Political news

• Martin Rowson on parliamentary recess – cartoon

  27-07-2018 21:48
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• HS2 costs taxpayers £4.1bn before work even begins

  27-07-2018 20:40 via ft.com
  Treasury agency rates project at high risk of not delivering value for money
  
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• UK MPs call for tax on Facebook to pay for policing data misuse

  27-07-2018 20:01 via ft.com
  Parliamentary probe only uncovered ‘tip of iceberg’ of Russian political interference
  
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• ‘No deal’ preferable to Brexit extension, claims Fox

  27-07-2018 19:59 via ft.com
  Voters growing impatient with time being taken to negotiate EU exit, says trade secretary
  
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• Olly Robbins: steely operator fighting on the Brexit frontline

  27-07-2018 19:52
  PM’s human shield is used to taking hits for his masters – but is he dangerously exposed?Long before he became the public face of the Brexit negotiations, Olly Robbins was well known to journalists at the Guardian. This week he has been castigated in the pro-leave press as a kind of Machiavelli secretly operating in the pro-European cause, “the unelected civil servant who has usurped the Brexit secretary and seized control of the negotiations,” according to the Telegraph.
  
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• Democracy at risk due to fake news and data misuse, MPs conclude

  27-07-2018 19:03
  Parliamentary inquiry to demand urgent action to combat ‘relentless targeting of hyper-partisan views’The Cambridge Analytica Files: read the Observer’s full investigationDemocracy is at risk unless the government and regulators take urgent action to combat a growing crisis of data manipulation, disinformation and so-called fake news, a parliamentary committee is expected to say.In damning conclusions to a report leaked by former Vote Leave campaign strategist Dominic Cummings
  
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• Yes, Jews are angry – because Labour hasn’t listened or shown any empathy | Jonathan Freedland

  27-07-2018 18:37
  The row over how to define antisemitism is not just about nuances of phrasing. Failure to consult Jewish opinion has destroyed all goodwillThis week I was in a house of mourning for an evening of prayers for the dead, part of what Jews call a shiva. We were there to remember a woman who had come to this country as a child refugee, having survived the Nazi concentration camp at Terezín, in what is now the Czech Republic. But I was struck by the words of the ancient prayers themselves, wond
  
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• Dominic Raab: the face that says, ‘I need to take back control of my sphincter’ | Marina Hyde

  27-07-2018 18:27
  The Brexit secretary’s Brussels trip didn’t quite go as he hoped. Instead it was a case of: take your plan to the EU. Get rinsed. RepeatEven for those who’ve been stockpiling I-told-you-sos for two years, there really is zero satisfaction in watching Brexit secretary Dominic Raab wanly assure a parliamentary committee that, post-Brexit, “there will be adequate food”. Just like the al-Qaida number three job used to be, the DExEU gig really is dead men’s shoes.
  
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• Law and justice, and divorce

  27-07-2018 18:22 via ft.com
  Britain’s Supreme Court forces couples to stay in failed marriages
  
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• Investor drops Alex Salmond from role in newspaper bid

  27-07-2018 18:01 via bbc.co.uk
  An activist investor says making Alex Salmond chairman of Johnston Press would be "too politically infected".
  
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• FCA sets out crackdown on peer-to-peer lending

  27-07-2018 17:56 via ft.com
  Fear grows that investors could be taking on more risk than they realise
  
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• Tech firms fear regulation nightmare if MPs get their way

  27-07-2018 17:36
  Report into fake news could put legal burden on firms such as Twitter and Facebook to remove harmful and illegal contentFacebook, Twitter and Google could face their worst regulation nightmares if the recommendations of parliament’s report into fake news, based on a leaked version published on Friday by the former campaign strategist for Vote Leave, come to pass.The report is expected to call for the creation of a new legal framework for regulating technology firms, tightening their liabil
  
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• EU may give UK unique Galileo deal after Brexit

