Tunisia sentences prominent opposition figure Abir Moussi to two years in prison
TUNIS, June 12 (Reuters) - A Tunisian court sentenced Abir Moussi, a prominent opponent of Tunisian President Kais Saied, to two years in prison on Thursday for criticizing the electoral commission, her lawyer told Reuters.
Moussi, the leader of the Free Constitutional Party, has been imprisoned since 2023, after police arrested her at the presidential palace entrance on suspicion of assault intended to cause chaos, in what critics say was part of a crackdown on opposition politicians.
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Former MP accused of cheating at gambling on general election appears in court
Senior Conservatives including a former MP who was an aide of Rishi Sunak have appeared in court accused of cheating by gambling on the date of the 2024 general election. Craig Williams, 39, who served as the Tory MP for Montgomeryshire and Cardiff North, has been charged with cheating at gambling and three counts of enabling or assisting others to cheat. Williams, of Llanfair Caereinion, Welshpool, served as parliamentary private secretary to Rishi Sunak during his time as prime minister. At Westminster Magistrates Court on Friday, Williams appeared wearing a smart black suit and grey tie alongside 14 others charged with similar offences. Others included former Tory member of Senedd Russell George, 50, and Thomas James, 38, the suspended director of the Welsh Conservatives, both of whom indicated not guilty pleas. The charges come after 'Operation Scott' was launched to investigate gambling by politicians and employees of the Conservative Party in the lead-up to the 2024 general election. Rishi Sunak, who has provided a witness statement in this case, had noted that elections would take place in the second half of the year but had not given a date. Prosecuting on behalf of the Gambling Commission, Sam Stein KC said: 'Operation Scott was an investigation launched by the gambling commission into politicians and employees of the Conservative Party, and a former police officer … who had placed bets on the date of the 2024 general election with the benefit of confidential or insider information as to when that date might be. 'The prosecution says that placing bets with inside information is a criminal offence, namely cheating.' Williams was first the MP for Cardiff North between 2015 and 2017 before he lost his seat to Labour MP Anna McMorrin. He was then elected as the MP for Montgomeryshire at the 2019 general election which he lost in July last year. Before the July 4 election was called, planning took place at Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquarters, the court heard. The 15 defendants are alleged to have placed bets based on confidential information gained from those rooms, or enabling others to place bets by passing that information on. If convicted they could face up to two years in prison for these offences. Twelve of the defendants indicated not guilty pleas. On Friday, Simon Chatfield, 51, from Farnham, Surrey; Russell George, 50; Amy Hind, 34, of Loughton, Essex; Anthony Hind, 36, of Loughton, Essex; Thomas James, 38; Charlotte Lang, 36; Anthony Lee, 47; Laura Saunders, 37; Iain Makepeace, 47, from Newcastle Upon Tyne; Nick Mason, 51; Paul Place, 53, from Hammersmith, west London; and James Ward, 40, of Leeds, all indicated they would deny the charges. Former MP Williams along with Jacob Willmer, 39, from Richmond, West London, and former police officer Jeremy Hunt, 55, of Horne in Surrey, gave no indication of plea. The 15 accused gamblers will appear at Southwark Crown Court on July 11.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘I could hear the Camerons sniggering at us' – Sarah Vine's How Not to Be a Political Wife, digested by John Crace
I thought long and hard for three seconds about writing this memoir. I've not done so to settle old scores but because I want to settle old scores. A chance to relive broken friendships, dirty deals and to unconsciously act out my passive-aggressive fantasies on my ex-husband. In taking myself down I will take down most of those around me. Put simply, I am the former Westminster Wag with no fucks left to give. It is still dark when I open my eyes. It's the early morning of Friday, 24 June 2016. My phone rings. It's one of the special advisers. 'We've won,' he says. 