Farage pledges to send Ian Huntley to El Salvador as part of Reform plans to tackle ‘lawless' Britain
The Reform UK leader unveiled plans that would seemingly mimic measures implemented by Donald Trump in America. The plans are part of the party's zero-tolerance approach to crime.
Addressing media in London, Mr Farage said: 'If it means Ian Huntley has to go to El Salvador, so be it.'
'Reform will be the toughest party on law and order and on crime that this country has ever seen.'
Huntley is currently serving a life sentence after he was found guilty of murdering school girls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham in 2002.
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Teen who wanted to carry out 'Doomsday' mass shooting at school to be sentenced
An Edinburgh teenager who wanted to carry out a mass shooting at his own school is to be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow. Felix Winter, now aged 18, repeatedly spoke about carrying out an attack at his secondary, referring to the day he would 'clear it out' as 'Doomsday'. Jurors previously heard the teenager 'idolised' the killers behind the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado in the United States in 1999, which saw 12 students and a teacher gunned down. A major police investigation began in the summer of 2023 after a photo circulated on social media showing Winter at school in full combat gear, carrying an imitation gun, which caused panic among pupils and parents. He had already been referred to a UK-wide anti-terrorism programme aimed at preventing radicalisation. He also held racist and pro-Nazi views. Winter pleaded guilty to a breach of the peace and a charge under the Terrorism Act. His offending took place between June 2022 and July 2023. Defence KC Shelach McCall told the court in March that a professor who assessed her client found a 'serious link' between his autism and his behaviour, arguing it was his condition – rather than extremism – that drove his obsession with school shootings. Ms McCall said Winter had made a 'marked improvement' since his offending. She said: 'He has expressed regret and recognises that he didn't previously appreciate how his behaviour was impacting on others. 'He accepts in the context of his plea of guilty and his remarks about school shootings in 2022, him dressing in that costume and carrying that in a school would generate alarm to those who came upon it but this was not his intent.' Winter will appear at the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday, July 30. Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
Telegraph
26 minutes ago
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How Denmark raised its retirement age without sparking protests
Planning an early retirement? You're out of luck if you live in Denmark. The Nordic country recently raised the state pension age to 70, a change that will kick in by 2040. The new legislation means that Danes are on track to become the oldest workers in Europe. It is just the latest in a series of increases after the Scandinavian country linked its retirement age to life expectancy in 2006 and legislated that it should be reviewed every five years. The welfare agreement of 2006 attempted to protect the country's finances and set pensions spending on a sustainable path. Without action, there were concerns that the cost of the state pension could spiral out of control as Danes lived longer but paid the same amount of lifetime taxes. It could be a glimpse into Britain's future. Here, the state pension age is currently 66 and scheduled to gradually rise to 68 by 2046. But calls are growing louder for the retirement aged to be raised further and faster. Without action, the cost of the expensive triple lock on pensions will balloon and force either higher taxes or cut backs elsewhere. 'I don't think we can really afford to [wait to the 2040s], to be frank,' Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, told The Telegraph last week. 'If there is a sudden economic miracle, then it might change that. But it does not look to be happening any time soon.' Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, announced a review into the state pension age last week in an effort to address the problem. 'There's kind of cross party consensus that ... we need to increase the state pension age to deal with the rising cost of the state pension system,' says Heidi Karjalainen, an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Such changes are controversial. In 2023, Jeremy Hunt, the then chancellor, shelved plans to lift the state pension age after a slump in life expectancy left ministers struggling to justify the change. In France, attempts to raise the retirement age have bought people out onto the streets in the thousands. Raising the retirement age to 70 has not led to fiery demonstrations on the streets of Copenhagen, however. The increase 'hasn't come as a surprise to anyone' given the 2006 legislation, says Damoun Ashournia, the chief economist at the Danish Trade Union Confederation. Denmark is one of nine OECD countries that currently links the retirement age to average life expectancy, effectively maintaining a fiscal brake on pension spending. The Nordic nation legislates that an average of 14.5 years should be spent in retirement. For every year increase in life expectancy in Denmark, the retirement age also rises by one year. Wouter De Tavernier, a pensions economist at the OECD, says the link prevents governments having to rerun difficult political debates every five or 10 years and helps countries maintain financial stability with their pensions system. 'It avoids having to restart the same discussions over and over again, and therefore making long term financial sustainability dependent on political decisions and political calculations about what might or might not be popular in the elections.' Yet even in Demark, there are limits. 'When we ask workers, the vast majority, 75pc, are against this increase,' says Ashournia. 'They worry that they won't be able to work until the retirement age, when we increase it by such an amount.' Karjalainen says asking people to retire at 70 is as much a psychological challenge as it is an actual problem. It is a new decade and one that feels far older to most people. 'I think the higher the state pension age goes, just kind of psychologically, people think of someone aged 65 and someone aged 70 as kind of very different types of people,' she says. However, it is not just about what voters will bear. There are physiological differences between 65 and 70. For instance, in the UK the rate of dementia stands at 1.7pc for those aged 65 to 69 years old but climbs to 3pc for 70 to 74-year-olds. 