In yet another unlikely-sounding moment for British politics, Rishi Sunak is reportedly a fan of Jilly Cooper’s erotic romance novel Riders – perhaps the very definition of the 1980s “bonkbuster”.
While a prime minister’s best-loved tome is usually a worthy affair, the current resident of No.10 apparently prefers something a bit more steamy – at least that’s according to the Spectator.
It’s worth noting the Spectator is well-sourced when it comes to Sunak: the magazine’s former political editor is now one of the PM’s closest Downing Street aides (and the best man at his wedding). So it’s not come from nowhere.
Whether Riders is actually one of his favourites, and not an attempt to humanise the geeky one-time tech bro (he has in the past expressed a very specific fondness for Mexican Coca-Cola) is anyone’s guess.
Cooper’s oeuvre captures the drama and excess of Britain’s affluent elite through her Rutshire Chronicles series. They do a lot of horse riding, among other things.
The action is focussed on galloping aristocrat Rupert Campbell-Black – later a Tory minister. Perhaps more famous is the book’s original cover of a female bottom clad in white jodhpurs and a male hand.
“Sex and horses: who could ask for more?,” noted the Sunday Telegraph in 1985, as the novel went on to become a runaway success.
Journalist Ash Sarkar has confronted Tory minister Helen Whately over the government’s controversial migration crackdown – accusing the administration of indulging in a “nastiness Olympics” to please the Daily Mail.
The intervention by Justin Welby sparked criticism of the church leader at Westminster, who was told neither “handwringing or bell ringing” will solve the misery of the channel crossings.
Th immigration reforms aim to ensure those who arrive in the UK without permission will be detained and promptly removed, either to their home country or a third country such as Rwanda. Meanwhile, asylum seekers are being housed in barracks and barges.
On the show, Sarkar said proposed new laws were treating “people who have been raped, people who have been tortured, people who are fleeing persecution” as “criminals”.
Ash Sarkar, “The Conservative government are doing this because they have committed themselves to this nastiness Olympics, because they want a pat on the back from the daily mail. And the human cost of that is obscene.” #BBCQT
The writer went on: “I object so strongly when you use these words like ‘generosity’, to talk about things like having a glorified prison ship or refurbishing a prison just around the corner from here in order to detain people who are fleeing some of the most unimaginable circumstances possible.
“No government does that because they think it’s morally good. No government does that because they think it’s particularly efficient or effective.
“You’re doing it because you’ve committed yourself to this nastiness Olympics because you want a pat on the back from the Daily Mail and the human cost of that is obscene.”
Whately had argued 500,000 migrants coming to the UK since 2015, and people opening their homes to Ukrainians, showed the UK is a “generous country on offering asylum” – but it was “morally wrong” not to crackdown on people smugglers fuelling the problem.
On the same question, broadcaster and clergyman Rev Richard Coles called the illegal migration bill “politically unworkable, legally doubtful and morally indefensible”, adding he supported Welby’s position.
It’s the 12th increase in a row since rates started going up in December 2021, pushing borrowing costs up further, particularly impacting homeowners with a mortgage.
Soaring food prices – and the fact they remain stubbornly high – appears to be the key factor behind the decision.
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But experts are not sure it’s the right policy
Some economists think the Bank could has gone too far since the impact of the repeated rises has yet to pass through to households and businesses.
Take homeowners. Around 85% of all borrowers are tied to fixed-rate mortgages – but the majority are yet to switch to a higher-rate home loan, and could be in for a shock when they do.
One prominent commentator predicted “screeching U-turns are coming” – and the Bank will soon have to cut rates to avoid tipping the UK economy into recession.
So how do interest rates work?
Hiking the base rate increases the cost of borrowing, making both credit and investment more expensive. The idea is to put the brakes on the economy and curb the soaring cost of goods and services – known as inflation.
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Bringing rates down is an attempt to have the opposite effect – stimulate growth by making borrowing cheaper, and in turn, encourage investment.
The Bank is tasked with keeping inflation under control, targeting 2% a year. Inflation hit 10.1% in March, and raising rates is the blunt instrument it has to bring it down.
This is the bind the Bank is in: raise interest rates to combat inflation, but then stall the economy and make people’s lives miserable and make any downturn potentially deeper and longer.
Why are experts calling it out?
