ANDREW NEIL: No future UK government has a hope of making things better if it can't reform our incompetent Left-wing, WFH civil service
The local council requested the government join it in legal action to prevent The Times from publishing details of its ground-breaking investigation into the scandal. Some senior civil servants in his department advised Gove to join in this bid to muzzle the press.
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The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
UK sanctions Russian spies trying to ‘destabilise Europe'
The UK has sanctioned a string of Russian spies and hackers, accusing them of carrying out a campaign to 'destabilise Europe'. Those sanctioned include a unit that targeted the daughter of Sergei Skripal years before Russian agents attempted to murder him in Salisbury with the nerve agent Novichok. Others are accused of belonging to units that have carried out cyber attacks in the UK, France, Germany and the US – while also facilitating strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: ' GRU spies are running a campaign to destabilise Europe, undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and threaten the safety of British citizens. 'The Kremlin should be in no doubt: we see what they are trying to do in the shadows and we won't tolerate it. That's why we're taking decisive action with sanctions against Russian spies.' In total, 18 officers of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence unit, have been sanctioned, along with three men linked to Moscow's efforts to spread disinformation in West Africa. They include five men said to have been involved in a cyber attack on Yulia Skripal in 2013, in which the GRU's Unit 26165 targeted her emails with malware known as X-Agent. Development of X-Agent is said to have been overseen by Lieutenant-Colonel Sergey Morgachev, and involved Aleksey Lukashev, Ivan Yermakov, Sergey Vasyuk and Artem Malyshev, who have all been sanctioned. Lukashev and Yermakov are said to have carried out the attack on Ms Skirpal's emails, five years before members of a separate GRU unit poisoned her and her father with Novichok. The Foreign Office accused Unit 26165, which is already sanctioned, of attempting to disrupt investigations into the attempted murder of the Skripals along with another already-sanctioned GRU outfit, Unit 74455. On Friday, the UK added GRU Unit 29155 to the sanctions list, accusing it of carrying out the poisoning and saying the incident 'underscores how GRU Units integrate cyber operations into hybrid activity with the aim of furthering the Kremlin's objectives'. Also sanctioned are Aleksey Morenets and Yevgeney Serebriakov, accused of carrying out 'close access operations' against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, Netherlands. As well as carrying out cyber attacks in Western Europe, Unit 26165 is said to have conducted operations in Ukraine, including carrying out reconnaissance that facilitated the 2022 attack on the Mariupol Theatre that killed hundreds of civilians, including children. Several of the men sanctioned on Friday are already wanted by the FBI in the United States. They include Colonel Aleksandr Osadchuk, said to be the commanding officer of Unit 74455. He and others have been charged with a series of offences in connection with Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 US election. Other men sanctioned by the UK on Friday, including Morenets and Serebriakov, are accused of targeting anti-doping organisations and other sporting bodies around the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro. Meanwhile, the UK joined the EU in lowering the price cap on Russian oil as Ukraine's allies sought to increase pressure on Moscow to engage in peace talks. The cap, which is currently 60 US dollars per barrel, will fall to 47.60 dollars from September 2 in a move Chancellor Rachel Reeves said was aimed at 'exploiting' President Vladimir Putin's 'biggest vulnerability'. Energy revenues account for around 30% of the Russian state's income, making them a key source of funding for the Kremlin's war in Ukraine. Ms Reeves, who is attending a meeting of G20 finance ministers in South Africa, said: 'The UK and its EU allies are turning the screw on the Kremlin's war chest by stemming the most valuable funding stream of its illegal war in Ukraine even further.' Mr Lammy added the UK would not 'stand by' while Mr Putin 'continues to stall on serious peace talks'.
The Guardian
33 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Angela Rayner tells Labour to ‘step up' and make case for being in power
Angela Rayner has urged Labour colleagues to 'step up' and make the case for why the party should be in power as the government attempts to draw a line under a tumultuous first year in office and shift towards a more upbeat approach. The deputy prime minister urged Labour MPs to focus on the party's achievements over the last 12 months rather than always thinking about failures, saying they should all be 'message carriers' for what had been done well. But she said there were big challenges ahead, with changes in areas such as infrastructure investment and planning going to take years to bear fruit. 'These things take time to lead in. That's the challenge with politics. Everybody wants something mañana. It's like, gotta have it immediately.' In an interview with the Guardian as MPs prepared to break for the summer recess, Rayner also said she was unafraid of Nigel Farage, that tough action against rebellious Labour MPs was 'justified' and that fixing the 'awful' Send system for children was an urgent priority. She said it was a 'moral mission' for Labour to bring down child poverty, she would feel personally wounded if the government did not hit its 1.5m new homes target and that it was determined to 'break the doom loop' of low economic growth and high taxes suffered for years. However, speaking in her office in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Rayner made clear she expected her colleagues, from Keir Starmer down, to do a better job of arguing for what they believed in. 'We all have to step up and make that case. It's the job of all of us in the wider Labour movement,' she said, citing achievements such as falling NHS waiting lists, funding increases for housing and rising wages. 'I often go to Labour fundraisers and joke that the Tories will do 4% of their manifesto, and then go on about that 4% as if they've delivered the whole lot. In our Labour movement, we'll do 96% of it, but we'll go on about the 4% that we never managed to achieve. 'It's a mindset that we have … We're always thinking about what we didn't get, as opposed to all the huge achievements that we're making. Our whole movement is message carriers. And if we're not going to talk about these huge achievements, then who is?' Labour has characterised Reform UK as its main opposition at the next election, even though it has just four MPs. Rayner said they had to be 'held to account' for making 'wild promises' to the public they would not be able to deliver on, calling Farage a 'snake oil salesman'. 'Politics can make a real difference to people's lives, but it takes time to change, to bring about that fundamental change that people are so desperate to see. That's what this Labour government is doing,' she said. 