Both Labour and Conservative are pledging to look after the older voter while Gen Z is being ignored
Baby boomers are being courted with financial inducements from both main political parties. Millennials and Gen Z, not so much. Here we assess the intergenerational impact of the election so far.
Israeli PM says his country’s conditions for ending conflict have not changed after US president presented ceasefire plan
Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Hamas must be completely destroyed before Israel will agree to end its war in Gaza, casting doubt on Joe Biden’s announcement of a new Israeli-led ceasefire proposal.
The Israeli prime minister made a rare statement on Saturday, during the Jewish Shabbat, in which he said: “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
US president outlines deal that would offer permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal for hostage release and rebuilding effort
Joe Biden has urged Hamas to accept a new peace deal he said Israel has put on the table, offering a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip.
“It’s time for this war to end … for the day after to begin,” Biden said, outlining the framework of a three-phase agreement, which he said had been put on the table by the Israeli government.
The US said on Friday it was “deeply concerned” about the guilty verdicts announced in the national security law trial of the activists in Hong Kong. The state department said the 14 activists had been subjected to “politically motivated prosecution and jailed simply for peacefully participating in political activities” that should have been protected under the basic law, which was supposed to guarantee a degree of autonomy for Hong Kong when it came under Beijing’s rule in 1997.
TikTok is now disputing a Reuters report that claims the short-video app is cloning its algorithm to potentially offer a different version of the app, which might degrade over time, just for US users.
Sources "with direct knowledge" of the project—granted anonymity because they're not authorized to discuss it publicly—told Reuters that the TikTok effort began late last year. They said that the project will likely take a year to complete, requiring hundreds of engineers to separate millions of lines of code.
As these sources reported, TikTok's tremendous undertaking could potentially help prepare its China-based owner ByteDance to appease US lawmakers who passed a law in April forcing TikTok to sell its US-based operations by January 19 or face a ban. But TikTok has maintained that the "qualified divestiture" required by the law would be impossible, and on Thursday, TikTok denied the accuracy of Reuters' report while reiterating its stance that a sale is not in the cards.
The New York Times is fighting to take down a game called Worldle, according to a legal filing viewed by the BBC, in which The Times apparently argued that the geography-based game is "creating confusion" by using a name that's way too similar to Wordle.
Worldle is "nearly identical in appearance, sound, meaning, and imparts the same commercial impression" to Wordle, The Times claimed.
The Times bought Wordle in 2022, paying software developer Josh Wardle seven figures for the daily word-guessing puzzle game after its breakout success during the pandemic. Around the same time, Worldle was created—along with more than 100 other Wordle spinoffs offering niche alternatives to Wordle, including versions in different languages and completely different games simply using the name construction ending in "-le." The Times filed for a Wordle trademark the day after buying the game and by March 2022, it started sending takedown requests.
A joint US and UK air raid on Houthi missile launchers in Yemen has killed 16 people and injured more than 40, according to the Houthi health ministry.
There is no independent way of confirming the death toll, but if accurate it would represent the single largest loss of life since the US and UK started their campaign to degrade the Houthi military in January.
The Liberal Democrats would extend free school meals to all primary schoolchildren, starting with those in poverty, Ed Davey has said in a challenge to Labour to match the pledge.
Speaking in his first newspaper interview of the general election campaign, the Lib Dem leader announced a manifesto policy aimed at nearly 1 million more children living in poverty in England and their families.
Joe Biden’s delay in sanctioning the use of western weapons against targets in Russia has left the Kremlin’s forces laughing at Ukraine and able to “hunt” its people, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the Guardian.
In a wide-ranging interview in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president said that the White House’s equivocation had cost lives and he urged the US president to overcome his perennial worries about possible nuclear “escalation” with Moscow.
New US weapons had still not arrived in sufficient quantities to equip additional Ukrainian brigades in the north-east, where Russia is advancing.
Vladimir Putin was similar to Adolf Hitler, saying: “Putin is not crazy. He’s dangerous, which is much scarier.”
He had asked the former British prime minister Boris Johnson to lobby Donald Trump in the run-up to a vote in the US Congress in April to approve $61bn in aid to Ukraine, which hard-right Republicans had opposed.
The UK Labour leader, Keir Starmer, whom he met in Kyiv last year, was a “good guy”. He added, after a pause: “Rishi [Sunak] is also a good guy.”
