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In this deeply divided nation, the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk has brought two young men who are on opposite sides of the aisle together. Nicole Sganga reports on how they are joining forces to fight political violence.
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Tag: Conservative Party
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Inside Canada’s euthanasia system where some chose to die due to poor care
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JUST eight years after euthanasia was legalised in Canada, some doctors there say the result is “horrendous” as more and more people are driven to it by a failing health-care system.
Assisted deaths have risen at an alarming rate, while the criteria to be given a lethal injection has been relaxed.
Alicia Duncan, left, with her late mother Donna, who was helped to take her own lifeCredit: Supplied 
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Pro-assisted dying supporters at WestminsterCredit: EPA Now experts warn it would be disastrous to allow a system like Canada’s Medical Assistance In Death (Maid) in the UK, after the families of some of those who opted for it revealed they did so because they could not access medical help.
Professor Leonie Herx, a Canadian palliative medicine consultant based in Calgary, Alberta, described the outcome as “horrific from a medical perspective”.
In 2017, the first full year the legislation was in place, one per cent of deaths in Canada were from euthanasia.
By 2022, it was four per cent, as 13,241 people opted for Maid.
Now, in the UK, a bill to legalise the early ending of life has been introduced in Parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.
A free vote is expected before Christmas — and PM Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed the debate.
‘Burden on care-givers’
Supporters insist the bill is strictly to help the terminally ill.
Ms Leadbeater said: “I believe that, with the right safeguards in place, people who are already dying and are mentally competent should be given the choice of a shorter, less painful death on their own terms and without placing family and loved ones at risk of prosecution.
“It will not undermine calls for improvements to palliative care. Nor will it conflict with the rights of people with disabilities to be treated equally and have the respect and support they are right to campaign for in order to live fulfilling lives.”
But this is very similar to how Canada’s law was introduced — and now the rules there have softened and the numbers resorting to euthanasia have soared.
My parents held hands as they passed away by assisted dying – we supported ‘beautiful’ decision, it wasn’t a surpriseWhen Maid was introduced in Canada in 2016, it was limited to the terminally ill.
But following a legal challenge in 2021 it was made available to those whose death was NOT “reasonably foreseeable”.
A further change due to come into force in March 2027 will open up the service to people whose sole medical condition is MENTAL illness.
Doctors in Canada have approved assisted dying after just ZOOM calls, and some politicians want to extend the practice to CHILDREN old enough to make an “informed” choice.
Requests for Maid are now much more frequently approved in Canada than in 2019, when eight per cent of requests were denied.
In 2022, that figure fell to 3.5 per cent, a Health Canada report says.
I believe that, with the right safeguards in place, people who are already dying and are mentally competent should be given the choice of a shorter, less painful death on their own terms and without placing family and loved ones at risk of prosecution
Kim Leadbeater
The report adds that 17 per cent of those who applied cited “isolation or loneliness”, while nearly 36 per cent believed they were a “burden on family, friends or care-givers”.
The number of Canadians ending their lives via Maid — usually given in the form of an injection administered by a physician — has outpaced other nations with similar laws.
And its legislation has grown far looser than those of other countries offering assisted dying, such as Belgium and the Netherlands.
One expert claimed that what has happened in Canada could happen in the UK because both countries have a struggling health system and an ageing population.
Canadian-born Alexander Raikin, a researcher at the Ethics And Public Policy Centre in Washington DC, said: “Euthanasia in Canada was meant to be rare and last resort, but it isn’t. It has become routine.
“Assisted deaths have seen dram-atic rates of growth in all the places that have legalised it, like the Netherlands, Switzerland and Oregon in the US, but in Canada that rate has been quite unprecedented. The similarities between Canada and the UK . . . suggest the UK is likely to follow Canada’s route.
“I don’t think it is a coincidence that this massive surge happens at the same time our health system is collapsing. It should ring alarm bells in Britain.”
In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, Canadian Alicia Duncan told, from her home in Mission, British Columbia, how her “active and happy” mother was given a fast-track death in 2021. She opted for it because she could not get the healthcare she needed.
Alicia, 41, an interior designer, now warns the UK about the perils of following Canada’s lead.
Her mum Donna, a psychiatric nurse, suffered a brain injury in a minor car crash but despite not facing immediate death, and receiving treatment for mental health symptoms, the 61-year-old’s Maid request was granted.
Despite protests by her daughter and long-serving GP, she was helped to take her own life just 48 hours later.
Alica said: “People in Britain should be very worried about this.
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Now, in the UK, a bill to legalise the early ending of life has been introduced in Parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater “It won’t stop at terminal illness alone. The UK needs to look at what happened in Canada.
“People think, ‘This will never happen to me’. I never thought my mother, who was active and happy, would have chosen to end her life because of a mental illness, and been helped to do so.
“I would say to Britain, you need to be cautious because once you decide to open this door you don’t get to choose who walks through.
“The moment you legalise euthanasia it starts as a crack then it becomes a wide-open chasm and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”
Since their mother’s death, Alicia and her sister Christie have been denied key details about the circumstances and believe safe-guards to protect vulnerable people were not followed properly.
She added: “I am so angry. People are choosing to die because they can’t access healthcare in a timely manner.
The moment you legalise euthanasia it starts as a crack then it becomes a wide-open chasm and there is nothing you can do to stop it
Alicia Duncan
“My mum was waiting to see a specialist for 18 months and her appointment was the week after she died.
“It’s easier to die in Canada than to access healthcare.”