'We can't just keep increasing the retirement age forever, because it becomes unrealistic for workers to work for so long,' says Ashournia. The Danish Trade Union Confederation now wants the 2006 agreement to be softened, with the retirement age only rising by nine or 10 months for every year the life expectancy increases. Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister, has conceded that the policy may be at its limit. 'We no longer believe that the retirement age should be increased automatically,' she said in August last year. 'You can't just keep saying that people have to work a year longer.' Britain's costly dilemma In the UK, the bigger concern in policy circles is whether the Government can afford not to make people retire at 70. Spending on the state pension is only forecast to grow as a result of the costly triple lock, which guarantees annual increases by the highest of either average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5pc, whichever is highest. The UK is estimated to have spent 4.9pc of its GDP on the state pension for the 2024/25 financial year. On the current trajectory, the cost is forecast to reach 6.3pc of GDP by 2054/55. A 2023 independent report into the state pension age carried out by Baroness Rolfe recommended that the government should cap pension spending at 6pc of GDP to prevent overspending. It recommended raising the state pension age to 69 to ensure financial sustainability. However, a later retirement age raises questions about fairness. While the average life expectancy in the UK stands at 78.8 years for men and 82.8 years for women, there is significant variation across the country. 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'The fact that our politicians are too scared to talk about what retirement is like, and how we might need to be supporting work longer, and how we might need to be healthier, just feels like an utter failure of our entire political classes.' Ashournia says 'the vast majority' of Danish Trade Union Confederation members 'want to be working until the retirement age [and] even longer, if possible.' 'But today, two thirds retire prior to the retirement age because they cannot continue, or they choose to retire because they have saved sufficient funds. So the challenge for us is: how do we ensure that workers are able to continue to work until the retirement age – that's under the current retirement age, which is 67 today. 'When we increase the retirement age in the future, this problem is just going to be become bigger.'
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Jon Burrows: UUP's newest MLA carries on tradition of men in uniform
Jon Burrows is the newest Stormont MLA for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), but he is not the only former police officer the party has tried to attract News NI understands the party approached Jim Gamble, the former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command Centre in the United Kingdom, to be its North Down candidate in the Westminster election in July immediately turned down the Gamble declined to comment when approached by the BBC. Instead, the party went for the former Army officer Colonel Tim Collins, who failed to win the notoriously told the BBC at the election count that the people of North Down "don't want someone who doesn't live in Northern Ireland"."They're interested in local politics," he added."They're not interested in cutting VAT, they're not interested in international affairs. "They're interested in potholes and hedges."He had already complained during the campaign that he could insure his Rolls Royce in England, where he lived, for what it costs to insure a Ford Fiesta in north the recruitment of Jon Burrows to replace Colin Crawford, who lasted less than a year in the North Antrim Stormont seat, carries on a tradition within the UUP of seeking to attract oven-ready high(ish) profile representatives who are no strangers to of the past four leaders of the UUP have been:Steve Aiken, a former Royal Navy submarine commanderDoug Beattie, a former Royal Irish Regiment officer well known for his service in Iraq and AfghanistanMike Nesbitt, a former TV news presenterIn addition, one of its nine current assembly members, Andy Allen, was seriously injured while serving in the Army in leader Robbie Butler is a former firefighter. The policy of bringing in high profile people from other walks of life is not entirely unique to the example, Sinn Féin now has an MP, Pat Cullen, better known for her role as boss of a UK-wide nursing trade the UUP unarguably is way out in front for bringing in candidates already well known in other fields. So why?"There is something that attracts seniority to the UUP," says former party staffer Michael Shilliday. "In the old days that was just "big house unionism". "Maybe it's still that."But really it is what the 'decent people' shtick from 2005 was all about."That's why these people see themselves reflected in the UUP."That is a reference to a disastrous 2005 general election campaign slogan: "Decent People Vote Ulster Unionist". I remember being in the BBC office in Stormont one morning when the party press officer walked in introducing a man he said was a former Royal Navy submarine what seemed like no time at all, Steve Aiken, to use the hackneyed line, went from the command of one sinking ship to he stepped down, he was replaced by Doug Beattie who promised a "union of people", before things the latest changes is Mike Nesbitt, another man who had no grounding in elected politics when he swapped his news anchor role at UTV for an even hotter seat at quitting the leadership the first time, following a disappointing assembly election, he is because there was no other obvious candidate and partly because he represented the best chance of salvation for a party which is rapidly using up its quota of last to former UUP director of communications Alex Kane "it's a hangover from the 1920s when the Ulster Unionists saw themselves as the party of service". "They still do," he adds."Service to the people, service to the country and for them that is represented by a uniform."In a way, Mike Nesbitt is the same. "He was seen in people's living rooms on television each night and that is a form of service too. "The problem is times have changed."But it also reflects a lack of candidates from those already within the ranks who have the track record necessary to win elections and that, long-term, is a problem for the once mighty party of unionism.
