Campaigners seek to overturn Liz Truss’s resumption of Saudi arms sales

Lawyers will argue the then trade secretary ignored Saudi air force’s bombing of civilians in Yemen

Anti-arms trade campaigners will seek to overturn a decision made by Liz Truss to resume UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, arguing she ignored a pattern of bombing civilians by the country’s air force in Yemen.

A judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) starts in the high court on Tuesday, the latest step in a long-running battle over the legality of a lucrative trade worth more than £23bn since the war in Yemen began.

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Peers deliver several blows to government’s anti-protest bill

House of Lords votes against flagship public order bill on day when Extinction Rebellion protesters disrupted proceedings in chamber

A government bill aimed at cracking down on protest has suffered a number of setbacks in the House of Lords, setting the stage for a tense showdown between parliament’s two chambers.

Peers inflicted a number of defeats on the wide-ranging public order bill, which is aimed at curbing guerrilla tactics used by protest groups.

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Tory peer accused of ‘racially charged’ attack on BBC Modi documentary

Exclusive: Rami Ranger faces criticism over ‘deplorable’ comments about Pakistani journalists at the corporation

A Conservative peer has been accused of using “deplorable” and “racially charged language” in a scathing attack on the BBC’s recent documentary about the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Rami Ranger, who is already under investigation by the standards commissioners in the Lords, was criticised for comments made about Pakistani journalists at the corporation.

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Boris Johnson says Putin claimed he could send missile to hit UK ‘in a minute’

Former prime minister’s comments about call to Russian president just before invasion come in new BBC documentary

Boris Johnson has said that Vladimir Putin claimed he could have sent a missile to hit Britain “within a minute”, in a call just before the invasion of Ukraine.

The former prime minister’s comments came in a three-part documentary for BBC Two looking at the conflict in Ukraine and the lead up to Russia’s invasion in February last year.

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Rishi Sunak set to unveil emergency care plan to slash NHS waiting times

Experts warn plan does not address staff vacancies and £1bn fund pledged is not new money

Rishi Sunak will vow to rapidly slash long waiting times for urgent NHS care with a promise of thousands more beds, 800 new ambulances and an expansion of community care backed by a dedicated fund of £1bn.

The health service is engulfed in its worst-ever crisis, with urgent and emergency care in particular under unprecedented pressure in recent months. The prime minister will describe his blueprint for resolving the problems as “ambitious and credible”.

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Rishi Sunak under pressure after sacking Nadhim Zahawi over tax storm

PM’s judgment in question as Zahawi fails to apologise after inquiry finds breaches of ministerial code

Rishi Sunak has sacked the Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, for serious breaches of the ministerial code over his tax affairs, after weeks of damaging headlines undermined the prime minister’s attempts to restore government integrity.

An investigation by Sunak’s new ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, concluded that Zahawi had broken the rules by repeatedly failing to declare an HMRC investigation into his tax affairs, which concluded with a £5m settlement including a penalty.

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Hongkongers in UK ask Suella Braverman to ditch ‘repressive’ anti-protest bill

Exclusive: Letter to home secretary says bill echoes ‘dangerously broad laws’ that result in jailing of protesters

Hongkongers in Britain have called on Suella Braverman to reconsider controversial measures in her public order bill, which they likened to the repressive measures used to crack down on democratic opposition in their home city.

In a letter to the UK home secretary, aspects of the bill were described as “repressive measures that threaten to paralyse entire social movement” and posed a threat to their right to protest in Britain, including against Chinese communist repression in Hong Kong.

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Gove admits ‘faulty’ guidance partly to blame for Grenfell fire

Minister says he wants to abolish ‘outdated, feudal’ system of home ownership by end of this parliament

Michael Gove has admitted that “faulty and ambiguous” government guidance was partly responsible for the Grenfell Tower tragedy. The UK housing secretary said lax regulation allowed cladding firms to “put people in danger in order to make a profit”.

Gove’s remarks come more than five years after the tower block fire that killed 72 people.

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Nadhim Zahawi sacked as Tory party chair over tax affairs

Rishi Sunak fires Zahawi after he was found to have committed ‘serious breach’ of ministerial code

Rishi Sunak has sacked the Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, after he was found to have breached the ministerial code by failing to declare the HMRC investigation into his tax affairs.

An investigation by the prime minister’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, concluded that Zahawi had made a “serious breach” of the code by not telling officials he was under investigation by the tax body when he was appointed chancellor by Boris Johnson.

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Seven occasions when Nadhim Zahawi broke the ministerial code

Timeline: the occasions when Rishi Sunak’s ethics adviser says Zahawi failed to be open about his tax affairs

The prime minister’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, identifies seven occasions on which Nadhim Zahawi breached the ministerial code by failing to be open about his tax affairs.

April 2021 HMRC commenced its investigation of Zahawi’s tax affairs, which included a meeting with him and his tax advisers in June 2021. Zahawi, who was a business minister at the time, told Magnus he was under the impression he was “merely being asked certain queries”. Magnus says he should have understood it was a “serious matter”, informed his permanent secretary, and disclosed it in his ministerial declaration of interests.

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‘Mental torture’: six years after Grenfell, UK residents still live in fear as cladding deal falters

A government agreement with developers was meant to solve the fire safety crisis in affected buildings – but the wrangling goes on

In June 2021, Charlotte Meehan received a safety inspection report for her block of flats as part of the nationwide checks after the Grenfell Tower fire. It made for grim reading, warning that the block had been built with combustible cladding and insulation.

