CPS guidance ‘makes things worse’ for rape survivors, victims’ commissioner says

Vera Baird calls for therapy notes to be excluded from criminal trials, as they are in Australia

New guidance designed to give rape victims confidence to get therapy before their trial “makes things worse” for survivors and lessened their protections, according to the victims’ commissioner, Vera Baird.

The guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) aims to “alleviate victim concerns that accessing counselling could damage the prosecution case,” but Baird echoed concerns from campaign groups that they, in fact, reduce protections and called for therapy notes to be excluded from criminal trials, as they are in Australia.

In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Rishi Sunak to announce windfall tax on energy firms

One-off levy to fund support package amid cost of living crisis which could include increase in benefits

Rishi Sunak will push the button on a controversial windfall tax on energy companies on Thursday, as he lays out measures to ease the pain of rising household bills.

The chancellor has confirmed speculation he will announce fresh support for Britons struggling with the cost of living crisis. The measures are expected to help the poorest households as rampant inflation pushes up the price of everything from food to fuel.

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Partygate live: Boris Johnson says no plan to resign over Sue Gray report despite Tory MP calling for him to step down

Prime minister feels it is his ‘job to get on with my job’ despite report detailing major leadership failures at No 10

This is from Nikki da Costa, a former director of legislative affairs at No 10, speaking up on civil servants whose reputations, she fears, will be tainted by the Sue Gray report.

Tom Harwood from GB News is now also saying the report has arrived in Downing Street. It is 37 pages long, he says.

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Tory MPs suspect cover-up over ‘Abba party’ in Boris Johnson’s flat

Frontbencher says PM ‘getting away lightly’ after Sue Gray says she did not fully investigate alcohol-fuelled gathering

Conservative MPs fear a “cover-up” over potentially the most damaging event of the Partygate scandal after Sue Gray admitted she did not fully investigate an alcohol-fuelled gathering in the flat shared by the prime minister and his wife.

The six-month inquiry concluded with an acknowledgment from Gray that little was known about what took place in the flat above 11 Downing Street on 13 November 2020, with food, alcohol and loud Abba music reported.

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Nurse fined £10k over NHS pay protest in lockdown wins compensation

Greater Manchester police agree to withdraw penalty notices issued to two nurses for socially distanced protest in March 2021

Two NHS nurses have won compensation from Greater Manchester police (GMP) after being fined over a socially distant protest about NHS pay during lockdown.

Karen Reissmann, a 61-year-old mental health nurse who worked throughout the pandemic, received a £10,000 fixed penalty notice for organising the protest on 7 March 2021 over the government’s proposed 1% pay rise for NHS workers.

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Tory MPs’ staff tell Boris Johnson abuse is treated as ‘mere gossip’ in parliament

Exclusive: Letter urges PM and party to do more to tackle sexual abuse, harassment and bullying

Serious sexual abuse, harassment and bullying accusations made against MPs are treated as “mere gossip”, dozens of Conservative staffers have said, as they urged Boris Johnson and party HQ to do more to tackle the problem.

The group of staff working for Tory MPs said “behaviour committed by a few individuals but tolerated by others has stained the reputation” of parliament.

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‘The fear still lives with me’: three years at mercy of the hostile environment

After an error on a visa application form, Sarah slipped into immigration limbo

Six years ago, when she was 24, Sarah received an unexpected letter from the Home Office telling her she faced arrest and removal from the UK within seven days. She was so terrified that she climbed out of the back window of the house where she was living, taking her seven-year-old son with her, and they became homeless.

Sarah, who asked for her real name not to be published, had been in the UK since she arrived in 1994 as a two-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She had attended primary and secondary school in the UK and was working and paying taxes in London, but her uncertain immigration status had not been resolved when she was a child. As an adult she was required every three years to pay fees of about £1,000 to apply for visas that would allow her to remain. An error on her 2016 application form meant the visa was refused, but the fees were not refunded and she could not afford to reapply, and she slipped into immigration limbo. Even now, 28 years after arriving in the UK, she is still battling to get British citizenship.

