Senedd called to act on 'existential crisis' of abuse
He told the Senedd: "It is getting worse by the day, and it really represents an existential crisis for our democracy and our society."
Mr Price said: "For our democracy to be effective, it has to be diverse.
"Diversity trumps ability.
"It's a piece of evidence in social science."
The former Plaid Cymru leader called for a focus on representation of trans women and men, a community "under siege," to ensure their voices are heard in the Senedd.
Mr Price highlighted harmful comments below news stories involving him in recent weeks.
"That certainly won't deter me and I hope it won't deter anyone else," he said.
"But we've got to do something about it collectively, haven't we?"
Labour's Hannah Blythyn expressed concerns that Wales could go backwards in terms of equality of representation at the next Senedd election.
Ms Blythyn told Senedd members: "I very much made an active decision when I had the opportunity to stand in this legislature because of the make-up – that there were more women here, that it was more representative."
Jane Hutt, Wales' social justice secretary, acknowledged the rise of abuse, harassment and intimidation towards politicians, candidates and campaigners.
She outlined voluntary diversity and inclusion guidance for political parties which aims to ensure democratic bodies are truly representative of all the people of Wales.
Ms Hutt said safety costs will be exempt from spending limits for Welsh elections.
Conservative Altaf Hussain warned guidance on equal representation risks crossing a dangerous line.
He said: "Equality of access cannot come just by bureaucratic diktats or targets."
Plaid Cymru's Sioned Williams said progress on underrepresentation of women in politics has slowed, warning the voluntary guidance was published "far too late."
"Wales belongs to everyone," she said.
"Everyone must have a voice in our nation's future."
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Belfast Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Traffic diverted due to Belfast protest against war in Gaza
At one stage traffic was diverted and some buses re-routed. Hundreds of protesters gathered with pots and pans lining Donegall Place and blocking oncoming traffic during the protest this evening. An online post described it as 'an emergency protest organised in Belfast against the weaponisation of starvation and aid and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Palestine.' The PSNI and Translink has been approached for comment. Israel's war in Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between militants and civilians. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Meanwhile, SDLP MPs Claire Hanna and Colum Eastwood and Alliance's Sorcha Eastwood are among 221 MPs from across different political parties who have joined forces to call on the Government to recognise a Palestinian state. The MPs urge the Government to take the step ahead of a United Nations conference in New York next week, following France's announcement it would recognise Palestine at the gathering. Their letter, co-ordinated by Sarah Champion - Labour chairwoman of the International Development Select Committee, said: "We are expectant that the outcome of the conference will be the UK Government outlining when and how it will act on its long-standing commitment on a two-state solution; as well as how it will work with international partners to make this a reality." Parliamentarians from Labour, the Conservatives, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and independents were among those who signed the letter. Senior signatories include Labour select committee chairs Liam Byrne and Ruth Cadbury, the Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, as well as Tory former minister Kit Malthouse. Ministers have faced growing calls to recognise a Palestinian state immediately amid mounting global anger over the starving population in Gaza. Israel 'tarnishing reputation', Lammy says as country rejects UK warnings Sir Keir Starmer said on Friday evening that such a move needed to be part of the "pathway" to peace in the Middle East. "That pathway will set out the concrete steps needed to turn the ceasefire so desperately needed, into a lasting peace," the Prime Minister said. He added: "Recognition of a Palestinian state has to be one of those steps. I am unequivocal about that. But it must be part of a wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution and lasting security for Palestinians and Israelis. In a statement released on Friday alongside the leaders of France and Germany, the Prime Minister urged "all parties to bring an end to the conflict by reaching an immediate ceasefire". Sir Keir, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz also called for Israel to stop restricting the flow of aid into Gaza.
