Latest news with #TonySmith
Telegraph
a day ago
- General
- Telegraph
British vessels head into French waters to help rescue migrants
British vessels were forced to head into French waters at the weekend to help rescue migrants on small boats in the Channel, it has emerged. Three Border Force vessels entered French waters to assist a French boat in its rescue of more than 30 migrants from a dinghy after it got into trouble as it approached the median line in the Channel on Sunday. On Saturday, an RNLI lifeboat was despatched two miles into French waters to rescue some 65 migrants from a dinghy struggling in rough conditions and bring them back to Dover. The lifeboat, which had been at sea on a training exercise, was called on to save the asylum seekers two miles before their boat could reach the median line in the Channel. The incidents have prompted demands for France to do more to stop boats leaving French shores, and that any migrants picked up in French waters should be taken back to France. Tony Smith, a former head of Border Force, said: 'We should not be going into their waters and they should not be coming into our waters. The French excuse is that they don't want to be rescued by the French, whereas they will accept being taken on board by the British.'
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Reform MP Richard Tice suggests plan to combat Channel small boat crossings - but the Tories' Robert Jenrick brands it a 'magnet for migrants'
Reform MP Richard Tice was accused of dreaming up a 'magnet for migrants' plan last night after he called for a joint asylum-seeker processing centre in France. The party's deputy leader faced claims that such an idea would make the small boats crisis 'a lot, lot worse' than it already was. But last night, Mr Tice stood by his plan and insisted that the migrants crisis 'can't get any worse than it's got now'. The row erupted after Mr Tice earlier this month advocated creating a joint British-French migrants processing facility on the other side of the Channel. He told a Politico's 'Westminster Insider' podcast: 'We need a joint processing centre in Normandy.' Mr Tice added such a centre could process asylum applications at the similar speed to under the last Labour government 'in the 'noughties' when they were processing people within two weeks'. He added: 'They had a week to appeal and they were accepting, give or take, 20 per cent of all applications.' However, Tony Smith, former director general of the UK Border Force, slammed the plans last night. A group of migrants across the English channel on a dinghy on July 10 Mr Smith told the Mail on Sunday: 'It's a very bad idea. It would be a magnet [for migrants}. 'You would get a huge pull factor into northern France and right across the borderless Schengen zone.' He added: 'You would have huge numbers hope and expectation that they would get across. 'And disappointed applicants would still take to the boats anyway.' But in reply, Mr Tice said the current system was 'already a magnet' for migrants and said his plan would have 'exactly the opposite' effect. However, last night, Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick also attacked Mr Tice's idea even though he admitted his own party had made 'huge mistakes on immigration' when it was in power. He said a joint processing centre as proposed by Mr Tice 'would lead to even more illegal crossing'. Mr Jenrick said: 'Asylum shoppers from across Europe would flock to Calais in even greater numbers. 'I will be the first to admit my party made huge mistakes on immigration. It's why I resigned.
ABC News
16-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
More than 10 million vapes seized in Australia since import ban
Almost half a billon dollars worth of vapes have been taken off the street since new laws came into force 18 months ago as research shows fewer young Australians are taking up vaping. The Therapeutic Goods Authority and Australian Border Force (ABF) said they have seized more than 10 million vapes since they were banned at the start of 2024. The federal government said the street value was worth almost half a billion dollars. In the past year, other reforms have also come into place like limiting the sale of vapes to pharmacies and banning vaping advertising. ABF Assistant Commissioner Tony Smith said authorities were determined to continue disrupting the trade. "It's a market that targets our communities including our children," he said. "[It] sends profits into the hands of organised crime, profits that are used to cause further harm through intimidation tactics, arson, firearms, drugs and even cyber crime." Assistant Commissioner Smith said the ABF had "ramped up" its engagements with countries in South Asia and South East Asia, and has officers working in the United Kingdom, Thailand and Hong Kong to stem the flow of illegal vaping products entering Australia. "In the last financial year, ABF officers made on average 120 detections a day, contributing to 10 million vapes, 2.5 billion cigarette sticks and 435 tonnes of illicit tobacco," he said. Meanwhile, government-funded research from the Cancer Council and University of Sydney has found fewer young people are taking up vaping. The Generation Vape Research Project conducted an anonymous survey of 3,000 young Australians. It showed from 2023 to mid-2025, vaping rates among 18 to 24-year-olds dropped from 20 to 18 per cent. From 2023 to late 2024, the number of 14 to 17-year-olds vaping decreased from 18 per cent to 15 per cent. It also found those who had never smoked or even had a few puffs of a cigarette was at its highest rate on record at 94 per cent. "The peak vaping rates appear to be behind us," University of Sydney Professor Becky Freeman said. She said young people used to think vaping was harmless and perceived differently to "your grandfather's stinky cigarette", but attitudes have shifted. "They can't believe that something that they were just using at parties for fun on the weekends, that they were told if they took to music festivals would be a great way to enhance their good time. "Now their wellbeing is being impacted, they're waking up with a vape under their pillow." Dr Freeman said law enforcement, education, mass media campaigns and quitting support needed to continue. Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said import controls contributed to the decline in youth vaping rates. "It looks like we have turned a corner and at least stopped the explosion in vaping among young Australians that was emerging as one of the most significant public health challenges for our community," he said. Mr Butler said some vaping products still "leak" through the border. "From the time we put this ban in place we never pretended we'd be able to stop every vape coming in," he said. "But we do know that it is harder to get your hands on a disposable vape … that's led to a very significant increase in the price of vapes where they are still accessible, and that's having a positive impact on young people."
