UK Politics

Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has been promoted to Facebook’s top table, the company has announced.Parent company Meta said on Wednesday that the ex-Lib Dem leader has been made president of global affairs – reporting directly to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Mr Clegg has worked for Facebook since October 2018, overseeing public relations for the social networking company.In a post on Facebook Mr Zuckerberg said he could not “think of anyone better placed to represent us and help shape the future of internet policy than Nick”.“For the last three years, Nick has managed some of the most complex issues our company faces – including content policy, elections, the establishment of the Oversight Board, and more,” he said.“Nick will now lead our company on all our policy matters, including how we interact with governments as they consider adopting new policies and regulations, as well as how we make the case publicly for our products and our work.“Given the expanded scope of this new role, he will now report directly to me as well as Sheryl [Sandberg]. As Nick takes on this new leadership role, it will enable me to focus more of my energy on leading the company as we build new products for the future, and it will support Sheryl as she continues to focus on the success of our business.”In politics, Mr Clegg took his party into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, after winning a record high share of the vote for his party at that year’s General Election But his tenure in government won little admiration from the public, who booted him out as an MP at the 2015 election and reduced his party to a rump of just eight MPs, down from 57. More

The “minister for international development” has been handed eight other jobs, prompting protests that Boris Johnson has broken his promise to protect the UK’s aid effort.When the Department for International Development (Dfid) was controversially axed in 2020, the prime minister pledged that overseas aid would remain “at the beating heart” of policy-making.But a new list of ministerial responsibilities reveals James Cleverly has been given a daunting list of tasks to combine with spending to help the world’s most desperate people.The minister of state – not cabinet minister, as before – must also manage relations with the United States and Canada, Europe, Gibraltar and the troublespots of Russia and Iran.On top of that, he is responsible for national security, “defence and international security” and the tortured negations with the EU over the Brexit trade deal and the Northern Ireland Protocol.The aid organisation Bond questioned how the “merged” Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office can manage such a vast portfolio when it is “one minister short”.“We need a dedicated minister for international development, with a seat in the cabinet, to drive the UK’s development priorities and ensure that marginalised communities around the world are not neglected,” said Simon Starling, Bond’s director of policy.Sarah Champion, chair of the Commons international development committee, said: “We were told this wasn’t a hostile takeover and the government’s commitment to ending global poverty was absolute.“Sadly, this is looking like another broken promise, one with devastating consequences to both the poorest in the world, and our international standing.”In June 2020, Mr Johnson faced down criticism from three former prime ministers to scrap Dfid, telling MPs: “This move is about placing our world-class aid programme at the beating heart of our foreign policy decision making.”Claiming it would ensure “our impact abroad is bigger than the sum of its parts”, he claimed: “Far from diminishing our ambitions, it will elevate them.”The government then broke a manifesto pledge by forcing through £4bn-a-year cuts to overseas aid spending, a reduction – from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of national income – that will not be restored until 2024 at the earliest.It will only be reversed if, in two years, the government is no longer borrowing money for day-to-day spending and underlying debt is falling as a percentage of national income.The cut came back to bite Mr Johnson at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, when the UK was accused of undermining it claims of leadership on tackling the climate emergency.Setting out his Budget last October, the chancellor Rishi Sunak said “forecasts show that we are scheduled to return to 0.7 per cent in 2024-25 – before the end of the parliament”. More

