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Guardian confirms Richard Seymour does not work for them after hate post

The Guardian newspaper has confirmed that Richard Seymour does not work them after he posted a hate comment on Falkland’s veteran Simon Weston. The Guardian has though confirmed that Seymour was a regular author on its web-site with a profile at:

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/richard-seymour

Simon Weston suffered serious injuries whilst on active duty on HMS Sir Galahad when the Argentines attacks it. His injuries included severe burns to his face.

Richard Seymour wrote in a comment:

“If he knew anything he’d still have his face”.

Seymour refused to apologise on his comment which appeared on an article written by Simon Weston in the Daily Telegraph.

 

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David Cameron announces 18 new free schools

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The Government has today announced that 18 new free schools will be set up which represents 9,000 new school places. The Government is on track to open 500 new free schools by the 2020 General Election.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said:

“As a ‘one nation’ government we are clear that every family should have access to a great local school and every child should get the very best education – and free schools are a crucial part of that aim. The aim of this policy is crystal clear – to increase the number of good and outstanding school places so that more parents have the security of knowing their child is getting a great education.

Today’s announcement shows that we will not waver in pressing ahead with our plans to open 500 more of these innovative and exciting schools over the next 5 years, creating 270,000 places, delivering an excellent education and giving parents across the country real choice for their children”.

The Labour Party pledged in their 2015 General Election manifesto that existing free schools wouldn’t be closed but that no new free schools would be introduced where there was already a surplus of available spaces.

Also commenting on the new free schools, Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, said:

“The free schools programme has sent out the message loud and clear, that parents should never have to settle for anything less than the best for their child. Right across the country, these innovative, community led schools are helping to fulfil our ‘one nation’ commitment to educational excellence for every child.

We know that free schools don’t just give parents greater choice, they also force existing schools to up their game. Today’s news sends a clear message that we are committed to extending this unprecedented level of choice to more parents than ever before”.

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David Cameron claims the Conservative Party is the true party of working people

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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has written in an article for The Times newspaper today that it is the Conservatives who are the true party of working people.

He wrote:

“Our autumn agenda is about keeping our foot to the floor on the recovery. If we do that, we can turn a low-pay, high-tax, high-welfare society into one which higher pay, lower taxes and less reliance on welfare – restoring the link between hard work and reward”.

He also commented on the Labour leadership election, writing:

“Look at today’s Labour leadership candidates. All of them are in a race to the left, vowing to borrow, tax and spend more – all the things that failed in the last century and were rejected at the last election. Listening to some of the anti-NATO, anti-American, profoundly anti-business and anti-enterprise debates is like Groundhog Day. Labour aren’t learning. They’re slaves to a failed dogma that has always left working people paying the price”.

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Government announces new measures to ensure fair pay

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The Government has announced a series of measures to ensure that employees receive the legal minimum for the work that they do.

The measures being introduced include:

– doubling the penalties for non-payment of the National Minimum Wage and the new National Living Wage
– increasing the enforcement budget
– setting up a new team in HMRC to take forward criminal prosecutions for those who deliberately do not comply
ensuring that anyone found guilty will be considered for disqualification from being a company director for up to 15 years.

Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, said:

“There is no excuse for employers flouting minimum wage rules and these announcements will ensure those who do try and cheat staff out of pay will feel the full force of the law. This one nation government is committed to making work pay and making sure hardworking people get the salary they are entitled to”.

The current national minimum wage is £6.50 an hour for over 21s, £5.13 for those aged between 18 and 20, £3.79 for those aged between 16 and 18 and an apprentice wage of £2.73 an hour.

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UK population to overtake German population by 2047

Figures released by Eurostat, who produce economic figures and data for the European Union, have suggested that the British population is set to overtake that of Germany by 2047.

The figures also suggest that on current trends the UK population will increase to 85.1 million by 2080 when the entire European Union population is expected to increase to 520 million. The increase in UK population is expected to mainly come from immigration and add to fears about the pressure on the infra-structure.

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Boris Johnson calls for intervention in Syria

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Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has said that intervention in Syria is necessary to tackle the issue of asylum seekers fleeing the country.

