Alex Chalk urges local council where racing festival takes place to stop granting licences to such venues
The presence of pop-up strip clubs at Cheltenham is making women feel “threatened and intimidated” at one of Britain’s biggest race festivals, the justice secretary has said.
Alex Chalk, the MP for Cheltenham, challenged the local council to stop granting licences to so-called sexual entertainment venues (SEVs).
Continue reading...Latest round of negotiations end without breakthrough and talks will not resume until after India’s election campaign
The UK and India have closed their 14th round of trade negotiations without reaching a deal and will put the discussions on ice until later this year.
The UK government ended the latest round of talks on Friday night after two weeks of intensive negotiations with Indian officials failed to bear fruit.
Continue reading...BMA says Tory donor should resign from his company as questions grow about how many times Hester has met Sunak
Unions representing GPs and health workers have called on the Conservative donor Frank Hester to stand down from running NHS contracts, saying his “racist and misogynistic comments” breach its fit and proper person test.
Hester’s company TPP runs the electronic patient records of almost half the medical practices in the UK. His remarks about Diane Abbott have prompted calls for him to step aside amid a growing political row.
Continue reading...Legal experts say directors could face personal claims for failing to consider how businesses affect nature
Company directors in the UK could be held personally liable for failing to properly account for nature and climate-related risks, according to a group of lawyers.
A legal opinion published this week found that board directors had duties to consider how their business affected and depended on nature. These included climate-related risks as well as wider risks to biodiversity, soils and water.
Continue reading...Hackney MP endorsed a post saying it was unlikely she would be allowed to rejoin Labour despite the support of senior figures
A reader asks:
Is there anything other than convention which says elections must be on a Thursday?
The reason for choosing Thursday, it is said, was as follows. On Fridays the voters were paid their wages and if they went for a drink in a public house they would be subject to pressure from the Conservative brewing interests, while on Sundays they would be subject to influence by Free Church ministers who were generally Liberal in persuasion. Therefore choose the day furthest from influence by either publicans or Free Church clergymen, namely Thursday. Although these influences are much less significant today, the trend towards Thursday becoming a universal polling day has continued, because Urban District Councils and Rural District Councils all polled on a Saturday until they were abolished under the 1972 Local Government Act. Their successor District Councils poll on a Thursday and the Parish Council polling day was changed from Saturday to Thursday at the same time.
If it ends up being an autumn election as Sunak has indicated, how does that impact the conference season - do they still go ahead? - and does the summer recess have any affect on when a government can call an election?
Continue reading...Tory donor has been widely condemned over racist and misogynistic comments about prominent black MP
It has been four days since the Guardian reported on the extraordinary remarks by the Tory donor Frank Hester about Diane Abott. They elicited widespread condemnation for being racist and misogynistic. Here are some of the key voices – and what they have said:
Diane Abbott MP
Continue reading...The royal’s absence has led to a proliferation of conspiracy theories after announcement of a mysterious abdominal surgery
It seems that everyone has recently become fixated on one question: where in the world is the Princess of Wales?
We’ve long known the world is watching the royal family, but the visible absence of Catherine has sent social media and US news outlets into a tailspin – driving even those ordinarily not interested in the royals to pay attention.
Continue reading...Roadworks mean stretch between junctions 10 and 11 will be closed for first time, from 9pm on Friday to 6am on Monday
Drivers have been warned to steer well clear, turn off the satnav and stick to the official diversions as some of the biggest roadworks since the Romans results in part of the M25 motorway fully closed for the first time in its history this weekend.
Epic traffic jams are anticipated, with a five-mile stretch of Britain’s busiest motorway, the London orbital motorway, closed for engineering from 9pm on Friday.
Continue reading...Guildford Dragon will be able to benefit from tax breaks after becoming UK’s first charitable public interest news provider
A local news website conceived over a pint and named after a mythical creature has become the first in the UK to be given charitable status, providing a “glimmer of hope” to the future of local journalism.
The Guildford Dragon has become the UK’s first charitable public interest news provider after a six-month application process that experts hope will provide a lifeline to the decimated local news industry.
Continue reading...Diogo Santos Coelho from Portugal faces a 52-year sentence for alleged cybercrime relating to RaidForums site
A vulnerable autistic man is pleading with the UK government to block his extradition to the US on cybercrime charges where he faces a 52-year sentence for alleged offending that began when he was a child.
