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      Angela Rayner makes ginger joke at Labour local election launch

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      Angela Rayner made a joke about being ginger at Labour’s local elections launch on Thursday (28 March).The Labour deputy leader was introducing Sir Keir Starmer, as she made comparisons between her and the party’s leader.Ms Rayner said: “We grew up in different ends of the country and at different times, but we endured the same insecurities and hardships so many hardworking people face.“I guess the one difference is I had to endure it as a ginger, so I have got one up there.” More

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      How to avoid post-Brexit passport chaos: Simon Calder answers your questions on new rules for travelling to EU

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      Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discountsGet Simon Calder’s Travel emailBritish visitors to the EU are facing stricter passport validity rules post-Brexit –and it could ruin your holiday if you’re caught out.Long gone are the days when you could travel to the EU at any point before your travel document expired; the UK is now a “third country”, with rules to match.EU countries and the wider Schengen Area, which includes Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland, do not accept passports issued more than 10 years ago from such travellers. Before Brexit, the Passport Office issued British passports valid for up to 10 years and nine months, considering the remaining time from the previous passport. While this wasn’t an issue previously, it’s now affecting some British holidaymakers heading to the EU.Recent data from the Home Office suggests up to 32 million Brits could be caught out by the rule change.Many readers are naturally concerned about their travel plans being sullied by an unexpected stop at the check in desk.To avoid this, you simply need to pass two tests. On the day of entry to the Schengen Area, your passport must have been issued in the past 10 years; and on your proposed day of exit it should have at least three months to run before the expiry date printed in the passport.During an “Ask Me Anything” session for The Independent, I tackled a wide range of questions from readers worried about their holiday plans and how they would be impacted.Q: My wife’s passport was issued 19 June 2014 and expires 19 January 2025. We are due to travel to France on the 5 April 2024. Now, her passport is within the 10 year rule but will only have two months left on it if the EU considers the expiry date to be 19th June 2024. Does she need to get a new passport urgently or is the three month rule applied to the actual expiry date of Jan 2025?GibberingOwlerA: Thanks very much for raising a really important point so early. Forgive me while I go on to caps lock. THE EXPIRY DATE OF YOUR PASSPORT IS THE DATE PRINTED BENEATH “DATE OF EXPIRY”. That is the expiry date as recognised by the European Union and everyone else on the planet.To their enduring shame, HM Government, some airlines, some travel firms and some journalists maintained for many months that this was not the case. But it is and always has been.So your wife’s passport is valid for travel out to France or anywhere else in the UK until 18 June 2024 for a stay of up to 90 days, ie until 15 September 2024 (subject to previous visits not eating into the post-Brexit allowance). Bon voyage.Q: My passport was issued in March 2015 and expires September 2025. I am due to travel at the end of April. Can you confirm please that my current passport is ok to use as it will be less than 10 years old when I travel? I just want to check I am understanding the rules correctly. EmmaA: There are just two tests for the European Union:Is it younger than 10 years? In your case, of course. It’s only nine years old.Will it have at least three months remaining on the day you plan to return from the EU? Yes. Enjoy the journey.Q: I am confused because I thought you needed to have a passport to travel to Dublin now as we are out of the EU.LornaWA: The Republic of Ireland is part of the Common Travel Area (CTA) – along with the four nations of the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.There are no routine passport controls in operation for citizens travelling from one part of the CTA area to another. As long as you were born in the UK or Ireland, you are legally able to travel from the UK to Ireland without a passport.If you plan to travel on Ryanair, the airline insists that you have a valid passport (no restrictions on validity, so long as it has not exceeded its expiry date). On arrival at Dublin airport, you will go through passport control.But British Airways says: “If you are a citizen of the UK or Republic of Ireland who was born in that country you do not need a passport to travel between the two countries but you do require some form of photographic identification, such as a driving licence.”Aer Lingus, BA’s sister airline, adds that a bus pass or work ID card with your photo on is quite sufficient. The ferries are similarly relaxed.Q: My understanding was that you must look at the date of issue of your passport and add 10 years. This date should be treated as your expiry date for the purposes of travel to EU. The ‘issued within 10 years and still have three months left after travel return date would then be applied. Is this correct?GrannyAnnieA: Sorry, caps lock again. NO, THE UK GOVERNMENT PRETENDED THAT WAS THE CASE FOR A WHILE until I persuaded them to actually apply the rules that the European Union applies. Your passport expires on the day printed in your passport under “Date of Expiry”.Q: The BBC has confused me with their article. How can a passport issued up until September 2018 be affected now, or do they mean ‘be aware you will be affected in the future’ i.e. next year for ones issued in 2015?SharronA: Sorry for any confusion the BBC has caused. The September 2018 date is relevant because that is when the long-established tradition of allowing extra time was abolished overnight. Passports issued since then cannot fall foul of the rule that the UK asked to be applied to itself.Q: Is the start date issue only valid for the EU? I’m travelling to Asia and my passport will have more than six months left on it when we travel but the passport will be 10 years old on the travel dates.MuttzMuttzA: The European Union is the only part of the world that cares tuppence about the issue date of your passport. So no problem for Asia so long as your passport expiry date meets the requirements for the individual countries.Q: Yet another Brexit bonus, eh? Is this what they meant by ‘taking back control?…haynemanA: I have written as much as I possibly could on the benefits of Brexit for travellers here.After all, we know: “Brexit has given the UK a world of future opportunities”. It must be true because the government says so.The main rail unions, which campaigned enthusiastically for Brexit, must also be celebrating.And then there’s “blue” passports. The government says: “As this document demonstrates – this is a government that possesses the ambition and determination the UK needs to succeed now and for many years to come.”Hurrah! And please don’t point out that as members of the EU we could have made our passports any colour we like.Some of the questions and answers have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article.If you have more questions you can sign up to my weekly Ask Me Anything email, exclusively for Independent Premium subscribers.All you need to do to sign up is subscribe to Independent Premium, which you can do here.When you subscribe you will be asked to select the newsletters you would like to receive – make sure you pick Ask Me Anything to receive my weekly email.If you’re already subscribed to Independent Premium and want to check out our full offering of Premium and free newsletters click here. More

