The mayor of London has recorded a video message to the US president as Donald Trump spent his first day in the UK. Earlier on Monday, Trump tweeted that 'Kahn [sic] reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, [Bill] de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job'. Trump is only the third US president to have had a state visit to the UK
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Donald Trump arrives at Buckingham Palace for Queen’s welcome – video
The US president, accompanied by the first lady, Melania Trump, arrived at Buckingham Palace on Monday. He was greeted by Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Queen. A protest against the visit is planned in central London on Tuesday, with the 'Trump baby' blimp made for his visit last year expected to put in an appearance
Continue reading...Donald Trump arrives in UK for three-day state visit – video
The US president, accompanied by the first lady, Melania Trump, touches down at Stansted airport on Monday morning for a three-day official state visit. He was greeted by Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, and Jeremy Hunt, the UK foreign secretary. A protest against the visit is planned in central London on Tuesday, with the ‘Trump baby’ blimp made for his visit last year expected to put in an appearance
Continue reading...Donald Trump attacks Sadiq Khan as he lands in UK for state visit
US president tweets calling London mayor ‘loser’ before touching down at Stansted
Donald Trump has arrived in the UK for a delayed state visit and set a combative tone by attacking the London mayor as his plane landed.
After Air Force One touched down at Stansted airport, the president and his wife, Melania, were greeted by the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, one of the contenders in the Conservative leadership race.
Continue reading...The president of the United States can’t talk like this to the very Queen of England! | First Dog on the Moon
Donald Trump is having tea with Queen Elizabeth II but you can’t get upset
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Peterborough prepares for byelection that could elect first Brexit party MP
A decade ago it was the UK’s fastest growing city, but hit by cuts and buy-to-let, support for Nigel Farage’s party is high
On Thursday, voters in Peterborough will take part in one of the most intriguing parliamentary byelections in recent memory. The constituency saw a knife-edge duel between Labour and the Conservatives at the 2017 general election and at last month’s European poll, 38% of voters in the city backed the Brexit party. A first seat in the House of Commons for Nigel Farage’s party is a distinct possibility. If that happens, it will send tremors through middle England, of which Peterborough is typical in many ways, not just geographically.
Economically, Peterborough performs averagely amid struggles with productivity. Wages are stagnant and it has been reshaped by migration, with foreigners arriving to work in the surrounding farmlands and distribution depots, contributing to a decade as the UK’s fastest growing city between 2001 and 2011.
Continue reading...Royals to serve as extras in Donald Trump’s victory lap of UK
US president to use state visit to promote House of Trump as he doubles down on Brexit bet
Donald Trump’s state visit this week to the UK is being promoted as a celebration of a close alliance tempered through war.
It could be more accurately described as a personal lap of victory for the US president, performed largely at the expense of his hosts.
Continue reading...Donald Trump: send in Nigel Farage to negotiate with the EU
US president makes second intervention in British politics, saying UK should ‘walk away’
Donald Trump has called on Britain to leave the European Union without a deal if Brussels refuses to meet its demands, as he urged the government to send Nigel Farage into the negotiations.
In his second extraordinary intervention into British politics ahead of this week’s state visit, the US president suggested the UK should “walk away” from talks and refuse to pay the £39bn divorce bill if its requests were not met.
Continue reading...Donald Trump is like a 20th-century fascist, says Sadiq Khan
London mayor hits out at US president before his state visit to Britain
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has compared the language used by Donald Trump to rally his supporters to that of “the fascists of the 20th century” in an explosive intervention before the US president’s state visit to London that begins on Monday.
Writing in the Observer, Khan condemned the red-carpet treatment being afforded to Trump who, with his wife Melania, will be a guest of the Queen during his three-day stay, which is expected to provoke massive protests in the capital on Tuesday.
Continue reading...It’s un-British to roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump | Sadiq Khan
The US president gives comfort to the far right. The prime minister should speak truth to power
Praising the “very fine people on both sides” when torch-wielding white supremacists and antisemites marched through the streets clashing with anti-racist campaigners. Threatening to veto a ban on the use of rape as a weapon of war. Setting an immigration policy that forcefully separates young children from their parents at the border. The deliberate use of xenophobia, racism and “otherness” as an electoral tactic. Introducing a travel ban to a number of predominately Muslim countries. Lying deliberately and repeatedly to the public.
No, these are not the actions of European dictators of the 1930s and 40s. Nor the military juntas of the 1970s and 80s. I’m not talking about Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un. These are the actions of the leader of our closest ally, the president of the United States of America. This is a man who tried to exploit Londoners’ fears following a horrific terrorist attack on our city, amplified the tweets of a British far-right racist group, denounced as fake news robust scientific evidence warning of the dangers of climate change, and is now trying to interfere shamelessly in the Conservative party leadership race by backing Boris Johnson because he believes it would enable him to gain an ally in Number 10 for his divisive agenda.
Continue reading...Austerity to blame for 130,000 ‘preventable’ UK deaths – report
Two decades of public health improvements have stalled, says IPPR thinktank
More than 130,000 deaths in the UK since 2012 could have been prevented if improvements in public health policy had not stalled as a direct result of austerity cuts, according to a hard-hitting analysis to be published this week.
The study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank finds that, after two decades in which preventable diseases were reduced as a result of spending on better education and prevention, there has been a seven-year “perfect storm” in which state provision has been pared back because of budget cuts, while harmful behaviours among people of all ages have increased.
