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The Conservative candidate in the Tiverton and Honiton by-election has refused to say how she would have voted in Monday night’s confidence ballot on Boris Johnson had she been an MP, labelling the question “irrelevant”.Helen Hurford said she now backed the prime minister but, asked on Tuesday, if she would have voted to keep Mr Johnson in post, she declined to answer.“I’m not in Westminster,” she said. “I don’t have a vote. Thank you for asking. That would make me sound very important, but it’s irrelevant. It’s happened. He’s here.”The exchange came as the former headteacher battles to retain the rural Devon seat for the Conservatives after former MP Neil Parish resigned following an admission that he had twice watched pornography in the House of Commons.While on paper, the seat should be safely blue – the party has held the constituency since its creation in 1997 and won a 23,000 majority three years ago – the Lib Dems have been made favourites amid continuing anger with Mr Johnson over partygate.Speaking to Radio Exe, Ms Hurford said she had “welcomed” the confidence vote in which 211 Tory MPs voted to keep Mr Johnson as leader compared to 148 who wanted him out.But she said it was now time to “close” the issue.“There’s been a democratic vote, he has had a third mandate now, let’s move forward,” she said. “He’s done a brilliant job with Russia’s war against Ukraine. Putin hates him as prime minister because of how he’s delivering.“He has supported us over the pandemic. My business [ a beauty business in Hiniton] would not be here without the grants. I know loads of my friends who were supported with the furlough. They would not still have their homes if it hadn’t been for that.”Her refusal to clarify if she would have supported Mr Johnson comes after The Independent revealed that Tory strategists had spent much time agonising over how the candidate should answer questions about partygate – in which the prime minister presided over a culture of illegal lockdown parties in Downing Street.So imperfect was every response they workshopped that they decided to simply stop Ms Hurford doing almost any media appearances to prevent her from being scrutinised about the issue.Richard Foord, the Lib Dem candidate, said the Conservatives had taken the area “for granted for decades” and the party’s current infighting would mean further neglect.He said: “Local people are crying out for help but Boris Johnson simply isn’t listening. He’s more focused on trying to cling to power that helping struggling families.” More

Labour has warned of a “cost of living tsunami” as families face price rises of up to 50 per cent on everyday grocery items.Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the cheapest pasta rose by 50 per cent in the 12 months to April, while the average price of bread, minced beef, rice and crisps increased by more than 15 per cent.Charities say the increase will see more of the poorest families turn to food banks as households struggle with the brunt of the cost of living crisis, which has driven up energy bills, rent prices and food costs.It comes after The Independent revealed how tens of thousands of Britain’s poorest families stand to miss out on help measures introduced by the chancellor Rishi Sunak thanks to the benefits cap.Jonathan Ashworth, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, said: “Prices are soaring while struggling families are cutting back or even turning to food banks.“Tory MPs last month cut universal credit in real terms after slashing it by £20 a week last year. This is a cost of living tsunami caused by years of Tory economic mismanagement.”Sabine Goodwin, coordinator of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN), said: “Increasing staple food prices combined with rising costs in energy are inevitably going to put yet more pressure on low-income households and in turn increase the need for food banks“The chancellor’s cash-first interventions are very welcome but they don’t go far enough given the scale of the UK’s long-standing poverty crisis.”IFAN said 93 per cent of its food banks have reported an increase or significant increase in the need for their services since the start of 2022.As part of the ONS research, statisticians chose 30 low-cost groceries that are regularly purchased by households and tracked their prices from April 2021 to April 2022. During this period, average prices jumped by 6 to 7 per cent, running close to the inflation of overall food and alcohol prices.”For months we’ve heard that families on the lowest incomes have had to make tough choices when doing their weekly food shop, putting items back on the shelves and at the till when hit with rising prices,” said Alice Fuller, head of child poverty at Save the Children UK.