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Joint opinion piece by British and French Foreign Secretaries David Lammy and Jean-Noël Barrot:

By launching his illegal and unprovoked full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine 1,000 days ago this week, not only did Vladimir Putin accelerate the largest war on the European continent since the Second World War, he also sought to rewrite the international order.

The annihilation of the global architecture that has been the cornerstone of international peace and security for generations. All to justify his illegal and intolerable aggression against a sovereign European country.

The UK and France will not let him do so. Together with our allies, we will do everything that is necessary to put Ukraine in the best position to achieve a just and lasting peace.

Indeed, what has happened in Ukraine is nothing short of the largest violation of territorial integrity of our time. From the bombing of civilians to the abduction and deportation of children, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has violated international law in countless ways.

The risks are not only to European security, but the world at large. Putin’s aim is to set a new precedent that upends the rules-based international system, whereby countries feel they can invade their neighbours with total impunity.

That brutality risks becoming the new norm and threatening peace everywhere. And as the war in Ukraine is spreading beyond Europe, we see the consequences of this attempted “Putinisation” for the world.

North Korea is leveraging its relationship with Russia to flex its muscles on the battlefield in an attempt to strengthen its hand and further destabilise Asia, starting with its immediate neighbour.

Iran is also toughening its stance by providing Russia with drones and missiles, while refraining from rolling back its nuclear programme and destabilising the entire Middle East via its proxies.

As two founding nations of the UN and permanent members of the Security Council, the UK and France will relentlessly fight this campaign of “Putinisation”.

Learning from history, we believe that international relations should be grounded in justice. Any just and durable peace cannot be achieved through violence nor maintained by force.

This is why we have condemned the barbaric terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas and other terrorist groups on 7 October, 2023, and why we have sanctioned the perpetrators.

This is also why we continue to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, the massive scale-up of humanitarian assistance, and the cessation of violent settlers’ activities in the West Bank in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.

We know the Palestinian issue will not go away until a two-state solution is implemented, with mutual recognition and security guarantees.

Similarly, we are no doubt that diplomacy, not violence, is the only way to achieve peace and security for Israel and Lebanon. We need an immediate ceasefire and a political solution consistent with the principles of UN Security Council resolution 1701.

We reiterate our full support to UNIFIL and the important work it does every day. Further violence leading to civil casualties and population displacements risks forcing the country into chaos, fuelling even greater instability in the region.

In all crises around the world, the UK and France stand united on the side of humanitarian law. We’ve demonstrated it once again this week by championing a UN Security Council resolution for the protection of civilians in Sudan where the worst crisis in the world is unravelling – an effort shamelessly opposed by Putin’s Russia, who stood alone in casting a veto.
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In the face of major crises and huge challenges, more than a century after the signing of the “Entente Cordiale”, the UK and France stand united in the same spirit.

We are strengthening our bilateral relationship, and working toward enhanced relations between the UK and the European Union. We are offering a credible alternative to the world’s “Putinisation” and fragmentation.

An alternative grounded in technological progress, international law and multilateral action. The world can count on the UK and France to advocate these principles in the years ahead.

According to the estimates provided by the government, in the years ending March 2025, March 2026 and March 2028 there will be an additional 50,000 pensioners in relative poverty after housing costs.

In the years ending March 2027, March 2029 and March 2030 an additional 100,000 pensioners would be in relative poverty after housing costs.

The annual figures are rounded to the nearest 50,000. [Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall] said this meant "small variations in the underlying numbers impacted can lead to much larger changes in the rounded headline numbers".

The cumulative total over the years does not necessarily refer to individual pensioners, who could move in and out of relative poverty over time depending on their personal circumstances.

Currently the government estimates 1.9 million pensioners - around 15% - are in relative poverty.

The new estimates, published on Tuesday, suggest the cuts to the winter fuel payment would increase pensioner poverty by 0.5 percentage points.

A person is considered to be living in relative poverty if they have less than 60% of the median income.

In her letter, Kendall said the work and pensions department had written to 120,000 pensioners to encourage them to claim the pension credit to which they may be entitled.

MPs are to summon Elon Musk to testify about [Twitter's] role in spreading disinformation, in a parliamentary inquiry into the UK riots and the rise of false and harmful AI content, the Guardian has learned.

Senior executives from Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok are also expected to be called for questioning as part of a Commons science and technology select committee social media inquiry.

The first hearings will take place in the new year, amid rising concern that UK online safety laws risk being outpaced by rapidly advancing technology and the politicisation of platforms such as [Twitter].

The MPs will investigate the consequences of generative AI, which was used in widely shared images posted on Facebook and [Twitter] inciting people to join Islamophobic protests after the killing of three schoolgirls in Southport in August. They will also investigate Silicon Valley business models that “encourage the spread of content that can mislead and harm”.
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[Twitter] did not respond when asked if Musk would testify in the UK, although it appears unlikely. The world’s richest man is preparing to take on a senior role in the Trump White House and has been highly critical of the Labour government, including weighing in on changes to inheritance tax on farms by saying on Monday that “Britain is going full Stalin”. During the riots that followed the Southport killings he said: “Civil war is inevitable.”
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[Chi Onwurah, Labour chair of the Commons science and technology select committee social media inquiry,] said the inquiry would attempt to “get to the bottom of the links between social media algorithms, generative AI, and the spread of harmful or false content”.

