Tory and Reform MPs accused of ‘weaponising trauma’ of grooming victims, as Farage calls for inquiry into Pakistani men – UK politics live

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Admin

Prime minister told Commons any new inquiry into child abuse would delay progress however spokesperson says he has not ruled one out

Reform UK has also tabled a reasoned amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill motion tonight. It says:

That this house declines to give a second reading to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill because the secretary of state for the Home Department has not launched a UK-wide public inquiry into grooming gangs and has not committed to updating Members of this House every quarter on the progress of the inquiry.

The Conservatives are using the victims of this scandal as a political football.

The Conservatives alongside Reform, goaded along by Elon Musk will be voting for a motion which will not secure a national inquiry for victims of child sexual abuse, but instead it would kill these crucial child protection measures completely.

Smartphones should carry health warning, Spanish government told

Posted on December 3, 2024 by Admin

Report by committee of experts also calls for doctors to ask about screen time during checkups

Smartphones sold in Spain should carry a label warning users about their potential health impacts, experts have told the Spanish government, in a report that calls for doctors to ask about screen time during checkups.

As Spain pushes forward with a draft law to limit children’s exposure to technology, the 50-member committee of experts has also called for minors to have limited exposure to digital devices until they are 13 to mitigate what they see as a public health problem.

Guardian Essential poll: election warning signs for Labor as voters flunk government on housing costs and wages

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Admin

But survey finds strong support for under-16s social media ban, despite concerns about how to enforce it

Voters have given the Albanese government an F on containing housing costs and surprisingly little credit for increasing wages in two troubling signs for Labor heading into a cost-of-living election.

Those are the results of the latest Guardian Essential poll of 1,123 voters, which found strong support for social media regulation, including two-thirds in favour of the under-16 age ban.

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Australia charts hottest spring on record for mean temperatures – as it happened

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Admin

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The health minister, Mark Butler, is holding a press conference in Adelaide to announce the endometriosis drug Visanne will be added to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. It’s the first listing of an endo treatment in three decades.

This is a condition that impacts more than 1 million women – one in seven women and teenage girls – and for too long, too many women have been made to suffer in silence.

[They’ve] been told by many healthcare professionals, it has to be said, that this is “normal”. That it is a normal part of period pain or many other explanations for debilitating, crippling pain.

This is all about providing cheaper medicines and cutting-edge treatment to Australian patients generally, but [particularly] in the area of endometriosis, which has attracted such inadequate support for hundreds of thousands of Australian women.

This listing is beyond time.

The major contributor to the record has been the minimum temperatures, which averaged 17.2ºC over the spring season for the site, and were elevated by cloud cover, precipitation, and most notably, humidity.

Instagram actively helping spread of self-harm among teenagers, study finds

Posted on November 30, 2024 by Admin

Researchers say parent company Meta is failing to remove explicit images on the social media site

Meta is actively helping self-harm content to flourish on Instagram by failing to remove explicit images and encouraging those engaging with such content to befriend one another, according to a damning new study that found its moderation “extremely inadequate”.

Danish researchers created a private self-harm network on the social media platform, including fake profiles of people as young as 13 years old, in which they shared 85 pieces of self-harm-related content gradually increasing in severity, including blood, razor blades and encouragement of self-harm.

Australian-style social media ban for under-16s ‘a retrograde step’, say UK charities

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Admin

Child safety experts say similar move in Britain would penalise young people for the failings of tech companies

Child safety experts have warned the UK government against enacting an Australian-style social media ban for children under 16, which they called a “retrograde step” that would “do more harm than good”.

On Thursday, Australia became the first country in the world to ban under-16s from using social media platforms. The move was supported by a large majority of the Australian public – but academics, politicians and child rights groups said it could backfire, driving teenagers to the dark web, or make them feel more isolated.

