Home secretary says it is ‘moral mission’ for her to tackle asylum system. This live blog is closed
Ukrainians are in the UK on a “bespoke scheme”, Mahmood says, and it is on a temporary basis.
If Ukraine becomes a safe country again and the conflict ends, “the principle of the new reforms are that if your country becomes safe then you will return,” she says.
Continue reading...Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmark’s controversial system
Refugees who have established lives with homes and families in the UK – including Ukrainians – will still face having to return if their home countries become safe, the home secretary has said.
Shabana Mahmood said the asylum system was “out of control and putting huge pressure on communities” as she announced plans to end the permanent status of refugees, who would need to reapply to remain in Britain every two and a half years.
Continue reading...Commons committee report challenges ‘lazy narrative’ used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environment
Nature is not a blocker to housing growth, an inquiry by MPs has found, in direct conflict with claims made by ministers.
Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods.
Continue reading...Gwent police name victim as Lainie Williams and have charged Cameron Cheng, 18, a British national
A teenager has been charged with murder after a 17-year-old girl was killed in South Wales.
The girl, named as Lainie Williams, was pronounced dead at the scene, Gwent police said.
Continue reading...LNER’s Samir Zitouni, known as Sam, was seriously injured in mass stabbing and is credited with saving multiple lives
A train crew member who was seriously injured while protecting passengers during a mass stabbing onboard a train in Cambridgeshire has been discharged from hospital, police have said.
Samir Zitouni, known as Sam, was working onboard the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) high-speed train from Doncaster to London when the attack happened on 1 November.
LNER said the 48-year-old, who has worked for the company for more than 20 years, has been credited with helping to save multiple lives after passengers came under threat in Huntingdon.
British Transport police said Zitouni was now able to continue his recovery at home.
The force said on Saturday: “Samir Zitouni had been in a critical condition having suffered multiple injuries, and thanks to the efforts of NHS medical staff he’s been able to be discharged from hospital today.”
His family said: “We are so grateful for the outpouring of support from the public, and very touched by all the kind words about Sam’s brave actions on the night of the attack.
“While we are really happy to have him home, he still has a significant recovery ahead and we would now like to be left in privacy to care for him as a family.”
Zitouni’s job is customer experience host, which largely involves providing onboard catering.
He was among 11 patients treated in hospital for injuries sustained during the attack, which is understood to have started shortly after the train left Peterborough station.
Among the injured was Jonathan Gjoshe, 22, a Scunthorpe United footballer who was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, and Stephen Crean, 61, who sustained stab injuries.
Anthony Williams, 32, was remanded into custody at Peterborough magistrates court on 3 November charged with 10 counts of attempted murder, two counts of possession of a bladed article and one count of actual bodily harm. One of the attempted murder counts relates to a separate incident at a London station.
Anne Wood says algorithms bypass ‘the responsibility of art’ and have failed to support high-quality children’s content
Lots of programmes for children on YouTube are “empty” and do “nothing to encourage the imaginative life of children”, the Teletubbies creator has cautioned parents.
Anne Wood, the veteran children’s producer who devised the popular TV show for preschool children, said children’s television had long been undervalued and she feared “we’re losing a tremendous amount and nobody can see it because it’s not considered important”.
Continue reading...Campaigners claim AI algorithms are behind hefty increases in renewal quotes for home and car cover
Shortly after her husband died, Kay Lawley* received renewal quotes from the couple’s home and car insurance provider, Ageas. She told the company of his death and was stunned that the quotes then increased by up to 15%.
Her car insurance quote went from £301 to £348, while her home and contents policy rose by almost 12% – from £1,039 to £1,161.
Continue reading...Campaigners say train image of two wheelchair users does not reflect reality of single wheelchair space in standard class
Campaigners have accused one of the UK’s leading train companies of “virtue signalling without the virtue” after it used images of wheelchair users that they say do not reflect the reality of travelling with a disability.
Baraka Carberry, a digital artist, created a new livery for Avanti West Coast, which provides rail links between London and Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland, that shows “scenes of people, culture, colours and joy”. Titled Together We Roll, the images stretch across all seven carriages of the new Evero train, which the company says reduces carbon compared with the old fleet of trains.
Continue reading...Ford denies having created ‘defeat devices’ in legal action on behalf of 1.6 million owners against five carmakers
About a million Ford diesel cars were sold in the UK with serious defects in components supposed to curb toxic exhaust emissions, the high court has been told.
The highly polluting vehicles were produced and sold between 2016 and 2018 after Ford’s engineers became aware of the issues, and many were never formally recalled or fixed, lawyers said.
Continue reading...Fallout continues over budget income tax U-turn, with Treasury saying expected fiscal gap has dropped to £20bn
This is from Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, on the market reaction to the chancellor’s reported budget U-turn.
Investors will have 2 broad concerns about news that Chancellor won’t increase income tax rates
1. Does it signal less willingness to do politically difficult things
Britain’s long-term borrowing costs were sent soaring as reports suggested the latest U-turn would leave Rachel Reeves scrambling to fill a gaping black hole in the nation’s finances just two weeks before the 26 November budget.
