Political news

• Ex-UKIP leader Henry Bolton 'not finished' with politics

  23-02-2018 23:31 via bbc.co.uk
  The ousted UKIP leader Henry Bolton says we should "watch this space" about what he will do next.
  
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• Plastic straws could be banned, suggests Michael Gove

  23-02-2018 22:39 via bbc.co.uk
  The environment secretary suggests outlawing plastic straws could be easier after Brexit.
  
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• Theresa May's Brexit Plan Is 'Pure Illusion', European Council President Donald Tusk Warns

  23-02-2018 22:15
  Theresa May’s position on the Brexit negotiations is based on “pure illusion”, the president of the European Council warned on Friday.Donald Tusk told a press conference in Brussels this afternoon that the UK is “cherry-picking” its future relationship with the EU, adding: “It seems like the ‘cake’ philosophy is still alive.”“I am glad that the UK government seems to be moving towards a more detailed position,” Tusk said after 27
  
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• UK’s Brexit plan ‘pure illusion’, says Donald Tusk

  23-02-2018 21:39 via ft.com
  Compromise reached by Theresa May’s divided cabinet under fire from Brussels
  
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• Brexit plan agreed at Chequers attacked by EU

  23-02-2018 21:39 via ft.com
  Compromise described as ‘pure illusion’ by Donald Tusk
  
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• Donald Tusk: UK Brexit plans 'pure illusion'

  23-02-2018 21:36 via bbc.co.uk
  The European Council president says reports suggest the UK is still trying to cherry pick its Brexit deal.
  
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• Brexit: EU leaders debate financial impact of UK's departure

  23-02-2018 21:04 via bbc.co.uk
  Germany and France warn of impact on efforts to tackle terrorism, as nations clash over funding.
  
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• Martin Rowson on the Chequers awayday – cartoon

  23-02-2018 20:30 via theguardian.com
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• Labour party general secretary stands down from position

  23-02-2018 20:23 via theguardian.com
  Iain McNicol’s departure signals further consolidation of power by Jeremy Corbyn’s supportersIain McNicol, Labour’s longstanding general secretary, has stepped down, in the latest sign that Jeremy Corbyn is consolidating his grip on party machinery. McNicol had become a controversial figure for those on the Labour left after a row over the rules for the 2016 leadership race.He is now expected to be replaced with a leftwinger, consolidating the number of key Corbyn allies in sen
  
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• UK's hopes for post-Brexit trade deal an illusion – Donald Tusk

  23-02-2018 20:19 via theguardian.com
  EU leaders left incredulous by reports of Theresa May’s strategy following Chequers meetingTheresa May’s reported agreement with her cabinet on a future trading relationship with the EU has been criticised as based on “pure illusion” by the European council president, Donald Tusk, as frustration with the UK erupted in Brussels.Reports that May’s inner cabinet had agreed on a policy of “managed divergence” during eight hours of talks at an awayday in Cheq
  
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• Scottish Labour MSP withdraws invitation to US academic

  23-02-2018 20:15 via theguardian.com
  Prof Priscilla Coleman authored highly criticised study into link between abortion and anxietyA Scottish Labour MSP has withdrawn her invitation to speak at the Holyrood parliament from an academic who has linked abortion to mental health issues after fellow MSPs raised concerns about the event.Elaine Smith, Scottish Labour’s spokesperson on poverty and inequality, invited colleagues to a meeting titled Abortion in Scotland: a solution or a problem? at which US professor Priscilla Coleman
  
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• Theresa May’s moment to soften her Brexit stance

  23-02-2018 20:10 via ft.com
  The UK prime minister has to compromise on her ‘red lines’ to reach the best deal
  
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• Universities call on union to resume strike talks

  23-02-2018 20:07 via ft.com
  Employers’ body under pressure to find solution to pensions dispute
  
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• Labour Party General Secretary Iain McNicol Resigns, Unite's Jennie Formby Tipped As Successor

