Top story: Push to persuade DUP
Good morning, this is Alison Rourke bringing you today’s briefing in this crunch week for Brexit.
Theresa May will embark on a final desperate attempt to win over the DUP and get her Brexit deal through parliament, in the hope that it will be third time lucky. With several prominent Brexiters, including the former works and pensions secretary Esther McVey, now signalling they may swing their vote in behind the PM, government sources are hoping to create a sense of momentum to get May’s deal up. However, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, said May would not put the deal to a third vote in the Commons unless she was confident she could get it through.
It will be a week of deadlines as the EU council meeting approaches on Thursday, with crucial decisions to be made on any Brexit extension. You can read some of the possible scenarios here. The short version is May needs to convince 75 MPs to change their vote if her deal is to pass, and then will ask for a short, technical extension of article 50. If not, it’s anyone’s guess how long it will be. No one is in any doubt of what a big job May has ahead, including the Dutch PM, Mark Rutte, who likened her to the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who loses his arms and legs in a duel and calls it a draw.
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New Zealand gun laws – Jacinda Ardern has said her country will introduce new firearms laws in the wake of Friday’s terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, but did not announce specifics. The prime minister sidestepped specific questions about banning semi-automatic weapons. Ardern said the attack had “exposed weaknesses” in the country’s gun laws. She said the details would be made public before next Monday but encouraged gun owners who wanted to hand in their weapons to take them to the police “at any time”. She also announced an inquiry into the circumstances that led up to Friday’s attack, including looking at what relevant agencies knew, or should have known. This morning Australian counter-terrorism police raided homes in New South Wales in connection with the attack, including the home of the sister of the alleged gunman. It came as weary residents of Christchurch went back to work after a sleepless, grief-ridden weekend. More is emerging about the acts of heroism on Friday that helped to save lives. Two New Zealand police officers who were in in city for a training course “had to use some force and tactical options” to arrest the alleged gunman. “They put themselves in harm’s way to stop any further attack and I do believe they did prevent further attacks,” said the police commissioner, Mike Bush. Meanwhile Facebook has said it removed 1.5m videos of the terror attack in the first 24 hours after Friday’s shooting.
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St Patrick’s day ‘crush’ – Three people have died after a ‘crush’ at a St Patrick’s Day party in Co Tyrone. Police in Northern Ireland said there were “reports of a crush” at the Greenvale hotel at about 9.30pm. Many young people were believed to have been at the venue and police urged parents via Twitter to collect them.
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Saudi prince rift – The role of the heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman, is under question after he did not attend a series of high-profile ministerial and diplomatic meetings over the past fortnight and is alleged to have been stripped of some of his financial and economic authority. The move is understood to to have been revealed to a group of senior minsters last week by his father King Salman. The relationship between the two has been under scrutiny since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which was alleged to have been ordered by Prince Mohammed, something denied by the Saudi government
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Revenge evictions – Tenants in England are not being protected from losing their homes, according to a new study, with only 5% of those who complained about conditions being protected by councils. Data obtained by the housing campaign group Generation Rent suggests that local authorities in England are failing to use their full powers to protect tenants. Even in the most severe cases, tenants are only getting protection from eviction in every one in five cases, the group said.
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Social media ‘disease’ – In a sign of growing concern about the impact social media is having on users’ mental health, MPs have said addiction to sites should be considered a disease. The politicians called for further research but said a report compiled by the all-party parliamentary group on social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing suggested there was good reason to believe sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – which are constantly competing for users to spend more time on their platforms – could be having a corrosive effect on children.
Today in Focus podcast: Growing up with gangs, poverty and knife crime
The Bollo youth club in Acton is barely a mile from wealthy Chiswick but to the teenagers who use it as a second home, it can feel like a world away. Its members tell Robert Booth how they navigate a life through poverty, gangs and knife crime. Plus: Helen Pidd on the crisis in school funding that is forcing schools to close early.