Continue reading...Trump is no friend to Britain: time to give him and his foreign policy the heave-ho
The US’s disruptive America First approach is not one Britain can support any longer
As usual, Mike Pompeo was brutally frank. Speaking in London last month, the US secretary of state warned that future bilateral intelligence sharing would be at risk if Britain allowed the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei access to its new 5G rollout. “The US has an obligation to ensure the places where we operate [are] within trusted networks, and that is what we will do,” he said.
The issue might appear arcane. But Pompeo’s threat, which Donald Trump will reiterate during his state visit, beginning on Monday, sent a chill through the diplomatic, defence and security establishment. In an age of rapidly diminishing influence, Britain still prides itself on its intelligence gathering, counter-terrorism and counter-espionage capability, as well as agencies such as GCHQ and its new offshoot, the National Cyber Security Centre.
Continue reading...Rebecca Solnit: ‘Every protest shifts the world’s balance’
Two hundred years after the Peterloo massacre, which led to the founding of the Manchester Guardian, protest is shaping our political moment. Where do we go from here?
Scale it up and it’s revolution; scale it down and it’s individual non-cooperation that may be seen as nothing more than obstinacy or malingering or not seen at all. What we call protest identifies one aspect of popular power and resistance, a force so woven into history and everyday life that you miss a lot of its impact if you focus only on groups of people taking stands in public places. But people taking such stands have changed the world over and over, toppled regimes, won rights, terrified tyrants, stopped pipelines and deforestation and dams. They go far further back than the Peterloo protests and massacre 200 years ago, to the great revolutions of France and then of Haiti against France and back before that to peasant uprisings and indigenous resistance in Africa and the Americas to colonisation and enslavement and to countless acts of resistance on all scales that were never recorded.
They will go far forward from this moment. And at this moment, with organisations addressing the climate crisis, reinvigorated feminism in many parts of the world, antiracist and human rights campaigns focused on specific groups and issues, protest is a force running through everything – and running against a lot of things, since this is also an age of authoritarianism and a consolidation of wealth among a global superelite.
Continue reading...The Guardian Opinion desk: ‘Disturbingly, Brexit is the gift that keeps on giving’
The comment team reflects on three extraordinary years of helping readers navigate the biggest political crisis for a generation
Seven million people turned to the wisdom of the Guardian’s comment writers in the 24 hours after the EU referendum result in June 2016. Three years on, it feels disturbing to admit that Brexit, for our small team of opinion editors, is the gift that keeps on giving.
Continue reading...Revealed: one in five peers advise private business while serving in parliament
Analysis finds 169 peers working as advisers and 15 paid by foreign governments
One in five members of the House of Lords are working as consultants or advisers to private businesses at the same time as serving in parliament, the Guardian can reveal.
An analysis of the Register of Lords’ Interests shows 169 peers reported working as advisers earlier this year, with more than a dozen registering that they were also paid by foreign governments on top of the expenses they are entitled to as peers.
Continue reading...Peer who never spoke in Lords last year claims £50,000 expenses
Exclusive: Lord Brookman among dozens not to speak, raising fresh questions about the chamber
A Labour peer claimed almost £50,000 in attendance and travel expenses covering every single day the House of Lords was sitting last year, despite never speaking or asking any written questions, a Guardian investigation reveals.
The former trade union general secretary David Brookman was among dozens of other lords and baronesses who never took part in a single debate, while almost a third of the 800 peers barely participated in parliamentary business over a 12-month period despite costing almost £3.2m in allowances.
Continue reading...Trump calls Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage ‘very good guys’ – video
Donald Trump praised the politicians on Thursday, saying they were 'two very good guys, very interesting people'. Speaking to reporters as he left the White House, the US president said he wasn't sure he would endorse either candidate to be the new UK prime minister: 'I haven't thought about supporting them. Maybe it's not my business to support people. But I have a lot of respect for both of those men'
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Labour under pressure to ballot members on second EU referendum
Campaigners say thousands of signatures have come in from members on the issue
Labour’s ruling body is facing demands to ballot all party members about whether to start campaigning immediately for a second EU referendum, as thousands sign petitions asking for the party’s policy to change in the wake of the European elections.
Campaigners in the Labour party wanting a “people’s vote” wrote to the national executive committee on Tuesday requesting a members’ ballot or special conference. Each of these options has been endorsed by Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson.
Continue reading...John Bercow defies Eurosceptics with vow to stay on as Speaker
Exclusive: move likely to anger hardliners who fear Bercow wants to stop no-deal Brexit
John Bercow has said he plans to stay in his post as Speaker of the House of Commons despite previous expectations he was about to leave, risking the fury of hardline Eurosceptics who believe he wants to thwart a no-deal Brexit.
The Speaker told the Guardian it was not “sensible to vacate the chair” while there were major issues before parliament. And, amid growing indications that frontrunners for the Conservative leadership are willing to depart the EU without a deal, he warned candidates not to try to force such an outcome without the permission of MPs.
Continue reading...UK refuses to back ‘game-changing’ resolution on drug pricing
Global agreement urges governments to share information on actual cost of medicines, with aim of making them more affordable
The UK government has refused to sign up to a global resolution on greater transparency for drug pricing.
The resolution urges governments and others buying health products to share information on actual prices paid, and pushes for greater transparency on patents, clinical trial results and other factors affecting pricing from laboratories to patients.
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