Turkish court delays hearing that could oust main opposition leader
An initial hearing had been set for Monday. The next hearing will be on September 8.
Stripping Ozel of his chairmanship would mark the latest judicial blow to opponents of President Tayyip Erdogan. He is a potential challenger in future elections after Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu - the party's elected presidential candidate - was jailed in March.
The lawsuit, filed by a CHP member, seeks to overturn results of the party's 38th Ordinary Congress in November 2023 over procedural irregularities. At that congress, Ozel had replaced Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who lost to Erdogan in presidential elections earlier that year.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Congratulations, Liz Truss – you're no longer Britain's worst prime minister
The grown-ups are back in the room. That was the breezy consensus among liberal observers, this time last year, as they looked forward to Sir Keir Starmer ushering in a glorious new era of political stability, integrity and competence. 'No more psychodramas and scandals,' chirped the former MP Anna Soubry, who quit the Tories in 2019 over her loathing of Brexit. Jon Sopel, of the centrist dad podcast The News Agents, felt it apt that 'as Starmer drives to Downing Street the sun comes out'. Ian Dunt, of the anti-Tory podcast Oh God, What Now?, was pleased to report: 'Power suits Starmer, as expected. Looks comfortable, relaxed, in charge.' Meanwhile, Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News warned his fellow journalists that from now on, they would have to focus on policy rather than in-fighting and chaos – because 'we now have a Government with a massive majority, widespread agreement and no likelihood of massive instability any time soon'. Perhaps the giddiest response to last July's election, however, came in the Metro, which dubbed Sir Keir 'the new Downing Street Daddy' – because, apparently, everyone on TikTok was excitedly discussing whether he was 'our hottest prime minister in history'. Arguments in support of this thesis included, 'He's objectively handsome', 'He cares', and, believe it or not, 'His personality'. Ah, what heady days those were. And how tragically, gibberingly delusional they seem today. Let's look at the state of play, one year into the Starmer disasterclass. This week, to avert a humiliating rebellion over his Welfare Bill by Labour MPs who were talking openly about removing him as their leader, Sir Keir has had to perform a U-turn so farcical that, instead of cutting spending on benefits, he's going to end up increasing it by £300 million. Yes, despite having a vast working majority of 165, he was incapable of winning a crucial vote on a flagship Bill without junking practically everything except its title. The man now has about as much authority over the Commons as the dust bunnies beneath the Speaker's chair. Meanwhile, we learn that, in the first half of this year, 20,000 migrants arrived in Britain via small boats – beating all previous records. Quite an achievement for a man elected on a promise to 'smash the gangs', and who, only last month, was boasting to the prime minister of Italy about 'the UK's world-leading work on people-smuggling sanctions'. Did he seriously mean that? Frankly, it's hard to be sure what he means about anything. Certainly not grooming gangs (one minute, dismissing calls for a national inquiry as a 'far-Right bandwagon' – the next, sheepishly clambering aboard it himself). Or the winter fuel allowance (one minute, totally unsustainable; the next, comfortably affordable). Or, perhaps most pathetically, mass immigration. Mere weeks ago, he sternly warned us that it risks turning Britain into 'an island of strangers'. Now he confesses that he 'deeply regrets' saying so. Remarkable. He's even U-turned on the one thing he actually managed to get right. Meanwhile, no one can still believe his pledge to be responsible with the public finances, after his mind-boggling decision to pay Mauritius £30 billion of our money to take the key strategic asset of the Chagos Islands off our hands. Soon enough, though, Sir Keir will be even less trusted than he is now. Because, having failed to cut welfare spending, he will inevitably have to break his solemn vow not to raise taxes for the dwindling number of people in this country who pay more into the system than they pay out. Which will mean any faint hopes he may harbour of reviving his fortunes will die with the next Budget. Still, let's be fair. Despite all the doom and gloom, there is one person who is unmistakably benefiting from Sir Keir's actions in office. Congratulations, Liz Truss – you're no longer Britain's worst prime minister. Yes, her spell in No 10 was a screaming catastrophe. But at least it was all over nice and quickly. Sir Keir's waking nightmare, by contrast, has dragged on for a whole year. And, unless his MPs have the decency to put him out of both his and our misery, it could drag on for another four. It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for the man. Mind you, I suppose he can console himself with one small, comforting thought.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
'Maga Mark' Zuckerberg unceremoniously kicked out of Oval Office after White House tour
Meta head honcho Mark Zuckerberg was reportedly asked to leave a meeting at the Oval Office after he 'walked in unexpectedly' while President Trump met with high-ranking military leaders. Sources familiar with the recent meeting told NBC News that military leaders were shocked when Zuckerberg waltzed into the Oval Office during a discussion on the Air Force's next-generation fighter jet platform. The exact date of the reported incident was not divulged. Officials were reportedly concerned about Zuckerberg's presence, citing that he didn't have the security clearance to be a part of the conversation. He was then asked to leave the office and forced to wait outside. The White House didn't respond when asked about the context of the meeting. The Daily Mail reached out to Meta for comment on the claims. Sources told the outlet that officials in the meeting were 'mystified and a bit unnerved' with the lack of privacy in the Oval Office. One official even referred to the meeting as 'bizarro world.' Zuckerberg has had a complicated history with politics, initially voicing pro-immigration policies and supporting liberal politicians before pivoting towards the MAGA agenda amid Trump's re-election campaign. Zuckerberg attended Trump's inauguration earlier this year, cozying up to fellow billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. New reporting has revealed that Zuckerberg's allegiance to Trump has even extended to meetings at the White House, leading to this embarrassing ejection from the Oval. Trump reportedly refers to the infamous room as 'Grand Central Terminal' because of the frequent visitors, with one official telling NBC there were concerns about 'spillage' of sensitive information. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is said to attend 'virtually every meeting that matters,' former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said. Trump affectionately refers to Wiles as the 'Ice Maiden,' with sources crediting her for balancing the president's informalities. Adding to Trump's anything-but-ordinary White House, sources told NBC that cabinet officials frequent the Oval Office. 'They should be running their bureaucracies. They shouldn't be hanging around the White House,' one former White House official said. In response to the source's allegations, Trump's deputy chief of staff for communications Taylor Budowich said, 'President Trump has assembled the greatest cabinet in American history—a group of talented individuals who embody the diverse coalition that delivered his historic election victory. 'Cabinet Member and White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, has played an integral role in operationalizing his agenda through his administration and has ensured everyone is empowered with the tools to deliver on the president's mandate.' Sources also revealed that Trump would 'spontaneously pick up the phone' during meetings to call confidantes, including the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White, and the former chairman of News Corp. Rupert Murdoch. 'He'll say: "Let's call Rupert. Fox is killing me today,'' an anonymous source revealed to NBC. White has been a longtime ally of Trump's, showing support for the president at the last Republican National Convention and joining him on stage during his election victory party. The UFC CEO joined Meta's board earlier this year, just two weeks before Trump took office. The move signaled Zuckerberg's shift to the right, as he also named prominent Republican Joel Kaplan to Meta's head of global policy in January.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Only Angela Rayner has emerged from the welfare debacle with her reputation intact
It is a cliche that Labour is the party of work – 'the clue is in the name' – and yet the first time that proposition has been tested in government resulted in a humiliating retreat. Keir Starmer failed to make the case for welfare reform, which meant that it looked as if he and Rachel Reeves, his iron chancellor, just wanted to save money. Presented to Labour backbenchers as a choice between austerity and defending the rights of people with disabilities, there was only going to be one outcome – and it is a measure of the prime minister's naivety that he didn't see it until the last moment. It is significant that it was Angela Rayner, who lives and breathes politics, who led the effort behind the scenes to save the government from being defeated in the Commons. It was she who forced the prime minister to bow to the reality of parliamentary arithmetic. As reputations shake out in the aftermath of the government's double climb down, only the deputy prime minister has gained in stature. Starmer's standing in the party and the country has been damaged, so much so that some Labour MPs are talking about when Rayner might take over from him. Reeves's share price has also fallen – so much so that, when she appeared upset about what her spokesperson said was a 'personal matter' at Prime Minister's Questions today, speculation that she had resigned or was about to resign rocked the bond markets. The reputation of Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, has also suffered. She managed to push more Labour MPs into the rebel camp with her defence of her bill to restrict personal independent payments (PIP) on Monday. There is talk of resets and reshuffles, but unless they deal with the cause of the government's difficulties, they will be to no avail. Some Labour MPs want Reeves to be moved out of the Treasury. Indeed, she must take some of the blame for the government's embarrassment, but moving her would be an act of weakness on Starmer's part, and besides, who could replace her who would make a better job of selling the reform message? John Healey? Wes Streeting? Rayner herself? The real reason many dissident Labour MPs want Reeves moved, however, is that they simply want to be liberated from her fiscal rules, which is like saying that they want everything to be free. No, the fundamental problem is that Starmer and Reeves started from the wrong place. They looked at the rising bill for disability benefits and thought it should be prevented from rising so fast. But instead of analysing why the system run by the Department of Work and Pensions is putting so many people on PIP, they simply decreed that less should be spent on it. Kendall and Stephen Timms, the welfare minister, both of whom know a lot about the benefits system, did not have the time to work out a reform plan and so offered crude changes to the rules to restrict eligibility instead. It might have been possible to work out that the shift from in-person interviews to telephone or video calls might lead to more awards, for example, and that part of the solution would be to go back to assessors seeing people face to face. Instead, ministers were left trying to justify taking money away from existing recipients as well as from people who might expect to receive benefits in future. That meant the government's case was weak, and it had the disastrous effect of making Corbynite MPs sound reasonable. After all Starmer's success in sidelining the impossibilist wing of the party before the election, he now allowed Nadia Whittome, Richard Burgon and Diane Abbott to find their voices and do what they do best, bashing the leadership. The real problem was the number of mainstream loyalist Labour MPs who could not stand for taking benefits away from people with disabilities, but their rebellion gave free rein to the irreconcilables and added to the impression of a party at war with itself. Starmer, who admitted that he had been 'distracted' by important business abroad, should have realised that it was a priority to get the argument right. He should have insisted on going beyond the cliche about Labour being the party of working people and looked at why the disability benefits bill is rising before devising a plan that really would get people off benefits and into work. As long as it didn't involve taking benefits away from existing claimants (apart from fraudulent ones), mainstream loyalist Labour MPs would have supported it. And the Corbynite wing would have been marginalised. Instead, Starmer has blighted the prospects of any reform. There was so little trust between Labour MPs and the government last night that even after Timms announced that the entire PIP section of the bill was being withdrawn, 49 Labour MPs still voted against it. Even good, sensible and workable proposals are going to be difficult to get through parliament now. On the other hand, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown recovered from unhappy early attempts to cut welfare spending in the first few years of the New Labour government, with Brown producing an imaginative plan for tax credits that improved work incentives. Reeves must now come up with something similar.
