Child was in a garden when attack happened and the dog has now been destroyedA four-year-old girl has died after being attacked by a dog in Milton Keynes.Officers were called just after 5pm on Tuesday after reports a dog had attacked the child in the back garden of a home in Broadlands, Netherfield. The dog has since been humanely destroyed, Thames Valley Police has confirmed. Continue reading...
Washington condemns Moscow for what it says is a ‘refusal to facilitate inspection activities’ regarding New Start treatyThe United States has accused Russia of violating the New Start treaty, the last major pillar of post cold-war nuclear arms control between the two countries, saying Moscow was refusing to allow inspection activities on its territory.The treaty came into force in 2011 and was extended in 2021 for five more years. It caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them. Continue reading...
Several women in fire service also claim to have been sexually harassed by colleaguesAn investigation has been launched after allegations that firefighters working for Dorset and Wiltshire fire service photographed women who had died in car accidents.The disturbing images were shared on an informal WhatsApp group and were then subject to demeaning comments from male firefighters, ITV News uncovered. Continue reading...
by Aubrey Allegretti, Larry Elliott and Kiran Stacey on (#68CY6)
Chancellor defiant as pressure mounts with warning from within that party could face end of an era in governmentConservative MPs have warned Jeremy Hunt that refusing to cut taxes in the spring budget would spell “the end of an era” for the party in government, amid disagreement over the latest warning about Britain’s gloomy economic forecast.In a showdown with backbenchers on Tuesday night, the chancellor was told that voters were lacking hope and feeling depressed. But Hunt was said to have remained defiant and made clear there would not be a “rabbit out of the hat” announcement before the local elections in the spring. Continue reading...
Exclusive: top officials who worked with Raab at Foreign Office, MoJ and Brexit department have all provided testimonyAll three Whitehall mandarins who worked with Dominic Raab while he was holding cabinet positions have now been interviewed by the official inquiry into his alleged bullying, the Guardian has learned.Sources confirmed reports that the former Foreign Office permanent secretary Simon McDonald had given evidence after he admitted last year that the deputy prime minister could plausibly be characterised as a bully. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Political correspondent on (#68CTJ)
Exclusive: number is just 0.5% of people who potentially need the document, Guardian learnsOnly about 10,000 people have applied for a government-issued voter ID since the scheme opened, just 0.5% of the total who potentially need the document, the Guardian has learned.The slow take-up, which could leave hundreds of thousands of people disenfranchised at local elections in May, will adds to worries that the scheme is being rushed through and could cause chaos. Continue reading...
by Léonie Chao-Fong (now); Martin Belam and Helen Su on (#68C2H)
This live blog has now closed, you can read the latest from the war in Ukraine hereUkraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne offers this summary of events of the last 24 hours in its Telegram bulletin today. It writes:At night, Russian troops shelled the Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Three private houses, farm buildings and a power line were damaged. There are no injured.Over the past day, three people were injured in Donetsk region due to Russian shelling. In the Zaporizhzhia region, 14 settlements were shelled during the day, seven in the Kherson region.In the last three days, Russia has likely developed its probing attacks around the towns of Pavlivka and Vuhledar into a more concerted assault. Russian commanders are likely aiming to develop a new axis of advance into Ukrainian-held Donetsk Oblast, and to divert Ukrainian forces from the heavily contested Bakhmut sector. There is a realistic possibility that Russia will continue to make local gains in the sector. However, it is unlikely that Russia has sufficient uncommitted troops in the area to achieve an operationally significant breakthrough. Continue reading...
The Annenberg study shows the biggest discrepancies are in production and sound engineering and artists are failing commitments to redress the balanceThe amount of top-selling female artists in the US increased in 2022, but the proportion of female songwriters making any commercial impact is still dismal, a new study has shown. The sixth annual University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report reveals that while the amount of women represented in Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart – which tallies the most commercially successful songs of the year – jumped 28.7% last year, to a total of 30%, only 14% of songwriters represented on the chart were women, a slight decrease from the 2021 statistic of 14.3%. Of the 232 producers represented on the year-end chart, only 3.4% were women, and one producer was non-binary.“There is good news for women artists this year,” said Dr Stacy L Smith, who led the report, in a statement, “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – there is still much work to be done before we can say that women have equal opportunity in the music industry.” Continue reading...
