Former footballer Ryan Giggs has been charged with assaulting two women and controlling or coercive behaviour, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
A CPS spokesperson said the Wales manager will appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday April 28.
Greater Manchester Police said Giggs was charged with assault causing actual bodily harm against a woman in her 30s and the common assault of a woman in her 20s.
Both assault charges relate to an incident on November 1 last year, which is understood to have happened at Giggs’ home in Worsley near Salford. The older woman was treated for injuries at the scene.
Giggs has been released on bail ahead of the court appearance.
“We have authorised Greater Manchester Police to charge Ryan Giggs with engaging in behaviour which was controlling or coercive and assault occasioning actual bodily harm,” the CPS said.
“A charge of assault by beating relating to a second woman has also been authorised. Mr Giggs will appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 28th April.
“The CPS made the decision to charge Mr Giggs after reviewing a file of evidence from Greater Manchester Police.
“Criminal proceedings are active and nothing should be published that could jeopardise the defendant’s right to a fair trial.”
In a statement, Giggs said: “I have full respect for the due process of law and understand the seriousness of the allegations. I will plead not guilty in court and look forward to clearing my name.
“I would like to wish Robert Page, the coaching staff, the players and the supporters every success at the Euros this summer.”
Giggs said he would not make any further comment while the case is ongoing.
The party grandee told HuffPost UK’s Commons People podcast that while Labour’s local election attacks around “cronyism” and the lobbying scandal will “loosen and crumble” Tory support, it will not be enough to win nationally in 2024.
Starmer must also present a “credible and attractive alternative”, as well as showing Labour is strong enough to “tear [the Tories] inside out, strip them down, lay them bare, and see what they stand for and what they are not doing for this country”.
Mandelson told Commons People: “One thing is clear to me – it’s that Tory sleaze is not going to win the next election for Labour.
“It will loosen and crumble a lot of support for the Tories and people will reach the conclusion that they are out for themselves and that they suit themselves and they fill the pockets of their own cronies and supporters, that’s true.
“But that doesn’t mean to say that Labour’s just got to sit back and wait for the election to fall into their laps.
“That’s not how you win elections.
“So fine, make the point, but you’ve got to present a credible and attractive alternative if you want people to vote for you.”
Speaking from Hartlepool where he is campaigning for Labour ahead of the crunch May 6 by-election, Mandelson said the party had a “real fight” in the seat, where it was “completely outgunned” by the combined Tory and Brexit Party vote in 2019.
Johnson is also benefitting from a “vaccine bounce” in the polls, while voters in Hartlepool felt Labour had “lost its way over the last decade” because it was nationally “rubbish” and “fell into bad hands” locally, and that the party took the town for granted.
“Then along came Brexit which loosened the cement even more, and frankly Corbyn then was the final hammer blow for Labour in this town, and then we had the disastrous results in the election in 2019,” he said.
GLYN KIRK via Getty ImagesLabour grandee Lord Peter Mandelson
But now, he said, they feel “Labour is coming home, that there is a new broom, and they feel it nationally with Keir Starmer and I’m glad to say they feel it locally”.
“Increasingly, people are seeing Labour as a credible alternative, they do see Keir Starmer as a man of principles and of integrity.
“But they want to know a lot more about him and what he believes in and what the policies of the Labour Party will be at the next election before they are prepared to transfer their allegiance to him and the Labour Party.
Pointing out that Labour’s leadership has been “hermetically sealed” from the public due to Covid, he said that now the party has to make its case “with greater intensity, and more speed and more focus than we’ve been doing at any time in the last year”.
Asked if Starmer needs to freshen up the shadow cabinet, Mandelson said: “He’ll know what to do when the time comes and I’m not going to start giving him advice or lessons about how he should do his job.
“All I know is this – that people want Labour to make the weather.
“They want Labour to make the news.
“They want the Tories properly taken apart.
“If you fall short, if it’s a bit weak, if it’s a bit flabby, if it appears not to know how to use the media well, if it’s not doing its opposition research well and honing its attacks and creating the ammunition, and [having] people strong enough to fire that ammunition in the Tory direction, then people are going to say well, are Labour strong enough?”
Mandelson went on: “You don’t win elections by going through the motions, you don’t win elections by saying nice things about yourself.
“You’ve got to go for your opponents as well, tear them inside out, strip them down, lay them bare, and see what they stand for and what they are not doing for this country.
“And then people will look to you, and when they do look to you, you better have a credible, affordable set of modern policies for people to vote for.
“And that’s what Labour’s got to create over the next year or so.”
