Markus Andrews

Websites that publish pornography will be legally required to verify the age of their users under new online safety rules, the Government has announced.Marking Safer Internet Day, digital minister Chris Philp confirmed the draft Online Safety Bill is to be strengthened to require all sites which publish pornographic content to put “robust checks” in place to ensure users are 18 or over.Sites could use secure age verification technology to confirm a user possesses a credit card and is therefore at least 18, or use a third-party service to confirm someone’s age against government data.Ministers said that if sites fail to act, Ofcom, as the sector’s regulator, will be able to fine them up to 10% of their annual global turnover or block their site in the UK, while bosses of such sites could be held criminally liable if they fail to co-operate with Ofcom.“It is too easy for children to access pornography online. Parents deserve peace of mind that their children are protected online from seeing things no child should see,” Mr Philp said.“We are now strengthening the Online Safety Bill so it applies to all porn sites to ensure we achieve our aim of making the internet a safer place for children.”Prior to this announcement, only commercial porn sites that allow user-generated content were in the scope of the Bill – the update means all commercial porn sites are now within the scope of the proposed new rules.The Government said the onus will be on the companies and sites themselves to decide on how best to comply with the new rules, adding that Ofcom may recommend the use of certain age verification technology, but said that the measures put in place should not process or store data that is irrelevant to the purpose of checking someone’s age.Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the NSPCC, said: “It’s right the Government has listened to calls to fix one of the gaps in the Online Safety Bill and protect children from pornography wherever it’s hosted.“Crucially, they have also acted on our concerns and closed the ‘Only Fans loophole’ that would have let some of the riskiest sites off the hook despite allowing children access to extremely damaging material.“But the legislation still falls short of giving children comprehensive protection from preventable abuse and harmful content and needs significant strengthening to match the Government’s rhetoric and focus minds at the very top of tech companies on child safety.”Alex Davies-Jones, Labour’s shadow minister for tech, gambling and the digital economy, said: “Labour has long called on the Government to offer security for young people online, and we’re glad it has accepted our call for all pornography sites to stop children accessing them by using age-verification technology.“We need strict age protection rules, while tightly regulating age-verification tech to ensure they are not being used to collect unnecessary personal data and to protect people’s privacy online.“Ultimately the Tories’ persistent delays on online safety legislation means that another generation have grown up with access to harmful content online – they can and must do better.”Press Association More

Boris Johnson was tonight accused of running an administration like TV’s The Thick of It, as his new communications chief used an interview on his first day in the job to say that the prime minister was “not a complete clown”.Meanwhile, Mr Johnson was forced to deny a rift with his chancellor after the pair used a joint photo-opportunity to unveil only part of the NHS recovery plan, which had been expected on Monday but was reportedly delayed as a result of Treasury concerns over value for money.And the newly appointed head of the Downing Street policy unit declared that the Conservative Party was an “insurgent” force fighting a battle of ideas against a better-armed left-wing establishment.The PM continued his shake-up of No 10 in the wake of Sue Gray’s interim report into the Partygate scandal, moving adviser Henry Newman – a close ally of his wife, Carrie – into Michael Gove’s levelling up department.But he came under fire in the House of Commons after his new chief of staff, Stephen Barclay, failed to turn up to answer MPs’ questions about how he would combine his new role with his current job as Cabinet Office minister.And there were warnings that the creation of a new Office of the Prime Minister, bringing together elements of the current 10 Downing Street and Cabinet Office operations, could cost the taxpayer as much as £15m.Calling on Mr Johnson to reveal the cost, Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain said: “This will use up vital cash that could be spent on helping households cope with a cost-of-living crisis.”Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said Mr Barclay was “too busy rearranging the deckchairs” to attend, while shadow health secretary Wes Streeting compared the PM and chancellor’s joint appearance to the chaotic scenes in Armando Ianucci’s political satire.The NHS was waiting for the government’s plan to deal with a backlog of 6 million people awaiting treatment following the pandemic, Mr Streeting told the Commons.And he asked: “Where is it? It was due to be published today but was pulled last night.