This blog has now closed, you can read more on this story hereJacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, was not exactly on message in his Sky News interview with Kay Burley this morning. As well as implying that he thought the bullying inquiry into Dominic Raab was a mistake (see 10.37am), he made at least three other comments that suggest Rishi Sunak does not have the enthusiastic support of all his backbenchers.Rees-Mogg said that Sunak was performing “perfectly competently” as PM. Asked how he was doing, Rees-Mogg replied: “I think he’s doing perfectly competently.” When Burley put it to him that that was not much of an endorsement, Rees-Mogg went on: “I made no bones about the fact I thought Boris Johnson was a better prime minister and I wanted him to remain.”Rees-Mogg criticised the government for stalling the Northern Ireland protocol bill. The bill, which is popular with hardline Brexiters but widely seen as contrary to international law, because it would allow the UK to unilaterally ignore some of the provisions in the protocol treaty, passed through the Commons when Boris Johnson was PM. But it is stuck in the Lords, where it has not been debated since October and where a date has not been set for its report stage. Sunak has shelved it because he wants to negotiate a compromise on the protocol with the EU, and passing the bill would make agreement much harder. But Rees-Mogg said the government should pass it. He said:The government has just got to get on with it. There’s a bill that has been through the House of Commons that is waiting its report stage in the House of Lords and I don’t understand why the government hasn’t brought it forward.He renewed his criticism of the strikes (minimum service levels) bill. When MPs debated it last night, Rees-Mogg said he agreed with Labour criticisms of the Henry VIII powers in the bill.The government doesn’t know what changes it will have to make once this bill is passed. Under clause 3, the secretary of state would be able to make regulations that “amend, repeal or revoke provision made by or under primary legislation passed before this act or later in the same session of parliament as this act”. This is a supercharged Henry VIII clause. Why should MPs or peers pay any attention to any related legislation that may be brought before them later in this session when they know that, unless they object, a secretary of state may simply amend, repeal or revoke it? Continue reading...
by Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent on (#68CN5)
Kadi Johnson tells inquiry into Bayoh’s death in 2015 that postmortem was carried out before family viewed bodyThe family of Sheku Bayoh were prevented from saying their final goodbyes because a miscommunication by the police watchdog meant a postmortem examination was carried out before his relatives were ready to identify his body, according to his sister.In a morning of moving testimony at the inquiry into Bayoh’s death in custody, his sister Kadi Johnson set out a catalogue of alleged errors, miscommunications, conflicting information and apparent absence of compassion as she described her family’s treatment by the police and authorities from the moment they were informed the 31-year-old had died. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#68CR5)
Exclusive: rise in typical delays from nine hours to 16 hours to get care or a bed puts over 80s at greater risk of dying, say doctorsThe amount of time people over 80 spend in A&E in England has almost doubled in a year, leaving them at increased risk of coming to harm and dying, emergency care doctors are warning.An analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) found that people of that age are spending 16 hours in A&E waiting for care or a bed, a huge rise on the nine hours seen in 2021. Continue reading...
All events from late March cancelled at the theatre, which is in a priority location for the government’s Levelling Up fundOldham Coliseum has cancelled all of its forthcoming events from late March onwards as a result of its 100% funding cut from Arts Council England (ACE).The cancellations, which include a spring-summer programme featuring a stage adaptation of Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake and the Christmas pantomime Sleeping Beauty, were announced on Tuesday. The theatre will go dark from 26 March with no current indication of when it might reopen. Continue reading...
US secretary of state says it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to find way to end recent violenceThe US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has finished his Middle East tour with no breakthrough in reducing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, saying that it was “fundamentally up to them” to end the violence after days of bloodshed.Blinken said he had heard “deep concern about the current trajectory” during meetings in Israel and the occupied West Bank but, beyond calling for a “de-escalation”, he offered no new US initiative. Continue reading...
European parliament expected to back committee and strip Marc Tarabella and Andrea Cozzolino of immunity from prosecutionA European parliament committee has voted to lift immunity from two MEPs after a request from Belgian authorities investigating the “Qatargate” bribery and corruption scandal that has shaken the EU assembly.MEPs on the European parliament’s legal affairs committee voted unanimously with no abstentions on Tuesday to strip immunity from Belgium’s Marc Tarabella and Italy’s Andrea Cozzolino. Continue reading...
OIP built up a huge private arsenal, banking on there one day being demand for the weapons againOn the outskirts of Tournai, a sleepy medieval town in the gentle, Brueghelian landscape of the French-speaking part of Belgium, there is an unassuming grey hangar, barely hidden behind a fence. Inside are rows upon rows of German-made Leopard 1 tanks and other heavy fighting vehicles – some of the same types of weapons that top Ukraine’s military wishlist.The hangar belongs to the Belgium defence company OIP and contains one of the biggest privately owned reserves of weapons in Europe. “Many of these tanks have been sitting here for years. Hopefully, now it is the time they finally see some action in Ukraine,” said Freddy Versluys, the head of OIP, as he toured the hangar. Continue reading...
by Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent and Jonathan Bar on (#68C68)
Abu Dhabi fund’s $400m investment in Indian group fails to stop fall in value after fraud allegationsThe Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has fallen off the list of the world’s top 10 richest people as the value of shares in his companies continue to slide after an activist investor accused him of “pulling the largest con in corporate history”.Before the accusations published last week on Twitter, Adani, 60, was the world’s third-richest person with an estimated $119.5bn (£97bn) fortune. He has fallen to 11th place in the daily-updated Bloomberg billionaires index after a personal wealth wipeout of $34bn in just four days of trading since the accusations were published.