Put simply, some economists argue that pushing up rates is having little to no effect on inflation – mainly because the war in Ukraine has been the driving force, chiefly through higher energy costs that are now easing. The same applies to two other factors, namely higher oil prices and economies emerging from a pandemic.
Consumer champion Martin Lewis suggested on Twitter that the Bank was sending signals more than anything else. Lewis wrote: “I’m no economist, but I struggle with the logic behind base rate rises currently. Inflation seems supply-side driven – but rate rises dampen demand. Then again the BoE is charged with bringing down inflation and this is it’s only tool. So it has to do it. Co-ordinated effort with govt would help.”
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I’m no economist, but I struggle with the logic behind base rate rises currently. Inflation seems supply-side driven – but rate rises dampen demand.
Then again the BoE is charged with bringing down inflation and this is it’s only tool. So it has to do it. Co-ordinated effort…
David “Danny” Blanchflower, who sat on the Bank’s monetary policy committee for three years, accused the central bank of “terrible incompetence”.
“The consequences of raising rates are much worse than the cost of inflation”.
Former member of Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, Professor Danny Blanchflower responds to another interest rate rise saying it is “complete incompetence”.https://t.co/0UDPc82y6hpic.twitter.com/y5s6RhgxOo
“This is utter incompetence. The market doesn’t believe them. I don’t believe them.
“I don’t believe a word that they say and it’s going to make things much worse for your listeners.
“Housing market’s going be in trouble. Mortgages are going to go up, housing quantities are going to decline.
“It’s the same utter group-think incompetence in 2008, and the same bank missed the greatest financial crisis since 1929.
“And here they go again. The market doesn’t believe them. I don’t believe them.
“Your listeners shouldn’t believe them. Screeching u-turns are coming and bad economic data is coming.
“This is terrible incompetence and this lot should just quit.”
Others were of a similar mind.
Suren Thiru, economics director at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, said the Bank risked “overdoing” rate rises, which could compound the cost crisis for many.
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He said: “With most of the interest rate rises yet to pass through to households and businesses, the Bank of England risks overdoing the rate hikes, adding to the squeeze on our growth prospects and aggravating the cost-of-living crisis.”
The IPPR think tank argued the Bank should have held off raising interest rates again, warning of a “continued increase in inequality”.
Carsten Jung, senior economist at IPPR, said: “The Bank of England should have held off raising rates.
“The current approach risks creating big economic costs, in the form of lower future growth and fewer jobs, while not actually being effective enough at bringing down inflation.”
What does the Bank say?
The Bank had previously been more optimistic that inflation could fall as low as 1% by the middle of 2024, but it is now predicted to reach about 3.4%, meaning it will fall at a significantly slower rate.
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Andrew Bailey, the Bank’s governor, said there had been a “very big underlying shock” to food prices.
He added: “It appears to be taking longer for food price pressures to work their way through the system this time than we had expected.”
“But, as we said before, we are in very unusual times.”
Robert Jenrick has been called out by Krishnan Guru-Murthy for falsely claiming the United Nations refugee convention dictates that migrants have to seek sanctuary in the first ‘safe’ country they arrive in.
The immigration minister quickly backpedaled and said it was a “key principle” the government supported as the journalist refused to let the politician off the hook.
Jenrick was pulled up on Channel 4 News as he said that those crossing the Channel from France were “essentially asylum shoppers”.
Here’s the exchange (plus clip below):
Robert Jenrick: “If somebody originated from a place of danger, like Afghanistan, the vast majority of those people coming across on small boats are coming from France, and they are choosing to come to the UK for whatever reason.”
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: “As is their right.”
RJ: “They are essentially asylum shoppers.”
KGM: “It is their right to apply for asylum anywhere, they are asylum seekers, not asylum shoppers.”
RJ: “The convention says people should seek asylum in the first safe country.”
KGM: “No, it doesn’t. Where does it say that?”
RJ: “We are prioritising people in a place of danger rather than people who are in a place of safety like France.”
KGM: “That is not true. That is not true. The refugee convention does not say that you must seek sanctuary in the first safe country.”
RJ: “The refugee convention does encourage people to do that.”
KGM: “It does not say you must seek sanctuary in the first safe country, which you just said. That is not true.”
RJ: “That’s a key principle that we support as a government.”
KGM: “OK, but it’s not in the refugee convention.”