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      Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner insists ‘I’m not losing sleep’ as police review council house claims

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      Angela Rayner has insisted she is “not losing any sleep” after it was revealed police are reviewing claims she may have broken electoral law when she lived between two council houses in Stockport.Greater Manchester Police has confirmed a detective chief inspector had been assigned to reconsider the case, just days after Ms Rayner accused the Conservative party of attempting to “smear” her.Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Thursday (28 March), Ms Rayner insisted she had done nothing wrong.She said: “I am not losing any sleep over this. The only thing I am losing sleep over is 14 years of Conservative economic chaos.” More

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      Hard to balance being a good dad and being prime minister, says Rishi Sunak

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      Rishi Sunak has spoken of the challenges of being a good father to his two children, while balancing being prime minister.Mr Sunak opened up about the struggle in an interview with former Conservative Party leader William Hague for The Times Podcast.The prime minister said: “I have two young girls who mean the world to me. Ding these jobs it’s hard to balance being a good dad and doing a good job. You’ve got to prioritise this job because it’s an important job and you are doing it on behalf of the country.” More

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      George Osborne suggests Rachel Reeves is ‘heir to David Cameron’

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      Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailGeorge Osborne has suggested that Rachel Reeves is the “heir to David Cameron” – and himself – as he predicted Labour will win the next election. The shadow chancellor channelled another former Tory leader, Margaret Thatcher, during part of a major speech on the economy last week.The former chancellor once famously called Lord Cameron, now the foreign secretary, the “heir to Blair”. At the time, he says, “the Tory refuseniks were appalled”. But, he adds in a diary for The Spectator magazine, “moving on from lost battles is the key to future success”.In government, he says, he and Lord Cameron “accepted parts of the Blair inheritance – social liberalism, the minimum wage and so on, just as Blair had before him accepted the Thatcher inheritance of union laws and the market economy”.The same pattern can now be seen in the current shadow chancellor, he suggests. “Now Reeves is saying she wants to strengthen the Office for Budget Responsibility I introduced, adopt austere fiscal rules and won’t put up corporation tax,” he points out, asking: “Is she the heir to Cameron/Osborne?” Elsewhere, Mr Osborne, once widely seen as the man most likely to replace Lord Cameron as prime minister, predicts Labour is “going to win” the looming general election. It comes after a polling guru put Labour’s chances of securing the keys to No 10 at 99 per cent. In a blow to the Tories, Sir John Curtice said the chances the Conservatives could turn around their dire poll ratings was small, and added: “The Labour Party will be in a much stronger position to negotiate a minority government than the Conservatives because, apart from possibly the DUP, the Conservatives have no friends in the House of Commons.”Labour has consistently been 20 points ahead in the polls. Rishi Sunak has ruled out a general election on 2 May, but the prime minister still faces a potential electoral mauling on the day as voters cast their ballots in the local elections. The PM is also facing an exodus from his party after two cabinet ministers quit ahead of stepping down as MPs at the general election.A total of 63 Conservative MPs, including former PM Theresa May, have now said publicly they will not stand the next time around.A Labour source dismissed the “heir to Cameron” claims as “rubbish”. They added: “A claim that has about as much credibility as Osborne’s campaign for David Cameron to be Labour’s foreign secretary. And it’s because of the OBR we know the damage five Conservative prime ministers have done to the economy.” More