“This new ONS analysis of 30 everyday grocery items confirms their experiences and shows the cost of living crisis has already had an impact on people’s finances and the way they eat … The price of a basket of shopping is adding to people’s woes.”Some everyday items tracked in the ONS analysis showed a drop in prices, including cheese, pizza, chips, sausages and apples. The cost of potatoes saw the most notable decrease, at 14 per cent.However, the research, which the ONS said was “highly experimental”, does not take into account the costs associated with buying a product. While potato prices have dropped significantly, many struggling households avoid them because they take longer to boil than alternatives and therefore use more gas or electricity. In March, the boss of Iceland said that some food bank users were turning down potatoes and other root vegetables because they could not afford to boil them.At the same time that staple grocery items have increased, food bank usage has also risen, according to the Trussell Trust.Between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, food banks in the charity’s UK network distributed over 2.1 million emergency food parcels to people in crisis – a year-on-year increase of 14 per cent.Elizabeth Maytom, a project manager for Norwood-Brixton Food Bank, in south London, said local demand had particularly intensified in recent weeks, describing it as “unprecedented”.“We don’t have enough stock,” she said. “Even basics like pasta and baked beans, we’re asking the general public for, which we never used to do. We’re seeing lots of people needing help for the first time.”IFAN said more than 80 per cent of its 194 food banks reported that they have struggled with food supply issues over the last four months.Kathy Bland, an IFAN member of Leominster Food Bank, in Herefordshire, said their organisation gave out 179 food parcels in April 2022, compared to 86 in April 2021.“We can’t replace the welfare system, and neither should we,” she said. “Providing long-term support for people unable to afford food isn’t sustainable.”Separate data from The Food Foundation recently showed a 57 per cent increase in the proportion of households cutting back on food or missing meals altogether in just three months.In April, 7.3 million adults lived in households that said they had gone without food or could not physically get it in the past month. This is compared with 4.7 million adults in January.“There’s no doubt that the cost of living crisis is having a devastating impact on families’ ability to afford the food they need,” said Shona Goudie, policy research manager at The Food Foundation. “This is in part due to the large increase in food prices that we’re seeing, but also due to increases in prices of other essentials (such as energy bills) which is putting pressure on families’ disposable income and therefore squeezing their food budget.”After weeks of pressure, chancellor Rishi Sunak last week announced a £5bn windfall tax of 25 per cent on oil and gas companies to help fund a £15bn package of assistance for struggling households.Mr Sunak said that almost all of the 8 million worst-off households in the UK will benefit to the tune of £1,200, made up of support measures including a £650 cost of living payment for the poorest, a one-off £300 payment to 8 million pensioner households and £150 each to 6 million disabled people.He added that he will double the assistance with energy bills on offer to all households this autumn from £200 to £400 and convert the payment from a loan to a grant.However, while benefits payments are set to soar by as much as 10 per cent from April, more than 120,000 households will lose out unless ministers raise the cap on how much they can receive from the state. 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Cleaners delivered a stinging rebuke to Boris Johnson’s government at a Downing Street protest on Friday evening, accusing the cabinet of looking “down on us like we’re the dirt that we clean”.The protest was called after Sue Gray’s report into illegal parties at Downing Street found that No 10 staff had treated cleaning and security staff “unacceptably” on several occasions.Workers told The Independent that the problems with respect went beyond No 10 and raised issues relating to insecure, outsourced contracts and low pay. More

