Political news

• Government sees off 'Leveson two' bid in Commons vote

  09-05-2018 23:47 via bbc.co.uk
  The government heads off a Commons defeat on re-launching the Leveson inquiry into press standards.
  
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• Data rules threaten 'last avenue' used in thousands of immigration cases

  09-05-2018 22:54
  Home Office figures show there were almost 25,950 subject access requests for files in 2016Tens of thousands of people each year could be prevented from obtaining information about their own immigration status under new data protection powers, Home Office figures reveal.Changes proposed in the data protection bill, which was debated by MPs on Wednesday, would deprive applicants of a reliable means of obtaining files on themselves from the department through what are known as subject access reque
  
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• Vote against new Leveson inquiry not the end for Hacked Off campaigners

  09-05-2018 21:38
  The newspaper industry and Tory ministers secured a narrow victory thanks to the DUPWhen it was announced on Wednesday afternoon that MPs had rejected a new Leveson-style inquiry into the media by 304 votes to 295, the newspaper industry – and Conservative ministers – celebrated a narrow victory which they hoped would settle the issue for good.Press regulation campaigners felt otherwise. Continue reading...
  
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• Steve Bell on EU leaders' lack of influence over Donald Trump – cartoon

  09-05-2018 21:34
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• Labour hoping to force government’s hand on final Brexit vote

  09-05-2018 20:39 via ft.com
  Corbyn unlikely to back move to keep UK in single market
  
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• UK newspapers claim MPs vote is victory for press freedom

  09-05-2018 20:23 via ft.com
  Commons narrowly rejects case for a new inquiry into media behaviour
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn says Tory divisions over Brexit are a shambles

  09-05-2018 19:59
  Labour leader goes on attack at PMQs, highlighting Boris Johnson’s dismissal of PM’s preferred customs solutionJeremy Corbyn sought to exploit Tory divisions over Brexit in the House of Commons on Wednesday, as he accused Theresa May of presiding over a shambles.At prime minister’s questions, the Labour leader said the prime minister had had “23 months to negotiate an agreement” with her cabinet, but was yet to agree what customs arrangement she wants to strike with
  
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• Sunday Telegraph pays damages to mosque chief over Corbyn article

  09-05-2018 19:51
  Story falsely portrayed Mohammed Kozbar as supporter of violent extremism in attempt to criticise Labour leader Jeremy CorbynThe Sunday Telegraph has paid “substantial damages” to the general secretary of Finsbury Park mosque after it falsely portrayed him as a supporter of violent lslamist extremism as part of a botched attempt to criticise the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.In March 2016 the newspaper published an article headlined: “Corbyn and the mosque leader who blames the
  
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• Suddenly, soft Brexit can happen. Thank the Lords | Martin Kettle

  09-05-2018 19:43
  The assault on the Brexit bill – inspired by the Duke of Wellington – has emboldened Tory moderates. This could be their momentNext week the EU withdrawal bill finally emerges from the House of Lords. The bill is now a very different piece of legislation to the one launched in the Commons by David Davis last September. It was significantly amended in the Commons just before Christmas. Now the Lords have fundamentally transformed it. MPs must therefore decide what to do with the many
  
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• The Guardian view on party members: a vital voice, but not a veto | Editorial

  09-05-2018 19:34
  More people joining political parties is good for democracy but so is the habit of listening to those who are less actively engagedPresident Richard Nixon famously invoked the support of “the great silent majority” of his fellow Americans, in defiance of protests against the Vietnam war. He was not the first or last politician to imagine that noisy opposition conceals a friendlier national mood. People prefer praise to criticism, so assume that the latter is exaggerated. Bu
  
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• The Guardian view on Iran’s nuclear deal: Trump creates a narrative for war | Editorial

  09-05-2018 19:34
  The US president’s invective is dangerous but should surprise no one. He relies on assertions that reinforce prejudices but have no basis in factDonald Trump’s voice in foreign affairs is one that slips between brash arrogance and oily smugness. He touts supremacy from behind thinly concealed contempt. In withdrawing America from the Iran nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Mr Trump risks pushing Iran out into the cold, triggeri
  
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• Migration officials' access to NHS records tightened

  09-05-2018 19:33 via bbc.co.uk
  The government agrees to act after MPs raise concerns about patient confidentiality.
  