'Gosh,' I reply. I had better wake Michael up. Michael had gone to bed early the previous night having drunk two-thirds of a jeroboam of claret. I think of Michael's team frantically debating what to do next, as they had forgotten to make a plan for what they might do if Vote Leave won the referendum. So easily done. I think of the day before when I went to vote wearing the wrong clothes. I think of my family who will be very cross with Michael. I think of Samantha Cameron and whether she will ever ring me again. Please do call, Sam. I'm always there. I hate upsetting people. Except when I am writing something unpleasant in my Daily Mail column. Then everyone is fair game. You think you have married a journalist, then, horrors, he becomes a politician. Let me start by writing about my early life. How my parents were cruel to me. How I was unhappy. (Please don't. Can you just get to the bits about the Govester? Cheers, Ed.) So, after several jobs in journalism, I found myself working as the arts editor for the Times and while I was there I was invited on a skiing holiday. Imagine my surprise when I was told that Michael Gove was also going to be staying in the same chalet. Michael was renowned for being the cleverest man at the Times because he could complete the medium sudoku at least six times out of 10. I asked my old friend Brian MacArthur for tips on Michael. 'He's a lovely chap,' he said. 'Though he is gay.' Reader, I married him. And let me tell you, Michael isn't the slightest bit gay. Not that it would matter if he was. Meeting Michael opened my eyes to a whole new social whirl. The Camerons, Sam's spiteful sister Emily, the Osbornes, the Lockwoods, Rachel, who went on to have an affair with Sam's stepfather, a huge scandal at the time – I don't know why I put that in, it has no relevance to my story but any opportunity to reopen old wounds shouldn't be missed – Nick Boles, and Eddie Vaizey. Darling Eddie. I love him to bits even if he did unsuccessfully try to shag half of the women in London before he settled down! And my dear friend Imogen Edwards-Jones. PS. You won't forget the jacket quote, will you Imy? Our wedding was a wonderful affair. Apart from my dad being beastly and Michael falling face down into his dinner and then passing out for 12 hours. He's always been a romantic. Six months later, we moved into our first house in Barlby Road in North Kensington. Our friends were horrified that we hadn't been able to afford to Notting Hill, but the fact is that Michael and I were flat broke and only had a spare half-million. Let me tell you, Dave never felt comfortable coming to our home because there were poor people walking on the pavements outside and said we were very brave for slumming it. Not long afterwards, our first child, Beatrice, was born. Again, I came to realise that Michael and I weren't truly part of the same social set, as many of our friends had their babies in private hospitals and Bea was born in an NHS hospital. That's where I saw first-hand fathers who took no interest in their children. Michael could not have done more for me when I was in labour. He sat down in a chair for 12 hours and read the whole of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson. Just occasionally he would look up to check if I had had the baby yet and to ask me if I could get him a sandwich. 'We need to have a talk,' said Dave, having invited us round to dinner with George, Eddie and Nick. 'Now, we all went to Oxford so it's obvious that we're entitled to rule the country. We're all MPs so it's time that you became one too, Michael. It's all the most tremendous fun. Just like the old days in the union. You get to completely fuck up the country for years to come with absolutely no consequences. And when we're all done with being MPs, we get to join the House of Lords. What's not to love?' It just so happened that a seat became available in Surrey Heath. 'It will be perfect for Michael,' said Sam as we sipped martinis. 'It's an area full of common people just like you. People who can only afford half-million-pound houses. So you will fit right in.' 'You say the sweetest, kindest things,' I replied. 'Is there anything else I can do for you? Collect the kids from school?' 'No, that's fine. Just wash the dishes and close the door on your way out.' Being an MP's wife took its toll. I just wasn't any good at going to speeches given by Carol Vorderman, who was then a Conservative. I've never seen such a highly cantilevered bosom. Sorry, that bit just came out. You can take the girl out of the Daily Mail but you can't take the Daily Mail out of the girl. Anyway, I hate her. While Michael was being very busy and ignoring me, I was struggling to adjust. It seemed completely unfair to expect us to buy a second home in Surrey and actually live in the constituency. Why would anyone choose to live in a shit-hole like that? We were doing Surrey a big enough favour as it was simply by offering to represent them in parliament. Plus, Michael had taken a massive pay cut to become an MP. Then came the expenses scandal. I was at my lowest ebb, gripped by depression. A terrible, debilitating illness. Except when it's Prince Harry who is suffering and I'm writing about him. Then he's just a spoilt brat who needs to pull himself together. Anyway, back to me. No one had told us we couldn't just buy whatever we wanted and put it on expenses. Besides which, everyone was at it. So when we were named and shamed by the Telegraph I just wanted to hide. Even now I don't think we did anything wrong even though technically we did. The early