The Sun
25 minutes ago
- The Sun
How Trump's Alligator Alcatraz tactic has sent migrant numbers PLUMMETING – while soft-touch UK rolls out the red carpet
COMPARE and contrast the images. At the heart of London's financial centre, comfy mattresses are loaded into a four-star hotel as they prepare for hundreds of special new guests. 13 13 13 No, not well-off tourists here to inject some much-needed cash into the UK's struggling economy, but the latest batch of small boat migrants who have illegally landed, ready to be hosted in style to the tune of £5.5million a day. Meanwhile, 5,000 miles away on an abandoned airport in the bug-ridden and croc-infested Florida Everglades, up to 3,000 illegal migrants are banged up in what Donald Trump calls ' Alligator Alcatraz'. 'The only way out is a one-way flight,' declared the White House when they opened the brutal detention centre, where high-security cages sleep 30 at a time in a swamp-like hellhole. It's been designed for one purpose only: deterring illegal migration. Labour scrapped the only proper deterrent on the table, in a clear signal to those queuing at Calais to carry on crossing with impunity. Harry Cole While Britain rolls out the red carpet for our soaring number of uninvited guests, since January America has seen a comparative border miracle. Crossing attempts on the southern border have plummeted, and those that do make it are rapidly deported. With President Donald Trump landing at Prestwick in Scotland last night before inspecting his golf courses Turnberry and Menie, Sir Keir Starmer will be dropping in for a chat on Monday to talk trade and world peace. But instead, he should bring his notebook and pen and start with a very simple question . . . How has America got a grip of its border crisis, while impotent Britain is humiliated by a daily stream of fresh boats, migrant rapes and assaults, and more tinder box communities on the edge? Migrants REFUSING to leave luxury taxpayer-funded hotels forcing Home Office crackdown Since returning to the White House in January, President Trump has embarked on a slew of aggressive and eye-catching immigration clampdowns. From the off, both on the Mexico border and deep into the country's biggest cities, it was made clear there's a new sheriff in town. On the very day Trump was sworn back into the White House, he declared a national emergency, classifying the tens of thousands of monthly arrivals coming through Mexico as an 'invasion'. New sheriff in town Opposition parties have been demanding a similar escalation here in the UK, but so far that has fallen on deaf ears in Downing Street. Rhetoric aside, the US move unlocked millions of dollars of military budget funding to dramatically increase patrols on the border. More than 7,000 troops were sent to the Southern states, with federal agents around the wider country given sweeping immigration powers to detain illegal migrants. After construction of Trump's 'big beautiful wall' was paused by his predecessor Joe Biden, work immediately began again in January, serving as a visual deterrent if nothing else. 13 13 And more significantly, the White House reintroduced rules that non-Mexican asylum seekers must wait in Mexico rather than be allowed to enter the US while their claims are processed. Another Biden-era policy which allowed migrants to use a mobile app to schedule asylum appointments pre-arrival was also scrapped, leaving 30,000 claimants in the lurch. As the new arrivals were squeezed, those already here were ruthlessly targeted, and deportations have been rapidly hiked. Undocumented migrants can now be removed from anywhere in the US without so much as a hearing. While the US government's methods are not for the squeamish, they have clearly been effective. Harry Cole Previously, that strict measure was reserved only for those detained within 100 miles of the border. Compare that to the tens of thousands in the UK put up while their bogus asylum claims, funded by taxpayer legal aid, exhaust appeal after appeal. Turning again to the military, the US air force has gone into deportation overdrive, shipping out thousands of migrants, with more than 1,000 flown out in the first week of the new administration alone. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have arrested more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants in 2025, with a heavy emphasis on those convicted of crime. In the first 50 days of Trump's second presidency, the administration claimed that 32,809 arrests were made, nearly matching the number detained in the entirety of Biden's last year in office. And the highly visual deterrent measures did not stop there. 