Tories lose over 1,300 seats in local elections as major parties suffer

Lib Dems main beneficiaries as May and Corbyn vow to press ahead to break Brexit deadlock

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have vowed to press ahead with seeking a cross-party solution to the Brexit deadlock at Westminster, after voters punished both major parties in local elections.

The Conservatives’ net loss of more than 1,300 seats on their 2015 figures marked their biggest defeat since John Major was prime minister. Disillusioned voters deserted the party in droves, including in traditional Tory areas such as Chelmsford and Surrey Heath.

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Local elections 2019: May says results show voters want main parties to ‘deliver Brexit’ – live news

Lib Dems and Greens surge as Tories and Labour suffer large losses in council elections in England

This is from Tony Robinson, the former Black Adder actor and longstanding Labour activist. It speaks for itself ...

I’ve left the Labour Party after nearly 45 years of service at Branch, Constituency and NEC levels,partly because of it’s continued duplicity on Brexit, partly because of it’s antisemitism, but also because its leadership is complete shit.

Here is a picture of Stuart Davies, the Tory activist who heckled Theresa May as she started speaking at the Welsh Conservative conference. “Why don’t you resign,” he shouted.

As the man shouted “we don’t want you here”, a small group of delegates at the Welsh Conservative conference at Llangollen Pavilion clapped and chanted “out”, in an apparent call for the heckler to be removed. As the Press Association reports, the prime minister then drew laughter and applause from a majority of the hall as she told the conference: “It’s great to be back in North Wales again - I have to say my experience of North Wales is that everybody I meet here is friendly.”

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Death of dairy-allergic boy hit with cheese ‘unprecedented’, says expert

Karanbir Singh Cheema, 13, was unconscious within 10 minutes of incident at London school

The death of a schoolboy with a dairy allergy after cheese was thrown at him could be the first known case of its kind, an expert has said.

Karanbir Singh Cheema, 13, known as Karan, went from “absolutely fine” to unconscious in under 10 minutes after the incident at William Perkin Church of England high school in Greenford, west London, on 28 June 2017.

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In an age of extremes, most people are really pretty moderate

A major YouGov survey shows that extremists are not as prevalent as you might think

It is not hard to scroll through a huge global opinion survey and find the outliers. They are many and compelling: vaccine-doubters, conspiracy theorists, arch-pessimists and even people who approve of Theresa May.

The danger however is that these newspoints can give us a certain impression about the world: that outliers are the norm, that eccentrics are far more prevalent than they actually are.

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UN calls for Julian Assange’s release from UK high-security jail

UN experts say British government is breaching WikiLeaks publisher’s human rights

UN experts have called for Julian Assange to be released from prison and criticised the British government for breaching his human rights.

The WikiLeaks publisher was jailed for 50 weeks on Wednesday for breaking bail conditions imposed seven years earlier by seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

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End to Aids in sight as huge study finds drugs stop HIV transmission

Paper says risk between male partners is zero if virus fully suppressed by antiretrovirals

An end to the Aids epidemic could be in sight after a landmark study found men whose HIV infection was fully suppressed by antiretroviral drugs had no chance of infecting their partner.

The success of the medicine means that if everyone with HIV were fully treated, there would be no further infections.

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May faces Tory backlash over Williamson sacking as No 10 seeks to rule out police inquiry – live news

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

This is from Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt.

View in Whitehall: the leak from the National Security Council is not being referred to the police because a judgment was made that a crime was not committed

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Met police chief hails fall in violent crime in London

Cressida Dick says more officers and rise in stop and search had reduced stabbings and murders

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, has hailed big falls in violent crime in London in the past year, with fights over drugs, predominantly cocaine, playing a key part in the rise in the number of stabbings and homicides in the capital.

Related: Criminals going unpunished because of cuts, says police chief

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More than 600,000 EU citizens apply for UK settled status

Home Office figures revealed as immigration inspector calls for scheme to be improved

More than 600,000 EU citizens have already applied to stay in the UK post-Brexit, Home Office figures reveal.

But the settled status scheme for EU citizens seeking to remain has room for improvement, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration (ICIBI) in the UK has said.

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Bombardier puts Belfast wing-making plant up for sale

Four thousand skilled jobs at risk in Northern Ireland as Canadian firm unveils sell-off

The Canadian aerospace firm Bombardier is to sell its wing-making operation, which employs 4,000 people in Northern Ireland, sparking concern among trade unions and MPs about the impact on highly skilled jobs.