“It’s like something from The Thick Of It, but the reality is worse than fiction. A photo-opp without a plan, their own NHS recovery plan just another cancelled operation.”Downing Street insisted that the full plan would be published by the end of this week, and would include new targets for cancer treatment, unveiled today. The new goals require a two-month maximum wait for cancer treatment by March 2023, and 75 per cent of cancer cases to be diagnosed before reaching stage 3 by 2028.Mr Johnson said he was “absolutely not” doubtful of the loyalty of his chancellor, who has been accused of being “on manoeuvres” as speculation swirls in Westminster about an imminent leadership contest.“Everybody in No 10 and the Treasury is working together in harmony to deal with the big problems that the country faces and clearing the Covid backlogs,” said the PM.But the head of the NHS Confederation, representing health service bosses, said it appeared Mr Sunak was withdrawing support from Downing Street initiatives as Mr Johnson’s influence waned.Matthew Taylor, who served in No 10 under Tony Blair, said the scenario was reminiscent of the final days before the handover to Gordon Brown: “HMT [the Treasury] is loath to agree to any No 10 plans involving money as the ChX [chancellor] sees these as opportunistic and wasted on a dying administration.”Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson dismissed the claim as “inaccurate”. But Treasury sources have briefed that Mr Sunak was unwilling to sign off on the multibillion-pound NHS recovery plan because he thought its targets were ill-conceived.The chancellor appears to fear that the plan will prioritise targeting very long waits – which attract the worst headlines – over patients who have waited less time but need treatment more urgently.Health secretary Sajid Javid denied the Treasury had put the brakes on his plan, insisting: “There has been no argument – there has been a very active discussion … The plan has been delayed, but it’s been delayed by Omicron.”Meanwhile, Downing Street’s new director of communications, Guto Harri, used an interview with a Welsh-language website to paint a colourful picture of a meeting he had had with the PM on the day before his appointment.When he asked the prime minister whether he could survive threats of a no-confidence vote from his own MPs, Mr Harri said, Mr Johnson began to sing Gloria Gaynor’s disco hit “I Will Survive”. And he said the PM had offered to “take the knee” in a joking reference to the gesture that had cost him his previous job on GB News.“He’s not a complete clown, but he’s a very likeable character,” Mr Harri told Golwg 360. “Ninety per cent of our discussion was very serious, but it shows that he is a character and has fun. He is not a vicious man, as some misrepresent him.”Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, responded: “So many people still struggling with the impacts and trauma of Covid, or worrying about the spiralling costs of living … but for Boris & Co it’s all just a bit of a laugh.“This isn’t funny – in the current circumstances, it is offensive.”There was unease among some MPs about Mr Harri’s previous work as a lobbyist for Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which has been banned from involvement in the UK’s 5G network over security concerns.Downing Street insisted that there was no conflict of interest, and that the work Mr Harri had undertaken for his previous employer, Hawthorn Advisers, had been “entirely legitimate”.But Labour demanded “full transparency” about his contacts with the government on Huawei’s behalf.And one Tory backbencher told The Independent: “We need to do something about this revolving door between big corporations and government, particularly when those big corporations are controlled by foreign communist parties.”Downing Street policy chief Andrew Griffith, also starting a new job after his predecessor, Munira Mirza, walked out last week in protest at Mr Johnson’s smear linking Sir Keir Starmer with Jimmy Savile, said that he wanted the Tories “rapidly” to return to priorities such as cutting taxes.Writing on the ConservativeHome website, Mr Griffith said he wanted Tory MPs to act as “a ‘hive mind’ of centre-right policy development”.“It is important that we do so,” he wrote. “In the battle of ideas, we remain an insurgent force: outgunned by the hegemony of left-wing orthodoxy that often lurks without challenge within swathes of the cultural and education establishment and in the state-supported media.” More

The head of UK’s broadcast watchdog Ofcom has said it should regulate online services like Netflix, following a row over a joke by comedian Jimmy Carr.Dame Melanie Dawes, the regulator’s chief executive, said there would be “real value” in extending the organisation’s remit given the shift in the way people watch entertainment. Mr Carr was widely criticised after making a joke about the Holocaust, in which he suggested that it was good that gypsies had been murdered by the Nazis.But the comedian’s programme was only available on online television service Netflix and so is not covered by Ofcom rules – meaning it cannot deal with complaints about the comments. Speaking in an interview with Channel 4 news on Monday evening Dame Melanie was asked whether Ofcom should be able to regulate such online-only shows.“I can certainly see that there’ll be real value in that. Yes. And so we would welcome any chance to work on that,” she said.She added: “I can really understand why a lot of people found that very offensive and as you say, we don’t regulate Netflix at the moment, they’re underneath the Dutch regulator.