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    Ofcom investigating whether David Lammy’s LBC show broke broadcasting rules

    Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailOfcom is investigating whether shadow foreign secretary David Lammy’s show on LBC breached broadasting rules, the watchdog has said.The regulator said it was probing whether the Labour’s frontbencher’s programme on 29 March “broke our rules on politicians acting as news presenters”, it said on Monday.During that broadcast, Mr Lammy read out a breaking news bulletin, informing listeners of his LBC show that Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had resigned as DUP leader after being charged with allegations of a historical nature.Ofcom is understood to be investigating the programme in relation to two sections of the Broadcasting Code, which state that news in whatever form must be presented with due impartiality, and that politicians cannot act as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes without exceptional editorial justification.As such, the regulator concluded last month that five programmes on GB News – featuring politicians acting as news presenters – broke broadcasting due impartiality rules.Days later, GB News broadcaster Darren Grimes was among those sharing a clip of Mr Lammy’s progrmame on 29 March as he broke the news of Sir Jeffrey’s resignation. Mr Grimes wrote: “Dear Ofcom, I assume you’ll be sanctioning them for this, as you did GB News.”Ofcom is understood to have received 53 complaints about Mr Lammy’s broadcast.While the arrival of GB News and its penchant for employing former and sitting Conservative MPs has intensified debate over the role of politicians in broadcasting, Ofcom chief Baron Michael Grade told the BBC last year that “we don’t want to be in the business of telling broadcasters, licensees, who they can employ, who they can’t employ”.Jacob Rees-Mogg hits out at ‘old-fashioned’ Ofcom after GB News rulingHe added: “Our job is to ensure … within the rules of due impartiality that there is plenty of choice and freedom of expression on the airwaves.”In addition to its probe into Mr Lammy, Ofcom announced on Monday that it had “warned TalkTV after potentially highly offensive comments were made by presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer”.In an interview about the Israel-Gaza war, Ms Hartley-Brewer had claimed that Dr Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, was perhaps “not used to women talking”.Ofcom said: “Strong guidance has been issued, but following a careful assessment we have decided not to formally investigate.” More

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    Putin will exploit Sunak’s threat to leave ECHR over Rwanda plan, warns Gordon Brown

    Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailVladimir Putin will seek to exploit Rishi Sunak’s retreat from the European Convention on Human Rights, Gordon Brown has said in a stark warning to the prime minister.The former Labour PM accused Mr Sunak’s government of “systematically undermining” international law, warning that the Russian president – who is subject to an international arrest warrant over war crime allegations – would capitalise on any steps to “ridicule the legitimacy” of human rights law.Mr Sunak has threatened to pull the UK out of the convention if it stymies his flagship policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. His looming new legislation will disapply sections of both the ECHR and the Human Rights Act – after British judges ruled the East African country was not safe for refugees.The UK has previously urged Russia to abide by a European court order relating to Moscow’s jailing of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny More

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    Labour sets out plans to digitise children’s healthcare records

    Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLabour will digitise the NHS red book parents use for their children’s medical records as part of a series of reforms to the NHS app.Parents and the NHS would be able to see if children are behind on jabs or check-ups through a new digital record, with automatic notifications to prompt them to book appointments under the party’s plans.The red book has been handed out to new parents for the past 30 years.The problems with the NHS are clear. It’s a 20th century service that hasn’t changed with the times and isn’t fit for the modern eraWes StreetingPrevious health secretaries have hoped to digitise it during their tenure, including Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock, but so far the plans have not borne out.Labour hopes its plans will help to boost MMR vaccination rates, which have fallen in recent years.Measles outbreaks have at the same time become more common.Wes Streeting MP, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said: “A child born today will live to see the 22nd century and things we can’t begin to imagine. Labour wants them to be part of the healthiest generation that ever lived. That’s why we will digitise the red book, so children’s health records are on the NHS App.“This major step will transform children’s healthcare and will mean more children protected against measles. Now measles is back. It’s hard to think of a clearer sign of Britain’s decline under the Tories.“With the red book on the app, the NHS will be able to notify every parent of an unprotected child, give them accurate information about the MMR vaccine, and invite their child to get vaccinated. That’s how a modern health service would tackle this public health crisis.”Writing in the Sun newspaper, Mr Streeting insisted the NHS was “a service, not a shrine”.He added: “It is judged by how well it serves the public, not how heavy a price we’re paying for failure.“The problems with the NHS are clear. It’s a 20th century service that hasn’t changed with the times and isn’t fit for the modern era.”Labour will also commit to give patients greater control over their own healthcare through the NHS app.This would include access to their medical records on their phone, notifications about screenings and vaccines they are eligible for, and being told what care they can expect when diagnosed with long-term conditions like asthma or diabetes.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer claimed his party would “give power to the patient”, and that GPs could ensure “time isn’t wasted on box-ticking”.“In 2024, patients still wait on the phone at 8am, or even queue up in person, just to see a doctor. It’s no wonder so many people don’t bother or don’t have time, illness is caught too late, pressures on the NHS pile up, and lives are lost,” he said.Sir Keir added: “The app shouldn’t just be for healthcare, but healthier living too. When you reach the right age, you’ll receive notifications for jabs, tests and screening, to catch diseases like breast and bowel cancer early.” More

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    Farmers’ union boss hits out at Tories over rushed Brexit

    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 insightThe boss of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has hit out at Conservative ministers for rushing Brexit and said the government “got wrong” some aspects of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.Tom Bradshaw, who has replaced Minette Batters at the top of the NFU, which represents more than 46,000 farmers and growers across England and Wales, said ministers “should have taken some of our warnings [about Brexit] at face value”.The arable farmer from Essex, who took over from Ms Batters in February, said members are traditionally “big supporters” of the Tories.But he said “many are feeling let down” by post-Brexit trade deals and said the government “did not consult and did not listen” to farmers when leaving the EU.A group of farmers in tractors descended on London to protest in March More

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    Drug treatment boss throws down gauntlet to authorities in bid to open life-saving overdose prevention service

    Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe boss of a major charity on the frontline of Britain’s drug deaths crisis has challenged authorities by announcing that he plans to open potentially life-saving overdose prevention facilities in a matter of months – with or without their help.As drugs charities brace for a feared influx of lethally strong synthetic opioids to hit the UK, experts are urging Rishi Sunak’s government to end its longstanding opposition to facilities where people can consume illicit drugs in the presence of trained staff armed with the overdose reversal drug naloxone.While Scotland is now pushing ahead to create the UK’s first official facility in Glasgow, after a game-changing intervention by the country’s top legal authority put an end to a long-running Holyrood-Westminster dispute, hopes for similar services in England and Wales are yet to materialise.Exasperated by years of fruitless discussions while drug deaths mount, and bolstered by developments in Scotland, Martin Blakeborough, chief executive of the charity Kaleidoscope has now told The Independent that he plans to pilot several “micro” drug consumption spaces in south Wales as early as this summer – potentially even sooner than in Glasgow.“It’s an active debate we’re now having in Wales which I’ve basically forced onto the agenda, partly by saying, ‘We’re going to start this service with or without you,’” said Mr Blakeborough. “We’ve been discussing this in Wales for 10 years, and we’ve done nothing,” he added. “The Scottish one gave me the confidence to say, ‘I’m going to blow your cover now, I’m going to cause a fuss about this,’ and at long last it’s gone up the political agenda.”There are over 200 such overdose prevention services across 17 countries, including the US, Canada, France, Australia and Iceland. Some facilities have reversed thousands of overdoses, without a single death, while being proven to cause no increase in the number of people using drugs, generally reducing or having no impact on local crime levels, and often dramatically reducing drug-related litter and incidents of street injecting.Despite this, the facilities have long been rejected – and even mocked – by the current Westminster government. Meanwhile, drug deaths have risen for 11 consecutive years in England and Wales to break grim new records, having nearly doubled since 2012.But after activist Peter Krykant risked arrest in 2020 to offer such services out of a repurposed ambulance, Scotland’s lord advocate intervened last year to say such prosecutions “would not be in the public interest”. As a result, the UK government has now relented that it will not block such services in Scotland, potentially paving the way for others to follow suit in parts of England and Wales, dependent on the support of police and local leaders.Peter Krykant’s unsanctioned facility reversed nine overdoses among nearly 900 supervised injections over the space of nine months, a study found More

