Month: May 2022

The Scottish Tory leader spoke after the publication of Sue Gray’s final report into Downing Street parties during the pandemic.

It said many events “should not have been allowed” and criticised the No 10 leadership for its “party culture”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he took “full responsibility for everything that took place”.

He said he had been “humbled by the whole experience” and had learned lessons.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Ross said the behaviour was “unacceptable” and the public were right to be angry.

However, he added that Mr Johnson should continue as PM because of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford called the report “utterly damning”, adding that Tory MPs should remove Boris Johnson from office if he did not resign.

But Douglas Ross said if the PM was ousted, then it would take months to replace him, which would “destabilise the situation and only help Vladimir Putin”.

Mr Ross added that a parliamentary committee would now consider whether the PM had misled the House of Commons when he told MPs that the rules had been followed at all times.

Mr Johnson has denied lying to MPs but admitted it was not correct when he said all the rules had been followed.

Mr Ross added: “Deliberately misleading parliament, if he is found guilty of that, there is very little option… for the prime minister to continue after that.

“The ministerial code states if a minister is found to have deliberately misled parliament, they cannot continue.”

He also defended Mr Johnson’s record in office – citing the furlough and vaccination schemes as examples of the PM’s success.

Mr Ross previously submitted a letter of no confidence in the prime minister over the scandal before rescinding it – again citing the need for stability at the top of government following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In total, 83 people have been fined by the Metropolitan Police for breaking lockdown laws in Downing Street.

These include Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who received Fixed Penalty Notices for attending the PM’s birthday party in June 2020, which is among 16 events covered by the Gray report.

Douglas Ross has not broken Covid rules but Partygate has caused him no end of trouble.

At first, he took what appeared to be a principled stand, condemned the prime minister and demanded his resignation.

Then, when war in Ukraine broke out, he withdrew his call for the PM to go, arguing that unity was required.

He’s still sticking by the prime minister, although he’s said Boris Johnson would have little option but to resign if a separate Commons committee inquiry finds he’s deliberately misled parliament.

Mr Ross has also told one interviewer that the PM “should step down” when the war in Ukraine is over.

His flip-flopping over the PM’s future has raised questions about his credibility and some Tories believe it contributed to Conservative losses in the recent local government elections.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said lessons had been learned and that changes had since been made in No 10, adding that Mr Johnson had his full support.

But Mr Ross’ predecessor Ruth Davidson said earlier this week that Mr Johnson’s position had become untenable.

She told journalists that there was now “photographic evidence that when the Prime Minister stood up in parliament and was asked directly ‘was there a party in No 10 on this date’ and he replied ‘no’, he lied to parliament.”

Following publication of Sue Gray’s report, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said the findings “once again expose Boris Johnson’s lies to parliament and to the public,” adding that the PM had displayed contempt.

Mr Blackford said the PM “must bear responsibility for the culture – a fish rots from the head”.

Scottish Labour’s leader Anas Sarwar said: “Boris Johnson must resign, and if the Conservative Party had any integrity whatsoever they would kick him out.”

He said if Mr Ross had any credibility or principles he would call for the PM’s resignation, adding: “He needs to grow a backbone and boot out Boris Johnson.”

Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay said the PM’s behaviour was “bad enough on its own”. But she said “his constant and repeated lying, to parliament and the public, cannot be tolerated”.

Ms Mackay added that Mr Johnson could no longer remain in post, and she said Douglas Ross must call for the PM’s resignation.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said the country needed new leadership.

He added there was a culture of rule and law-breaking presided over by the PM, and said he had lied to the public.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said Douglas Ross had to “grow a backbone and submit his letter of no confidence”.

Authorities in Seoul said the missiles were fired in the space of less than an hour from the Sunan area in Pyongyang.

It comes just a day after US President Joe Biden left the region, following a trip that saw him vowing to bolster measures to deter North Korea.

North Korea has been test-firing a flurry of ballistic missiles since the beginning of this year.

Japan confirmed at least two launches happened on Wednesday but acknowledged there may have been more.

