to the judge that he would not testify.
"I will invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege today," he said, referring to the constitutional right to remain silent in fear of self-incrimination.
Asked by the judge whether this was his decision alone, and whether anyone else had unfairly influenced his decision, Chauvin responded: "No promises or threats, your honour."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The three key arguments used by Chauvin's defence
Chauvin pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree unintentional murder - for which he could be jailed for up to 40 years - third-degree murder, and manslaughter.
The jury took under a day to return a unanimous verdict convicting him of all charges.
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Manchester United protests: Emotions have been simmering for 16 years - BBC Sport
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2021-05-03
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Protests at Manchester United's Old Trafford ground came just weeks after European Super League plans were thwarted - but emotions have been simmering for 16 years.
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It was at an entrance round the back of the Stretford End, away from the noise and the flares that accompanied the start of the Manchester United fans' protest at Old Trafford, that those who made it on to the pitch gained access.
Most were young lads in their 20s, coming down the hill in wave after wave. But not all.
There were women and older men too. One, probably in his late 50s or early 60s, wore a green and gold scarf and woolly hat - the colours of United's first shirts when they were formed as Newton Heath in 1878, and of the original anti-Glazer protests in 2010.
• None Football Daily podcast: All about the Man Utd protest
After he had left the stadium compound, he remained with those waiting for the United team bus that never arrived.
He was not angry and spoke calmly to fans and media in the same area, wanting to know the latest about what was happening on the other side of the ground, or around the team hotel, where he had been earlier.
Those fans, he felt, were more sinister than the ones at the stadium. But he didn't condemn them. He accepts they have a common goal. Emotions have been simmering for 16 years, so a bit of aggression is understandable, the theory went.
Exchanges like this - and people like that - underline the reason for what happened at Old Trafford.
A large protest was expected outside the ground before the match with historic rivals Liverpool - but no-one expected fans to force their way into the stadium and on to the pitch and for the match to be postponed.
It was the third major fans protest against the club and its owners in recent days following a protest at Old Trafford last Saturday and fans entering the club's training ground at Carrington the previous Thursday.
Like supporters of the other five 'big six' clubs, Manchester United's fans are angry about the European Super League proposals. They don't want it and will voice their opposition - just as fans of the other five English sides have done.
What sets United apart is that their fans are not surprised at the actions of their owners - the US-based Glazer family.
Indeed, to those fans, it merely underlines their view that the owners of their football club only care about money and that they have no affection for the world-famous 149-year-old institution they are in charge of.
If they did, the argument goes, they would never have landed the club with the enormous debt associated with their controversial £790m leveraged takeover in 2005.
Manchester United were a debt-free organisation when they were on the stock market prior to the Glazers buying the club. The fans believe the Glazers should have used their own money.
That debt currently stands at £455.5m, according to the club's latest accounts, which were released on 4 March, 2021. It is estimated that in general finance costs, interest and dividends, the Glazer takeover has cost United in excess of £1bn.
Some fans were so annoyed by the Glazer takeover they walked away from Manchester United to form their own club. FC United have not been without their own trials and tribulations over the past few years, but the Northern Premier League outfit remain a beacon for fan ownership.
And whilst their level of support has slipped from their early days, average attendances remain around the 2,000 mark, which put it in the top 30 non-league clubs in the entire country.
Of those who remained, some kept up their opposition. Many United fans were genuinely angry when Sir Alex Ferguson used to defend the owners. The Scot repeatedly said the Glazer family backed him in the transfer market and never offered criticism.
Those fans felt Ferguson's brilliance as a manager masked underlying issues around the money being invested in United's playing squad.
It is no surprise the 'green and gold' anti-Glazer campaign began in 2010, when United were experiencing a dip after three successive Premier League titles, nor that it fizzled out when Ferguson got his team playing like champions again and reached another Champions League final.
But for some, the sentiment never dimmed. Disenchantment with the Glazer stewardship of United has grown with every passing year since Ferguson retired in 2013, not just because the club's fortunes have slipped, but because despite the relative failure, tens of millions of pounds go out of the club, either directly to the family or because of the way they run United.
There is a counter-balance to this narrative.
