Boris Johnson latest news: PM warned of national strike over 90,000 job cuts

A charity has responded to an MP’s feedback that made claims about folks in poverty and their cooking abilities.

Tory MP Lee Anderson, on Wednesday, said in the House of Commons that folks wh are utilizing meals banks are doing so as a result of they aren’t capable of finances their cash or prepare dinner correctly.

He additionally claimed {that a} meal might price as little as 30p to make.

The Meals Basis – in an 11-part Twitter thread – refuted Mr Anderson’s claims.

The charity mentioned that meals poverty “isn’t attributable to folks not understanding how one can prepare dinner” and that “cooking from scratch isn’t at all times low-cost”.

It mentioned research present that low-income teams have larger ranges of confidence of their cooking abilities however that the precise drawback will not be having sufficient cash within the first place.

This squeeze on the funds can also be made worse by rising prices of fuel and electrical energy wanted to prepare dinner meals at residence, the charity added.

It additionally tweeted: “Claims a meal could be created from scratch for 30p a day are based mostly off cooking in bulk for a household of 5 for per week – one thing not everybody can afford/has services for. It consists of price of substances however not rising vitality prices.”

Tory backbenchers are calling for elevated defence spending and warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has marked the beginning of a “New Chilly Conflict”.

There ought to be a “significant” improve in spending on the armed forces and weapons stockpiles, the Conservative MPs have urged in a report revealed at the moment.

The members of the backbench 1922 Defence Committee mentioned the federal government ought to re-evaluate its deliberate cuts to the scale of the armed forces and rebuild weapons stockpiles to Chilly Conflict ranges.

The Ministry of Defence ought to purpose for particular targets by way of variety of troopers, ships and plane slightly than the present purpose of spending 2 per cent of GDP – they mentioned, including that Germany’s elevated defence spending would imply the UK not had Nato’s second-largest defence finances.

Committee chair and former Military officer John Baron mentioned: “Throughout the Conservative backbenches there’s a huge consensus that the Russian invasion of Ukraine requires a rise in defence spending alongside a broad reassessment of manpower and capabilities.

“Particularly, the report concludes that there ought to be a moratorium on defence cuts till this reassessment train is concluded.”

In 2020, the Authorities pledged to spend an additional £24 billion on defence over the next 5 years, however the committee mentioned there was “nonetheless substantial scope for extra spending as befits what many regard as the start of the New Chilly Conflict”.

Three extra union leaders have criticised the proposal to chop civil service staffing by a fifth.

Dave Penman, common secretary of the FDA, which represents senior civil servants, mentioned: “The explanation for the civil service’s growth since 2016 isn’t as a result of the federal government loosened the purse strings. The federal government wanted civil servants to cope with the implications of two unprecedented occasions: Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

“To manipulate is to decide on and finally this authorities can determine to chop the civil service again to 2016 ranges, however it can additionally then have to decide on what the diminished civil service will not have the capability to do. Will they have an effect on passports, borders or well being?

“With out an accompanying technique, these cuts seem extra like a continuation of the Authorities’s civil service tradition wars, and even worse, ill-thought out, rushed job slashes that gained’t result in a cheaper authorities.”

Mike Clancy, common secretary of the Prospect union, known as the plan “an outrageous act of vandalism on our public providers.”

He mentioned: “By Brexit, after which the pandemic, we’ve got by no means been extra reliant in peace time on our civil service.

“Our members are extremely expert and there’s a actual threat to authorities supply from shedding their very important experience.

“The massive cuts to public providers since 2010 have usually proved an costly error – these proposals threat doubling down on the error.”

Paul Nowak, the TUC deputy common secretary mentioned: “The federal government is but once more treating the civil service with contempt.

“Civil servants are key employees who hold this nation operating. They ship very important providers, acquire taxes, assist folks again into employment, regulate medicines, negotiate commerce offers and hundreds of different issues that bind society collectively.

“It’s shameful that the prime minister is throwing them underneath a bus to distract from the federal government’s failure to cope with the cost-of-living disaster.”

Extra on the lacking apology from Boris Johnson from our political editor, Andrew Woodcock.

He writes that Boris Johnson made no apology to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after she instructed him she had “lived within the shadow of his phrases” throughout years in an Iranian jail.

You’ll be able to learn the total, breaking story right here:

Richard Ratcliffe mentioned Boris Johnson didn’t particularly apologise for his dealing with of his spouse Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention in Iran, following talks at No 10.

Requested if the PM apologised throughout their first assembly since her launch, Mr Ratcliffe instructed reporters in Downing Road: “Not particularly.”

The Public and Business Providers (PCS) union is to carry an emergency assembly subsequent week to debate its response to authorities plans to chop jobs within the civil service, warning that “nationwide strike motion could be very a lot on the desk”.

PCS Normal Secretary Mark Serwotka condemned the plans and mentioned: “Cuts have penalties. Not simply on these whose jobs are being sacrificed to throw purple meat to the dwindling variety of Conservative voters, however on everybody who depends on the providers our members present.

“The federal government complains about longer delays for passports and driving licences similtaneously sacking the people who find themselves working so arduous to clear the backlog.

“Let’s be clear, this isn’t about effectivity. That is concerning the prime minister making an attempt to create a smokescreen to detract from his utter shambles of a authorities. 

“He has chosen to trigger our cost-of-living disaster and is determined to level the blame someplace – and he has chosen to level the finger at arduous working PCS members who stored the nation operating all through the pandemic.

“Our members won’t be the scapegoats for a failing authorities. We have now our convention in 10 days’ time: taking nationwide strike motion could be very a lot on the desk.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has arrived at Downing Road along with her household and MP Tulip Siddiq for a gathering with Boris Johnson.

Requested how they had been, her husband Richard instructed the media: “Significantly better instances.”

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe didn’t reply to reporters’ questions on what she would speak to the Prime Minister about.

The household and Tulip Siddiq posed for pictures exterior the entrance door with their seven-year-old daughter Gabriella joking to reporters: “You’ll be able to solely take one picture.”

The manager committee of Wakefield’s native Labour Occasion has resigned en masse in protest over the nationwide occasion’s dealing with of the number of a candidate in a forthcoming by-election.

In a serious bust-up with Labour HQ , the 16-strong physique hit out on the lack of a “native candidate” on the shortlist, and determined to stop their positions throughout a gathering on Thursday night.

Right here is the total story from my colleague, Ashley Cowburn:

Downing Road has did not rule out obligatory redundancies underneath Boris Johnson’s plans to slash tens of hundreds of jobs from the Civil Service.

A No 10 spokesman mentioned: “I’m not going to pre-empt particular measures.’’

However he added that a number of the cuts are hoped to be carried out via “pure wastage’’.  

The government might reduce as many as 90,000 civil service jobs in a cost-saving train touted by Boris Johnson, as ministers come underneath growing stress to assist ease the price of residing disaster with doable tax cuts.

My colleague Tom Batchelor stories on the story that has been making a splash at the moment: