Political news

• Cambridge Analytica affair raises questions vital to our democracy

  04-03-2017 23:55
  
  Did US billionaire Robert Mercer – Donald Trump’s biggest donor – play a crucial role in the Leave campaign in Britain?The law is clear. It’s everything else in this dark and murky business that is not. Three months on from the first appearance by Cambridge Analytica in the Observer, the questions show no sign of going away. Instead, they have become more urgent, more serious, with ever more far-reaching consequences.Cambridge Analytica, its parent company SCL, and its re
  
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• Did Cambridge Analytica influence the Brexit vote and the US election?

  04-03-2017 23:30
  
  Nigel Oakes’s company is at the centre of a growing controversy over the use of personal data during elections. But is there any evidence that what it does works?On Saturday 23 June 2012, David Miller received an angry email. Miller, a professor of sociology at Bath University, runs something called the Powerbase website, which records the political and business connections of influential people. The writer of the email, who seemed to be based in Russia, explained that “all the conte
  
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• UK reaches socially acceptable limits of austerity

  04-03-2017 20:59
  Planned cuts to education and welfare need to be reversed
  
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• Scottish Tories vow to fight independence push

  04-03-2017 19:22
  Leader Ruth Davidson urges Nicola Sturgeon to focus on getting ‘best Brexit deal’
  
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• Spring Budget 2017: Crackdown on 'subscription traps' planned

  04-03-2017 18:47 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Many consumers are signing up for paid-for services without meaning to, after free trials end.
  
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• Plaid Cymru to follow 'due process' over Neil McEvoy

  04-03-2017 18:45 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Plaid Cymru AM Neil McEvoy should be allowed due process, the party leader says, after his suspension as a councillor for bullying behaviour.
  
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• Assembly election: Sinn Féin hails 'watershed' result

  04-03-2017 17:48 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Gerry Adams says Northern Ireland's unionist majority has been "demolished" after the election.
  
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• TrumpWatch: Donald Trump Supporters Have Their Say On The Russia Links Scandal

  04-03-2017 16:48
  
  Six weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency and one of the few constants has been allegations of ties between members of his administration and Russia.
  Another, it would seem, is the continued support of his fanbase despite this.
  That meetings took place between Trump aides and Russian officials during the US election campaign in 2016 isn’t in doubt.
  What is causing controversy is what was discussed during this contact and what each person under scrutiny has willingly disclosed.In
  
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• UK warned it must 'honour all financial obligations' to EU

  04-03-2017 16:08
  
  European political leaders and diplomats react to Lords report arguing that Britain could leave EU without paying £52bnEuropean political leaders and diplomats have reacted furiously to the suggestion that Britain could leave the EU without paying a multibillion pound “divorce settlement”.The European commission, along with 27 EU member states, have settled on a sum of about €60bn (£52bn) that the UK would have to pay to fulfil the commitments it had signed up to as
  
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• Sinn Féin makes major gains in Northern Ireland elections

  04-03-2017 13:49
  
  DUP’s advantage over Sinn Féin slashed to one seat as UUP leader steps down after party’s poor showingNorthern Ireland assembly election: final resultsSinn Féin, the Irish republican party, has made major gains over the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) in a snap election, leaving the two blocs poised to begin new power-sharing negotiations in Northern Ireland’s devolved assembly.
  The makeup of the elected chamber has been significantly altered as Sinn Féin m
  
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• Sinn Féin closes gap with DUP in Northern Ireland elections – video

  04-03-2017 13:28
  
  Sinn Féin, the Irish republican party, has made major gains over the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) in a snap election on Friday. The DUP’s advantage was slashed to a solitary seat as the republican party’s support surged. The results mean the two blocs will lead the negotiations aimed at creating a new power-sharing government in BelfastSinn Féin makes major gains in Northern Ireland elections
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• Brexit: UK could quit EU without paying a penny, say Lords

  04-03-2017 12:53
  
  Report says British government has no legal obligation to pay for Brexit or outstanding payments into EU budget The UK could walk away from the European Union in 2019 without paying a penny, the House of Lords has said, in a report bound to raise tensions with Brussels in the run-up to Brexit talks.The British government would have no legal obligation to either pay a €60bn (£52bn) Brexit bill mooted by the European commission or honour payments into the EU budget promised by the forme
  
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• Unionists suffer Northern Ireland poll setback

  04-03-2017 12:38
  Nationalist voters flock to polls to lift turnout for snap assembly vote
  
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• Gina Miller Says Racist Abuse Over Brexit Made Her 'Feel Like A Foreigner' After 40 Years In Britain

  04-03-2017 12:10
  
  Before Brexit, investment fund manager Gina Miller campaigned for greater transparency to expose mis-selling in her industry with a persistence and determination that angered others in her profession. “People say I am not collegiate,” she told The Financial Times last April, when she was still unknown outside the City.
  Since then, her battle to force Theresa May to go to parliament before triggering Britain’s exit from the EU, has made her the figurehead of the resis
  
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• Boris Johnson invited to visit Russia

  04-03-2017 11:43
  Foreign secretary will be first UK minister to go to Moscow in more than five years
  
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• Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to visit Russia

  04-03-2017 11:39 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The foreign secretary will be discussing UK-Russia relations, as well as Syria and Ukraine.
  
