BAE investigating alleged sabotage of next-generation Royal Navy warship - The Guardian

An investigation has begun into an alleged incident of sabotage onboard a next-generation Royal Navy warship at a Scottish shipyard.

Dozens of cables on HMS Glasgow, which is expected to enter into service in the late 2020s, were “damaged intentionally” according to BAE Systems, the main contractor responsible for the construction and fitting out of the ship. Work has now restarted on the vessel after the discovery of possible sabotage this week.

HMS Glasgow, an anti-submarine warfare vessel tasked with protecting the Trident nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers, is the first of the new series of Type 26 frigates and is being built at the Scotstoun shipyard on the River Clyde in Glasgow.

A spokesperson for BAE Systems, Europe’s biggest defence contractor, said: “We immediately launched an internal investigation, alongside our suppliers, and temporarily paused work on the ship to inspect every area of the vessel and ensure our high standards and quality controls are met.

“Normal operations have now resumed and an assessment is under way to scope the repairs needed.”

The UK Defence Journal, a military news website, suggested that the warship may have been sabotaged by a contractor in a payment dispute. BAE Systems did not confirm any motive for the damage.

The investigation’s remit is expected to include identifying those responsible, understanding how the perpetrators were able to carry out their actions and devising measures on how to prevent similar incidents from recurring.

More than 60 cables were severed, according to the UK Defence Journal.

Approximately 23,000 cables will be installed on HMS Glasgow including ones that transmit data between various systems, equipment and personnel on the ship.

The vessel is the first of eight cutting-edge Type 26 frigates being built by BAE Systems in Glasgow. HMS Cardiff and HMS Belfast are also under construction.

The Type 26 frigate entered the water for the first time at the end of last year to be moved on to a barge at the Govan shipyard, before being moved downriver to Glenmallan on Loch Long.

The barge was subsequently submerged, allowing the vessel to float off and be towed back to the Clyde towards BAE Scotstoun, where it is being fitted out and further tested.

HMS Glasgow’s flight deck will be able to accommodate helicopters up to the size of the RAF’s Chinook, while its loading bay will be able to adapt to house and deploy vessels, vehicles and containers.

There have been eight Royal Navy ships of the name Glasgow from the early 1700s, which between them have earned 10 battle honours.

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2023-05-13 20:45:00Z
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Membership of anti-monarchy group Republic almost doubles in wake of coronation arrests - The Guardian

The anti-monarchy group Republic’s membership has almost doubled in a week, following the high-profile arrest of its chief executive, Graham Smith, during last weekend’s coronation.

The news comes as a poll reveals that almost nine in 10 Britons did not pledge allegiance to King Charles during the ceremony, despite being encouraged to do so by the archbishop of Canterbury.

Scotland Yard has expressed “regret” over the arrest of a group of protesters from Republic on the morning of the coronation on 6 May. Smith said the group had benefited from more than £80,000 in donations over the last week and attracted thousands of new paying members.

The increased public recognition of the group comes as an Opinium poll for the Observer reveals 57% of Britons polled said they did not pledge allegiance to the king because they did not want to. Another 31% said they did not pledge but would not have minded doing so.

Only 12% of those polled pledged allegiance to the king, in what was initially intended as a call to pledge allegiance in a “homage of the people”. That element of the ceremony was toned down, with an invitation rather than a call made by the archbishop to pledge allegiance.

The poll found that 64% of those surveyed watched the coronation, with most only watching part of the two-hour service.

The change in the “homage of the people” was made after widespread criticism. The broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby said the king would find the idea of people paying homage to him “abhorrent”. Republic described the idea as “offensive”.

Police arrested 64 people on the day of the coronation, but were accused by a director of Human Rights Watch of “incredibly alarming” tactics over the detention of peaceful protesters. It emerged last week that Alice Chambers, an Australian architect based in London unconnected to any protesters, was among those arrested as she waited to see the king. She was reportedly detained for 13 hours.

Smith was among a group from Republic who were arrested and held at Walworth police station in south London. He was released without charge after about 16 hours.

The anti-monarchy protesters were arrested under the new Public Order Act, which gives police powers to shut down protests before disruption. The new act was given royal assent on 2 May, just days before the coronation.

While Smith said it had been traumatic to be arbitrarily detained, there had been a “silver lining”, in that his group had gained new supporters. Republic’s membership has almost doubled over just a few days, rising from about 5,000 to about 9,000.

