Threats against female MPs having ‘chilling effect’ on women in public life, minister says
Threats against female MPs are having a “chilling effect” on talented women thinking of going into public life but deciding not to, security minister Dan Jarvis has said.Warning that there was an “unprecedented” volume of threats against elected representatives – including assaults, vandalism, stalking and a “blizzard of online abuse” – Jarvis announced new security measures ahead of the local elections.“Women and ethnic minority representatives report the highest volumes of abuse, including overtly sexualised and racially charged threats, which has a chilling effect on who feels able to stand for public office,” he told MPs.The government announced the appointment of a deputy chief constable from Cambridgeshire police, Chris Balmer, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for defending democracy.Other measures announced include the creation of a new threat assessment centre – modelled on an existing one for MPs – staffed by a specialist team based in counter-terrorism policing who will monitor and respond to threats against councillors and candidates in the upcoming local elections.
A protective scheme already in place in England will be extended to representatives in the Welsh and Scottish governments.The update on the work of the government’s Defending Democracy taskforce came as MPs shared their own experiences, while Jarvis and others referenced wall-mounted shields dedicated to Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, MPs who were murdered in 2016 and 2021 respectively.Chris Webb thanked Jarvis for being in contact after an incident last month at a jobs fair set up by the Labour MP for Blackpool South, which led to a man being charged with a public order offence.“Unfortunately, since becoming a member of this house, I have received a barrage of constant threats and death threats from the far right in my constituency and that seems to be growing, which is a real concern,” said Webb, who won a byelection in 2024.Also in the Commons chamber was the new Green party MP, Hannah Spencer, who had to be ushered into a police car after she was targeted when clashes broke out at an anti-far-right event in Manchester on Sunday.
The announcements come against the backdrop of varying degrees of confidence among MPs in the measures put in place to protect them.However, there was a breakdown of cross-party consensus when the shadow security minister, Katie Lam, used her response to the Jarvis ministerial statement to attack the government’s recently announced action plans on social cohesion and hate crime.“We must be honest about the fact that, while violence against elected politicians can come from a wide variety of groups, the single biggest extremist threat to our country remains the threat of extremist Islamist violence.That threat is intimately tied up with a growing tendency towards sectarian politics in some parts of our country,” she said.Dawn Butler, a Labour MP who told Lam that she was “a disgrace” as the Conservative frontbencher made her statement, later said: “I hope the shadow minister will get to her feet and correct the record, because there’s a far greater threat in the far-right than there is from Islam.
”Reform UK was criticised during the debate over its campaign tactics, including a social media advert targeting the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, that was described as “racist”.Liberal Democrat Al Pinkerton told the Commons that the threats to MPs were very real.“I was physically attacked, or at least an attempt was made to physically attack me, during the 2019 general election, when a beer glass was thrown at my head,” he said.
Bleak economic data shows UK plc in trouble well before Middle East crisis
Even before Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury on Iran unleashed higher oil prices, threatening the outlook for growth and inflation, the UK economy was flatlining.That’s the bleak message in the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which showed zero GDP growth in January.On the less volatile three-monthly measure, growth was 0.2% – a slight improvement on 0.1% in the three months to December
UK economy unexpectedly flatlined in January, official figures show
The UK economy unexpectedly flatlined in January, stoking concerns over growth amid the global energy price shock triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran.Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed 0% growth in gross domestic product (GDP), down from an increase of 0.1% in December, as the economy failed to recover from uncertainty surrounding the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget.Falling significantly short of City predictions for growth of 0.2%, the figures came as the UK and other countries faced a potentially severe economic hit as the Middle East conflict drove up oil and gas prices, hitting consumers with higher living costs
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It turns out, the remedy for the John Lewis partnership’s post-Covid woes of a few years ago did not lie in seeking outside capital or building 10,000 buy-to-rent flats. Rather, the solution was the old-fashioned one of cutting costs and concentrating on basic shopkeeping.As it happens, the wild idea of seeking external investors was virtually dead the moment it was loosely aired, such was the uproar among customers and staff about the threat to the 100%-employee owned model. But the home-building adventure did get going until it was ditched by the newish chair, Jason Tarry, a couple of weeks ago. He accepted, in effect, a point that should have been obvious at the outset: if the building assumptions relied on interest rates remaining at near-zero for years, the project would not survive contact with events
Watchdog puts UK fuel retailers ‘on notice’ over profiteering from Iran war
The UK competition watchdog has warned fuel retailers it is stepping up its monitoring of pump prices amid concern over profiteering as the US war with Iran drives up wholesale costs.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said firms responsible for thousands of filling stations across the country had been “put on notice” amid a wider government crackdown to stop bosses ramping up profits at the expense of consumers.The watchdog said it would require firms to provide their revenue, costs and sales data, accelerating a review of fuel industry margins it initiated after the conflict began just under a fortnight ago.Against a volatile backdrop in global energy markets, the oil price rose past $100 (£75) a barrel on Thursday for a second time in a week, as widespread Iranian attacks on energy facilities across the region and a threat to continue blocking the strait of Hormuz overshadowed a vast release of government reserves.Petrol and diesel prices have risen sharply, alongside a jump in the cost of home heating fuel
Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in the history of oil markets’
Oil markets are facing the “largest supply disruption in history” as the war in Iran continues to block tankers from shipping millions of barrels of crude each day, the world energy watchdog has warned.The International Energy Agency (IEA) said the supply shock ignited by Iran’s effective blockade of the strait of Hormuz meant the world faced a deeper crisis than after the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and the 2022 outbreak of war in Ukraine.The warning came as Iran issued a statement that was said to be the first from its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to call for the vital trade artery to “remain closed”, in a blow to hopes of a resolution to the crisis.In response, global oil prices passed $100 (£75) a barrel on Thursday as widespread Iranian attacks on energy facilities in the Middle East overshadowed a vast release of government reserves.In an attempt to calm concerns over oil supplies, the IEA ordered the largest release of government reserves in its history on Wednesday, when its 32 members unanimously agreed to release 400m barrels of emergency crude
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