Markus Andrews

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has backed the Government’s decision to cull Geronimo the alpaca.The fate of Geronimo, who has tested positive twice for bovine tuberculosis, has become a national talking point as celebrities including Joanna Lumley and Chris Packham have backed a campaign to save the animal.The Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) has ordered the alpaca’s destruction, but its owner, Helen Macdonald, believes the tests are returning false positives, but has been refused permission to carry out a third test.Last week, Ms Macdonald lost her final appeal to save her pet at the High Court in London and now a warrant has been signed for his death.However, the alpaca’s plight has received an outpouring of support from the public, with more than 110,000 people signing a petition calling on Boris Johnson to halt the killing.On Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir described Geronimo‘s case as “tragic” but agreed with the Government’s stance that the animal should be euthanised. More

Former Conservative chancellor Philip Hammond is under investigation by the UK’s lobbying watchdog over an email written to a senior government official on behalf of a bank.Labour had accused Mr Hammond of breaking lobbying rules after it emerged the former Tory MP had sent a message to the Treasury about OakNorth bank – the company he now works for as a paid advisor.The ex-minister reportedly emailed the Treasury’s second most senior civil servant in July 2020 to explain the benefits of a “toolkit” developed by OakNorth to assess borrowers.The lobbying regulator is investigating whether Mr Hammond – who stepped as an MP down ahead of 2019 general election – should have registered as a lobbyist when he contacted the Treasury official.The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists confirmed the official probe on Wednesday. “A case summary will be published once the investigation is complete,” the body told the Financial Times.It comes as Labour called on Boris Johnson to remove Tory co-chairman Ben Elliot from his role “immediately” over lobbying practices.Mr Elliot discussed with foreign ambassadors a plan to give a top Tory donor a role helping the party boost ties with Middle East countries – without disclosing the donor was a client of his concierge company, according to the FT.Anneliese Dodds MP, Labour chair, said it was “scandalous” for Mr Elliot to “blur the lines” between government and business activities.“It is simply wrong for Ben Elliot to leverage his role in the governing party of the UK to hold secret discussions with foreign diplomats on behalf of a commercial client and without disclosing that private business relationship to them.”She added: “We urgently need to know what meetings took place, what was discussed and what impact that may have had on the development of UK government policy.”The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists was set up in 2014 in a bid to bring transparency to the murky world of lobbying. Both individuals and organisations seeking to influence government policy are required to register with it.Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner claimed Mr Hammond – who quit after losing the Tory whip over his protest against Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans – had violated the code of conduct for former ministers.The ministerial code says that former ministers must “abide” by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which advices former MPs who have recently stepped down what sort of lobbying activities they can and cannot carry out.The committee is said to have told Mr Hammond that he should not use his contacts in government to “influence policy or secure business” on behalf of OakNorth for a period of two years.“Hammond has entirely disregarded the conditions that were made clear to him when he took the job with OakNorth Bank,” said Mr Rayner. “If the rules are treated with such derision by the former chancellor then the whole system is rotten.”Lord Hammond’s spokesman has insisted OakNorth were offering their toolkit to the Treasury “free of charge” and no rules had been broken.Responding the lobbying regulator’s investigation, his spokesman said: “There was clearly no requirement to register this contact under the rules and Lord Hammond looks forward to the registrar’s confirmation of that in due course.”Last month Labour branded the Westminster committee which oversees lobbying work “toothless” after it gave Mr Hammond the green light take up a role advising the Saudi Arabia finance ministry.The chairman of the Acoba committee – the former Tory party chairman Eric Pickles – told Mr Hammond there were concerns he risked creating a “perception you may be offered this work as a result of your time in office”.However, approval was still granted and Mr Pickles said consultation with Mr Hammond’s former departments had helped satisfy concerns. More

