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Royal Mail: Czech billionaire offers to buy all staff shares - BBC News
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2024-06-26
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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He needs the approval of shareholders of three quarters of the business.
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Business
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Thousands of former and current Royal Mail staff are being asked to sell their shares to a Czech billionaire. On Wednesday morning, Daniel Kretinsky’s investment group, which wants to buy Royal Mail's parent company, published its formal offer online, external and sent it by post. Mr Kretinsky can now formally start lobbying investors to accept the offer. He needs the approval of shareholders of three quarters of the parent company, but this task will be made easier because he already owns 27.5% of it. Big asset managers including Blackrock, UBS, Vanguard and Schroders own most of the other 72.5% of International Distribution Services (IDS) that Mr Kretinsky does not own. Meanwhile, Royal Mail staff still collectively own 5.5% of the shares after qualifying staff received 600 shares in the company at the time of its privatisation in 2013. This offer values those staff shares at nearly £200m. Mr Kretinsky made his fortune in energy companies. He also has stakes in Sainsbury's and West Ham Football Club. The board of IDS has already recommended that shareholders big and small accept his offer of 370p per share. This is more than the 315p it is currently trading at and substantially above the 220p it was worth before Mr Kretinsky’s first offer to buy the company. However, the government still has the ability to block this deal, which it may do given Royal Mail's importance to the UK.
Mr Kretinsky’s EP Group has offered a series of time limited guarantees including the retention of the Royal Mail logo, its UK headquarters, and its UK tax base. It also offered to honour current employment agreements with unions and promised not to split off the profitable parcels business, which IDS also owns. Nick Pendleton, a former strategy director at Royal Mail at the time of its privatisation, told the BBC's Today programme: "A lot of people are going to have a decision to make." Royal Mail has struggled with the rise of online shopping and the decline of letter deliveries, particularly as consumer habits shifted during the pandemic. "Things haven’t gone over the last 10 years as Royal Mail, and we all, would have liked," he said. "There needs to be time, money, commitment, reform to the Universal Service Obligation to make sure the company is sustainable for another 500 years," he said, adding that an argument could be made for private ownership. "But of course, this is not an outcome most people in the UK would be happy with." Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said that the deal would be subject to the normal scrutiny but he was not opposed “in principle”. Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has written to Mr Kretinsky to seek assurances that Royal Mail will remain headquartered and tax-resident in the UK. Mr Reynolds also wants a commitment from Mr Kretinsky to “work closely with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) to build a sustainable Royal Mail". The CWU is pushing for “a new ownership and governance model that builds a postal service for the workers and customers”. Wednesday's formal offer confirmed that the new owners would consider a new model which involved some employee ownership or profit-share mechanism.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce993qynp25o
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news_articles_ce993qynp25
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Supreme Court briefly leaks opinion allowing Idaho abortions - BBC News
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2024-06-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Court says publication on its website was "inadvertent" and that a final ruling has not been made.
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US & Canada
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The US Supreme Court accidentally leaked a major opinion on abortion rights, appearing ready to overturn part of Idaho's near-total ban. According to a document published on the court's website then quickly removed, justices will rule that Idaho cannot deny emergency abortions to women whose health is in danger. The court said the opinion, initially obtained by Bloomberg, was "inadvertently and briefly" published, and that its final decision had "not been released" but would be presented in due course. Its publication however comes two years after the leaking of the court's decision to overturn the national right to abortion access, known as Roe v Wade. Since then, a patchwork of abortion laws has been established as more conservative states, such as Idaho, restrict rights to the procedure. The state is one of 14 banning abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with extremely limited exceptions. It has defended its ban, saying that it allows abortions to save a patient's life and that it is not legally required to expand those exceptions. The state's attorneys have said that the law, therefore, is not in conflict with federal law. The court opinion on Idaho, which was published in full by Bloomberg, suggested that justices would rule 6-3 that it should not have become involved in the case so quickly. Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, wrote that the Supreme Court's intervention was premature as positions on the matter are "still evolving". The report added that the court would reinstate an order that permitted Idaho hospitals to perform emergency abortions to protect patients' health. If that is so, the case would continue at a federal appeals court.
According to the document posted by Bloomberg, one of the court's liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, noted in her opinion that she wanted a solid ruling, rather than a dismissal that moved the case back to another court. "Today's decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay," Justice Jackson wrote. "While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires. The accidental publication of the ruling, however, was swiftly met with cautious optimism from pro-abortion groups. "With lives hanging in the balance, we hope this indicates a step forward for patients' access to emergency abortion care," the Pro-Choice Caucus of the US Congress posted online. "Now, it is up to Scotus [the Supreme Court] to confirm that this is true and they will indeed protect that right and uphold federal law," the caucus added. Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood, said that "any decision that falls short of guaranteeing patients' access to abortion care in emergencies would be catastrophic".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kamala Harris on Roe v Wade: 'I eat no for breakfast'
The Biden administration sued Idaho over its near-total abortion ban in 2022, with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra saying that "women should not have to be near death to get care". Idaho countered, saying that the federal law - known as Emergency Medical Treatment and Labour Act or Emtala - cannot supersede state law. In a statement in April, the prominent anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America called the Biden administration's lawsuit a "PR stunt" to spread "abortion lobby misinformation". "The Emtala case is based on the false premise that pregnant women cannot receive emergency care under pro-life laws," said the organisation's public affairs director, Kelsey Pritchard. “It is a clear fact that pregnant women can receive miscarriage care, ectopic pregnancy care and treatment in a medical emergency in all 50 states," she added. The court's nine justices appeared divided during earlier arguments on the case in April. In the document leaked on Wednesday, most of the court's conservative justices suggested that they were sympathetic to Idaho's case that doctors could not be compelled to break state law because of Emtala. The three liberal justices - Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ms Jackson - on the other hand, all seemed doubtful that Idaho could, under Emtala, deny abortions to pregnant women facing serious health concerns. In April, the Associated Press reported that at least six pregnant women had to be airlifted out of the state for emergencies since the law came into effect in January. In 2023, by comparison, one patient required a similar emergency airlift. In a separate ruling earlier in June, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected an effort to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone. The decision, which came two years after the court rescinded the nationwide guarantee to an abortion, was welcomed by pro-choice activists.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pp2yvnv94o
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news_articles_c6pp2yvnv94
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Ed Davey defends support for legalising cannabis and smoking ban - BBC News
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2024-06-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Lib Dem leader says he wants a regulated market for cannabis so potent forms are not available.
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Politics
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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has insisted his support for legalising cannabis is not "inconsistent" with backing a phased smoking ban. The government's Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which would have made selling tobacco to anyone born after 1 January 2009 illegal, was not passed before the general election after the government ran out of time. The policy was supported by Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, although they were given a free vote so were not told to back the bill. Sir Ed told the BBC he wanted a regulated market for cannabis, arguing that potent forms of the drug and smoking were both "very harmful to people's health".
• None What is the smoking ban and how will it work?
Taking questions from the public during a BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in, the Lib Dem leader was asked if his support for the smoking ban impacted his stance on the legalisation of cannabis. "Some people have said it is inconsistent and it is consistent," he said. He said the party's policy was to bring in a regulated market for cannabis, so more potent and dangerous forms like skunk were not available. “I’m banning skunk because that’s very, very harmful to people’s health. And cigarette smoking, everyone sees, it’s really clear it’s very, very harmful," he said. He added: “It was a real challenge for me, I’ll be honest with you, as a liberal. "I don’t like banning things but the health arguments on things like skunk, on things like cigarette smoking are so overwhelming, that if you’re serious about the NHS and you’re serious about what happens to families when they lose their parents, you just need to act.” Sir Ed explained his position partly related to his experience of losing both his parents to cancer. Asked if he had ever smoked cannabis himself, he said he did "on a few occasions" at university but this was "very seldom". Pressed over whether the Lib Dems would consider legalising other drugs, such as magic mushrooms, he said the party wanted "evidence-based health policies". The Lib Dem manifesto, which sets out what the party would do if it was elected, pledges to take "'skunk' off the streets by introducing a legal, regulated market for cannabis". It says sales would be restricted to over-18s, from licensed retailers, with strict limits on potency. The manifesto also promises to free up police time, reduce court backlogs and tackle prisons overcrowding by diverting people arrested for the possession of drugs for personal use into treatment where appropriate.
Under the Conservative Party's plans, each year the legal age for cigarette sales - currently 18 - would increase by one year. It would mean people born in or after 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes. The proposals would not affect those who are already allowed to buy cigarettes. However, critics argue this would create a "black market", which is unregulated. Although there was not time to pass the law before the election, the Tories have recommitted to the policy in their manifesto. Labour has also pledged to bring in the ban if it wins power. Neither party has plans to legalise any drugs. The Scottish National Party manifesto pledges to decriminalise drugs for personal use. Meanwhile, the Green Party manifesto promises a National Commission to agree on an evidence-based approach to reform of drug laws to allow the UK to "move towards a legally regulated market". It says any elected Green MPs would "push to decriminalise the personal possession of drugs". Reform UK has pledged mandatory life imprisonment for drug dealing and a new offence of Substantial Possession of Drugs carrying heavy fines.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9e90p9vyp3o
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news_articles_c9e90p9vyp3
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Juan Orlando Hernández: Honduras ex-president gets 45 years for drug crimes - BBC News
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2024-06-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted of conspiring to import cocaine into the US and machine gun possession.
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World
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Juan Orlando Hernández, the ex-president of Honduras who was convicted of drug crimes in a US court, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Hernández was found guilty in March of conspiring to import cocaine into the US, and possessing "destructive devices" including machine guns.
Prosecutors in New York said he ran the Central American country like a "narco-state" and accepted millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers to shield them from the law.
“He paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States, protected by machine guns,” prosecutors said in their closing arguments ahead of his conviction.
As part of his sentence, he was also ordered to pay a fine of $8m (£6.3m).
“I am innocent,” Hernández said at his sentencing hearing, according to the Associated Press. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.”
The judge, during the hearing, called him a “two-faced politician hungry for power”, the news agency reported.
The 55-year-old has been held at a Brooklyn jail since his extradition to the US.
Last month, the Manhattan judge overseeing the case rejected his motion for a retrial after his lawyers argued that the trial was tainted by incorrect testimony from a law enforcement agent who said cocaine trafficking went up in Honduras during the ex-president's time in office.
US District Judge Kevin Castel found the error "immaterial" to the charge of conspiring with drug traffickers.
"Hernandez's conviction was based on the testimony, over the course of a three-week trial, of numerous witnesses whose testimony was corroborated in part by phone records and a recovered drug ledger," Judge Castel wrote.
Hernández was president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, serving for two consecutive terms in the nation of over 10 million people.
He initially ran as a law-and-order candidate who promised to address the issue of drug-related crime in the country.
Instead, prosecutors accused him of partnering with "some of the world's most prolific narcotics traffickers to build a corrupt and brutally violent empire based on the illegal trafficking of tonnes of cocaine to the United States".
Three months after leaving office, he was extradited to New York and arrested in April 2022 to face federal charges in the US.
He had previously been seen as a strong ally to the US, which sent his country more than $50m (£39m) in anti-narcotics assistance, as well as additional millions of dollars in security and military aid.
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump thanked Hernández for "working with the United States very closely".
Hernández in turn thanked Mr Trump and the American people "for the support they have given us in the firm fight against drug trafficking".
Prosecutors later uncovered that Hernández was linked with drug traffickers as far back as 2004, long before he became president, and that he had facilitated the smuggling of around 500 tonnes of cocaine to the US.
They said drug traffickers paid him millions of dollars in bribes to allow cocaine to be smuggled from Colombia and Venezuela through Honduras on to the US.
During his trial, several convicted drug traffickers testified that they had bribed Hernández.
His lawyers argued that those who testified against him were doing so for their own gain.
Hernández also took the stand to testify in his own defence, accusing the witnesses who testified against him of being "professional liars".
Prosecutors alleged that he had used the drug money to then bribe officials to manipulate Honduras' 2013 and 2017 presidential elections in his favour.
In his denial of the allegations, Hernández claimed that he became a "victim of a vendetta and a conspiracy by organised crime and political enemies".
He is expected to appeal against his conviction.
His brother, a former Honduras congressman, was jailed by the same Manhattan court in 2021 for separate drug charges. Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández is currently serving a life sentence.
Hernández is not the first ex-Latin American head of state to be convicted of a drug-related crime in the US.
Panama's Manuel Noriega was convicted on drug trafficking charges in a Miami court in 1992, and Guatemala's Alfonso Portillo was convicted on money laundering charges in a New York court in 2014.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2ee4j1e0g6o
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news_articles_c2ee4j1e0g6
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Prince Harry told to explain missing messages in News Group Newspapers lawsuit - BBC News
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2024-06-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The ruling is part of Prince Harry's lawsuit against the Sun publisher over claims of phone hacking.
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UK
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The Duke of Sussex has been ordered by a High Court judge to explain why messages which might be relevant to his legal case against the publisher of the Sun have been deleted. News Group Newspapers – which also published the now defunct News of the World – had brought a one-day hearing to help gain access to documents, emails and messages related to Prince Harry’s claim. The prince and more than 40 others are suing the company over allegations of unlawful information-gathering from journalists and private investigators it hired, with a trial expected to start in January 2025. NGN is contesting the claims. Mr Justice Timothy Fancourt said there was evidence that "a large number of potentially relevant documents" and "confidential messages" between the prince and the ghostwriter of his autobiography Spare "were destroyed some time between 2021 and 2023, well after this claim was under way".
• None Why did Harry and Meghan leave the Royal Family?
"The position is not transparently clear about what happened," the judge said. He said the prince's exchanges with writer JR Moehringer on the Signal messaging app may have "related to the parts of Spare in which unlawful information gathering in relation to newspapers was discussed". NGN's legal team accused the duke of "obfuscation" but Prince Harry's barrister, David Sherborne, said in written arguments that the duke had not discussed unlawful information gathering via text or WhatsApp with anyone and that his Signal messages had been "wiped". Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that a wider search was required of Prince Harry's laptop, text and WhatsApp messages to look at exchanges from 2005 until early 2023. The duke was also ordered to produce a witness statement explaining how messages with his ghostwriter JR Moehringer were missing. News Group was awarded two-thirds of its costs, but the Duke of Sussex’s legal team is disputing the £132,000 bill, arguing the amount is excessive for a one-day hearing. It comes after NGN's legal team had sought an order forcing Harry to disclose any information he had which would be relevant to what he knew about alleged unlawful behaviour before the end of 2013. NGN had argued that if the duke knew he had a potential claim before that date, then the case could be dismissed on the grounds it was filed too late. In April, the same court rejected NGN's request for a preliminary trial to help decide whether Prince Harry had left it too late. Under legal rules, claims usually have to be brought within six years, but many of these cases go back decades. But the claimants in the case argued NGN concealed evidence of phone hacking, making it impossible for them to sue sooner. NGN has already paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to the victims of phone hacking by News of the World and settled more than 1,300 lawsuits. The company has previously said the Sun does not accept liability or make any admissions to the allegations. Prince Harry's claim is one of a series of legal challenges he has brought against parts of the British press. Earlier this year, the duke settled his remaining phone hacking claims against Mirror Group Newspapers, which related to claims of unlawful intrusion on 115 stories.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4vyr567q8o
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news_articles_cn4vyr567q8
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Bashar al-Assad: French court confirms arrest warrant for Syrian leader - BBC News
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2024-06-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Paris appeals court says Syria's president can be prosecuted over a deadly 2013 chemical attack.
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World
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President Bashar al-Assad has denied Syrian government forces were involved in the 2013 chemical attack
France's top appeals court has ruled that an arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued for alleged complicity in crimes and humanity and war crimes is valid, lawyers say. Last year, investigative judges sought the arrest of Mr Assad and three others over a deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria in 2013, in which he denied any involvement. Anti-terrorism prosecutors challenged the French warrant’s validity, saying he had immunity as a sitting foreign head of state. The lawyers for the plaintiffs in the initial complaint hailed as “historic” the Paris Court of Appeal’s decision rejecting that argument. “It's the first time a national court has recognised that a sitting head of state does not have total personal immunity,” Clemence Bectarte, Jeanne Sulzer and Clemence said. France is among the countries that allows the filing of crimes-against-humanity cases in its courts.
Syria has been devastated by a civil war that erupted after Mr Assad's government responded with deadly force to peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011. The conflict has left half a million people dead and caused half the population to flee their homes, including almost six million refugees abroad. In August 2013, there was a chemical weapons attack in the then-opposition-held Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus. UN experts confirmed that rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used, but they were not asked to ascribe any blame. Sarin, like other nerve agents, interferes with an enzyme that stops muscles from contracting. When the enzyme is stopped or is not working correctly, muscles are constantly being stimulated. If muscles are constantly contracting people may not be able to breathe. Western powers said only Syrian government forces could have carried out the attacks. Mr Assad denied the allegation and blamed rebel fighters. The president did subsequently ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and agree to destroy Syria's declared chemical arsenal. But investigators from the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have blamed government forces for a number of deadly chemical attacks which have taken place since then. Three years ago, survivors and the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SMC) filed a complaint to French investigative judges in Paris over the 2013 attack. They alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed and that a French court could therefore prosecute individuals under the legal concept of universal jurisdiction. Last November, the judges agreed and issued arrest warrants for Mr Assad; his brother Maher, who leads the Syrian army’s fourth armoured division; General Ghassan Abbas, director of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC); and General Bassam al-Hassan, a presidential adviser and liaison officer with the SSRC. The appeal by anti-terrorism prosecutors did not question the evidence but sought to annul the warrant for the president. They argued that immunity for sitting foreign heads of state should only be lifted for international tribunals like the International Criminal Court (ICC). On Wednesday, the Paris Court of Appeal said it had confirmed the validity of the warrant. "Prohibiting the use of chemical weapons is part of customary international law as a mandatory rule, and the international crimes that the judges are looking at cannot be considered as being part of the official duties of a head of state. They can thus be separated from the sovereignty naturally attached to these duties,” a statement said. Although Mr Assad is unlikely to face trial in France, SMC director Mazen Darwish said it marked a “a crucial step towards justice for the victims of chemical attacks”, external. “It sends a clear message that impunity for serious crimes will not be tolerated, and the era when immunity could serve as a shield for impunity has come to an end,” he added. Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, and does not recognise its jurisdiction.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0090vrxgwo
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news_articles_cn0090vrxg
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Democrats backed into a corner over Biden's performance - BBC News
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2024-06-28
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Prominent voices in the Democratic Party are openly criticising the president's performance as the campaign focuses on Trump's "lies".
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US & Canada
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Joe Biden’s campaign was prepared to come out swinging after tonight’s debate against Donald Trump. Instead, they were backed into a corner. The campaign’s top surrogates wound up pinned at one end of the debate spin room by a mob of reporter s on Thursday night, fielding questions about ousting 81-year-old Mr Biden at the top of the ticket and whether tonight's performance fuelled more concerns about his fitness for office. California Governor Gavin Newsom was asked whether the Democratic Party should replace the president as its candidate. The 56-year-old Democrat responded that he was “old fashioned” and cared more about the “substance and facts” discussed rather than a frenzy over Mr Biden’s energy. It was not the conversation that Democrats hoped to have after the debate. But Mr Biden’s subdued performance during the 90-minute event, during which he sometimes stumbled through answers and spoke with a cold-induced rasp, sent Democrats into an immediate panic as they were pressed on how his campaign would recover.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Voters' concerns about his age already weighed heavily on the debate, and even Mr Biden's staunchest supporters acknowledged the performance would likely not help. David Plouffe, a Democratic strategist who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, called it "a Defcon 1 moment”, referring to the US military phrase for the highest level of a nuclear threat. “They seemed about 30 years apart tonight,” he said of the two candidates, who are fewer than four years apart in age. “And I think that’s going to be the thing that voters really wrestle with coming out of this.” Andrew Yang, who challenged Mr Biden in 2020’s Democratic primary and dropped out early in the race, wrote on X that the president should “do the right thing” by “stepping aside and letting the DNC choose another nominee". He added the hashtag #swapJoeout. It is unlikely that Mr Biden will be replaced as the Democratic Party’s nominee for a number of reasons: he's the incumbent president, there are only a handful of months left before the election and the chaotic process of choosing another nominee could derail the party's chances of winning the White House in November. Yet the debate was “an important reminder of why, after we save democracy and defeat Trump, we’ve got to end the gerontocracy", Amanda Litman, who works to recruit young Democratic candidates, told the BBC. “I think his job just became a little bit harder,” David Axelrod, another top Obama lieutenant, said on CNN.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Name-calling and insults - key moments from Biden and Trump’s debate
Back in the spin room, the campaign’s surrogates answered question after question about Mr Biden’s performance. Try as they might, they could not change the conversation. Congressman Robert Garcia of California said that Trump “lied, and lied, and lied again.” The former president did make misleading statements during the debate. He falsely claimed that Democratic-controlled states wanted to allow abortion “after birth” – a talking point used by anti-abortion activists. He also said Mr Biden “encouraged” Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine, when in reality his administration has staunchly backed Ukraine in the war. “Donald Trump is a liar. And a criminal. And he cannot be our president,” the campaign said in a statement after the debate. Vice-President Kamala Harris echoed the attack. “Donald Trump lied over and over and over again,” she told CNN. When he appeared at a post-debate watch party, Mr Biden zeroed in on this argument. "They're going to be fact-checking all the things he said," the president told the crowd. "I can't think of one thing he said that was true." "Look, we're going to beat this guy, we need to beat this. I need you, in order to beat him. You're the people I'm running for," Mr Biden added. In the spin room afterwards Trump's allies and campaign staff happily declared victory. Meanwhile, Democrats including Mr Newsom, Mr Garcia and Senator Raphael Warnock made relatively brief appearances, answering the same questions over and over about Mr Biden’s performance. “I have been a surrogate for some presidential candidates in my time,” former Democratic US senator Claire McCaskill told MSNBC. “When you’re a surrogate you have to focus on the positives,” she said. But now, she said, she had to be “really honest.” “He had one thing he had to accomplish, and that was to reassure America he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight.”
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wv8292g2yo
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news_articles_c9wv8292g2y
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Prince Harry told to explain missing messages in News Group Newspapers lawsuit - BBC News
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2024-06-28
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The ruling is part of Prince Harry's lawsuit against the Sun publisher over claims of phone hacking.
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UK
|
The Duke of Sussex has been ordered by a High Court judge to explain why messages which might be relevant to his legal case against the publisher of the Sun have been deleted. News Group Newspapers – which also published the now defunct News of the World – had brought a one-day hearing to help gain access to documents, emails and messages related to Prince Harry’s claim. The prince and more than 40 others are suing the company over allegations of unlawful information-gathering from journalists and private investigators it hired, with a trial expected to start in January 2025. NGN is contesting the claims. Mr Justice Timothy Fancourt said there was evidence that "a large number of potentially relevant documents" and "confidential messages" between the prince and the ghostwriter of his autobiography Spare "were destroyed some time between 2021 and 2023, well after this claim was under way".
• None Why did Harry and Meghan leave the Royal Family?
"The position is not transparently clear about what happened," the judge said. He said the prince's exchanges with writer JR Moehringer on the Signal messaging app may have "related to the parts of Spare in which unlawful information gathering in relation to newspapers was discussed". NGN's legal team accused the duke of "obfuscation" but Prince Harry's barrister, David Sherborne, said in written arguments that the duke had not discussed unlawful information gathering via text or WhatsApp with anyone and that his Signal messages had been "wiped". Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that a wider search was required of Prince Harry's laptop, text and WhatsApp messages to look at exchanges from 2005 until early 2023. The duke was also ordered to produce a witness statement explaining how messages with his ghostwriter JR Moehringer were missing. News Group was awarded two-thirds of its costs, but the Duke of Sussex’s legal team is disputing the £132,000 bill, arguing the amount is excessive for a one-day hearing. It comes after NGN's legal team had sought an order forcing Harry to disclose any information he had which would be relevant to what he knew about alleged unlawful behaviour before the end of 2013. NGN had argued that if the duke knew he had a potential claim before that date, then the case could be dismissed on the grounds it was filed too late. In April, the same court rejected NGN's request for a preliminary trial to help decide whether Prince Harry had left it too late. Under legal rules, claims usually have to be brought within six years, but many of these cases go back decades. But the claimants in the case argued NGN concealed evidence of phone hacking, making it impossible for them to sue sooner. NGN has already paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to the victims of phone hacking by News of the World and settled more than 1,300 lawsuits. The company has previously said the Sun does not accept liability or make any admissions to the allegations. Prince Harry's claim is one of a series of legal challenges he has brought against parts of the British press. Earlier this year, the duke settled his remaining phone hacking claims against Mirror Group Newspapers, which related to claims of unlawful intrusion on 115 stories.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4vyr567q8o
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news_articles_cn4vyr567q8
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FFXIV: Dawntrail a 'starting point for the next 10 years' - BBC News
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2024-06-29
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Director Naoki Yoshida says the new release is a significant moment for the Final Fantasy franchise.
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Newsbeat
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Final Fantasy 14 is the most profitable game in the popular franchise, according to its makers
It's a June Friday night in Tokyo, and Naoki Yoshida has weekend plans. Fairly standard, you might think. But Yoshida-san, the director of Final Fantasy 14 (FF14), knows that it'll probably be his last chance to relax for a while. When he speaks to BBC Newsbeat it's a week until Dawntrail, the latest expansion to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is released. Following a "disastrous" launch in 2010, FF14 has gone on to become the most profitable title in the franchise's history, according to publisher Square Enix. The game's turned things around so much that servers struggled to keep up with demand when the previous expansion, Endwalker, launched in December 2021. It's not the only change since FF14 first came out. The industry, and Japan's place in it, has also shifted over the last decade. Final Fantasy is a massive cultural export for the country, and Square Enix has said it wants to focus more on the "global market" and its fans worldwide.
There's evidence of this approach in Dawntrail, a significant moment for Yoshida-san and his team, and one he calls "the starting point for the next 10 years of Final Fantasy 14". Endwalker brought a decade-long story arc to a close and Dawntrail opens a new saga. It also adds a graphical overhaul to the game, along with new character classes and other features. It's billed as a "summer vacation", with the action taking place in the sunny, Latin America-inspired Tural region of FF14's world. Yoshida-san says Final Fantasy games have previously taken inspiration from Europe and East Asia and his team wanted to try something different. He says Central and South America provide a "huge area" with "a lot of history" to draw from. Authetic representation of other cultures is something Square Enix has been criticised over in the past, and its recent games have made efforts to address this. Yoshida-san says he's always regarded FF14 as a "global game", but agrees that social media's influence has grown and "it's become easier for people to gather together and make their voices heard". He admits "there are risks involved" in depicting other cultures, but his team has made it a point "to learn about the culture, read the texts that are available". "The world is diverse," he says. "There are people who have many different sets of values, many different religions, many different senses of relationships. "And so it's really important, I feel, that we understand those points."
Yoshida-san says the players who put their trust in his team "served as a source of motivation"
Final Fantasy games have always mixed Japanese sensibilities with Western influences, but some have suggested that the series has had an identity crisis recently. Yoshida-san tells Newsbeat Square Enix makes "50% to 80%" of its profit from "overseas fans", who are "really important to factor in when we are creating the game". But he believes there's a balance to be found. "We were born in Japan, we were brought up in Japan. So what we were brought up with was parts of Japanese culture," he says. "So if we put too much of a focus ourselves on overseas audiences, we don't have that background and that context. "If we focus so much on the overseas audiences, then whatever we make wouldn't be successful." However, Yoshida-san says the developers can't live in a bubble. "I think knowing the world is very important for us in our development moving forward," he says.
Yoshida-san is affectionately known as Yoshi-P by fans
There's recently been another significant change for Final Fantasy. Square Enix produces games for many platforms but has a history of striking up exclusive deals to guarantee some titles only appear on certain consoles. Sales of two recent PlayStation 5-only games, Final Fantasy 16 (FF16) and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, have reportedly disappointed in Japan. Following their release CEO Takashi Kiryu told investors, external the company would "aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy" to get its games on more machines. Yoshida-san is familiar with arguments about exclusivity, having released the long-awaited Xbox version of FF14 this year. It's a sign of a wider shift in the industry, where companies are becoming less selective about where their games appear. In Japan, figures suggest gamers are opting to play on mobiles or the Nintendo Switch - which recently became the country's all-time bestselling console, external. "We want to have players regardless of whichever device they're playing on," Yoshida-san says. "We want them to play our game and all connect and join in and then play together in the same world." Yoshida-san says Xbox CEO Phil Spencer "devoted a lot of his time" to getting FF14 on to Xbox. "Thanks to his hard work, I'm super, super-glad we were able to see it to through to fruition," he says. "But of course, there are platforms which remain." When he's asked which those might be, Yoshida-san doesn't hesitate. "Of course," he says. "It goes without saying that would be Nintendo's platform. "I'm sure people are waiting for the answer to that question."
FF14's international popularity was in evidence earlier this week when Square Enix erected a giant Aetherite crystal from the game in front of London Kings Cross station
For now, though, there's a more pressing issue on Yoshida-san's mind - giving Dawntrail "the best possible launch". After his weekend rest, he anticipates being busy. "I'm sure that it's going to be sleepless nights, we're going to be just eyes focused on the service status," he says. Endwalker's rough beginnings will be on player's minds, but Yoshida-san says he's not one for dwelling too much on the past. "It's what's already happened," he says. "And that's not really going to take us forward. "Looking towards the future is our job."
Despite this, Yoshida-san says there is one thing important to remember. "The players who stuck with us, [who] put their trust in the Final Fantasy 14 team. "They really served as a source of motivation," he says. "They really drove us to get to where we are and we would not be here without them. "So keeping them in mind, we really just want to do our best for the Final Fantasy 14 community."
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
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Democrats backed into a corner over Biden's performance - BBC News
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2024-06-29
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Prominent voices in the Democratic Party are openly criticising the president's performance as the campaign focuses on Trump's "lies".
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US & Canada
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Joe Biden’s campaign was prepared to come out swinging after tonight’s debate against Donald Trump. Instead, they were backed into a corner. The campaign’s top surrogates wound up pinned at one end of the debate spin room by a mob of reporter s on Thursday night, fielding questions about ousting 81-year-old Mr Biden at the top of the ticket and whether tonight's performance fuelled more concerns about his fitness for office. California Governor Gavin Newsom was asked whether the Democratic Party should replace the president as its candidate. The 56-year-old Democrat responded that he was “old fashioned” and cared more about the “substance and facts” discussed rather than a frenzy over Mr Biden’s energy. It was not the conversation that Democrats hoped to have after the debate. But Mr Biden’s subdued performance during the 90-minute event, during which he sometimes stumbled through answers and spoke with a cold-induced rasp, sent Democrats into an immediate panic as they were pressed on how his campaign would recover.
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Voters' concerns about his age already weighed heavily on the debate, and even Mr Biden's staunchest supporters acknowledged the performance would likely not help. David Plouffe, a Democratic strategist who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, called it "a Defcon 1 moment”, referring to the US military phrase for the highest level of a nuclear threat. “They seemed about 30 years apart tonight,” he said of the two candidates, who are fewer than four years apart in age. “And I think that’s going to be the thing that voters really wrestle with coming out of this.” Andrew Yang, who challenged Mr Biden in 2020’s Democratic primary and dropped out early in the race, wrote on X that the president should “do the right thing” by “stepping aside and letting the DNC choose another nominee". He added the hashtag #swapJoeout. It is unlikely that Mr Biden will be replaced as the Democratic Party’s nominee for a number of reasons: he's the incumbent president, there are only a handful of months left before the election and the chaotic process of choosing another nominee could derail the party's chances of winning the White House in November. Yet the debate was “an important reminder of why, after we save democracy and defeat Trump, we’ve got to end the gerontocracy", Amanda Litman, who works to recruit young Democratic candidates, told the BBC. “I think his job just became a little bit harder,” David Axelrod, another top Obama lieutenant, said on CNN.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Name-calling and insults - key moments from Biden and Trump’s debate
Back in the spin room, the campaign’s surrogates answered question after question about Mr Biden’s performance. Try as they might, they could not change the conversation. Congressman Robert Garcia of California said that Trump “lied, and lied, and lied again.” The former president did make misleading statements during the debate. He falsely claimed that Democratic-controlled states wanted to allow abortion “after birth” – a talking point used by anti-abortion activists. He also said Mr Biden “encouraged” Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine, when in reality his administration has staunchly backed Ukraine in the war. “Donald Trump is a liar. And a criminal. And he cannot be our president,” the campaign said in a statement after the debate. Vice-President Kamala Harris echoed the attack. “Donald Trump lied over and over and over again,” she told CNN. When he appeared at a post-debate watch party, Mr Biden zeroed in on this argument. "They're going to be fact-checking all the things he said," the president told the crowd. "I can't think of one thing he said that was true." "Look, we're going to beat this guy, we need to beat this. I need you, in order to beat him. You're the people I'm running for," Mr Biden added. In the spin room afterwards Trump's allies and campaign staff happily declared victory. Meanwhile, Democrats including Mr Newsom, Mr Garcia and Senator Raphael Warnock made relatively brief appearances, answering the same questions over and over about Mr Biden’s performance. “I have been a surrogate for some presidential candidates in my time,” former Democratic US senator Claire McCaskill told MSNBC. “When you’re a surrogate you have to focus on the positives,” she said. But now, she said, she had to be “really honest.” “He had one thing he had to accomplish, and that was to reassure America he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight.”
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Coldplay say they have beaten eco-touring targets - BBC News
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2024-06-03
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The band reduce their carbon emissions by 59% compared with their last world tour in 2016-17.
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Coldplay say they have beaten eco-touring targets
Coldplay have taken a lead in developing sustainable touring technology
In 2021, Coldplay announced a 12-point plan to cut the carbon footprint of touring by 50%. Now, they've given an update on their progress, saying the first two years of their Music of the Spheres tour saw a 59% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared with their previous world tour. They have used things like a dancefloor that generates electricity when fans jump up and down, and have cut down on air travel. They have also revealed that seven million saplings have been planted as part of a commitment to grow a tree for every fan attending the shows. "As a band, and as an industry, we’re a long way from where we need to be on this," they said in a statement. "But we’re grateful for everyone’s help so far, and we salute everyone who’s making efforts to push things in the right direction."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Coldplay: Band announce first tour in four years with an 'eco-friendly' focus
Coldplay first pledged to cut their carbon footprint in 2019, telling the BBC they would not tour again until they could do so in a more sustainable way. Two years later, they announced a plan to tackle those issues, including:
• None Solar panels, kinetic flooring and exercise bikes that help to power the venues
• None Minimising air travel, with sustainable aviation fuel used where flying is unavoidable
• None Building sets with sustainable materials like bamboo, where possible At the time, frontman Chris Martin said he was prepared for a "backlash" over areas like air travel, where the band were still having a negative environmental impact. "The people that give us backlash for that kind of thing, for flying, they're right," he said. "So we don't have any argument against that." However, he did pledge to take public transport to gigs when possible - and arrived for their shows in Cardiff last year by train.
An interim report, released last July, suggested the band had fallen short of their goals, achieving a 47% reduction in carbon emissions. New figures suggest, external the tour has become more efficient as it progresses. Among the developments, 72% of tour waste was diverted from landfill and sent for reuse, recycling and composting - up from 66% in 2023. And the band said the energy produced by in-venue solar installations, kinetic dancefloors and power bikes has increased from 15 to 17 KwH per show - enough to power one of the smaller stage areas each night, and provide the crew with phone, laptop and tool-charging stations. They said the figures had been assessed and verified by the environmental solutions initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Coldplay have also funded two solar-powered "ocean cleanup river interceptors", which extract plastics from the ocean.
Fans use electricity-generating bicycles at a Coldplay concert in Amsterdam
MIT's Professor John E Fernandez praised the band for "setting a new standard for the entire music industry". "With each subsequent year of their tour, they demonstrate an evolving vision and expanded commitment to move the entire music industry toward true and humane sustainability and planetary resilience." Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme in December, Martin said he wanted to prove that sustainable touring was achievable. "What we’re trying to do is actually not advocate at all but just prove that it makes business sense - because that’s where we feel you’ll really get people to change, saying, ‘Hey you can make more money'. "At the end of the day, for a lot of people, that’s their primary consideration in every wealth bracket, so we’re really trying to show on this tour that being clean and green isn’t some charitable left-wing wishy-washy thing. "It’s like, no, this is the best business sense too."
The band are not alone in tackling the environmental impact of making and playing music. In February, The 1975 played four "carbon removed" gigs at London's O2 Arena. The band and venue calculated that the shows generated 546 tonnes of carbon dioxide, mainly by fans travelling to the shows - so they removed an equivalent amount from the atmosphere using methods including tree-planting and direct air capture. More than a decade ago, Radiohead pioneered the use of low-energy LED lighting rigs, rather than more power-hungry spotlights. And Billie Eilish recently released her new album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, on recycled and eco-vinyl, with all the packaging made from recycled materials. The star has also established a global conference called Overheated, which looks at solutions to the climate emergency, focusing on the contributions young people can make.
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A guide to Donald Trump's four criminal cases - BBC News
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2024-06-04
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The former president is juggling potentially explosive legal battles with campaigning for the White House.
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US & Canada
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Republican Donald Trump is facing off against Democratic presidential candidate and current Vice-President Kamala Harris in November's election. How might his criminal prosecutions affect his campaign? The 78-year-old is the first former president in US history to be criminally convicted, having been found guilty of falsifying business records. A few weeks later, the US Supreme Court ruled he had partial immunity in perhaps the most serious case he faces - that he tried to overturn the 2020 election result. And it was not long before the former president scored a further legal win, when a Florida judge dismissed a case related to his handling of classified documents. So what might happen next in his four criminal cases and what is at stake as he seeks to return to the White House?
Whether Trump illegally conspired to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden. Federal prosecutors allege he pressured officials to reverse the results, knowingly spread lies about election fraud and sought to exploit the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021 to delay the certification of Mr Biden's victory and stay in power. He's been charged with four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the US and conspiracy against the rights of citizens. Some had speculated he would be charged with insurrection, or aiding insurrection, but that is not one of the charges. US prosecutors in August issued revised charges in an attempt to navigate a ruling from the Supreme Court that had thrown the case into doubt. That Supreme Court ruling had said that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts they undertake. The revised indictment leaves in place the four criminal counts, but these now relate to the former president's status as a political candidate rather than a sitting president. It argues Trump acted as a private citizen and not as a president when he undertook the alleged scheme to sway the election. Trump has denied wrongdoing and claimed the Biden administration is behind the prosecution. He previously pled not guilty to all charges.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch the moment Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building
It doesn't look like it will happen any time soon. Trump launched an appeal in this case, claiming he had broad immunity from prosecution as president, due to a 1982 precedent that recognised immunity in civil cases. Lower courts rejected Trump's claim but the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had limited immunity for official acts he carried out as president. But the revised indictment shows that Department of Justice (DoJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith interprets the Supreme Court ruling to mean his case can still move forward. Mr Smith's office said the superseding indictment had been presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case. But whether it would satisfy the Supreme Court's presidential immunity framework remains unclear. There is a strong chance some of the charges may not survive. If Trump wins re-election, he could in theory pardon himself or order all these charges to be dismissed. Could Trump go to prison?
• None Conspiracy to defraud the US is punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison
• None Obstructing an official proceeding is punishable by a fine or up to 20 years in prison
• None Conspiracy against rights is punishable by a fine or not more than 10 years in prison, or both
But there are logistical, security and political questions around whether Trump would actually serve time in jail even if convicted. A conviction at trial would take the US into uncharted territory.
A payment made to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Ms Daniels was paid $130,000 (£103,000) to keep quiet about her claim that she had sex with Trump, which he denies. Instead, this case was more technical and centred on how Trump's former lawyer, who paid Ms Daniels, had his reimbursement recorded as legal fees in Trump's accounts. The prosecution's key witness was ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, who testified that his former boss knew about the elaborate scheme to disguise the payment. In days of heated cross-examination, Trump's lawyers sought to undermine Cohen and paint him as an unreliable witness and convicted liar. The jurors deliberated over two days before finding the former president guilty of all 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws. Trump has said the case is politically motivated. His lawyers are requesting the conviction be overturned, citing the Supreme Court immunity ruling, according to a letter seen by US media including the BBC's partner network, CBS News. Could Trump go to prison? Each of the charges carries a maximum of four years in prison, although a judge could sentence Trump to probation later this month. Legal experts told the BBC they think it is unlikely Trump will be jailed and that a fine is the more likely outcome.
Trump and some 18 other defendants are accused of criminally conspiring to overturn his very narrow defeat in the state of Georgia in the 2020 election. The racketeering investigation, led by Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, was sparked in part by a leaked phone call in which the former president asked the state's top election official to "find 11,780 votes". Trump was hit with 13 criminal counts, subsequently reduced to 10. They include one alleged violation of Georgia's Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (Rico). The former president has pleaded not guilty. A date has not been set. The timeline has been complicated by an effort by Trump and his allies to disqualify Ms Willis because of her romantic relationship with a man she hired to work on the case. An appeals court has tentatively set a date of 4 October to hear oral arguments in the bid to have Ms Willis removed. Could Trump go to prison? Georgia prosecutors would need to prove that there was a pattern of corruption from Trump and his co-defendants aimed at overturning the election result in order to bring a conviction. As for making false statements, that carries a penalty of between one to five years in prison or a fine.
Whether Trump mishandled classified documents by taking them from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence after he left office. The case against Trump is also about whether he obstructed the FBI's efforts to retrieve the files, as well as the criminal investigation into his handling of them. The majority of the counts are for the wilful retention of national defence information, which falls under the Espionage Act. There are then eight individual counts, which include conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record and making false statements. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts. The case was dismissed by a Florida judge on 15 July, marking a significant legal victory for Trump just days after he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, made the dismissal on the basis that the Justice Department's appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith violated the US Constitution. But Mr Smith appealedthe decision, which came after Judge Cannon cancelled the 20 May trial date without giving a new one. Trump and his lawyers have long tried to put the case off until after the November presidential election. The case now faces an uncertain future after the Supreme Court's immunity decision. Could Trump go to prison? If the case is restarted, these charges could, in theory, lead to substantial prison time if Trump is convicted. Looking at the letter of the law, the counts under the Espionage Act each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years. Other counts, related to conspiracy and withholding or concealing documents, each carry maximum sentences of 20 years. But the logistics of jailing a former president mean a conventional prison sentence is seen as unlikely by many experts.
North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here., external
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Hunter Biden 'crossed a line' when he bought gun, trial hears - BBC News
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2024-06-04
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The US first lady seemed to get emotional in court as she listened to opening statements in Hunter Biden's trial.
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US & Canada
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Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden walk into court on Tuesday
Hunter Biden was a habitual user of crack cocaine when he drove his father's Cadillac and illegally bought a gun, his criminal trial has heard as US First Lady Jill Biden looked on in court. The US president's son is accused of knowingly lying on a form to buy a revolver and ammunition from a Wilmington, Delaware, gun shop on 12 October 2018. The defence said Mr Biden, 54, was in recovery at the time, so he was truthful when he wrote on the application that he was not a user of illicit drugs. It is the first time a sitting US president's son has gone on trial. Mr Biden could face up to 25 years in prison if found guilty of all three federal counts in the case. He is charged with lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days. On Tuesday, the court heard from the government's first witness, FBI special agent Erika Jensen, who will return to the stand Wednesday. She testified about bank records and texts from Mr Biden's devices that reference drugs. Through the trial, the jury will hear how Hallie Biden - the widow of the president's late son, Beau Biden - also became addicted to crack cocaine during her brief relationship with Hunter Biden. She took the gun from him and threw it in a grocery store bin 11 days after he bought it, concerned about what he might do with the weapon. "No-one is above the law," said prosecutor Derek Hines in Tuesday's opening statement to jurors. "It doesn't matter who you are or what your name is." Mr Hines said Mr Biden had “crossed the line” when he chose to buy the gun and allegedly lied about a federal background check. The prosecutor also told jurors that Mr Biden was not accused of any violence, but the jury would hear how guns were "pointed in his face" during drug deals, and he had "learned how to defend himself". But the defence said this claim had nothing to do with the period when Mr Biden bought the gun in Delaware. In his opening statement, defence lawyer Abbe Lowell said the Cobra Colt .38 revolver was an impulse buy, under pressure from a pushy gun store owner. He said his client had driven his father’s Cadillac to a mobile phone store on the day in question before crossing the street to the firearms shop.
President Biden was at the White House on Tuesday
At the core of the defence's case is the argument that the federal application form for a gun purchase only asks if the buyer is a drug user - not whether they "have ever been". Mr Lowell said Mr Biden was in recovery at the time after attending a rehab clinic in California, and did not view himself as an addict. "Hunter was not using drugs when he bought that gun," he said. Hunter Biden sat with his defence team, pen in hand, and put his glasses on repeatedly to read documents. The Yale-educated lawyer often looked at the jury, and appeared to follow proceedings closely.
First Lady Jill Biden was also in court for her stepson's trial
The US first lady sat directly behind him. President Joe Biden, who has long been highly protective of his son, was at the White House in Washington DC. The first lady and Hunter Biden's half-sister, Ashley Biden, appeared emotional while listening to recordings aired in court of Hunter describing his descent into addiction. The audio was from his narration of his 2021 memoir Beautiful Things. Ashley Biden leaned her head against the first lady's as she seemed to wipe her eyes. At one point, Jill Biden put an arm around the shoulder of Ashley Biden, who later left the Wilmington court and did not return.
The defence said Mr Biden did not deny previous drug abuse, arguing this was a result of repeated tragedy in his life. This included the death of his mother and baby sister in a 1972 car accident when he was aged three, and the death of his older brother, Beau, from brain cancer in 2015. Also in court was Mr Biden's wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, who angrily confronted a former Trump aide. According to a reporter from the BBC's partner CBS, Mrs Cohen Biden launched into a profanity-laced tirade at Garrett Ziegler in the hallway outside the courtroom. According to other US media, she called Mr Ziegler – who has circulated embarrassing messages and images from a laptop that once belonged to the president's son - "a Nazi". Mr Biden is currently suing Mr Ziegler for disseminating data from the laptop. Hunter Biden also faces a trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4m in taxes.