Boris Johnson’s government has asked the Metropolitan Police to confirm whether or not it will publish more than 300 photos received as part of the investigation in alleged parties at No 10 and Whitehall.The Cabinet Office has said it “expects” that Scotland Yard will not to publish the pictures once the probe concludes, according to a document leaked to ITV News.The update document sent to civil servants by the Cabinet Office’s liaison unit said police been asked about photos of gatherings – given that they could potentially identify staff members involved.It stated: “Consistent with its indication that it will not publish the identities of anyone issued a FPN [fixed-penalty notice], we would not expect the Met to publish photographs. The liaison unit has asked the Met to confirm this.”The Independent understands the Cabinet Office is seeking to clarify whether the photos will be made public, and is not attempting to influence police decisions.Scotland Yard is unlikely to reveal the names of any individuals hit with fines linked to the 12 gatherings under investigation, since the identity of people issued with fixed-penalty notices is not usually disclosed by police.It follows reports that a Q&A sheet was sent by the liaison unit to government officials caught up in the inquiry, detailing certain aspects of what information will and will not be published by the police over the course of their investigation.The document cited by The Telegraph suggests that the number of fines issued for the alleged parties, if any, will be made public by police. The Met is also expected to publish its reasons for issuing tickets.However, officials were reportedly told the names of those receiving FPNs, if such fines are imposed, will not be revealed, and their details will not be shared with the civil service.Scotland Yard confirmed a document had been drawn up by the Cabinet Office to brief staff and it was “consulted on those aspects relevant to its investigation and legal processes”.The Met declined to comment on the reported request from the government regarding photos, and it is understood that the Cabinet Office has yet received a response to its query.More than 300 photos and 500 pages of information were given to the force by the Cabinet Office last month.The Met has sent a questionnaire to approximately 50 people as it conducts its inquiry, titled Operation Hillman. Mr Johnson received his questionnaire on Friday, and Downing Street has since said his responses will not be made public.It has been reported that Mr Johnson is working with a personal lawyer on his response to the police investigation.According to ITV News, the prime minister’s advisers believe that if he can prove he did not get drunk at events he allegedly attended, and resumed his duties afterwards, he may be able to make the case they were part of his working day.The PM previously admitted he was present for 25 minutes at the notorious “bring your own booze” gathering in the Downing Street garden in May 2020, but said he thought it was a “work event” to thank staff for their efforts during the pandemic.Adam Wagner QC, a human rights barrister and expert in Covid laws, said the argument about whether Mr Johnson went back to work afterwards was “irrelevant”.The lawyer tweeted: “Look, it’s up to the PM how he puts his case and I say good luck to him and his bold arguments! But they don’t sound like good arguments.” More

Keir Starmer has this week recorded his highest ever rating as best prime minister, in a clear indication that Boris Johnson failed in his attempt to smear the Labour leader by falsely linking him to paedophile Jimmy Savile.Meanwhile, Mr Johnson’s most likely successor as Conservative leader, chancellor Rishi Sunak, slumped to his lowest rating yet in the regular Savanta ComRes survey, as memories of his pandemic support packages fade in the face of the current cost-of-living crisis.The monthly poll put Labour a comfortable nine points ahead of Tories on 41 per cent to 32 in general election voting intentions, though the margin had tightened by two points since the last time the question was asked.Mr Johnson’s personal ratings as best PM edged up by three points since January, in an apparent sign of public fury over lockdown-busting parties at 10 Downing subsiding.But he still trailed Starmer by 31 to 39 per cent, with the Labour leader also gaining three points to reach his highest rating since the monthly political tracker began in May 2020.Mr Sunak’s declining popularity was reflected in his Net Favourability score – calculated by substracting the percentage unhappy with his performance from those who are satisfied – falling by seven points since last month to his lowest ever rating of +3.While still positive, the rating marks a steep decline from the highpoint of his popularity which reached +30 in September 2020, when millions of people were receiving furlough payments, and well below the +17 rating recorded by the chancellor this time last year.With the withdrawal of the £20 universal credit uplift and the introduction of a 1.25 per cent hike in employees’ and employers’ national insurance contributions eating into his popularity, Savanta ComRes political research director Chris Hopkins said some may start questioning Sunak’s position as heir-apparent to the prime minister.“It’s always been easy for Sunak to be liked, due to his polished parliamentary performances and pandemic-related giveaways,” said Mr Hopkins.“But that could only last for so long and we are finally seeing him come back to the pack, with a relatively low favourability rating.“I would only expect that to drop further as the cost of living crisis bites, and particularly in April when national insurance is due to rise and his supporters may begin to wonder if he’s the candidate to back to replace the prime minister in the long run.”Johnson’s favourability rating stood at -34 – a three-point improvement on last month – while Starmer’s was down two points to -6.Around one-sixth (18 per cent) of those who backed the Tories in the 2019 general election now say that Sir Keir would be their choice for PM, against just 59 per cent who have stuck with Johnson.Conversely, seven in ten Labour voters (71 per cent) say that Starmer would be the best PM, although one in five say it would be Johnson (19 per cent).Elsewhere in the tracker, almost half of UK adults say that they are pessimistic about the economy in 2022 (46 per cent), with just three in ten saying they feel optimistic about it (30 per cent).- Savanta ComRes interviewed 2,226 UK adults online between 11 and 13 February. More

