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Boris Johnson has said he is “absolutely thrilled” to be hosting the German chancellor at Downing Street during a “very important” time for Europe, Ukraine and the countries’ bilateral relations.
Speaking in No 10, the prime minister said:
The relations between the UK and Germany are absolutely crucial, crucial, crucial for both of us and we have a lot to talk about.
He thanked Olaf Scholz for coming, who replied: “Thank you for having me here.”
Outgoing Metropolitan police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick has warned against the “politicisation of policing”, saying it is “a threat not just to policing but to trust in the whole criminal justice system”.
She left Scotland Yard this morning and was applauded by officers as she walked out.
Dame Cressida Dick has now left Scotland Yard for the last time as she leaves her role as Commissioner of the Met
She was applauded by officers as she left
— Scott Beasley (@SkyScottBeasley) April 8, 2022
In a “letter to London”, Dick wrote:
Of course as I look back there is more I wish we had achieved.
We hear the criticism, know not everyone has confidence in us to provide a good service when they need us, and have seen among us those whose horrific actions have let you all, and us, down so terribly.
Each one drives us to get better, to root out those who don’t uphold our standards and don’t deserve to wear our uniform. To improve our response so all our communities feel protected by us.
We are listening and acting on what you tell us so we can change for the better. Just this week we launched our violence against women and girls plan, shaped by the views of hundreds of Londoners.
The current politicisation of policing is a threat not just to policing but to trust in the whole criminal justice system. Operational independence from local and central government is crucial for an effective democracy and is a model respected around the world. We must all treasure and protect it.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has arrived in Downing Street for talks.
Boris Johnson will appear alongside Scholz at 3.15pm as Britain and Germany present a united front amid the war in Ukraine.
Johnson is expected to offer assistance to Berlin, which is still heavily reliant on Russian gas, to reduce its dependence on Moscow’s energy exports in a bid to starve Vladimir Putin’s war machine of funds.
The prime minister is expected to urge Scholz’s government to ramp up sanctions on the Kremlin following reports of war crimes being carried out by Russian soldiers in the outskirts of Kyiv.
In a tweet, Johnson said: “Looking forward to welcoming BundesKanzler Scholz to the UK today.
“I welcome his principled determination to end dependence on Russian energy. How we respond to Russia’s invasion will define the international order for years to come. We cannot let Putin’s crimes go unpunished.”
Pressed on whether he thinks the station attack was a war crime, Ben Wallace said evidence would be collected to prove the answer, but added: “The circumstantial evidence absolutely points to a range of war crimes being committed by Russia.”
Wallace insisted Putin’s war would backfire.”There will be more Ukraine after this, there will be more forces on the border with Nato, there may be more Nato members as a result of Putin’s actions,” Wallace said.
Russia may have committed another war crime by targeting civilians fleeing from an eastern Ukraine railway station with precision missiles, the defence secretary has said.
Ben Wallace vowed to “do everything” to ensure Vladimir Putin fails in Ukraine and predicted the war would backfire for the Russian president, perhaps getting more nations to join the Nato defence alliance, PA reports.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said at least 30 people were killed in the attack on the crowded Kramatorsk station, which was an evacuation point for civilians.
A further 100 people were injured, Zelenskiy said as he blamed Russia for “an evil without limits”, while the Kremlin denied targeting the station.
Wallace, visiting Romania for talks, said the strike was a repeat of the Russian president and his generals targeting civilians.
Speaking in Constanta, he said:
Not very far away this morning in a place called Kramatorsk, what appears to be Russian missiles struck civilian people queueing for trains to seek a safer place from the war.
The striking of civilians and critical infrastructure is a war crime. These were precision missiles aimed at people trying to seek humanitarian shelter.
Wallace said the sanctions targeting Russia must not be lifted to allow Putin to go back to “his superyachts and normality”.
“Whatever happens in Ukraine, we must not let the international community forget that. What Putin is doing here today is creating his own cage around himself,” he said.
He said the RAF will increase its contribution to protect Nato’s eastern flank in Romania from four to six planes, “because Putin listens to only one thing and that is strength”.
