14 May 2015
Week in Brief: UK NEWS
VE DAY: the celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of VE day began with a two minutes silence on Friday. Wreathes were laid at the Cenotaph by the leaders of the political parties, David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg laying theirs together. The Queen has attended a service with veterans at Westminster Abbey.
ELECTION RESULTS : In marked contrast with previously published polls, the exit poll on Thursday evening showed the Conservatives on course for a total of 316 seats . Mr Ashdown undertook to eat his hat if that was correct. In fact the Tories did rather better than that with a total of 331 seats, giving them an overall majority of 12, so that they would need to lose six by-elections before becoming dependent upon the support of another party. Labour have 232 seats, the Scottish National Party 56, the Liberal Democrats and Democratic Unionists 8 seats each. The remaining seats were split between a number of smaller parties with UKIP only taking one of them. The main features of the night were the loss of 49 Liberal Democrats seats and the 50 seats gained by the Scottish National Party , largely at the expense of Labour. As Nicola Sturgeon has already pointed out, the success of the SNP did not affect the size of the Conservative majority. The election was won south of the border where the increase in Tory seats at the expense of the Liberal Democrats proved decisive.
Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, and Vince Cable, the business Secretary, lost their seats as did Simon Hughes, Danny Alexander and the Conservative, Esther Mc Vey. Each of Nick Clegg, David Miliband and Nigel Farage has resigned the leadership of his party although Mr Farage has subsequently agreed to be reappointed. Alex Salmond, formerly leader of the SNP won a seat, as did the Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. It is likely that when he ceases to be mayor next year the latter will receive a ministerial post and that he will be a candidate to replace Cameron who has indicated that he will not stay to fight the next election.
NEW CABINET: The core Conservative team of George Osborne at the Treasury, Teresa May at the Home Office, Philip Hammond at the Foreign Office, Michael Fallon at Defence, Iain Duncan Smith at Work and Pensions, Jeremy Hunt at Health and Nicky Morgan at Education, remains in place with George Osborne being designated “First Secretary of State” in recognition of his role as second-in-command to Cameron. New appointments included Michael Gove as Justice Secretary, Sajid Javid as business secretary, Greg Clark as Communities Secretary and Amber Rudd as Energy Secretary.
GOVERNMENT PROGRAM; the government’s legislative program will be set out in the Queens’s speech on 27 May. Immediate business is likely to include: the implementation of the report of the Boundary Commission, a change which will give the Conservatives more seats in future elections; the replacement of the Human Rights Act, which currently gives the European Court of Human Rights jurisdiction in the UK, by a British Bill of Rights under the sole control of British Courts; negotiations with Scotland over the terms of devolution; negotiations with the EU over the terms of Britain’s membership; and a new Counterterrorism Act which will permit the police to limit the harmful activities of extremists. The government will also need to identify £30 billion of savings, including £12 billion from the welfare budget.
IMMIGRATION: the UK is making use of an exemption to avoid an EU requirement that it double the number of asylum seekers it takes to about 60,000, to assist Italy and other countries flooded with asylum seakers coming across the Mediterranean. In an article in “The Times”, Teresa May, the Home Secretary, specifically disagreed with the EU’s view that no migrants should be sent back against their will, stating that a distinction had to be made between those who are genuine refugees and those who are economic migrants. She advocates a program to hunt down the gangs trafficking people across the Mediterranean and instituting a practice of returning to African safe landing sites those coming to Europe for economic reasons. HMS Bulwark, the Royal Navy flagship, has been sent to assist in rescue operations.
UKIP FUNDING: Douglas Carswell, the newly re-elected UKIP MP for Clacton, has said that the party should return £300,000 of the £650,000 per annum available to it out of public funds. Others in his party disagree. The matter has yet to be resolved.
NORTHERN IRELAND: a man has been arrested in connection with the murder of Gerard “Jock” Davison, the former IRA leader. Police are investigating whether there is any link between his death and the killing of Robert McCartney in 2005.
PLANE CRASH: it appears that the pilot of the Lufthansa plane, which crashed on the way from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, rehearsed the resetting of the controls to “descent” on an earlier flight.
EDUCATION: Ashington High School Sports College, a school in Northumberland which was rated inadequate by Ofsted, has ranked its GCSE students before they take their exams. It is hard to see why.
HEALTH: according to an analysis of data by the Stroke Association, hospital admissions for strokes increased from 7789 in 2000/2001 to 10,830 in 2013/2014. The rise of 39% compares with an increase of only 8% among persons aged over sixty-five. That reflects a higher incidence of strokes among the middle aged, possibly due to sedentary lifestyles.
CYCLING: a British company is producing a program designed to work out routes which will prevent lorry drivers from making left turns at certain periods of the day, so that this can become illegal. The software has been developed with support from the government-funded Transport System Catapult.
HERITAGE: Save Britain’s Heritage is seeking the help of Greg Clark, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, to oppose plans under which King’s College London would demolish four historic buildings in the Strand and demolishing two others behind their facades, in order to make way for a new academic complex.
MUSLIMS; a man who asked to be excused from jury service on the basis that only God should judge people had his application refused.
PARACHUTE: Sergeant Cilliers, an instructor with the Royal Army Physical Training Corps has been arrested on suspicion of attempting to murder his wife after her parachute failed to open during a 4000 foot sky dive.
WATER VOLES: the Canal and River Trust estimate that water voles have disappeared from half their habitats in the last 15 years. The release of American mink from fur farms by animal liberation activists is thought to have contributed to the decline.
ART: a painting by Pablo Picasso has reached the highest price ever achieved at auction. Les femme d’Algers (Version”0”) was sold at Christie’s Manhattan for US$ 160million; that means US$ 179 million including auction fees.
FIRE: the Victorian railway station at Ballater, near Balmoral, which was remodelled to welcome Czar Nicolas II of Russia, has been destroyed by fire.
TENNIS: Andy Murray won at the Madrid Masters, beating Raphael Nadal 6-3, 6-2. The tournament is played on clay courts as is the French Open which starts on 19 May.
