Political news

• AI can reduce UK cancer deaths by 10%, says Theresa May

  20-05-2018 23:33 via ft.com
  Prime minister sets targets for science and artificial intelligence
  
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• May to pledge millions to AI research assisting early cancer diagnosis

  20-05-2018 23:30
  Industrial strategy plans to develop artificial intelligence using algorithms built from NHS patient dataTheresa May will pledge millions of pounds of government funding to develop artificial intelligence able to transform outcomes through early diagnosis of cancer and chronic disease.In a speech in Mansfield on Monday that is being billed as the first of a series on industrial strategy, May will say: “Late diagnosis of otherwise treatable illnesses is one of the biggest causes of avoidabl
  
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• Boris Johnson: we want a deal with the EU, not a customs backstop

  20-05-2018 23:30
  The backstop option would keep Britain aligned to the customs union beyond 2020Boris Johnson has delivered a thinly-veiled warning to Theresa May that he and his fellow Brexiters still expect her to deliver a deal that avoids triggering the “backstop” that would keep Britain aligned to the customs union beyond 2020.The foreign secretary lost the argument in last week’s Brexit inner cabinet, when senior ministers agreed the UK would retain key aspects of the customs union if a s
  
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• Boris Johnson lays wreath in Argentina for Falklands soldiers

  20-05-2018 21:00
  UK foreign secretary also plans to hold talks with president Mauricio MacriThe UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has laid a wreath in Buenos Aires to commemorate those who died in the 1982 Falklands conflict.Johnson is the first foreign secretary to visit Argentina since 1993, during the second leg of a trade visit to South America. He was visiting the Monumento a los caídos en Malvinas – Malvinas being the name by which Argentinians know the islands in the south Atlantic –
  
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• John Bercow to face Andrea Leadsom after 'stupid woman' row

  20-05-2018 20:57
  House leader believed not to want to make complaint so as not to jeopardise planned grievance policy John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, will face Andrea Leadsom on Monday for the first time since claims he called her “a stupid woman” after angry exchanges during Wednesday’s business in the House and a later exchange in which, it is claimed, he called the leader of the Commons a liar.Their encounter will come as MPs are set to debate a technical motion on whether
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn urged to clarify Labour's position on Brexit

  20-05-2018 20:17
  ‘Hard work’ to stop anti-hard Brexit voters turning to Lib Dems for Lewisham byelectionThe Labour leadership faces mounting pressure to clarify its position on Brexit after the local party in Lewisham selected a candidate who backs staying in the single market and the party’s international trade spokesman, Barry Gardiner, struggled to explain Labour’s position on the issue.Gardiner was appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in his first full interview after a recor
  
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• The Guardian view on Brexit and the royal wedding: which is the real Britain? | Editorial

  20-05-2018 19:26
  The royal wedding was newly inclusive. But Brexit seeks to close doors, not open them. Referendums in Britain and Ireland challenge those nations to decide where they are headingEvery ancient nation takes the long walk to modernity in its own roundabout way. None is as ramrod straight as the Long Walk in Windsor Great Park down which the royal newlyweds were driven through happy crowds on a memorable and sun-kissed Saturday. National journeys between past and present are more tortuous. Interrupt
  
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• Tories will struggle to turn desire to regulate internet into policy | Jim Waterson

  20-05-2018 19:03
  Matt Hancock wants to rein in internet excess – just don’t ask him how it will work in realityTowards the end of the Conservatives’ 2017 general election manifesto was a largely overlooked chapter setting out the party’s stance on the future of the internet.
  “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet,” it said. “We disagree.” Continue reading...
  
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• Harry and Meghan, or hostile environment: which is the real spirit of Britain? | Matthew d’Ancona

  20-05-2018 18:11
  The royal wedding shows off a modern and open nation – yet the Brexit vote, and intolerance over immigration, implies the oppositeThe rest of the world is baffled by Britain – and understandably so. In the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, directed by Danny Boyle, we dramatised a confidence, openness and multiplicity that only a nation at ease with itself could muster. The global “soft power” of our language, cultural and scientific institutions, and internati
  
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• Grenfell inquiry faces tough challenges to satisfy critics

  20-05-2018 17:34 via ft.com
  Martin Moore-Bick’s task is to uncover the causes of the fire that killed 71 people
  
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• UK has not renewed Roman Abramovich’s visa

  20-05-2018 14:41 via ft.com
  Oligarch and owner of Chelsea football club returns to Russia
  
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• New internet laws pledged as social media firms snub talks

  20-05-2018 14:20 via bbc.co.uk
  Only four of 14 firms invited for talks turned up, culture secretary admits, as he pledges new laws.
  
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• UKIP 'should fold' if Brexit done right, says ex-Welsh leader

  20-05-2018 14:03 via bbc.co.uk
  Former Welsh leader Nathan Gill says UKIP has no future and should end after Brexit.
  
