Latest news with #Britain
BBC News
2 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Kemi Badenoch accuses Starmer and Farage of 'fantasy economics'
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage of indulging in "fantasy economics" over their approaches to welfare in the Daily Mail, Badenoch says both leaders believe in getting struggling taxpayers to "fund unlimited child support for others".Her commentary comes after the Labour government indicated that it was looking at the possibility of scrapping the two-child benefit said earlier this week that his party would also get rid of the policy and back more generous tax breaks for married people. Badenoch added the country could not "afford their fantasy economics" and that Britain deserved leaders who did not "treat economics like a branch of showbiz"."This week we have seen Labour and Reform in a race to the bottom to scrap the two-child benefit cap," she wrote."Starmer and Farage now believe in getting taxpayers - many of whom are struggling to raise their own children or choosing not to have them in the first place - to fund unlimited child support for others."The Conservatives have said the policy - which they introduced - of limiting means-tested benefits to just two children in most families should not be UK have pledged to remove the cap if they win power, but have not detailed how they would fund the billions it, and all their other pledges, would cost. In a speech this week, Farage said he wanted to lift the cap "not because we support a benefits culture" but because it would ease the burden on lower-paid Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said the government is looking at scrapping the two-child benefit cap but warned it would "cost a lot of money".Speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show last week, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner refused to confirm whether the government would remove the has also grown from Labour backbenchers over the issue since the party's poor performance at the local elections earlier this attack comes after Farage said this week the Conservatives had become an "irrelevance".For his part, Sir Keir said the Conservatives had "run out of road", were in "decline" and "sliding into the abyss". Badenoch argued her party was now "the only major political party to take a serious look at the welfare state".
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
PATRICK MARMION reviews Marriage Material at the Lytic Theatre: Catherine Cookson meets The Kumars in a sweet Sikh sitcom
Marriage Material (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith) Nobody does family quite like Indians do. For sheer intensity of generational bonds, they are hard to beat – as we discover all over again in the new stage adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera's epic Wolverhampton-set novel Marriage Material. But what's really fascinating about the story of two Sikh girls in Sixties and contemporary Britain is its secret nostalgia for old-fashioned patriarchal ways. We start in a red-brick terrace among first-generation Sikh immigrants, Mr and Mrs Bains (Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay), running a corner shop and demanding that bus conductors be allowed to wear turbans. It's a formidably male-dominated culture and although their daughter Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh) is a plucky brainbox studying Thomas Hardy, her suspicious mother dismisses education as stopping people sleeping at night and making them 'force their toilet in the morning'. That line is greeted with howls of recognition, but the other daughter Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) makes herself a very happy marriage with hard-working, top-knotted Sikh-pride traditionalist Tanvir (Omar Malik). Indeed, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's stage adaptation works much better as a hymn to traditional Sikh values, and misses their dramatic edge in a modern-day second half where everyone is culturally adrift. What feels like a Catherine Cookson yarn of hard work and adversity winds up becoming more like a Kumars sitcom. White characters are painfully two-dimensional and there is some truly risible dialogue. Even so, Iqbal Khan's epic production has an irresistible sweetness. Jay nails the conflicted ambivalence of the Indian matriarch, while Landa takes up her baton as her shy but passionate older daughter who falls for Malik's proud young Sikh, and Deshmukh locates the pain of the younger daughter and her desire to escape. For all its faults, just like family, it commands our loyalty. Until June 21, then at Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5. The Beautiful Future Is Coming (Bristol Old Vic) Verdict: Smoke but no fire Rating: By Georgina Brown In the foyer of Bristol Old Vic, a newly planted field maple is flourishing, vivid green. Unlike the burnt, drowned landscape depicted by Flora Wilson Brown in this impressionistic, depressing play about climate change. The first of three