The owners are responsible for the phenomenal rise in Manchester United's commercial revenue. They were the ones who aggressively pursued the regional approach, which every other similar sized club has followed.
The Glazers introduced a commercial plan which was different to any other club. Other than the major deals with Adidas, Chevrolet and others, they sell on a regional basis across the globe, so they have telecoms partners in USA and Canada, another in Africa, another in China. They recognised United were popular and maximised the popularity.
It can be argued, with some justification, that the Glazers are responsible for a significant proportion of United's rise in income and what they take out is only a percentage of it.
United sources never tire of drilling home the message that the money the club raises is done to improve the playing side, whether it be through big-money signings or academy prospects.
Beyond question, they have spent a lot of money on players. Whether they have bought the right ones is debatable though, and the Glazers are blamed by some for not putting the processes in place to get the recruitment right.
In recent times, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, a patron of the Manchester United Supporters Trust (Must), which has campaigned against the family, has, like Ferguson, been condemned for not criticising the owners.
Yet Solskjaer, when I asked him about the planned protests in the build-up to Sunday's game, said the fans' voice "needs to be heard".
That probably explains the wording of the club statement on Sunday night, which in addition to condemning those who put "other fans, staff and police in danger", also acknowledged their right to free expression and peaceful protest, in addition to highlighting their passion.
In the aftermath of the ESL's collapse, co-chairman Joel Glazer said he accepted there was a need for greater communication with supporters.
That said, he opted not to join an emergency fans forum on Friday when Must were amongst the signatories of a letter, read out to executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, stating the fans did not trust or believe the owners.
It is doubtful whether bridges between the two sides can ever be built but even securing some sort of peace, however uneasy, may not be easy to achieve.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56966096
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Apple faces Epic Games in court - BBC News
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2021-05-03
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Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant could decide the future of Apple's App Store.
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Technology
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Epic Games v Apple: What is going on?
After months of hype and warring words, Epic Games is finally getting its day in court with Apple.
The trial began on Monday - and is one of the most important in Apple's history.
Apple boss Tim Cook will be giving evidence, the first time he's given testimony at a trial.
At stake is the future of the App Store and the amount it charges developers - a wildly lucrative money spinner for the company.
The trial got off to a slightly chaotic start. The public hearing failed at first to mute those who were listening in via phone call, meaning calls from fans for the return of Fortnite to mobiles were accidentally broadcast.
The storm began in August last year, when Epic Games laid a trap for Apple.
Its hit game Fortnite implemented its own in-app payment - bypassing Apple's 30% charges.
But Epic Games was waiting for just that.
It slapped Apple with a 65-page lawsuit - and had even prepared a high production video, a spoof of Apple's iconic 1984 advert for the Apple Mac.
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Epic Games has for years claimed the charges imposed on it by Apple are extortionate.
Their argument is simple: that Apple's control over the App Store is anti-competitive.
It believes that developers should be able to make apps for smartphones without having to pay large sums to Apple (and to Google for Google Play purchases).
Spotify, Match and Tile are just a few of the many companies that have also claimed Apple's charges are unfair.
Apple is estimated to have made hundreds of millions of dollars from Fortnite alone in charges.
Epic Games' big argument is: if they don't want to pay, then where else do they go to sell their products?
Fortnite's new payment option led to the game being kicked off the App Store
Apple's App Store and Google's Google Play are the dominant global app stores, outside China.
Epic Games has tried to sell Fortnite away from these two stores. It tried to "sideload" the app on Android phones - to try and avoid Google's own 30% charge. However, not enough people downloaded it away from Google Play.
Epic Games' reluctant conclusion: if you want to make games for smartphones you have to be on either the App Store or Google Play.
But unwilling to lie down and accept the charges - which it calls an "Apple Tax" - Epic Games decided to sue Apple instead.
Worryingly for Apple, many of its App Store critics come from across the political divide.
In a Senate hearing two weeks ago, Apple's Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer was grilled by lawmakers. Politicians of all stripes - usually so divided on policy - were united in their attacks on Apple.
Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal and Republicans Mike Lee and Josh Hawley all took up similar lines of questioning.
Senator Klobuchar said that Apple's App Store was a "literal monopoly".
