WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
Civil service cuts, Assad's tomb burned, and Santa branded a 'foreign agent'

 
today's politics story

Ministers to cut 10,000 civil service jobs

What happened
Ministers are planning to axe more than 10,000 civil servants under plans to find savings of 5% across all departments, according to government figures.

Who said what
Ministers recognise that the civil service head count, which topped 513,000 this year, has "gone up and up, and in reality that is not going to be able to continue", an unnamed source told the BBC.

On Monday Chancellor Rachel Reeves launched a spending review that will force cuts ahead of the 2029 general election. Ministers will now face "tough choices" over how to allocate money to stay within the budgets set by the Treasury, said the BBC.

Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect trade union, criticised the mooted cuts and said the government needed a "clear plan" for the future of the civil service that "goes beyond the blunt head count targets that have failed in the past". Union leaders "look forward to deeper engagement with the government in the coming months", added Clancy.

Many civil servants "breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the back of the Conservatives in July", said Rowena Mason in The Guardian. But the message from the new Labour government "appears to be more challenging to the civil service than many had expected".

What next?
There is reportedly no talk of compulsory redundancies at present. One potential solution is to adopt technology to help bring head counts down, including greater use of AI, Whitehall figures told the Financial Times. Labour has also vowed to halve state spending on external consultants.

 
 
today's international story

Syrian rebels burn coffin of Assad's father

What happened
Syrian rebels have set fire to the tomb of the country's late president Hafez al-Assad in the family's home town. Videos showed armed men dancing around the burning mausoleum while holding up a Syrian flag. Assad ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000 when his son Bashar succeeded him.

Who said what
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that ended the Assad dynasty's 54-year rule, vowed to track down members of the old regime, saying: "We will pursue them in Syria, and we ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice."

The world is now "waiting to see if the rebels can stabilise the country and avoid unleashing violent revenge after a 13-year civil war fought along sectarian and ethnic lines destroyed the country", said the Evening Standard.

What next?
Jolani has previously tried to calm tensions in the country, pledging tolerance for different religious groups and communities. UN envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen has said the rebels must now transform their "good messages" into practice on the ground.

 
 
Today's crime story

Father and stepmother guilty of Sara Sharif's murder

What happened
Urfan Sharif, 43 and Beinash Batool, 30, the father and stepmother of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, have been found guilty of her murder. Sara died on 8 August last year at her home in Woking, Surrey and her body was found with dozens of injuries two days later.

Who said what
Speaking outside court, Surrey Police said Sara suffered "brutal abuse" and "unspeakable violence" at the hands of Sharif and Batool. The Children's Commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, said Sara's death highlighted the "profound weaknesses in the child protection system" that "we have failed time and time again to correct".

What next?
The judge Justice Cavanagh adjourned sentencing until next Tuesday, telling jurors the case had been "extremely stressful and traumatic".

"It is inevitable" that Sharif and Batool "will be given life sentences", but it will be up to the judge to decide how long the minimum term will be, said the BBC's Daniel Sandford.

 
 

It's not all bad

A mathematician is thought to have solved the 57-year-old "sofa problem", determining the largest sofa shape that can navigate a one-unit-wide corner. Jineon Baek of Yonsei University proved the optimal solution had a maximum area of 2.2195 units, "narrowing the answer down with precision" from the previously known range of between 2.2195 and 2.37 units, said Live Science. Baek’s 100-page document of proof now awaits peer review. The sofa problem, posed in 1966 by mathematician Joseph Gerver, combines area maximisation with movement and has challenged mathematicians for decades – possibly until now.

 
 
under the radar

The influencer court case shaking up social media

An influencer has filed a US lawsuit claiming that a rival social media star has been copying her neutral "vibe".

Sydney Nicole Gifford and Alyssa Sheil are fighting a vicious battle of the beige, and other influencers are "watching closely", said The Independent, because their own incomes are also "tied up with the image they 'sell' online".

Gifford, 24, who has 900,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram, met Sheil, 21 (with 440,00 followers on the same two channels), in Austin, Texas in 2022 and they agreed to team up – or "collab" – on some content, said the Daily Mail. But early last year, after a dispute over a photo shoot, Sheil blocked Gifford, and then Gifford's followers began to tell her that Sheil's content looked the same as hers.

In a legal complaint filed this year, Gifford accused Sheil of duplicating her "neutral, beige and cream aesthetics", and mimicking everything from her Amazon product recommendations to her poses, outfits, tattoos "and even her manner of speaking", said The Independent.

Similar cases have had "surprising outcomes" in the past, according to The New York Times, with courts ruling different ways on different disputes. There doesn't seem to be a test for copyright infringement that is "mathematically precise in any way", said Professor Jeanne Fromer of the NYU School of Law. 

Of course the case may not even make it to court, but it still poses an important question for the influencer industry, added The Independent: "What happens when another photogenic, algorithm-friendly aesthetic comes along" and, "when it does, who will own" the vibe?

 
 
on this day

12 December 2019

The UK General Election was won by Boris Johnson's Conservative Party in a landslide victory, securing an 80-seat majority. This week Johnson told the Rosebud podcast that he thought he was a bit "spectrum-y". Asked whether he was a "feeling" person, Johnson said: "I'd love to think so. Sometimes. I think sometimes I can be a bit spectrum-y, probably."

 
 
Today's newspapers

"Little" Sara Sharif was "let down by everyone supposed to protect her" says the Daily Mail after the conviction of her father and stepmother for her murder. The i Paper says the case has highlighted "profound weaknesses in our system". Meanwhile, says the FT, Qatar's $500bn sovereign wealth fund is preparing to invest "aggressively" overseas ahead of a "petrodollar windfall" that could double its size.

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

The 'foreign agent' Claus

Russia is taking its fight against Western cultural values straight to the very top – the North Pole – with a prominent pro-Kremlin activist calling on authorities to designate Santa Claus as a "foreign agent". Vitaly Borodin, the leader of the Federal Project on Security and Combating Corruption, has sent a letter to Russia's prosecutor general saying Santa's "popularity in 'unfriendly' countries" jeopardises Father Frost, the cultural figure central to Russia’s New Year’s celebrations. There has been no response yet from The Kremlin as to whether Father Frost vs Santa Claus is the beginning of a new cold war.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Jamie Timson and Chas Newkey-Burden, with illustrations by Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Track5 / Getty Images; Aaref Watad / AFP / Getty Images; Surrey Police handout.