He added: “I want my party to win, I’m fed up of losing, I’m fed up to my back teeth of losing, I want to see my party winning again, and that’s why I’m here and that’s why I work for it.”
Downing Street has announced an internal inquiry into the leak of private text messages between Boris Johnson and billionaire James Dyson over the tax status of his employees.
The prime minister promised the businessman he would “fix” the issue after personal lobbying from Dyson via texts.
Dyson was seeking assurances before he agreed to build ventilators at the height of the coronavirus crisis. In the end, Dyson never supplied any ventilators to the NHS.
Labour has demanded an urgent investigation be conducted by parliament’s liaison committee, which is made of up senior MPs.
Speaking during PMQs on Wednesday, Labour leader Keir Starmer suggested it was “one rule for those that have got the prime minister’s phone number, another for everybody else”.
The text messages were obtained by the BBC. Asked if there would be a leak inquiry, the prime minister’s spokesperson said on Thursday: “I can confirm that, yes, we have instructed the Cabinet Office to look into this.”
Downing Street also said it will publish correspondence between Johnson and Dyson “shortly”.
“The prime minister said in the House he’s happy to share all the details with the House, as he shared them with his officials,” the spokesperson said.
“That’s what we’re working on, we’re pulling together that information.”
No.10 also did not deny reports, including in The Times, that cabinet secretary Simon Case advised Johnson to change his phone number because of concerns over the ease with which lobbyists and others from the business world were able to contact him.
The spokesperson said: “We don’t get into details of the advice provided between a cabinet secretary and a prime minister ,and so I’m not going to do that in this instance.”
“Pervasive racism” underpinned a failure to properly commemorate potentially hundreds of thousands of predominantly Black and Asian service personnel who died fighting for the British Empire, an investigation has found.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) apologised after its investigation found those individuals were not formally remembered in the same way as their white comrades.
Defence secretary Ben Wallace on Thursday morning told the Commons: “The number of casualties commemorated unequally, the number commemorated without names and the number otherwise entirely unaccounted for is not excusable.” He accepted that “prejudice” had played a part.
The investigation discovered at least 116,000 predominantly African and Middle Eastern First World War casualties “were not commemorated by name or possibly not commemorated at all”.
Martin Keene/PAGraves of British soldiers who fought at the Somme in the First World War, who are buried at the Connaught Cemetery near the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme in northern France
The figure could be as high as 350,000, according to the report obtained by the PA news agency after it was first reported by the Guardian.
Most of the men were commemorated by memorials that did not carry their names.
When war broke out in 1914, King George V called for “men of every class, creed and colour” to join the fight. What was then the British West Indies is thought to have sent 16,000 soldiers to join the English forces, plus some 4,500 volunteers, who arrived in special contingents.
In 1915, the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR) was formed, comprising two thirds of its men from Jamaica and the rest hailing from the Bahamas to then British Guiana.
But Caribbean soldiers were not permitted to fight as equals against their white compatriots, with most serving for lower pay in the Labour Corps, according to the BBC.
One who was commemorated however was Walter Tull, who was a footballer and the first Black Army officer to command troops in a regular unit.
He died aged 29 while leading an attack on the Western Front during the second Battle of the Somme on March 25, 1918.
This #blackhistorymonth we remember Black personnel who paved the way. Walter Tull is known for being the first black @BritishArmy Officer. He joined the Footballer’s Battalion in the First World War and lost his life heroically leading an attack across No Man’s Land in 1918. pic.twitter.com/VdiyWvdM8W
Tull served as a second lieutenant, leading men into battle at a time when the Army forbade a person of non-European descent becoming an officer.
As well as being one of the most celebrated Black British soldiers of the Great War, Tull was also one of the first Black professional football players in England, playing for Tottenham Hotspur while overcoming racial discrimination.
The investigation also estimated that between 45,000 and 54,000 Asian and African casualties were “commemorated unequally”.
Some were commemorated collectively on memorials, unlike those in Europe, and others, who were missing, were only recorded in registers rather than in stone.
In 2018 a war memorial featuring a Sikh soldier to honour the many from the Indian subcontinent who fought in both world wars was unveiled in Smethwick, Birmingham.
The special committee behind the investigation was established by the CWGC in 2019 after a critical documentary on the issue, titled Unremembered and presented by Labour MP David Lammy.
Originally named the Imperial War Graves Commission, it was founded in 1917 to commemorate those who died in the war.
IWM via Imperial War Museums via Getty ISoldiers of the British West Indies Regiment in camp on the Albert to Amiens Road, France, World War I, September 1916
The investigation found that the failure to properly commemorate the individuals was “influenced by a scarcity of information, errors inherited from other organisations and the opinions of colonial administrators”.
