23 March 2017
Week In Brief: UK NEWS
Westminster
TERRORIST ATTACK: Four people, including a police officer, are dead and about another 20 injured after a car drove into people on Westminster Bridge and an officer was attacked with a knife. The police are treating it as an act of terrorism. Proceedings in the Scottish parliament were suspended in sympathy and the Shaw Sheet adds its voice to those sending their condolences
Government
SELF EMPLOYMENT: The rise in Class 4 national insurance contributions charged on the self-employed, which was announced in the budget, has been reversed, allegedly with some acrimony between numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street, on the grounds that it conflicted with a Tory election pledge. It is understood that there was concern that the measure might be defeated in Parliament.
Matthew Taylor, ex-head of the Downing Street policy unit and now head of the Royal Society of Arts, is to report later this year on employers who artificially contrive to make their staff self-employed and thus deprive them of pension rights and job security.
ARTICLE 50: The Bill to authorise the service of notice under article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty has now received Royal assent. Notice to begin the Brexit process is to be given on Wednesday 29 March.
SCOTLAND: Gordon Brown has intervened in the row between the government and the SNP over a further Scottish referendum, suggesting that following Brexit many of the powers returned to the UK should go to devolved authorities.
HADDOCK RARE: The Marine Conservation Society has removed haddock from its list of sustainable fish following a decline in fish of breeding age. North Sea haddock fisheries scored three and four on a five-point scale on which low scores indicate sustainability. Organisations representing fishermen dispute the assessment.
CHILD POVERTY: 4 million children are now living below the poverty line, a 1% increase on last year’s level. The poverty line is a relative measure and a child is living below it where the household income is less than 60% of median earnings. At a time of little earnings growth, however, the figure may be a sign of an absolute decline at the bottom of the income scale.
Politics
ELECTION EXPENSES: The Conservative Party has been fined £70,000 by the Electoral Commission for failing to account properly for election expenses. Decisions have yet to be made over whether individuals should be prosecuted.
JOBS FOR WIVES: The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has said that, as from the next general election, MPs will not be able to hire members of their family as staff. Those already hired, however, will be allowed to continue in post.
EVENING STANDARD: George Osborne has been appointed as the new editor of the Evening Standard at a salary rumoured to be in the region of £200,000 a year. Questions have been asked as to whether he will be left with sufficient time to devote to his constituency, bearing in mind that he also has a job with BlackRock, holds a Kissinger Fellowship and has extensive public speaking engagements.
LABOUR: According to deputy leader Tom Watson, Unite and the Communications Workers Union are plotting to affiliate to Momentum in order to secure continued left-wing leadership of the Labour Party. The allegations are denied by Unite and Momentum.
NORTHERN IRELAND: The death of ex-IRA chief and ex-Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has met with mixed reactions, with some dwelling on his lack of contrition for his IRA role and others laying stress on his considerable contribution to the peace process.
Justice
COURT-MARTIAL APPEAL: The conviction of Alexander Blackman, a former sergeant in the Royal Marines, for the murder of a wounded Taliban fighter has been quashed and replaced by a manslaughter verdict. A colonel and a sergeant major who were serving with the Royal Marines at the time of the incident said that they had been prevented from giving evidence at Blackman’s trial about failures of command which had resulted in his unit being out of control.
RAPE EVIDENCE: As from September, alleged rape victims will be allowed to give their evidence by way of pre-recorded interview rather than facing cross-examination.
CHILD PROTECTION: The new offence of “sexual communication with the child” introduced by legislation in March 2015 to catch “grooming”, will come into force shortly. Although the legislation is on the statute book there has, to date, been no commencement date.
LAWYER BANKRUPT: Phil Shiner, formerly the principal of the now-defunct law firm Public Interest Lawyers who was struck off last month for assisting his clients to make dishonest claims against British soldiers, is now bankrupt. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is pursuing him for legal aid paid to his firm in support of the claims, amounting to in excess of £3 million. It emerged in the disciplinary proceedings that his firm had knocked on doors to find clients and had also paid people to make allegations against British troops. The total cost to the Ministry of Defence in relation to compensation claims in respect of Iraq exceeds £100 million and a large portion of this was paid to those represented by Mr Shiner’s firm.
Media etc.
SNOOPING: Allegations made by American judge Andrew Napolitano that GCHQ tapped Mr Trump’s phone when he was president elect, have been denied by GCHQ as completely untrue. The suggestion had been that the wiretapping had been carried out at the request of Mr Obama in order to avoid the involvement of a US agency. The President has since sought to distance himself from the allegations, which were based on analysis by Fox News and repeated by White House spokesman Sean Spicer. It is understood that they will not be repeated.
GOOGLE: The Havas advertising agency has pulled its clients out of the Google advertising network following the failure by the company to remove extremist videos from YouTube. The agency represents O2, the Royal Mail, Domino’s and many other major organisations. Advertising has also been withdrawn by the UK government, media organisations (one of them the BBC), McDonalds, Audi, L’Oreal, Sainsbury’s and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The advertisers are particularly concerned that their products are being shown alongside extremist material and fund payments to those behind it. Google, which signed up to the European Commission code of conduct claims that it is reliant on the public to report offensive sites because it does not have the capacity to review all the material posted. The Times newspaper referred six videos to Google but in no case were they removed within the time scale set by the code of conduct.
Health
HOSPITAL SUCCESS: The Medway NHS Foundation Trust has emerged from special measures following improvements in care and staff morale. The hospital has ended a number of arrangements to pay large amounts to managers and now has more stable leadership.
SUGAR: The Food and Drink Federation has said that Government targets to reduce sugar in foods by 20% by 2020 will not be achieved, advocating a less rigid approach. Failure to meet the targets may result in legislation.
POLLUTION: Diesel cars manufactured by Renault have topped a table of pollution compiled by Which? magazine. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders points to different methods of testing as explaining disparities between the Which? tests and those carried out by the Government.
Education
SCHOOLS FUNDING: According to the Education Policy Institute, which is chaired by David Laws, all schools will lose money in real terms over the next three years under the new funding formula; this increases the allocation of funds to schools with a higher proportion of pupils with low attainment at the end of their reception year, incentivising teachers to depress children’s marks at that stage. The formula is also criticised on the basis that disadvantaged schools (those with more than 30% of pupils on free school meals) will fall behind others.
Oil
SHALE OIL DRILLING: Surrey residents have asked the Council and also the Environmental Agency, to investigate whether oil firm Angus Energy has broken the law by drilling without planning permission. If the drilling is successful it will open up the prospect of considerable reserves beneath the Weald.
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