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• Barristers step up legal aid dispute with ministers

  09-05-2018 19:27 via ft.com
  Lawyers’ body urges members not to plug gaps in defendants’ representation at trials
  
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• Labour accuse Tories of 'shameless capitulation to press barons' after vote against Leveson 2 inquiry - Politics live

  09-05-2018 18:50
  Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQsPMQs - Snap verdictAfternoon summary 5.25pm BST The TV sector is failing to reflect the diversity of its audiences. Women continue to be under-represented and that is particularly true for women over the age of 50, and there is a real disparity in the proportion of women in senior positions.Ethnic minority employees are significantly under-represented and there is a huge gap
  
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• Angry Ed Miliband demands press inquiry

  09-05-2018 18:47 via bbc.co.uk
  Ed Miliband says the government should implement part two of the Leveson inquiry into press standards.
  
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• Corbyn 2.0 comes out swinging – and floors May by sticking to the script | John Crace

  09-05-2018 18:43
  At PMQs, the Labour leader has a revolutionary plan: ask the questions the country wants answered At some point in the last week the Labour leader has undergone a major reboot. At recent prime minister’s questions Jeremy Corbyn’s main achievement has been to make Theresa May appear less hopeless than she really is by failing to speak in joined-up sentences or asking questions even he couldn’t understand. All the prime minister had to do to survive unscathed was stand up and ans
  
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• Britain lobbies for right to host 2020 climate meeting

  09-05-2018 18:39 via ft.com
  Conservative government wants to point up its green credentials and draw younger voters
  
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• NHS will no longer have to share immigrants' data with Home Office

  09-05-2018 17:46
  Exclusive: minister announces U-turn over key element in ‘hostile environment’ immigration policyMinisters have suspended controversial arrangements under which the NHS shared patients’ details with the Home Office so it could trace people breaking immigration rules.The government’s U-turn on a key element of its “hostile environment” approach to immigration came after MPs, doctors’ groups and health charities warned that the practice was scaring some pa
  
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• British LGBT Awards: 8 Reasons To Look Forward To This Week's Ceremony

  09-05-2018 17:44
  It’s hard to believe it’s been 12 months since the last British LGBT Awards but this Friday (11 May), the annual ceremony returns to London. As always, there’s plenty to look forward to. Here’s a teaser of what to expect from this year’s event..1. Mel B’s hosting After some time out of the spotlight, Mel B has been back on our screens (and teasing Spice Girls reunion plans) in recent weeks. Friday’s ceremony will see her take on hosting duties
  
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• Incremental Change Isn't A Win. Stagnation Is The Enemy of Progress

  09-05-2018 17:42
  Here we go again. Another election. Another night in which the Towns rejected Labour but Corbynistas cling to city results as “evidence” their experiment is working.Up until Thursday I was the Leader of Basildon Council. The Council was hung and the Tories needed four seats to win back overall control. No one thought they had a prayer.That’s until they started counting the votes.Frustration doesn’t come close to describing the mood amongst the majority in the Basildon Lab
  
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• Arron Banks company provided £12m of services to Leave.EU

  09-05-2018 17:42
  ‘Administrative services’ were provided prior to £700,000 spending cap taking effectLeave.EU received more than £12m of campaign services from a company controlled by the businessman Arron Banks, despite its referendum spending being capped at £700,000.A business associate of Banks said the services were provided prior to the referendum spending cap taking effect in April 2016, and therefore entirely legal. Continue reading...
  
