MP calls for rail route be named after Alan Turing
Luke Charters, who represents York Outer, asked the Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central, whether the new TransPennine York to Manchester line should be renamed as the Turing Line.
Last year, the government announced a £400m funding package for an upgrade to the main line between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds, and York, to cut journey times to a little as 63 minutes.
Mr Charters said renaming the route would honour Mr Turing's legacy due to his work on computing at the University of Manchester.
He said: "I'm thrilled to receive support from the Leader of the House on this campaign. Both our constituencies in York Outer and Manchester Central are not only tied together by a strong northern identity, but vital rail infrastructure making it easier for our constituents to travel between our two great cities.
"Alan Turing is one of the most influential people in the history of this country. It would be a fantastic moment for this new rail line to become a tribute to his work - and the historic legacy he has left our great nation – not least following the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
"With two weeks until Pride celebrations begin across the country, this is a fitting time to pay tribute to one of Britain's most influential LGBTQ+ figures."
Powell said it would be "a fitting tribute to consider the TransPennine route or perhaps another railway line being named after him".
While at the Bank of England, Charters was part of the team that helped put Mr Turing on the new £50 banknote.
Mr Turing's efforts in cracking the Enigma code are part of the reason that Britain won World War Two.
In 2017, thousands of men convicted under historic homophobic laws were also posthumously pardoned as part of "Turing's Law".
Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Alan Turing to 'answer questions' in new AI display
'Turing's Law' pardon considered for gay convictions
Turing saved 'millions of lives'
Celebrating Alan Turing's genius
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Britain cancels extra border checks for animals ahead of UK-EU deal
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain is suspending the previously planned introduction of extra border checks on live animal imports from the European Union to ease trade ahead of the implementation of a deal agreed in May to reduce friction, the UK government said on Monday. Extra border checks on some animal and plant goods imported from Ireland will also be suspended. May's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, part of a wider reset in UK-EU relations, will reduce paperwork and remove routine border checks on plant and animal products moving between the UK and EU, while maintaining high food standards. However, the deal is yet to be implemented as details are still being negotiated. In the meantime, British traders must continue to comply with the terms of the UK's Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) that protect the country's biosecurity, including existing checks. The suspension of the introduction of additional border checks follows the announcement in June that checks on EU fruit and vegetable imports had been scrapped. A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could not give a timeline for implementation of the SPS deal. When Britain left the EU's single market in 2021, the EU immediately enforced its rules, leading to port delays and prompting some British exporters to stop selling to the bloc. Britain was much slower implementing its post-Brexit border arrangements, and after repeated delays and confusion it started to set new rules in phases from January last year. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Boston Globe
35 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
‘A climate of fear': How the Trump administration's attacks on Harvard could upend hiring practices across the country
Advertisement Regardless of whether the Trump administration is successful in extracting changes at Harvard — both are negotiating over a deal that would resolve several investigations of the university and restore its research funding — its targeting of the university's hiring practices could have a nationwide chilling effect, observers said. Employers may feel the need to abandon any efforts, even initiatives currently permitted under state and federal laws, that focus on recruiting and retaining diverse 'Clearly, what the administration is doing with Harvard and Advertisement The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of 'race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,' and created the EEOC to enforce the prohibition. For decades, the EEOC has encouraged employers to pursue diversity efforts if they are 'designed to open up opportunities to everyone,' according to its In April, EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas brought a While a spokesperson for the EEOC said the agency could not 'confirm nor deny the existence of any charge,' Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Swain said in a statement that the 'university has responded initially' to the EEOC charge 'and will continue to engage around questions from the agency.' The EEOC charge covers several topics surrounding Harvard. One part of the document alleges that certain student fellowship and internship programs might be discriminatory because they focus on specific groups of people, such as underrepresented minorities. The thrust of the EEOC's case against Harvard discusses the university's hiring more generally — though it doesn't describe exactly how the agency believes Harvard discriminated against certain employees and applicants. The charge largely hinges on practices Harvard — like all federal contractors — was legally bound to follow under an executive order issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly 60 years ago. That order required affected employers to measure the demographics of their employees against the overall workforce to see whether any groups were being underrepresented. Advertisement President Trump rescinded Johnson's order on his second day in office. 