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      Boris Johnson firm gives Charlotte Owen top job after ex-PM made her UK’s youngest peer

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentThe woman made Britain’s youngest peer by Boris Johnson has a plum new job at an environmental consultancy chaired by the former prime minister, The Independent can reveal.Charlotte Owen, now Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge after entering the House of Lords at the age of 30, has been appointed vice-president of the company Better Earth. Her elevation to the Upper House in Mr Johnson’s controversial honours list two years ago attracted significant scrutiny just six years after she started working in politics and following a brief stint as his aide.News of her latest role – which is paid – emerged in a two-line entry in her Lords register of interests in the last month. Her salary was not disclosed.The website for Better Earth, which is not fully operational but promises “full site coming soon”, describes itself as an “internationally facing company that seeks to contribute to global decarbonisation”. Charlotte Owen was appointed Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge More

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      Prison population hits record high as ‘half-baked and unworkable’ plan to send convicts to Estonia slammed

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentThe prison population in England and Wales has reached a new record high as a scheme to house UK prisoners in Estonia to solve Britain’s jail overcrowding crisis has been branded half-baked and unworkable.Official figures showed there were 88,521 people behind bars on Friday, 171 more than the previous record set at the end of last week. The prison population has risen by 1,025 people over the past four weeks and now stands at its highest level since weekly population data was first published in 2011.Dame Angela Eagle, the Home Office minister, refused to deny reports that some inmates could serve their sentences in the eastern European country, and admitted there were too few places in UK prisons.“The last government closed loads of prison places and didn’t replace any of them, so I think that colleagues in the MoJ (Ministry of Justice) will be considering anything that they can to alleviate the problem,” she said on Friday. “What we cannot have is people who are convicted of perhaps violent or serious crimes not being able to be in jail.”Dame Angela Eagle refused to deny reports that some inmates could serve their sentences in Estonia More

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      Green co-leader opens party conference with scathing attack on Labour U-turns

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentGreen co-leader Adrian Ramsay has opened the party’s conference with an attack on the “lacklustre offers and U-turns” of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.Kicking off the left-wing party’s campaign against Labour for next year’s local elections, Mr Ramsay painted the Greens as “an inspiring alternative to business as usual”.And, while he promised to work with Labour on issues where the parties agree, he condemned Sir Keir’s decision to withdraw the winter fuel payment from millions of pensioners, his refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap and the approval of an expansion of London City Airport .Mr Ramsay also attacked the “half-hearted” suspension of arms sales to Israel after foreign secretary David Lammy blocked 30 of the UK’s 350 export licences to the country.Two months after the party’s general election breakthrough, which saw the Greens jump from having one Westminster MP to four, Mr Ramsay vowed the group would “use our voices in parliament to raise up the voices of two million Green voters who want so much better”.Carla Denyer was unable to attend the party conference after contracting Covid-19 More

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      Suspended Labour councillor denies inciting violent disorder

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentA former Labour councillor has denied encouraging violence while addressing a crowd during an anti-fascist protest in Walthamstow.Ricky Jones, 57, allegedly committed the offence during a speech to a gathering, organised in response to the nationwide violent disorder, in Hoe Street, Walthamstow, on 7 August.A video was shared on social media in which he appeared to call for far-right protesters’ throats to be “cut”. The suspended politician was charged by police with encouraging violent disorder two days later.Jones, who was remanded in custody after his last court appearance, appeared on a videolink from HMP Wormwood Scrubs to Snaresbrook Crown Court. He pleaded not guilty.During a previous hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, deputy senior district judge Tan Ikram said: “It is alleged that using a microphone you addressed a crowd at an anti-fascist protest and, talking about others you described as ‘disgusting Nazi fascists’, you said ‘we need to cut their throats and get rid of them’.”Defence barrister Hossein Zahir KC said Jones accepted the words had been spoken but denied knowing the offence of violent disorder would be committed.District judge Oscar Del Fabbro ordered the defendant to produce a defence statement by October 25, and set a provisional trial date of January 20 next year at the same court.Jones, who has been a councillor in Dartford, Kent, since 2019, was suspended by the Labour Party.In reference to the video, a Labour spokesperson said: “This behaviour is completely unacceptable and it will not be tolerated.” More

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      Germany considering Rwanda deportation plan using UK facilities after Labour scrapped scheme

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentGermany could use asylum facilities in Rwanda originally intended for the UK’s aborted migration scheme, reports from Berlin have suggested.The country’s migration commissioner, Joachim Stamp, has suggested the EU could utilise existing asylum accommodation in the east African country, originally destined for migrants deported from Britain under the now-scrapped scheme.Downing Street said it would not comment on the discussions between two foreign governments.Rishi Sunak wanted to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda More

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      Pressure builds on police to speed up Grenfell fire probe – and bring manslaughter charges

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentGrieving relatives of Grenfell fire victims are calling for those responsible to face manslaughter charges as pressure builds on police to speed up their investigation.Families and survivors expressed anguish that prosecutions might not be brought until 2026 despite this week’s damning inquiry report into the disaster which killed 72 residents and left 800 more homeless.The wait could be even longer, warned a former director of public prosecutions on Thursday night. Lord Macdonald said criminal trials may not begin until the 2029 due to the pressure on the criminal justice system.Some families now fear they may not live to see justice for their loved ones over the 2017 blaze.Shah Aghlani, 55, who lost his aunt and disabled mother in the fire, told The Independent that the prospect of further delay to criminal prosecutions “is our worst fear coming true, our nightmare coming true”.And he said the lack of accountability over Grenfell has emboldened developers to drag their feet in fixing thousands of buildings still endangered by flammable cladding seven years on, labelling a fire that ravaged a block of flats in London last week as “Grenfell Two”.“There are harsher laws for drinking and driving than killing people by corporate manslaughter,” said Mr Aghlani. “There are people who falsified test results, people whose job was to make sure the safety and security of the building was not compromised. People who were responsible for their tenants.Seventy-two people were killed in the Grenfell fire More

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      First the Rwanda scheme, now Labour scraps plan to hold asylum seekers on RAF site

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentLabour has scrapped plans to house asylum seekers at RAF Scampton, weeks after it dumped the Conservative government’s Rwanda deportation scheme. The Home Office said the much-criticised plan for the site did not represent value for money for the taxpayer.Campaigners welcomed the move, saying former military sites were never suitable places to house those coming to the UK seeking safety. The former airbase in Lincolnshire was at the centre of the previous Tory government’s plan to accommodate migrants who arrived across the Channel in small boats.Opening the site from the autumn as planned would have cost a further £122m by the end of its use in 2027, meaning the site no longer represents value for money, the government said. Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle revealed that £60m has already been spent on work at the base.This would leave the total cost “nearer £200m”, she said, a figure which “clearly fails to deliver value for money for the taxpayer”.About £60m has already been spent on the site, according to the Home Office More