Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash for handing a knighthood to a Tory donor who gave £5 million to the Tories last year.
Mohamed Mansour, a senior treasurer of the Conservative Party and a former Egyptian government minister, was knighted for business, charity and political service.
PA News reported senior No 10 sources pointing to his charitable work and record of public service, including support for The Prince’s Foundation, now The King’s Foundation.
But Labour Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds hit out at the prime minister for the decision, which was announced as parliament is in recess and on the eve of the Easter bank holiday weekend.
She said: “This is either the arrogant act of an entitled man who’s stopped caring what the public thinks, or the demob-happy self-indulgence of someone who doesn’t expect to be prime minister much longer.
“Either way, it shows a blatant disrespect for the office he should feel privileged to hold.”
Tory MP Philip Davies and Mark Spencer, the farming minister, were also knighted, while Tracey Crouch, a former minister, was made a dame along with Treasury committee chair Harriett Baldwin.
People from the worlds of entertainment and AI were also recommended for honours by the PM to the King.
New Tory deputy chairman Jonathan Gullis has faced embarrassment after criticising peers and the Labour Party for voting against the flagship Rwanda deportation scheme – when he hasn’t been fully behind it himself.
The position came back to haunt the MP for Stoke-on-Trent when he was interviewed by Sophy Ridge on Sky News on Wednesday, a day after being handed the senior party role.
Gullis said: “Those pesky peers in the House of Lords, predominantly Labour, and Labour MPs and Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons are continuing to block any attempts that we make in order to get this Rwanda policy off the ground …”
Ridge quickly intervened: “But you abstained on the Rwanda vote, didn’t you?”
Knowing full well he did abstain, Gullis said that he “wanted to see the bill pass, so I didn’t block or deter it at any point”, adding: “I suggested amendments, Sophy.”
When Ridge clarified he “didn’t vote for it” and that he was just as “pesky” as those he was criticising, Gullis replied: “I haven’t voted like Labour have over 90 times to block the Rwanda scheme from being able to take place.”
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You can watch the full exchange below.
“Those pesky peers in the House of Lords are continuing to block any attempts to get the Rwanda policy off the ground”
“But you abstained in the Rwanda vote, didn’t you?”
The bill, which aims to overcome the Supreme Court’s block on the Rwanda deportation flights, is stuck in a game of parliamentary “ping-pong” as the House of Lords votes against the flagship legislation, only for MPs in the Commons to reverse those changes and send it back again.
It has undermined Rishi Sunak’s hopes of getting the deportation flights off the ground in the spring.
Britain and Rwanda signed a deal almost two years ago that would see migrants who cross the English Channel in small boats sent to the East African country, where they would remain permanently. So far, no migrant has been sent to Rwanda under the agreement.
The plan is key to Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” bringing unauthorised migrants to the UK. He argues that deporting asylum seekers will deter people from making risky journeys and break the business model of people-smuggling gangs. Just under 30,000 people arrived in Britain in small boats in 2023.
A Tory MP has launched a “weird” campaign to get a fish and chip shop opened.
Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP Steve Tuckwell posted a video on X indicating his concern that there was no fish and chip shop in Uxbridge town centre – despite acknowledging the existence of two others nearb.
The Mirror reported there appears to be 10 fish and chip shops in the Uxbridge area.
The plea raised eyebrows on the social media network. Why was a politician from the free enterprise-supporting Conservative Party interfering with the market? Are there not bigger issues to be championing during a cost-of-living crisis? What is he campaigning to change, given there’s no legal pathway to enforce the opening of a takeaway food outlet?
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We have a fish & chip shop in Cowley & one near St Andrew’s Park, but we don’t in Uxbridge Town Centre.
That’s why I’m launching a campaign to get us a fish & chip shop in Uxbridge Town Centre, but I need your support to do it.
Labour’s parliamentary candidate Danny Beales responded: “Maybe try to save the library first? You couldn’t make it up. Tory MP supports the closure of libraries, nurseries and youth centres. But campaigns for an extra fish and chip shop. Uxbridge and South Ruislip deserves so much better.”