BBC News
12-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
A decade of small boat migrants - how did it begin?
It has been a decade since the BBC first reported on a small, sporadic number of boats with migrants on board arriving off the Kent coast from France. At the time, the focus was mainly on the thousands of attempts by migrants in northern France, who were attempting to stowaway on lorries and ferries to the the nearby "Calais Jungle" thousands of men, women and children were living under canvass in a sprawling camp that was later cleared by the French as security was tightened around the ports and Eurotunnel, within three years, significant numbers were using small boats instead to make the dangerous crossing. How many people cross the Channel in small boats?With the Prime Minister claiming the UK will begin returning some migrants arriving in small boats to France under a new pilot scheme, BBC South East looks back on the emergence of smugglers using maritime routes into Britain 10 years ago.A former head of Border Force, an ex Dover coastguard and a retired customs chief investigator recall how they were first made aware of small boat crossings - and offer suggestions on how they could be stopped. Tony Smith is the former director general of Border Force. He served for 40 years, retiring in 2013. He said he was never aware of any arrivals by boat during his time in the service and says at that time he was advised that it wasn't a threat."The problem was people penetrating via ferries and lorries and I think the reason people shifted to the boats was because we'd done quite well in stopping them coming in by other routes," he said."I was advised during my time as gold commander for the London 2012 Olympics and as head of Border Force that this was not a threat."The currents were too difficult, these were busy shipping lanes, nobody would be able to make it across, so I was very surprised when I saw that boats started arriving, particularly small boats and dinghies."As soon as the migrants and smugglers realised this was a viable route, they were getting ashore, they weren't being sent back and more started to come." BBC South East first reported on a handful of boat arrivals in 2014 and 2015, with around 100 people arriving in 2016 - but at that stage the incidents weren't published by the Home numbers started to climb in 2018, when people from Iran started to make the crossing. By December that year, the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid declared a "major incident" after an increase in Smith added: "Apart from a reduction in 2023, when we had the Albanian campaign and were able to send people back there, we haven't really been able to return anybody from France to the the new agreement with France, Mr Smith said "It probably is ground breaking if we are actually going to put asylum seekers in France back on flights to France.""I'm hopeful the French tactics in the water might have some impact.""We still need other options, we could clampdown a lot on illegal working, which I think this government to be fair says it's going to do, but I would be looking at a Rwanda type deal, or some other deal with other countries, so we don't have to rely on 6% returns to France." Former coastguard Andy Roberts remembers in 2015 first hearing news about a small inflatable boat arriving with a few people on board - without life jackets - at Kingsdown beach, near said: "There was, understandably, some confusion as to what was the reason for the landing, even comments about the fact they must have got lost when going on a jaunt off the French coast."Mr Roberts says he never thought it would have become a regular smuggling route."The Dover strait is the busiest thoroughfare for shipping in the world, with in excess of 500 commercial shipping movements a day," he said."I know there has been in excess of 100 drownings in the past 10 years by people attempting this crossing. I cannot believe that there has been only one incident with in excess of 20 people drowning."These small rubber inflatable dinghy's are rarely picked up on ship's radars and in the first few years of these crossings there was no aerial surveillance." David Raynes, a former assistant chief investigator for HM Customs and Excise, warned several years ago that the small number of migrants could start to grow if the smugglers saw this as a viable route."As I recall, the first boats in 2014/15 were making it across and hitting the beaches," he said."There was a gradual transition from hiding in lorries, as that was made more difficult."Why do Channel migrants want to come to the UK? Speaking in 2016, Mr Raynes warned smuggling gangs could eventually use so-called "mother ships" further out to sea, to offload migrants on to small boats in the years on, he told BBC South East how frustrated he is by successive governments vowing to "stop the boats" or "smash the gangs"."If the French managed to slash every dinghy, the traffic would not stop," he said."It would move, some back to containers and lorries, some to larger boats, more remote coast line. Even to much larger boats, as occurred with drugs."What is attractive to migrants is the near certainty they can make it to the UK. The near certainty that they will get to stay."That certainty needs to be removed. Quick fixes on party lines go nowhere near the problem."