Yields on 30-year UK government bonds, also known as gilts, jumped as much as 14 basis points in early trading, and the yield on 10-year gilts also shot up 12 basis points – rising the most since July.
Continue reading...Text messages released by US House show convicted sex offender coaching Maga influencer on political messaging. Plus, readers’ favourite photo booth moments 100 years after its invention
Good morning.
The convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein apparently served as a behind-the-scenes adviser to the former Trump official and Maga influencer Steve Bannon during an August 2018 media campaign to defend Trump and his agenda, and to promote Bannon’s media ventures.
What else has been released in the flood of recent Epstein emails? Among many, many other things, one email shows an exchange between him and an associate in which they discuss “girls” and travel. The justice department continues to downplay the possibility that other men were involved in Epstein’s abuse of teen girls.
What’s happening with rest of the Epstein files? Trump is facing the prospect of a politically damaging congressional vote to release the files, after attempts to press two members of Congress to withdraw their backing for it appeared to have failed.
What exactly is climate finance? Who pays it? And who gets it? Sixteen years ago, at the climate summit in Copenhagen, rich and polluting countries pledged to provide $100bn (£76bn) each year by 2020 so that poorer countries could cut their emissions and adapt to a hotter world. Last year, they set a new target of $300bn (£227bn) a year by 2035.
Continue reading...Media group’s future is again in limbo – and it faces questions over the asking price as well as regulatory hurdles
The withdrawal of the bid for the Telegraph led by RedBird Capital has once again plunged the future of the titles into uncertainty, and raises questions over the dogged refusal of its sellers to drop the eye-watering £500m asking price that had driven away other potential suitors.
On Friday, a consortium that also included UAE fund International Media Investments (IMI) as well as the owner of the Daily Mail and the billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik, abruptly dropped its bid with no explanation given.
Continue reading...Artwork that hung for centuries at St John’s Almshouse in Sherborne will be sold to raise funds for social housing
“The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and He adds no sorrow with it,” so says the Bible, Proverbs 10:22.
On Friday, a church almshouse was counting its blessings after discovering that a triptych painting that has hung in the chapel for centuries is a 15th-century Flemish masterpiece worth £3.5m.
Continue reading...Ipsos survey reveals fake news, lack of accountability, extremism and corruption seen as biggest threats
Satisfaction with democracy is below 50% in eight out of nine western countries surveyed in a poll, and majorities in all but one fear for its future, with fake news, lack of political accountability, extremism and corruption seen as the biggest threats.
An Ipsos survey of almost 10,000 people in Croatia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US found satisfaction with democracy low in all except Sweden, with deep concerns about the future state of electoral politics.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Charlie Maynard, public interest representative in case, accuses utility of ‘retaliation’ for failed bid for costs in supreme court appeal
Thames Water argued that an MP should be forced to pay its hefty legal costs after he represented the interests of the British public in court, a move he described as “retaliation” for pushing for government control of the crisis-hit utility, the Guardian can reveal.
The UK’s highest court this week rejected Thames Water’s arguments that the Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard should pay legal fees as high as £1,400 per hour.
Continue reading...Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London
The UK’s Society of Editors has named Malak A Tantesh, the Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, as young journalist of the year in the national press category at this year’s Media Freedom awards.
The judges said Tantesh “showed immense talent and bravery in some of the hardest conditions ever faced by a journalist, she continued to report while having to forage for food and facing the constant risk of bombing and the threat of targeted killing”.
Continue reading...About 600,000 people seeking compensation a decade on from disaster that killed 19 and devastated villages
The global mining company BHP Group has been found liable for the deadly 2015 collapse of a Brazilian dam, in a landmark ruling that could pave the way for a multibillion-dollar payout.
The high court in London on Friday, Mrs Justice O’Farrell ruled that BHP was responsible for the collapse of the Fundão dam in Mariana despite not owing the dam at the time.
Continue reading...Egyptian authorities prevented Alaa Abd el-Fattah from attending human rights awards in London
Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and human rights campaigner who was freed from jail in September, was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control, his family has said.
Abd el-Fattah was pardoned after more than 10 years in jail but his status, including his right to travel back and forth between Britain and Egypt, was left unclear and subject to discussion between the family and authorities.
Continue reading...Home secretary to set out sweeping plans to deter people from coming to the UK and make deportations easier
The home secretary is due to announce sweeping changes next week aimed at making the UK less attractive for migrants and modelled on the Danish system.
Shabana Mahmood is expected to set out plans to deter migrants from coming to the UK and make it easier to deport those who do, in a statement to MPs on Monday.
Continue reading...Denmark has slashed asylum numbers by granting only short-term status and by targeting ‘ghettoes’, which critics say has damaged the country’s values
Of all the measures introduced to deter people from seeking asylum in Denmark over the last decade, it is the impermanence of refugees’ status that is often cited as the most effective.
Before 2015, refugees in Denmark were initially allowed to stay for between five and seven years, after which their residence permits would automatically become permanent. But 10 years ago, when more than a million people arrived in Europe fleeing conflict and repression, largely from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea, the Danish government dramatically changed the rules.
Continue reading...