Here in the UK, Silent Witness actress and disability campaigner Liz Carr, 52, says the new bill is a slippery slope towards offering assisted dying to those who are simply ill, old or disabled.
Ms Carr — who has rare genetic condition arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, which affects her joints and muscles, and uses a wheelchair, warned: “These laws will put lives like mine, marginalised lives, at risk and those risks will be fatal.
“All because of the dangerous assumption some of us are better off dead. Let’s be aware, maybe it’s going to be like Canada, and that is terrifying.”
This week in Canada, a 51-year old gran from Nova Scotia told how doctors offered her Maid while she was in hospital about to undergo a mastectomy for breast cancer.
These laws will put lives like mine, marginalised lives, at risk and those risks will be fatal
Liz Carr
Before she went in for what she hoped was life-saving surgery, the doctor sat her down and asked: “Did you know about Medical Assistance In Dying?”
She was then asked again before undergoing a second mastectomy nine months later, and a third time while in the recovery room after that procedure.
Around three quarters of Brits support assisted dying, a survey this year from advocacy group Dying With Dignity found, while just 14 per cent of us oppose it.
Broadcaster Esther Rantzen, 84, who joined Dignitas after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, this week said she hopes the bill will pass, adding: “All I’m asking is that we be given the dignity of choice.
“If I decide my own life is not worth living, please may I ask for help to die.”
But the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said of the bill: “This approach is both dangerous and sets us in a direction even more dangerous.
All I’m asking is that we be given the dignity of choice. If I decide my own life is not worth living, please may I ask for help to die
Esther Rantzen
“In every place where it’s been done, it has led to a slippery slope.
“The right to end your life could too easily, all too accidentally, turn into a duty to do so.”
‘BRITS, BE WARNED OF PERIL’
By Prof Leonie Herx, Professor of Palliative Medicine at the University of Calgary
IN Canada, a doctor-administered lethal injection has become the solution to almost any suffering, which is horrific from a medical perspective.
Any adult with a disability or chronic illness can get an “assisted death”.
There is no requirement to receive any treatment for even a reversible condition and sometimes it is the only “intervention” provided.
I have seen a person’s worst day become their last.
We are seeing people getting Maid for poverty, social isolation or deprivation.
It is routinely offered to any potentially eligible person as they access a care home, at time of surgery or during hospital admission for a health crisis.
It has altered the practice of medicine here and is leading to the premature death of many vulnerable people.
It has become something it never started as, something no Canadian could have imagined.
The UK should take warning.
Keep medicine invested in helping people restore their health and live well.
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Adam Sonin
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Who is Keir Starmer, the man who will be the next British prime minister?
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London — When Keir Starmer was elected to lead Britain’s Labour Party in 2020, right after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years, he made it his mission to make the party “electable.”
Four years later, after 14 years of governments led by the rival Conservative Party, Starmer is poised to take Britain’s top job.
With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in Parliament’s 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
Outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”
The 61-year-old Starmer has faced years of criticism for a perceived lack of charisma, but his methodical mission to drag Labour back toward the center of British politics and broaden its appeal to voters worked. Starmer and Labour have also, indisputably, capitalized on years of economic pain and political chaos under the Conservative Party, whose parliamentary majority was eviscerated.
Chris Furlong / Getty Images
Professor Sir John Curtice, a political analyst and elections expert who, through decades of TV commentary has become something of a British national institution himself, told the BBC just a couple days before the election that there was “more chance of lightning striking twice in the same place” than Sunak remaining in power.
So Starmer will take the reins of government, but with the British people’s overall trust in politicians at rock bottom and a record number of British children living in poverty.
Where does Keir Starmer come from?
Sir Keir Starmer — the former lawyer was knighted for services to criminal justice — has, through years of chaos (you may remember Partygate, or perhaps even Prime Minister Liz Truss’ 50 days in power) projected an almost dull managerialism that appears to have become a beacon for a welcome return to political normalcy.
Starmer grew up in a small town in Surrey, just outside London. His mother worked for the National Health Service, Britain’s free public health care system, and his father was a toolmaker — a fact that Starmer repeated so often during the election campaign that it became a meme.
His mother suffered for all her life from Still’s disease, a type of inflammatory arthritis, and died only a few weeks after he was first elected to the British Parliament in 2015. His father died three years later. Starmer has said his relationship with his father was strained, and that never telling him, “I love you and I respect you” is “the one thing I do regret.”
Starmer was the first member of his family to go to university, after which he helped run a left-wing magazine called Socialist Alternatives. He then became a lawyer, rising up the ranks to become the head of public prosecutions in 2008, running the British government’s Crown Prosecution Service. He received his knighthood in 2014, the year before he turned to politics.
Despite his legitimate background in tackling serious crime, Starmer has never managed to shake the image of a relatively boring politician. He’s even leaned into it on occasion.
“If, in the end, that is the only bit of mud left to sling, then I’m pretty comfortable,” he told Britain’s ITV in January. “If they are calling you boring, you’re winning.”
What are Keir Starmer’s policies?
Throughout his tenure as Labour leader, Starmer has tried to make his party more electable by forcing out individuals seen as entrenched in its socialist left wing — the faction that ran the party under its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn (whose cabinet Starmer served in, incidentally).
After Corbyn called the findings of an inquiry into antisemitism in the party “dramatically overstated,” Starmer suspended him.
“Sometimes you have to be ruthless to be a good leader,” Starmer told Esquire about the episode.
His public mantra has been “country before party.”
