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June 12, 2017

A soft Brexit made in Scotland?

Add together the Scottish contingent in the Commons – 35 SNP, 13 Tories, seven Labour and four Liberal Democrats – and you find a formidable…

Tax treaty history: the day an MLI defeated BEPS

France looks to a new generation

Macron and Le Pen win French presidential first round

Whatever happened to “now is not the time”?

Between the Rock and a hard Brexit

Leadership: France’s chance to restore hope

March 22, 2017

Aviation caught in battle of Brexit

A sector that in 2015 contributed £55bn to UK GDP and supported 945,000 jobs is calling for air transport not to be caught up in…

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Ministers’ email addresses and passwords sold
Passwords belonging to British cabinet ministers, ambassadors and senior police officers have been traded online by Russian hackers, an investigation by The Times has found. Email addresses and passwords used by Justine Greening, the education secretary, and Greg Clark, the business secretary, are among stolen credentials of tens of thousands of government officials that were sold or bartered on Russian-speaking hacking sites. They were later made freely available. Two huge lists of stolen data reveal private log-in details of 1,000 British MPs and parliamentary staff, 7,000 police employees and more than 1,000 Foreign Office officials, an analysis shows — including the department’s own head of IT. The Times, June 23

May: ’fair and serious’ offer on EU citizens
About three million European Union citizens living in the UK would be allowed to stay after Brexit, Theresa May has proposed. A new “UK settled status” would grant EU migrants who had lived in the UK for five years rights to stay and access health, education and other benefits. Proposals were unveiled at a Brussels summit but are dependent on EU states guaranteeing Britons the same rights. BBC news, June 23

Pfizer ignored staff over ‘fleecing NHS’
Pfizer, one of the world’s largest drug companies, pushed ahead with a deal under which the price of anti-epilepsy pills rose by more than 2,000 per cent despite staff concerns that it would be unethical and risk patient safety, internal emails reveal. The company struck a deal with the small British group called Flynn Pharma in 2012 that led to the price of phenytoin sodium capsules rising overnight from £2.83 to £67.50. The price increases have cost the NHS an extra £150 million over the past four years. The Times, June 23

Tories deny call centre breached election law
The Conservative Party has denied claims it broke electoral law by using a Neath call centre to canvass voters during the general election campaign. An investigation by Channel 4 claimed the UK Tories contracted Blue Telecoms to conduct marketing campaigns ahead of the vote on June 8. The Information Commissioners Officer confirmed it would be asking the Tories about the calls. A Conservative spokesman said all the calls were complaint with the law. BBC news, June 23

Hinkley Point deal ‘risky and expensive’
UK government plans for a new £18bn nuclear power station have come under fire from public auditors, who call it “a risky and expensive project”. The case for the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset was “marginal” and the deal was “not value for money”, according to the National Audit Office. The NAO said the government had not sufficiently considered the costs and risks for consumers. The government said building the plant was an “important strategic decision”. BBC news, June 23

Up to £50bn pulled from final salary pension plans since 2015
Savers cashing in their final salary retirement funds helped shave up to £50bn off UK corporate pension liabilities in two years, according to new estimates. Mercer, the professional services group, has calculated that about £50bn has been paid to 210,000 members of company-backed defined benefit pension plans since April 2015. The estimates, prepared for the FT, provide a snapshot of the aggregate corporate impact of 2015 changes which made cashing in so-called “gold-plated” defined benefit, or final salary, pensions more attractive. Financial Times, June 23

Facebook initiative to fight online hate speech
Facebook is launching a UK initiative to train and fund local organisations to combat extremism and hate speech. It comes a week after the social network announced steps of its own to remove terrorist-related content from its site. The UK Online Civil Courage Initiative’s initial partners include Imams Online and the Jo Cox Foundation. Facebook has faced criticism for being slow to react to terrorist propaganda on its platforms. BBC news, June 23

UK loses UN vote on territorial dispute
A dispute between the UK and Mauritius over disputed island territory in the Indian Ocean is to be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The UN General Assembly voted by 94 countries to 15 that The Hague should examine the legal status of the Chagos Islands. The former British colony used to be part of Mauritius but was detached in 1965 and is now home to a US airbase. The Foreign Office said it would be an “inappropriate” use of the ICJ. BBC news, June 23

DofH loses a quarter of staff in three months
The Department of Health lost over a quarter of its workforce in the first three months of the year as part of a staff cuts programme, an analysis of the latest Whitehall workforce data by the Institute for Government has found. The think tank said the ministry lost 460 full time equivalent staff over the three months to March, which amounts to 26 per cent of its total workforce. Researcher Alice Lilly highlighted that under a staff reduction plan, DH planned to cut its workforce to around 1,300-1,400 by the end of 2016 due to funding reductions in its Spending Review settlement. The figures indicate that some of those cuts occurred at the beginning of 2017. Civil Service World, June 22

Clegg: threat of wealthy Brexit elite and populism damages UK
A Brexit elite of hedge-fund managers, footloose multi-billionaires, rightwing politicians and newspaper proprietors have led the UK into diplomatic and economic margins, Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, said on Thursday. Mr Clegg who lost his Sheffield Hallam seat in the general election, also suggested for the first time that neglect of public services, including social housing, had made Britons more susceptible to the appeal of populism than other Europeans. This went for Americans too. Speaking at Chatham House, Mr Clegg expressed his deep frustration at the UK’s plight, saying its negotiators now possessed few cards at the European Union negotiating table, and would inevitably have to compromise. The Guardian, June 22

Theresa May faces revolt over Brexit laws
Theresa May’s vow to “see Brexit through” has been thrown into doubt after it emerged that the Scottish parliament and House of Lords could join hostile MPs in blocking legislation to smooth Britain’s path out of the EU. Brexit dominated a nine-minute Queen’s Speech detailing a stripped-down, two-year legislative programme, but it was soon clear that the policy, to be delivered through eight bills, would face hurdles on its route to the statute book. The proposals to reserve to Westminster farming and fisheries powers brought back from Brussels have provoked the first row with Holyrood. The SNP threatened to derail Brexit unless it were handed full control of the powers. The Times, June 22

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