4th April 2021

Alba Party candidates are set to be told to target the SNP “issues” of education and women's rights, one of the group’s highest-profile recruits has claimed.

WARNING, DISTRESSING IMAGES Manchester mayor has demanded a 'full explanation' from Greater Manchester Police after a woman's jeans were apparently torn off as she was being arrested in Saturday's Kill the Bill demonstrations in the city's St Peter's Square

With the prime minister’s support, a City whiz kid is secretly awarded privileged access to top civil servants so he can flog a dubious money-making scheme that diminishes the government’s obligations to pay contractors on time. Later, after the prime minister leaves office, the whiz kid employs him as an adviser – and gives him stock options that are potentially worth tens of millions of pounds until the company runs into trouble. The former prime minister then privately lobbies the chancellor of the exchequer for hundreds of millions of pounds in taxpayer-funded loans to save the business from collapse. That, according to the Sunday Times, is allegedly what David Cameron did. It looks and smells like a scandal, but I’ll wager that Boris Johnson’s government contemptuously ignores demands for an independent inquiry. That is because we live in an age when public figures are no longer held to account for their conduct, no longer feel shame or contrition, and simply brazen scandals out. For the first time in my life, I find myself wondering whether I live in a corrupt country of the sort that Britain once regarded with pity and disdain. The weekend’s newspapers also brought fresh revelations about our present Prime Minister. Jennifer Arcuri told the Sunday Mirror that she was having an affair with Johnson, then London mayor, at the same time as he was including her on taxpayer-funded trade missions, and giving grants to her technology company. He will, of course, flatly deny any impropriety and move on. Last November the National Audit Office revealed that Johnson’s government awarded £10.5bn worth of pandemic-related contracts without a competitive tender process, and that companies with the right political connections were ten times as likely to win them. Ministers have unlawfully refused to publish a full list, but we know contracts for personal protective equipment went to jewellers, pest controllers and confectionery companies. A contract for glass vials went to the former landlord of Matt Hancock’s local pub. An £840,000 contract to “test coronavirus messaging” went to Public First, a company run by close associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. All that is frankly outrageous, but Johnson just shrugs it off. Robert Jenrick, the Housing Secretary, remains in post despite approving a Tory donor’s £1bn property development plan that had been rejected by Tower Hamlets council and the government’s planning inspectorate – and doing so just in time for the donor, Richard Desmond, to avoid a £45m levy payable to London’s poorest borough. [see also: How the £37bn Test and Trace rip-off shows the government’s hypocrisy] Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, was found guilty of bullying her civil servants in a flagrant breach of the ministerial code. She did not resign, but Alex Allan, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, did after Johnson refused to sack her or publish his full report. Johnson gives jobs, as well as lucrative contracts, to cronies. Putting Dido Harding, a former business leader and the wife of a Tory MP, in charge of the NHS Test and Trace programme, and Kate Bingham, who is married to a Treasury minister, in charge of the vaccine task force are just a couple of examples. Peter Riddell, the independent commissioner for public appointments, warned last November that “some at the centre of government want not only to have the final say but to tilt the system in their favour to appoint their allies”, and that “I have on a number of occasions had to resist... attempts by ministers to appoint people with clear party affiliations” to senior posts. The government has also been “packing the composition of interview panels with allies”, he said. Johnson’s cronies get peerages, too, among them his brother Jo Johnson, the former Conservative party treasurer Peter Cruddas, the Tory donors Michael Spencer and Aamer Sarfraz, various Vote Leave stalwarts and Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard and the Independent. In 2013 an Appeal Court judge ruled that Cruddas had sold access to Cameron, and Johnson elevated him despite objections from the independent Lords Appointments Commission. Last summer the Intelligence and Security Committee published, albeit in redacted form, a report on Russian interference in British politics following nine months of delays. “Russian influence in the UK is the new normal,” it stated. “Successive governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’, and connections at the highest level with access to UK companies and political figures.” That alarming conclusion was also ignored by a Prime Minister who once raised £160,000 for Tory Party coffers by playing tennis with the wife of one of President Putin’s former ministers. Johnson’s is not the first government to be accused of sleazy practices, of course. But it has taken them to new levels – and shown an unprecedented shamelessness and lack of contrition when caught. Gone are the days when David Blunkett resigned as home secretary for the relatively trivial offence of allegedly fast-tracking a visa application for his lover’s nanny, or when Peter Mandelson resigned as trade secretary for failing to register a loan from a ministerial colleague. Last summer Cummings survived as Johnson’s chief adviser despite blatantly breaching Covid lockdown rules, and later received a 40 per cent pay rise. Don’t take my word for all of this. A much more objective monitor of Johnson’s government, Jonathan Evans, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and former MI5 chief, expressed similar concerns in a little-noticed speech late last year that was all the more damning for being couched in diplomatic language. Referring to the seven principles of public service set out by Lord Nolan in 1995 – selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership – he asked whether we now live in a “post-Nolan age” and continued: “The perception is taking root that too many in public life, including some in our political leadership, are choosing to disregard the norms of ethics and propriety that have explicitly governed public life for the last 25 years, and that, when contraventions of ethical standards occur, nothing happens.” There were “reasons for real concern”, he said. “Mounting public disquiet is not without foundation...These issues lead some to believe that there is a culture of impunity seeping into British governance.” [see also: Why do politicians keep getting away with scandal?]