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Six in 10 people in UK believe government ‘ignores rules’

People in the UK and Poland rated their governments worst on matters of trust and legitimacy in an EU-funded study

People in the UK are more likely than those in other European countries to say that their government ignores rules, according to a large six-state survey, with ‘Partygate’ probably to blame.

The EU-funded study found that 62% of people in the UK think their government ignores rules and procedures, compared with an average of 44% and well above the next highest, Poland (50%), where the administration has been accused of authoritarianism.

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Rwanda plan challenged over alleged failure to identify risks for LGBTQ+ refugees

Pre-action letter questions Home Office claims that east African country is ‘generally safe’

Priti Patel’s plan to send refugees on a one-way ticket to Rwanda is being legally challenged over the government’s alleged failure to identify risks facing vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ people.

A pre-action letter sent to the Home Office on behalf of the pressure group Freedom from Torture questions government claims that the east African state is “generally a safe country” for refugees.

The government’s claim that Rwanda is “generally” a “safe third country” is irrational.

It relies upon apparent pre-determination or bias.

The home secretary has breached her duty not to induce breaches of the European convention on human rights by her agents.

Removing asylum seekers to Rwanda is beyond Patel’s legal authority because it is contrary to the refugee convention.

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Shapps refuses to deny Johnson suggested Sue Gray abandon publication of her report – UK politics live

Latest updates: Grant Shapps, transport secretary, does not deny Times report as row grows over further Partygate photos

At cabinet this morning Boris Johnson praised Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, for helping people get back into work. Johnson believes work is the best route out of poverty and, with unemployment at its lowest level for almost 50 years, he is using this as part of his attempt to show there is a Tory response to the cost of living crisis.

According to PA Media, Johnson opened cabinet by saying:

I want to give a special shout out to Thérèse Coffey, the secretary of state for DWP, because under her plans, the Way To Work scheme, since we launched it this year it has got 380,000 people off welfare and into work. That’s the way forward.

I want to see people not on benefits, I want to see them in work - that’s the Conservative answer and that is the answer we are offering to the people of this country.

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Rishi Sunak reportedly considering windfall tax on electricity generators

Levy could be extended beyond oil and gas producers to help households in cost of living crisis

Rishi Sunak is reportedly considering imposing a wider windfall tax on electricity generators, as well as on oil and gas producers, that could bring in billions of pounds to help households struggling with soaring food and energy costs.

The chancellor has instructed Treasury officials to work on plans for a potential tax on more than £10bn of excess profits made by electricity generators, including windfarm operators, according to sources cited by the Financial Times.

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Partygate: Boris Johnson under pressure to explain meeting with Sue Gray

Prime minister met Gray in run-up to long-awaited report into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street

Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure to explain a meeting with Sue Gray before her report into lockdown breaches in Downing Street, after a cabinet minister declined to deny he had queried whether it should be published.

The report, which is expected to be handed to No 10 on Wednesday, is said by sources to be deeply critical of the prime minister and senior civil service leadership over the culture that developed in No 10 and eventually led the Metropolitan police to issue 126 fines.

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Top official at Foreign Office called upon to resign over Kabul withdrawal

Sir Philip Barton castigated along with Dominic Raab in damning report by MPs into UK’s chaotic exit

The senior civil servant in charge of the Foreign Office should consider his position after presiding over a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that betrayed UK allies, put lives in danger, showed a total absence of planning and was chaotically managed, MPs have concluded in a damning report.

The report from the foreign affairs select committee said the absence of leadership – both ministerial and official, including the permanent secretary, Sir Philip Barton – when Kabul fell was inexcusable and a grave indictment on those supposedly in charge. It added that Barton failed to give candid evidence to the committee, and says as a result it had lost confidence in him. The committee also accused him of covering up political interference in the fast-tracking of some individuals out of Afghanistan.