Forbes
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
LACMA Builds Its Future
David Geffen Galleries at LACMA; exterior view southeast toward Wilshire Boulevard with Tony Smith's Smoke (1967) in foreground, photo © Iwan Baan, courtesy of LACMA 'The superstructure is the structure,' said Michael Govan, director and CEO of the Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA) said of the new Peter Zumthor-designed building that recently opened for a press preview. There is no art in the building yet, and the official opening isn't until April 2026, but Govan wanted a moment of celebration for the completion of this 110,000 square feet gallery with no columns for which three of LACMA's original buildings were demolished, and which snakes across Wilshire Boulevard, where there will be a new a cafe, a restaurant, a family education center, and a 300-seat theater. It is hard to believe that Los Angeles didn't really have a contemporary art museum before LACMA opened in 1965. Over the years the William Pereira designed campus meant to invoke an 'art acropolis' with gleaming modernist buildings each named for leading donors such as Bing, Ahmanson, and Lytton (later renamed for Armand Hammer) created no excitement and no cohesion. For the last several decades, as long as I've lived in Los Angeles, there have been plans to come up with a master plan for LACMA. Over the years this has involved building the additions of the Renzo Piano BCAM building with its Pompidou like outdoor escalator – which originally might have held the Broad Collection but, as I predicted at the time, proved too difficult to execute to Eli Broad's satisfaction, and the Resnick Pavillon, which in many ways became LACMA's permanent temporary exhibition space. Several starchitects such as Piano made proposals, several were announced, none were built. Then came Michael Govan. Director and CEO of LACMA. Govan's detractors like to say he has an 'edifice complex.' Which I repeat because it's such a good line. However, it is also true that he was working for Thomas Krens at the Guggenheim at the time they built the Frank Gehry Bilboa branch of the museum, and then when leading the DIA art Foundation, he opened DIA Beacon, which is a terrific space. So, like many a bromide, there is a grain of truth to it. LACMA was in need of a unified campus (and some of its buildings needed to be torn down for reasons of seismic safety). Govan's solution which was both maximalist and in some ways minimalist, involved what seemed an outlandish idea, a Peter Zumthor-designed one story columnless pavilion with floor to ceiling glass, an amorphous amoeba like shape, that would cross Wilshire Boulevard, and would cost $720 Million dollars. The critics were many. Complaints included that the new structure offered no more exhibition square footage (perhaps even less) than the former buildings; that the floor to ceiling windows on all the sides of the structure would absorb too much heat and would make showing art inside difficult if not impossible; and that the use of such construction materials as concrete was not environmentally sound. Having a structure that crossed Wilshire Boulevard seemed a folly. Critics found the Zumthor building design itself was undistinguished, looking more like a spaceship that had landed on the tar pits than a museum-worthy building. But all that was before construction was complete. I will make a little detour here to speak about the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. The Barnes, like the Gardner in Boston, and the Frick in New York, was one person's collection displayed in the collector's home, arranged by them. At a certain point, a group controlling the Barnes decided to build a new building so the collection could be better seen and preserved. Lawsuits ensued as well as a very good documentary, The Art of the Steal , which was made before the new building opened and which made a very compelling argument that doing so was a travesty. Now, if you've been to the Barnes recently, you know that reality proved the naysayers wrong. However, before it actually opened, no one could imagine how great the newly installed Barnes was going to be. I bring this up because clearly LACMA believes the same is true for their new building. Given that there were so many objections to the building, it was very canny of Michael Govan and LACMA to offer a walkthrough of the building itself before even one piece of art is installed inside. The reality of the building doesn't quell all objections, but it does prove that Govan could raise the necessary funds to build it, and that he got the building completed. As an optimist, here's the good news: The new Geffen Galleries, as they are called, are definitely a statement building. If Los Angeles is a city where distinctive architecture is also outdoor sculpture, then LACMA, like Disney Hall, will become a destination that, like it or not, tourists and residents alike will want to see. The long outdoor steps leading to the galleries may become a place where people hang out, like the steps of the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York. Or you could have LA health enthusiasts 'doing