Kazakhstan has banned the burqa. Here's why
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the legislation, which permits face coverings only for medical reasons, adverse weather, official duties, or specific events.
The president said the ban aims to promote Kazakhstan's ethnic identity, encouraging national attire over face-concealing garments.
This restriction follows similar bans on the face veil in other Central Asian countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, often citing security or secularism.
The new law comes after a 2023 government decision to ban headscarves in educational institutions, which resulted in protests and approximately 150 girls dropping out of school.
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New Statesman
44 minutes ago
- New Statesman
The welfare crisis no one is talking about
Photo byConversations about welfare spending in Scottish politics are – contra Westminster – rarely about how it might be reduced. No, up here we are always looking for new ways to shovel more money out the door. If you belong to a vulnerable group, you should be reassured that someone somewhere is working on a plan to lob some taxpayer cash your way. This might speak well of the Caledonian heart, but it doesn't say much for the brain. As the frankly terrifying projections around future spending and demand pile up, one is left wondering whether the nation's policymakers are ignorant, irresponsible or just plain daft. Whatever upset Rachel Reeves this week – bad personal news, rows with colleagues, a weakening PM, the hole blown in her fiscal plans – it was possible to feel a tightening of the throat at the likely consequences for Scotland's future. The welfare story north of the border has for years been one of steady expansion, even as economic growth has remained insipid and public services have become an ever-greater burden on the finances. Universal benefits wherever you look, top-ups to 'stingy' Westminster handouts, the Child Payment, the Baby Box, and on it goes. If something twitches in Scotland, the state is waiting to write it a cheque. This week, as all hell was breaking loose in the UK Government, Holyrood's public audit committee was warning that the welfare bill in Scotland is set to increase from £6.8 billion in 2025/26 to £9.4 billion in 2030/31. With considerable understatement, the committee said that this presents 'a risk to the Scottish Government's financial position'. This is hardly the first alarm of its kind to be rung: by now we should be deafened by the clanging. Both the Scottish Fiscal Commission and Audit Scotland have repeatedly produced reports stating that the trajectory of the SNP's spending plans is unsustainable. Its own civil service has said the same. But the governing party has barely wavered. There is an intention to cut the public sector workforce by 0.5 per cent every year, to trim back the cost of quangos, and to reduce the state's property footprint, all of which will barely touch the sides of the problem. It was only last year that Shona Robison, the Scottish Finance Secretary, announced emergency spending controls due to her government's commitment to inflation-busting public sector pay deals and other expensive outlays. Any extra spending would only be allowed if it was 'truly essential or unavoidable'. The strictures included a ban on ministers expensing biscuits for meetings. Look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves? That's not how government works, and certainly not in the current straitened climate. The scale of the rethink required is too large, too complete. Yet there is no chance this SNP administration – or, arguably, one of any stripe – is going to grasp that particular thistle. And so, on we go, up and up, more and more. The Personal Independence Payment (PIP) which has caused so much trouble at Westminster is administered as the Adult Disability Payment (ADP) in Scotland. Around 10 per cent of the adult population currently claims it – 475,000 people. That figure is soaring (as it has been in the south), rising by 50 per cent in three years. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe It is obvious that PIP and ADP need fixed, that a fair number of recipients could be in work of some kind, which would be good for them and good for the economy. Unfortunately, Rachel Reeves's decision to use a chainsaw rather than a smart, busy scalpel has surely killed, for the foreseeable future, the argument around reform. The SNP will breathe a sigh of relief: never mind the horrible data. If they're not doing it, why should we? And yet the scary numbers keep coming. The Nats already spend a billion pounds more on welfare than the block grant received from London. That figure will be £2bn by the end of the 2020s. Scotland's population is aging fast, and over the coming decades will face the twin problem of a rising number of pensioners and a shrinking workforce able to pay for them. The NHS is going to eat up ever more of the devolved government's budget – it's projected to take up half of the total by 2075. Social care, wholly unaddressed, threatens to be ruinously expensive. Holyrood taxes are as high as they can reasonably go – and will anyway have to be reworked if Reeves bumps them up at a UK level in her Budget. Economic growth continues to be elusive, and this soft-left SNP crew are hardly chasing it. How, then, will the books be balanced? Where will the extra funds required for Scotland's heroic commitments to welfare and the NHS come from? Do we need to crash the national economy before we are willing to get real about this stuff? The prospect of a serious conversation about welfare reform north of the border – serious reform of anything, really – about hard choices and winners and losers, was perhaps always unlikely. But after this week, even that vanishingly small possibility has been swept away like tears in the rain – or, indeed, on the frontbench. [See also: The bond market has rescued Rachel Reeves from Keir Starmer] Related