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Scottish judges asked to overturn rape case rule 'barrier' - BBC News
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2024-06-04
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The Lord Advocate will ask for some alleged victims' statements to be used as evidence in court.
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Scotland
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The case is being held before a panel of nine judges
Judges are being asked to overturn an 87-year-old rule in a move which could allow more rape allegations to reach court. Scotland's top law officer is seeking the change after two sexual offence trials last year ended in acquittals. The ruling which dates back to 1937 limits what can be done with statements made by an alleged victim shortly after an alleged crime. The Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC is asking for that to be overturned.
She wants the judges to agree that such statements can be used as a separate source of evidence that a crime had taken place and the person accused of committing it was responsible. Her request is scheduled to be heard over two days at the High Court in Edinburgh. The Lord Advocate told the nine judges during the first day of the hearing: “It is strongly in the interests of justice that if the law has taken a wrong turn, and the consequence is that a category of corroborative evidence has been excised from Scots Law, then that is a matter of profound importance that requires to be remedied.” The issue at the heart of it all is corroboration, a unique cornerstone of Scotland's criminal law for decades. The requirement for corroboration means there has to be evidence from at least two sources to prove the essential facts of a case. When the alleged offence is rape, prosecutors need corroborated evidence that the accused was the perpetrator, that the physical act took place and there was no consent. Campaigners have long claimed that corroboration is a barrier to justice, particularly in sexual offence cases. Others argue it offers protection against miscarriages of justice.
Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC is arguing for an 87-year-old rule to be overturned
The ruling in 1937 was made after a man called Henry Morton successfully challenged his conviction for indecent assault. Morton was found guilty of indecently assaulting a woman in a tenement close in Glasgow in 1936. She was the only person who identified him as her attacker and the conviction was quashed on appeal the following year. At the time, the judges who heard the case ruled that a statement made by an alleged victim shortly after the alleged offence could only be used to show they had been consistent in their account of what happened. In other words, it could support the contention that they had been saying the same thing all along, but nothing more. That ruling has been applied ever since.
Last year the Lord Advocate secured an important change in the rules on evidence of distress in rape cases. She has followed that up by asking the High Court to rule that the judges in 1937 were wrong. Dorothy Bain will argue that statements taken from alleged victims shortly after the offence should be allowed to corroborate other evidence that the crime happened and the accused was the perpetrator. Law lecturer Dr Andrew Tickell, from Glasgow Caledonian University, said it would amount to a very significant change. "This would effectively be the end of corroboration as we’ve known it for almost 100 years in Scotland," he said. "That is a huge intervention in the justice system. "It would mean we could rely on the evidence of a single witness potentially to corroborate far more than they can under the current law." If the Lord Advocate wins, it would mean more cases involving rape and other sexual offences will go to court, although no-one can say how many. Dr Tickell said that would amount to a significant change to Scots Law without the approval of the Scottish Parliament and might increase the pressure on a court system already facing a major backlog in cases. "Corroboration is seen in two different ways," he said. “Some people see it as a safeguard against wrongful convictions but other people see it as a barrier to cases getting into court. “If you have a lower corroboration threshold, it means you can bring more cases forward. “That doesn’t mean the jury will convict, it doesn’t mean they’ll be convinced beyond reasonable doubt, but it means the cases can get to court.”
The Lord Advocate's request comes in the wake of two cases last year which resulted in not proven verdicts, another unique feature of Scots Law. The first trial concerned a woman in Edinburgh who told passers-by and the police that she had been raped by a man she met in a nightclub. The second involved the alleged abuse of two boys by their baby sitter. Whatever the judges decide, it will not affect the outcome of either trial. As the case in 1937 was heard by seven judges, the Lord Advocate's arguments will be considered by a panel of nine. It is believed to be the first time in more than 40 years that so many judges have been brought together to reach such a decision. Senior defence lawyers will say that the law should not be substantially changed. The judges will issue their decision at a later date.
The future of corroboration has been debated before. In 2011, a report into Scotland's justice system recommended that corroborated evidence should no longer be required in criminal cases, although the Scottish government later decided not to make the change. That review was led by Lord Carloway, now the Lord Justice General, the country's most senior judge. He will be one of the nine who will decide whether the 1937 ruling has had its day.
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Coldplay say they have beaten eco-touring targets - BBC News
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2024-06-04
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The band reduce their carbon emissions by 59% compared with their last world tour in 2016-17.
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Coldplay say they have beaten eco-touring targets
Coldplay have taken a lead in developing sustainable touring technology
In 2021, Coldplay announced a 12-point plan to cut the carbon footprint of touring by 50%. Now, they've given an update on their progress, saying the first two years of their Music of the Spheres tour saw a 59% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared with their previous world tour. They have used things like a dancefloor that generates electricity when fans jump up and down, and have cut down on air travel. They have also revealed that seven million saplings have been planted as part of a commitment to grow a tree for every fan attending the shows. "As a band, and as an industry, we’re a long way from where we need to be on this," they said in a statement. "But we’re grateful for everyone’s help so far, and we salute everyone who’s making efforts to push things in the right direction."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Coldplay: Band announce first tour in four years with an 'eco-friendly' focus
Coldplay first pledged to cut their carbon footprint in 2019, telling the BBC they would not tour again until they could do so in a more sustainable way. Two years later, they announced a plan to tackle those issues, including:
• None Solar panels, kinetic flooring and exercise bikes that help to power the venues
• None Minimising air travel, with sustainable aviation fuel used where flying is unavoidable
• None Building sets with sustainable materials like bamboo, where possible At the time, frontman Chris Martin said he was prepared for a "backlash" over areas like air travel, where the band were still having a negative environmental impact. "The people that give us backlash for that kind of thing, for flying, they're right," he said. "So we don't have any argument against that." However, he did pledge to take public transport to gigs when possible - and arrived for their shows in Cardiff last year by train.
An interim report, released last July, suggested the band had fallen short of their goals, achieving a 47% reduction in carbon emissions. New figures suggest, external the tour has become more efficient as it progresses. Among the developments, 72% of tour waste was diverted from landfill and sent for reuse, recycling and composting - up from 66% in 2023. And the band said the energy produced by in-venue solar installations, kinetic dancefloors and power bikes has increased from 15 to 17 KwH per show - enough to power one of the smaller stage areas each night, and provide the crew with phone, laptop and tool-charging stations. They said the figures had been assessed and verified by the environmental solutions initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Coldplay have also funded two solar-powered "ocean cleanup river interceptors", which extract plastics from the ocean.
Fans use electricity-generating bicycles at a Coldplay concert in Amsterdam
MIT's Professor John E Fernandez praised the band for "setting a new standard for the entire music industry". "With each subsequent year of their tour, they demonstrate an evolving vision and expanded commitment to move the entire music industry toward true and humane sustainability and planetary resilience." Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme in December, Martin said he wanted to prove that sustainable touring was achievable. "What we’re trying to do is actually not advocate at all but just prove that it makes business sense - because that’s where we feel you’ll really get people to change, saying, ‘Hey you can make more money'. "At the end of the day, for a lot of people, that’s their primary consideration in every wealth bracket, so we’re really trying to show on this tour that being clean and green isn’t some charitable left-wing wishy-washy thing. "It’s like, no, this is the best business sense too."
The band are not alone in tackling the environmental impact of making and playing music. In February, The 1975 played four "carbon removed" gigs at London's O2 Arena. The band and venue calculated that the shows generated 546 tonnes of carbon dioxide, mainly by fans travelling to the shows - so they removed an equivalent amount from the atmosphere using methods including tree-planting and direct air capture. More than a decade ago, Radiohead pioneered the use of low-energy LED lighting rigs, rather than more power-hungry spotlights. And Billie Eilish recently released her new album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, on recycled and eco-vinyl, with all the packaging made from recycled materials. The star has also established a global conference called Overheated, which looks at solutions to the climate emergency, focusing on the contributions young people can make.
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‘I agree with Nick': How to win a TV debate - BBC News
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2024-06-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The pitfalls of live televised election debates - and why some politicians might want to dodge them.
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‘I agree with Nick’: How to win a TV debate
With the first BBC election debate on Friday evening - and more to follow, people will be watching to see what difference it makes to the campaign. Experts consider how politicians are preparing and the pitfalls they should avoid on the night. Election debates feel like they have been around forever, but they are a relatively new thing in the UK. There is no rule that says they have to take place, but whichever party is behind in the polls will invariably challenge the frontrunner. And no politician in an election campaign wants to be accused of running scared. The template was set at the first debate in 2010.... It became the one of the catchphrases that would define the campaign. That election saw the first ever televised TV debate between the then three main party leaders, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his Tory challenger David Cameron, and the Lib Dems' Nick Clegg. The self-styled outsider seemed most at ease at the podium, looking down the barrel of the camera and appealing directly to the viewers. His message: “I believe the way things are, are not the way things have to be” and a number of his arguments, the other two leaders agreed with. But it didn’t do him much good. The Lib Dems lost seats in the election, despite their leader’s favourable personal ratings. The positive coverage frustrated David Cameron though, says his former director of communications, Sir Craig Oliver. And that is why David Cameron - now Lord Cameron, Foreign Secretary - minimised the number of debates he did in 2015. Sir Craig says a lead in the polls is like a Ming vase, precious and fragile, and the debate, a polished floor the leader must carry it across. “Everyone wants to have election debates apart from the people who are in the lead. And although they say they want them, in reality they are trying to protect their lead.” Theresa May did not take part in any TV debates in the 2017 election. The then-PM went on to lose her Conservative majority in the House of Commons.
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn went head-to-head in 2019
There have been leaders' debates for the last four elections of all shapes and sizes: some with multiple party leaders, others head-to-heads with the two main parties. And the pitfalls in all formats are similar. John McTernan, Tony Blair's former political secretary, advised former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and Australia's ex-prime minister Julia Gillard ahead of their televised debates. His advice remains, above all, leaders must be authentic. “Avoid making dad jokes. Dad jokes are not funny and dad jokes are not zingers. Zingers come from people who are naturally witty. Don’t pretend you are naturally witty, just be natural.”
More than 9 million people watched the first election debate in 2010. But the viewing figures have declined since. Joe Twyman, co-founder of the pollsters Delta Poll, says it is as much about the clickbait produced from those “zingers”, that can be reproduced after the event, as it is to be perceived to have won the debate. “The debates have the potential to make an impact but in reality it’s unlikely to do so. If it doesn’t, it’s not going to be about the immediate response afterwards, it’s going to be about the days, perhaps weeks, that follow. As clips and comments and analysis is distributed by broadcasters but also crucially by social media.” The first BBC debate takes place on Friday at 19:30 BST on BBC One and BBC News.
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General election 2024: Where the Salford scrap leaves Starmer and Sunak - BBC News
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2024-06-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Political editor Chris Mason reflects on a tetchy showdown between the party leaders.
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Politics
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Analysis: Where the Salford scrap leaves Starmer and Sunak
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Sunak and Starmer go head to head in TV debate
Languishing in the opinion polls and in need of a game changer, Rishi Sunak arrived in Salford with his political back against the wall. Keir Starmer, by contrast, was cushioned, it appears, by a substantial poll lead and keen to ensure it didn't shrivel. The psychology of that political backdrop played out on our screens: the Labour leader appeared more nervous, the Conservative prime minister keener to scrap. I had been loitering outside the entrance to the studios as the motorcades arrived, the choreography of the moment a reminder to both leaders, not that they needed it, of the gravity of the moment. This was not just another interview: executives from ITV were waiting in the doorway to offer their greetings and welcome. Once inside, the microphones on, the studio audience in place and the opening music playing, the debate was under way. The tone and tenor of it stood out: it was often angry, aggressive, personal, crude. Quite something, I thought, given the character of the combatants, because neither of them are drawn to politics as performance for its own sake. They are both instinctively drawn to detail and nuance. But an hour and a bit of prime-time live television doesn’t offer much scope for that: it is a time for primary colours and punchy arguments. Mr Sunak sought to hammer home his claim Labour would hammer you for more tax, a suggestion it took Mr Starmer some time to dismiss as false.
Mr Starmer constantly sought to put the Conservative record in office in the dock. The differing world views of the two men were abundantly clear. They starkly and without hesitation disagreed on private healthcare, private education and the UK’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. In strict news terms, we didn’t learn anything definitively new. But these debates are about taking arguments and character to a mass audience. A poll by YouGov suggested perhaps the narrowest of victories for Rishi Sunak, by 51% to 49%, external. And, as a useful reminder that opinion polls are imperfect snapshots, another polling company, Savanta, suggests Keir Starmer beat Rishi Sunak overall, external and also beat him on “every major issue and personality-based question.” And a JD Partners poll suggests something similar overall to Savanta, external.
But suggesting someone has won, of course, does not necessarily equate with changing how someone might choose to vote. In short, for any on Rishi Sunak’s own side, doomladen about their prospects, their spirit was likely lifted by their leader’s willingness to fight. For those backing Keir Starmer, the Salford scrap was a reminder their adversary hadn’t given up, but there was perhaps reassurance there wasn’t necessarily a transformatory game-changing moment here.
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Hunter Biden 'crossed a line' when he bought gun, trial hears - BBC News
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2024-06-05
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The US first lady seemed to get emotional in court as she listened to opening statements in Hunter Biden's trial.
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US & Canada
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Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden walk into court on Tuesday
Hunter Biden was a habitual user of crack cocaine when he drove his father's Cadillac and illegally bought a gun, his criminal trial has heard as US First Lady Jill Biden looked on in court. The US president's son is accused of knowingly lying on a form to buy a revolver and ammunition from a Wilmington, Delaware, gun shop on 12 October 2018. The defence said Mr Biden, 54, was in recovery at the time, so he was truthful when he wrote on the application that he was not a user of illicit drugs. It is the first time a sitting US president's son has gone on trial. Mr Biden could face up to 25 years in prison if found guilty of all three federal counts in the case. He is charged with lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days. On Tuesday, the court heard from the government's first witness, FBI special agent Erika Jensen, who will return to the stand Wednesday. She testified about bank records and texts from Mr Biden's devices that reference drugs. Through the trial, the jury will hear how Hallie Biden - the widow of the president's late son, Beau Biden - also became addicted to crack cocaine during her brief relationship with Hunter Biden. She took the gun from him and threw it in a grocery store bin 11 days after he bought it, concerned about what he might do with the weapon. "No-one is above the law," said prosecutor Derek Hines in Tuesday's opening statement to jurors. "It doesn't matter who you are or what your name is." Mr Hines said Mr Biden had “crossed the line” when he chose to buy the gun and allegedly lied about a federal background check. The prosecutor also told jurors that Mr Biden was not accused of any violence, but the jury would hear how guns were "pointed in his face" during drug deals, and he had "learned how to defend himself". But the defence said this claim had nothing to do with the period when Mr Biden bought the gun in Delaware. In his opening statement, defence lawyer Abbe Lowell said the Cobra Colt .38 revolver was an impulse buy, under pressure from a pushy gun store owner. He said his client had driven his father’s Cadillac to a mobile phone store on the day in question before crossing the street to the firearms shop.
President Biden was at the White House on Tuesday
At the core of the defence's case is the argument that the federal application form for a gun purchase only asks if the buyer is a drug user - not whether they "have ever been". Mr Lowell said Mr Biden was in recovery at the time after attending a rehab clinic in California, and did not view himself as an addict. "Hunter was not using drugs when he bought that gun," he said. Hunter Biden sat with his defence team, pen in hand, and put his glasses on repeatedly to read documents. The Yale-educated lawyer often looked at the jury, and appeared to follow proceedings closely.
First Lady Jill Biden was also in court for her stepson's trial
The US first lady sat directly behind him. President Joe Biden, who has long been highly protective of his son, was at the White House in Washington DC. The first lady and Hunter Biden's half-sister, Ashley Biden, appeared emotional while listening to recordings aired in court of Hunter describing his descent into addiction. The audio was from his narration of his 2021 memoir Beautiful Things. Ashley Biden leaned her head against the first lady's as she seemed to wipe her eyes. At one point, Jill Biden put an arm around the shoulder of Ashley Biden, who later left the Wilmington court and did not return.
The defence said Mr Biden did not deny previous drug abuse, arguing this was a result of repeated tragedy in his life. This included the death of his mother and baby sister in a 1972 car accident when he was aged three, and the death of his older brother, Beau, from brain cancer in 2015. Also in court was Mr Biden's wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, who angrily confronted a former Trump aide. According to a reporter from the BBC's partner CBS, Mrs Cohen Biden launched into a profanity-laced tirade at Garrett Ziegler in the hallway outside the courtroom. According to other US media, she called Mr Ziegler – who has circulated embarrassing messages and images from a laptop that once belonged to the president's son - "a Nazi". Mr Biden is currently suing Mr Ziegler for disseminating data from the laptop. Hunter Biden also faces a trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4m in taxes.
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Scottish judges asked to overturn rape case rule 'barrier' - BBC News
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2024-06-05
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The Lord Advocate will ask for some alleged victims' statements to be used as evidence in court.
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Scotland
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The case is being held before a panel of nine judges
Judges are being asked to overturn an 87-year-old rule in a move which could allow more rape allegations to reach court. Scotland's top law officer is seeking the change after two sexual offence trials last year ended in acquittals. The ruling which dates back to 1937 limits what can be done with statements made by an alleged victim shortly after an alleged crime. The Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC is asking for that to be overturned.
She wants the judges to agree that such statements can be used as a separate source of evidence that a crime had taken place and the person accused of committing it was responsible. Her request is scheduled to be heard over two days at the High Court in Edinburgh. The Lord Advocate told the nine judges during the first day of the hearing: “It is strongly in the interests of justice that if the law has taken a wrong turn, and the consequence is that a category of corroborative evidence has been excised from Scots Law, then that is a matter of profound importance that requires to be remedied.” The issue at the heart of it all is corroboration, a unique cornerstone of Scotland's criminal law for decades. The requirement for corroboration means there has to be evidence from at least two sources to prove the essential facts of a case. When the alleged offence is rape, prosecutors need corroborated evidence that the accused was the perpetrator, that the physical act took place and there was no consent. Campaigners have long claimed that corroboration is a barrier to justice, particularly in sexual offence cases. Others argue it offers protection against miscarriages of justice.
Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC is arguing for an 87-year-old rule to be overturned
The ruling in 1937 was made after a man called Henry Morton successfully challenged his conviction for indecent assault. Morton was found guilty of indecently assaulting a woman in a tenement close in Glasgow in 1936. She was the only person who identified him as her attacker and the conviction was quashed on appeal the following year. At the time, the judges who heard the case ruled that a statement made by an alleged victim shortly after the alleged offence could only be used to show they had been consistent in their account of what happened. In other words, it could support the contention that they had been saying the same thing all along, but nothing more. That ruling has been applied ever since.
Last year the Lord Advocate secured an important change in the rules on evidence of distress in rape cases. She has followed that up by asking the High Court to rule that the judges in 1937 were wrong. Dorothy Bain will argue that statements taken from alleged victims shortly after the offence should be allowed to corroborate other evidence that the crime happened and the accused was the perpetrator. Law lecturer Dr Andrew Tickell, from Glasgow Caledonian University, said it would amount to a very significant change. "This would effectively be the end of corroboration as we’ve known it for almost 100 years in Scotland," he said. "That is a huge intervention in the justice system. "It would mean we could rely on the evidence of a single witness potentially to corroborate far more than they can under the current law." If the Lord Advocate wins, it would mean more cases involving rape and other sexual offences will go to court, although no-one can say how many. Dr Tickell said that would amount to a significant change to Scots Law without the approval of the Scottish Parliament and might increase the pressure on a court system already facing a major backlog in cases. "Corroboration is seen in two different ways," he said. “Some people see it as a safeguard against wrongful convictions but other people see it as a barrier to cases getting into court. “If you have a lower corroboration threshold, it means you can bring more cases forward. “That doesn’t mean the jury will convict, it doesn’t mean they’ll be convinced beyond reasonable doubt, but it means the cases can get to court.”
The Lord Advocate's request comes in the wake of two cases last year which resulted in not proven verdicts, another unique feature of Scots Law. The first trial concerned a woman in Edinburgh who told passers-by and the police that she had been raped by a man she met in a nightclub. The second involved the alleged abuse of two boys by their baby sitter. Whatever the judges decide, it will not affect the outcome of either trial. As the case in 1937 was heard by seven judges, the Lord Advocate's arguments will be considered by a panel of nine. It is believed to be the first time in more than 40 years that so many judges have been brought together to reach such a decision. Senior defence lawyers will say that the law should not be substantially changed. The judges will issue their decision at a later date.
The future of corroboration has been debated before. In 2011, a report into Scotland's justice system recommended that corroborated evidence should no longer be required in criminal cases, although the Scottish government later decided not to make the change. That review was led by Lord Carloway, now the Lord Justice General, the country's most senior judge. He will be one of the nine who will decide whether the 1937 ruling has had its day.
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VAR: '100 more wrong decisions if VAR scrapped,' claims Premier League - BBC Sport
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2024-06-05
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https://www.facebook.com/BBCSport/
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There would be approximately 100 more incorrect refereeing decisions made if clubs vote to scrap video assistant referees, the Premier League claims.
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Premier League
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The Premier League claim VAR has "resulted in a significant improvement in the accuracy of key decision-making"
There would be 100 more incorrect refereeing decisions made per season if clubs vote to scrap video assistant referees (VAR), the Premier League has claimed. The league sent a briefing document to all 20 clubs before the annual general meeting on Thursday, 6 June, explaining the reasons why it feels VAR should remain. Wolves formally submitted a resolution to the Premier League in May, which triggered a vote on the continued use of VAR. Premier League clubs are unlikely to vote through this proposal, though in-game VAR announcements are set to be introduced.
The Premier League sent a 'VAR Improvement Plan' to clubs on Wednesday, written by chief football officer Tony Scholes. The document, seen by BBC Sport, includes a section on the foreseen impact of removing VAR. Among the consequences listed is that some "match-defining" decisions from on-field referees which were incorrect would not be overturned should VAR be absent. It acknowledges that while scrapping VAR would result in fewer interruptions and delays to the game, "significantly more officiating errors would be made (around 100 per season), including highly contentious match-deciding incidents, potentially in critically important matches." The Premier League also states there were only five incorrect VAR interventions last season, compared to 105 correct calls. This is an improvement on 2022-23, when the league says there were 11 wrong VAR decisions to 105 which were right. Among the other reasons cited to keep VAR is that the Premier League is "contractually committed to significant operating cost elements of VAR for the next three years". As the Premier League would be the only major European league to remove VAR if the vote passes, the league warns that it would be "potentially damaging" to its reputation, while English referees would not get major assignments for Uefa or Fifa tournaments "as regular experience operating both on-field with VAR and acting as VAR domestically are critical".
In a Football Supporters' Association survey of 10,000 fans, just 26.8% were in favour of VAR
In the same briefing document, the Premier League accepts there are issues with VAR which it is attempting to sort, including the amount of time it takes for decisions to be made. The document says the average delay to a game for a single VAR check lasted 64 seconds in the 2023‑24 season, up from 40 seconds in 2022-23. One expected change is the use of in-game VAR announcements from referees, which Fifa introduced at a number of its competitions last year, including the 2023 Women’s World Cup. These changes are likely to be welcomed by most Premier League clubs. BBC Sport understands Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham are among clubs who want to keep VAR, but are demanding that improvements are made. Liverpool are also not supporting moves to get rid of VAR. But Wolves remain staunchly in favour of scrapping VAR and sent out a briefing paper of their own on Wednesday. The club highlight as issues the negative impact on match-going fans and their experience at games, as well as what they claim is a more negligible impact on correct decisions. "Wolves argue that the use of VAR has led to increased disengagement among the Premier League’s match-attending fans due to its adverse effects on the match experience, resulting in apathy, hostility and erosion of trust in football's authorities and officials," they said in the paper. They added: "Premier League data shows an increase in correct decisions from 82% pre-VAR to 96% with VAR, highlighting its effectiveness in reducing errors. "If we put aside the argument on whether the data is credible and convincing, while overall accuracy might be increased to a debatable degree, the cost in terms of match enjoyment and fan engagement outweighs these benefits. "The integrity of the game is compromised by lengthy interruptions and inconsistent application of VAR protocols."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c3ggr2yee9zo
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Will Rishi Sunak’s tax claim stick in voters’ minds? - BBC News
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2024-06-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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It's important to unpick the claims on all sides so you can come to an understanding, the BBC's political editor says.
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Politics
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The day after the debate night before, there is a row about a dubious Conservative claim that a Labour government would hammer you for around £2,000 more in tax over the next four years.
In last night’s debate on ITV, Rishi Sunak made the claim over and over again.
It took Sir Keir Starmer quite a while to dismiss it as false.
Today, as the debate is unpicked, it is that claim at the centre of the analysis.
And here is the key question: how memorable does that number become, and how credible is it?
BBC Verify have given it a look here - and say it risks misleading people and is questionable.
It reminds me of all those rows about the £350m for the NHS on the side of the Vote Leave bus during the Brexit referendum.
In that instance, that number was factually wrong, but there was a mighty argument about it, which made it incredibly prominent.
So, how much does £2,000 stick in people’s minds, prodding away at any fears that a Labour government might put up your taxes?
And how much do the attempts to dismiss it as “garbage” by Labour undermine the trust and credibility of the Conservatives?
Let’s take a look at that number.
The Conservatives claim, on page 6 of this document, external called Labour’s Tax Rises, that “the impact of £38.5bn in unfunded spending would be equivalent to £2,094 per working household over the next four years".
Rishi Sunak, and the cabinet minister Claire Coutinho this morning, have claimed the number, external was arrived at by impartial civil servants.
Enter the most senior civil servant at the Treasury, Permanent Secretary James Bowler, who says no it wasn’t.
That row aside, over the involvement of the Treasury, there is a question about how the number has been arrived at.
The Tories point to their document I mentioned and claim their numbers are actually underestimates of Labour’s potential costs.
And they are leaning into it - the prime minister has shared a video about it on social media.
Labour has gone into overdrive trying to shred the credibility of the number, with the whiff of overcorrection after Keir Starmer’s failure to take it on as robustly as some opposition figures wish he had last night.
Shadow Cabinet minister Jonathan Ashworth came out and called it “a lie” this morning, and Sir Keir Starmer has done the same this afternoon.
There has been a video, too, from the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Labour supporters have been emailed by the party asking for donations so they can take on Rishi Sunak who “lied 11 times”.
All of which raises the prominence of the row.
A fleeting observer of politics – in other words the vast majority of people – may only hear about the story in the loosest terms, in other words: Labour and more tax.
And that is its potency.
So how sticky does this claim become, in the minds of voters, and how credible is it regarded? They are the two big questions.
Incidentally, in the interests of transparency, it raises a dilemma for reporters like me.
Do you report the row, and so raise the prominence of a contested figure, or not report it, and not do so?
Both are active choices and there is no simple answer.
My instinct, for what it is worth, is it would be odd for me to walk past the political row of the day, but it is important to reflect it in a rounded way that attempts to unpick the claims on all sides – so you can come to your own view about what is happening.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq55e9dz79lo
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VAR: '100 more wrong decisions if VAR scrapped,' claims Premier League - BBC Sport
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2024-06-06
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https://www.facebook.com/BBCSport/
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There would be approximately 100 more incorrect refereeing decisions made if clubs vote to scrap video assistant referees, the Premier League claims.
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Premier League
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The Premier League claim VAR has "resulted in a significant improvement in the accuracy of key decision-making"
There would be 100 more incorrect refereeing decisions made per season if clubs vote to scrap video assistant referees (VAR), the Premier League has claimed. The league sent a briefing document to all 20 clubs before the annual general meeting on Thursday, 6 June, explaining the reasons why it feels VAR should remain. Wolves formally submitted a resolution to the Premier League in May, which triggered a vote on the continued use of VAR. Premier League clubs are unlikely to vote through this proposal, though in-game VAR announcements are set to be introduced.
The Premier League sent a 'VAR Improvement Plan' to clubs on Wednesday, written by chief football officer Tony Scholes. The document, seen by BBC Sport, includes a section on the foreseen impact of removing VAR. Among the consequences listed is that some "match-defining" decisions from on-field referees which were incorrect would not be overturned should VAR be absent. It acknowledges that while scrapping VAR would result in fewer interruptions and delays to the game, "significantly more officiating errors would be made (around 100 per season), including highly contentious match-deciding incidents, potentially in critically important matches." The Premier League also states there were only five incorrect VAR interventions last season, compared to 105 correct calls. This is an improvement on 2022-23, when the league says there were 11 wrong VAR decisions to 105 which were right. Among the other reasons cited to keep VAR is that the Premier League is "contractually committed to significant operating cost elements of VAR for the next three years". As the Premier League would be the only major European league to remove VAR if the vote passes, the league warns that it would be "potentially damaging" to its reputation, while English referees would not get major assignments for Uefa or Fifa tournaments "as regular experience operating both on-field with VAR and acting as VAR domestically are critical".
In a Football Supporters' Association survey of 10,000 fans, just 26.8% were in favour of VAR
In the same briefing document, the Premier League accepts there are issues with VAR which it is attempting to sort, including the amount of time it takes for decisions to be made. The document says the average delay to a game for a single VAR check lasted 64 seconds in the 2023‑24 season, up from 40 seconds in 2022-23. One expected change is the use of in-game VAR announcements from referees, which Fifa introduced at a number of its competitions last year, including the 2023 Women’s World Cup. These changes are likely to be welcomed by most Premier League clubs. BBC Sport understands Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham are among clubs who want to keep VAR, but are demanding that improvements are made. Liverpool are also not supporting moves to get rid of VAR. But Wolves remain staunchly in favour of scrapping VAR and sent out a briefing paper of their own on Wednesday. The club highlight as issues the negative impact on match-going fans and their experience at games, as well as what they claim is a more negligible impact on correct decisions. "Wolves argue that the use of VAR has led to increased disengagement among the Premier League’s match-attending fans due to its adverse effects on the match experience, resulting in apathy, hostility and erosion of trust in football's authorities and officials," they said in the paper. They added: "Premier League data shows an increase in correct decisions from 82% pre-VAR to 96% with VAR, highlighting its effectiveness in reducing errors. "If we put aside the argument on whether the data is credible and convincing, while overall accuracy might be increased to a debatable degree, the cost in terms of match enjoyment and fan engagement outweighs these benefits. "The integrity of the game is compromised by lengthy interruptions and inconsistent application of VAR protocols."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c3ggr2yee9zo
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England Euro 2024 squad: Strong argument Gareth Southgate got decisions right - BBC Sport
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2024-06-06
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https://www.facebook.com/BBCSport/
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England manager Gareth Southgate has made bold calls in his Euro 2024 squad - but chief football writer Phil McNulty says he has got them right.
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England Men
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England manager Gareth Southgate will take a squad of 26 to Euro 2024
England manager Gareth Southgate has been accused of ignoring form when shaping squads of the past. It is a charge that cannot be levelled at him over his squad for Euro 2024 in Germany. There will be justified claims that Everton's Jarrad Branthwaite should have got the nod ahead of Brighton central defender Lewis Dunk, but elsewhere Southgate has been ruthless and got it right. The omission of Manchester City's Jack Grealish may be the big talking point - but has he played well enough this season to be selected ahead of Crystal Palace's Eberechi Eze, Newcastle United wide man Anthony Gordon or West Ham United's consistently excellent Jarrod Bowen? Has Tottenham's James Maddison done enough to edge in ahead of a similar group? In November the answer would have been in the affirmative. Southgate, in answer to his critics, has gone with form and made the bold, big calls that look correct when examined in the current context. And what a reflection on the fine work going on at Crystal Palace they are. Adam Wharton has come from nowhere to be the "bolter" in England's squad but his brilliant cameo against Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday told Southgate all he needed to know. Wharton's calm and assured work on the ball, as well as a vision of what is going on around him, persuaded the manager that he should go to Germany. He has wowed Southgate and team-mates. Could he even make it for the opening game against Serbia?
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Southgate on the difficult decision to leave players out
Eze falls into the same category. Exciting and fearless - just what is needed at a major tournament. The Palace forward has edged in ahead of 28-year-old Grealish, a selection that is bound to spark much comment, especially as the Manchester City player is such a popular figure with England fans. Measured in football terms, however, Eze is the only choice Southgate could have made on form at the end of the season. If City manager Pep Guardiola was unconvinced by Grealish, why should Southgate feel different? This will, however, be a selection that will be thrown back at Southgate should England fail at Euro 2024. For the avoidance of doubt, this observer believes there is a very strong argument that Southgate has got it right. Manchester United central defender Harry Maguire is a different case. If he had been anywhere near fit he would have been selected. For all the conversation around his recent form at club level, Southgate would have pencilled him in to start against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen. Southgate will regard Maguire's absence as a serious blow. It means Crystal Palace's Marc Guehi is in line to partner John Stones, while Liverpool's Joe Gomez and Aston Villa defender Ezri Konsa add versatility and adaptability. England's squad has a bold and fresh look, feeding into the optimism that surrounds their chances at Euro 2024. Southgate has avoided the conundrum of deciding between Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins and Brentford's Ivan Toney as potential deputy to captain Harry Kane by picking both – adding to the feeling that England's manager is adopting a positive approach to his squad and Euro 2024. There will be much discussion around Southgate's picks for Germany, but his critics cannot accuse him of dodging the big decisions and this looks like an England squad that can travel to Germany with high hopes.
The Team Selector cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable JavaScript or try another browser. Select your England XI for their Euro 2024 final against Spain
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c72217p52z5o
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Steve Bannon: Ex-Trump aide ordered to prison - BBC News
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2024-06-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A US court has ordered ex-Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon to turn himself in by 1 July.
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US & Canada
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Steve Bannon was convicted in 2022 for contempt of Congress
A US federal judge has ordered Donald Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon to report to prison by 1 July to serve a four-month sentence. The order on Thursday comes after years of legal wrangling, with an appeals court last month upholding Bannon's 2022 criminal conviction for contempt of Congress. The right-wing podcaster was found to have illegally refused to testify before the committee investigating the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot. Bannon, 70, has denied any criminal wrongdoing and his lawyer called the ruling a "horrible decision".
After Thursday's decision, Bannon said he and his lawyers would "go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to". "There's not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up," he defiantly told reporters outside the courthouse in Washington DC. He called the legal challenges against him a plan for "shutting down the Maga movement" - a reference to former President Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan. Bannon has said he was following legal advice in refusing to testify before the House committee investigating 6 January, when rioters ransacked the US Capitol with the goal of stopping the certification of Joe Biden's election win. Bannon's lawyer David Schoen, who has called the case against his client politically motivated, also vowed to appeal to a higher court. Mr Schoen said his client would have been violating Trump's invocation of executive privilege - a legal concept that allows presidents to keep some communications private - had he testified before Congress. But a three-member panel from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected that argument when it upheld his conviction in May, saying his claim "runs headlong into settled law". "This exact 'advice of counsel' defense is no defense at all," Justice Bradley Garcia wrote in that decision. A full appeals court could delay Thursday's sentencing order if it took up the case and issued its own ruling stopping its enforcement. Bannon was a key player in Trump's 2016 rise to the Oval Office and later became chief strategist at the White House. He left the administration after a violent far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, but remains a top ally of the former president. Another senior Trump aide, Peter Navarro, reported to prison in March after his own contempt of Congress conviction.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxee7gyrmnzo
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news_articles_cxee7gyrmnz
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Mike Lynch: Autonomy co-founder cleared of fraud in US trial - BBC News
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2024-06-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch was accused of fraud related to the $11bn sale of his firm to HP.
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Business
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British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been cleared of fraud charges he faced in the US over the $11bn (£8.6bn) sale of his software firm to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. A jury in San Francisco found him not guilty on all counts in a stunning victory for Mr Lynch, who had been accused of inflating the value of Autonomy, his company, ahead of its sale. Mr Lynch, who faced more than 20 years in prison if convicted, had denied the charges and took the stand to defend himself. In his testimony, he maintained he had focused on technology not accounting, distancing himself from other executives, including the company's former chief financial officer who was already successfully prosecuted for fraud.
"I am elated with today’s verdict and grateful to the jury for their attention to the facts over the last 10 weeks," Mr Lynch said in a statement. "I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field." University of Cambridge graduate Mr Lynch co-founded Autonomy in 1996 out of a specialist software research group called Cambridge Neurodynamics. He led it as it grew to be one of the UK's biggest companies, winning him comparisons to Microsoft's Bill Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs. The company, known for software that could extract useful information from "unstructured" sources such as phone calls, emails or video, was ultimately sold to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 in a deal that ranked as the largest-ever takeover of a British technology business at the time. Mr Lynch made £500m from the sale. Just a year later, HP wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8bn. The company's chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was found guilty of fraud in 2018 and later sentenced to five years in prison. US prosecutors brought charges against Mr Lynch in 2018, accusing him of inflating the value of the firm using backdated agreements to mislead about the company's sales; concealing the firm's loss-making business reselling hardware and intimidating or paying off people who raised concerns. Mr Lynch, who lives in Suffolk, was eventually extradited after a UK judge ruled in favour of HP in a similar civil fraud case in 2022. HP is seeking a reported $4bn in that case. Mr Lynch, a former UK government adviser who sat on the boards of the BBC and the British Library, had faced house arrest in the US while preparing for the trial which began in San Francisco in March. Prosecutors had called dozens of witnesses to the stand, including the former head of HP Leo Apotheker, who was fired shortly after the purchase was announced. But the arguments fell flat. Mr Lynch's team pushed the argument that HP had failed to properly vet the deal and mismanaged the takeover, while he testified he was uninvolved with the transactions being described. Judge Charles Breyer had already dismissed one count of securities fraud during the trial for lack of evidence. Abraham Simmons, a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office, said: "We acknowledge and respect the verdict. "We would like to thank the jury for its attentiveness to the evidence the government presented in this case." As well as Mr Lynch, another former finance executive at Autonomy, Stephen Chamberlain, was also on trial. He was found not guilty. Lawyers for Mr Lynch, Christopher Morvillo and Brian Heberlig, said in a statement that they were thrilled by the outcome, saying it reflected a "rejection of the government's profound overreach in this case". "This verdict closes the book on a relentless 13-year effort to pin HP's well-documented ineptitude on Dr Lynch," they said. "Thankfully, the truth has finally prevailed."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cneel8ed2vvo
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news_articles_cneel8ed2vv
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Will Rishi Sunak’s tax claim stick in voters’ minds? - BBC News
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2024-06-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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It's important to unpick the claims on all sides so you can come to an understanding, the BBC's political editor says.
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Politics
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The day after the debate night before, there is a row about a dubious Conservative claim that a Labour government would hammer you for around £2,000 more in tax over the next four years.
In last night’s debate on ITV, Rishi Sunak made the claim over and over again.
It took Sir Keir Starmer quite a while to dismiss it as false.
Today, as the debate is unpicked, it is that claim at the centre of the analysis.
And here is the key question: how memorable does that number become, and how credible is it?
BBC Verify have given it a look here - and say it risks misleading people and is questionable.
It reminds me of all those rows about the £350m for the NHS on the side of the Vote Leave bus during the Brexit referendum.
In that instance, that number was factually wrong, but there was a mighty argument about it, which made it incredibly prominent.
So, how much does £2,000 stick in people’s minds, prodding away at any fears that a Labour government might put up your taxes?
And how much do the attempts to dismiss it as “garbage” by Labour undermine the trust and credibility of the Conservatives?
Let’s take a look at that number.
The Conservatives claim, on page 6 of this document, external called Labour’s Tax Rises, that “the impact of £38.5bn in unfunded spending would be equivalent to £2,094 per working household over the next four years".
Rishi Sunak, and the cabinet minister Claire Coutinho this morning, have claimed the number, external was arrived at by impartial civil servants.
Enter the most senior civil servant at the Treasury, Permanent Secretary James Bowler, who says no it wasn’t.
That row aside, over the involvement of the Treasury, there is a question about how the number has been arrived at.
The Tories point to their document I mentioned and claim their numbers are actually underestimates of Labour’s potential costs.
And they are leaning into it - the prime minister has shared a video about it on social media.
Labour has gone into overdrive trying to shred the credibility of the number, with the whiff of overcorrection after Keir Starmer’s failure to take it on as robustly as some opposition figures wish he had last night.
Shadow Cabinet minister Jonathan Ashworth came out and called it “a lie” this morning, and Sir Keir Starmer has done the same this afternoon.
There has been a video, too, from the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Labour supporters have been emailed by the party asking for donations so they can take on Rishi Sunak who “lied 11 times”.
All of which raises the prominence of the row.
A fleeting observer of politics – in other words the vast majority of people – may only hear about the story in the loosest terms, in other words: Labour and more tax.
And that is its potency.
So how sticky does this claim become, in the minds of voters, and how credible is it regarded? They are the two big questions.
Incidentally, in the interests of transparency, it raises a dilemma for reporters like me.
Do you report the row, and so raise the prominence of a contested figure, or not report it, and not do so?
Both are active choices and there is no simple answer.
My instinct, for what it is worth, is it would be odd for me to walk past the political row of the day, but it is important to reflect it in a rounded way that attempts to unpick the claims on all sides – so you can come to your own view about what is happening.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq55e9dz79lo
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England Euro 2024 squad: Strong argument Gareth Southgate got decisions right - BBC Sport
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2024-06-07
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https://www.facebook.com/BBCSport/
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England manager Gareth Southgate has made bold calls in his Euro 2024 squad - but chief football writer Phil McNulty says he has got them right.
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England Men
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England manager Gareth Southgate will take a squad of 26 to Euro 2024
England manager Gareth Southgate has been accused of ignoring form when shaping squads of the past. It is a charge that cannot be levelled at him over his squad for Euro 2024 in Germany. There will be justified claims that Everton's Jarrad Branthwaite should have got the nod ahead of Brighton central defender Lewis Dunk, but elsewhere Southgate has been ruthless and got it right. The omission of Manchester City's Jack Grealish may be the big talking point - but has he played well enough this season to be selected ahead of Crystal Palace's Eberechi Eze, Newcastle United wide man Anthony Gordon or West Ham United's consistently excellent Jarrod Bowen? Has Tottenham's James Maddison done enough to edge in ahead of a similar group? In November the answer would have been in the affirmative. Southgate, in answer to his critics, has gone with form and made the bold, big calls that look correct when examined in the current context. And what a reflection on the fine work going on at Crystal Palace they are. Adam Wharton has come from nowhere to be the "bolter" in England's squad but his brilliant cameo against Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday told Southgate all he needed to know. Wharton's calm and assured work on the ball, as well as a vision of what is going on around him, persuaded the manager that he should go to Germany. He has wowed Southgate and team-mates. Could he even make it for the opening game against Serbia?
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Southgate on the difficult decision to leave players out
Eze falls into the same category. Exciting and fearless - just what is needed at a major tournament. The Palace forward has edged in ahead of 28-year-old Grealish, a selection that is bound to spark much comment, especially as the Manchester City player is such a popular figure with England fans. Measured in football terms, however, Eze is the only choice Southgate could have made on form at the end of the season. If City manager Pep Guardiola was unconvinced by Grealish, why should Southgate feel different? This will, however, be a selection that will be thrown back at Southgate should England fail at Euro 2024. For the avoidance of doubt, this observer believes there is a very strong argument that Southgate has got it right. Manchester United central defender Harry Maguire is a different case. If he had been anywhere near fit he would have been selected. For all the conversation around his recent form at club level, Southgate would have pencilled him in to start against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen. Southgate will regard Maguire's absence as a serious blow. It means Crystal Palace's Marc Guehi is in line to partner John Stones, while Liverpool's Joe Gomez and Aston Villa defender Ezri Konsa add versatility and adaptability. England's squad has a bold and fresh look, feeding into the optimism that surrounds their chances at Euro 2024. Southgate has avoided the conundrum of deciding between Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins and Brentford's Ivan Toney as potential deputy to captain Harry Kane by picking both – adding to the feeling that England's manager is adopting a positive approach to his squad and Euro 2024. There will be much discussion around Southgate's picks for Germany, but his critics cannot accuse him of dodging the big decisions and this looks like an England squad that can travel to Germany with high hopes.
The Team Selector cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable JavaScript or try another browser. Select your England XI for their Euro 2024 final against Spain
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c72217p52z5o
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Steve Bannon: Ex-Trump aide ordered to prison - BBC News
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2024-06-07
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A US court has ordered ex-Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon to turn himself in by 1 July.
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US & Canada
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Steve Bannon was convicted in 2022 for contempt of Congress
A US federal judge has ordered Donald Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon to report to prison by 1 July to serve a four-month sentence. The order on Thursday comes after years of legal wrangling, with an appeals court last month upholding Bannon's 2022 criminal conviction for contempt of Congress. The right-wing podcaster was found to have illegally refused to testify before the committee investigating the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot. Bannon, 70, has denied any criminal wrongdoing and his lawyer called the ruling a "horrible decision".
After Thursday's decision, Bannon said he and his lawyers would "go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to". "There's not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up," he defiantly told reporters outside the courthouse in Washington DC. He called the legal challenges against him a plan for "shutting down the Maga movement" - a reference to former President Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan. Bannon has said he was following legal advice in refusing to testify before the House committee investigating 6 January, when rioters ransacked the US Capitol with the goal of stopping the certification of Joe Biden's election win. Bannon's lawyer David Schoen, who has called the case against his client politically motivated, also vowed to appeal to a higher court. Mr Schoen said his client would have been violating Trump's invocation of executive privilege - a legal concept that allows presidents to keep some communications private - had he testified before Congress. But a three-member panel from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected that argument when it upheld his conviction in May, saying his claim "runs headlong into settled law". "This exact 'advice of counsel' defense is no defense at all," Justice Bradley Garcia wrote in that decision. A full appeals court could delay Thursday's sentencing order if it took up the case and issued its own ruling stopping its enforcement. Bannon was a key player in Trump's 2016 rise to the Oval Office and later became chief strategist at the White House. He left the administration after a violent far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, but remains a top ally of the former president. Another senior Trump aide, Peter Navarro, reported to prison in March after his own contempt of Congress conviction.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxee7gyrmnzo
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news_articles_cxee7gyrmnz
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Childminder admits killing baby boy in her care - BBC News
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2024-06-07
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Karen Foster, 62, admits shaking baby Harlow Collinge "out of frustration" after he had fallen over.