An anti-monarchy coronation appeal saw its funds increase from £47,000 on the day of the coronation to more than £91,000. The group also separately received about £20,000 in donations, including one single donation of £10,000.

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Smith said: “The response has been overwhelming. We’ve had tens of thousands of pounds coming and thousands of new supporters signing in. It’s put us front and centre.

“People understand it’s quite worrying if the law allows police to arrest the most peaceful of peaceful protests. I think it has done the police an awful lot of reputational damage. A lot of the coverage of the coronation was dominated by these arrests.”

Smith said the group’s online shop had also reported a boost in sales over the last week, with revenues of about £20,000. That compares with typical weekly revenues ranging from a few hundred pounds to around £3,000. Items on sale include £14.99 T-shirts with the logo NotMyKing and £9.99 mugs with the words No Monarchy.

Smith said he was not surprised by the new poll showing that only a small proportion had pledged allegiance to the king. He said this reflected the fact that there was a only a small group of enthusiastic royalists in the country and considered it demonstrated that “we are not a nation of monarchists.”

Smith said recent polling had suggested national support for the monarchy was slipping. Apoll for ITV of over 2,000 Britons, published this month showed that overall 52% supported the monarchy, but just 39% of those aged from 18 to 34 said they backed it.

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2023-05-13 18:50:00Z
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I don't care if people think I'm conservative: Starmer vows New Labour 'on steroids' - The Independent

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Sir Keir Starmer will say he does not care if people think he is conservative – as he promises the next government will be New Labour “on steroids”.

In a speech on Saturday, the Labour leader will say the Tories “can no longer claim to be conservative” and will blast “patronising contempt for those who fly our flag”.

It comes as an early blueprint spelling out the policies that could form Labour’s next election manifesto leaks.

Sir Keir is expected to tell Blairite think tank Progressive Britain that his party must go further than Tony Blair did when he re-wrote the so-called “Clause Four” and rejected public ownership.

In a reference to his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn he will say: “Some people think that all we’re doing is distancing ourselves from the previous regime – that totally misses the point.

“This is about taking our party back to where we belong and where we should always have been… back doing what we were created to do,” he will say.

“That’s why I say this project goes further and deeper than New Labour’s rewriting of Clause Four. This is about rolling our sleeves up, changing our entire culture – our DNA. This is Clause Four – on steroids.”

In a blast to critics who say he is too right wing, he will say that Labour must understand “precious” parts of Britain's “way of life”, communities, and environment are worth preserving.

Keir Starmer says he’s changing Labour’s DNA

“And look – if that sounds conservative, then let me tell you: I don’t care. Somebody has got to stand up for the things that make this country great and it isn’t going to be the Tories,” extracts from his speech pre-briefed by Labour say.

Meanwhile, the LabourList website has published a leaked internal draft of Labour policies that gives the clearest idea yet of what Sir Keir might commit to doing in power.

The early plans, drawn up by party policy chiefs, include existing eye-catching commitments to raising taxes on private schools and taking the railways into public ownership.

Notable plans spelled out in the National Policy Forum documents also include the repeal of some anti-trade union legislation and the abolition of non-dom tax status.

And it also spells out in detail how Labour will decarbonise Britain's economy – with a state investment fund backing new gigafactories and R&D money for green industry.

The party leader will set out his vision for a new Labour government

The party also plans a wave of “in-sourcing” of public services back to the public sector, though there is a lack of detail on how this would be achieved.

It also has plans for an employment rights bill in the first 100 days of entering office.

Labour’s final manifesto will be formally drawn up ahead of the general election, with input from trade unions and other stakeholders in the party.

Notably, many of the ambitious policies committed to by Sir Keir during the 2020 leadership election are absent from the document.

The dossier states there will be “no return to freedom of movement” with the EU – and commits to a reformed “points-based immigration system” instead.

It also suggests water and energy utilities will remain in private hands with the companies subject to revamped regulations and targets.

The Tories ‘can no longer claim to be conservative’ Sir Keir argues

(PA Archive)

But on the generation side, the party has recommitted to establishing a state-backed player in the electricity generation market.

The party says a Labour government would invest in nuclear power but not issue new licences for the exploration of oil and gas.

