Month: July 2022

Labour chairwoman Anneliese Dodds has written to the PM seeking details on what No 10 knew of the claims.

“Only Boris Johnson could have looked at this guy’s record and thought ‘he deserves a promotion’,” she said.

Minister Therese Coffey said the PM was not aware of “specific allegations”.

After allegations emerged that he had groped two men, Mr Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip on Thursday, telling the PM he “drank far too much”. The following day he was suspended as a Conservative MP.

Mr Pincher now faces six new claims of inappropriate behaviour stretching back several years, which he has denied.

His resignation last week was the second time he had stepped back from the whips’ office.

He also resigned after Conservative candidate Alex Story accused him of making an inappropriate advance in 2017.

In a statement, Ms Dodds accused the PM of being “happy to sweep sexual misconduct under the carpet in order to save his own skin”.

She also questioned why the Tory whip was not suspended until Friday – two days after the alleged incident at London’s Carlton Club.

Work and Pensions Secretary Ms Coffey said on Sunday that “to the best of my knowledge” the prime minister was not aware of specific allegations about Mr Pincher when he was appointed to the whips’ office in February.

She said she had not spoken to the prime minister directly and had received the assurance from the No 10 press office.

Earlier, she told Sky News Mr Pincher’s appointment in February had gone through a vetting process “like normal”.

No 10 has not denied a claim by Mr Johnson’s former chief aide, Dominic Cummings, that the PM referred to the former deputy chief whip as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” before appointing him.

Mr Johnson is also facing questions from within his own party over his handling of the allegations.

There are suggestions that the upcoming elections for the executive of the 1922 Committee backbench group of MPs could lead to a confidence vote for the PM sooner than is currently allowed under existing party rules.

The change would mean that a second confidence vote could be held if 90 Tory MPs – 25% – submit letters to the 1922 leadership.

Mr Pincher remains an independent MP for Tamworth in Staffordshire.

Wednesday 29 June: Chris Pincher was seen “extremely drunk” at London’s Carlton Club for Conservative Party members, witnesses later told the BBC

Thursday: Mr Pincher resigns as deputy chief whip, telling the PM he “drank far too much”, after allegations emerge that he groped two men at the club

Friday: He is suspended as a Conservative MP after being reported to Parliament’s behaviour watchdog

Saturday: Mr Pincher says he is seeking professional medical support and is “truly sorry for the upset I caused”

That’s what Bachittar Kaur and other women from her village in the northern Indian state of Punjab said they felt when they first began protesting.

They were among thousands of farmers who demonstrated on the borders of the capital, Delhi, against the agricultural reforms passed by the government in 2020. The protesters hunkered down on the edges of the city for over a year and stayed there against all odds – braving scorching heat, a bitter winter and even a deadly second wave of Covid.

“I had told my friends and relatives that I would die protesting but won’t let these farm laws be implemented,” Ms Kaur says.

A retired school teacher, she says it wasn’t easy to leave her comfortable home and live on the streets in a tractor trolley. “But we had no choice – these farm laws were death warrants for us.”

For months, the government insisted that the laws were good for farmers and there was no question of taking them back – several rounds of talks between officials and farm leaders failed to end the deadlock. Several farmers died and many were arrested as the government clamped down on demonstrations.

But the tides turned on 19 November when Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a historic U-turn announced a repeal of the laws. A bill was officially passed in the parliament on 30 November.

The farmers didn’t leave immediately though – they said they would continue to demonstrate until the government agreed to their other demands, including guaranteed prices for key crops.

Days later, the government accepted this too, bringing an end to the year-long protests.

Ms Kaur remembers it to be a “very special” moment of her life.

But seven months after farmers went back home, the government is yet to fulfil their demands.

Farm leaders have now called a meeting on 3 July to decide the next course of action. The meeting is to be held in Ghaziabad city near Delhi and will be attended by prominent farm leaders, including Rakesh Tikait, who spearheaded the protests.

And farmers are not ruling out the possibility of another agitation.

“We are just waiting for leaders to decide the time and place,” Ms Kaur says. “We are prepared for what comes next.”

The protests first began in November 2020, when hundreds of thousands of farmers marched towards Delhi after the government introduced three laws that loosened rules around sale, pricing and storage of farm produce – rules which have protected them from the free market for decades.