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Lancashire
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Harlow Collinge was a "funny, playful baby", his family said
A childminder has admitted shaking and killing a nine-month-old baby she was supposed to be looking after. Karen Foster, 62, claimed Harlow Collinge had fallen over and banged his head and that she shook him "out of frustration". The boy was taken to hospital from the address in Hapton, near Burnley, Lancashire, on 1 March, 2022, but died four days later. Foster was due to stand trial at Preston Crown Court for Harlow's murder but the prosecution accepted a plea of manslaughter.
Karen Foster, 62, claimed she shook Harlow Collinge "out of frustration"
The basis of her plea was that her "forceful shaking" caused Harlow's death after he fell out of his high-chair and began crying, the court heard. Foster, a registered childminder with nine years experience, called 999 to say he was not breathing, and told a paramedic he had "suddenly collapsed". In legal arguments, the court heard a CT scan of Harlow's head showed significant injuries to the brain, with bleeding on both sides and swelling. He had been described as a "healthy and happy boy" beforehand. Foster had also been charged with assaulting a two-year-old girl in her care in 2019, which she denied. That count was ordered to lie on the file.
Harlow's mother, sitting in the public gallery, sobbed when the guilty plea was entered. Judge Mr Justice Cotter told Foster, who appeared in the dock leaning on crutches: "I am sure you have been advised that the likely sentence is one of a substantial period in custody and you should be well aware of that." She is due to be sentenced on Thursday. Since his death Harlow's family said they had been campaigning for cameras to be installed on premises where childminders work. In a tribute posted on a crowdfunding page, they said: "He was a funny, playful baby who loved Peter Rabbit, milkshakes and pink wafer biscuits. "He loved it when his sister sang songs to him, he loved his doggies and running around in his baby walker. "He loved his family, his mummy and daddy, brother and sisters, and his grandparents so much. "He has left a Harlow shaped hole no one can fill"
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cekkdmr0l14o
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news_articles_cekkdmr0l14
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Mike Lynch: Autonomy co-founder cleared of fraud in US trial - BBC News
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2024-06-07
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch was accused of fraud related to the $11bn sale of his firm to HP.
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Business
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British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been cleared of fraud charges he faced in the US over the $11bn (£8.6bn) sale of his software firm to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. A jury in San Francisco found him not guilty on all counts in a stunning victory for Mr Lynch, who had been accused of inflating the value of Autonomy, his company, ahead of its sale. Mr Lynch, who faced more than 20 years in prison if convicted, had denied the charges and took the stand to defend himself. In his testimony, he maintained he had focused on technology not accounting, distancing himself from other executives, including the company's former chief financial officer who was already successfully prosecuted for fraud.
"I am elated with today’s verdict and grateful to the jury for their attention to the facts over the last 10 weeks," Mr Lynch said in a statement. "I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field." University of Cambridge graduate Mr Lynch co-founded Autonomy in 1996 out of a specialist software research group called Cambridge Neurodynamics. He led it as it grew to be one of the UK's biggest companies, winning him comparisons to Microsoft's Bill Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs. The company, known for software that could extract useful information from "unstructured" sources such as phone calls, emails or video, was ultimately sold to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 in a deal that ranked as the largest-ever takeover of a British technology business at the time. Mr Lynch made £500m from the sale. Just a year later, HP wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8bn. The company's chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was found guilty of fraud in 2018 and later sentenced to five years in prison. US prosecutors brought charges against Mr Lynch in 2018, accusing him of inflating the value of the firm using backdated agreements to mislead about the company's sales; concealing the firm's loss-making business reselling hardware and intimidating or paying off people who raised concerns. Mr Lynch, who lives in Suffolk, was eventually extradited after a UK judge ruled in favour of HP in a similar civil fraud case in 2022. HP is seeking a reported $4bn in that case. Mr Lynch, a former UK government adviser who sat on the boards of the BBC and the British Library, had faced house arrest in the US while preparing for the trial which began in San Francisco in March. Prosecutors had called dozens of witnesses to the stand, including the former head of HP Leo Apotheker, who was fired shortly after the purchase was announced. But the arguments fell flat. Mr Lynch's team pushed the argument that HP had failed to properly vet the deal and mismanaged the takeover, while he testified he was uninvolved with the transactions being described. Judge Charles Breyer had already dismissed one count of securities fraud during the trial for lack of evidence. Abraham Simmons, a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office, said: "We acknowledge and respect the verdict. "We would like to thank the jury for its attentiveness to the evidence the government presented in this case." As well as Mr Lynch, another former finance executive at Autonomy, Stephen Chamberlain, was also on trial. He was found not guilty. Lawyers for Mr Lynch, Christopher Morvillo and Brian Heberlig, said in a statement that they were thrilled by the outcome, saying it reflected a "rejection of the government's profound overreach in this case". "This verdict closes the book on a relentless 13-year effort to pin HP's well-documented ineptitude on Dr Lynch," they said. "Thankfully, the truth has finally prevailed."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cneel8ed2vvo
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news_articles_cneel8ed2vv
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John Curtice: A debate between two, with others sniping from the sidelines - BBC News
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2024-06-08
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Labour's Angela Rayner and Penny Mordaunt for the Conservatives regularly traded blows, says Sir John Curtice.
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Politics
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A debate between two, with others sniping from the sidelines
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. D-Day, taxes and the NHS: Moments from the BBC debate
The debate on Friday night was meant to be one discussion between seven party representatives. In practice it was a debate between just two of them, while the remaining participants were largely left to snipe from the sidelines. The two principals in the night’s drama, at least in their own eyes, were Angela Rayner for Labour and Penny Mordaunt for the Conservatives. Positioned next to each other, in what proved to be the sparkiest exchanges of the night, they regularly traded blows over the apparent failure of the Conservatives’ record and the alleged cost of Labour’s promises. For the most part they largely ignored the five other participants aligned to their right, even though both of them came under regular fire from one or other of the smaller party representatives. Nigel Farage trained his firepower on the Conservatives, including on Mr Sunak’s failure to attend the full set of D-Day commemorations, its record on immigration, and on some spending cuts. He was joined in that endeavour by Daisy Cooper for the Liberal Democrats, albeit from a different perspective. She was as keen as Ms Rayner to attack the Conservatives’ record in office. Meanwhile in the case of Stephen Flynn of the SNP, Carla Denyer of the Greens and Rhun ap Iorwerth for Plaid Cymru, it was Labour that was the principal butt of their interventions. All three in their various ways argued that Labour was promising too little money for public services, on welfare, on climate change, and on immigration, and that in their view the party was not offering a real alternative to the Conservatives. The diverse stances taken by the other party figures reflect the very different opportunities and challenges that they face in this election.
Mr Farage’s Reform UK party is primarily peeling voters off the Conservatives, while the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win Conservative-held seats. The SNP and the Greens primarily involved in battles with Labour both for seats and votes. And although in 2019 both the Conservatives and Labour posed a threat in Plaid’s best prospects, the party has probably calculated that it is Labour who in practice poses the greater threat. What perhaps was more surprising, given the electoral terrain in which they find themselves, was the apparent reluctance of Ms Rayner and Ms Mordaunt to respond to the criticism from the other participants in the room. After all, the Conservatives are currently losing more voters to Reform UK than to Labour, while Labour are involved in a key battle with the SNP for votes and seats in Scotland. Still, despite the lack of interchange between the wider room, the debate did expose voters to a more wide-ranging set of arguments than those they have been hearing from Labour and the Conservatives. It is, of course, up to those voters to decide what they made of it. John Curtice is Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde, and Senior Fellow, National Centre for Social Research and ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’. He is also co-host of the Trendy podcast.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0vvxw4egnzo
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Sunak and Starmer hammer home key messages as polling day nears - BBC News
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2024-07-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Despite the rhetoric the Conservative campaign is undeniably crouched in a defensive posture.
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Politics
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There’s just three days to go until this general election campaign draws to a close and the fate of Britain’s leading politicians passes to the voters. This is not a moment where the scope of the campaign suddenly widens. Instead it narrows as the parties - especially the two main parties - hone in on the core messages they hope will appeal to the crucial slices of the British public they need to win. If you hear Rishi Sunak or Sir Keir Starmer say something today, expect to hear them say it tomorrow and on Wednesday too. This is not a time for variation but for repetition. So what are those messages? Well, Mr Sunak believes he will still be prime minister by the end of the week. At least that’s what he told Laura Kuenssberg yesterday. Look at the Conservative campaign as it enters the home stretch, though, and it is undeniably crouched in a defensive posture.
It is hard to believe that when Prime Minister Sunak walked into the Downing Street rain 40 days ago to announce this general election that he anticipated spending the final three days of the campaign warning of a Labour victory so large that Sir Keir might wield "unchecked" power. Whatever they say publicly, the way the Conservatives are approaching this week shows that they believe the dire opinion polling is plausible at the very least. Campaigning in the Midlands today Mr Sunak is warning that, whatever Nigel Farage claims, Reform UK cannot hope to be the true opposition because they "just won’t win enough votes to oppose Labour". He is expected to say: "Just imagine that - hundreds and hundreds of Labour MPs opposed by just one, two, three, four, five elected [Reform] MPs." Note that this argument takes as a given that there will be hundreds and hundreds of Labour MPs. That assumption speaks to the complicated multidirectional fight the Conservatives face at the moment: trying to stop voters heading to Labour but also using different arguments to stop other former Conservatives heading to Reform and, in other parts of the country, the Liberal Democrats.
The candidate controversies of recent days as well as Mr Farage’s claim that the west "provoked" the war in Ukraine have at least given the Conservatives something they struggled to find earlier in the campaign - a way to attack Reform UK. Some Conservative candidates wish they had done so earlier. That is the public conversation taking place in the Conservative Party with three days to go. Then there is another conversation, which ranges from the semi-public to the private. What next?
In The Telegraph today, external, Jesse Norman, a former minister standing for re-election, has written an 813-word article about the election. Not the general election, which in his first line he appears to concede to Labour, but the Conservative leadership election he assumes would follow. Mr Norman moots the possibility that the role of Conservative Party members should be reduced, and that the leadership election should not be rushed. Some of Mr Norman’s colleagues are less focused on the process but on the candidates - though that question would be shaped by who is left remaining in parliament on 5 July.
In one respect Labour's task is more straightforward. In England at least, it is fighting only in one direction - seeking to win over former Conservative voters. (Although there are some very quiet jitters about possible areas of Reform strength in some Labour seats, especially in South Yorkshire). In Labour’s campaign they are relieved and pleased that they have made it through the entire campaign with essentially one consistent one-word message: Change. Note that in the final days the message is being adapted, though, to warn voters that if they want change “you have to vote for it”. That betrays more than a flicker of concern that some potential Labour voters may see the result as a foregone conclusion and as a result stay at home or vote for another party. The overwhelming approach is bullish though. For that just look at the fact that Sir Keir kicked off his campaigning today in Hitchin - a part of Hertfordshire which last had a Labour MP six years before Mr Sunak was born.
Labour has its own semi-public, semi-private conversation bubbling away too. Publicly it is still claiming, as Jon Ashworth did this morning, that the Conservatives could win the general election. Privately, Labour circles are abuzz with conversations about preparations for government. This has been the fiefdom of Sue Gray, the chief-of-staff who Sir Keir controversially poached last year from a lifetime in the civil service. After 14 years in opposition, few senior members of the Labour Party, be they MPs or officials, have any experience of being in government - a key reason why Sir Keir hired Ms Gray. Interestingly, should Labour win Ms Gray appears likely to be joined in Downing Street by Morgan McSweeney, who has run the party’s election campaign. In that event, expect a potential Labour government to quickly claim that what they have uncovered on the government books is worse than they had expected - an argument the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has pre-emptively questioned., external Labour strategists believe that David Cameron went a long way to securing the Conservatives’ 2015 election victory in the days after he became prime minister in 2010 - when he used the trappings of office to mount a concerted assault on Labour’s record. Expect the same again. Of course, Labour may not get there. Only postal votes have so far been cast. But make no mistake - from the way the two main parties are campaigning in these final days, they both believe this is the most plausible scenario.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c880lmmvzppo
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South Africa's cabinet: The winners and losers in Cyril Ramaphosa's government - BBC News
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2024-07-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed the most ideologically diverse government in South Africa's history.
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Africa
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The winners and losers in South Africa's historic new government
Living up to his reputation as a skilled negotiator, South Africa's President Cyril Rampahosa appears to have outmanoeuvred his main coalition partner - the Democratic Alliance (DA) - in talks over the formation of a new government, while also taking steps to neutralise radical opposition parties demanding the nationalisation of white-owned land. Mr Ramaphosa announced a 32-member cabinet on Sunday, which saw him keep 20 posts - more than 60% - for his African National Congress (ANC). In contrast, he gave the centre-right DA six seats - less than 20% - despite the party demanding 30%, following a power-sharing deal it signed with the ANC after the 29 May election failed to produce an outright winner. But to boost the DA's representation in the government, Mr Ramaphosa also appointed six of the party's officials as deputy ministers, including in finance where the ANC's Enoch Godongwana - respected by both the business sector and trade unions - has remained in charge. The appointments came after tough negotiations with the DA and a furious exchange of letters, which saw Mr Ramaphosa accuse the party of trying to form a "parallel government" in breach of the constitution. Mr Ramaphosa further diluted the DA's influence in the new cabinet by giving another six posts to smaller parties - from the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) to the Afrikaner nationalist Freedom Front Plus, making it the most ideologically diverse government in South Africa's history. In keeping with tradition since the end of the racist system of apartheid in 1994, the government also represents all race groups, with ministerial or deputy ministerial posts given to members of the white, coloured - as people of mixed race are referred to in South Africa - and Indian communities. This comes after an election in which voters showed that they "don’t care if the cat is black or white, but whether it catches the mice”, political analyst Thembisa Fakude told the BBC. However, there is still resistance to Mr Ramaphosa's decision to sign a coalition deal with the DA. Led by John Steenhuisen, the party is often accused of trying to protect the economic privileges that white people built up during apartheid - a charge it denies. "Oil and water do not mix," a black security guard told the BBC. Forming what he called a government of national unity, Mr Ramaphosa also gave a deputy ministerial post to the Muslim Al Jama-ah party, in a clear sign that he intends to continue backing the Palestinians over Israel, despite opposition from the DA. This perception was strengthened by the appointment of former justice minister Ronald Lamola as foreign minister. A lawyer, Mr Lamola led South Africa's opening arguments in the genocide case it brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice. He takes over from Naledi Pandor, who failed to be re-elected to parliament. Apart from backing the Palestinian cause, she also strengthened South Africa's ties with the Brics club of nations, which is seen as a rival to the West, and Russia. Political analyst Prince Mashele told the BBC he doubted that South Africa would remain a major force internationally, as the ANC had lost its political dominance. He argued that South Africa's partners in Brics - including Brazil, Russia, India and China - would "see that they are dealing with a weak partner".
The ANC was backed by the former Soviet Union when it was fighting minority rule
Mr Ramaphosa was forced to appoint a coalition government after the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time. He was voted in for a second term by parliament only after the DA agreed to back him in exchange for seats at the top table of government. The ANC got 40% in May's election, while the DA came second with 22%. The DA initially demanded 11 cabinet posts - along with the deputy presidency or the post of minister in the presidency for Mr Steenhuisen. In the end, Mr Steenhuisen was forced to settle for the post of agriculture minister. But Mr Steenhuisen welcomed the deal, saying the "DA is proud to rise to the challenge, and take our place, for the very first time, at the seat of national government". He said the DA had "refused to accept watered-down compromises and... drove a hard bargain at times to ensure that the portfolios we get are of real substance". Mr Steenhuisen's position is likely to help allay the fears of the country's white farmers, many of whom feel threatened by the demands of what are now the two biggest opposition parties - former President Jacob Zuma's MK party and Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) - for the nationalisation of white-owned land. But the DA leader's appointment was offset by Mr Ramaphosa's surprise decision to give the new land reform ministry to the PAC - a former liberation movement which fought white-minority rule under the slogan "Africa for the Africans". The PAC waged its election campaign under the theme "Our Land, Our Legacy", and called for the "decolonisation and the restoration of land to its original owners". The portfolio, which was previously combined with agriculture, will be held by PAC leader Mzwanele Nyhontso. The PAC's decision to serve in government for the first time ever is likely to help Mr Ramaphosa fend off criticism from MK and the EFF that he has betrayed the liberation struggle by forming an alliance with the DA.
South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma has fallen out with the ANC
Mr Ramaphosa kept all the economic portfolios for the ANC, dropping plans to give the trade and industry ministry to the DA after strong resistance from within his party, as well as the black business lobby and the trade union movement. They believed that handing the portfolio to the DA would undermine the ANC's black economic empowerment policies. The pro-free market DA opposes the policies, arguing that they stifle investment, fuel corruption and simply enrich the ANC's business cronies. In his regular column on the TimesLive news site, former Business Day editor Peter Bruce said the ANC's top brass "couldn’t bear the prospect of the DA anywhere near the economic levers", forcing Mr Steenhuisen to settle for agriculture in a "mediocre trade" for the trade and industry ministry. Political analyst Ongama Mtimke told the BBC that the portfolios retained by the ANC were important in tackling racial inequality, and Mr Ramaphosa’s choices were intended to “show to the comrades that we are still on track as far as advancing the revolution is concerned”. But Mr Fakude said the ANC and DA were likely to find enough common ground on economic policy. The ANC had shifted to the centre since it took power three decades ago, though it might still disagree with the DA over issues such as privatisation, Mr Fakude said, adding: "Other than that I think they do share a lot of things in common.” Mr Ramaphosa gave the DA other key portfolios - including basic education in a nation where literacy levels are low and language policy in schools is a deeply emotive issue, public works and infrastructure, and home affairs. The latter is seen as a political hot potato - as Mr Fakude pointed out, it "deals with the borders and illegal African immigration into South Africa". Following his appointment as public works minister, Dean Macpherson said he was "absolutely committed to ramping up infrastructure investment so that we turn South Africa into a big construction site that will drive economic growth to deliver jobs". The public works department has been embroiled in several corruption scandals and the DA has repeatedly vowed a "zero-tolerance" approach to tackle the problem. Mr Ramaphosa gave two portfolios to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Though allied with the DA, the party has adopted a neutral posture since the poll, and urged the two big parties to resolve their differences as they haggled over the cabinet's composition. Mr Ramaphosa gave its leader Velenkosini Hlabisa the ministry of cooperative governance and traditional affairs. The IFP is close to the Zulu monarchy, with Mr Hlabisa's appointment seen as another move by Mr Ramaphosa to neutralise the threat posed by Mr Zuma, who has called for greater powers to be given to South Africa's largely ceremonial monarchs and chiefs. Mr Ramaphosa also gave the all-important police ministry to an ANC leader from Mr Zuma's home province of KwaZulu-Natal, which has a long history of political violence. Senzo Mchunu succeeds another ANC leader from KwaZulu-Natal, Bheki Cele, who was not re-elected. Mr Cele largely failed to contain violence in the province, with more than 300 people killed in riots following the imprisonment of Mr Zuma in 2021 for contempt of court after he defied an order to cooperate with a commission of inquiry into corruption during his presidency. KwaZulu-Natal is likely to face a renewed threat of unrest when Mr Zuma goes on trial, expected to be next year, on charges of corruption over an arms deal negotiated in the 1990s. Mr Zuma denies any wrongdoing, and sees the case as politically motivated. Having deep animosity for Mr Ramaphosa who ousted him as president in 2018, Mr Zuma campaigned for MK after breaking ranks with the ANC last December. He led the party into coming third in the election, playing a major role in depriving the ANC of its parliamentary majority. With the ANC and DA now joined at the hip, MK will assume the role of the official opposition, setting the scene for fierce confrontation with the new coalition partners.
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The far right came close to power in France. What about the rest of Europe? - BBC News
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2024-07-10
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Whatever the result of France's election, its impact will be seismic, says Europe editor Katya Adler.
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BBC InDepth
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In the 2002 Presidential election, some French voters clipped a clothes peg to their noses on their way to polling stations - a way of showing they’d vote for a candidate they didn’t really like, just to keep out the far right.
This was a far right that for years was led by Marine Le Pen’s father, with French former members of a Nazi-led Waffen SS unit in his party ranks.
Fast-forward to 2024, and Marine Le Pen’s ambition, 10 years in the making, to detoxify her father’s party – changing its name and trying hard to clean up its image - appears to have been a roaring success.
The cordon sanitaire now has a searing gash in it, after the leader of France’s centre-right Les Républicains struck a deal with the RN not to compete against each other this Sunday in specific constituencies. This was an earthquake in French politics.
Crucially for Marine Le Pen, those who support her aren’t embarrassed to admit it any more. The RN is no longer viewed as an extremist protest movement. For many, it offers a credible political programme, whatever its detractors claim.
French voters trust the RN more than any other party to manage their economy and (currently poor) public finances, according to an Ipsos poll for the Financial Times newspaper. This is despite the party’s lack of government experience and its largely unfunded tax-cutting and spending plans.
Which begs the question, when you observe the angst-ridden despair in liberal circles in Europe at the growing success of the so-called “New Right”: if traditional lawmakers had served their electorates better, perhaps there’d be less of an opening for European populists to walk into?
By populists, I mean politicians like Ms Le Pen who claim to listen to and speak on behalf of “ordinary people”, defending them against “the establishment”.
This “them and us” argument is extremely effective when voters feel anxious and ignored by governing powers. Just look at Donald Trump in the US, the sudden unexpected breakthrough of Reform UK in Thursday’s UK election and the huge success of Germany’s controversial anti-migration AfD party.
In France, many perceive President Macron - a former merchant banker - as arrogant, privileged and remote from the everyday cares of ordinary people outside the Paris bubble. A man who made difficult lives even tougher, they say, by raising the national pension age and trying to put up fuel prices, citing environmental concerns.
It must be a source of frustration for France’s president that his success at lowering unemployment rates and the billions of euros he spent trying to soften the economic effects of the Covid and energy crises seem largely forgotten.
Meanwhile, the RN concentrated much of its campaign on the cost-of-living crisis.
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Suella Braverman in spat with Kemi Badenoch over 'breakdown' jibe - BBC News
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2024-07-10
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A public row flares up between two potential Conservative leadership contenders.
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Politics
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Braverman in spat with Badenoch over 'breakdown' jibe
A row has broken out between potential Tory leadership rivals Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch after Mrs Badenoch accused the former home secretary of having a "very public" nervous breakdown. As first reported by The Times,, external Mrs Badenoch used a shadow cabinet meeting to criticise Rishi Sunak, but also Mrs Braverman for making public attacks on the party during the election campaign. Mrs Badenoch said, external it was a "shame" the discussion had been leaked and that there needed to be a "private space" for Conservatives to discuss their challenges. Responding in a social media post,, external Mrs Braverman said: "I'd be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks I'm having a "very public nervous breakdown," adding the hashtag: "We don't leak".
During the shadow cabinet meeting, held on Tuesday, Mrs Badenoch said some of her colleagues were failing to grasp the "enormity" of the party's general election defeat, which saw them slip to their lowest ever number of MPs. She was also critical of Mr Sunak, attacking his decision to hold the election in July without consulting cabinet ministers and for leaving D-Day commemorations early. After her comments were leaked, Mrs Badenoch appeared to defend making the criticism. "In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it," she said in a post on social media., external "That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards." Suella Braverman hit back in a further social media message, saying: "Kemi, and the rest of the cabinet, should not have nodded along, as they and Rishi took the party to disaster. "The refusal to take responsibility is at the root of our problem. "It was not someone else’s fault."
So far no-one has publicly declared that they’re going to run to replace Mr Sunak, who has said he will carry on as leader as long as the party wants him to. Tory MPs are keeping tight-lipped about who they are likely to support. But any hope that the contest will unify the party will have been dashed with the very public spat between Mrs Braverman and Mrs Badenoch. A shadow Cabinet minister who was present at Tuesday’s meeting where Mrs Badenoch criticised Mr Sunak, said: “We all know what Kemi is doing.” Another said at least one colleague has told her privately that she needs to be “less abrasive” if she wants to win over colleagues. Others have been irritated by Mrs Braverman’s actions. She wrote an article on the eve of the general election which was highly critical of Mr Sunak. A speech earlier this week has also riled some Conservatives including Ben Houchen the mayor of Teesside. He told Times Radio: “If the Conservative party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman, then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come.” While no timetable has been set out for the leadership contest there seems to be a growing consensus among MPs that a longer process would be better for the party. One former Cabinet minister said they’d like the party conference in October to be a chance for members to assess the merits of each candidate. Next week, Conservative MPs will vote on which of their colleagues should sit on the party board - the group that will decide the rules for the leadership race. Voting for party board membership had taken place on Wednesday but is being re-run after one of the candidates was left off the ballot paper.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg3eqy1r5q0o
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Trial begins for religious sect accused of killing child - BBC News
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2024-07-10
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Fourteen people have been charged after allegedly denying the diabetic girl insulin due to their beliefs.
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Australia
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Members of an Australian religious group have gone on trial accused of killing an eight-year-old diabetic girl by denying her medical care and offering prayer instead.
Elizabeth Struhs was found dead at a home in Toowoomba - about 125km (78 mi) west of Brisbane - in January 2022, after she had allegedly gone without insulin for several days.
Prosecutors say the sect shunned the use of medicine and trusted God to “heal” the child - “extreme beliefs” which had already almost ended Elizabeth’s life in similar circumstances three years before.
The girl's parents are among the 14 defendants, all of whom have refused lawyers.
They have also all opted to enter no pleas on the charges. Formally, the court considers that a plea of not guilty.
Two men - Elizabeth’s father Jason Struhs, 52, and the religious group’s leader Brendan Stevens, 62 - have been charged with murder, with prosecutors saying they knew the group's actions would likely kill Elizabeth.
The girl's mother, Kerrie Struhs, 49, brother Zachary Struhs, 21, and ten others - aged 22 to 67 - are accused of manslaughter.
As the trial began at the Queensland Supreme Court on Wednesday, the group filed in one by one, clad in prison clothes, taking their allocated positions in a courtroom specifically modified to fit them all.
Due to the complexity and notoriety of the case, the trial is being heard by a judge only - no jury - and is expected to last for around three months.
When opening her case, prosecutor Caroline Marco said Elizabeth had been an "intelligent, spiritual child".
"But [she was] too young to understand the dire consequences of her parents' decision... which she ultimately paid for with her own life.”
Ms Marco alleged that in early January 2022, both parents made the decision to first reduce the amount of insulin given to their daughter, and then withdraw it completely.
Members of the sect then gathered at the home to pray, she said, and it was “visible to all who saw her” that Elizabeth’s health was in danger. But there was “no attempt” to get a doctor.
She later died after having "suffered for days" , said the prosecutor.
The court heard Mrs Struhs had only been out of prison for a few weeks, after being convicted of failing to provide insulin to her daughter on another occasion in 2019.
That time, the girl spent a month in hospital after medical treatment was eventually sought by her father.
Jason Struhs previously had not agreed with the group's beliefs, the judge was told, but had been baptised while his wife was in prison.
“He knew if he did not change he would lose his family and wife so pushed aside convictions of faith he once held, and joined them," Ms Marco said.
Over the course of the trial, the court would hear from 60 witnesses including one of the Struhs' daughters, who is estranged from the family, Ms Marco said.
The evidence, she added, would paint a picture of a small and “insular” religious group which centred around Brendan Stevens.
Prosecutors will continue laying out their arguments on Thursday, after which the defendants will also have the opportunity to address the court.
Before the trial began, Justice Martin Burn said stressed that he was obliged to provide sufficient information to ensure they got a fair trial, but could not provide them with legal advice.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c97dq22nj0lo
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Tories must win back Reform UK voters, says Suella Braverman - BBC News
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2024-07-10
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The ex-home secretary says Nigel Farage's party poses an "existential threat" to the Tory party.
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Politics
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Potential Tory leadership contender Suella Braverman has said her party must win back Reform UK voters if it is to recover from its crushing election defeat. The former home secretary, tipped to run in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak, said Nigel Farage's party posed an "existential threat" to the Tories. Warning that her party no longer had the "luxury of a monopoly" over right-wing voters, she added it needed to do more focus on “core Conservative policies”. But other senior Tories have cautioned against moving to the right, as the party seeks to recover from its lowest-ever base of MPs. Tory Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said that embracing Reform UK could prolong the party's stretch in opposition by "many, many years". "Nobody in the Conservative Party that I’ve personally spoken to thinks that’s a good idea," he added.
The Conservatives now have only 121 MPs, down 251, after an election drubbing that has posed big questions for the future direction of the party. The Conservative vote dropped from 13.9m at the last election in 2019 to just 6.8m. Reform UK, whose platform included a freeze on "non-essential immigration" and scrapping net zero rules, won won 4.1m votes and five MPs. Harrow East MP Bob Blackman has been chosen as the new chairman of the 1922 backbench committee, which sets the rules for the party leadership contest, replacing longtime chairman Sir Graham Brady, who did not stand for re-election as an MP. No Conservative MPs have yet announced their candidacy, with a debate under way over when and how the contest should take place. Alongside Mrs Braverman, other possible leadership contenders include former ministers Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, and Priti Patel. Two other former ministers, Robert Jenrick and Victoria Atkins, appeared on the Sunday political shows to offer their views on the future of the party, in a sign they are also thinking of running. Meanwhile, shadow home secretary Mr Cleverly has called for the party to "unite" and "get our act together". In an article for the Times newspaper, external, he said the Tories had "lost our well-deserved reputation for competence and good government" as the party was "too often preoccupied with infighting". He said the party "has always been at its best when it embraces being a broad church". "We lost voters to the left and the right, and we won’t win them all back if we narrow our offer," he added.
The Conservative post-mortem began at a Westminster conference of Popular Conservatism, the right-wing faction launched earlier this year by former PM Liz Truss, who lost her seat at last week's election. Speaking via video link from another right-wing conference in the US, Mrs Braverman urged the party to take a tougher line on immigration, cutting regulations and insulating government bodies from the “lunatic woke virus”. She said the rise of Reform UK was "all our own fault", as the Conservatives had failed to address “out of control population growth” in recent years. She added that the party should also leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), arguing it had prevented ministers from tackling illegal migration. She said Mr Farage's party, which began life less than five years ago as the Brexit Party, had succeeded in winning over "many of our traditional lifelong voters", posing "an existential threat to us electorally". “It’s no good denigrating Reform voters. It’s no good smearing the Reform party," she added. “They are now their voters, and we need to do everything we can to win them back."
Suella Braverman was beamed into the London conference from Washington DC
Former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who also lost his seat last week, offered a similar solution, arguing the "Conservative family", including Reform UK, had won 11 million votes combined at last week's poll. He added that the result was an "alarm bell against the arrogance of presumption that we thought we had a divine right to rule and a divine right to certain voters". "We didn't. We thought our core vote had nowhere else to go. They did. "And we cannot just assume that the pendulum will swing back to us or that all the Reform voters will suddenly repent. We need to win them over one way or another." However, Lord Houchen warned against embracing Reform UK, adding it would prolong the Tories' "road to redemption” with voters. Pointing out that his party lost a string of seats to the Liberal Democrats in Tory heartlands, he added the election "wasn’t an ideological one, it was about effective governance".
The argument over the future direction has also been reflected in a procedural debate over how the leader should be chosen. Re-elected Tory MP and former minister George Freeman has argued that the party's leadership rules, introduced in 1998, should be changed to strip party members of the final vote on the winner. He has suggested activists should whittle the longlist down to "three or four" candidates, with the party's MPs then picking the winner. But figures on the right of the party, including Mrs Braverman and Mr Rees-Mogg, have railed against the idea of taking the decision away from Tory members. There is also an argument under way over when the contest should take place. Increasingly, Conservatives have argued in favour of a longer contest, rather than rushing to choose a new leader over the summer. Speaking on Sunday, outgoing 1922 committee chairman Sir Graham said the need for a debate over the future leader needed to be balanced against the need to provide "effective opposition quite quickly". He added that he did not see "any need" to change the current voting process, under which MPs choose two final candidates that go to a members' vote. He added that this would require changing the party's constitution, and there was "unlikely to be majority" for this.
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Tories must aim to be broad church, urges James Cleverly - BBC News
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2024-07-10
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The shadow home secretary warns against "narrowing" the party's offer to voters after its defeat.
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Politics
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Tories must aim to be broad church, urges Cleverly
Potential Tory leadership contender James Cleverly has urged the party not to "narrow our offer" as it seeks to rebuild after its election thrashing. Writing in the Times, external, the shadow home secretary said the party should aim to be a "broad church" to win back voters from left and right. It comes after senior Tories on the right of the party urged it to focus on winning back former Tory voters who opted for Nigel Farage's Reform UK. On Tuesday, former cabinet minister Suella Braverman urged the party to build its offer around “core Conservative policies”. Addressing a right-wing Tory group on Tuesday, she backed a departure from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and accused government bodies of harbouring a “lunatic woke virus”.
So far no Tory MPs have declared they will run in the contest to replace former prime minister Rishi Sunak as the next Conservative leader. A timetable is yet to be announced, with a number of Tories suggesting they would favour a longer contest concluding later this year. Arriving at the Spectator magazine’s Westminster garden party on Tuesday evening, ex-party chair Richard Holden said he expected a new leader to be decided "at the back end of the year". Former Brexit secretary David Davis echoed this, saying he expected the result would not be known "until about Christmas". Other possible leadership contenders include Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Victoria Atkins, all ministers under Mr Sunak at the election. Former home secretary Priti Patel has also been tipped to run, as has Robert Jenrick, who quit as Mr Sunak's immigration minister last year after a row over legislation to deliver the now-ditched Rwanda deportation scheme. Ms Badenoch reportedly launched a scathing attack on Mr Sunak at the first shadow cabinet since last week's poll, criticising his decision to call an early election without telling ministers, and his “disastrous” decision to leave D-Day commemorations in France early. In a social media post, she said it was a "shame" the discussions were leaked, adding: "We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards". "In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it," she added.
The Conservative vote dropped to 6.8m in last week's election, down from 13.9m at the last election in 2019, sparking a furious debate over what the party should do next as it seeks to recover its standing with voters. Reform UK, which ran on a platform of cutting migration, slashing foreign aid and leaving the ECHR, garnered 4.1m votes, winning give seats. Some figures on the right of the party, including Ms Braverman, have said the focus should be on winning back Reform voters, many of whom backed the Conservatives at the 2019 election. But in his Times article, Mr Cleverly warned: "The Conservative Party has always been at its best when it embraces being a broad church. "We lost voters to the left and the right, and we won’t win them all back if we narrow our offer," he added. He said the party should not "descend into bitter infighting and finger pointing", adding that the immediate focus should be becoming a "credible opposition" to Sir Keir Starmer's newly-minted Labour government.
Rules for the contest are yet to be decided, with some Tories arguing that the current system, under which MPs choose two contenders to go before a vote of party activists, should be overhauled. Some Tories have said party members should lose their casting vote on the winner - a move that would require changing the party's constitution, and is likely to be fiercely resisted by MPs on the right of the party. Bob Blackman, the newly-elected chair of the 1922 committee that will set the leadership election rules, said members should get the “ultimate say”. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he added he wanted potential candidates to get "exposure in Parliament” so other MPs, as well as party members, can see how they perform in opposition. Surveys of party members for ConservativeHome, a popular website among activists, have suggested Ms Badenoch has the highest approval ratings among members of the mooted leadership contenders. This was also borne out in a survey by pollsters YouGov for researchers at Sussex University and Queen Mary University of London, the first such poll of Tory members opinion since last week's election. It put Ms Badenoch as the most popular, followed by Ms Braverman, Mr Tugendhat and then Mr Cleverly.
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Suella Braverman in spat with Kemi Badenoch over 'breakdown' jibe - BBC News
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2024-07-11
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A public row flares up between two potential Conservative leadership contenders.
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Politics
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Braverman in spat with Badenoch over 'breakdown' jibe
A row has broken out between potential Tory leadership rivals Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch after Mrs Badenoch accused the former home secretary of having a "very public" nervous breakdown. As first reported by The Times,, external Mrs Badenoch used a shadow cabinet meeting to criticise Rishi Sunak, but also Mrs Braverman for making public attacks on the party during the election campaign. Mrs Badenoch said, external it was a "shame" the discussion had been leaked and that there needed to be a "private space" for Conservatives to discuss their challenges. Responding in a social media post,, external Mrs Braverman said: "I'd be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks I'm having a "very public nervous breakdown," adding the hashtag: "We don't leak".
During the shadow cabinet meeting, held on Tuesday, Mrs Badenoch said some of her colleagues were failing to grasp the "enormity" of the party's general election defeat, which saw them slip to their lowest ever number of MPs. She was also critical of Mr Sunak, attacking his decision to hold the election in July without consulting cabinet ministers and for leaving D-Day commemorations early. After her comments were leaked, Mrs Badenoch appeared to defend making the criticism. "In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it," she said in a post on social media., external "That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards." Suella Braverman hit back in a further social media message, saying: "Kemi, and the rest of the cabinet, should not have nodded along, as they and Rishi took the party to disaster. "The refusal to take responsibility is at the root of our problem. "It was not someone else’s fault."
So far no-one has publicly declared that they’re going to run to replace Mr Sunak, who has said he will carry on as leader as long as the party wants him to. Tory MPs are keeping tight-lipped about who they are likely to support. But any hope that the contest will unify the party will have been dashed with the very public spat between Mrs Braverman and Mrs Badenoch. A shadow Cabinet minister who was present at Tuesday’s meeting where Mrs Badenoch criticised Mr Sunak, said: “We all know what Kemi is doing.” Another said at least one colleague has told her privately that she needs to be “less abrasive” if she wants to win over colleagues. Others have been irritated by Mrs Braverman’s actions. She wrote an article on the eve of the general election which was highly critical of Mr Sunak. A speech earlier this week has also riled some Conservatives including Ben Houchen the mayor of Teesside. He told Times Radio: “If the Conservative party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman, then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come.” While no timetable has been set out for the leadership contest there seems to be a growing consensus among MPs that a longer process would be better for the party. One former Cabinet minister said they’d like the party conference in October to be a chance for members to assess the merits of each candidate. Next week, Conservative MPs will vote on which of their colleagues should sit on the party board - the group that will decide the rules for the leadership race. Voting for party board membership had taken place on Wednesday but is being re-run after one of the candidates was left off the ballot paper.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg3eqy1r5q0o
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Pressure growing to scrap two-child benefit limit - BBC News
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2024-07-11
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Labour MPs and opposition parties say the cap is increasing child poverty, ahead of next week's King's Speech.
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Politics
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The government is facing growing calls to scrap the two-child benefit limit, in next week's King's Speech - including from its own MPs. Many Labour MPs oppose the limit as they say it increases child poverty. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said he is “not immune” to those arguments but scrapping it is currently unaffordable. Some Labour MPs are hoping for a change of heart next Wednesday, when the new government formally sets out the laws it wants to bring in over the next year. Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, has already said she plans to lay "an amendment to the King's Speech calling for the cap to scrapped" if plans do not change. In a post on social media, external, Ms Johnson said the move would "immediately lift 250,000 children out of poverty".
One new Labour MP told BBC News: “We just need to be patient and wait for the King’s Speech,” adding, with a grin: “I’m very optimistic.” The number of children affected by the two-child benefits cap increased to 1.6 million in the year to April, Department for Work and Pensions data shows, while 440,000 households had their benefits cut, an increase of almost 8%. The policy – introduced by the previous, Conservative government – prevents households on universal or child tax credit from receiving payments for a third or subsequent child born after April 2017. Scrapping the policy this year would cost the current, Labour government £2.5bn, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank. The size of Labour's Commons majority means it could easily see off even a significant rebellion of its own MPs, as well as opposition party votes. But Mr Starmer may be anxious to avoid an early showdown over an issue about which many of his MPs feel strongly.
In a social-media post, external, City of Durham Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy said: "Too many families in the North East are affected by the two-child limit. We need to scrap the cap." The Liberal Democrats have not ruled out tabling an amendment in Parliament next week to increase pressure on the Labour leader. "Let's see what's in the King's Speech," leader Sir Ed Davey said when asked if his party would take such a step. "We believe that the strength of the arguments are so good that the government will be forced to listen." Green Party MP Sian Berry said: “Greens would scrap the cap immediately and we are making plans to work through every means we can and with anyone we can cross party to push ministers to scrap this cruel policy.” The Scottish National Party has long called for the two-child cap to be abolished but the party’s heavily reduced group of MPs has yet to decide on a strategy in Parliament for pressuring Labour to scrap it. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has also spoken out against the two-child cap, external.
Olympia says a little help would make a huge difference to her family
Olympia, a performing-arts teacher, lives with her husband, who works in retail distribution, and has a daughter, seven, and two sons, six and two. And the family, from Redcar, Teesside, have had their benefits capped due to the two-child limit. “My son has never had a new school jumper because I know he will fit into my daughter’s,” Olympia, who asked for her surname to be withheld, told BBC Radio 4's Woman’s Hour programme. “There have been instances, especially when it comes to the end of the month, where we’ve had to improvise and be like, ‘There’s no cereal, there’s a tin of beans to go between three children.' “What makes my first two children more important than my third? Olympia said she was “very aware” she and her husband had chosen to have the children but added a little bit of help would make a huge difference.
Capped households, 59% of whom are in work, lose up to about £3,500 a year in benefits for their third and each subsequent child, Resolution Foundation analysis shows. And while 41% of children in large families were living in relative poverty in 2016-17, when the policy was introduced, that proportion is set to rise to 51% by the end of this Parliament. “There isn’t much evidence to show that the policy has achieved its stated aims of boosting employment and reducing the number of children families have,” Lalitha Try, from the Resolution Foundation, said. “But there is clear evidence of the financial losses that affected families are facing, and rising rates of poverty.” Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said: “We will work to give every child the best start in life by delivering our manifesto commitment to implement an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty,” “I will hold critical meetings with charities and experts next week to get this urgent work under way.”
Sasha Das Gupta, who co-chairs left-wing Labour campaign group Momentum, said: “Labour cannot simply promise a ‘strategy’ on this - we need to scrap the cap and promote bold policies for all. Momentum is preparing to launch an online tool to put pressure on MPs to scrap the two-child benefit cap. It will be the first time Labour’s new intake of MPs will be subject to lobbying on a major policy issue. The tool will help constituents lobby their Labour MPs via email. Those without a Labour MP will be encouraged to email Mr Starmer.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80xv9qqn85o
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Tories must aim to be broad church, urges James Cleverly - BBC News
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2024-07-11
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The shadow home secretary warns against "narrowing" the party's offer to voters after its defeat.
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Politics
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Tories must aim to be broad church, urges Cleverly
Potential Tory leadership contender James Cleverly has urged the party not to "narrow our offer" as it seeks to rebuild after its election thrashing. Writing in the Times, external, the shadow home secretary said the party should aim to be a "broad church" to win back voters from left and right. It comes after senior Tories on the right of the party urged it to focus on winning back former Tory voters who opted for Nigel Farage's Reform UK. On Tuesday, former cabinet minister Suella Braverman urged the party to build its offer around “core Conservative policies”. Addressing a right-wing Tory group on Tuesday, she backed a departure from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and accused government bodies of harbouring a “lunatic woke virus”.
So far no Tory MPs have declared they will run in the contest to replace former prime minister Rishi Sunak as the next Conservative leader. A timetable is yet to be announced, with a number of Tories suggesting they would favour a longer contest concluding later this year. Arriving at the Spectator magazine’s Westminster garden party on Tuesday evening, ex-party chair Richard Holden said he expected a new leader to be decided "at the back end of the year". Former Brexit secretary David Davis echoed this, saying he expected the result would not be known "until about Christmas". Other possible leadership contenders include Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Victoria Atkins, all ministers under Mr Sunak at the election. Former home secretary Priti Patel has also been tipped to run, as has Robert Jenrick, who quit as Mr Sunak's immigration minister last year after a row over legislation to deliver the now-ditched Rwanda deportation scheme. Ms Badenoch reportedly launched a scathing attack on Mr Sunak at the first shadow cabinet since last week's poll, criticising his decision to call an early election without telling ministers, and his “disastrous” decision to leave D-Day commemorations in France early. In a social media post, she said it was a "shame" the discussions were leaked, adding: "We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards". "In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it," she added.
The Conservative vote dropped to 6.8m in last week's election, down from 13.9m at the last election in 2019, sparking a furious debate over what the party should do next as it seeks to recover its standing with voters. Reform UK, which ran on a platform of cutting migration, slashing foreign aid and leaving the ECHR, garnered 4.1m votes, winning give seats. Some figures on the right of the party, including Ms Braverman, have said the focus should be on winning back Reform voters, many of whom backed the Conservatives at the 2019 election. But in his Times article, Mr Cleverly warned: "The Conservative Party has always been at its best when it embraces being a broad church. "We lost voters to the left and the right, and we won’t win them all back if we narrow our offer," he added. He said the party should not "descend into bitter infighting and finger pointing", adding that the immediate focus should be becoming a "credible opposition" to Sir Keir Starmer's newly-minted Labour government.