The two Tory PMs both told voters the economy had turned a corner – but there is little comparison now with 27 years ago
With a Labour victory looking increasingly probable, John Major’s pitch to voters in 1997 was simple. Britain had come a long way, the then prime minister said in his foreword to his party’s manifesto. “We must be sure that we do not throw away what we have gained, or lose the opportunities we have earned.”
Sound familiar? It should, because it is exactly the same argument Rishi Sunak is deploying as he seeks to defy the opinion polls and win a fifth successive general election victory for the Conservatives.
The state department falsified a report earlier this month to absolve Israel of responsibility for blocking humanitarian aid flows into Gaza, overruling the advice of its own experts, according to a former senior US official who resigned this week.
Stacy Gilbert left her post as senior civil military adviser in the state department’s bureau of population, refugees and migration, on Tuesday. She had been one of the department’s subject matter experts who drafted the report mandated under national security memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and published on 10 May.
US official says policy change relates to ‘counter-fire purposes’ and prohibits long-range attacks inside of Russia
Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to use some US-made weapons over one part of the Russian border, to allow Kyiv’s forces to defend against an offensive aimed at the city of Kharkiv, relaxing an important constraint on Ukraine’s able to defend itself.
“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them,” a US official said.
The Conservatives and Labour are embroiled in a fight to woo voters with promises to keep rates of tax low
The two main political parties are in a bidding war over which can promise to increase taxes the least. Each accuses the other of harbouring a desire to push up taxes to support a growing list of spending pledges.
The Conservatives say there is a £38.5bn funding gap in Labour’s spending promises over the next five years and that to cover it, “Labour will increase your taxes by £2,094”. Labour claim unfunded Tory spending pledges add up to £71bn, or 2% of GDP.
After months of loudly protesting a subpoena, Elon Musk has once again agreed to testify in the US Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into his acquisition of Twitter (now called X).
Musk tried to avoid testifying by arguing that the SEC had deposed him twice before, telling a US district court in California that the most recent subpoena was "the latest in a long string of SEC abuses of its investigative authority.”
But the court did not agree that Musk testifying three times in the SEC probe was either "abuse" or "overly burdensome." Especially since the SEC has said it's seeking a follow-up deposition after receiving "thousands of new documents" from Musk and third parties over the past year since his last depositions. And according to an order requiring Musk and the SEC to agree on a deposition date from US district judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, "Musk’s lament does not come close to meeting his burden of proving 'the subpoena was issued in bad faith or for an improper purpose.'"
YouTube's Content ID system—which automatically detects content registered by rightsholders—is "completely fucking broken," a YouTuber called "Albino" declared in a rant on X (formerly Twitter) viewed more than 950,000 times.
Albino, who is also a popular Twitch streamer, complained that his YouTube video playing through Fallout was demonetized because a Samsung washing machine randomly chimed to signal a laundry cycle had finished while he was streaming.
Apparently, YouTube had automatically scanned Albino's video and detected the washing machine chime as a song called "Done"—which Albino quickly saw was uploaded to YouTube by a musician known as Audego nine years ago.
Jeremy Hunt has confirmed the six-year income tax threshold freeze, which drags millions into paying higher rates, will last until 2028.
The chancellor’s comments on what has been Britain’s biggest tax rise on incomes in at least 50 years give space for Labour to follow suit, meaning that taxes are likely to go up no matter who wins the election.
Politicians parroted untrue rumors that Hamas had beheaded Israeli babies. When the children are Palestinian, they shrug
Earlier this week, I sat down to write a piece about a campus safety officer at a public college in New York who told pro-Palestinian protesters that he supported genocide. “Yes I do, I support genocide,” the officer said, after a protester accused him of this at a graduation event at the College of Staten Island, part of the public City University of New York (Cuny) system, last Thursday. “I support killing all you guys, how about that?”
It’s possible that you didn’t hear about this incident: while it was covered by a few outlets, including the Associated Press, it didn’t get a huge amount of press. It certainly wasn’t splashed all over the front page of the New York Post the way it would have been if that guard had made the same comment about Israelis. The New York Times, which has written a lot about safety on college campuses – and published a piece on anti-Israel speeches at Cuny just a couple of days before this incident – didn’t seem to deem it newsworthy. And the White House didn’t chime in with a horrified statement about anti-Palestinian bias on campuses. After all, this wasn’t a big deal, right? It was just a security guard saying he supports genocide. Which, it should be clear now, is essentially the same position as the US government.
