Police warn protesters not to travel to Epping after asylum hotel ruling – as it happened

The leader of Epping Forest district council has called for calm after the court of appeal ruled asylum seekers can stay at the Bell hotel in Essex.Councillor Chris Whitbread told Times Radio:I call for calm. There’s been peaceful protests and there’s been non peaceful protests outside the hotel.He added:We saw yesterday the government say that asylum seekers have more rights than my residents. I’m really cross with this ruling

Court orders seizure of counterfeit underwear seller’s £90m assets

A self-styled clothing tycoon who sold counterfeit socks and pants while operating an extensive fraud ring will have all his UK assets seized after the Crown Prosecution Service won a court order to confiscate up to £90m worth of property and luxury cars.Arif Patel, 57, from Preston, Lancashire, who has been on the run since 2011, will have homes and business premises he owned taken from him after a confiscation order granted by a judge at Chester crown court on Thursday.His Ferrari 575 Superamerica will be sold at auction, as will property in Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.Patel masterminded a gang that was convicted in 2023 of one of the UK’s biggest VAT tax frauds in HMRC’s history.In a sequence of trades known as carousel fraud, he moved goods between different companies, creating false export and import records that he used to claim back large sums from the tax authorities

Not monsters, but truly monstrous | Brief letters

All I learned from Nick Clegg’s interview (‘If the people who ran Facebook were monsters, I wouldn’t have worked there’: Nick Clegg on tech bros, Trump and leaving Silicon Valley, 23 August) is (a) his fawning homage to his former boss means that he is keeping his career options open and (b) he still doesn’t get why people despise him for his role in the coalition government. Zuckerberg, Cameron and Osborne may not be monsters, but the real harms they have wrought and their lack of any kind of accountability, responsibility or contrition are truly monstrous.Simon CollinYate, Gloucestershire A letter (22 August) perpetuates the claim that Angela Rayner is bent on selling off allotments for development. It isn’t true, as is clear from a close reading of your 5 August article, which unfortunately had the unhelpful headline “Jeremy Corbyn warns rules on council asset sales threaten allotments”. They don’t, they haven’t been changed, and sales have actually fallen slightly

How to tax the wealthy without a wealth tax | Letters

Faiza Shaheen is misguided in her advocacy of a wealth tax (Rachel Reeves needs to find cash fast. A wealth tax really is her only viable option, 22 August).There are far more practical policies available to tax wealth as part of the progressive narrative. These are based on the idea of taxing the income from wealth rather than taxing wealth directly.This is the approach of Prof Richard Murphy’s Taxing Wealth Report 2024, which estimated a tax yield of £90bn a year from its proposals

Reform UK council removes St George and union flags over safety fears

A Reform-led council has started to remove flags and bunting displaying the St George’s cross and the union flag after concerns were raised that they could cause accidents.Durham county council issued a statement on X on Friday saying that while the council “understand and respect the community’s desire to express national pride, celebration, or remembrance, it is important to ensure such expressions do not compromise public safety”.The council claimed it had been “left with no choice but to remove bunting” after a risk assessment found that “rope involved was so strong that, had a high-sided vehicle driven into it, the poles it was attached to could have been pulled down”.The statement said the council’s “priority remains ensuring the safety and integrity of the highway network, while being mindful of, and responsive to, the communities we serve”. It encouraged residents “to consider safer and more appropriate locations for flags or other displays that do not involve highway infrastructure and conform to all appropriate standards and regulations”

Starmer names former Bank deputy governor as his chief economic adviser

The former Bank of England deputy governor Minouche Shafik is set to join Keir Starmer’s team as chief economic adviser.In a boost to the prime minister’s office in the run-up to the autumn budget, Lady Shafik is expected to take on the role after a year heading a Foreign Office review of the government’s foreign aid spending.A member of the House of Lords, Shafik resigned last year as the president of Columbia University after criticism of the treatment of Jewish students during anti-Israel protests at the institution’s New York campus.Shafik was previously head of the London School of Economics, a deputy governor of the International Monetary Fund and the top civil servant at the now defunct Department for International Development. In 2019 she was touted as a possible contender to replace Mark Carney as the Bank of England’s governor