Category Archives: Politics

Windrush report: Demand for inquiry into ‘Home Office racism’

Posted on by

Alliance of 16 anti-racism groups says report on scandal proves ‘institutional failures to understand racism’

An investigation into the extent of institutional racism within the Home Office must be launched in response to a damning report on the Windrush scandal, an alliance of anti-racism groups has urged.

The call came after the long-awaited publication of the independent inquiry into the government’s handling of the scandal, which saw British citizens wrongly deported, dismissed from their jobs and deprived of services such as NHS care.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus: Boris Johnson says UK can ‘turn the tide’ within 12 weeks – video

Posted on by

The prime minister has said the UK can 'turn the tide' in the fight against coronavirus in three months. Speaking at his daily press briefing on the pandemic, he said that after that period, science would be able to help treat and contain the virus

Continue reading...

Windrush review to call for reform of ‘reckless’ Home Office

Posted on by

Critics fear hard-hitting report on scandal will be buried amid coronavirus crisis

Wholesale reform of a “reckless” and “defensive” Home Office is expected to be recommended in a hard-hitting review into the causes of the Windrush scandal when it is released by the home secretary on Thursday.

The Windrush Lessons Learned review is expected to criticise Home Office staff and government ministers for their continued failure to admit the magnitude of their mistakes and the scale of damage inflicted on thousands of legal UK residents who were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants, with catastrophic results.

Continue reading...

Dismay over UK plan to close unsolved Troubles cases

Posted on by

Irish government says No 10 proposal to pursue only cases with compelling new evidence betrays Stormont agreement

The UK government has proposed closing the book on most unsolved killings during the Troubles, prompting dismay from the Irish government and Northern Ireland’s nationalist parties.

A new independent body will review cases, and only those deemed to have compelling new evidence and a realistic prospect of prosecution will receive a full police investigation, the government announced on Wednesday.

Continue reading...

Bill sets five-year limit to prosecute UK armed forces who served abroad

Posted on by

Legislation to stop ‘vexatious’ claims excludes alleged crimes by military personnel in Northern Ireland

A five-year time limit on bringing prosecutions against soldiers and veterans who have served abroad – except in “exceptional circumstances” – is to be imposed under legislation introduced by the government.

Clauses in the overseas operations (service personnel and veterans) bill would protect serving and former military personnel from what the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, claimed was a “vexatious” cycle of claims and re-investigations.

Continue reading...

UK government discloses existence of body monitoring foreign spies

Posted on by

Cross-Whitehall team set up in 2017 in response to growing threat of foreign interference

The UK government has established a cross-Whitehall body to monitor the threat from foreign spies, it has been revealed.

The Joint State Threats Assessments Team (JSTAT) was set up in 2017 in response to the growing threat of espionage and subversion by foreign powers.

Continue reading...

Covid-19 prompts all major British theatres to close doors

Posted on by

Fifty London theatres and 250 throughout UK to close, says industry body

All major British theatre will cease and several cultural institutions will close or postpone shows as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the UK’s arts and culture sector grows following the government’s call for “drastic action” to halt its spread.

The Society of London Theatre (Solt) and UK Theatre, the industry body that represents nearly every British theatre, announced that, as of Monday night, all its members would close their doors. The groups represent about 50 London theatres and almost 250 others throughout the UK.

Continue reading...

Boris Johnson warns UK population to avoid non-essential contact with others as coronavirus cases rise – politics live

Posted on by

PM tells Britons to avoid pubs, restaurants and non-essential travel but school stay open for now as chief medical officer says ‘next few months are going to be extraordinarily difficult for NHS’

Johnson is wrapping up now.

He says he does not remember government announcing a change like this in his lifetime. He does not think there has been one since wartime, he says.

Q: Are you saying elderly MPs and peers must stay away from parliament?

Johnson says this is a universal announcement, intended for everybody. There are no exceptions, he says.

This is not two weeks and we’re done. This is a significant period of time.

Continue reading...

Tony Blair: nominating Bernie Sanders would be ‘an enormous gamble’

Posted on by

Tony Blair has warned Democrats in the US that nominating Bernie Sanders to face Donald Trump for the presidency would be “an enormous gamble”, risking defeat on a similar scale to that suffered by the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

Related: How Bernie Sanders went from frontrunner to the last-chance saloon

Continue reading...

UK ministers will no longer claim ‘no successful examples’ of Russian interference

Posted on by

Change of official line is first admission that Kremlin may have distorted UK elections

Ministers have been told they can no longer say there have been “no successful examples” of Russian disinformation affecting UK elections, after the apparent hacking of an NHS dossier seized on by Labour during the last campaign.

The dropping of the old line is the first official admission of the impact of Kremlin efforts to distort Britain’s political processes, and comes after three years of the government’s refusal to engage publicly with the threat.

Continue reading...

Varadkar and Foster discuss cross-border coronavirus approach

Posted on by

Republic of Ireland’s caretaker taoiseach and Northern Ireland’s first minister meet in Armagh

Leo Varadkar and Arlene Foster are meet to discuss a cross-border approach to combatting coronavirus.