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• The Single Market Is The Public's Preferred Brexit Deal - The Lords Were Right To Put It Back On The Table

  09-05-2018 17:40
  We live in interesting times. On Tuesday night both frontbenches in the Lords suffered defeat – on the same division. Peers voted to put the Single Market back on the table against the wishes of both major parties. What is going on?They used to joke that command and control was so severe that parliamentarians wore pagers (ask your parents) so the whips could tell them when to breathe. Today, politics has never been more atomised. The Labour Party is split between its front and backben
  
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• History Will Judge Eta As A Failed Terrorist Group, But There Are Lessons To Be Learned

  09-05-2018 17:39
  The reaction of Alfonso Alonso, the leader of Spain’s governing Popular Party in the Basque region, when asked to comment on Eta’s decision to dissolve itself, spoke volumes about the trauma and the poison the separatist group’s decades of violence has inflicted on Spanish society. “Neither Eta’s history nor its responsibility can be dissolved’, he said. ’We will never forgive them.”The bitterness is understandable. For Spain, and the Basque region
  
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• Theresa May defeats bid to make her launch part two of Leveson inquiry

  09-05-2018 17:36
  Government narrowly holds off Labour attempt to force it to strengthen media regulationThe culture secretary, Matt Hancock, hailed “a great day for a free and fair press” on Wednesday, after the government narrowly defeated a Labour bid to force it to launch a second phase of the Leveson inquiry.The former Labour leader Ed Miliband had tabled an amendment to the government’s data protection bill, aimed at reopening the Leveson inquiry, which was initially conceived when it was
  
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• Furious Ed Miliband Accuses Government Of Breaking Promises Over Leveson

  09-05-2018 17:21
  Ed Miliband has blasted the government for “breaking promises” over stage two of an investigation into press regulation, as his bid to force it through was defeated by nine votes.In a furious Commons intervention, the former Labour leader said ministers would be letting down victims of phone-hacking and other media intrusion if they go ahead with plans to cancel the second part of the Leveson inquiry.Miliband, along with Tory stalwart Ken Clarke, tabled an amendment to the government
  
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• The Road Ahead For The Iran Deal

  09-05-2018 17:16
  The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was heralded as a product of an extremely difficult and protracted series of dialogues with Iran that began with the Europeans, and eventually involved the Americans, Russia, the Chinese and the European Union (EU). At that time, President Obama said, “the United States together with the international community has achieved something that decades of animosity has not: a comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obta
  
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• Troubles investigations are skewed against veterans, May says

  09-05-2018 17:15
  PM appears to back concerns that ex-soldiers may be soft targets for new NI investigations unit without further protections Theresa May has given her tacit backing to cabinet ministers concerned that veterans may be unfairly pursued under plans for a new unit to investigate killings in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, calling the current system “patently unfair”.Cabinet ministers are divided over plans for the creation of a historical investigations unit, which the government ag
  
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• Andy Burnham sees more devolution as ‘best answer’ to Brexit

  09-05-2018 17:11 via ft.com
  Manchester mayor says power transfer to regions will reduce damage of leaving EU
  
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• The ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ – the supposed thinking wing of the alt-right

  09-05-2018 17:06
  Among their number is political correctness scourge Jordan Peterson and controversialist Milo Yiannopoulos – and they feel shut out of mainstream political debate. Unfortunately, some people are listening to themName: the Intellectual Dark Web.Age: Nobody knows. Continue reading...
  
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• Why Is Peter Kay's 'Car Share' Picking On Trans People For Cheap Laughs?

  09-05-2018 16:58
  The beautiful weather that we all basked in over the Bank Holiday weekend was the undoubted highlight of the three-day break, but the prospect of a brand new episode of Car Share came a close second.I’d never really got the appeal of Peter Kay until Car Share first aired in 2015. I knew he was massively popular but he just wasn’t on my radar. But then along came this brilliantly written, warm and hugely funny snapshot of British life. I was sold. I loved the fact that John (Pete
  
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• Iran nuclear deal: UK won't walk away, says Boris Johnson

  09-05-2018 16:51 via bbc.co.uk
  The foreign secretary says the nuclear deal is working but some Tory MPs back Donald Trump's stance.
  
