Boris Johnson was hit by a growing revolt over his strategy for easing the Covid-19 lockdown last night as council leaders across the north of England joined unions in vowing to resist plans to reopen schools on 1 June.
Related: Are we all in this together? It doesn't look like it from the regions
Continue reading...Study also shows global unemployment due to rise for the first time in a decade
Nearly half a billion people around the world are struggling to find adequate paid work, trapping individuals in poverty and fuelling heightened levels of inequality, according to a UN report.
In a study published as world leaders fly into the Swiss ski resort of Davos to voice concerns over inequality and the climate crisis, the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) said more than 473 million people around the world lacked the employment opportunities to meet their needs.
Continue reading...Migrant workers at club owned by Boris Johnson-backer Robin Birley, asking for £10.55 an hour
Staff at an exclusive private members’ club owned by a high-profile, Brexit-supporting backer of Boris Johnson are to go on strike.
Celebrities coming to 5 Hertford Street, which has hosted figures including George and Amal Clooney, Margot Robbie, Alexa Chung, Bella Hadid and royals such as Prince William, will have to consider whether they want to cross a picket line at the Mayfair property.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments, including Brexit and the Conservative party conference
The Guardian’s just published a leader on Labour’s universal credit policy, concluding that the “plan makes sense”.
The shocking failings of universal credit are justly blamed on the government having listened to the wrong people when setting it up. The sensible reforms set out by Labour show that the opposition has been listening to the right ones. Never mind that the package of changes announced by Jeremy Corbyn on Saturday was misleadingly described as a plan to “scrap” universal credit. His party’s proposals to end the five-week wait for initial payments, scrap the benefit cap and two-child limit (and heinous “rape clause”) are sound. So are promises to review the sanctions system, ditch the “digital only” approach and hire 5,000 new advisers to help those who struggle with online applications.
Related: The Guardian view on universal credit: Labour’s plan makes sense | Editorial
The army’s zero-tolerance drugs policy has been scrapped less than a year after it was introduced, the defence secretary has confirmed.
Speaking at a ConservativeHome fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, Ben Wallace told Tory members he had changed the policy because it should be for commanding officers, and not the government, to decide to strip an individual of their job.
I changed it. I took the view that some people are young and irresponsible and it should be up to their commanding officers to decide, whether it’s a young lad or girl who’s made a mistake, whether they should be allowed to remain in the armed forces or not.
And people who have left and want to rejoin, the same should apply to them as well. I think, you know, that doesn’t mean to say you should be able to do drugs in the armed forces.
It should be up to commanding officers to understand their workforce, to understand whether that individual is the problem, or if there’s a medical problem and they think they need help, or whether indeed it was a mistake.
Continue reading...Actor Michelle Williams said she was ‘paralysed with feelings of futility’ after being 'paid less than $1,000 compared to the $1.5m' that Mark Wahlberg received 'for the exact same amount of work’ while reshooting the film All the Money in the World. Speaking in Washington DC on 2 April during a hearing about closing the gender pay gap, Williams said 'if it was like this for me, a white woman in a glamorised industry, how were my sisters suffering across their professions?' She said the lack of initial reaction was the most depressing element. The controversy only seemed to come to public attention, she said, after the actor Jessica Chastain tweeted about it
Continue reading...Legal adult minimum of £8.21 an hour still leaves millions struggling, say campaigners
Almost 2 million workers in the UK are in line for a pay rise on Monday as the legal minimum wage increases by nearly 5%.
Adults on pay rates rebranded as the “national living wage” will receive a 4.9% rise from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour, worth an extra £690 over a year and affecting around 1.6 million people. The hourly rate for 21- to 24-year-olds will go up from £7.38 to £7.70, and for 18- to 20-year-olds from £5.90 to £6.15 in increases that cover about 230,000 people.
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