Last April, the government announced a “wide-ranging” agreement with developers to fix the crisis of unsafe tall buildings, but Meehan, 34, and her fellow residents in the four-storey block in east London, are among tens of thousands still waiting for their homes to be made safe.

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Tories call for action over legal threats from powerful figures facing scrutiny

Solicitors accused of using lawsuits to stifle criticism of prominent figures include those acting for Nadhim Zahawi

Ministers are under pressure to speed up action against the use of legal tactics by powerful figures to silence legitimate criticism. This comes after a surge in investigations into their use.

The Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) warned the profession against employing such tactics at the end of last year, but says their use has increased since then, and it is now examining 40 cases.

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Troubles ahead for Rishi Sunak? Here are five pitfalls he’ll be dreading

He may yearn for a period of calm, but the prime minister faces some daunting challenges in the stormy months ahead

Having taken on the party leadership after months of economic turmoil, Rishi Sunak always faced a tough task in turning around his party’s fortunes. With the future of cabinet ministers already in doubt and Boris Johnson courting MPs, a series of new hurdles in the months ahead will make life even harder for the prime minister.

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Revealed: child migrants racially abused and threatened with violence at Home Office hotel

Whistleblower tells of threats and illegal detention in fresh revelations about failures that drove children into hands of criminals

Children seeking asylum in the UK were threatened and subjected to racist abuse by staff at a Home Office-run hotel, a whistleblower has claimed as pressure grows on the government to act over the growing crisis in the system.

The source, who worked in the Brighton hotel for more than a year, said that in such an environment of “emotional abuse”, scores of children, who had arrived in the UK without parents or a carer, were driven on to the streets and into the hands of criminals.

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Zahawi should quit as party chair until tax inquiry ends, top Tory peer implies

Lord Young suggests ministers should feel able to step aside for the duration of any investigation

Nadhim Zahawi should step away from his Conservative party role while the inquiry into his tax affairs continues, a senior Tory peer and former Commons standards chair has appeared to suggest.

Lord Young, who served in several Conservative administrations from Margaret Thatcher’s to Theresa May’s, suggested that ministers under pressure should feel able to step aside for the duration of any investigation.

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Starmer to pledge Labour is party of ‘sound money’ and public service

‘Never again will Labour allow hate to spread unchallenged,’ Labour leader will say at annual conference in London

Never again will Labour be the party of protest not public service, and never again will it allow hate to spread unchallenged, Keir Starmer will say, as he reiterates his promise to make it the party of “sound money”.

The Labour leader will address approximately 600 people at London Labour’s annual conference on Saturday, and outline how his government will “give people a sense of possibility again”, while focusing on the changes he has made since the party lost the 2019 general election.

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Jeremy Hunt ‘not even trying’ to settle NHS pay dispute, says Unison – UK politics live

Unison general secretary says chancellor ‘completely ignoring vital public services’ after he gives speech on plans

Hunt says Brexit is an opportunity to work with regulators to create an economic environment which is “more innovation-friendly, and more growth-focused”.

He says he wants to create an “enterprise culture built on low taxes, reward for risk, access to capital and smarter regulation”.

Nor will we fix our productivity puzzle unless everyone who can participate does. So to those who retired early after the pandemic, or haven’t found the right role after furlough, I say: Britain needs you.

High taxes directly affect the incentives which determine decisions by entrepreneurs, investors or larger companies, about whether to pursue their ambitions in Britain

Sound money must come first but our ambition must be nothing less than to have the most competitive tax regime of any major country.

In case anyone is in any doubt about who will actually deliver that restraint to make a low tax economy possible, I gently point out that in the three weeks since Labour promised no big government chequebook they have made £45bn of unfunded spending commitments.

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Jeremy Hunt overdoes the Es: why his economic plan is a letdown

Speech on ‘enterprise, education, employment and everywhere’ contained only vague, empty promises

Brexit will shake Britons out of their comfortable torpor, turn them into risktakers and put the UK at the forefront of the digital revolution – that was Jeremy Hunt’s message in his much-trailed speech on growing the UK economy.

The chancellor came to Bloomberg’s HQ in the City of London on Friday seeking to raise the country’s spirits, hail the split with Brussels and dispel the “declinism” he says saps Britain’s energy.

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China owns vast network of UK real estate, offshore records reveal

Presence of key distribution centres on list of more than 250 properties raises questions about grip on supply chain links

The Chinese government owns a vast network of UK real estate via offshore secrecy jurisdictions such as Luxembourg and the Isle of Man, the Guardian can reveal, raising questions about Beijing’s grip on links in the UK supply chain.

Disclosures made as part of a new government register of property owned via offshore entities show that China’s investment division owns more than 250 properties across Britain via dozens of companies. They include distribution centres that are key to the flow of food and goods in multiple regions of the UK including the south-west and south-east of England and the Midlands.

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Number of EU students enrolling in UK universities halves post-Brexit

Data shows sharp decline in students from Italy, Germany and France with Brexit seen as primary deterrent

The number of EU students enrolling in British universities has more than halved since Brexit – with sharp declines in scholars from Italy, Germany and France, figures reveal.

Brexit is seen as the primary deterrent, with home fees and student finance no longer available to EU students who do not already live in the UK with settled or pre-settled status.

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