Tag: Theresa May

Ivanka Trump "has privately said she was naive when she first came to Washington ... unprepared for the palace infighting," the WashPost's Ashley Parker and Phil Rucker write in a front-pager. And now: "By many accounts, her trip to South Korea [for the Olympics] was a success and arguably helped lay the groundwork for her father’s surprise decision Thursday to talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un." "It was not until the hiring of White House spokesman Josh Raffel last April that she and Kushner aggressively moved to protect their reputations." "Ivanka ... sat down with The Post in her office on the West Wing’s second floor — a tucked-away modernist oasis of bright white and clean lines — for two interviews on back-to-back days in late February, portions of which were off the record." "Ivanka argues that every issue she has championed is also a policy her father campaigned on and pushed in office. Paid family leave, for instance, is far from a Republican rallying cry, but it is something Trump mentioned on the campaign trail and in both of his addresses to Congress." British Prime Minister Theresa May updated the House of Commons on the investigation into the nerve agent attack against Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter this afternoon, stating that "the [British] government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal." What's next: May said that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had summoned Russia's ambassador to provide an explanation for the use on British soil of a nerve agent manufactured by the Russian government — with an acceptable response required by Wednesday: Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom. Lyft says that in 2017 Q4 it saw 168% in GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) revenue growth year-over-year, and that it brought "over $1 billion" in GAAP revenue for the whole year. Why it matters: While Lyft continues to deny IPO rumors, it's not surprise that the ride-hailing company is touting numbers that show it's growing and doing well.

Harriet Harman has claimed that the arrival in parliament of a fresh generation of “Tory feminist” MPs alongside men with modern attitudes has the power to boost the women’s rights movement. The Labour MP, who has been parliament’s leading feminist advocate for decades, said the changing nature of female Conservative politicians from the “doughty tweedy matrons” of the past to today’s feminists had been critical. Women march in London to call for gender equality Read more Speaking before International Women’s Day on Thursday and a speech on Tuesday night about her experience as a female MP, Harman said: “The whole agenda for women in the House of Commons has changed, firstly because of the numbers – there are more than 200 female MPs now. But, secondly and critically, there has been a dramatic change in the nature of Conservative women MPs. We have now got feminists on the Tory side, who are very different from the doughty tweedy matrons of the past. She also praised former education secretary Justine Greening, as well as Anne Milton, Rachel McLean and Mims Davies, and said there were “loads more”. #MeToo has changed the mood. But only improved policy can change the reality | Harriet Harman Read more The comments are a significant shift for Harman, who once branded May as “no sister” on women’s rights, arguing that Britain’s second female prime minister had voted for cuts to programmes that were vital for women. “It is also about the change in the attitude of male MPs – the ‘new man’ has arrived in parliament,” she said. Harman also read out a letter from another SNP politician, Stephen Gethins, after he spoke about his responsibility to his wife.

A senior Conservative is to urge Theresa May to target the wealth of baby boomers to prevent their children’s generation being forced to stomach a 15p rise in income tax to cover the spiralling cost of healthcare, education and welfare. “But neither party can avoid this issue,” he will say, claiming the Tory party’s stark 2017 manifesto was a “taste of things to come” with little room for tax cuts in the future. The Labour party, he will add, cannot raise all the money from the very rich as “taxing bankers cannot pay for everything”. Willetts will call for an overhaul of council tax, which he will describe as the “most regressive property tax you could have”. According to the Resolution Foundation, which has been gathering evidence through its Intergenerational Commission, a family living in a £100,000 house faces a tax rate five times higher than the occupant of a £1m house. We will shortly be publishing a paper looking at the options for making it fairer and raising more money from it,” Willetts will say. The idea of controversial new bands for council tax has never been attempted, however, because of the numbers of people living in homes that have risen dramatically in value while their incomes have not. However, Willetts points out there could be ways to help “asset-rich, low income older families”, for example through deferred payments. The Resolution Foundation is also examining inheritance tax, which it says is “poorly designed, widely abused and under-utilised”. He will argue that he has come round to the idea of such tax measures reluctantly: “Today’s young people are earning less than people of the same age 10 or 15 years ago.

‘My mum’s worried that I’m going to offend people and no one will ever go to my gigs again,” chuckles Paloma Faith, explaining why her tiptoe into political music on recent No 1 album, The Architect, isn’t overly reflected in her live show. There’s no place in the setlist for Politics of Hope, the narrative by the Guardian columnist Owen Jones from the album. Nor – despite Theresa May’s grand speech on Brexit hours earlier – does the singer make any reference whatsoever to the brassily anthemic Guilty (“I’m living in my worst fears / Begging you back through tears”), apparently about a remorseful leave voter. However, there is far more political content than we’d generally get from a mainstream pop star whose big-lunged retro soul ticks the same boxes as Adele and Amy Winehouse. Faith explains how the ostensibly breezy pop Kings and Queens was inspired by her black childhood sweetheart’s experiences of police racial stereotyping; she refreshingly employs a female rhythm section and peppers her cheery Carry On banter with fiendish little snatches of polemic (“We’re all being brainwashed to believe that we’re isolated, but we’re not”). There’s a more direct dollop of activism when she explains why she thinks the third global war has already started, and dedicates the first line of the song WW3 (“What kind of man gets a thrill from the life he’s taken?”) to Donald Trump. Faith, a half-Spanish, Hackney-born child of a one-parent family, couldn’t get away with rampaging on brandishing a copy of Socialist Worker. However, it’s to her credit that she can slip slivers of protest music into what is otherwise a big, staple – if occasionally kooky – arena show, with theatrical bells and whistles. The 36-year-old trained contemporary dancer and former burlesque performer makes a grand entrance through a trapdoor beneath what looks like a giant pile of ice. Then touring until 24 March.

Tory hopes of uniting the party behind Theresa May’s latest vision for Brexit faded as former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine dismissed her latest speech as just more “phrases, generalisations and platitudes” which had done nothing to make a deal more likely. We've gone from the fastest growing to the slowest growing economy in Europe and made a Horlicks of the Irish border A lifelong europhile, Heseltine conceded that the prime minister was in a difficult position, as rightwing Tory MPs held “a knife to her throat”. But neither the prime minister nor her cabinet had made any progress on the central Brexit problems, including the Irish border, because such issues were essentially not solvable unless the UK stayed in the EU. The only way forward, he said, was for the issues to be put back to parliament, and then to an election or referendum. “The downsides are becoming more evident as time passes. Play Video 2:01 “It is good to hear that the UK wants to stay in regulatory alignment but that doesn’t really solve any problems,” said one diplomat involved in drafting the EU’s position. Talks have continued between Labour MPs and Conservatives about how to push forward amendments on the customs union, single market, and the date of Brexit, on which May could well be defeated. There are also signs that worries about Brexit could hit the Tories in May’s local elections. Tory council leaders across the UK are among those who believe Brexit will damage their local economies, putting them under greater pressure to push up council taxes and cut yet more services, according to a new survey of local authority leaders and chief executives. The survey by the New Local Government Network (NLGN) showed only 12% of 185 respondents believed it would have a positive effect on their economies, while 26% felt the impact of leaving the EU would be neutral.

White House officials fanned out on Sunday to support Donald Trump’s planned imposition of tariffs on aluminium and steel imports, describing it as a national security issue. Amid international consternation, and with British prime minister Theresa May expressing “deep concern”, critics said the move was a needless provocation of allies and enemies alike. A senior Chinese official said the tariffs could “damage bilateral relations and bring about consequences that neither country wants to see”. Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, confirmed that China was the focus of Trump’s surprise decision, announced at the White House this week. It was also condemned by World Trade Organisation (WTO) and US allies including Canada and South Korea, which between them account for a quarter of US steel imports. We can’t have a country that can defend itself and prosper without an aluminium and steel industry.” Navarro denied that Trump was considering withdrawing from the WTO although he said the body was “a lot of the problem” and needed to change with the times. He added: “I don’t know why anybody should be so shocked.” But he tempered his comments, saying: “Everybody talks about tariffs as the first thing. Tariffs are a part of the negotiation. Trump trade tariffs: Europe threatens US bikes, bourbon and bluejeans Read more Among Democrats, the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy warned against starting a trade war with China when the the US needs support to resolve North Korea’s nuclear ambition. Cabinet Office minister David Lidington told the BBC: “the United States is not taking an advisable course” and added: “Trade wars don’t do anybody any good.” The decision has also inflamed rifts within the White House.