“Underpinning all these decisions, however, were the entrenched prejudices, preconceptions and pervasive racism of contemporary imperial attitudes,” it added.
One example given is based on communications in 1923 between F.G. Guggisberg, the governor of the Gold Coast colony, now Ghana, and Arthur Browne, from the commission.
At a meeting in London, it was said that the governor said “the average native of the Gold Coast would not understand or appreciate a headstone” as he argued for collective memorials.
A response from Arthur Browne showed “what he may have considered foresight, but one that was explicitly framed by contemporary racial prejudice”, according to the report.
“In perhaps two or three hundred years’ time, when the native population had reached a higher stage of civilisation, they might then be glad to see that headstones had been erected on the native graves and that the native soldiers had received precisely the same treatment as their white comrades,” he said.
In its response to the report, the CWGC says it “acknowledges that the Commission failed to fully carry out its responsibilities at the time and accepts the findings and failings identified in this report and we apologise unreservedly for them”.
In a statement CWGC director general Claire Horton said: “The events of a century ago were wrong then and are wrong now.
“We recognise the wrongs of the past and are deeply sorry and will be acting immediately to correct them.”
Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, said: “No apology can ever make up for the indignity suffered by the unremembered.
“However, this apology does offer the opportunity for us as a nation to work through this ugly part of our history – and properly pay our respects to every soldier who has sacrificed their life for us.”
Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan could not control her excitement after finding out Kim Kardashian was a fan of her’s – and it appears the feeling was very much mutual.
The pair shared a Twitter love-in after the actor revealed the Kardashians were a source of inspiration for her on the set of the hit Netflix period drama.
On Tuesday, Nicola tweeted: “As the world’s number one @bridgerton Stan does @KimKardashian know that the Kardashians were a massive inspiration for the Featheringtons and we talked about them all the time during our fittings? Because I feel like she should know this.”
Netflix/ShutterstockNicola Coughlan as Bridgerton’s Penelope Featherington and Kim Kardashian
And sure enough, it wasn’t long before Nicola’s tweet caught Kim’s attention, and her mind was blown.
“WHAT?!?! I am freaking out!!!!!!” Kim wrote. “This tweet was sent to me on my @bridgerton group chat! Can I please come to a fitting?!?! It would make my whole life!!!!!! I love you Lady W!!!”
As the world’s number one @bridgerton Stan does @KimKardashian know that the Kardashians were a massive inspiration for the Featheringtons and we talked about them all the time during our fittings? Because I feel like she should know this
WHAT?!?! I am freaking out!!!!!! This tweet was sent to me on my @bridgerton group chat! Can I please come to a fitting?!?! It would make my whole life!!!!!! I love you Lady W!!! https://t.co/KVnCi6UZRT
Nicola. whose Bridgerton character Penelope Featherington was revealed to be the mysterious Lady Whistledown, replied: “Omg yesss of course we would love to have you!
“Also did you know that Mr Pearl made your corset for the Met Gala and the very next one he made was mine for Bridgerton? You’ve been part of the Bridgerton world for longer than you know.”
Kim then tweeted: “OMG I’m gonna faint!!!!!! Does this make me an honorary Duchess in Bridgerton ?!?!?!? I am the corset Queen!!!”
Omg yesss of course we would love to have you! Also did you know that Mr Pearl made your corset for the Met Gala and the very next one he made was mine for Bridgerton? You’ve been part of the Bridgerton world for longer than you know!❤️❤️❤️
Nicola then gave her the ultimate honour, tweeting: “Why of course, Duchess Kardashian of Calabasas! Lady Whistledown is happy to declare you the season’s true incomparable.”
“I will wear this title proudly and not let you down Lady Whistledown!” Kim insisted.
Why of course, Duchess Kardashian of Calabasas! Lady Whistledown is happy to declare you the season’s true incomparable 💎
Speaking to her followers, who were living for the exchange as much as she was, Nicola tweeted: “You know I’ve loved Kim for like over a decade, I can’t even deal.”
There’s a real possibility of Kim’s dreams coming true too, as earlier this month, it was confirmed that a third and fourth series of Bridgerton have now been commissioned, on top of a previously-announced second season.
Kirsty O’Connor – PA Images via Getty ImagesVeterans Minister Johnny Mercer
Sacked veterans minister Johnny Mercer has said Westminster politics is a “cesspit” and Boris Johnson’s government “the most distrustful, awful” place he has ever worked.
