United Kingdom

The Good Law Project has been working to help a young man who has been denied justice after he was sexually assaulted by a star journalist at the Daily Mail.

The young man, who we shall call X, was groped by the journalist, whom we are naming only as J. The Daily Mail has previously received a complaint of sexual assault by J from another man. These are not the only victims of J to whom Good Law Project has spoken.

Thames Water next, please.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20676198

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/21414090

The memo, shared with The Grocer, warns food businesses are woefully unprepared for challenges including soil degradation, extreme weather events, global heating and water scarcity and that yield, quality and predictability of food supply are all at severe risk.

It goes on to claim that companies’ risk mitigation strategies are being assured by major audit and assurance firms and giving false confidence to investors, whereas the true threat to the supply chain is far greater than companies have acknowledged.

Former Conservative Minister Michael Gove was handed a peerage in former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s resignation honors Friday, allowing him to sit for life in the House of Lords.

Other people handed a peerage include:

• Former Conservative Chief Whip Simon Hart

• Former Scotland Secretary Alister Jack

• Former Transport Secretary Mark Harper

• Ex-Attorney General Victoria Prentis

• Former Tory Chief Executive Stephen Massey.

• Ex-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt

• Former Defense Secretary Grant Shapps

• Former Home Secretary James Cleverly

• Former Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell

• Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride

Meet London businessman Matt Clifford.

Keir Starmer wants AI at the heart of government. This week, the Prime Minister unveiled plans to digitize the UK civil service using AI, claiming it could save up to £45 billion.

Oh, and the man in charge? His name is Matt Clifford.

https://sifted.eu/articles/matt-clifford-to-oversee-ai-revolution-news

But while the government boasts about its ambitions, it has been less forthcoming about the business interests of the architect behind its flagship AI policy.

Entrepreneur First, the investment firm Clifford co-founded and co-owns, holds stakes in 449 tech companies. He also has dozens more holdings in his own name. Despite his central role in shaping AI policy, these financial ties were not publicly disclosed.

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information reveal Matt Clifford has stakes in at least 8 companies involved in the Startup Coalition—an influential industry group funded by big tech.

The Startup Coalition has lobbied in favour of the UK government’s controversial plan to exempt AI firms from copyright law. This proposal is opposed by artists and the media

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/25/why-are-creatives-fighting-uk-government-ai-proposals-on-copyright

https://pressgazette.co.uk/media_business/copyright-ai-ft-right-wrong-opt-out-exemption/

Labour ministers have met with the group to discuss AI regulation and copyright issues once a month, on average, records show. The Startup Coalition also receives funding from Google, which stands to benefit from AI copyright exemptions.

Professor Gina Neff, director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at Cambridge University, told Democracy for Sale that government should talk to a wider circle of experts.

“There are many in civil society who are frustrated at the lack of access to tech policymaking in government. The UK has incredible expertise in AI, and we want to see that diversity reflected in decision-making.”

Matt Clifford helped establish the UK’s AI Safety Institute—recently rebranded the AI Security Institute, reportedly to align with the Trump White House’s AI approach. He is widely regarded as a respected expert in the field. Starmer accepted all 50 recommendations from his AI plan, published in January.

However, some in the tech and media sectors are uneasy about his influence.

“Of course, you want entrepreneurs involved” one industry source told Democracy for Sale. “But you don’t give one man—who runs the firm with the most AI investments in Europe—the job of writing the policy, then accept all his recommendations the same day he publishes his plan.”

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Matt Clifford have yet to respond to requests for comment.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/27168720

The company says the new site is expected to create 28,000 jobs and generate £50bn for the economy.

Apologies for editorialising the headline with brackets. The original headline was quite bad for context, lol

Hundreds of thousands of seriously ill and disabled people will become “invisible” and cut adrift from local support services as a result of the government’s £5bn programme of disability benefit cuts, experts have warned.

Claimants who do not qualify for personal independence payment (Pip) or incapacity benefits would lose a “marker of need” with local councils and NHS bodies, making it “nearly impossible” for them to access help, said the consultancy Policy in Practice.

This would “effectively erase some of the most vulnerable people” from the system – including those with life-limiting illnesses including cancer, multiple sclerosis and lung conditions – while making it harder for care services to deliver preventive support

More than 230,000 disabled people will lose access to Pip and the incapacity element of universal credit as a result of the changes, losing at least £8,100 a year, Policy in Practice estimates in a briefing. Nearly 600,000 more who do not claim universal credit will lose or not qualify in future for Pip.