A former Labour minister has appeared to suggest that voters in the Tiverton and Honiton by-election should consider going Liberal Democrat in a bid to oust the Conservatives.Ben Bradshaw – who was culture secretary between 2009 and 2010 – said his party should fight for every vote in the seat. But, in what some will regard as a coded message, he added: “What some Labour members and activists don’t always appreciate is that a lot of Conservative voters, if they want to give the government a kicking will vote Liberal Democrat but they wouldn’t vote Labour…“So if we have a joint purpose of wanting to send the prime minister a message and ultimately defeat this government in a general election then I think there are very good prospects of a Lib Dem victory there.”The race for Tiverton and Honiton – a sprawling, largely rural Devon constituency – prompted by the resignation of Neil Parish who admitted watching porn in the House of Commons, is being widely touted as a two-horse race. The Tories currently enjoy a 24,239 majority and have held the seat since it was created in 1997 but the Lib Dems believe they could steal it on the back of anger about Partygate and rising living costs.Suggestions have been made that Labour will fight only a bare minimum campaign here to allow yellow candidate Richard Foord a clear run, with the Lib Dems returning the favour in Wakefield where another by-election is being held the same day.Both parties have denied such a pact.But Mr Bradshaw’s comments – initially made on Radio 4’s The Week In Westminster – will be seen as a tacit endorsement of voting tactically. More

The Conservative candidate for the upcoming Tiverton and Honiton by-election has been ordered not to speak to the media by senior party officials because they fear she will be asked about partygate, insiders say.Parish councillor Helen Hurford has been selected to fight the seat after former Tory MP Neil Parish resigned following revelations that he had twice watched pornography in parliament.But the former headteacher is said to have been told not to speak to press – because CCHQ think she will struggle to deal with questions about Boris Johnson’s lockdown lawbreaking.One local Tory says that anger about Downing Street shindogs is now so widespread in the rural Devon constituency that it has been decided Ms Hurford’s best chance of victory is to remain largely silent and hope the party’s current 24,000 majority carries her to victory.Strategists are said to have spent time workshopping a response to difficult questions but even the favoured option – to suggest the prime minister got things wrong but it is time to move on – is considered likely to antagonise voters in an area where integrity is expected to come as standard.The result is that Ms Hurford has been all but invisible since being selected as the Tories’ candidate on Monday. Requests to speak to her by The Independent went firstly unanswered and were then declined with no reason given.The order for silence is said to have even been extended to local Conservative councillors who have been informally told not to discuss the by-election with media.Asked in a WhatsApp message if such an instruction had been given, one councillor Colin Slade replied: “I couldn’t possibly comment!”Another, who asked not to be named, added that members had been told they should “button up”.Responding to the revelations, a source with the Lib Dems, who are considered the main challengers here, said: “It’s sad that Tory bosses have now effectively gagged their candidate. How can voters trust her to speak up for them if she isn’t even allowed to speak?”It all comes after Sir Roger Gale, the MP for North Thanet, said Ms Hurford had been chosen as a “electoral sacrifice” amid growing fears the Tories could lose the contest.“I asked in the tea room this morning if we had actually selected an electoral sacrifice to fight…and I’m told that we have,” he told BBC News on Wednesday.Yet how well the tactic of eschewing scrutiny will work is yet to be seen.A similar playbook was used in the Hartlepool, Batley and Spen and North Shropshire by-elections last year when Conservative candidates were labelled invisible for their lack of media engagement.While it worked in Hartlepool, it proved a disaster in Batley and Spen and North Shropshire where the Tories lost despite being favourites.The Conservatives have been approached for comment. More

