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BBC News
02-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Plans to make Otley Run in Leeds safer proposed by councillors
More police officers, extra toilets and "better" queuing systems have been proposed as part of plans to make Leeds' Otley Run pub crawl a fancy dress rite for passage for students who visit around 18 pubs on the route through the Headingley and Hyde Park areas, the crawl's popularity has boomed since the end of lockdown and now attracts older drinkers has led to concerns from locals who have complained about rising anti-social behaviour, public urination and dangerous road use from some a letter to residents, the area's Labour councillors said they and local MP Alex Sobel had met pub bosses to suggest "solid steps" to tackle the issues. The councillors, Jonathan Pryor and Abdul Hannan, described the meeting as "productive" and said the bars had been "willing to explore" their suggestions. Under proposals put forward, pubs would provide "direct funding" to pay for additional police officers along the route - an idea first mooted earlier this year. The letter said "better queuing systems" which moved people away from blocking pavements were also being developed and pubs were being encouraged to join a Otley Run "project group", which brings stakeholders together to monitor toilet facilities "where these could be accommodated" and support for the White Ribbon campaign to end misogyny and violence against women were also proposed, the councillors added. Two women were injured in a crossbow attack on the route in April before the suspect fatally injured himself. Pryor and Hannan said the discussions were aimed at helping Headingley cope with the "sheer numbers" of people now doing the Otley Run. They added: "We believe these could be solid steps, and go some way to tackling the issues."When the idea of pubs paying for police was raised in May, one bar owner said he was against the Waugh, who runs Sixes Social Cricket in Headingley, said: "I understand there's a lot of people that come to do the Otley Run on a Saturday and that the services must be stretched. As empathetic as I am with that, we are also stretched as a hospitality business."Month after month, there seems to be more cost layered into our business." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Forbes
28-06-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
British Politicians Call Upon Pope Leo XIV To Stand Up For Jimmy Lai
Vatican, June 21, 2025. Pope Leo XIV meets with political leaders during the Jubilee of Governments ... More at the Apostolic Palace on June 21, 2025, in Vatican City, Vatican. Greeting the members of the delegations coming from 68 different countries, Pope Leo said politics has rightly been defined as 'the highest form of charity.' (Photo credit: Elisabetta Trevisan - Vatican Media via) On June 21, 2025, Alex Sobel MP, Member of the U.K. Parliament, delivered a letter to Pope Leo XIV after a special audience for members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), in the Hall of Benediction, the Vatican, calling upon him to stand up for Jimmy Lai. Jimmy Lai, a British citizen aged 77, and a devout and practicing Catholic, has been imprisoned by Hong Kong authorities since December 2020. The audience followed the Second Parliamentary Conference on Interfaith Dialogue: Strengthening trust and embracing hope for our common future. The conference, jointly organized by the IPU and the Parliament of Italy, brought together hundreds of MPs, including Speakers, as well as religious leaders, UN officials, civil society representatives, and international experts from close to 100 countries, responding to the motto of the Jubilee Year to be 'pilgrims of hope' amid a climate of growing conflict, polarization and the weaponization of religion. During the audience, Pope Leo XIV emphasized the importance of human rights for everyone: 'The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved and proclaimed by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, is now part of humanity's cultural heritage. That text, which is always relevant, can contribute greatly to placing the human person, in his or her inviolable integrity, at the foundation of the quest for truth, thus restoring dignity to those who do not feel respected in their inmost being and in the dictates of their conscience.' After the audience, Pope Leo XIV met many of the attendees. Alex Sobel MP was among those able to meet the Pope and delivered a letter signed by several Parliamentarians from the U.K., raising the dire situation of Jimmy Lai. Among the signatories of the letters were two Politicians sanctioned by China for their advocacy on the situation of human rights in China and Hong Kong - Lord Alton of Liverpool and Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws LT KC, and the last Governor of Hong Kong - the Rt Hon. the Lord Patten of Barnes KG CH. As the letter stressed, Jimmy Lai, 'Despite being vilified in the Hong Kong media and relentlessly pursued by hostile authorities with vexatious charges, he is guilty as proven on one simple charge: speaking up for democracy and human rights for all and speaking against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) oppression and their suppression of human rights - the values which St John Paul II fought for in Poland during the communist tyranny there.' Jimmy Lai has been imprisoned in solitary confinement for over 1,600 days now and faces life imprisonment for simply standing by his principles. Given his age and the condition of his health, he may not live for many more years. In prison, those few remaining years will mean pain and suffering. In addition to being placed in solitary confinement (despite posing no threat to anyone), an act that of itself heightens the risk to his life, Jimmy Lai, a man of deep Catholic faith, has been frequently denied Holy Communion and has not been permitted to attend Mass services held in the prison. There is no reasonable justification for this denial, and it amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment. The letter calls upon Pope Leo XIV to 'raise the case of Jimmy Lai with the Chinese authorities and to seek spiritual assistance for him. He should be allowed to see a priest, to receive Holy Communion, and to attend Mass without any further obstruction.' British Parliamentarians further asked for Pope Leo XIV to meet with Jimmy's son, Sebastien Lai, to give him a blessing and the encouragement to continue his fight for the freedom of his father. Pope Leo XIV is yet to respond to the letter and the calls for restoring the human dignity that Jimmy Lai is deprived of every single day, with the inhumane treatment in prison - the human dignity that Pope Leo XIV has been raising in the recent audience. In the meantime, Jimmy Lai continues to be imprisoned, mostly in isolation, while awaiting the outcome of a long-delayed trial for sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed controversial National Security Law.