Starmer’s move toward centrism has been criticized by left-leaning members of his own party and others. He irked many by backtracking on several key pledges, including that Labour would increase income tax, scrap university tuition fees and nationalize the majority of Britain’s public services.
Matthew Horwood/Getty
He has also come under fire for Labour’s screeching u-turn on a green investment pledge worth more than $35 billion annually, and for equivocating on alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, despite his legal background.
In a recent speech, Starmer said he had a long-term “big, bold plan” for Britain. But he cautioned that “we need first steps.”
Those, according to the BBC, include clamping down on tax avoidance, shortening NHS patient waiting lists and recruiting more teachers and neighborhood police officers. He also wants to negotiate a better deal with the European Union, given the catastrophic economic consequences of the U.K.’s “Brexit.”
He said his unflashy election pledges were a “down payment” on what the Labour Party can offer Britain if it is given enough time.
“I’m not going to make a promise before the election that I’m not comfortable we can actually deliver,” he’s stressed.
“A lot of people on the left will accuse him of letting them down, betraying socialist principles. And a lot of people on the right accuse him of flip-flopping,” Tim Bale, a political scientist at Queen Mary University of London, told The Associated Press. “But, hey, if that’s what it takes to win, then I think that tells you something about Starmer’s character. He will do whatever it takes — and has done whatever it takes — to get into government.”
How might Starmer influence U.S.-U.K. relations?
With British and American election cycles coinciding for the first time since 1992, there’s a lot of uncertainty about how U.S.-U.K. relations could look by the end of the year.
Starmer has spoken admiringly of President Biden, particularly his focus on job creation and investment in domestic industry. The Economist even described him as “infatuated” with the American president.
Senior Labour figures have reportedly met secretly with Democratic counterparts already.
So, it’s expected that Mr. Biden would have a close ally in Starmer — if Mr. Biden is still the president in 2025.
If former President Donald Trump were to win in November, U.S.-U.K. relations would likely be less chummy.
Despite her being a Conservative and thus ostensibly on the same side of the political aisle, Trump had a difficult relationship with former Prime Minister Theresa May during his first term in office. He got on better with the more populist — and many say, more Trumpian — Boris Johnson.
“A Biden White House would find Starmer a well-wisher and useful spear-carrier,” Eliot Wilson, a former senior official in the U.K. House of Commons wrote in The Hill. “For Trump, he would prove a vague annoyance, and could not be counted on to echo the wilder MAGA phrasebook.”
The reality for U.K. leaders, from any party, almost a decade after Britain’s exit from the EU, is that the long-touted “special relationship” with Washington has never been more vital.
“We will work with whoever is elected,” Starmer has said. “We have a special relationship with the U.S. that transcends whoever the president is.”
What comes next?
Final results from Thursday’s voting will be published Friday morning, and Sir Keir will be the next British Prime Minister.
Sunak will resign and King Charles III will quickly take the necessary but largely ceremonial step of inviting Starmer to form a new government.
Starmer will then appear to make his first speech outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of Britain’s top elected official.
Once the formalities are completed, Starmer will receive briefings from key members of the civil service and the intelligence community, select the members of his new cabinet and start taking phone calls from world leaders.
And then? Well, then there’s the often unglamorous business of running the country.
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Rishi Sunak awaits a multimillion-dollar payday after losing his $177,000 PM gig
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It’s official. Rishi Sunak is no longer the U.K. Prime Minister. His long and winding road to the Number 10 exit door has felt inevitable since he took over from the economically disastrous, short-lived Liz Truss government in the autumn of 2022.
But 44-year-old Sunak—reportedly found riding off into the Californian sunset on his Peloton before results landed—is more likely to be licking his lips at the future that awaits him than stewing over what could have been with another five years in office.
That’s because Sunak, a man who is technically richer than the King of England and has a past as a high-flying London banker, can prepare for a few more lucrative perks as he steps away from a life of service.
Sunak’s millions
As prime minister, Sunak was entitled to a salary of £80,000, in addition to his £91,346 salary as a member of parliament for his Richmond and Northallerton constituency. Tax records show that last year, he took home £139,000 ($177,000) from those roles.
His pay packet for leading the U.K. is a meager sum compared to what he got used to before entering politics and even his other forms of income while he held the job. Sunak made nearly £1.8 million in capital gains last year and paid a total of £500,000 in tax.
Sunak worked as a successful banker for years, starting at Goldman Sachs before achieving an MBA and returning to the lucrative hedge fund space.
According to an analysis by efinancialcareers, Sunak probably only earned less than £100,000 in his first three years out of university.
While working at the hedge fund TCI between 2006 and 2009 in his mid-20s, Sunak became a multimillionaire after he and his colleagues shared a £100 million pot after a lucrative bet in the buildup to the global financial crisis.
The hedge fund took an activist position in the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007, forcing its sale to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which resulted in a £555.9 million profit. However, that acquisition saddled the Scottish bank with debt, leading to a £45.5 billion government bailout.
While Sunak’s biggest riches will probably come after he eventually resigns as an MP, there are several new income avenues he can eventually look forward to.
Evidence suggests that if Sunak returns to the finance world after he leaves politics, he will be in high demand.
Sunak’s fellow former chancellor George Osbourne has minted fresh millions through city advisory roles with groups including Blackrock and Robey Warshaw, in addition to his time editing London’s Evening Standard newspaper.
Or, he could take a cautious lesson from David Cameron. The man who served as PM between 2010 and 2016 landed himself in hot water over his role in the collapsed finance group Greensill Capital.