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• Recep Tayyip Erdogan to visit UK this weekend

  09-05-2018 16:48 via ft.com
  May likely to face criticism over Turkish president meeting Queen and PM
  
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• Recep Tayyip Erdogan to start 3-day UK trip on Sunday

  09-05-2018 16:48 via ft.com
  May faces criticism over Turkish president meeting Queen and PM
  
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• UK universities alarmed by poaching of top computer science brains

  09-05-2018 16:38 via ft.com
  Higher salaries and greater resources luring professors to US tech giants
  
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• The 'hostile environment' made me feel like an alien: Windrush victim – video

  09-05-2018 16:33
  Paulette Wilson and her daughter Natalie Barnes speak about how the Home Office's policy affected them after Paulette, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1968 when she was 10 and has never left, was classed as an illegal immigrant, taken to the Yarl’s Wood removal centre and threatened with deportation Continue reading...
  
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• Andrew Neil reviews PMQs with Steve Barclay and Anneliese Dodds

  09-05-2018 16:24 via bbc.co.uk
  Andrew Neil with highlights and analysis of PMQs. include Health Minister Steve Barclay and Shadow Treasury Minister Anneliese Dodds.
  
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• Outrage As Sheffield Pride Says Event Is A 'Celebration, Not Protest' And Bans Political Groups

  09-05-2018 16:21
  The organisers of this year’s Pride march in Sheffield event have been accused of whitewashing the history of the LGBT+ community after they announced “offensive” banners will not be allowed on the march.In a statement widely shared on social media, Pride Sheffield said this year’s march was one of “celebration not protest”, while a message on its website said it would not be accepting “any applications by political groups” for
  
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• Private hospitals’ business model is archaic, unsafe and indefensible | Colin Leys

  09-05-2018 15:59
  With a growing share of NHS-funded surgery being outsourced, Jeremy Hunt’s warning over risks is long overdueJeremy Hunt’s call for private hospital companies to improve their safety and quality standards after a damning report on the sector by the regulator marks a long overdue – though still tacit – acknowledgment that the private sector’s business model is based on an archaic and dangerous concept of medical practice. Usually in private hospitals an independent s
  
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• Waymo Will Launch The First Truly Self-Driving Taxi Service This Year

  09-05-2018 15:56
  Google’s self-driving car company Waymo has announced that it will launch the first driverless taxi service this year.It will launch in Phoenix, Arizona where Waymo has been testing its self-driving cars in earnest since last November. The cars can be summoned using an app and customers will have to pay just like any other taxi service.Initially the service was free to use but it came with some significant limitations. The first was that you could only travel within a very specific locatio
  
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• 'Spycops' Inquiry Head Voices Concern About Rising Costs As Hearing Resumes In Empty Courtroom

  09-05-2018 15:50
  The judge chairing the “spycops” investigation into undercover policing has voiced fears the inquiry is wasting taxpayer money, after no one turned up to the latest hearing. Sir John Mitting said he would be reconsidering holding open hearings in the future, telling the empty court: “There is no point in spending taxpayer’s money either directly or via the police funds on hearings that serve no purpose.” The court had been informed that participants would
  
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• Bouncy Castle Trial: Married Fairground Workers Found Guilty Of Manslaughter After Death Of 7-Year-Old Girl

  09-05-2018 15:37
  Two fairground workers have been found guilty of manslaughter of a girl who died after a bouncy castle blew away with her inside it at an Easter fair. Summer Grant, who was seven-years-old, died in hospital after the incident at a fair in Harlow, Essex in March 2016. William and Shelby Thurston, a married couple, were found guilty of gross negligence by majority verdict at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday. Thurston, 29, and his wife Shelby, 26, both denied the charge but we
  