And it wants a rolling programme for electrification of the railways and says it will build HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail in full.

Most of the plans in the document have been previously announced by the party since Sir Keir became leader and represent a collation of existing policies.

In February Sir Keir said five “national missions” would form the basis of the Labour manifesto, based on the economy, the NHS, crime, the climate crisis and education.

He said there would be “a relentless focus on the things that matter most” and ”an answer to the widespread call for someone that can ‘fix the fundamentals’”.

Labour surged to a 27-point lead ahead of the Conservatives in the latest poll published by Omnisis on Friday. Sir Keir’s party is polling 51 per cent to the Tories’ 24 per cent, with the Lib Dems on 10 per cent.

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2023-05-13 06:55:30Z
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Sats reading paper: Government defends 'challenging' tests - BBC

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By Alice Evans

BBC News

The government has defended tests for Year 6 pupils across England, after some parents and teachers said a paper in this week's Sats was too difficult.

One head teacher said the English reading test included some "GCSE-level" questions. Some pupils were left in tears and did not finish the paper.

It has fuelled a debate among teachers and parents about the purpose of Sats.

A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson told BBC News the tests were "designed to be challenging".

The government had previously said it worked to ensure that "all tests are appropriate".

But asked for further comment on the English reading paper, the DfE added that Sats had to be tough "in order to measure attainment across the ability range, including stretching the most able children".

The government has advised that details of the content of the test paper should not be published until all Year 6 pupils have had the chance to take it.

Sats are tests taken by pupils in Year 2 and Year 6 to assess their reading, writing and maths skills - and to test schools' performances.

• Children 'distraught' after Sats reading paper
• Head wants Sats scrapped after pupils 'broken'
• Year 6 Sats results slip after Covid

Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, head teacher at Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham, said it was "heartbreaking" to see her pupils struggling to get through the reading paper.

Mrs Hewitt-Clarkson, who has two teenage daughters who have taken their GCSEs in the past few years, said: "I'm not a secondary English teacher, but... some of those questions were definitely of that level. It's just unfair."

Mrs Hewitt-Clarkson hopes the Standards and Testing Agency - which is part of the DfE - might consider lowering the pass mark this year, in response to how difficult some students found it.

"For children to fail - or not achieve the standardised score - where we know in class they have been performing at an age-related expected level, or above, it just shows all the flaws of a system that depends almost entirely on one test," she said.

The government says it converts children's raw test scores into "scaled scores" so that tests can be compared, even if the difficulty varies.

Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson

Heather, from Ipswich, said her son found this week's Sats process "absolutely fine".

"Our school puts very little pressure on our children for the Sats," she told BBC Radio 5 Live. "It's been quite a positive experience."

But Davina Bhanabhai, a writer from Leeds, said her daughter was "really flustered" by the English reading paper on Wednesday.

"Children came out feeling distraught, anxious and stressed. These three emotions are not what we want to bring our children up to experience," she told BBC News.

"The teachers are stressed because that's the only measure they have that they can show that they're doing their job," she added. "[The children] want to do well, so naturally that stress is going to be passed down [to them]."

Two education unions, the National Education Union (NEU) and NAHT, have raised concerns about the paper.

NEU joint general secretary, Mary Bousted, added there were "better ways of assessing pupils" than through Sats.

What are Sats?

Standard Assessment Tests, or Sats, are tests that children take in Year 6, at the end of Key Stage 2. They are national curriculum assessments in English grammar, punctuation and spelling, English reading and maths.

The government's Standards and Testing Agency says the purposes of Sats tests are to:

• help measure pupils' progress
• identify if they need any extra help in certain areas
• assess schools' performances
• produce national performance data.

Children also sit Sats in Year 2, at the end of Key Stage 1.

Last year, 59% of Year 6 pupils met the expected levels in reading, writing and maths - down from 65% in 2019.

The national curriculum tests were cancelled in 2020 and 2021, during the pandemic.

Related Topics

• Primary schools
• Schools
• Sats

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2023-05-12 17:59:06Z
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Justin Welby: from crowning King Charles to conviction and speeding fine - The Guardian

It has been a momentous week for Justin Welby, the 105th archbishop of Canterbury.

Last Saturday, he was on the global stage as he crowned King Charles III, anointing the sovereign with holy oil and issuing a resounding “God save the King!” before 2,000 people in Westminster Abbey and 20 million Britons watching on television.

