Political news

• Tory MP Anna Soubry Accuses Daily Mail And Daily Telegraph Of 'Inciting' Violent Threats Against Brexit Rebels

  18-12-2017 23:26
  Tory MPs who rebelled over Brexit have rounded on the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph for “inciting” death threats and other abuse against them.Anna Soubry, Dominic Grieve, Nicky Morgan and Sarah Wollaston all blamed the newspapers directly for the online harassment they have received before and since they defied their party to give Parliament a say over the UK’s final exit deal.The clutch of backbenchers were dubbed ‘The Brexit Mutineers’ by the Telegraph, while the
  
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• Dementia Can't Be Prevented With Exercise, Brain-Training Or Vitamins, Study Concludes

  18-12-2017 23:17
  There’s no proven method for preventing dementia in later life, a review of multiple studies has found.Researchers wanted to determine whether physical activity, prescription medications, brain training or over-the-counter vitamins and supplements could help prevent dementia.The vast majority of research showed that none of the interventions worked.The number of people with dementia is expected to increase dramatically as the population ages, which is why researchers from the Minnesota Evi
  
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• Flamefest Sex Festival Death Caused By Lethal Dose Of MDMA, Inquest Told

  18-12-2017 22:33
  A 53-year-old man died at a woodland sex fetish festival after taking a lethal dose of MDMA, an inquest has heard.Steven Graves was found lying outside his tent with a woman unconscious on his chest on August 22 at Flamefest in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.He met Sandra Levy at the festival. The pair became intimate and started camping together, the inquest in Maidstone heard on Monday.They had each taken a pill offered by a stranger who said it was ecstasy shortly before Graves was found dead.Geoffrey
  
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• UK defence budget unlikely to be raised, says security adviser

  18-12-2017 22:11
  Mark Sedwill says latest military review is ‘fiscally neutral exercise’
  
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• Freeze in UK’s £56bn defence budget likely, MPs told

  18-12-2017 22:11
  Military review a ‘fiscally neutral exercise’, says national security adviser
  
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• Brexitcast Live: Is a second EU referendum possible?

  18-12-2017 22:04 via bbc.co.uk
  An audience member asked Laura Kuenssberg the question during the BBC's Brexitcast Live show.
  
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• UK cannot have a special deal for the City, says EU's Brexit negotiator

  18-12-2017 22:00
  Exclusive: Michel Barnier’s stark declaration quashes hopes for a bespoke trade deal to include financial servicesBritain cannot have a special deal for the City of London, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator has told the Guardian, dealing a blow to Theresa May’s hopes of securing a bespoke trade agreement with the bloc.
  Michel Barnier said it was unavoidable that British banks and financial firms would lose the passports that allow them to trade freely in the EU, as a
  
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• Grenfell Tower fire: safety rules failing, says review

  18-12-2017 21:47 via bbc.co.uk
  The leader of a review into building regulations after Grenfell is 'shocked' by safety practices.
  
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• David Davis to warn EU it cannot cherrypick in Brexit trade deal talks

  18-12-2017 21:45
  Official dismisses idea that Britain must choose between a simple free trade agreement or staying in single marketBrexit secretary David Davis will warn the European commission that it cannot “cherrypick some sectors” when negotiating a trade deal, according to a senior government official, who said the UK planned to treat goods and services as inseparable.Responding to EU figures setting out their stall, the Whitehall source insisted that while trade talks would be complex, “t
  
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• Martin Rowson on the progress of Brexit under Theresa May – cartoon

  18-12-2017 21:30
  Continue reading...
  
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• 'You are never mutineers' - Bercow urges MPs to uphold principles

  18-12-2017 20:57 via bbc.co.uk
  Speaker John Bercow defends the right of MPs to vote on Brexit in line with their principles.
  