  23-02-2018 19:56
  Labour’s general secretary Iain McNicol has resigned after nearly seven years in the post.The former union boss will “pursue new projects on behalf of the party and wider Labour movement”, he said in a statement released late on Friday.HuffPost UK has been told that Unite’s Jennie Formby is being tipped by insiders as the favourite to succeed him in the job.Another contender could be Unite’s Andrew Murray, a long-time ally of Jeremy Corbyn who took charge of the 201
  
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• Yarl's Wood women feel desperate, says Diane Abbott

  23-02-2018 19:48 via theguardian.com
  Women at immigration centre say they are on hunger strike over their indefinite detentionWomen held at the Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre felt desperate at being kept there indefinitely, Diane Abbott said after she was given rare access to the site.The shadow home secretary was there with Shami Chakrabarti, the shadow attorney general, as campaigners said around 120 women were staging a hunger strike over conditions and demanding an end to their indefinite detention.Continue read
  
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• Tusk dismisses UK Brexit plan as ‘pure illusion’

  23-02-2018 19:33 via ft.com
  EC president says cabinet’s stance shows ‘cake philosophy is still alive’
  
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• Louella Michie Bestival Death: Ceon Broughton Charged With Manslaughter

  23-02-2018 19:33
  A 28-year-old man has been charged with the death of Louella Eve Fletcher-Michie at Bestival music festival last year, police said.Ceon Broughton, from Enfield, north London, has been charged with manslaughter, Dorset Police said on Friday. Michie, who was Holby City star John Michie’s daughter, was found dead at Bestival at Lulworth Castle in September last year.An initial post-mortem examination showed no clear signs of assault on the 25-year-old’s body. Further
  
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• EU will not wait for UK to present Brexit guidelines, says Tusk

  23-02-2018 19:33 via ft.com
  Bloc ‘cannot stand by’ while Britain makes up its mind
  
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• Theresa May’s fragile Brexit truce is unlikely to last for long

  23-02-2018 19:15 via ft.com
  The absence of an achievable negotiating aim offers an opening for MPs
  
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• Arlene Foster: DUP did not know of Sinn Fein 'legacy deal'

  23-02-2018 19:12 via bbc.co.uk
  Arlene Foster says no one in DUP knew of inquest funding deal in "absence of overall agreement"
  
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• Northern Irish abortion law violates women's rights, say UN officials

  23-02-2018 19:08 via theguardian.com
  Ban ‘constitutes violence that may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’The UK is violating the rights of women in Northern Ireland by restricting their access to abortion, exposing them to “horrific situations”, a UN committee has said.The committee on the elimination of discrimination against women (Cedaw) said thousands of women and girls in Northern Ireland faced “systematic violations of rights through being compelled to either travel outs
  
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• Clare Short Attacks 'Hysterical' Media Coverage Of Oxfam Scandal And Claims Entire Aid Sector 'Smeared'

  23-02-2018 19:01
  Former International Development Secretary Clare Short has attacked the “hysterical” media reporting of the Oxfam sex harassment scandal and claimed the whole aid sector has been “smeared” by the coverage.In an interview with BBC Radio 4′s The Week In Westminster, Short said that development charity workers were no different from the rest of the population, declaring that one in ten men use a prostitute at some point in their lives.Her words came as agency bosses re
  
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• Brexit: Jeremy Hunt says UK will not stay in customs union

  23-02-2018 18:41 via bbc.co.uk
  Minister says the UK will find a "different way" to ensure "frictionless trade" after Brexit.
  