A spokesman for the prime minister said the government did not expect jobs to be affected but the trade union Unite said it was seeking stronger assurances from the government and the company.

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Rory Stewart defends UK aid target and vows to tackle climate ’emergency’

New development minister mounts staunch defence of 0.7% commitment and says DfID will keep spending on climate change

Rory Stewart, the new secretary of state for international development, has reiterated his support for the government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on overseas aid.

Stewart, the former prisons minister, who was appointed to his new role on Wednesday night after Penny Mordaunt replaced the sacked Gavin Williamson as defence minister, also pledged to put climate change at the heart of his work.

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Britons most positive in Europe on benefits of immigration

Findings contradict assumption UK is more hostile than European neighbours

British people are more persuaded of the benefits of immigration than any other major European nation, according to a global survey, which has also found that almost half of Britons think immigrants are either positive or neutral for the country.

The YouGov–Cambridge Globalism survey found that 28% of Britons believed the benefits of immigration outweighed the costs, compared with 24% in Germany, 21% in France and 19% in Denmark. A further 20% of British people believed the costs and benefits were about equal, while 16% were not sure.

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There is no mass public revolt against globalisation | Joel Rogers de Waal

Survey of 23 countries has found surprisingly moderate attitudes on subjects such as immigration

Ever since the financial crisis swept through dozens of countries a decade ago, “globalisation” has become a dirty word – a creed of amoral liberalism under siege from the forces of populist public opinion.

So it might come as a surprise that a new survey of opinions in 23 of the world’s biggest countries uncovers a much more nuanced attitude towards the economic and social phenomenon that has shaped the world over the past 30 years.

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Child trafficking victim wins £85,000 from UK government over rape attempt

Court orders Home Office and Ministry of Justice to make payment to teenager attacked while being illegally detained at Morton Hall

A child trafficking victim has won £85,000 in compensation from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice after he was sexually assaulted and illegally detained at Morton Hall immigration centre.

The Home Office must pay £82,000 to the Vietnamese national – known as H – after it admitted the teenager was being detained illegally when a fellow inmate attempted to rape him in his cell in 2016.

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Sajid Javid proposes legal protection for police who crash cars

Police drivers would be held to different driving standards to public when in road chases

Police drivers will be held to different standards to the public if they are involved in a car crash while chasing a suspected criminal under changes put forward by the home secretary, Sajid Javid.

Officers are currently held to the same standards as members of the public when involved in a crash during a pursuit and the Home Office argues this overlooks the training they receive.

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Jeremy Hunt: Russian TV station a ‘weapon of disinformation’

Foreign secretary’s press freedom day speech ramps up British assault on RT

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt will on Thursday declare the Russian government-owned TV station RT to be a “weapon of disinformation” in a speech to mark World Press Freedom Day.

The comments, to an audience in Ethiopia, mark an escalation of a British ministerial assault on the standards of the Russian broadcaster, originally known as Russia Today, which had faced repeated investigations into its output by the media regulator Ofcom.

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Cabinet ministers split over customs union Brexit deal with Labour

Sceptics say it would not command majority among MPs or survive backbench changes

Cabinet ministers are bitterly divided over whether Brexit talks with Labour should broach the possibility of a customs union, with several sceptical that such a deal could even command a majority in parliament or survive hostile backbench amendments.

A senior cabinet minister suggested a deal involving a customs union could be backed by as few as 90 Tory MPs and would mean a slew of resignations from the government payroll.

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Gavin Williamson: ‘I was tried by kangaroo court – then sacked’

Defence secretary was fired by prime minister after investigation into Huawei leak

Gavin Williamson has claimed that he is the victim of a “kangaroo court” after being dramatically sacked by Theresa May over the leak from the National Security Council of Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s 5G network.

May was told of what she called “compelling” evidence of Williamson’s involvement before she was due to face a grilling from the backbench liaison committee. The defence secretary was later summoned to May’s House of Commons office, where she confronted him with the evidence, offered him the opportunity to resign – and when he refused, immediately fired him.

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Chemicals or biological agent ‘may have killed UK couple in Egypt’

John and Susan Cooper did not die in Red Sea resort from natural causes, court told

A British couple who died on holiday at a hotel in Egypt may have suffered the effects of an infectious biological agent or toxic chemicals, a coroner’s court has heard.

John Cooper, 69, and his wife, Susan, 63, died suddenly on 21 August last year after becoming ill while staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.

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