United Kingdom

Nice to see a bit of progress on this issue.

Hunting stags with packs of dogs has supposedly been illegal for almost 20 years – although there are some exemptions. However – despite the ban – hunts are continuing with impunity. We’ve been sent footage of stags being chased on National Trust land involving people on quad bikes as well as horses. While on another hunt – it’s one of the hounds which appears to be at risk. There is some distressing footage in this story.

Kaba was killed by a single bullet after being ‘silently’ followed by an unmarked police vehicle with no blue lights or siren, while driving his car through Streatham Hill last September. The officer who killed him, known only as NX121, was charged and released on bail last week.

In an announcement of the decision to charge NX121 with murder, Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said: “It is extremely important there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

Yet within days, Braverman – a former attorney general – took to X (formerly Twitter) to defend firearms officers and announce the launch of a review to ensure cops who “have to make split-second decisions” have the “confidence to do their jobs”. This was backed by both the prime minister and the Met Police commissioner Mark Rowley.

To whom it may concern.

In a move to alter an agreement that undermined UK plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, the home secretary will argue that the United Nations 1951 refugee convention must be reformed to tackle a worldwide migration crisis.

She will argue that case law arising from the convention has lowered the threshold so that asylum seekers need only prove that they face “discrimination” instead of a real risk of torture, death or violence. As case law has developed, she will say, there has been “an interpretive shift away from ‘persecution’, in favour of something more akin to a definition of ‘discrimination’”.

Speaking to the American Enterprise Institute, a rightwing thinktank in Washington DC, Braverman will say the change has expanded the number of those who may qualify for asylum to “unsustainable” levels, adding: “Let me be clear, there are vast swathes of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay, or to be a woman.”

“Where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary. But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection,” she will say, in pre-briefed comments that have already drawn fire.

I'm invited to a gala dinner hosted by our mayor for the mayor and some council members of our twinned town in the UK. As I will have some talk to both the British mayor and the council members, what are the correct terms to respectfully address them in their ranks and functions?

Sir Stephen Hillier, chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, said the travel industry is at an “inflection point” and needs global co-operation ahead of the “widespread” adoption of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) designed to carry passengers on short trips.

His comments come after UK airspace struggled to cope with conventional passenger jets during a summer of delays compounded by the failure of the country’s air traffic control system over the August bank holiday, which grounded hundreds of aircraft and delayed thousands of passengers.

At least one London council is already trialling the software as a result of approaches by the company, Fusus, which claims to be “the most widely used and trusted real-time crime center platform in US public safety”.

Fusus has been attempting to expand into the UK, opening an office in London’s Canary Wharf in March this year and hiring former officers from the Met to approach councils and police forces. It has approached Tower Hamlets and Hackney borough councils and the Met, City of London and Merseyside police forces to sell products that integrate CCTV and surveillance networks, according to Freedom of Information requests.

Nissan have clearly set their trajectory, and aren't changing.

There are millions of people struggling alone in the cost-of-living crisis – but they’re invisible to our politicians, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

The European Commision's stance on this is baffling to me. It seems like both the EU and UK motor industry would be big losers under the current arrangement.

I get the EC may not have the most favourable view of the UK right now, but does it make sense to handicap their own manufacturers for a few political brownie points?

Figures seen by the Guardian show lengthy wait times for diagnostic tests such as ultrasound and CT scans

Some patients in England are waiting up to two-and-a-half years for important diagnostic tests such as ultrasound, MRI and CT scans, according to figures seen by the Guardian.

The longest waits were two-and-a-half years for an MRI scan, almost two years for an ultrasound and a year for a CT scan, responses to freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats show.

People with heart problems are among the worst affected. Examples from NHS trusts included a 49-week wait for an echocardiogram and a 475-day wait for an angiography.

Under the NHS constitution, patients should wait less than six weeks for diagnostic tests. The target is for only 1% to wait more than six weeks, but now 25% of all patients do so, according to research from the House of Commons library, commissioned by the Lib Dems.

This is so very wrong and will lead to a slippery slope similar to how the police operate in the US. You cannot allow police to work with a license to kill without any review process. Braverman is not the be all and end of the justice system. She should not be allowed to circumvent judicial process.

My opinion of those 70 officers is thankyou for being honest. You feel you cannot work with being subjected to reviews on such an important issue, then it is right you should not do so.

Credit to Phil Moorhouse as his was the original post I saw.

I think it’s pretty troubling that the military may have to step in to cover what should be police matters when it’s not a matter of a national emergency.

12 months ban is not enough for people like this. So much of this is being captured by dash cams, and yet these people are still very prevalent on the roads.

Unemployment insurance should be paid at 65 per cent of previous wages, up to a cap set at the median earnings of £2,260 per month, says The Inquiry, a collaboration between the Resolution Foundation (RF) and the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics (LSE).

The researchers propose a cautious approach of initially paying unemployment insurance for at most three months, after which eligible lower-income workers could continue to receive support through Universal Credit. The proposed scheme is – perhaps surprisingly – fairly modest in cost, at only £0.4 billion per year in 2024-25 prices, covering 50,000 eligible workers.

Here's the study (pdf): https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/From-safety-net-to-springboard.pdf

The Indian-origin Home Secretary has previously made clear that she will do “whatever it takes” to send asylum seekers to Rwanda – a plan that has been blocked by the courts. Her trip and speech in the US to discuss migration issues will be seen as further evidence in the Tory party that she is positioning herself as a potential leadership candidate for the right should the Conservatives lose the next election.

The prime minister has now pledged to scrap policies that would force landlords to upgrade energy efficiency in their homes, after pressure from landlords about the costs of doing so, but said the government would "encourage" households to carry out the work.

"This appears to be yet another U-turn that could lead to higher bills just like the prime minister's decision last week to roll back landlord insulation standards that could leave renters paying an additional £8bn on energy bills," energy analyst Jess Ralston at non-profit group the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit says. The UK is often described as having some of the oldest and least energy efficient housing in Europe.