With mass gatherings including sporting events and concerts to be banned across the UK from next weekend, pressure was growing on Northern Irish leaders to close schools in line with the move south of the border.

Continue reading...

Local elections and London mayoral race postponed for a year

Posted on by

Elections delayed after officials said coronavirus crisis would affect campaigning and voting

Local elections and the London mayoral election have been postponed for a year to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. The government made the decision to push back the 7 May elections after the Electoral Commission said the health crisis would have an impact on campaigning and voting.

“We will bring forward legislation to postpone local, mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections until May next year,” a government spokesman said.

Continue reading...

Brexit: EU’s demands in negotiations with UK revealed in draft treaty

Posted on by

Document highlights distance between two sides on issues including state aid rules

Britain will have to guarantee “uniform implementation” of Brussels’s state subsidy rules while the European court of justice will hand down rulings to British courts, under the EU’s vision of the future relationship with the UK.

A 441-page treaty draft, obtained by the Guardian, spells out in full legal text for the first time the demands that Brussels will make of David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator, in the next round of talks.

Continue reading...

Cash-for-ash inquiry delivers damning indictment of Stormont incompetence

Posted on by

Findings lay bare ‘multiplicity of errors and omissions’ behind bungled green energy scheme

The official report into Northern Ireland’s cash-for-ash scandal has issued a blistering indictment of incompetence by the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), special advisers and civil servants at Stormont.

The findings of the public inquiry, published on Friday, laid bare a “multiplicity of errors and omissions” behind a bungled green energy scheme that shattered confidence in politicians and fuelled doubts about the region’s ability to rule itself.

Continue reading...

Report to be published in Northern Ireland cash-for-ash inquiry

Posted on by

Damning verdict expected on civil servants and politicians including Arlene Foster

Northern Ireland’s cash-for-ash scandal started almost a decade ago as a way to save the planet, veered into greed, cronyism and dysfunction, and will now reach a denouement in the place where it all started: Stormont.

Sir Patrick Coghlin, chairman of the public inquiry into the region’s bungled green energy scheme, is due to publish his report on Friday at the grand estate outside Belfast that hosts the devolved government’s assembly and executive.

Continue reading...

UK government’s coronavirus advice – and why it gave it

Posted on by

The action plan’s recommendations differed significantly from measures imposed in other countries

Coronavirus – all the developments

Boris Johnson delivered the government’s coronavirus action plan under the new “delay” phase, flanked by the UK’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, on Thursday. Here are the next steps in different areas, and the justifications they gave for them.

Continue reading...

UK and EU agree to ‘dial down rhetoric’ in Brexit talks

Posted on by

Both sides expected to produce legal texts of negotiating positions next week

The UK and the EU have agreed to “dial down the rhetoric” over Brexit in an effort to open up space for a deal, it has emerged.

Brussels and London are expected to produce legal texts of their negotiating positions next week, with diplomatic sources claiming both sides have agreed to “lower the temperature” to enable the texts to be considered in detail to assess the scale of the divergence.

Continue reading...

Budget 2020: Sunak’s plans for current spending ‘nothing like as generous as they appear’, says IFS – live news

Posted on by

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

These are from the Telegraph’s Gordon Rayner.

Sources in Scotland insist Sturgeon's announcement of ban on gatherings of 500+ from Monday is a "UK-wide" policy. This morning Westminster sources were steering away from crowd bans. Has Sturgeon jumped the gun on something Boris was going to announce next week?

(Sturgeon is not averse to stealing people's thunder to make it look as though she is the one doing all the leading)

The Scottish Green party has cancelled its spring conference, which was due to take place on Saturday 28 March, because of the coronavirus outbreak after the number of cases declared in Scotland jumped to 60 on Thursday.

Ross Greer MSP, a co-chair of the party’s executive, said:

Due to the ongoing coronavirus situation the Scottish Greens executive committee has today taken the decision to cancel our upcoming conference. The health and wellbeing of our members and the public is our primary concern and it is with that in mind that we have taken this decision.

Continue reading...

Budget 2020: read the small print on spending pledge, urges IFS

Posted on by

Thinktank praises Covid-19 response but says ‘splurge’ relies on already announced plans

Rishi Sunak’s first budget is not as generous as it seems and will leave many Whitehall departments worse off than they were before the spending squeeze began in 2010, according to Britain’s foremost economics thinktank.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the chancellor made the budget sound more substantial than it was, while relying on previously announced spending plans.

Continue reading...

Budget 2020: Rishi Sunak turns on taps with £30bn splurge

Posted on by

Chancellor announces £12bn to fight coronavirus and £18bn on ‘levelling up’ in reversal of Tory orthodoxy

Rishi Sunak ditched a decade of Conservative economic orthodoxy on Wednesday and claimed the Tories were now “the party of public services,” as he turned on the spending taps with a £30bn package that leaves Britain on course to have a bigger state than under Tony Blair’s Labour governments.

On a day when the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a global pandemic, the chancellor announced £12bn to buttress the economy against the immediate threat of recession and a further £18bn to deliver on Boris Johnson’s election pledge to “level up” the UK.

Continue reading...