Day: October 24, 2018

    The crowds turning out in Australia to greet Meghan and Harry this week, where the couple are on a 16-day tour, are unprecedented. At one event in Sydney it was estimated by local media that a crowd of 15,000 people turned out to see the couple who announced on the first day of their Australian trip that Meghan was pregnant. On a trip to Victoria on Thursday well-wishers started assembling as early as 5am to get a glimpse of the couple. Crowds of that size have not appeared for Queen Elizabeth on any of her trips to Australia (which date back as far as the 1950s), and Harry and Megmania easily eclipses the enthusiasm with which William and Kate’s 2104 trip to Australia even with crowd-pulling Prince George in tow were received. But with great popularity comes great...

    During a state banquet for the King of the Netherlands and his wife Queen Maxima, she said that as we look toward a new partnership with Europe, the values shared by the UK and Holland are our greatest assets. The Queen, who is impartial in political matters, chose to emphasise the qualities needed by the UK and one of its closet European neighbours going forward as UK politicians continue to be bitterly divided by Brexit. Earlier, in a speech to both Houses of Parliament, King Willem-Alexander urged the government to lift the shadow of uncertainty hanging over Dutch nationals living in Britain after Brexit. And in his address at the Palace dinner, with Ms May seated nearby, the foreign head of state continued: At present, a lot of attention is focused on the tec...

    Theresa May has announced the UK government will today revoke visas of suspects related to the murder of the Saudi journalist and dissident, Jamal Khashoggi. The action comes after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, dismissed the kingdom's efforts to blame Mr Khashoggi's death within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on rouge operatives. Ms May, who will later speak with King Salman of Saudi Arabia over the killing, told MPs gathered in the Commons that the government condemned the murder of the journalist in the strongest possible terms. She said ministers have made clear that the Saudi officials must cooperate with Turkey and conduct a full and credible investigation. She continued: The claim that has been made that Mr Khashoggi died in a fight does not ...

    A victim of modern slavery who was trafficked to the UK at the age of three and subject to decades of sexual abuse was told to leave the country as soon as they were identified, MPs have heard. The former Independent Anti-Slavery commissioner told a parliamentary committee about an individual who was informed by the Home Office that they had been recognised as trafficking victim and in the same letter told that they were an illegal immigrant. Kevin Hyland OBE was speaking to the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday about a lack of professionalism in the government’s approach to tackling modern slavery, warning that it sometimes makes it up as it goes along. I’ve seen a case where a child was trafficked to the UK at the age of three and then sexually abused for ...