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• 14 Things We Learned About ‘Grease’ When Didi Conn Spilled The Beans On ‘BUILD’

  09-05-2018 15:34
  To commemorate the 40th anniversary of ‘Grease’, Didi Conn - best known to film fans as Frenchy - sat down on ‘BUILD’ to reflect on the film and its legacy.Over the course of the candid interview, Didi delivered plenty of laughs and spilled a whole lot of gossip, from secret liaisons on the ‘Grease’ set to various sequels that ultimately wound up being canned along the way.Here are 14 things we learned about ‘Grease’ from Didi’s ‘B
  
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• PMQs: Corbyn and May on new UK-EU customs agreement

  09-05-2018 15:33 via bbc.co.uk
  Jeremy Corbyn says the PM is "presiding over a divided cabinet" and asks her preferred option for a new trade deal and when it would be ready.
  
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• 'These negotiations are in a shambles'

  09-05-2018 15:32 via bbc.co.uk
  Jeremy Corbyn says the PM has had 23 months to get ready for the trade bills and customs bill and asks when MPs will get to debate them.
  
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• Brexit to 'force work on Galileo sat-nav system out of UK'

  09-05-2018 15:31 via bbc.co.uk
  An Airbus executive says future UK work on the Galileo sat-nav system would have to be moved to the continent because of Brexit.
  
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• Why Is There Sheep's Wool Grease In My Cereal?

  09-05-2018 15:22
  An unlikely ingredient is cropping up in cereals everywhere - and vegans are understandably upset about it.The Telegraph has reported that popular breakfast cereals including Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes and Cheerios contain a type of vitamin D which derives from sheep’s wool grease. That’s right.Many cereals are fortified with vitamin D in order to keep us healthy. The vitamin is essential for controlling the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body, which keep bones, teeth and mus
  
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• Scott Hutchison Missing: Police Appeal For Information On Frightened Rabbit Singer’s Disappearance

  09-05-2018 15:21
  Concerns are growing following the disappearance of Scott Hutchison, the lead singer of Scottish band Frightened Rabbit. Scott, 36, was last seen at the Dakota hotel in South Queensferry, west of Edinburgh, at 1am on Wednesday (9 May). Police are appealing for information.Inspector Graeme Dignan said (via the BBC): “We are keen to locate Scott as soon as possible to ensure he is safe and well and would urge anyone who can assist with our ongoing inquiries to come forward.“If you beli
  
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• Donald Trump's White House Has 'No Plan' To Bomb Iran, Says Boris Johnson

  09-05-2018 15:16
  Boris Johnson has insisted the United States has no plan to bomb Iran after Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal.Britain is scrambling with key European allies to keep alive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) amid fears of a new confrontation in the region.“After closely interrogating everybody I could find in the White House, there is no enthusiasm for a military option in the US and there is no such plan,” the foreign secretary told the Commons on Wednesday.The J
  
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• Because Of ME, I Can Only Imagine Being The Mum That Others Get To Be

  09-05-2018 15:15
  Downstairs, my two-year-old son, Lucas, is playing. He’s a beautiful, clever and sweet little boy who lights up my entire world.Upstairs, I lie in a single bed, trapped in the shell of a body; bedridden permanently and suffering dozens of symptoms that mean that on most days the most I can do is crawl to the commode just a metre away.Because of ME, I can only imagine being the mum that others get to be. I can’t hold, touch, speak or hear him as the sensitivity has an unbearable effec
  
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• Three American Political Prisoners Released By North Korea, Donald Trump Announces

  09-05-2018 15:06
  The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, departed North Korea on Wednesday with three American prisoners with him, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter.In another sign that relations between the US and North Korea are warming in advance of a first-of-its-kind nuclear summit, Trump wrote the Secretary of State was “on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is so looking forward to meeting”. “They seem to be in go
  
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