On Wednesday, he leveraged his status as England’s most senior cleric and the leader of the established church to castigate the government over its “morally unacceptable” migration bill. His comments made headlines and were met with predictably furious indignation from Conservative MPs and the Daily Mail.

But, as they say, from the sublime to the ridiculous. On Friday, it emerged that Welby had been fined £510 with three points slapped on his licence for driving at 25mph in a 20mph zone. The archbishop was at the wheel of his VW Golf returning to his office at Lambeth Palace at the time.

The most reverend and right honourable Justin Portal Welby, by divine providence lord archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, was, for the purposes of the notice of intended prosecution sent to Lambeth Palace, reduced to “Arch Justin Welby” by the Metropolitan police.

That the case reached Lavender Hill magistrates court at all was the result of “admin errors”, according to a spokesperson for the archbishop.

For Welby, the king’s coronation was a triumphant climax to mark his 10 years at the helm of the global Anglican church, an anniversary he passed in February. The ceremony at Westminster Abbey was the epitome of the pomp, ceremony, dressing up and sombre intonation that is a key component of the archbishop’s role, and one that Welby relishes.

Welby said last year – before he knew he would soon be officiating at the queen’s funeral and the king’s coronation – that he planned to stay in the role until he reaches the age of 70 in 2026. Now that those two huge ceremonial events have secured his place in history, he may well conclude that another three years of interminable wrangling with church traditionalists over sexuality and reforming internal disciplinary processes have little appeal.

On the other hand, Welby may wish to increasingly use his moral authority as the country’s foremost religious leader to speak truth to power. His intervention in the House of Lords this week was not the first time he has been accused of overstepping the mark on issues of social justice.

He says he is political but not partisan. “One of the things I struggle with is wanting to speak the truth, but at the same time not to be party political … I’m very careful never to speak against individual politicians,” he once told a group of sixth-formers.

Welby, an oil executive before he became a priest, has openly admitted to bouts of depression, for which he takes medication, and feelings of hopelessness. Some of that may be rooted in a messy childhood with alcoholic parents, the death in a car accident of his first child, Johanna, at the age of seven months, and the discovery in 2016 that he was the biological son of an aide to Winston Churchill rather the man he had believed to be his father for 60 years.

The job is relentless. As well as the highly visible formal occasions – royal weddings and funerals, Christmas Day sermons at Canterbury cathedral, New Year messages to the nation – there are gruelling foreign trips, endless meetings and a huge bureaucratic institution to run. No wonder he carves out an hour early every morning for solitary prayer.

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2023-05-12 17:55:00Z
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Police to dig for remains of missing student after serial killer Levi Bellfield 'confesses to her murder' - Sky News

Police are preparing to dig for the remains of a missing student after an alleged confession to her murder by serial killer Levi Bellfield.

The former nightclub bouncer told detectives, in a prison interview this week, that he had hidden her body in woodland 24 years ago.

Elizabeth Chau, 19, a computer studies student at Thames Valley University, vanished in west London in 1999.

Image: Elizabeth Chau has been missing since 1999

Bellfield "admitted" killing her in conversation with a prison visitor last year, then wrote a confession that prompted a visit from detectives from the Metropolitan Police's unsolved murder squad.

He described how he had killed her and, using a map brought into the prison, he showed police a rough area where he had hidden her body.

Bellfield's solicitor Theresa Clark said: "He tells me he feels it's important that her family have some closure. He wants to see justice done because they have had to live this for so long and that's unfair. He gains nothing from it, there is no positive publicity for him."

Bellfield, 54, is serving a whole life sentence for the murders of two young women and the schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose body was found buried in woodland after she was snatched from the street in 2002.

Bellfield's latest confession comes after he admitted last month to murdering Lin Russell and her daughter Megan, according to a lawyer.

Image: Lin Russell and her daughter Megan

Michael Stone is currently serving three life sentences in prison for the murder of Ms Russell, 45, and her six-year-old daughter who were found bludgeoned to death in Chillenden, Kent, in July 1996.

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Ms Russell's other daughter Josie, then aged nine, suffered severe head injuries but survived.

Stone has always protested his innocence over the attack.

Bellfield claimed responsibility for the Chillenden murders last year but later retracted the statement.