One of the biggest concerns of the protesters was that the new laws allowed farmers to sell their produce at a market price directly to private players – agricultural businesses, supermarket chains and online grocers. Most Indian farmers currently sell their produce at government-controlled wholesale markets or mandis at assured floor prices (also known as minimum support price or MSP).

The government argued that the laws would make farming more profitable but the farmers disagreed. They said the laws would leave them at the mercy of big corporations who would dictate prices.

When the government finally announced that it would rollback the laws, it promised to form a committee, including representatives from the federal and state governments, agriculture scientists and farmer groups to look into the matter of MSP.

Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told the Lok Sabha two months ago that the government was in the process of setting up the panel.

But sources in the federal government told the BBC that this has not happened. They said the government had asked farm leaders to name their members for the panel, but farmers refused to do so, saying the government’s “intent was not clear”.

“The government has announced MSP on some crops, but it also remains to be seen whether it will be available in all the states. They also need to first tell us the agenda of the meeting and how they plan to formulate the policy around MSP,” says Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president of Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) Ugrahan, one of the biggest farmer unions in Punjab.

Besides MSP, farm leaders had put forth several other demands, which included compensation to the kin of farmers who died during the agitation, dropping criminal proceedings against them for burning paddy straw, and withdrawal of criminal cases registered against them for protesting.

Mr Ugrahan says that in November, after the laws were scrapped, the agriculture secretary had written to Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) – the umbrella body of farmer unions that led the protests – assuring them that they would comply with these demands.

While some of the conditions have been met – several states have given monetary compensation to farmers – criminal cases against protesters continue to be a contentious issue, he says.

Most cases were registered in the state of Haryana as the protest sites mainly fell in its jurisdiction.

The state’s Home Minister Anil Vij told the BBC that the government had withdrawn most of the cases. “A total of 272 cases were registered during the agitation, out of which 82 have been withdrawn,” he said

But the farmers are not convinced.

“This is just one state. We are still awaiting details [from the federal government] on the number of cases registered by different states and how many of those have been withdrawn,” Mr Ugrahan says.

But even as farmers gear up for what could be potentially another protest, they worry if their movement has lost some steam in the meantime.

There has been disaffection within farm groups ever since some of its leaders contested the state elections in Punjab but failed to win a single seat. Following the results in February, the SKM expelled 22 of the 32 farm unions whose members had fought the election.

“This has definitely dealt a serious blow to the farmers’ unity,” Mr Ugrahan says.

But he says he hasn’t lost hope: “One phone call, and I am sure all of us will come together,” he says.

“It’s a half-won battle, and the fight is very much on.”

Millions of women in the US lost the constitutional right to abortion in June, after the Supreme Court overturned its 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision.

The judgement has paved the way for individual states to ban the procedure.

They have become local battlegrounds in the fight to overturn or uphold abortion services.

At the same time, Google says it is taking steps to remove data from users’ location histories that could be used to prosecute people for visits to US abortion clinics.

Women in states where abortion is banned or restricted may be forced to cross state lines to parts of the country where the procedure remains legal.

Speaking at a virtual meeting with Democratic state governors, Mr Biden said he believed some US states would attempt to arrest women who crossed state lines for abortion access.

“I don’t think people believe that’s going to happen. But it’s going to happen,” he said.

The president added that the government would ensure access to pills that caused abortion in states where it was prohibited.

The overturning of Roe v Wade has sent shockwaves throughout the US.

It was the Supreme Court ruling that ensured that pregnant women were entitled to an abortion during the first three months of their pregnancy, while allowing for legal restrictions and bans in the second and third trimester.

Thirteen states have already severely curtailed or blocked abortion access since the court’s decision.

Mr Biden said only Democratic victories in the mid-term elections would give Congress the power to restore federal abortion rights – this will go one way or another after November, he said.

The BBC’s Peter Bowes in Los Angeles says there are now fears that in states limiting abortion, police could try to access search histories and geolocation data on smartphones owned by people who are pursuing plans to terminate a pregnancy.

With this in mind, Google says that in the coming weeks, it will start deleting information when its systems identify a trip to an abortion clinic, counselling centre, domestic violence shelter or other facilities that provide “particularly personal” services.

Entries in a user’s location history will be removed soon after a visit to a sensitive location.