Rules for the contest are yet to be decided, with some Tories arguing that the current system, under which MPs choose two contenders to go before a vote of party activists, should be overhauled. Some Tories have said party members should lose their casting vote on the winner - a move that would require changing the party's constitution, and is likely to be fiercely resisted by MPs on the right of the party. Bob Blackman, the newly-elected chair of the 1922 committee that will set the leadership election rules, said members should get the “ultimate say”. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he added he wanted potential candidates to get "exposure in Parliament” so other MPs, as well as party members, can see how they perform in opposition. Surveys of party members for ConservativeHome, a popular website among activists, have suggested Ms Badenoch has the highest approval ratings among members of the mooted leadership contenders. This was also borne out in a survey by pollsters YouGov for researchers at Sussex University and Queen Mary University of London, the first such poll of Tory members opinion since last week's election. It put Ms Badenoch as the most popular, followed by Ms Braverman, Mr Tugendhat and then Mr Cleverly.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czk0dzrmpdvo
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Suella Braverman in spat with Kemi Badenoch over 'breakdown' jibe - BBC News
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2024-07-12
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A public row flares up between two potential Conservative leadership contenders.
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Politics
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Braverman in spat with Badenoch over 'breakdown' jibe
A row has broken out between potential Tory leadership rivals Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch after Mrs Badenoch accused the former home secretary of having a "very public" nervous breakdown. As first reported by The Times,, external Mrs Badenoch used a shadow cabinet meeting to criticise Rishi Sunak, but also Mrs Braverman for making public attacks on the party during the election campaign. Mrs Badenoch said, external it was a "shame" the discussion had been leaked and that there needed to be a "private space" for Conservatives to discuss their challenges. Responding in a social media post,, external Mrs Braverman said: "I'd be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks I'm having a "very public nervous breakdown," adding the hashtag: "We don't leak".
During the shadow cabinet meeting, held on Tuesday, Mrs Badenoch said some of her colleagues were failing to grasp the "enormity" of the party's general election defeat, which saw them slip to their lowest ever number of MPs. She was also critical of Mr Sunak, attacking his decision to hold the election in July without consulting cabinet ministers and for leaving D-Day commemorations early. After her comments were leaked, Mrs Badenoch appeared to defend making the criticism. "In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it," she said in a post on social media., external "That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards." Suella Braverman hit back in a further social media message, saying: "Kemi, and the rest of the cabinet, should not have nodded along, as they and Rishi took the party to disaster. "The refusal to take responsibility is at the root of our problem. "It was not someone else’s fault."
So far no-one has publicly declared that they’re going to run to replace Mr Sunak, who has said he will carry on as leader as long as the party wants him to. Tory MPs are keeping tight-lipped about who they are likely to support. But any hope that the contest will unify the party will have been dashed with the very public spat between Mrs Braverman and Mrs Badenoch. A shadow Cabinet minister who was present at Tuesday’s meeting where Mrs Badenoch criticised Mr Sunak, said: “We all know what Kemi is doing.” Another said at least one colleague has told her privately that she needs to be “less abrasive” if she wants to win over colleagues. Others have been irritated by Mrs Braverman’s actions. She wrote an article on the eve of the general election which was highly critical of Mr Sunak. A speech earlier this week has also riled some Conservatives including Ben Houchen the mayor of Teesside. He told Times Radio: “If the Conservative party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman, then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come.” While no timetable has been set out for the leadership contest there seems to be a growing consensus among MPs that a longer process would be better for the party. One former Cabinet minister said they’d like the party conference in October to be a chance for members to assess the merits of each candidate. Next week, Conservative MPs will vote on which of their colleagues should sit on the party board - the group that will decide the rules for the leadership race. Voting for party board membership had taken place on Wednesday but is being re-run after one of the candidates was left off the ballot paper.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg3eqy1r5q0o
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news_articles_cg3eqy1r5q0
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Pressure growing to scrap two-child benefit limit - BBC News
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2024-07-12
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Labour MPs and opposition parties say the cap is increasing child poverty, ahead of next week's King's Speech.
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Politics
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The government is facing growing calls to scrap the two-child benefit limit, in next week's King's Speech - including from its own MPs. Many Labour MPs oppose the limit as they say it increases child poverty. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said he is “not immune” to those arguments but scrapping it is currently unaffordable. Some Labour MPs are hoping for a change of heart next Wednesday, when the new government formally sets out the laws it wants to bring in over the next year. Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, has already said she plans to lay "an amendment to the King's Speech calling for the cap to scrapped" if plans do not change. In a post on social media, external, Ms Johnson said the move would "immediately lift 250,000 children out of poverty".
One new Labour MP told BBC News: “We just need to be patient and wait for the King’s Speech,” adding, with a grin: “I’m very optimistic.” The number of children affected by the two-child benefits cap increased to 1.6 million in the year to April, Department for Work and Pensions data shows, while 440,000 households had their benefits cut, an increase of almost 8%. The policy – introduced by the previous, Conservative government – prevents households on universal or child tax credit from receiving payments for a third or subsequent child born after April 2017. Scrapping the policy this year would cost the current, Labour government £2.5bn, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank. The size of Labour's Commons majority means it could easily see off even a significant rebellion of its own MPs, as well as opposition party votes. But Mr Starmer may be anxious to avoid an early showdown over an issue about which many of his MPs feel strongly.
In a social-media post, external, City of Durham Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy said: "Too many families in the North East are affected by the two-child limit. We need to scrap the cap." The Liberal Democrats have not ruled out tabling an amendment in Parliament next week to increase pressure on the Labour leader. "Let's see what's in the King's Speech," leader Sir Ed Davey said when asked if his party would take such a step. "We believe that the strength of the arguments are so good that the government will be forced to listen." Green Party MP Sian Berry said: “Greens would scrap the cap immediately and we are making plans to work through every means we can and with anyone we can cross party to push ministers to scrap this cruel policy.” The Scottish National Party has long called for the two-child cap to be abolished but the party’s heavily reduced group of MPs has yet to decide on a strategy in Parliament for pressuring Labour to scrap it. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has also spoken out against the two-child cap, external.
Olympia says a little help would make a huge difference to her family
Olympia, a performing-arts teacher, lives with her husband, who works in retail distribution, and has a daughter, seven, and two sons, six and two. And the family, from Redcar, Teesside, have had their benefits capped due to the two-child limit. “My son has never had a new school jumper because I know he will fit into my daughter’s,” Olympia, who asked for her surname to be withheld, told BBC Radio 4's Woman’s Hour programme. “There have been instances, especially when it comes to the end of the month, where we’ve had to improvise and be like, ‘There’s no cereal, there’s a tin of beans to go between three children.' “What makes my first two children more important than my third? Olympia said she was “very aware” she and her husband had chosen to have the children but added a little bit of help would make a huge difference.
Capped households, 59% of whom are in work, lose up to about £3,500 a year in benefits for their third and each subsequent child, Resolution Foundation analysis shows. And while 41% of children in large families were living in relative poverty in 2016-17, when the policy was introduced, that proportion is set to rise to 51% by the end of this Parliament. “There isn’t much evidence to show that the policy has achieved its stated aims of boosting employment and reducing the number of children families have,” Lalitha Try, from the Resolution Foundation, said. “But there is clear evidence of the financial losses that affected families are facing, and rising rates of poverty.” Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said: “We will work to give every child the best start in life by delivering our manifesto commitment to implement an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty,” “I will hold critical meetings with charities and experts next week to get this urgent work under way.”
Sasha Das Gupta, who co-chairs left-wing Labour campaign group Momentum, said: “Labour cannot simply promise a ‘strategy’ on this - we need to scrap the cap and promote bold policies for all. Momentum is preparing to launch an online tool to put pressure on MPs to scrap the two-child benefit cap. It will be the first time Labour’s new intake of MPs will be subject to lobbying on a major policy issue. The tool will help constituents lobby their Labour MPs via email. Those without a Labour MP will be encouraged to email Mr Starmer.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80xv9qqn85o
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Kelso Cochrane murder: Suspect told police he'd kill a black man - BBC News
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2024-07-13
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A newly released police file reveals that officers knew a key suspect was a violent racist.
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London
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The police file on one of the UK's most notorious unsolved murders shows a prime suspect had told officers he intended to kill a black man. Kelso Cochrane, a carpenter from Antigua, was stabbed to death in May 1959, during an attack by a white gang in Notting Hill, west London. No-one was ever charged. The murder came a year after the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, but police said there was no racist motive and that Cochrane had been killed for money. For years, requests to release the file were rejected but members of Cochrane’s family obtained it through a Freedom of Information request. Millicent Christian, daughter of Cochrane’s cousin, says it was “so emotional” to hear the file was being opened. But now, after reading the first tranche of papers, both she and her brother Louie have “mixed feelings”. The file reveals that one of the suspects, John William Breagan, had already been jailed for stabbing three black men, and had told police at the time of his arrest for that crime that he would kill the first black man he saw after his release. With that evidence available at the start, Millicent and Louie cannot understand why the investigation never progressed. “Within two months of the murder officers are admitting it was unlikely to be solved,” says Louie. “That’s crazy.”
The file contains a wealth of detail about the events surrounding the killing and the police investigation. The attack occurred on the night of 16 May 1959, as 32-year-old Cochrane was returning from Paddington General Hospital, where he had received treatment for a broken thumb. His fiancee, Olivia Ellington, told police he had already had medical treatment once but his thumb was still hurting and he couldn’t sleep. So he got up and went back to hospital.
It was on his return that a gang of white men surrounded him on Southam Street in Notting Hill, near the junction with Golborne Road. Two Jamaican passers-by came to his rescue and took him to another nearby hospital, where doctors discovered he had been stabbed in the chest with a very thin blade. Cochrane was pronounced dead at 01:00 in the morning on 17 May. Even though white youths had attacked black residents in Notting Hill a year before, this was the first time a black person had been killed in the area. It made the papers’ front pages and caused widespread alarm, especially among the Windrush generation.
Det Supt Ian Forbes-Leith took on the case hours after the murder, and deployed a large team to start house-to-house enquiries. Dr Mark Roodhouse, an expert on policing in London in the 1950s, describes the first stage of the investigation as very thorough. “It quickly led to them identifying key suspects,” he says. “But when the next stage developed, which was interrogating those suspects, things seem to slow down.” Officers began by interviewing witnesses. One of the Jamaicans who had helped Cochrane remembered him saying: “Those chaps asked me for money. I told them I didn’t have any. They started to fight me.”
Some other people who had seen the attack were reluctant to talk, a police report in the file says. Two women who had watched what happened from their windows were described as “evasive”. “One feels they are not telling all they know,” the report says. Another witness, Michael Behan, said he saw two white youths running to the junction where the attack took place. He identified one as John William Breagan, who was 24. Breagan had been at a party nearby, along with Patrick Digby, who was 20, and a group of their friends - all young white men, many with criminal records.
Digby was interviewed just after 18:00 on Monday 18 May. He initially denied leaving the party. He said he had got drunk and “passed out” - only waking in an armchair at about 08:00 the following morning. He was interviewed again two hours later, and this time admitted leaving the party with John Breagan, known as “Shoggy”. He said they had got into an argument with someone and went for a walk to “cool their feelings”. A group of white youths passed them, he told police, walking in the direction of Southam Street. When he and Breagan turned into the street, there was no sign of the youths but they saw a black man sitting in the gutter. They then saw two other black men come to the seated man’s aid. This statement was of “paramount importance” to police: it put Digby at the scene. They detained him, and searched for Breagan.
By 01:00 in the morning of 19 May Breagan was being interviewed too. He told police that he and Digby had left the party to look for girls, as there “wasn’t enough to go round”. He claimed they went for a walk and saw a black man sitting down in Southam Street. Breagan said he told Digby: “Come on. We don’t want to get any trouble with people like that.” Police described this account as “most unsatisfactory”. They believed Breagan and Digby “had put their heads together and concocted a story to account for their presence at the scene of the attack if they happened to be identified by witnesses”. But their stories were contradictory. The police recognised that “obviously one or both were lying” about why they had left the party. They detained Breagan too.
While Digby was “a known troublemaker” according to the police, Breagan was a far more “vicious” character. Two years earlier he had been sentenced to three years in prison for three separate unprovoked attacks on black men, all on the same day, stabbing them in the face and the body. It was when he was arrested for these offences that he told two police officers, using a racial slur: “If I do time for this, when I come out I’ll kill the first [black person] I see. I mean that too.” Cochrane was murdered 10 days after Breagan was released. Millicent Christian says she was “speechless” when she saw this comment in the files. “How could police miss this?” she says. “He has said exactly what he was going to do.”
Sanchia Berg investigates why one of Britain’s first post-war racist killings remains unsolved.
In one of the newly released documents, police described Breagan and Digby as “strong suspects”. Over the next 48 hours all efforts were concentrated on them. But although they had good evidence that racism could be a factor, publicly the police ruled it out. A senior Scotland Yard told journalists that officers were satisfied “it was not a racial killing” and that robbery had been the motive. Mark Olden, the author of an investigation into the case, Murder in Notting Hill, says that after the riots in 1958, there was concern at the highest levels about reaction to the Cochrane murder. He says the only explanation is that police were “concerned about a repeat or worse of the race riots of the year before” and that “public order concerns were foremost in their minds”. At the time, he adds, everyone in the local community “thought it was a racist attack”.
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At about 19:00 on 20 May, Breagan said he wanted to do another interview. This time he said he had stopped Digby from getting into a fight at the party, and had suggested they go for a walk. The file doesn’t indicate why he changed his statement, which now tallied with Digby’s. Mark Olden - who spoke to Breagan before he died - says he told him they had been held in adjacent cells at the police station, which allowed them to communicate and “straighten” their stories. Police wrote that they were now “reluctantly obliged” to release both men without charge.
Nearly 1,000 people had been interviewed by mid-July, when Det Supt Forbes-Leith produced a report to sum up what had been achieved. “Despite the most exhaustive enquiries… not one shred of evidence has been forthcoming to suggest who the culprits were,” he wrote. He noted there was a “general feeling” that Digby and Breagan were responsible, together with others who had been at the party with them. But he added: “This, however, is surmise and not one of the group has had a finger pointed at him with certainty.” His views were echoed by his superior officer, Chief Supt James Dunham, who said that despite prolonged interrogation of the two suspects and “scientific examination” of their clothing nothing had emerged to connect them to the “murderous act”. Dunham said a large proportion of those interviewed were “inveterate liars”. “Little or no information has been forthcoming from residents or habitues of this squalid slum area,” he wrote. The only way to make progress would be to use “‘outside’ information or assistance”, he said. It is not clear what this means. Certainly, the case did not move forward from that point.
Both prime suspects - Breagan and Digby - are now dead, along with many of the witnesses. Yet for decades the Metropolitan Police said the case was still open. So even though the files had been transferred to the National Archives, they could not be released because information might prejudice the “detection of crime”, under Section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act. Over the years many people have tried to get the files open - including me. But the Kelso Cochrane family, with expert legal support, assembled a comprehensive Freedom of Information application. When it was turned down, they appealed and won. The Metropolitan Police told us that “our thoughts remain with Mr Cochrane’s family”, and that any new evidence that came to light would be “assessed and investigated accordingly”.
Cochrane's daughter Josephine says black people's deaths are less thoroughly investigated
Before he came to the UK Kelso Cochrane had lived in the US. He had married there and had a child. His daughter Josephine never knew him growing up, because he was killed when she was still very young. She told us: “There is some joy that I found him. There’s some joy that I could talk about him to my grandchildren and children.” She says she wasn’t surprised that the prime suspects were detained so quickly, that one had even threatened to kill a black man, and yet the investigation didn’t progress. “It’s normal to me,” she says. “This is what happens in the world. This is how certain people are treated and certain people act. People know they can get away with things. “When a black person is murdered it starts out that the police are investigating and by the end of the month they’re not investigating any more. And if people like me don’t chase, to find out what happened to our family members… it’ll just go in the archives. That’s just how people like me have been treated in the United States and all over the world.” The police file is being released in sections, as some redactions are being made for data protection reasons. There are several more tranches to come.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2q0x76e4ppo
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Hungary's Orban goes global as self-styled peacemaker without a plan - BBC News
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2024-07-13
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A one-man mission by Viktor Orban has infuriated leaders in the EU and US.
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Europe
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Orban goes global as self-styled peacemaker without a plan
Viktor Orban finished off his global tour with Donald Trump, dubbing his visit "Peace mission 5.0"
Hungary's Viktor Orban has no peace plan of his own, but he has spent the past two weeks on a whistle-stop tour of Kyiv, Moscow, Azerbaijan, Beijing, Washington and even Mar-a-Lago, on a one-man mission that has infuriated leaders in the EU and US. "Peace will not come by itself in the Russia-Ukraine war, someone has to make it," he proclaims in videos posted daily on his Facebook page. He has been bitterly attacked by both Brussels and Washington for breaking EU and Nato unity and cosying up to Vladimir Putin and China’s leader Xi Jinping. Few argue with his central premise, that there can be no peace without peacemakers. But his close economic relationship with Russia’s president leaves him open to the charge of acting as Mr Putin’s puppet. The right-wing Hungarian PM says a ceasefire tied to a specific deadline would be a start. "I am not negotiating on behalf of anyone," he told Hungarian radio during a brief stopover in Budapest between visits to Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and Mr Putin in Moscow.
Mr Orban visited the Russian leader, three days after his trip to Kyiv
For the next six months, Hungary holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Mr Orban followed up his first visit to Kyiv since the start of the war with the first trip by an EU leader to Russia since April 2022. That visit to the Kremlin clearly angered his European partners. Charles Michel, the head of the European Council of 27 EU governments, said the rotating presidency gave no mandate to engage with Russia on the EU’s behalf. Mr Orban admitted that was the case, but insisted: "I’m clarifying the facts… I’m asking questions." In Kyiv he posed "three or four" to President Zelensky "so that we can understand his intentions, and where the red line is, the boundary up to which he can go in the interest of peace". He has also been generous in his praise of two other allies, Xi Jinping and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Meeting Mr Erdogan on arrival at the Nato summit in Washington, he spoke of him as "the only man who has overseen an agreement between Russia and Ukraine" so far, referring to a now defunct Black Sea grain agreement.
Mr Orban's whistlestop tour began with a visit to Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky on 2 July
"China not only loves peace but has also put forward a series of constructive and important initiatives [for resolving the war]," he said of President Xi Jinping, according to Chinese state media. The final visit on his whirlwind tour was to presidential candidate Donald Trump, another close ally who he strongly backs to win again in November and who he refers to as a man of peace. In one interview, he declared that during Trump’s four-year term as president “he did not initiate a single war". This has been a remarkable trip in the international limelight for the leader of a small East European country with 9.7 million inhabitants. But who is it designed to impress, and could it have any effect? A key target of his message is the domestic public. Viktor Orban has had a relatively bad year so far, losing the two most prominent female politicians in his party to a scandal in February, and witnessing the emergence of his first serious challenger for more than a decade - Peter Magyar. In June, Mr Orban’s Fidesz party won an impressive 45% in European elections, to 30% for Mr Magyar’s three-month-old Tisza party. But he lost more than 700,000 votes (one in four) compared with the last parliamentary elections in 2022. For the first time, he does not look invincible. What better way to show Hungarians that their leader was still strong than to parade across the world stage, in a global tour "to make peace"? His mission was also targeted at an international public, in the week that his new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group in the European Parliament attracted 84 MEPs from mainly far-right parties in 11 countries.
Patriots for Europe has emerged as the third largest faction in parliament, edging aside the rival Conservatives and Reformist group of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. Mr Orban's visit to Moscow won him effusive praise from the Russians: “We take it very, very positively. We believe it can be very useful,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The US was less impressed. “We would welcome, of course, actual diplomacy with Russia to make it clear to Russia that they need to respect Ukraine's sovereignty, that they need to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity,” said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “But that is not at all what this visit appears to have been.” At the same time, the US did welcome Mr Orban's first visit to neighbouring Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.
The Hungarian leader has given very little away about the actual content of his talks in Kyiv, Moscow or Beijing. A leaked version of his letter to Charles Michel, sent from Azerbaijan, offers some clues. Mr Putin was open to a ceasefire, Mr Orban told the European Council president, provided it did not provide Ukraine with a chance to reorganise its army on the front lines. Three days earlier in Kyiv, on 2 July, the Ukrainian leader used a similar argument, telling Mr Orban that the Russians would abuse any ceasefire to regroup their invading forces. Mr Orban was apparently "surprised" that President Zelensky still believed Ukraine could win back its lost territories. And Vladimir Putin told Mr Orban that "time favours Russian forces", according to the leaked letter. Arriving in Washington days later, Mr Orban posted yet another video on Facebook, saying he would argue that Nato "should return to its original spirit: Nato should win peace, not the wars around it". Unlike his Nato allies, Viktor Orban views Russia’s two-and-a-half year war in Ukraine as a civil war between two Slav nations, prolonged by US support for one of them. One thing he probably does agree on is that this autumn the conflict will become only worse. A Trump presidential victory in November, he believes, would force the Ukrainians and Russians to the negotiating table.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxw2k9dnjmno
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Kelso Cochrane murder: Suspect told police he'd kill a black man - BBC News
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2024-07-14
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A newly released police file reveals that officers knew a key suspect was a violent racist.
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London
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The police file on one of the UK's most notorious unsolved murders shows a prime suspect had told officers he intended to kill a black man. Kelso Cochrane, a carpenter from Antigua, was stabbed to death in May 1959, during an attack by a white gang in Notting Hill, west London. No-one was ever charged. The murder came a year after the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, but police said there was no racist motive and that Cochrane had been killed for money. For years, requests to release the file were rejected but members of Cochrane’s family obtained it through a Freedom of Information request. Millicent Christian, daughter of Cochrane’s cousin, says it was “so emotional” to hear the file was being opened. But now, after reading the first tranche of papers, both she and her brother Louie have “mixed feelings”. The file reveals that one of the suspects, John William Breagan, had already been jailed for stabbing three black men, and had told police at the time of his arrest for that crime that he would kill the first black man he saw after his release. With that evidence available at the start, Millicent and Louie cannot understand why the investigation never progressed. “Within two months of the murder officers are admitting it was unlikely to be solved,” says Louie. “That’s crazy.”
The file contains a wealth of detail about the events surrounding the killing and the police investigation. The attack occurred on the night of 16 May 1959, as 32-year-old Cochrane was returning from Paddington General Hospital, where he had received treatment for a broken thumb. His fiancee, Olivia Ellington, told police he had already had medical treatment once but his thumb was still hurting and he couldn’t sleep. So he got up and went back to hospital.
It was on his return that a gang of white men surrounded him on Southam Street in Notting Hill, near the junction with Golborne Road. Two Jamaican passers-by came to his rescue and took him to another nearby hospital, where doctors discovered he had been stabbed in the chest with a very thin blade. Cochrane was pronounced dead at 01:00 in the morning on 17 May. Even though white youths had attacked black residents in Notting Hill a year before, this was the first time a black person had been killed in the area. It made the papers’ front pages and caused widespread alarm, especially among the Windrush generation.
Det Supt Ian Forbes-Leith took on the case hours after the murder, and deployed a large team to start house-to-house enquiries. Dr Mark Roodhouse, an expert on policing in London in the 1950s, describes the first stage of the investigation as very thorough. “It quickly led to them identifying key suspects,” he says. “But when the next stage developed, which was interrogating those suspects, things seem to slow down.” Officers began by interviewing witnesses. One of the Jamaicans who had helped Cochrane remembered him saying: “Those chaps asked me for money. I told them I didn’t have any. They started to fight me.”
Some other people who had seen the attack were reluctant to talk, a police report in the file says. Two women who had watched what happened from their windows were described as “evasive”. “One feels they are not telling all they know,” the report says. Another witness, Michael Behan, said he saw two white youths running to the junction where the attack took place. He identified one as John William Breagan, who was 24. Breagan had been at a party nearby, along with Patrick Digby, who was 20, and a group of their friends - all young white men, many with criminal records.
Digby was interviewed just after 18:00 on Monday 18 May. He initially denied leaving the party. He said he had got drunk and “passed out” - only waking in an armchair at about 08:00 the following morning. He was interviewed again two hours later, and this time admitted leaving the party with John Breagan, known as “Shoggy”. He said they had got into an argument with someone and went for a walk to “cool their feelings”. A group of white youths passed them, he told police, walking in the direction of Southam Street. When he and Breagan turned into the street, there was no sign of the youths but they saw a black man sitting in the gutter. They then saw two other black men come to the seated man’s aid. This statement was of “paramount importance” to police: it put Digby at the scene. They detained him, and searched for Breagan.
By 01:00 in the morning of 19 May Breagan was being interviewed too. He told police that he and Digby had left the party to look for girls, as there “wasn’t enough to go round”. He claimed they went for a walk and saw a black man sitting down in Southam Street. Breagan said he told Digby: “Come on. We don’t want to get any trouble with people like that.” Police described this account as “most unsatisfactory”. They believed Breagan and Digby “had put their heads together and concocted a story to account for their presence at the scene of the attack if they happened to be identified by witnesses”. But their stories were contradictory. The police recognised that “obviously one or both were lying” about why they had left the party. They detained Breagan too.
While Digby was “a known troublemaker” according to the police, Breagan was a far more “vicious” character. Two years earlier he had been sentenced to three years in prison for three separate unprovoked attacks on black men, all on the same day, stabbing them in the face and the body. It was when he was arrested for these offences that he told two police officers, using a racial slur: “If I do time for this, when I come out I’ll kill the first [black person] I see. I mean that too.” Cochrane was murdered 10 days after Breagan was released. Millicent Christian says she was “speechless” when she saw this comment in the files. “How could police miss this?” she says. “He has said exactly what he was going to do.”
Sanchia Berg investigates why one of Britain’s first post-war racist killings remains unsolved.
In one of the newly released documents, police described Breagan and Digby as “strong suspects”. Over the next 48 hours all efforts were concentrated on them. But although they had good evidence that racism could be a factor, publicly the police ruled it out. A senior Scotland Yard told journalists that officers were satisfied “it was not a racial killing” and that robbery had been the motive. Mark Olden, the author of an investigation into the case, Murder in Notting Hill, says that after the riots in 1958, there was concern at the highest levels about reaction to the Cochrane murder. He says the only explanation is that police were “concerned about a repeat or worse of the race riots of the year before” and that “public order concerns were foremost in their minds”. At the time, he adds, everyone in the local community “thought it was a racist attack”.
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At about 19:00 on 20 May, Breagan said he wanted to do another interview. This time he said he had stopped Digby from getting into a fight at the party, and had suggested they go for a walk. The file doesn’t indicate why he changed his statement, which now tallied with Digby’s. Mark Olden - who spoke to Breagan before he died - says he told him they had been held in adjacent cells at the police station, which allowed them to communicate and “straighten” their stories. Police wrote that they were now “reluctantly obliged” to release both men without charge.
Nearly 1,000 people had been interviewed by mid-July, when Det Supt Forbes-Leith produced a report to sum up what had been achieved. “Despite the most exhaustive enquiries… not one shred of evidence has been forthcoming to suggest who the culprits were,” he wrote. He noted there was a “general feeling” that Digby and Breagan were responsible, together with others who had been at the party with them. But he added: “This, however, is surmise and not one of the group has had a finger pointed at him with certainty.” His views were echoed by his superior officer, Chief Supt James Dunham, who said that despite prolonged interrogation of the two suspects and “scientific examination” of their clothing nothing had emerged to connect them to the “murderous act”. Dunham said a large proportion of those interviewed were “inveterate liars”. “Little or no information has been forthcoming from residents or habitues of this squalid slum area,” he wrote. The only way to make progress would be to use “‘outside’ information or assistance”, he said. It is not clear what this means. Certainly, the case did not move forward from that point.
Both prime suspects - Breagan and Digby - are now dead, along with many of the witnesses. Yet for decades the Metropolitan Police said the case was still open. So even though the files had been transferred to the National Archives, they could not be released because information might prejudice the “detection of crime”, under Section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act. Over the years many people have tried to get the files open - including me. But the Kelso Cochrane family, with expert legal support, assembled a comprehensive Freedom of Information application. When it was turned down, they appealed and won. The Metropolitan Police told us that “our thoughts remain with Mr Cochrane’s family”, and that any new evidence that came to light would be “assessed and investigated accordingly”.
Cochrane's daughter Josephine says black people's deaths are less thoroughly investigated
Before he came to the UK Kelso Cochrane had lived in the US. He had married there and had a child. His daughter Josephine never knew him growing up, because he was killed when she was still very young. She told us: “There is some joy that I found him. There’s some joy that I could talk about him to my grandchildren and children.” She says she wasn’t surprised that the prime suspects were detained so quickly, that one had even threatened to kill a black man, and yet the investigation didn’t progress. “It’s normal to me,” she says. “This is what happens in the world. This is how certain people are treated and certain people act. People know they can get away with things. “When a black person is murdered it starts out that the police are investigating and by the end of the month they’re not investigating any more. And if people like me don’t chase, to find out what happened to our family members… it’ll just go in the archives. That’s just how people like me have been treated in the United States and all over the world.” The police file is being released in sections, as some redactions are being made for data protection reasons. There are several more tranches to come.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2q0x76e4ppo
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Gunshots, panic and then fury - BBC correspondent's account of Trump shooting - BBC News
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2024-07-14
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The BBC's Gary O'Donoghue was broadcasting live as a gunman fired at terrified rallygoers - here's his account.
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US & Canada
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First panic, then fury - what I witnessed at Trump rally
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Sometimes sounds can be deceptive. A car backfiring can make you jump; a firework can make you flinch; but as soon as we heard the gunfire at the Butler Farm showgrounds shortly after 6pm on Saturday evening, we all knew straight away that these were gunshots, and there were lots of them. Donald Trump was mid-way through a sentence as the shots rang out. He grabbed his ear before dropping to the ground and being smothered by Secret Service agents. We didn’t know it at the time, but the gunman was perhaps 150m away from where we stood, lying flat on the roof of a shed and firing at least six rounds using an AR-15 rifle at the former president and terrifed spectators. I was about to go on air, with radio colleagues from the BBC World Service waiting on the end of a line. Instead all three of us in my team - me, producer Iona Hampson and cameraman Sam Beattie - went to the ground, using our car as some kind of shelter, the only shelter we had. We had no idea where the shooting was coming from; how many shooters there were; and how long it would go on for. Frankly it was terrifying. As we lay on the ground, Sam turned on his camera and I tried to give my first impressions of what was happening. In that moment, we had no more concrete information than that about six minutes into Donald Trump’s speech, the shooting had begun.
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As I listened I could hear screams from the crowd but I could no longer hear the former president speaking. Was he hit, was he dead? All these thoughts flash through your mind. When we felt the shooting was over, Iona picked me up off the ground and we went live on television as shocked members of the crowd poured out of the exits. The range of emotions we encountered was immense, as Iona persuaded terrified spectators to come and talk to me live on television. Many were understandably frightened; many were dazed and bewildered; some were angry, very angry. One witness, a man named Greg, said he had seen the gunman “bear-crawling” onto the roof of the shed minutes before the chaos began and had been frantically trying to point him out to police and the Secret Service. Another man – and I can understand this – was furious that we were broadcasting; he put himself between me and Sam yelling at me to stop. I laid my hand as gently as I could on his arm and explained to him while we were on air that it was important people knew what had just happened; the public, I said, had to know. Eventually, as I pleaded with him, he relented – still unhappy and still fuming, rightly so, at what he’d just experienced.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Witness tells BBC he saw gunman on roof
Others expressed their anger in more political ways. One man approached me and simply said: “They shot first. This is [expletive] war.” Another just yelled “civil war” as he passed behind me. And a few minutes later a huge electronic billboard appeared on the side of a truck – Donald Trump’s face framed in a target – the words simply read “Democrats attempted assassination - President Trump”. It sent a shiver right up my spine – and the horror of the potential consequences of this act started to sink in. But amid the fear and anger, there was profound sorrow. People who were loyal Trump supporters, committed gun owners, wondered out loud to me about the way America was going. It was as if they could no longer recognise the country they lived in – as if everything had become strange and foreign. Devin, a local farmer, was there with his son Kolbie. It was their first ever political rally – Kolbie, just 14, still not old enough to vote. But Kolbie’s first experience of the rawness of democracy was to see two wounded people loaded onto stretchers and rushed off to ambulances. It’s hard not to believe that those images of muzzle flashes he witnessed from the Secret Service snipers who took down the gunman won’t stay with him for the rest of his life.
I’ve covered at least half a dozen shootings in my ten years as a correspondent in the US – but always the immediate aftermath – never have I been present until now when someone actually pulled the trigger. I don’t want to experience it again, and in this gun-loving country, even those committed to their handguns and rifles in this rural part of Western Pennsylvania seemed sickened and worried about the randomness of the violence they witnessed in late-afternoon sunshine as they wondered whether their political hero was still alive. But what happened in Butler goes much wider than arguments over gun control. America has been spiralling towards this moment for years – a political culture that is not just adversarial but downright poisonous. People here – or should I say some people here – find it easy to hate their political opponents – it’s visceral; it’s become part of the nation’s DNA to hate. And it’s not just political. You can see it in the divisions between the coasts and the centre. Between the north and the south; between the cities and rural America – everything being defined in terms of not being something or someone else. Moments in history can only really be judged in retrospect. But I’ll take a guess that last night will go down as one of those moments. The question for the leaders of public opinion in this country is what will they now choose to do – to inflame or to calm. To further divide or to reunite. As an outsider but someone who truly loves this nation, I’m not hopeful.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnl0xq0j9ewo
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news_articles_cnl0xq0j9e
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Gunshots, panic and then fury - BBC correspondent's account of Trump shooting - BBC News
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2024-07-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The BBC's Gary O'Donoghue was broadcasting live as a gunman fired at terrified rallygoers - here's his account.
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US & Canada
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First panic, then fury - what I witnessed at Trump rally
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Sometimes sounds can be deceptive. A car backfiring can make you jump; a firework can make you flinch; but as soon as we heard the gunfire at the Butler Farm showgrounds shortly after 6pm on Saturday evening, we all knew straight away that these were gunshots, and there were lots of them. Donald Trump was mid-way through a sentence as the shots rang out. He grabbed his ear before dropping to the ground and being smothered by Secret Service agents. We didn’t know it at the time, but the gunman was perhaps 150m away from where we stood, lying flat on the roof of a shed and firing at least six rounds using an AR-15 rifle at the former president and terrifed spectators. I was about to go on air, with radio colleagues from the BBC World Service waiting on the end of a line. Instead all three of us in my team - me, producer Iona Hampson and cameraman Sam Beattie - went to the ground, using our car as some kind of shelter, the only shelter we had. We had no idea where the shooting was coming from; how many shooters there were; and how long it would go on for. Frankly it was terrifying. As we lay on the ground, Sam turned on his camera and I tried to give my first impressions of what was happening. In that moment, we had no more concrete information than that about six minutes into Donald Trump’s speech, the shooting had begun.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
As I listened I could hear screams from the crowd but I could no longer hear the former president speaking. Was he hit, was he dead? All these thoughts flash through your mind. When we felt the shooting was over, Iona picked me up off the ground and we went live on television as shocked members of the crowd poured out of the exits. The range of emotions we encountered was immense, as Iona persuaded terrified spectators to come and talk to me live on television. Many were understandably frightened; many were dazed and bewildered; some were angry, very angry. One witness, a man named Greg, said he had seen the gunman “bear-crawling” onto the roof of the shed minutes before the chaos began and had been frantically trying to point him out to police and the Secret Service. Another man – and I can understand this – was furious that we were broadcasting; he put himself between me and Sam yelling at me to stop. I laid my hand as gently as I could on his arm and explained to him while we were on air that it was important people knew what had just happened; the public, I said, had to know. Eventually, as I pleaded with him, he relented – still unhappy and still fuming, rightly so, at what he’d just experienced.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Witness tells BBC he saw gunman on roof
Others expressed their anger in more political ways. One man approached me and simply said: “They shot first. This is [expletive] war.” Another just yelled “civil war” as he passed behind me. And a few minutes later a huge electronic billboard appeared on the side of a truck – Donald Trump’s face framed in a target – the words simply read “Democrats attempted assassination - President Trump”. It sent a shiver right up my spine – and the horror of the potential consequences of this act started to sink in. But amid the fear and anger, there was profound sorrow. People who were loyal Trump supporters, committed gun owners, wondered out loud to me about the way America was going. It was as if they could no longer recognise the country they lived in – as if everything had become strange and foreign. Devin, a local farmer, was there with his son Kolbie. It was their first ever political rally – Kolbie, just 14, still not old enough to vote. But Kolbie’s first experience of the rawness of democracy was to see two wounded people loaded onto stretchers and rushed off to ambulances. It’s hard not to believe that those images of muzzle flashes he witnessed from the Secret Service snipers who took down the gunman won’t stay with him for the rest of his life.
I’ve covered at least half a dozen shootings in my ten years as a correspondent in the US – but always the immediate aftermath – never have I been present until now when someone actually pulled the trigger. I don’t want to experience it again, and in this gun-loving country, even those committed to their handguns and rifles in this rural part of Western Pennsylvania seemed sickened and worried about the randomness of the violence they witnessed in late-afternoon sunshine as they wondered whether their political hero was still alive. But what happened in Butler goes much wider than arguments over gun control. America has been spiralling towards this moment for years – a political culture that is not just adversarial but downright poisonous. People here – or should I say some people here – find it easy to hate their political opponents – it’s visceral; it’s become part of the nation’s DNA to hate. And it’s not just political. You can see it in the divisions between the coasts and the centre. Between the north and the south; between the cities and rural America – everything being defined in terms of not being something or someone else. Moments in history can only really be judged in retrospect. But I’ll take a guess that last night will go down as one of those moments. The question for the leaders of public opinion in this country is what will they now choose to do – to inflame or to calm. To further divide or to reunite. As an outsider but someone who truly loves this nation, I’m not hopeful.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnl0xq0j9ewo
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news_articles_cnl0xq0j9e
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Vaughan Gething: First minister's downfall delivers Keir Starmer first headache - BBC News
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2024-07-16
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Welsh Labour government was for so long a case study in how the party could operate in power during its long years of opposition at Westminster.
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Wales
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Just when you’d have been forgiven for thinking politics might quieten down a bit... The Welsh Labour government was for so long a case study in how the party could operate in power during its long years of opposition at Westminster. And yet here we are less than a fortnight into a UK Labour government, and the Welsh Labour government is imploding. So much for all that talk about bringing stability back to politics. Last week Vaughan Gething was sharing smiles here not just with the new prime minister but the King too. Now, he’s a goner, delivering Sir Keir Starmer a headache rather than a handshake. When I was here in March covering Mr Gething’s victory, the seeds of his political demise were germinating before our eyes. The donations row had already sprouted and his defeated opponent, Jeremy Miles, legged it from the venue without so much as any warm words about the victor on camera. It was another sign of the cultivating anger, the political knotweed that would soon flourish and ensnare Vaughan Gething.
Along came the row about alleged leaking, a sacking, a confidence vote -- and a first minister whose tenure up until today at least amounts to 2.4 times that of Liz Truss. Ouch. Westminster has generated its fair share of turbulence in the last decade. But it is far from unique as a source of turbulence in UK politics. In February, Michelle O’Neill became first minister of Northern Ireland with Emma Little-Pengelly her deputy, after a long period without devolved government at Stormont. In March, we had a new first minister of Wales, when Mark Drakeford stood down and Vaughan Gething took the job. In April we had the resignation of the first minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf. He was replaced the following month by John Swinney. June was the quiet month then. Just the small matter of a general election campaign. And here we are in July, and Mr Gething is resigning. So will begin another leadership race, a new government in Wales, a new first minister and a new team of senior Welsh ministers. There will also be more arguments about Welsh Labour – its direction, its priorities, its capacity to govern effectively and its relationship with the UK party. If you’re watching this in Downing Street, it’s the last thing you need.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce78ggzdpkgo
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news_articles_ce78ggzdpkg
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Vaughan Gething: First minister's downfall delivers Keir Starmer first headache - BBC News
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2024-07-17
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Welsh Labour government was for so long a case study in how the party could operate in power during its long years of opposition at Westminster.
|
Wales
|
Just when you’d have been forgiven for thinking politics might quieten down a bit... The Welsh Labour government was for so long a case study in how the party could operate in power during its long years of opposition at Westminster. And yet here we are less than a fortnight into a UK Labour government, and the Welsh Labour government is imploding. So much for all that talk about bringing stability back to politics. Last week Vaughan Gething was sharing smiles here not just with the new prime minister but the King too. Now, he’s a goner, delivering Sir Keir Starmer a headache rather than a handshake. When I was here in March covering Mr Gething’s victory, the seeds of his political demise were germinating before our eyes. The donations row had already sprouted and his defeated opponent, Jeremy Miles, legged it from the venue without so much as any warm words about the victor on camera. It was another sign of the cultivating anger, the political knotweed that would soon flourish and ensnare Vaughan Gething.
Along came the row about alleged leaking, a sacking, a confidence vote -- and a first minister whose tenure up until today at least amounts to 2.4 times that of Liz Truss. Ouch. Westminster has generated its fair share of turbulence in the last decade. But it is far from unique as a source of turbulence in UK politics. In February, Michelle O’Neill became first minister of Northern Ireland with Emma Little-Pengelly her deputy, after a long period without devolved government at Stormont. In March, we had a new first minister of Wales, when Mark Drakeford stood down and Vaughan Gething took the job. In April we had the resignation of the first minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf. He was replaced the following month by John Swinney. June was the quiet month then. Just the small matter of a general election campaign. And here we are in July, and Mr Gething is resigning. So will begin another leadership race, a new government in Wales, a new first minister and a new team of senior Welsh ministers. There will also be more arguments about Welsh Labour – its direction, its priorities, its capacity to govern effectively and its relationship with the UK party. If you’re watching this in Downing Street, it’s the last thing you need.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce78ggzdpkgo
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news_articles_ce78ggzdpkg
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Deadly unrest over job quotas grips Bangladesh - BBC News
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2024-07-17
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Protesters demand a merit-based system for high-paying government jobs to replace the current quota allocations.
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Asia
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Schools and universities across Bangladesh have been shut until further notice after six people were killed in protests over quotas in government jobs. University students have been holding rallies for days against the system of reserving some public sector jobs for the relatives of war heroes, who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971. Some jobs are also reserved for women, ethnic minorities and the disabled. A third of posts are kept for the family members of those categorised as war heroes. The students argue that the system is discriminatory, and they want recruitment based on merit. Several cities, including the capital Dhaka, this week witnessed clashes between supporters of the anti-quota movement and their opponents, particularly the student wing of the governing Awami League known as the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL).
Student groups attacked each other with bricks and sticks. Police fired tear gas and used rubber bullets to disperse the clashing groups. Student activists said hundreds of people had been injured in the attacks. “We blame the BCL members for the violence. They killed the protesters. Police didn’t intervene to save the ordinary students,” Abdullah Shaleheen Oyon, one of the co-ordinators of the anti-quota movement, told the BBC. Government jobs are highly coveted in Bangladesh because they pay well. In total, more than half of the positions - amounting to hundreds of thousands of jobs - are reserved for certain groups. Critics say the system unfairly benefits the families of pro-government groups who support Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won her fourth straight election in January. Ms Hasina’s government abolished the reservation in 2018, following protests. But a court ordered the authorities to reinstate the quotas in early June, triggering the latest round of protests. Officials say three people were killed in the southern port city of Chittagong and two in Dhaka, while one student was killed in the northern city of Rangpur by a stray bullet. Media reports say at least three of those killed were students, though there is no official confirmation yet. The government blames opposition groups for the violence. “The student fronts of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP] have infiltrated this anti-quota movement. They are the ones who initiated the violence,” Law Minister Anisul Huq told the BBC. Bangladesh's top court suspended the current system last week, but protests are expected to continue until it is permanently removed. “The case has been listed for hearing on 7 August. Students have been given an opportunity to present their argument in the court,” Mr Huq said. In a late-night operation on Tuesday, police raided the headquarters of the BNP, the main opposition party, in Dhaka, following the violent clashes. Senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said the raid was nothing but a drama and it was a message for the students to return home. The protests have seen students blocking roads in Dhaka and other major cities, bringing traffic to a halt. Student leaders said they were angered by recent comments by Ms Hasina who, they say, described those opposed to the job quotas as razakar – a term used for those who allegedly collaborated with the Pakistani army during the 1971 war. Several student leaders said Ms Hasina had insulted them by comparing them to razakar. The comparison, they said, also encouraged BCL members to attack them. “They want to suppress our voices through creating a reign of terror in the country. If I don’t protest today, they will beat me another day. That’s why I am on the streets to protest,” Rupaiya Sherstha, a female student at Dhaka University, told the BBC. But government ministers say Ms Hasina’s comments were misinterpreted, and she did not call the students razakar. Mohammad Ali Arafat, state minister for information and broadcasting, denied allegations that the student wing of the Awami League triggered the violence. He said the trouble began after anti-quota students intimidated residents of a hall in Dhaka. “If there’s chaos on the university campuses, there’s no benefit for the government. We want peace to be maintained,” Mr Arafat told the BBC. UN Secretary General António Guterres called on the government to "protect the demonstrators against any form of threat or violence", according to his spokesman Stephane Dujarric. The students have vowed to continue their protests until their demands are met. The government has strengthened security by deploying the paramilitary, Border Guards Bangladesh, in five main cities, including Dhaka and Chittagong.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1rzm4kjx0o
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news_articles_cd1rzm4kjx0
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Post Office: Davey says he was 'lied to' about Horizon IT flaws - BBC News
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2024-07-18
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Former Post Office minister says he was lied to about "serious flaws" in the Horizon IT system.
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Business
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Davey says he was 'lied to' about Horizon IT flaws
Former Post Office minister Ed Davey has said that he was "lied to" about "serious flaws" in the Horizon IT system. The Liberal Democrat leader told an inquiry into the Horizon scandal that "someone senior must have known the truth at some stage" about those flaws. He stopped short of accusing Post Office executives of lying to him during his time as minister between 2010 and 2012. Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters were blamed and prosecuted for losses caused by bugs in Fujitsu's faulty IT Horizon system.