Two-thirds of Britons support increasing National Insurance contributions in order to pay for a long-delayed reform of social care in the UK, according to a new poll.Research by Ipsos Mori found that 64 per cent of those polled said they would support a 1 per cent increase in National Insurance contributions to help pay for such reforms, while 65 per cent said they would support the same rise to reduce the NHS backlog caused by the pandemic.Support for these proposals was broadly similar for Conservative and Labour voters at the last general election – although young people were less supportive, with just 56 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds in favour of the idea.The polling company’s latest Political Monitor also found that 49 per cent of Britons want the government to increase spending on public services, even if that means higher taxes or more borrowing.The results came from interviews by Ipsos Mori with a representative sample of 1,113 adults aged 18 and over across the UK.Ministers floated the idea of increasing National Insurance to pay for social care earlier this year, but details were not put forward before MPs left Westminster for the summer recess.The Conservatives also pledged in their manifesto for the 2019 general election not to raise taxes to pay for public spending, potentially making an increase in National Insurance politically difficult.“Even though it might have been dampened by the pandemic, there is still some appetite amongst Britons for more spending on public services,” Gideon Skinner, head of politics at Ipsos Mori, said in a statement on the poll. “In particular, they can be persuaded to support tax rises that will be used to pay for improvements to public services, as Gordon Brown found in 2002 and as we may find again with proposals to raise National Insurance to pay for social care reform or to clear the NHS backlog.”He added: “Even past Conservative supporters are in favour of these, although young people are slightly less supportive of the rise than older groups (unlike taxes to pay for net zero).”Ipsos Mori’s research also found that support for increased public spending had decreased from 66 per cent at the end of 2018 and 56 per cent just before the 2019 election to 49 per cent today.However, there is a partisan divide, as 74 per cent of 2019 Labour voters want more spending, compared with only 40 per cent of 2019 Conservative supporters.Meanwhile, some 60 per cent of Britons said they were in favour of paying higher taxes to help the UK become a net zero economy by reducing carbon emissions, according to Ipsos Mori’s research.Additional reporting by PA More

A Labour councillor has been condemned for suggesting Britons set up a “home guard” volunteer force to help track down migrants who have come across the English Channel and hand them over to the authorities.Brendan Chilton, leader of the Labour group on Ashford Borough Council, said a volunteer body could support the Border Force agency in identifying migrants arriving via the Kent coastline.The councillor tweeted: “It’s quite clear the Channel migrant crisis is not going away. The government haven’t got a clue. How many are arriving and then disappearing? Perhaps we need to form a sort of ‘Home Guard’ – voluntary – to support the coast guard, police, border force etc?”Mr Chilton deleted his tweet amid fierce criticism – before going on to defend his idea. “If you can have volunteers helping the NHS, Schools etc why can’t you have volunteers helping an underfunded and overstretched border force?”The Labour councillor, the party’s candidate in Ashford at the 2015 general election, added: “I genuinely don’t see the problem here, but Twitter has as usual gone crazy.”The left-wing grassroots group Momentum said his idea amounted to “far-right fantasies” and urged Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to condemn the remarks.Gaya Sriskanthan, Momentum co-chair, said: “Suggesting the creation of a quasi-paramilitary outfit to enforce the hostile environment is incompatible with common decency – let alone Labour membership.“It is deeply distressing that a prominent Labour councillor is propagating these kinds of far-right fantasies.” The campaigner added: “The Labour leadership must immediately take action and loudly reaffirm our support for the rights of migrants and an end to immigration detention.”Councillor Chilton told The Independent he had been “taken aback” by the denunciation, saying he had been trying to make “a helpful suggestion to support the border services”.The Labour politician said: “I have since deleted the tweet in question because what I believed was a helpful contribution [and] idea to support our overstretched and underfunded border forces was received with outrage by people labelling me as a fascist and anti-refugee, when all my life I have been an anti-fascist campaigner.”He added: “I admit the use of the phrase home guard was not the best way to describe it – but the substance is to support our public services.”Defending his idea, the Labour leader of the Kent council suggested that volunteers could “ensure those arriving stay on the beach until the Border Force arrived to collect them”.As well as providing first aid, Mr Chilton claimed the volunteer force would “act as a citizen wall between those arriving and local people who have on occasion been hostile to the migrants”.Mr Chilton was previously criticised for describing British women held in detention in Syria – the so-called “Isis brides” – as “traitors” who should be left to “rot in the desert”.Labour has accused home secretary Priti Patel and the government of presiding over “chaos” when it comes to migrant crossings.Last week immigration minister Chris Philp travelled to France to check on increased patrols there after the government agreed to give French authorities an extra £54m to try to tackle the issue last month.Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds responded: “Time and time again, the government has announced arrangements with France using taxpayers’ money but the numbers keep increasing.”The Independent has approach the Labour Party for comment on Mr Chilton’s remarks. More

