India new cabinet ministers

GETTY David Cameron has urged Britain to do business with Asia SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info The Prime Minister said trading with Asian countries rather than "stagnating" European states will make Britain the "most open, trade-minded nation in the world". He added that the EU must do more to cut red tape and encourage competitiveness, but insisted he will not shun European trade completely. His criticism of Brussels' trading restrictions is likely to be welcomed by Tory Eurospectics ahead of an in/out referendum before the end of 2017. Related articles David Cameron is 'unsure, inexperienced and WON'T be able to stop... Now Labour send MP to Calais in bid to embarrass 'chillaxing'... We need to employ … [Read more...] about Cameron slams EU red tape for harming trade – and urges Britain to do business elsewhere

F rench President Emmanuel Macron has accused Russia of using energy as a “weapon of war” as the chief executive of oil and gas giant Shell warned gas rationing in Europe this winter was possible. Mr Macron yesterday told citizens to "prepare for a scenario where we have to manage completely without Russian gas." "The summer, early autumn will be very hard," he said. "Russia is using energy, like it is using food, as a weapon of war." He said the government would prepare a "sobriety plan" to conserve energy, which would start with turning off public lights at night when they aren't useful. "We need a general mobilisation," Mr Macron said in a televised address for Bastille Day. Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Shell, echoed the French president’s remarks, saying Russia had shown it is “able and willing to weaponise energy supplies.” Mr van Beurden said Moscow had “surprised” the market and told governments to be prepared for the Kremlin to restrict gas further. “For a … [Read more...] about Macron says Putin using gas as ‘weapon of war’ amid rationing fears

Queen to travel back from Balmoral to meet new Prime Minister SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info The Duke , 37, and Duchess , 41, announced on Monday they would make the trip back across the pond for the second time this year. They will visit the UK and Germany to support "several charities close to their hearts", the couple's spokesperson said. Related articles Royal: Sussex fury as Duchess told to 'shut up' Meghan Markle feud with US A-lister in wedding dress row EXPOSED The couple will attend the One Young World Summit in Manchester on September 5, for which Prince Harry is a counsellor. The event celebrates youth leadership, with young ambassadors travelling into the city from all over the … [Read more...] about Meghan and Harry ‘will want to visit the Queen’ as royals’ UK schedules overlap

There is something unreal about the Tory leadership battle. It feels like a general election, with the two remaining candidates remorselessly slagging each other off in briefings, hustings and on broadcast media ; indeed, it gets some of the same profile in terms of the airtime and column inches devoted to it. But actually — as Liz Truss seems rather more readily to appreciate than her opponent — it is much more like a beauty pageant than an election, with the judges confined to a small but far from electorally representative group of Tory Party activists. It is these people the candidates have to convince; the Foreign Secretary’s pitch appears to be much more in keeping with that end than that of Rishi Sunak, who would have been the choice of the parliamentary party had it been the method of selection. Ms Truss says what she thinks the grass roots want to hear, which is return to the smaller state, lower tax, self help, non-interventionist agenda of Conservative rule before … [Read more...] about Liz Truss will probably beat Rishi Sunak, but lose the next general election

When the last of the remaining United States forces departed from Afghanistan this week, they took with them more than 100,000 people, some of whom were Afghanistan’s most educated and skilled citizens. For these politicians, artists, scholars, and activists, the withdrawal represented not only the end of their country as they knew it, but the end of any hope they might have had in helping shape its future. These aren’t the only people Afghanistan has lost over the past few weeks. Perhaps just as important is another group: those still in the country who have gone into hiding in fear for their lives under Taliban rule, some erasing any remnants of who they once were—female journalists who have deleted evidence of their work, artists who have destroyed their creations, and women who have burned their degrees. The void that these two sets of people leave behind will undoubtedly be felt as the Taliban attempts to reassert its control—a process that includes reestablishing basic … [Read more...] about The Women Burning Their Degree Certificates