Referring to the destruction of the Palmyra temple complex Johnson wrote for the Daily Telegraph:

“It has survived every conqueror and every invasion in a region famed for the brutality of its invaders. No one has been so moronic and vile as to destroy an object that so adorned our collective civilisation – no one until Daesh, or Isil, or whatever we want to call them. People feel instinctively that these buildings stand for something remarkable – the willingness of one civilisation to learn from another, to adopt architectural styles, to blend, to merge – to enjoy and accept and build on the legacy of the past. This annihilated temple was consecrated to Baal – the god of the Phoenicians – but it was respected by Greeks, by Romans, by Jews, and by Arabs of all denominations”.

He added:

“I perfectly accept that intervention has not often worked. It has been a disaster in Iraq; it has been a disaster in Libya. But can you honestly say that non-intervention in Syria has been a success? If we keep doing nothing about the nightmare in Syria, then frankly we must brace ourselves for an eternity of refugees, more people suffocating in airless cattle trucks at European motorway service stations, more people trying to climb the barbed wire that we are building around the European Union”.

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Tony Blair launches another attack on Jeremy Corbyn

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Tony Blair, the Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, has written a third article urging Labour Party members not to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest.

In an article written for the Observer the former Prime Minister. In the article he wrote that Corbyn’s politics were “Alice in Wonderland” and added:

“People like me have a lot of thinking to do. We don’t yet properly understand this. It is about to transform a political institution we spent our whole lives defending. But it is part of something much bigger in politics.

Because it is a vast wave of feeling against the unfairness of globalisation, against elites, against the humdrum navigation of decision-making in an imperfect world, it persuades itself that it has a monopoly on authenticity. They’re “telling it like it is”, when, of course, they’re telling it like it isn’t”.

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Foreign Office confirms that Spain fired live shots in Gibraltar

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The Foreign Office has said in a statement that Spain has issued an explanation of an incident on 22 August 2015.

“We remain deeply concerned at the fact that live shots are now confirmed to have been fired during this incident and we have been reassured by the Spanish Government that safety of lives at sea is a top priority for all concerned and their law enforcement agencies will operate with the utmost respect for this principle in order that this is fully upheld in the future.

Without prejudice to our respective positions on questions of sovereignty and jurisdiction, it has been agreed to step up law enforcement cooperation in the fight against organised crime, including through timely co-operation and notification by the various seaborne agencies of pursuits of vessels involved in illegal activities to ensure effective action against criminals and a commitment to a mutual provision and exchange of evidence in order to better facilitate the successful prosecution of criminals in the relevant courts and tribunals”.

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Teresa Gorman, the former Conservative MP, has died at the age of 83

Teresa Gorman, the former Conservative MP for Billericay from 1987 until 2001, has died at the age of 83.

Gorman first stood for Parliament for the seat of Streatham in the October 1974 General Election. She was unsuccessful but became a Conservative councillor for Westminster City Council from 1982 until 1986. She was then selected for the constituency of Billericay which she won in 1987 with a majority of 17,986.

Gorman was suspended from the Conservative Party in 1994 for failing to support the Government. In his auto-biography John Major wrote of Teresa Gorman:

“Warm, volatile, sharp-witted and attention seeking, Teresa was unusual among the Euro-sceptics for not taking herself entirely seriously. She would have liked to have been a minister, and was open about it – but she was too much of a maverick”.

Major added:

“The trouble was that, like many sceptics, she did not realise that the public was less concerned about Europe than she was, and that the constant impression of division damaged us hugely”.

Gorman retained the constituency until she retired in 2001 although she won by just 1,356 votes in 1997 after her share of the vote by 17.9%. In recent years she defected to UKIP and supported them at the 2015 General Election.

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Foreign Office expresses concern over Egyptian sentencing of journalists

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The Government has expressed its concern following the sentencing of three Al-Jazeera journalists in Egypt. The journalists were sentenced to three years in prison for not having the appropriate permissions although it had previously been hoped that the sentences would be commuted.

Tobias Ellwood, the Minister for Middle East and North Africa at the Foreign Office, said:

“I am deeply concerned by the sentences handed down today against journalists in Egypt. These sentences will undermine confidence in Egypt’s progress towards strong long term stability based on implementing the rights granted by the Egyptian constitution. We have repeatedly raised this case and the restrictions on freedom of expression in Egypt with ministers and senior officials. We note that the case can be appealed, and will monitor future developments closely. It is vital that the Egyptian authorities take urgent action to resolve the position of the two British nationals in this case”.

Amnesty International issued a statement saying that the sentences were “an affront to justice that sound the death knell for freedom of expression in Egypt”.