Talks between Shabana Mahmood and a powerful Labour-affiliated union opposed to her hardline immigration reforms broke down after the Home Secretary refused to allow a migrant care worker to attend the meeting.
The Home Secretary was due to hold private talks with Unison general secretary Andrea Egan on Wednesday, with the union spearheading a Labour revolt against plans to make it harder for migrants to settle in the UK.
But the meeting was cancelled by Unison after Mahmood refused Egan’s late request to bring a migrant care worker who will be affected by the “earned settlement” changes, The i Paper understands.
Australian MP’s legs amputated after ‘politically-motivated attack’
Doctors have amputated both of Australian MP Helen Haines’s legs after she was repeatedly hit by a car in an apparent act of political violence, her husband said.
What happened?
Haines remains in critical condition. The 65-year-old independent politician is receiving treatment in a Melbourne hospital where she was flown by helicopter.
Haines’s husband said her left leg was amputated on Monday and her right leg was amputated on Wednesday after doctors abandoned hope of saving it.
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What her husband said
The good news in all this is that Helen is alive and she’s stable. That is the most iortant thing for our family… We are grateful and thankful that at this stage, both her heart and her mind are in good shape.
Phil Haines
The alleged attacker
Brendan Nugent, a 43-year-old man from nearby Tarrawingee, has been charged with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury and causing harm to a federal official.
- Police have yet to determine a motive.
- Witnesses say the driver rammed his victim, pinning her against her own car before reversing and ramming her a second time.
- Nugent’s lawyer Chirag Patel said he was suffering from potential mental health issues but had never been diagnosed with any mental health problem.
- Patel said Nugent suffered from a concussion and a neurological condition, idiopathic transverse myelitis, which disrupts nerve signals between the brain and body, leading to rapid muscle weakness and sensory loss.
Nigeria confirms Ebola case
Nigeria reported its first Ebola case in more than a decade on Tuesday, becoming the fourth African country to be affected by the outbreak.
Where has Ebola been detected?
- Ebola disease from the fast-moving outbreak in Congo has now spread to four other countries.
- This is including two where it’s active.
- It was first declared in eastern Congo in mid-May.
- Nigeria confirmed an Ebola infection in its capital, Abuja.
- This was in a woman who arrived from Uganda about two weeks ago.
- Uganda has reported 20 cases but none are active.
A closer look at confirmed cases so far
- Kenya announced its first Ebola case on 6 October, involving a man who traveled from Congo via Uganda before arriving in the capital, Nairobi, on 3 October.
- France confirmed a positive case of Ebola in June in a doctor travelling back from Congo.
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Should Britons be worried?
The World Health Organization has said it is the fastest-growing outbreak of Ebola in history. However, France is still the only country outside Africa to have recorded a case in this outbreak. The UK Health Security Agency says the current outbreak “poses a low risk to the UK population”.
Imported cases are extremely rare, only four confirmed cases have been reported in the UK since 1976, and there have been no UK deaths from the disease.
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UK approves drilling in Jackdaw gas field
Gas from the Jackdaw field will start flowing within weeks after the Government approved the project in an effort to improve domestic energy security and grow the economy.
Why has it been approved?
The Government says the approval of Jackdaw will increase domestic gas production by around 6 per cent at its peak, protect hundreds of jobs and provide an estimated £2.9bn economic boost.
- Tax revenues from North Sea oil and gas will also go into a new energy wealth fund, backed with an initial £2bn, which will invest in renewable and low carbon projects.
- Ministers argue that while UK households and businesses are still using gas, it makes more economic and environmental sense to increase domestic production rather than rely on imports shipped from other countries.
Why is the project controversial?
The approval of Jackdaw has been criticised by environmental campaigners who want to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels. Both Jackdaw and the Rosebank field were approved for drilling licences in June 2022, but these were overturned by the Scottish courts after a challenge from campaigners.
New public consultations on the proposals took place this year and closed in August. The Government has not yet greenlit Rosebank.
What does this mean for your energy bills?
The approval of Jackdaw will not bring down soaring bills because gas prices are set by global markets, and energy minister Michael Shanks acknowledged “we will not stop being a net importer of fossil fuels because of this decision”.
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Actor Noel Clarke in court over sexual offence allegations
Actor Noel Clarke is expected to appear in court today charged with sexual offences against five women.
What has he been accused of?
Clarke, who has appeared in and is accused of two counts of sexual assault, three of voyeurism and one of exposure between 2007 and 2016.
The offences are alleged to have taken place in London and Dorset. Clarke has previously denied any allegations of inappropriate behaviour or sexual misconduct.
What do police say?
Bethan David, deputy chief Crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to do so.”
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Drinking tea may be good for your heart
Tea drinking is good for your heart, and drinking it regularly reduces the risk of vascular disease by 11 per cent, research has found.
What did the study find?
A study in China published in the Journal of Internal Medicine looked at the risk of vascular disease in 485,934 people.
- Those who drank about six to eight cups per day were found to be at the lowest risk of vascular disease among weekly tea drinkers.