Mercer left the government on Tuesday expressing frustration at a lack of progress over legislation to protect British soldiers who served in the Troubles.
Ministers have since promised to bring forward legislation to protect from historical prosecutions veterans who served in Northern Ireland, which the Tories promised in their 2019 election manifesto.
But Mercer said “the truth is that nothing has been done” as he said of ministers: “Shooting straight is not one of their finest qualities.”
The former Army officer said he thought Johnson is “deeply committed” to the manifesto promise but said the prime minister “should expect” his ministers to show the same level of responsibility.
Speaking to Times Radio, the former Army officer said: “This is the most distrustful, awful environment I’ve ever worked in, in government.
“Almost nobody tells the truth is what I’ve worked out over the last 36 hours.
“And, you know, so so I don’t think anyone really can get on their high horse about trust and ethics and all the rest of it in politics, because as far as I’m concerned, most of it is a bit of a cesspit, I think we do have a clear commitment to follow through on our promises and do right by those who serve.”
Mercer also accused the government of leaking his plans to resign and then lying about it.
“It’s pretty clear that not everyone tells the truth up here do they.
“I mean, I told people, I was resigning as a courtesy to government.
“Three hours later, it’s in the press.
“And an hour later, there’s someone following me around London with a camera.
“And, of course, they all denied they ever leaked it.
“It’s ridiculous.
The Plymouth Moor View MP said the government was guilty of “gross betrayal of people who signed up to serve in the military” by failing to protect UK soldiers.
“The reality is that for these people, their experiences after having served this nation, 50 years later, they are constantly being dragged over to Northern Ireland, and asked to relive their experiences, it is people are drinking themselves to death. It is breaking up families, it is ruining our finest people,” he said.
“And all they did was serve at the behest of this government at the behest of the House of Commons, to uphold the rule of law on the peace in Northern Ireland.”
Mercer’s replacement Leo Docherty told the Commons on Wednesday: “A bill will soon come forward from the Northern Ireland Office that will protect our Northern Ireland veterans of Operation Banner and address the legacy of the Troubles.”
Johnson also told MPs that the government would be “bringing forward further measures in due course” when challenged by the DUP to protect Northern Ireland veterans from “vexatious” prosecutions.
Downing Street said details of the new legislation would be confirmed in the Queen’s Speech on May 11.
Kirsty O’ConnorPAPeople take part in coronavirus surge testing on Clapham Common, south London.
Surge testing is to begin in parts of Birmingham after a case of the Covid-19 variant first identified in South Africa was confirmed there.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the patient had “self-isolated and their contacts have been identified”.
Health officials added in a statement: “Initial investigations indicate that this case is not linked to a case previously identified in the Birmingham and Sandwell areas.”
The testing will be targeted at households in the city’s Alum Rock, Glebe Farm and Tile Cross areas.
Officially, 600 people in the UK have contracted the South African coronavirus variant according to the government website – but that was based on figures up to April 14.
This is unlikely to be an accurate portrayal of how far the mutation has spread since hundreds of thousands of people have been swabbed during previous rounds of surge testing elsewhere in the country, on top of which it can take days for samples to have genomic sequencing carried out. The process is the only way to detect which variant of coronavirus someone is infected with.
Other areas where cases of the South Africa variant have been found include the London boroughs of Barnet, Harrow, Hillingdon, Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth.
The South Africa strain is classed as a “variant of concern” – the most serious classification issued by Public Health England – because there are fears it may be less susceptible to vaccines and could spread more easily.
The DHSC said everybody aged 16 years and over who is contacted from the new areas would be “strongly encouraged to take a Covid-19 PCR test”, whether or not they are symptomatic.
For anyone testing positive for a key variant, enhanced contact tracing – looking back over an extended period in order to determine the route of transmission – will be used.
Meanwhile, anyone with symptoms is urged to book a free test online or by phone.
And the government is asking people to continue using twice-weekly rapid lateral flow testing alongside any PCR surge testing they do.
Last week surge testing was introduced in the city’s Ladywood, Jewellery Quarter and Soho ward, after a single positive case of the same variant.
Speaking at the time, the city’s public health director Dr Justin Varney said: “Testing is an important part of containing the spread of the virus.
“This new variant from South Africa presents a new risk so it is essential that all adults in the affected areas take up this offer of PCR testing to help us contain the spread quickly and identify any further local cases.
“There is financial and practical support available for those who test positive and have to isolate, and their contacts, and it is vital we all play our part in controlling this new challenge.”
Viruses by their nature mutate often, with more than 18,000 mutations discovered over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, the overwhelming majority of which have no effect on the behaviour of the virus.