Senator calls social media ban a ‘sham’ – as it happened

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Admin

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Canavan says under-16 social media ban has caused new generation to become passionate about democracy

Nationals senator Matt Canavan was loudly outspoken against the under-16 social media ban bill and voted against it – but as we know, the bill ultimately passed.

It has been great seeing people learn how the parliament works. And with that in mind, note that the social media bill is not yet law. Tomorrow morning it heads back to the House of Representatives because there were amendments passed in the Senate tonight. It then has to go to the governor general. But both these steps are almost certain to happen.

Thanks again for all of your help and support. We got some amendments on digital ID so it was not for nothing and the fight continues.

As it currently stands, underlying inflation is still too high to be considering lowering the cash rate target in the near term.

Reddit overtakes X in popularity of social media platforms in UK

Posted on November 27, 2024 by Admin

Discussion platform takes fifth place in rankings and is the fastest growing large social media platform in the UK

Reddit, the American online discussion platform, has overtaken X to become the fifth most popular social media platform in the UK, according to the communications watchdog.

Ofcom said Reddit, where users post on discussion threads within topic-based communities, was visited by 22.9 million UK adults in May this year, compared with 22.1 million on X.

Musk argues social media bill may not be lawful – as it happened

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Admin

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Does the delay on gambling ad restrictions have anything to do with the demands of lobbyists?

Clare O’Neil said it wasn’t about lobbying, but “about making sure that we get this right”.

And the minister has pointed to previous attempts to scale back gambling advertising that have actually resulted in more gambling advertising. This is a delicate area, and we’ve got to get the balance right, and that’s what the minister is seeking to do.

These complicated matters, they just are. You know, if this was a really simple problem to fix, then it would have been fixed a long time ago.

I would say our government deserves credit for stepping up and saying we’re going to take action on this, and the minister [Michelle Rowland] is doing what is appropriate, which is diligently working through what the proposals will look like.

The minister is working with people, experts, stakeholders, others who will be affected by this legislation, and the government has said will come forward with … proposals early next year.

Meta is ‘reckless’ in ‘need-to-know situations’, Canada warns Australia as it braces for early bushfire season

Posted on November 23, 2024 by Admin

Heritage minister says Facebook made ‘room for misinformation’ after turning news off in 2023 as Australia mulls actions that could lead to Meta doing the same

Twelve months on from Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season unfolding during a news blackout on Facebook, the nation has warned Australia about Meta’s “reckless” behaviour during “need-to-know situations”.

An early start to Australia’s bushfire season is looming for swaths of the country, with large parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, the south-west of Victoria and south-east corner of South Australia facing higher risk, according to an official assessment in September.

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What is hybrid warfare, which some fear Russia will use after Ukraine’s strike?

Posted on November 19, 2024 by Admin

Strike with US-made missiles has prompted fears of Russian reprisal that would broaden the scope of a frontline

Russia-Ukraine war live: latest news updates

A Ukrainian strike using American-made missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia using American-made weaponry, has prompted renewed fears of reprisal through “hybrid warfare” – a chaotic tool of conflict that muddies borders and broadens the scope of a frontline.

Over recent years, European nations have witnessed a spate of incidents – cyber-attacks, arson, incendiary devices, sabotage and even murder plots. The aim of such episodes, security officials believe, is to sow chaos, exacerbate social tensions among Ukraine’s allies and disrupt military supplies to Kyiv.

Essex police defend their investigation of Allison Pearson tweet

Posted on November 16, 2024 by Admin

Force says Telegraph writer accused of inciting racial hatred, rather than committing a non-crime hate incident as she had claimed

Essex police have defended their decision to investigate the Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson over a social media post, saying she is accused of “inciting racial hatred” not of committing a “non-crime hate incident”, as she had claimed.

The row over Pearson’s tweet has been splashed across the front pages of the Times, Telegraph and Mail this week. Leading figures on the right, including the new leader of the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch, and the former prime minister Boris Johnson, have leapt to her defence.