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• The Guardian view on Labour and banks: not casino capitalism | Editorial

  23-02-2018 18:32 via theguardian.com
  Jeremy Corbyn made a speech criticising big finance and got called a communist. But the Tories appear to have nothing to say about the economic crisis of our timesThere should be no champagne corks popping because the Royal Bank of Scotland has made its first profit in 10 years. For years RBS got drunk on its own hubris. When the financial crisis struck in 2008, its balance sheet – at £2.2 trillion – was bigger than the entire UK economy. RBS ran to Gordon Brown’s governm
  
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• Meghan Markle Appoints Amy Pickerill As Her 'Girl Friday': What It Really Takes To Be A Top Royal Aide

  23-02-2018 18:22
  “Expect to see her everywhere Meghan goes, making sure things run like clockwork,” says royal commentator Claudia Joseph of Meghan Markle’s top new aide.“Amy Pickerill will be the lynchpin in Meghan’s team, her right-hand woman, confidante and girl Friday.”It was revealed this week that Pickerill - whom Kensington Palace describes as an “assistant private secretary in Prince Harry’s office” - is now responsible for managin
  
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• Rebels press May with demand for UK to stay in customs union

  23-02-2018 18:11 via ft.com
  New cross-party threat emerges hours after PM and cabinet agree Brexit strategy
  
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• May cannot lead on Brexit. Here’s Corbyn’s chance to seize the day | Jonathan Freedland

  23-02-2018 18:11 via theguardian.com
  The Tory cabinet awayday produced only meaningless jargon. On Monday, the Labour leader must act like a prime ministerYou’re not being fired. Heavens, no. You and the company are merely going through what we call an “ambitious managed divergence”. The torture Brexit inflicts on the English language escalates daily, the latest indignity being the euphemism coined after the tellingly named Brexit war cabinet had an eight-hour session among the whiteboards at Chequers on Thursday.
  
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• In Eastern Ghouta, You Can Deliberately Murder Children And No One Will Stop You

  23-02-2018 18:04
  An illegal slaughter is taking place in Eastern Ghouta as result of one of the most brutal bombardments of the Syrian conflict. In the past three days alone, the death toll has reached more than 300, and continues to climb. The numbers of children among the dead are hard to confirm, and numbers creep up by the hour, but make no mistake – children are paying the ultimate price in this brutal war. The videos spreading around social media and news websites of grieving parents and bleeding chi
  
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• Not All Female Work Colleagues Will Be Friends. Get Over It

  23-02-2018 17:51
  When I worked in a bank back in my early 20s it was my first ‘proper’ job. Before then I had been at college (mainly bumming about) and then worked in retail for a bit before deciding I wanted to earn more money and meet new people.Lucky for me I met some amazing new people, two of which are still very close friends to this day and I’m pretty sure will be for as long as I live. They are funny, clever, loyal, truthful, opinionated, interesting and they are two of the best friend
  
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• Black Panther, Representation And Me

  23-02-2018 17:50
  As I sat down in the Leicester cinema and took my singular seat, as the adverts and trailers began to roll, and as I took a deep breath, I found myself looking around discreetly and clocking all the other people attending this 2:40pm showing of Black Panther. It was half term in the UK so of course there were children with their parents, many of the families of colour, some of not, there were teens, students, some couples, some friends and some people alone like myself.As I squinted and craned m
  
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• It Is Time To Recognise Loneliness As An Epidemic

  23-02-2018 17:49
  Many mortal illnesses are close to being cured, but there is one still barely acknowledged, and it’s an epidemic: Loneliness.Illness? I think so, an insidious, creeping menace; cruel, unforgiving and invisible, an embarrassment for many to even acknowledge.  And whilst we should applaud the Prime Minister for recently giving a minister responsibility for it, what a shame it’s been dumped with one based in the department for culture, media and sport, of all places.Loneliness is a
  
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• I Lost My Daughter To Rett Syndrome - Now I'm Sharing My Story To Help Others

  23-02-2018 17:48
  When you are facing some of your hardest moments you can take some comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone. People crave for stories of others who have lived through their journey’s. Companionship, empathy, understanding all these things are so desperately needed to survive. Sharing your story isn’t easy, personally right now I actually would like to run away from the identity of a ‘bereaved mother’. I would love nothing more than to pretend that I did not lose my
  
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• To Find A 'Cure' For Dementia - We Must Be Ambitious