UK relationship ‘isn’t taking up as much of our mental space as it was a few years ago’, says EU diplomat
Since 2016, Britain’s Conservatives have compared the European Union to Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, described a senior EU official’s remarks as “bizarre and stupid” and threatened to break international law with a unilateral rewrite of the Brexit deal. So an incoming Labour government does not have to do much to strike a different tone.
But while the EU is ready to deepen ties with a future Labour government – widely assumed to take office after 4 July – it will not offer radical concessions to Keir Starmer. EU sources, already welcoming warmer relations under Rishi Sunak, are looking cautiously at the changing political weather across the Channel.
The FTC has alleged that Amazon "tricked, coerced, and manipulated consumers into subscribing to Amazon Prime," a court order said, failing to get informed consent by designing a murky sign-up process. And to keep subscriptions high, Amazon also "did not provide simple mechanisms for these subscribers to cancel their Prime memberships," the FTC alleged. Instead, Amazon forced "consumers intending to cancel to navigate a four-page, six-click, fifteen-option cancellation process."
In their motion to dismiss, Amazon outright disputed these characterizations of its business, insisting its enrollment process was clear, its cancellation process was simple, and none of its executives could be held responsible for failing to fix these processes when "accidental" sign-ups became widespread. Amazon defended its current practices, arguing that some of its Prime disclosures "align with practices that the FTC encourages in its guidance documents."
Google needs to pump the brakes when it comes to tracking sensitive information shared with DMV sites, a new lawsuit suggests.
Filing a proposed class-action suit in California, Katherine Wilson has accused Google of using Google Analytics and DoubleClick trackers on the California DMV site to unlawfully obtain information about her personal disability without her consent.
This, Wilson argued, violated the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), as well as the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), and impacted perhaps millions of drivers who had no way of knowing Google was collecting sensitive information shared only for DMV purposes.
Actor calls on whoever wins on 4 July to recognise what the arts bring to society, as Salford’s Lowry theatre turns 25
The arts should not be treated as an economic “bloodsucker”, Timothy Spall has said, as he urged the next government to show appreciation for what the creative industries provide to society.
Speaking to the Guardian ahead of the 25th birthday of the Lowry theatre and gallery in Salford, of which he is a supporter, the Bafta-winning actor called on whoever won power on 4 July to get the message across that arts and culture belong to everyone.
Enlarge/ Is this an aspirational image for mass shooters? (credit: Activision)
The families of multiple victims of the 2022 mass shooting at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School are suing Activision in a California civil court, alleging that the company's Call of Duty games act as a "training camp for mass shooters."
The lawsuit (as obtained by Polygon) compares Activision's Call of Duty marketing to the cigarette industry's use of now-barred spokescartoon Joe Camel, putting the gaming company "in the wildly lucrative business of training adolescents to become gunmen." The Call of Duty games "are chewing up alienated teenage boys and spitting out mass shooters," the lawsuit alleges, and in Uvalde, the games "knowingly exposed the Shooter to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems, and trained him how to use it."
Meta platforms is also a party to the lawsuit for "explicit, aggressive marketing" of firearms to minors via Instagram.
Rishi Sunak says timing of action days before general election appears to be ‘politically motivated’ to help Labour
Up to 100,000 patients in England face having their NHS care cancelled days before the general election after junior doctors announced a fresh wave of strike action, with Rishi Sunak saying it appeared to be politically motivated.
Health leaders expressed alarm, warning the five-day strike would jeopardise efforts to tackle the record waiting list and “hit patients hard”.
The Biden administration has said recent Israeli operations and attacks in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah do not constitute a major ground operation that crosses any US red lines, adding that it is also closely monitoring an investigation into Sunday’s deadly strike on a tent camp.
Speaking after Israeli tanks were seen near al-Awda mosque, a landmark in central Rafah, the national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters the US was not turning a “blind eye” to the plight of Palestinian civilians.
Wes Streeting says another Conservative term could result in waiting list swelling to 10m cases
Labour has promised to clear the NHS waiting list backlog in England within five years, with Wes Streeting warning that the health service risks becoming “a poor service for poor people” while the wealthy shift to using private care.
