1. Sunak and Truss trade barbs
Rishi Sunak does not plan to cut personal taxes until at least autumn 2023 if he becomes prime minister, The Telegraph reported. The former chancellor claimed his rival Liz Truss was misleading the public by promising immediate cuts, but the foreign secretary said Sunak’s approach risked driving the economy into recession. New polling found that 62% of Tory members backed Truss and 38% favoured Sunak, excluding those who said they did not know.
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss’s voting records examined
2. Aides ‘begged’ Trump to stop riot
Donald Trump watched the Capitol riot on television at the White House, ignoring his children and aides who “begged him” to reprimand the activists, a congressional inquiry has heard. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the Democratic-led committee, said the former president “chose not to act” and did not place a single call to law enforcement or national security staff, due to a “selfish desire to stay in power”. The session had focused on the “187 minutes” between Trump telling his supporters to march to the Capitol, and when he finally told them to “go home”.
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Capitol riot: what was going on in the White House?
3. Oil has ‘bought every politician’
New analysis has found that the oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (£2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, The Guardian reported. Prof Aviel Verbruggen, author of the study, said the $52tn amassed by petrostates and fossil fuel companies since 1970 has allowed the sector to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis. His analysis used the World Bank’s oil rent and gas rent data.
4. MPs ‘want to dance on PM’s grave’
Boris Johnson “faces the embarrassment of fighting an autumn by-election to save his political career” if he is found to have misled the House of Commons, said The Telegraph. The committee exploring whether the PM lied to the Commons over lockdown parties in Downing Street has been told that it only needs to prove that Johnson “misled” the House, rather than that he “deliberately” did so, making it easier to suspend him, leading to a by-election. MPs loyal to Johnson said there was an effort to “bury” the PM and “dance on his grave”.
PMQs: Boris Johnson’s best zingers and worst gaffes
5. Health delays push more to private
Growing NHS waiting lists are pushing people into paying thousands of pounds for private treatment, new data has suggested. There were 69,000 self-funded treatments in the UK in the final three months of last year – a 39% rise on the same period before the Covid-19 crisis. Jonathon Holmes, of the King’s Fund health think tank, said there is a risk of a two-tier system “where some people have to wait too long for care and others feel forced to bust the bank to get the care they need”. There are currently more than 6.6m people waiting for hospital treatment in England.
How much pressure can the NHS take?
6. BBC apologises to former royal nanny
The BBC is paying damages to the ex-nanny of princes William and Harry over false claims made about her to obtain a 1995 interview with Princess Diana. The corporation said it was “extremely sorry for the serious and prolonged harm” caused to Alexandra Pettifer, who is better known as Tiggy Legge-Bourke, and her family following the broadcast. There had been unfounded allegations she had an affair with Prince Charles and an abortion.
7. Cop jailed for Floyd offence
An ex-Minneapolis police officer has been jailed for two-and-a-half years for violating the civil rights of George Floyd. Thomas Lane, one of the officers who tried to arrest Floyd, was sentenced after being found guilty in February of showing “deliberate indifference” to the medical needs of the 46-year-old, whose death in May 2020 led to protests. One of George Floyd’s brothers, Philonise Floyd, told reporters after the sentencing that “this whole criminal system needs to be torn down and rebuilt”.
George Floyd: how the US race protests spread around the world
8. O’Leary calls for immigration rethink
The boss of Ryanair has urged the government to take a more “practical, common sense” approach to post-Brexit policy, to allow more workers from Europe to fill vacancies. Michael O’Leary told BBC Radio 4 that he could hire people from continental Europe for jobs that he cannot fill with British workers, but is unable to get visas for them. The Department for Transport said “it is not obvious that reaching for the lever marked ‘more immigration’ will solve the problem”.
9. Alzheimer’s data may have misled
Billions of pounds may have been wasted because the key theory of what causes Alzheimer’s disease may be based on “manipulated” data which has misdirected research for 16 years, a major investigation suggested. A study by the journal Science found “shockingly blatant” evidence of result tampering in a pivotal research paper that claimed Alzheimer’s is triggered by a build-up of amyloid beta plaques in the brain. Alzheimer’s Research UK said “any allegation of scientific misconduct needs to be investigated and dealt with where appropriate”.
10. Bronson wants public parole hearing
Charles Bronson has become the first prisoner to ask for a public parole hearing after rule changes meant that Parole Board hearings can be opened up to victims and the press. Bronson, who was given a seven-year sentence for armed robbery in 1974, and is now serving a life sentence after he held a visiting teacher hostage at knife point, is “one of the country’s most notorious convicts”, said The Telegraph.