Some claimed the campaign was effectively a device to get voters to sign up to the MP’s mailing list. A petition page link posted by Tuckwell suggests people can show support by signing up with their name, email address and postcode, and a tick box alongside it reads: “I agree to Steve Tuckwell using the contact information I provide to keep me updated via email and telephone on this and other issues until further notice.”
On X, food critic Jay Rayner argued the “proper weird” campaign was “just a data scraping exercise”, while others claimed Tuckwell opposed the opening of a fish and chip shop in 2019 in his role as a local councillor.
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Minutes from a Hillingdon Council meeting on June 4, 2019, state Tuckwell attended a planning committee meeting where it was “unanimously agreed” to reject a planning application for “hot food takeaway” on Windsor Street.
The minutes state: “Members expressed concern regarding the visibility of the external duct and the fact that it would be sited in close proximity to an existing first floor window; this raised concerns regarding the potential for noise and smell.”
This looks proper weird. How can you campaign for a new fish & chip shop? Who do you petition? The haddock? Until you click on the link and realise it’s just a data scraping exercise on behalf of the Conservative Party. https://t.co/D7CiBItmty
1) There are two fish and chip shops near where this video was made. One is roughly 10 mins walk away. 2) There is no law that I’m aware of against chip shops opening in Uxbridge.
After consulting with Steve Tuckwell I have updated our National Priorities: -a fish and chip shop in Uxbridge -another barber in Kettering -2 extra parking bays behind Tesco Express in Winnersh -an extra litter bin in Littlehampton High Street https://t.co/7TjVAaBddr
I don’t understand how this works, a fish’n’chip shop isn’t a pedestrian crossing by a school or waste ground which could be turned into a park, it’s a business people either want to open or not, how do you campaign people into opening a business pic.twitter.com/anKzLWogpb
— Toby Earle 🇺🇦 Threads tobyontv (@TobyonTV) March 27, 2024
Steve was in attendance at the Hillingdon Council planning meeting in which they heard an application for a fish and chip shop in Uxbridge town centre.
The Tories narrowly retained, Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat, following a bitter by-election campaign in July, with Tuckwell beating Beales by just 495 votes to become the new MP.
The Conservatives effectively turned the by-election into a referendum on Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to expand London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).
Professor Alex Ford, a marine biologist at Portsmouth University, told Good Morning Britain that the waters he analysed off the Hampshire coast contained drugs, contraceptive pills and antidepressants.
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It comes as new figures fuelled more public anger over untreated sewage being discharged into the sea and rivers when the Victorian-era infrastructure cannot cope with heavy rain.
According to the Environment Agency, the number of sewage spills in England’s rivers and seas more than doubled in a year: there were 3.6 million hours of spills in 2023, compared to 1.75 million in 2022.
‘Every single marine species that we’ve looked at so far is full of cocaine.’ – Professor Alex Ford
Figures are expected to show last year was the worst for sewage spills in England since monitoring began. pic.twitter.com/Pj6QlHQYEe
Ford told the broadcaster from Langstone Harbour, Hampshire: “The sewage treatment plant behind us takes in the waste of half a million people and when it can’t cope with it, it chucks it straight out here.
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“In the marine life just beneath our feet, we’re actually finding they’re full of drugs. They’re full of the contraceptive pills, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication. Every single marine species that we’ve looked at so far is full of cocaine.”
GMB presenter Susanna Reid couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing, and asked the reporter to clarify: “Every marine species is full of cocaine, did he say?”
Water companies are permitted to discharge untreated sewage into waterways in exceptional circumstances, such as during the heavy rainfall seen this week.
The overflow systems are used to protect homes and businesses from flooding, and the water companies say only a small percentage of the discharge is wastewater.
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Water UK, the industry body for sewerage companies, blamed heavy rainfall for the rising problem, but campaigners and opposition parties accused the Tory government of failing to get to grips with the problem.