  23-02-2018 17:45
  In 2013, leaders of the G7 nations agreed the goal of finding a cure or disease-modifying therapy for dementia by 2025. This ambitious commitment has the hallmarks of a ‘moonshot’: being thought almost impossible to achieve and requiring a radical shake-up of the global research landscape in terms of funding, political intent, regulation and co-ordination.Since then, we’ve seen all completed phase III trials of promising Alzheimer’s drugs fail, highlighting the scale of t
  
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• 'We're on our way,' says 96-year-old expat votes campaigner

  23-02-2018 17:42 via bbc.co.uk
  Harry Shindler, 96, celebrates as bill to give all British expats the vote moves a step closer to law.
  
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• To Tackle Bullying On ‘honesty’ Apps Like Sarahah We Must Understand What Drives Young People To Bully Their Peers

  23-02-2018 17:39
  Anyone who has heard me speak, or rant, on the issue will know I get immensely frustrated by all the negative news and scaremongering around social media.This may in part be due to my blind ignorance in this area - I mean I do own a Windows phone, and I occasionally Tweet, but that’s about it.But, I like to think that I despise the scare tactics around social media because I recognise the important and integral role it has in young people’s lives today and its positive realities and
  
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• Corbyn And The Czechs: Nonsense On Stilts

  23-02-2018 17:39
  Oh, how I wish more people remembered the recent past.Which Labour party leader was alleged by the CIA and some senior MI5 officials to be a Soviet agent?Which deranged publisher of a mass market red-top newspaper tried to involve the royal family in a plot to overthrow that same Labour prime minister?Which Labour leader sued the Sunday Times for libel ― and won ― after it suggested that he was regarded by the KGB as an ‘agent of influence’?Which Labour leader was alleged
  
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• Managing Mental Wellbeing in the Workplace: Can Health Tech Help?

  23-02-2018 17:34
  Reflecting on the many changes over my working life; starting in the City as a trainee accountant, when computers were the size of a room and auditors worked with Tipp-Ex and calculators; I recall the daily struggle and fear as I adapted to corporate life in a traditional, stiff upper lip environment, where admitting to stress was not an option!Thankfully, things have moved on and awareness of mental wellbeing at work is increasing; supported by charities, like MIND and even younger members of t
  
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• The Housing Crisis Blighting The Lives Of Britain’s Millennials

  23-02-2018 17:30
  The latest report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) on home ownership makes grim reading for our millennials (25 to 34 year olds). The number of young adults with a household after-tax income of between £22,200 and £30,600, owning their own home dropped from 65% in 1995 to 27% in 2016. During the period under study (1995-2016)house prices on average have increased by 152%. Their wages, however, have increased by only 22%, while GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita has inc
  
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• Is The Care Sector Really A 'Cinderella?'

  23-02-2018 17:27
  Some day, my prince will come...Much like fairytale Cinderella, the care sector is strikingly undervalued. Care workers do invaluable work many in society wouldn’t do – yet so many of us rely on.As the Chief Executive of a not-for-profit provider of social care for adults with learning disabilities and autism I know the social care sector is taken for granted and underfunded, year after year. The work my colleagues do is incredibly important and makes a real difference in people&rsqu
  
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• I Am A PhD Student Who Just Started Teaching - But Here's Why I'm On Strike

  23-02-2018 17:25
  I am a first year PhD student at the University of Bath. I decided in my second semester that I wanted to start working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA). Several reasons motivated this – including gaining experience teaching, understand whether teaching was something I enjoyed, and of course some extra money.I was assigned to a course on international politics and development and started to prepare for teaching with a mixture of nerves and excitement, delivering my first four seminar
  
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• I Worked For Oxfam For Eight Years. Its Aid Is Vital But The Sector Must Change

  23-02-2018 17:23
  I left Oxfam over a year ago, after eight years with the organisation. Over the last few weeks, I’ve felt ashamed and conflicted. I’ve had an instinctive urge to defend an organisation that I love, without wanting to excuse wrongdoing or minimise the pain experienced by the abused women. As we are learning, what happened in Oxfam is not unique to Oxfam – this should be a wake-up call for the entire sector. If the current revelations lead to a transformational #MeToo moment
  
