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MPs have warned there is an “epidemic” of violence against women in the UK which is not taken seriously enough after a woman disappeared in south London.Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, went missing after leaving a friend’s flat in Clapham last week and police are now questioning a male police officer on suspicion of kidnap and murder. Human remains were found in Kent woodlands on Wednesday. The case has sparked an outpouring of anger as women have told of instances where they were threatened or sexually harassed by men while walking home alone and MPs have noted the daily fear many women feel on the streets after dark.Jess Phillips, Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding, told Radio 4’s Today programme, random attacks on the street were a “rarity, if that is what this was”, before adding: “The reality is that it’s not a rare crime. Since last week since when Sarah first went missing, six women and a little girl have been have been reported as being killed at the hands of men.“So it’s not particularly rare and the fear that women live with is an everyday thing. For most women, they have had some form of experience that they feel frightened of and the message that they [the Metropolitan Police] should be sending out is not one about what women should or shouldn’t do.“It is about how serious violence against women and girls is and how it is an epidemic that we have to put far more attention and resource into.”The politician will be speaking at the annual International Women’s Day debate in parliament on Thursday where she will pay tribute to all the women murdered by men over the last year by reading out their names.Dawn Butler, the Labour MP for Brent Central, tweeted: “I may have had three hours sleep. Getting ready to go into Parliament. For #IWD2021 debate. I’m thinking about the police officer who patrolled the corridors of Westminster with guns and now he has been arrested. It totally blows my mind.”The former Shadow Women and Equalities Minister added: “And to think that the man, a policeman who is supposed to make people feel safe may have done this has shaken people to their core. I have cried for Sarah today. A life so brutally taken.”Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, tweeted: “We don’t know true scale of violence and harassment women face on our streets because it is underreported, to know whether it is ‘thankfully rare’. It’s time all police force’s treated women as equally worthy of protection and started recording hate we face.”PC Wayne Couzens, a serving officer, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and a separate allegation of indecent exposure. The 48-year-old serves in the Metropolitan Police Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command with his chief role being uniformed patrol of diplomatic sites.Caroline Nokes, a Conservative MP who is chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “We must be safe to walk home alone, without needing our keys in our hand, with our headphones on if we choose, wearing what we like.”Charlotte Kneer, who runs Reigate and Banstead Women’s Aid refuge for domestic abuse victims at risk of murder in their own homes, told The Independent: “Women are dying in their own homes regularly in the UK and I have been calling for too many years for more investment in this huge issue.“We need investment in early education about equality and healthy relationships. We need investment in supporting victims of male violence against women and girls. We need to stop telling women how to protect themselves and start telling men to stop hurting them.“You don’t need to look very far to find examples of misogyny in everyday life and everyone, especially men should be calling that out whenever they hear it.”Ms Kneer, a domestic abuse survivor whose violent partner was jailed for seven years in 2011, called for sentencing in the criminal justice system to show violence against women and girls “will not be tolerated”. She added: “Men, instead of saying not all men do this, start saying I’m going to do everything in my power to stop those that are doing it.”Two women a week are killed in England and Wales by a current or ex-partner, while one in four women will suffer domestic abuse at some point during their lives.Farah Nazeer, chief executive at Women’s Aid, told The Independent: “Violence against women and girls is a crisis of global proportions, which is driven by women’s inequality in society. The pandemic has shone a light on the fact that women are not safe at home, and… they are not safe in public either.“The £165 million that the government has announced for domestic abuse support services in 2021-22 falls far short of the £393 million that Women’s Aid estimates is needed for domestic abuse alone.”Ms Nazeer said the government needs to include domestic abuse within the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy, otherwise we will be “put in reverse.” She added: “We need a joined-up strategy that tackles these crimes as a cause and consequence of women’s inequality.“Her comments come after a study this week found nearly all young women in the UK have endured sexual harassment including being groped, followed and coerced into sexual activity.YouGov, who surveyed more than 1,000 women aged between 18-24 for UN Women, found 97 per cent said they had been sexually harassed, while 80 per cent reported experiencing sexual harassment in public spaces. More