It estimates about 288,200 people – one in 18 – had the virus in the week ending 24 June and is the highest figure since early April.

That was up on the previous week when about 250,700 (one in 20) had Covid.

The latest ONS Infection Survey data compares with one in 30 for England and Wales and one in 25 for Northern Ireland.

It said the increase in the number of people testing positive was likely being driven by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants.

They are not thought to be more lethal than any other form of Covid but they do appear to be spreading more quickly.

Responding to the figures, Scotland’s national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch told BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime programme: “Let’s be concerned but let’s see what we can do as individuals to help.”

He added that the numbers were “worrying”, especially for groups such as the elderly or immunosuppressed, but added: “There’s no suggestion we should go backwards.”

Asked about the risks posed by mass events, such as next weekend’s TRNSMT music festival in Glasgow, Prof Leitch urged those planning to attend to ensure they were vaccinated and not to go if they are sick.

The ONS survey said Covid infections in the UK had jumped by more than half a million in a week and hospital numbers were continuing to increase.

There are also early signs of a rise in intensive care admissions among older age groups.

A total of 2.3 million people in private households are estimated to have had the virus last week, up 32% from a week earlier.

This is the highest estimate for total infections since late April, but is still some way below the record high of 4.9m seen at the peak of the Omicron BA.2 wave at the end of March.

Sarah Crofts, ONS head of analytical outputs for the Covid-19 infection survey, said: “Across the UK we’ve seen a continued increase of over half a million infections, likely caused by the growth of BA.4 and BA.5 variants.

“This rise is seen across all ages, countries and regions of England.

“We will continue to monitor the data closely to see if this growth continues in the coming weeks.”

On Wednesday, the latest Public Health Scotland weekly Covid-19 statistical report said there were 14,500 reported virus cases last week.

That was down slightly on the previous seven days when 15,541 virus cases were reported.

Mr Pincher is accused of groping two men in a private members’ club.

He quit his government job in a letter on Thursday, saying he had “drunk far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people”.

Boris Johnson faces criticism for not suspending him sooner, but a Downing Street source said he acted swiftly.

Before Mr Johnson acted, he was told by senior Conservative MPs and opposition parties that Mr Pincher’s position was untenable.

Earlier, Downing Street had suggested the prime minister considered the matter closed after Mr Pincher’s resignation as deputy chief whip.

But on Friday afternoon, the decision to suspend him as a Tory MP was taken after a formal complaint was lodged with the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS).

It is not yet clear whether the watchdog will launch a formal investigation.

The watchdog, set up in 2018, is designed to investigate complaints about inappropriate behaviour, such as bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct, and its inquiries can result in sanctions for MPs.

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen has suggested Downing Street was guilty of “double standards” in its handling of Neil Parish and “arch-loyalist” Mr Pincher.

Former Tory MP Mr Parish, who resigned in May after he admitted watching pornography twice on his phone in Parliament, also accused the government of “double standards”.

Mr Bridgen told BBC Newsnight the recent allegations were “a very similar circumstance to Neil Parish”, adding: “I have a lot of sympathy with his remarks this evening that there seems to have been double standards.

“You have to ask the reasons behind that. Neil was a very independent-minded Conservative backbencher. He never really sought patronage and he did hold ministers to account.

“And obviously Chris Pincher is seen as an arch-loyalist and I think that, to most people, will be the reason for the difference in their treatment, and that’s not tenable either.”

In his resignation letter, Mr Pincher wrote to the prime minister: “Last night I drank far too much.”

He added: “I think the right thing to do in the circumstances is for me to resign as deputy chief whip. I owe it to you and the people I’ve caused upset to, to do this.”

Witnesses told the BBC that Mr Pincher was seen “extremely drunk” at the Carlton Club, the Conservative Party members’ club in St James’s, central London, on Wednesday night.

The BBC has been told that the Metropolitan Police has not received any report relating to an incident at the venue.

The Sun newspaper first reported the resignation, saying he was drinking at the club when he is alleged to have assaulted two other male guests.

A Tory MP told the BBC they had previously raised concerns about Mr Pincher’s behaviour with senior figures in No 10 and the Conservative Party.

But a No 10 spokesperson said Mr Johnson was not aware of any specific allegations against Mr Pincher before he appointed him as deputy chief whip.

Mr Pincher will now sit as an independent.