13 13 13 While Starmer scrapped the Rwanda scheme as his first action in office, the United States has convinced Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador to take deportees, even if they are not their own citizens. Talks with 30 other countries are ongoing, helping the White House to claim that 139,000 immigrants had been deported by April of this year. And did it work? The latest numbers say yes. There were just 7,181 crossings or attempted crossings from Mexico in March, compared to 143,000 in the same month last year. June 2025 saw the lowest number of attempts or crossings in 25 years at just 6,070. And, crucially, all apprehended migrants were either detained or deported, with zero 'releases' into the community. Just contrast that with Britain. In a single day in May, 1,194 migrants landed on the coast of Kent. Billions more spent In Labour's first six months in office, there was a 29 per cent increase in arrivals compared to the previous year. From election day to the end of 2024, 23,242 migrants arrived to enjoy bed and board on the taxpayer. In 2025 — so far — another 21,117 have crossed, up a staggering 56 per cent compared to 2024 and a shocking 75 per cent higher than in 2023. For a new administration that vowed to 'smash the gangs', it's an abject humiliation and comprehensive failure, on course to smash only unwanted records. Excuses range from sunny days to the lazy French not playing ball, but given Starmer's first act as PM and no replacement for Rwanda yet, the blame game rings hollow. Labour scrapped the only proper deterrent on the table, in a clear signal to those queuing at Calais to carry on crossing with impunity. Add to that the lure of Britain's black market, where new arrivals can go from dock to takeaway delivery driver in a matter of hours, and it becomes a national joke. 13 13 13 According to the last available UK figures, there are some 118,000 asylum seekers awaiting decisions, with the hotel bill steady at £5.5million every day. Labour made a big song and dance about the 4,390 deportations in their first six months in office, yet 2,580 were foreign national offenders rather than small boat arrivals. Official Home Office figures have been less forthcoming since then. But with 95 per cent of arrivals attempting to claim asylum, without a dramatic hike in deportations this problem is not going to go away. Despite a Labour manifesto commitment to 'end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds', that target has been kicked into 2029, meaning billions more will be spent until at least the end of the decade. And compare 'Alligator Alcatraz' to how soft-touch Britain pampers those in the asylum queue. This week, we learnt pre-charged debit cards handed to migrants have been used in 6,537 attempts to gamble in bookies or casinos. Illegal black market There are more than 80,000 of these pre-loaded 'Aspen' cards in circulation, topped up every Monday by the Home Office with up to £49 a week for guests using self-catering accommodation. They are meant to give weekly payments so users can buy necessities. In Wandsworth, South West London, where Labour won control of the council last year for the first time in decades, those living in limbo are given perks not available to locals but paid for by locals. While awaiting asylum decisions, new arrivals are given subsidised travel on pay–as-you-go electric bikes at half the normal rate. There's half-price soft play for those that actually brought children, but not much use to the thousands of single men that make up the majority of crossings. 13 And there's even cut-price tickets for literature festivals, local fireworks displays and — I'm not making this up — half-price annual fishing permits to cast off at the local ponds. The French call our asylum system El Dorado, the city of gold, and frankly they have a point. While Donald Trump is doing everything he can to deter migrants, we are handing out freebies, four-star hotel suites and turning all but a blind eye to illegal black-market work. While the US government's methods are not for the squeamish, they have clearly been effective. Sir Keir warned his Cabinet this week that the very social fabric of Britain is starting to fray and social disorder is a major risk among a population that feels ignored on immigration. Well, surely then it's time to get real and take some uncomfortable measures? Yes, Trump is not bound by foreign courts, but he took on his own legal system on many immigration measures and won — something Sir Keir should look into if he really is as worried as he claims about the impact of unfettered crossings and community breakdown. The PM could learn a thing or two from the President, if he's serious.
