22/05/2025 05:55
The Guardian
In today’s newsletter: After weeks of denial, Keir Starmer has announced plans to widen eligibility, but with criticism from both opponents and Labour MPs, the government’s handling of cost-of-living policies faces renewed scrutinyGood morning. Earlier this month, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot reported that the government was rethinking arguably the most unpopular policy introduced by Labour since the election: the cut to winter fuel payments for pensioners. Nonsense, No 10 sources insisted in the following days: “There isn’t a review and I’d be amazed if we changed anything.”No 10 sources are now, presumably, amazed, because yesterday Keir Starmer announced exactly what had been so strenuously denied: a plan to loosen eligibility requirements so that more pensioners qualify, to be introduced at the autumn budget.US news | A suspect is in custody after shooting dead two Israeli embassy staff, said to be a couple about to become engaged, outside a Jewish museum in Washington. The suspect yelled “Free, free Palestine” after he was arrested, police said.Prisons and probation | Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood is considering mandatory chemical castration for the most serious sex offenders, according to government sources. The option is part of a package of “radical” measures to ease prison overcrowding included in an independent sentencing review.Trump administration | Donald Trump ambushed the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, by playing him a video that he falsely claimed proved genocide was being committed against white people under “the opposite of apartheid”. The stunt set up the most tense Oval Office encounter since Trump’s encounter with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February.West Bank | Israeli troops fired “warning shots” towards a group of 25 diplomats visiting Jenin in the Israel-occupied West Bank on Wednesday. The delegation included representatives from Italy, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, the UK, China and Russia.UK politics | Reform UK has pledged to remove all low-traffic neighbourhoods from the council areas it controls – but all 10 local authorities say they do not actually have any in place. Continue reading...
Continua a leggere su "The Guardian"