Top story: ‘It is time for MPs to decide’
Good morning, it’s Warren Murray breaking the news fast (works on two levels right?).
Theresa May has set a new cut-off date of 30 June for a soft Brexit – and potentially her prime ministership. She races to Brussels today leaving a contrail of domestic political rancour, having squarely blamed MPs for failing to either back her deal or decide what they want instead. Addressing the British people, May said: “You want this stage of the Brexit process to be over and done with. I agree. I am on your side. It is now time for MPs to decide.” A number of MPs and pundits said they believed May had probably gambled away any chance of receiving renewed support for her deal by angering MPs.
May stressed that she could not countenance extending the article 50 process by longer than three months because it would plunge Britain into a “bitter and divisive” European election campaign. Donald Tusk, the European council president, said the heads of the EU27 were likely to agree in principle to an extension but only if May could find a majority in the Commons next week. It leaves Downing Street facing a race to win approval for May’s deal, persuade the Speaker that a further vote should be allowed, and get both houses of parliament to change the exit date.
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‘Firearms are not a right’ – New Zealand’s government has announced a gun ban that includes all weapons of the type used in the Christchurch attack. People have been given three weeks to hand in a range of firearms including assault rifles and semi-automatics. “We’re very much in the dark as to how many of these are in circulation,” said the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern. An Australian-style gun buyback scheme will offer “fair and reasonable compensation” to owners. New Zealand police say all 50 victims from the mosque attacks have been identified and all next of kin have been advised. One woman named in a court document as among the deceased is actually still alive, police have confirmed, though the overall death toll is unchanged.
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Lockerbie Stasi link inquiry – Investigators of the Pan Am 103 bombing are reported to be questioning at least five former agents of the East German secret police, the Stasi, about possible involvement in the terrorist murder of 270 people. The transatlantic flight was blown up over Scotland in 1988. Investigators have long believed Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted in 2001 over the attack, did not act alone. Up to 15 former Stasi agents living mostly in Brandenburg and Berlin are said to have been approached for “concrete questioning”. In Scotland, prosecutors are involved in investigating whether East German agents were actively involved with the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi. Crown Office lawyers have been searching for new evidence in Libya, while a separate Scottish inquiry is examining whether Megrahi’s conviction was a miscarriage of justice.
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They come here, pay their tax – International students who stay and work in the UK after graduation contribute £3.2bn in extra tax revenues, research has revealed. The Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) and the consultancy London Economics say a further £150m in revenue is lost each year because of government restrictions on post-graduation employment. The graduates do not take away local jobs because they largely work in highly qualified areas such as economics or science, or in shortage professions like teaching and nursing, say researchers.
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Webcam porn gang busted – Police in South Korea have arrested two men for secretly filming 1,600 hotel guests and streaming the footage live online. Authorities are battling an epidemic of molka – secretly filmed videos of a sexual nature that target women in toilets, changing rooms and their own homes. The suspects set up secret cameras in 42 rooms at 30 hotels in 10 South Korean cities, police say. Mini-cameras with 1mm lenses were found in places like hair dryer holders and wall sockets. Voyeurs paid a monthly fee to access the material online. Police said there was no evidence the hotels were aware that their guests were being spied on.
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That’s pants – Adding a new buzzword or “neologism” has become the accepted way for a dictionary publisher to bag the and-finally slot in the news. Possibly realising that we are wising up, the Oxford has put out a list of silly-sounding words instead this time. “Jibbons” means spring onions in Welsh English, “fantoosh” in Scotland means something overly showy, and in India, “kiss my chuddies” is an invitation to osculate with the speaker’s undies. They are all examples of regional English vocabulary that have been added. Well played, OED, well played.
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Today in Focus podcast: Theresa May v Brussels
As the PM heads into another battle of wills with the EU commission president, the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour describes the bitter history between Jean-Claude Juncker and the UK – and the latest chapter of the fraught Brexit talks as May pushes for a postponement. Plus: Daniel Lavelle on the growth of accent-softening classes.