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    Deputy PM Oliver Dowden hints January 2025 general election is possible

    Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe deputy prime minister has opened the door to a possible January 2025 general election, despite Rishi Sunak insisting he will go to the polls later this year.Oliver Dowden said 2024 will “almost certainly” be a general election year, but did not rule out the prospect of a contest happening next year.The latest possible date for an election is 28 January 2025, meaning Mr Sunak could delay the vote for a further eight months. He was already accused of being a “chicken” and “squatting in Downing Street” after ruling out holding the general election on 2 May, when voters will go to the polls for local elections across the country.Deputy PM Oliver Dowden said there will ‘almost certainly’ be an election this year, leaving the door open to a January 2025 contest More

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    Reform UK drops two more candidates over offensive social media posts

    Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNigel Farage’s Reform UK has dropped two more election candidates and suspended a third over a series of offensive remarks, reportedly including a slur about “brown babies”.The right-wing challenger party has suspended its South Shropshire candidate Pete Addis after a slew of comments posted online were exposed.Vulgar social media posts uncovered by the Mail on Sunday showed he had called for Sir David Attenborough to be “killed off” and made a racist joke about “brown babies”.Richard Tice is the leader of Reform UK, which was set up by Nigel Farage as the Brexit Party More

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    Poland’s local elections test Tusk’s new government after 4 months in power

    Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Voters across Poland are casting ballots in local elections Sunday in the first electoral test for the coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk nearly four months since it took power.Voters will elect mayors as well as members of municipal councils and provincial assemblies, an important exercise in self-governance that is one of the great achievements of the democratic transformation that Poland made when it threw off communism 35 years ago.In all there are nearly 190,000 registered candidates running for local government positions in the central European nation of 38 million people.Runoff votes will must take place two weeks later, on April 21, in cases where mayoral candidates do not win at least 50% of the vote in Sunday’s first round.Opinion polls released in the days ahead of the vote showed the two largest political formations running neck-and-neck: Tusk’s Civic Coalition, an electoral coalition led by his centrist and pro-European Union Civic Platform party, and Law and Justice, a national conservative party that governed the country from 2015 until last year.Several other groups trail the two main groups, including the Third Way coalition, the Left and the radical right-wing Confederation party.Tusk’s coalition government, which includes the Third Way and the Left, together won the national election in October. The result amid record turnout spelled the end for eight bumpy years of rule by Law and Justice, which was accused by the European Union of violating democratic standards with its changes to the judicial system and public media.Tusk won on promises to reverse many of those changes and is trying to implement that program, but it isn’t easy. His attempts to restore independence to the judicial system are a long process that will require the passage of new legislation. And a promise to liberalize the strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives in Tusk’s own coalition.The vote is also a test for Law and Justice, which had a string of electoral victories and dominated the political scene for years, enjoying strong support in conservative rural areas. However, its hard-line policies on LGBTQ+ and its restriction of abortion rights were rejected by many of the young and female voters who turned out in October to vote.Local governments have played an important role in the two major crises of recent years, rolling out vaccinations against COVID-19 and helping the huge numbers of Ukrainian refugees who arrived in the country after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Among those running is Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, a Tusk ally who is seeking a second term. He is favored to win, but it is not clear if he could win outright Sunday or would need to face a runoff in two weeks.The outgoing term of office for local officials was the longest since 1989 after Law and Justice extended it from four to five years, and then delayed the elections by half a year, worried that holding local elections along with those to the national parliament would hurt its chances. More