Mr Davey said that former chief executive Paula Vennells and former managing director David Smith "were the people passing the information" to the government "which was untrue". He stopped short of saying that they personally lied, but later said that someone senior must have known about the flaws. Mr Davey said: "I now know I was being lied to, I follow this inquiry, and it's pretty clear that what they told my officials was not true," he said. Under questioning from lead counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer, who said that lying involved an intention to deceive, Mr Davey said of senior Post Office executives: "I cannot know what was in their minds and how the information came to them," he said. "But someone, I assume, senior, in Post Office Limited, must have known the truth, must have at some stage, understood that, and this is what I hope the inquiry will uncover." He added that what has emerged from the inquiry is that there "was knowledge of the Horizon system having serious flaws in it, within Post Office Limited, and that was not put forward to ministers, either myself or others". He added that Post Office Limited, as a body, "were misleading" the shareholder executive and ministers. "Who was responsible within Post Office Limited is quite difficult for me to know," he said. "One assumes that it was the senior executives because they had a responsible role, and I assume were asking the questions, but it's ultimately for this inquiry" to find out who knew about the flaws.
Earlier, Labour MP Pat McFadden said he had trusted Post Office assertions that its Horizon system was robust with "terrible consequences" for sub-postmasters. Mr McFadden, who had this post between 2007 and 2010, answered a number of letters from MPs in 2009 who were concerned about sub-postmasters in their constituencies. He told the inquiry that in every case the Post Office insisted that the Horizon system was robust and had been proven in court. When asked by inquiry counsel Sam Stevens why in the face of growing numbers of complaints from sub-postmasters he continued to trust the Post Office, Mr McFadden said it was due to the "emphatic" nature of their responses.
Former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton, who was made bankrupt by the Post Office after a two year legal battle, told the BBC that he accepted the argument that Mr McFadden trusted the advice he was being given by the Post Office. "You wouldn't employ a plumber and then decide what's wrong with a [broken] boiler," he said. However, he said the government could have ensured the Crown Prosecution Service was bringing prosecutions, and not the Post Office. "I really do believe that the sheer amount of money and pressure that can be brought by a public body should always be checked by a third party," he said. Mr McFadden earlier said that it was not possible to unpick exactly who had drafted the letters that he signed insisting on the robust nature of Horizon. But Mr Castleton said it was "unfair on the victims" that the "perpetrators of this seem to be surrounded in mystery". He added that he felt Mr McFadden was being "disingenuous" by saying he did not know who had drafted the letters. "It's clear that ministers were being given information by people, and those people would be known to the ministers," he said. At another point in McFadden's testimony, the inquiry was shown a series of letters from MPs including Brian Binley and Jacqui Smith. They raised concerns that random flaws in the Horizon system were causing discrepancies in accounts, with sub-postmasters having to spend their savings to pay the Post Office back. The letters also questioned prosecutions brought by the Post Office against sub-postmasters. However, the stock response that Mr McFadden signed at the time was that the Post Office itself was in charge of operational matters such as prosecutions, while the government was in charge of overall strategy. When concerns were raised about Post Office, what the government would do is go to the Post Office to get a response, Mr McFadden said. Mr McFadden said: "In every case they [Post Office] are insisting, in response to our requests, that the system is robust, that it's been proven in court, there is no evidence to suggest there's anything wrong with it [Horizon]," he said. He said the business department didn't have a "separate source" of information about Horizon except from the Post Office. When asked later why the government did not speak to sub-postmasters themselves, Mr McFadden responded that it would not have been appropriate for ministers to question the decisions of courts.
Mr McFadden added that it was for the inquiry to determine at what point the "blind faith" of Post Office management in Horizon became "something more sinister". "Clearly those responses were wrong. The evidence being used in the court to prosecute the sub-postmasters turned out to be wrong, and was proven to be wrong in the cases that overturned these judgements many years later. "What I'm not clear about is at what point in this story does blind faith from the Post Office in their IT system turn to something more sinister, where people are just not telling the truth? Now I don't know at what point that happens, but I'm sure it's something the inquiry will want to get to the bottom of." He added: "When I look back on this and I think of the terrible human consequences for the sub-postmasters who were prosecuted, even the ones who weren't prosecuted but lost large sums of money or suffered damage in other ways, of course I wish I had asked more about this." "But I do believe, given the emphatic nature of the replies, and the Post Office's use of court judgements as a proof point for the robustness of the system, at this stage in the process, I'm not sure it would have got any further." Mr McFadden was repeatedly asked why he didn't do more at the time to check the Post Office's version of events, and he said that one of the reasons he didn't was that ministers cannot interfere in court judgements.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4yvg3p0m8o
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news_articles_cw4yvg3p0m8
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Andy Malkinson could have been freed after five years - report - BBC News
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2024-07-18
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Mr Malkinson spent 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit.
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Manchester
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Minister seeks to sack chair of miscarriages of justice review body
A review found Andrew Malkinson, who waited 20 years to be exonerated of rape, was completely failed by the key agency reviewing his case
The justice secretary is to seek the sacking of the chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) following the publication of a review into the case of Andrew Malkinson. Shabana Mahmood said Helen Pitcher - who heads up the body responsible for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice - was "unable to fulfil her duties". An independent review published on Thursday found Mr Malkinson, who waited 20 years to be exonerated of rape, was completely failed by the key agency reviewing his case. The damning report concludes he could have been freed five years after receiving a life sentence for a 2003 rape.
Mr Malkinson welcomed the news, saying Ms Pitcher had "proved herself utterly unfit to lead the CCRC". The report revealed the body’s investigators and leaders failed to follow up evidence of innocence right up to 2022. The justice secretary said the findings were "sobering". "It is my firm view that Helen Pitcher is unfit to fulfil her duties as chair of the CCRC. I have therefore begun the process to seek her removal from that position," Ms Mahmood said. "My thoughts are with both Andrew Malkinson and the victim of this horrific crime." In response Mr Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail, said he hopes "this will be followed with a complete overhaul" of the CCRC. "Ms Pitcher's discredited senior leadership team should also now go, and be replaced with people who are serious about fighting miscarriages of justice," he said. She has apologised in a statement. She is unavailable to be interviewed today for personal reasons. But the Guardian newspaper reports Ms Pitcher has said she is the "best person" for the job, and has no intention of resigning from her post.
Mr Malkinson was accused in 2003 of raping a woman in Greater Manchester. He was convicted and jailed for life despite no DNA linking him to the crime. He was convicted on contested eyewitness accounts, even though he did not resemble a description of the suspect or bear a deep facial scratch injury that the victim had inflicted on her attacker. Three years after he was jailed, forensic scientists, using new DNA techniques, found key evidence from an intimate part of the victim’s clothing that pointed to a different unknown man. By 2009, Greater Manchester Police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the CCRC all knew of this lead - but the miscarriages agency rejected the first of Mr Malkinson’s three pleas for help. In his report, Chris Henley KC said this was the first in a series of missed opportunities by the CCRC. In 2013 the agency failed to review the file again, despite the Court of Appeal exonerating another man of rape in near-identical circumstances. It then dismissed Mr Malkinson’s further plea for help in 2019 - and considered turning him down a third time in 2022. The report finds that agency only referred the case back to judges after Appeal, a legal charity acting for Mr Malkinson, won a battle to have new DNA analysis conducted. Mr Henley said he had no confidence the CCRC would have ever done the work itself. “It had taken 20 years to put this appalling miscarriage of justice right,” said Mr Henley. “This case demonstrates a deep-seated, system-wide cultural reluctance, which starts right at the top in the Court of Appeal, to acknowledge our criminal justice system will on occasion make mistakes. “It is not by any standard a success, or a demonstration that things are working properly, that Mr Malkinson had to wait 20 years to be exonerated.”
Mr Henley’s report reveals one CCRC case manager dismissed Mr Malkinson’s arguments without even reading the most important evidence. This mistake of not obtaining the police file was repeated another two times. If case workers and leaders had done their job properly, he said, the Court of Appeal could have reconsidered Mr Malkinson’s conviction in 2009. He said that statements by the CCRC’s chair, Helen Pitcher, had not properly reflected the agency’s failings and criticisms of the CCRC’s decision not to apologise immediately to Mr Malkinson after he exonerated in 2023 were “well-founded”. “There should be a wholehearted apology made by the CCRC to Mr Malkinson,” said Mr Henley. “The CCRC failed him. It required [miscarriages of justice charity] Appeal to obtain the new DNA evidence that ultimately resulted in the further work that led to the referral by the CCRC. It would not have happened otherwise.” Earlier on Thursday, Andy Malkinson had called on Helen Pitcher to resign - or for the government to sack her. “This report lays bare how the CCRC obstructed my fight for justice and cost me an extra decade wrongly imprisoned,” he said. “The finding that in 2022 the CCRC was considering rejecting my case for a third time, despite the compelling DNA evidence presented by my legal team, shows that the body is biased through and through. "It needs to be torn down and completely rebuilt.” “If Helen Pitcher is truly sorry, she’ll step down. The CCRC’s delay in publishing this report and its decision to conceal the names of the personnel whose actions caused me so much suffering is shameful.” After Mr Malkinson’s exoneration, BBC News sought an interview with Ms Pitcher but the CCRC said she couldn’t speak publicly until after this report had been published. Today, she is unavailable for interview for personal reasons. In a statement accompanying the report, Ms Pitcher said: “Mr Henley’s report makes sobering reading, and it is clear from his findings that the Commission failed Mr Malkinson. “For this, I am deeply sorry and wish to offer my sincere regret and an unreserved apology on behalf of the Commission. “Mr Henley's report includes nine recommendations, and the Commission has already begun work to implement them. "Nobody can begin to imagine the devastating impact that this wrongful conviction has had on Mr Malkinson’s life, and I am deeply sorry for the additional harm caused by our handling of the case.”
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2q0gdd9v04o
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news_articles_c2q0gdd9v04
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How the UK planned for the wrong pandemic - BBC News
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2024-07-18
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Over-confidence, wasted opportunities and muddled-thinking left UK sleep-walking into Covid.
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Health
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How the UK planned for the wrong pandemic
Even as Covid hit, the government and its health officials were bullish in their confidence about their ability to cope. Dr Jenny Harries, then the deputy chief medical officer for England, hailed the UK as an “international exemplar” in its preparedness at one of the early TV press conferences. She was not the only one who thought like this – after all, just a year before the pandemic a government review had praised our “world-leading capabilities”. But such a belief, said Baroness Hallett as she set out the first of her Covid reports, was “dangerously mistaken”. The UK had, in fact, prepared for the wrong pandemic. How did this happen? Across 217 pages and more than 80,000 words, external, Baroness Hallett has set out a detailed and damning critique of how a decade of over-confidence, wasted opportunities and muddled-thinking left the UK sleep-walking into a pandemic that went on to claim more than 200,000 lives and cause long-lasting damage to the economy and society.
The initial cause of it can be traced back to 2009 and the swine flu pandemic. It was another virus that quickly swept the globe, but it turned out to be mild, partly because older people seemed to have some immunity because of previous exposure to a similar strain. Baroness Hallett’s report said that “lulled” the UK into a false sense of security. Two years later a new pandemic plan was produced. That strategy was not based on trying to heavily suppress the pandemic virus - instead it was about mitigating its inevitable spread in the belief the impacts would be mild. Because the strategy was based on flu, there was hope vaccines could be quickly deployed and, in the meantime, antiviral drugs could be used to lessen the severity of illness. But Covid was not flu – and certainly not a mild flu.
The nine years from 2011 up to the start of the Covid pandemic are also littered with missed opportunities. The UK did not learn from east Asian countries like Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. They had used their experience of other coronavirus outbreaks, of Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and Sars (Severe acute respiratory syndrome), to put in place plans to quickly scale-up test and trace systems and introduce quarantine processes. Border control measures, including travel restrictions and testing, could also deployed. In contrast, the UK abandoned community testing in spring 2020 just as Covid was taking off. In his evidence for this module, Jeremy Hunt, who was health secretary from 2012 to 2018, went as far as to say that if we had learned from abroad we could even have avoided the first lockdown. But it's not as if there was no attempt to learn lessons. In the 2010s, a number of training events were held, simulating both flu and coronavirus outbreaks, to stress-test the UK’s preparedness. One event in 2016 called Exercise Cygnus identified worryingly large gaps in the response and plans were put in place to update those by 2018. But that did not happen, and by June 2020 just eight of the 22 recommendations made after that exercise had been completed.
One reason the report cites for this lack of action were the competing demands of Operation Yellowhammer, the UK government’s contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit. But the UK's inertia cannot be blamed on Brexit alone. The opposing argument put forward by the last government is that Brexit left the UK more nimble in other respects, such as stockpiling medicines and rolling out vaccines. The way the system for pandemic planning was set up was also a factor. Baroness Hallett describes a labyrinthine system of committees, partnerships and boards that had responsibility for civil emergency planning. Devolution, which means health policy is the responsibility of each nation, also complicated matters. A diagram on page 19 of the report illustrates the problem more than words can do. To illustrate the complexity of the structures in place, the report includes one spaghetti diagram showing the different boards and bodies responsible for pandemics. There are more than 60 with multiple lines of command. It meant there was not one single body that was ultimately accountable.
But it was not just the politicians and the system that contributed to mistakes. The scientists – so often lauded at the start of the pandemic – also have a case to answer, Baroness Hallett’s report makes clear. She said they had become infected with groupthink – no-one was challenging the orthodoxy. The advice was too narrowly focused with little consideration given to the socio-economic impacts of the actions recommended. It said ministers did not do enough to challenge what they were being told and there was not sufficient freedom or autonomy in the way the various advisory groups were set up for dissenting voices to be heard. This narrowness of thought and action was also prevalent at Public Health England, the body responsible for health protection at the start of the pandemic. Its chief executive, Duncan Selbie, told the inquiry he had never planned or pushed the government to have a system in place for mass testing. All this is why Baroness Hallett concluded officials, experts and ministers alike had to bear responsibility for what went wrong.
Have you been personally affected by the issues raised in this story?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9472qxk1vo
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news_articles_cy9472qxk1v
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Post Office: Davey says he was 'lied to' about Horizon IT flaws - BBC News
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2024-07-19
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Former Post Office minister says he was lied to about "serious flaws" in the Horizon IT system.
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Business
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Davey says he was 'lied to' about Horizon IT flaws
Former Post Office minister Ed Davey has said that he was "lied to" about "serious flaws" in the Horizon IT system. The Liberal Democrat leader told an inquiry into the Horizon scandal that "someone senior must have known the truth at some stage" about those flaws. He stopped short of accusing Post Office executives of lying to him during his time as minister between 2010 and 2012. Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters were blamed and prosecuted for losses caused by bugs in Fujitsu's faulty IT Horizon system.
Mr Davey said that former chief executive Paula Vennells and former managing director David Smith "were the people passing the information" to the government "which was untrue". He stopped short of saying that they personally lied, but later said that someone senior must have known about the flaws. Mr Davey said: "I now know I was being lied to, I follow this inquiry, and it's pretty clear that what they told my officials was not true," he said. Under questioning from lead counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer, who said that lying involved an intention to deceive, Mr Davey said of senior Post Office executives: "I cannot know what was in their minds and how the information came to them," he said. "But someone, I assume, senior, in Post Office Limited, must have known the truth, must have at some stage, understood that, and this is what I hope the inquiry will uncover." He added that what has emerged from the inquiry is that there "was knowledge of the Horizon system having serious flaws in it, within Post Office Limited, and that was not put forward to ministers, either myself or others". He added that Post Office Limited, as a body, "were misleading" the shareholder executive and ministers. "Who was responsible within Post Office Limited is quite difficult for me to know," he said. "One assumes that it was the senior executives because they had a responsible role, and I assume were asking the questions, but it's ultimately for this inquiry" to find out who knew about the flaws.
Earlier, Labour MP Pat McFadden said he had trusted Post Office assertions that its Horizon system was robust with "terrible consequences" for sub-postmasters. Mr McFadden, who had this post between 2007 and 2010, answered a number of letters from MPs in 2009 who were concerned about sub-postmasters in their constituencies. He told the inquiry that in every case the Post Office insisted that the Horizon system was robust and had been proven in court. When asked by inquiry counsel Sam Stevens why in the face of growing numbers of complaints from sub-postmasters he continued to trust the Post Office, Mr McFadden said it was due to the "emphatic" nature of their responses.
Former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton, who was made bankrupt by the Post Office after a two year legal battle, told the BBC that he accepted the argument that Mr McFadden trusted the advice he was being given by the Post Office. "You wouldn't employ a plumber and then decide what's wrong with a [broken] boiler," he said. However, he said the government could have ensured the Crown Prosecution Service was bringing prosecutions, and not the Post Office. "I really do believe that the sheer amount of money and pressure that can be brought by a public body should always be checked by a third party," he said. Mr McFadden earlier said that it was not possible to unpick exactly who had drafted the letters that he signed insisting on the robust nature of Horizon. But Mr Castleton said it was "unfair on the victims" that the "perpetrators of this seem to be surrounded in mystery". He added that he felt Mr McFadden was being "disingenuous" by saying he did not know who had drafted the letters. "It's clear that ministers were being given information by people, and those people would be known to the ministers," he said. At another point in McFadden's testimony, the inquiry was shown a series of letters from MPs including Brian Binley and Jacqui Smith. They raised concerns that random flaws in the Horizon system were causing discrepancies in accounts, with sub-postmasters having to spend their savings to pay the Post Office back. The letters also questioned prosecutions brought by the Post Office against sub-postmasters. However, the stock response that Mr McFadden signed at the time was that the Post Office itself was in charge of operational matters such as prosecutions, while the government was in charge of overall strategy. When concerns were raised about Post Office, what the government would do is go to the Post Office to get a response, Mr McFadden said. Mr McFadden said: "In every case they [Post Office] are insisting, in response to our requests, that the system is robust, that it's been proven in court, there is no evidence to suggest there's anything wrong with it [Horizon]," he said. He said the business department didn't have a "separate source" of information about Horizon except from the Post Office. When asked later why the government did not speak to sub-postmasters themselves, Mr McFadden responded that it would not have been appropriate for ministers to question the decisions of courts.
Mr McFadden added that it was for the inquiry to determine at what point the "blind faith" of Post Office management in Horizon became "something more sinister". "Clearly those responses were wrong. The evidence being used in the court to prosecute the sub-postmasters turned out to be wrong, and was proven to be wrong in the cases that overturned these judgements many years later. "What I'm not clear about is at what point in this story does blind faith from the Post Office in their IT system turn to something more sinister, where people are just not telling the truth? Now I don't know at what point that happens, but I'm sure it's something the inquiry will want to get to the bottom of." He added: "When I look back on this and I think of the terrible human consequences for the sub-postmasters who were prosecuted, even the ones who weren't prosecuted but lost large sums of money or suffered damage in other ways, of course I wish I had asked more about this." "But I do believe, given the emphatic nature of the replies, and the Post Office's use of court judgements as a proof point for the robustness of the system, at this stage in the process, I'm not sure it would have got any further." Mr McFadden was repeatedly asked why he didn't do more at the time to check the Post Office's version of events, and he said that one of the reasons he didn't was that ministers cannot interfere in court judgements.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4yvg3p0m8o
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news_articles_cw4yvg3p0m8
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How the UK planned for the wrong pandemic - BBC News
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2024-07-19
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Over-confidence, wasted opportunities and muddled-thinking left UK sleep-walking into Covid.
|
Health
|
How the UK planned for the wrong pandemic
Even as Covid hit, the government and its health officials were bullish in their confidence about their ability to cope. Dr Jenny Harries, then the deputy chief medical officer for England, hailed the UK as an “international exemplar” in its preparedness at one of the early TV press conferences. She was not the only one who thought like this – after all, just a year before the pandemic a government review had praised our “world-leading capabilities”. But such a belief, said Baroness Hallett as she set out the first of her Covid reports, was “dangerously mistaken”. The UK had, in fact, prepared for the wrong pandemic. How did this happen? Across 217 pages and more than 80,000 words, external, Baroness Hallett has set out a detailed and damning critique of how a decade of over-confidence, wasted opportunities and muddled-thinking left the UK sleep-walking into a pandemic that went on to claim more than 200,000 lives and cause long-lasting damage to the economy and society.
The initial cause of it can be traced back to 2009 and the swine flu pandemic. It was another virus that quickly swept the globe, but it turned out to be mild, partly because older people seemed to have some immunity because of previous exposure to a similar strain. Baroness Hallett’s report said that “lulled” the UK into a false sense of security. Two years later a new pandemic plan was produced. That strategy was not based on trying to heavily suppress the pandemic virus - instead it was about mitigating its inevitable spread in the belief the impacts would be mild. Because the strategy was based on flu, there was hope vaccines could be quickly deployed and, in the meantime, antiviral drugs could be used to lessen the severity of illness. But Covid was not flu – and certainly not a mild flu.
The nine years from 2011 up to the start of the Covid pandemic are also littered with missed opportunities. The UK did not learn from east Asian countries like Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. They had used their experience of other coronavirus outbreaks, of Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and Sars (Severe acute respiratory syndrome), to put in place plans to quickly scale-up test and trace systems and introduce quarantine processes. Border control measures, including travel restrictions and testing, could also deployed. In contrast, the UK abandoned community testing in spring 2020 just as Covid was taking off. In his evidence for this module, Jeremy Hunt, who was health secretary from 2012 to 2018, went as far as to say that if we had learned from abroad we could even have avoided the first lockdown. But it's not as if there was no attempt to learn lessons. In the 2010s, a number of training events were held, simulating both flu and coronavirus outbreaks, to stress-test the UK’s preparedness. One event in 2016 called Exercise Cygnus identified worryingly large gaps in the response and plans were put in place to update those by 2018. But that did not happen, and by June 2020 just eight of the 22 recommendations made after that exercise had been completed.
One reason the report cites for this lack of action were the competing demands of Operation Yellowhammer, the UK government’s contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit. But the UK's inertia cannot be blamed on Brexit alone. The opposing argument put forward by the last government is that Brexit left the UK more nimble in other respects, such as stockpiling medicines and rolling out vaccines. The way the system for pandemic planning was set up was also a factor. Baroness Hallett describes a labyrinthine system of committees, partnerships and boards that had responsibility for civil emergency planning. Devolution, which means health policy is the responsibility of each nation, also complicated matters. A diagram on page 19 of the report illustrates the problem more than words can do. To illustrate the complexity of the structures in place, the report includes one spaghetti diagram showing the different boards and bodies responsible for pandemics. There are more than 60 with multiple lines of command. It meant there was not one single body that was ultimately accountable.
But it was not just the politicians and the system that contributed to mistakes. The scientists – so often lauded at the start of the pandemic – also have a case to answer, Baroness Hallett’s report makes clear. She said they had become infected with groupthink – no-one was challenging the orthodoxy. The advice was too narrowly focused with little consideration given to the socio-economic impacts of the actions recommended. It said ministers did not do enough to challenge what they were being told and there was not sufficient freedom or autonomy in the way the various advisory groups were set up for dissenting voices to be heard. This narrowness of thought and action was also prevalent at Public Health England, the body responsible for health protection at the start of the pandemic. Its chief executive, Duncan Selbie, told the inquiry he had never planned or pushed the government to have a system in place for mass testing. All this is why Baroness Hallett concluded officials, experts and ministers alike had to bear responsibility for what went wrong.
Have you been personally affected by the issues raised in this story?
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9472qxk1vo
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news_articles_cy9472qxk1v
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Andrew Malkinson: Other prisoners could be freed by case reviews - BBC News
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2024-07-19
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Andrew Malkinson says he knows at least six people in jail who could be exonerated in a case review.
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Manchester
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Other prisoners could be freed by case review - Malkinson
Andrew Malkinson says he agrees "wholeheartedly" with the findings of a review into how his case was handled
Andrew Malkinson says he says he knows "at least half a dozen people" currently in prison he believes could be exonerated if their cases were reviewed. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Malkinson - who served 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit - described the failures in the process for reviewing potential miscarriages of justice as a "human rights atrocity". His comments followed the publication of an independent review that found he was completely failed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) - and mounting pressure on its head to quit. The review's author, Chris Henley KC, has backed calls for a "trawl" for similar cases, weeks after the agency admitted it needed to review thousands of files.
The damning report into how Mr Malkinson's case was handled, published on Thursday, concluded he could have been freed five years after receiving a life sentence for a 2003 rape. It revealed the CCRC's investigators and leaders had failed to follow up evidence of innocence right up to 2022. "It’s vast incompetence at the very least… and I don’t know what it’s like at worst", he said. "It seems they [the CCRC] devote all their time and resources to finding ‘clever me’ arguments about why they shouldn’t refer, rather than looking at the police files and really investigating."
Helen Pitcher has lost the confidence of the justice secretary
His comments come after Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she would seek the sacking of CCRC chair Helen Pitcher, saying she was "unable to fulfil her duties". The BBC understands that Ms Mahmood's Conservative predecessor, Alex Chalk, had reached a similar conclusion on the eve of the general election, having read Mr Henley's findings. Ms Pitcher has told the Ministry of Justice she will not quit. Ministers cannot directly sack her, because the CCRC is an independent part of the legal system, so a panel needs to be convened to ensure the decision is independently taken. On Friday, former Justice Secretary Lord Falconer called on Ms Pitcher to also stand down from her other position as the head of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), the body that appoints all judges in England and Wales. Mr Falconer said Ms Pitcher should never have been appointed to both roles at the same time, as the CCRC's work includes challenging judge's decisions. “She should go as quickly as possible, because the one thing you need is confidence in our judges and confidence in the safety nets,” he said. Ms Pitcher apologised in a statement accompanying Mr Henley's report, saying that it was clear "that the Commission failed Mr Malkinson". She has refused previous BBC invitations for an interview, saying via her officials that she needed to wait for the publication of the Henley report. On Thursday she was unavailable for a broadcast interview for personal reasons. Mr Malkinson said the apology had come "far, far too late". "It seems to me very strongly that this is the most reluctant apology, when all avenues have been explored for her [Ms Pitcher] to seek a positive outcome," he said. “The fact that they left me languishing in jail with careless abandon, it’s infuriating – deeply, profoundly infuriating.”
In his report, Chris Henley details how both CCRC case workers and leaders failed to do their job. He also criticised Ms Pitcher's public statements which took some of the credit for Mr Malkinson's exoneration, when all the work was done by his legal team. He told Today that it would be "far too complacent" to say that what had happened to Mr Malkinson was an "outlying aberration". “There must be other cases where there are fresh opportunities for retesting DNA samples and that should be undertaken as a matter of urgency." The CCRC says that it wants to review up to 5,500 closed cases in which DNA was an element in convictions of people for the most serious crimes. The decision was taken weeks after Mr Malkinson's exoneration a year ago - but was not revealed until April of this year. The agency's internal estimates suggest that dozens of the cases may need to be fully re-investigated. The body says it needs more cash from the government to carry out the work.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c250gnxd287o
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Trump sentencing in hush-money case delayed until September - BBC News
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2024-07-02
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Supreme Court ruled that Trump had immunity from prosecution for "official acts" prompting the challenge to his New York conviction.
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US & Canada
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A New York judge has delayed Donald Trump’s sentencing until September as his lawyers seek to challenge his conviction after a Supreme Court ruling.
Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July.
His legal team asked for his conviction in a hush-money case to be overturned after the nation’s highest court ruled Monday that former presidents had partial immunity for “official” acts during their presidency.
Justice Juan Merchan said on Tuesday that he would issue a decision on the motions by 6 September.
If sentencing is necessary, the judge wrote, it will take place on 18 September.
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, making him the first former president ever convicted of a felony.
Prosecutors said Trump had reimbursed his fixer, Michael Cohen, for hush money paid to an adult film star, who claimed she had an affair with Trump. The money, paid on the eve of the 2016 election, was covered up by falsely labeling it as a legal expenses.
It is the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial.
In a post on Truth Social shortly after Justice Merchan's ruling, Trump wrote that the delay constituted "TOTAL EXONERATION!" and that it "ends" "witch hunts against me."
However, the decision only pauses the proceedings until the judge makes his determination.
On Monday, the Supreme Court released a bombshell ruling that found Trump - and other former presidents - had immunity from prosecution for "official acts".
The challenge arose from a federal criminal case against Trump accusing him of trying to overturn results of the 2020 election, but it could have ripple effects in his other legal battles.
Seeking to leverage the Supreme Court decision, Trump's lawyers in the New York case quickly sought to overturn the May conviction.
They said the Supreme Court ruling is relevant here, because some of the events and evidence at the heart of the case took place while Trump was in the White House.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted Trump, responded that Trump's argument was "without merit" but asked for a deadline of 24 July to file a response.
However, legal experts said that the challenge could be an uphill battle for Trump.
"The allegations in the New York fraud case in which Trump was convicted seem clearly to relate to unofficial conduct by Trump, none of which would seem to involve his official duties," said Mark Zauderer, an appellate attorney in New York.
"While Trump will be able to litigate his immunity defence in some of his cases, he will have a most difficult time succeeding with this argument in the New York case."
Prosecutors proved that Cohen, acting at Trump's behest, paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. The payment took place when Trump was still a candidate for president.
Trump then reimbursed Cohen in multiple installments starting in early 2017, and falsely recorded them as legal expenses.
It could be difficult to convice a court that this behaviour constitutes "official" presidential acts, said Philip Bobbitt, a constitutional law scholar.
"I just don't see it," he told the BBC.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0xj1q47l22o
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Sunak and Starmer hammer home key messages as polling day nears - BBC News
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2024-07-02
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Despite the rhetoric the Conservative campaign is undeniably crouched in a defensive posture.
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Politics
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There’s just three days to go until this general election campaign draws to a close and the fate of Britain’s leading politicians passes to the voters. This is not a moment where the scope of the campaign suddenly widens. Instead it narrows as the parties - especially the two main parties - hone in on the core messages they hope will appeal to the crucial slices of the British public they need to win. If you hear Rishi Sunak or Sir Keir Starmer say something today, expect to hear them say it tomorrow and on Wednesday too. This is not a time for variation but for repetition. So what are those messages? Well, Mr Sunak believes he will still be prime minister by the end of the week. At least that’s what he told Laura Kuenssberg yesterday. Look at the Conservative campaign as it enters the home stretch, though, and it is undeniably crouched in a defensive posture.
It is hard to believe that when Prime Minister Sunak walked into the Downing Street rain 40 days ago to announce this general election that he anticipated spending the final three days of the campaign warning of a Labour victory so large that Sir Keir might wield "unchecked" power. Whatever they say publicly, the way the Conservatives are approaching this week shows that they believe the dire opinion polling is plausible at the very least. Campaigning in the Midlands today Mr Sunak is warning that, whatever Nigel Farage claims, Reform UK cannot hope to be the true opposition because they "just won’t win enough votes to oppose Labour". He is expected to say: "Just imagine that - hundreds and hundreds of Labour MPs opposed by just one, two, three, four, five elected [Reform] MPs." Note that this argument takes as a given that there will be hundreds and hundreds of Labour MPs. That assumption speaks to the complicated multidirectional fight the Conservatives face at the moment: trying to stop voters heading to Labour but also using different arguments to stop other former Conservatives heading to Reform and, in other parts of the country, the Liberal Democrats.
The candidate controversies of recent days as well as Mr Farage’s claim that the west "provoked" the war in Ukraine have at least given the Conservatives something they struggled to find earlier in the campaign - a way to attack Reform UK. Some Conservative candidates wish they had done so earlier. That is the public conversation taking place in the Conservative Party with three days to go. Then there is another conversation, which ranges from the semi-public to the private. What next?
In The Telegraph today, external, Jesse Norman, a former minister standing for re-election, has written an 813-word article about the election. Not the general election, which in his first line he appears to concede to Labour, but the Conservative leadership election he assumes would follow. Mr Norman moots the possibility that the role of Conservative Party members should be reduced, and that the leadership election should not be rushed. Some of Mr Norman’s colleagues are less focused on the process but on the candidates - though that question would be shaped by who is left remaining in parliament on 5 July.
In one respect Labour's task is more straightforward. In England at least, it is fighting only in one direction - seeking to win over former Conservative voters. (Although there are some very quiet jitters about possible areas of Reform strength in some Labour seats, especially in South Yorkshire). In Labour’s campaign they are relieved and pleased that they have made it through the entire campaign with essentially one consistent one-word message: Change. Note that in the final days the message is being adapted, though, to warn voters that if they want change “you have to vote for it”. That betrays more than a flicker of concern that some potential Labour voters may see the result as a foregone conclusion and as a result stay at home or vote for another party. The overwhelming approach is bullish though. For that just look at the fact that Sir Keir kicked off his campaigning today in Hitchin - a part of Hertfordshire which last had a Labour MP six years before Mr Sunak was born.
Labour has its own semi-public, semi-private conversation bubbling away too. Publicly it is still claiming, as Jon Ashworth did this morning, that the Conservatives could win the general election. Privately, Labour circles are abuzz with conversations about preparations for government. This has been the fiefdom of Sue Gray, the chief-of-staff who Sir Keir controversially poached last year from a lifetime in the civil service. After 14 years in opposition, few senior members of the Labour Party, be they MPs or officials, have any experience of being in government - a key reason why Sir Keir hired Ms Gray. Interestingly, should Labour win Ms Gray appears likely to be joined in Downing Street by Morgan McSweeney, who has run the party’s election campaign. In that event, expect a potential Labour government to quickly claim that what they have uncovered on the government books is worse than they had expected - an argument the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has pre-emptively questioned., external Labour strategists believe that David Cameron went a long way to securing the Conservatives’ 2015 election victory in the days after he became prime minister in 2010 - when he used the trappings of office to mount a concerted assault on Labour’s record. Expect the same again. Of course, Labour may not get there. Only postal votes have so far been cast. But make no mistake - from the way the two main parties are campaigning in these final days, they both believe this is the most plausible scenario.
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Fatima Payman: How a Gaza 'stunt' divided Australia's parliament - BBC News
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2024-07-02
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A senator says she has been "exiled" for voting against her party to recognise Palestinian statehood.
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World
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Ms Payman is Australia's first and only hijab-wearing federal politician
When Fatima Payman crossed the Senate floor to vote against her government she knew it would come with consequences. The Australian Labor party has strict penalties for those who undermine its collective positions, and acts of defiance can lead to expulsion - a precedent with a 130-year history. The last time one of its politicians tested the waters while in power was before Ms Payman was born. But last Tuesday, the 29-year-old did just that - joining the Greens party and independent senators to support a motion on Palestinian statehood. Officially the Australian government supports a two-state solution, but did not back the motion after trying - and failing - to insert a condition that any recognition should be “as part of a peace process”. Within hours, Ms Payman had been temporarily suspended from her party room, by the end of the week it would become indefinite - after she publicly vowed to cross the floor again if given the opportunity. "By her own actions and statements, Senator Payman has placed herself outside the privilege that comes with participating in the federal parliamentary Labor Party caucus," a government spokesperson said. Prime Minister and Labor leader Anthony Albanese was more concise: “No individual is bigger than the team.” On Monday, Ms Payman responded by saying she had been "exiled" – explaining that she had been removed from caucus meetings, group chats and all committees. The dismissal of the senator, elected in what was billed as Australia’s most diverse parliament to date, has drawn a mixed response and raised questions - mainly, whether it’s practical or fair for politicians to toe the line on issues affecting their communities.
Protesters have taken to cities across Australia
The first and only hijab-wearing federal politician, she has been described as the embodiment of some of the nation’s most marginalised: a young woman, a migrant, a Muslim. She recounted crossing the Senate floor as "the most difficult decision" of her political career, adding that each step of her short walk had “felt like a mile”. However, the 29-year-old said she was “proud” of what she had done, and “bitterly disappointed” others hadn't followed. "I walked with my Muslim brothers and sisters who told me they have felt unheard for far too long," she said. The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy the Hamas group which runs Gaza in response to an unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. More than 37,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 23 over the past 24 hours, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. This has become a volatile political issue in Australia that all sides have sought to carefully manage. As has been the case in countless other countries, there have been protests from both Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as a sharp uptick in Islamophobia and antisemitism.
The senator's move has drawn both praise and criticism. Anne Aly - who became the first Muslim woman to be elected in Australia’s parliament in 2016 - and has been a fierce advocate for an end to the conflict in Gaza, said she disagreed with Ms Payman’s approach. “I choose to do things in a way I think will make a material difference on the ground. Fatima chooses to do it her way," she told news outlet the ABC. But Josh Burns - a Jewish Labor MP from Melbourne - who has a different world view from Ms Payman when it comes to issues such as Palestinian statehood, has been one of her biggest supporters. “Parliamentarians come from different communities and backgrounds, and trying to balance all those perspectives isn't easy, but we must be an example to the Australian community about how to debate difficult issues respectfully.” The nation’s Islamic bodies have also issued a joint statement describing Ms Payman’s actions as “courageous” and calling on the Labor party to “echo the voices of the people it represents”. "Political calculations and attempts to walk both sides have devastating consequences in Palestine and will ultimately end in failure,” it read. But Mr Albanese called the resolution a "stunt", adding: "We need actually real solutions... this stunt from the Greens was designed to put Fatima Payman in a difficult position. It was designed to do that." Mr Albanese’s penalty against Ms Payman has been more lenient than the complete expulsion that party rules require. And he’s left the door open for her to re-enter the fold if she’s willing to change course: “Fatima Payman is welcome to return to participating in the team if she accepts she's a member of it,” he said in an interview on Monday.
Australian politicians have voted against their own beliefs to fall in line with party politics before. LGBTQ+ MPs - including current Foreign Minister Penny Wong - felt a similar conflict in the Labor caucus back in the days when it officially opposed gay marriage. It’s an issue that has opened Ms Wong up to personal attacks, but she’s remained adamant that quiet advocacy from within the party - rather than public criticism - is the preferred route. And she says it was a decade of doing just that which saw same-sex marriage legalised. “Even when we disagree, we have those arguments internally, as you saw over many years in the marriage equality debate. That’s what I did, and I think that’s the right way to go about it,” she told the ABC. But when asked whether she should have followed precedent, Ms Payman said: “It took 10 years to legislate same-sex marriage... These Palestinians do not have 10 years."
Penny Wong (L) is adamant that quiet advocacy from within the party is the preferred route
The contrasting approaches represent the changing demands of the Australian public, according to Kos Samaras - one of the nation’s leading pollsters. He says a growing cohort of young, multicultural voters are increasingly aligning themselves with politicians who aren’t afraid to take a stance on causes their constituents are “passionate about”. He also argues that migrant communities are no longer willing to accept political messaging that effectively urges them to “keep their head down”. “Australia has had a terrible history, whether from a societal perspective or political parties - that whenever someone from a diverse background expresses their view, overwhelmingly they’re told to pull their head in.” “That’s a formula that kind of works when a new group of people migrate to a country and want to keep a low profile as they’re establishing a new life – it’s not going to work with those migrant’s kids. And that’s exactly who we’re talking about. “These are people who have grown up in a country that has often made them feel like outsiders, and they’re no longer prepared to keep silent,” he adds, noting recent polling from his team which found that many young Australian-Muslim women feel they lack a political voice. A refugee whose family fled Afghanistan after it fell to the Taliban in 1996, it’s a sentiment that Ms Payman says guides her politics. “I was not elected as a token representative of diversity,” she said after her temporary suspension last week. “I was elected to serve the people of Western Australia and uphold the values instilled in me by my late father.” Ms Payman says that she believes the government is freezing her out to “intimidate” her into resigning. But Mr Albanese is adamant that his decision is the right one, while emphasising that it is not about Ms Payman’s “policy position” but rather, her decision to “undermine” her party. For the time being at least, the young lawmaker has vowed to “abstain from voting on Senate matters… unless a matter of conscience arises where I'll uphold the true values and principles of the Labor Party.”
• None Fierce row after sacking of ABC presenter over Gaza post
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Lucy Letby guilty of trying to kill baby - BBC News
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2024-07-02
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The baby's family say they have been forced to endure a "long, torturous and emotional journey - twice".
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England
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Lucy Letby guilty of trying to kill baby girl
Lucy Letby had already been convicted of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others
Former nurse Lucy Letby has been found guilty of trying to kill a premature baby girl. The 34-year-old was convicted of attempting to murder the child, referred to in court as Baby K, following a retrial. In a statement, Baby K's family described having to endure a "long, torturous and emotional journey - twice". "Today, justice has been served. But it does not take away the extreme hurt, anger and distress that we have all had to experienced," they said. Last August, Letby was convicted by a different jury of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital's neo-natal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. However, a verdict on the allegation relating to Baby K could not be reached, and a retrial was ordered, heard at Manchester Crown Court.
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The retrial jury found her guilty of trying to murder the "very premature" infant by dislodging her breathing tube in the early hours of 17 February 2016. The parents of Baby K gasped and then cried as the jury foreman read out the verdict following three-and-a-half hours of deliberation. Letby showed no emotion in the dock. Det Ch Insp Nicola Evans, of Cheshire Police, praised the "courage, strength and resilience" of the child's parents, who she said had been forced to face "continual denials" from Letby. “I would like to thank them for continuing to put their faith in us and I hope that the conclusion today provides them with some peace of mind and some of the answers they have been searching for," she said. “Once again, there are no winners in this case. Today is not a time for celebration – it is a time for reflection and a time for the family of Baby K." The court heard how Letby had targeted the child after she was moved from the delivery room to the neo-natal unit shortly after her premature birth.
Letby told the court she had no recollection of dislodging Baby K's breathing tube
The jury agreed that the former nurse had dislodged the baby’s breathing tube and stood by her incubator watching her blood oxygen levels drop, without intervening. Consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram had caught her "virtually red-handed" as he entered the unit's intensive care room at about 03:45. Dr Jayaram, who intervened to resuscitate the child, told jurors he saw "no evidence" that Letby had done anything to help the deteriorating baby. He said he heard no call for help from Letby, or alarms sounding as Baby K's blood oxygen levels suddenly dropped. Letby told the jury of six women and six men she had no recollection of any such event. She denied she did anything harmful to Baby K and repeatedly insisted she had not committed any of the offences of which she had been convicted. Baby K was transferred to a specialist hospital later on 17 February because of her extreme prematurity and died there three days later, with the cause of death certified as extreme prematurity and severe respiratory distress syndrome. More than two years later in April 2018, Letby searched on Facebook for Baby K’s surname, the court heard. Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said it was part of a pattern of similar Facebook searches, telling the jury: "The truth is that Lucy Letby had a fascination with the babies she had murdered and attempted to murder, and with their families. "She took pleasure in her murderous handiwork."
Lucy Letby, pictured during her arrest at her Chester home
Letby’s lawyers had argued her convictions should be quashed at an appeal as jurors may not have been certain of her guilt, it can now be reported. Her legal team unsuccessfully brought a Court of Appeal challenge in April this year over her previous murder and attempted murder convictions. Her barrister Ben Myers KC argued that the trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, was wrong to tell the jury they did not need to be sure of the precise act which caused Letby’s victims harm. He said: “They should have been told they should have been sure of the act. They have to have certainty as to the act that lay behind the allegations of deliberate harm.” But prosecutor Mr Johnson KC, stated the argument was “not tenable” and that while medical evidence was “at the heart of pretty much all” of the prosecution’s argument, it formed “only part of the circumstances of the case” and that Letby “was always there when things happened”. Other arguments were also made by Letby's defence team, including how the judge had dealt with "jury irregularity". Dame Victoria Sharp and Lord Justice Holroyde dismissed Letby’s bid in May and their written reasons were published, external shortly after Letby's latest conviction.
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Dr Nigel Scawn, medical director at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said he was "extremely sorry that these awful crimes happened at our hospital". He added: "Since Lucy Letby worked at our hospital, we have made significant changes to our services and remain committed to providing high quality safe care to our local communities." Dr Scawn acknowledged the impact that the Letby case continued to have on everyone involved, adding he was "grateful for the unwavering cooperation and professionalism of our staff, some of whom returned to court to repeat evidence and relive events". Letby was initially charged with the murder of Baby K but the charge was dropped in June 2022 because the prosecution offered no evidence. In May, Letby lost her Court of Appeal bid to challenge her convictions. She will be sentenced for the attempted murder of Baby K on 5 July.
A public inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes on the neo-natal unit is set to begin at Liverpool Town Hall on 10 September. Det Supt Simon Blackwell said an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which was launched in October 2023, remained ongoing and was considering areas including senior leadership and decision making between June 2015 and June 2016. He said "at this stage" the force was not investigating any individuals in relation to gross negligence manslaughter. The detective said he recognised the "significant impact" on a range of people and "we want to reassure that we are committed to carrying out a thorough investigation".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98q74dn91do
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Donald Trump's sentencing in hush money case may be delayed - BBC News
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2024-07-02
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The ex-president's lawyers cite a new Supreme Court ruling that granted him partial immunity from prosecution.
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US & Canada
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Trump sentencing in hush money case could be delayed
Donald Trump called May's verdict in the New York case a "disgrace"
Donald Trump's 11 July sentencing in his hush money case may be delayed after his lawyers asked the judge to set aside his conviction in the wake of Supreme Court's immunity ruling. In a letter to Justice Juan Merchan, Manhattan prosecutors said that while they believed Trump's motion to overturn his conviction to be "without merit", they did not object to his request to delay the sentencing. The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for "official actions" they take while in office. In May, Trump's conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records was based in part on evidence of meetings and communications that occurred while he was president. A letter sent by Trump's lawyers to the judge cites Monday's ruling that granted the former president immunity from prosecution for "official actions" he took while in office. Manhattan prosecutors have asked that the judge respond to Trump's motion by 24 July. Judge Merchan must now rule on whether to formally adjourn the sentencing.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What the Supreme Court immunity ruling means for Trump... in 60 seconds
Trump's team points out that the former president signed off on the records in the hush money case while in office in 2017, but one lawyer suggested this was unlikely to be considered an official act. His lawyers also argued that during his Manhattan trial, prosecutors shared "highly prejudicial" evidence that should have never been presented to the jury because it was from during his time in the White House, including Trump's 2017 social media posts and testimony about events in the Oval Office. "The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of 'an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself,'" Trump's lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in the letter to Justice Merchan. Last year, Trump's lawyers similarly argued that the allegations in the case involved that were within the scope of his official presidential duties. However, a federal judge wrote that Trump had failed to show that his conduct was "for or relating to any act performed by or for the President under [scope] of the official acts of a president". Monday's ruling by the Supreme Court was hailed by Trump as a "big win" for democracy. The justices ruled that a president had immunity for "official acts" but was not immune for "unofficial acts". That ruling related to a separate case against Trump: he is suspected of trying to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election result that gave victory to Joe Biden. Reacting to the Supreme Court ruling, President Biden described it as a "dangerous precedent" that undermined the "rule of law" in America.