RJ: “We don’t think it’s right that if you’re in a safe country like France, that you should be coming to the UK. That’s creating a fundamental unfairness.”
KGM: “That’s the government’s position, it’s not in the refugee convention.”
“They’re not asylum shoppers they’re asylum seekers… That’s not true.”@krishgm challenges immigration minister Robert Jenrick after he claims “asylum shoppers” should seek sanctuary in the first safe country they reach under the “Refugee Convention”. pic.twitter.com/NsDz9DqiO1
Amnesty International has said: “There is no rule requiring refugees to claim in the first safe country in which they arrive.”
The Full Fact site has also said: “The UN refugee convention does not make this requirement of refugees, and UK case law supports this interpretation. Refugees can legitimately make a claim for asylum in the UK after passing through other ‘safe’ countries.”
And a House of Commons briefing paper from February this year states: “The UK government’s position is that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. The UN Refugee Agency says this is not required by the refugee convention or international law.”
In 2021, Tory MP Jonathan Gullis was schooled by an immigration expert after asking why asylum seekers choose to come to the UK in a clip that has gone viral many times since.
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The former minister quizzed Zoe Gardner over the number of refugees seeking to settle in Britain after fleeing their homeland.
“If they really are refugees, why don’t they have to stay in the first safe country they reach?”
But he was told the international asylum system would “crumble” if countries refused to accept immigrants and expected other countries to take them instead.
The pair clashed in 2021 as Gardner appeared before parliament’s nationality and borders bill committee.
In the clip, Gullis, the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, asks Gardner: “If these people out in Calais are legitimate refugees, why are they not claiming asylum in France, Italy, Spain or Greece? Why do they need to come to the United Kingdom?
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Gardner replies: “As I’m sure you’ll be aware … the vast majority of people who seek asylum worldwide, firstly, 86% of refugees and displaced people worldwide, remain in the country neighbouring the one they have fled.
“So, 86% of people remain in developing countries.
“France received three times as many asylum applications as we did last year. People stop as soon as they feel safe.
″But the people who are making their way to England and who specifically wish to the UK, do so because they have ties to this country either because they have served with out military in the case of people from Afghanistan, or have family members, or speak the language because of our colonial history and have other ties of kinship and history here.
″So there are people who have legitimate ties to the UK and there is no good reason why they should particularly have their claims assessed in France if they do not wish to.
“It doesn’t really work for us to say to the French, ‘given that we’re geographically located slightly to the west of you, none of these refugees are our responsibility and they’re all on you’ because France can say the same thing and then Italy can say the same thing, and then the entire international refugee protection system will crumble.”
George Santos, the New York Republican who became the subject of ridicule for the extent to which he lied about his background, appeared in federal court Wednesday to be arraigned on 13 counts after turning himself into authorities earlier in the day.
Santos, 34, was elected in November to represent portions of Long Island and Queens, but in the weeks and months afterward, a number of reports showed he was not exactly the wealthy young businessman he claimed to be. While he admitted in December certain details — that he attended two top colleges and worked at prestigious Wall Street firms — were false, he denied and even defended others while refusing calls to resign.
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Santos entered the Long Island courtroom with a scowl, a New York Times reporter observed.
His lawyer, Joseph Murray, said that Santos plans to continue campaigning for reelection and asked that he be free to travel to do so, according to The Associated Press. He surrendered his passport and was released on a $500,000 bond.
Outside the courthouse, Santos asserted that he had “plenty of evidence” that would supposedly clear his name.
“The reality is, it’s a witch hunt,” Santos told a crowd of reporters angling for a comment. “Because it makes no sense that [after] four months, five months — I’m indicted.”
Federal prosecutors allege that Santos pocketed $25,000 in donations to his campaign beginning in 2022, spending the money on luxury clothes, car payments and his credit cards instead of legitimate things like political ads. In 2020, Santos allegedly received pandemic-related unemployment benefits totaling more than $24,000 from the state of New York while earning a $120,000 salary from a company in Florida.
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Prosecutors also say he lied when filling out financial disclosure forms needed to run for Congress ― both in his unsuccessful 2020 campaign and his successful 2022 campaign. Santos allegedly overstated his income and assets in the 2022 filing to the tune of millions.
The case against him is a product of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section and local agencies.
Authorities at the federal and local level promised to investigate Santos late last year amid public outcry over the new congressman’s apparent penchant for spinning yarns.