  27-07-2018 17:13
  Police and armed forces could be guaranteed uninterrupted access to satellite signalBritish police and armed forces could be guaranteed uninterrupted access to the encrypted signal of the European Union’s Galileo satellite system, it has emerged, as Brussels negotiators consider a unique deal for the UK on the project after Brexit.
  The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, is mulling an offer on the satellite project that would put the UK on better terms than other third-part
  
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• Unions say action needed to protect UK workers in heatwave

  27-07-2018 17:08
  Warning of intolerable conditions as hospitals report rise in number of A&E visitsTrade unions have warned of intolerable working conditions for workers caused by extreme temperatures in Britain this summer, as some NHS hospitals report record numbers of people attending A&E because of the heat.The TUC said action was needed to protect workers from health risks posed by the abnormally high temperatures, as the mercury hit 34.1C in Norfolk on Friday, after Thursday’s year-high of 35
  
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• US growth figures won’t get any better than they are now for Trump | Larry Elliott

  27-07-2018 16:57
  Expect the US economy to slow in 2019 as tariffs start to bite and higher interest rates take effectFor once there can be no dispute about what Donald Trump says. The president has been boasting for months about how well the economy is doing and the latest set of official figures show that the president is absolutely right. The US is booming.It was not just that headline growth – American GDP was expanding at an annualised rate of 4.1% in the second quarter – that was strong. All the
  
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• Theresa May in Austria in attempt to revive Chequers Brexit plan

  27-07-2018 16:08
  Former minister says EU may leave UK facing choice between no deal or ‘final capitulation’Theresa May is launching a final pre-holiday push to get her Chequers plan back on track, as one of her former ministers said the EU’s attitude risked the UK facing a choice between a no-deal departure or “final capitulation” to Brussels.A day after Michel Barnier appeared to scupper a key element of the prime minister’s proposal by saying the UK could not collect EU tari
  
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• Week in Review: Grayling's toxic legacy falls apart… again

  27-07-2018 15:53
  
  Whenever Chris Grayling is shuffled off to a new department, the cleaners come in
  
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• Brexit blues and Corbyn concern mount in UK’s ‘happiest town’

  27-07-2018 15:50 via ft.com
  Royal Leamington Spa may look like a peaceful patch of middle England but anger is rising
  
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• Brexit youth group's Facebook ads reached mostly older audience

  27-07-2018 15:48
  Data shows scale of Vote Leave and BeLeave’s combined Facebook campaign for first time Vote Leave’s supposedly youth-focused sister group showed most of its Facebook advertising to older voters during the EU referendum campaign, according to data released by Facebook that bolsters the case that it was not a separate entity.This month, following a series of stories in the Observer, the Electoral Commission fined Vote Leave and BeLeave a combined £61,000 and reported individuals
  
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• Pro-Brexit Labour MPs face backlash from members

  27-07-2018 14:58 via ft.com
  Kate Hoey ‘quite relaxed’ after no-confidence vote with Frank Field up against own motion
  
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• Pro-Brexit Labour MP vows to fight any attempt to deselect her

  27-07-2018 14:58 via ft.com
  Kate Hoey suffers vote of no-confidence after being accused of ignoring constituents’ views
  
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• Labour MP Kate Hoey vows to fight deselection

  27-07-2018 14:39 via bbc.co.uk
  Local Labour activists pass a unanimous vote of no confidence in Brexit-backing Vauxhall MP.
  
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• Europe must wake up to the looming nightmare of a no-deal Brexit | Henry Newman

  27-07-2018 14:30
  A messy EU-UK divorce could rupture the entire western alliance. But will Europe’s big players make Brussels see sense?A no-deal Brexit will cause a disturbing rupture across not just Europe but the west. That’s the stark reality behind Michel Barnier’s slideshow, UK white papers, and the technical article 50 process that encourages us to see it primarily as a bureaucratic and legalistic exercise. Related: UK public will blame EU for no-deal Brexit, says Jeremy HuntContinue rea
  
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• MP Fiona Onasanya 'strongly' denies lying about speeding

  27-07-2018 14:27 via bbc.co.uk
  The Peterborough MP and her brother Festus Onasanya are alleged to have lied about who was driving.
  