And on Friday the European Union announced that it was charging Apple for its behaviour on the App Store.
The key question the judge will have to answer is whether Apple's App Store is an "essential facility", a sort of public utility that no one company should control.
"Everybody knows that Apple is in charge of what should be public rights of way. It would be easiest if the judge just rules in favour of Epic [Games], that would fix it," he says.
Apple can afford good lawyers though. So what's Apple's defence?
Firstly, Apple says it invented the App Store and as a private company it can charge what it wants.
It also says the 30% charge to developers is the industry standard for gaming, and competes not just with Google Play but with Microsoft, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo.
"In terms of the actual split, 70/30 is pretty standard across the board. One of the things that really stands out about Epic Games' argument is that they have no complaint whatsoever. It's all very hand wavy, and very much a PR argument, not a legal one."
Apple also says that its payment system is fair to smaller developers. It says 83% of apps and 76% of games on the App Store are free - developers pay no commission.
And they say that although their top rate charge is 30%, most developers pay no more than 15% in charges.
Apple argues it also oversees an App Store vetting process, making sure the Apple ecosystem isn't compromised by dodgy apps. That costs money.
However it's thought the amount that Apple spends on this process is a tiny fraction of the amount it receives from developers. Critics like Matt Stoller also question how effective Apple's vetting procedures are.
"There are all sorts of apps that have scams that Apple doesn't catch. So their arguments about safety and security are sort of nonsense," he says.
So what are Apple's chances? John Gruber thinks they're good.
"I do think that on legal grounds, Apple is in a very good position. But the risk is very high because [if they lost] it would disrupt the whole business model of the app store".
Matt Stoller says that antitrust cases are notoriously hard to predict.
"Antitrust law, as it's practiced in the US, is a complete mess. So we have no idea. The law basically depends on what the judge had for breakfast."
The trial is expected to conclude in the last week of May. However, even if Apple wins, the fight over how Apple runs its App Store will rage on.
James Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.
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Racism: Woman angry over abuse and police response - BBC News
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2021-05-13
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Gabriela Tavares, 19, says racial abuse in a pub has left her "in a complete mess".
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Wales
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The mother of a woman who said she has been racially abused several times over the years wants authorities to take the issue more seriously.
Tattiana Alfaia said police were slow to respond when her daughter Gabriela Tavares, 19, complained after being abused in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.
Dyfed-Powys Police said it regretted it had been unable to respond within its 48-hour target time due to high demand.
It said hate crime was taken seriously and inquiries in the case were ongoing.
Ms Tavares said she was left "in a complete mess" when an argument with another customer at the town's Greenfield Inn led to a racist slur being used against her over the May bank holiday weekend.
The pub has declined to comment.
Gabriela Tavares said she was racially abused when she was aged 16
"I'm upset but I'm also angry," said Ms Tavares.
She said it was the latest in a number of incidents that have left her feeling deflated and wanting to move away from the area where she has grown up.
Ms Tavares is studying hairdressing and hopes to carry on her studies in Birmingham later this year.
"There's no excuse for making fun of someone's skin colour," she said.
"It makes me feel like I'm not as good as the other person.
"I can't help the colour of my skin. It makes me feel deflated, like I don't want to be here. I just want to move away."
Three years ago, a 16-year-old Ms Tavares and her younger sister were in a park when two boys started making fun of her.
She said one boy was "calling me a monkey, throwing peanuts at me, calling me the n-word".
"My sister had never experienced anything like that - she was really upset," Ms Tavares said.
Ms Alfaia said both the park and pub incidents had been reported to police and an officer from Dyfed-Powys Police contacted them more than a week after the latest incident.
Gabriela Tavares and her mother Tattiana Alfaia have reported incidents to police
"I would like the police to take this more seriously," she said.
"I'd like these people to be told it's not acceptable. I'd like to see more action - people apologising to Gabby.
"If you call someone the n-word and nothing happens to you, you're just going to carry on saying it."
Dyfed-Powys Police said it was alerted to the complaint on 2 May and a hate crime support officer made contact on 6 May.
A spokesman said officers from the neighbourhood policing team attended the venue to begin inquiries last week and investigations were continuing.
