Starmer ‘dissatisfied’ Sentencing Council gained’t change tips which have prompted fears of two tier justice – UK politics reside | Politics
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Starmer says he’s ‘dissatisfied’ that Sentencing Council will not change its tips
Keir Starmer has stated that he’s “dissatisfied” on the Sentencing Council’s refusal to comply with the federal government’s request to withdraw the rules which have led to claims it’s selling “two-tier” justice. (See 11.44am.) Requested in regards to the Sentencing Council’s letter this morning, he stated:
Look, I’m dissatisfied on this response, and the lord chancellor is clearly persevering with to interact on this, and we’re contemplating our response.
All choices are on the desk. I’m dissatisfied at this consequence, and now we should take into account what we do because of this.
On the Downing Avenue foyer briefing, requested what the federal government would do subsequent and whether or not the federal government would rush by means of emergency laws, the No 10 spokesperson stated he didn’t need to “get forward” of the federal government’s response. However he stated all choices have been on the desk, and he identified that Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has described the present tips as “unacceptable”.
Key occasions
Liberal Democrat MPs are additionally persevering with to assault Nigel Farage, the Reform UK chief, over his name this morning for a commerce take care of the US that may expose British farmers to competitors from American meals produced to decrease requirements. (See 11.12am.)
These are from Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland.
That is typical of Farage the plastic patriot: undermining British farmers for the good thing about his boss Donald Trump. Farage doesn’t know in the least about farming communities and his utter ignorance is on full show right here.
British farmers are rightly happy with the excessive requirements we’ve got for the meals we produce within the UK. That’s one thing we should always assist and have fun, not denigrate. The very last thing we’d like is chlorine-treated hen or hormone-treated beef on our grocery store cabinets.
Farage is displaying his true colors, as he did with our fishing trade previously. He desires to make use of farmers as political pawns – after which promote them out on the first alternative. We can’t let that occur.
And these are from Danny Chambers, MP for Winchester, and a vet.
Nigel Farage might costume up in a wax jacket for a photograph subsequent to tractors in Westminster, however he’s an opportunistic weasel who isn’t any buddy of British farmers or British agriculture.
It isn’t solely farmers and vets who’re happy with our excessive animal welfare requirements, however the British public are too, and we should always not compromise them in commerce offers with the USA.
Reform UK social gathering for the wealthy, with ‘no observe document of delivering’, say Greens
The Inexperienced social gathering says Reform UK is only a social gathering for the wealthy, with “no observe document of delivering”.
In a press release issued forward of Reform’s marketing campaign launch, Adrian Ramsay, the Inexperienced co-leader, stated:
We all know persons are struggling after 14 years of Conservative austerity, now adopted by the crushing disappointment of a brand new Labour authorities making extra cuts to entrance line companies. However Reform won’t ever be the reply to the decline of the 2 previous events.
Reform is a celebration designed to learn the very richest and has no observe document of delivering for folks. Inexperienced councillors up and down the nation are delivering actual hope and actual change of their communities each day.
We’re providing a hard-working and democratic different to the lifeless finish, divisive alternative of Reform and their inconceivable guarantees.
Reform UK might win ‘probably a whole lot of seats’ in native elections, Richard Tice says
Reform UK has performed down recommendations that it might win virtually 500 seats within the native elections in Might.
In an interview on the World at One, Richard Tice, the social gathering’s deputy chief, was requested about an Electoral Calculus MRP ballot printed earlier this month suggesting the social gathering is on the right track to win about 470 seats. Requested if he thought that was doable, Tice replied:
I feel if we did [reach that figure] that may be really exceptional, and we’d be completely delighted, but it surely’s very onerous to foretell.
On the finish of the day, the place we’re allowed elections – as a result of there’s 5.5 million folks being denied elections, let’s not overlook [in areas where elections are delayed because of local government reorganisation] – however the place we’re allowed elections, hopefully we are going to win dozens and dozens and probably a whole lot of seats.
And if we do win a whole lot of seats, then we might win management of some councils. That offers us the chance to say, ‘Look, we will run councils effectively.’ You then look ahead to subsequent 12 months’s devolved nation elections, in for instance Wales, the place we might go very onerous. And there are nice alternatives to show ourselves.
Requested what Reform would offer to voters within the native elections, Tice stated the social gathering was against “the waste of cash in any respect ranges, whether or not it’s at nationwide public sector degree or at native council degree”. He went on:
The waste of cash in all places is colossal. Individuals are paying ever extra council tax for ever worse companies. One thing goes hideously unsuitable with procurement and prices inside all our councils. And we’re saying, should you vote for Reform and we win councils, you’re going to get root and department evaluate and reforms, line by line of all the associated fee objects.