Demands for trans people to be allowed to self-identify their gender are to be debated in parliament next week in response to a petition which gathered almost 140,000 signatures.The chair of parliament’s all-party group on global LGBT+ rights told The Independent that it was “no surprise” that the issue was being forced back onto the agenda despite the government’s bid to shut down the issue.Tory MP Crispin Blunt said the UK risked being seen as “outdated and international laggards” on trans rights by sticking with “invasive and bureaucratic rules”.Reforms to the Gender Recognition Act to permit self-identification without medical diagnosis were ditched by the government in 2020 following a consultation which sparked bitter controversy.Campaigners for women’s rights said the change would make it impossible to protect single-sex spaces like changing rooms and toilets from people who were born male and have male genitals.The then equalities minister Liz Truss said at the time that existing legislation struck the right balance.She dropped plans drawn up under Theresa May’s administration for self-identification by signing a statutory declaration without the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.Instead, she promised to open new gender clinics and cut the cost of gender recognition certificates in England and Wales as part of a drive to make the process “kinder and more straightforward”.But now the issue has been forced back onto the parliamentary stage by a petition signed by 137,271 people, calling for the Act to be reformed “to allow transgender people to self-identify without the need for a medical diagnosis, to streamline the administrative process, and to allow non-binary identities to be legally recognised”.The Commons Petitions Committee has tabled a debate on the petition for next Monday. The Westminster Hall debate cannot lead to a change in the law, but offers a new chance for supporters of reform to make their case.The authors of the petition said policy-makers had “ignored” the 70 per cent support for the change recorded in the earlier consultation.And they said that the current process is “distressing and often humiliating for transgender people, as well as lengthy and costly making it inaccessible to many people”.In response, the government equalities office said: “We want transgender people to be free to live and to prosper in modern Britain. We have looked carefully at the issues raised in the consultation, including potential changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.“It is the government’s view that the balance struck in this legislation is correct, in that there are proper checks and balances in the system and also support for people who want to change their legal sex.“It is also important that we protect single-sex spaces in line with the Equality Act. The law is clear that service providers are able to restrict access to single sex spaces on the basis of biological sex.”Mr Blunt said: “Over 100,000 people responded to consultation on GRA reform back in 2018 so it’s entirely unsurprising to see this public support for a petition once the government set its face against GRA reform in 2020.“This issue will not go away.  As understanding of gender identity improves, UK processes to legally support trans people exercise their rights to the freedom to live their lives as they wish now look increasingly invasive and bureaucratic.“We are becoming outdated and international laggards rather than leaders in this area of human rights law, important to up to one per cent of our population.” More

The government is refusing to say how much public money it has spent on Covid-19 tests – claiming the information is “commercially sensitive” and thus confidential.The veil of secrecy over the use of taxpayer cash comes amid reports that the ministers are planning to end the distribution of free testing kits.The stonewalling over how money was spent has raised alarm bells across Westminster because of the extent to which costs have ballooned in other areas – with £37 billion spent on the NHS test and trace scheme over two years. The claim that information is “commercially sensitive” and therefore must be kept secret comes as question marks also hang over the close relationship between some Covid contractors, Tory donors, and government ministers.A report by the group Transparency International found that a whole fifth of all Covid-19 contracts awarded by the government contained red flag indicators of possible corruption.The National Audit Office warned in November 2020 that the government’s approach to contracts had “diminished public transparency” and that “the lack of adequate documentation means we cannot give assurance that government has adequately mitigated the increased risks arising from emergency procurement or applied appropriate commercial practices in all cases”.Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: “The Government wasted billions of taxpayers money on dodgy Covid contracts and a botched test and trace system, but won’t come clean on how much they’ve spent on the very tests that keep people safe. “This is the public’s money and the public has a right to know — especially now that the Government plans to force people to pay for Covid tests.“Throughout the pandemic, it’s clear that Conservative ministers have been more interested in helping their wealthy mates than supporting hard-pressed families.“If we are to live well with Covid, then the public deserves to know how much measures that work actually cost.”Asked how much had been spent in the financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22 on PCR tests, lateral flow tests, and other testing equipment, health minister Maggie Throup said in a written parliamentary answer: “We are unable to provide the amount spent in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years on the purchases of PCR tests, lateral flow device tests and other Covid-19 testing equipment, as this information is commercially sensitive.”The Department of Health and Social Care was asked to elaborate on its reasoning but has not responded at the time of publication. Ministers are reportedly preparing to announce the end of free lateral flow home test kits, which will no longer be freely available to all. They are also thought to be planning to scale back PCR testing. One option being looked at is whether to limit its availability to older adults and people considered to be more clinically vulnerable. More