Japan’s Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said first missile flew about 300km (186 miles) with a maximum altitude of around 550 km, while the second, reaching as high as 50 km, travelled around 750 km.

Mr Kishi criticised the launches, saying they were “not acceptable” adding that it would “threaten the peace, stability and safety of Japan and the international community”.

In a meeting convened after the missile launch, South Korea’s National Security Council called the test a “grave provocation”, the presidential office said.

The launches came hours after US President Joe Biden departed for the US on Tuesday evening, after a five-day trip that saw him visiting South Korea and Japan.

U.S. and South Korean officials had earlier warned that North Korea appeared ready for another weapons test, possibly during Biden’s visit.

During his visit to Seoul over the weekend, Mr Biden and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol agreed to hold bigger military drills and deploy more U.S. strategic assets if necessary to deter North Korea’s intensifying weapons tests.

Mr Biden had said the United States was “prepared for anything North Korea does.”

The timing of these launches is not an accident – just hours after President Biden completed his trip to Asia, and days after he agreed with South Korea’s president to bolster their defences against North Korea.

For weeks intelligence suggested North Korea was planning to test something major while the president was here. Slightly less provocatively, it has waited until he had left, but only just. Air Force One hadn’t touched down on US tarmac before the missiles were fired.

At their weekend summit, President Biden and President Yoon said they were ready to take on the threat of North Korea together. This was their first test. They have responded quickly, condemning the launches, while joint-firing missiles of their own.

This marks another escalation by North Korea, which, over the past six months has become increasingly aggressive. But the concern is over what comes next. Evidence is mounting that North Korea is preparing to test a nuclear weapon. This would be its first nuclear test in five years and a major step-up.

The latest launches come as North Korea struggles to contain a suspected outbreak of Covid amongst its largely unvaccinated population of 25 million.

More than a million people have now been sickened by what Pyongyang is calling a “fever”, and more than 68 people have died since late April.

On May 12, North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles the same day that Mr Kim declared an “emergency” over the Covid outbreak.

South Korea has said it offered humanitarian aid, but Pyongyang is yet to respond.

The gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School – which teaches children aged seven to 10 – in the city of Uvalde before he was killed by law enforcement, officials said.

The 18-year-old suspect had a handgun, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and high-capacity magazines, investigators say.

The teenager is suspected of shooting his grandmother before the rampage.

Local media report he may have been a high school student in the area.

Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Chief of Police Pete Arredondo said the shooting began at 11:32 local time on Tuesday, and that investigators believe the attacker “did act alone during this heinous crime”.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the shooter, whom he named as Salvador Ramos, abandoned a vehicle before entering the school to “horrifically, incomprehensibly” open fire.

One of the adults killed was a teacher, who has been named in US media as Eva Mireles. Her page on the school district’s website said she has a daughter in college and loved running and hiking.

Nearly 500 pupils are enrolled in the predominantly Hispanic school around 85 miles (135km) west of the city of San Antonio.

The Associated Press news agency reports that a US Border Patrol official who was nearby when the shooting began rushed into the school and shot and killed the gunman, who was behind a barricade.

Border Patrol is a federal agency that guards US ports of entry. Uvalde, which is fewer than 80 miles from the border with Mexico, is home to a Border Patrol station.

Two border agents were reportedly shot in an exchange with the gunman. One agent was shot in the head, officials say, adding that both were now in a stable condition in hospital.

According to CBS News, the attacker was wearing body armour as he carried out the attack. Another 18-year-old who is suspected of attacking a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on 14 May was also wearing body armour and carrying a semi-automatic rifle – both of which are commercially available in the US.

The Uvalde Memorial Hospital posted on Facebook earlier that 13 children had been taken to hospital “via ambulances or buses”.

A 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl were in a critical condition at a hospital in San Antonio, University Health hospital officials said.

This is a profoundly shocking tragedy, yet in America it is also depressingly familiar. The grief and sympathy being expressed around the country is genuine. But no one is genuinely surprised that this could happen.

There have already been 27 school shootings this year alone. Young school children routinely rehearse what to do if a gunman enters their classroom.