Anti-racism campaigners are calling for the royals to lose their exemption under race equality law and be “brought into line with the rest of the public sector” following Meghan and Harry’s racism allegations.The Equality Act, introduced in 2010,  protects people from discrimination within the workplace and across wider society. All organisations within the public sector have a legal obligation to adhere to this legislation, from the government and charities to major companies and political parties. However, the royal household, which is funded by the taxpayer through the sovereign grant, is exempt from those rules.Patrick Vernon OBE, a prominent equalities campaigner, told The Independent that this needs to change.“We need to consider changing race equality legislation to ensure that royal family and also private members’ clubs are brought in line with the rest of society so that the Equality and Human Rights Commission could investigate the allegations raised by Meghan and Harry in the Oprah interview or at least undertake an independent review on race equality,” he said.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – in picturesShow all 55 More

UK councils are being urged to lobby their Polish counterparts to stop the spread of “LGBT-free zones” which have sprung up across the country, as part of a new campaign led by the Liberal Democrats.Half a dozen local authorities in the UK have official or informal twinning arrangements with towns in Poland that are considered by equality campaigners to be under significant pressure to implement resolutions targeting LGBT+ people.Polish authorities have already passed resolutions in more than 100 districts declaring them “free of LGBT ideology” – moves which activists say are discriminatory and have led to a rise in hate crime.Although they appear not to have been followed by legislation to discriminate against gay residents, anti-LGBT+ resolutions have fuelled concern across Europe about a drift in Poland towards illiberalism led by the Law and Justice government under president Andrzej Duda.Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, who is leading the campaign, is urging councils in the UK with links to the country to write to the mayors of their Polish “twins” to show support for the local LGBT+ community. One such area is Radomsko, one of the oldest cities in Poland, which has been twinned with Lincoln since 2007. Polish ultra-conservative group Ordo Iuris held a meeting there under the guise of “protecting family rights and children against demoralisation”, but which campaigners say amounted to efforts to establish another “LGBT-free zone”.Ordo Iuris was also behind a meeting titled “How to protect the family against the threats of the modern world” in Szczecin – a sister city of Hull.Other parts of the UK, including Antrim and Newtownabbey near Belfast and Heywood near Rochdale, are twinned with Polish districts which campaigners say are facing pressure to adopt anti-LGBT+ resolutions. The Independent has contacted the councils named, and Ordo Iuris, for comment. More

The first minister is expected to announce an easing of lockdown restrictions as new cases of the virus continue to fall.On 7 March, Scotland reported 501 new cases of Covid-19, down from 555 the previous day. Health officials recorded one death, down from 12.Some 1,774,659 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 118,732 have received their second dose.Lockdown regulations began to lift last month as Scotland’s youngest schoolchildren resumed lessons after months of learning at home.Ms Sturgeon is scheduled to address the Scottish parliament at Holyrood in the afternoon, when an easing of the rules on outdoor meetings is expected.Older primary children are expected to return to school full time from 15 March – with secondary school pupils also to get some time back in the classroom from this date, before returning full-time after the Easter holiday.On Friday Ms Sturgeon indicated “good progress” with the vaccination programme and the falling number of infections could mean that “greater normality is firmly on the horizon”.She said then she was “hopeful” the Scottish government may be able to make some “relatively minor, but I think important, changes in our ability to meet outdoors and also how young people are able to interact with their friends outdoors”.Deputy first minister John Swinney confirmed on Monday any changes to the current lockdown regime would be set out by Ms Sturgeon. More

When Darlington was announced this week as the location for the government’s new Treasury North campus, even the local newspaper – the great Northern Echo – appeared surprised.In a guide to the north-east market town for London-based civil servants suddenly facing the prospect of relocation, the paper attempted to list what the place was best known for.Railway heritage, Quakers and Vic Reeves were on its list before the sound of straws being clutched could perhaps be heard. “In 1939,” the article told any reading mandarins, “Darlington had the most cinema seats per head of population in the United Kingdom.”Safe to say, not all officials are understood to be relishing the shift in which 750 jobs will move here as part of Boris Johnson’s plan to ultimately move 22,000 government roles out of the capital.But in Darlington itself, such potential reluctance can do nothing to dampen enthusiasm. Even on a wet and windy locked-down Thursday, the excitement that this Tees Valley town – population 92,000 – is set to become home to one of the major offices of state is palpable.“It’s the best thing to happen to the town since I got into politics,” says council leader Heather Scott OBE. “And that was 45 years ago.”Why so brilliant? Because the move – announced as part of the budget and a symbolic plank of the Conservatives’ levelling up agenda – will result in investment, regeneration and economic growth here on a scale not seen in generations, she reckons. Where the government leads, others will now follow.“It’s been a tough year so this was just the news we needed,” says Scott, herself a Tory whose party won control of the authority in 2019 for the first time since the Seventies. “Now, we just want to make it happen as quickly as possible.”Is she worried by those rumours that civil servants are not necessarily keen to move? A look of complete bafflement. “Why would anyone not want to come and live in Darlington?” asks the 81-year-old.The correct answer, of course, is no reason at all.This corner of north-east England may have suffered savagely at the hands of both deindustrialisation and austerity over the past half century but Darlington undoubtedly has much to offer.There are good schools, streets crammed with independent businesses and Victorian market hall currently undergoing a £2 million redevelopment that (so the pitch goes) will turn it into a foodie paradise. There are three theatres, an expanding university campus and – perhaps the true sign of any up-and-coming area – an independent gin distillery. That’s called Little Quaker and is located down a cobbled yard, a stone’s throw from both a coffee roastery and a Syrian restaurant. More

Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, could be drawn into the bullying investigation launched amid the royal rift over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex just as the government is  facing  the challenges of coronavirus, Brexit and Scottish independence.Mr Case may have to answer questions in an investigation announced by Buckingham Palace into allegations of bullying of staff by the duchess.He was told about the allegations, it is claimed, 16 months ago while working as the Duke of Cambridge’s private secretary.Mr Case has since been appointed cabinet secretary, succeeding Mark Sedwill, and  becoming the youngest head of the civil service for a century. Boris Johnson is reported to have personally approached Prince William to bring the highly regarded civil servant back into government in September. His previous posts have included strategy director at GCHQ, policy adviser at the Ministry of Defence and director general at the Northern Ireland Office.Mr Case is reported to have received an email in October 2018 from a colleague, Jason Knauf, then communications secretary at Kensington Palace, saying, “I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year”.  The email, leaked to The Times, said the treatment of another member of staff was “totally unacceptable” and that, “the duchess seems intent on always having someone in her sights. She is bullying Y [name withheld] and seeking to undermine her confidence. We have had report after report from people who have witnessed unacceptable behaviour towards Y.”Buckingham Palace announced on Wednesday evening that an investigation will be launched into the bullying claims.It said: “We are clearly very concerned about allegations in The Times following claims made by former staff of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Accordingly our HR team will look into the circumstances outlined in the article. “Members of staff involved at the time, including those who have left the household, will be invited to participate to see if lessons can be learned.” The royal rift is due to widen further on Sunday with Meghan appearing in a “tell-all” interview with Oprah Winfrey screened on CBS in America. ITV will broadcast the interview in the UK on Monday.A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan has denied the allegations of bullying, calling them a “calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful information”.In a legal letter to the The Times, they added that the duchess was, “saddened by this latest attack on her character, particularly as someone who has been the target of bullying herself and is deeply committed to supporting those who have experienced pain and trauma”.On Thursday, the government reached a settlement – reportedly worth around £340,000 – with Sir Philip Rutnam, the former permanent secretary in the Home Office, who had threatened to take Priti Patel, the secretary of state, to an employment tribunal, claiming he was forced out for trying to stop her bullying staff, which she denied. A senior Whitehall official said:  “This is a big distraction for Simon Case at a difficult and busy time for us all. He has been dragged into this and will probably have to speak to this investigation.“As far as one knows, the conclusions [of the investigation] aren’t expected to be made public for quite a while but one thing one can bet on is there’s going to be lots of leaks in the media.“There are likely to be legal repercussions If it’s proved that bullying did take place,  then, presumably, there will be people seeking compensation, especially if there was any kind of cover-up over this. This is a pretty toxic subject.”Another Whitehall official held it was highly unlikely that any evidence will be found that Mr Case is culpable of wrongdoing.The official said: “As far as I am aware Simon’s remit did not include handling this sort of issue with staff, and he passed the matter on to the HR people.“Anyone who knows Simon will know he is not a person to condone bullying. But there’ll be a fair amount of publicity, no doubt, with so much briefing now going on by both sides.”Asked about Mr Case and the bullying allegations, the prime minister’s spokesperson said, “it is a matter for the palace”. More

