PM could join lecture circuit and rejoin paper where he complained of ‘chicken feed’ £250,000 salary
Boris Johnson could make more than £5m a year after he leaves Downing Street, experts have estimated.
The figure will be welcome news to a prime minister who is said to regularly complain to friends that he is hard up, citing his second divorce, several children and his reduced income since entering No 10.
Continue reading...Source says Prince of Wales was ‘more than disappointed’ with deportation plans
Prince Charles has privately criticised the government’s policy of deporting migrants to Rwanda, calling the practice “appalling”.
The heir to the throne has been heard opposing the policy behind closed doors, a source has told the Times and the Daily Mail.
Continue reading...Heather Wheeler, a minister in the Cabinet Office, made comments at technology event in London
A UK government minister has apologised after calling England’s second city and one of the country’s best-known seaside resorts as “godawful”.
Heather Wheeler referred to Birmingham and Blackpool during a launch of the government’s new digital strategy on Thursday. According to Chris Middleton, a technology journalist who was at the launch, the junior minister in the Cabinet Office said: “I was just at a conference in Blackpool or Birmingham or somewhere godawful.”
Continue reading...Judge refuses to grant interim relief after lawyers for asylum seekers argued policy was unlawful
A high court judge has ruled that a controversial deportation flight to Rwanda that was due to take off early next week can go ahead.
Mr Justice Swift refused to grant interim relief – urgent action in response to an injunction application made by several asylum seekers facing offshoring to Rwanda.
Continue reading...Draft legislation to be issued Monday, as Keir Starmer promises a Labour government would repeal law if it passes
Legislation to disapply parts of the Northern Ireland protocol will be published next week, but senior government sources acknowledge it is going to be a “difficult” process to get it through parliament.
The new laws are aimed at unilaterally changing parts of the protocol to make trade easier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but critics say overriding the post-Brexit treaty could contravene international law.
Continue reading...Letters to asylum seekers assured them UNHCR was ‘closely involved’ in deportation scheme, high court hears
The United Nations refugee agency has made a dramatic intervention to try to halt Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
In a late submission of evidence, the UNHCR claimed the home secretary misled refugees over the organisation’s support for the plan. The agency has also said the scheme failed to meet the required standards of “legality and appropriateness” for transferring asylum seekers from one country to another.
Continue reading...Former National Crime Agency chief worries civil service reductions could have devastating effect
The former head of Britain’s equivalent of the FBI has said she fears ministers’ plans to cut civil servant posts could have a “devastating” impact on tackling serious and organised crime.
Speaking to Policing TV, Dame Lynne Owens, the former director general of the National Crime Agency (NCA), said she was keeping a “keen eye” on discussions about proposals to axe 90,000 jobs and how they may affect the agency she led for five years.
Continue reading...Disagreements have led to delay in course rollout as civil servants think empire material ‘too controversial’
Civil servants have attempted to “sanitise” a Home Office teaching module on race, empire and colonialism, according to those involved in devising a mandatory course on British history for the department’s 36,000 employees.
Disagreements have led to a year-long delay in the rollout of the project, which was due to be launched in June 2021. Home Office civil servants are understood to be nervous that some of the proposed material addressing issues of race, colonialism and empire is “too controversial” and have urged academics to tone down some of the content.
Continue reading...Labour accuse chancellor of wastefulness for failing to insure against interest rate rises
Rishi Sunak has been accused of wasting £11bn of taxpayers’ money by paying too much in interest servicing the government’s debt.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the losses were the result of the chancellor’s failure to insure against interest rate rises on £900bn of reserves created through the quantitative easing (QE) programme.
Continue reading...TSSA union ballots could lead to complete national shutdown by time of Commonwealth Games in July
Managers and train drivers could join the strikes across the railway, potentially setting up a complete national shutdown by the time of the Commonwealth Games in July.
The Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) union, whose members manage control rooms, signalling and power for train operators and Network Rail, has launched its first strike ballot, while the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (Aslef) union has called the first regional walkouts by drivers.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more on Boris Johnson’s comments about a potential ‘wage-price spiral’ here
The Queen has received a present from the cabinet to mark her Platinum Jubilee, No 10 says. It is a specially-commissioned musical box, with pictures of all the 14 prime ministers who have served here around the side. When it opens it plays Handel’s Hallelujah.
In every office there is always someone who organises the presents and this picture, on the No 10 Flickr account, suggests that in cabinet that job falls to Michael Ellis, the paymaster general.
Continue reading...Figures shows 10% rise in FSM across England and school leaders say real child poverty level is even higher
Nearly one in three children in the north-east of England are receiving free school meals (FSM), according to figures that reveal a 10% rise across England, as school leaders say the real level of child poverty is even higher.
The figures released in the Department for Education (DfE) annual school census show that 22.5% of state school pupils are on FSM, up from 20.8% last year, reflecting the increasing number of households receiving universal credit and earning less than £7,400 a year after tax.
Continue reading...Review found council was ‘paralysed’ due to processing freedom of information requests
Northumberland county council operated in a “climate of fear and intimidation” so extreme that senior officers and councillors were constantly making freedom of information (FoI) requests to dig dirt on each other, a report has found.
An independent governance review into the council found it had become “paralysed” due to the “extraordinary” resources devoted to processing almost 5,000 FoI requests made within three years, many from senior officers and councillors.
Continue reading...OECD singles out cost of living crisis as a cause of Britain’s slide down growth league table
Boris Johnson’s attempt to reset his troubled premiership has received a double blow after petrol prices had their biggest daily rise in 17 years and a leading international thinktank said the UK economy would slow to a standstill next year.
Fears that Britain is heading for a prolonged period of 1970s-style stagflation intensified amid fresh evidence of the damaging impact of the war in Ukraine on the cost of living and growth.
Continue reading...Analysis: The question is not what is in the Khan review but whether its recommendations will be implement
• Plan to raise smoking age to 21 to be unveiled amid cabinet splits
While much has been made recently of the danger posed by soaring obesity levels, tobacco remains the biggest public health threat the world has ever faced.
Despite its risks being known for decades, 1.3 billion people globally still use tobacco products. They kill 8 million people every year, and more than one million of whom die from exposure to second-hand smoke.
Continue reading...About 30 asylum seekers expected to be sent to Rwanda on 14 June
Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as soon as next week is facing a legal challenge under emergency proceedings launched in the high court on Wednesday.
An application for a judicial review claims that the home secretary’s policy is unlawful. Claimants are also seeking an injunction that will attempt to stop the plane from taking off.
Continue reading...Shadow foreign secretary says UK government ignoring catastrophe as millions of Afghans go hungry
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has flown to Kabul to see at first-hand the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Lammy is the first senior British politician to visit the country since the west’s chaotic pullout last August. He is being accompanied on his visit by Preet Gill, the shadow minister for international development.
Continue reading...Department of Health and Social Care press release cited negative behaviours but not findings of political pressure
Bullying, discrimination and shifting the blame when things go wrong are rife in the NHS, a government-commissioned inquiry into health service leadership has found.
But NHS England bosses are fearful that Sajid Javid will use the report’s findings selectively to paint an unfair picture of the behaviour of senior managers.
Continue reading...Report says failings mean ministers still do not know if tagging criminals is helping to cut reoffending
A failed government plan to transform the system for electronically tagging offenders wasted £98m of taxpayers’ money, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said attempts to upgrade HM Prison & Probation Service’s (HMPPS) tagging system were abandoned in March after 11 years and a net spend of £153m.
Continue reading...High-profile MPs back demand from Adam Smith Institute to reduce tax burden and ease cost of living crisis
Senior Conservatives from across the party have renewed calls for Boris Johnson to implement urgent tax cuts as Downing Street played down the prospects of a shift in policy.
A string of high-profile MPs, from Steve Baker on the party’s right wing to Damian Green on its left, have backed a fresh demand from the Adam Smith Institute for the government to reduce the tax burden.
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