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Ferguson Marine shipyard needs urgent investment to survive, MSPs warn
The publicly-owned Ferguson Marine shipyard needs "urgent investment" to become more competitive and survive, according to a committee of MSPs. The yard has no pipeline of work lined up beyond the ferry MV Glen Rosa, which is expected to be delivered by the middle of next year, raising concern for its future. Holyrood's public audit committee said leadership and governance failings along with the delays and cost overruns building two CalMac ferries had caused "reputational damage", despite the yard's long and proud history. The MSPs said there was no shortage of potential work, and recovery was possible but it would require investment and better oversight. The Port Glasgow shipyard recently missed out on a government-funded order for seven small CalMac ferries, seen as well-suited to its a visit to Ferguson's last month, committee members were told its bid was rated best on quality, but labour costs meant it lost out to a rival shipyard in Poland. The committee said the yard's inability to compete effectively in the open market was, in part, "the result of decades of under investment". Committee convener Richard Leonard told BBC Scotland News: "When we visited the yard it was obvious that it needed more capital expenditure, but there was no shortage of work out there. "If they were able to compete for the work that's coming on stream, whether it's more smaller vessels for CalMac, or to support the North Sea renewable wind developments, or to support the Border Patrol service, there is lots of work in the pipeline, it's just not going to Ferguson's at the minute."A year ago Scottish ministers promised £14.2m of investment over two years to improve productivity, although it remains unclear how much has yet been Labour MSP said he believed about £25m was required to modernise the shipyard effectively. "This is a yard with a distinguished past which could have a distinguished future as well," he added: "There is no doubt that the yard has suffered significant reputational damage and that the workers at Ferguson Marine deserve better, the communities waiting for a new ferry deserve better and the people of Scotland deserve better." The report raised concerns about a number of recent issues, some of them previously highlighted by the Auditor General. They included: A decision to award two redundancy packages to two senior managers, above the £95,000 public sector threshold, without government up salary payments made to an employee of ferries procurement body CMAL who was seconded to the yard's management. He was later redesignated as self-employed and submitted invoices totalling £144, May, Ferguson Marine said the delivery date for Glen Rosa had been pushed back by another nine months and the cost of the ship had increased by up to £ committee expressed "serious concern" at this and urged ministers to give "urgent clarification" about where the additional funds were coming from. The Ferguson shipyard in Port Glasgow was nationalised in 2019 after contracts for the two dual-fuel ships, Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, ran into difficulties, and ferries procurement body CMAL rejected claims for extra costs. The last commercial yard on the River Clyde, which employs about 300 workers and apprentices, is now run by a government-owned company Ferguson Marine Port Glasgow (FMPG). Delays and design challenges continued under public ownership with the cost of the two ships now about £460m if written-off government loans and money paid out prior to nationalisation are included. The original contract price was £ Sannox was finally delivered to CMAL last November, nearly seven years late, and the second ship is due by the end of June 2026. While many competing explanations for the problems have been put forward, there has been broad political consensus that the workforce themselves are not to blame. One of the committee's recommendations is that workforce representatives be given a greater role in board meetings. The MSPs noted that the yard remained hopeful of securing orders for three small CalMac ferries in the second phase of the small vessels replacement programme. A report on their recent site visit also revealed that management had asked ministers to consider directly awarding a forthcoming contract for a replacement for MV Lord of the Isles, an 85m long ferry which was previously built by Ferguson's.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
After Labour's first year, Starmer could still learn from ‘one-term Attlee'
On the first anniversary of Keir Starmer's general election win, there will no doubt be much comment about what his government has achieved in its first year – and, more likely, where it has fallen short of expectations. The general feeling appears to be one of disappointment, with Starmer's net approval rating at a record low, after the first double-digit decline in public support since a general election since John Major's Conservative administration in the 1990s. Starmer's first year as prime minister has been characterised by a series of U-turns, following rebellion within his own ranks. But it is the following day, this Saturday, 5 July, that will mark a far more consequential anniversary: the general election of 1945, which – after a count lasting several weeks – made Clement Attlee the first Labour prime minister with a majority government. Eighty years on, it seems fitting to revisit that government – its style and achievements, as well as the qualities of Attlee – who was to lead the nation in succession to the great war leader, Winston Churchill. What, if anything, can Starmer and his team learn from that post-war administration? Although many people