Times
27 minutes ago
- Times
James Cleverly: I like Farage but Reform are a one-man band
Where many Tories view Nigel Farage as a menacing bogeyman, Sir James Cleverly is prepared to admit that he likes him. 'I've met him a couple of times,' Cleverly says. 'He's fun, he's funny, he's interesting. He's a very, very good communicator. He's very good at holding fort. He's a very clubbable person.' But for Cleverly, a Tory big beast who this week returned to the shadow cabinet, Farage has an inherent limitation: there is only one of him. 'The challenge he's got is that he's the only one in his party that you can describe in those terms,' Cleverly says. 'It's fine for what they've been doing at the moment, which is having him as the lead singer and everyone else if basically the backing band. But if you're going to be taken seriously as a party of government, that's nowhere near enough. As much as he's smart and funny and talented, he's not omnipresent.' • Shadow cabinet reshuffle: Badenoch returns Cleverly to Tory front bench Who, Cleverly rhetorically asks, are Farage's shadow chancellor, shadow home secretary and shadow defence secretary? 'The fact is he hasn't got any of them. That's nowhere near good enough to be taken seriously as an alternative party of government. The British people deserve better. He's their biggest advantage and their biggest disadvantage.' Farage 'crumbles' when pushed for details, Cleverly adds. 'We're now seeing that as soon as he's asked even for an order of magnitude explanation to the cost of some of his ideas he totally falls apart. When he's trying to outbid Labour on welfare spending, when you talk to him about how he's going to do that whilst also cutting taxes, he falls apart.' Cleverly was the big name in Kemi Badenoch's mini-reshuffle this week. Last October he dropped out of the Tory leadership contest after being bested by a margin of only four votes, going from runaway favourite to also-ran in an instant. Some of his supporters later admitted that they were so confident Cleverly would make it to the final pairing that they backed one of his rivals, a move designed to improve his chances of winning the overall contest. That turned out to be a catastrophic error. Cleverly decided to take a break. 'I'd come off the back of being foreign secretary, home secretary,' he says. 'During much of the previous couple of years Susie [his wife] was going through her cancer treatment, which actually impacted me more than I realised at the time. Then we went into an incredibly bruising general election campaign and instead of taking a breather over the summer I threw myself into a leadership campaign. At this point I realised that I did actually need a bit of time, a bit more time with Susie, a bit of time with the family.' Did he enjoy his time off? In fact it was a 'pretty turbulent' period, Cleverly says. At the beginning of the year one of his closest friends from his army days died after developing oesophageal cancer. 'In the early part of the new year I was with him when he died,' Cleverly says. 'The weekend after, my brother-in-law — Susie's younger brother — had a catastrophic heart attack and he died. And then, just over a week ago, my father died. So the first half of this year has been pretty full on.' When Cleverly was approached by the Conservatives' chief whip last week, he decided it was time for a return. He is now shadowing Angela Rayner's community and housing brief. 'I genuinely thought Labour would mess up,' he says. 'But they were messing up at such a rate [it] meant we had to get back on the front foot more quickly than perhaps anyone had envisaged. We didn't have the time in opposition to build up slowly and gently.' It does not look good for the Tories. Under Badenoch they have gone backwards in the polls and there have been complaints in the shadow cabinet about her leadership and her strategy. Some shadow ministers think she will be ousted after November, when the one-year protection period shielding her from a leadership challenge expires. 'Let's not do the whole kind of, 'Throw a leader under the bus and see if it works this time',' Cleverly says. 'It hasn't worked the last three or four times we've done it. My strong advice is [that] our effort, our time, our energy, our focus, is much, much better directed at making sure Kemi succeeds as leader. Kemi won fair and square. She's got strong ideas, she is a staunch Conservative.' • Emma Duncan: James Cleverly's homecoming is smart move for Tories Some of the attacks on Badenoch have been vituperative. The New Statesman reported that some Tories believe she is pulling her punches on illegal migration because she is an 'anchor baby', a term used in the United States to refer to people who ensure their children are born in a country in order to gain residency. Badenoch has said she was born in the UK because her mother, who is from Nigeria, came to get medical care at a private hospital. 'The idea of living in the UK and moving to the UK was not something that was at the forefront,' she has said. Cleverly says the attacks originate on the left and highlights the abuse he has suffered because his mother came to Britain from Sierra Leone. 'There's a particularly pernicious type of left-wing racism which rears its ugly head surprisingly regularly,' he says. 'This is one of the things I find really, really, really unpalatable. I had this when I was home secretary, when I was tough on migration. And people said, 'You're such a hypocrite to try to crack down on small boats because your mum was an immigrant'. 'Which implied that in the eyes of some people all immigrants are the same. That somehow my mum … playing by the rules, filling in the forms, joining the queue and spending a whole working life in the NHS, that somehow she is the same as someone that's paid a criminal to get here on a small boat. That I find incredibly distasteful. 