Requested in regards to the social gathering’s probabilities of profitable the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, which is being held on 1 Might, the identical day because the native elections, Tice stated it was Labour’s sixteenth most secure seat, however that Reform would “run it very shut”.
Tice was being interviewed forward of Reform rally in Birmingham this night which is serving because the social gathering’s native elections marketing campaign launch. The social gathering claims will probably be the “most formidable marketing campaign launch in British political historical past”.
There have been three council byelections yesterday, and Britain Elects has the outcomes. Independents held a seat in Swansea, the Tories held a seat in Maldon in Essex, and Labour misplaced to an impartial in Redbridge (in a byelection attributable to the resignation of Jas Athwal, who has left the council as a result of he’s now an MP).
Britain Elects has the outcomes.
✅ Impartial Group HOLD
Penllergaer (Swansea) council by-election consequence:
INDG: 63.9% (-23.9)
LDEM: 13.6% (+13.6)
REF: 10.7% (+10.7)
LAB: 6.6% (-5.6)
CON: 3.1% (+3.1)+/- 2022https://t.co/QSSdXxbUXt
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) March 28, 2025
❗ Impartial Group GAIN from Labour
Mayfield (Redbridge) council by-election consequence:
INDG: 42.5% (+42.5)
LAB: 26.1% (-44.7)
CON: 19.4% (+3.6)
REF: 4.8% (+4.8)
LDEM: 3.9% (-3.0)+/- 2022
Estimated turnout: ~25% (-8)https://t.co/QSSdXxbUXt
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) March 28, 2025
✅ Conservative HOLD
Maldon North (Maldon) council by-election consequence:
CON: 41.1% (+18.4)
LDEM: 36.4% (-5.4)
REF: 16.7% (+16.7)
GRN: 5.8% (+5.8)No Lab (-14.1) and IndGrp (-21.3) as prev.
+/- 2023
Con defence was of second seat in ’23.
Estimated turnout: ~34% (-19)…
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) March 28, 2025
Andrew Teale has good guides to all three contests in a weblog on his Substack.
In posts on Bluesky, Luke Tryl, a polling specialist and director of Extra in Widespread UK, says the Redbridge consequence might say one thing about how Muslim voters have gotten ever extra disengaged from Labour.
From focus teams whereas the break up between some Muslims & Labour might have been triggered by Gaza, it clearly displays one thing deeper and probably longer lasting – above all a way of being taken with no consideration – this lead to a majority Muslim ward appears to verify that pattern
Comparability i’ve made based mostly on what we hear in teams is that Gaza has acted to some Muslim voters comparable means Brexit did to Crimson Wall voters, it’s the set off for a break up from Labour, but it surely’s not the underlying subject, it’s the sense that their communities have been neglected
Converse to Muslim voters who backed independents & sure there may be usually anger about Gaza, but it surely’s normally secondary to frustration at lack of funding of their space, crime, poor alternatives. Their vote for independents is in order that they have a champion for his or her neighborhood
I all the time bear in mind what Rafia, an account supervisor in Rochdale stated to me “There’s no level in you tackling world peace when the realm you reside in is a shithole”, these points run far deeper than simply worldwide affairs, and addressing them must go deeper too.
There are about 2,000 clocks on the parliamentary property, and staff have already began the duty of adjusting them, earlier than the clocks go ahead on Sunday.
Wes Streeting, the well being secretary, has unveiled a poster attacking Reform UK over its well being coverage (see 10.35am) at an occasion in Runcorn and Helsby, the place Reform is hoping to take the seat off Labour within the byelection on 1 Might.
Streeting stated Nigel Farage could possibly afford the premiums and the upfront prices that individuals would pay underneath an insurance coverage mannequin of the type he favours.
However not everybody on this nation is like Mr Moneybags, and the beauty of the NHS is that it’s publicly funded by means of honest taxation – public service free on the level of use.
We don’t know whether or not it’s Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch that we’ll face on the subsequent basic election. It’s a bit like watching Alien Vs Predator, however neither of them are actually dedicated to the NHS funding mannequin.
{Photograph}: Cameron Smith/Getty Photos
Sentencing Council says Robert Jenrick was unsuitable in what he informed MPs about alleged ‘two-tier’ tips
The Sentencing Council has criticised Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, for misrepresenting the brand new tips it has issued saying the pre-sentence experiences ought to usually be required earlier than judges sentence folks from ethnic, cultural or religion minority teams.
In his letter to the justice secretary launched at present, Lord Justice William Davis particularly identifies Jenrick and says feedback he has made in regards to the tips are unsuitable.
The council began consulting on the rules in 2022, and there have been no objections – together with from the then Conservative social gathering authorities – till Jenrick informed MPs within the the Commons earlier this month that they amounted to “two-tier sentencing”. Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, quickly adopted Jenrick’s argument, and since then she has been attempting to get the rules modified.
