Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick took questions from Conservative party members on Thursday night
Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have faced off for what could be the only televised clash of the Conservative leadership contest. It was not actually a debate: the pair took it in turns to take questions from party members and GB News viewers.
Below are some of the things we learned.
Continue reading...Contender says ‘it is about being brave and not being scared that the Guardian is going to mock us’
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has told MPs that magistrates are getting powers to sentence offenders for longer – to reduce the number of prisoners being held on remand and to cut the backlog in crown courts
In a statement to MPs, she said that, although this would increase the prison population slightly, by reducing the number of offenders being held on remand it would free up spaces in reception prisons where overcrowding is particularly serious.
Unless we address our remand population, we could still see a collapse of the system, not because of a lack of cells, but because we do not have those cells in the places that we need them. It is therefore crucial that we bear down on the remand population.
This government inherited a record crown court backlog. Waits for trials have grown so long that some cases are not heard for years.
The impact on victims of crime is profound. For some justice delayed is, as the old saying goes, justice denied as victims choose to withdraw from the justice process altogether rather than face the pain of a protracted legal battle.
I have made it my personal mission to constrain the Kremlin, closing the net around Putin and his mafia state using every tool at my disposal.
Continue reading...Jenrick pledges to ‘end the drama’, while Badenoch calls his plan to exit ECHR ‘a distraction from bigger worries’
Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have attacked each other’s visions for the future of the Conservative party, in a sometimes low-key debate which could nonetheless prove significant in who becomes the next opposition leader.
The event on GB News, the only debate scheduled, involved the pair taking turns to tackle questions from audience members rather than going head to head, but featured notable differences of opinion on strategy and policies such as immigration.
Continue reading...Goal seems to be for people ‘to lose confidence in the system’, says head of industry body after devices found in Birmingham and Leipzig
If Russia is proved to be behind an incendiary device plot that caused fires at two parcels warehouses in July, it will be evidence that Moscow is aiming to disrupt western confidence, an expert has said.
The dangerous packages, which caught light at DHL sites in Birmingham and Leipzig, are not thought to have been sophisticated but in both cases appear to have evaded security checks. German authorities warned this week that a plane could have been downed if the devices, which were both sent by air, had ignited in flight.
Continue reading...Inspector dismissed emergency services’ concerns that incident was similar to Skripal poisonings, KC says
Police officers urged paramedics and firefighters to treat the second novichok incident in 2018 as a drug overdose despite warnings from the ambulance and fire services that it had similarities to the first poisoning four months earlier in Salisbury, a public inquiry has heard.
The UK government believes the novichok was brought into Britain by agents tasked by Vladimir Putin to target the former spy Sergei Skripal, who had been settled in Salisbury after a spy exchange, the inquiry heard earlier this week. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned on 4 March 2018 and both survived.
Continue reading...Former One Direction member died after falling from hotel balcony in Argentina on Wednesday
Liam Payne’s family and stars from across the music world have led tributes to the former One Direction star after his death at a hotel in Argentina.
“We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul,” his family said in a statement issued on Thursday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Party drops plan for formal recognition laid out last year by David Lammy, who will visit Beijing on Friday
Labour has backtracked on plans to push for formal recognition of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide in the run-up to David Lammy’s trip to the country this weekend.
The foreign secretary is expected to arrive in Beijing on Friday for high-level meetings before travelling to Shanghai on Saturday.
Continue reading...Group of wealthy investors argue it would have no impact on investment in the UK and would raise vital funds for public services
Rachel Reeves has been urged by a group of millionaire business owners to raise £14bn from an increase in capital gains tax at this month’s budget, arguing it would have no impact on investment in Britain.
Ahead of the chancellor’s set-piece event on 30 October, the group of wealthy investors said increasing the tax rate on asset disposals would help to raise vital funds for public services and would not lead to slower economic growth.
Continue reading...Jürgen Maier’s vision for company includes the potential to borrow its own money in order to rival multinationals
Britain’s new national energy company will eventually become a major power generator, running its own windfarms, tidal power and carbon capture schemes and potentially borrowing its own money, according to its new chair.
Jürgen Maier, the chair of Great British Energy (GBE), told the Guardian in an interview that his vision for the company far outstrips its current scope and would put it on a par with multinational firms such as Denmark’s Ørsted or Sweden’s Vattenfall.
Continue reading...Refugee Council says nearly 120,000 people await case processing with 63,000 set to be granted asylum by Labour government
Nearly 63,000 people who were waiting for their cases to be processed at the time of the general election are expected to be granted asylum by the Labour government, an analysis has found.