It’s only 10 days since ten people were killed in a mass shooting in New York.

Politicians recognise this a problem almost unique to America, where guns have overtaken car crashes as the leading cause of death for children and teenagers. But it’s a problem that politics seem incapable of solving. Deeply entrenched views on gun control are not changed in response to events like the tragedy in Uvalde.

“Why do we keep letting this happen?” asked President Biden. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?”

But there is no sign that Democrats will get any closer to passing tighter gun control legislation. Some Republicans are already accusing of them of using this latest school shooting to cynically further their own political objectives

Robb Elementary School will join the roll call of school shootings along with Sandy Hook and the Parkland shooting. The killing of innocent schoolchildren has reignited the debate over guns in America, but has not brought it any closer to a resolution

As evening fell police remained outside the community centre in Uvalde braving an intense rainstorm.

Earlier, cries and sobs could be heard from outside as family members who gathered there received the devastating news that their children had been killed.

Others were asked to give DNA samples to help identify some of the young victims.

Just a few blocks from the Robb Elementary school, a small vigil was held for the victims and survivors of the attack.

Karla Bohman’s voice cracked as she told the group about a family friend whose young daughter, a student at the school, was among those still unaccounted for.

“They don’t know if she’s in surgery or one of the fatalities, but they know she’s a victim of some sort because she’s missing,” Bohman cried. “I can’t believe this.”

Cheryl Juhasz, a lifelong resident of Uvalde, quietly wept during the prayer.

“You can’t comprehend evil like this. No matter where it happens, but it’s harder when it happens at home.”

School district superintendent Hal Harrell said the school year had been ended early in the wake of the shooting.

In a speech from the White House, US President Joe Biden said he was “sick and tired” of responding to mass shootings, as he called for gun control.

“How many scores of little children who witnessed what happened – see their friends die, as if they’re in a battlefield, for God’s sake,” he said. “They’ll live with it the rest of their lives.”

He ordered that flags at the White House and other US federal buildings be flown at half-mast in honour of the victims in Uvalde.

School shootings have become recurring emergencies in the US, with 26 recorded last year, according to EdWeek, an education trade publication.

Active shooter lockdown drills are a common part of the school curriculum, from primary to high school.

The 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was the deadliest such attack. Twenty of the 26 victims were between the ages of five and six.

Speaking on the floor of the US Senate in Washington DC on Tuesday, Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy begged his colleagues to pass gun control legislation.

“These kids weren’t unlucky,” he said. “This only happens in this country. Nowhere else, nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day.”

But Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, rejected the calls for gun control. He said restricting the rights of “law-abiding citizens… doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.”

Guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month.

On Monday, an FBI report found that “active shooter” rampage attacks have doubled since the coronavirus began in 2020.

It is fair to say that even now, after 23 years in parliament and a record-breaking tenure in Bute House, Nicola Sturgeon is still at the peak of her powers.

She is the face and focal point of Scottish politics. Say “Nicola” to anyone in the country, and they will immediately know who you mean.

She has utter command over her party, the SNP, which in turn cruises through every election it contests. She is on her third prime minister and has seen off half a dozen opposition party leaders.

Last year she went toe to toe with her predecessor and mentor, Alex Salmond, in a bitter public row – and not only won out, but demolished his new party at the ballot box.

This commanding political position – and indeed the fact her tenure literally started with a stadium tour – may contrast somewhat with the rather private woman who famously enjoys nothing more than curling up with a book in her spare time.

But after 2,743 days in office, a global pandemic, Brexit and everything else, perhaps she has become so synonymous with the role of first minister that she can’t just switch it off for a long weekend.

How to evaluate Ms Sturgeon’s time in charge? Just putting numbers to it hardly scratches the surface.

She has guided the SNP to thumping wins in three general elections, two Holyrood ballots, two council contests and even a post-Brexit European Parliament poll.

The party was already in a strong position – she started off with an unprecedented Holyrood majority, won by Mr Salmond – but under Ms Sturgeon it has become a juggernaut.