In an interview with the Guardian, the shadow health secretary said that in another Conservative term the total waiting list in England could grow to 10m cases, with healthcare becoming as degraded as NHS dental services.
Some of the most infamous so-called shadow libraries have increasingly faced legal pressure to either stop pirating books or risk being shut down or driven to the dark web. Among the biggest targets are Z-Library, which the US Department of Justice has charged with criminal copyright infringement, and Library Genesis (Libgen), which was sued by textbook publishers last fall for allegedly distributing digital copies of copyrighted works "on a massive scale in willful violation" of copyright laws.
But now these shadow libraries and others accused of spurning copyrights have seemingly found an unlikely defender in Nvidia, the AI chipmaker among those profiting most from the recent AI boom.
Nvidia seemed to defend the shadow libraries as a valid source of information online when responding to a lawsuit from book authors over the list of data repositories that were scraped to create the Books3 dataset used to train Nvidia's AI platform NeMo.
Joe Biden should back a UN security council resolution to end the fighting in Gaza rather than shielding Israel from criticism
The Israeli strike that killed at least 45 displaced Palestinians, many of them women and children, at a tent camp in Rafah this weekend clearly crossed Joe Biden’s “red line” over the need to protect civilians in the Gaza conflict. France’s Emmanuel Macron did not doubt what should happen next. “These operations must stop,” he posted on X. “There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire.”
Those in Israel who believe that they still need to make an appearance of deference towards US sentiments pleaded that the whole episode was a “mishap” rather than a deliberate political insult. Mr Biden is inclined to give Israel’s forces the benefit of the doubt, and give himself wriggle room to say his line hadn’t been crossed. Despite the international outcry over Sunday’s deadly blast, Israel stepped up its military offensive on Tuesday, sending tanks into Rafah and leaving a score more civilians dead when it apparently struck a tented area.
A report by cross-party MPs offers a damning verdict, six years after a ‘root and branch’ review called for wide-ranging reform
The vertiginous pace of events since Boris Johnson’s 2019 election victory has been such that pledges made only a few years ago seem almost to belong to another era. “I am a great believer in rail,” said Mr Johnson in 2021, announcing a major programme of reforms to the country’s network, “but for too long passengers have not had the level of service they deserve.”
Travellers habituated to late-running, overcrowded and over-expensive trains knew how right he was. But to reprise the famous assertion of Mr Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, three years on “nothing has changed”. This week, the last word on successive Conservative governments’ incompetent handling of the railways was delivered by the House of Commons public accounts committee. The MPs’ damning report concluded that since the “root and branch” Williams review was commissioned in 2018, following timetabling mayhem in the north of England, “very little” has been achieved, and that “no one is putting the needs of passengers and taxpayers first”.
Exclusive: Johnston Busingye formally appointed days after UK agreed Rwanda asylum deal with Paul Kagame in 2022
Rwanda’s top diplomat in the UK oversaw the use of the international justice system to target opponents of the country’s rulers around the world, the Guardian can reveal.
New details of the Rwandan government’s suppression of opposition beyond its borders add to concerns about the regime at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s asylum policy.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Vladimir Putin will give a standing ovation to Joe Biden if the US president fails to attend a peace summit in Switzerland next month.
On a visit to Brussels where he signed a 10-year security pact with Belgium, the Ukrainian leader said it would not be “a strong decision” if Biden failed to attend the talks scheduled for 15-16 June near Lucerne.
While reintegration of formerly incarcerated people into the workforce is important, the government should be cautious about what positions those with a criminal history are put into.
Shadow chancellor insists no additional tax rises will be needed beyond ones already announced by the party
Rachel Reeves has said there will be no budget until September if Labour wins the election, and the party will not announce any additional tax measures beyond what it has already promised.
The party has ruled out increases to income tax, national insurance, corporation tax or any form of wealth tax and Reeves said there would be no new measures proposed or “black holes” to fill.
Half of all new cars are now SUVs, making them a major cause of the intensifying climate crisis, say experts
Sales of SUVs hit a new record in 2023, making up half of all new cars sold globally, data has revealed. Experts warned that the rising sales of the large, heavy vehicles is pushing up the carbon emissions that drive global heating.
