Today Labour have announced that the party will re-commence its general election national campaign on Friday, after all campaigning was put on pause following Monday’s terrorist attack, which left 22 dead. Alas this memo has failed to reach one of Jeremy Corbyn’s ardent supporters. Although all campaigning is meant to be on hold, this afternoon a woman by the name
Pope Francis met President Trump this morning and they appear to have hit it off. After a 30-minute meeting in the Vatican, the president emerged beaming, describing the private audience as ‘the honour of a lifetime’. The Pope, too, was described as ‘grinning from ear to ear’. We don’t know if the two men discussed
In the wake of terrorist outrages such as Monday’s bombing, the British public tends to keep calm and carry on. We saw it in London after the Westminster attack in March; we saw it yesterday on the streets of Manchester – a stirring sight. That calmness in the face of evil is an attitude that
When the pictures of the dead came in, it was hard to take, even from a distance. There was Georgina Callander, 18, a bespectacled Ariana Grande ‘superfan’ who had tweeted that she was ‘so excited’ to go to the concert in Manchester Arena. There was Saffie Roussos, aged 8 and still at primary school, who
The meeting place of the two worlds could not have been more sharply defined. In Manchester Arena, thousands of young women had spent the night singing and dancing at a show in Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman tour. Songs such as the hit ‘Side To Side’ were performed: ‘Tonight I’m making deals with the devil /
The ‘cruel’ attack in Manchester is ‘more proof’ that the ‘liberal West shelters hate-filled enemies set on destroying our way of life’, says the Daily Mail. The bombing, in which 22 people lost their lives, was the worst since 7/7. And while our thoughts are now with the victims and their families, says the paper,
For weeks now, an email hoaxer has been trying to catch bank officials out online. After the prankster tricked Barclays boss Jes Staley, they set their sights on a new target: the governor of the Bank of England. Claiming to be Anthony Habgood, chairman of the court of the Bank of England, the hoaxer emailed
What we know so far: Police are hunting a ‘network’ in connection with the Manchester bombing, as they confirmed that the bomber was Salman Abedi, 22, who was born in Manchester to Libyan parents Six people – including a woman – have so far been arrested in connection with the attack. One of those held by police
In her second statement of the day, Theresa May has announced that the national terror threat level has been raised from “severe” to the highest level,”critical”. She added that she has also deployed the military to help armed police by triggering Operation Temperer, a protocol that sends troops to help police with security at airports, rail networks, harbours etc. This is
We must all come together. Hope, not hate. Nothing to do with Islam. Nothing to do with Muslims. Just a rogue individual, possibly in the employ of some mysterious foreign agency. Just terrorism, bad people. Unaligned wickedness. Nothing to do with religion. We must all come together. And show love. And solidarity. Hope not hate.
Until last night Ariana Grande’s fans, predominantly tweens and teens, were more preoccupied with the concept of friendship than the ripple effect of international politics. I witnessed this first hand when I was working at MTV and oversaw a Twitter Q&A with Grande, where she spent an hour or so answering questions sent in by fans. As
The first victim named was from Lancashire, the second an eight-year old girl. Two girls from the isle of Barra in the Western Isles are among those still unaccounted for. A reminder, if it were needed, that though this was an attack in Manchester, the chains of personal connections to the horror stretch all across
The police haven’t yet said anything about the identity of the Manchester suicide bomber, but the Islamic State has claimed responsibility. Here’s the statement. This is the same layout as the statement released on social media after the Bataclan attacks, complete with the bizarre “breaking news” box on the top left and references to the murdered young girls as
It’s the modern malaise: online fraud. In a world where so many of our transactions happen over the internet, it’s little wonder that fraudsters have descended on the web in droves. The latest statistics paint a bleak picture. According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 11.5 million incidents of crime relating to computer misuse
I have just chaired a meeting of the government’s emergency committee COBR, where we discussed the details of – and the response to – the appalling events in Manchester last night. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families and friends of all those affected. It is now beyond doubt that the
Theresa May has just spoken from Downing Street about the terrorist attack in Manchester. She said that the police and the security services believed they know the identity of the suicide bomber, but do not wish to reveal it for now. She said that the bomber had blown themselves up by one of the exits
The title is ironic. The end is not happy for Michael Haneke’s bourgeois French family, whose hamper of festering secrets the Austrian director unpacks with glee. His twelfth feature, which is vying for an unprecedented third Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, features an acting masterclass from French veteran Jean-Louis Trintignant as Georges Laurent, a dotty
As we ready ourselves for what has become an annual pilgrimage to the polling booths, in terms of finance there is little doubt that housing is taking centre stage in this election. This was not always the case. It’s true that if you look back to newspaper coverage of the housing crisis in the late
Never underestimate the resilience of the Welsh Labour party. Up until now, this year’s general election had looked like it was going to be an historic one in Wales, where the Conservatives have not won since the 1850s, and Labour have come first in both votes and seats every time since 1922. Both Welsh polls
Today was not a day that Theresa May will want to repeat anytime soon. In the morning, she had to U-turn on one of the centrepieces of her election manifesto and in the afternoon, she faced the most difficult interview she has had as Prime Minister. Theresa May never really got onto the front foot