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Cutting down forests to feed Drax incurs a huge carbon cost
Dale Vince is right that paying the Drax power station billions of pounds to burn forests is not a coherent climate strategy (Ancient trees are shipped to the UK, then burned – using billions in 'green' subsidies. Stop this madness now, 21 June) . Labour has already said these subsidies should not continue beyond 2031 – a welcome and necessary step. Cutting down forests in Estonia, Latvia, the US and Canada is destructive to biodiversity. What's more, it makes no climate sense – for forests to recover their role as lungs that absorb carbon dioxide takes decades. Biomass, of the type Drax uses, incurs a huge carbon cost. Relying on millions of tonnes of imported wood to keep the lights on is dangerous. A strategy for energy security means investing in real, homegrown renewables – wind, solar, tidal and restoring nature to capture SobelLabour and Co-operative MP for Leeds Central and Headingley We have to remember that using Drax to burn freshly grown wood is better than burning coal and not planting any trees at all (as we merrily did last century). Drax is a stepping stone to a low carbon future and should be switched off once the alternatives are in place. I am saddened to hear that Canada is using virgin forest to supply Drax. This should be stopped by its government. There are other stepping stones that should be given consideration: 'blue options' as opposed to 'grey' or 'green' options. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is likely to be a better blue option than biomass, because the CO2 is removed immediately and not recycled into the atmosphere. However biomass is cheaper. All options need to be kept on the table, partly to avoid having all our eggs in one basket and partly to make sure we come as close as possible to a speedy, low-cost transition that we can afford. Tom BlandfordFordingbridge, Hampshire Creative accounting has always been the refuge of scoundrels. That the UK government wants to continue to book nonexistent emissions reductions through large-scale wood burning that annihilates ancient forests and use ever more taxpayer money to subsidise the scam is not only shameful, but also alarming to anyone hoping for real action on climate. At the Bonn climate negotiation meetings I recently attended, it transpired that Brazil seems intent on a big push for the bioeconomy at the upcoming COP op30 in the Amazon. It's obvious that, cloaked in platitudes about small-scale social bioeconomy measures with merit, industrial scale forest biomass energy will charge through this gateway. Burning up the biosphere as climate action is the Orwellian prospect we all Putt Former member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly At the moment, the issue of burning trees in power stations like Drax must surely be vastly overshadowed by the seasonal 'accidental' loss of established woodland by the annual return of highly energetic and polluting fires in Canada, Russia and Europe. Having their likely origin in changing weather (and therefore also climate) patterns, resulting in prolonged droughts and rising temperatures, accompanied by natural and anthropogenic ignition sources, these events are likely to be irreversible, without a dramatic universal reduction in CO2 emissions, as well as in the release of CH4 (methane, with its dramatically higher environmental damage potential) from melting permafrosts in Arctic, sub-Arctic and alpine environments, and from animal CarmichaelSafenwil, Switzerland Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
BBC News
10-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Leeds: 'Otley Run attack shows misogynistic violence is growing'
Before two women were shot with a crossbow in Headingley two weeks ago, Owen Lawrence – the suspected attacker – posted a hate-filled online "manifesto" on detailed plans for "The Otley Run Massacre" and listed "students, nightclub goers", "neurotypicals" and "police" among his post described the planned violence as "terrorism, revenge and misogynistic rage".In the two weeks since the attack, residents, police, politicians and experts have been discussing how future incidents of this nature can be this week, mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin called for tougher laws around crossbows, and Leeds Central and Headingley MP Alex Sobel said he supported more security around the Otley Run pub what about the ideology behind Lawrence's manifesto? 'It could have happened anywhere' Dr Anna Kruglova, a lecturer in terrorism studies from the University of Salford, says we need to be concerned about a rise in "misogynistic violence"."We should be mindful of this phenomenon being again on the rise," she says."It is a random attack in the sense that it can happen anywhere. You have disenfranchised, upset and hateful people. So unfortunately it could have happened in any corner of the UK or elsewhere."But it's hard to estimate the level of threat. It's not an organised phenomenon. It's a lone-wolf attack. It's not something that is inspired by a particular organisation."Dr Kruglova studies the "manosphere", a term used to describe online communities that promote anti-feminism, misogyny and hateful ideas about women, trans and non-binary says: "The manosphere is not an organised movement. That's kind of a loose group of people who are hating women and some of them, not all of them, will be willing to take this further and become violent."There's been