“And I think that is a concern because it means that for viewers, it’s really confusing that they’ve got different standards applied, for example, to Channel 4 News than they have to YouTube and other services, including Netflix, that come streamed on to our TVs.”Ofcom currently regulates broadcast television, radio, telecoms and the postal service. The regulator licences TV and radio stations, and can revoke licences in the case of a serious breach.It also has the power to levy fines, such as last year when it lapped Russian state-backed channel RT £200,000 for breaching impartiality rules. Ofcom also has the power to sanction channels for causing harm of being grossly offensive.But online streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime are beyond its reach.Culture secretary Nadine Dorries has previously suggested that new laws in the government’s the Media Bill could hold to account streaming sites for airing jokes such as those made by Mr Carr.Downing Street on Monday called the comedian’s comments “deeply disturbing”, but said it was a matter for Netflix whether the comedian’s show should remain online. More

Boris Johnson is facing demands to apologise after Sir Keir Starmer was targeted by a mob shouting abuse and Jimmy Savile smears outside parliament.Video footage shows the Labour leader being bundled into a police vehicle as protesters shouted “Traitor” and “Jimmy Savile” and accused him of “protecting paedophiles”. Officers were forced to step in to protect Sir Keir, who was walking with shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, as a group followed them from outside Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, to one of the entrances to parliament.It comes just a week after Mr Johnson faced fury from parliamentarians, including his own MPs, after he falsely accused Sir Keir of failing to prosecute Savile while working as director of public prosecutions.One of the prime minister’s senior advisers and a longstanding ally, Munira Mirza, also resigned over the “scurrilous” accusation, while the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said he would not have made the remark himself.After Monday evening’s incident, the prime minister made no reference to his previous comments in the House of Commons, but said: “The behaviour directed at the leader of the opposition tonight is absolutely disgraceful. “All forms of harassment of our elected representatives are completely unacceptable. I thank the police for responding swiftly.”However, Labour frontbencher Mr Lammy said: “No surprise the conspiracy thugs who harassed Keir Starmer & I repeated slurs we heard from Boris Johnson last week at the despatch box,” adding: “Intimidation, harassment and lies have no place in our democracy. And they won’t ever stop me doing my job.”Former Tory cabinet minister Julian Smith said the scenes were “appalling” and piled pressure on the prime minister, saying: “It is really important for our democracy and for his [Sir Keir’s] security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.”Tobias Ellwood, the former minister who last week called for Mr Johnson to resign, told the PM: “Apologise please. We claim to be the Mother of Parliaments. Let’s stop this drift towards a Trumpian style of politics from becoming the norm. We are better than this.”Another Tory MP, Robert Largan, said: “Words matter. What we say and how we say it echoes out far beyond Parliament. It can have serious real world consequences. Elected representatives have a responsibility to lower the temperature of debate, not add fuel to the fire.”The Labour MP Chris Bryant told The Independent: “Boris Johnson has incited this and I think he has done it deliberately. There is nothing unintentional about this. He wants this kind of thing to happen, to hide his moral vacuum.“It’s remarkably reminiscent of a year ago, with the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021. Silence and refusing to apologise doesn’t cut it. He has to completely withdraw what he said, and do so abjectly.” More

Like a few other high-profile roles in public life – Prince of Wales, Olympic gold medal winner, stand-up comedian – there isn’t much of a job description for the role of prime-ministerial spouse.Hence, misunderstandings and controversies have enveloped Carrie Johnson since she took up with the prime minister a couple of years ago. It’s fair to say that few other partners have faced the same sort of intense scrutiny and criticism, with its strains of misogyny – but it is not unprecedented.Interestingly, the last spouse to be bullied and abused to anything like the same extent as Ms Johnson was Cherie Blair.Cherie Booth QC, to give her her professional title, was another career woman, whose work, broadly speaking, touched on political matters. She was, like her husband, a lawyer. They met as pupils under Tony Blair’s future lord chancellor, Derry Irvine, and her career led her to undertake human rights work. Some of her enemies in the press cooked up a theory that the New Labour pledge to introduce the Human Rights Act was a thinly disguised scam to generate more fat fees for Booth’s chambers. The truth, of course, was that the act only brought over to the British courts the work that was being done by British lawyers in the European Court of Human Rights, but they didn’t let that spoil the fun.Ms Blair was also supposedly less deferential to royalty than was her husband – hardly a crime – and possibly a bit more of a socialist. She was supposedly manipulating him towards left-wing extremism, or what is nowadays called “wokery”. It was almost as though she was using hypnotism or sorcery. This was enough for her to be labelled “the wicked witch”. For some reason, perhaps her well-known working-class roots (her father was the actor Tony Booth), her very existence seemed to enrage the Daily Mail in particular. She was also supposed to be too keen on freebies, which is a bit rich coming from a load of journalists, and she invested in property – partly for the benefit of her children, and again, hardly the sort of thing to which Tories are averse. Cherie Blair is an interesting precedent because, like Carrie Johnson, and very unusually among spouses, she was “political”. Indeed, Cherie would probably have gone on to become at least a Labour MP, had Tony not made it first and had she not been such a successful lawyer. It’s the very idea of a woman having independent political opinions and ideas, and discussing them with her husband – an inevitable consequence of their sharing such a lifestyle – that seems to horrify some. By contrast, men with political opinions of their own have been treated very differently. Philip May, who met the young Theresa Brasier through a shared interest in Conservative politics, was almost deferentially referred to as her “most trusted adviser”, and nobody seems to have minded her discussing, say, the merits of the Irish backstop with him over an evening drink. Indeed, it was thought useful for her to get another point of view – that of a typical Conservative activist, and someone with no axe to grind or favours to seek. No one nicknamed him “Prince Philip” or seriously accused him of interference or undue influence. It would also be surprising if the pair of them didn’t occasionally mention, let’s say, her wayward foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, in conversation. After Philip had put the bins out, obviously.The same goes for Denis and Margaret Thatcher, though in that case the pair were both such instinctive Tory reactionaries that they agreed on most things anyway. To the extent that Mr Thatcher did have influence, it was a matter of mild curiosity and gentle satire rather than scandal. Denis was sympathetic to apartheid-era South Africa, where he had business interests and friends, and he perhaps influenced his wife in that direction when it came to sanctions in the 1980s. He thought the BBC, the trade unions and the teaching profession were all infested with communists, and so did she. He backed her in her tussles with powerful figures such as Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine. He was partisan. At the end, though, when she was facing a final leadership crisis, he was instrumental in persuading her to resign. Imagine if it got out that Carrie had told Boris the game was up and he ought to quit!Most prime ministers meet their wives or husbands long before they get to No 10. Many know exactly what they are getting involved in, although Mary Wilson thought she was destined for a quiet life as the wife of an Oxford don when she married Harold. In any case, most pairs are well used to each other by the time they get to Downing Street; but Carrie and Boris have had much less time to develop that same sympathy. Carrie has contacts, causes and interests of her own, and unfortunately for her they are viewed with suspicion by some in her party and in government.Far better, in that sense, for Carrie to stick to charity work or a non-political business activity, as Sarah Brown and Samantha Cameron did – but why should she? She’s not a lobbyist. She’s not on staff. Nor is any husband or wife of a prime minister, but they are central to the life of their spouse, and they will make a difference to it.The only prime minister not to have had to worry about their other half’s opinions, or what the press thought about his or her behaviour, was Ted Heath, the lifelong batchelor. Once when Heath was prime minister, or so the story goes, his arch-rival Wilson was walking past No 10 of an evening and looked up at the light on in the flat. Wilson reflected on how lonely poor old Ted must be up there, playing his piano, with no one to share the burdens of a long, wearisome day. By the same token, Carrie doesn’t seem to be given much credit for the sacrifices she makes and the support she gives to her husband. You may recall the coverage of the infamous row the Johnsons had in her flat in June 2019, before Boris became PM, when the police had to be called. Apparently, he told her to “get off my f**king laptop”, and she told him: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.” Living with Mr Johnson is a type of high-pressure public service, if you think about it. It can’t be easy. More

The Independent reported on Monday that the government is threatening to ditch new EU car safety rules – citing the “regulatory freedoms” granted by Brexit. Ministers doubled down when our report was raised in the House of Lords this afternoon, with transport minister Baroness Vere telling peers: “Ministers are considering what we will do. We will make the right decision.”The transport minister claimed the policy change was “nothing to do with Brexit”, though this cannot be the case because if Britain was still in the EU, the regulations would automatically apply.In fact, the UK helped write the rules and played a significant part in getting the package to where it is. A key part of the regulations, “direct vision” standards for lorries – meant to stop cyclists and pedestrians being crushed in blind-spots – were first drawn up by Transport for London and are a British export to Europe, rather than the other way around.Ministers have generally said