Reporter for
@thetimes
and limb reconstruction patient | Paul Foot winner 2018, 30toWatch 2022 | feet in London, heart in Sussex, head in the mountains
Fraudsters, bankrupts, fugitives, tax cheats: they're all among the real estate owners in Dubai. Some even bought their property from jail. Now we know what they own.
Investigation, with
@GeorgeGreenwood
and media partners in 58 countries
#DubaiUnlocked
Student loan interest rates expected to rise from 4.5% to 12% for high earners and from 1.5% to 9% for low earners from September. An average grad with £50k debt will incur £2,200 to £3000 in interest over 6 months, just in case young wallets haven't been hit hard enough.
Large parts of the UK: Can our railways be electrified?
UK gov: No.
London: I can't go on Snapchat while I'm on the tube :((((
UK gov: oh no you poor thing, quick let's do something about this hardship
A few people are speculating about Toby Young's resignation. To clear up any doubt, I let him know that we were aware of his attendance at a eugenics conference and he provided a statement on Monday morning. He resigned that night; make of that what you will.
Went to buy the paper and the newsagent asked why I was buying 2 and I said (excited), I work there, I’m on the front page. And he looked at me and at the picture and went “dunno about you love but that’s Prince Philip”
More and more people are arriving in Calais. On the ground, the Home Office's arrangements are really not meeting needs. Quick thread, based on what refugees are telling us 1/
This week, I am at a farm in the Austrian alps. A man who has come to help with the farm work has arrived in a Queen (the band) T-shirt. He heard there was an English person staying and thought it was the most respectful T-shirt he could find.
But the real story here, in my opinion, is not that Young, a man who talks happily about eugenics, was at a conference. It's that there is a rich seam of well-funded racism under our noses, which is effectively laundered by 'reputable' academics.
The new Austrian sleeper trains are such good value that I am even more ashamed of our rail companies. €73 to go from Cologne to Vienna including bed and breakfast. Meanwhile, a bed on the problem-plagued Cal Sleeper from London to Fort William is £170. What are we paying for?
This comes from an IFS briefing based on RPI inflation, which also predicts that over the next few years the top interest rate will swing from 0% to 9%, just to really keep graduates on our toes.
@KatyaYushchenko
@Airbnb
I booked one last week in Chernihiv and the gentleman sent me back some photos of the apartment, partially destroyed by shelling.
Ambulances are being called to cramped warehouses where staff can't distance from one another and building sites are still open, but sure, Jenny who sat down for 15 minutes on her daily walk is the real danger
Many of those in Calais fled by car (so are travelling to where they can get a car ferry) or have family in the UK planning to pick them up via Channel Tunnel. People are here for practical reasons, not just because they're chancing it at the border as some seem to think 4/
NEW: Graduates are in for a rollercoaster ride on student loan interest rates in the coming years.
Read our new briefing on what today's
@ONS
RPI figures mean for student loans, funded by
@NuffieldFound
>
Addendum: The Home Office have said they have made 100 more appointments available in Paris. There are 130 people in one hostel in Calais alone. Some can apply in family groups, but that will still fall far short.
At the moment the situation is bearable here because the city of Calais is housing and feeding people. They are warm, safe, okay. How long will Calais continue to do that while this system creaks? /end
Now they have to turn around and go back to Paris. How? Many are running out of cash. TGV not free. Eurostar free to the UK - but not back to Paris. The HO have said a VAC centre en route - nobody has heard of it here. 5/
1950: Homophobic murder of Kenneth Crowe
1952: Homosexuality classified as a mental disorder
1952: McCarthy in the US, Nott-Blower in the UK were "weeding out homosexuals" from government
Early 1950s: Undercover police trap & arrest 1000s ofgay men
1954: Suicide of Alan Turing
The requirement to apply in person is not being communicated early enough in their journey to be useful. Internet access for many has been patchy; many lost phones, chargers while fleeing. The message simply isn't getting through for everyone. 2/
From the Kent beaches today, where 600 people arrived. They included Sanowbar and his family, an Afghan soldier who served with British and fled after threats from the Taliban:
Shoutout to the PR team who sent me mail containing a jumble of wires held together with tape and hot glue. I think it was meant to deliver a video message, but that’s not what my first impression was…
There don't appear to be any appointments. Lots of people finding they can't book online... Volunteers who have called up for them have been told no appointments. So they're stuck in Calais until that changes. 3/
I'm a bit sick of Oxbridge grads explaining how difficult it is to get into journalism. State school kids are relentlessly sold journalism degrees at less-than-prestigious universities yet the problem is rehashed as only a diversity one, not also a guidance & pathways one.