Boris Johnson has appealed for over-80s to continue observing lockdown restrictions after receiving the Covid vaccine, as a new study found that more than 40 per cent had breached them.For those who had already had their second dose of the vaccine, this figure climbed to 48 per cent.Despite the success of the vaccine rollout and the government’s announcement of its plans to ease lockdown in the coming months, it remains against the regulations to meet socially indoors or outdoors with anyone outside your household or support bubble.Asked about the findings, Mr Johnson’s official spokesman said the prime minister was urging people to remain patient after and continue observing the rules after receiving the jab.The spokesman said: “He would say that … it is important that people continue to follow the guidelines that are in place. “We are allowing some easements from Monday next week, in terms of allowing for one-on-one recreational meetings in public places.“But it is important as we move through the pandemic that people continue to follow the rules and guidelines.”The spokesman said the government had deliberately built in five-week delays between each step of England’s roadmap out of lockdown in order to be able to check whether each relaxation of restrictions has led to an upsurge in infections before moving on to the next.Although the evidence now shows the vaccines are highly effective at protecting those inoculated from becoming ill with coronavirus, current government rules do not provide any exemption to lockdown restrictions for the more than 20 million Britons who have now been vaccinated.The new figures came just days after the deputy chief medical officer for England, Jonathan Van Tam, had urged those who had been vaccinated not to let their guard down and be lulled into a false sense of security. Speaking during a Downing Street press conference on Friday, he said: “It is a bit like being 3-0 up in a game and thinking, ‘We can’t possibly lose this now’ – but how many times have we seen the other side take it 4-3?“Do not wreck this now. It is too early to relax. Just continue to maintain discipline and hang on just a few more months.”But it appears his pleas are falling on deaf ears for many. The most common group the lockdown-busting octogenarians said they had spent time with inside was their children, with 23% admitting to either going to their children’s homes or inviting them into theirs after having their jab.Nine per cent of those surveyed also said they had seen their grandchildren, and 6% their friends.However, not all of the over-80s who had been vaccinated had begun unilaterally relaxing lockdown – one in five people said they had not left home for any reason since they were given their jab.There was also evidence the vaccines were beginning to lower fears among the elderly, who have suffered the most deaths of any during the pandemic.The ONS survey, which polled 2,000 of those aged 80 and above in mid-February, showed that before vaccination just under half (49%) believed covid to be a major or significant risk to them personally.But for those who had received both doses of the vaccine, this plummeted to just 5%.A quarter of the over-80s also said they would be more likely to go to hospital if they had other medical problems after being vaccinated; and this increased to 33% for those who had already had their second jab.Despite 41% reporting they had experienced some side-effects from the vaccine, an enormous 96% said they would be likely to recommend others also come forward for the jab once it is their turn.“The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination is, no doubt, a huge relief to many people aged over 80, as we can see that almost half of them, when asked, considered Covid-19 to be a major or significant personal risk before receiving the vaccination,” said Tim Gibbs from the ONS.“This decreases to just 5% having the same concern after hypothetically receiving both doses of the vaccine.“We hope to start to see these wider positive effects of the vaccine rollout as it continues across more age groups in the coming weeks.” More

Stripping the £20 uplift to universal credit will disproportionately impact single mothers, the government has been warned ahead of the chancellor’s final decision on the matter.Rishi Sunak rolled out the £20 weekly increase to universal credit during the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic – a period that also saw record numbers of people apply for the financial support mechanism.However, anti-poverty groups have repeatedly warned that if the uplift is scrapped, hundreds of thousands of people will be plunged below the poverty line – with separate studies from the Legatum Institute and the Fabian society both predicting between 690,000 and 760,000 people will fall into poverty if the top up is removed.Freedom of information data obtained by Save the Children has revealed women account for almost 90 per cent of the more than 1 million single parents claiming the benefit.More than 962,000 single mothers are universal credit claimants, according to the data – with 45 per cent of them currently in work.Single mothers make up 3.5 per cent of the total UK population according to ONS data – however as a group they make up around 16 per cent of universal credit claimants.Becca Lyon, Head of Child Poverty at Save the Children, said: “Single mothers have been particularly hard hit by this crisis and taking money away from them at this time will leave them to struggle even more. “Even with the additional £20 per week in universal credit, mothers tell us they’re having to go without meals or electricity just to make sure their children have food to eat. “One mum told us she is burning candles because she cannot afford to pay for electricity. This should not be happening in 2021.”In the run-up to the Budget the chancellor has declined to comment on whether he would extend the uplift, which is due to come to a close in April.However he is expected to extend the measure in his budget for a further six months amid pressure from backbenchers – particularly conservatives in newly-won northern seats where constituents could be particularly hard hit.Ms Lyon added: “Providing support for only another six months just won’t cut it. We know the worst of the economic impact from coronavirus is yet to be felt, so we urge the UK government to use the Budget to extend the uplift to universal credit for at least a year. “Taking this lifeline away could be the difference between children having enough food to eat or having to go without meals.” More