ITV News journalist Paul Brand has hit out at the “grim” homophobic abuse he and his husband have received over his reporting on the Partygate scandal.Mr Brand, ITV’s UK editor, has been at the centre of reporting on Covid law-breaking in Downing Street and Whitehall.He has broken several agenda-setting exclusive stories on the affair, including a picture of Boris Johnson raising a glass at the leaving do of his former spin doctor, Lee Cain, published earlier this week.This has led some people online to speculate about who his sources are. A Tory MP also suggested that the image was linked to Mr Brand’s husband, Joe Cuddeford, a civil servant.Mr Cuddeford works for the Geospatial Commission, a government body, which is part of the Cabinet Office and uses location data to investigate economic and social opportunities.Writing to Twitter on Tuesday morning, Mr Brand said that he wanted to refute claims that his source is a family member.”So…there’s some pretty wild stuff being said about my family on here,” he wrote. “I haven’t tweeted so far as it’s never great to engage with conspiracy theories etc.”He added: “But it’s all got a bit OTT [over the top] lately, so to be clear nobody in my family is my ‘source’, attended any parties or was fined.”A number of homophobic tweets directed at Mr Brand and his husband were posted to Twitter on Tuesday. Some of the tweets, posted by anonymous accounts, remain online.Mark Jenkinson, a Tory MP, replied to a Twitter user with a blank avatar who had questioned if it was a “coincidence” that Mr Brand “keeps landing exclusive leaks”, given that his husband works for the civil service.The MP for Workington wrote: “It must be a coincidence, because he’s a deputy director in the Cabinet Office and the investigation was carried out by the…oh.”Mr Brand added in his post: “It’s been an education in how disinformation spreads. Inevitably it became pretty homophobic and grim so in order to protect the people I love I felt I had to tweet this.”Mr Jenksinson said he had never been “involved in any conspiracy theories about Paul Brand”. He said he was not implying that Mr Brand’s husband was involved in the leaks. More

Dame Joanna Lumley is calling on ministers to launch a parliamentary inquiry into medical research methods in the UK, warning that animal tests are “failing patients”.The actor, often dubbed a national treasure, is set to tell MPs that investment in “human-relevant” techniques would support economic growth and help the UK become a “science superpower”.In an address to MPs in the House of Commons on Monday, Dame Joanna will also urge the government to appoint a minister to lead a transition to medical experiments without animals.By law, all new drugs must be tested on a mouse or rat as well as a larger non-rodent mammal, usually a dog, pig or monkey, before they are given to people – but animals may not be used if there is an alternative.Around 2.88 million experiments were carried out in 2020 in Britain on living animals, including breeding genetically modified creatures, latest Home Office statistics show. Cats, dogs, horses and primates were used in one per cent of those.The most common tests were for the immune system, the nervous system and cancer. Some 4 per cent of experiments were classed as severe.Demonstrations outside a Cambridgeshire centre that breeds beagle puppies for experiments have been continuing daily since last summer.Advocates of animal testing for medical and veterinary research say it has led to life-changing discoveries, from new medicines and vaccines, including the Covid jab, to transplants, anaesthetics and blood transfusions.But Dame Joanna is set to tell a cross-party gathering of MPs that government policy on animal-based medical research is “failing patients”, with 92 per cent of new medicines tested on animals never reaching the market to benefit humans.She will tell policymakers: “Using animals in medical research is not only unethical, costly and unjustifiable, but it is being increasingly accepted among the scientific community that this practice fails patients.“New medicines which appear safe and effective in tests on animals often fail to be approved for market because they pose significant safety and efficacy concerns during human trials.”The award-winning actor and former Bond girl will present to parliament a report by Animal Free Research UK called Eight Steps to Accelerate Human Relevant Innovation which asks ministers, among other things, to promise laws to ultimately replace animal experiments with “human-relevant” methods and produce an action plan for encouraging widespread adoption of non-animal research.

