Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Thursday 4 Jan 2018

1. Blair denies telling Trump he was being spied on

A new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, claims that Tony Blair met Donald Trump’s son-in-law in February 2016 and warned him that the US president was spied on by British intelligence during his election campaign, according to The Times. A spokesman for the former PM says the claims are a “complete fabrication”.

2. Freezing temperatures as Storm Eleanor abates

The worst of Storm Eleanor has passed, forecasters say, but Britain can expect freezing temperatures over the weekend. On Saturday night, the mercury may drop as low as -3C in the south of England, and -10C in parts of Scotland. The Environment Agency says that there is still a risk of flooding in coastal areas.

3. Gove to tell farmers: ‘Go green for subsidies’

Environment Secretary Michael Gove will today tell the Oxford Farming Conference that EU farm subsidies, which essentially reward land ownership, will be replaced in 2024, following Brexit, with a system that rewards “environmental enhancement”. That will include planting woodlands, improving water quality, and “returning cultivated land to wildflower meadows or other more natural states”.

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4. Menstruating detainees ‘ignored by police’

Police routinely ignore the needs of menstruating women locked in their cells, according to the Independent Custody Visiting Association (IVCA). The watchdog is warning that the treatment female detainees receive could be a breach of human rights and equality laws. Women may not get sanitary products and may not be able to speak to a female officer to request help.

5. Seaplane wreckage raised after Sydney crash

The authorities in Australia have raised part of the wreckage of a small seaplane that crashed north of Sydney on New Year’s Eve, killing British businessman Richard Cousins, his family and the pilot. Australian newspapers claim the downed plane was involved in a fatal accident in 1996, before being repaired and put back into service.

6. Google accused of paying women teachers less

Google, already accused of systematically paying women less than men in engineering jobs, is alleged to have underpaid women teachers. A former pre-school teacher at the tech giant’s California headquarters creche, Heidi Lamar, has joined a class action suit. She says two male teachers were paid more than their female counterparts.

7. Living wage ‘may lead to more automation’

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is warning today that the rapid increase in the living wage, which is set to top £8.50 per hour by 2020, could mean more jobs are automated, with workers replaced by robots. However, the Institute said it did not know how high the living wage could climb before this negative effect was felt.

8. Social attitudes study finds Tories ‘a breed apart’

The largest poll of political party members’ opinions yet carried out in the UK has found that Tories are “a breed apart”. Conservative party members showed much stronger tendencies towards socially illiberal and authoritarian attitudes, says The Guardian. Only 41% backed gay marriage, compared with more than 80% of Labour, Lib Dems and SNP members.

9. South Korea calls North – which doesn’t pick up

South and North Korea reopened a cross-border hotline yesterday, after two years of silence. When the South placed the first call, however, there was no response. It soon emerged that this was down to North Korea having adopted a different time zone – half an hour earlier than the South – in August 2015, so its operators had not started work yet.

10. Briefing: how to fix a ‘third world’ NHS service

On the eve of its 70th birthday, the NHS is creaking under the most intense strain it has faced in decades - crippled by underfunding, staff shortages and a cold-weather influx of patients with flu and breathing problems.

An A&E doctor went so far as to apologise for the “third world conditions” in his overcrowded unit, while up to 55,000 non-urgent NHS operations may be postponed to offset the winter crisis.

How to fix a ‘third world’ NHS service