In a letter launched on 10 March Davis stated it was “utterly unsuitable” to say the brand new tips would result in minority ethnic offenders getting extra lenient sentences, as Jenrick claimed. However Davis didn’t confer with Jenrick immediately.
In his new letter Davis does quote Jenrick twice, from exchanges within the Commons, and argues that that in each cases what Jenrick was saying was unsuitable.
Referring to Jenrick’s declare that an offender is much less more likely to be jailed if the choose will get a pre-sentence report first, Davis says:
A pre-sentence report of itself doesn’t make a custodial sentence much less possible. It supplies the sentencing courtroom with data.
Davis even argues that in some instances a pre-sentence report could make a custodial sentence extra possible.
Continuously the knowledge supplied won’t help the offender’s prospect of avoiding a custodial sentence: relatively the reverse. By the use of instance pre-sentence experiences set out the perspective of the offender to the crimes they’ve dedicated. A probation officer will present a frank evaluation of whether or not the offender has correct understanding of the harm brought about to their sufferer. If the offender doesn’t, the sentencing courtroom might use that think about its method to the offender’s culpability and the danger introduced by the offender.
Davis additionally says Jenrick was unsuitable to inform MPs that the brand new guidelines “will journey roughshod over the rule of regulation”. He says:
No a part of the rule is a algorithm which ignore the rule of regulation. In relation to sentencing, the rule of regulation requires that every one offenders are handled pretty and justly by judges and magistrates who’re totally knowledgeable in regards to the offences, the impact on the victims and the offenders. The part of the rule referring to pre-sentence experiences is directed to the problem of details about offenders, no extra and no much less.
In her letter to the Sentencing Council despatched per week in the past, Mahmood stated she was against the rules on the grounds that they amounted to “differential therapy on the premise of race or ethnicity”.
In his reply, Davis says sentencing outcomes are totally different for ethnic minorities (they usually get harsher therapy than white offenders) and he says coping with this can be a coverage matter (and therefore a matter for presidency, he implies.) “It isn’t for judges to introduce overarching insurance policies to redress the imbalance,” he says.
However he argues that the brand new steering doesn’t quantity to differential therapy.
Any choose or Justice of the Peace required to condemn an offender should to do all that they will to keep away from a distinction in consequence based mostly on ethnicity. The choose might be higher geared up to try this if they’ve as a lot data as doable in regards to the offender. The cohort of ethnic, cultural and religion minority teams could also be a cohort about which judges and magistrates are much less effectively knowledgeable. In our view, offering the sentencing courtroom with details about that cohort couldn’t impinge on no matter coverage may be launched to take care of the underlying downside.
Richard Adams
Richard Adams is the Guardian’s training editor.
Bridget Phillipson, the training secretary, has stated it’s “categorically unfaithful” that she desires to finish free meals for infants in England’s major faculties.
A report in The Instances on Monday claimed Phillison had supplied to axe common toddler free college meals, as “a part of a bundle of measures being put ahead by Phillipson because the Treasury appears to be like for cuts” forward of June’s spending evaluate.
However Phillipson informed the Guardian on Thursday:
We’re not slicing common toddler free college meals. That’s not taking place.
Phillipson added that it was “categorically unfaithful” she had made the suggestion.
The coverage, launched by the coalition authorities in 2014, offers free college lunches to all kids in reception, 12 months one and 12 months two courses at state major faculties, with out means testing. Round 1.6 million kids obtain the meals, with faculties funded by the Division for Training £2.58 per pupil.
Starmer pays tribute to outgoing communications chief Matthew Doyle
Keir Starmer has paid tribute to Matthew Doyle, who – as Pippa Crerar revealed this morning – is leaving his submit as communications director at No 10. In feedback launched on the foyer briefing, Starmer stated:
Matthew introduced his appreciable expertise to my workforce in summer season 2021 and has labored tirelessly by my aspect each day since, taking part in a number one position in Labour’s historic election win.
On a private degree, it has been an actual privilege to work with him. On behalf of your complete workforce, I want him all the very best in his subsequent position.
Keir Starmer has restated his willingness to contemplate retaliatory tariffs towards the US. Talking to broadcasters, he stated he didn’t need a commerce battle, however that every one choices have been on the desk.
Clearly any tariffs are regarding and we’re working onerous with the industries and sectors more likely to be impacted.
None of them need to see a commerce battle, which is why we’re engaged in discussions with america about mitigating the influence of tariffs.
Now, that’s what we’re working onerous on, however in reply to your query sure – ultimately, our nationwide curiosity has to return first, which implies all choices are on the desk.
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