What has the first minister done, then, with all of her electoral success and the many mandates given to her party?

There have been some notable wins. Last year, the government completed delivery of a policy set out in Ms Sturgeon’s very first speech as SNP leader in 2014, to double the allowance of free childcare.

This goes hand in hand with other family-friendly achievements like the Baby Box and the expansion of free school meals.

There has been a distinct social justice focus, with a new welfare agency – Social Security Scotland – set up and in the process of taking on benefits old and new, like the Scottish Child Payment.

And in recent years there has been a green tinge to policies, with Ms Sturgeon declaring a climate emergency before throwing herself into the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

However, there have also been areas where her government has fallen short of the goals she set for it herself.

In 2016, she said that it was her “personal defining mission” and the government’s “number one priority” to close the poverty-related attainment gap in schools.

The government’s aim was to “substantially eliminate” the gap over the course of a decade, but last week the education secretary said such targets were “arbitrary” and that this had “always been a long-term project”.

Education seems caught up in a near-constant cycle of reform, with the funding model for schools in deprived areas being reviewed at the same time as Education Scotland and the exams body are replaced.

The government has also wrestled with issues like the record level of drug-related deaths, and has been criticised for having a tangle of industrial strategies.

The lists of successes and failures are as long as each of your arms. Ministers succeeded in setting up a national investment bank, but gave up on plans for a state-run energy company.

The Queensferry Crossing was delivered under budget, but costs and timescales in ferry construction projects have ballooned. Minimum unit pricing of alcohol survived a succession of legal challenges, while the named person scheme did not.

After this long in power, any government will have accrued its share of hits and misses. The challenge is to keep coming up with new ideas to keep the momentum going.

Some of the government’s plans for reforms ran into the same brick wall as the rest of society in March 2020.

The pandemic was, in a way, the moment devolution truly came of age – with the governments in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast feeling their way through the crisis distinctly, but also together.

Nobody who watched Ms Sturgeon’s near-daily briefings during the early stages of the pandemic could have been in any doubt that she was in charge. Even UK ministers saw her communication skills as an asset.

That said, the differences between the nations in the end largely boiled down to timing. The administrations imposed and lifted largely the same measures – and indeed made the same mistakes, such as the discharge of untested hospital patients into care homes.

Ms Sturgeon has highlighted that as a regret, saying that some pandemic decisions will live with her for the rest of her days – although it will be down to a public inquiry to decide whether they were the right ones.

It cannot be doubted that the briefings increased Ms Sturgeon’s profile. It could also be argued that the pandemic also stiffened her dedication to public service. She had always been meticulous about detail and preparation, but the pandemic necessarily elevated that to a new level.

The first minister rarely delegated so much as a television appearance to her ministers, almost visibly carrying the burden of many big decisions alone – even the one where she had to sack her chief medical officer.

So it feels slightly ironic that Ms Sturgeon is spending this milestone moment in isolation, having tested positive for the virus.

And while she says she is working from home, it is also arguable that this is the closest thing she has had to a holiday for over two years.

Did the ascent of Scotland’s first female first minister break the glass ceiling of Scottish politics?

Ms Sturgeon swiftly appointed a female chief of staff, set up the UK’s first gender-balanced cabinet and passed legislation setting targets for women’s representation on public authority boards.

For a period on either side of her first Holyrood election win, all three major parties were led by women, with Labour’s Kezia Dugdale and Tory Ruth Davidson part of a broader move towards more equal representation at Holyrood.

More than half of the SNP’s MSPs are now women – up from 25% when the party first entered government in 2007 – and Ms Sturgeon has made a point of speaking out about women’s issues like the menopause.

Right now, though, the first minister finds herself at odds with some women’s groups about plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).

Her government was also rocked by its mishandling of harassment complaints against Alex Salmond, with Ms Sturgeon repeatedly apologising for how the women involved were let down.

After the torturous inquiries, it is fair to question whether women in government feel safer and more supported to make complaints against powerful men than they did before the #MeToo movement began.

