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Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Conservative candidate to become mayor of London is facing calls to reveal if any funding for her campaign comes from the donor at the centre of a racism row. Frank Hester is alleged to have said Labour MP Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.Rishi Sunak is resisting calls to hand back the money, despite calling the remarks “racist”, saying Mr Hester had shown “remorse”. Now Dawn Butler, the chair of Labour’s London MPs, has written to Susan Hall to ask if her campaign has received donations from Mr Hester and if she will pledge to return them. In a letter, Ms Butler also asks Ms Hall if she will “condemn Mr Hester’s alleged comments as racist.” And she notes reports the campaign is being “funded by the Conservative Party – who recently received Hester’s £10m donation”. The donor row has caused a crisis within Mr Sunak’s already embattled Downing Street. For most of Tuesday ministers and No 10 refused to describe Mr Hester’s comments as racist. But the Prime Minister’s spokesperson did finally label them as such that evening. However, the row intensified again following revelations of further comments from the top donor. The chief executive of The Phoenix Partnership (TPP), which has won more than £400m in government and NHS contracts, is alleged to have called a meeting of his “foreign” workers to address allegations of racism in 2019.The tycoon asked if there was “no room for Indians, then?” as he addressed staff members on a crowded balcony in the company’s headquarters, according to The Guardian.In response to the letter, a spokesperson for Ms Hall said that she agreed with the PM’s official spokesperson that ‘the comments allegedly made by Frank Hester were racist and wrong. He has now rightly apologised for the offence caused and where remorse is shown it should be accepted.”The Conservative Party referred queries to Ms Hall’s campaign team. Mr Sunak is facing increasing pressure from opposition parties – and senior Tories – to return the donation. Former Conservative party chairman Chris Patten said it was an “open and shut case” that the party should pay the £10m donation back to Mr Hester. The Scottish Conservatives have also criticised the decision to accept Mr Hester’s money and called for a review. As Labour called for the money to returned, Sir Keir asked Mr Sunak how low a donor would “have to sink? What racist, woman-hating threat of violence would he have to make before the prime minister plucked up the courage to hand back the £10 million that he’s taken from him?”But chancellor Jeremy Hunt said Mr Hester should not be “cancelled” for “despicable” remarks “made in the past” and for which he has apologised. More

Minister says he would accept £10mn from under fire Tory donor Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has rejected a call to return £10m donated to the Conservative Party by a businessman who made a racist comment about Diane Abbott.Labour leader Keir Starmer asked the prime minister if he would give the money back after Frank Hester said Ms Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and that she should be “shot”. “No… I am pleased [Mr Hester] is supporting a party that represents one of the most diverse governments in this country’s history,” he told the Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions.The PM described Mr Hester’s comments as unacceptable and “racist” but accepted the multi-millionaire’s apology.Earlier, minister Kemi Badenoch broke ranks with other senior colleagues to condemn Mr Hester’s comments as “racist” but it took the prime minister a day to describe the comments as “racist and wrong”.Show latest update 1710340842Scottish Tories have called on party to ‘review’ donationsThe Scottish Conservatives have broken ranks with Rishi Sunak and the UK Conservative party and demanded a review into Frank Hester’s £10m donation, Zoe Grunewald reports.In a statement released to the media, the Scottish Tories said Mr Hester’s comments were “racist and wrong”.They added: “The Scottish Conservative Party has never accepted a donation from Frank Hester and the UK Conservative Party should carefully review the donations it has received from Hester in response to his remarks.”Matt Mathers13 March 2024 14:401710339780Watch live: Jeremy Hunt grilled on spring Budget by MPsMatt Mathers13 March 2024 14:231710338425Watch: Sunak claims Starmer ‘let antisemitism run rife’ in heated Tory donor racism row More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Jeremy Hunt is questioned on the spring Budget on Wednesday, 13 March, after the Conservatives’ fiscal announcement last week.The chancellor’s appearance before the Treasury Committee comes after his economic proposals cleared their first Commons hurdle amid warnings that they lack a “bombshell” announcement to turn around the Tories’ election prospects.Mr Hunt used last week’s Budget to announce pre-election giveaways, including a 2p cut in national insurance for employees and the self-employed from April and a cut to the top rate of capital gains tax on property sales.MPs approved a series of Budget