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      TikTok to launch online election centres to counter misinformation

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      Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailTikTok has unveiled plans to launch online election centres on the platform as part of its efforts to support electoral integrity during 2024.The video-sharing site said more than two billion people in more than 50 countries were expected to go to the polls this year, and that its election centres would be used to point people to trusted information.Concerns have been raised about the potential impact of social media on elections this year, with artificial intelligence fuelling new waves of misinformation and disinformation in the form of manipulated media and deepfakes.TikTok said it would launch a Local Election Centre in the UK in early April, ahead of local elections in May, which had been created in partnership with fact-checking firm Logically Facts.AI-generated content brings new challenges to our industry, which we’ve proactively addressed with firm rules and new technologiesTikTok blog post The online centre would provide users with verified voting information, including when, where and how people could vote, as well as links to resources from the Electoral Commission.On TikTok, people would be directed to the centre through prompts on relevant election posts or searches.The company said it was planning to introduce similar centres in other countries around the world, tailored to each election.In the UK, TikTok said it would also produce a range of educational videos with Logically Facts, encouraging users to consider the information they consumed around elections.These videos would be featured on the election centre.Alongside 20 other leading tech companies, we recently pledged to help prevent deceptive AI content from interfering with this year’s elections through proactive collaborationTikTok blog post In a blog post discussing the company’s approach to elections in 2024, TikTok said it was also already making specific efforts to combat AI-powered misinformation, and this would continue during elections.“AI-generated content (AIGC) brings new challenges to our industry, which we’ve proactively addressed with firm rules and new technologies,” the company said.“We don’t allow manipulated content that could be misleading, including AIGC of public figures if it depicts them endorsing a political view. We also require creators to label any realistic AIGC and launched a first-of-its-kind tool to help people do this.“Alongside 20 other leading tech companies, we recently pledged to help prevent deceptive AI content from interfering with this year’s elections through proactive collaboration.“As technology evolves in 2024, we’ll continue to improve our policies and detection while partnering with experts on media literacy content that helps our community navigate AI responsibly, including working with industry through content provenance partnerships.” More

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      Essays written with ChatGPT feature repetition of words and ideas – study

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      Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRepetition of words, tautology and paragraphs starting with “however” are some tell-tale features of ChatGPT’s writing style, researchers have found.The writing style of the artificial intelligence tool is “bland” and “journalistic”, according to a Cambridge University Press and Assessment study.It comes after the rise of generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, has sparked concerns about cheating among pupils in the education sector.Researchers compared essays written by three first-year undergraduate students, with the aid of ChatGPT, with 164 essays written by IGCSE students.These essays were marked by examiners and the undergraduates were then interviewed and their essays were analysed.The study found essays written with the help of ChatGPT performed poorly on analysis and comparison skills compared to non-ChatGPT-assisted essays.But ChatGPT-assisted essays performed strongly on information and reflection skills.Researchers identified a number of key features of the ChatGPT writing style, which included the use of Latinate vocabulary, repetition of words or phrases and ideas, and pleonasms.Essays written with the help of ChatGPT were also more likely to use paragraphs starting with discourse markers like “however”, “moreover”, and “overall”, and numbered lists with items.The researchers said ChatGPT’s default writing style “echoes the bland, clipped, and objective style that characterises much generic journalistic writing found on the internet”.The report said: “The students found ChatGPT useful for gathering information quickly.“However, they considered that complete reliance on this technology would produce essays of a low academic standard.”Lead researcher Jude Brady, of Cambridge University Press and Assessment, said: “Our findings offer insights into the growing area of generative AI and assessment, which is still largely uncharted territory.“Despite the small sample size, we are excited about these findings as they have the capacity to inform the work of teachers as well as students.”She added: “We hope our research might help people to identify when a piece of text has been written by ChatGPT.“For students and the wider population, learning to use and detect generative AI forms an increasingly important aspect of digital literacy.” More

