Top civil servants should remain “completely apolitical” and should not be allowed to express support for Black Lives Matter, Jacob Rees-Mogg has argued.
The Brexit minister said permanent secretaries should be allowed to celebrate events like the Queen’s Jubilee and Remembrance Sunday but not publicly back the anti-racism movement.
Asked about the historic use of the #blacklivesmatter hashtag by two permanent secretaries, Stephen Lovegrove and Jonathan Slater, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “Permanent secretaries should be completely apolitical. They can remember state events, they can remember Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday and the Queen’s Jubilee.”
Mr Slater, a former top civil servant at the Department for Education, used the hashtag in a social media post in 2020 while Sir Stephen had spoken on the issue in the same year, saying “systemic racial inequality is not unique to America but also has deep roots within UK society…”
Nicola Sturgeon to announce Scotland’s plan for living with Covid
Nicola Sturgeon is preparing to set out her new strategic framework for dealing with coronavirus.
The first minister will speak in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday afternoon as the Scottish government’s blueprint for managing and recovering from Covid is published.
More on the story here:
UEFA must pull Champions League final from Russia, say senior MPs
Senior MPs have called on Uefa to strip Russia of this year’s Champions League final set to be held in St Petersburg, after Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops in eastern Ukraine.
The prime minister appeared to signal he would back a change of venue for the final, saying in the Commons there was “no chance of holding football tournaments in a Russia that invades sovereign countries”.
Here is the story:
Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel leaving BBC
Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel have announced they are leaving the BBC to join media group Global, and will front a podcast and co-host a radio show on LBC.
Maitlis has served as the lead presenter on Newsnight while Sopel was formerly the broadcaster’s North America editor.
The pair also host the BBC’s popular Americast podcast about US politics.
Jacob Rees-Mogg says senior civil servants should not endorse Black Lives Matter
Senior civil servants should not be allowed to publicly express support for Black Lives Matter, Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.
The Tory MP, who was appointed Brexit minister earlier this month, said permanent secretaries should remain “completely apolitical” and not back the anti-racism movement.
He said they should instead be allowed to celebrate state-sanctioned events like the Queen’s Jubilee and Remembrance Sunday.
Here is the story:
Further interest rate hikes needed to cool soaring inflation, says BoE deputy governor
Further “modest” interest rate hikes will likely be needed to cool soaring inflation, according to a Bank of England deputy governor.
Sir Dave Ramsden – deputy governor for markets, banking and resolution – said more rate hikes are set to be on the cards in the coming months as the Bank faces its biggest inflation challenge since being made independent in 1997.
He said rates were not expected to reach levels seen before the financial crisis or the historical heights endured in previous inflation spirals.
The Bank raised rates to 0.5 per cent from 0.25 per cent earlier this month after an increase at its previous meeting in December.
Johnson announces Russia sanctions
Boris Johnson has announced sanctions against five Russian banks and three “very high net wealth” individuals under his “first barrage” of measures aimed at punishing the Kremlin for the Ukrainian incursion.
Speaking in the Commons, the prime minister said Vladimir Putin had “calmly and deliberately” been plotting the “destruction of a peaceful neighbour”.
For more on Mr Johnson’s remarks, visit our Ukraine liveblog here.
Javid declines to comment on whether PM should resign if found to have broken Covid rules
Sajid Javid has declined to comment on whether the prime minister should resign if he is found to have broken the law over Covid rules.
Asked about the investigation into No 10 parties during lockdowns, the health secretary told Sky News: “I’m not going to get into this, we’ve discussed this so many times.
“The official authorities are looking into this whole issue, rightly so, and the prime minister himself has come to parliament and apologised and set out what is happening.
“But also he is rightly not getting involved in what the authorities are doing. We should let the authorities do their work. I don’t think it is appropriate to get into it.”
Russian ambassador summoned to UK foreign office
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Russia’s ambassador Andrei Kelin had been summoned “to explain Russia’s violation of international law and disregard of Ukraine’s sovereignty”.
“We are imposing severe sanctions in response,” she added.
Mr Kelin was meeting the senior official at the foreign office, permanent under-secretary Sir Philip Barton.
Putin’s troop deployment ‘amounts to renewed invasion’ of Ukraine
My colleague Rory Sullivan has all the latest updates on the Ukraine crisis in the dedicated liveblog here.
But the morning’s lobby briefing has been taking place over the last half hour, and with much of the focus on the situation along the Russian border here is the latest from No 10:
The deployment of Russian troops to two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine “amounts to renewed invasion of the country”, Downing Street said.
However the UK does not currently view the move as a “full-scale invasion”, according to the prime minister’s official spokesman.
Asked for the government’s assessment of what will happen next, he told reporters: “There is no doubt that the deployment of these forces that we’ve seen reported in sovereign Ukrainian territory amounts to renewed invasion of the country. President Putin has sent his troops in, he’s broken international law, he’s repudiated the Minsk agreement.
“We believe that Russia’s actions overnight could well be a precursor to a full-scale invasion. But clearly, we want to continue to pursue any diplomatic avenues that exist and we’ll be speaking to other world leaders, as I say, and urging Russia to step back from this action.”
The PM’s spokesman went on to say: “I think what is true is that we do not see a full-scale invasion currently taking place. As I say, we have seen the deployment of these forces, which does amount to an invasion in that area. I wouldn’t say necessarily it’s a two-step process, but we will continue to see if there are ways to get Russia to pull back.”
Ministers criticised for ‘pursuing trade deals which support lower standards’
Minette Batters, NFU president, has also told her organisation’s annual conference that the government has “completely contradictory” policies for the agricultural sector.
She said these included raising the bar for environmental standards at home but pursuing trade deals which support lower standards overseas, as well as making it difficult to find workers to harvest or process domestic food.
“While there is a cost of living crisis looming and an increasingly unstable world, the UK government’s energy and ambition for our countryside seems to be almost entirely focused on anything other than domestic food production,” she said.
The NFU conference is also set to hear from Environment Secretary George Eustice.