the stairs' as they do in Santa Monica. In demolishing the prior buildings, they reclaimed three-and-a-half acres that becomes public space. Going to LACMA may gain the buzz as a public square as well as the locus for an inexpensive date or a family outing. There will be new large outdoor public sculptures that promise to be as instagrammable as Chris Burden's collection of street lamps. Finally, the completion of the new LACMA building, together with the opening of the metro stop there will complete the transformation of that stretch of Wilshire Boulevard into an arts district that stretches from the Tar Pits on the East Side of LACMA to the Academy Museum and Petersen Auto Museum on the West. David Geffen Galleries at LACMA; view northwest at dusk from exhibition level toward Resnick Pavilion, photo © Iwan Baan, courtesy of LACMA As for the interior of the building itself, there are also several positives to report. The overhangs create shade, and custom created light-porous chromium curtains filter the sunlight and the heat. The buildings' floor to ceiling windows do afford many new views of Los Angeles, not just of the rest of the LACMA Campus and the Academy Museum but also the Hollywood Hills, as well as new view over the LA Brea Tar Pits that will increase the land available to that institution. There is a gorgeous new view of the Bruce Goff designed Pavillon for Japanese Art that makes new that unique building's design, as well as of the tar pits. Finally, when standing on the crossover above Wilshire Boulevard, the view West is incredible and will surely become a selfie and Instagram magnet. On the south side of Wilshire where the building ends will also be a new 300 seat theater where films can be shown, performances staged, conversations held. And the building has been constructed in such a way that it can actually move and lessen the impact of an earthquake and aftershock. Aerial view of LACMA buildings, including David Geffen Galleries in context of Miracle Mile, photo © Iwan Baan, courtesy of LACMA Now, as to my reservations. Disney Hall is a thing of beauty, poetry even. The Broad Museum with its concrete veil is certainly striking. LACMA's Geffen Gallery may be exciting, interesting, but a thing of beauty? Maybe not so much. I have read one critic say the building looks like an airport air terminal. That's not completely wrong. It is eye-catching, and even elegant — a minimalist work done in a maximalist size. But that is not the same as a thing of beauty. Inside the building is all one large columnless space with grey concrete floors and walls, with several rooms, most of which struck me as too small for separate exhibitions and somewhat claustrophobic. The Galleries have been purposely designed so as to have, in Govan's words, 'no one in the front and no one in the back.' No given place to begin viewing and no end. The buildings floor-to-ceiling windows are meant to signal transparency from the outside world, and from the galleries looking out to LA. Govan wants with these galleries to 'Reinvent Art History for the 21rst century.' The art will be installed in such a way that one can wander and make discoveries at every turn, without a given beginning or end. There was some mention of grouping works 'by Ocean' (I'm not sure if that is accurate). What most concerns me is that if there is no set beginning or end to how the works in the collection are displayed, no collection of old and contemporary masters on permanent view, no progression in what we see, no visual and didactic narrative informing the viewer... Will the visitor be lost? Will making everything of equal importance mean that nothing matters? It could take LACMA several years of trial and error to find their way. Time will tell. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 26: Kamasi Washington performs during the LACMA First Look Reception on June 26, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo byfor LACMA) Getty Images for LACMA In the meantime, LACMA threw a memorable party for its new building. LACMA estimates some 6000 people showed up over several viewings. The art world turned out in force, including Charles Gaines, Ed Ruscha and Alison Saar. LACMA members also attended in great numbers, marching up the new stairs four deep. Kamasi Washington performed, leading some 100 musicians staged in various corners of the new structure. It was the kind of night that is too rare in LA, and I was happy to be there. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 26: Guests attend the LACMA First Look Reception on June 26, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo byfor LACMA) Getty Images for LACMA When LACMA opened in 1965, it was LA's first contemporary and modern art museum. Since then, the Pasadena Art Museum became the Norton Simon, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) opened downtown, The Skirball, The Getty Center, the Hammer, and more recently The Broad, have all taken root. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will open next year. To regain its prominence as a cultural destination, perhaps what LACMA needed was a hard reset. And a big dream. In the new LACMA it has both.
