Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 25 June 2023

1. Putin ‘weakened’ by mutiny bid

The boss of Wagner is to leave for Belarus after calling off his troops’ advance on Moscow. The mercenary rebels have begun to leave the southern city of Rostov-on-Don where their mutiny began yesterday after the Kremlin said Yevgeny Prigozhin and his troops would not be prosecuted. The tensions de-escalated following negotiations between Prigozhin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Putin “stands gravely weakened” after yesterday’s drama, said The Telegraph, and The Sun said the Russian president was “humiliated”.

2. City pay rises blamed for inflation

Pay rises for City bosses and others from the top 10% of UK earners have outstripped those for the rest of the workforce and powered recent inflation and soaring interest rates, according to analysis of official figures by the TUC. Having studied data from the Office for National Statistics, the TUC found annual wage increases are only becoming more lavish among the top 10% of earners, while the rest of the working population is suffering a decline in wage growth.

3. Just Stop Oil ‘discourage support’

The entrepreneur who set up a group that funded Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil has criticised the two groups’ tactics. “It’s become disruption for the sake of disruption,” Trevor Neilson told The Sunday Times. “Working people that are trying to get to their job, get their kid dropped off at school”, he said, and if “they have a pink-haired, tattooed and pierced protester standing in front of their car, so that their kid is late for their test that day” that “does not encourage them to join the movement”.

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4. Trump promises year-long party

Donald Trump has railed against the federal charges against him and attacked Joe Biden for having “weaponised” the department of justice for political gain. Speaking at a conference hosted by the right-wing evangelical Faith and Freedom Coalition, Trump said he considered each of the two indictments he has received to be a “great badge of courage”. The former president has promised to throw a “year-long party” to mark the USA’s 250th birthday if he is elected to serve a second term of office next November.

5. Electoral ‘landslide’ expected in Greece

Greeks are voting for the second time in a month with as former prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hopes to secure a big majority. The conservative beat his centre-left rival in May but called new elections in a bid to govern Greece alone. Without a majority of more than 150 in the 300-seat parliament, Mitsotakis says his New Democracy party cannot form a stable administration. His party is “heading for a landslide”, said Ekathimerini.

6. Sunak’s government backs WFH

Ministers have insisted that working from home had no impact on government productivity, a year after Boris Johnson claimed staff were “eating cheese and making coffee” on the job. Although Johnson’s administration was “highly critical” of Whitehall civil servants working remotely, Rishi Sunak’s government has “embraced hybrid working”, said The Independent. Government minister Mims Davies said research “across the civil service” showed remote working had no impact on “overall productivity”.

7. Care homes empty despite queue

Freedom of information requests have shown that nearly 100 care homes across the country are lying empty or have been repurposed, despite 37,000 people waiting for care. Some care homes are out of action because they have “crumbled into disrepair or have been deemed unsafe”, said The Telegraph. Others are being used for alternative purposes, such as to provide office space. The Liberal Democrats, which submitted the freedom of information requests, said the findings are “evidence of a completely broken system, with care home buildings that are no longer fit for purpose”.

8. Scandals dent public trust

Public trust in the political system has collapsed since the Covid pandemic, a report from a thinktank has claimed. Just 6% of the public have full trust in the current political system, while 89% support constitutional reform, found the survey of 8,000 people for the Institute for Public Policy Research. “Trust in politics is low and has declined quite significantly since Covid 19”, said Harry Quilter-Pinner, the director of research and engagement at the IPPR, adding this was “potentially as a result of some of the ongoing political scandals we’ve seen in politics”.

9. Remains found near actor’s disappearance

Hikers have discovered human remains in a California mountain area where British-born actor Julian Sands disappeared five months ago. The remains were found yesterday morning in wilderness near Mount Baldy. They have been sent to the coroner’s office for identification next week, said the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Sands’ brother said in January that said he “knows in his heart” that his sibling may not be found.

10. Row over Hemingway trigger warning

Ernest Hemingway’s books have been given a trigger warning by publishers because of concerns over his “language” and “attitudes”, said The Telegraph. Reissuing the Nobel Prize-winning writer’s novels and short stories, Penguin Random House also alerted readers to the author’s “cultural representations”. The warnings “would be hilarious, were they not also alarming”, said Prof Richard Bradford, author of the Hemingway biography The Man Who Wasn’t There, adding that such warnings are “the verbal equivalent of photos of cancer ridden lungs which now decorate cigarette packets”.