tenuously related threads provides a trite historical backdrop. In 19th century New York, the patriarchal Royal Society rejects a paper about the greenhouse effect, penned by Phoebe Thomas's Eunice, corseted wife of supportive John (Matt Whitchurch), because she is a woman 'hobbyist'. The most absorbing strand is set in now-ish London, where Dan (outstanding Michael Salami) has fallen for his boss (Nina Singh). It's all teasing and sex until Daniel's mother drowns in a flood that, like the fires, are routine and catastrophic. Overwhelmed with fury and despair at a system which has allowed his mum's body to lie undiscovered, becoming hideously bloated, Daniel's inarticulate grief has a depth of feeling and eloquence lacking elsewhere. The least credible couple live in an imagined future (cue silly outfits). A heavily pregnant Ana (Rosie Dwyer) and her gormless colleague Malcom (James Bradwell) are scientists trying to germinate seeds in a rudimentary trough (unlikely). Cut off by a storm (as if), and now sharing their last flask of water (absurd — it has been raining for months), this is neither the place nor the time to bring a new baby into the world. The play's optimistic title suddenly appears bitterly ironic. 'How can you think about flooding in three years when now is taking all your attention?' someone asks. Which is perhaps Brown's point. With every day a firefight, fears about the future get sidelined. Director Nancy Medina's staging has an impressive fluidity with scenes gliding into each other through sliding panels. But the narratives fail to coalesce into a cohesive, satisfying drama. While climate change is indeed a burning issue, the play feels like a work in progress: all smoke and no fire. Until June 7. Marie And Rosetta (Rose Theatre, Kingston) Verdict: Raising the roof (of the church) Rating: We should all know about the pioneering gospel singer and guitarist Rosetta Tharpe, recognised by the musical cognoscenti as 'the godmother of rock 'n roll', a source of (acknowledged) inspiration for artists ranging from Little Richard to Johnny Cash, Elvis to Aretha Franklin. American playwright George Brant puts this forgotten heroine back in the spotlight she deserves. His play focuses on a life-changing moment: when Sister Rosetta invites a beautiful young gospel singer to join her on the road. Rosetta wants to get back to into the good books of the evangelic church, enraged by her raunchy secular songs with Cab Calloway in the Cotton Club. But first she has to teach Marie to put some swing in her voice and (more important) swagger in her hips. 'You can swing it for me, and I can church it up for you,' Rosetta cries. The magnificent Beverley Knight captures Rosetta's warmth and generosity, body and soul, encouraging Ntombizodwa Ndlovu's gauche 'shy violet' to open up like a passion flower, become bold and brazen. Bouncing off one another with energy and spin, their terrific talents combined, their powerhouse rendition of 'This Train' raises the roof, a duet made in heaven for, as Rosetta puts it, a God 'who don't want the Devil to get all the good music'. Set in a Mississippi funeral parlour, where the women are staying because black people were not permitted in hotels in the segregated South in the Forties, they rehearse for the first time before their tour to warehouses and hangars — the only places black folk can congregate unnoticed. The rehearsal over, the play loses its way and the rest of Rosetta's life — she married three times, lost a leg, had a stroke and, dirt poor, was buried in an unmarked grave — tumbles telling, no showing. But when this dynamic duo sing, the piece soars. In Kingston till tomorrow (May 24), then Wolverhampton, and Chichester. Also showing... This Is My Family (Southwark Playhouse) Verdict: Flat-pack family Rating: As a vision of domestic life, This Is My Family is an innocuously generic, flat-pack musical that feels like it could be knocked up from diagrams with Allen keys. First seen in Sheffield in 2013, Tim 'Calendar Girls' Firth's show is about a nuclear family in which the 13-year-old daughter wins a competition enabling her to take mum, dad and brother on holiday anywhere in the world. In typical Firth form (following Neville's Island), that means a wet staycation in a woodland. Dad (Michael Jibson) is a DIY-enthusiast who's a die-hard trier, Mum (Gemma Whelan) is an eyeball-rolling moaner, exasperated by his money-saving schemes. Their gothic son (Luke Lambert) lives in a kitchen cupboard, grandma (Gay Soper) is drifting into dementia and a randy aunt (Victoria Elliott) has a good gag about Wookey Hole. And they're capably led by teenage Nicky (Nancy Allsop), mixing Aled Jones with Roald Dahl's Matilda. Directed by Vicky Featherstone, the Royal Court Theatre's former boss, the production completes the B&Q look with Chloe Lamford's set of a fold-away fitted kitchen. But if you're hoping for more than flimsy sitcom stereotypes, you may be disappointed. Equally, it's perfectly inoffensive, slots together neatly and doesn't look too wonky. Until July 12.
Sky News
4 hours ago
- Health
- Sky News
Tom Daley says 'it's scary how LGBT rights are being dangerously threatened'
Even as someone who has grown up in the public eye, Tom Daley has vulnerabilities and concerns to finally reveal. The five-time Olympic medallist has an even greater perspective as the British diver who first competed at the Games aged 14 in 2008, who is now retired and a father of two. Having grown up in the public eye when social media was still in its infancy, Daley is deeply troubled by the toxicity online, especially for someone with an opinion. And the 31-year-old has spoken out from a young age - from LGBTQ+ rights to bullying and mental health - but he is ready to go further now. "There's lots of things I think we'll look back on this last five, 10 years of human history as being quite shocking in a way," Daley said in an interview with Sky News. "When social media came to prevalence - and cancel culture and people not being allowed to make any mistakes or be able to share too many opinions - it can be very scary and intimidating for certain groups of people. "I think it definitely pits lots of people against each other and I think we always have to remember that we're all in this together at the end of the day. "And there's so many more important things - being able to come together as one human race and I know that sounds very like hippie-dippie. "But it really is as simple as that, about just being kind to each other. "Where has that kindness and compassion gone because everybody feels like they have something to say about very small groups of people." A front row seat to LA 2028 The Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion revealed he was gay in 2013 and went on to marry Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black. They now live as a family in Los Angeles - the city hosting the 2028 Olympics. Having retired from diving after a final silver medal at Paris 2024, Daley will have a front row seat to the Games taking place in an America where Donald Trump has seemed to roll back LGBTQ+ protections early in his second presidential term. "It is scary in some parts of the world how the rights of LGBT people are kind of being reversed or they're being dangerously threatened," Daley said when asked about Trump. "It's something again where minorities have to come together for the greater good because it is scary. "And you may see someone else's rights going away and I think it's important that everybody, especially minorities, come together because it won't just be one group that gets targeted. "Once one group has been targeted, it will move on to the next, and the next, and the next. "I think the most important thing is staying visible. I think lots of people ask, 'What can you do to be an activist? What can you do to an advocate?' "I think it's being truly and authentically yourself. As long as you're happy, your friends and family are happy, and you're not hurting anyone else, then I think just being visible is a great form of activism." Trump election victory was a 'shock' "For lots of people living in the West Coast bubble, it was like a bit of a shock when Trump won the election in November," Daley said. "But I think it's also given everybody a wake-up call. I just always believe in leading with kindness, care and compassion and trying to make life worth living for every single person." Daley knows what it is like to feel targeted for abuse. In a new documentary featuring family video growing up, Tom Daley 1.6 Seconds, there is a sense of disbelief that he gave interviews as a child talking about being bullied in school after his Olympic debut at Beijing 2008. "I never really saw it back then as something that was strange because it's something that I had lived and grown up and just was part of how my life existed," he said. "But, looking back on it, I kind of was like, 'Oh my gosh, imagine if it could have all been so different'." London 2012 poster boy During the build-up to London 2012, Daley was the poster boy of the home Olympics. But he was dealing with bulimia and body dysmorphia in private. It's still difficult to talk about, knowing people would comment on how he seemed in great shape. "But that's not what an eating disorder is," he said. "An eating disorder is not being able to think about your body, what you eat, what you put into your body rationally. "And I think that's something that people don't necessarily understand with eating disorders, which is why going through that, I went through it alone. "Because I was embarrassed to be thinking about those things. I didn't think anybody would believe me." To this day, Daley feels people online are dismissive of his concerns. In interviews, he grates when it is pointed out that in retirement he is not fat. "I'm constantly reminded of that," he said. "So it's definitely something that triggered the way that I think about my relationship with food." This is not to take away from how fondly Daley looks back on a career that saw him reach the pinnacle with Olympic gold in 2021 at the pandemic-delayed Olympics. There is no sign of coming out of retirement again as he did in Paris last year. "I feel incredibly proud of what I've been able to achieve in terms of my perseverance and resilience through lots of different things," he said. "I do miss being on that diving board. "It is like there is no other feeling than being on top of a diving board in a competition where you're putting all of the work that you put in into that 1.6 seconds and I think I will forever miss that."