Gurkha hunger striker pleads with Boris Johnson to fix veteran pension inequalityBoris Johnson has been criticised over “failing to appoint” a new security minister, with Labour suggesting the arrest of a British man in Berlin accused of spying for Russia is collateral damage for the delay. The post has been vacant for more than a month after Tory MP James Brokenshire announced his resignation on 7 July, stepping down to focus on his cancer recovery.“Following today’s events, it raises questions about who in government is overseeing the most serious task of keeping the British public safe and secure,” shadow security minister Conor McGinn said today: “This is just the latest security lapse from a prime minister and government that can’t be trusted with national security.”It comes after prosecutors said an employee at Germany’s British embassy – who is due to appear before a judge on Wednesday – was arrested on suspicion of being a spy. The man, a 57-year-old British national named only as David S, was detained on Tuesday following a joint investigation by the British and German authorities. Show latest update

1628692990Former ambassador calls for ‘muscular response’ following Afghanistan falloutSir Nicholas Kay, a former UK ambassador to Afghanistan, has said “this is the time for muscular, unceasing diplomacy” amid Taliban advances in the region.Sir Nicholas, who previously served as Nato senior civilian representative to Afghanistan, described the “complete withdrawal” from the conflict-hit country as “premature”.Three more provincial capitals in Afghanistan have fallen to the Taliban, officials said, putting nine out of the country’s 34 regions in the hands of the insurgents amid the US withdrawal, according to AP reports.Sir Nicholas told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme earlier: “I think it’s premature, the complete withdrawal, myself having sat very closely working with Nato, the task of training, advising and assisting was not complete and it required more time.”He added: “This was a defence, training and advice and assistance mission and they’re struggling now, we can see that. It is important that the support continues. Nato is still there, civilian presence, providing training advice and channelling funding to the Afghan forces, that’s vital.”Afghan president Ashraf Ghani’s senior adviser Waheed Omar said: “It’s hard times for us, but we know that we will prevail … We will not only hold them (Taliban) back, our people will defeat them.”Boris Johnson has insisted Britain is not abandoning its commitment to Afghanistan as he signalled in July the end of the UK’s 20-year military mission in the country.Additional reporting by PA More

Boris Johnson wants to replace Gavin Williamson as education secretary with a Tory MP known for her attacks on so-called “woke” education campaigners, it has been claimed.Mr Williamson has been heavily criticised for his handling of chaotic changes to the exams system during the Covid crisis and is widely expected to lose the role at the next cabinet reshuffle.Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, has been being lined up to take up the key role of education secretary at the next opportunity, according to a report in The Times citing “multiple sources”.Despite widespread frustration with Mr Williamson’s performance among Tory MPs, Mr Williamson is said to be telling his colleagues he “knows where the bodies are” in a desperate bid to keep his job.The education secretary – who ran Mr Johnson’s 2019 leadership campaign – has been under fire since last year’s A-levels fiasco when the government used an algorithm to “moderate” the results, only to perform a messy U-turn.Ms Badenoch raised eyebrows last year when she criticised “certain people” calling for changes to the history curriculum in British schools in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.The Tory MP said that some campaigners wanted the history curriculum to be taught “in a way that suggests good people [are] black people” and “bad people [are] white people”.The equalities minister also came under scrutiny over her decision earlier this year to publish journalist Nadine White’s emails on social media in a stream of tweets, accusing her of “creepy and bizarre” behaviour.However, according to a report in The Telegraph, the vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi has also been earmarked as a possible replacement as education secretary.Talk of a change at the top of the Department for Education comes as the government considers ways to overhaul A-levels amid concerns “grade inflation” is undermining confidence in the qualifications.For the second year in a row, students were given grades based on assessment by their teachers after exams were scrapped, with almost 45 per cent of pupils awarded an A or A* grades.Mr Williamson said the government would be “looking at different measures” to tackle grade inflation. The government is thought to be looking at replacing the traditional A to E grades with a numbered system in an effort to shore up the credibility of the qualification. Influential Tory MP Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, called for A-levels to be scrapped and replaced with the International Baccalaureate – saying grade inflation had become “baked” into the current system.However, Labour’s shadow education secretary Kate Green said changing the grading system would not ensure students are given the support they need.“I think that is just tweaking the system to get the government out of a difficult story,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Wednesday.“We shouldn’t be just playing around with the grading system here, we should be thinking about the quality of teaching and learning that children are receiving,” the Labour MP added.MPs and education leaders also expressed alarm over the widening divide between private schools and state schools when it comes to achieving top A-level results.The government’s former education recovery boss Kevan Collins has warned that “growing inequality” in education could be a legacy of Covid-19 if no action is taken.The former catch-up tsar, who resigned in June, told the Today programme: “I don’t believe the recovery will happen naturally and I think, if we don’t do something tangible about it, we will have growing inequality in our education system.” More

