Revolt by pro-Brexit cabinet ministers forces PM to request only three-month extension from EU
Theresa May will ask for only a short extension to article 50 delaying Brexit by less than three months, after a revolt among pro-leave cabinet ministers and MPs that threatened her premiership.
The prime minister had previously intended to agree a longer extension with the EU involving European parliamentary elections if her withdrawal agreement did not pass by Wednesday.
Continue reading...As he powers into his 80s, the photographer recalls shooting everyone from Kate Moss to Andy Warhol, shares his regrets over voting leave – and reveals how Gordon Brown pulled a fast one on him
‘You look knackered,” says David Bailey, greeting me at his studio. It’s up a small mews and sprawls so casually across two floors that it still feels like the 60s inside. “Look at you,” he says. “Your buttons aren’t even done up right.” I look down at my jacket: that bit is true. But I tell him: “I’m not tired!”
“I was watching you walking along the street,” he says. “I thought, ‘That must be the journalist, she looks knackered.’” The combination of acuity (he must be right: he is, after all, the one who makes a living with his eyes) and demonic overfamiliarity (by this point, we are holding hands; I have no idea who started it) is disarming. If this is his shtick, it’s working on me, totally and overwhelmingly. Or maybe he has a tailored shtick for everyone he meets.
Continue reading...Suspect, 28, taken to hospital after firearms officers attend domestic disturbance
A man has been shot by police responding to reports of a suspect “armed with knives and making threats to kill” in east London.
An officer was slashed during the incident in Hackney on Tuesday night, the Metropolitan Police said.
Continue reading...Commission set up by Scottish government recommends new powers to split monopolies
Scottish land ownership rules must be radically reformed to reverse the concentration of the countryside in the hands of a small number of ultra-wealthy individuals and public bodies, a major review has warned.
The study by the Scottish Land Commission, a government quango, says that in extreme cases where landowners abuse their power they could face compulsory purchase or community buyouts.
Continue reading...PM forced to seek extension of article 50 as No 10 admits it is too late to leave with a deal
Theresa May will be forced to write to EU leaders on Wednesday and beg them to delay Brexit, with her cabinet deadlocked over the best way out of what Downing Street now concedes is a “crisis”.
The government had maintained until the last possible moment that Brexit could go ahead as planned on 29 March or after a brief “technical extension”.
Continue reading...President’s son and US national security adviser in apparent coordinated intervention
Donald Trump Jr and the US national security adviser, John Bolton, spoke out over Brexit on Tuesday in what appeared to be a coordinated intervention by the White House into British domestic politics.
Both the US president’s son and Bolton attacked British political leadership after Theresa May said she would ask the EU for a delay to the UK’s exit from the European Union; in line with parliament’s wish.
Continue reading...Officials admit shortcomings at inquest into death of man who was killed by another detainee
A senior Home Office official has repeatedly apologised for shortcomings that led to the killing of a “gentle and polite” man in immigration detention, at an inquest into his death.
West London coroner’s court is exploring the role of the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, health professionals and detention centre subcontractors in the death of Tarek Chowdhury, from Bangladesh. The 64-year-old was killed by Zana Assad Yusif, 33, from Iraq, at Colnbrook immigration removal centre near Heathrow in December 2016.
Continue reading...Study says women aged 50-69 most likely to benefit, while those aged 70-79 will gain least
Death rates from breast cancer are falling faster in Britain than in any other of the six most populous countries in Europe, research shows.
The rate of death from the disease has fallen by 17.7% since 2010-2014 thanks to screening, earlier diagnosis and better treatment, a Europe-wide study [pdf] has found.
Continue reading...Bill Giles calls on broadcasters to add slot explaining humans’ impact on climate
The veteran weatherman Bill Giles is calling on the BBC and other major broadcasters to radically overhaul their forecasts to incorporate information about climate change.
The former head of BBC weather presenters has said more needs to be done by broadcasters to highlight climate change to face the “reality more squarely and openly”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Environment Agency chief calls for use to be cut by a third
England is set to run short of water within 25 years, the chief executive of the Environment Agency has warned.
The country is facing the ‘‘jaws of death”, Sir James Bevan said, at the point where water demand from the country’s rising population surpasses the falling supply resulting from climate change.
Continue reading...Prime minister likely to have to request long article 50 extension after Bercow intervenes
Theresa May’s government has been plunged into constitutional chaos after the Speaker blocked the prime minister from asking MPs to vote on her Brexit deal for a third time unless it had fundamentally changed.
With 11 days to go until Britain is due to leave the EU, May was forced to pull her plans for another meaningful vote because John Bercow said she could not ask MPs to pass the same deal, after they rejected it twice by huge margins. EU officials, meanwhile, were considering offering her a new date for a delayed Brexit to resolve the crisis.
Continue reading...Backing calls from the TaxPayers’ Alliance to face down ‘NGO cartels’ shows a profound misunderstanding of how the aid system works
Priti Patel is not known for her transparency or her subtlety.