'It's not short-termism on the back of a fag packet, on some billboard. It's actually the fundamental reforms that will get Britain back on track … instead of people feeling at the moment like everything is broken and nothing can be fixed.' Rayner defended the decision to strip the Labour whip from four 'persistent' rebel MPs, even though No 10 had said it would try to improve relations with backbenchers after they forced it into a major U-turn over welfare cuts. 'I think it's justified. If you're constantly organising against your Labour government then that's a whipping issue for the chief whip, and that's as old as time,' she said. But she acknowledged the government had to find ways of giving MPs 'opportunities to air concerns' and be part of the collective decision-making process. Labour MPs are concerned that ministers will approach plans for children's special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in the same way as they did changes to welfare, which were presented as a cost-saving move. But Rayner, who has two children who have been through the Send process, said the system was 'awful' for parents and had to be fixed, adding that she knew the government needed to bring families, schools and MPs with them on the difficult path to change. Her own department has an additional interest because councils, which provide much of the support, were granted two further years until March 2028 to keep Send deficits off their books, giving them a strict deadline. 'Can we do it in the time? We have to, because so many young people are being let down at the moment, because the system is not catching people's needs early on. That system is awful for parents. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'I was in the system for a long time … Parents who are trapped in it are constantly, for years, fighting to get their child support that they need. We've got to fix this. Often we're spending huge sums of money and we're still not delivering the outcomes for those young people.' Labour MPs are also desperate for the government to deliver on its pledge to tackle child poverty, with Starmer understood to be keen to lift the two-child benefit cap if affordable, although that has been made harder because of the welfare U-turn. Rayner said it was a 'moral mission' and 'absolutely critical' for a Labour government to bring down child poverty, but despite experts suggesting scrapping the cap would be the most cost-effective way to do so, she said there was 'no single lever' to address problem. She has announced a near doubling of government spending on affordable housing in England, up to £40bn of grants over 10 years, and bringing its target to build 1.5m new homes by 2029 closer. She said she would feel wounded if the target was not hit, even though experts say it will be extremely difficult. 'I would be wounded, even though it is a real stretch target. Everyone says it's really difficult to get there, but I'm determined to,' she said. Just months after Rayner urged Rachel Reeves to consider a series of wealth tax rises, underscoring unease over the chancellor's tight spending plans, she said the country needed to get out of the 'doom loop' of low growth and high taxes it had seen under the Conservatives. While she refused to be drawn on whether it was inevitable that taxes would have to rise this autumn, when asked about her leaked memo to the chancellor, she said the country 'can't continue' as it is. 'I think we will get there. But we can't continue on this doom loop of, you know, low, low growth and high taxes, we have to find a way through this,' she added, highlighting capital investment and trade deals which both supported the economy. 'That's how you grow the economy in the long run, and where people feel better off as a result of it. That's the turnaround that we're doing that the previous government didn't do, and why we've been in this constant doom loop.' Before Donald Trump's second state visit to the UK this autumn, Rayner, who has previously called the US president 'a buffoon' who had 'no place in the White House', said she respected the mandate of elected politicians but was prepared to 'challenge respectfully'. A week after Unite the trade union voted to suspend her membership and rethink its ties with the Labour party over the Birmingham bin strikes, Rayner said that while she was proud of her trade union roots, she answered to working people and her constituents. 'That's my test. Not what a general secretary says.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Reform's war on net zero plans will cost one million jobs, Labour say
Reform UK 's 'war' to net zero will cost almost one million jobs, energy minister Michael Shanks has claimed. Mr Shanks and Labour stepped up their attacks on Nigel Farage 's party by saying Reform's opposition to net zero amounted to a 'war on jobs'. He added that working people 'would lose jobs and opportunities if Farage's party was ever allowed to impose its anti-jobs, anti-growth ideology on the country'. His comments come after Reform deputy leader Richard Tice wrote to energy companies urging them not to invest in the latest round of green energy contracts, known as Allocation Round 7 (AR7). Mr Tice said he had put the companies on 'formal notice' that their investments were 'politically and commercially unsafe' as a future Reform government would seek to 'strike down all contracts signed under AR7'. But he later told the BBC that Reform would not renege on contracts, only oppose any 'variation'. Mr Shanks called the letter an 'energy surrender plan that would leave bills high for families and businesses, keeping the UK stuck on the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets'. Labour also pointed to estimates from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which suggested the net zero sector now supported 951,000 jobs across the country. That figure includes almost 138,000 jobs in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber, areas where Reform has enjoyed electoral success including in this year's Greater Lincolnshire mayoral contest and Mr Tice's own Boston and Skegness constituency. Mr Tice said: 'Labour's reckless net zero fantasies are destroying hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs, costing taxpayers £12 billion a year in renewable subsidies, and leaving us with some of the highest energy bills in the world. 'The OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) confirms that £30 billion of taxpayer money is being poured into net zero projects. These policies are crippling our economy and driving people out of this country.' In a report published last week, the OBR estimated tackling climate change would cost the Government £30 billion a year, largely in lost income from taxes such as fuel duty. But it also warned that failing to act presented a 'more significant fiscal cost' because of damage caused by climate change. Mr Shanks's intervention is the latest in a series of Labour attack lines against Reform, which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer now regards as his real opponents. Reform has made opposition to net zero a major part of its platform since the last election. Earlier in the year Mr Tice pledged to 'wage war' on the policy while Greater Lincolnshire mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns told Times Radio on Thursday she did not believe climate change was real. But Labour believes this could be a weakness for Mr Farage's party, as polls indicate net zero continues to enjoy significant support. One survey conducted on behalf of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit ahead of the local elections in May found 54% of Reform voters backed 'policies to stop climate change'.