Cameron reportedly got $10 million from Greensill to lobby the government on behalf of the company, but his spokesperson disputed that figure.
Speaking engagements
The easiest mileage for Sunak’s bank account after leaving office will likely see him harness his years of training as a public speaker.
Tony Blair, the ninth-longest running PM of all time, set a marker after he retired, reportedly commanding £1 million in 2012 from his engagements. His Tory successors have been keen to follow that trend.
In the year between stepping down as prime minister and resigning as an MP, the mercurial Boris Johnson bagged millions of dollars from extracurricular activities as he settled into post-leadership life.
Documents from May 2023 show Johnson was paid around £3.5 million for speaking engagements after stepping down as PM. He also received a £510,000 advance on a book deal. Theresa May, Johnson’s predecessor, has also enjoyed the speaking circuit since quitting as PM in 2019.
Family wealth
What is unique for Sunak among his contemporaries, however, is that the PM never needs to work again.
Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, are worth a combined £651 million ($830 million), according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, making him richer than King Charles.
The vast majority of that wealth comes from Murty’s holdings in the Indian IT company Infosys, which her billionaire father co-founded.
Murty’s wealth was a hot point of contention during Sunak’s premiership owing to her “non-dom” status, which meant she didn’t pay tax on income from shares in the foreign-owned Infosys. Murty vowed to pay U.K. tax on this after a media storm.
Sunak will remain an MP until he decides otherwise, like Boris Johnson or David Cameron before him.
But when he does go, the man who led the Tories to their worst defeat in nearly two centuries will quickly be absorbed into a multimillion-dollar corporate cushion shared by most of his former allies.
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Ryan Hogg
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2024 U.K. election is set to overhaul British politics. Here’s what to know.
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London — British voters will head to the polls Thursday to vote in the country’s first general election since 2019. Here’s what to know.
Who is up for election in the U.K.?
British voters will not be directly electing a new leader on Thursday. Under the United Kingdom’s parliamentary system, voters choose their local representatives for the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons.
On Thursday, there are 650 parliamentary seats up for grabs, each of which will be occupied by one Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons. For any single party to win an outright majority in the Commons, it would need to win at least 326 seats — over half of those available. Any party that does that gets to form the next government, with its leader becoming the prime minister. [Yes, King Charles III is Britain’s formal head of state. You can read here about what limited power that actually conveys.]
Parliament was formally dissolved on May 30 when current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the election, as is procedure, but prior to that, Sunak’s long-ruling Conservative Party held an outright majority of 345 seats, giving it significant power to set the policy agenda.
PHIL NOBLE / POOL / AFP / Getty
The U.K. has what is called a first-past-the-post system, which means voters receive a ballot paper with a list of candidates from different parties and select only one of their choice. The candidate from each constituency with the most votes wins the seat — with no specific threshold required. So if, for instance, there are six candidates in a particular race, they will all be from different parties, and even if the candidate with the most votes only wins 25% of the total, they still win the seat.
If a voter believes their favorite candidate has a low chance of winning, they can chose to vote tactically and put their X next to another candidate’s name — effectively a second choice — if they feel that candidate has a better chance of winning. This tactic is generally seen as a way for a voter to help block a candidate deemed highly unfavorable, but who stands a reasonable chance of winning, from gaining the seat in a race.
In practice, this system means that a political party could win a healthy share of votes on a national level but not win a proportional share of the seats. Smaller political parties in the U.K. have long argued that the first-past-the-post electoral system has thus helped to cement the power of Britain’s two biggest parties — the incumbent right-leaning Conservative Party, often called the Tories, and their main rivals, the more left-leaning Labour Party.
What is the U.K. election timeline?
Voting begins in the U.K. general election on Thursday morning, and most constituency results are expected by early Friday morning, although this may take longer in some more rural parts of the country — particularly if the vote tally is close or subject to a recount.
There is usually an early indicator of the overall results of a U.K. general election as a joint exit poll is released by British broadcasters Sky News, ITV and CBS News’ partner network BBC News immediately after the polls close.
The exit poll generally provides an accurate representation of the final results and can be expected by about 10 p.m. on Thursday local time (5 p.m. Eastern).
U.K. election predictions and polling data
Polls and political analysts have predicted for many weeks that Labour will sweep to a landslide majority in Parliament. If the latest polling data proves accurate, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s 18-month tenure will end and Britons will wake up Friday morning to a new party in charge of the country for the first time in 14 years.
Those 14 years of Conservative rule have been marked by political and economic turmoil, with a rotating cast of five Conservative prime ministers occupying 10 Downing Street in the last eight years alone.
The latest polling by the major independent data analysis group YouGov shows Labour in the lead by a 17-point margin, with 37% of those polled saying they intend to vote for Labour versus 20% of the public who say they will cast their votes for the Conservatives.
Labour candidates are projected to win as many as 425 seats in the House of Commons, which would be a massive 223 seat gain for the party. The Conservatives are projected to hold onto just 108 seats, which would be a seismic loss of 257 seats.
Who is Keir Starmer, the likely next prime minister?
Keir Starmer was elected by party members to lead Labour in 2020, right after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years. He immediately declared it his mission to make the party “electable” again.
Four years later Starmer, 61, is poised to take Britain’s top job.
Matthew Horwood/Getty
He’s faced frequent criticism for a perceived lack of charisma, but his efforts to drag Labour back toward the center of British politics to give it broader voter appeal seems to have paid off.
