Tory peer accuses Nick Timothy of ‘instilling fear’ over Islamic prayers
The shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, has been accused by a Conservative peer and former counter-extremism minister of “instilling fear” among Muslims with his comments about public prayer.British Muslims were openly talking about leaving the Conservative party, added Tariq Ahmad, who said he had raised his concerns with the party leadership and expected action to be taken.“I have known Nick for a long time and am deeply disappointed by his divisive comments.He needs to reflect carefully on his own words,” Lord Ahmad told the Guardian.“If he is aspiring to be lord chancellor, he has to stand up for the principles of equality and justice before the law for all, that comes with that responsibility.
”The intervention by Ahmad, who served as a minister in three different departments in the governments of Theresa May and David Cameron and has been a party member for three decades, comes as Kemi Badenoch backed Timothy.The shadow justice secretary singled out an event in Trafalgar Square where the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and others prayed as part of an iftar, and claimed that Islamic prayers taking place in public were intimidating and un-British.Nigel Farage has also commented, with Muslim leaders condemning the Reform UK leader’s call to ban public prayer by Muslims in the UK as bigoted, and warning of a “growing tide of hate” after Badenoch questioned whether the events fitted “within the norms of British culture”.Ahmad said he had started to encounter anti-Muslim hostility on the streets, something that he had believed was consigned to the past.“It’s ironic that Nick has sought to defend what he said by referring to British values, because it is exactly the values of choice, of standing up for inclusion and freedoms, that have attracted people like me to the Conservative party,” he said.
“Michael Howard was a great mentor to me and he said the party has been and should always be one for all Britons.That is something that we always need to reflect, not just in our policies but also how we present ourselves.”Ahmad compared Timothy’s comments to previous remarks by Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman about diversity and multiculturalism when they were still in the party.“Robert has now left and I remember having a debate with him.Indeed, even a run-in with him, and it takes a lot to get me going, when he made comments on how people should be arrested for shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’,” he said.
“Nick’s comments about the iftar, the call to prayer and Islam were ill informed and he, and others, need to educate themselves before they make pronouncements like he has.“The call to prayer is not about domination.Nick should know this.I have known him for a long time when I was minister for countering extremism and he was a special adviser to Theresa May.No one should be trying to scapegoat any community in this way.
“We have had debates about policy and one of the biggest challenges we face is how do you define terms when dealing with issues such as those posed by extremism, whilst allowing for people to discuss things in an open and respectful way.But Nick singling out the act of public prayer by Muslims as being about domination, is, simply put, wrong.I think he is instilling fear.He is not just expressing an opinion.”Timothy defended himself in an article in the Daily Telegraph, arguing that the Islamic prayer in Trafalgar Square was a repudiation of other faiths.
“In a pluralistic society like ours, people are free to believe in the unique truth of Islam if they choose.They are free to proclaim it at home, in mosques, and in communities that gather for that purpose,” he said.“But when such declarations are projected into shared civic spaces – including monuments of national history and identity such as Trafalgar Square – the line between freedom of religion and the imposition of religious rituals blurs.”Ahmad, a businessman who first joined the Conservative party in 1994 and became a life peer in 2011, also spoke candidly, in a similar way to comments recently by the health minister Zubir Ahmed, of how everyday racism had again cropped up in his life.“Recently, racial slurs have been directed at me in a way that I cannot remember having happened for a long time.
It’s unacceptable and no community should live in fear of that,” he said,Ahmad said he had raised his concerns, adding: “Ultimately, Kemi has been someone who has deep insights and experiences from her own background and she knows that any party which aspires to be of the mainstream needs to be inclusive of people of all faiths,We as a nation move forward by working with, and for all, our communities,”
UK government yet to trial OpenAI tech months after signing partnership
When the UK government signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI, the tech firm behind ChatGPT, the partnership was hailed as one that could harness artificial intelligence to “address society’s greatest challenges”.But eight months on from the fanfare of that announcement, the government has yet to hold any trials involving the firm’s tech.A freedom of information (FoI) request asked the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) for information about trials conducted under the memorandum, which said the company would work with civil servants to “identify opportunities for how advanced AI models can be deployed throughout government and the private sector”.The department replied that it held none of this information and had “not undertaken any trials under the memorandum of understanding with OpenAI”.In response to a query from the Guardian, DSIT pointed to an agreement under which the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) last October enabled civil servants to use ChatGPT “with an option for UK-based data storage for customers”
Tory peer accuses Nick Timothy of ‘instilling fear’ over Islamic prayers
The shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, has been accused by a Conservative peer and former counter-extremism minister of “instilling fear” among Muslims with his comments about public prayer.British Muslims were openly talking about leaving the Conservative party, added Tariq Ahmad, who said he had raised his concerns with the party leadership and expected action to be taken.“I have known Nick for a long time and am deeply disappointed by his divisive comments. He needs to reflect carefully on his own words,” Lord Ahmad told the Guardian.“If he is aspiring to be lord chancellor, he has to stand up for the principles of equality and justice before the law for all, that comes with that responsibility
Department of Health retracts claim sunbeds are as dangerous as smoking
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has had to retract a misleading claim that sunbeds are as dangerous a cancer risk as smoking.In January, health officials announced stricter rules for sunbeds, incorrectly claiming they were “as dangerous as smoking”. The comparison was repeated in social media posts shared by the health secretary and NHS England and was reported by a number of media outlets.But the factchecking organisation Full Fact said the claim was wrong, concluding “misleading information about the risk of cancer … risks making smoking seem less harmful than it is”.While both smoking and sunbeds cause cancer, the risks are not equal
More British teenagers stranded abroad as result of new rules on dual nationals
Two more British teenagers have found themselves unable to return to the UK because of new Home Office border rules on British dual nationals.Their cases emerged just hours after reports a 16-year-old British schoolgirl was blocked from boarding a flight in Denmark home to the UK because she was a dual national and did not have a British passport. She has missed two weeks of school so far.A 19-year-old student, Anna*, from Oxfordshire is stuck in Madrid after a university-organised trip to the Spanish capital.She is part French and had not yet obtained a British passport to comply with the new rules, which require British dual nationals to present a passport, new or expired, or certificate of entitlement to airlines before boarding flights to the UK
Is it time for the UK to acknowledge the ‘rhetoric to reality gap’ on its military power?
It will have been more than three weeks since the US and Israel first attacked Iran when the first British warship finally arrives off the coast of Cyprus, a belated defensive deployment that has highlighted the lack of military capacity available to the UK.Nominally, HMS Dragon was one of three destroyers available out of six. In reality the warship has had to be hauled out of dry dock, prepared and then, after launch, tested for several days in the Channel. Its arrival date is still unconfirmed.“It’s clear one of the military’s big problems is giving the government contingency options,” said Matthew Savill, of the Royal United Services Institute, reflecting years of spending constraints
Claimants drop lawsuit against Gerry Adams over IRA bombings
Three victims of IRA bombings who sued Gerry Adams alleging he was a member of the paramilitary group and culpable for the attacks have withdrawn their lawsuit on the last day of the civil trial.John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured respectively in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing and the 1996 London Docklands and Manchester bombings, were seeking symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each.They alleged that the former Sinn Féin leader, who is credited with helping to bring about the Northern Ireland peace process that ended the Troubles, was a member of the IRA and had sat on its army council. Adams denied being a member of the IRA or being involved in bombings.On Friday, the ninth and final day of the trial, the claimants’ lawyer, Anne Studd KC, was expected to finish her closing submissions, but she told the high court that the claim would be discontinued after “proceedings developed overnight”
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