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• Demob-happy Maybot goes through the smooth and orderly motions | John Crace

  18-12-2017 20:52
  If the PM had to wing it a bit to make it through to the new year then so be it. Just trust her, everything would be fine“Smooth and orderly” is all set to be next year’s “strong and stable”. And to be about as convincing. Several times in her statement to the Commons about last week’s European Council meeting, Theresa May insisted she would be seeking a “smooth and orderly” Brexit, while giving no hint of how this might be achieved. Or what it mig
  
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• Government departments reveal gender pay gap

  18-12-2017 20:20
  Health was the only department that paid women more, on average, than men
  
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• Theresa May and cabinet want ‘cake’ back on Brexit negotiating table

  18-12-2017 20:19
  Senior ministers to seek ambitious EU trade deal plus regulatory divergence from bloc
  
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• A bewildering array of pluses and minuses dogs the Brexit landscape | Dan Roberts

  18-12-2017 20:02
  From ‘Canada plus plus plus’ to ‘Norway minus’, we look at what all the terminology means As if leaving were not bewildering enough, discussion of the various templates for Britain’s future relationship with the EU has taken on the appearance of a maths equation of late.Brexit secretary Davis Davis says Britain should be aiming for the ambitiously named “Canada plus plus plus” model. Labour MPs who favour a softer strain of Brexit would prefer to see an
  
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• We need Labour’s big beasts to reverse Brexit – but not Tony Blair | Letters

  18-12-2017 19:47
  Christopher Rainger, Willy McCourt, Rose Levinson and Paula Lanning respond to an interview with the former prime minister, while Nigel de Gruchy warns against a second referendum and Philip Astley suggests the government should follow the Danish example of parliamentary consultationWhy does it have to be left to Tony Blair (Interview, 16 December) to state the obvious – that Brexit is a delusion and is doing enormous damage to our country while distracting attention from the huge need for
  
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• Theresa May fails to satisfy Labour MPs on workers' rights after Brexit – as it happened

  18-12-2017 18:47
  Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May’s statement to MPs about Brexit and the EU summitNo 10 lobby briefing - SummaryStefaan De Rynck’s speech and Q&A - SummaryMay’s Commons statement on Brexit - Summary and analysis 5.44pm GMTHere are the main points from Theresa May’s Commons statement.Under the EU withdrawal bill we are bringing these rights into UK law. I have said that we will maintain workers’ righ
  
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• Amtrak Passenger Train Derails On Bridge And Falls On Highway Below In Washington State

  18-12-2017 18:36
  An Amtrak passenger train has derailed and fallen on to a busy highway in Washington State in America’s northwest, killing several passengers, authorities said.A spokesman for the local sheriff’s office, Ed Troyer, told reporters at the scene there were “multiple” deaths at the scene - roughly 50 miles southwest of Seattle - but did not have a specific number to report.He also said no motorists were killed, though some were injured when part of the train struck several ve
  
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• Twitter suspends accounts of far-right groups

  18-12-2017 18:31
  Britain First and American Nazi Party among organisations affected by crackdown
  
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• 8 Wintery Gifts You Need To Buy For A Greener Home This Christmas

  18-12-2017 18:31
  There is no better feeling than giving to the ones you love at Christmas - except maybe knowing that you’ve made a minimal carbon footprint while you’ve been doing it.We’ve searched out the most sustainable snacks, drinks and homeware goodies – so you can gift without the guilt.Yallah Coffee’s Sustainable Coffee Gift Box, £23A Cornish coffee roaster with sustainability at its heart, Yallah have released a Christmas range of tasty, single origin coffee that has
  
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• Time for A Bigger Role For Digital Technology Amidst The Student Mental Health Crisis

  18-12-2017 18:24
  As we move into December, students up and down the UK are preparing to return home for Christmas. Packing up their books, piling up their laundry, and rehearsing watered-down, “parent-friendly” anecdotes of nights out on the town.However, for many students, they perhaps carry home an issue more complex than any textbook, harder to explain than any night out... In fact, according to a YouGov survey, more than a quarter of these students returning home this Christmas (27%) will have re
  
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• Soft Play Is Hard!