Diogo Santos Coelho, who has been assessed as at very high risk of suicide, said he had been groomed and exploited online by adults from the age of 14 into committing the alleged crimes, which relate to the website RaidForums.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Fast food chain working to resolve problem but denies it has been hit by cybersecurity attack
McDonald’s restaurants in multiple countries including the UK and Australia have been hit by a “technology outage”, which the fast food chain denied had been caused by a cybersecurity attack.
Australia, the UK, Japan and China were among the markets where services were affected, with restaurant, drive-through and online orders hit.
Continue reading...UK telecoms group says some of proceeds will be returned to investors via share buybacks
Vodafone is selling its Italian business to Swisscom for €8bn (£6.8bn) cash and plans to return €4bn to shareholders.
The telecoms company said it had reached an agreement to sell Vodafone Italy as part of wider plans to streamline its European operations and that some of the proceeds would be returned to investors via share buy-backs. Vodafone will continue to provide certain services to Swisscom for up to five years as part of the transaction.
Continue reading...Jungle-based competition in which celebrities try to evade Bear Grylls part of a wide-ranging new Netflix slate
Holly Willoughby has made her first major move since leaving This Morning, signing up to host a new Netflix show, Bear Hunt with Bear Grylls.
In October she announced she was quitting the ITV show after 14 years “for me and my family” after it emerged she was the target of an alleged kidnap and murder plot.
Continue reading...RAF jet was taking defence secretary back to UK from Poland, and flying near Russian exclave of Kaliningrad
Russia is believed to have jammed the satellite signal on an RAF aircraft carrying Grant Shapps back from Poland, according to government sources.
Defence sources said there was no danger to Shapps, who was travelling back to the UK, though they called it a “wildly irresponsible” act of electronic warfare.
Continue reading...Deputy Labour leader says party must follow procedures but says she would personally like MP to have Labour whip restored. This live blog is closed
In his speech Keir Starmer has just confirmed that Labour would stop ticket touts buying up tickets for events and re-selling them at rip-off prices.
This is what Labour said about the plan in a news release this morning.
Reselling tickets for profit has already been banned in many countries, but under the Tories, fans have been let down.
Too often, genuine fans are missing out on getting tickets only to see those same tickets on secondary ticketing websites at far higher prices, making them unaffordable and putting them out of reach.
My first ever trip abroad was to Malta with the Croydon youth Philharmonic Orchestra. You will know that excitement you feel when you have an encounter with the arts that changes your life. Everyone in the room will know that the sense, I suppose, of being drawn into something that seems bigger than ourselves, of being truly moved by a piece of music, or painting, or a play …
Even now even now, listening to Beethoven or Brahms as I read the Sunday papers, takes the edge off some of the more uncomfortable stories.
Continue reading...Holyrood standards committee to examine findings of inquiry that upheld three complaints against ex-minister
The former Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson faces being suspended from Holyrood after wrongly claiming nearly £11,000 in expenses for an iPad roaming bill run up on holiday.
An official inquiry by the Scottish parliament found Matheson breached two parts of its code of conduct by failing to abide by parliamentary policies and by making “improper use” of its expenses.
Continue reading...Michael Gove has named five groups to be examined but some fear many more will ultimately be included
Far-right and Islamist groups are among those expected to be included in a list the government will publish in the coming weeks as part of a new definition of extremism.
The communities minister, Michael Gove, named five groups to MPs on Thursday – three Muslim-led and two far-right – which he said would be examined under the new legislation.
Continue reading...Bill proposes dividing large estates into smaller lots to spread land ownership and boost rural populations
Scottish lairds will be ordered to break up their estates into smaller parcels during sales under plans to reverse the country’s heavily concentrated patterns of land ownership.
A land reform bill proposes introducing rules that could force someone selling an estate larger than 1,000 hectares (2,740 acres) to divide it into smaller lots, if it is was needed to increase the number of people owning land or living in the area.
Continue reading...Scottish Tory leader says all of Hester’s donations should be reviewed after racist and misogynistic comments
The Conservative party has been urged to decline or return a reported further £5m donation made by Frank Hester, whose remarks about Diane Abbott have been widely condemned as racist and misogynistic.
Rishi Sunak faces increasing pressure over the £10m previously given by the millionaire businessman, with Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, saying on Thursday that the donations should be looked at by the party.
Continue reading...Judge says evidence for his conclusion that Craig Wright did not create bitcoin is ‘overwhelming’
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, is not the Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, a high court judge has ruled, ending a fractious two-month trial in London.
In a highly unusual decision, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Mellor, issued the verdict within seconds of the case concluding, promising to issue a “fairly lengthy written judgment” in due course.
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