Ms Tavares was contacted again on 10 May with an inspector also making contact the following day to "discuss her concerns and apologise for the delay in the initial contact", the force added.
On Wednesday, the police and crime commissioner for the area defended the force after inspectors found it had documented just 87.6% of reported crime.
Ms Tavares said she thought there was a complacency in her local community about racism.
"It's more common than you think," she said.
The BBC Action Line has details of organisations that offer information and support in connection with racism and racist hate crime.
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Max Mosley: Privacy campaigner and ex-motorsport boss dies at 81 - BBC News
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2021-05-25
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The president of the FIA governing body from 1993 to 2009 was also a prominent privacy campaigner.
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UK
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Former motorsport boss Max Mosley, who later became a privacy campaigner, has died aged 81.
Ex-Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone said it was "like losing a brother".
Mr Mosley, who had been suffering from cancer, led motorsport's governing body the FIA from 1993 to 2009.
He also campaigned for tighter press regulation after winning £60,000 damages from the News of the World when it wrongly published a story alleging he had attended a Nazi-themed orgy.
Mr Mosley, in his role as FIA president, initiated widespread reforms of safety procedures in Formula 1 following the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994.
Mr Ecclestone added: "He did, a lot of good things not just for motorsport, also the [car] industry. He was very good in making sure people built cars that were safe."
Current FIA president Jean Todt said in a tweet he was "deeply saddened" by the news, adding that Mr Mosley "strongly contributed to reinforcing safety on track and on the roads".
Meanwhile, a spokesman for F1 described Mr Mosley as "a huge figure in the transition" of the sport.
Mr Mosley - the son of 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley - took his privacy action against Sunday tabloid the News of the World in 2008 over the paper's story.
The newspaper had secretly filmed him with five prostitutes and later published a front-page story.
A judge ruled there was no substance to the allegation that there had been a Nazi theme to the sex party and found that his privacy had been breached. The High Court also said the article was not in the public interest.
Although Mr Mosley was awarded damages, everyone had learned the details of his sexual preferences, and he argued money alone could not restore his reputation.
He went on to seek reform of celebrity privacy laws, making a bid in 2011 for newspapers to warn people before exposing their private lives.
His case was unsuccessful, but it led Mr Mosley to use some of his family fortune to support victims of the Fleet Street phone-hacking scandal.
He also backed the independent press regulator Impress through a family charity, which Mr Mosley set up in his son Alexander's memory, after he died in 2009.
Mr Mosley said in 2011 that the story had a "very bad effect" on Alexander, whose death was ruled as being due to non-dependent drug abuse.
Impress chief executive Ed Procter said Mr Mosley improved access to justice for victims of press misconduct and put "his own resources behind efforts to ensure that these issues will not be forgotten".
Hacked Off, which was set up in response to phone-hacking, said it was thanks to Mr Mosley's "courage and generosity that the movement for a more ethical press remains so effective today".
And media lawyer Mark Stephens, who represented phone-hacking victims, described Mr Mosley as "effectively the author of modern privacy law".
With a family history that ruled him out of politics, Max Mosley turned his brilliant, devious mind to motorsport
Max Mosley was one of the most influential and important figures in motorsport over the last half-century - and also among the most controversial.
With a brilliant intellect and a devious, sometimes malicious mind, he was arguably better suited to a career in politics.
But he was the son of the 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, and in his youth was involved in his father's post-war political party the Union Movement. He realised his personal history would prevent him from entering Parliament, so he directed his attention towards motorsport instead.
Mosley was a fascinating and contradictory character. Urbane and charming, he was never less than engaging on a personal level.
But not everyone felt so kindly towards this patrician and sometimes patronising figure. Mosley had a vindictive streak. His political and legal abilities were widely admired, but not everyone found him easy to like.
Born in London on 13 April, 1940, Mr Mosley studied physics at Christ Church, Oxford, and later turned to law and became a barrister.
After a brief career as a racing driver in the late 1960s, in which he rose to race in Formula 2, he co-founded the racing car constructor March in 1970 with Robin Herd, Alan Rees and Graham Coaker - the company name formed from the initial letters of their surnames.
