UK

Sir Keir Starmer has hailed a “breakthrough” in efforts to end Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as Donald Trump said he would broker a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents.The PM joined Voldymyr Zelensky, French president Emmanuel Macron and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte for crunch talks in the White House on Monday.And, following the meeting, Sir Keir said the UK and US would begin work on the specifics of security guarantees with the US as soon as Tuesday. Keir Starmer said there was a ‘sense of unity’ between the US and Ukrainian leaders More

The proportion of children saying they have seen pornography online has risen in the past two years, according to a report, which also found most are likely to have stumbled upon it accidentally.Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said her research is evidence that harmful content is being presented to children through dangerous algorithms, rather than them seeking it out.She described the content young people are seeing as “violent, extreme and degrading” and often illegal, and said her office’s findings must be seen as a “snapshot of what rock bottom looks like”.More than half (58%) of respondents to the survey said that, as children, they had seen pornography involving strangulation, while 44% reported seeing a depiction of rape – specifically someone who was asleep.Made up of responses from 1,020 people aged between 16 and 21 years old, the report also found that while children were on average aged 13 when they first saw pornography, more than a quarter (27%) said they were 11, and some reported being aged “six or younger”.The research suggested four in 10 respondents felt girls can be “persuaded” to have sex even if they say no at first, and that young people who had watched pornography were more likely to think this way.The report, a follow-on from research by the Children’s Commissioner’s office in 2023, found a higher proportion (70%) of people saying they had seen online pornography before turning 18, up from 64% of respondents two years ago.Boys (73%) were more likely than girls (65%) to report seeing online pornography.A majority (59%) of children and young people said they had seen pornography online by accident – a rise from 38% in 2023.The X platform, formerly Twitter, remained the most common source of pornography for children, with 45% saying they had seen it there compared with 35% seeing it on dedicated pornography sites – a gap which has widened in the past two years.Dame Rachel said: “This report must act as a line in the sand. The findings set out the extent to which the technology industry will need to change for their platforms to ever keep children safe.“Take, for example, the vast number of children seeing pornography by accident. This tells us how much of the problem is about the design of platforms, algorithms and recommendation systems that put harmful content in front of children who never sought it out.”The research was done in May, ahead of new online safety measures coming into effect last month including age checks to prevent children accessing pornography and other harmful content.Dame Rachel said the measures “provide a real opportunity to make children’s safety online a non-negotiable priority for everyone: policymakers, big tech giants and smaller tech developers”.Some 44% of respondents agreed with the statement “girls may say no at first but then can be persuaded to have sex”, while a third (33%) agreed with the statement “some girls are teases and pretend they don’t want sex when they really do”.For each statement, young people who had seen pornography were more likely to agree.The commissioner’s report comes as a separate piece of research suggested dangerous online algorithms were continuing to recommend suicide, self-harm and depression content to young people “at scale” just weeks before the new online safety measures came into effect.The Molly Rose Foundation – set up by bereaved father Ian Russell after his 14-year-old daughter Molly took her own life having viewed harmful content on social media – analysed content on Instagram and TikTok from November until June this year on accounts registered as a 15 year-old girl based in the UK.The charity said its research found that, on teenage accounts which had engaged with suicide, self-harm and depression posts, algorithms continued to “bombard young people with a tsunami of harmful content on Instagram Reels and TikTok’s For You page”.Mr Russell, the foundation’s chairman, said: “It is staggering that, eight years after Molly’s death, incredibly harmful suicide, self-harm and depression content like she saw is still pervasive across social media.”The foundation has previously been critical of the regulator Ofcom’s child safety codes for not being strong enough and said its research showed they “do not match the sheer scale of harm being suggested to vulnerable users and ultimately do little to prevent more deaths like Molly’s”.Mr Russell added: “For over a year, this entirely preventable harm has been happening on the Prime Minister’s watch and where Ofcom have been timid it is time for him to be strong and bring forward strengthened, life-saving legislation without delay.”A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Instagram, said: “We disagree with the assertions of this report and the limited methodology behind it.“Tens of millions of teens are now in Instagram Teen Accounts, which offer built-in protections that limit who can contact them, the content they see, and the time they spend on Instagram.“We continue to use automated technology to remove content encouraging suicide and self-injury, with 99% proactively actioned before being reported to us.“We developed Teen Accounts to help protect teens online and continue to work tirelessly to do just that.”A TikTok spokesperson said: “Teen accounts on TikTok have 50-plus features and settings designed to help them safely express themselves, discover and learn, and parents can further customise 20-plus content and privacy settings through family pairing.“With over 99% of violative content proactively removed by TikTok, the findings don’t reflect the real experience of people on our platform which the report admits.” More

