Liberal Democrats to run Hertfordshire County Council after win
His party said it now had 32 councillors after a Labour councillor defected, leaving Labour with four councillors. Reform UK came in third place in the election with 14 seats, while the Greens won five seats and one independent councillor was elected.
The Lib Dems have formed a minority administration rather than making a coalition with other parties.The party said the focus would be on on highways, special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision in schools and the environment.Jarvis said: "In the first 100 days we'll outline a 10-point plan of priority actions - to repair roads, make journeys safer, boost local transport, improve our environment, support those who most need our help and generate funding for front-line services."We've hit the ground running by announcing a trial scheme to get more potholes fixed each time crews visit an affected neighbourhood."We'll also bring together young people, parents, schools and teachers together for an in-depth SEND summit, to inform our plans to reform this vital service."
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BBC News
14 minutes ago
- BBC News
4chan will refuse to pay daily UK fines, its lawyer tells BBC
A lawyer representing the online message board 4chan says it won't pay a proposed fine by the UK's media regulator as it enforces the Online Safety to Preston Byrne, managing partner of law firm Byrne & Storm, Ofcom has provisionally decided to impose a £20,000 fine "with daily penalties thereafter" for as long as the site fails to comply with its request."Ofcom's notices create no legal obligations in the United States," he told the BBC, adding he believed the regulator's investigation was part of an "illegal campaign of harassment" against US tech has declined to comment while its investigation continues. "4chan has broken no laws in the United States - my client will not pay any penalty," Mr Byrne began investigating 4chan over whether it was complying with its obligations under the UK's Online Safety in August, it said it had issued 4chan with "a provisional notice of contravention" for failing to comply with two requests for said its investigation would examine whether the message board was complying with the act, including requirements to protect its users from illegal content.4chan has often been at the heart of online controversies in its 22 years, including misogynistic campaigns and conspiracy are anonymous, which can often lead to extreme content being posted. 'First Amendment rights' In a statement posted on X, law firms Byrne & Storm and Coleman Law said 4chan was a US company incorporated in the US, and therefore protected against the UK law."American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an email," they wrote."Under settled principles of US law, American courts will not enforce foreign penal fines or censorship codes. "If necessary, we will seek appropriate relief in US federal court to confirm these principles."They said authorities in the US had been "briefed" on their response to Ofcom's statement concludes by calling on the Trump administration to invoke all diplomatic and legal levers to protect American businesses from "extraterritorial censorship mandates".Ofcom has previously said the Online Safety Act only requires services to take action to protect users based in the UK. UK backs down Some American politicians - particularly the Trump administration, its allies and officials - have pushed back against what they regard as overreach in the regulation of US tech firms by the UK and EU. A perceived impact of the Online Safety Act on free speech has been a particular concern, but other laws have also been the source of 19 August, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the UK had withdrawn its controversial demand for a "backdoor" in an Apple data protection system - saying she worked with the President and Vice President to get the UK to abandon its days later, US Federal Trade Commission chairman Andrew Ferguson warned big tech firms they could be violating US law if they weakened privacy and data security requirements by complying with international laws such as the Online Safety Act."Foreign governments seeking to limit free expression or weaken data security in the United States might count on the fact that companies have an incentive to simplify their operations and legal compliance measures by applying uniform policies across jurisdictions," he 4chan does successfully fight the fine in the US courts, Ofcom may have other options."Enforcing against an offshore provider is tricky," Emma Drake, partner of online safety and privacy at law firm Bird and Bird, told the BBC. "Ofcom can instead ask a court to order other services to disrupt a provider's UK business, such as requiring a service's removal from search results or blocking of UK payments."If Ofcom doesn't think this will be enough to prevent significant harm, it can even ask that ISPs be ordered to block UK access." Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Lucy Connolly to speak out for first time since being released from prison
Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers online on the day of the Southport murders, is expected to speak out on Friday for the first time since being released from prison. The 42-year-old, wife of Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly, left HMP Peterborough on Thursday morning and it is understood she will be doing limited media interviews a day after walking free. She spent time with her husband, daughter and parents on the day of her release and was pictured walking her dogs in the evening, the Daily Mail reported. Ms Connolly was handed a 31-month sentence after she posted on X: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.' She pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing 'threatening or abusive' written material on X and was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court in October last year. The former childminder, from Northampton, was ordered to serve 40% of her sentence in prison before being released on licence. It is understood that Ms Connolly was a passenger in a white taxi which left HMP Peterborough via the vehicle airlock, a set of two gates exiting the prison, shortly after 10am on Thursday. Her case has sparked debate, with some criticising her sentence as excessive. Reacting to her release, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Connolly's sentence was 'harsher than the sentences handed down for bricks thrown at police or actual rioting'. In a post on X, Ms Badenoch compared Ms Connolly's case with that of Ricky Jones, a suspended Labour councillor who was found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder at an anti-racism rally in the wake of the Southport murders. Writing on X, Mrs Badenoch said: 'Juries are a cornerstone of justice, but we shouldn't have to rely on them to protect basic freedoms. 'Protecting people from words should not be given greater weight in law than public safety. If the law does this, then the law itself is broken – and it's time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act.' Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described Ms Connolly's case as a 'symbol of Keir Starmer's authoritarian, broken, two-tier Britain'. A bid to challenge her sentence at the Court of Appeal was dismissed in May, which was described by Mr Connolly as 'shocking and unfair'. The Northampton town councillor, and former West Northamptonshire district councillor, said his wife had 'paid a very high price for making a mistake'. But Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended it earlier this year. He was asked in May about Ms Connolly's case after her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed. Asked during Prime Minister's Questions whether her imprisonment was an 'efficient or fair use' of prison, Sir Keir said: 'Sentencing is a matter for our courts and I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country. 'I am strongly in favour of free speech, we've had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely. 'But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.' Ms Connolly was arrested on August 6, by which point she had deleted her social media account, but other messages which included further racist remarks were uncovered by officers who seized her phone. The post was viewed 310,000 times in three and a half hours before she deleted it.
The Guardian
22 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Teenager who planned mosque attack in Scotland detained for 10 years
A teenager who listed Hitler, Mussolini and the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik as his inspirations and who planned a terrorist attack on a mosque has been sentenced to 10 years in custody. The 17-year-old, who cannot be named because of his age, had intended to set fire to an Islamic centre in Greenock, Inverclyde, after befriending the imam and mapping out the building's interior on his phone. The teenager was arrested at the door of the centre in January this year. He was carrying a military-style rucksack that contained a German-manufactured Glock-type air pistol, ammunition, ball bearings, gas cartridges and aerosol cans, according to prosecutors. He was sentenced at the high court in Glasgow on Thursday after pleading guilty to two terrorism charges, with a further eight years of supervision on licence upon release. In his sentencing statement, Lord Arthurson said: 'What you had in mind was what can properly be characterised as a quite diabolical atrocity involving extreme violence and multiple deaths. You even requested that your attack be livestreamed. Your conduct was only stopped by your arrest, when you were quite literally at the very door of the centre.' Prosecutors said the teenager, who became radicalised online, began plotting the attack in December 2024 and joined the mosque's WhatsApp group saying he was 'looking for guidance', later winning the trust of the imam during several visits. Meanwhile he was boasting of his plans to set the centre on fire on the social media platform Telegram and later filmed himself wandering the corridors, including footage showing him superimposing a hand carrying a semi-automatic pistol. Sineidin Corrins, deputy procurator fiscal for specialist casework at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, said: 'This heinous plan to attack those within his own local community was prepared and driven by racial and religiously motivated hatred, and showed that he not only held neo-Nazi beliefs but was about to act on them to cause pain and suffering'.