were surprised by Labour's success in July 1945, the writing had already been on the wall for Churchill's Tories. The monthly Gallup opinion poll which, while not scrutinised in the forensic way that polls are today, had consistently pointed to a strong Labour showing throughout the war years. And ideas of how to build a better post-war nation in areas such as health, welfare and education, dominated thinking and debate – not least among servicemen and women overseas. Attlee's Labour campaign offered a clear blueprint based on their manifesto, Let Us Face the Future, and the people voted for it. By contrast, in 2024, while nearly everyone expected Starmer's Labour Party to win last year, it was far less clear what Labour might be offering in government, except the rather nebulous concept of 'change'. Even before the election, Starmer had been criticised for abandoning many of the planks of the platform on which he won the party leadership. His government has, so far at least, struggled to articulate a clear vision and sense of direction. At times, Starmer, unlike Attlee, has even appeared to be blaming the system for the government's shortcomings, and using the allegation (also made by Tony Blair) that the supposed levers of power do not seem to be connected to anything. This is a poor substitute for looking to his ministers to roll up their sleeves, address the issues and deliver. The second factor in the success of the 1945 government was the quality of the team assembled and led by Attlee. The government front bench included many experienced political heavyweights with substantial ministerial experience gained during the wartime coalition – people like Ernest Bevin, the former trade union leader and wartime minister of Labour, who led the Foreign Office, and Herbert Morrison, who had been home secretary during the war. Attlee himself had been deputy prime minister to Churchill, with a wide-ranging brief. By contrast, Starmer, like Blair in 1997, arrived in No 10 with no ministerial experience whatsoever. And, of his cabinet, only three members – Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband – have ever been full cabinet ministers before. But the most striking factor of the Attlee government was its output. From day one, the government was relentlessly focused on the demobilisation of over 3 million returning servicemen and women, and their reintegration into post war life in Britain. The economy became far more centralised, with the nationalisation of the Bank of England only seven months after the election, and later of the 'commanding heights of the economy'. There were also big changes through expanding the social role of government, by implementing the recommendations of the 1942 Beveridge Report and, most notably, through the creation of the National Health Service by the health secretary, Aneurin Bevan, three years after the election. Add to that the Festival of Britain – Morrison's brainchild – which brought a sense of energy and enthusiasm to the country after the dark days of the war. The government even finally achieved universal suffrage, with the abolition of the university vote, which had given some people at certain universities two votes rather than one. All in all, it was quite a record of domestic policy which, so far at least, does not look like being matched by the current government. Internationally, Attlee's administration helped shape the post-war world, too. From the Potsdam conference to the new economic framework based on the Bretton Woods agreement, to the oversight of the transition to independence for India in 1947 his government was at the forefront. And, in 1949, Nato was founded with Bevin heading UK negotiations. This, coupled with Attlee's determination to procure a UK nuclear capability, designed the nation's post-war defence framework, which is now under such strains. Starmer so far seems much more comfortable operating on the international front, where his legalistic approach and attention to detail have worked in his favour. But it is on the domestic front where he needs to up his game. None of the achievements of the 1945 government would have been possible without Attlee's leadership: quiet, undemonstrative, yet ruthlessly efficient and intolerant of poor performance. The phrase about not suffering fools gladly could have been made for him. He was determined to raise living standards and respond to the aspirations of everyone. He was committed to abolishing the poverty that he had witnessed in east London some 30 years previously. He strove to build a new world order so that, never again, would young men have to fight – as he had done in the First World War – or to defeat Nazism as the nation had just done in the Second World War. Attlee was the leader who made this happen. Why, then, with such a body of achievement delivered in only six years, was Attlee defeated in 1951? On one level, his government simply 'ran out of steam'. There was no new programme of work designed for the 1950s. Most of his ministers were exhausted – some were ill or dying. Ellen Wilkinson, his education minister, and Bevin, both died in office. Nevertheless, in the 1951 election, Labour achieved the highest percentage vote of any party in post-war history, with 48.8 per cent. However, the Conservatives, with a smaller 48.0 per cent of the vote, won more seats in the House of Commons and Churchill returned as prime minister. By way of contrast, last year Keir Starmer's Labour Party won only 33.7 per cent of the vote. Had someone asked Attlee in 1946 what had been his successes and failures of his first year – a question that Starmer has faced – the election-winner of 1945 might have struggled to choose from his many achievements during his first 12 months in office. He would certainly have been very unlikely to have said that his greatest failure had been 'not telling our story as well as we should'.