years of the coalition were like living in Camelot. Michael was doing his dream job as education secretary and most weekends we would spend time at Chequers. Mostly getting drunk and doing a tremendous amount of good things for the country. When Dave and Sam got caught leaving Nancy in the pub, I was furious on their behalf. It could have happened to anyone. Welcome to the toxic interface between politics and the media. Something to which I've never contributed in my life. Sam and I became the best of friends. She would ring to ask if I could do the shopping for her and I would drop everything to help her out. She made everyone feel so at ease and was always so well dressed. She always knew the right thing to say. I felt inadequate in her presence but she never used that against me. Though she was very cross when I moved to the Daily Mail. I tried telling her that Paul Dacre was the most compassionate man I had ever met and that he only wanted me to write nice, kind pieces. Like the one I wrote about Ed Miliband's kitchen! My, how we laughed. But slowly it all started to unravel. First, Dave sacked Michael as education secretary. It was OK for Dave, he was loaded. But for Michael, returning to the backbenches meant we would be struggling to get by on a combined income of more than £200,000. No one could possibly survive on that. Plus, we were still living in our shitty little house, which was now only worth about £1m. We were on the breadline. Michael always said that it was his closeness to Dominic Cummings, one of the most trustworthy men in Westminster, that was the nail in the coffin for us. Teachers used to shout at us in the street. What did they have to moan about? Some of them were earning as much as £35,000. I also have a theory that the media tried to get the public to hate us. They did it with Fergie and they did it with Meghan. Just saying. As for me, I've never had a bad word to say about anyone. Then we came to the Brexit vote. People have criticised Michael for breaking his word to Dave over his decision to back Vote Leave. But people forget that Michael is one of the most inherently trustworthy people I have ever met. It's just that he has a habit of changing his mind and letting people down. And I, genuinely, had no idea of what he was thinking from one day to the next. Michael is the least sexist person I have ever met. He just didn't want to trouble my pretty little mind with what he was worrying about. These days, Michael will tell you that he was always minded to leave the EU. That he had decided it was in the best interests of the country to take a 4% hit to GDP. It would make people proud to be British if they were worse off. Sam, Dave and many others in our set were furious with Michael. And with me. They said they would never speak to us and our kids again. That they had made Michael and I and we would be nothing without them. We had betrayed them and were not grateful enough. I sobbed and left the room. Who would do Sam's ironing now? Boris seemed an ideal choice to lead the Vote Leave campaign with Michael. 'We needed someone steady to keep us on the straight and narrow,' said Michael. 'Someone with no career ambitions. Someone who would say anything that people wanted to hear. Someone who, like me, had a clear plan. A plan to have no plan.' The fallout from the referendum was horrendous. People unreasonably expected Michael and Boris to know what would happen next. But how could they, when they were both completely hungover? Then Dave threw a tantrum by resigning and the whole world hated us. He could have at least waited a few more hours until Michael had stopped throwing up. Even the Mail on Sunday turned against me by doing a piece about how upset my brother was. If anyone was going to turn over my family, it should have been me. Thereafter, it felt as if we were a laughing stock. Of course, Michael was right to turn on Boris in the leadership campaign. How could he have known someone like Boris would be so unsuitable? It wasn't as if he had been at his side throughout the referendum campaign. And people mocked when Michael forgot to mention that Rupert Murdoch was in the room when he interviewed Donald Trump. That was a mistake anyone could have made. We eventually moved from our house in the north pole to another shitty area where houses were just over £1m. We could hardly swing a cat in it. I could hear the Camerons and the Osbornes sniggering at our demise. Michael just sat and did nothing throughout the move. Refusing even to open his boxes of books while I did everything. As usual. He's at his most helpful when he's doing nothing. A while later he stopped talking completely, just leaving notes around the house. One of which was: 'Shall we get divorced?' So we did. What did you expect? Personal insight? Digested read digested: The Unspeakable in Pursuit of the Untreatable.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
How would recent events in America appear if they happened elsewhere?