Filing in Los Angeles court contests amendment that removed Priscilla as a trustee of her late daughter’s estatePriscilla Presley has filed a lawsuit disputing the validity of her late daughter’s will, setting up a potential legal battle over Lisa Marie Presley’s estate.In a filing in Los Angeles superior court, lawyers for Priscilla questioned the integrity of a 2016 amendment which removed her from Lisa Marie’s living trust, a legal document that serves the function of a will if a separate will is not filed. Continue reading...
Andrew Gray made a discrimination claim against Nuffield Health, which has now agreed to offer reduced ratesA disabled man has secured a settlement with a gym chain, offering people with disabilities the opportunity to pay reduced membership fees because their health condition prevents them from using all the facilities.The groundbreaking agreement could benefit hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities who want to keep fit and improve their health. Continue reading...
Music Venue Trust says grassroots venues have not fully recovered from pandemic lockdowns, and now face skyrocketing inflation including a 25% rise in ticket pricesGrassroots live music venues are operating on a knife-edge, a new report by the Music Venue Trust (MVT) suggests. In its 2022 annual report, the live music venue charity reveals that live music still has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, with an average of 16.7% fewer shows per year compared with 2019.While audience numbers are down 11%, average expenditure by grassroots venues was up 40% – a contribution to the economy totalling £500m – meaning that venues are operating at a profit margin of 0.2%, with the average yearly profit for grassroots venues amounting to only £1,297. Continue reading...
Private equity veteran Guy Hands says Boris Johnson ‘threw the country and the NHS under the bus’Guy Hands, a leading City figure, has called Brexit a “complete disaster” and a “bunch of total lies” that has harmed large parts of the economy.Speaking on the third anniversary of the UK’s departure from the EU, Hands, the founder, chair and chief investment officer of the private equity firm Terra Firma, said: “It’s been a complete disaster. The reality is it’s been a lose-lose situation for us and Europe. Europe has lost more [in financial services] but we’ve lost as well. And the reality of Brexit was, it was just was a bunch of complete and total lies. Continue reading...
Cafe owner Charlie Clarke ‘shrieked like schoolgirl’ when he turned up pristine necklace bearing initials of Henry and Katherine of AragonCharlie Clarke had been metal detectoring for just six months when he stumbled across what he calls his “once in a liftime – no, once in 30 lifetimes”, find. He was exploring a Warwickshire field, turning up “junk” and about to call it a day, when a clear beep on his detector led him to dig to the depth of his elbow. What he saw there caused him to shriek “like a little schoolgirl, to be honest. My voice went pretty high-pitched”.What the Birmingham cafe owner had discovered was a huge and quite spectacular early Tudor pendant and chain, made in gold and enamel and bearing the initials and symbols of Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. Continue reading...
NPCC chair launches report setting out commitments to learn lessons from 1989 football stadium disasterThe national body for police chief constables has issued an official apology for the police failures that led to the unlawful killing of 97 people in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, and for the “pain and suffering” experienced by the bereaved families for years afterwards.Martin Hewitt, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), made the apology at the launch of a report setting out senior police officers’ commitments to learn lessons from the Hillsborough failures. These include every force having signed a charter for bereaved families in 2021 that requires police organisations to acknowledge mistakes with “openness” and “candour” after a public tragedy, and not “seek to defend the indefensible”, as South Yorkshire police were accused of doing after the 1989 disaster. Continue reading...
Ministers say exceptional security needed but rights groups warn new law could extend police powers permanentlyThe French government is fast-tracking special legislation for the 2024 Paris Olympics that would allow the use of video surveillance assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) systems.Ministers have argued that certain exceptional security measures are needed to ensure the smooth running of the events that will attract 13 million spectators, but rights groups have warned France is seeking to use the Games as a pretext to extend police surveillance powers, which could then become permanent. Continue reading...
The once grand 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, with leaky roof and mould after decades of negligence, is in dire need of an upgradeOnce home to Canada’s powerful lumber barons, 24 Sussex Drive, tucked away in a forested enclave of the capital, is one of the country’s most symbolically important homes.But decades of negligence have left the official residence of the prime minister plagued with mould, cracked windows, failing plumbing and an electric system widely seen as a fire hazard. Continue reading...