  18-12-2017 18:23
  We all do it, don’t we? That first time we hold our new-born child we promise it the world. We swear to protect it, guide it and give it the best of everything.I know I did.Yet somehow, just over a year later, I willingly took my son, Sam, into a virtual warzone. Yes, this out of depth Dad has just learned that, in soft play, no one can hear you scream.God knows, it’s easy to find my local soft play centre: you just follow the screaming. The plan was to buy a six month pass – s
  
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• Theresa May Accused Of Refusing To Explicitly Rule Out Scrapping Paid Holidays Right

  18-12-2017 18:18
  Theresa May has been accused of failing to explicitly rule out scrapping the Working Time Directive, the EU rule which restricts the working week to 48 hours and protects other employment rights.Jeremy Corbyn and other Labour MPs pressed the prime minister on Monday to guarantee the regulation would be retained after Brexit.“This government will not only maintain but enhance workers’ rights,” May told the Commons.However her answer did not satisfy the Opposition benches who bel
  
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• Tory MP Anna Soubry submits dossier of violent threats against her

  18-12-2017 18:14
  Document given to Speaker includes dozens of examples of threats, including calls for Brexit ‘mutineer’ to be hangedA Conservative MP who last week rebelled over Brexit has submitted a dossier of threats of violence against her to the Speaker as Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn condemned an increase in intimidation against MPs. A document provided by Anna Soubry and seen by the Guardian includes dozens of examples of threats, including several calls for her to be hanged for treason. The
  
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• My Mother Wasn't My Best Friend

  18-12-2017 18:09
  Eight weeks ago my mother died.She’d had a good innings as they say, even though her last fifteen years were spent in a care home, she’d managed to survive two strokes (no doubt brought on by chain smoking) and by the time she died she wasn’t in good health - we were all actually surprised she’d lasted as long as she had. I wish I could say that I’m heartbroken because I’ve lost my best friend but she wasn’t that. She wasn’t a doting grandmother, s
  
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• The Government Must Give Police The Tools They Need To Keep Us Safe

  18-12-2017 18:08
  The Government will this week announce their plans for police funding. It is a critical moment after a punishing year for the service and with the police under more pressure than ever before. It is no exaggeration to say the future capability of the service is at stake.Successive Governments of all political colours recognised that it was reckless to slash the police but this Government have torn up that rule book and our communities are now paying a heavy price.Crime including the crimes which
  
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• Loveless loyalty to Theresa May comes at a price for the Tories

  18-12-2017 18:01
  Each day of her leadership calcifies the party’s bad image in urban Britain
  
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• Brexit thinktank removes 'institute' from its name

  18-12-2017 17:45
  The Institute for Free Trade, set up by Tory MEP Daniel Hannan and supported by Boris Johnson, was threatened with a fineA thinktank set up by Daniel Hannan, a pro-Brexit Conservative MEP, has changed its name and website after it faced a possible fine for describing itself as an “institute” without permission.The Institute for Free Trade (IFT) was launched by Hannan in September. In a controversial decision, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, allowed the launch event to take plac
  
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• The Year I Found My True Christmas Spirit

  18-12-2017 17:35
  I have always loved Christmas; the lights, the scent of the Christmas tree, the cheesy films and the giving of gifts. Some of my fondest memories as a child are around the holiday period… getting those longed for roller boots, yes, they were second hand, but they meant the world to me. The disappointment of never getting that much hoped for Mr Frosty was always eliminated by the other toys my family got for my sister and me.As I grew older, however, I lost the ‘magic’ of Chris
  
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• Twitter suspends Britain First leaders

  18-12-2017 17:31 via bbc.co.uk
  The leader and deputy of a far-right British political group's Twitter accounts are frozen.
  
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• If A Fake Restaurant Is London’s #1 How Can We Trust Anything Online?

  18-12-2017 17:23
  It's no surprise that in this information-rich society customers learn about products and services from a much wider variety of sources than ever before. It used to be advertising that would alert customers to a new product, but today they can be informed by blogs, social networks, review sites, and the information posted by friends and family.But how reliable is all this online information in this era of ‘fake news’?One London-based writer for Vice magazine, Oobah Butler, recently d
  
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• Why The Words You Use Every Day Really Matter...