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Unsung British comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island is a modern day Local Hero, writes BRIAN VINER
The Ballad Of Wallis Island (12A, 139 mins) Verdict: Hilarious and poignant A pair of films open in cinemas today, each as British as a cream tea and both set way out west, yet strikingly different in tone. One is a hoot and the other anything but. The former is The Ballad Of Wallis Island. Written by and starring Tim Key and Tom Basden, it wrings laughs galore from the fundamentally sad story of Charles (Key), who lives alone and lonely in a rambling house on an island off the Pembrokeshire coast, with only occasional social interaction at the local shop, run by single mum Amanda (Sian Clifford). But Charles does have plenty of money, enough of it to pay a somewhat brittle, moderately well-known singer-songwriter called Herb McGwyer (Basden) to travel out to the island to perform a private gig. Charles claims they've met once before, long ago at the Colchester Corn Exchange, when Herb and his then-girlfriend Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) were a duo known as McGwyer Mortimer – 'the best-selling folk-rock artists of 2014', no less. What Herb doesn't know is that Charles has also invited Nell to the island. He is willing to fork out £800,000 in cash for the pair to re-form for one night only, without knowing that they are both bringing a heap of emotional baggage from their broken relationship. To complicate matters further, Nell is coming with her husband, Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen). Herb hasn't seen her for nine years. He didn't even know she was married. The story begins with Herb arriving by boat and an over-excited Charles wading out to meet him. Gauche, over-eager and exasperating, with a nervy compulsion for puns and word-play, Charles is a character in the great British tradition of Alan Partridge and David Brent, only more lovable and vulnerable. 'He's sort of sweet in a way,' Herb tells his agent over the phone, while also using a football expression to complain that Charles won't leave him alone. 'He's everywhere. It's like he's man-marking me.' Charles has two framed lottery tickets on his wall. Herb had assumed that he must have made his riches from finance or oil but in fact he was a male nurse who miraculously scooped the jackpot twice. Having used it all up first time round travelling the world with the love of his life, Marie, he then went and won it again. Alas, he no longer has Marie to share his fortune with, although for reasons that eventually unfold she still looms large in the narrative. Splendidly directed by James Griffiths, with glorious panoramic shots that will thrill the people at Visit Pembrokeshire, the film is based on a 2007 BAFTA-nominated short called The One And Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island. That too was directed by Griffiths, and written by Key and Basden. To dip into Charles's beloved word-play, if this longer version has an off-key note it lies in the character of Michael, whom the plot, a little unconvincingly, contrives to get out of the way once he and Nell have arrived. But it scarcely matters, and anyway it does its job, allowing the focus to fall on Herb and Nell as historical resentments pepper their search for old harmonies. Mulligan, as usual, is note-perfect and Basden, who did a cracking job of writing the film's original songs, is excellent too. But Key's is the performance to cherish: drama schools could use it as the embodiment of pathos. I loved pretty much every minute of this enormously engaging picture, which reminded me in some ways of Bill Forsyth's 1983 charmer Local Hero. Surprisingly, given its quintessential Britishness – and dialogue that references Monster Munch, Alton Towers, Harold Shipman, Ken Dodd and Red Leicester cheese – it has already been a modest hit in the US, following its premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival. But maybe that's not so surprising, given its universal themes of love, loneliness, friendship, and, indeed, money. The Salt Path (12A, 115 mins) Verdict: A bit of a slog The Salt Path is about money, too, but in this case the almost total lack of it. The film is based on a best-selling memoir by Raynor Winn (Gillian Anderson), which recorded the tribulations she and her husband Moth (Jason Isaacs) suffered after losing their family home, a disaster compounded by the diagnosis in Moth of a rare degenerative disease. Homeless and penniless, yet undaunted by his health problems, the Winns decide to do something positive, so they take a tent and walk the mighty South West Coast Path through Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. The film chronicles their highs and lows along the way, and it's moving stuff, but the journey is too often a slog for us as well as for them, and I wonder if feature-film debutante Marianne Elliott, whose many credits are all in the theatre, was the right choice of director? The coastal scenery is spectacular on the eye, while Isaacs and especially Anderson are both superb (if perhaps a little too handsome and well-groomed to wholly convince as a couple on their uppers). But the story could have been kept a lot more taut as the Winns encounter not just the kindness, but also the complacency, hostility and oddness of strangers.