At times the gesture can seem like a cliche, but I like to imagine, for the sake of perspective, how political developments in the United States would be covered by the media if they were happening in any other country. I imagine that Thursday's events in Los Angeles might be spoken of like this: A prominent opposition leader was attacked by regime security forces on Thursday in the presence of the national security tsar, as he voiced opposition to the federal military occupation of the US's second-largest city following street demonstrations against the regime's mass deportation efforts. Alex Padilla, a senator from California, was pushed against a wall, removed from the room, and then tackled to the ground and handcuffed, reportedly by Secret Service and FBI agents, at a press conference in LA by Donald Trump's homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem. He was trying to ask a question about the deployment of marines and national guard forces to LA in his capacity as Angelenos' elected representative. Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, was later released; Noem, speaking to reporters after the incident, said both that she knows the senator and that agents tackled and detained him because neither she nor they knew who he was. In a video of the attack, Padilla can be heard identifying himself as a senator as Noem's security forces begin to grab and shove him. Seconds later, after he has been pushed out of the room, Padilla can be heard yelling to the men attacking him: 'Hands off!' The video cuts out after a man steps in front of the camera to block the shot, and tells the person filming, 'there is no recording allowed here, per FBI rights,' something of an odd statement to make at a press conference. Several federal court decisions have upheld the right to record law enforcement. The violence toward a sitting senator is yet another escalation of administration's dramatic assertions of extra-constitutional authority, and another item in their ongoing assertion of the illegitimacy of dissent, even from elected leaders. In responding with violence toward the senator's question, Noem, her security forces and by extension the Trump administration more broadly, are signaling that they will treat opposition, even from elected officials, as insubordination. They do not seesenators as equals to be negotiated with or spoken to in good faith, because they do not believe that any of the people's representatives – and certainly not a Democrat – has any authority that they need to respect. Padilla, like the people of Los Angeles and the people of the United States, was not treated by the Trump administration as a citizen, but as a subject. The attack on Padilla by security forces, and the viral video of him being tackled to the ground and handcuffed by armed men, has threatened to overshadow the content of Noem's press conference, which underscored in rhetoric this same sense of absolute authority and contempt for dissent that the attack on the senator demonstrated with action. Noem was in Los Angeles to tout the administration's military escalation against citizens there, who have taken to the streets as part of a growing protest movement against Trump's mass deportation scheme, which has led to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (Ice) kidnapping of many Angelenos and left families, colleagues, neighbors and friends bereft of their beloved community members. The protests have been largely peaceful – Ice and police have initiated violence against some demonstrators – but the Trump administration has taken them as an opportunity to crush dissent with force. The deployment of the California national guard – in violation of a law that requires the administration to secure cooperation from the governor – and the transfer of 700 marines to the city has marked a new willingness of the Trump administration to use military force against citizens who oppose its policies. But to the Trump administration, the Americans who have taken to the streets to voice their opposition to Trump policies are no Americans at all. 'We are not going away,' Noem said of the military occupation of Los Angeles. 'We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists.' By this, she meant the Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and California governor Gavin Newsom, who are not socialists but Democrats. The term – 'liberate' – evokes the US's imperialist adventures abroad, in which such rhetoric was used to provide rhetorical cover for the toppling of foreign regimes, many of them democratically elected. The people's elected representatives – be it Newsom or Bass or Padilla – are not figures they need to be 'liberated' from. That is, not unless you consider the only legitimate 'people' to be Trump supporters, and the only legitimate governance to be Republican governance. Trump, as he expands his authoritarian ambitions and uses more and more violence to pursue them, has made his own will into the sum total of 'the will of the people'. All those other people – the ones marching in the streets, and trying to stop the kidnappings of their neighbors – don't count. A few hours after Noem's goons attacked Padilla, a federal district court judge ordered the Trump administration to relinquish control over the California national guard, agreeing with California that the guard had been illegally seized when Trump assumed control of the armed units without Newsom's consent. 'That's the difference between a constitutional government and King George,' said district judge Charles Breyer in a hearing on the case earlier that day. 'It's not that the leader can simply say something and then it becomes it.' The judge was pointing to the constitutional order, to the rule of law, to the guarantees, once taken for granted, that the president has limits on his power. He gave the Trump administration about 18 hours to hand control of the national guard back to the state of California. It was not immediately clear whether they would comply. So much for us having a 'law and order' president. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
