David Cameron has become embroiled in yet more lobbying allegations, after official transparency records showed he and representatives of a private health firm which he advises met with vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi, two months before the US firm won public contracts worth up to £870,000.
Meanwhile, new research showed the Conservatives are receiving donations worth £17,500 a day from property developers, prompting Labour to accuse the government of siding with them over planning law and workers’ rights.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner published analysis indicating that gifts to the Tories from companies directly linked to property development have totalled just over £10m since the start of 2019, as she separately suggested Mr Cameron’s behaviour showed that the rules intended to regulate lobbying are “completely unfit for purpose” and require a radical overhaul.
It came as Priti Patel was warned of “shocking” conditions at a facility housing asylum-seekers in Kent, with MPs on the Home Affairs Committee raising “immediate” concerns about overcrowding, the length of stays and the “clear risk” of a Covid outbreak.
Apsana Begum cleared of housing fraud charges
Apsana Begum has been found not guilty of housing fraud.
The Labour MP was cleared on all three counts of dishonestly failing to disclose information relating to her council housing application, during three periods between January 2013 and March 2016.
Commenting on her acquittal, Ms Begum said: “As a survivor of domestic abuse facing these vexatious charges, the last 18 months of false accusations, online sexist, racist and Islamophobic abuse, and threats to my safety, have been exceedingly difficult.
“I will be consulting and considering how to follow up so that something like this doesn’t happen again to anyone else.”
Speaking to OpenDemocracy, which uncovered the fresh details of David Cameron’s lobbying efforts, Angela Rayner said: “David Cameron’s behaviour is evidence that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose and need a radical and urgent overhaul.
“There appears to be nobody in government who the former prime minister has not lobbied in an effort to enrich himself and his clients during this pandemic.”
‘Window of opportunity’ to fix NI Protocol, first minister says
There is a “window of opportunity” to resolve the issues caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol, the country’s first minister Paul Givan has said, during a meeting of the North South Ministerial Council.
“The European Union has now suspended its litigation and there’s recognition that the protocol is causing harm, that there needs to be constructive engagement between the UK government and the European Union,” Mr Givan said.
“Obviously the Irish Government have a very important role in influencing how the European Union conducts its approach to addressing those issues.
“Nobody should be under any illusion as to the implications that the protocol has had, the manner in which it was foisted upon the Unionist community and the way in which there was engagement for the European Union, where we had photographs of border posts being bombed in the 1970s in order to get the European Union on side when it came to this protocol.”
Irish premier Micheal Martin described the meeting as “good, relaxed, engaged and pragmatic”, and suggested that the issues can be ironed out and resolved if the “political will” exists.
Priti Patel urged to ‘get a grip’ over asylum accommodation
SNP MP Stuart McDonald – another MP on the Home Affairs Committee, which visited Kent Intake Unit this week – said: “It appears the home secretary has learned nothing from the Napier and Penally barracks scandals, and is continuing to treat vulnerable people appallingly, ignore public health advice and put people in danger – the very people she is tasked with looking after.
“It is beyond time for Priti Patel to get a grip when it comes to accommodating vulnerable asylum seekers. We have had scandal after scandal under her watch and it cannot continue.”
UK ‘needs to get on with it and fast’ in resettling Afghan interpreters, prominent Tory MP says
The Tory chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, has urged UK to expedite its resettling of Afghan interpreters who served alongside British armed forces.
“I very much welcome the efforts that the government has made. But there are always going to be bureaucratic glitches, there are always going to be things that need ironing out, and up until a month or so ago we had the time to do it,” Mr Tugendhat told the BBC’s World at One programme.
“Well, now we don’t, because we are withdrawing and that means that everybody is in much greater risk than they were only a few weeks ago, and so we need to get on with it and fast.”
He added: “Because the reality is anybody who did work for us who is left behind, if they are found by the Taliban it won’t just be them who is killed, it will be their children and their families.”
David Cameron met vaccines minister shortly before award of contracts to company he advises
David Cameron met Nadhim Zahawi with representatives of a private health firm which he advises, two months before the US company won public contracts worth up to £870,000, our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports.
The meeting, uncovered by Open Democracy, is listed in official government transparency records as taking place between Mr Zahawi, Mr Cameron and Illumina on 1 March 2021 “to discuss UK genomics sequencing”. Read the full story here:
Angela Rayner calls on Tories to repay £580k spent on political polling
Angela Rayner has urged the Conservative Party to repay the £580,000 of taxpayers’ money it handed to a firm founded by a former Vote Leave comms director to carry out political polling when the coronavirus crisis struck.
In a letter to Cabinet secretary Simon Case, reported by The Guardian, Labour’s deputy leader said: “Conservative ministers have abused taxpayers’ money for their own party political interests and the Conservative party needs to repay this money immediately.
“Taxpayers’ money is not the personal cashpoint of Tory ministers to do as they please with. We need a fully independent inquiry into how much taxpayers’ money has been abused in this way and which rules were broken by the ministers and special advisers who authorised it.”
Former No 10 aide Dominic Cummings has said the polling was necessary to explore the idea of using non-Tory figures to deliver essential public health messages to those who may not listen to Conservatives.
Home Office ‘not taking people’s welfare seriously’, Amnesty International alleges
Here’s more criticism of Priti Patel’s Home Office, this time from Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, who alleges that forcing people to live in squalor is a “repeated scandal” for the department.
“If the home secretary truly wished to fix the UK’s asylum system, she would start by ending this repeated scandal of holding people – including women, children and babies – fleeing torture and terror in wholly unsuitable conditions and squalor,” said Steve Valdez-Symonds.
“But her energies and government resources continue to be directed to vilify and deny safety to people seeking asylum – further dismembering the system that she is responsible for.
“It is abundantly clear that far from taking the welfare of people seriously – as the department routinely claims – they are instead discouraging people from exercising their right to seek asylum in this country with their oppressive response to the relatively few people who do.”
Salmond trial blogger will ‘go to jail with a clean conscience’
Former diplomat and blogger Craig Murray has said he will “go to jail with a clean conscience” ahead of his eight-month jail term for contempt of court.
The former ambassador to Uzbekistan is due to start prison time imminently after judges ruled his blog coverage of former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond’s trial could identify women who made allegations against the former first minister, who was acquitted of all 13 charges including sexual assault and attempted rape in May last year.
Protesters will gather outside St Leonard’s Police Station in Edinburgh this afternoon, with the Craig Murray Justice campaign group saying his conviction “sets a dangerous legal precedent for freedom of speech and equality before the law”.
At a virtual sentencing in May, Lady Dorrian said Murray knew there were court orders giving the women anonymity and he was “relishing” the potential disclosure of their identities.
Following the release of figures showing drug-related deaths in Scotland have risen for a sixth consecutive year to a new record high, #ResignSturgeon is trending on Twitter.
Some of those critical of the first minister are re-sharing this 2019 interview, in which ITV News’ Peter Smith reminded Ms Sturgeon that she had been warned several years previously that cutting funding for drug treatment programmes would cost lives.