On social media, the reaction was as you would expect …
Already 400 pollution alerts in first three months of this year in Langstone Harbour. More than all of last year. Which was already much worse than year before that. Southern Water tells us sorting the problem is a top priority. And reminds us weather’s been especially wet. https://t.co/ZyqkQBfnfb
The 7.5-minute video shows the bridge and the ship from various aerial angles, giving viewers perspective on just how bad the damage was.
Authorities are currently focused on seeking and rescuing people who may still be in the water, an amount that remains unknown, according to NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy.
“Nobody is going by a number,” she said Tuesday afternoon. “They are just looking and searching.”
Although President Joe Biden has vowed to rebuild the bridge, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg admitted that “the path to normalcy will not be easy, it will not be quick, it will not be inexpensive, but we will rebuild together”.
Judge Juan Merchan, the latest jurist to face the indicted Republican presidential candidate’s ire for doing their job, is presiding over a trial that stems from payments Trump allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign in order to bury accusations he had an affair. The former president was charged last year with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the alleged payments.
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Later Tuesday, Merchan issued a gag order against Trump in the hush money case. The order prohibits the former president from speaking publicly about witnesses, jurors, court staff or prosecutors involved in the trial.
“It is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” he wrote in the order.
As Trump has done in other cases he’s charged in, the GOP presidential frontrunner has fervently denied wrongdoing in the hush-money case. This trial will be the first time a United States president is criminally prosecuted.
In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee called Merchan a “very distinguished looking man” who is “nevertheless a true and certified Trump Hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The trial was originally set to start Monday. But Merchan delayed it until next month, after the Manhattan District Attorney’s office received a massive document dump from the federal Southern District of New York that may include new evidence in the case.
That initial delay was meant to give both sides enough time to sift through the documents, which are related to an earlier investigation. That probe centered on whether Trump instructed his then-fixer Michael Cohen to give Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet about an extramarital sexual encounter she allegedly had with the former president years ago. Prosecutors in that case decided against charging Trump, but the federal investigation did lead to Cohen pleading guilty in 2018 to to campaign finance violations, among other charges.
The upcoming hush-money trial is not the first time Merchan will be overseeing a case related to the former president or his business. The judge, a former prosecutor who often handles financial cases, previously presided over a criminal tax fraud prosecution of the Trump Organisation that resulted in a $1.6 million fine for the company. The organisation’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty and served 100 days in prison for his role, though Merchan commented at the time that he wished he could impose a stricter penalty.
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In his Tuesday post, Trump also attacked Merchan for “viciously” treating Weisselberg, who the former president described as “elderly and not in good health.” Nicholas Gravante, who represented Weisselberg in the plea negotiations, said Merchan was “a real listener, well-prepared, always accessible, and a man who kept his word,” according to The Associated Press.
Trump’s attorneys filed a motion in August asking Merchan to recuse himself because of the judge’s remarks about Weisselberg’s sentencing, as well as donations to Democratic groups totaling $35 in 2020 and his daughter’s employment with a political consulting firm that did digital marketing for the Biden campaign. Merchan rejected the calls for his recusal.
Tuesday’s post was the latest attack by Trump against judges overseeing his multiple court cases, as he’s repeatedly claimed the judicial system is attempting to interfere with this year’s election. Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month rejected a bid by Trump’s lawyers to throw out the case accusing him of keeping classified government documents at his personal home in Florida.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the federal insurrection case against Trump in Washington, has also repeatedly faced his anger. She experienced a so-called swatting attempt after someone made a false emergency call about her home.
A search and rescue effort is underway after the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Interstate 695 in Baltimore collapsed early Tuesday when it was struck by a ship, causing a number of vehicles to plunge into the Patapsco River below.
Eight people are believed to have fallen into the water following the collapse just before 1:30 a.m. Six of those individuals remained unaccounted for as of 10 a.m. local time, authorities said at a press conference.
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The eight people were part of a construction crew filling potholes, said Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld. Their work had nothing to do with the structure of the bridge, which was up to code, Gov. Wes Moore said.