And we clearly do not live in a brand new world where politics is free from misogyny. Even at the point where the Scottish and UK governments were both led by women, a newspaper chose to write headlines about their legs rather than their policies.

Now we come to the question of what Nicola Sturgeon does next, fresh off the back of another election win.

There are some ongoing projects – like gender reforms, plans for a National Care Service and ScotRail’s move into public ownership – and an injection of fresh ideas as part of the SNP’s Holyrood pact with the Greens.

The big thing missing from her record though is an independence referendum, which seems to have been scheduled for “next year” at least since Brexit reignited the issue in 2016.

Ms Sturgeon remains adamant that a poll will be held in 2023, but it is fair to say there is scepticism about this even within her own party.

This is chiefly because the matter is not entirely up to MSPs or the Scottish government, with Ms Sturgeon determined to seal an agreement with UK ministers first. She wants to actually deliver independence, so only an internationally recognised, gold-standard contest which both sides engage with whole-heartedly will do.

For all the talk of potential legal battles, this remains a political problem. And Boris Johnson, for all the SNP may adore him as a recruiting sergeant for their cause, is also an intractable blockage.

The prime minister has his own problems to deal with right now, and the chances of him – or, should he be ousted, his successor – signing up to a referendum any time soon appear vanishingly slim.

So with that in mind, could Ms Sturgeon conclude that she has done her bit?

With the independence movement at a crossroads, will it be up to the next leader to decide how to move forward?

After all, her place in the history books is already assured. The first female first minister as well as longest-serving, a pandemic leader and architect of a new generation of devolved benefits and public services.

But with Ms Sturgeon in as comfortable and powerful a position as she has ever occupied at the top of Scottish politics, few would bet against her making at least one more push to achieve the core ambition that has driven her all these years.

The PM and chancellor have been under growing pressure to act as prices for fuel, food and energy continue to soar.

But BBC political editor Chris Mason said the government was also desperate to shift the agenda on from Partygate.

Downing Street denied the announcement was timed to distract from Sue Gray’s report into lockdown gatherings.

The senior civil servant’s report into events held in Downing Street is expected to be sent to No 10 on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister is to meet Chancellor Rishi Sunak soon to finalise plans, with an announcement possible on Thursday.

Mr Johnson has in recent days invited a collection of economists with a range of views to explore the options available to him, the BBC understands.

Sources told the BBC that Mr Johnson spoke on Tuesday about the need to balance any further government spending and intervention with not “raising inflation” further.

It is also understood Policing Minister Kit Malthouse repeated calls at cabinet to swiftly return to a “low tax” society.

Last week, inflation reached a 40-year high and on Tuesday the energy regulator Ofgem warned the energy price cap – which limits how much providers can raise prices – is expected to increase to £2,800 a year in the autumn.

Opposition parties have continued to push for a windfall tax on oil and gas firms – a one-off levy on the record profits the companies have recorded – saying the proceeds could be used to support the hardest hit.

But while attitudes towards the idea in government appear to have softened, neither Mr Johnson nor Mr Sunak have committed to the move.

Rishi Sunak has long argued – privately and publicly – that help for the most vulnerable could only be properly designed once the scale of the problem was measurable.

Tuesday’s intervention from Ofgem provides that.

The question now is precisely what help is offered, and at what cost.

Targeted possibilities include uprating benefits or a lump sum payment to some of the poorest households.

There is then the quandary of whether to offer something that a greater proportion of people benefit from – could the first £40 repayment of the government’s Energy Bills Support Scheme be postponed or cancelled?

Other options in the months ahead include changes to the Warm Homes Discount and the Winter Fuel Payment.

But any combination of these possibilities could easily be way more costly than the revenue generated from any windfall tax on the oil and gas companies.

An intervention that is noticeable won’t come cheap.

A number of ministers have also raised concerns about the idea of a windfall tax, with Mr Johnson saying he was not “attracted” to the measure in principle.

But he told reporters “no option is off the table” to tackle rising living costs, adding: “There is more that we are going to do… you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called on the government to “get a grip” and introduce the levy.