Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Vaughan Gething heard decrying Labour colleague after leaving his audio live on video call
Wales’s health minister, Vaughan Gething, has learned the hard way about one of the risks of videoconferencing after he accidentally broadcast a sweary rant about one of his colleagues during a virtual session of Welsh assembly.
Having apparently left his microphone live after addressing the assembly, the minister could be heard loudly decrying his fellow Labour assembly member Jenny Rathbone.
Bill passes despite concerns it is ‘stepping into the private lives of families’
A move to ban parents from smacking children has been approved by the Welsh assembly and is expected to come into force in 2022 following a £2m awareness campaign.
Supporters said it was a historic day for Wales and would stop mothers and fathers using physical violence as punishment, but opponents argued it could criminalise loving parents.
Planned changes would be biggest shakeup to country’s electoral system for 50 years
A bill is being introduced that would give the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds in many elections in Wales and empower local authorities to decide which voting system they use.
Boris Johnson is facing calls to remove Alun Cairns as a Conservative candidate after the Welsh secretary resigned over allegations that a former aide sabotaged a rape trial.
Cairns stepped down following huge pressure in recent days over the actions of his former adviser Ross England, with the furore threatening to derail the Tory campaign in Wales.
Report calls for higher age of criminal responsibility and warns of legal aid ‘deserts’
Powers to control justice, policing and prisons should be devolved to the Welsh assembly as they are in Scotland and Northern Ireland, a commission led by the former lord chief justice of England and Wales has recommended.
In a strongly worded report on the justice system in Wales, a review chaired by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd calls for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 to at least 12 years, says “advice deserts” are appearing due to cuts in legal aid, and condemns high imprisonment rates as unsustainable.
In her speech to the conference Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said Tory policies were to blame for rising crime. She said:
There is no question that the cuts in police numbers have contributed to the rise in crime. But other contributors are the cuts to education, the increase in school exclusions, all the zero-hours contracts, all the homelessness and inequality. All the cuts in mental health services have also played their part.
And these are all Tory policies. When they say they will lead the fight against crime – do not believe a word of it. They are the ones who have created the conditions for rising serious and violent crime. Senior police officers are increasingly going on record and saying that cuts to public services have created an environment where crime flourishes. Cuts have consequences. You cannot keep people safe on the cheap.
We will welcome refugees, including child refugees.
We will proudly uphold the torture ban and treat the victims of torture with humanity, not detentions and deportations.
Speaking at a fringe meeting about how Labour can win back support in its heartlands, Jon Trickett – shadow Cabinet Office minister and MP for Hemsworth – said he was fed up with the argument that the people who voted for Brexit were from “backwards” communities in the north of England. He said:
Here’s the point I want to make. Those held-back communities – the heartland communities – can be found in Hastings, they can be found in Hackney and they can be found in Hartlepool.
A very senior member of the Labour party, she said to me: ‘Well, no wonder they’re all coming down south, the young people, because you can’t be gay up north.’ That was said by somebody whose name you will have mentioned several times in the past few weeks.
Those people who are suggesting that the people who voted for Brexit did not know what they were voting for infantilises 17 million people.
Carwyn Jones insists he made mistake in telling court he had given Ann Jones formal care role
The former Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones has been accused of lying under oath over the support measures put in place to protect a colleague who was found dead after allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour.
Demonstrators say Brexit and austerity have increased support for leaving the UK
Thousands have demonstrated in Cardiff to call for an independent Wales in what organisers said was the first such march in Welsh history.
Some protesters said they had been lifelong supporters of independence, while others said they were converted by Brexit and austerity. A recent poll for ITV Wales showed that 12% of people support self-government.
In an article for the Guardian, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, says that historical precedent dictates that, if Theresa May loses the Brexit vote tomorrow, she should call a general election.
Here is an extract.
In this week in 1910, the British electorate went to the polls. They did so because Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government had been unable to get Lloyd George’s famous People’s Budget through the House of Lords. Liberal posters defined the election as a choice between the peers and the people. They finally got their way after a second election that December.
So twice that year, and a number of other times, governments who could not get their flagship legislation through parliament, or who otherwise found their authority in the House of Commons exhausted, have been obliged to go to the country to seek a new mandate.
Conservative MPs have been told that Theresa May will address the party’s backbench 1922 committee at 7pm, after her statement to the Commons. And Jeremy Corbyn will be addressing the parliamentary Labour party meeting tonight too.