The list of Santos’ claims has become unwieldily and, in many instances, bizarre. He has said that he is Jewish (later amended to “Jew-ish”), that his mother was in the twin towers on 9/11, that several of his employees died in the mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, and that he survived a brain tumor — among many other tales.
A former roommate, Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha, alleged in a sworn statement earlier this year that Santos was the ringleader of a credit card scheme in 2017 that led to Trelha serving jail time before being deported back to Brazil. (Santos denies the accusation.) The scheme is not mentioned in the federal indictment, but Politico reported in March that the case remains open.
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In yet another instance of alleged fraud, Santos reportedly agreed to a deal with Brazilian prosecutors who say he wrote fraudulent checks in 2008. Part of the deal included a formal admission that Santos did the crime and would pay damages to the elderly man whose checkbook was taken, according to CNN.
In the US, however, Santos has denied that he is lawbreaker.
“I am not a criminal here — not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world. Absolutely not. That didn’t happen,” he told The New York Post in December.
A government minister has been accused of relying on “imaginary things” while defending the heavily-criticised policing of the coronation.
Neil O’Brien was questioned by Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4 News after an outcry over the arrest of anti-monarchy campaigners and women’s safety volunteers during the pageantry to mark King Charles officially ascending to the throne. All have been released without charge.
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Facing a backlash over its heavy-handed approach, Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley has insisted police had “serious and reliable intelligence” that protesters planned to disrupt the coronation.
He said that suspects were found with bottles of white paint and that there was intelligence to suggest that some may use rape alarms or loud hailers during the coronation procession.
There were concerns among military personnel that loud noises could unsettle horses and cause multiple injuries, he said.
On Channel 4 News, O’Brien said: “On the one hand, obviously, sometimes the police get it wrong and there will be mistakes and it’s right that they apologise when that happens.
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“On the other hand, they did bring off this fantastic national event, in a very smooth way and they were right, I think, to intervene where there are people who want to come and do dangerous things like setting off rape alarms, potentially deliberately startling horses and potentially all kinds of things could happen.”
Guru-Murthy tried to intervene by saying: “But they weren’t … you’re talking about imaginary things.”
O’Brien: “You say this an imaginary thing … if they had been allowed to cause all kinds of chaos, and there’d been all sorts of disruption …”
Guru-Murthy: “You’re imagining something that didn’t happen …”
O’Brien: “You’d then be saying the police should have intervened earlier.”
“Police were right to intervene.”
When questioned about the controversial arrests during the King’s coronation, Health Minister Neil O’Brien MP, defends the laws restricting protests.@krishgm reports. pic.twitter.com/Z2uMjiJg1i
Six campaigners for the group Republic, which had liaised with the Met to organise a coronation day protest in Trafalgar Square, were arrested early on Saturday on suspicion of going equipped to lock-on. They were released 16 hours later.
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Volunteers for charity Night Star, that hands out rape alarms to women on their way home from nights out, were arrested in the early hours of Saturday in Soho in central London.
In the Commons, Home Office minister Chris Philp, referred to “more than one plot to cause severe disruption by placing activated rape alarms in the path of horses to induce a stampede, and a separate plot to douse participants in the procession with paint”.
In total 64 people were arrested over the weekend, 52 over concerns that the coronation may be disrupted.
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday reacted to the verdict in a rape trial brought by the writer E Jean Carroll ― telling his Truth Social followers: “THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE.”
“I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS,” Trump subsequently posted. “THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
Carroll was able to sue under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which allows sexual abuse survivors a one-time chance to file civil suits in spite of any relevant statutes of limitations.
Trump refused to testify at the trial, then falsely claimed he was “not allowed to speak or defend” himself, and described his own decision not to speak as “unconstitutional silencing”.
A Manhattan jury sided with advice columnist E Jean Carroll in her civil lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, whom she says raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
The panel reached its decision Tuesday after less than three hours of deliberation, finding him liable for sexual abuse — but not rape — and ordering him to pay a total of $5 million in various damages, CNN reported.
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Trump never appeared in court once.
Carroll beamed and squeezed the hand of one of her attorneys, Roberta Kaplan, as she exited the courthouse.
“We’re very happy,” she told a crowd of reporters, declining to comment further.