they are on a drive to cut regulations, but some readers have suggested that dropping the rules will have little practical effect. Will EU car makers, or British-based carmakers hoping to export to the EU, really design their cars differently for the UK?It seems unlikely. But this is actually a clue as to why dropping the rules does matter. To understand why the government wants to do this, we must remember why Brexiteers generally argued for regulatory “freedom” from EU standards in the first place.For many Thatcherite Tories, cutting regulations is an end in itself, but this is not a popular argument to make in public. Instead, the stated justification for stripping out EU rules has, since the referendum, been that it will help the UK sign trade deals with other countries.So will this change affect cars made with the EU market in mind? No, the UK is in that respect a rule-taker, and Brussels will set the standard no matter what, as in so many other areas.But not all cars are made in the EU, or for the EU market. If, to pick a country at random, American cars were bigger and more dangerous and did not meet the standards, they could not be imported to Britain under the tougher regime.Requiring high product standards is what economists call a “non-tariff barrier” to trade. We’re more familiar with this argument on food: the UK does not want to be locked into EU standards on agricultural products, because it would make it harder to sign trade deals with other countries that want to export their food to Britain. Say, to pick a country at random, the US.The thinking in government may be the same with cars: impose EU standards, and trade deals get just that little bit tricker. More

French far-right presidential hopeful Eric Zemmour has nominated Boris Johnson as the world leader he feels he has the most in common with.Mr Zemmour said he was “without doubt” closest to the UK prime minister “culturally, intellectually”.Like Mr Johnson Mr Zemmour is a former journalist who has ridden a tidal wave of populist support – emerging as a challenger to Emmanuel Macron in this year’s election. France will go to the polls in April to elect its next president, with centrist Mr Macron facing three challengers from the far-right to right wing of French politics. Mr Zemmour was asked during an interview with broadcaster France Inter whether he felt other politicians like Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, Italy’s Matteo Salvini or Donald Trump were potential models for him.He replied: “You have not mentioned Boris Johnson and I am astonished because he is without doubt the leader I feel I am closest to, culturally, intellectually”, adding: “He’s obviously a European like me but English.”In November the far-right candidate expressed similar sentiments, stating that he and Mr Johnson “do have a lot in common” More

Boris Johnson has dismissed suspicions that Rishi Sunak is after his job, as he sought to put his leadership back on track with new cancer waiting times.Amid allegations that the chancellor is blocking a crucial NHS recovery plan because he believes the government is “dying”, the prime minister insisted he retained faith in him.Asked if he had any “doubt about the chancellor’s loyalty”, Mr Johnson replied: “Absolutely not,” as the pair visited an oncology centre in Kent together.The “elective recovery plan” – to confront the huge NHS patient backlog, even before Covid struck – was due to be unveiled on Monday, but was shelved suddenly.Matthew Taylor, the head of the NHS Confederation and a former No 10 policy chief said the episode was reminiscent of Gordon Brown throwing his weight around as Tony Blair’s power waned.But Mr Johnson told ITV News: “Everybody at No 10 and the Treasury are working together in harmony in dealing the big problems that the country faces and clearing the Covid backlog.”He announced new cancer treatment targets intended to ensure that, from March 2023, nobody waits more than two months for their diagnosis.Jeremy Hunt, the Tory chair of the Commons health committee, has raised the alarm over the last-minute delay to the rescue plan – as more than 300,000 patients wait over a year for treatment.“There appears to be an argument about targets which is the last thing the NHS needs: instead they should be discussing where we are going to find the 4,000 additional doctors needed to address the backlog,” he said.Treasury sources have briefed that Mr Sunak was unwilling to sign off on the multi-billion pound NHS recovery plan because its targets are ill-conceived.He appears to fear that the plan will target very long waits – which attract the worst headlines – over patients who have waited less time, but need treatment more urgently.On his hospital visit, Mr Johnson said he wanted the “vast majority” of people who think they may have cancer to get a diagnosis within 28 days.A second target would mean that, by 2028, three-quarters of people with cancer would be diagnosed when that cancer is at an early stage.“We are now working with the NHS to set some tough targets so that we are able to deliver for the patient and also for the taxpayers. We are putting huge sums in,” he said. “Those are very tough targets.”And he added: “It’s thanks to the investment that we’re able to put in, thanks to the sound management of the economy – everything that we did, all the looking after business throughout the pandemic, that’s enabled our economy to bounce back so well – that in turn enables us to put the investment that we need now in the NHS.” More