Throughout his leadership of the party, Starmer has methodically frozen out elements of Labour’s far-left, socialist-leaning wing, which ran the party under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Starmer’s deliberate shift from socialism to centrism has been criticized by pundits and voters who hew to the left, and Labour may lose some votes to smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party but, given the polling, it seems to have been a winning strategy overall.
Is Britain bucking the trend of Europe’s shift to the right?
A shift to a center-left Labour government in Britain would buck the trend in Europe, as far-right parties have been on the rise across the continent in recent years.
In the first round of voting in France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally Party moved within reach of becoming the largest political party in France. The party took a third of the votes in a first round that drew a historically high turnout.
If voters maintain that trend in the decisive second round of voting on July 7, it will mark an unprecedented shift to the right for the French.
Last month’s European parliamentary elections also saw a record number of far-right legislators win seats, with right wing candidates across Europe’s three main economies — Italy, France and Germany — making gains by campaigning on opposition to issues including immigration, support for Ukraine and green environmental policies.
While a Labour victory would be a move against those political winds on the continent, Britain has also seen a surge in support for far-right candidates in this election cycle.
Nigel Farage may be familiar to Americans as an ally of former President Donald Trump. His firebrand anti-immigrant rhetoric became hugely influential in the movement that led to Britain’s “Brexit” from the European Union.
After decades languishing on the far-right fringe of British politics, unable to win a seat in Parliament despite eight previous attempts, Farage looks set this year to finally claim the seat for his local constituency of Clacton, in southeast England.
Nigel Farage/Twitter
Farage’s far-right Reform Party is only projected to pick up a total of about five seats in Parliament, including Farage’s own, but YouGov projects overall support for Reform nationally at about 15% of the electorate, and from its current position with zero seats in the House of Commons, it seems the party is heading for a significant increase in popularity.
Political analysts say Reform’s anti-immigrant messaging is largely eating into the Conservative Party’s vote share.
So while Farage won’t be taking power anytime soon, it looks like he is about to step back into the limelight of British politics and, with a sizable share of public support, he may find himself wielding an outsized influence on the politics of Britain’s Conservative Party as it tries to rebuild itself in the wake of what could be a devastating election.
CBS News’ Frank Andrews contributed to this report.
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UK sending £150m military package to Ukraine to boost its air and sea defences
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A MILITARY package worth £150million to boost air and sea defences is being sent to Ukraine.
It will help to protect the country’s battered infrastructure, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps says.
Defence Sec Grant Shapps says a new Ukraine aid package worth £150million will help to protect the country’s battered infrastructureCredit: PA Air defence radars, decoys and electronic warfare systems worth £70million will be sent by the UK and allies.
Meanwhile, £80million for small boats, reconnaissance drones and uncrewed surface vessels is being provided.
Mr Shapps said: “The International Fund for Ukraine is providing vital support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to meet their urgent capability requirements.
“It includes more air defence systems to protect Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, as well as maritime capabilities to bolster naval forces.”
The fund for Ukraine has received £900million so far.
The UK is the biggest donor, giving £500million.
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Germany are also part of the alliance.
It came as Mr Shapps revealed that China and Russia were colluding over combat equipment.
He said it gave the lie to Beijing’s claim that it was a calming influence on its ally.
He said: “US and British intelligence can reveal that lethal aid is now flowing from China to Russia and into Ukraine.”
Inside Ukraine’s secret frontline base where Brit & US soldiers have trained 14k troops to blitz Russia[ad_2]
Matt Rayson
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Permanent ceasefire in Gaza & a two-state solution can be realised, says Cameron
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A permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution can be realised, Lord Cameron has declared.
The Foreign Secretary’s comments come after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Foreign Secretary David Cameron has said a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution is still possibleCredit: AFP The ex-PM said there is “a route to having a Palestinian state” despite Mr Netanyahu continuing to reject calls for a two-state solution after the conflict.
The Israeli PM said last week the idea would “endanger the state of Israel” and slammed the “attempt to coerce us”.
Speaking during his diplomatic tour of the Middle East, the Tory peer told broadcasters: “It’s time for an immediate pause in the fighting because we’ve got to not only get the aid in, but, crucially, we’ve got to get those hostages out.
“And what I think we can do now is plan for how you turn that pause into a permanent, sustainable ceasefire without a return to fighting. That’s what I was pushing on him (Netanyahu).
“And that’s what I’ll be talking about here today.”
He said Hamas terrorists must leave Gaza for a cessation of hostilities, but that the Palestinians must also be shown there is a “route to having a Palestinian state, to having a new future”.
Earlier in the week Hamas has said there was “no chance” of releasing the remaining 130 hostages after Benjamin Netanyahu rejected another ceasefire deal.
On Sunday, the Israeli PM turned down the conditions presented by Hamas that would include Israel’s complete withdrawal and leaving the terror group in power in Gaza.
Netanyahu said: “In exchange for the release of our hostages, Hamas demands the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all the murderers and rapists.
“And leaving Hamas intact.
“I reject outright the terms of surrender of the monsters of Hamas.”
In response, hours later, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Tel Aviv’s refusal to end the military offensive in Gaza “means there is no chance for the return of the (Israeli) captives”.
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Martina Bet
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Tractors protest & rise of Far Right have turned Germany into sick man of Europe
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LIGHTS flashing and horns blaring, 3,000 tractors trundled through Hanover in Germany bringing its streets to a gridlocked standstill.