resolutions, which relate to specific proposals for taxation, on Tuesday evening.A Finance Bill will be considered at a later date to give them permanent legal effect.Conservative MP Richard Drax said on the final day of the Budget debate: “When I heard the Chancellor speak about the importance of lower taxes and allowing people to keep more of their hard-earned money I was expecting a bombshell of an announcement during his speech.”For example, abolishing inheritance tax, lowering income tax – which I would’ve personally chosen myself, not national insurance – lowering corporation tax to encourage growth, simplifying the tax system, less state, less regulation, reforming business rates, curbing many of these bloated quangos if not scrapping them altogether, and returning control to elected ministers.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe government is under pressure to return a 10 million pound donation from business executive Frank Hester after racist comments aimed at Diane Abbott were unearthed this week.Hester, chief executive of healthcare software firm The Phoenix Partnership, reportedly said in a 2019 company meeting that Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black legislator, “should be shot” and made him “want to hate all Black women”.The Conservative Party’s biggest donor, Hester’s company has been paid more than 400 million pounds ($510 million) by the National Health Service and other government bodies since 2016.After the comments were published by The Guardian newspaper, Hester acknowledged that he’d been “rude about Diane Abbott” but denied being racist.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak initially criticized Hester’s comments as “unacceptable,” but it took almost 24 hours for him to call the remarks racist.Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake told broadcasters on Wednesday that the party would not give back the money, telling Sky News that “clearly” the comments were racist, but that it was right to keep the donation because Hester “is not a racist, and he has apologized for what he said.”But Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of England’s West Midlands region, told BBC radio that if it were up to him, “I would think about the company I kept and I would give that money back.”As Britain’s political parties are trying to build up funds for election campaigns later this year, should the Tories return the sum donated by Hester?Share your thoughts by adding it in the comments and we’ll highlight the most insightful ones as they come in.All you have to do is sign up and register your details – then you can then take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here.Join the conversation with other Independent readers below or by clicking here. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMajor Tory donor Frank Hester has been under fire since comments that he allegedly made about Diane Abbott.He is accused of saying in 2019 that Britain’s longest-serving black MP made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.Mr Hester has not denied making the remarks, but claimed they had “nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.The Independent revealed Diane Abbott reported the Conservative Party’s biggest ever donor to the police.The MP filed a complaint with the Metropolitan Police’s parliamentary liaison and investigations team after Frank Hester, who donated £10m to the Tories last year, allegedly made a series of incendiary comments about her, including that she made him “want to hate all Black women”.In a statement issued on Tuesday morning, Ms Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black MP, had described the reported comments as “worrying”.“It is frightening. I live in Hackney, I don’t drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places, more than most MPs,” she said.“I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying.”But who is the businessman embroiled in the racism row?What is Frank Hester’s background?The 58-year-old grew up in Armley in the west of Leeds, West Yorkshire. His parents, from Ireland, started a plastering business. It was his mother’s payroll work that inspired him to start writing software to speed up the process.Mr Hester trained as a priest before studying computer science at university and working as a software engineer in the financial sector.How did Frank Hester make his fortune?He founded The Phoenix Partnership (TPP) in 1997 in an effort “to improve efficiency and standards in the UK healthcare system” and “remove the administrative burden” from his GP wife, according to its website.The Yorkshire-based health tech company’s core product SystmOne allows digital medical records to be shared and is today used in more than 2,600 GP practices and a third of acute mental health trusts, as well as in China, the Middle East and the Caribbean.TPP is worth £1 billion after winning more than £400 million of NHS and prison contracts in the last eight years, according to the Guardian, which broke the story about Mr Hester’s comments about Ms Abbott.Then-Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott addresses anti-Brexit supporters in London, Saturday, October 