The company won its first three Formula 1 races in 1970 and later diversified into other forms of motorsport, but by the end of 1977 Mr Mosley had left the company to work full-time in motorsport politics.
He joined forces with Bernie Ecclestone at the Formula 1 Constructors' Association (FOCA) and the two fought a bitter political war for control of the sport with the governing body, then called FISA, in 1980 and 1981.
The arguments were finally settled with the so-called Concorde Agreement, which essentially set up the structure of the sport that remains in place to this day - FOCA, later to be renamed F1, held the commercial rights, while FISA controlled the rules.
Max Mosley at his wedding to Jean Taylor in London in 1960
Mr Mosley left motorsport in 1982 to work for the Conservative Party but returned four years later to become president of the FISA manufacturers' commission.
He used the role as a springboard to launch a bid for the presidency of FISA in 1991. Mr Mosley then became president of its parent body the FIA, the international automobile federation, when the two were merged in 1993.
He quickly established a modus operandi as a president who was proactive, provocative and controversial.
In 1993, he instigated a ban on driver aids such as traction control and active suspension against the wishes of the teams. And his combative approach, in which he used a vast intellect to devise clever strategy and often Machiavellian tactics, continued over his near two-decade stay in his role.
His biggest challenge came a year later, when Ayrton Senna was killed in an accident at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix that was broadcast live around the world - just 24 hours after Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger died in a crash during qualifying for the same race.
As a global sporting icon, and an almost God-like figure in his native Brazil, Mr Senna's death raised serious questions about safety in Formula 1, and world leaders contacted Mr Mosley questioning the sport's position.
Recognising the threat to the sport's existence, Mr Mosley introduced a series of changes to the cars, setting in motion a new approach whereby the safety of the drivers and spectators was central to the ethos of motorsport and attempts were made to constantly improve it.
In this, he was backed by Mr Ecclestone, and supported by the FIA medical delegate Professor Sid Watkins and the FIA F1 director Charlie Whiting. Together they changed the face of the sport.
Max Mosley became a prominent privacy campaigner after winning his 2008 legal action
As FIA president he also turned his attention to road cars, and was central in introducing the EuroNCAP crash testing programme.
This required manufacturers to meet minimum safety standards in their cars for the first time and has played a significant role in reducing the number of deaths in road accidents.
But the longer Mr Mosley remained in situ, the more F1 teams began to become uncomfortable with what they saw as an authoritarian and arbitrary approach, along with sometimes questionable methods and motives.
Mr Mosley's reputation with the F1 teams was badly damaged by his deal to remove the TV rights to F1 from Foca and sell them on a 100-year lease to Mr Ecclestone's companies for what many considered to be a paltry one-off figure of $360m in 1995.
His antagonistic style of running the sport continued through the 2000s and the beginning of the end of his time at the FIA came with the News Of The World's story.
He survived the initial outcry but when in 2009 he tried to introduce a budget cap into F1, the big teams had had enough.
The latest of many political fights began, and this time Mr Mosley lost. The major teams and car manufacturers threatened to set up a rival championship, and to bring them back into the fold Mr Mosley had to agree not to seek a further term as president when his latest one expired in October 2009.
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Nicola Sturgeon tells PM referendum is case of 'when - not if' - BBC News
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2021-05-10
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Scotland's first minister has spoken to Boris Johnson for the first time since the SNP's election victory.
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Scotland politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon says it would be "absurd" if things ever got close to the point of taking the SNP to court.
Scotland's first minister has told Prime Minister Boris Johnson that a second independence referendum is "a matter of when - not if".
Nicola Sturgeon spoke directly with Mr Johnson for the first time since the SNP won an emphatic victory in Thursday's Holyrood election.
Earlier, Ms Sturgeon said she did not expect the debate to end up in court.
A senior UK government minister appeared to suggest it would not mount a legal challenge to her plans.
During a phone call with Mr Johnson on Sunday afternoon, the first minister pledged to work with the UK government on steering the country through the Covid pandemic towards recovery.
The SNP said the leaders also agreed the importance of both governments working together "closely and constructively" to make the forthcoming UN climate conference in Glasgow a success.