Stepping down from his cab, arable farmer Axel Friehe told me his beleaguered nation’s economy is “breaking down”.
Tractors of protesting farmers line the streets in front of the Brandenburg Gate in BerlinCredit: Getty 
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Major German cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business peopleCredit: EPA 
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Turnip farmer Christoph Berndt said ‘The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves’Credit: Louis Wood “We hope our protests are the start of something big,” he said of the tractor cavalcade being cheered by locals.
Farmer Friehe, 51, may soon have his wish.
Troubled Germany’s major cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business people.
Some 500 tractors gathered at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate and 5,000 paraded through Munich’s streets.
While French farmers have made protesting something of a national pastime — infamously torching a lorry full of British sheep in 1990 — their German counterparts are traditionally less militant.
Yet a heavy-handed bid by its government to slash a tax break on diesel used in agricultural machinery — worth around £2,500 a year to each farmer — has made zealots of German country folk.
I watched on Wednesday as locals in Hanover gave farmers hearty cheers and the thumbs up despite the traffic tailbacks in the north German city of 536,000 citizens.
For the tractor strike is a symptom of a wider malaise gripping Germany.
The country’s once booming export market made it the industrial powerhouse at the heart of Europe.
Yet since the pandemic its sluggish economy has grown by just 0.3 per cent — compared to 1.4 per cent in the UK — making it by far the worst performer in the G7 group of nations.
Stringent green initiatives, including the rolling out of heat pumps, have been unpopular with many.
‘Hungry, naked and sober’
And mass migration — last year Germany had more than 350,000 asylum applications — has become a major political flashpoint.
Its ruling coalition of the left-of- centre Social Democratic Party, the Greens and liberal Free Democrats have been trying to plug a near £15billion budget black hole.
Into this economic and social maelstrom has stepped the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, who critics say are “infiltrating” the farmers’ demonstrations.
A YouGov poll last Sunday showed almost one in four Germans — 24 per cent — backed the AfD.
Last week it was reported that high-ranking AfD officials were caught at a secret conference where a “masterplan” for the forced deportation of millions of migrants to Africa was discussed.
The meeting, at a luxury hotel last November, featured a talk by far-right Identitarian Movement activist Martin Sellner, who is permanently banned from the UK for extremism.
It was claimed that the “remigration” proposals discussed at the event, infiltrated by news network Collectiv, included deporting immigrants with German passports.
Those in attendance — reportedly alongside neo-Nazis — included Roland Hartwig, a personal aide to AfD leader Alice Weidel, and AfD MP Gerrit Huy.
The AfD denied it had a “secret plan” but added: “We need passport withdrawal for criminals and remigration!”
At last week’s Hanover protest, turnip farmer Christoph Berndt, 31, insisted: “The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves.
“They say the farmers are on their side, which isn’t true.”
Driving nearly 40 miles on his green John Deere tractor to be at the good-natured demonstration, he added: “The politicians in Berlin make it more difficult for us to work and make money.
“So we go on to the street and try to animate people to understand us and what we do in the fields.”
German flags fluttered from tractor cabs with signs on their front loaders reading: “No food without us.”
Another read: “Without agriculture you’d be hungry, naked and sober.”
Air horns sounded in the sub-zero chill as farmers gathered outside Lower Saxony’s regional parliament building in Hanover.
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Locals cheered the tractor cavalcadeCredit: @UNCOFILM Expressing the fury felt by many, Volker Hahn, who helped to organise the demo, said: “The Government needs money and they will take it from the farmers. It’s a horrible situation.”
Volker, 55, who tends pigs, chickens and potatoes at his 600-acre farm, added: “We don’t welcome the support of AfD.
“They’re extreme.”
To add to the air of despondency felt by many, Hanover and other German cities have also been crippled by train driver strikes this week.
At the parliament building I met Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, which also helped to organise the tractor protest.
She said: “The French people were always on the barricades but in Germany everyone felt comfortable.”
Now, she says, times have changed, with farmers seething at being asked to help plug the Government’s budget gap.
She added: “We are very happy that the protests are peaceful — but loud. The population stands behind us.”
Sonja, 53, says people from all backgrounds are facing unrealistic demands on environmental issues.
She added: “Heat pumps are a good example. It’s not wrong to do it, it’s the way they do it.
“It was too quick, wasn’t well explained and people are worried about the price.
“Reforms are necessary but you have to take the people with you.
“This feeling is in every part of the population, whether you’re poor, rich or middle-class. It’s not great for the general mood.”
She blames people’s fears over illegal immigration for AfD’s rise, saying: “Even three or four years ago it wasn’t an issue.
“Now the municipalities say they have no rooms, no flats or apartments so it’s more visible now.
“So the AfD tries to profit from it.”
Germany has long been renowned in British minds as a land of efficiency, where everything works.
It was praised for how it faced up to its Nazi past and built a vibrant, liberal democracy with a turbo-charged economy.
That booming post-war Germany was summed up in Audi’s 1980s advertising slogan “vorsprung durch technik”, meaning “progress through technology”.
Now its famed export trade of cars and machinery is in deep trouble.
German car makers produced almost 40 per cent fewer vehicles in 2022 than they did a decade previously.
Once reliant on Russian gas, Germany saw energy prices soar after Vladimir Putin’s 2022 Ukraine invasion.
And politicians have failed to tackle creaking infrastructure, a housing shortage and high-speed internet rollout.
Labelled the Sick Man of Europe — an historic term that was used to describe Britain in the 1970s — its economy is predicted to perform worse than Britain’s in the next decade.
