Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 8 February 2023

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1. Syria earthquake bomb claim
2. Biden ‘plays truth or dare’ with GOP
3. BP scales back climate targets after record profits
4. Former PM warns against quitting ECHR
5. Epsom head ‘phoned relative before shooting’
6. David Carrick given 36 life sentences
7. McDonald’s faces abuse allegations
8. Church considers ‘non-gendered’ prayers
9. Pink Floyd row over antisemitism claim
10. Fawlty Towers to bounce back

published 8 February 2023

1. Syria earthquake bomb claim

The UK has said that the Syrian government bombed an opposition-held area of the country in the immediate aftermath of Monday’s earthquake. Alicia Kearns, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, said President Bashar al-Assad launched a “truly callous and heinous attack” on Marea, a town in northwestern Syria affected by the earthquake. More than 7,800 people were killed in Monday’s earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, but there are warnings the death toll could continue to rise.

Joe Biden has offered to work with political rivals in his latest State of the Union address. Speaking before Congress for the first time since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives last month, the US president said America’s democracy is bruised but is “unbowed and unbroken”. Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, told CNN that the speech saw Biden play “truth or dare” with the Republicans over his potential re-election campaign, testing them with a series of promises that he knows they can either pass and give him a “popular accomplishment to run on” or block and give him “an appealing issue to run on”. The speech was “animated and at times combative” said the BBC, while The Guardian said the president was “in a feisty mood”.

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BP has reported the highest profits in its entire history at $27.7billion (£23billion) for last year, up from the $12.8billion the giant recorded in 2021. But the oil giant “was at the centre of a political storm”, said The Times, after announcing it was scaling back climate change targets. Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, said the government should bring forward what he called a “proper” windfall tax on energy companies. But, Bernard Looney, BP chief executive, said the company was “helping provide the energy the world needs”.

John Major has warned that quitting the European Court of Human Rights would “tarnish Britain’s global reputation”. Rishi Sunak has reportedly said he will consider leaving the ECHR if it blocks his plans to ban those crossing the Channel on small boats from appealing against deportation but Major told a Commons committee that Britain would be in “pretty rum company if we were to leave”. The former prime minister’s intervention will “reignite a fractious debate within the Tory party over how to respond to the Channel migrants crisis”, said The Telegraph.

The head teacher of Epsom College made a distraught phone call to a relative before she and her daughter were shot dead by her husband, said the BBC. George Pattison is believed to have killed Emma Pattison and Lettie, seven, at the family home in school grounds before taking his own life. The acting head, Paul Williams, announced yesterday that the school will close until after the half-term break following the “incredibly distressing” details about how Pattison died.

The former police officer David Carrick has been given 36 life sentences and will serve more than 30 years in prison after he carried out a string of violent and brutal sexual offences against 12 women over nearly two decades while serving with the Metropolitan Police. One of his victims told the Daily Mail that Carrick “tried to whisper a pathetic apology” to her from the dock on Monday as they came face to face for the first time since 2017. “When he said that it sent chills down my spine,” she said.

Fast-food chain McDonald’s said it has signed a legally binding pledge with the equality watchdog following claims over how it handled sexual harassment complaints made by UK staff. One worker, at a South London branch, said she was sexually harassed by a manager. “He pulled his pants down in the stockroom,” she told the BBC, adding the experience left her “terrified”. McDonald’s said the experiences described by her were “completely unacceptable and have no place in our restaurants”.

Prayers and hymns that refer to God in “non-gendered” terms could be produced under suggestions being considered by Church of England bishops. The Daily Mail said the development suggests that priests may drop “the famous phrase ‘our Father’ from the start of the Lord’s Prayer”. Women and the Church, a group that campaigns for gender justice in the Church of England, said it “welcomes the start of another project” to “look at the development of more inclusive language in our authorised liturgy”.

A rift is deepening between two of Pink Floyd’s members after David Gilmour backed his wife’s attack on Roger Waters in an online spat about Israel. Polly Samson, who helped write several songs after Waters left the band in 1985, wrote on Twitter that Waters was “antisemitic to your rotten core” and “a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac”. Gilmour retweeted the post, adding “Every word demonstrably true”. Waters’s official Twitter account said that he “refutes” the allegations and is “taking advice on the position”.

The classic sitcom Fawlty Towers is set to be revived after more than 40 years. John Cleese, who played Basil Fawlty, will be returning to write and star alongside his daughter, Camilla Cleese. The new series will “explore how Cleese’s over-the-top, cynical and misanthropic Basil Fawlty navigates the modern world”, said The Guardian, with the show set to focus on his relationship with his daughter as they run a boutique hotel together. In 2009, John Cleese ruled out another episode of the show, saying the “expectation” would be too high.

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