On top of the direct financial hit, disabled people will struggle for visibility in local care systems that use disability benefit awards to deploy support and protection, from housing and council tax relief to debt enforcement safeguards.

Loss of disability benefits means they will lose priority status on council housing waiting lists and will be deprived of priority status in homelessness assessments, leaving them at “greater risk of prolonged homelessness”, the briefing says.

cross-posted from: https://metawire.eu/post/5637

The UK government sought to keep details of its row with Apple over requested access to its encrypted cloud storage tool private.

Publish Date: 07.04.2025, 15:22

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32268341

Archived

• Unmanned Russian vehicles have been discovered lurking next to deep-sea communications cables.
• The Ministry of Defence had credible intelligence that superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs may have been used to conduct underwater reconnaissance.
• The navy has discovered other sensors planted on the sea bed. The UK government is looking at requiring technology and energy companies to work more closely with the military and fund the protection of underwater infrastructure.

68 per cent of prescription doses were not administered within 30 minutes of the expected time, the study found

David Lammy branded Kemi Badenoch ‘disgraceful’ for backing Israel’s decision to refuse entry to the MPs

Britain is a rich country with the world’s 6th largest economy and the highest tax income for decades, which raises a simple question - why do we seem so broke?

Cross-post from https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32163743

Archived

Britain needs to re-arm and build reserves through a form of national service to defend against Vladimir Putin’s hopes to dominate eastern Europe and undermine the west, the former head of MI6 has warned.

Sir Alex Younger said people in the UK must realise that the threat from Russia - and its closeness to the US - is real, adding: “Putin and Trump together have done their best to persuade us that the rules have changed”.

[...]

Reflecting on whether Britain has the mettle for a full-scale war, he [said]: "We have, for many years, been completely free of any form of existential threat [...] We've unforgivably… launched a set of wars of choice, which have imposed sacrifice needlessly on young people and there's great cynicism about this idea of collective effort to defend your country."

[...]

Discussing what need to be done to prepare, Sir Alex, known as “C” during his time as spy chief, added: “You'd have to ask a soldier about the actual efficacy of things like conscription. I have no idea… I know that it just needs to be a more integrated feature of everyday life."

[...]

“In a sense, that's not the point [whether or not Trump is a Russian agent]. The point is he agrees with Vladimir Putin. He agrees that big countries get additional rights over small countries, particularly in their own backyard.”

[...]

“It really depends on how close to Moscow you are. I think in Finland it's well understood [that there is a threat of Russia attacking othrr European countries] and there's a properly integrated resilient culture where everyone is accustomed to playing their part. I think we go to Portugal at the other end that's just not true - and in a sense that's understandable."

[...]

[Dr Rachel] Ellehuus, [an American, former US defence secretary’s envoy to Nato, and now head of the the Royal United Services Institute, Britain’s leading security thinktank], said that while the threat posed by the Kremlin had been persistent, it has been the dramatic shift in Washington that has been the greatest strategic shock [and argued that] a hybrid war with Russia - where disinformation, cyberattacks and economic pressure are equally important - is already underway.

[...]

This threat has intensified following the sudden change in strategic ideology in Washington under Trump [according to Ellehuus].

[...]

“The galvanizing moment for Europe? Yes. Take a look at the Trump-Putin relationship or the Trump/MAGA-Putin relationship,” she said.

[...]

"Am I saying he's going to invade the Baltic states or Poland tomorrow? I'm not. But he is going to test the boundaries of what we call Article 5, which is the commitment that an attack against one Nato ally is an attack against all of them.

“He's already been pushing the boundaries of that through below-the-threshold activities that aren't conventional attacks.”

[...]

According to the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, there was a 300 per cent increase in unconventional attacks on Europe by Russia last year, 2023-2024.

“Roughly 27 percent of the attacks were against transportation targets (such as trains, vehicles, and airplanes), another 27 per cent were against government targets (such as military bases and officials), 21 percent were against critical infrastructure targets (such as pipelines, undersea fiber-optic cables, and the electricity grid), and 21 percent were against industry (such as defense companies),” the CSIS said in a report last month.

[...]