Exclusive: Documents show shift in transport policy influenced by unfounded fears about loss of freedom of movement in ‘15-minute cities’
Ministers decided to prioritise driving over active travel because of worries among ministers about “15-minute cities”, documents seen by the Guardian show.
They indicate that a significant shift in transport policy was guided at least in part by conspiracy theories.
Continue reading...Increased flooding blamed on years of government delays over ‘sponge cities’ rules
Increased sewage pollution, urban flooding and water supply interruptions are the result of a decade of failures by the Conservative ministers, according to water experts who are demanding an independent inquiry into water be set up by the next government.
The repeated failure of the Tories to implement rules to create “sponge cities” has led to much more visible sewage pollution, more flooding and increasing instances of water being cut off for householders and businesses, they say.
Continue reading...Study of European electoral data suggests social democratic parties alienate supporters by moving towards the political centre
Adopting rightwing policies on issues such as immigration and the economy does not help centre-left parties win votes, according to new analysis of European electoral and polling data.
Faced with a 20-year decline in their vote share, accompanied by rising support for the right, far right and sometimes the far left, social democratic parties across Europe have increasingly sought salvation by moving towards the political centre.
Continue reading...David Cameron urges Israeli authorities to clear barriers to aid deliveries amid risk of ‘widespread hunger’
The British government has accepted that Israel as an occupying power had a duty under international humanitarian law to provide basic supplies to the people of Gaza.
The admission came when David Cameron, the foreign secretary, urged Israel to remove barriers on the delivery of humanitarian aid into the territory that were risking “real, widespread hunger”.
Continue reading...Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for postal services, says a government announcement on the scandal is imminent
Here are some more lines from Bridget Phillipson’s speech and Q&A this morning.
Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said keeping schools open should be a priority if a future pandemic ever required another lockdown. She said:
When the Government first reopened schools for most of our children, the pubs had already been open for weeks.
That was entirely the wrong way around. And I tell you today, that if I’m secretary of state for education, if and when such a national crisis comes again, school should be the last to close and the first to open.
Phillipson said the fact that Gavin Williamson, the former education secretary, did not give evidence to the Covid inquiry in person showed how schools were sidelined by the government. She said:
It says a lot that the Covid inquiry isn’t even taking evidence from Sir Gavin Williamson. I don’t blame them because he wasn’t important.
The education secretary – he wasn’t at the table. Ministers failed our children in their greatest hour of need.
She condemned parents who take their children out of school for holidays, saying that was a sign of disrespect. She said:
Cheaper holidays, birthday treats, not fancying it today – these are no excuses for missing school.
Penalties must be part of the system, but they can never be the answer alone. Allowing your child to skip school without good reason shouldn’t just be cause for a fine. It’s deeper.
She said Labour would introduce a single number, like the NHS number, to hold children’s records across different services together. She said:
Labour will bring a simple single number, like the NHS number that holds records together and that stops children’s needs falling between the gaps within schools and between them, between all of the services that wrap around them. That linkage allows us not just to support children with the issues that they face today, but to help identify the challenges of tomorrow.
She said Labour would “always be the party of family”.
She suggested Labour would take steps to ensure parents cannot avoid paying VAT on private schools fees by paying all fees in advance. This is from the BBC’s education editor, Branwen Jeffreys.
Will labour apply VAT on school fees retrospectively if parents try to pay fully in advance @bphillipsonMP says will make sure there isn’t avoidance
She praised Michael Gove, the Tory former education secretary, for bringing energy and drive to the department.
Continue reading...Chair says government-approved appointments lag behind broadcaster’s diversity targets
A row has broken out over the lack of ethnic diversity among Channel 4’s new board members, as the broadcaster’s chair criticised the government’s decision to appoint four white directors.
The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, approved the appointments on Monday of five new non-executive directors to join the Channel 4 board and they were announced by the UK’s media regulator Ofcom.
Continue reading...Party to ask for details of individual relocation costs and any payments to the Rwandan government
Labour will table a vote in parliament on Tuesday calling for the release of documents relating to the UK government’s Rwanda deportation policy amid claims from Conservative centrists that Rishi Sunak has promised to uphold international treaties.
The vote, which will be part of a humble address on the opposition day debate in the Commons, will ask for any documents that show the cost of relocating each individual asylum seeker to Rwanda as well as a list of all payments made or scheduled to be made to Rwanda’s government.
Continue reading...Companies could be stopped from taking such action, and firms involved in Horizon case may have to pay compensation
Rules to prevent companies taking private prosecutions in the way the Post Office went after innocent post office operators are being considered by the government.
The move by the government to consider removing powers of prosecution from the Post Office and other entities is part of a response to the Horizon IT scandal that could also lead to companies involved, including the tech company Fujitsu, being asked to shoulder the financial burden of providing compensation, a cabinet minister indicated on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Business minister Kevin Hollinrake to give statement on Horizon scandal and what the government plans to do
James Chapman, a former political editor of the Daily Mail who worked as special adviser for David Davis when he was Brexit secretary for about a year until he left convinced that Brexit was a terrible mistake, says he does not think the “back to square one” line really works as an attack line against Labour.