Health service study finds people with condition have poor hospital experiences that can cause harmPeople in England with sickle cell disease are experiencing “neglect” and “poor hospital experiences that can cause avoidable harm”, according to a report.The study, commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory and undertaken by Public Digital, explored the experiences of people who had undergone acute emergency hospital admissions for sickle cell, as well as managing crisis episodes at home. Continue reading...
Constance Marten, her newborn child and convicted sex offender boyfriend were last seen on 9 JanuaryA £10,000 reward is being offered in the search for the missing woman Constance Marten, her newborn baby and her partner, a convicted sex offender.Marten, 35, and her 48-year-old boyfriend, Mark Gordon, who served 20 years in a US jail for rape and battery for an attack on a woman when he was 14, were last seen in East Sussex on 9 January. Continue reading...
Former minister voices concern over handling of civil servants’ allegations against deputy prime ministerThe former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has said “we mustn’t be too snowflakey” about bullying allegations levelled against the deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab.Raab, who is also justice secretary, faces formal complaints involving at least 24 civil servants over alleged bullying, covering his posts at the Ministry of Justice, Foreign Office (FCDO) and the Brexit department. Continue reading...
Supermarket chain to reduce number of shop managers and close remaining counters and hot delisTesco has announced a shake-up of its shop management in large UK stores along with the closure of its remaining meat, fish and hot deli counters, affecting 2,100 jobs.The UK’s biggest grocer said it had started rolling out a new management structure in 350 of its smaller superstores over the past two years and is extending this structure across its larger superstores and Extra stores. Continue reading...
by Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor on (#68C74)
Ex-health secretary defends appearance on TV show and denies he broke law by embracing aide during lockdownMatt Hancock has said he did not “primarily” go on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! for his £320,000 fee, adding that his £10,000 charitable donation was a “decent sum” after his appearance on the reality show.The former health secretary also repeatedly denied he had broken the law in his embrace with his now-girlfriend Gina Coladangelo during Covid restrictions. The Good Morning Britain interviewer Susanna Reid said he had broken the law on gatherings that had to be reasonably necessary for work. Continue reading...
Right Rev James Jones criticises failure to address its findings more than five years since publicationThe author of a report into the experiences of Hillsborough victims’ families said it was “intolerable” the government had not responded more than five years on.The Right Rev James Jones, a former bishop of Liverpool, set out 25 recommendations in his report, The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power, published in November 2017. Continue reading...
Unit infiltrating leftwing groups in 1960s and 1970s never assessed if they presented threat to nationNone of the senior police officers in charge of long-term operations to infiltrate leftwing groups in the 1960s and 1970s examined whether the intrusive surveillance was justified, a public inquiry has found.The inquiry – headed by a retired judge – added that there was a strong case for concluding that a covert Metropolitan police unit that sent long-term undercover officers to infiltrate political groups should have been disbanded decades before it was. Continue reading...
Rights groups raise doubts over road accident in which police say outspoken editor John Williams Ntwali was killedAmnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent NGO based in New York, are among media and rights organisations calling for an independent investigation into the death of the Rwandan journalist John Williams Ntwali.Ntwali, a regular critic of the Rwandan authorities, was found dead on 18 January. According to reported police accounts, he was killed in a motorcycle accident in the capital, Kigali. Continue reading...
by Luke Henriques-Gomes Social affairs and inequality on (#68C3V)
Rachelle Miller tells inquiry the then human services minister was ‘very firm’ a media storm over the Centrelink debt recovery scheme needed to be shut down
Synthetic cannabinoids involved in nearly half of male prisoner deaths analysed in England and WalesResearchers have called for urgent action to tackle the crisis in the Prison Service after data showed a rise in deaths among male prisoners linked to synthetic cannabinoids.The team at Middlesex University’s Drug and Alcohol Research Centre analysed official investigation reports on the “non-natural” deaths of 129 prisoners in England and Wales between 2015 and 2020. Synthetic cannabinoids, known as “spice” and “black mamba”, were implicated in 48% – or nearly half – of the deaths, all but eight of which were in men. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#68C2K)
Report by former government adviser says plan needed to tackle obesity, thought to cost UK economy £27bn a yearAreas in England with the most overweight and obese people also have the lowest rates of productivity, according to research showing “obesity is an economic as well as a health timebomb”.Conversely, places with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per head have much lower proportions of citizens who are dangerously overweight, the analysis shows. Continue reading...
Refugee Council warns tens of thousands who crossed Channel to UK in 2022 would have been detained indefinitely under proposalsMore than 45,000 people who have crossed the Channel in small boats this year would have been detained indefinitely in a “permanent limbo” under Rishi Sunak’s flagship migration policy, a leading refugee charity has calculated.The prime minister announced proposals this month to ban anybody who comes to the UK irregularly from applying for asylum and then deporting them as soon as possible. A new immigration bill is expected to be introduced within weeks. Continue reading...
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