The analysis, by the International Energy Agency, found that the rising emissions from SUVs in 2023 made up 20% of the global increase in CO2, making the vehicles a major cause of the intensifying climate crisis. If SUVs were a country, the IEA said, they would be the world’s fifth-largest emitter of CO2, ahead of the national emissions of both Japan and Germany.
When the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders, he issued a cryptic warning: “I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately.”
Karim Khan did not provide specific details of attempts to interfere in the ICC’s work, but he noted a clause in the court’s foundational treaty that made any such interference a criminal offence. If the conduct continued, he added, “my office will not hesitate to act”.
A study says that most beer served in pubs and bars is short-measured. Here’s why I think drinkers should suck it up
I have frequently felt robbed at the pub. You know the feeling. Tapping your card on the reader and seeing £6.70 drain from your bank account in exchange for the most average glass of IPA in the world; doing it again, a third, maybe even a fourth time, shuddering internally. News last week, however, confirmed the worst: actually, you really have been getting robbed at the pub.
Last week, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute published a study of drinks served at 77 pubs and bars around the UK. They found that, out of 137 orders of pints, half pints and 175ml glasses of wine, about 70% contained less drink than they were supposed to; 29% of these short measures were under by 5% or more. Beer was where there were the most discrepancies: 86% of orders were short-measured. For the average beer drinker, these losses add up to £88.40 a year of beer paid for and never actually served.
Imogen West-Knights is a journalist and writer. Her novel Deep Down is out now
The president has weaponized the idea of Jewish safety to justify the atrocity in Gaza. I could no longer stand by
Until last week, President Biden was my boss.
Last week, I resigned from my post at the United States Department of the Interior, becoming the first Jewish politically appointed administration official to publicly resign in protest – and in mourning – of President Biden’s endorsement of genocide in Gaza, where more than 35,000 Palestinians have been murdered. This was an incredibly difficult decision, but one that was necessary – and one that felt even more urgent, as the president of the United States has persistently corrupted the idea of Jewish safety, weaponizing my community as a shield to dodge accountability for his role in this atrocity.
Lily Greenberg Call was a special assistant to the chief of staff at the US Department of the Interior
Labour is throwing everything at growth and running away from thorny issues such as Brexit, tax rises and our ageing population
It wasn’t quite John Major’s vision of old maids cycling through the mist to church. But the sepia-tinted memories Keir Starmer recounted in his first big campaign speech of growing up in Oxted, the Surrey town he called “about as English as you can get”, weren’t a million miles away. He talked about growing up in a house where the phone was sometimes cut off because his parents couldn’t afford to pay the bill; about how he identifies now with young couples realising they can’t afford a longed-for second child because of rocketing mortgages.
But he also talked nostalgically about the ramshackle football pitch he played on, and shared with grazing cows, and what he called the British air of “quiet uncomplaining resilience” in an era when there was sadly a lot to be resilient about. Shades of those “do you remember … ?” pages on Facebook, where the middle aged reminisce about pork scratchings and playing on a ZX Spectrum.
Prime minister campaigns in Buckinghamshire as his military service plan is criticised and MP defects to Reform
Rishi Sunak struggled to keep control of his fractured party on a chaotic fifth day of the Tory election campaign, as one MP defected to Reform and a minister criticised the prime minister’s pledge to bring back national service.
Sunak was in Buckinghamshire as he sought to get back on the front foot after a bruising start to the snap election, with Tory insiders increasingly worried about his strategy and performance.
From railways to nurseries and children’s homes, investors are taking advantage of chances to siphon taxpayer funds offshore
Sector by sector, private equity is making deep inroads into UK public services. More than a decade ago, the collapse of Southern Cross, the private-equity-owned care home operator, revealed the havoc that can be wreaked when essential public services are run by heavily indebted businesses with complex financial structures. Typically, such owners maximise profits by using low-tax jurisdictions, loans, and sale-and-leaseback arrangements that split holding companies from property assets.
Present trends show that this cautionary tale is being ignored. A forthcoming report from the Common Wealth thinktank uses the example of the companies that lease trains to railway operators, to demonstrate that private equity companies are pressing their advantage from financial engineering. Britain’s transport network has joined health and social care, children’s homes and some areas of education in offering rich pickings to private-equity investors.