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• Shadow minister under fire over private remarks on Irish border

  20-05-2018 13:49
  Barry Gardiner questioned about suggestion there are political reasons for playing up the issueThe shadow international trade secretary, Barry Gardiner, faced questions over whether he tells the truth in private or on television, during a heated interview that was labelled a “car crash” by the Conservatives.
  During an interview on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show, Gardiner was repeatedly asked about remarks he had made in private in which he said people were playing up the Irish bord
  
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• Sturgeon: Growth commission will 'restart' independence debate

  20-05-2018 13:42 via bbc.co.uk
  But Scotland's first minister says she won't decide on a second indy vote until the Brexit deal is clearer.
  
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• Brexit: MP Barry Gardiner pressed on 'playing up' remark

  20-05-2018 13:31 via bbc.co.uk
  Emma Barnett asked the Labour MP if he stands by remarks that people are playing 'up the issue of the Irish border'.
  
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• Law to rein in social media firms still two years away, says Hancock

  20-05-2018 13:25
  Culture secretary says four out of 14 firms turned up when invited to discuss clampdownThe high-profile launch of a campaign to clamp down on social media firms has backfired, as the culture secretary, Matt Hancock, admitted it was likely to be two years before there was any new law.In a round of media interviews, Hancock said there was no date for legislation but it would be in the “next couple of years”, and he said he was launching a consultation document ahead of a white paper in
  
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• In Erdoğan’s warped world, even intellectuals are now ‘terrorists’ | Kenan Malik

  20-05-2018 12:59
  Turkey’s president is destroying civil society, hardly noted when he was here last weekImagine a seminar in London. Around the table are Blairites and Corbynistas, Ukippers and Remainers, Scottish Nationalists and Tory Eurosceptics, Islamists and English Defence Leaguers, radical feminists and transgender activists. All discussing Britain’s political future, with deep disagreements but with mutual respect.It would be difficult to picture this in London. Still less that a similar semi
  
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• Pienaar's Politics podcast

  20-05-2018 12:31 via bbc.co.uk
  John Pienaar interviews Len McCluskey, Margot James, Angela Eagle and Alexander Willis. Plus pundits Harry Cole and Kate Devlin.
  
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• Boris Johnson escapes Brexit troubles to feed manatees in Peru

  20-05-2018 10:55
  Foreign secretary kicks off Latin American tour which he hopes will highlight trade opportunities Boris Johnson has put the customs union row 6,000 miles behind him as he kicked off a five-day trip to Latin America by feeding rescued manatees in the Peruvian rainforest.After a bruising week in which he was outnumbered in Theresa May’s Brexit inner cabinet over the backstop plan for Northern Ireland, the foreign secretary was back to his day job of showcasing Britain. Continue reading...
  
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• It’s said Brexit is ‘not going to plan’. Did we ever have a plan? | William Keegan

  20-05-2018 08:00
  The chaotic negotiations both within the Tory party and without means we need to consider an alternative: not leavingYour correspondent is not as well up on social media as his wife and children, but I could not help noticing a slogan posted beneath a London traffic light the other day. It claimed to be from the Instagram project Notes to Strangers – new to me, I must confess – and confidently proclaimed: “Having a Plan B will make your Plan A unsuccessful”.This was on ye
  
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• Vote Leave faces scrutiny over £50m football contest

  20-05-2018 07:59
  Facebook letter to MPs may refer to sports competition data harvested by Vote LeaveA data-harvesting competition that offered football fans the chance to win £50m is at the centre of new questions about pro-Brexit campaigning before the 2016 EU referendum.Last week the select committee for digital, culture, media and sport released a letter Facebook sent to the Electoral Commission in which it said that two campaigns, Vote Leave and BeLeave, used three sets of data to target audiences, not
  
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• Brexit realists take control as May slaps down Rees-Mogg

  20-05-2018 07:59
  The prime minister finally gave the arch-Brexiter MP a dressing down last week as she took on the cabinet’s LeaversIt was the moment that pro-Remain Conservative MPs had been longing for, but feared would never happen – when the prime minister cut the arch-Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg down to size. One MP who witnessed Theresa May’s newfound assertiveness likened it to a long-suffering teacher finally losing patience with the class know-all. “She just slapped him down, decisi
  
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• Secret Brexit deal could threaten scotch whisky

  20-05-2018 01:05
  Spirit is under threat from US imports in classified talks to remove barriers to tradeA post-Brexit trade deal with the US could mean whiskey galore for the UK.But while drinkers might be celebrating, this could be bad news for scotch whisky distillers who are being warned that their industry faces a glut of imports from US producers if trade barriers come down once the UK leaves the EU. Continue reading...
  
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• Return to common market principles is best way to leave EU

  20-05-2018 01:05
  Joining Efta and remaining in the European Economic Area would protect Britain’s economy, jobs and businessesNow is the time for realism and pragmatism. The clock is ticking, and major questions about our future relationship with the EU remain unanswered. Our new customs and regulatory arrangements must reflect the needs of British businesses and protect the livelihood of UK workers.So it’s no wonder that an off-the-shelf, already-tested model such as Efta/EEA (European Free Trade As
  
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• Cleaning up the streets - cartoon

  20-05-2018 01:05
  David Simonds on the fate of the homeless in Windsor before the royal weddingContinue reading...
  
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