
The Daily T: What the Left gets wrong about Margaret Thatcher
Broadcaster and political commentator Iain Dale is the author of Thatcher, a new book on the Iron Lady, which seeks to bust some of the myths around our first female prime minister and introduce her to a younger audience.
Camilla and Gordon speak to Iain about his personal interactions with Thatcher – including coming dangerously close to vomiting on her shoes – and what she would have made of Brexit and Nigel Farage.

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Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trans rights protesters daub graffiti including 'child killer' on Wes Streeting's constituency office
Trans rights protesters have claimed responsibility for vandalising Wes Streeting 's constituency office. Police have launched an investigation after the Health Secretary's HQ in Ilford North had its windows smashed and the words 'child killer' daubed on the front in graffiti. Trans Bash Back, a 'trans-led direct action project', claimed responsibility for the stunt in a post on the BlueSky social media platform on Friday. Sharing a photo of the front of Mr Streeting's office shortly after it had been damaged, they wrote: 'Don't want action? Don't kill kids.' The MP for Ilford North has addressed the vandalism but did not reference the accusations made by the activists. 'From day one as Ilford North's MP I've had an accessible and visible constituency office to serve my local community,' he wrote on X. 'Repeated criminal damage is unfair to my staff and an attack on democracy. I will not be commenting further while there is a live police investigation.' Trans Bash Back describes itself as a 'non-violent direct action group' which takes 'risky, and rarely legal' action. On social media, the group has said it 'to sit and watch as trans young people have their healthcare stripped from them. 'We refuse to allow Streeting to cover up their suicides. We refuse to endure the violence and humiliation. They will have to go through us'. One local business owner told The Telegraph that 'glass was broken and there's paint everywhere'. 'It's happened a few times – he's only just had the window replaced,' they added. Mr Streeting has previously been clear about his stance on the gender debate. In an interview with Talk Radio last year, he said: 'Men have penises, women have vaginas; here ends my biology lesson.' A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Police were called at 10.16 on Friday, Aug 1 to reports of criminal damage at an office in Woodford Avenue, IG4. 'Officers attended the scene, where they discovered that the address had been attacked with paint and the windows had been damaged. 'No one was injured.


Reuters
20 minutes ago
- Reuters
Who is Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian war hawk who got under Trump's skin?
Aug 3 (Reuters) - Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has become embroiled in a tense back-and-forth on social media that prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to announce he had ordered the re-positioning of two U.S. nuclear submarines. Who is Medvedev, what is his track record and how influential is he? Medvedev was elected Russian president in 2008 when Vladimir Putin, having served two terms, was barred from standing again under the law in force at that time. Medvedev ran the Kremlin for four years, with Putin as his prime minister but widely assumed by analysts in Russia and the West to be still calling the shots, before the two swapped places after the 2012 election - a political manoeuvre that provoked opposition protests. Medvedev, the son of two university professors, had studied law and worked for a time in the private sector. Short in height and quietly spoken, he was described by contemporaries as cultured and intelligent. As president, he was seen initially in the West as a potential moderniser and reformer, prepared to work to thaw relations with the United States. In 2009 he signed the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with President Barack Obama. But Medvedev's presidency also saw Russia fight a brief war with its neighbour Georgia in 2008, and he failed to achieve his stated goals of tackling pervasive corruption, improving the rule of law in Russia, strengthening the role of civil society and rebalancing the economy to reduce its over-reliance on oil and gas production. Medvedev served as Putin's prime minister for eight years in a period in which tensions with the West escalated anew, particularly over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. But his political fortunes took a dive when he was removed in January 2020 and replaced by Mikhail Mishustin, who has held the post ever since. Medvedev was shunted into a new role as deputy chairman of the Security Council, a powerful body that includes the heads of Russia's intelligence services. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev carved out a new role for himself as an arch-hawk and full-throated champion of the war, hurling aggressive rhetoric at Kyiv and the West and warning repeatedly of the risk of a nuclear "apocalypse". In May 2024 he said it would be a "fatal mistake" on the part of the West to think that Russia was not ready to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine. He also spoke of the potential to strike unnamed hostile countries with strategic nuclear weapons. His statements - including personal attacks on foreign leaders - were frequently designed to shock, insult and provoke. He referred to Ukrainians as "cockroaches", in language Kyiv condemned as openly genocidal, and called President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a criminal, a drug addict, a louse, a rat and a freak. In January 2023, he accused Japan's prime minister of shameful subservience to the United States and suggested he should ritually disembowel himself. Russian opposition figures have dismissed Medvedev's outpourings as sad, impotent rants. However, some Western diplomats say they give a flavour of the thinking in Kremlin policy-making circles. Until now, they have rarely provoked a direct response from Western leaders. That changed last month when Trump rebuked Medvedev and accused him of throwing around the "N" word after the Russian criticised U.S. air strikes on Iran and said "a number of countries" were ready to supply Iran with nuclear warheads. When Trump imposed a deadline on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine or face further sanctions, including on buyers of its exports, Medvedev accused him of playing a "game of ultimatums" and moving a step closer to war between Russia and the U.S. Trump retorted: "Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he's still President, to watch his words. He's entering very dangerous territory!" Medvedev waded in again last Thursday, saying Trump's "nervous reaction" showed Russia was on the right course and referring again to Moscow's nuclear capabilities. Trump delivered his statement the following day on posting U.S. nuclear submarines in "the appropriate regions", since when Medvedev has not posted again.


