UK News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

Ministers urge government to increase defence spending in highly unusual intervention

Saturday 9 March 2024 10:39, UK



Two serving ministers have broken cover to urge Rishi Sunak's government to "lead the way" and increase defence spending to at least 2.5% of GDP - from just over 2% at present - "as soon as economic conditions allow".

In a highly unusual intervention, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a foreign office minister and former defence minister, and Tom Tugendhat, the security minister and an experienced soldier, published an article online that does not appear to have been sanctioned by Downing Street.

"It's clear to us that the UK needs to lead the way in increasing our own domestic defence and security spending commitments to 2.5% and beyond," they wrote in a piece posted on Ms Trevelyan's LinkedIn page on Friday evening.

"Former defence secretary Ben Wallace and prime minister Boris Johnson made inroads into growing our defence budgets, which had been shrinking in real terms for years. But that only filled the hole. Now we need growth."

The alarm call by two serving ministers with deep expertise in defence and security comes amid growing disquiet among Conservative MPs and military insiders at a failure by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to announce new funding for the armed forces in his spring budget, even though the defence secretary has warned the UK is in a "pre-war world".

https://news.sky.com/story/ministers-ur ... n-13090562

[Time_Traveller]

Fears government will use new lists of extremists to embarrass Labour

Sunday 10 March 2024 18:50, UK

Michael Gove is poised to unveil a new definition of extremism amid jitters in government at his plan.

The Politics at Jack and Sam's podcast discusses the big announcement by Rishi Sunak's government this week - designed to update and increase the number of organisations that are classed as "extremist" and put new limits on their activities.

The plan, due to be launched on Thursday - subject to cross-government sign-off - will see a change in the definition.

The 9-year-old definition defines extremism as "vocal or active opposition to British values".

The updated definition is going to, according to a source, be the "promotion or advancement of ideology based on hatred, intolerance or violence or undermining or overturning the rights or freedoms of others, or of undermining democracy itself".

https://news.sky.com/story/groups-fear- ... m-13092141

[Time_Traveller]

Lee Anderson Joins Reform After Conservative Party Suspension

50 min

Lee Anderson has announced he is joining the Reform party after he was suspended from the Conservative party last month for suggesting London mayor Sadiq Khan was being controlled by "Islamists".

Anderson told a press conference he’d been talking to Reform “for a while” about reforming and losing the whip over recent remarks about the Mayor of London was "the straw that broke the camel’s back". His message to the Conservative colleagues he'd left behind was "country, constituency, then party”.

The former deputy chairman of the Conservative party and current MP for Ashfield was suspended from the party in February after he suggested that "Islamists" had "got control” of both Khan and of capital.

“I don’t actually believe that these Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is that they’ve got control of Khan, they’ve got control of London," Anderson told GB News during an interview.

“He’s actually given our capital city away to his mates... If you let Labour in through the back door, expect more of this, expect our cities to be taken over by these lunatics.”

https://www.politicshome.com/news/artic ... suspension

[wjfox]

New gas power plants needed to stop blackouts, Claire Coutinho to say

3 hours ago

[...]

The new stations will replace existing plants, many of which are aging and will soon be retired.

But the government says the CO2 produced will not be captured - a measure which limits climate change.

That could threaten a legally binding commitment to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, critics say.

[...]

The decision, which Ms Coutinho will announce in a speech at Chatham House in London, is part of a wide-reaching review of how the UK's energy market works.

But the Green Alliance think tank said it "flies in the face" of the government's promise to reach zero-carbon electricity by 2035.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68538951

[firestar464]

Activists should definitely launch legal challenges if the gov goes through with it

[Time_Traveller]

Surge in sale of UK-made cars to Russia's neighbours shows how it's beating sanctions

Tuesday 12 March 2024 07:01, UK

British carmakers appear to have continued selling hundreds of millions of pounds of luxury vehicles to Russia even after the invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions, exporting the cars indirectly via former Soviet states, Sky News analysis suggests.

While direct British car exports to Russia have fallen to zero following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that collapse has been followed by a corresponding increase in car exports to countries neighbouring Russia, most notably Azerbaijan.

Our analysis, based on official HMRC trade data, finds that the UK exported £273m of vehicles to Azerbaijan last year, a 1,860% increase compared with the five-year period preceding the invasion.



Not only is the increase in exports to Azerbaijan unprecedented, it is of a similar magnitude to the annual car exports to Russia in the two years before the imposition of sanctions, which averaged £330m.

Alongside the UK HMRC statistics, Sky News has analysed UN international trade data which shows that over precisely the same period that Britain recorded an unprecedented increase in car exports to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan recorded an unprecedented increase in car exports to Russia.

https://news.sky.com/story/how-uk-made- ... s-13092809

[Time_Traveller]

Police contacted over Tory donor's alleged remarks about Diane Abbott

Tuesday 12 March 2024 18:29, UK



Police have been contacted over comments a Tory donor allegedly made about MP Diane Abbott.

Frank Hester allegedly said Ms Abbott made him "want to hate all black women" and that the politician "should be shot", according to reports in the Guardian.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch said the alleged comments were "racist" - but that there should be "space for forgiveness".

Ms Badenoch became the first cabinet minister to use the term to describe Mr Hester's reported remarks about the former Labour MP, after government ministers including Graham Stuart and Mel Stride criticised the comments but did not call them racist.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: "On Monday, 11 March officers from the parliamentary liaison and investigation team were contacted in relation to a report about an MP that appeared in the Guardian.

https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoc ... t-13093287

[Time_Traveller]

Keir Starmer pledges landmark assisted dying vote in parliament

8 hours ago

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged that parliament will debate and vote on changing assisted dying laws if Labour wins the next general election.

In a phone call to TV presenter and assisted dying campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, the Labour leader said he was “personally in favour of changing the law” around assisted dying.

In footage shown by ITV News, Sir Keir told the Childline founder: “I think we need to make time. We will make the commitment. Esther, I can give you that commitment right now.”

Dame Esther has been a persistent advocate for a vote on assisted dying since her terminal cancer diagnosis in 2023.

She revealed that she joined the Swiss assisted dying society Dignitas to ensure that her family’s “last memories of me” are not “painful” because “if you watch someone you love having a bad death, that memory obliterates all the happy times”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 11370.html

[wjfox]

assisted dying

More and more countries are legalising this, or at least decriminalising it.

Would be interesting to see a future trend – I will put something together for our timeline.

[Time_Traveller]

Telegraph takeover: UK plans law to stop foreign states owning press assets

Wed 13 Mar 2024 15.32 GMT

The UK government plans to introduce legislation that would prevent foreign governments owning UK newspapers and magazines in a move that could scupper the planned £600m sale of the Telegraph to a UAE-backed consortium.

RedBird IMI – a partnership between IMI, a fund backed by the UAE’s vice-president, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the US investment firm RedBird Capital Partners – is seeking to acquire one of the UK’s most influential newspaper groups.

However, the planned takeover has been fiercely opposed by many Tory MPs and peers who have raised concerns about the UAE, which provides the financial backing for 75% of Redbird IMI, and which has been criticised in the past for its record on press freedom.

Pressure has been building on the government all week after Lady Stowell, the Tory chair of the communications and digital committee, tabled an amendment to the digital markets, competition and consumer bill that would give parliament a veto on foreign governments taking over UK media organisations.

Her amendment was due to be debated on with a vote on Wednesday afternoon and has won the support of more than 100 MPs led by former minister Robert Jenrick.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ing-assets