But a party spokeswoman added: "The FM also re-iterated her intention to ensure that the people of Scotland can choose our own future when the crisis is over, and made clear that the question of a referendum is now a matter of when - not if."
Boris Johnson has invited Ms Sturgeon to a summit on a UK-wide approach to recovery from the pandemic
The UK Government said Mr Johnson spoke to the first minister to "congratulate her on her party's success" in the Scottish Parliament election.
A spokesman said the prime minister emphasised "the importance of focusing on Covid recovery at this time".
He added: "They both agreed that their immediate focus should be on working together to build back from the pandemic.
"The Prime Minister reiterated his invitation for the first minister to join a summit meeting to discuss our shared challenges on Covid recovery and how we can overcome them."
Meanwhile, appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, Nicola Sturgeon was questioned whether she would introduce a referendum bill as early as next spring based on predictions that the UK will have recovered in terms of coronavirus circulation and GDP.
She said: "That would certainly work for that timescale of within the first half of the parliamentary term.
"I desperately hope those predictions are correct but we have to judge that as we go through this year. We've still got significant challenges ahead. I wouldn't rule that out but I'm not sitting here saying that is the timescale."
Mr Johnson earlier invited Ms Sturgeon and her Welsh counterpart Mark Drakeford to a summit to discuss a UK-wide approach to recovery from the pandemic.
He has said it would be "reckless and irresponsible" to have a referendum right now, and the UK government is not currently expected to grant formal consent for a vote to be held - as it did ahead of the 2014 referendum.
Ms Sturgeon congratulated five of the SNP's new MSPs on Sunday morning
There has been speculation that the row could end up with the courts being asked to rule on whether the Scottish government has the power to hold a referendum without the UK government's agreement.
But Ms Sturgeon said she did not believe either side wanted a legal battle over the issue.
She said: "The UK government knows that if we ever get into a situation where this is being determined in the courts then actually what the UK government is arguing is that there is no democratic route for Scotland to have independence.
"The implications of that would be very grave indeed. If the argument of the unionist side is that Scotland is trapped it strikes me that that is one of the strongest arguments for independence."
A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections Who won in my area? Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster' A really simple guide to the 2021 elections
Ms Sturgeon also said it would be "absurd and completely outrageous" if the UK government went to court over the issue and that it was "up to the Scottish people" to decide the country's future.
Her party stood on a manifesto to steer the country out of the pandemic, and to then hold a referendum, which she said people had "voted overwhelmingly for".
She added: "The fact that we are sitting here having a debate about whether or not that outcome is going to be respected says a lot about the lack of respect for Scottish democracy that this UK government has demonstrated for quite some time now."
Also appearing on the programme, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said he would "not go near" the issue of the UK government potentially challenging a referendum bill in court.
He said: "Whatever parties we come from, the priority at the moment is not court cases, it's not independence legislation - it is recovery from the pandemic."
When asked if Scotland was allowed to leave the UK, he said: "Of course it is, through a legal referendum which would allow people to make that choice."
But he also insisted that the SNP's failure to win an overall majority showed that the people of Scotland were not "agitating" for a referendum.
The SNP finished on 64 seats in Thursday's Scottish election - one short of a majority but one more than it won in 2016 - while the Conservatives won 31, Labour 22, the pro-independence Scottish Greens eight and Liberal Democrats four.
But Mr Gove said a majority of voters - 51% - had backed parties that were opposed to independence in the constituency ballot - although the same percentage voted for pro-independence parties in the regional list ballot.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove appeared on Marr during a visit to Scotland
BBC Scotland's Sunday Show later asked Mr Gove to clarify the indication he gave to Marr that the UK government would not mount a legal challenge to a Scottish independence referendum bill.
Mr Gove said: "We are not going to go down the route of talking about independence or legal challenges or anything like that now when our principal focus and exclusive attention is going on pandemic recovery.
"At the moment all we want to do is work with the first minister to concentrate on dealing with the consequences of the pandemic and the need to recover and build back better."
Mr Gove denied he was giving the Scottish government a green light to pass a referendum bill, saying "we are concentrating on recovery at the moment".
In her victory speech, Ms Sturgeon said her priority was leading the country through the pandemic - but said she still intended to hold an independence referendum once the crisis has passed.