In May, a panel of 12 Manhattan jurors unanimously convicted Trump on all counts of falsifying business records in the hush money case.. During the trial, the court heard from a number of witnesses, including former adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose alleged sexual encounter with the former president was at the centre of the case. The former president was accused of having concealed a payment to buy the silence of Ms Daniels in the final days of his 2016 election campaign. Prosecutors had argued that, by approving a scheme to disguise the money as legal expenses, Trump broke election law. Trump called the verdict in the New York case a "disgrace". Justice Merchan would likely agree with a delay in the sentencing, but the Supreme Court decision is ultimately unlikely to affect Trump's conviction, said Mark Zauderer, prominent appellate attorney in New York. "The allegations in the New York fraud case in which Trump was convicted seem clearly to relate to unofficial conduct by Trump, none of which would seem to involve his official duties," he told the BBC. "While Trump will be able to litigate his immunity defence in some of his cases, he will have a most difficult time succeeding with this argument in the New York case." Additional reporting by Kayla Epstein and Madeline Halpert in New York.
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Crowdstrike: How China swerved worst of global tech meltdown - BBC News
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2024-07-20
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Very few organisations will buy software from the US firm, partly thanks to its criticism of Beijing.
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Business
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Images like this were significantly less frequent in China than in the rest of the world
While most of the world was grappling with the blue screen of death on Friday, one country that managed to escape largely unscathed was China. The reason is actually quite simple: CrowdStrike is hardly used there. Very few organisations will buy software from an American firm that, in the past, has been vocal about the cyber-security threat posed by Beijing. Additionally, China is not as reliant on Microsoft as the rest of the world. Domestic companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei are the dominant cloud providers. So reports of outages in China, when they did come, were mainly at foreign firms or organisations. On Chinese social media sites, for example, some users complained they were not able to check into international chain hotels such as Sheraton, Marriott and Hyatt in Chinese cities. Over recent years, government organisations, businesses and infrastructure operators have increasingly been replacing foreign IT systems with domestic ones. Some analysts like to call this parallel network the "splinternet". "It's a testament to China's strategic handling of foreign tech operations," says Josh Kennedy-White, a cybersecurity expert based in Singapore. "Microsoft operates in China through a local partner, 21Vianet, which manages its services independently of its global infrastructure. This setup insulates China’s essential services - like banking and aviation - from global disruptions."
Beijing sees avoiding reliance on foreign systems as a way of shoring up national security. It is similar to the way some Western countries banned Chinese tech firm Huawei’s technology in 2019 - or the UK's move to ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok on government devices in 2023. Since then, the US has launched a concerted effort to ban sales of advanced semiconductor chip tech to China, as well as attempts to stop American companies from investing in Chinese technology. The US government says all of these restrictions are on national security grounds.
Hong Kong airport did see some of its services affected by the outage
An editorial published on Saturday in the state-run Global Times newspaper made a thinly veiled reference to these curbs on Chinese technology. "Some countries constantly talk about security, generalise the concept of security, but ignore the real security, this is ironic," the editorial said. The argument here is that the US tries to dictate the terms of who can use global technology and how it is used, yet one of its own companies has caused global chaos through lack of care. The Global Times also took a jab at the internet giants who "monopolise" the industry: "Relying solely on top companies to lead network security efforts, as some countries advocate, may hinder not just the inclusive sharing of governance outcomes but also introduce new security risks." The reference to “sharing” is probably an allusion to the debate over intellectual property insofar as China is often accused of copying or stealing western technology. Beijing insists this is not the case and advocates for an open global technology marketplace - while still keeping tight control over its domestic scene. Not everything was totally unaffected in China, however. A small numbers of workers expressed thanks to an American software giant for ending their working week early. “Thank you Microsoft for an early vacation,” was trending on the social media site Weibo on Friday, with users posting pictures of blue error screens.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3g01y047pdo
|
news_articles_c3g01y047pd
|
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Spain tourism: Why Spanish people are fighting back - BBC News
|
2024-07-21
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Activists say spiralling housing costs are due to properties being bought by foreigners - or rented over the summer.
|
Europe
|
If you can elbow your way onto one of Majorca’s sunspots this summer, you will witness two unstoppable forces. The first, as old as time, the waves of the Balearic Sea, methodically erasing the day’s lovingly crafted sandcastles. The second, a more modern phenomenon, the tsunami of tourism threatening to consume all in its path. Every inch of beach is taken. Finding a parking space is like striking gold. If you leave your sunbed for too long, your possessions are unceremoniously turfed to make space for the long queue of would-be usurpers. All these are the signs of a bonanza that’s seen and heard across the island, not least in the incessant beeping of contactless payment machines ringing out from the teeming hotels, restaurants and bars. A chorus of commerce powered by record numbers of visitors. But if this is a tale of colossal wealth being showered onto a business-savvy Spanish community, Sonia Ruiz certainty has not shared any of it. We meet the mother of one, 31, in a park a few hundred metres from the shore in the capital, Palma. Her four-year-old son Luca negotiates the various playground slides with no apparent concern. But Sonia is really struggling. Her landlord has asked them to leave and she says finding a new place is impossible. “Every day I’m looking and every day the rent is higher,” she says. “I even stop people in the street and ask if they have something because the day is approaching when I will have to leave the apartment, and I just see me and my son homeless because there is absolutely nothing.” Sonia and her partner are separated but have been forced to live together because individually they cannot afford the cost of rent, despite taking home €2,400 a month between them. “They ask you for deposits of several months. Some have even told me that they don't want children, they don't want animals. And so many people are looking.”
Like thousands of Majorcans, Sonia is protesting this weekend against the surge in tourism that is being blamed for plummeting living standards among the local population. Activists say spiralling housing costs are being driven by a huge number of houses and apartments being bought by foreigners, or at least rented out to them for large chunks of the summer. “It’s impossible to sustain this sort of model," 25-year-old Pere Joan Femenia explains from outside the cathedral in Majorca’s capital, Palma. He is part of a movement called "Menys Turisme, Més Vida", or "Less Tourism, More Life". He says not only are unprecedented numbers of visitors pricing locals out of the housing market, they are also using up public spaces, public services and natural resources. Pere started his activism five years ago as part of Greta Thunberg’s climate movement, but his focus has shifted to the cost of living for his fellow islanders. “Businesses are changing from ones selling traditional products to multi-nationals selling ice cream and we are losing our identity. We want to preserve our culture," he says. Pere points over to the port, far beyond the rows of street vendors and swelling crowds filling the square, explaining that some cruises disgorge as many as 12,000 visitors every day on to the island. He says it is a myth that Majorca needs ever-expanding tourism to survive, and that the reality is many locals are preparing to leave for good because they can no longer afford it here.
Pere argues that putting limits on flights arriving and cruises docking will immediately ease the pressure on the island. It is a demand that will form part of the slogans and banners carried around Palma during this weekend’s protest. Spain’s National Institute of statistics says last year 14.4 million foreign tourists visited the Balearic Islands, of which Majorca is by far the biggest - followed by Menorca then Ibiza. The institute says the number of international visitors to the archipelago increased by 9.1% compared with 2022 while their spending went up even more - 16.4%. When Spanish visitors are taken into account too, activists claim this year could see 20 million visitors to the Balearics. As Spain’s tourist hotspots have developed over the decades, the debate over whether the millions of visitors bring more problems than benefits has intensified.
This year it feels like something has changed. The anger among many locals is reaching a new level - notably demonstrated in Barcelona recently when visitors were drenched with water pistols. There have been demonstrations elsewhere on the mainland, in Malaga, as well as in the Canary Islands. Spain’s tourist magnets are now looking to repel a seemingly inexorable deluge. Some British newspapers compiled lists of “hostile holiday hotspots” to avoid in the summer of 2024. On a packed beach in Magaluf, the long-time destination of choice for millions of British holidaymakers, the Green family from Rotherham are paddling happily. This is dad Adam’s first trip abroad, although calling it a “holiday” may be a stretch as he and his wife keep tabs on their seven kids. “It’s hectic, but we’re getting there. Apart from the heat, it’s great,” he says.
I ask whether they’ve heard about the various protests that have been taking place and if it made them think twice about coming out to Majorca. “I saw a little bit on the news”, says Charlotte, “but I tried not to watch it because I didn’t want it to stress me out and put me off coming because we’d already booked and paid for it.” And how about the central thrust of the local protesters’ argument - that burgeoning tourism is having a hugely negative impact? “Don’t the tourists boost it and make the money for this place?" asks Adam. “People travel around the world and this is it. With no tourists there’d be no jobs, no wages, no nowt. They rely on it, don’t they?”
Are you a protester, local resident or tourist? Please get in touch to share your views and experiences.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99wxwgzn8qo
|
news_articles_c99wxwgzn8q
|
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Lando Norris on Hungarian Grand Prix: I didn't give up the win - I lost it off the line - BBC Sport
|
2024-07-21
|
https://www.facebook.com/BBCSport/
|
Lando Norris agonised over whether to hand victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix back to McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri but said it was the "fair" and "honest" thing to do.
|
Formula 1
|
'I didn't give up the win - I lost it off the line'
Lando Norris agonised over whether to hand victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix back to team-mate Oscar Piastri but said it was the "fair" and "honest" thing to do. The Briton spent 20 laps debating the move with his team, as the drivers raced to McLaren's first one-two for nearly three years, but said that he was "always quite confident" he was going to do it. "I didn't deserve to win the race," Norris said. "Simple as that. The fact I was in that position was incorrect. "If Oscar's led the whole race, it's not fair, and I don't think that's how it should work, that he should just let me pass for me to win because I'm fighting for a championship. "I didn't give up the race win - I lost it off the line." Both drivers admitted after the race that McLaren had made their lives harder than would be ideal. Norris was ahead of Piastri - for whom this was a maiden win - only because the team had chosen to make the Briton's second and final pit stop early to protect against Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, who had recently made his own and fitted fresh tyres. McLaren were cautious in the timing - excessively so, some said - because Norris still had five seconds to play with. But team principal Andrea Stella said he preferred to reduce the impact of a potential delay at a pit stop and handle the situation within the team than risk losing track position. The decision to pit Norris first from just over a second behind inevitably - because of the extra pace provided by fresh tyres - put Norris ahead of Piastri when the Australian made his own final stop a couple of laps later. And the situation did indeed appear to take some handling. Time and again, Norris' engineer Will Joseph went on the radio to urge the Briton to follow instructions; time and again Norris pushed back, or sometimes did not respond at all. At one point, Joseph had to say: "Radio check" to ensure Norris was getting the messages. "Loud and clear," came the reply. Why did he not reassure the team, Norris was asked. "I don't need to," he said. "I know what I'm going to do and not going to do. Of course I'm going to question and challenge it. And that's what I did. "I was going to wait until the last corner, last lap. But they said if there was a safety car all of a sudden, then I couldn't let Oscar go through and it would have made me look like a bit of an idiot and I was like, fair point, so I let him go two laps to go. "You can make of it what you will, of what you hear and what you think you know, but I know I was always going to give it back unless they changed their mind and they didn't, so all good."
The result - combined with a difficult race for championship leader Max Verstappen, who collided with Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and finished fifth - allowed Norris to close his deficit in the drivers' championship to the Dutchman to 76 points. McLaren are now just 51 points behind Red Bull in the constructors' with 11 races to go. And Norris admitted it was the championship that had made him doubt his decision most. "It's always going to go through your mind," he said. "You have to be selfish in this sport at times. That's priority number one - to think of yourself. "I'm also a team player. My mind was going pretty crazy at the time. I know what we've done in the past. Oscar's helped me plenty of times. But this isn't that. I was put into a position and we were undoing it. "I know a lot of people are going to say the gap between me and Max is pretty big but if Red Bull and Max make the mistakes they did today and we continue to improve and have weekends like this, we can turn it around. "It is still optimistic and a big goal to say I can close 70 points in half a season, and seven points I give away... it crosses your mind. So it was not easy. "But I also understood the situation I was in and I was quite confident that by the last lap I would have done it."
Piastri took his first career grand prix win
Before the race, it looked like Norris' to lose. He had started on pole, on the racing line, and normally the drivers on the inside make slower starts at the Hungaroring because of the lack of grip off line. But Norris' start was not good, and Piastri got alongside him as they went three-wide into the first corner with Verstappen. Norris briefly dropped behind Verstappen - who was ordered to give the place back because he had gained it by going off the track. Once back in second place, on a track where overtaking is difficult - partly because of the circuit's twisty nature and partly because of the hot weather that means cars behind others overheat their tyres even more than normal - Norris was never going to pass a car from the same team with such similar pace. "I boxed first and naturally you will always undercut. The team gave me this position and I gave it back, nothing more than that," he said. "Something we always talk about before every race is our trust in one another, our honesty we have as a group. "I think that's something that's allowed us to catch others so quickly, to perform and outperform others so quickly to develop the car quicker." Despite Norris' arguments with the pit wall, team principal Stella, who has masterminded McLaren's revival over the past 18 months, said he had no doubts his driver would do what was asked. "I know Lando enough," Stella said. "Sometimes you have to communicate to all the sides that exist inside a race driver. "But I know him well enough to know that inside Lando we have a race driver and a team player. These two elements came along perfectly today to generate what was the right thing to do for the team, for Oscar and Lando. "I know for the media and watching on TV this becomes a story. But for us internally this becomes part of the way we go racing, and that's why we invest so much in culture, values and mindset. "We want to be able to manage the situation if we want to be in the championship with Lando, Oscar and McLaren." Stella is an intelligent and eloquent man, but also a tough one. A driver who did not accede to such a policy, he said, could find somewhere else to race. "Interests of the team come first," Stella said. "If you mess up on this matter, you cannot be part of the McLaren F1 team. That's the principle." But he said he had no concerns Norris would eventually do what was right. Asked why it had taken Norris so long, Stella replied: "Because he’s a race driver. Mention me a race driver who would have not done [the same thing]. "Actually you can mention to me many who would have not done it until lap 70, and I would be extremely concerned in that case if Lando had not demonstrated I am a race driver because that's the ethos you need to fight hard with Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and more and Oscar himself. "It is entertaining to talk about the controversial aspects, but it would be unfair not to talk about the resolution which happened according to our way of going racing."
It was hard to argue with the idea Piastri deserved to win - a result that has looked only a matter of time since he made his debut with McLaren last year. The Australian led the race confidently after winning the start. The only blot on his copybook was an off at Turn 11 that allowed Norris to get back in range before that crucial final stop. It was not his first F1 win - he won the sprint in Qatar last year - but it was his first grand prix victory. It will surely not be the last. "An incredible moment that I've been dreaming of for a very long time," Piastri said. "My first dream in my career was reaching F1. The second one is winning a race. "I'm very, very happy and proud and not just of myself, but everybody that's helped me get to this position. "Going back to my family, firstly, of course. You know, it took a lot of big decisions at a young age to chase the F1 dream. "It's very difficult to become an F1 driver by staying in Australia, so it meant some big decisions early in life. And just very, very proud that those decisions have paid off and we've managed to make it worth it."
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/cye03ylnnr0o
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rt_formula1_articles_cye03ylnnr0
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Crowdstrike: How China swerved worst of global tech meltdown - BBC News
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2024-07-21
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Very few organisations will buy software from the US firm, partly thanks to its criticism of Beijing.
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Business
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Images like this were significantly less frequent in China than in the rest of the world
While most of the world was grappling with the blue screen of death on Friday, one country that managed to escape largely unscathed was China. The reason is actually quite simple: CrowdStrike is hardly used there. Very few organisations will buy software from an American firm that, in the past, has been vocal about the cyber-security threat posed by Beijing. Additionally, China is not as reliant on Microsoft as the rest of the world. Domestic companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei are the dominant cloud providers. So reports of outages in China, when they did come, were mainly at foreign firms or organisations. On Chinese social media sites, for example, some users complained they were not able to check into international chain hotels such as Sheraton, Marriott and Hyatt in Chinese cities. Over recent years, government organisations, businesses and infrastructure operators have increasingly been replacing foreign IT systems with domestic ones. Some analysts like to call this parallel network the "splinternet". "It's a testament to China's strategic handling of foreign tech operations," says Josh Kennedy-White, a cybersecurity expert based in Singapore. "Microsoft operates in China through a local partner, 21Vianet, which manages its services independently of its global infrastructure. This setup insulates China’s essential services - like banking and aviation - from global disruptions."
Beijing sees avoiding reliance on foreign systems as a way of shoring up national security. It is similar to the way some Western countries banned Chinese tech firm Huawei’s technology in 2019 - or the UK's move to ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok on government devices in 2023. Since then, the US has launched a concerted effort to ban sales of advanced semiconductor chip tech to China, as well as attempts to stop American companies from investing in Chinese technology. The US government says all of these restrictions are on national security grounds.
Hong Kong airport did see some of its services affected by the outage
An editorial published on Saturday in the state-run Global Times newspaper made a thinly veiled reference to these curbs on Chinese technology. "Some countries constantly talk about security, generalise the concept of security, but ignore the real security, this is ironic," the editorial said. The argument here is that the US tries to dictate the terms of who can use global technology and how it is used, yet one of its own companies has caused global chaos through lack of care. The Global Times also took a jab at the internet giants who "monopolise" the industry: "Relying solely on top companies to lead network security efforts, as some countries advocate, may hinder not just the inclusive sharing of governance outcomes but also introduce new security risks." The reference to “sharing” is probably an allusion to the debate over intellectual property insofar as China is often accused of copying or stealing western technology. Beijing insists this is not the case and advocates for an open global technology marketplace - while still keeping tight control over its domestic scene. Not everything was totally unaffected in China, however. A small numbers of workers expressed thanks to an American software giant for ending their working week early. “Thank you Microsoft for an early vacation,” was trending on the social media site Weibo on Friday, with users posting pictures of blue error screens.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3g01y047pdo
|
news_articles_c3g01y047pd
|
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Spain tourism: Why Spanish people are fighting back - BBC News
|
2024-07-22
|
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
|
Activists say spiralling housing costs are due to properties being bought by foreigners - or rented over the summer.
|
Europe
|
If you can elbow your way onto one of Majorca’s sunspots this summer, you will witness two unstoppable forces. The first, as old as time, the waves of the Balearic Sea, methodically erasing the day’s lovingly crafted sandcastles. The second, a more modern phenomenon, the tsunami of tourism threatening to consume all in its path. Every inch of beach is taken. Finding a parking space is like striking gold. If you leave your sunbed for too long, your possessions are unceremoniously turfed to make space for the long queue of would-be usurpers. All these are the signs of a bonanza that’s seen and heard across the island, not least in the incessant beeping of contactless payment machines ringing out from the teeming hotels, restaurants and bars. A chorus of commerce powered by record numbers of visitors. But if this is a tale of colossal wealth being showered onto a business-savvy Spanish community, Sonia Ruiz certainty has not shared any of it. We meet the mother of one, 31, in a park a few hundred metres from the shore in the capital, Palma. Her four-year-old son Luca negotiates the various playground slides with no apparent concern. But Sonia is really struggling. Her landlord has asked them to leave and she says finding a new place is impossible. “Every day I’m looking and every day the rent is higher,” she says. “I even stop people in the street and ask if they have something because the day is approaching when I will have to leave the apartment, and I just see me and my son homeless because there is absolutely nothing.” Sonia and her partner are separated but have been forced to live together because individually they cannot afford the cost of rent, despite taking home €2,400 a month between them. “They ask you for deposits of several months. Some have even told me that they don't want children, they don't want animals. And so many people are looking.”
Like thousands of Majorcans, Sonia is protesting this weekend against the surge in tourism that is being blamed for plummeting living standards among the local population. Activists say spiralling housing costs are being driven by a huge number of houses and apartments being bought by foreigners, or at least rented out to them for large chunks of the summer. “It’s impossible to sustain this sort of model," 25-year-old Pere Joan Femenia explains from outside the cathedral in Majorca’s capital, Palma. He is part of a movement called "Menys Turisme, Més Vida", or "Less Tourism, More Life". He says not only are unprecedented numbers of visitors pricing locals out of the housing market, they are also using up public spaces, public services and natural resources. Pere started his activism five years ago as part of Greta Thunberg’s climate movement, but his focus has shifted to the cost of living for his fellow islanders. “Businesses are changing from ones selling traditional products to multi-nationals selling ice cream and we are losing our identity. We want to preserve our culture," he says. Pere points over to the port, far beyond the rows of street vendors and swelling crowds filling the square, explaining that some cruises disgorge as many as 12,000 visitors every day on to the island. He says it is a myth that Majorca needs ever-expanding tourism to survive, and that the reality is many locals are preparing to leave for good because they can no longer afford it here.
Pere argues that putting limits on flights arriving and cruises docking will immediately ease the pressure on the island. It is a demand that will form part of the slogans and banners carried around Palma during this weekend’s protest. Spain’s National Institute of statistics says last year 14.4 million foreign tourists visited the Balearic Islands, of which Majorca is by far the biggest - followed by Menorca then Ibiza. The institute says the number of international visitors to the archipelago increased by 9.1% compared with 2022 while their spending went up even more - 16.4%. When Spanish visitors are taken into account too, activists claim this year could see 20 million visitors to the Balearics. As Spain’s tourist hotspots have developed over the decades, the debate over whether the millions of visitors bring more problems than benefits has intensified.
This year it feels like something has changed. The anger among many locals is reaching a new level - notably demonstrated in Barcelona recently when visitors were drenched with water pistols. There have been demonstrations elsewhere on the mainland, in Malaga, as well as in the Canary Islands. Spain’s tourist magnets are now looking to repel a seemingly inexorable deluge. Some British newspapers compiled lists of “hostile holiday hotspots” to avoid in the summer of 2024. On a packed beach in Magaluf, the long-time destination of choice for millions of British holidaymakers, the Green family from Rotherham are paddling happily. This is dad Adam’s first trip abroad, although calling it a “holiday” may be a stretch as he and his wife keep tabs on their seven kids. “It’s hectic, but we’re getting there. Apart from the heat, it’s great,” he says.
I ask whether they’ve heard about the various protests that have been taking place and if it made them think twice about coming out to Majorca. “I saw a little bit on the news”, says Charlotte, “but I tried not to watch it because I didn’t want it to stress me out and put me off coming because we’d already booked and paid for it.” And how about the central thrust of the local protesters’ argument - that burgeoning tourism is having a hugely negative impact? “Don’t the tourists boost it and make the money for this place?" asks Adam. “People travel around the world and this is it. With no tourists there’d be no jobs, no wages, no nowt. They rely on it, don’t they?”
Are you a protester, local resident or tourist? Please get in touch to share your views and experiences.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99wxwgzn8qo
|
news_articles_c99wxwgzn8q
|
|
Lando Norris on Hungarian Grand Prix: I didn't give up the win - I lost it off the line - BBC Sport
|
2024-07-22
|
https://www.facebook.com/BBCSport/
|
Lando Norris agonised over whether to hand victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix back to McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri but said it was the "fair" and "honest" thing to do.
|
Formula 1
|
'I didn't give up the win - I lost it off the line'
Lando Norris agonised over whether to hand victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix back to team-mate Oscar Piastri but said it was the "fair" and "honest" thing to do. The Briton spent 20 laps debating the move with his team, as the drivers raced to McLaren's first one-two for nearly three years, but said that he was "always quite confident" he was going to do it. "I didn't deserve to win the race," Norris said. "Simple as that. The fact I was in that position was incorrect. "If Oscar's led the whole race, it's not fair, and I don't think that's how it should work, that he should just let me pass for me to win because I'm fighting for a championship. "I didn't give up the race win - I lost it off the line." Both drivers admitted after the race that McLaren had made their lives harder than would be ideal. Norris was ahead of Piastri - for whom this was a maiden win - only because the team had chosen to make the Briton's second and final pit stop early to protect against Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, who had recently made his own and fitted fresh tyres. McLaren were cautious in the timing - excessively so, some said - because Norris still had five seconds to play with. But team principal Andrea Stella said he preferred to reduce the impact of a potential delay at a pit stop and handle the situation within the team than risk losing track position. The decision to pit Norris first from just over a second behind inevitably - because of the extra pace provided by fresh tyres - put Norris ahead of Piastri when the Australian made his own final stop a couple of laps later. And the situation did indeed appear to take some handling. Time and again, Norris' engineer Will Joseph went on the radio to urge the Briton to follow instructions; time and again Norris pushed back, or sometimes did not respond at all. At one point, Joseph had to say: "Radio check" to ensure Norris was getting the messages. "Loud and clear," came the reply. Why did he not reassure the team, Norris was asked. "I don't need to," he said. "I know what I'm going to do and not going to do. Of course I'm going to question and challenge it. And that's what I did. "I was going to wait until the last corner, last lap. But they said if there was a safety car all of a sudden, then I couldn't let Oscar go through and it would have made me look like a bit of an idiot and I was like, fair point, so I let him go two laps to go. "You can make of it what you will, of what you hear and what you think you know, but I know I was always going to give it back unless they changed their mind and they didn't, so all good."
The result - combined with a difficult race for championship leader Max Verstappen, who collided with Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and finished fifth - allowed Norris to close his deficit in the drivers' championship to the Dutchman to 76 points. McLaren are now just 51 points behind Red Bull in the constructors' with 11 races to go. And Norris admitted it was the championship that had made him doubt his decision most. "It's always going to go through your mind," he said. "You have to be selfish in this sport at times. That's priority number one - to think of yourself. "I'm also a team player. My mind was going pretty crazy at the time. I know what we've done in the past. Oscar's helped me plenty of times. But this isn't that. I was put into a position and we were undoing it. "I know a lot of people are going to say the gap between me and Max is pretty big but if Red Bull and Max make the mistakes they did today and we continue to improve and have weekends like this, we can turn it around. "It is still optimistic and a big goal to say I can close 70 points in half a season, and seven points I give away... it crosses your mind. So it was not easy. "But I also understood the situation I was in and I was quite confident that by the last lap I would have done it."
Piastri took his first career grand prix win
Before the race, it looked like Norris' to lose. He had started on pole, on the racing line, and normally the drivers on the inside make slower starts at the Hungaroring because of the lack of grip off line. But Norris' start was not good, and Piastri got alongside him as they went three-wide into the first corner with Verstappen. Norris briefly dropped behind Verstappen - who was ordered to give the place back because he had gained it by going off the track. Once back in second place, on a track where overtaking is difficult - partly because of the circuit's twisty nature and partly because of the hot weather that means cars behind others overheat their tyres even more than normal - Norris was never going to pass a car from the same team with such similar pace. "I boxed first and naturally you will always undercut. The team gave me this position and I gave it back, nothing more than that," he said. "Something we always talk about before every race is our trust in one another, our honesty we have as a group. "I think that's something that's allowed us to catch others so quickly, to perform and outperform others so quickly to develop the car quicker." Despite Norris' arguments with the pit wall, team principal Stella, who has masterminded McLaren's revival over the past 18 months, said he had no doubts his driver would do what was asked. "I know Lando enough," Stella said. "Sometimes you have to communicate to all the sides that exist inside a race driver. "But I know him well enough to know that inside Lando we have a race driver and a team player. These two elements came along perfectly today to generate what was the right thing to do for the team, for Oscar and Lando. "I know for the media and watching on TV this becomes a story. But for us internally this becomes part of the way we go racing, and that's why we invest so much in culture, values and mindset. "We want to be able to manage the situation if we want to be in the championship with Lando, Oscar and McLaren." Stella is an intelligent and eloquent man, but also a tough one. A driver who did not accede to such a policy, he said, could find somewhere else to race. "Interests of the team come first," Stella said. "If you mess up on this matter, you cannot be part of the McLaren F1 team. That's the principle." But he said he had no concerns Norris would eventually do what was right. Asked why it had taken Norris so long, Stella replied: "Because he’s a race driver. Mention me a race driver who would have not done [the same thing]. "Actually you can mention to me many who would have not done it until lap 70, and I would be extremely concerned in that case if Lando had not demonstrated I am a race driver because that's the ethos you need to fight hard with Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and more and Oscar himself. "It is entertaining to talk about the controversial aspects, but it would be unfair not to talk about the resolution which happened according to our way of going racing."
It was hard to argue with the idea Piastri deserved to win - a result that has looked only a matter of time since he made his debut with McLaren last year. The Australian led the race confidently after winning the start. The only blot on his copybook was an off at Turn 11 that allowed Norris to get back in range before that crucial final stop. It was not his first F1 win - he won the sprint in Qatar last year - but it was his first grand prix victory. It will surely not be the last. "An incredible moment that I've been dreaming of for a very long time," Piastri said. "My first dream in my career was reaching F1. The second one is winning a race. "I'm very, very happy and proud and not just of myself, but everybody that's helped me get to this position. "Going back to my family, firstly, of course. You know, it took a lot of big decisions at a young age to chase the F1 dream. "It's very difficult to become an F1 driver by staying in Australia, so it meant some big decisions early in life. And just very, very proud that those decisions have paid off and we've managed to make it worth it."
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Chris Mason: Sir Keir Starmer’s ruthless streak on show - again - BBC News
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2024-07-23
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The PM has put down a marker - but will it nip future rebellions in the bud or store up trouble for later?
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Politics
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You can demonstrate power with numbers in politics, but the real way to demonstrate it is in actions. Less than three weeks on from the general election, and the prime minister has booted seven of his MPs out of the Parliamentary Labour Party. That is quite the statement of authority and intent – and a brutal demonstration of his power. A prime minister with a narrower majority, a less emphatic win, would perhaps not have dared act so boldly. But with a colossal majority, he has the scope to act ruthlessly, and put down a marker for the months ahead.
The argument his team are making is that the party had been clear it would not be prioritising the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap. That position had been stress-tested, they argue, in the build-up to the general election and the assembly of the party’s manifesto. And, they add, potential rebels had been told very clearly in advance of the vote that if they voted against the government position, they would, to use the Westminster jargon, have the whip withdrawn. This means they are suspended from the parliamentary party and will sit as independent MPs for at least six months. Sir Keir has previously spoken in interviews about his willingness to be ruthless to ensure Labour's success in government - you can read it in his own words here, external and here., external
The headline from this vote could have been "government with a massive majority wins a vote by a massive margin". That is an accurate description of precisely what did happen. Granted, it would not have been much of a headline or much of a story, because it is entirely unsurprising. And so, the moment would have passed without remark. Instead, the government decided it was not going to stand for those on its own side picking a fight with it so early on, on a policy where Labour’s position was very clear. “We can’t have Labour MPs voting against the first Labour King’s Speech in 14 years,” is how one senior figure put it to me. But doing this has knowingly escalated and inflamed the issue for those on the left. Of those given the boot, some are the leading faces and voices of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. His shadow chancellor John McDonnell, his shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, his shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey. And then there is 30-year-old Zarah Sultana, who has a colossal social media following – half a million followers on TikTok and eight million likes for her videos. They all now join Mr Corbyn as independent MPs. “Shameful” and “a shocker” are two reactions I have heard from allies on the left. Parallels are being drawn with a far bigger rebellion Tony Blair’s government faced in its opening months in 1997. You can read our report on that here. No MPs lost the whip then. Does this nip future potential rebellions in the bud? Or store up trouble for later, when the novelty value and honeymoon period of a Labour government has worn off? Who knows. Potentially both. It is the first big flashpoint for the new government – and one Sir Keir Starmer has chosen to walk towards.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngxy39j2vo
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Chris Mason: Sir Keir Starmer’s ruthless streak on show - again - BBC News
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2024-07-24
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The PM has put down a marker - but will it nip future rebellions in the bud or store up trouble for later?
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Politics
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You can demonstrate power with numbers in politics, but the real way to demonstrate it is in actions. Less than three weeks on from the general election, and the prime minister has booted seven of his MPs out of the Parliamentary Labour Party. That is quite the statement of authority and intent – and a brutal demonstration of his power. A prime minister with a narrower majority, a less emphatic win, would perhaps not have dared act so boldly. But with a colossal majority, he has the scope to act ruthlessly, and put down a marker for the months ahead.
The argument his team are making is that the party had been clear it would not be prioritising the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap. That position had been stress-tested, they argue, in the build-up to the general election and the assembly of the party’s manifesto. And, they add, potential rebels had been told very clearly in advance of the vote that if they voted against the government position, they would, to use the Westminster jargon, have the whip withdrawn. This means they are suspended from the parliamentary party and will sit as independent MPs for at least six months. Sir Keir has previously spoken in interviews about his willingness to be ruthless to ensure Labour's success in government - you can read it in his own words here, external and here., external
The headline from this vote could have been "government with a massive majority wins a vote by a massive margin". That is an accurate description of precisely what did happen. Granted, it would not have been much of a headline or much of a story, because it is entirely unsurprising. And so, the moment would have passed without remark. Instead, the government decided it was not going to stand for those on its own side picking a fight with it so early on, on a policy where Labour’s position was very clear. “We can’t have Labour MPs voting against the first Labour King’s Speech in 14 years,” is how one senior figure put it to me. But doing this has knowingly escalated and inflamed the issue for those on the left. Of those given the boot, some are the leading faces and voices of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. His shadow chancellor John McDonnell, his shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, his shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey. And then there is 30-year-old Zarah Sultana, who has a colossal social media following – half a million followers on TikTok and eight million likes for her videos. They all now join Mr Corbyn as independent MPs. “Shameful” and “a shocker” are two reactions I have heard from allies on the left. Parallels are being drawn with a far bigger rebellion Tony Blair’s government faced in its opening months in 1997. You can read our report on that here. No MPs lost the whip then. Does this nip future potential rebellions in the bud? Or store up trouble for later, when the novelty value and honeymoon period of a Labour government has worn off? Who knows. Potentially both. It is the first big flashpoint for the new government – and one Sir Keir Starmer has chosen to walk towards.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngxy39j2vo
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news_articles_c4ngxy39j2v
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UK drops last government's plan to challenge Netanyahu arrest warrant - BBC News
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2024-07-26
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Keir Starmer's spokesperson said the issue was a matter for the International Criminal Court.
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Middle East
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Benjamin Netanyahu address the US Congress earlier this week
The UK government has dropped plans to challenge the right of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In May, the chief prosecutor of the ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The previous Conservative UK government had indicated it planned to make a submission to the court - having questioned the right of the prosecutor to apply for a warrant - but had not done so before the election. Now, a spokesperson for the new Labour government has said it will not be making a submission, saying it is "a matter for the court".
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: "I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations." In addition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the ICC's chief prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Should the ICC proceed with the arrest warrants, the possibility could arise that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant would be asked not to set foot on British soil, to avoid being arrested by the UK authorities.
The court has already authorised 70 similar submissions from other countries on the subject and is currently working through them. Prof Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, predicts it will take until the autumn for the court to look at all the submissions and give the prosecutor time to respond if necessary. Asked if the UK's decision would make any difference, he said: “Of course, the fact that a major country such as the UK has decided in the end not to submit is something that the judges will take note of. “But the court still has to undertake the legal analysis regarding the questions that the previous [UK] government wanted to raise.” He says the decision gives an indication of how the UK would react if the ICC were to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant. “It would be difficult for the UK government, after deferring to the court… to simply shirk off and say I’m not going to implement it.” A key issue at stake is whether the ICC can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where the Palestinian Authority can not exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals under the terms of the Oslo Accords - a peace agreement in 1993. In 2021, one of three ICC judges ruled the court could not exercise jurisdiction over Israelis, while two others ruled that this could be decided at a later stage.
Ahead of the UK's announcement, media outlets in Israel quoted a senior official as saying such a UK decision not to make a submission would be "fundamentally wrong", adding that it “distorts justice and truth, and violates the right of all democracies to fight terrorism". "Instead of trying to thwart the ICC's much-needed Palestine investigation, the UK should be backing efforts to bring all perpetrators of war crimes and possible genocide to justice." The war in Gaza has proved to be politically tricky for Labour, with its stance upsetting many of its traditional supporters, particularly in the Muslim community. In the recent general election, shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat to a strongly pro-Gaza candidate, while other senior party figures including Wes Streeting and Jess Phillips saw their majorities slashed. Last week the government announced it was restoring funding to Unrwa, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees. The UK had previously halted donations after Israel alleged 12 Unrwa staff were involved in the October 2023 attacks by Hamas. An internal UN investigation into allegations related to that attack is ongoing. But a separate UN review, published in April, found Israel had not provided evidence for its claims hundreds of Unrwa staff were members of terror groups.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckkg525l93lo
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Has Labour really found a bigger financial mess than it expected? - BBC News
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2024-07-26
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Rachel Reeves is set to reveal a public finances shortfall of billions on pounds after a snap audit.
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Are the UK's finances really worse than Labour expected?
The new Labour government has been in power for just over three weeks. In that time, it says ministers have found government departments in a much worse state than they thought. On Monday, the Chancellor will argue the public finances are in a bad place – and that will mean tough decisions. To use the Westminster jargon, she's rolling the pitch for announcements that might not be popular. But how much of what the government is facing is actually a surprise? And how much are these ministers trying to shape the political narrative?
The first thing to highlight is that we already had a good idea of the state of the country’s books, external. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) publishes them twice a year – we last got a full breakdown in March., external We also knew during the election campaign that there were tough decisions to come. The BBC covered them – including warnings that there were likely to be tax rises or cuts or both as a result of a squeeze on public spending. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggested, external some government departments could see cuts of between £10bn and £20bn – something Labour were reluctant to engage with during the campaign. Treasury insiders are claiming there have been surprises since they took over. One is that public sector pay deals are likely to cost a lot more than expected. Independent pay review bodies have said teachers and nurses should get 5.5% - more than most were expecting. The last government budgeted for a lower settlement of 2%, sources say, so to fund the much higher deal will cost billions of pounds. If a similar increase happens across the public sector, it would cost billions more. Labour has also claimed that hundreds of millions were being spent on the Rwanda scheme – a lot more than it realised. Although some of that money was pay for civil servants who would have been working for the department anyway, sources say a lot of it was operational costs which were only discovered once the new government went through the books. The Department of Health and Social Care has also warned of hospital building programmes in England costing a lot more than budgeted for. Sources have also said there are extra spending commitments announced after the Autumn Statement which need to be paid for. Expect to hear about “in-year pressures” – extra spending that needs to be allocated immediately.
The Treasury intends to publish a full report and breakdown on Monday, explaining where it thinks it has found a “black hole”. At that point we will be able to scrutinise the calculations and see what is really new. But it was known before the election that whoever was in power afterwards would face big challenges. Rachel Reeves started talking about a tricky inheritance well before polling day. Ms Reeves told the Financial Times, external in June: “We’ve got the OBR now. "We know things are in a pretty bad state… You don’t need to win an election to find that out.” This is not just about the economy. Ministers have been pointing to other areas where they say things are worse than they expected - the health service, prisons, the environment and more. On prisons, the justice secretary announced some offenders in England would be released earlier to ease overcrowding. She blamed that on the “scale of the emergency” the new government had left. It is true to say there are big challenges with overcrowding. Senior ministers in the last government wanted action taken – but it was not signed off before the election. But was it a surprise to the incoming government? Sources in the justice department point to the system being a lot closer to “disaster” than they thought and how little time they had to try to solve the issue. They will, however, have had a good idea because the government publishes weekly figures showing prison numbers, external. They knew ministers in the last government were pushing for a quick decision. The picture is not a complete surprise, even if some specific details might have become clearer.
So let's return to the politics. Because a lot of this is about politics. The new government is trying to frame the debate over the next few years. It wants to argue it has been left such a dire inheritance that it has to do some pretty unpopular things. It wants you to blame the Conservatives – not Labour. The former chancellor Jeremy Hunt argues this is all nonsense and has warned Labour is paving the way for tax rises it did not disclose during the election campaign. The Labour strategy though is not a new one. The Conservatives did something similar when they won power in 2010, arguing that Labour in power had crashed the economy and left the government with no cash – and that was why austerity was essential. It's an argument Conservatives still make to this day. And remember, Labour in power is making choices. It has pledged not to increase income tax, National Insurance, VAT and corporation tax. It has said it will not borrow extra money for day-to-day spending. It is likely to choose to pay public sector workers more than inflation, in line with recommendations from the pay bodies. So the government has possibly found a few surprises that make its life a bit harder. But it's also trying to frame the political narrative and prepare the ground for what comes next.
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JD Vance defends 'childless cat ladies' comment after backlash - BBC News
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2024-07-26
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Donald Trump's vice-presidential candidate says his 2021 comments about Democrats were "sarcastic".
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US & Canada
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JD Vance questioned why some leading politicians did not have children in a 2021 interview
Donald Trump's vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has defended resurfaced comments in which he called Democratic politicians a "bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives". His remarks, made in 2021, have been roundly criticised this week, with Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston among those to have hit out at the 39-year-old Republican. "Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said," Mr Vance told the conservative media personality Megyn Kelly on Friday. "The substance of what I said, Megyn - I'm sorry, it's true," he added.
Mr Vance, who has three children, said he was not criticising people who do not have children in the interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which he gave while running for the Senate. "This is about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-children," he told The Megyn Kelly Show, external. "The simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way," he said. "I'm making an argument that our entire society has become sceptical and even hateful towards the idea of having kids."
• None Why Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate
In the original interview, he questioned why some leading politicians did not have children. One of those he named was Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for November's election, who is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children. "The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children," he said at the time. "How does it make any sense we've turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?" The Senator from Ohio said the country was being run "by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too". On Friday, Mr Vance said: “I wish her step-children and Kamala Harris and her whole family the very best. The point is not that she’s lesser. The point is that her party has pursued a set of policies that are profoundly anti-child.” Mr Vance made similar remarks against Democrats in a 2021 speech at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, in which he also said his criticism was not directed at those who could not have children for biological or medical reasons. Jennifer Aniston, who has spoken publicly about her struggles while trying to have children through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), was among those who criticised his comments.
"I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States," she said on Thursday. Pete Buttigieg, who was another Democratic politician named by Mr Vance in the original interview, also addressed the comments earlier this week, speaking about adopting twins with his husband, Chasten. "The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heart-breaking setback in our adoption journey," Mr Buttigieg told CNN’s The Source programme. Speaking to Fox News, Trump co-campaign chairman Chris LaCivita rejected any suggestion that Trump might regret his choice of running mate. "JD was the best pick," Mr LaCivita said. "The president loves him. We love him."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c147yn4xxx4o
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Newspaper headlines: 'Council house revolution' and '£20bn black hole' - BBC News
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2024-07-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Headlines include Labour pledging to kickstart home building and a reported shortfall in public finances.
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The Papers
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"Council house revolution" is the headline in the Sunday Mirror. It says Labour will reveal plans on Tuesday for the biggest building programme of council and affordable housing, external in decades. The paper's editorial says the party is "right to do whatever it takes to put a decent roof over the heads of all who need it". Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner tells the Observer that "local leaders who know their areas best" will be key to delivering the proposals, external. The Sunday Express has a positive assessment of Dame Priti Patel's bid, external to become the next leader of the Conservatives. The paper says the former home secretary has "constructed a compelling argument" for uniting the party in order to focus on the issues that matter to voters. The Sun on Sunday has spoken to an insider with knowledge of another leadership hopeful's campaign. They say Robert Jenrick will offer "the politics of Nigel Farage with the presentation of David Cameron", when he delivers a key speech this week.
The Sunday Telegraph says Sir Keir Starmer has discussed the possibility of a youth free movement deal, external with the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. A government source cautions against over-interpreting Sir Keir's openness to the idea - saying he might have just been polite when meeting leaders for the first time. Pat McFadden, a senior member of Sir Keir's cabinet, has written in the Sunday Telegraph, external ahead of a Treasury statement about the health of the public finances on Monday. He says one of his first acts as head of the Cabinet Office was to get a "thorough analysis" of the state of government departments. Mr McFadden tells the paper he found "announcements without proper funding" and "long-term spending pressures piling up without a serious plan to address them". But the Mail on Sunday calls the government "blazingly dishonest", external. It says Labour's claims that they were unaware of the true state of the nation's accounts before taking office are "quite astonishing".
The Observer says former Strictly Come Dancing production staff have complained about a "toxic" working culture, external, in what it calls a "fresh blow" for the show. Former crew members have accused the BBC of failing to take their complaints seriously. The corporation says it does not recognise the claims relating to a negative workplace culture. The Sunday Times has the first interview with the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, external since his return from the US, where he has spent 13 months under house arrest. A court in California cleared him of fraud and conspiracy charges relating to the sale of his software company to the technology giant Hewlett-Packard. He is calling for an overhaul of the extradition treaty between America and Britain, which critics say is onesided. The paper says he was "put in chains" and bundled into the back row of a passenger plane, when he was handed over to US marshals at Heathrow Airport.
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Slave Play: Kit Harington defends theatre's 'black out' nights - BBC News
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2024-07-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Slave Play, which has just opened in London, has nights with dedicated performances for black audiences.
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Culture
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Actor Kit Harington has defended his new play having dedicated performances for black audiences, denying that the initiative discriminates against white people. Slave Play attracted controversy and criticism earlier this year when it was announced there would be two "black out" nights during the show's 12-week run. Rishi Sunak, who was prime minister at the time, described the initiative as "wrong and divisive". But Harington, who appears in the play, said of the scheme: "I’ve come to realise or believe that it’s an incredibly positive thing."