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced early on Monday that they will be returning to the UK next month and as per Express UK , their visit will likely coincide with the Queen’s upcoming visit to London. A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced on Monday: “Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are delighted to visit with several charities close to their hearts in early September.” The statement came just as reports about the 96-year-old monarch coming down to the capital from Balmoral, Scotland started doing rounds. The Queen is expected to return to London to sweat in the new UK Prime Minister just as the outgoing PM Boris Johnson officially tenders his resignation on September 6. Talking about the same, an insider also told Daily Mail : “Her Majesty does not expect the new prime minister to travel to Scotland, so the plan is that the Queen will travel down to see them.” … [Read more...] about Prince Harry, Meghan Markle’s UK visit to clash with Queen’s upcoming schedule

It is now not long before a new Prime Minister takes office. Amid the flurry of plans and promises, it is high time to sketch out the nature and scale of the challenge that lies ahead. Of course, we are currently passing through a period of acute difficulty, associated with high energy and other costs. Moreover, the pressure from this factor will only get worse over coming months. Yet believe it or not, this crisis will pass. The really important questions concern what happens then. Make no mistake, before this crisis hit us we were already in a bad way, with productivity growth down to nugatory levels and overall performance weak. What is the essence of this problem and what needs to be done? I have been rereading Nigel (now Lord) Lawson’s memoirs of his time in government in the 1980s, entitled “The View from No 11.” They make fascinating reading. Most people will know that, beginning in 1979, Mrs Thatcher’s government faced a tough task trying to improve the performance of the … [Read more...] about Our ailing economy needs another dose of Thatcher’s shock treatment

The man accused of brutally attacking Sir Salman Rushdie has been charged with attempted murder. New York state police have named the suspected knifeman as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey. He was taken into custody following the incident and entered a not guilty plea at a New York court today. Ali Tehfe, mayor of Yaroun in the south of Lebanon, said that the suspect was the son of a man from the town. The suspect’s parents emigrated to the United States and he was born and raised there, the mayor added. Investigators will seek to determine if the alleged attacker had ties or sympathies with Shi’ite extremist groups like Hezbollah. The Lebanese organisation, which has links to terrorist groups, told Reuters it had no involvement or contact with the suspect. Sir Salman was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution , in Chautauqua some 65 miles south-west of Buffalo, when the incident occurred. Andrew Wylie, his book agent, said in a … [Read more...] about Salman Rushdie’s alleged attacker charged with attempted murder but denies it

BERLIN — In the race to replace German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the head of her center-right Christian Democrats, the buzzword is undoubtedly change . The CDU party-leader election in Hamburg Friday will mark the first open leadership contest within Germany’s dominant party in decades. As mainstream parties across Europe continue to struggle in the face of challenges from upstart movements and the far right, ambitious CDU pols have seized the moment to launch a rare, broader debate about the direction of their party and the country. But as much as they may prefer to focus on political renewal, the three contenders for the top job—a former political rival of Merkel, an unofficially anointed successor, and an ambitious young member of her cabinet—are stuck between promising change and honoring Merkel’s outsize legacy. Hanging over the discussion is the question of what, exactly, Merkel’s towering political presence has done to Germany. Did she help the CDU ascend to new … [Read more...] about Is It Time to Bury Merkel’s Legacy?

If there's one thing that this Government is really good at, it is doing nothing. They have turned it into an art form – a meeting here, a conflab there, briefed details of a hastily-arranged emergency summit designed to show purpose yet utterly devoid of substance. Seeing to do rather than actually doing is how Boris Johnson’s administration will be remembered. If the race to succeed him is anything to go by, it is a style of leadership that may persist. Nowhere is this troubling approach more evident than the response to the energy crisis. The latest predictions for bills are frightening for those on low incomes: £4,267 a year by January, which is £650 more expensive than previously thought; and more than £4,400 annually by April, according to analysts at Cornwall Insight. Meanwhile UK households owe £1.3bn to their energy suppliers, three times higher than a year ago, with six million households more than £200 in debt on average, according to Uswitch, and winter is still … [Read more...] about Lib Dem plan to solve the energy crisis is radical – but at least they have one