a growing body of research and interest from all kinds of communities, practitioners and governments looking into this."So it does seem like gender-based violence, misogynistic violence is growing, or has become more and more concerning in the last few years." Psychologist Leona Deakin started her career with West Yorkshire Police. She says it is easy to think these ideas are "silly" until they become violent reality."If we're not in a community, or close to a community and their beliefs, then it's easy to think it's a small group of people being a bit silly until something like this happens. Then that makes us all take a closer look," she says."There is a community out there for men who feel they are isolated or rejected by society and more immediately by women and girls."Some of these men call themselves "incels", which stands for "involuntarily celibate".Ms Deakin explains why this ideology can be attractive."There is a theory in that community that 80% of women are only attracted to about 20% of men, and those men are highly attractive and usually very wealthy."So if you're a young man who sees himself as not so attractive, and doesn't have much money or the capacity to earn much money, then you start to feel quite aggrieved."And social media is like an echo chamber, so you find one person who agrees with your sense of isolation and frustration, and then you find a dozen of them and then hundreds of them and that has a huge validation impact on the human brain."We start to think we must be right because everyone I'm talking to online agrees with me, so this must be correct." A government report by the Commission for Countering Extremism, "Predicting harm among incels (involuntary celibates)", concluded that men who fell into these groups were in need of mental health support more than counter terrorism report studied 561 men and concluded that there was likely to be tens of thousands of incels across the found these men made up a "relatively small proportion" of the number of cases referred to the anti-terrorist government organisation Prevent (77 in total, or 1.2% of all referrals). Dr Kruglova says incels are not violent generally but suffer from mental health issues and very low self-esteem."It's more of a psychological and personal problem," she says."A lot of these people don't need to be referred to Prevent [government anti-terrorism organisation] or be interviewed by police forces, they need someone to share their concerns and pain and problems and be listened to and probably be shown the situation is not as dire as they see it."But then unfortunately there is also someone who is willing to take it further and use violence as a way to address their issues." Are our young boys 'robust'? Ms Deakin says the solution, therefore, is not about security but society."We need better role models of what a good man looks like," she says."So, a kind, compassionate, emotional man, to counter these ideas that men have to be attractive, strong, in control, wealthy, all of those stereotypical ideals."The family and schools are key places because young, teenage boys, 15/16 is where we need to start the process of avoiding falling down this rabbit hole."Role modelling from dads, uncles, big brothers talking about their emotions. Talking about what makes a good relationship, that it is about partnership and love and respect."But we need to make sure young boys are robust in the face of disappointment."Do your boys understand how to bounce back from disappointment? Do they understand resilience? Do they feel a deep sense of self-worth, do they feel loved for who they are?" Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
The Sun
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
TikTok dodges UK ban fter ministers blocked move to stop British data being sent to China
TIKTOK has dodged a potential UK ban after ministers blocked a cross-party move to stop British data being sent to China. The proposal would have seen tech firms banned from sending UK user data to countries with no legal protections - including authoritarian states where the government can access it without warning. 2 2 Campaigners warned it would have forced TikTok to either overhaul how it handles British data or quit the UK altogether. Labour MP Alex Sobel, who tabled the amendment to the Data Bill, said firms are exploiting loopholes that let them claim data is safe - even when it's handed to regimes with sweeping surveillance powers. Speaking in the Commons, he pointed to a €530 million fine TikTok received from Irish regulators for mishandling user data, including transfers to China. Ex-Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith also backed the plan, saying: "British governments have been very slack about protecting data being used by foreign powers which have no regard for people's human rights, such as China." Campaigner Luke de Pulford, founder and executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, added: "Parents need to understand that the Chinese Communist Party has access to their kids' most intimate details. "The preferences, anxieties, obsessions of our children should not be in the hands of our biggest security threat: Beijing." Despite those concerns, a Science and Technology spokesperson rejected the amendment, arguing existing protections are sufficient. They said: "The UK has one of the most robust data protection regimes in the world, with all organisations required to comply with our legislation to safeguard UK personal data when transferring it overseas."