Trump, meanwhile, reacted angrily on social media, calling the verdict “A DISGRACE” and “A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
Carroll was able to sue for battery under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, passed last year to allow people who were sexually abused a one-time chance to file civil suits despite any relevant statutes of limitations.
She also accused Trump of defamation, as the former president has repeatedly responded to her claims with an array of personal insults. Trump has said Carroll was a liar and called her claim a “hoax,” which could not be true because Carroll was not his “type”. He also suggested she was too old at the time of the alleged incident to compel his sexual interest, although they would have been nearly the same age.
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Carroll sought unspecified punitive and compensatory damages from the court.
Over several days’ worth of testimony before the panel of jurors and US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, the former Elle magazine columnist recounted the chance encounter with Trump in either late 1995 or early 1996. (She said that despite wishing she could pin down a more precise date, she could not.) She bumped into Trump while leaving Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman luxury department store, she said.
In this courtroom sketch, in Federal Court, in New York, Thursday, April 27, 2023, E Jean Carroll, center, testifies on the witness stand as a photo of her and Donald Trump, along with his wife Ivana and Carroll’s former husband, is shown on a screen. The photo was taken prior to the alleged assault. The jury is in the foreground.
AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams
“Hey, you’re that advice, lady!” Trump allegedly told her.
“Hey, you’re that real estate tycoon!” she said that she responded.
Carroll said that Trump asked for her help in picking out a gift for a female friend and that she agreed because it sounded fun. But their friendly banter throughout the store gave way to Trump’s alleged attack
In the lingerie section, Carroll said Trump told her to try on a lace bodysuit, and she replied by joking that he should try it on. Trump then allegedly trapped her in a dressing room, using his body weight to prevent her from escaping.
“The first push, I thought, ‘He couldn’t have meant that.’ I thought he had made a mistake. I thought it was very strange,” Carroll testified, per CNN.
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E Jean Carroll, seen here in an April 26 sketch, occasionally spoke through tears during her testimony about the alleged rape.
Elizabeth Williams via Associated Press
“We had just been laughing 12, 15 seconds before, and here I am being pushed up against the wall. It just didn’t make any sense,” she said. “Then he put his mouth against mine, and then I understood.”
She said that she struggled.
“But he had pulled down my tights, and his fingers went into my vagina, and it was extremely painful,” Carroll testified, per Politico. “Extremely painful because he put his hand inside me and curved his fingers. As I’m sitting here today, I can still feel it.”
“Then he inserted his penis,” Carroll said in court. She added that she had “so much adrenaline” running through her at the time that she was not sure whether she spoke but was able to run away after a few minutes.
Carroll testified that she has not had sex since.
She confided in two friends, she said and chose not to tell anyone else until going public with her story in 2019.
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In her lawsuit, lawyers for Carroll said she “resented the fact that practically every woman who courageously came forward with their stories of abuse was subjected to questions like ‘why didn’t you scream.’”
In one of the more tense parts of the trial, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina asked precisely that.
Joe Tacopina, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, arrives at court on April 27.
Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images
“One of the reasons women don’t come forward is because they’re always asked, ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ Some women scream; some women don’t. It keeps women silent,” Carroll added, according to The Washington Post.
She then raised her voice to add: “He raped me whether I screamed or not!”
Tacopina’s lines of questioning were often met with resistance by Kaplan, who told him he was being “argumentative” and “repetitive,” The New York Times reported.
But he still used his time questioning Carroll to cast doubt on her story, pointing to the lack of a concrete timeframe and any police report. Tacopina also suggested it would have been very strange for Carroll not to have encountered any Bergdorf Goodman employees.
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Carroll said that one of the main contributing factors to her decision to go public was the Harvey Weinstein scandal in the fall of 2017. She had been reluctant to speak up during the 2016 election because her mother was in poor health, and she saw how Trump’s supporters rallied around him when other women alleged abuse. However, she eventually came forward after her mother died and after she saw how the MeToo movement galvanized support for people who endured sexual harassment and assault.
Keir Starmer has declared that “the NHS trumps woke” as he slammed the Tories for focusing on culture wars rather than public services.
The Labour leader will on Tuesday address his shadow cabinet for the first time since last week’s local elections, in which they gained more than 500 councillors and take control of 22 more local authorities.
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At the same time, the Tories lost more than 1,000 seats and 48 councils on a disastrous night for Rishi Sunak.