The president of the Cop26 summit Alok Sharma has said the UK is already experiencing the impact of climate change, as a group of Tory MPs shared their concerns about the cost of pursuing green policies.The government minister said he was shocked by recent photographs of the wildfires in Greece – but pointed to last month’s flash flooding in London as an example of extreme weather events in Britain.Mr Sharma told BBC’s Newscast podcast: “Unfortunately it’s not just Greece, we’re seeing around the world. And even in our country, right? In July when I was hosting a meeting of climate ministers here in London, London experienced in 24 hours one month of rainfall.”It comes as Conservative MPs in “red wall” seats across the north of England were caught out complaining to one other about the possible costs involved in cutting carbon emissions.Discussing the government’s green agenda, Tory Ashfield MP Lee Anderson reportedly told a WhatsApp group of Tory MPs: “This will not go down well in Red Wall seats at all.”Mr Sharma has been criticised for refusing to rule out new licences for oil and gas in the North Sea or an underground coal mine in Cumbria.Grilled about the plan for a coal mine near Whitehaven, Mr Sharma told the BBC: “When it comes to this coal mine I’m pleased there’s going to be a public inquiry. And we’ll see what comes out of it.”He added: “It does get raised by civil society groups when I talk to them. And I explain to them there is no coal mine – there’s going to be a public inquiry about this. There isn’t one at the moment, that’s the point.”The Cop26 minister has also come under fire over the number of flights he has taken around the world since the new year, but environmentalists have defended his attempts to hold face to face talks with leaders.Defending plane travel for the purpose of forging vital international agreement, Mr Sharma said it was particularly important for developing nation delegates to take part in talks “face-to-face” at Cop26 in Glasgow this November.“Everyone has been invited and we hope as many world leaders as possible come to this,” said the conference president. “The best way of getting this done is doing it face to face.“It’s really important that developing nations are able to sit at the same table as the big economies, the big nations, look them in the eye, face to face, and have this negotiation.”Mr Sharma said he expected more countries to submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – their own national climate action plans – before the Cop26 summit begins, urging major polluters like China and India to come up with new targets.“At the current count around 112 have submitted their NDCs,” he said. “What we need of course is all the big economies to come forward. We want to see what China’s going to do. We want to see what India is going to do.”“We’re also trying to get countries to commit to going to net zero in their economies by the middle of the century,” Mr Sharma added.The UK government said earlier this week it would relax some travel restrictions to help delegates attend the climate conference, including a shorter quarantine period for those from so-called “red list” countries who have been vaccinated. More

Boris Johnson’s government must end the “outrageous” inequality in pension payments for Gurkhas who fought with the British Army, Labour has said.Three Gurkha veterans are on the fifth day of a hunger strike protest outside Downing Street over the government’s failure to provide them with a full Armed Forces pension.Stephen Morgan, Labour’s shadow defence minister, said on Wednesday he was writing to defence secretary Ben Wallace to demand immediate action on pension parity for the Nepalese-born soldiers.“I’m really concerned about this issue – Gurkhas have served our country for 200 years,” the Labour MP told Sky News. “It’s outrageous that the inequality continues. The government promised two years ago to do something about this. We’re calling for action now.”The shadow minister added: “Gurkhas doing this protest right now should now I’m supporting them every step of the way. I’ll be writing to Ben Wallace today to end this injustice.”Asked about the plight of the three men staging a hunger strike, who have said they are willing to die in their fight for equality, Mr Morgan added: “It shows a huge stain on society for all of us.”The hunger strikers on Whitehall are campaigning for equal pension payments for Gurkha veterans who retired before 1997 and are still not eligible for a full pension.Serving Gurkhas and all those who retired after 1 July 1997 were allowed to transfer to the Armed Forces Pension Scheme – but those who retired before that date remain part of the old Gurkha Pension Scheme, worth between a third to half of a full Army pension.Dhan Gurung, of the three hunger strikers who has been sitting across the road from No 10, told Sky News on Tuesday he was prepared to die. “Our ancestors gave their lives in order to save Great Britain and now we are fighting for equal rights … Hunger until the death.”Gurkha veteran Nims Purja called on Mr Johnson to force a change in the rules. “I think the government has respect for the Gurkhas. But there’s a difference between respect in the form of words and in practice as well,” he said.Mr Purja added: “I would humbly request the UK government, the prime minister, to look into this matter seriously.”A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: “We greatly value the huge contribution Gurkhas make to the British Army and ensure they are supported with a generous pension and medical care during retirement in Nepal.“We are committed to ensuring the Gurkha Pension Scheme is sustainable and fair alongside other UK public sector pensions.” More