It will also look at the use of AI to supplement search engines such as Google, which was found recently to be regurgitating false and racist claims about people in African countries having low average IQs. Google said the AI overviews containing the claims had violated its policies and had been removed.

Source

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks, the Observer can reveal.

Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC).

The committee’s role is to provide ministers with independent advice. Yet since taking up the position in February 2020, Dempsey has continued to be paid by PMI for work including authoring a sponsored paper about regulatory strategies for heated tobacco products.

She also owns shares in the tobacco giant – whose products include Marlboro cigarettes and IQOS heated tobacco sticks – and receives a PMI pension. On social media she continues to engage with senior staff at the company, including liking LinkedIn posts for the chief communications officer and the vice-president of public affairs.

There is no suggestion that Dempsey has acted improperly or failed to declare her interests, which are listed in committee documents. She said she had always complied with the rules and that her contributions to the CoC were based on her scientific training and “decades of experience in the field”. She also said she was “no longer a representative of the tobacco industry” given she had retired and had disclosed details of her career and financial interests during the application process.
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Prior to Dempsey’s appointment, the CoC was involved in reviews of both e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, two of PMI’s product lines.

Dempsey is believed to have been appointed to the committee following an evaluation and interview conducted by a three-person panel, including a Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) official, after stepping down from her full-time role with PMI to establish her own toxicology consultancy in the summer of 2019.
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Dempsey said she was “very sorry if anyone feels that my presence on the committee is inappropriate”.

When she joined she did not have any active consultancy agreements with PMI but said the two she has had since had been properly declared. She also declared potential conflicts of interest when topics arose “that could be related to work I was doing as a consultant to any company”.

“In the five years that I have been a member there has been no topic related to tobacco products. If there had been, I certainly would declare my conflict of interest and would always follow the guidance of the committee chair regarding participation,” she said. She added that she had “never passed confidential or privileged information to PMI, and would certainly never do so”.

The government could offer its own low-cost baby formula under a brand such as the NHS to combat the high prices and lack of choice in the market, the UK competition watchdog has suggested.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said another “backstop” measure could be for the government to regulate and set a price or profit-margin cap on retailers as a way to bring prices down for parents more quickly.

The potential measures formed part of the CMA’s interim report on the infant formula market after the watchdog identified that a lack of competition in the market had led to soaring prices, taking advantage of an ingrained belief among parents that higher cost equates to better quality for their children.

The CMA report set out a number of potential recommendations including extending the ban on the advertising of infant formula to follow-on formula, or going as far as “prohibiting all brand-related advertising”.
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The provisional findings, which will feed into a final report to be published early next year, include some backstop measures that the CMA said were not actively recommended but that the government could make “with the aim of bringing prices down directly”.

One option was for the government to procure its own infant formula from a third-party manufacturer at a competitive price and sell it under an established name, such as the NHS, or invest in creating a new brand for the market.
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Another option is to introduce regulations to place a maximum price cap on baby and infant formula, or establish a profit-margin cap, which the Greek government did earlier this year with the aim of making products more affordable.

When he was a backbench MP in 2018, David Lammy described Trump as a "tyrant" and "a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath".

But in his first interview since Trump's victory, he told the BBC's Newscast podcast the president-elect was "someone that we can build a relationship with in our national interest".

Lammy praised his election campaign as "very well run", adding that: "I felt in my bones that there could be a Trump presidency."
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Pressed over whether he had changed his mind, Lammy said the remarks were "old news" and you would "struggle to find any politician" who had not said some "pretty ripe things" about Trump in the past.

"In that period, particularly with people on Twitter, lots of things were said about Donald Trump," he said.

"I think that what you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things.

"And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn't know back then."

Asked in if Trump brought up his previous comments when the pair met for dinner in New York in September, Lammy said: "Not even vaguely."

"I know this is a talking point today, but in a world where there's war in Europe, where there's a tremendous loss of life in the Middle East, where the US and the UK genuinely have a special relationship, where we got someone who's about to become again, the US president, who has experience of doing the job last time round, we will forge common interests," he said.

"We will agree and align on much and where we disagree, we'll have those conversations as well, most often in private."
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But during the election campaign, [Trump] vowed to dramatically increase taxes, or tariffs, on foreign goods imported into the US.

Such a move could hit billions of pounds' worth of British exports, including Scotch whisky, pharmaceutical products, and airplane parts.

Asked if the UK would seek a special trade arrangement so there were no extra tariffs on British exports to the US, Lammy said: "We will seek to ensure and to get across to the United States, and I believe that they would understand this, that hurting your closest allies cannot be in your medium or long-term interests."

Lammy also said Trump was "correct" in his argument that Europe had fallen short on defence spending.

He called for a “clear” pledge from European governments to boosting military spending but could not say when the government would reach its target of spending 2.5% GDP on defence.

Real, btw