Presumptive Republican nominee calls demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza part of a ‘radical revolution’
Donald Trump has told a group of wealthy donors that he will crush pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses if he is returned to the White House.
The former president and presumptive Republican nominee called the demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza part of a “radical revolution” and promised the predominantly Jewish donors that he would set the movement back 25 or 30 years if they helped him beat Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.
James Cleverly has suggested recalcitrant teenagers could be working weekends as emergency health responders and special constables. How will the ambulance service deal with someone they must spend resources on training, who is unable or unwilling to contribute? Perhaps refuseniks can be press-ganged into building a wall along the Kent coast so we may make Britain great again.
Episode 331 of the Shared Security Podcast discusses privacy and security concerns related to two major technological developments: the introduction of Windows PC’s new feature ‘Recall,’ part of Microsoft’s Copilot+, which captures desktop screenshots for AI-powered search tools, and Slack’s policy of using user data to train machine learning features with users opted in by […]
Former deputy prime minister says discussion of Europe ‘no-go area’ for Labour and Conservatives
The election campaign will be the “most dishonest in modern times” because both main parties refuse to debate the consequences of Brexit, a former Tory deputy prime minister has said.
Michael Heseltine, who was deputy prime minister from 1995 to 1997 and a senior figure in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, said no key problem affecting the country can be “honestly addressed” without considering the impact of leaving the EU.
Holding actors like Putin to account relies on international law. If Israel’s allies flout it, how can they convince others to respect their rules?
Since its inception, the international criminal court (ICC) has charged 50 people, 47 of whom were African. Its investigations have also been overwhelmingly focused on war crimes and crimes against humanity in African nations. What has long been understood but never stated is that the court and its processes, to put it bluntly, target a certain type of political leadership that is easier to go after. “The court is built for Africans and thugs like Putin,” is what one appalled elected senior leader reportedly told the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, when his team made a recent application for arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, its defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders.
Again, blunt, but not revelatory. At least not to the parts of the world that are more familiar with the court and its investigations. The lineup of suspects and defendants has long solidified the impression below the equator that the ICC is a court for Africans, and lately maybe Russians. How can that not be the takeaway when, in the years since the court was founded, the US – often with British support – has calamitously invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, established an extrajudicial prison for terror suspects, and created a CIA torture and detention network? African conflicts are seen as intimate, tribal and intentional in a way that those in other places are not. The underlying suggestion is that civilians in western wars are killed and illegally detained by accident, while other countries do this on purpose.
Criticism of proposed scheme comes as another blow to the party’s struggling election campaign
Britain’s armed forces need more money not untrained teenage volunteers, former military leaders and Tory figures have said in a new blow to the Conservatives’ faltering election campaign.
Within hours of being announced, Rishi Sunak’s election pledge to bring back military service for 18-year-olds was rubbished by army chiefs and a former Conservative defence secretary.
Ukraine president urges Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to ‘show your leadership’ and send message to Moscow
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has released a desperate video plea calling on world leaders to attend a “peace summit” next month in Switzerland after a deadly Russian attack on a DIY hypermarket in Kharkiv on Saturday killed at least 16people and injured dozens more.
Zelenskiy appealed in particular to the US president, Joe Biden, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to attend the summit, which is due to start on 15 June. “Please, show your leadership in advancing the peace – the real peace and not just a pause between the strikes,” said Zelenskiy in English.
Both major parties will try to conduct their campaigns without mentioning Brexit. But we cannot afford not to discuss it
‘Things can only get better” was a Labour party slogan before the 1997 general election. The reason why Rishi Sunak has surprised the nation, and what my old colleague Alan Watkins used to call the “chattering classes”, by calling for a snap election is that Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, have apparently decided that things can only get worse.
With low inflation figures – at last – and the possibility of a cut in interest rates, the two of them have been talking the economy up as though there were no tomorrow.
Due to new import controls, a judging session for the Great Taste awards is being held outside the UK for the first time in 30 years
The Great Taste awards are a British success story – the world’s largest food awards, celebrating the best products on the planet. But new post-Brexit import controls have forced the organisers to hold a judging panel outside the UK for the first time in the awards’ 30-year history.
On Sunday, judges from the Guild of Fine Foods panel will travel to County Tipperary in Ireland to spend three days tasting products that have become much harder to bring to the UK.
Login