Tenants are evicted to make way for holiday homes, as one in ten city centre properties is listed on Airbnb: my investigation into how short term lets are fuelling Edinburgh's housing crisis here
So the city of Calais has arranged a hostel, thankfully given the number of children here. But to get back to Paris/Brussels means leaving their accommodation with nowhere to stay in those cities. Most hoping to do it in a day, but delays and no appointments make it a risk! 6/
This is an excellent book otherwise but I genuinely can't think of any good reason to speculate about how horny a woman would make her colleagues if she dressed differently. Especially if describing a real woman you actually met for a non fiction book.
If I end up part of a decade-long cohort who were the only ones to pay £9000 fees and future students get it cut again, you can bet your ass I'm going to complain about it until the day I die.
@Holbornlolz
@wales_steve
Having learned Latin and Greek, I would say it is almost exactly the same. Rote learning is rote learning; the key difference is the Argus catalogue is far less regular and repetitive...
This is an horrendous case. Of note, the victim of this strip search was hauled before a court for alleged knife crimes, where magistrates accepted she only had a small blade which she was using for self-harm. Criminalisation of mental illness, something seen increasingly.
NEW: Mixed race girl "tried to kill herself after Met Police strip search as she was menstruating". The 14-year-old, who's autistic, was handcuffed and had her underwear cut in front of male officers during the search, her mother said.
Shout out to my brother, who got A*AA today, but is not applying to uni. Instead he's planning to go to Spain and learn winemaking. The kids are alright.
In response to the IFS report, the DfE says it *can* cap interest rates if they are rising faster than comparable high street loans (though obviously no loans really are comparable). However no announcement until August on whether they will choose to do so.
@JonnElledge
@AdamStewart17
It will guarantee 30 years of repayments for most. The depressed take-home pay alters the mortage grads can take out, and the repayments will far, far, far exceed the amount initially borrowed.
Overheard on a walk: "Yes, she wants to play tennis with me once its allowed again. I hated playing with her, she always used to beat me, but she's got long covid now so maybe I have a shot."
🔴 Department for Education has issued a Temporary Continuity Direction to Greenwich council, ordering them to retract advice saying schools should close. Essentially forcing them to keep schools open by law, even when they feel it is unsafe to do so.
Last year there were 11,600 homophobic hate crimes reported to police. They include a lesbian couple beaten up on a bus, another couple who were pelted with stones from a passing car, two men beaten and told they would 'burn in hell', and more.
As of this month my student loan balance has officially risen to over £50,000. Thanks to everyone who helped me get to this milestone, can't wait to see where we go from here xox 🚀🌙🚀
@RachelConnoll14
It's bizarre. No business has a model around selling an occasional £5 t-shirt to someone replacing theirs on a budget. The entire model is overconsumption; selling a few things to people in actual poverty is just a sideline to Shein.
A homeless woman gave birth to twins in the street in Cambridge. Only after the birth was she found by passers-by and taken to hospital. Homeless woman gives birth outside Trinity College, Cambridge
@RMCunliffe
Background: Jackie was brought in from a local councils association after the chair (illegally) suspended the old clerk, failed to give a reason to council then refused to call meetings so he couldn't be held accountable. She's the peacekeeper here.
Antivaxers are becoming more extreme, anti-semitic and violent, our mass analysis of 900k Telegram messages found.
@annalom87
@AliMitib
and I tracked the language of conspiracy and extremism across Telegram for months - here's what we found:
Exclusive: An alleged Russian GRU agent who came to the UK as a refugee with a false asylum statement worked for the Foreign Office and Home Office, and says he was employed by GCHQ and MI6.