Though expected to return to growth this year, Germany — the world’s third biggest economy — is forecast to be overtaken by Japan in 2026 and India in 2027.
At Hanover’s regional parliament building I met the AfD’s Frank Rinck, who denies his far-right party has “infiltrated” the farmers’ demos.
The MP and chairman of the Lower Saxony AfD said the group were “simply engaging with these demonstrations like any other political party”.
Frank, an agricultural contractor, says the Government’s subsidy cut will lead to a “further death” of the farming sector.
He added: “At some point our domestic agricultural sector will not be able to feed indigenous people.”
He said it was news to him that AfD politicians had attended a “remigration” conference, describing reports as “a storm in a teacup”.
He added: “In Germany things like this tend to come up when problems arise and people demonstrate.”
Watching the AfD’s rise warily are the centre-right Christian Democratic Union party, currently Germany’s leading party in opinion polls.
Its agriculture spokesman in Lower Saxony’s parliament, Dr Marco Mohrmann, ruled out working with the AfD in a coalition.
The dad of three told me: “A big part of the AfD is extreme right — and that’s not our way.”
While accepting Germany should take in asylum seekers and skilled migrants, he admitted Britain’s stuttering Rwanda policy may also be a way forward for his country.
Conservative-leaning Marco, 59, said: “I think the model the UK is doing with Rwanda is interesting.
“It’s a third-country solution where you can look at someone and decide if they can get asylum or not.
“A year ago we couldn’t discuss something like this but now we can, and we have to.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehicles.
Yet the scale of the protests — and their support across German society — suggests he has not done enough.
Yesterday 5,000 tractors and 10,000 protesters blockaded Berlin in a climax to a week of protest. Fresh talks with Government representatives are set.
Rural People of Lower Saxony’s Sonja Markgraf insisted: “If it’s not good for the farmers then we say, ‘We go on’.”
Germany’s Great Tractor Revolution may still only be in first gear.
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Volker Hahn helped to organise the demonstration in HanoverCredit: Louis Wood 
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehiclesCredit: Getty 
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Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, also helped to organise the tractor protestCredit: Louis Wood [ad_2]
Oliver Harvey
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At least 61 people including children killed in 'tragic shipwreck'
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AT least 61 people, including children, have been killed in a “tragic shipwreck” after a boat carrying 86 migrants left Libya.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Libya made the announcement on social media on Saturday.
At least 61 people are thought to have died in the tragedy. Image shows an overcrowded wooden boat off the coast of Libya in November 2021 (file photo)Credit: AP The organisation quoted survivors as saying the boat, carrying around 86 people, departed the Libyan city of Zwara.
The tragedy comes after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned that illegal migration to Europe could “overwhelm” the continent.
He suggested a change was needed in international law to tackle the issue.
At a meeting with Italian conservatives in Rome, Mr Sunak said “enemies” could use immigration as a “weapon” by “deliberately driving people to our shores to try to destabilise our society”.
During the day-long trip to Rome, Mr Sunak met Italian Prime Minster Giorgia Meloni, with whom he has developed a strong partnership.
They also held talks with Albania‘s prime minister Edi Rama, another ally in their efforts to crack down on illegal migration.
Number 10 said that after the talks Mr Sunak and Ms Meloni had agreed to co-fund a project that would see the two countries “promote and assist the voluntary return” of migrants currently stuck in Tunisia.
Mr Sunak said: “If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow. It will overwhelm our countries and our capacity to help those who actually need our help the most.
“If that requires us to update our laws and lead an international conversation to amend the post-war frameworks around asylum, then we must do that.
“Because if we don’t fix this problem now, the boats will keep coming and more lives will be lost at sea.”
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk was among those at the Atreju event, which has been attended by former Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban in the past.
A migrant died in the Channel yesterday, with Downing Street calling it a “stark reminder” of just how dangerous the crossings are.
A second migrant was left in a critical condition when a boat sank in the English Channel just after midnight yesterday with 66 rescued and taken to safety.
The Home Secretary James Cleverly said the incident which took place five miles off the northern coast “horrific reminder of the people smugglers’ brutality”.
More than 29,000 migrants have arrived in the UK this year after crossing the Channel.
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Jon Rogers
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Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier: The American West
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Food plays an outsize role in the political imagining of the right these days. Last October, Carlson released a documentary titled The End of Men, which features, among other self-proclaimed right-wing bodybuilders, an anonymous farmer who tweets under the name William Wheelwright, one of the better-known figures in the sphere where preppers, techies, hippies, farmers, naturalists, health bros, and hard-core dissident-right types—many of whom are unapologetically racist—mingle, argue, and plan with each other. The documentary advanced a view that our technologies and agricultural system are physically poisoning us, destroying our connection to our corporeality, leading to a generation of men with declining sperm counts and low testosterone. The globalist “regime,” as Mike Cernovich described it in the documentary, has weakened America on a cellular level. The film called for men to take up weight lifting and a meat-based diet. “Well-ordered, disciplined groups of men bound by friendship are dangerous, precisely because of what they can do,” the masculinist health guru known as “Raw Egg Nationalist” said, over images of the American and Haitian revolutions. “A few hundred men can conquer an entire empire,” Raw Egg Nationalist continued. “That’s why they want you to be sick, depressed, and isolated.”
“Things are going to get worse before they get better,” he said. “How much worse isn’t exactly clear.”