Exclusive: Helena Morrissey condemned by health experts after tweeting ‘if people were dropping dead in the street we would notice’

Women wanting to become school leaders still face sexism and misogyny. We must help each other, says Sam Gorse

Arlene Foster appeals to young people not to join violence after eight police officers injured in loyalist area

One in four teachers tell union they sought medical help because of pandemic impact

In Westminster alone, a short stroll from Parliament, are 76 Christian churches.You went out of your way to visit the one opposing homosexuality, abortion and equal marriage. The same one Theresa May was condemned for visiting in 2017.Why? https://t.co/898Pd2CSsA— Dr Louise Raw (@LouiseRawAuthor) April 3, 2021

Official statistics suggest one in five people experience ongoing symptoms five weeks after infection.

When Barbara Castle introduced breathalyser tests in 1967, she was condemned for infringing on personal liberties.Castle reflected, 'I was interfering, the opposition said, with people's civil rights. I said I do not recognise anybody's civil right to kill somebody else'. pic.twitter.com/ii6WJ74bJg— Richard Johnson (@richardmarcj) April 2, 2021

Exclusive: voluntary approach to ‘environmental travesty’ is an abject failure, say Alan Titchmarsh and others

Oxfam is facing new allegations of sexual exploitation, bullying and mismanagement only weeks after it was cleared to apply for government aid funds again following the Haiti scandal.The charity has

Campaigners want an end to the 'scandal' of victims denied payouts because they have unspent convictions for offences such as drink-driving.

Hey, thanks for your message- I genuinely wasn't aware of the meaning of "incursion" or its negative connotation until this morning. I've flagged it with the Labour Group so we can sort new materials, and sincerely apologise for the hurt caused. pic.twitter.com/ZLEfP73f2c— Charlotte Nichols (@charlotte2153) April 2, 2021

This is vile and obviously racist (“dealing with traveller incursions"). @Keir_Starmer how widespread is this kind of language in local Labour campaigns? Condemn this leaflet, apologise, and take appropriate disciplinary action. Standing in solidarity with the GRT community. https://t.co/vYDjoTxWre— Jonathan Bartley (@jon_bartley) April 2, 2021

Here's how anti-trans sports bills are fueled by fears of Black bodies.

Trans women weighing more than 90kg or more than 170cm tall could face an assessment by a coach to see whether they pose a safety risk to other players before being allowed to play women’s rugby in England

#OnThisDay in 2001, four same-sex couples 🏳️‍🌈 tied the knot in Amsterdam's city hall, making history as the Netherlands 🇳🇱 became the first country to legalise gay marriage.

The COVID-19 effect on the global gender gap: Measuring it is the first step towards closing it. #gendergap21 @ipsos https://t.co/HLo0vOSP0r https://t.co/UZCJl2ArXu pic.twitter.com/eyP5z1uEyb— World Economic Forum (@wef) March 31, 2021

EXCLUSIVE: The FA has been accused of treating women’s footballers like "second class citizens" after Telegraph Sport finds a "deeply disturbing" disparity in the level of medical resources to help diagnose concussions compared to the Premier League https://t.co/ZFXtUTBRup— Fiona Tomas (@fi_tomas_) April 2, 2021

Three years before LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Kathy Kozachenko made history in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Nish Kumar’s satirical late-night show “The Mash Report” ran for four years on the public broadcaster. Some believe it was a casualty of a “war on woke.”

“70% of people who apply for financial support are rejected.”Labour Metro Mayor of Liverpool @MetroMayorSteve, who’s currently standing for re-election, says the government needs to simplify to self-isolation payment scheme https://t.co/vY2Su56cFR#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/0OwXAwUftY— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) April 1, 2021

Bella Hadid, Brie Larson, Cara Delevingne, Cynthia Erivo, Eva Longoria, Halle Berry, Laverne Cox, Regina King and Sarah Paulson also signed the letter in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility.

While, on the one hand, the Egyptian feminist movement seems to be taking great strides forward, particularly on the grassroots level, with young women inventing new forms of activism to draw attention to endemic sexual violence that plagues them both in their homes and on their streets, the government is moving to further curb women’s autonomy. In January, the Egyptian cabinet approved a personal status bill that would require women to get the...

The comedian and writer talks about what it means to be a feminist today - and yes, it does mean you can still wear make-up

Neil Armstrong's 'one small step for man' may not have happened without Katherine Johnson, who performed the NASA calculations that made possible the moon landing.

At present, only one member of the European Parliament’s seven representatives on the Conference on the Future of Europe’s all-powerful Executive B...