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No 10 admits PM meeting with Sue Gray was instigated by Downing Street – UK politics live

Latest updates: PM’s spokesperson clears up that No 10 requested meeting after Simon Clarke suggests it was the other way round

The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished, and the PM’s spokesperson told journalists that Boris Johnson has still not received the Sue Gray report into Partygate. The spokesperson did not say when it would be arriving, but it is not expected to be published today.

Boris Johnson has recorded a clip for broadcasters during a visit to a school in south-east London. PA Media has written up the key lines.

I’m not attracted, intrinsically, to new taxes. But as I have said throughout, we have got to do what we can - and we will - to look after people through the aftershocks of Covid, through the current pressures on energy prices that we are seeing post-Covid and with what’s going on in Russia and we are going to put our arms round people, just as we did during the pandemic.

Of course, but on the process you are just going to have to hold your horses a little bit longer. I don’t believe it will be too much longer and then I will be able to say a bit more.

It’s basically very rare disease, and so far the consequences don’t seem to be very serious but it’s important that we keep an eye on it and that’s exactly what the the new UK Health Security Agency is doing.

As things stand the judgment is that it’s rare. I think we’re looking very carefully at the circumstances of transmission.

It hasn’t yet proved, fatal in any case that we know of, certainly not in this country.

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When is the Sue Gray report due and what could it mean for Boris Johnson?

Analysis: Key questions answered about report into Downing Street lockdown breach claims

The full Sue Gray report into lockdown-breaching gatherings in and around Downing Street could be published as early as Tuesday. Here is what we know about its likely contents – and their impact.

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Boris Johnson to stress work as the fix for cost of living crisis

Ministers remain unable to decide on ways to help as energy firm boss warns soon 40% could be in fuel poverty

Boris Johnson hopes to blunt calls for urgent action on the cost of living crisis by stressing that work is the best route out of poverty, as an energy firm boss warned that 40% of households could soon be in fuel poverty.

No 10 sources confirmed on Sunday that the prime minister will continue to throw the spotlight on the healthy state of the job market, in the face of the rising clamour to help families struggling with their bills.

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UK should expect high fuel bills for at least 18 months, E.ON boss says

Michael Lewis calls for substanstial government intervention to help people deal with costs

Consumers will have to cope with extraordinarily high fuel bills for at least another 18 months, the boss of Britain’s biggest energy supplier has said.

Michael Lewis, the chief executive of E.ON UK, called for “very substantial” government intervention to help people with escalating fuel bills, one of the biggest factors in the cost-of-living crisis.

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Labour should focus on policy instead of ‘tough on crime’ messaging, charity says

Head of Howard League urges party to abandon ‘cheap politics’ and develop evidence-based position

The Labour party is indulging in “cheap politics” by accusing the Conservatives repeatedly of being soft on crime, the head of a leading prison reform charity has claimed.

Andrea Coomber QC, the chief executive of the Howard League, said the opposition is trying to outflank Boris Johnson’s government on law and order instead of developing evidence-based policies to solve a crisis within the criminal justice system.

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Millionaires join Davos protests, demanding ‘tax us now’

Group call for fresh taxation of wealthy to tackle cost of living crisis and gulf between rich and poor

A group of millionaires have joined protests against the World Economic Forum gathering of the business and political elite in Davos, Switzerland, demanding that governments “tax us now” to tackle the burgeoning gulf between rich and poor.

The unlikely protesters, who describe themselves as “patriotic millionaires”, called on world leaders attending the annual conference on Sunday to immediately introduce fresh taxes on the wealthy in order to tackle the “cost of living scandal playing out in multiple nations around the world”.

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TUC chief calls for directors of P&O Ferries to be disqualified

Francis O’Grady writes to Insolvency Service, which is investigating the sacking of almost 800 crew

The head of the Trades Union Congress has written to the Insolvency Service calling for it to disqualify the directors of P&O Ferries after they sacked nearly 800 crew without notice.

In a letter seen by the Guardian, Frances O’Grady, the TUC’s general secretary, said the Insolvency Service should “initiate disqualification proceedings against the directors of P&O Ferries Division Holdings Limited”.

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