“We will do everything to see him defeated in Ukraine. There is more to do, Britain will do more, it will contribute more,” he added.
Patrick Wintour
Boris Johnson has moved to paper over differences with Germany on support for Ukraine, by hailing Berlin’s “principled determination” to end its dependency on Russian energy before a meeting in London with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
It is the first meeting between the two men since the Social Democrat Scholz was elected to lead a three-party coalition government, and follows a week in which Germany resisted British calls for the major economies to set out a timetable to end dependency on Russian energy.
In advance of the meeting with Scholz in Downing Street, the UK prime minister said: “I welcome his principled determination to end dependence on Russian energy. How we respond to Russia’s invasion will define the international order for years to come. We cannot let Putin’s crimes go unpunished.”
Scholz has been criticised domestically and by Ukrainian politicians for not moving fast enough to wean Germany off its decades-old dependency on cheap Russian energy, and for being slow to back the transfer of the heavy weaponry Ukraine needs.
He has also been warned by German industrialists that an immediate gas embargo would lead to mass unemployment, a position largely shared by the Green party, his coalition partners.
Nicola Davis
The number of Covid-19 infections remains at or near record levels in most of the UK, with only Scotland seeing a drop, new figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed.
The ONS data for the week ending 2 April, based on swabs collected from randomly selected households, shows that, for the second week running, about one in 13 people across the UK are thought to have had Covid – an estimated 4.88 million infections.
However, the picture varied between countries. In England, the number of infections for the week remained steady, with an estimated 7.6% or one in 13 people in the community thought to have had Covid.
In Wales, the estimated rate was up from one in 14 people to one in 13. In Scotland, 396,800 people – about one in 13, down from one in 12 the previous week – were estimated to have had the virus.
Sadiq Khan has said the protest by Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate activists that shut down Tower Bridge on Friday morning was “counterproductive”.
Speaking at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign in Barnet, north London, the London mayor said: “I think one of the things that those who feel passionate about something have to do is to win over public opinion at the same time as putting pressure on the government.
“My concern is some of the actions of XR discourage people from joining the campaign and don’t affect government policy.
“I think all campaigns or protests should be peaceful, lawful and safe, and I’m concerned that some of the tactics being used are counterproductive.”
Police were called to the bridge at about 7.30am after protesters from Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion occupied the famous landmark and unfurled a green banner with black writing, which read “End fossil fuels now”.
The demonstrators suspended themselves from the bridge on ropes, with police shutting it for several hours.
Officers cleared the protesters by 11.40am, escorting them into police vehicles, and the bridge was reopened at midday.
Councils are seeing a “concerning increase” in Ukrainian refugees arriving in the UK and becoming homeless due to relationship breakdowns with their sponsors and problems accessing accommodation.
PA reports that Ukrainian families who arrived under the family visa scheme are struggling to access cash while they wait for benefits, and some are being put in hotels because their relative is unable or unwilling to house them.
Dozens of matches under the separate Homes for Ukraine scheme are understood to have broken down, with local authorities having to put families in emergency accommodation while they wait to find a new sponsor.
Councils are calling for a way to get refugees whose matches have broken down back on the database so that they can be matched quickly with sponsors in the local area who have homes ready and waiting.
They are also exploring with the government the possibility of matching people who cannot stay with their family sponsor with sponsors registered under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
The chair of the Local Government Association (LGA), councillor James Jamieson, said councils need to be told in advance who is arriving under the family scheme and given funding so they can support them.
He said: “Councils are already seeing a concerning increase in homelessness presentations from Ukraine arrivals – including those who have arrived via the family scheme and where the families’ accommodation is not suitable or the relationship has broken down shortly after arrival – and lone children arriving in the UK needing support.
“New arrivals should be able to be rematched with a different sponsor if a sponsorship breaks down, to ensure families can swiftly move to other accommodation so they can rebuild their lives in their new communities.”
In a survey published last week, the LGA said 57 councils have been approached by a total of 144 Ukrainian households who have become homeless after arriving under both schemes.
The British Red Cross said it has had to refer people to homelessness charities, local authorities and housing associations due to problems getting funds or accommodation. In some cases it has had to fund short-term accommodation itself as an emergency measure.