Animal protection is an issue of vital importance which is rightfully climbing up the political agendaLuke PollardNew techniques promoted by the organisation include using organs on chips, cell cultures and stem cells. The Absolutely Fabulous star will add: “This government wants Britain to be a global leader. It certainly has the creative and innovative capacity to be so.“Now it truly has the opportunity to become a science powerhouse to lead the world to a more effective, kinder science which will benefit humans and animals.”Former shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard said: “Animal protection is an issue of vital importance which is rightfully climbing up the political agenda.“Of course, we cannot leave behind animal testing overnight, but we would like to see the UK position itself as a world leader when it comes to advancing medical science and animal welfare.”Government sources say banning animal research or phasing it out could lead to an increase in animal experiments abroad, where standards are lower.However, a report last year by the Centre for Economics and Business Research for Animal Free Research UK forecast that ramping up cutting-edge non-animal research would contribute £2.5bn to the UK’s GDP in 2026.The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) is funding work to replace dogs with computers in experiments, among other projects.The Understanding Animal Research organisation said the 92 per cent failure rate of drugs included experiments without animals.Spokesman Chris Magee said: “Replacing animals in the biosciences is already a national priority, which is why the UK is home to the world’s leading centre for looking for animal alternatives, the NC3Rs.“Using animals in research is banned unless researchers have gained an exemption to the ban on ethical grounds, ie that it would be more ethical to do the experiment than not. “Most human and animal medicines are discovered using animals, including vaccines for Covid, cancer drugs and insulin, but key areas of work like conservation and product testing prevent more widespread suffering before it can occur.“Animals predict human safety on average 8 per cent of the time, although there are many reasons that most drugs will fail to make it to market. These include commercial reasons and trying drugs for diseases like cancer that didn’t show much promise in preclinical tests but might be worth a shot.”A Home Office spokesperson said: “The use of animals in science supports the development of new medicines and the safety of our environment, for the benefit of humans and animals.“The government is committed to the protection and welfare of animals and ensuring that animals are only ever used in science where there are no alternatives.” More

An ex-Labour MP must pay £434,435 to a parliamentary worker he sexually assaulted and harassed.Mike Hill, who was the MP for Hartlepool in north east England, was found to have infringed the Equality Act by sexually harassing and then sacking one of his former workers.A panel at the Central London Employment Tribunal discovered the 58-year-old “victimised” the woman as well as subjecting her to “unwanted conduct of a sexual nature”.A judgment published on Wednesday said Mr Hill was accused of sexually harassing and bullying the claimant, referred to as Ms A, over a 16-month period when he was in office.Mr Hill, who was an MP from 2017 until he resigned last year, has denied the allegations.In her witness statement included in the judgment, Ms A said Mr Hill sexually assaulted her on a number of occasions.The claimant said he got into bed with her in December 2017 and rubbed his genitals “against my bottom and had his arms wrapped around me and was feeling my breasts”.She said: “I managed to get out of the bed and went to the living room. I was crying and shaking because of the experience.”She said Mr Hill told her she was “overreacting”, must be “frigid or something” and there must be “something wrong” with her.The judgment said Mr Hill was also accused of coming into the woman’s bedroom on several occasions from December 2017 to February 2018.Mr Hill is also said to have sexually assaulted Ms A on a number of occasions in his Westminster office.Ms A said in her witness statement: “He often put his arms around the front of my body and brushed his hands against my breasts.“If I were standing up, he would always approach me from behind and he would hold me by my waist. I would always resist and would try to get him off me but did not always succeed.”She added: “Mr Hill would touch my bottom. When he first did this, I asked him not to do it again but, as he did then (and afterwards), he always played it down as if it was my problem and I was making more of it than I should.”The judgment also said Mr Hill terminated the claimant’s employment.The panel also found that he failed to give the claimant a promised pay rise, made her work through the summer recess despite a previous promise she would not have to, and refused to let her travel to work by car unless she submitted an occupational health assessment. The politician was also found to have not replied to emails and texts which the claimant sent about work.The judgment said the panel also heard that Ms A told Tory MP Andrew Bridgen of her allegations of sexual impropriety against Mr Hill.Mr Bridgen then accused Kate Hollern, a Labour MP, of warning him not to get involved in the harassment case.Ms Hollern quit as shadow minister in May 2021 after an employment tribunal heard that she tried to intimidate Mr Bridgen as a witness.In a previous statement, she said: “I am absolutely clear that any complaint of sexual harassment should be treated extremely seriously and had this been raised with me I would have taken the necessary action.“It was never my intention to undermine the support the complainant was receiving, which I was unaware of at the time. If that is what Mr Bridgen was led to believe, I apologise for my error in judgment in having the conversation.”Mr Hill was suspended from the Labour Party in September 2019 over the allegations were made but was reinstated in October of that year to fight the general election.He resigned from his seat in March 2021, prompting the by-election that saw the former red wall seat of Hartlepool swing dramatically to the Conservatives.Additional reporting by Press Association More