The Refugee Council said the government’s decision to scrap the plan to deport people to Rwanda and accelerate claims meant the asylum backlog was forecast to be 118,063 at the start of 2025 – 59,000 cases lower than if the government had continued with the policy.
Continue reading...British musician was found dead after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires
Liam Payne, a former member of the boyband One Direction, has died aged 31 after falling from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires, police have confirmed.
The singer died on Wednesday at 5pm local time.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves aims to find £40bn in budget but several ministers have written to Keir Starmer about spending cuts
Cabinet ministers have pushed back against planned cuts to their departments in the upcoming budget, with several writing to Keir Starmer to contest them.
Several are understood to have shared their concerns at the likelihood of deep cuts to unprotected departments such as housing and transport.
Continue reading...Newborn received 10 times the correct amount of painkiller and could have died if colleagues had not spotted error
Lucy Letby gave a potentially fatal dose of morphine to a newborn baby two years before she murdered her first victim, an inquiry has heard.
The infant received 10 times the correct amount of the painkiller at the end of a night shift in July 2013 and could have died if colleagues at handover had not spotted the error an hour later.
Continue reading...Hugo Morris, Harvey Owen, Wilf Fitchett, Jevon Hirst died after car came off rural road on a bend in November 2023
A coroner has raised concerns about young, newly qualified drivers being allowed to carry passengers, during an inquest into the deaths of four teenagers who drowned after a crash in north Wales.
Hugo Morris, 18, Harvey Owen, 17, Wilf Fitchett, 17, and Jevon Hirst, 16, died in November last year on a camping trip to Eryri national park (Snowdonia) when their car came off a rural road on a bend and ended up upside-down in a water-filled ditch.
Continue reading...After expulsion of hundreds of embassy-based spies, Kremlin is using riskier and less conventional methods
A developing Russian campaign of arson, sabotage and even murder plots has left western intelligence agencies alarmed over the past year.
The ramping up of activity has come as the Kremlin’s spy apparatus recovered from the initial shock of seeing 450 agents posing as diplomats expelled from Europe in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Exclusive: proposal to Cop16 could see ‘funga’ get global legal consideration distinct from flora and fauna
A new era of mycelial conservation could begin this month when the UK and Chile propose that fungi should be placed alongside animals and plants as a separate realm for environmental protection.
Mushrooms, mould, mildew, yeast and lichen would all receive elevated status under the plan, which will be submitted to the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD) during the Cop16 meeting in Cali, Colombia, which opens on 21 October.
Continue reading...Latest PMQs comes as sources say chancellor is briefing ministers that £40bn will need to be found in the budget
Robert Jenrick has finished his speech, and he is now taking questions.
Q: Kemi Badenoch says she is Labour’s worst nightmare. Is she right?
I think that our party faces an existential challenge right now. Our party has no divine right to exist. That’s why we need to get the choice right in this leadership election, and that’s why I stand for ending the drama, ending the excuses, and actually delivering for the British people.
Continue reading...Payments such as universal credit linked to previous September’s figure, meaning a rise of just 1.7% in April
Last month’s surprise fall in UK inflation lands with bad timing for millions of people who receive state benefits linked to the figure, who can now expect their payments to rise by just 1.7% next April.
A number of benefits, including universal credit, are increased each tax year in line with the cost of living figure for the previous September.
Continue reading...Firm’s profits fall 22% and demand slows, with hospitality sector bracing for employer tax increase in budget
The Premier Inn owner, Whitbread, is ramping up its cost-cutting programme amid slowing demand, as the hospitality sector braces for a widely expected employer tax rise in this month’s budget.
The company, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurant chains as well as the UK’s biggest hotel brand, said its total revenues had been flat at £1.57bn in the six months to 29 August, while profit before tax fell by 22% year on year to £309m.
Continue reading...Growing diplomatic row as police say they have evidence of Delhi’s links to murder of Sikh leader in Canada
Britain joined its Five Eyes intelligence partners on Wednesday in saying India’s cooperation with Canada’s legal process was “the right next step” in the deepening diplomatic row between the two countries, adding that it had full confidence in Canada’s judicial system.
Canadian police said on Monday they had credible evidence that Indian agents including India’s high commissioner to Canada were linked to the murder of the Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil in June 2023 and accused Delhi of a broader effort to target Indian dissidents in Canada.
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