Jeremy Corbyn has been accused by the co-leader of his new party of “capitulating” over antisemitism. Zarah Sultana said the former Labour leader was wrong to accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and said he alienated voters by “triangulating” on Brexit. In an extraordinary attack just weeks after the pair announced the formation of Your Party, a left-wing challenger to Labour, Ms Sultana said Labour under Mr Corbyn “capitulated to the IHRA definition of antisemitism”. Zarah Sultana launched an attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labour More

Sir Keir Starmer is prepared to support a peace deal in Ukraine without a ceasefire being in place, No 10 has indicated, as the prime minister reiterated that he is prepared to put “boots on the ground” to ensure security in the event of an agreement being struck.Downing Street on Monday called for “an end to the killing in Ukraine” but stopped short of reiterating the government’s previous position, that a ceasefire was needed before peace talks could take place. Vladimir Putin has resisted calls to accept an unconditional ceasefire before entering talks about a long-term peace deal with Volodymyr Zelensky. And, following a summit between Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday, the US president dropped his demands for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict. Sir Keir Starmer is travelling to Washington DC More

Britain’s first transgender judge has begun the process of taking the government to the European Court of Human Rights over the Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex. The judgment from the Supreme Court, which ruled that trans women are not legally women under the Equalities Act, has led to warnings it would “exclude trans people wholesale from participating in UK society”. But gender critical campaigners have hailed the ruling as a victory for women. Lawyers acting on behalf of Dr Victoria McCloud, 55, who stood down last year, filed an appeal in the ECHR arguing a breach of her rights under article six of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to a fair and impartial hearing by an independent tribunal. Dr Victoria McCloud has filed an appeal in the ECHR arguing a breach of her rights under article six of the European Convention on Human Rights More

Sir Grant Shapps has been cleared to join a defence startup by parliament’s standards watchdog, as long as he promises not to work on defence-related matters. In a move which has been criticised by MPs and experts, the former defence secretary has been allowed to become chairman of Cambridge Aerospace.He was given the go-ahead by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which oversees the jobs given to ministers and special advisers when they leave office. Sir Grant told the watchdog the firm, which was founded after the Conservatives left office, will “develop technologies to reduce risks to aviation”.Acoba agreed, allowing him to offer “strategic direction and high level advice”, but said he cannot work on defence-related issues. Former defence secretary Sir Grant Shapps has been allowed to join a defence startup More

Rachel Reeves is preparing to strip back environmental protections in an attempt to accelerate infrastructure building and boost the economy, according to reports.The chancellor is considering major reforms that would make it more difficult for wildlife concerns to hold up developments, according to The Times.Treasury officials are said to be drafting another planning reform bill, the publication reported.The move reportedly involves tearing up parts of European environmental rules, which developers have argued slow down crucial projects.While Labour ministers have previously insisted their current planning overhaul would balance growth with nature, Ms Reeves is understood to believe that the government must go further.The Planning and Infrastructure Bill going through Parliament overrides existing habitat and nature protections, which, if passed, would allow developers to make general environmental improvements and pay into a nature restoration fund that improves habitats on other sites. But Ms Reeves is considering more contentious reforms that are likely to trigger further backlash from environmental groups, according to The Times.Reeves is preparing to strip back environmental protections in an attempt to accelerate infrastructure building and boost the economy, according to reports More

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has expressed a willingness to meet Donald Trump, even as he warned that the US President could be “inadvertently radicalising people” and is “not a force for good”.The Labour politician dismissed the US President’s recent jibes, made during a visit to Scotland, where Trump labelled him “a nasty person” who has “done a terrible job”. Sir Sadiq stated such remarks were “water off a duck’s back”.However, speaking at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he admitted that the exchanges sometimes made him feel like he was “nine years old again” and “in the school playground”.But Sir Sadiq, speaking at the Political Party show with comedian Matt Forde, hit back at the US President, saying: “Somebody who has views like he does about black people, about women, about gays, about Muslims, about Mexicans, thinks I’m nasty.“Really. He is the leader of the free world, arguably the most powerful man in the world, and really.”He spoke out as he said that records showed since the middle of January this year – when Mr Trump began his second term in the White House – and July “there have never been more Americans applying to British citizenship and living in London”.The Mayor said: “So I think Americans have got good taste by and large.”He added that he hoped the President would come to London during his state visit to the UK next month, with Sir Sadiq stressing the “diversity” of the capital was a “strength, not a weakness”.Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan speaks with police officers during a walkabout in the West End of London More