Times
5 hours ago
- General
- Times
Starmer's legal chief in Nazi jibe at anti-ECHR Tories and Reform
Sir Keir Starmer's chief legal officer has likened attempts by the Tories and Reform to pull Britain out of international courts to 1930s Nazi Germany. Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, said Britain 'must be ready to reform' international agreements such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) so that they retain 'democratic legitimacy'. But he categorised Kemi Badenoch's policy to 'disengage' from the ECHR and other international bodies if they no longer serve British interests as a 'pick and mix' approach similar to that pursued by Nazi Germany to ensure the power of the state trumped the law. Reform's policy at the last election was to leave the ECHR and the 'foreign' court in Strasbourg. Sources close to Hermer insisted he was not likening right-wing politicians to Nazis, pointing out that he said they were acting in 'good faith' and were 'patriots'. Hermer said in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute: 'The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when the conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by 'realist' jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts.' Schmitt was a German political theorist who provided ideological justification to the Nazi regime and supported Hitler's move to bypass the German constitution and rule by decree in 1933. Hermer added: 'Our approach is a rejection of the siren song, that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster, not to mention the press, that Britain abandon the constraints of international law in favour of raw power.' He said that while the government must respect and comply with international institutions, the law could not 'stand still and rest on its laurels'. Hermer added: 'International law cannot and must not replace politics. As we have shown time and again as a nation, from a position of respect and compliance . . . reform is possible and institutions can be reformed. We must be ready to reform where necessary.' Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, described Hermer's plan to reform the convention as 'fanciful' because it would require unanimity from all 46 signatories. He hit back at criticism of those who want to leave it, saying: 'It is appalling that Hermer would insinuate those who think we should leave the ECHR are like the Nazis. David Lammy tried that disgusting smear with Brexiteers and it didn't work for him. It won't work for Hermer either.' deportation of foreign criminals, including sex offenders. Hermer's speech signals a notable shift in his approach. He has previously been blamed for acting as a 'freeze on government' by taking a risk-averse approach to potential legal challenges. It also suggests that the government is prepared to go further to tweak the way in which domestic courts interpret Article 8 of the ECHR, which protects the right to a family and private life. • • Leaving the ECHR can become Badenoch's big cause This month ministers said that they would change the law to prevent judges blocking deportation of foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers. The move would constrain interpretation of Article 8 and more closely define who qualifies for protection and when. Cases in which Article 8 has been invoked include an Albanian jailed for running a cannabis factory who avoided deportation when judges ruled it would deprive his daughter of a 'male role model'. There is a growing appetite across the continent to consider changes to the convention to help tackle illegal immigration. Hermer's speech suggests the government is now willing to go further than reforms to Article 8. He also criticised international judges for overinterpreting agreements signed decades ago in different circumstances. 'States . . . did not give an open-ended licence for international rules to be ever more expansively interpreted or for institutions to adopt a position of blindness or indifference to public sentiment,' he said. 'As progressive realists we recognise that international law cannot stand still.' A source close to Hermer said: 'The attorney-general sees those on the other side of this debate as patriots acting in good faith — but deeply misguided because ripping up international law will only help those who want a lawless world like Vladimir Putin. He is the son of a former Conservative councillor, who sees this as nothing but a good-faith argument in the British family.'