Russia has not taken its “foot off the gas” over a potential invasion and Ukraine and the UK hasn’t “seen evidence” of a withdrawal of forces, Ben Wallace has warned.Pouring cold water on claims from the Kremlin that some troops were being pulled back from the Eastern European country’s border, the defence secretary claimed forces were “increasing in key areas”.“I think what we haven’t seen is evidence of withdrawal that has been claimed by the Kremlin,” Mr Wallace told Sky News. The cabinet minister claimed the government continued to see a “build up” of Russian field hospitals and strategic weapons being deployed to the region, insisting: “Until we see a proper de-escalation, I think we should all be cautious about the direction of travel from the Kremlin”.With over 130,000 estimated troops massed on the border of Ukraine, Mr Wallace said it represented “60 per cent of the entire Russian land combat power”.“Also out at sea there’s effectively a significant flotilla of Russian and amphibious landing ships, and indeed war ships and missile ships, and from a Ukrainian point of view they’re fairly surrounded by a very large force of ready troops. “That continues – they haven’t taken the foot of the gas.”His remarks come ahead of a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels on Wednesday and after US president, Joe Biden, gave a televised address, in which he said an invasion was still possible.Ahead of the Nato summit, general secretary Jens Stoltenberg echoed Mr Wallace’s comments, saying: “We have heard the signs from Moscow about readiness to continue diplomatic efforts.“But so far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground. On the contrary, it appears that Russia continues to military build-up.”However, after reports quoting US intelligence sources that an invasion could commence in the early hours of Wednesday morning were proved incorrect, Mr Wallace insisted it was “unhelpful” to speculate over dates for a possible invasion.“I’ve never talked about a date because in all the intelligence I’ve seen dates are not the issue. The issue here is the significant amount of forces,” he stressed.“The real indications here have not been a date, the real indications have been a gradual, steady and significant build-up of forces into a readiness posture and indeed into a deployment posture which we’ve seen in the last few days that would significantly indicate and incursion into Ukraine.He added: “There’s really not point speculating on a specific date, however there are definitely dates in the mix. I think it’s unhelpful to speculate.”But speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the former head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, said the risk of a “full-blooded” Russian invasion of Ukraine was never as high as some western governments portrayed and has now “receded”.“I don’t think that president Putin ever decided to invade the country and, indeed, I think it would always have been a very risky course for him to have taken,” he said.“But I think Russia has also come out of this with a number of important gains,” he added, saying it has got Russia’s security concerns back to the top of the international security agenda, the Ukrainians have been intimidated and Europeans have been reminded how dependent they are on Russian gas. More

Boris Johnson will have to quit if he is found to have attended or known about rule-breaking No 10 parties, a former Conservative attorney-general says.Jeremy Wright heaped pressure on the prime minister by insisting he will then have no escape route – because he will have misled parliament when he claimed no rules were broken.The warning comes as No 10 seeks to soften public opinion ahead of Mr Johnson receiving an expected fixed penalty notice from the Metropolitan police, which could be imposed within weeks.His personal lawyer is expected to argue that – even if he attended gatherings found to be illegal parties – he broke no rules if he went back to work immediately afterwards and did not drink excessively.But, in a letter to his constituents, Mr Wright, the attorney-general under both David Cameron and Theresa May, appears to impose a far simpler test of culpability.He has written: “If the prime minister has attended events he knew broke the rules, or was aware of events he knew broke the rules, he should not have advised the House of Commons, on several occasions, that as far as he was aware, no rules were broken there.“Doing so in those circumstances would be misleading the House and must in my view lead to his resignation or removal from office.”In the letter, seen by The Times, Mr Wright says it is “frustrating” that the Met failed to take action sooner and argues there was no need for a “lengthy investigation” into the scandal.“There is little in this episode or the handling of it of which the prime minister can be proud, and he may yet need to leave office because of it,” Mr Wright adds.“But the decision to remove a sitting prime minister two years after his election with a large majority requires proper consideration of the relevant evidence, as my constituents are entitled to expect me to give it.”Mr Johnson has hired a lawyer to help him draft a response to the legal questionnaire sent to him by the Met, which must be returned by the end of this week.He will argue it was part of his working day when he attended as many as six different gatherings during lockdown, some of them leaving events for his staff.The prime minister is in greatest danger over the ‘bring your own bottle’ party in the No 10 garden, in May 2020, which he has admitted attending – while claiming he did not realise it was a party.Sue Gray, the civil servant investigating the affair, has seen an email warning Mr Johnson’s aide Martin Reynolds to cancel the event, a warning Dominic Cummings claimed was also given to Mr Johnson.He has also not denied attending the ‘ABBA party’ in his flat in November 2020 – to celebrate Mr Cummings’ departure – and appears to be preparing to argue he was working while it went on. More