Anecdotal evidence that Homes for Ukraine placements may have broken down (leaving refugees homeless) because the rooms on offer were not suitable, or because safeguarding checks on hosts found risks. Worrying given Monday's news that checks can be finished after refugees arrive.
144 Ukrainian families have been referred to local council homelessness surveys already. Of these, a third came through the family visa scheme and 36 through the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme, Local Government Association says
Amir arrived in the UK age 15 as an unaccompanied refugee. He survived capsize in the Mediterranean, was shot at in Turkey and taken country to country by controlling smugglers. Now he's a mentor for teenagers and has just graduated an architecture degree:
I’ve signed up to sew scrubs for hospitals and, on the one hand, it is good to be useful but, on the other, it is beyond shameful and absurd that anyone with a sewing machine is now making medical supplies as if that’s how a country should run
The fundraising effort by a 99yo is astonishing - but the notion that the NHS has somehow become a charity and that is perfectly ok should make our blood run cold.
I was repeatedly told outright that I could never be a journalist, because as a teenager (and, to some extent, today) I had a severe anxiety disorder and was very shy. I start in a national newsroom in September, and last month won a Young Journalist Award from
@PrivateEyeNews
Why journalism needs diverse staff: LGBT staffers would have picked up on the glaring errors and omissions in this. It cites a survey with 80 unweighted respondents run by a campaign group, while ignoring huge campaigns like
#LWithTheT
or any thorough research into LGB women
So glad this is getting attention, it happened to me (and I was pretty femme-presenting!) - a woman bluntly told me I should use the men’s loos as “these are for real women”. How on earth are we meant to respond to that?
“I find it incredibly upsetting that this is a fight that is meant to be about my rights, and some sort of desire to save lesbians, as if we are going extinct.”
#LWithTheT
The man who threw eggs at the king has been banned from going within 500 metres of the King and was initially banned from possessing eggs in public.
Police had to alter that condition... so he could go grocery shopping.
Today the Home Office published a paper saying refugees who pass through other 'safe' European countries - such as a Ukrainian who leaves via Poland - can and should be returned to those countries. But at least they've got a flag.
When I came out I lost a close friend, was recommended gay cure therapy and told to stay single. People disagreeing with your politics in the su bar is not oppression.
Update: We are sorry to confirm that our Clapham vigil scheduled for tonight is cancelled. Please see the full statement here.
Instead, we are fundraising £320,000 for women's causes: £10K for every proposed fine for the 32 vigils originally scheduled.
Last tweet I promise but I really hope what people take away from today was the brave 18-year-old standing up in front of thousands of people and recounting how she never got justice after rape, not the fact a few officers stood next to Churchill's statue.
The staff in Calais consists of 3-5 very kind men in an empty port building, a bus-ride from the city centre, with no computers, no ability to give visas and, as far as I could tell, no translators.
A lot of back and forth overnight after calls for the Home Office to set up in Calais where there are reports of hundreds of Ukrainians who want to get to the UK. HO said a centre, then just staff there - we understand those staff are there to redirect people to other places.
@helenlewis
@BuzzFeed
And "Children are sacrificed to appease the trans lobby" is language that has associations of violence, conspiracy and moral panic, but you don't seem to mind that.
@cmdhindle
It depends on what you can bring really. If you speak Ukrainian or Russian, definitely. No translators here, so a few refugees with the best English are doing that for the others. Seem to be okay for food/clothes, and without visas refugees can't accept lifts to Dover...
@BeijingPalmer
I think it shouldn't be because it is such a huge energy sink and also normalises these temperatures. You can just ignore them if you're always in aircon, but it shouldn't be normal, it should be a permanent reminder of how we've fucked the planet
Tonight's bonfire procession in Lewes will include this tableaux, of Zelensky dressed as Rambo defeating Putin the pig. The society who made it say it is a "salute to the man who leads his nation in a brave stance against oppression and invasion".
Just gave my name in starbucks as 'Go in peace to love and serve the Lord'. As the (Anglican) barrista screamed out my 'name', the whole place replied 'in the name of Christ, amen', then reminded me I was on the coffee rota, and should in fact have been helping the barista