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• Boris Johnson to meet Sergei Lavrov in Moscow

  04-03-2017 11:19
  
  UK foreign secretary, who has publicly criticised Moscow’s foreign policy, will meet Russian counterpart in coming weeksBoris Johnson is set for a highly charged showdown in Moscow after pledging to challenge his counterpart in the Kremlin on contentious issues including Russia’s military action in Syria and Ukraine.In what will be the first UK foreign secretary visit to the country since 2012, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) confirmed on Saturday that Johnson will meet Ser
  
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• Stop pretending we can’t afford the NHS: that’s the message of our march today | Larry Sanders

  04-03-2017 11:00
  
  We won’t stand by and watch this government dismantle public healthcare – and if Theresa May really means her promise to ‘work for all’, she’ll listenWe are living in a world in which the politics of the leaders of two of the world’s great nations – America and Britain – is built on broken promises. During Donald Trump’s election campaign he promised to “take on Wall Street”. So when just weeks later the president announced a cabi
  
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• Ukip leader Paul Nuttall is weak, says party's largest donor

  04-03-2017 10:30
  
  Arron Banks adds pressure on incumbent after failure to win Stoke byelection – and says party is ‘run like a squash club’Ukip’s biggest financial backer has branded the party leader “weak” after his failure to secure the party’s second seat in Westminster in the Stoke byelection last week.Business tycoon Arron Banks said Paul Nuttall was “weak but potentially a good leader”, adding pressure on the successor to Nigel Farage, who has already fa
  
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• The Last Leg's Adam Hills And Alex Brooker Praised For Powerful Speech On 'Disabled Genocide' Of Tory Disability Cuts

  04-03-2017 09:53
  
  Adam Hills and Alex Brooker have launched a scathing attack on Tory disability cuts likening them to a “genocide” against disabled people.
  The hosts of The Last Leg, who both have disabilities of their own, attacked the process of assessment that has seen even double amputees and a man with half a skull declared “fit for work”.
  Brooker said: “I get the idea of it - you have to be assessed and they have to weed out the people who are unfairly claiming.Massi
  
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• Emergency £1.5bn funding for social care is needed, MPs tell chancellor

  04-03-2017 08:01
  
  Communities and local government committee calls on Philip Hammond to plug gaps in budgetsThe chancellor should commit an extra £1.5bn in immediate funding for social care in next week’s budget, according to a cross-party committee of MPs who say there is an urgent need for a wider review of the way the system is financed.The communities and local government committee, which has been taking evidence on the subject for a wider report into adult social care to be published next month,
  
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• Hard Brexit is making the case for Scottish independence | John Harris

  04-03-2017 08:00
  
  Politics in England has become mean, callous and small-state, marginalising the values of most Scots. Who wouldn’t want to leave that behind?On the issue that now defines modern Britain and the stances taken by England and Wales’s two main parties, is it time to start using the dread term “consensus politics”? As Martin Kettle pointed out in the Guardian this week, for all Labour’s sound and fury, its position on Britain’s future relationship with the EU is &l
  
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• DUP largest party in NI Assembly but Sinn Féin make large gains

  04-03-2017 04:13 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The DUP marginally holds on to its position as the largest party in the NI Assembly, Sinn Féin closes the gap by one seat.
  
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• Average English council tax bill to rise 4% - survey

  04-03-2017 03:31 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Households face largest rise in a decade on back of social care costs, say public finance experts.
  
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• Brexit: UK 'not obliged' to pay divorce bill say peers

  04-03-2017 03:27 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The UK could walk away without paying - but this might imperil a trade deal, peers say.
  
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• Sinn Féin makes advances in Northern Ireland poll

  04-03-2017 01:25
  Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt quits after party fails to make ground
  
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• Hammond to crack down on customer rip-offs

  04-03-2017 01:02
  ‘Subscription traps’ among the targets in push to protect unwary consumers
  
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• Subscription traps may have to give notice of charges in crackdown

  04-03-2017 01:01
  
  Budget will outline plans to better protect consumers who sign up for free trials that can convert into paid membership“Subscription traps” that turn a month’s free trial into regular paid-for custom will be targeted in the budget next week.Philip Hammond will set out elements of a forthcoming consultation on better protection for consumers who sign up for such offers, familiar from Amazon Prime, Netflix, magazine subscriptions and gym memberships. Continue reading...
  
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• EU cannot enforce €60bn divorce bill, say Lords

  04-03-2017 01:01
  UK could walk away without paying a penny, upper house committee claims
  
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• Councils call for lower drink-drive limit in England and Wales

  04-03-2017 01:01
  
  Currently limit is second highest in Europe, and LGA says it should be cut by a more than a thirdThe drink-drive limit in England and Wales should be lowered by more than a third to reduce alcohol-related accidents, councils and fire authorities have said.The Local Government Association (LGA) and all fire and rescue authorities in England and Wales are calling for the limit to be dropped from 80mg to 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.Continue reading...
  
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