Lunchtime read: ‘Hatred lives in New Zealand’
“Do not tell me that March 15 was a surprise. Because hatred lives in New Zealand. And yesterday it walked around the streets of Christchurch with an automatic weapon.” The words of Susan Devoy, the New Zealand race relations commissioner. After the attack that killed 50 people, Devoy said Muslims had been facing “hatred, abuse and extremists” in the country for years. In fact Christchurch has historically been the centre of New Zealand’s rightwing extremism, says Paul Spoonley, an expert in the far right. Dating back to the 1970s and 80s there have been skinhead, neo-nazi and extreme nationalist groups in the city. In 1989 a skinhead carried out a murder-suicide – at his funeral two skinheads held a Swastika flag above his grave.
In recent years a handful of white supremacist groups have become more active, and more visible, throughout New Zealand, but Spoonley laments: “There is very little monitoring of their activities. We’ve all been caught out by this.” Paul Buchanan, a security expert at 36th Parallel, says New Zealand’s security agencies investigated and infiltrated the Muslim community, animal rights and environmental groups, while the most deadly man in New Zealand lined up a bullseye in a brown paddock at the bottom of the country, and practised his aim. “In the panorama of threats, the lady at the top of a tree preventing a forestry tractor from knocking it down is probably a little less concerning than a skinhead.”
Sport
Ben Te’o and Billy Vunipola have found themselves in hot water after arriving late back at the team hotel following an alcohol-fuelled night out after England’s second-half capitulation to Scotland in the Six Nations. An expenses claim from Barry Bennell has raised significant questions about the defence put forward by Crewe Alexandra’s lawyers to fight the high court claims lodged by victims of the paedophile coach. Gareth Bale was present but not risked for a match in which Wales snatched a late winner against Trinidad and Tobago, a deserved outcome after constant second-half pressure that improved Ryan Giggs’s underwhelming record.
Shane Warne believes Australia are once again striking fear into opponents and can be spurred to World Cup glory by the reintegration of David Warner and Steve Smith. Proposed regulations on testosterone levels in women’s athletics have been criticised by academics who say they are not backed by scientific evidence and risk opening a pandora’s box on genetic advantages in sport. Sophie Jones is giving up football after the Sheffield United Women’s player was given a five-match ban for racially abusing an opponent during a Championship game against Tottenham in January. And the most successful club in Super Rugby history, the Canterbury Crusaders, is weighing up a name change in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.
Business
News this week that unemployment is at its lowest since 1975 has prompted our economics editor Larry Elliott to look for parallels between the current era and what are often deemed the “dark days” of the 1970s. Although the conditions are in place for a radical reshaping of the economy – just as they were for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 – there is little appetite, he says. Perhaps that’s because central banks have kept interest rates so low, but it could also be a failure of the left to seize the initiative. Asian markets have been boosted by the US Fed’s forecast that rates won’t rise this year. The FTSE100 is also set to feel the benefit while the pound has nudged up against the weaker US dollar at $1.132 and €1.156.
The papers
The Guardian’s splash today is: “May: don’t blame me for Brexit crisis, blame MPs”. The paper calls the PM “defiant … as she blamed squabbling MPs for delaying Brexit”. The Telegraph – “May ‘on bended knee’ to the EU” – focuses on the response from Conservative Eurosceptics, who warn that she risks leading Britain to “national humiliation”.
The Mirror’s headline is “It’s not my fault” and says the PM is “arrogant” and in a state of “deluded defiance”. The Sun depicts her as Wolfie Smith, Robert Lindsay’s character from sitcom Citizen Smith, doing a Marxist fist-salute under the headline “Power to the people”. The i calls it the “Brexit blame game”, while the Express has “PM tells ‘tired’ Britain: I’m on your side”.
The Mail warns the country: “We’re on a no deal knife edge”. The FT focuses on the PM’s desperation: “May pleads with rival parties to save deal as EU issues ultimatum”. The Times goes with “Voters back my Brexit plan, May warns MPs” and quotes heavily from an address “designed to deflect blame [and] turn voters’ anger on to MPs”. You can take a closer look at the front pages here.
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