- Vascular disease can include heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary heart disease and peripheral artery disease.
- Tea consumption combined with not smoking and exercising was associated with the lowest risk.
The expert view
This doesn’t prove that a daily cuppa protects your heart. This was an observational study and other differences in people’s diets and lifestyles could help explain the findings… We need further evidence before assuming the findings apply in the same way to people in the UK.
Dell Stanford, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation
Judi Dench: Cats film was a waste of talent
Actor Dame Judi Dench has described the 2019 film , the adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, as a “waste” of “goodwill and talent”.
She starred as the wise moggy Old Deuteronomy and has so far declined to watch the movie.
What she said
Oh God, I can’t bear it, and [Lloyd Webber] had waited so long for it to be made. What a waste of all that goodwill and talent. I understand the critics were rather hostile to the film. I never saw the final cut so I can’t judge. All I’ll say is nobody sets out to give a poor performance or make a bad film. You do your best… and hope that people will get on board and join the party.
Details revealed in new memoir
In her forthcoming memoir, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, Dench said she felt “ill at ease from the beginning – I just didn’t feel right in the role”, reports.
She said young dancers were ignored at the end of each take. However, she said she enjoyed meeting co-star Taylor Swift and receiving 50 everlasting roses, spraypainted gold, from Jason Derulo, another co-star.
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Why was the film panned?
The director, Tom Hooper, has been criticised for how he adapted the musical, including error-prone use of CGI. He has not made a film since.
Lloyd Webber has said “the whole thing was ridiculous”, “off-the-scale wrong” and that it caused him to become a dog owner.
The explosive row risks deepening Labour and Cabinet splits over the Home Secretary’s plans to double the default time migrants must live in the UK before qualifying for settlement from five to 10 years, with some having to wait even longer based on their job or other criteria.
Labour MPs and Unison are particularly concerned about plans to apply the longer waits to migrants already working in the UK, with the union highlighting the impact on foreign workers who are plugging job gaps in social care, a key priority for Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Tensions in the Cabinet over the policy surfaced when Housing Secretary Angela Rayner earlier this year publicly attacked the prospect of backdating the plans.
Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh repeatedly refused to say she backed Mahmood’s plans on Wednesday.
Care worker ‘wanted to make case for others’
A senior union source blamed Mahmood for cancelling the meeting, saying Egan has previously brought workers who are lay members of the union to meetings at the Home Office without objection.
But a Home Office source said the talks were set up to be a private meeting between Mahmood and Egan, and the union had chosen to cancel.
Unison is “surprised and disappointed the Home Secretary refused the opportunity to hear from a care worker who would be directly affected by the proposals”, the union source said.
The care worker who Egan wanted to bring to the meeting has completed an NVQ level 3 and is set to do further qualifications so that he can develop his career in the sector, and was planning to tell Mahmood about why he and many other Unison members had chosen to work in the sector.
The Unison member said caring for others was “the most honourable thing you can do with your life”, adding that “nothing is more beautiful than being able to reassure and support someone who needs your help”.
With dozens of Labour MPs thought to be opposed to Mahmood’s proposals, No 10 on Wednesday refused to rule out a watering down of the plans, with Mahmood believed to be considering exempting care workers or removing the retrospective application of the plans entirely.
According to the Home Office source, Mahmood believed it would be wrong to prioritise the views of one migrant care worker as she considered 200,000 responses to a consultation on her ILR reforms, including from more than 145,000 migrants who will be directly affected by the plans.
The Home Secretary is under pressure from the right to deal with the so-called “Boriswave” of record immigration which could mean hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrived from 2021 will soon get the right to settle in the UK, including tens of thousands of health and care workers.
Growing Labour splits over hardline reforms
Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said: “The home secretary must drop these nasty proposals instead of doubling down. Migrant workers across public services, especially in health and social care, play a vital role in keeping the country running. They should not be kept in purgatory for 15 years, unable to settle in the country they have made their home.
“Tearing up the rules that migrant workers have faithfully followed is deeply unfair. Doing so to appease the far right will fail. It will fuel racism, damage communities and leave no one better off.
“We urge the Home Secretary to properly engage with us, including workers affected by her proposals, and to help bring the country together rather than perpetuating division.”
Fahnbulleh hinted she would favour a watering down of the retrospective action of the plans, telling : “Our principles have to be a system where we’ve got control, but ultimately a system that when people do come to this country, they are able to integrate, they are able to contribute, and that we both respect but also value that contribution.”
She also said: “I support reforms that says that people have to contribute and make a contribution to this country in order to get citizenship”,
Asked by The i Paper whether tweaks to the Home Secretary’s initial revamp – including applying the policy retrospectively – could be ruled out, the Prime Minister’s press secretary told reporters: “We set out proposals for consultation. We’ve consulted on what the transition arrangement should look like (for) people already in the UK who have not received settled status.
“The Home Secretary is leading a thorough piece of work to ensure we get this right and have the right arrangements in place.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the Government would set out its response “later this year”.