A forensic tent is pitched inside a police cordon at the scene of the fatal stabbing of a man in London. Photograph: Niklas Halle’n/AFP/Getty Images
Lunchtime read: Buyer beware
London and other cities will be watching closely as Amsterdam seeks to ban buy-to-let on newbuild homes to tackle its housing shortage. The city has drawn up plans as part of a spate of policies to combat spiralling house prices and over-saturated tourism. “Investors are buying Amsterdam homes more and more frequently, intending to rent them out. This means that ‘normal’ house-buyers have less of a chance in the housing market, and Amsterdam is not happy with this,” says the city’s housing chief, Laurens Ivens.
An estimated one in five homes in the city is sold to investors. In the past week, Ivens announced policies to enforce maximum prices for newbuild owner-occupied homes for middle incomes, and a crackdown on the subletting of social houses, which is banned. With Brexit looming, the city has become a magnet for international business, further worsening the problem. “We don’t think we have the golden bullet but the city of Amsterdam does have a lot of different measures to improve the liveability of the city for our residents,” a city spokeswoman told the Guardian. “The first point of a city is to live in, and the second is to visit.”
Sport
Rory McIlroy won the “fifth major”, the Players Championship, at Sawgrass on St Patrick’s Day – not the most high-profile victory of his career but without doubt among the most significant.
Eddie Jones has said England are still mentally scarred by their 2015 World Cup horror show after their second‑half capitulation against Scotland. Wales and England players, meanwhile, dominate the Six Nations teams of the tournament.
Jürgen Klopp praised his players’ reaction to shipping an unlikely equaliser at Fulham and welcomed a “sensational result” as Liverpool rallied late to move two points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Maurizio Sarri accused his side of switching off mentally as Chelsea provided Everton’s first top-six scalp in more than two years.
Bianca Andreescu completed her emergence as the latest new star of women’s tennis after a scintillating three-set win over Angelique Kerber in the final of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. In the men’s draw, Dominic Thiem edged error-prone Roger Federer 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to deny Federer a record sixth title in the desert while claiming the biggest title of his career.
And Valtteri Bottas hit out at his detractors and claimed he has entered the new season with a fresh approach after an emphatic win at the Australian Grand Prix.
Business
Two-thirds of the UK’s highest paid live in London or the south-east, data from HM Revenue & Customs shows. About 205,000 people living in London or the south-east paid more than £150,000 a year. The number of highly paid individuals in the capital and surrounding area equates to 64% of all the 321,000 people who received more than £150,000. Only two places outside of London and the south-east made, Edinburgh and Cheshire East, made it on to the list.
Meanwhile, Brexit fears have dampened spring property prices with the average UK asking price 0.8% lower than a year ago, according to Rightmove.
The pound is buying $1.329 and €1.172.
The papers
Brexit and Christchurch dominate today’s front pages.
The Times puts Brexit at the top of its coverage with “May woos Brexiteers but still faces defeat”. The Telegraph has “Boris urges May to make final appeal on backstop”. The i has “PM told to step down if she wants Brexit deal”.
The Guardian’s headline is “May begins make-or-break bid to get DUP to back deal”. The papers also carries a big picture of New Zealand PM, Jacinda Ardern, hugging a worshipper at a mosque in the country’s capital, Wellington. The Mirror splashes on the New Zealand tragedy: “We are one” is its headline. The Financial Times also leads on the Christchurch shooting with the headline “Security chiefs face questions as NZ mourns” and carries the same picture of Jacinda Ardern that appears in the Guardian.
The Daily Mail goes a different direction, with “Britons fleeced by fake taxmen”, a story about “swindlers in India who terrorise 10,000 UK residents a day via landlines with threat of prison”. The Express splashes on “Pensions boost for millions” in what it says are “radical reforms” that could boost retirement incomes by 7%, which the say is connected to an upcoming announcement from Amber Rudd.
Finally the Sun reports on a “Reality TV tragedy”, splashing with the headline: “Mike 2nd Love Isle suicide in 9 months”.
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