In a letter to Ms Sturgeon published on Saturday night, the prime minister invited Ms Sturgeon to "discuss our shared challenges", adding "we will not always agree - but I am confident... we will be able to build back better, in the interests of the people we serve."
Mr Johnson said the country needed to "show the same spirit of unity and co-operation that marked our fight against the pandemic" in engineering a Covid-19 recovery.
But he warned it would be a "difficult journey", adding: "The broad shoulders of the UK have supported jobs and businesses the length and breadth of the country, but we know that economic recovery will be a serious shared responsibility."
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Scottish independence court battle played down - BBC News
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2021-05-10
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UK minister Michael Gove tells the BBC's Andrew Marr that his government would not go to court to stop a second Scottish independence referendum.
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Scotland
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It is perhaps understandable that there is lots of talk of independence and referendums the morning after a Holyrood election, given the SNP have won big once again.
However, there is an argument to be made that the constitution is not necessarily the most interesting storyline in the wake of the polls.
There is still a pro-independence majority at Holyrood, and there is still an intense debate about mandates and process. But for all that, neither side actually wants anything to happen immediately, while there is still a pandemic to be dealing with.
The arguments being exchanged this morning are really rather familiar, and there is little incentive for anyone to change their tune straight away – not until the facts on the ground change, such as with the passing of a referendum bill at Holyrood.
And there are some really pressing issues for the SNP in the coming days and weeks as it forms a new administration.
To start with – who will take up key Cabinet posts left vacant by retiring MSPs? These include the health secretary, during a pandemic; the constitution secretary, as Brexit unfolds; and the environment secretary, in the year of COP26.
And then there are the other big ideas in the SNP manifesto – things like a National Care Service, a minimum income guarantee, publicly-owned rail services.
The constitution was clearly a big issue in the campaign and thus it is no surprise that it is the focus of intense discussion today.
But there is a lot more to Scottish politics than just the question of independence.
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Constitutional clash is coming... but not yet - BBC News
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2021-05-10
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It might be "when" not "if" for indyref2 but Nicola Sturgeon wants to see support for independence running higher.
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The only way for there to be a successful referendum on Scottish independence is if both sides agree.
That's how they did it in 2014 with the Edinburgh agreement and the alternatives are messy and risky for both sides.
If the current stand-off between Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson cannot be resolved, the first minister intends - at some point - to pass a referendum bill at Holyrood.
She dares the UK government to challenge the legislation in court which it may feel obliged to do because it considers such a vote to be beyond devolved powers.
The UK constitution - including the union between Scotland and England - is a matter reserved to Westminster by law.
However, it could be argued that reservation does not explicitly prevent Holyrood from consulting the public on independence.
Then again, a "yes" vote in any referendum would create an expectation that major constitutional change would follow, as it did in the advisory vote on Brexit.
These are the arguments the UK Supreme Court would have to work through.
At the weekend, both the UK cabinet minister Michael Gove and the first minister downplayed the prospect of a legal battle but that is what would inevitably happen unless the two sides make a deal.
Nicola Sturgeon would prefer to see support for independence running higher
UK government sources have made clear that just because they are not seeking to take legal action does not mean they would not go to court if a specific referendum proposal emerged.
Even if the UK government did not challenge, somebody surely would. The whisky industry tied up minimum alcohol pricing legislation in court for five years.
If the court ruled in Nicola Sturgeon's favour, that might enable a referendum but it could still face a unionist boycott which would de-legitimise the outcome.
If the court ruled in Boris Johnson's favour, that would thwart a referendum because Ms Sturgeon has made clear she would not hold an illegal vote.
However, Nicola Sturgeon could argue in those circumstances that the union was being held together by force of law rather than consent which would be a rotten look for the UK.
That might lead to a rise in support for independence.
The UK government could pass legislation to explicitly prevent Holyrood from having a referendum or to organise its own vote - options that carry similar risks.
The UK strategy for the moment seems to be to play for time by arguing that there can be another referendum at some unspecified point in the future but not now.
They make the case that it would be irresponsible to have a referendum while we are still in a pandemic.
On that point, Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon agree and appear to be in tune with Scottish public opinion.