British children who live in impoverished conditions must work to pull themselves out of poverty, according to Theresa May. The prime minister is currently touring China, where she has been commended for her ability to ‘sidestep human rights’. She is said to be equally impressed with China’s ability to get significant economic productivity out of their child workforce. ‘Look, if children want to get out of poverty then the best thing for them is to work a real job,’ said Mrs May. With Britain leaving the EU in 2019, the set of human rights laws could be greatly relaxed to allow children to work as many hours as necessary at a reduced rate of pay compared to adults. This would greatly boost business profits, a real concern as Brexit approaches. ‘If children are the future then it’s time they started improving the country in the present. Do you think little Timmy would benefit more from learning algebra or earning £2 an hour in a factory?’ said Theresa May. Jeremy Corbyn has condemned the proposal, saying that the only ‘child labour’ he supports is Momentum.

Russia is up in arms after President Vladimir Putin met and shook the hand of known ‘enemy of democracy’, Theresa May. Politicians and citizens alike are said to be disgusted in their President, believing that he should be above glad-handing such a despised politician as the prime minister of Britain. ‘Theresa May runs her country like a dictator and spies on her own people. Russia should have nothing to do with someone like that,’ one Russian citizen complained. Putin has since apologised for his error in judgement, saying that the meet and greet with Theresa May was ‘beneath him’. The Russian President’s apology has come as something of a blow to Theresa May, who was hoping her pictured meeting with Putin would elevate her in the eyes of the global political community. ‘She really needed this,’ one aide confided in us. ‘She wants to be taken seriously on the world stage but it just isn’t happening. She’s one rung below Kim Jong-un right now.’ Kim Jong-un has refused to meet with Theresa May.

The freezing cold temperatures are said to be helping Theresa May’s CPU run at peak efficiency, with Conservative Party members noting her newfound drive and focus. A dip in temperature has coincided with Theresa May closing the first round of negotiations with the EU over Brexit, her first accomplishment in almost 18 months as PM. May’s robotic components are powered by an Intel Celeron CPU and it’s believed that the icy weather is helping her run more efficiently than ever. ‘Oh, it’s night and day compared to what she was like over summer. If we were to run an election now, I don’t doubt that she’d lose considerably less seats than last time,’ one anonymous Boris Johnson told us. The prime minister is taking advantage of her peak efficiency by getting as much done now as she possibly can. ‘Everything computes so much more clearly now. I feel strong and stable for the first time in years,’ she said.

But there is no disguising the total hash she has made of the negotiations so far. The debacle yesterday was not a unique moment of incompetence but part of a shambolic pattern by a Prime Minister who has taken the wrong turn at every stage. These ten MPs yesterday sunk the basis of a deal which could have allowed us to progress to trade negotiations and in the process provided voters with a hollow laugh as they remembered those Tory warnings of how Nicola Sturgeon would pull the strings in a ‘coalition of chaos’ with Labour. The Brexit talks will collapse if the UK imposes a hard border in Ireland . A bad deal really is better than no deal. So she is left having to weigh up which is more important: the national interest which comes with the prize of a trade deal or retaining the support of the DUP. Nor is this the end of May’s problems. Any regulatory alignment in Northern Ireland (which sees EU rules on trade and customs continue to apply after Brexit) is the most likely template for the whole of the UK’s trading relationship after we leave. Mrs May was supposed to be giving a statement to MPs today updating them on yesterday’s visit to Brussels but that was pulled once the DUP had torpedoed the deal. The most interesting could be the major pharmaceutical firms before the Business select committee.