The charity says more must be done to tackle these “basic problems”. Alex Fraser, British Red Cross director of refugee support and restoring family links, said: “We’re increasingly concerned about the access to information about support people are receiving when they arrive.
“We’re seeing an increasing number of calls to our support line from Ukrainians struggling to get cash and housing, and British families desperate to help but being prevented by the system.”
Full story: Sunak and Murty held US green cards while he was chancellor – reports
Rupert Neate
Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty had US green cards and were declared “permanent US residents” for tax purposes while Sunak served as chancellor.
Sunak and Murty, who own a £5.5m Californian penthouse holiday home, held green cards while they lived in the US and continued to keep the status when they moved to the UK before Sunak was elected MP for Richmond (Yorks) in 2015. Sky News first reported that Sunak continued to hold a green card for at least a year of his chancellorship, which began in 2020.
The Treasury and Murty’s personal spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. A source close to the couple said “they do not currently have green cards” but would not say exactly when they gave up the status, which requires holders to “make the US your permanent home”.
The disclosure raises further awkward questions for the chancellor – who said his multimillionaire wife had claimed non-dom status, which allows her to avoid UK tax on her foreign earnings, because she one day intends to return to live in India.
Under non-dom rules, Murty does not legally have to pay tax in the UK on the estimated £11.5m in annual dividends she collects from her stake in her billionaire father’s IT business.
The non-dom status may have allowed her to avoid up to £20m in UK tax. Murty has said she pays tax on the dividends overseas, but has refused to state how much she pays or in which country. She has previously collected other shareholder income via the tax haven of Mauritius, which does not tax dividends.
Holders of green cards are required to pay US tax on their worldwide income – and also to make a legal commitment to “make the US your permanent home”.
They are required to file annual US tax returns, and are “responsible for reporting your income and paying taxes on any foreign earned income”.
Read more here:
Sadiq Khan has said he is not “going to hide from the fact” he lost confidence in outgoing Metropolitan police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick.
Speaking at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign in Barnet, north London, the London mayor said:
In the recent past, she’s worked with many others to help us reduce violent crime but I’m not going to hide from the fact that I lost confidence in her.
I’m not going to hide from the fact that we’ve had in our city a series of devastating scandals, overt racism, sexism, discrimination, homophobia, we’ve had trust and confidence from Londoners in the police service at rock bottom.
It’s one of the reasons why I lost confidence in her and it’s one of the things I’ll be looking for in a new commissioner, how they will address some of these serious issues that, frankly speaking, the current commissioner failed to address.
The percentage of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England has increased among those from school year 12 to age 34, and for people aged 70 and over, the ONS said.
Infection levels have fallen for children from age two to school year 6 and adults aged from 35 to 49.
For all other age groups the trend is “uncertain”.
Keir Starmer has said Rishi Sunak and his family will “probably be all right” in the cost of living crisis, following revelations about the chancellor’s wife’s tax-reducing non-domiciled status.
Speaking about rising bills for families across the UK at the launch of his party’s local election campaign in Barnet, north London, the Labour leader said:
I was going to say every family is going to be paying more, but I think, as we’ve seen in the last few days, I think the Sunaks will probably be all right in this cost of living crisis.
At least we’ve solved one mystery that’s been eluding me for the last few days – we now know why the chancellor calls himself a tax-cutting chancellor.
About 12,000 people have arrived in the UK under Ukraine visa schemes as of Tuesday, according to Home Office figures.
About 10,800 people arrived under the Ukraine family scheme and 1,200 under the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme, provisional data published on the department’s website shows.
A total of 79,800 applications have been received for both schemes and 40,900 visas have been granted as of Thursday.
There were 43,600 applications for the sponsorship scheme and 12,500 visas have been issued.
Out of 36,300 applications for family visas, 28,500 have been granted.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, said she apologised “with frustration” over the time it was taking for Ukrainian refugees to arrive in the UK under visa schemes.
But she denied that visa requirements and checks were slowing the process and causing delays, in a pre-recorded interview with the BBC which aired on Friday.
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