The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
What is Yvette Cooper's plan to fast-track asylum claims?
As tensions flare up in the UK over migration, with protests taking place in Newcastle, Manchester and north London, the government is pursuing a new plan to reduce the asylum backlog. The home secretary has said she plans to introduce a fast-track scheme to turn around asylum decisions within weeks, via a 'major overhaul' of the appeal process. The plan is part of a wider attempt to crack down on the number of people crossing the Channel, with Ms Cooper announcing a 'one-in-one-out' returns deal with France earlier this year. But despite their efforts, last week it was revealed that the number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the English Channel topped 25,000 in record time, piling pressure on the government to take further action. It is hoped that the new plan will make a dent in the backlog and return people to safe countries faster, reducing the number of asylum seekers who are housed in hotels while awaiting the outcome of a claim or appeal. Here, The Independent takes a look at everything we know about the plan so far and how it will work in practice. How would the fast-track system work? Asylum seekers and their families are housed in temporary accommodation, including hotels, if they are waiting for the outcome of a claim or an appeal and have been assessed as not being able to support themselves independently. But Yvette Cooper has now promised a 'major overhaul' of the appeal process, speeding up the time it takes for decisions on claims and appeals to be made. There are currently limited details on how this system would work, but sources told the Sunday Times it would allow decisions to be taken within weeks, rather than months or even years. Once a decision has been taken, those who have been rejected will be returned to their home country – reducing the number of people housed in temporary accommodation. 'If we speed up the decision-making appeal system and also then keep increasing returns, we hope to be able to make quite a big reduction in the overall numbers in the asylum system, because that is the best way to actually restore order and control,' Ms Cooper said. When will it be implemented? The home secretary has said she will legislate for the changes in autumn, when MPs return from their summer break. But it could take months for any legislation to pass through parliament, meaning we are unlikely to see the fast-track system implemented until the new year. How big is the asylum backlog and why is tackling it a priority? As of the end of March 2025, there were 78,745 asylum applications awaiting an initial decision – an 8 per cent decrease from the end of June 2024 and a 13 per cent decrease compared to the end of December 2024, official immigration statistics show. These outstanding cases related to 109,536 people, including both main applicants and their dependents. Labour has put a pledge to fix the 'broken' asylum system and crack down on the number of people coming to the UK on small boats at the centre of its plan for government. But with boat crossings at a record high, and the asylum backlog still above 75,000, there is mounting pressure on ministers to take more drastic action, a pressure exacerbated by the success of Reform UK in the polls. The government has also promised to end the use of asylum hotels before the end of this parliament, a promise it is unlikely to meet unless the backlog is reduced. Tensions over asylum hotels have flared up in recent weeks, with a protest and counter-protest taking place on Saturday outside the Thistle City Barbican Hotel in north London, and also in Newcastle and Manchester.