The Game of Thrones star also told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that the first black out performance, which took place earlier this month, was an "incredible show". "Number one, if you are white, no-one’s stopping you buying a ticket, it’s not illegal to buy a ticket for that show, if you want to come," he said. "It’s saying, 'We would prefer the audience to be this'. "Number two, I’ve been going to the theatre since I was young with my mum. I’ve only ever really known predominantly white audiences. It is still a particularly white space. "So to have the argument that, oh, this is discriminating against white people, is I think vaguely strange and ridiculous."
Set on a plantation in the old American South, Slave Play explores "race, identity and sexuality". Written by US actor and playwright Jeremy O Harris, it was a Broadway success and received 12 Tony nominations, although it did not win any.
Writer Jeremy O Harris (left) said "people have to be radically invited into a space to know that they belong there"
The Broadway run also had black out nights, which organisers said were intended for an "all-black-identifying audience". "People have to be radically invited into a space to know that they belong there," Harris told BBC Radio 4, external earlier this year. The second of the two black out performances in London's West End will take place in September. Harington said "the energy on stage and in the audience" during the first one "was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced". "And I do believe with this play and what it’s saying, that having a place where a certain group of people can come and feel open to laughing in a certain way, reacting in a certain way, in sort of safety, for two nights of the entire run, is a great thing." His co-star Olivia Washington said: "To see black and brown people in a 900-seat theatre, I’ve never experienced that, as an audience member I’d never experienced that. "So it was very special for me to experience in doing this play, because as you [Kuenssberg] said, it is difficult, it’s difficult subject matter, it can get hard for people to hear. "However, to feel supported by this room in a different kind of way felt just – it felt really great." Slave Play's producers told BBC News in February that the "intent is to celebrate the play with the widest possible audience", adding: "To be absolutely clear, no-one will be prevented or precluded from attending any performance of Slave Play."
The show's West End transfer has received generally positive reviews from critics. The Guardian's Arifa Akbar described it, external as "charismatic, needling theatre" while the Evening Standard's Nick Curtis said, external it was "bold and scabrously witty" - with both critics awarding four stars. Dominic Maxwell of the Times, however, awarded just two stars,, external saying the show was "the sort of ideas-led piece that would stimulate over an hour but has instead unwisely swollen to two hours". His colleague Clive Davis, who attended the first black out night, said he had mixed feelings about the initiative. , external "Did the composition of the audience affect the way the dialogue was received? I think so," he wrote, adding that the audience's laughter and commentary suggested they were particularly engaged. Reflecting on the black out nights, he continued: "I still have my doubts... I still think better marketing is the more creative way to bring in new audiences." However, several ticket buyers interviewed by Sky News, external on the night applauded the scheme. One said it was "just about giving more people an opportunity to experience" theatre, while another said it was "not an exclusion thing, it's just we don't get the same opportunities" as white people.
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UK drops last government's plan to challenge Netanyahu arrest warrant - BBC News
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2024-07-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Keir Starmer's spokesperson said the issue was a matter for the International Criminal Court.
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Middle East
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Benjamin Netanyahu address the US Congress earlier this week
The UK government has dropped plans to challenge the right of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In May, the chief prosecutor of the ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The previous Conservative UK government had indicated it planned to make a submission to the court - having questioned the right of the prosecutor to apply for a warrant - but had not done so before the election. Now, a spokesperson for the new Labour government has said it will not be making a submission, saying it is "a matter for the court".
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: "I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations." In addition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the ICC's chief prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Should the ICC proceed with the arrest warrants, the possibility could arise that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant would be asked not to set foot on British soil, to avoid being arrested by the UK authorities.
The court has already authorised 70 similar submissions from other countries on the subject and is currently working through them. Prof Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, predicts it will take until the autumn for the court to look at all the submissions and give the prosecutor time to respond if necessary. Asked if the UK's decision would make any difference, he said: “Of course, the fact that a major country such as the UK has decided in the end not to submit is something that the judges will take note of. “But the court still has to undertake the legal analysis regarding the questions that the previous [UK] government wanted to raise.” He says the decision gives an indication of how the UK would react if the ICC were to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant. “It would be difficult for the UK government, after deferring to the court… to simply shirk off and say I’m not going to implement it.” A key issue at stake is whether the ICC can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where the Palestinian Authority can not exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals under the terms of the Oslo Accords - a peace agreement in 1993. In 2021, one of three ICC judges ruled the court could not exercise jurisdiction over Israelis, while two others ruled that this could be decided at a later stage.
Ahead of the UK's announcement, media outlets in Israel quoted a senior official as saying such a UK decision not to make a submission would be "fundamentally wrong", adding that it “distorts justice and truth, and violates the right of all democracies to fight terrorism". "Instead of trying to thwart the ICC's much-needed Palestine investigation, the UK should be backing efforts to bring all perpetrators of war crimes and possible genocide to justice." The war in Gaza has proved to be politically tricky for Labour, with its stance upsetting many of its traditional supporters, particularly in the Muslim community. In the recent general election, shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat to a strongly pro-Gaza candidate, while other senior party figures including Wes Streeting and Jess Phillips saw their majorities slashed. Last week the government announced it was restoring funding to Unrwa, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees. The UK had previously halted donations after Israel alleged 12 Unrwa staff were involved in the October 2023 attacks by Hamas. An internal UN investigation into allegations related to that attack is ongoing. But a separate UN review, published in April, found Israel had not provided evidence for its claims hundreds of Unrwa staff were members of terror groups.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckkg525l93lo
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news_articles_ckkg525l93l
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Has Labour really found a bigger financial mess than it expected? - BBC News
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2024-07-27
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Rachel Reeves is set to reveal a public finances shortfall of billions on pounds after a snap audit.
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Are the UK's finances really worse than Labour expected?
The new Labour government has been in power for just over three weeks. In that time, it says ministers have found government departments in a much worse state than they thought. On Monday, the Chancellor will argue the public finances are in a bad place – and that will mean tough decisions. To use the Westminster jargon, she's rolling the pitch for announcements that might not be popular. But how much of what the government is facing is actually a surprise? And how much are these ministers trying to shape the political narrative?
The first thing to highlight is that we already had a good idea of the state of the country’s books, external. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) publishes them twice a year – we last got a full breakdown in March., external We also knew during the election campaign that there were tough decisions to come. The BBC covered them – including warnings that there were likely to be tax rises or cuts or both as a result of a squeeze on public spending. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggested, external some government departments could see cuts of between £10bn and £20bn – something Labour were reluctant to engage with during the campaign. Treasury insiders are claiming there have been surprises since they took over. One is that public sector pay deals are likely to cost a lot more than expected. Independent pay review bodies have said teachers and nurses should get 5.5% - more than most were expecting. The last government budgeted for a lower settlement of 2%, sources say, so to fund the much higher deal will cost billions of pounds. If a similar increase happens across the public sector, it would cost billions more. Labour has also claimed that hundreds of millions were being spent on the Rwanda scheme – a lot more than it realised. Although some of that money was pay for civil servants who would have been working for the department anyway, sources say a lot of it was operational costs which were only discovered once the new government went through the books. The Department of Health and Social Care has also warned of hospital building programmes in England costing a lot more than budgeted for. Sources have also said there are extra spending commitments announced after the Autumn Statement which need to be paid for. Expect to hear about “in-year pressures” – extra spending that needs to be allocated immediately.
The Treasury intends to publish a full report and breakdown on Monday, explaining where it thinks it has found a “black hole”. At that point we will be able to scrutinise the calculations and see what is really new. But it was known before the election that whoever was in power afterwards would face big challenges. Rachel Reeves started talking about a tricky inheritance well before polling day. Ms Reeves told the Financial Times, external in June: “We’ve got the OBR now. "We know things are in a pretty bad state… You don’t need to win an election to find that out.” This is not just about the economy. Ministers have been pointing to other areas where they say things are worse than they expected - the health service, prisons, the environment and more. On prisons, the justice secretary announced some offenders in England would be released earlier to ease overcrowding. She blamed that on the “scale of the emergency” the new government had left. It is true to say there are big challenges with overcrowding. Senior ministers in the last government wanted action taken – but it was not signed off before the election. But was it a surprise to the incoming government? Sources in the justice department point to the system being a lot closer to “disaster” than they thought and how little time they had to try to solve the issue. They will, however, have had a good idea because the government publishes weekly figures showing prison numbers, external. They knew ministers in the last government were pushing for a quick decision. The picture is not a complete surprise, even if some specific details might have become clearer.
So let's return to the politics. Because a lot of this is about politics. The new government is trying to frame the debate over the next few years. It wants to argue it has been left such a dire inheritance that it has to do some pretty unpopular things. It wants you to blame the Conservatives – not Labour. The former chancellor Jeremy Hunt argues this is all nonsense and has warned Labour is paving the way for tax rises it did not disclose during the election campaign. The Labour strategy though is not a new one. The Conservatives did something similar when they won power in 2010, arguing that Labour in power had crashed the economy and left the government with no cash – and that was why austerity was essential. It's an argument Conservatives still make to this day. And remember, Labour in power is making choices. It has pledged not to increase income tax, National Insurance, VAT and corporation tax. It has said it will not borrow extra money for day-to-day spending. It is likely to choose to pay public sector workers more than inflation, in line with recommendations from the pay bodies. So the government has possibly found a few surprises that make its life a bit harder. But it's also trying to frame the political narrative and prepare the ground for what comes next.
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JD Vance defends 'childless cat ladies' comment after backlash - BBC News
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2024-07-27
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Donald Trump's vice-presidential candidate says his 2021 comments about Democrats were "sarcastic".
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US & Canada
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JD Vance questioned why some leading politicians did not have children in a 2021 interview
Donald Trump's vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has defended resurfaced comments in which he called Democratic politicians a "bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives". His remarks, made in 2021, have been roundly criticised this week, with Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston among those to have hit out at the 39-year-old Republican. "Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said," Mr Vance told the conservative media personality Megyn Kelly on Friday. "The substance of what I said, Megyn - I'm sorry, it's true," he added.
Mr Vance, who has three children, said he was not criticising people who do not have children in the interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which he gave while running for the Senate. "This is about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-children," he told The Megyn Kelly Show, external. "The simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way," he said. "I'm making an argument that our entire society has become sceptical and even hateful towards the idea of having kids."
• None Why Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate
In the original interview, he questioned why some leading politicians did not have children. One of those he named was Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for November's election, who is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children. "The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children," he said at the time. "How does it make any sense we've turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?" The Senator from Ohio said the country was being run "by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too". On Friday, Mr Vance said: “I wish her step-children and Kamala Harris and her whole family the very best. The point is not that she’s lesser. The point is that her party has pursued a set of policies that are profoundly anti-child.” Mr Vance made similar remarks against Democrats in a 2021 speech at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, in which he also said his criticism was not directed at those who could not have children for biological or medical reasons. Jennifer Aniston, who has spoken publicly about her struggles while trying to have children through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), was among those who criticised his comments.
"I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States," she said on Thursday. Pete Buttigieg, who was another Democratic politician named by Mr Vance in the original interview, also addressed the comments earlier this week, speaking about adopting twins with his husband, Chasten. "The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heart-breaking setback in our adoption journey," Mr Buttigieg told CNN’s The Source programme. Speaking to Fox News, Trump co-campaign chairman Chris LaCivita rejected any suggestion that Trump might regret his choice of running mate. "JD was the best pick," Mr LaCivita said. "The president loves him. We love him."
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Newspaper headlines: 'Council house revolution' and '£20bn black hole' - BBC News
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2024-07-28
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Headlines include Labour pledging to kickstart home building and a reported shortfall in public finances.
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The Papers
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"Council house revolution" is the headline in the Sunday Mirror. It says Labour will reveal plans on Tuesday for the biggest building programme of council and affordable housing, external in decades. The paper's editorial says the party is "right to do whatever it takes to put a decent roof over the heads of all who need it". Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner tells the Observer that "local leaders who know their areas best" will be key to delivering the proposals, external. The Sunday Express has a positive assessment of Dame Priti Patel's bid, external to become the next leader of the Conservatives. The paper says the former home secretary has "constructed a compelling argument" for uniting the party in order to focus on the issues that matter to voters. The Sun on Sunday has spoken to an insider with knowledge of another leadership hopeful's campaign. They say Robert Jenrick will offer "the politics of Nigel Farage with the presentation of David Cameron", when he delivers a key speech this week.
The Sunday Telegraph says Sir Keir Starmer has discussed the possibility of a youth free movement deal, external with the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. A government source cautions against over-interpreting Sir Keir's openness to the idea - saying he might have just been polite when meeting leaders for the first time. Pat McFadden, a senior member of Sir Keir's cabinet, has written in the Sunday Telegraph, external ahead of a Treasury statement about the health of the public finances on Monday. He says one of his first acts as head of the Cabinet Office was to get a "thorough analysis" of the state of government departments. Mr McFadden tells the paper he found "announcements without proper funding" and "long-term spending pressures piling up without a serious plan to address them". But the Mail on Sunday calls the government "blazingly dishonest", external. It says Labour's claims that they were unaware of the true state of the nation's accounts before taking office are "quite astonishing".
The Observer says former Strictly Come Dancing production staff have complained about a "toxic" working culture, external, in what it calls a "fresh blow" for the show. Former crew members have accused the BBC of failing to take their complaints seriously. The corporation says it does not recognise the claims relating to a negative workplace culture. The Sunday Times has the first interview with the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, external since his return from the US, where he has spent 13 months under house arrest. A court in California cleared him of fraud and conspiracy charges relating to the sale of his software company to the technology giant Hewlett-Packard. He is calling for an overhaul of the extradition treaty between America and Britain, which critics say is onesided. The paper says he was "put in chains" and bundled into the back row of a passenger plane, when he was handed over to US marshals at Heathrow Airport.
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Slave Play: Kit Harington defends theatre's 'black out' nights - BBC News
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2024-07-28
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Slave Play, which has just opened in London, has nights with dedicated performances for black audiences.
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Culture
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Actor Kit Harington has defended his new play having dedicated performances for black audiences, denying that the initiative discriminates against white people. Slave Play attracted controversy and criticism earlier this year when it was announced there would be two "black out" nights during the show's 12-week run. Rishi Sunak, who was prime minister at the time, described the initiative as "wrong and divisive". But Harington, who appears in the play, said of the scheme: "I’ve come to realise or believe that it’s an incredibly positive thing."
The Game of Thrones star also told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that the first black out performance, which took place earlier this month, was an "incredible show". "Number one, if you are white, no-one’s stopping you buying a ticket, it’s not illegal to buy a ticket for that show, if you want to come," he said. "It’s saying, 'We would prefer the audience to be this'. "Number two, I’ve been going to the theatre since I was young with my mum. I’ve only ever really known predominantly white audiences. It is still a particularly white space. "So to have the argument that, oh, this is discriminating against white people, is I think vaguely strange and ridiculous."
Set on a plantation in the old American South, Slave Play explores "race, identity and sexuality". Written by US actor and playwright Jeremy O Harris, it was a Broadway success and received 12 Tony nominations, although it did not win any.
Writer Jeremy O Harris (left) said "people have to be radically invited into a space to know that they belong there"
The Broadway run also had black out nights, which organisers said were intended for an "all-black-identifying audience". "People have to be radically invited into a space to know that they belong there," Harris told BBC Radio 4, external earlier this year. The second of the two black out performances in London's West End will take place in September. Harington said "the energy on stage and in the audience" during the first one "was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced". "And I do believe with this play and what it’s saying, that having a place where a certain group of people can come and feel open to laughing in a certain way, reacting in a certain way, in sort of safety, for two nights of the entire run, is a great thing." His co-star Olivia Washington said: "To see black and brown people in a 900-seat theatre, I’ve never experienced that, as an audience member I’d never experienced that. "So it was very special for me to experience in doing this play, because as you [Kuenssberg] said, it is difficult, it’s difficult subject matter, it can get hard for people to hear. "However, to feel supported by this room in a different kind of way felt just – it felt really great." Slave Play's producers told BBC News in February that the "intent is to celebrate the play with the widest possible audience", adding: "To be absolutely clear, no-one will be prevented or precluded from attending any performance of Slave Play."
The show's West End transfer has received generally positive reviews from critics. The Guardian's Arifa Akbar described it, external as "charismatic, needling theatre" while the Evening Standard's Nick Curtis said, external it was "bold and scabrously witty" - with both critics awarding four stars. Dominic Maxwell of the Times, however, awarded just two stars,, external saying the show was "the sort of ideas-led piece that would stimulate over an hour but has instead unwisely swollen to two hours". His colleague Clive Davis, who attended the first black out night, said he had mixed feelings about the initiative. , external "Did the composition of the audience affect the way the dialogue was received? I think so," he wrote, adding that the audience's laughter and commentary suggested they were particularly engaged. Reflecting on the black out nights, he continued: "I still have my doubts... I still think better marketing is the more creative way to bring in new audiences." However, several ticket buyers interviewed by Sky News, external on the night applauded the scheme. One said it was "just about giving more people an opportunity to experience" theatre, while another said it was "not an exclusion thing, it's just we don't get the same opportunities" as white people.
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East Ham: Man stabbed to death and two teens hurt in park fight - BBC News
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2024-07-28
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Police were called to Plashet Park in East Ham on Saturday evening over reports of an altercation.
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London
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Man stabbed to death and two hurt in park fight
Police investigate at Plashet Park, Newham, after a man was stabbed to death
A man has been stabbed to death and two teenagers injured following a fight in an east London park. Police had been called to Plashet Park, East Ham, at about 19:30 BST on Saturday over reports of an altercation. A man, believed to be 20, was found fatally injured and died at the scene. Two teenage boys were also discovered at the same place - one with stab injuries and the second with head injuries.
A local resident said the park is regularly occupied with “hot-head boys” having loud arguments
Both were taken to hospital where neither is said to be in a life-threatening condition. A Met spokesperson said officers would remain in the area for "an exceptionally thorough and forensic" investigation and appealed for witnesses to contact them. No arrests have been made.
Speaking following the fatal stabbing, local resident Barbara Minley said the park was regularly occupied with "hot-head boys" who got into loud arguments. Ms Minley, who lives in a house overlooking the park said she could no longer send two of her children, aged eight and 12, to play there because of the trouble. Instead, they go to other parks "because of all these incidents".
Police scenes of crime officers gather evidence at the park
She said the area had "changed a lot" in the more than 20 years she had lived there and that the trouble had escalated in the 2000s. "It’s stupid arguments and stuff like that. Another murder happened two years ago, some stabbing," she said. "It’s too much hot-head boys – sometimes it’s a group of them, I don’t know what kind of thing it is, if it’s a gang thing." Ms Minley added: "I’ve got two kids (living here); the other four are all grown-up and thank God they don’t live in this area – it’s just these two now that I’m worried about. "It’s a beautiful park, but people just don’t want to give other people a chance to enjoy it.”
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Primodos: Families seek answers over pregnancy test drug - BBC News
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2024-07-29
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Primodos contained synthetic hormones and was used between the 1950s and 70s as a pregnancy test.
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Wales
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Mums want answers over pregnancy drug they say harmed kids
Margo Clarke (left) says son Adrian (right) was a sickly child from the day he was born and needed heart surgery aged eight
Mothers say they still wants answers over a pregnancy test tablet which they believe led to birth defects. Margo Clarke, 73, was given Primodos, which contained synthetic hormones and was used between the 1950s and 1970s, before giving birth to her first child, Adrian, in 1970, but said from the minute he was born he was ill. Former prime minister Theresa May has claimed health service and government of the time "defended itself, rather than trying to find the absolute truth for people" about whether the test was the cause for malformations, stillbirths and abortions. The drug company involved denies any link between Primodos and birth defects, but families have continued to lobby for recognition and support.
Ms Clarke said of her son: "The bigger he got, the worse he got." She said there were times Adrian's younger brother would need to get out of the pushchair, to allow the older Adrian to be pushed as he was too unwell to walk. "He couldn't run around, or play football, because he would just be very breathless," she said, adding that his lips would turn blue. "It was so distressing to see how unwell he was," she said. He was eventually referred to a specialist and was diagnosed with a hole in the heart, but the family were told he was not ill enough for surgery. "Because Adrian was mixed race they would say the blue lips were due to his colour and the fact that he couldn't run around was because of his West Indian heritage and his temperament," Ms Clarke said. "I was called over-anxious, neurotic, and I got to the point where I thought my son was going to die before they made an appointment to see the diagnostic surgeon," she said. She said the surgeon was "horrified" that Adrian had been left so long and he was lucky to be alive.
Adrian's heart problems meant he was often too unwell to walk and would be pushed in his younger brother's pushchair
Within a month he was taken to London for open heart surgery. "To say I felt relief is an understatement, because I felt such anxiety over those years, thinking nobody's listening to me," she said. She said a month after the operation, Adrian was running on the beach with a kite. Now 53, and having spent more than 30 years working as a nurse, Adrian said he can still vividly remember his early childhood. He said: "I couldn't do anything with my friends and was always in with the school nurse, needing a lie down." But he said he was "one of the lucky ones, because I've had a relatively normal life since", adding that other people he believes are similarly affected "are much worse off".
Theresa May commissioned a review into Primodos, which concluded that suffering by women was avoidable
Last year a High Court case seeking damages was thrown out after a judge ruled there was no new evidence linking the tests with foetal harm and "no real prospect of success". But Mrs May, who stood down as an MP at the 2024 general election, said she feels the thorny issue of evidence is not clear cut. In 2017, a government review by an expert working group said there was not enough evidence to prove a link between hormone pregnancy tests (HPTs) and birth defects. "The expert working group actually said 'on balance' there wasn’t a causal link between Primodos and birth defects," said Mrs May. "But that meant that there was evidence on both sides and they’d come down on that side of the argument. So I think that does need to be looked at again." She added: "Some children have suffered incredibly during their lives and it is ongoing - it's not finished."
Barbara Stockley (left) helps take care of her son Andy (right)
Mrs May commissioned Baroness Cumberlege to review the use of Primodos, along with vaginal mesh and sodium valproate. That report was published in 2020 – prompting apologies from the UK and Welsh governments – as it concluded that the use of HPTs should have been stopped in 1967 because of the "suggestion of increased risk" by researchers. It added that further opportunities for action were missed in 1970, 1973 and 1974. The official use or "indication" for Primodos was changed in 1970, meaning it was no longer to be used as a pregnancy test. However, the company that manufactured the drug, Schering, wrote in October 1977 that, in the previous 12 months, thousands of women had still been prescribed it as a pregnancy test.
Kathryn McCabe was just 18 when her first pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth
Other women who have taken the drug have different experiences, but their strong belief is that Primodos was at the root of devastating consequences. Barbara Stockley moved to Cwmbran, Torfaen, when she was given Primodos in 1965. Her son Andy can’t live independently and needs two-to-one care, which 82-year-old Barbara and her husband coordinate with five personal assistants. Kathryn McCabe now lives in Powys, but was living in St Helens, Merseyside, when she took the HPT in 1973, aged just 18. The following year her baby was stillborn, with distressing malformations, which had a profound impact on her. "You look at others with their prams and wonder why they have their babies and you don’t."
Bethan Dickson (pictured as a baby with her mum Lon) has needed multiple corrective surgeries on her feet
Bethan Dickson’s mum, Lon took Primodos in 1968 when she was living in Newport, and Bethan was born in September that year. She has needed several operations on her feet over the years, as her toes "were growing across my foot, rather than straight", she said. She said it was only when she took part in the evidence gathering for the Cumberlege review that she fully considered the psychological and emotional impact. "I knew I was in pain all the time I was walking – you can see the scars from surgery. But what you don’t see is the exclusion I felt. And that was much deeper than I realised."
Marie Lyon's daughter Sarah was born in 1970 with the lower part of her arm missing
Marie Lyon is chairwoman of the association for children damaged by oral hormone pregnancy tests, and her daughter Sarah was born in 1970s with the lower part of her arm missing. A key goal for her is an acknowledgement that the women were not to blame. "Secondly a lot of our families are still caring for their children and have never had any help at all. Women have never had the opportunity to work because of caring for the children," she said. Pharmaceutical company Bayer said it had "sympathy for the families, given the challenges in life they have had to face". "Previous assessments determined there was no link between the use of Primodos and the occurrence of such congenital anomalies, and no new scientific knowledge has been produced which would call into question the validity of that conclusion," the company said. The Department of Health and Social Care said: "The government would review any new scientific evidence which comes to light."
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Slave Play: Kit Harington defends theatre's 'black out' nights - BBC News
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2024-07-29
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Slave Play, which has just opened in London, has nights with dedicated performances for black audiences.
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Culture
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Actor Kit Harington has defended his new play having dedicated performances for black audiences, denying that the initiative discriminates against white people. Slave Play attracted controversy and criticism earlier this year when it was announced there would be two "black out" nights during the show's 12-week run. Rishi Sunak, who was prime minister at the time, described the initiative as "wrong and divisive". But Harington, who appears in the play, said of the scheme: "I’ve come to realise or believe that it’s an incredibly positive thing."
The Game of Thrones star also told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that the first black out performance, which took place earlier this month, was an "incredible show". "Number one, if you are white, no-one’s stopping you buying a ticket, it’s not illegal to buy a ticket for that show, if you want to come," he said. "It’s saying, 'We would prefer the audience to be this'. "Number two, I’ve been going to the theatre since I was young with my mum. I’ve only ever really known predominantly white audiences. It is still a particularly white space. "So to have the argument that, oh, this is discriminating against white people, is I think vaguely strange and ridiculous."
Set on a plantation in the old American South, Slave Play explores "race, identity and sexuality". Written by US actor and playwright Jeremy O Harris, it was a Broadway success and received 12 Tony nominations, although it did not win any.
Writer Jeremy O Harris (left) said "people have to be radically invited into a space to know that they belong there"
The Broadway run also had black out nights, which organisers said were intended for an "all-black-identifying audience". "People have to be radically invited into a space to know that they belong there," Harris told BBC Radio 4, external earlier this year. The second of the two black out performances in London's West End will take place in September. Harington said "the energy on stage and in the audience" during the first one "was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced". "And I do believe with this play and what it’s saying, that having a place where a certain group of people can come and feel open to laughing in a certain way, reacting in a certain way, in sort of safety, for two nights of the entire run, is a great thing." His co-star Olivia Washington said: "To see black and brown people in a 900-seat theatre, I’ve never experienced that, as an audience member I’d never experienced that. "So it was very special for me to experience in doing this play, because as you [Kuenssberg] said, it is difficult, it’s difficult subject matter, it can get hard for people to hear. "However, to feel supported by this room in a different kind of way felt just – it felt really great." Slave Play's producers told BBC News in February that the "intent is to celebrate the play with the widest possible audience", adding: "To be absolutely clear, no-one will be prevented or precluded from attending any performance of Slave Play."
The show's West End transfer has received generally positive reviews from critics. The Guardian's Arifa Akbar described it, external as "charismatic, needling theatre" while the Evening Standard's Nick Curtis said, external it was "bold and scabrously witty" - with both critics awarding four stars. Dominic Maxwell of the Times, however, awarded just two stars,, external saying the show was "the sort of ideas-led piece that would stimulate over an hour but has instead unwisely swollen to two hours". His colleague Clive Davis, who attended the first black out night, said he had mixed feelings about the initiative. , external "Did the composition of the audience affect the way the dialogue was received? I think so," he wrote, adding that the audience's laughter and commentary suggested they were particularly engaged. Reflecting on the black out nights, he continued: "I still have my doubts... I still think better marketing is the more creative way to bring in new audiences." However, several ticket buyers interviewed by Sky News, external on the night applauded the scheme. One said it was "just about giving more people an opportunity to experience" theatre, while another said it was "not an exclusion thing, it's just we don't get the same opportunities" as white people.
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Chris Mason: Politics to roar back in blame game over funding - BBC News
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2024-07-29
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Expect a pretty noisy argument when the new chancellor addresses the House of Commons, the BBC's Chris Mason writes.
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Politics
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Politics to roar back at Westminster in blame game over funding
For the first time since the general election, party politics will come roaring back at Westminster on Monday. Yes, there was a bit of it at the State Opening of Parliament a few weeks back, but ceremony and civility took centre stage then really. I don’t expect much of either later. When the chancellor gets to her feet in the House of Commons this afternoon, she will claim a whole graveyard’s worth of political skeletons have been crashing out of every cupboard in Whitehall since Labour won the election.
For Rachel Reeves, it won’t be "things can only get better" as Labour’s victory anthem in 1997 claimed, but "it turns out things are a whole lot worse" or words to that effect. There are two big questions: the extent to which this claim is believable and why the government is doing this now.
Paul Johnson, the director of the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), told the BBC: “I don’t think it’s really very credible at all.” The basis for this argument is that so much about the public finances is, well, public: there was a Budget in March, and alongside it, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s economic and fiscal outlook, external. Nonetheless, the argument we will hear from Rachel Reeves, in a Commons statement, a 30-odd page accompanying document and in a news conference at the Treasury, will be something like this: “We blame the other lot.” They reckon by the time they are done, on Monday evening, the IFS and others will be acknowledging the numbers are different from what was previously publicly known. Central to their argument will be the scale of what are known as "in-year costs" that were not accounted for in the documents back in the spring.
Senior Conservatives I speak to say this isn’t credible just a few months into the financial year and beyond that governing is about choices: it is up to Labour now to decide what it wants to do. You get a sense of how Labour will counter this, in a thread on X from former Treasury adviser and Labour peer Lord Wood, external. In essence, he argues, you have to be in government to know of any gaps between what it is estimated a project will cost, and the actual bill. This will be the argument made to justify cancelling various rail, road and hospital building projects which ministers will claim there wasn’t and isn’t the money for. We also expect the government to accept the pay increases above inflation for teachers and many NHS staff recommended by the independent pay review bodies for those sectors. This, ministers will argue, is both the right thing to do and will, they hope, mean no more strikes. But it is a choice and an expensive one – and not one that can be blamed on the previous government.
Expect to see Jeremy Hunt, now the shadow chancellor, argue robustly that he himself took plenty of difficult decisions to ensure the economic picture would be considerably better now than it was, as his opponent claims her inheritance is dire. Of course, both of these things can be true at the same time. So, why is the government doing this now? This is where we get to its broader strategy, which they are chunking up into three parts, across the next five years – in the countdown to the next general election. The first element of this is what they will call "fixing the foundations". Expect to hear no end of references to this in the coming weeks and months. This is where they will bang on about how grim things are while the Tories are busy arguing among themselves about who should replace Rishi Sunak.
The aim then, in stage two, is a sense of "rebuilding Britain" – and they mean that literally, ie building stuff, particularly homes. Lots more homes, which might be easier said than done. They will be saying more about that on Tuesday. And the third element is people feeling better off – and they have their fingers crossed that this will be a real sentiment, not just a hope and a slogan, as the next election nears. Let’s see. But back to "fixing the foundations". Monday is day one of this, and is also about laying some political foundations for tax rises expected in the autumn. We’ll also find out the date of the Budget. It is widely expected in October and almost as widely expected are tax rises. Putting up the main rates of income tax, VAT and national insurance have been ruled out, so instead don’t be surprised if there are, for instance, hikes to capital gains tax and inheritance tax and pension tax relief becomes less generous. That, though, is for the autumn. Today will park the political pleasantries of the last few weeks and see a pretty noisy argument about the last government, the new government and what might come next.
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Allen Morgan jailed for hiring hitman to kill wife Carol - BBC News
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2024-07-29
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The judge says Allen Morgan, 74, is a "wicked person" as he issues a life sentence.
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Beds, Herts & Bucks
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Man jailed for life for hiring hitman to murder wife
Allen Morgan has been jailed for hiring a hitman to murder his former wife Carol
A husband who hired a hitman to murder his former wife while he was having an affair has been jailed for life with a minimum of 22 years. Carol Morgan, 36, was killed in a “frenzied attack” inside the shop she ran with her husband Allen Morgan in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. The hitman, who has never been caught, used an axe or machete to kill her in August 1981, before escaping with cash and cigarettes. Imposing a life sentence at Luton Crown Court, Mr Justice Martin Spencer told Morgan he was a "wicked" person.
He said the 74-year-old was the only person who knew the identity of the hitman. "That is the secret you have harboured for the last 40 years. The law has now caught up with you... but the murderer remains at large, if indeed he is still alive. "There is only one wicked person in this courtroom and that is you, Mr Morgan."
Allen Morgan was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum time of 21 years and 325 days
Morgan was found guilty of conspiring to murder following a trial, but his current wife and then lover, Margaret Morgan, 75, was found not guilty of the same offence. The couple had been living together in Brighton when police launched a cold case investigation into Carol Morgan’s death in 2018. Mrs Morgan attended the sentencing where the judge outlined how the murder of Carol was "particularly brutal". She suffered between 10 and 15 blows during the attack at Mr and Mrs Morgan's shop in Leighton Buzzard. The judge said: "This seems to be something beyond a murder committed in the course of robbery... It was a crime where the primary motivation was Carol’s death."
Carol Morgan was killed while her husband took her children to the cinema
Morgan found his wife’s body in the storeroom when he returned from taking her two children, then aged 14 and 12, to a cinema to see two films in Luton. The trip gave Morgan a “cast-iron” alibi while a paid hitman murdered Carol and robbed the store, the trial heard. Mr Spencer said people were "surprised" when Morgan took his step-children to the cinema on the night Carol was murdered as he was "not particularly close" to the children. He said: "The trip to the cinema was organised by you to give yourself an alibi for that evening, when you knew Carol was to be murdered," the judge continues. "It also made sure the coast was clear for the murderer to perpertrate the crime."
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The person hired by Morgan to kill his wife has never been identified
Detectives initially believed Carol had been the victim of a burglary gone wrong, but the 2018 investigation uncovered a new witness who proved crucial in catching Morgan. Jane Bunting, 60, told the jury she met Morgan in the Dolphin pub in Linslade, Leighton Buzzard, a few months before the murder. Ms Bunting, who was 17 at the time, said she was "appalled" and "horrified" when Morgan asked if her ex-boyfriend knew anyone who could kill. She said: “He'd say, 'I hate Carol', 'I don't want to be married to her', 'I wish she'd die', 'Wouldn't an accident be nice?'." Det Supt Carol Foster said Ms Bunting told officers she had “been waiting for you to come see me for 40 years” when they knocked on her door.
Jane Bunting was a teenager when she was asked by Allen Morgan if he knew anybody who could kill.
The Morgans had spiralling debts in 1981 and Carol had made a will leaving everything to her husband. The shop also had a life insurance policy linked to it, the trial heard. "The killer had some inside information before entering the premises," prosecutor Pavlos Panayi KC told jurors. "The obvious conclusion was that the killer was told by Allen Morgan where he would find the cash, which may well have constituted part payment for the murder." The court heard that about a year before his wife’s death, Morgan had started an affair with Margaret Spooner - whom he later married.
Carol Morgan was found in the shop she ran with her husband Allen Morgan in Leighton Buzzard
Dean Morgan, Carol’s son, told the jury it was a "real shock" in 2019 when the police said his step-parents had been arrested on suspicion of being involved in his mother’s murder. The 57-year-old said he last spoke to his stepfather in 2023, when he was charged. "He told me it was all a mix-up and I told him I had no idea about what happened," he continued. "The argument became heated and he put the phone down on me. We have not spoken since."
A newspaper clipping from the time Carol Morgan was killed
Speaking after Morgan was convicted, Det Supt Carl Foster, who led the cold case investigation, said Carol was killed in a "frenzied and sustained attack". A "change in people's allegiances" over the past four decades had been key to the case, he said. "Carol was effectively erased from all memory, including those of her own two children, who have grown up without their mother, being raised by the man responsible for her death," he added. He said the force remained committed to finding out who murdered Carol.
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The election issues young voters say are important to them - BBC News
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2024-07-03
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Politics reporter Jordan Kenny has been on a Race Across the UK to hear about the things people care most about.
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Newsbeat
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We're young voters - here's what we care about
Young people all over the UK have told BBC Newsbeat about the issues which matter to them
BBC Newsbeat politics reporter Jordan Kenny has spent three weeks on a Race Across the UK to hear about the issues teenagers and people in their 20s want us to talk about during the general election. From issues that affect all of us like the cost of living and the NHS to what people care about in their local area, here's what Jordan learned on his zig-zagging journey around the country... I’ve now spoken to hundreds of young people about how and why they’re voting, as well as why they aren’t. Sometimes "young people" can be spoken about as one uniform group, but every single person I’ve met has a different story to tell.
Going from 18 to 24 years old is a period of change in most people's lives. Some are heading off to uni, some are starting new careers. Others are moving into their own homes, forming relationships, having kids. Our challenge has been to get a radio microphone from one end of the UK to the other, speaking to as many people as possible before polling day. The catch? Newsbeat's listeners had the chance to plot the route – telling us where they wanted us to go, and the topics which mattered to them. After making it through 14 "checkpoints", hundreds of miles and just about every mode of transport you can think of (yes, there were scooters), we are closing in on the finish line in the UK's most northerly city, Inverness. Wherever we've been, I've heard about issues specific to where people live, and ones they really care about.
• None To hear from me on that final stop, listen back to Newsbeat's broadcasts from 12:45 and 17:45 from Wednesday 3 July here.
Penelope spoke to us about the cost of living
The first stop was Newquay, in Cornwall. Almost as far south and as far west as you can get in England. People told me they are worried about sewage being pumped into the sea. When we went to Newport, they're wondering if all the empty shop units will ever be open again. In Belfast, people feel like they don't have the same opportunities they'd get if they lived elsewhere in the UK. But no matter where we’ve been, some themes have come up again and again. The cost of living, the NHS, housing. When I think about the cost of living, Penelope, 21, from Bristol sticks out in my head. She spoke to us between waiting tables at a café in the city. Penelope told me that students in Bristol are working two, sometimes even three jobs in order to fund their degrees. She said the rising cost of living means grants and loans don't go far enough any more. Penelope felt students are spending so much time working they’ve no free time left to study – leaving them with poor results come exam time.
Newsbeat has been around the country during this election campaign
So a big priority for her is what help the different parties are promising to ease the financial burden on students. When I think of the NHS, 23-year-old Niamh, from Bradford, is the first person who comes to mind. She said she's seen first-hand the impact on her brother and grandad of being stuck on waiting lists for treatment. Niamh said she wants the next government to put more money into the health service and cut waiting lists. On housing, 25-year-old Jamie tells me she’s never been able to leave her parents’ place in Newport because of the sheer expense involved in living alone. But now, she said, rent prices are increasing so much, her parents are having to look at downsizing the family home. It’s a sentiment shared by Finn, who spoke to me almost 450 miles away in St Andrews, Scotland, saying “it’s not realistic” for young people to think about owning their own home right now. For lots of young people this year will be the first time they can vote in a general election, and plenty I spoke to said they were going to.
In Newcastle, we heard about the apathy among some young people
But at times it's felt like, for every person passionate about casting a ballot, there's someone equally as passionate about why they won’t be. Someone like Kelly, who spoke to me in Bedford - or "Deadford", as she called it. She said she'd been watching her grandad vote for as long as she could remember, but "nothing ever changes". Kelly's argument is that, if all those ballots he cast haven't improved her life and the area she lives in, why should she bother? While some are making a distinct choice not to vote, others aren’t doing it because, quite simply, they don’t know how. Like Kyle, who is 21 and spoke to us at our checkpoint in Newcastle. He said he had no idea how to cast a vote and told us he thought better education on the electoral system was needed if parties wanted more young people to get involved in elections.
It's thought there are more than five million 18 to 24-year-olds living in the UK. But politicians have struggled to get them into polling booths - in the 2019 general election barely half of them voted. Compare that with more than 80% of over-75s. Could anything change that? When I think back on the past three weeks, I feel like I've seen a pretty broad picture of what it can mean to live as a young person in the UK in 2024. And while the outcome of the election isn’t yet clear, one message has been. Despite all the TikToks and memes during this campaign, many young people feel they aren’t being heard by politicians and that not enough effort is being made to get through to them. Once the dust settles on what's expected to be a hugely significant election, it will be interesting to see if young people felt moved to engage in the political process, many of them for the first time in their lives.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
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Trump sentencing in hush-money case delayed until September - BBC News
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2024-07-03
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The Supreme Court ruled that Trump had immunity from prosecution for "official acts" prompting the challenge to his New York conviction.
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US & Canada
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A New York judge has delayed Donald Trump’s sentencing until September as his lawyers seek to challenge his conviction after a Supreme Court ruling.
Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July.
His legal team asked for his conviction in a hush-money case to be overturned after the nation’s highest court ruled Monday that former presidents had partial immunity for “official” acts during their presidency.
Justice Juan Merchan said on Tuesday that he would issue a decision on the motions by 6 September.
If sentencing is necessary, the judge wrote, it will take place on 18 September.
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, making him the first former president ever convicted of a felony.
Prosecutors said Trump had reimbursed his fixer, Michael Cohen, for hush money paid to an adult film star, who claimed she had an affair with Trump. The money, paid on the eve of the 2016 election, was covered up by falsely labeling it as a legal expenses.
It is the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial.
In a post on Truth Social shortly after Justice Merchan's ruling, Trump wrote that the delay constituted "TOTAL EXONERATION!" and that it "ends" "witch hunts against me."
However, the decision only pauses the proceedings until the judge makes his determination.
On Monday, the Supreme Court released a bombshell ruling that found Trump - and other former presidents - had immunity from prosecution for "official acts".
The challenge arose from a federal criminal case against Trump accusing him of trying to overturn results of the 2020 election, but it could have ripple effects in his other legal battles.
Seeking to leverage the Supreme Court decision, Trump's lawyers in the New York case quickly sought to overturn the May conviction.
They said the Supreme Court ruling is relevant here, because some of the events and evidence at the heart of the case took place while Trump was in the White House.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted Trump, responded that Trump's argument was "without merit" but asked for a deadline of 24 July to file a response.
However, legal experts said that the challenge could be an uphill battle for Trump.
"The allegations in the New York fraud case in which Trump was convicted seem clearly to relate to unofficial conduct by Trump, none of which would seem to involve his official duties," said Mark Zauderer, an appellate attorney in New York.
"While Trump will be able to litigate his immunity defence in some of his cases, he will have a most difficult time succeeding with this argument in the New York case."
Prosecutors proved that Cohen, acting at Trump's behest, paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. The payment took place when Trump was still a candidate for president.
Trump then reimbursed Cohen in multiple installments starting in early 2017, and falsely recorded them as legal expenses.
It could be difficult to convice a court that this behaviour constitutes "official" presidential acts, said Philip Bobbitt, a constitutional law scholar.
"I just don't see it," he told the BBC.
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Water firms could be sued over sewage after ruling - BBC News
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2024-07-03
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Owners of adjacent waterways or even members of the public could now bring action over sewage pollution.
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Business
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Water firms could be sued over sewage after ruling
Water companies could face a "flood" of legal challenges over sewage discharges, lawyers have said, after a landmark Supreme Court ruling. On Tuesday, seven justices at the UK's highest court ruled that the Manchester Ship Canal Company is able to sue United Utilities over the alleged release of raw sewage into the canal. Speaking to the BBC, one lawyer said owners of adjacent waterways or even members of the public could bring claims against other utility companies as a result. Environmental charities said the ruling was good news. It comes at a time when water companies have been under significant financial pressure and scrutiny for unauthorised discharges of waste. The panel of judges found that the Manchester Ship Canal Company was entitled to bring a nuisance or trespass claim for compensation over the release of "untreated foul water". It comes despite previous rulings to the contrary in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which led to the private company's appeal.
Sewage is discharged from overflow points across England
There are about 100 United Utilities outfalls along the canal, where treated waste is released from the sewerage network. Raw sewage is also dumped when the system is operating over capacity, something the judges said could be avoided if the firm "invested in improved infrastructure and treatment". A lengthy legal battle took place between the canal company, owned by the Peel Group, and United Utilities. The water provider argued that only regulators could take action over the spills, with the original 1991 act that privatised the sector providing it with protection. But Paul Greatholder, partner at law firm Russell Cooke, said that the ruling on Tuesday meant the "floodgates are open". "This could bring a range of potential claims from either the owners of adjacent waterways, or even from members of the public who have been made unwell as a consequence," he said. Emily Nicholson, partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya said: "If millions of copycat claims then spring up, that will be a reflection of the utility companies' failures rather than the failure of the courts or legal system." She said that those affected by any failures, such as swimmers, fishermen and environmental organisations, now at least have a route to seek redress. Mr Greatholder also suggested that the Supreme Court had put down a "marker" for water utility companies in claiming that issues could have been avoided if more investment had gone into improving the canal's infrastructure. "No doubt the same could be said of all water companies. Thames Water has spent billions of pounds on a ‘supersewer’ running through London to try to mitigate just this sort of issue," he added. Water firms including Thames Water have come under significant scrutiny over their environmental records in recent months. Recent BBC analysis found that every major English water company had reported data suggesting they've discharged raw sewage when the weather is dry - a practice which is potentially illegal. On Tuesday, United Utilities said it "understood and shared" concerns about the need to improve, and pointed to a £3bn investment plan aimed at cutting pollution by improving infrastructure.
The Environmental Law Foundation, a charity which intervened in the Supreme Court hearing in March, welcomed the ruling. Its co-director Emma Montlake, said: "Our water environments have been regularly polluted with untreated sewage, water biodiversity denuded and degraded with impunity by private water companies. "A national scandal doesn't come close to describing what we have put up with. This is a glad day for environmental justice, not just for the public, but for nature." Some have pointed out however, that this could pose another big challenge for utility companies, when some already struggling under huge debt piles. Recently, additional powers were granted to the Environment Agency to issue unlimited fines, with industry sources telling the BBC that "the combination of fines and potential private lawsuits could make the difference between firms being able to operate and going under." They also expressed concern over what may happen to any damages awarded to private companies or individuals, in contrast with when regulators issue fines and that money raised is returned to customers. Sources close to the watchdog Ofwat said that the ruling would not affect their interim decision on what water companies are allowed to charge customers from next year, which is due out next Thursday. But they added that they could imagine that water companies may make an argument that an increase in claims against them would be an additional cost they would need to make provision for - pushing up their costs and ultimately consumer bills. The final decision on what companies can charge next year is not due until December.