'This is a benchmarking to assess whether you're fully utilizing the talent available in your workforce and whether there are barriers that are artificially excluding qualified people,' said Jenny Yang, a former EEOC commissioner and Department of Labor official. 'That's all it's asking to do. Nobody's saying you need to meet that target.' The EEOC charge cited charts — once available on Harvard's website but now removed — depicting how the percentage of women, people of color, and LGBTQ staff among Harvard's faculty has increased over time. That data, Commissioner Lucas said, may show Harvard illegally discriminated against other employees. Under the executive order that Trump rescinded, Harvard had been required to compile demographic data since 1965. Now, those very same documents are being used against the university. 'It's somewhat of a nonsensical argument,' said David Cohen, founder and president of DCI Consulting, which advises companies on employment matters. He added that the availability of Black and Hispanic professors has gone up over the past decade, and so one would expect to see percentage increases. 'If you are selecting and hiring in a neutral way, then you would see an increase in representation of these groups,' Cohen said. Employment law experts also scrutinized the legal concepts used by the EEOC. Put simply, 'disparate treatment' happens when there is intentional discrimination, whereas 'disparate impact' is unintentional discrimination. The EEOC charge — that Harvard engaged in disparate treatment against white, Asian, male, or straight employees and applicants — under the law requires proof of intentional discrimination. But because the charge backs this up almost exclusively by showing a demographic shift, and not how that shift occurred, lawyers who spoke to the Globe said the commissioner is effectively relying on a different legal theory known as disparate impact. Advertisement Trump signed an executive order in April that prohibited federal agencies from using the theory, arguing that it is unconstitutional. 'There is real irony in the fact that this commissioner's charge relies on statistical trends to allege discrimination,' said Mickey Silberman, founder of Silberman Law PC who represents companies, universities, and other organizations on employment matters. It's ironic because that is a disparate impact argument, which he added the executive order 'was designed to address and prevent.' Experts said while the commissioner might have a better case arguing the other half of the charge — that certain student internship and fellowship programs are discriminatory — they cautioned that more information is needed to determine how the programs were structured, and whether participants would be employees under the law. While civil rights laws have not changed, Trump's about-face on nearly six decades of employment law represents an aggressive shift intended to stamp out diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and push what it says are 'merit-based' practices. The Trump administration has also used the EEOC to Those who side with the administration's broad approach view its actions as a return to the true meaning of anti-discrimination law — meaning that no one should be advantaged or disadvantaged based on their demographic details. 'Our goal is to end unlawful discrimination in America,' said Leigh Ann O'Neill, a senior attorney at the legal advocacy group America First Policy Institute, which is engaged in litigation on employment in higher education and was co-founded by two current Trump officials. 'There is a high focus on the universities right now, but that by no means is our narrow focus.' Advertisement Already, the government has struck a deal with Columbia University that includes requirements that all but factor race out of the hiring process. Employment law experts said that concession goes beyond existing laws that have long prohibited race-based hiring decisions, but have allowed employers to take some steps to promote diversity — for instance, by recruiting candidates from underrepresented groups to expand hiring pools. The Columbia deal also included a separate settlement of EEOC charges alleging civil rights violations against Jewish faculty. While the status of the EEOC investigation is unclear, targeting university hiring practices remains a top priority for the Trump administration. And even if other organizations determine that parts of their employment process related to diversity are legal, the threat of a costly EEOC investigation may lead them to abandon decades of hiring practices. 'It appears that there's not a lot of facts or evidence to support these actions, but the administration is working to create a climate of fear to intimidate employers into abandoning fully lawful efforts to advance equal opportunity,' said Yang, the former EEOC commissioner. Mike Damiano of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Aidan Ryan can be reached at
Washington Post
36 minutes ago
- Washington Post
A U.K. online law is choking free speech. Trump to the rescue?
Toby Young, a member of Britain's House of Lords, is the founder and director of the Free Speech Union. British users of the X social media platform got a shock last month when they discovered they weren't able to read certain posts. Instead, they were confronted with the following message: 'Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age.'