The former international development secretary was forced to resign over misleading prime minister Theresa May over an undeclared “family holiday” to Israel that – among other things – saw her fail to tell the British embassy that she would be meeting with Israeli politicians and visiting the occupied Golan Heights, against all British government conventions for a serving minister.
Continue reading...Central banks in spotlight amid Brexit uncertainty and growth concerns
The Bank’s reticence to raise rates has been hinted at by Gertjan Vlieghe and Silvana Tenreyro, two of the nine-member monetary policy committee.
Weaker growth prospects have come on top of concerns about Brexit, according to Martin Beck, lead UK economist at Oxford Economics, a consultancy. He expects a 9-0 vote to keep policy unchanged, saying:
The economy’s recent performance has been broadly in line with the MPC’s expectations. But public pronouncements by some committee members on downside risks have indicated a dovish shift around the pace of future rate hikes.
In light of the continued failure to get a Brexit deal through Parliament, Brexit uncertainty remains a key block on action by the MPC.
The Bank of England will also be in action later this week, with a monetary policy announcement on Thursday at midday.
Anything other than a unanimous vote to keep interest rates on hold would be a shock, for fairly obvious reasons.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
I’m just back from the Downing Street lobby briefing. And it was a good illustration of the old rule that the length a briefing is in inverse proportion to its usefulness. (That’s because, if the reporters get a story, they want to wrap up quickly so they can file. If the briefing drags on, that’s because people keep asking questions in the hope that they might eventually get a useable reply.)
Here is the main takeaway.
Arriving at the EU foreign affairs council in Brussels this morning, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, said that he hoped there would be a third vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal tomorrow. But, he added, “we need to be comfortable that we’ll have the numbers.”
He said there were “some cautious signs of encouragement” in that Tories who have opposed the deal up to now, like Norman Lamont and Esther McVey, now want to see it passed. “But there is a lot more work to do,” Hunt added.
Continue reading...West Midlands fire service called to reports of a huge fire at a furniture warehouse
About 100 firefighters have been deployed to tackle a huge fire near a train station in Birmingham.
West Midlands fire service (WMFS) said they received several 999 calls at about 5.11am on Monday after reports of a large blaze at a furniture storage warehouse in Tyseley.
Continue reading...Russian interference in elections and corruption scandals prompt rethink
The Baltic states can no longer cast themselves in the role of a bridge between Russia and the west, the Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has said in an interview with the Guardian.
Successive crises have shown Russian determination to interfere in western democracy or use Baltic banks to launder corrupt money, Rinkēvičs said after a visit to London during which he met Dominic Grieve, the chairman of the UK intelligence and security committee.
Continue reading...Two boys aged 16 and 17 and a 17-year-old girl died in incident in Cookstown, police confirm
A third teenager has died after a crush at a hotel on St Patrick’s Day in Northern Ireland, police have said.
Mark Hamilton, an assistant chief constable with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), confirmed a 17-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy had died. “It is heartbreaking an event which should have been fun should end in such a terrible tragedy,” he told reporters at the scene.
Continue reading...A year after devastating revelations of data misuse, Mark Zuckerberg still hasn’t fulfilled his promises to reform
It can be hard to remember from down here, beneath the avalanche of words and promises and apologies and blogposts and manifestos that Facebook has unleashed upon us over the course of the past year, but when the Cambridge Analytica story broke one year ago, Mark Zuckerberg’s initial response was a long and deafening silence.
It took five full days for the founder and CEO of Facebook – the man with total control over the world’s largest communications platform – to emerge from his Menlo Park cloisters and address the public. When he finally did, he did so with gusto, taking a new set of talking points (“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you”) on a seemingly unending roadshow, from his own Facebook page to the mainstream press to Congress and on to an oddly earnest discussion series he’s planning to subject us to at irregular intervals for the rest of 2019.
Continue reading...Cramped conditions at home feed territorial disputes, say teens at a west London youth centre
“Round here we’ve got Third Set, in Shepherd’s Bush you have 12 Anti who are currently beefing Third Set. 12 World are beefing 12 Anti. Then you get in to Ladbroke Grove and you got Ten Eleven. Then you’ve got Mozart.”
This is just one corner of a bewildering jigsaw of gang rivalries in west London, described by Colin Brent, a youth worker at the Bollo Brook youth centre in south Acton. “You can have Acton beefing Acton, Bush beefing Bush. Bush beefing Acton. Young people don’t even know whose side they’re supposed to be on any more.”
Continue reading...However, Labour leader also says he is determined to continue pressing for party’s softer-Brexit policy
Jeremy Corbyn has said Labour is likely to back an amendment aimed at securing a second Brexit referendum this week – but stressed his party still hopes to secure its own, softer deal.
The Kyle-Wilson amendment was drawn up by two Labour MPs, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, who consulted with the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, and the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, over the precise wording.
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