Two of those people were pulled from the water, said James Wallace, fire chief of Baltimore City Fire Department (BCFD), at an earlier press conference. One person was uninjured and refused treatment, while the other was transported to a local trauma center and is in “very serious condition.”
Footage shared on social media showed the moment of the collapse:
The ship lost power and sent out a mayday call immediately before colliding with the bridge. This alert prompted workers on the bridge to stop vehicles from continuing onto it, said Moore.
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“These people are heroes,” he said of those workers.
Dive teams were at the scene, with sonar having detected the presence of submerged vehicles, Wallace said earlier. The temperature at the port was around 30 degrees Fahrenheit at the time of the incident.
BCFD’s Wallace, speaking with CNN, said they had detected three passenger vehicles, a cement truck and a fifth vehicle submerged in the water using infrared and sonar technology. Authorities have not said whether there could be people trapped inside.
“This is an unthinkable tragedy,” Mayor Brandon Scott said. “We have to first and foremost pray for all of those who are impacted.”
Baltimore Chief Richard Worley said, “There’s absolutely no indication that there’s any terrorism” or that the ship crash was intentional.
Moore also said that a preliminary investigation “points to an accident.”
A helicopter flies over a container ship as it rests against wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday.
via Associated Press
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Asked about the possibility of a chemical spill, Wallace said they’ve noticed “odors of diesel fuel” but haven’t been able to confirm there’s a spill. All of the officials at the news conference stressed the fast-moving and changing nature of the situation.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he’s spoken with Moore and Mayor Scott to offer support following the collapse.
The ship was registered with Singapore and operating with 22 crew members on board. The container vessel’s manager, Synergy Marine Group, told Reuters that they have all been accounted for.
The vessel experienced a “momentary loss of propulsion” and dropped its anchors as part of emergency procedures before impact, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said in a statement.
“As a result, it was unable to maintain the desired heading and collided with the Francis Scott Key bridge,” it said.
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The container ship was built in 2015 and the following year it was involved in a minor collision with a wall in Antwerp, Belgium, which resulted in significant damage to its hull, according to maritime websites Shipwreck Log and Vessel Finder.
The incident took place in good weather and was blamed on a mistake by the master and pilot on board, according to Vessel Finder.
The 1.6-mile bridge, which opened in 1977, is named for the author of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Key was near the current location of the bridge as he watched the American flag flying from nearby Fort McHenry during a British bombardment in the War of 1812, inspiring the poem that became the song.
The Maryland Transportation Authority said some 11.3 million cars pass over the bridge each year.
Mayor Scott said it was unbelievable to see the Key Bridge tumble, adding, “It was like something out of an action movie.”
A new documentary about porn actor Stormy Daniels includes a bizarre tidbit about Donald Trump’s hair.
“Stormy”, which was released last week on Peacock, tells Daniels’ story, including about the controversy surrounding her alleged affair with the former president. It features interviews with her friends and family, journalists and others, including comedians Seth Rogen and Jimmy Kimmel.
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In one documentary excerpt flagged by Mediaite, Rogen, who worked with Daniels on the movies Knocked Up and 40-Year-Old Virgin, recalled a conversation he had with Daniels years ago about Trump’s famous hairdo.
“We were like, ‘What’s up with the hair?’ And she was like, ‘Oh, I asked him about the hair,’” Rogen said.
“He said to her that he had had a dream like, Samson and Delilah, and that he, like, felt as though his power, like, rested in his hair, and that if he lost it, he would lose his, like, power and his stature,” he continued.
“And that’s why, even though he knows it’s ridiculous and … objectively not passing all the check marks you would want a head of hair to pass, to him that is preferable than cutting it off because he has, like, superstitions about it,” he added.
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In 2018, Rogen publicly corroborated Daniels’ claim she had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres show, he told the host he had known Daniels a long time, and she had mentioned it a decade earlier.
“At the time, when you ask a porn star who they’ve been sleeping with, and the answer was Donald Trump, it was like the least surprising thing she could have said,” Rogen said at the time.
