Boris Johnson defends taking plane to G7 summit – as climate change set to be high on the agenda
The prime minister has been criticised for travelling to the G7 summit in Cornwall by plane, instead of taking the train.
Boris Johnson arrived in Cornwall for the gathering of some of the world’s most developed economies, with climate change set to be high on the agenda.
A picture of the PM stepping off on a jet was posted on his Twitter account, alongside the caption: “I’ve arrived in Cornwall for this year’s @G7 where I’ll be asking my fellow leaders to rise to the challenge of beating the pandemic and building back better, fairer and greener.
“It will be a busy and important Summit, and I can’t wait to get started.”
Labour’s shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard labelled the move “plane stupid”.
“There’s no train line from Cornwall to Washington or Tokyo but there is to London. The prime minister should have taken the train, not got a plane,” he said.
Asked about his decision to fly into the summit, Mr Johnson said: “If you attack my arrival by plane, I respectfully point out that the UK is actually in the lead in developing sustainable aviation fuel.
“One of the points in the 10-point plan of our green industrial revolution is to get to jet zero as well as net zero.”
US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden arrive on Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, ahead of the G7 summit in Cornwall.
Other world leaders arrived in Cornwall on Wednesday, with Joe Biden landing at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk on Air Force One.
Rather than using making the train journey from Paddington to London, Mr Johnson took the 250 miles (400km) trip From Stansted airport to Newquay in Cornwall.
Taking a plane creates almost five times more greenhouse gas emissions than the equivalent train journey, according to the government’s own emission figures.
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One of the key policy priorities of this year’s summit is to “create a greener, more prosperous future”.
The summit’s website adds: “We will protect the future of our planet by moving to net zero and providing financial support for developing countries to do the same.”
In November, Glasgow will host COP26, where parties are expected to commit to enhanced ambitions.
Politics
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
Read more:
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One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.
A man from the US state of Virginia will spend over three decades behind bars after being convicted of sending crypto to the terrorist organization commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Federal Judge David Novak sentenced Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa to 30 years and four months in prison on May 7 for sending over $185,000 to the Islamic State, the Department of Justice said on May 8.
Prosecutors said that from around October 2019 until October 2022, the 35-year-old Chhipa collected and sent money to female Islamic State members in Syria, which helped them escape prison camps and funded fighting.
The Justice Department said Chhipa would raise funds for the United Nations-designated terror organization through social media — receiving money online, or traveling hundreds of miles to accept donations in person.
He’d convert the money into crypto and send it to Turkey for it to be smuggled to Islamic State members across the border in Syria, prosecutors said.
A federal jury convicted Chhipa in December, finding him guilty on a charge of conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist organization and four charges of providing and attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization.
“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”
Chhipa tried to flee US during FBI probe
Prosecutors said that during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into Chhipa, he tried to flee the country to escape prosecution and tried to hide his tracks through a series of actions seemingly aimed at confusing authorities.
According to a motion for detention filed in August, FBI agents searched Chhipa’s house on Aug. 2, 2019, and that night Chhipa drove to a bank, withdrew $1,800 from an ATM, and then went to a Taco Bell, where he paid a stranger for a ride to a relative’s house. The relative then drove him to a grocery store.
Related: US Treasury sanctions Myanmar militia group for alleged crypto scams
Three days later, prosecutors said Chhipa “purchased a series of bus tickets using variations and/or misspelling of his name and recently created email accounts.”
He then travelled from Virginia to Mexico and onto Guatemala. He then bought tickets to fly from Guatemala to Panama, then onto Germany, and then to Egypt, but an Interpol Blue Notice was issued, and he was returned to the US.
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