19, 2019It was the subject of controversy in 2018 when an error by the company, used by the NHS, led to confidential health data of 150,000 patients being shared.During the pandemic, TPP was reported to have won a six-figure Government contract to supply data on vaccine uptake levels at GP practices in England.The service has proved to be very profitable, with TPP recording an £80 million turnover and profit before tax of £40 million in the year to March 2023, according to Companies House documents.Mr Hester, its sole director, netted a salary of £510,000.He appeared at number 321 on the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, with the newspaper estimating his wealth at £415 million.Mr Hester wrote on LinkedIn that TPP takes “care of all of our staff” with “bacon sandwiches for breakfast and a free bar early evening at the local pub” on Fridays.In 2015, the businessman was made a member of the Order of the British Empire for his services to healthcare.What about his donations to the Conservative Party?Mr Hester donated £10 million to the Tories last year, according to Electoral Commission records.He individually donated £5 million to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s party in May and gave another £5 million via TPP in November. Prime Minster Rishi Sunak departs 10 Downing Street to go to the House of Commons for his weekly PMQS Mr Sunak also accepted a personal gift of nearly £16,000 for a helicopter ride last December.In an interview with the Telegraph last month, Mr Hester said he spent much of his adult life voting for the Green Party or spoiling his ballot before turning to the Tories.The entrepreneur has been invited on several government trade missions in the past, including visiting India with then-prime minister David Cameron in 2013.He told the Telegraph the he became more supportive of the Tories on the trade trip, but that it was Mr Sunak’s engagement with artificial intelligence that convinced him to hand over cash.“I’ve had some quite long conversations with Rishi about AI,” he told the paper.The donations came as the Conservative Party continues to languish in the polls ahead of a general election expected later this year.Mr Hester has posted on LinkedIn about meeting Boris Johnson at the 2020 Commonwealth heads of government meeting and attending Mr Sunak’s AI discussion with tech billionaire Elon Musk last year.What happed in the past week?Before this week, Mr Hester kept a fairly low public profile for a leader of such a major company.But on Monday he was cast into the spotlight by a report about racist comments he allegedly made in 2019.The Guardian reported that, during a meeting at his Leeds company headquarters, he discussed Ms Abbott after criticising an executive at another organisation.He reportedly said: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like … you just want to hate all black women because she’s there.“And I don’t hate all black women at all, but I think she should be shot.“(The executive) and Diane Abbott need to be shot.”The fallout intensified on Tuesday night when the newspaper reported that he referred to “no room for the Indians” during a crowded meeting, and suggested they “climb on the roof, like on the roof of the train there”.What was his response?Mr Hester admitted making “rude” comments about Ms Abbott, but claimed they had “nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.In a statement released through his firm, Mr Hester said he had tried to call Ms Abbott on Monday to “apologise directly for the hurt he has caused her”.“He wishes to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.”Responding to the Guardian’s second story on X, formerly Twitter, he did not deny making the comments, but pointed out he also said “I abhor racism”.What was the wider reaction to the revelations?Mr Hester’s alleged comments were widely condemned, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats branding them racist and calling for the Tories to return his donations.After ministers and Downing Street refused to describe Mr Hester’s comments as racist for most of Tuesday, the Prime Minister’s spokesman finally labelled them as such in the evening.There is no sign Mr Sunak’s party is moving to hand back the cash Mr Hester has donated.Ms Abbott herself said the reported comments were “frightening” and “alarming” given that two MPs – Jo Cox and Sir David Amess – have been murdered in recent years. Police are understood to have been contacted. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email A minister in Britain’s Conservative government said Wednesday that the party does not plan to give back 10 million pounds ($12.8 million) it received in the past year from a donor who made comments about a Black lawmaker that have been condemned as racist.The government is under pressure from some of its own lawmakers to return the donation from business executive Frank Hester. He reportedly said in a 2019 company meeting that Diane Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black legislator, made him “want to hate all Black women” and that she “should be shot.”Hester, chief executive of healthcare software firm The Phoenix Partnership, is the Conservative Party’s biggest donor. His company has been paid more than 400 million pounds ($510 million) by the National Health Service and other government bodies since 2016.After the comments were published by The Guardian newspaper, Hester acknowledged that he’d been “rude about Diane Abbott” but denied being racist. In a statement on social media, he said racism “is a poison that has no place in public life.”Prime Minister Rishi Sunak initially criticized Hester’s comments as “unacceptable,” but it took almost 24 hours for him to call the remarks racist. His spokesman said Tuesday evening that “the comments allegedly made by Frank Hester were racist and wrong.”Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake told broadcasters on Wednesday that the party would not give back the money Hester had given to the party. He told Sky News that “clearly” the comments were racist, but that it was right to keep the donation because Hester “is not a racist, and he has apologized for what he said.”Asked by the BBC whether the party would take more money from Hester, Hollinrake said: “As I now understand the situation, yes.”But Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of England’s West Midlands region, told BBC radio that if it were up to him, “I would think about the company I kept and I would give that money back.”Nus Ghani, a senior Conservative lawmaker and junior business minister, said on social media: “Zero tolerance on racism is just a slogan in today’s politics.”Britain’s political parties are trying to build up funds for election campaigns later this year. Figures from the Electoral Commission show the Conservatives received 9.8 million pounds ($12.5 million) from individual donors in the final three months of 2023, and the main opposition Labour Party 6 million pounds ($7.7 million).The Guardian published further alleged remarks by Hester on Wednesday. It said he’d told a crowded staff meeting that Indian employees could sit on the roof of a nearby train if there wasn’t enough room.Abbott, 70, was elected to the House of Commons in 1987 representing an area of east London, becoming Britain’s first Black woman member of Parliament. She sits as an independent after being kicked out of the Labour Party caucus last year for comments that suggested Jewish and Irish people do not experience racism “all their lives.”She called Hester’s comments “frightening,” especially since two British lawmakers have been murdered since 2016. The government said last month it would step up politicians’ security because of rising tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.Police in London said they were assessing the matter after their parliamentary liaison and investigation team was contacted about the Guardian’s initial report. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailGoogle has started the rollout of restrictions on what kind of election-related questions its AI chatbot Gemini will answer as it tries to prevent the spread of fake news during a year when billions of people will vote worldwide.The technology giant said that users in India will be restricted as to what they can ask Gemini, or at least what types of questions it will provide responses to.It is part of the company’s efforts to ensure that misinformation and disinformation is limited in a year when according to the Centre for American Progress more than two billion people in 50 countries will head to the polls.Out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic, we have begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responsesGoogle India team Some of these elections will be contested freely and fairly, while others will not.The countries where votes are being held this year include the US, Mexico, Russia and probably the UK as well.But by far the biggest is India, where around 900 million people are registered to vote according to Chatham House.“With millions of eligible voters in India heading to the polls for the general election in the coming months, Google is committed to supporting the election process by surfacing high-quality information to voters, safeguarding our platforms from abuse and helping people navigate AI-generated content,” Google said in a blog post.The tech giant laid out a series of non-AI measures it was taking to try to reduce the harm for which its platforms might be used to spread.These include efforts to provide information directly from the Electoral Commission of India on Google Search and YouTube.But it will also include restrictions on how Gemini can be used.“Out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic, we have begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses,” the Google India team said.“We take our responsibility for providing high-quality information for these types of queries seriously, and are continuously working to improve our protections.