There are other reasons the first minister is not in a rush. She wants to win a referendum and so would prefer to see support for independence running higher.
Polls suggested there was a sustained majority for a "yes" vote throughout much of last year but that has dipped in recent months. The country appears split down the middle.
It also became clear during the election that the Scottish government needs time to work out detailed plans for what independence would mean for trade and borders in the aftermath of Brexit.
In short, they are not ready to fight a referendum however desperate some in the independence movement are for it to happen.
Nicola Sturgeon has told Boris Johnson she considers indyref2 a matter of "when - not if". Officially she still favours having the vote by the end of 2023.
There is unlikely to be any immediate effort by the Scottish government to begin preparations. The SNP is likely to start working on refreshing the independence case before civil servants are given instructions.
As Holyrood returns to business, expect to see the SNP and Greens demonstrate the majority they now have for indyref2 in a symbolic way at an early stage.
With 64 SNP votes and eight from the Greens, support for independence is as high as it has ever been in the 129-seat parliament, matching the "yes" majority after the 2011 election.
The two parties made explicit commitments to hold a referendum in their election manifestos. The two parties have more votes and seats than before.
That is their mandate for indyref2. By contrast, pro-UK parties got 51% of the constituency vote in this election which they take as a mandate to oppose it.
Any referendum legislation would need to be certified as within Holyrood's powers by Scotland's top law officer, the lord advocate, and parliament's presiding officer who is elected on Thursday.
A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections Who won in my area? Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster' A really simple guide to the 2021 elections
The choice of a new minister for the constitution and external affairs to replace Mike Russell will also be significant when the first minister gets round to a reshuffle.
Her immediate priority is a review of Covid rules to be announced on Tuesday.
The election result means there will be a big wrangle over indyref2 in the next few years. It could be resolved through negotiation and agreement or a showdown in the courts.
This constitutional clash is not immediate. The dispute is deferred. Pandemic first will be the mantra on all sides in the period ahead.
• None Sturgeon tells PM referendum is 'when - not if'
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Welsh election 2021: Final week of the campaign - BBC News
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2021-05-04
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As it happened - today's highlights from the campaign trail in Wales.
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Wales
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Carwyn Jones was first minister from 2009 to 2018 Image caption: Carwyn Jones was first minister from 2009 to 2018
Former first minister Carwyn Jones has suggested that any post-election coalition deal in Wales should take “a few weeks” to agree.
Mr Jones took over from Rhodri Morgan as first minister in 2009, when Labour was already running the Welsh government in coalition with Plaid Cymru.
Labour governed alone after making gains in the 2011 election, but after the 2016 poll Lib Dem Kirsty Williams and former Plaid Cymru leader Lord Elis-Thomas joined his administration.
There is speculation that a new coalition could be needed if Labour loses ground in Thursday’s election, although Plaid Cymru have ruled out a “simple re-run” of 2007-11 when they were the junior partner.
Mr Jones told BBC Radio Wales’ The Leaders’ Lounge: “Once everyone sees the numbers, everyone will be making calculations, then there will be a game of chicken – who rings who first? And then the advisers will speak to each other first and prepare the ground. All that can happen in a situation like this."
Asked how long talks might take, he said: “Expect a few weeks.
"If you have coalition negotiations, my view has always been you have to have as much detail as possible in a coalition agreement.
"In 2007, we had a very detailed coalition agreement with Plaid, which meant that really there wasn’t much argument within that coalition – there was the odd disagreement here and there but nothing public because everybody knew the detail of the agreement.
“In 2010, the Tory-Lib Dem coalition [UK government] – I remember saying at the time this is not a very detailed agreement, this is a recipe for people to interpret it in different ways, and a recipe for chaos, and that ‘s the way it turned out, to my eyes.
“If there is going to be a coalition - nobody knows that – best that it takes a few weeks to put together with a detailed agreement than signing a piece of paper that’s one side of A4.”
Mr Jones stood down as first minister in 2018, and was standing down as MS for Bridgend at this election.
You can hear more from him on The Leaders’ Lounge on BBC Radio Wales at 1830 BST on Tuesday, and on BBC Sounds.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-wales-56979028
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news_live_uk-wales-56979028
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