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Fatima Payman: How a Gaza 'stunt' divided Australia's parliament - BBC News
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2024-07-03
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A senator says she has been "exiled" for voting against her party to recognise Palestinian statehood.
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World
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Ms Payman is Australia's first and only hijab-wearing federal politician
When Fatima Payman crossed the Senate floor to vote against her government she knew it would come with consequences. The Australian Labor party has strict penalties for those who undermine its collective positions, and acts of defiance can lead to expulsion - a precedent with a 130-year history. The last time one of its politicians tested the waters while in power was before Ms Payman was born. But last Tuesday, the 29-year-old did just that - joining the Greens party and independent senators to support a motion on Palestinian statehood. Officially the Australian government supports a two-state solution, but did not back the motion after trying - and failing - to insert a condition that any recognition should be “as part of a peace process”. Within hours, Ms Payman had been temporarily suspended from her party room, by the end of the week it would become indefinite - after she publicly vowed to cross the floor again if given the opportunity. "By her own actions and statements, Senator Payman has placed herself outside the privilege that comes with participating in the federal parliamentary Labor Party caucus," a government spokesperson said. Prime Minister and Labor leader Anthony Albanese was more concise: “No individual is bigger than the team.” On Monday, Ms Payman responded by saying she had been "exiled" – explaining that she had been removed from caucus meetings, group chats and all committees. The dismissal of the senator, elected in what was billed as Australia’s most diverse parliament to date, has drawn a mixed response and raised questions - mainly, whether it’s practical or fair for politicians to toe the line on issues affecting their communities.
Protesters have taken to cities across Australia
The first and only hijab-wearing federal politician, she has been described as the embodiment of some of the nation’s most marginalised: a young woman, a migrant, a Muslim. She recounted crossing the Senate floor as "the most difficult decision" of her political career, adding that each step of her short walk had “felt like a mile”. However, the 29-year-old said she was “proud” of what she had done, and “bitterly disappointed” others hadn't followed. "I walked with my Muslim brothers and sisters who told me they have felt unheard for far too long," she said. The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy the Hamas group which runs Gaza in response to an unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. More than 37,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 23 over the past 24 hours, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. This has become a volatile political issue in Australia that all sides have sought to carefully manage. As has been the case in countless other countries, there have been protests from both Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as a sharp uptick in Islamophobia and antisemitism.
The senator's move has drawn both praise and criticism. Anne Aly - who became the first Muslim woman to be elected in Australia’s parliament in 2016 - and has been a fierce advocate for an end to the conflict in Gaza, said she disagreed with Ms Payman’s approach. “I choose to do things in a way I think will make a material difference on the ground. Fatima chooses to do it her way," she told news outlet the ABC. But Josh Burns - a Jewish Labor MP from Melbourne - who has a different world view from Ms Payman when it comes to issues such as Palestinian statehood, has been one of her biggest supporters. “Parliamentarians come from different communities and backgrounds, and trying to balance all those perspectives isn't easy, but we must be an example to the Australian community about how to debate difficult issues respectfully.” The nation’s Islamic bodies have also issued a joint statement describing Ms Payman’s actions as “courageous” and calling on the Labor party to “echo the voices of the people it represents”. "Political calculations and attempts to walk both sides have devastating consequences in Palestine and will ultimately end in failure,” it read. But Mr Albanese called the resolution a "stunt", adding: "We need actually real solutions... this stunt from the Greens was designed to put Fatima Payman in a difficult position. It was designed to do that." Mr Albanese’s penalty against Ms Payman has been more lenient than the complete expulsion that party rules require. And he’s left the door open for her to re-enter the fold if she’s willing to change course: “Fatima Payman is welcome to return to participating in the team if she accepts she's a member of it,” he said in an interview on Monday.
Australian politicians have voted against their own beliefs to fall in line with party politics before. LGBTQ+ MPs - including current Foreign Minister Penny Wong - felt a similar conflict in the Labor caucus back in the days when it officially opposed gay marriage. It’s an issue that has opened Ms Wong up to personal attacks, but she’s remained adamant that quiet advocacy from within the party - rather than public criticism - is the preferred route. And she says it was a decade of doing just that which saw same-sex marriage legalised. “Even when we disagree, we have those arguments internally, as you saw over many years in the marriage equality debate. That’s what I did, and I think that’s the right way to go about it,” she told the ABC. But when asked whether she should have followed precedent, Ms Payman said: “It took 10 years to legislate same-sex marriage... These Palestinians do not have 10 years."
Penny Wong (L) is adamant that quiet advocacy from within the party is the preferred route
The contrasting approaches represent the changing demands of the Australian public, according to Kos Samaras - one of the nation’s leading pollsters. He says a growing cohort of young, multicultural voters are increasingly aligning themselves with politicians who aren’t afraid to take a stance on causes their constituents are “passionate about”. He also argues that migrant communities are no longer willing to accept political messaging that effectively urges them to “keep their head down”. “Australia has had a terrible history, whether from a societal perspective or political parties - that whenever someone from a diverse background expresses their view, overwhelmingly they’re told to pull their head in.” “That’s a formula that kind of works when a new group of people migrate to a country and want to keep a low profile as they’re establishing a new life – it’s not going to work with those migrant’s kids. And that’s exactly who we’re talking about. “These are people who have grown up in a country that has often made them feel like outsiders, and they’re no longer prepared to keep silent,” he adds, noting recent polling from his team which found that many young Australian-Muslim women feel they lack a political voice. A refugee whose family fled Afghanistan after it fell to the Taliban in 1996, it’s a sentiment that Ms Payman says guides her politics. “I was not elected as a token representative of diversity,” she said after her temporary suspension last week. “I was elected to serve the people of Western Australia and uphold the values instilled in me by my late father.” Ms Payman says that she believes the government is freezing her out to “intimidate” her into resigning. But Mr Albanese is adamant that his decision is the right one, while emphasising that it is not about Ms Payman’s “policy position” but rather, her decision to “undermine” her party. For the time being at least, the young lawmaker has vowed to “abstain from voting on Senate matters… unless a matter of conscience arises where I'll uphold the true values and principles of the Labor Party.”
• None Fierce row after sacking of ABC presenter over Gaza post
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Lucy Letby guilty of trying to kill baby - BBC News
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2024-07-03
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The baby's family say they have been forced to endure a "long, torturous and emotional journey - twice".
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England
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Lucy Letby guilty of trying to kill baby girl
Lucy Letby had already been convicted of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others
Former nurse Lucy Letby has been found guilty of trying to kill a premature baby girl. The 34-year-old was convicted of attempting to murder the child, referred to in court as Baby K, following a retrial. In a statement, Baby K's family described having to endure a "long, torturous and emotional journey - twice". "Today, justice has been served. But it does not take away the extreme hurt, anger and distress that we have all had to experienced," they said. Last August, Letby was convicted by a different jury of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital's neo-natal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. However, a verdict on the allegation relating to Baby K could not be reached, and a retrial was ordered, heard at Manchester Crown Court.
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The retrial jury found her guilty of trying to murder the "very premature" infant by dislodging her breathing tube in the early hours of 17 February 2016. The parents of Baby K gasped and then cried as the jury foreman read out the verdict following three-and-a-half hours of deliberation. Letby showed no emotion in the dock. Det Ch Insp Nicola Evans, of Cheshire Police, praised the "courage, strength and resilience" of the child's parents, who she said had been forced to face "continual denials" from Letby. “I would like to thank them for continuing to put their faith in us and I hope that the conclusion today provides them with some peace of mind and some of the answers they have been searching for," she said. “Once again, there are no winners in this case. Today is not a time for celebration – it is a time for reflection and a time for the family of Baby K." The court heard how Letby had targeted the child after she was moved from the delivery room to the neo-natal unit shortly after her premature birth.
Letby told the court she had no recollection of dislodging Baby K's breathing tube
The jury agreed that the former nurse had dislodged the baby’s breathing tube and stood by her incubator watching her blood oxygen levels drop, without intervening. Consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram had caught her "virtually red-handed" as he entered the unit's intensive care room at about 03:45. Dr Jayaram, who intervened to resuscitate the child, told jurors he saw "no evidence" that Letby had done anything to help the deteriorating baby. He said he heard no call for help from Letby, or alarms sounding as Baby K's blood oxygen levels suddenly dropped. Letby told the jury of six women and six men she had no recollection of any such event. She denied she did anything harmful to Baby K and repeatedly insisted she had not committed any of the offences of which she had been convicted. Baby K was transferred to a specialist hospital later on 17 February because of her extreme prematurity and died there three days later, with the cause of death certified as extreme prematurity and severe respiratory distress syndrome. More than two years later in April 2018, Letby searched on Facebook for Baby K’s surname, the court heard. Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said it was part of a pattern of similar Facebook searches, telling the jury: "The truth is that Lucy Letby had a fascination with the babies she had murdered and attempted to murder, and with their families. "She took pleasure in her murderous handiwork."
Lucy Letby, pictured during her arrest at her Chester home
Letby’s lawyers had argued her convictions should be quashed at an appeal as jurors may not have been certain of her guilt, it can now be reported. Her legal team unsuccessfully brought a Court of Appeal challenge in April this year over her previous murder and attempted murder convictions. Her barrister Ben Myers KC argued that the trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, was wrong to tell the jury they did not need to be sure of the precise act which caused Letby’s victims harm. He said: “They should have been told they should have been sure of the act. They have to have certainty as to the act that lay behind the allegations of deliberate harm.” But prosecutor Mr Johnson KC, stated the argument was “not tenable” and that while medical evidence was “at the heart of pretty much all” of the prosecution’s argument, it formed “only part of the circumstances of the case” and that Letby “was always there when things happened”. Other arguments were also made by Letby's defence team, including how the judge had dealt with "jury irregularity". Dame Victoria Sharp and Lord Justice Holroyde dismissed Letby’s bid in May and their written reasons were published, external shortly after Letby's latest conviction.
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Dr Nigel Scawn, medical director at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said he was "extremely sorry that these awful crimes happened at our hospital". He added: "Since Lucy Letby worked at our hospital, we have made significant changes to our services and remain committed to providing high quality safe care to our local communities." Dr Scawn acknowledged the impact that the Letby case continued to have on everyone involved, adding he was "grateful for the unwavering cooperation and professionalism of our staff, some of whom returned to court to repeat evidence and relive events". Letby was initially charged with the murder of Baby K but the charge was dropped in June 2022 because the prosecution offered no evidence. In May, Letby lost her Court of Appeal bid to challenge her convictions. She will be sentenced for the attempted murder of Baby K on 5 July.
A public inquiry into how Letby was able to commit her crimes on the neo-natal unit is set to begin at Liverpool Town Hall on 10 September. Det Supt Simon Blackwell said an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which was launched in October 2023, remained ongoing and was considering areas including senior leadership and decision making between June 2015 and June 2016. He said "at this stage" the force was not investigating any individuals in relation to gross negligence manslaughter. The detective said he recognised the "significant impact" on a range of people and "we want to reassure that we are committed to carrying out a thorough investigation".
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Primodos: Families seek answers over pregnancy test drug - BBC News
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2024-07-30
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Primodos contained synthetic hormones and was used between the 1950s and 70s as a pregnancy test.
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Wales
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Mums want answers over pregnancy drug they say harmed kids
Margo Clarke (left) says son Adrian (right) was a sickly child from the day he was born and needed heart surgery aged eight
Mothers say they still wants answers over a pregnancy test tablet which they believe led to birth defects. Margo Clarke, 73, was given Primodos, which contained synthetic hormones and was used between the 1950s and 1970s, before giving birth to her first child, Adrian, in 1970, but said from the minute he was born he was ill. Former prime minister Theresa May has claimed health service and government of the time "defended itself, rather than trying to find the absolute truth for people" about whether the test was the cause for malformations, stillbirths and abortions. The drug company involved denies any link between Primodos and birth defects, but families have continued to lobby for recognition and support.
Ms Clarke said of her son: "The bigger he got, the worse he got." She said there were times Adrian's younger brother would need to get out of the pushchair, to allow the older Adrian to be pushed as he was too unwell to walk. "He couldn't run around, or play football, because he would just be very breathless," she said, adding that his lips would turn blue. "It was so distressing to see how unwell he was," she said. He was eventually referred to a specialist and was diagnosed with a hole in the heart, but the family were told he was not ill enough for surgery. "Because Adrian was mixed race they would say the blue lips were due to his colour and the fact that he couldn't run around was because of his West Indian heritage and his temperament," Ms Clarke said. "I was called over-anxious, neurotic, and I got to the point where I thought my son was going to die before they made an appointment to see the diagnostic surgeon," she said. She said the surgeon was "horrified" that Adrian had been left so long and he was lucky to be alive.
Adrian's heart problems meant he was often too unwell to walk and would be pushed in his younger brother's pushchair
Within a month he was taken to London for open heart surgery. "To say I felt relief is an understatement, because I felt such anxiety over those years, thinking nobody's listening to me," she said. She said a month after the operation, Adrian was running on the beach with a kite. Now 53, and having spent more than 30 years working as a nurse, Adrian said he can still vividly remember his early childhood. He said: "I couldn't do anything with my friends and was always in with the school nurse, needing a lie down." But he said he was "one of the lucky ones, because I've had a relatively normal life since", adding that other people he believes are similarly affected "are much worse off".
Theresa May commissioned a review into Primodos, which concluded that suffering by women was avoidable
Last year a High Court case seeking damages was thrown out after a judge ruled there was no new evidence linking the tests with foetal harm and "no real prospect of success". But Mrs May, who stood down as an MP at the 2024 general election, said she feels the thorny issue of evidence is not clear cut. In 2017, a government review by an expert working group said there was not enough evidence to prove a link between hormone pregnancy tests (HPTs) and birth defects. "The expert working group actually said 'on balance' there wasn’t a causal link between Primodos and birth defects," said Mrs May. "But that meant that there was evidence on both sides and they’d come down on that side of the argument. So I think that does need to be looked at again." She added: "Some children have suffered incredibly during their lives and it is ongoing - it's not finished."
Barbara Stockley (left) helps take care of her son Andy (right)
Mrs May commissioned Baroness Cumberlege to review the use of Primodos, along with vaginal mesh and sodium valproate. That report was published in 2020 – prompting apologies from the UK and Welsh governments – as it concluded that the use of HPTs should have been stopped in 1967 because of the "suggestion of increased risk" by researchers. It added that further opportunities for action were missed in 1970, 1973 and 1974. The official use or "indication" for Primodos was changed in 1970, meaning it was no longer to be used as a pregnancy test. However, the company that manufactured the drug, Schering, wrote in October 1977 that, in the previous 12 months, thousands of women had still been prescribed it as a pregnancy test.
Kathryn McCabe was just 18 when her first pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth
Other women who have taken the drug have different experiences, but their strong belief is that Primodos was at the root of devastating consequences. Barbara Stockley moved to Cwmbran, Torfaen, when she was given Primodos in 1965. Her son Andy can’t live independently and needs two-to-one care, which 82-year-old Barbara and her husband coordinate with five personal assistants. Kathryn McCabe now lives in Powys, but was living in St Helens, Merseyside, when she took the HPT in 1973, aged just 18. The following year her baby was stillborn, with distressing malformations, which had a profound impact on her. "You look at others with their prams and wonder why they have their babies and you don’t."
Bethan Dickson (pictured as a baby with her mum Lon) has needed multiple corrective surgeries on her feet
Bethan Dickson’s mum, Lon took Primodos in 1968 when she was living in Newport, and Bethan was born in September that year. She has needed several operations on her feet over the years, as her toes "were growing across my foot, rather than straight", she said. She said it was only when she took part in the evidence gathering for the Cumberlege review that she fully considered the psychological and emotional impact. "I knew I was in pain all the time I was walking – you can see the scars from surgery. But what you don’t see is the exclusion I felt. And that was much deeper than I realised."
Marie Lyon's daughter Sarah was born in 1970 with the lower part of her arm missing
Marie Lyon is chairwoman of the association for children damaged by oral hormone pregnancy tests, and her daughter Sarah was born in 1970s with the lower part of her arm missing. A key goal for her is an acknowledgement that the women were not to blame. "Secondly a lot of our families are still caring for their children and have never had any help at all. Women have never had the opportunity to work because of caring for the children," she said. Pharmaceutical company Bayer said it had "sympathy for the families, given the challenges in life they have had to face". "Previous assessments determined there was no link between the use of Primodos and the occurrence of such congenital anomalies, and no new scientific knowledge has been produced which would call into question the validity of that conclusion," the company said. The Department of Health and Social Care said: "The government would review any new scientific evidence which comes to light."
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Paris 2024 Olympics video: Coco Gauff argues with umpire during defeat by Donna Vekic - BBC Sport
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2024-07-30
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Watch Coco Gauff's heated argument with officials after the umpire called Donna Vekic's shot in, despite a line judge calling it out, resulting in the American losing a key point as she is knocked out of the women's singles at Paris 2024.
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Watch Coco Gauff's heated argument with officials after the umpire called Donna Vekic's shot in, despite a line judge calling it out, resulting in the American losing a key point before being knocked out of the women's singles at Paris 2024.
Available to UK users only.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/videos/c3g9m2wnmllo
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Katie Price: Warrant issued for arrest of former model - BBC News
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2024-07-30
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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An arrest warrant is issued after she failed to attend a court hearing relating to her bankruptcies.
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Sussex
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The former glamour model had not responded to HM Revenue & Customs over her debts, a court heard
An arrest warrant has been issued for Katie Price, after she failed to attend a court hearing relating to her bankruptcies. Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Catherine Burton said Ms Price had received "very clear warnings" that she must attend the hearing on Tuesday. The former glamour model had not responded to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) over her debts, a court heard. The demand for payment was made by HMRC last October.
A judge at a previous hearing said the former glamour model risked arrest if she did not attend further court dates, adding that evidence must be provided if she could not appear. Issuing the arrest warrant on Tuesday, Judge Burton said Ms Price had "failed to attend today's hearing" and had provided no explanation for her absence. "It is in my judgment necessary that the court issue a warrant for Ms Price's arrest. "She has no real excuse in failing to attend today's hearing," she said. "The reason for her absence today is irrelevant." The court heard that it had been reported that Ms Price had travelled to Turkey, with a now-deleted Instagram story showing what appeared to be her eating a crisp sandwich on a flight. Judge Burton said that an arrest warrant was not issued "lightly" but that Ms Price had offered only "piecemeal co-operation" and she had failed to provide the "most basic information" in relation to her bankruptcies.
Price first declared bankruptcy in 2019 over unpaid debts, then again last March over an unpaid tax bill of £761,994.05. In February, Price was ordered to forfeit 40% of her income from the adult entertainment website OnlyFans for the next three years as part of a separate dispute over unpaid debts.
In October last year, Ms Price said she was “fed up” with being threatened with legal action
In October last year, Ms Price said she was “fed up” with being threatened with legal action and would go to prison to be “done with it all”. She was due to face questions on Tuesday related to her finances at a hearing, with barrister Darragh Connell telling the court in written submissions that there “remains significant information missing as regards the bankrupt’s income and asset position”.
The hearing was also due to hear an application by the trustee related to Ms Price’s vehicles. Mr Connell told the court the trustee does not “have any information as to her whereabouts”. He continued that Ms Price had indicated she would deliver some of her vehicles to the trustee as she worked to pay off the balance of her bankruptcies, including her “pink Range Rover which has borne a personalised registration plate with [the] initials of the bankrupt”. But the court was told this had not happened, with Mr Connell stating it was “plain” that the vehicles “will not be delivered up by the bankrupt”. He said Ms Price “would not be kept in custody for a long period of time”, but would be detained to secure her attendance at a future hearing. He said: “Her liberty is on the line, but unfortunately we are at the end of the road in relation to this matter.” Mr Connell said in written arguments that the application for Ms Price to attend was first issued in January 2020, but had been “adjourned on numerous occasions”. He continued that Ms Price had not asked to attend Tuesday’s hearing remotely and had not asked for it to be adjourned.
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Water firms could be sued over sewage after ruling - BBC News
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2024-07-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Owners of adjacent waterways or even members of the public could now bring action over sewage pollution.
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Business
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Water firms could be sued over sewage after ruling
Water companies could face a "flood" of legal challenges over sewage discharges, lawyers have said, after a landmark Supreme Court ruling. On Tuesday, seven justices at the UK's highest court ruled that the Manchester Ship Canal Company is able to sue United Utilities over the alleged release of raw sewage into the canal. Speaking to the BBC, one lawyer said owners of adjacent waterways or even members of the public could bring claims against other utility companies as a result. Environmental charities said the ruling was good news. It comes at a time when water companies have been under significant financial pressure and scrutiny for unauthorised discharges of waste. The panel of judges found that the Manchester Ship Canal Company was entitled to bring a nuisance or trespass claim for compensation over the release of "untreated foul water". It comes despite previous rulings to the contrary in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which led to the private company's appeal.
Sewage is discharged from overflow points across England
There are about 100 United Utilities outfalls along the canal, where treated waste is released from the sewerage network. Raw sewage is also dumped when the system is operating over capacity, something the judges said could be avoided if the firm "invested in improved infrastructure and treatment". A lengthy legal battle took place between the canal company, owned by the Peel Group, and United Utilities. The water provider argued that only regulators could take action over the spills, with the original 1991 act that privatised the sector providing it with protection. But Paul Greatholder, partner at law firm Russell Cooke, said that the ruling on Tuesday meant the "floodgates are open". "This could bring a range of potential claims from either the owners of adjacent waterways, or even from members of the public who have been made unwell as a consequence," he said. Emily Nicholson, partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya said: "If millions of copycat claims then spring up, that will be a reflection of the utility companies' failures rather than the failure of the courts or legal system." She said that those affected by any failures, such as swimmers, fishermen and environmental organisations, now at least have a route to seek redress. Mr Greatholder also suggested that the Supreme Court had put down a "marker" for water utility companies in claiming that issues could have been avoided if more investment had gone into improving the canal's infrastructure. "No doubt the same could be said of all water companies. Thames Water has spent billions of pounds on a ‘supersewer’ running through London to try to mitigate just this sort of issue," he added. Water firms including Thames Water have come under significant scrutiny over their environmental records in recent months. Recent BBC analysis found that every major English water company had reported data suggesting they've discharged raw sewage when the weather is dry - a practice which is potentially illegal. On Tuesday, United Utilities said it "understood and shared" concerns about the need to improve, and pointed to a £3bn investment plan aimed at cutting pollution by improving infrastructure.
The Environmental Law Foundation, a charity which intervened in the Supreme Court hearing in March, welcomed the ruling. Its co-director Emma Montlake, said: "Our water environments have been regularly polluted with untreated sewage, water biodiversity denuded and degraded with impunity by private water companies. "A national scandal doesn't come close to describing what we have put up with. This is a glad day for environmental justice, not just for the public, but for nature." Some have pointed out however, that this could pose another big challenge for utility companies, when some already struggling under huge debt piles. Recently, additional powers were granted to the Environment Agency to issue unlimited fines, with industry sources telling the BBC that "the combination of fines and potential private lawsuits could make the difference between firms being able to operate and going under." They also expressed concern over what may happen to any damages awarded to private companies or individuals, in contrast with when regulators issue fines and that money raised is returned to customers. Sources close to the watchdog Ofwat said that the ruling would not affect their interim decision on what water companies are allowed to charge customers from next year, which is due out next Thursday. But they added that they could imagine that water companies may make an argument that an increase in claims against them would be an additional cost they would need to make provision for - pushing up their costs and ultimately consumer bills. The final decision on what companies can charge next year is not due until December.
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Rishi Sunak accepts responsibility for historic Tory defeat - BBC News
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2024-07-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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In a speech outside Number 10, Mr Sunak said he would step down as party leader once arrangements for a successor are in place.
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Politics
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Rishi Sunak has apologised to the nation following the Conservative Party's general election defeat - the worst in its parliamentary history. Sir Keir Starmer has led the Labour Party to a landslide victory and will take over from Mr Sunak as the UK's prime minister. Accepting responsibility for the result, Mr Sunak said he heard voters' "anger" at his government. "To the country I would like to say first and foremost I am sorry," he said. "I have given this job my all but you have sent a clear signal that the government of the UK must change, and yours is the judgement that matters. "I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss." Mr Sunak delivered his speech outside Number 10, despite earlier rain - this time with a brolly on hand to avoid a repeat of his sodden election announcement in May. Mr Sunak said he would step down as party leader, adding "not immediately but once the formal arrangements for selecting my successor are in place". The MP for Richmond and Northallerton insisted there would be "an orderly transition" and also paid tribute to Sir Keir, whom he described as "a decent and public-spirited man who I respect". Having said goodbye to staff in Downing Street just before his speech, Mr Sunak then got into a car with his wife Akshata to travel to offer his resignation to the King. In an earlier victory speech in central London, Sir Keir said "change begins now", adding "it feels good, I have to be honest". With nearly all results declared, Labour is projected to form the next government, with a majority of 174. Currently they have 412 MPs, up 211 from the last election. The Tories are set for the worst result in their history. They have lost 250 seats and are currently on 121 seats. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss - whose brief, disastrous time in office led to a slump in Tory support from which it never recovered - lost her South West Norfolk seat to Labour by 630 votes. Ms Truss saw her huge 32,988 majority overturned, with the Reform candidate coming third with 9,958 votes. She is among dozens of senior Tories who have lost their seats, including Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk and former minister Sir Jacob-Rees Mogg. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the BBC a "large number of people who had previously voted Conservative have voted Reform" and the Conservatives now had to "think hard" about how to win back their support. Former minister Steve Baker, long a thorn in the side of Tory leaders over Brexit, expressed relief following the news he had lost his seat after 14 years as the MP for Wycombe. "Thank God, I am free - it's over," he said from the empty hall where the ballots had been counted overnight.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Steve Baker: Thank God, I am free, it's over and I am glad
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage won a seat in Parliament at his eighth attempt, in Clacton, promising "this is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you". Reform has five MPs - including chairman Richard Tice and former Tory Lee Anderson - and has finished second in many parts of the country, taking large amounts of votes from the Conservatives. In a victory speech in London, Sir Keir told cheering Labour supporters the country was waking up to "the sunlight of hope" which was "shining once again on a country with the opportunity after 14 years to get its future back". He added: “Now we can look forward – walk into the morning.” The Liberal Democrats have slightly fewer votes than Reform but have benefitted most from the Tory collapse, surging to a record 71 MPs, including the constituencies of three former Tory PMs - Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Theresa May. Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: "This is a record-breaking night for the Liberal Democrats." He added: "We will now work hard to keep that trust with a focus on the issues that matter most to them, most of all the NHS and care." The Green Party of England and Wales now has four MPs, with co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay among the winners. But it has been a terrible night for the SNP, which has been reduced to just eight MPs so far. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has defeated his old party to retain his Islington North seat as an independent. But another high profile former Labour MP, George Galloway, failed to retain the Rochdale seat he won at a by-election in February, losing to Labour's Paul Waugh. Sir Keir Starmer's landslide is short of the 179 majority won by Tony Blair in 1997, with its vote share across the country up by just 2%, largely thanks to big gains in Scotland, according to polling expert Sir John Curtice. But it will mean a Labour prime minister in Downing Street for the first time since 2010 and a battle for the future direction of the Conservatives.
Sir Keir Starmer is set to be the next UK prime minister
Penny Mordaunt, who lost to Labour by just 780 votes, had been tipped to make another attempt to be Tory leader after the election. Admitting defeat, she said her party had lost because it "had failed to honour the trust people had placed in it". Her message was echoed by Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who told the BBC the Tories had “lost the trust of the British people by not delivering. That’s where it went wrong.” He added: “We have to regroup and reconnect and actually just be a unified Conservative Party.” The Conservatives have lost seats they have held since the 19th or early 20th century, across the shire counties of England. Former attorney general Sir Robert Buckland, the first Tory MP to lose his seat as results began rolling in, told the BBC his party was facing "electoral Armageddon" and Labour's victory was a "big vote for change". And he angrily lashed out at colleagues, such as former home secretary Suella Braverman, for what he called "spectacularly unprofessional and ill-disciplined" behaviour during the campaign. "I'm fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position," he added, warning that the upcoming Tory leadership contest was "going to be like a group of bald men arguing over a comb".
The SNP is "not winning that argument" on Scottish independence, said First Minister John Swinney. "Opinion polls still show that about half the population in Scotland want our country to be independent," he told the BBC. "That's not manifested itself in the election result tonight and that's something we've got to look at very carefully as a party and to think about how we can remedy that situation."
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Glenn Campbell: Labour is back in Scotland - this is big - BBC News
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2024-07-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Labour has comeback in Scotland at the expense of the SNP but what has that done to the political landscape?
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Scotland Politics
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Labour is back in Scotland - this is big
Sir Keir Starmer's huge majority means he would have won the election without winning a single Scottish seat
For the first time since 2010 they have won a national election north of the border, crushing the SNP and bringing to a juddering halt the nationalists' long-running winning streak. The SNP successfully persuaded independence supporters to back them in all three Westminster elections in the decade since the 2014 referendum. That was an almost unbeatable coalition of support. If anything like 45% of voters side with one party and the others have to share 55% between them - the party of 45% wins. This time that link appears to have broken. To many in Scotland, Labour presented itself as a better route to political change. Their new MPs from Scotland have helped secure a landslide victory across the UK and oust a Conservative government.
Voters turned away from the SNP in this election, resulting in significant losses
That said, it so happens Labour would have beaten the Tories without winning any seats in Scotland - a scenario the SNP advanced in the campaign without any obvious electoral benefit to themselves. There may have been other reasons for voters to turn away from the nationalists. Frustrations with their domestic record in government at Holyrood. The shadow of an ongoing police investigation into the party’s finances. Three first ministers in just over a year. Internal arguments over gender reform and the now-defunct power-sharing deal with the Greens may also have had an effect. Their defeat will have consequences. At Westminster, the SNP will lose status, privilege and public finance now that it is no longer the third placed party. Gone too is the guaranteed spot at questions to the prime minister every Wednesday. That right switches to the Liberal Democrats. The SNP had hoped this election would increase democratic pressure for another referendum. That particular political football appears to be burst - at least for now.
John Swinney can avoid much of the blame as he took office just weeks before the election was called
Opinion polls suggest around half the Scottish electorate still favour independence even if it was not their priority at this election. An incoming Labour government has work to do to persuade these voters that Scotland’s best long-term future is as part of the UK. Similarly, the SNP needs a new strategy if it is to revive the case for independence. In normal circumstances, there would be serious questions over the future of any party leader who presided over such a spectacular defeat. But as John Swinney took over the leadership from Humza Yousaf just weeks before the election was called, I suspect he can avoid much of the blame and will be allowed by his party to pick up the pieces and try to rebuild before the Holyrood election in 2026. He certainly has vast political experience, including enduring three election setbacks when he was last leader of the SNP in the early noughties. We’ll see. If Labour’s dramatic comeback at the expense of the SNP is the main Scottish headline from election 2024, it is also what makes the story here different from England. The main struggle has been between Labour and the SNP, not between Labour and the Conservatives.
Douglas Ross can fall back on his job as a list MSP at Holyrood after failing to secure a seat at Westminster
In truth, it has been a bad result, for both parties of power in Scotland. After 17 years in government at Holyrood, the SNP appears to be in serious trouble. The Conservatives, running the UK government for the last 14 years, have also suffered a setback - sliding from second to joint third-placed Scottish party at Westminster. It could be worse for them if the Liberal Democrats beat the SNP in Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. That result’s been delayed until Saturday. The Tories have only actually lost one Scottish seat - down from six to five MPs. It is those massive Labour gains from the SNP that have done most to displace their overall standing. In the past, the Scottish Conservatives have successfully corralled unionist voters to beat the SNP in some parts of Scotland. That may still have had some potency this time but my overall sense is that the public did not see this as an independence election. It was not a defining issue. Boris Johnson’s dishonesty over Partygate during Covid and the economic failure of the mini-budget during the brief administration of Liz Truss may have turned some voters against the Tories. Campaign mis-steps from Rishi Sunak, such as cutting short his participation in D-day commemorations, may have stunted the potential for growth the Scottish Tories felt was possible six weeks ago. Having failed to get re-elected to Westminster, their Scottish leader Douglas Ross can fall back on his job as a list MSP at Holyrood. However, his credibility as a devolved politician has taken a knock given that he made clear he would be quite happy to abandon his post representing the Highlands and Islands in the Scottish Parliament had he won a seat at Westminster. We already know he’s quitting his leadership position, pre-announced during the campaign following an internal row about his decision to be a Westminster candidate.
The Conservatives are now seeking new leadership at both Scottish and UK level and given the extent to which the right leaning Reform UK ate into their vote, there’s likely to be a significant argument within the party over where on the political spectrum they should position themselves. They can have that argument in opposition, while Labour takes over the business of governing the UK. For Scotland, Labour has talked about a new partnership with the government at Holyrood - which may be easier to promise than deliver. There’s also the pledge to establish a new publicly owned energy company, headquartered in Scotland. Across the UK, they face the enormous challenge of fixing the public finances after Covid costs, a huge spike in inflation and a significant increase in borrowing costs. That’s an inheritance that could shorten the length of any honeymoon period for an incoming government that has promised not to raise key taxes. Tough decisions lie ahead. This election may feel a little like Labour’s landslide under Tony Blair in 1997 but their victory this time comes without the optimistic promise that “things can only get better”.
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SNP left shocked by Labour surge across Scotland - BBC News
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2024-07-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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There was surprise at the party's victories in seats beyond its traditional heartlands in the central belt.
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Scotland Politics
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Why the SNP was left shocked by Labour's surge
SNP supporters at the election counts in Glasgow
In Scotland it has been a night of political contrasts - celebration for Labour and catastrophe for the SNP. Having turned itself into an election winning machine, the party dropped dozens of seats from the 48 it won in 2019, marking its worst performance in a general election for more than a decade. The SNP’s troubles are well known - disillusionment over a lack of progress towards independence, internal divisions over gender reform and the ongoing police investigation into party finances, to name a few. But many in the SNP were shocked by the scale of defeat, as seat after seat turned from yellow to red.
So what now for John Swinney and his party? And what now for the question of independence? After all, the SNP told voters a majority of Scottish seats would provide a mandate to negotiate on leaving the UK. Of course, the party is not about to give up on its bid for another referendum, but it seems unlikely it can shift the dial any time soon. Mr Swinney was only in post as leader for a matter of weeks before the election was called, and therefore isn’t expected to bear the blame - although many point out his role as Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy, insisting all of the responsibility cannot be laid at Humza Yousaf’s door. The SNP leader says there will be soul-searching to do, but it’ll have to be done quickly. He now faces the challenge of getting the SNP back on the front foot in time for that 2026 election. That ballot now looks to be a far tougher contest, given Labour’s swelling support.
But there are fresh challenges for Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar too – he’ll need Sir Keir Starmer to deliver on at least some of his promises in the early months of the new Labour government. If Mr Sarwar is to keep those votes loaned to him by independence-backing SNP supporters, Labour will also need to demonstrate it can deliver for Scotland, and that its Scottish leader can influence decisions made by Number 10. After 14 years in opposition, Labour has made a spectacular return to power at Westminster - and its majority has been bolstered by a swathe of seats in Scotland. It’s a result that marks a return from the electoral wilderness for the party, having won just one constituency north of the border in the 2019 general election. As the party crunched its way to through seat after seat, Mr Sarwar achieved what his five predecessors had failed to do – bringing an end to the SNP’s election-winning run. And Labour did so by taking votes from both the SNP and the Conservatives, with surges across the country.
First Minister John Swinney watches the election count in Perth
It was the breadth of the wins that surprised many – the party had anticipated retaking closely contested seats across its traditional heartlands in the central belt, but it had hoped rather than expected to extend its reach beyond that. The Scottish Labour campaign almost certainly benefitted from the momentum built by a resurgent UK Labour Party, intent on kicking the Tories out of Downing Street. A greater focus on issues such as the cost of living, rather than the previously dominant constitutional arguments, also ensured Anas Sarwar wasn’t squeezed out of the debate by the SNP and the Tories. Victory will now be used as a springboard for the 2026 Holyrood election campaign - with the party mounting a serious run at Bute House for the first time in more than a decade.
Douglas Ross at the P&J Live arena during the count
The Conservatives had a nightmare night across the UK, with their vote share collapsing. The party saw its support fall away in Scotland too, as its leader Douglas Ross failing to win his seat. There had been nerves around the impact of the Reform Party – and those concerns proved valid, with the party taking votes from Mr Ross, allowing the SNP to come out on top. He’ll make way for a new leader, having quit mid-campaign, and the Scottish party will now have its own soul-searching to do too.
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Rishi Sunak accepts responsibility for historic Tory defeat - BBC News
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2024-07-05
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In a speech outside Number 10, Mr Sunak said he would step down as party leader once arrangements for a successor are in place.
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Politics
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Rishi Sunak has apologised to the nation following the Conservative Party's general election defeat - the worst in its parliamentary history. Sir Keir Starmer has led the Labour Party to a landslide victory and will take over from Mr Sunak as the UK's prime minister. Accepting responsibility for the result, Mr Sunak said he heard voters' "anger" at his government. "To the country I would like to say first and foremost I am sorry," he said. "I have given this job my all but you have sent a clear signal that the government of the UK must change, and yours is the judgement that matters. "I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss." Mr Sunak delivered his speech outside Number 10, despite earlier rain - this time with a brolly on hand to avoid a repeat of his sodden election announcement in May. Mr Sunak said he would step down as party leader, adding "not immediately but once the formal arrangements for selecting my successor are in place". The MP for Richmond and Northallerton insisted there would be "an orderly transition" and also paid tribute to Sir Keir, whom he described as "a decent and public-spirited man who I respect". Having said goodbye to staff in Downing Street just before his speech, Mr Sunak then got into a car with his wife Akshata to travel to offer his resignation to the King. In an earlier victory speech in central London, Sir Keir said "change begins now", adding "it feels good, I have to be honest". With nearly all results declared, Labour is projected to form the next government, with a majority of 174. Currently they have 412 MPs, up 211 from the last election. The Tories are set for the worst result in their history. They have lost 250 seats and are currently on 121 seats. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss - whose brief, disastrous time in office led to a slump in Tory support from which it never recovered - lost her South West Norfolk seat to Labour by 630 votes. Ms Truss saw her huge 32,988 majority overturned, with the Reform candidate coming third with 9,958 votes. She is among dozens of senior Tories who have lost their seats, including Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk and former minister Sir Jacob-Rees Mogg. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the BBC a "large number of people who had previously voted Conservative have voted Reform" and the Conservatives now had to "think hard" about how to win back their support. Former minister Steve Baker, long a thorn in the side of Tory leaders over Brexit, expressed relief following the news he had lost his seat after 14 years as the MP for Wycombe. "Thank God, I am free - it's over," he said from the empty hall where the ballots had been counted overnight.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Steve Baker: Thank God, I am free, it's over and I am glad
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage won a seat in Parliament at his eighth attempt, in Clacton, promising "this is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you". Reform has five MPs - including chairman Richard Tice and former Tory Lee Anderson - and has finished second in many parts of the country, taking large amounts of votes from the Conservatives. In a victory speech in London, Sir Keir told cheering Labour supporters the country was waking up to "the sunlight of hope" which was "shining once again on a country with the opportunity after 14 years to get its future back". He added: “Now we can look forward – walk into the morning.” The Liberal Democrats have slightly fewer votes than Reform but have benefitted most from the Tory collapse, surging to a record 71 MPs, including the constituencies of three former Tory PMs - Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Theresa May. Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: "This is a record-breaking night for the Liberal Democrats." He added: "We will now work hard to keep that trust with a focus on the issues that matter most to them, most of all the NHS and care." The Green Party of England and Wales now has four MPs, with co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay among the winners. But it has been a terrible night for the SNP, which has been reduced to just eight MPs so far. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has defeated his old party to retain his Islington North seat as an independent. But another high profile former Labour MP, George Galloway, failed to retain the Rochdale seat he won at a by-election in February, losing to Labour's Paul Waugh. Sir Keir Starmer's landslide is short of the 179 majority won by Tony Blair in 1997, with its vote share across the country up by just 2%, largely thanks to big gains in Scotland, according to polling expert Sir John Curtice. But it will mean a Labour prime minister in Downing Street for the first time since 2010 and a battle for the future direction of the Conservatives.
Sir Keir Starmer is set to be the next UK prime minister
Penny Mordaunt, who lost to Labour by just 780 votes, had been tipped to make another attempt to be Tory leader after the election. Admitting defeat, she said her party had lost because it "had failed to honour the trust people had placed in it". Her message was echoed by Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who told the BBC the Tories had “lost the trust of the British people by not delivering. That’s where it went wrong.” He added: “We have to regroup and reconnect and actually just be a unified Conservative Party.” The Conservatives have lost seats they have held since the 19th or early 20th century, across the shire counties of England. Former attorney general Sir Robert Buckland, the first Tory MP to lose his seat as results began rolling in, told the BBC his party was facing "electoral Armageddon" and Labour's victory was a "big vote for change". And he angrily lashed out at colleagues, such as former home secretary Suella Braverman, for what he called "spectacularly unprofessional and ill-disciplined" behaviour during the campaign. "I'm fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position," he added, warning that the upcoming Tory leadership contest was "going to be like a group of bald men arguing over a comb".
The SNP is "not winning that argument" on Scottish independence, said First Minister John Swinney. "Opinion polls still show that about half the population in Scotland want our country to be independent," he told the BBC. "That's not manifested itself in the election result tonight and that's something we've got to look at very carefully as a party and to think about how we can remedy that situation."
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Aldershot: Thumb-bite Deliveroo rider given suspended sentence - BBC News
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2024-07-05
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Jeniffer Rocha attacked a customer in an argument over a pizza delivery in 2022.
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Hampshire & Isle of Wight
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A food delivery rider who bit off a customer's thumb has been given a suspended jail sentence. Jeniffer Rocha, 35, attacked Stephen Jenkinson in an argument over a Deliveroo pizza order in Aldershot, Hampshire, in December 2022. She previously pleaded guilty at Winchester Crown Court to causing grievous bodily harm. Rocha was sentenced to a 16-month prison term, suspended for 18 months, at Salisbury Crown Court.
Warning: This story contains a graphic image and details that some readers may find upsetting
Mr Jenkinson's life had been "permanently altered", the court heard
Mr Jenkinson's partner ordered a pizza from the food delivery app on 14 December 2022. But Rocha arrived at the wrong location, down the street from the customer's home, prosecutors said. When he went to get his food, he forgot his phone and a brief argument ensued about the delivery code number he needed to provide. Mr Jenkinson said he was then bitten, as if he had "gone through a chainsaw".
Mr Jenkinson said Rocha took his thumb "clean off" with the power of a "chainsaw"
"All I remember, I was shaking her helmet trying to get her off," the 36-year-old plumber told the BBC. "The force with which she must have been biting, she'd clean taken it off." John Hepworth, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Mr Jenkinson has suffered from life-changing injuries, the impact of which cannot be understated. "This attack has permanently altered his life. “Jeniffer Rocha’s assault far exceeded that of any force necessary and her conduct was completely unacceptable."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rocha continued to work on Deliveroo orders despite the firm taking action to stop her
In April, BBC News filmed Rocha still delivering food, despite Deliveroo taking action against her. The firm said it had previously cancelled an account she had been using in December and subsequently terminated a second account. Rocha had been working as a so-called "substitute" rider, sharing someone else's account. The big three delivery apps - Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats - announced in April, external they would tighten up their systems to check the identities of "substitute" riders. A spokesperson for Deliveroo said: "This was a truly awful incident. We fully cooperated with the police on the investigation, and our thoughts are with Mr Jenkinson."
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Newspaper headlines: 'Change begins' as Labour PM will 'fight until you believe again' - BBC News
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2024-07-05
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Saturday's front pages lead on Labour's historic election win, as Sir Keir Starmer becomes the UK's next prime minister.
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The Papers
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'Change begins' as Labour PM will 'fight until you believe again'
The Daily Mail likens it more to a civil war, external, as one former cabinet minister tells the paper the Conservatives "were left vulnerable by a Boris-shaped hole in their defences, through which Reform was able to stroll unchallenged". In his column in the paper, Boris Johnson sets out a 10-point plan on how the Tories can return to government as soon as possible, after what he calls "the atomic bomb that has detonated over the British political landscape". But the Tories will need to find a new leader first and according to the Daily Mirror, external the former home secretary, Suella Braverman, has already fired the starting pistol in a leadership race. The Guardian names, external the former business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, as another "near-certain contender". It claims her run "would most likely be characterised by her apparent ability to turn the most innocuous exchange into an argument". The Times adds James Cleverly, Dame Priti Patel, Victoria Atkins and Tom Tugendhat to the list of Tories said to be weighing up a leadership run, while the Sun says the former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, could launch his bid on the Sunday morning political shows. But, whoever is running, one moderate Tory warns the Financial Times, external that "the leadership contest will be dominated by one question: how do you beat Reform?". Reflecting on what it calls the SNP's "hammering at the polls", the Scotsman, external says John Swinney has been "forced into rethinking" his party's approach to independence. The paper says he will have to "steer the Scottish National Party in a new direction, with a much-reduced crew". The National claims the result presents, external "an opportunity for a new start". It recommends the SNP refreshes the arguments for a new generation of independence voters. And, the front page of the Daily Express, external praises Rishi Sunak for displaying "warmth, generosity of spirit and true graciousness" as he stepped down, while also acknowledging that his successor is "undoubtedly decent and sincere".
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