However, polling experts said that if the results were replicated across the country at a general election, Labour would fall short of winning an overall majority.
Starmer will tell his frontbench colleagues that while the party has “started to earn back voters’ trust” after Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, it still has more to do to convince the public that it deserves to be in government.
He will say: “The local elections showed that the country was desperate for change.
“The fact that Labour won in all parts of the country was a sign of the strides we have made. People who turned away from us during the Corbyn years and the Brexit years are coming back.
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“But there is understandably a lot of scepticism about politics out there and now we need to go from reassurance to hope. We need to show that we will be a big reforming government bringing hope of a better life for working people.”
Starmer believes the Tories made a strategic blunder in believing that so-called “woke” issues like the trans debate were more important to voters than the cost of living crisis and the state of the NHS.
He will say: “Labour’s plan to rebuild the NHS will be at the heart of our offer to the British people. The Tories are doing too little, too late to repair the damage they have done to the NHS.
“The NHS trumps ‘woke’ every day of the week.”
His comments echo the views of many Tories, who have criticised the “non-existent” campaign by the party’s HQ.
One told HuffPost UK: “Nobody cares about all of the culture war stuff – what they really want is the potholes to be fixed.”
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One local Conservative association chair also wrote to colleagues saying the local election results were “not a reflection on us, it was part of the national picture”.
The Metropolitan Police Service has faced criticism after more than 50 people were arrested for alleged affray, public nuisance and breach-of-the-peace offences.
The arrests were described by human rights organisations as a “dangerous precedent” for a democratic nation.
In a statement following his release, Smith said: “Yesterday, as we prepared for a peaceful and lawful protest, a number of Republic’s team were arrested and detained for the rest of the day.
“These arrests are a direct attack on our democracy and the fundamental rights of every person in the country.
A policeman is seen carrying a banner taken away from protesters during an Anti-monarchist protest during King Charles III’s Coronation.
SOPA Images via Getty Images
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“Each and every police officer involved on the ground should hang their heads in shame. They showed no judgement, no common sense and no basic decency.
“This was a heavy handed action which had the appearance of a pre-determined arrest that would have occurred regardless of the evidence or our actions.
“The right to protest peacefully in the UK no longer exists. Instead we have a freedom to protest that is contingent on political decisions made by ministers and senior police officers.”
Smith said the arrests had “destroyed” whatever trust might have existed between peaceful protesters and the Met Police.
He questioned what was the point in the protesters being “open and candid with the police, working with their liaison officers and meeting senior commanders” if this is what happens.
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A protester holds a placard which states ‘This country is ours’ during the demonstration.
SOPA Images via Getty Images
The campaigner insisted they would not be deterred from further protest, adding: “We will continue to protest with one simple message: Charles is not our king, it is time to abolish the monarchy.”
However, culture secretary Lucy Frazer insisted the police got the “balance right” and denied that officers had gone too far.
She told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge: “I think, overall, they managed to get that balance right.”
Home secretary Suella Braverman also praised the police for their actions, tweeting: “I’m incredibly grateful to the police for all their hard work at today’s coronation celebration to ensure it was safe and passed without incident.”
Met Police commander Karen Findlay acknowledged concerns about the arrest of protesters but defended Scotland Yard’s actions, saying: “Our duty is to do so in a proportionate manner”.
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Protestors from the group Republic gather in their hundreds in Trafalgar square to say ‘Not My King’ in central London.
Andrew Aitchison via Getty Images
She said: “We absolutely understand public concern following the arrests we made [on Saturday morning].
“Protest is lawful and it can be disruptive. We have policed numerous protests without intervention in the build-up to the coronation, and during it.
“Our duty is to do so in a proportionate manner in line with relevant legislation. We also have a duty to intervene when protest becomes criminal and may cause serious disruption.
“This depends on the context. The coronation is a once in a generation event and that is a key consideration in our assessment.
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“A protest involving large numbers has gone ahead today with police knowledge and no intervention.”
The Met said it received information that protesters were “determined to disrupt” the coronation – including defacing public monuments with paint, breaching barriers and disrupting official movements.
They confirmed 52 people were arrested for affray, public order offences, breach of the peace and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance around the coronation.
Under the controversial new Public Order Act, protesters who have an object with the intention of using it to “lock on” are liable to a fine, with those who block roads facing 12 months in prison.