  18-12-2017 17:19
  Why the words you use every day really matter…“This is a CATASTROPHE/DISASTER/NIGHTMARE!”“That makes me so DEPRESSED/ANXIOUS/SAD...”“I can’t COPE!”“This is IMPOSSIBLE/I CAN’T do this...”“I’m so ILL/SICK/KNACKERED/TIRED…”“This is RIDICULOUS/OUTRAGEOUS!”“I don’t BELIEVE it…”“I SHOULD be able to do this…”Let’s play a game. Over the course of the n
  
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• May tells 'Brexit war cabinet' UK must aim high in trade talks

  18-12-2017 17:15
  Source reveals that at meeting with ministers the PM argued for UK to keep up calls for bespoke, ambitious dealPM gives Commons statement on Brexit – liveTheresa May has insisted the government must aim high in the next phase of EU negotiations, during a meeting of her “Brexit war cabinet” that highlighted some divides between senior ministers.A source revealed that the prime minister argued strongly for the UK to maintain its calls for a “bespoke and ambitious” tra
  
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• How Do We Navigate The Black Hole Of Dementia Care Research?

  18-12-2017 17:10
  Every year we invest millions of pounds in academic research, but how are these learnings applied in health and social care practice?On average it takes 17 years for research findings to reach clinical practice, meanwhile a third of people living with dementia do not receive care supported by current scientific evidence. Worryingly, around a quarter of care provided may not be needed, or could even be harmful.Demand for social care has risen exponentially in recent years, yet provision is not gr
  
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• European businesses demand clarity on Brexit

  18-12-2017 17:04
  It is astonishing the UK has waited so long to talk about where it wants to end up
  
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• Bribing To Breastfeed - Is It Really That Simple?

  18-12-2017 16:57
  A report published last week has revealed that offering new mums up to £200 in Tesco vouchers could motivate them to breastfeed.Breastfeeding is proven to give babies a good start in life, but many UK mums seem reluctant to give it a go. In some areas, according to the study undertaken by experts at Sheffield and Dundee universities, just 12% of six to eight-week-old babies were breastfed.When I first held my son, like most mothers, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It took 45 h
  
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• Britain First's Jayda Fransen And Paul Golding Suspended From Twitter Amid Crackdown On 'Hateful Conduct'

  18-12-2017 16:55
  Britain First’s Jayda Fransen and Paul Golding have been suspended from Twitter as it begins a crackdown on “hateful conduct”.The far-right group gained a greater profile last month after US President Donald Trump re-tweeted three unverified, anti-Muslim videos posted by Fransen.Their removal from the site means Trump’s share no longer exists on his timeline.Their Twitter accounts suggest they have both been suspended since they “violate the Twitter rules”.&ld
  
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• Post-Grenfell fire safety review prompts call for culture shift

  18-12-2017 16:54
  Chair ‘shocked’ by practices has uncovered in building industry
  
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• Chrome Just Added A Feature That Made The Internet Infinitely Less Annoying

  18-12-2017 16:34
  The internet is a vast and wonderful thing but much like traffic jams with cars, this great gift does come with some downsides.Potentially the biggest of these is the autoplay video. While in some cases an autoplay video might be acceptable, they can cause minor heart attacks within even the hardiest chests thanks to an unchecked volume setting on a laptop.Well now Google’s Chrome is determined to fight the good fight and help you keep the internet silent until instructed to be otherwise.T
  
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• Why You Should Work From Home On The Friday Before Christmas (And How To Stay Productive)

  18-12-2017 16:32
  If you want to avoid complete chaos on Friday 22 December, ask your boss if you can work from home.The RAC estimates that roughly 1.25million people will be driving home for Christmas on ‘Frantic Friday’, which will understandably lead to traffic jam hell - especially between the hours of 4pm and 8pm.To avoid the horrors of gridlocked motorways and horrendously packed trains, it’s worth heading home on Wednesday or Thursday evening instead and spending the rest of the week work
  
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• RAF Mildenhall Lockdown Lifted After Shots Fired During 'Significant Incident'

  18-12-2017 16:23
  A man has been arrested at an airbase in Suffolk amid reports he tried to ram the gates in a “significant incident” that led to shots being fired.American service personnel “fired shots” after the man tried to enter the base, Suffolk Police said in a statement on Monday. The force were called to the airbase at 1.40pm and apprehended the man who suffered “cuts and bruises” during the incident.He is now in custody.The base was initially put into lockdown.No
  
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• Layered Reality: Is This The Future Of Entertainment?