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSir Keir Starmer has pledged that parliament will debate and vote on changing assisted dying laws if Labour wins the next general election.In a phone call to TV presenter and assisted dying campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, the Labour leader said he was “personally in favour of changing the law” around assisted dying. In footage shown by ITV News, Sir Keir told the Childline founder: “I think we need to make time. We will make the commitment. Esther, I can give you that commitment right now.”Dame Esther has been a persistent advocate for a vote on assisted dying since her terminal cancer diagnosis in 2023. She revealed that she joined the Swiss assisted dying society Dignitas to ensure that her family’s “last memories of me” are not “painful” because “if you watch someone you love having a bad death, that memory obliterates all the happy times”.Dame Esther Rantzen has said people should no longer be able to claim allowing assisted dying is detrimental to a country’s palliative care system, after a parliamentary report found no indications this is the caseShe added that if her family accompanied her to Switzerland the police “might prosecute them”. At present, assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.In Scotland, it is not a specific criminal offence but assisting the death of someone can leave a person open to potential murder charges.A bill to make assisted dying legal in Scotland being put forward by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur is expected to come before Holyrood in the coming weeks.The Health and Social Care committee has also warned that the government must consider what to do if the law is changed in part of the UK, Isle of Man or Jersey.It said legalisation in at least one jurisdiction was looking “increasingly likely” and suggested the government must be “actively involved” in discussions about how to approach differences in the law.Sir Keir’s pledge marks a historic juncture after years of campaigning by pro-assisted dying groups. In his previous role as director of public prosecutions, the Labour leader recommended that families who assist terminally ill loved ones to die should not be subject to prosecution.The man who wants to be the next prime minister has said he would offer MPs a “free vote” meaning members would not be compelled by party line to vote for or against the proposal. But Sir Keir’s personal position means that this would be the first time the law would be debated under a prime minister who was supportive of the plans. The last time MPs voted on legalising assisted suicide was back in 2015, when the bill was defeated by 330 votes to 118.The bold new stance catapults the UK into alignment with its European neighbour after French president Emmanuel Macron announced that a bill on assisted dying would go before the French parliament in May.Under the proposed legislation, doctors would be able to prescribe a lethal substance to those suffering from incurable illnesses and pain, but who were still in control of their faculties.Mr Macron said the bill showed people were “facing up to death” and that it would “reconcile the autonomy of the individual and the solidarity of the nation”.Emmanuel Macron has said a bill on assisted dying will be presented to France’s Council of Ministers in AprilA poll by Opinium on behalf of pro-assisted dying group Dignity in Dying showed an overwhelming majority of support for a change in the law across England, Scotland and Wales.Of 10,000 people polled, 75 per cent said they supported a change in the law, versus 14 per cent who were opposed.The poll found a majority of support across all age groups, with most Christians, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs favouring a change in the law. Those of the Muslim faith are the only demographic to broadly oppose assisted suicide, reducing support in some constituencies with large Muslim populations.Sir Keir said the new law would address concerns about pressurising vulnerable people into assisted deaths and include the introduction of safeguards. He said: “When I consulted on this for the prosecutor’s guidelines, the churches and faith groups and others were very, very powerful in the arguments they made. We have to respect that and find the right balance in the end. “I do think most people coalesce around the idea that there is a case [for assisted dying] where it is obviously compassionate, it is the settled intent of the individual, and there are safeguards with teeth to protect the vulnerable.”Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying said that Sir Keir’s intervention shows that “parliamentarians are listening”: “Assisted dying has emerged as a vital issue among voters of all political persuasions…Crucially, Parliamentarians are listening. Both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have committed to give this historic matter the time it needs in Parliament, should they be our next Prime Minister.”She added: “Only a free vote early in the next parliament can deliver what our terminally ill citizens need – a safe and compassionate law providing choice at the end of life. “Voters are rightly demanding to know which political parties and candidates will give assisted dying the time and attention it deserves, and which will cling to a status quo that is unsafe, unfair, unequal and more than six decades out of date. As Sir Keir has recognised – dying people simply do not have time to wait.” More