PM confirms cut temporary amid opposition from his own party including former ministers
MPs will not get a vote on the government’s plans to slash aid spending, Boris Johnson has said in the of Commons, confirming that the cut is intended to be temporary.
The former shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said Johnson was at risk of setting an illegal budget if it did not meet the legal obligation to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid.
Continue reading...Analysis: focus shifts away from cooperation with the EU but fails to balance far east investment and security issues
Prof John Bew, the historian appointed by Boris Johnson to write the foreign and defence security review, has privately insisted the document should not be seen as an apology for Brexit or a turning away from Europe, the charge sometimes levelled by pro-EU critics such as the former national security adviser Lord Ricketts and Sir Simon Fraser, the former foreign office permanent secretary.
It is instead intended as a hard-headed look at the new collective security threats facing Britain, many of which, notably the rise of China, the spread of authoritarianism, the challenge of the climate crisis and the ubiquity of cyberwarfare, the UK would have faced in or out of the European Union.
Continue reading...No 10 intends the studio, hosted by Allegra Stratton, to be focal point of new media strategy
After £2.6m and a seven-month wait, the curtains have finally opened on a studio based inside Downing Street where the prime minister’s press secretary will address the nation in new White House-style TV briefings.
The first glimpses of the room revealed by ITV showed the podium that Allegra Stratton, a former BBC and Guardian journalist who also worked as communications director for the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, will stand behind as she fields questions from journalists.
Continue reading...Critics say handing police and home secretary more discretionary powers will impact civil liberties
The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill has come under scrutiny in the wake of the handling of the Sarah Everard vigils. What are the bill’s provisions and why is it generating so much controversy?
Continue reading...Remarks follow EU formally launching legal action over protocol arrangements in the region
The White House has urged London and Brussels to work together to preserve the peace in Northern Ireland, after the EU formally launched legal action against the UK over Brexit arrangements in the region.
Joe Biden’s spokesperson said: “We continue to encourage both the EU and the UK government to prioritise pragmatic solutions to safeguard and advance the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland.”
Continue reading...Critics warn of imperial fantasy but the economic and political forces pulling the UK back to the region are real
Some will call it a tilt, others a rebalancing and yet others a pivot but, either way, the new big idea due to emerge from the government’s foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday will be the importance of the Indo-Pacific region – a British return east of Suez more than 50 years after the then defence secretary Denis Healey announced the UK’s cash-strapped retreat in 1968.
Boris Johnson and his admirals are billing the focus on a zone stretching through some of the world’s most vital seaways east from India to Japan and south from China to Australia as Britain stepping out in the world after 47 years locked in the EU’s protectionist cupboard. Others warn Johnson is indulging a hubristic and militarily dangerous imperial fantasy.
Continue reading...Metropolitan police chief stands firm after criticism from London mayor and home secretary
Britain’s most senior police chief defied pressure to resign as she dismissed “armchair” critics amid widespread outrage over officers manhandling women who were mourning the killing of Sarah Everard.
Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, was publicly rebuked by the home secretary, Priti Patel, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for providing an unsatisfactory explanation of why police broke up a vigil for Everard in London’s Clapham Common on Saturday, near where she was allegedly abducted before being murdered.
Continue reading...Beijing guilty of ‘ongoing non-compliance’ with 1984 deal, says foreign secretary Dominic Raab
Dominic Raab has accused China of breaching the legal deal over the governance of Hong Kong, amid criticisms of Beijing’s attempts to tighten its control over the territory.
In a major escalation of diplomatic tensions, the foreign secretary said the UK considered China to be in a “state of ongoing non-compliance” with the Sino-British joint declaration as he condemned Beijing’s decision to reduce the role of the public in picking Hong Kong’s leaders. China has instead handed power to a pro-Beijing committee, which will appoint more council members.
Continue reading...Prime minister says sculptures taken by Lord Elgin would remain in Britain as they had been legally acquired
Boris Johnson has used his first interview with a European newspaper since becoming the UK’s prime minister to issue a point-blank rejection of the Parthenon marbles being returned to Greece.
Johnson insisted that the sculptures, removed from the monument by Lord Elgin in circumstances that have since spurred one of the world’s most famous cultural rows, would remain in Britain because they had been legally acquired.
Continue reading...Insiders tell of a Whitehall in panic mode and reveal virus spread far more widely than was acknowledged
Westminster is an infectious place. A tiny germ of controversy or rebellion can spread across parliament, through Whitehall and into the prime minister’s office within hours. The windowless offices are cramped, MPs sit elbow to elbow in a Commons chamber that can only squeeze just over 400 MPs into its seats, two-thirds of the number in parliament.
It is also a place of macho presenteeism, where the Greggs in Westminster tube station often serves as a nightly dinner spot for some of the most senior office-holders in the land.
Continue reading...Analysis: Sarah Everard’s disappearance sparks furious demands to address misogyny in UK
Women feared this was coming. They waited, messaging each other in WhatsApp groups and on social media. They talked about their own attempts to stay safe, discussed their near misses.
When the news came on Wednesday evening – that police investigating the disappearance of Sarah Everard had found the remains of a body – a wave of grief crashed over them, followed quickly by anger.
Continue reading...Duke of Cambridge defends monarchy after accusations from Harry and Meghan
The Duke of Cambridge has defended the monarchy against accusations of racism made by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, saying: “We’re very much not a racist family.”
Prince William said he had not yet spoken to his brother since Harry and Meghan launched their attack on the family and institution in an interview with Oprah Winfrey broadcast in the US on Sunday.
Continue reading...Brexit red tape and disruption to global trade from pandemic leaves businesses ‘severely strained’
Three-quarters of British manufacturers are struggling to cope with delays in moving goods in and out of the EU amid continuing disruption caused by Brexit and the Covid pandemic, industry figures said.
Two months after the UK left the EU on trade terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, research from the manufacturing trade group Make UK has shown that 74% of firms in a survey of more than 200 leading industrial companies are facing delays with EU imports and exports.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson tells Hassan Rouhani the British-Iranian dual national must be allowed home immediately
Boris Johnson has told Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, in a phone call that the British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe must be allowed to return home to be with her family.
“The prime minister raised the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other British-Iranian dual nationals detained in Iran and demanded their immediate release,” a statement from Johnson’s office said on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Internal figures leaked amid tit-for-tat with Boris Johnson over claims UK had export ban in place
A total of 34m doses of coronavirus vaccine have been exported from the EU despite shortages for people living in the bloc, including 9m sent to the UK and 1m to the US, which has a ban on sales abroad.
The internal figures were leaked as the EU was embroiled in a tit-for-tat with Boris Johnson over claims that the UK had an export ban in place.
Continue reading...Adverts in New York Times, Washington Post and other US papers seek to rally Irish-American support
A US-based Sinn Féin support group has placed half-page advertisements in the New York Times, Washington Post and other US newspapers calling for a referendum on Irish unification.
Friends of Sinn Féin placed the ads on Wednesday to rally Irish-American support behind the party’s push for a referendum in Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...Downing Street refuses to be drawn into judgment on Meghan’s claims of racism or state of mental health
Downing Street has refused to distance itself from a minister’s claim that Prince Harry is “blowing up his family” – but declined to comment after confirming the prime minister had watched the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Boris Johnson’s spokesman said he had watched the two-hour interview but said he had no further comment to make.
Continue reading...Denying MPs their say could head off Tory rebellion but potentially open government to legal action
A planned reduction in aid spending may not go to a vote in the Commons, Downing Street has indicated, which would head off a likely rebellion by Conservative MPs but could expose the government to legal action.
Pressed repeatedly on whether the cut in the aid budget from 0.7% of national income – which is set out in law under the 2015 International Development Act – would be subject to a Commons vote or a new act, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson declined to confirm this.
Continue reading...Around the world, coronavirus has both highlighted and worsened existing inequalities
One year into the pandemic, women have little cause to celebrate International Women’s Day tomorrow, and less energy to battle for change. Men are more likely to die from Covid-19. But women have suffered the greatest economic and social blows. They have taken the brunt of increased caregiving, have been more likely to lose their jobs and have seen a sharp rise in domestic abuse.
In the UK, women did two-thirds of the extra childcare in the first lockdown, and were more likely to be furloughed. In the US, every one of the 140,000 jobs lost in December belonged to a woman: they saw 156,000 jobs disappear, while men gained 16,000. But white women actually made gains, while black and Latina women – disproportionately in jobs that offer no sick pay and little flexibility – lost out. Race, wealth, disability and migration status have all determined who is hit hardest. Previous experience suggests that the effects of health crises can be long-lasting: in Sierra Leone, over a year after Ebola broke out, 63% of men had returned to work but only 17% of women.
Continue reading...Exclusive: former DfID secretary Mark Lowcock shocked by decision of Johnson’s government to cut aid
Ministers have decided to “balance the books on the backs of the starving people of Yemen” in an act that will see tens of thousands die and damage the UK’s global influence, the head of the UN’s Office for Humanitarian Affairs has said.
Speaking with rare bluntness after the UK more than halved its funds to help Yemen, the former permanent secretary at the Department for International Development Mark Lowcock said he was shocked by the decision. It is understood he was given no chance to appeal to the UK to rethink.
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