The trouble with Sunak’s latest slogan is that I suspect a large number of voters think Britain is so broken under the Tories that “going back to square one” sounds like a wholly positive idea
Continue reading...He tried to engage the little people and bestow upon them his blessings, but he’s incapable of not talking down to everyone
Surely it can’t go on like this for the rest of the year. If it does, then we will all be driven mad by the end of it. Assuming we’re not already. Rishi Sunak has started 2024 as he means to go on. In full election mode. The prime minister is seemingly no longer interested in governing the country – it’s scarcely registered with him that half the country is flooded. Then again, if your primary mode of transport is a helicopter, I guess you don’t really notice. All that matters is scoring cheap points as he scrabbles around to think of reasons people might vote for him.
On Monday, the first day parliament was back after the Christmas recess, Sunak was in Accrington to deliver yet another of his PM Disconnects to a carefully curated audience of about 100 people who had been rounded up by Conservative head office. Even so, many of those in the hall soon began to wonder if they had been dragged out under false pretences.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Review by Michael Marmot decries 'shocking political failure’ behind differing life expectancies across country
More than 1 million people in England died prematurely in the decade after 2011 owing to a combination of poverty, austerity and Covid, according to “shocking” new research by one of the UK’s leading public health experts.
The figures are revealed in a study by the Institute of Health Equity at University College London led by Sir Michael Marmot. They demonstrate the extent to which stark economic and social inequalities are leading to poorer people dying early from cancer, heart problems and other diseases.
Continue reading...Danny Kruger said his party would leave the country ‘sadder, less united and less conservative’ than they had found it
The Conservatives face “obliteration” at the next election after leaving the country in a worse state than they inherited it in 2010, a senior Tory MP has said, in a stark assessment of the party’s 13 years in government.
Danny Kruger, a leading backbencher and founder of the increasingly influential New Conservatives group, said the Conservatives risked being ejected from power this year having left the country “sadder, less united and less conservative” than they found it.
Continue reading...PM reveals government is also considering plans to strip Post Office of its powers to prosecute
Post office operators whose lives have been ruined by the Horizon scandal could be exonerated under plans being considered by the government, Rishi Sunak has said.
The prime minister also confirmed that Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, could strip the Post Office of its powers to prosecute after more than 700 branch managers were wrongly handed criminal convictions.
Continue reading...Experts say submission to international court of justice on Myanmar six weeks ago makes stance ‘wholly disingenuous’
The UK is facing accusations of double standards after formally submitting detailed legal arguments to the international court of justice in The Hague six weeks ago to support claims that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya ethnic group through its mass mistreatment of children and systematically depriving people of their homes and food.
The UK made its 21-page “declaration of intervention” jointly with five other countries, but it is not supporting South Africa as it prepares to try to convince the ICJ on Thursday that Israel is at risk of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
Continue reading...PM sets up possibility of income tax coming down in March and says control of welfare is a priority
Rishi Sunak has said he wants to cut taxes for working people further this year, possibly cutting welfare payments to fund it.
The prime minister said on Sunday his priority before the budget in March would be further tax cuts, which he said would entail stricter controls on public spending and benefits.
Continue reading...Woman was detained overnight and removed despite presenting Home Office documents showing her right to work and live in UK
A 34-year-old Spanish woman was forcibly removed from the UK after returning from a Christmas holiday near Málaga despite presenting Brexit paperwork to border officials showing she has a right to live and work in the country.
She was flown back to Spain after being detained overnight in Luton airport on 26 December and told she was “wasting her time” if she thought the Home Office documentation she had showing her right to live in the UK was valid.
Continue reading...Corruption and the cost of living have trumped concerns about a belligerent neighbour in close race for the presidency
Deep in the mountains of Hsinchu county in north Taiwan, a few dozen residents of Smangus are holding their daily morning meeting in a weatherboard hut, overlooking the towering peaks nearby.
The remote Indigenous village, home to about 200 Atayal people, is preparing for Saturday’s presidential election. They take it very seriously, running their own polling station since 2008, and discussing candidates with all the residents.
Continue reading...Heather Hallett’s first findings are to be published before the summer and will show how austerity and Brexit hit pandemic planning
An explosive report spelling out how the Conservative government failed to prepare the country for the Covid-19 pandemic as it obsessed about Brexit is to be released before the likely date of the next general election, the Observer has been told.
In a move that will cause alarm in Downing Street, Heather Hallett’s independent Covid-19 inquiry will issue a detailed interim report “before the summer” on the first batch of public hearings held last June and July, which revealed a catalogue of errors, including the lack of PPE and failures to act on recommendations of previous pandemic planning exercises.
Continue reading...Victim of software scandal says TV drama has reignited issue as 50 new operators contact lawyers
A former post office operator who led a campaign to fight against wrongful convictions brought by the Post Office has called for compensation for the victims to be sped up after the broadcast of an ITV drama about the scandal.
The Metropolitan police confirmed on Friday the Post Office was under criminal investigation over “potential fraud offences” committed during the Horizon scandal.
Continue reading...PM insists government is responding, as some residents are told to expect five more days of misery and colder weather
Large swathes of England ended the week devastated by flood water as rivers reached record highs, provoking a bitter political row over funding for the country’s most vulnerable areas.
Labour accused Rishi Sunak of being “asleep at the wheel” over flood warnings at the end of a week in which at least 1,000 properties were flooded and some villages were totally cut off, with parts of Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire worst affected.
Continue reading...