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      Barred from Europe: 2.4m Brits caught in post-Brexit passport chaos

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      Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightMillions of Britons are barred from entering the EU by post-Brexit passport rules that are set to cause chaos over the Easter holidays.With the getaway starting in earnest on Thursday, an estimated 2.4 million travellers have documents that can’t be used for trips to the EU because of the change in expiry requirements.Since Brexit, British passports must have an issue date less than 10 years old on the day of departure to the EU, and must have at least three months left before their expiry date on the intended day of return. But millions of passports issued prior to September 2018 have longer validity periods.Analysis by The Independent suggests 200 people every day are falling foul of this rule at UK airports, with thousands expected to see their holidays ruined over the upcoming break.The rule change follows Britain’s Brexit deal with the EU, which puts the UK into the “third country nationals” category – alongside Venezuela and Samoa – with different expiry rules than when it was a member state. It means Britons are being turned away at airports, ferries and trains bound for Europe even if they have previously travelled to the EU on the same document.The 17-day Easter break is a particularly busy time for British travellers and an estimated 6.4 million trips will be made from the UK to Europe – 1.6 million over the bank holiday weekend alone.Longer validity on older passports was a useful way to avoid wasting part of the life of a passport, since holders could renew up to nine months early without losing any time. But after the rules changed, many have been confused into believing they have more time on their current passports to enter the EU than they actually do.For example, anyone with a passport issued before 28 March 2014 will be prevented from going to Europe today, even if they have many months remaining before expiry. This confusing rule will potentially affect everyone whose passport was issued before September 2018: an estimated 32 million people.One traveller, Ruth Wade, was about to board a flight recently from Manchester airport to Zurich via Brussels for her son’s wedding. But she was turned away because her passport had gone over the 10-year limit.“I had already checked in for the flight 24 hours previously,” she told The Independent. “I handed over our passports at the desk. The woman from Brussels Airlines just looked at me and said, ‘You can’t travel on this passport, it’s expired.’“My reply was: ‘No it hasn’t, it doesn’t expire until October 2024.’ She then went on to say, the expiry date doesn’t matter, it’s 10 years from the issue date.”The passport had passed the 10-year mark by a matter of days.“ I was distraught,” Ms Wade said. “She looked at my husband and said, ‘You can go but she can’t.’“She didn’t offer any advice other than saying it had been all over the news. I don’t listen to or watch the news and I wouldn’t be taking any interest in a passport issue as my passport had seven months validity left on it.”Ms Wade was able to book a slot for a fast-track appointment at HM Passport Office in Liverpool, requiring a hotel stay and new tickets.“We need to get Zurich to see our son who is getting married. We have had to rebook flights, lost money on the initial flights. Upset and frustrated doesn’t even come close.”Official data shows that 706,000 passports were issued by HM Passport Office in March 2014. According to an Independent estimate, about 500,000 are adult passports and 80 per cent of those will be renewals which could have had the extra months added to them.With a life of about 10 years and six months for these 400,000 passports, and thus a six-month window for breaching the rule, around 2.4 million passports could be affected.Airports including Edinburgh, Newcastle and Bristol are already predicting their busiest-ever Easter, with 2 million people expected to fly from British airports between Good Friday and Easter Monday, most of them to the EU and wider Schengen area.Geneva routes will be extremely busy with winter sports fans, while Malaga, Alicante, Faro and Tenerife are the leading spring sunshine holiday destinations.Among city breaks, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris and Rome are the most popular. Dubai, Orlando and New York are the key longer-haul destinations.Proportionately there are significantly more family European trips over Easter: Turkey’s main season has yet to get going, and Egypt is not especially popular for short holidays due to the long flight time.Airlines insist it is the passenger’s responsibility to ensure they comply with the immigration rules of their destination. Travel insurers will not pay out for losses related to passport validity issues.A government spokesperson said: “It is quick and easy to renew your passport online or at a Post Office.“We advise all customers not to book travel without a passport that meets their travel needs.” More