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• Private probation contracts ended early by government

  27-07-2018 13:19 via bbc.co.uk
  The contracts, which were introduced three years ago, are not delivering the benefits they promised.
  
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• Some light on horizon for UK science

  27-07-2018 13:17 via ft.com
  There is a reasonable prospect of salvaging some research collaboration with Europe
  
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• Assange's embassy stay in doubt after Ecuador president's comments

  27-07-2018 12:58
  Leader suggests departure is inevitable amid reports of talks with UK government officialsSpeculation is swirling over Julian Assange’s future after Ecuador’s president said he must ultimately leave the country’s London embassy, where he has lived for six years.Lenín Moreno’s comments about the Australian-born WikiLeaks founder, made at an event in Madrid, follow reports that discussions were held between senior officials from Ecuador and Britain about how to remov
  
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• With May’s Brexit plan rejected, the Tories are stuck | Martha Gill

  27-07-2018 12:52
  Neither the party nor Michel Barnier backed the Chequers offer, and compromise is moving further out of reachIt has happened. Tory Brexiteers have finally come to an agreement with the EU – but perhaps not in the way one might have hoped for. Their point of agreement is that Theresa May’s Chequers offer – her attempt to thread the needle between their opposing demands – is not good enough and should be chucked out.This should not come as a surprise, the theme of the Brexi
  
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• Labour MP Kate Hoey says she will fight moves to deselect her

  27-07-2018 12:34
  Vauxhall Labour party passes motion for Hoey to lose whip over support for Brexit
  Kate Hoey has pledged to fight moves to deselect her after her local Labour party overwhelmingly passed a vote of no confidence against the strongly pro-leave MP over her support for the government in key Brexit votes.Hoey, who has represented the pro-remain south London constituency of Vauxhall since 1989, said she was “quite relaxed about the vote” and would not let it change the way she acted in parl
  
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• This is what no-deal Brexit actually looks like

  27-07-2018 12:06
  
  Leading Brexiters are pushing ever more confidently for no-deal. This is what it would entail.
  
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• Regulator blames Network Rail’s ‘systemic failings’ for timetable chaos

  27-07-2018 10:55 via ft.com
  Delays and cancellations were widespread when new timetable was introduced in May
  
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• Ed Miliband has advice for stand-in BBC host

  27-07-2018 10:12 via bbc.co.uk
  Ed Miliband has advice for his podcast co-host Geoff Lloyd
  
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• Gary Lineker courts controversy over Brexit

  27-07-2018 10:06 via bbc.co.uk
  The Match of the Day presenter has called for a fresh referendum on any deal.
  
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• Stockpile for Brexit victory — the gourmet guide

  27-07-2018 06:00 via ft.com
  Time to prepare for a crash exit next March by hoarding the finest European produce
  
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• Hard Brexit. Soft Brexit. No Deal. What does Brexit mean?

  27-07-2018 01:35 via bbc.co.uk
  Why do so many people talk about a 'hard Brexit' and a 'soft Brexit'? And what do they mean?
  
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• UK probation service contracts face early cancellation

  27-07-2018 01:01 via ft.com
  Private-sector reforms introduced by Grayling create latest outsourcing issue
  
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• Private probation companies to have contracts ended early

  27-07-2018 01:01
  Bailout totalling £500m criticised as justice secretary consults on new schemeThe monitoring of offenders in the community faces another shake-up after disastrous reforms introduced by Chris Grayling forced the government to bail out failing private probation companies by more than half a billion pounds.David Gauke, the justice secretary, has announced that eight private firms that run 21 “community rehabilitation companies” (CRCs) in England and Wales are to have their contrac
  
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