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• Donald Trump Jokes He 'Tries Like Hell' To Hide His Bald Spot

  23-02-2018 16:47
  Donald Trump has joked he tries “like hell” to hid his bald spot, The US President opened a speech to the the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) conference on Friday by turning his back to the audience and touching his head.“I try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks. I work hard at it. Doesn’t look bad. Hey? We’re hanging in. We’re hanging in there. Together we’re hanging in,” he joked.Trump’s speech came just over a wee
  
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• Brexit: Remain bus visit to Liverpool met by Mogg fans

  23-02-2018 16:37 via bbc.co.uk
  A trio of campaigners wearing Jacob Rees-Mogg masks photo-bomb a live TV interview.
  
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• McGinn bill for MPs to vote on N Ireland equal marriage

  23-02-2018 16:30 via bbc.co.uk
  An MP representing an English seat wants the UK Parliament to vote on allowing equal marriage in Northern Ireland.
  
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• EU citizens: how has Brexit affected your long term plans?

  23-02-2018 16:30 via theguardian.com
  We want to hear from EU citizens on how they have been coping with Brexit uncertainty
  We want to hear from EU citizens on how Brexit has affected them so far.Recent data suggests Brexit uncertainty has affected numbers moving to the UK, as net annual migration of EU nationals has fallen to 75,000 in the past year, the lowest level since 2012. Continue reading...
  
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• Jason Gardiner Rejects Ex-'Strictly' Pro Brendan Cole As Potential ‘Dancing On Ice’ Judge

  23-02-2018 16:26
  Jason Gardiner isn’t up for the idea of axed ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ pro Brendan Cole joining the ‘Dancing On Ice’ panel, claiming it would look like the ITV show was getting the BBC’s “sloppy seconds”. It had been reported ‘DOI’ bosses were eyeing Brendan up to join the panel of the skating competition, after he was let go from his role as a professional on rival show ‘Strictly’ after 14 years last month. But spea
  
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• MPs May Have To Ask The Queen's Permission For Parliament Refurb

  23-02-2018 16:24
  MPs may have to ask permission from the Queen before a costly refurbishment of Parliament goes ahead. The House of Commons and House of Lords are preparing to “decant” to another location while essential repairs to the Palace of Westminster are carried out. MPs voted to allow the move to go ahead last month, but the government had admitted the ambitious project may not be able to get underway without the royal nod.In response to a written question from prominent historian a
  
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• The Good Friday agreement is under attack. Can we really risk ditching it? | Ian Jack

  23-02-2018 16:23 via theguardian.com
  How quickly Brexiteers seem to have forgotten the past. No one wants to see troops on the streets of Northern Ireland againMany years ago, and mainly because of the way it looked, I bought a book called Handbook of the Ulster Question, which was published by the Stationery Office, Dublin, in 1923. It has a green cardboard binding and a front cover decorated in the Celtic revival style, which the Irish Free State also adopted for its postage stamps.An empty wallet inside the back cover once
  
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• Coventry Hit-And-Run: Mother Of Two Sons Killed Pays Tribute To 'Amazing' Boys

  23-02-2018 16:18
  A mother whose two sons died in a hit-and-run in Coventry has described them as “amazing” boys who will be “deeply missed”.Louise Platt-May said Corey, six, was “an amazing boy” and Casper, two, was “so loving and caring”.The brothers were with their mother when they were fatally injured by a black Ford Focus around 2pm on Thursday. Platt-May was unhurt.A car was found abandoned a short time after the crash nearby.The boys were rushed to
  
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• George Galloway advice for Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit

  23-02-2018 16:11 via bbc.co.uk
  The Labour leader should keep a 'poker face' while the PM "plays a terrible hand over in Brussels" says George Galloway.
  
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