'And sadly, it's unsurprising that Kemi is having these kind of accusations flung at her. I know she has got a bit of an armoured hide when it comes to this kind of comment, so I can't imagine she's staying awake over comments like that.' The Tories, he says, are still experiencing the wrath of voters after their 'comprehensive' defeat at the general election. 'You talk to voters [and] last year's general election feels a heartbeat away. They are still angry with us about the things they were angry with us about at the general election. There is a residual frustration with us and a newfound frustration with the Labour Party.' Cleverly's critics often call him a centrist. They point to his position on the European Court of Human Rights — he has repeatedly said it is no 'silver bullet' — and his criticism of the 'neo-Luddites' on the right opposed to green technology and who think that climate change campaigners are 'scaremongering'. Cleverly says those critics are wrong and describes himself as a 'Thatcherite Reaganite'. His leadership platform included a 'really significant reduction in welfare spending' and committing the party to spending 3 per cent on defence in government. Badenoch has committed to scrapping the net zero 2050 target, a position Cleverly agrees with. 'When we, as a party, were making that commitment on that timescale, it was prior to Russia's invasion [of] Ukraine, prior to much of the current conflict in the Middle East,' he says. 'The timetables that we set out before those major events are no longer tenable. 'We shouldn't be capping wells in the North Sea. We shouldn't be putting lead in our own saddles when it comes to competing on a global market. We shouldn't be throwing heavy industry under a bus. But while making sure we protect ourselves here, we should still be looking to take full advantage of the direction of travel in green technologies and energy technologies.' Badenoch is widely expected to announce at the autumn's party conference that she is committing the party to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). She has commissioned a review by Lord Wolfson, the shadow attorney-general, to look at the issue in the meantime. Will Cleverly back leaving the ECHR? 'The lesson we learnt from Brexit is if you want to make a big change like that, you have to have a delivery plan,' he says. 'Boring as this may sound, I'm actually going to wait for this incredibly smart and thoughtful person to do the analysis before I make a final judgment.' He is concerned about 'judicial activism', however. 'There are tensions that are being stoked because of perverse decisions by the immigration tribunal, through the judicial review process. What message does that send to people that have actually done the right thing and voted?' Cleverly says he feels sympathy for those protesting peacefully outside migrant hotels. 'I understand why they're so very, very angry,' he says. 'I understand why they look to the government that made a whole load of bold promises, who thought it was all going to be so terribly easy, and have let those communities down. Where I absolutely do not have any sympathy is for people who travel across the country to try to turn peaceful community protests into a violent, clickbait protest. Hijacking community concerns is something that should be responded to forcefully by the courts, by the police.' Surely the Conservatives were part of the problem? The failure to stop small boats crossing the Channel led to tens of thousands of people being housed in asylum hotels. 'I completely recognise that this very visible and very alarming spike in illegal migration … shot up while we were in government,' he says. 'The focus we had on this was relentless. We were willing to try a whole range of things. And that's in part where the Rwanda plan came from, looking at doing things really fundamentally different, as well as beefing up the National Crime Agency's work in Europe, disrupting criminal gangs, arresting people, deporting people.' • Badenoch says she would copy drastic cuts of Argentina's president Labour, he says, showed an 'appalling lack of planning and foresight' and its decision to cancel the plan to sent migrants to Rwanda was 'absolutely toxic'. On housing, Cleverly says he wants to make it easier to 'go up a little bit' by building new levels on existing buildings, as well as ensuring there is 'greater density' in cities with good-quality housing. He also could look at property taxes to help people get on the ladder. His overall message is that the Tories do not need to 'reinvent the wheel'. 'What we need to do is update the way we present that to a new generation of voters,' he says. 'But conservative principles are sound and we don't need to drift away from those conservative principles. And that's the reason we've been such a successful political party.' However, the Tories cannot afford to be passive and must go after the voters who have defected to other parties. 'We can't just rely on them to come back, we've got to go and get them,' he says. 'We need to be hunters, not farmers. We need to make the case. People voted for other political parties for a reason. And we need to go get them back.' Kemi Badenoch of Robert Jenrick? Kemi. We have got to give her a chance. Nigel Farage or Keir Starmer? Neither. They can go in a room together and talk about their ineptitude. British & Irish Lions or the English cricket team? Lions. I'm a rugby player. Opposition or government? Government. David Cameron always said a day in government is better than a year in opposition.