Defence minister Johnny Mercer, the Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View, has resigned from the government.
Boris Johnson thanked Mercer for his service as a minister, according to a Downing Street spokeswoman.
In a statement released shortly after 7pm, the spokeswoman said: “This evening the prime minister has accepted the resignation of Johnny Mercer as minister for defence people and veterans.
“He thanks Johnny Mercer for his service as a government minister since 2019.”
In a letter to the PM, posted on his Twitter account, Mercer said: “It is with a heavy heart that I am forced to offer you my resignation from your government.”
He said he had hoped Johnson’s premiership would “signal a step change in veterans affairs in the UK”.
Mercer added: “Whilst we continue to say all the right things, you will understand that if we fail to match that with what we deliver, we risk damaging an already bruised veterans cohort further, as I told you last month in our first face to face meeting, we crossed that line some time ago.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost UK on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Boris Johnson has announced a new taskforce designed to identify tablets people can take at home to help them recover from Covid-19.
The prime minister said on Tuesday it would be modelled on the “success of our vaccination programme”.
Johnson said medicines could be available as early as the autumn, designed to stop the infection spreading and speed up recovery time.
“Our new antivirals taskforce will seek to develop innovative treatments you can take at home to stop Covid-19 in its tracks,” he said.
“These could provide another vital defence against any future increase in infections and save more lives.”
Antiviral drugs are a type of medication used specifically for treating viral infections, and act by killing or preventing the growth of viruses.
The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the taskforce’s aim was to have at least two effective treatments this year, a tablet or a capsule, which people can take following a positive test or exposure to someone with the virus.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said medicines were a “vital weapon” in combating the disease.
“The UK is leading the world in finding and rolling out effective treatments for Covid-19, having identified dexamethasone, which has saved over a million lives worldwide, and tocilizumab,” he said.
“I am committed to boosting the UK’s position as a life science superpower and this new taskforce will help us beat Covid-19 and build back better.”
Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said tablets would be a “key tool”.
“They could help protect those not protected by or ineligible for vaccines. They could also be another layer of defence in the face of new variants of concern,” he said.
“The taskforce will help ensure the most promising antivirals are available for deployment as quickly as possible.”
A chair of the new taskforce has yet to be identified, but a recruitment process will start shortly, DHSC said.
The government has refused to reject the controversial race report, which has been described as “incoherent, divisive and offensive”.
Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said she was “very proud” of the “independent” report and criticised the “appalling abuse” suffered by members of the commission on race and ethnic disparities.
She rejected calls to reject the review from Labour, which described it as a “shoddy, point-scoring polemic which ignores evidence and does not represent the country”.
The shadow equalities minister Marsa De Cordova said the report had been “discredited” by the British Medical Association, public health expert Sir Michael Marmot, trade unions, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and human rights experts at the United Nations.
On Monday, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said the “reprehensible” report attempts to “normalise white supremacy” and could “fuel racism” in the UK.
But Badenoch told the Commons: “I’m very proud of it and of course we will not be withdrawing the report.
The equalities minister also said it was wrong to accuse people who argue for a different approach on how to address racial inequality as being “racism deniers” or “race traitors”.
She added: “The government even more firmly condemns the deeply personal and racialised attacks against the commissioners, which have included death threats.
“And in fact one member from the opposition benches presented commissioners as members of the Ku Klux Klan, an example of the very online racial hatred and abuse on which the report itself recommended more action be taken by government.”
House of Commons – PA Images via Getty ImagesEqualities minister Kemi Badenoch
Badenoch also claimed the report does not deny institutional racism despite a government briefing on the eve of its publication making clear that “the well-meaning ‘idealism’ of many young people who claim the country is still institutionally racist is not borne out by the evidence”.
She told the Commons: “The report does not deny that institutional racism exists in the UK, rather the report did not find conclusive evidence of it in the specific areas it examined.”
De Cordova hit back: “If left unchallenged, this report will undo decades of progress made towards race equality in the UK. Since publication, this report has completely unravelled.
“Its cherry-picking of data is misleading and incoherent, its conclusions are ideologically motivated and divisive, it is absolutely clear to all of us on this side of the House and across civil society that this report has no credibility.”
She added: “It is reprehensible and I hope the minister will reject it today so that we can get on with the task of tackling institutional and structural racism which is the lived experience of many.”
Badenoch said the government would respond formally to the report by the summer.
She and the prime minister have established a new, inter-ministerial group to review the report’s 24 recommendations, which will be chaired by Michael Gove.
