Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 14 November 2022

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1. Braverman to sign France deal
2. Councils setting up ‘warm rooms’
3. NHS is ‘on the brink’
4. ‘War crimes’ in Kherson
5. Arrest after Turkey bombing
6. Republican recriminations underway
7. Sacked minister set to be cleared
8. Retired judges to tackle backlog
9. Ashley to buy Gieves & Hawkes
10. Bezos hands gong to Parton

published 14 November 2022

1. Braverman to sign France deal

The Home Secretary is to travel to Paris to sign an updated deal to try to stop people crossing the English Channel in small boats. Under the expanded agreement, the number of officers patrolling the French coast to try to stop people setting off will rise from 200 to 300 and the amount the UK pays France to cover the cost of increased patrols at their end will go up from about £55m a year to £63m. It will also encourage France to “increase the number of migrants who are prevented from leaving”, said the Financial Times.

More than half of councils in England and Wales are setting up thousands of so-called “warm rooms” so people can shelter from the cold if they cannot afford to switch on the heating during the winter. Some 194 local authorities are “directly involved in or are supporting local groups to open up warm spaces”, said the i paper. One, in Ipswich, is offering hot showers for £1 if people can’t run hot water at home. Dan Paskins, director of UK impact at Save the Children UK, said: “We are extremely worried about the circumstances the country’s poorest children.”

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Jeremy Hunt has admitted that the NHS is on the brink of collapse. The chancellor was told by Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge that “frankly this doesn't look like a health service that can find efficiency savings - this looks like a health service that is on the brink of collapse”. Hunt, a former health secretary, said: “There are massive pressures in the NHS. Obviously it’s something I know very well from previous jobs I’ve done, and I think that doctors, nurses on the frontline are frankly under unbearable pressure, so I do recognise the picture you say.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that investigators have uncovered more than 400 war crimes in areas of Kherson abandoned by Russian forces as they retreated. The Ukrainian President said the bodies of civilians and soldiers had been found. “The Russian army left behind the same atrocities as in other regions of our country,” he said in a nightly address. However, said the Moscow Times, Russia “has denied abusing civilians or attacking civilians since launching the full-scale offensive in February”.

A suspect has been arrested after at least six people were killed and 81 wounded in an explosion in a busy area of central Istanbul. The blast happened yesterday afternoon on a shopping street in the Taksim Square area. “Relevant authorities have launched an investigation to find the culprits and those behind this dastardly attack,” said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “The public should know that the perpetrators of this attack will be punished in the way they deserve.”

Recriminations have broken out in the Republican Party after Democrats held the US Senate in midterm elections. Critics of former President Donald Trump pointed the finger of blame at him, with Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan saying: “This is the third election in a row that Trump has cost us the result.” However, the former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News that “the Republican brand, set by Mitch McConnell” is “not exciting, is not persuasive, is not convincing to voters”.

The minister sacked by Liz Truss over a claim of serious misconduct at the Conservative party conference will be cleared by an internal investigation, according to reports. Conor Burns will be exonerated by party officials after the other individual involved made no complaint. “The investigation has been concluded and it’s clear there is no case to answer,” a source at CCHQ told the Mail on Sunday. The Telegraph said the revelation “raises the likelihood that the Bournemouth West MP will now shortly have the party whip restored”.

Judges are being brought out of retirement to slash court backlogs that are “forcing victims to wait up to two years for justice”, said The Telegraph. The Lord Chief Justice has authorised 65 retired judges to preside over cases, half of whom are in their 70s, in an effort to shrink the backlog of 63,000 cases. Kirsty Brimelow KC, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said the criminal justice system “remains in crisis”.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group is close to agreeing a deal to buy a struggling Savile Row tailor. Frasers is in advanced talks to buy Gieves & Hawkes after its Hong Kong-based owner collapsed into liquidation. The Gieves and Hawkes tailored labels date back to 1785 and 1771 respectively. They joined forces into one brand in 1974, which has held royal warrants. Savile Row, “which for centuries has been synonymous with high-quality men’s formalwear”, has “endured a tough period”, said Sky News.

Dolly Parton has been awarded a $100m (£84.8m) prize by Jeff Bezos. The multi-billionaire founder of Amazon and his partner, Lauren Sanchez, described the country music star and philanthropist as “a woman who gives with her heart and leads with love and compassion in every aspect of her work”. The Times said it was Parton’s “support for childhood literacy around the world and helping socially and economically disadvantaged communities in her home state of Tennessee” that “caught the eye of Bezos when he got out his chequebook”.

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