  18-12-2017 16:09
  Dotdotdot is a company working on a new type of experience which they’ve dubbed ‘layered reality’.You wear a VR mask, but the experience is enhanced with real-life actors and your other senses such as taste and touch being tricked into believing what your seeing. Describing one experience in the pilot, CEO Andrew McGuinness said: ‘We can mess with you because we’ve got you in a digital environment… You feel the wind blowing up, you feel the spray, there&rsquo
  
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• Joan Ryan MP on misleading Parliament over panto performance

  18-12-2017 16:06 via bbc.co.uk
  An MP plugging theatres in her constituency later admitted "inadvertently misleading the House" after mixing up Dick Whittington and Jack and the Beanstalk.
  
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• Sarah Mullally to be first female Bishop of London

  18-12-2017 16:04
  Former NHS chief nurse to hold top role in Anglican church
  
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• M606 Collision: Man Dies In Motorway Crash Following Police Chase In Bradford

  18-12-2017 15:59
  A man has died in a motorway crash following a police chase in Bradford.Officers began pursuing a silver Audi A4 at around 2.45am this morning (Monday) after the driver failed to stop in the city’s Heaton district, West Yorkshire Police reported.According to the force, the Audi crashed into a barrier on the M606 - near the M62 junction - a “short time later”.The driver, a man in his thirties, was pronounced dead at the scene. His family have been informed.The road remains close
  
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• How To Spread Christmas Cheer All Year Round

  18-12-2017 15:56
  As parents, we delight in showing our children our love by giving them presents at Christmas; seeing their faces break into excited smiles when they rip open the wrapping paper and first glimpse that longed-for gift. But there is a balancing act to be found between the festive joy of giving and receiving presents and a commercialised grab-fest of over-consumption which can leave many of us uneasy about the messages we are giving our children.
  At Christmas, and all year round, we can show our kid
  
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• Let's Add Mental Health Into The Conversations We Have With Colleagues

  18-12-2017 15:47
  As we enter the last working week before Christmas, office talk turns to our plans for the holidays, shopping lists, or what so and so got up to at the Christmas party. Yet do we know how our colleagues are really doing?We asked 2,000 British workers to select from a list the topics they felt they could speak openly about with colleagues. The results revealed we’d sooner talk sex, money problems or relationships than broach the topic of mental health at work.In fact, mental health came ver
  
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• Alice Kirby on electing disabled MPs and councillors

  18-12-2017 15:41 via bbc.co.uk
  A disability rights campaigner looks at why there are so few disabled people represented in parliaments, assemblies and council chambers.
  
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• RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk, In Lockdown After 'Significant Incident'

  18-12-2017 15:40
  An airbase in Suffolk is on lockdown following a “significant incident”, amid reports of a car trying to ram the gates.The Ministry of Defence confirmed an incident “at the entry point” of RAF Mildenhall.A man is said to have been arrested. “They just released us from lockdown,” a spokesman for the Mildenhall base, in Suffolk, told Reuters. Britain’s Ministry of Defence said it was aware of an incident at the base and that police were taki
  
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• Here Are The Most Festive Beauty Looks To Try Your Hand At This Christmas

  18-12-2017 15:23
  The festive period brings out the creative side in some, from DIY Christmas jumpers to unusual tongue-in-cheek trends. Now, Grinch-themed beauty is something of a trend on social media, with makeup enthusiasts posting their looks to Instagram and Twitter.But the opportunity for creativity doesn’t have to stop at the infamous anti-Christmas character, as there plenty of ways to get festive with your makeup. Whether you go all out with your cosmetics or opt to focus on a particular
  
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