Stone's solicitor Paul Bacon said Bellfield has since written and signed a fresh confession, adding the move "must have taken some courage and considerable soul-searching".

Read more:
Bellfield may have committed more murders, says ex-detective
PM 'sickened' over Bellfield request for prison wedding

Bellfield was given a whole life term for murdering 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell in 2003 and 22-year-old Amelie Delagrange in 2004, as well as trying to murder 18-year-old Kate Sheedy in the same year.

He was already serving his sentence when he went on trial for killing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was snatched while walking home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in March 2002.

Bellfield was found guilty of abducting and killing the schoolgirl following a trial at the Old Bailey in 2011.

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2023-05-12 15:54:32Z
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David Boyd found guilty of 1992 murder of seven-year-old Nikki Allan - The Guardian

A child killer who evaded justice for more than 30 years has been found guilty of murder.

David Boyd took seven-year-old Nikki Allan to an abandoned building where he beat her with a brick and repeatedly stabbed her to death in 1992.

The wrong man was charged and found not guilty after a trial. Scientific breakthroughs enabled police in recent years to forensically link Boyd, once a neighbour of Nikki and her family in Sunderland, to the crime.

On Friday, a jury at Newcastle crown court found Boyd, 55, of Stockton-on-Tees, guilty of murder.

Cries of “yes” and “you bastard” could be heard in the public gallery, with relatives of Nikki hugging and shouting in jubilation as the verdict came in after two and a half hours’ deliberation.

Boyd was 25 at the time of the crime and the partner of a woman who babysat Nikki. He lived on the same floor of maisonettes as Nikki’s grandparents.

The court heard that Nikki must have known her killer and was lured to her death. One witness described seeing a young girl skipping alongside a man, now known to be Boyd.

The prosecutor Richard Wright KC told the court: “The little girl would occasionally drop behind and would then skip to catch up. This was Nikki Allan. She was with her killer and she was unwittingly skipping to her death.”

The court heard that Boyd forced Nikki through the boarded-up window of a derelict warehouse, killed her and tried to hide her body in a cellar.

Boyd denied murder but Wright, summing up the prosecution case, said: “He crushed her skull with a brick and he pulled up her top and exposed her chest and stabbed her again and again and again. And then he dragged her down in to that cellar, with her head bouncing off every step as he went.”

After a reinvestigation and a mass DNA screening of people in the area, police arrested Boyd in 2018. He claimed his DNA may have come to be on Nikki when he spat from the balcony of his flat while the girl played below.

But the prosecution suggested that the argument did not stack up. None of Boyd’s DNA was found on Nikki’s coat but traces that were a one-in-28,000 match were found on her cycling shorts, and a one-in-5,100 match on her T-shirt, the court heard.

“It is the clothing that her killer would have inevitably had to handle when forcing her into the building, picking her up inside and manhandling her,” Wright said.

The court heard evidence that Boyd once admitted to a probation officer to having sexual fantasies about naked young girls.

His previous convictions included a breach of the peace in 1986 after approaching four children aged eight to 10, grabbing one and asking for a kiss. In 1999, he was convicted of indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl who was playing in a park by asking lewd questions and groping her.

Boyd chose not to give evidence at the trial. The defence counsel, Jason Pitter KC, said in his summing up that the case against Boyd was entirely circumstantial.

After the verdict, Det Ch Supt Lisa Theaker, the senior investigating officer in the case, said Nikki would be 37 today and who knew what her life could have been.

“This is a huge day for Nikki’s family,” she said. “I would like to thank them for their incredible strength – after 30 years, they have justice.”

Theaker said new forensic techniques were a key part of what had been “a complex and challenging case”.

It has been alleged that Boyd managed to slip through the net because police were convinced another neighbour, George Heron, was responsible for the crime. He was arrested and charged, and fervour in the north-east of England was so heightened that it was decided the trial should be held in Leeds.

Heron confessed to the crime but only under duress. The case against Heron unravelled quickly when the judge, after two weeks of legal argument, ruled that a number of police interview tapes were inadmissible because officers had used “oppressive methods” to obtain the confession.

When Heron was acquitted, 20 police officers had to restrain the packed public gallery.

Nikki’s mother, Sharon Henderson, campaigned for three decades to get justice for her daughter.

Boyd will be sentenced on 23 May.

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2023-05-12 16:29:00Z
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