I drove north toward Montana, where I visited with a man named Paul McNiel, whom I’d first met back during the fervid summer of 2020, at a Fourth of July picnic and anti-government rally headlined “Rage Against the State.” “I think that Livingston has the highest per-capita concentration of contributors to The New Yorker of any city in America,” he’d said when I introduced myself as a writer. McNiel is extraordinarily well read, and friendly with a number of literary types. He is a bit of a prepper, and while he is deeply Christian, he doesn’t consider himself right wing. “I don’t think the division is right-left anymore. It’s us against the machine,” he said, borrowing a phrase from the English writer Paul Kingsnorth—whose writings critiquing the power of tech and money in modern life have become popular among dissident types. He was dismissive of the local armed groups being flooded with new members. “At the end of the day,” he said, “if you’re not willing to shoot federal agents, then you’re not serious about it. They aren’t serious.”
McNiel had served in Afghanistan after college, and when he left the military, he’d taken out an almost unbelievable amount of debt, largely on credit cards, so that he could get himself in the position of buying his crown jewel, a trailer park in the small town of Belgrade, Montana, just outside of Bozeman. He now owned trailer parks as far away as Alaska. He had ridden the wave. “I always tell myself: No more deals. I want to stop, and I know I have to. But I can’t.”
He’d just bought a run-down country resort and tavern in the tiny town of Story, Wyoming. It was in a beautiful and secluded creekside cove of Ponderosas, a shady island amid the surrounding sagebrush desert. “Pretty good hideout, right?” he asked me, as we had a glass of wine and talked guns, European fiction, and the possibility of civil war. The place was a furious hive of activity. He was paying a couple dozen young members of Christian families to get it ready to open for the public. He was openly conflicted about his role in the churn shaping the West. “My guess,” he said, “in 10 years, there won’t be any blue-collar people left in Story.” A lanky and bearded minister from Iowa had come out with his family to help him work on the place, and there were a dozen or so kids in denim and homemade dresses rushing around, cooking, and doing some light demolition. The scene was a prime example of “crunchy conservatives,” an ecosystem described by the writer Rod Dreher—who champions localism and has long advocated that conservative Christians withdraw as a way of preserving their culture. It’s a process that eventually led Dreher himself to move to Hungary, where he has become a vocal supporter of the country’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán. “I love localism, but there is definitely a point where it can turn into blood and soil,” McNiel said. “I feel like my role is to argue for a localism that doesn’t go off the rails into exclusion.”
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James Pogue
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UK Scraps Tax Cut For Wealthy That Sparked Market Turmoil
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BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — The British government on Monday dropped plans to cut income tax for top earners, part of a package of unfunded cuts unveiled only days ago that sparked turmoil on financial markets and sent the pound to record lows.
In a dramatic about-face, Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng abandoned plans to scrap the top 45% rate of income tax paid on earnings above 150,000 pounds ($167,000) a year.
He and Prime Minister Liz Truss have spent the last 10 days defending the cut in the face of market mayhem and increasing alarm among the governing Conservative Party.
“We get it, and we have listened,” Kwarteng said in a statement. He said “it is clear that the abolition of the 45p tax rate has become a distraction from our overriding mission to tackle the challenges facing our country.”
The pound rose after Kwarteng’s announcement to around $1.12 — about the value it held before the Sept. 23 budget announcements.
The U-turn came after a growing number of Conservative lawmakers, including former ministers with broad influence, turned on the government’s tax plans.
“I can’t support the 45p tax removal when nurses are struggling to pay their bills,” Tory lawmaker Maria Caulfield said.
It also came hours after the Conservatives released advance extracts of a speech Kwarteng is due to give later Monday at the party’s annual conference in the central England city of Birmingham. He had been due to say: “We must stay the course. I am confident our plan is the right one.”
Truss defended the measures Sunday but said she could have “done a better job laying the ground” for the announcements.
Truss took office less than a month ago, promising to radically reshape Britain’s economy to end years of sluggish growth. But the government’s announcement of a stimulus package that includes 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in tax cuts, to be paid for by government borrowing, sent the pound tumbling to a record low against the dollar.
The Bank of England was forced to intervene to prop up the bond market, and fears that the bank will soon hike interest rates caused mortgage lenders to withdraw their cheapest deals, causing turmoil for homebuyers.
The package proved unpopular, even among Conservatives. Reducing taxes for top earners and scrapping a cap on bankers’ bonuses while millions face a cost-of-living crisis driven by soaring energy bills was widely seen as politically toxic.
Truss and Kwarteng insist that their plan will deliver a growing economy and eventually bring in more tax revenue, offsetting the cost of borrowing to fund the current cuts. But they also have signaled that public spending will need to be slashed to keep government debt under control.
Kwarteng has promised to set out a medium-term fiscal plan on Nov. 23, alongside an economic forecast from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.
Axing the top-earners tax rate would have cost about 2 billion pounds, a small share of the government’s overall tax-cutting plan. Kwarteng said Monday that the government was sticking to its other tax policies, including a cut next year in the basic rate of income tax and a reversal of a corporation tax hike planned by the previous government.
Tony Danker, who heads business group the Confederation of British Industry, said he hoped the government U-turn would bring stability to the markets.
“None of this growth plan will work unless we have stability. Let’s hope this is the beginning of it,” he told broadcaster LBC.
Opposition parties said the government should scrap its whole economic plan.
“UK gov U-turns on top tax rate abolition because it’s a ‘distraction,’” Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party wrote on Twitter. “Morally wrong and hugely costly for millions is a better description. Utter ineptitude.”
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