Trump has since been charged with falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to Daniels in 2016 in exchange for her silence on the alleged affair before that year’s presidential election.
Trump was in court Monday as a Manhattan judge weighed his request to delay or toss out the trial, currently scheduled to begin next month. He has denied wrongdoing, and called the case a “witch hunt and a hoax” before entering the courtroom.
The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment on Rogen’s account.
NEW YORK — A New York state judge ruled on Monday that the criminal trial against former President Donald Trump stemming from a hush money payment he allegedly made to a porn actor can proceed, denying Trump’s request to have the case delayed further or altogether dismissed.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, sat alongside his lawyers as Judge Juan Merchan announced that jury selection in the case would begin on April 15.
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The trial — the first-ever criminal trial of a former president — had originally been scheduled to start on Monday but was delayed one month after prosecutors agreed to allow Trump’s defence attorneys to review some 100,000 pages of documents of potential new evidence.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to have the trial delayed for an additional 90 days or to have the charges altogether dismissed over what they argued were “violations” of the discovery process, alleging the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had failed to hand over evidence to the defence team in a timely fashion. This, Trump’s lawyers alleged, was a deliberate attempt to bury potentially exculpatory evidence and amounted to “widespread misconduct”.
But prosecutors argued that the new tranche of documents contained little evidence relevant to the case and didn’t require a further postponement of the trial. Prosecutors received the documents in question earlier this month from the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan, the federal prosecutors who investigated Trump’s alleged hush money payments but decided not to charge the former president.
The documents are related to Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer and fixer turned state witness. Prosecutors allege Trump instructed Cohen to give porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 before the 2016 election to stop her from publicising a story about an extramarital sexual encounter she claims to have had with the former president a decade prior. Trump denies the tryst took place.
“This is a witch hunt, this is a hoax,” the former president told reporters before entering the courtroom Monday. During the hearing, his lawyers argued that the new batch of documents could contain evidence that would discredit Cohen as a witness, and that they needed more time to review Cohen’s emails and bank statements.
But Judge Merchan seemed unsympathetic to this argument, and appeared to grow frustrated with Trump’s lawyers when they couldn’t cite a single legal precedent to support the argument that the Manhattan DA’s could’ve forced the US Attorney’s office to fork over the documents earlier.
“The allegation you make about the people’s case is incredibly serious, unbelievably serious,” Merchan told Trump attorney Todd Blanche. “You’re literally accusing the Manhattan DA’s office of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it and you don’t have a single [legal precedent to] cite.”
During a 45-minute recess in the court proceedings, news broke that a state appeals court had ruled in Trump’s favour in a separate case — the civil fraud case brought against Trump by New York Attorney General Letitia James. James had initially won a judgment against Trump, with a court finding that he’d committed fraud by falsely inflating his net worth. The appellate court decision Monday reduced his $464 million bond in the case, a potentially financially crippling sum, to $175 million.
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Back inside the courtroom after the recess, Trump scowled as Merchan ruled that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office was “not at fault for the late production of documents” and the office had made a “diligent, good faith effort” during the discovery process.
Donald Trump on Monday embraced the idea that he’s kind of like Jesus Christ, as he attended a court hearing for his upcoming criminal trial over hush money payments made to an adult film star with whom he allegedly had an extramarital affair.
The comparison came courtesy of Truth Social, where Trump’s account shared a message purportedly sent to him by a follower.
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“It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you,” the message reads, suggesting that Trump’s $468 million fine for decades of financial fraud is on par with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
The stanza ends: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”
“Thank you again for taking the arrows intended for us. We love you,” concludes the message that may or may not have actually been sent by a fan of the former president. (It wasn’t filled with WORDS IN ALL CAPS and random uses of quotation “marks”, so it could indeed be authentic.)
Trump responded by calling the sentiment “beautiful”.
Trump’s legal team is seeking to further delay the hush money trial, originally scheduled to begin March 25, after additional evidence from an earlier federal investigation came to light.
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Judge Juan Manuel Merchan already postponed the trial 30 days. Trump’s lawyers have asked for 90.
