Rishi Sunak’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping has been called off, Downing Street has said.
The prime minister was set to hold a meeting with Mr Xi at the G20 summit in Bali on Wednesday morning, UK time, in what would have been the first time a British leader had faced him in almost five years.
However, the much-anticipated meeting was scrapped moments before it was set to take place due to scheduling issues, a Downing Street spokesman told Sky News.
An emergency meeting was scheduled on Wednesday morning instead between the leaders of NATO and the G7 nations after missiles were fired into Poland and killed two civilians on Tuesday night.
China is not part of the G7 so Mr Xi was not in that emergency meeting.
An urgent investigation is taking place to determine who fired it.
The roundtable of like-minded leaders pledged to offer their “full support” for Poland’s investigation, with preliminary assessments from US intelligence suggesting the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one.
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Mr Sunak headed to the G20 summit on Sunday without confirmation he would meet Mr Xi and saying he was “hopeful” they would meet, but on Tuesday evening the bilateral was confirmed, before being called off hours later.
Image: Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in Bali on Monday
On Tuesday, Mr Sunak told Sky News China “represents the single biggest straight threat to our economic security” and said his approach to Mr Xi would be “very similar to our allies”, such as the US and Australia.
Both western countries’ leaders have been more outspoken against China than the UK as they have had more direct friction over Taiwan for the US and potential illicit Chinese political influence in Australia.
Mr Sunak has been accused by critics, including from his own party, of softening his rhetoric against China since becoming PM after he took a tougher stance during the summer’s leadership campaign when he called Beijing a “threat” instead of just a “challenge”.
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Sunak and Biden meet in Bali
At the time, he accused Beijing of “stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities” while “propping up Putin’s fascist invasion of Ukraine”, bullying Taiwan and contravening the human rights of the Uyghurs and people in Hong Kong, as well as suppressing their currency to “continually rig the global economy in their favour”.
Downing Street had insisted Mr Sunak would have been “frank” during his meeting with Mr Xi and would raise China’s poor human rights record.
That will now not happen.
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PM won’t apologise for ‘mistakes’
While in Bali, Mr Sunak has had one-to-one meetings with Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Mr Biden.
A meeting with Japan’s Fumio Kishida was cancelled on Wednesday as the two attended the emergency G7 meeting.
Mr Sunak is due to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi later on Wednesday, when he is set to confirm a deal allowing 3,000 young professionals from India to work in the UK for two years as the UK continues to attempt to strike a trade deal with India.
The PM is also set to talk to Australia’s Anthony Albanese and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Labour’s welfare reforms bill has passed, with 335 MPs voting in favour and 260 against.
It came after the government watered down the bill earlier this evening, making a dramatic last-minute concession to the demands of would-be rebel MPs who were concerned about the damage the policy would do to disabled people.
The government has a working majority of 166, so it would have taken 84 rebels to defeat the bill.
In total, 49 Labour MPs still voted against the bill despite the concessions. No MPs from other parties voted alongside the government, although three MPs elected for Labour who have since had the whip removed did so.
Which Labour MPs rebelled?
Last week, 127 Labour MPs signed what they called a “reasoned amendment”, a letter stating their objection to the bill as it was.
The government responded with some concessions to try and win back the rebels, which was enough to convince some of them. But they were still ultimately forced to make more changes today.
In total, 68 MPs who signed the initial “reasoned amendment” eventually voted in favour of the bill.
Nine in 10 MPs elected for the first time at the 2024 general election voted with the government.
That compares with fewer than three quarters of MPs who were voted in before that.
A total of 42 Labour MPs also voted in favour of an amendment that would have stopped the bill from even going to a vote at all. That was voted down by 328 votes to 149.
How does the rebellion compare historically?
If the wording of the bill had remained unchanged and 127 MPs or more had voted against it on Tuesday, it would have been up there as one of the biggest rebellions in British parliamentary history.
As it happened, it was still higher than the largest recorded during Tony Blair’s first year as PM, when 47 of his Labour colleagues (including Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, who also voted against the bill on Tuesday) voted no to his plan to cut benefits for single-parent families.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
A 92-year-old man has been sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years in prison for the rape and murder of an elderly widow nearly 60 years ago.
Ryland Headley was found guilty on Monday of killing 75-year-old Louisa Dunne at her Bristol home in June 1967, in what is thought to be the UK’s longest cold case to reach trial, and has been told by the judge he “will die in prison”.
The mother-of-two’s body was found by neighbours after Headley, then a 34-year-old railway worker, forced his way inside the terraced house in the Easton area before attacking her.
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The UK’s longest cold case to reach trial
Police found traces of semen and a palm print on one of the rear windows inside the house – but it was about 20 years before DNA testing.
The case remained unsolved for more than 50 years until Avon and Somerset detectives sent off items from the original investigation and found a DNA match to Headley.
He had moved to Suffolk after the murder and served a prison sentence for raping two elderly women in 1977.
Prosecutors said the convictions showed he had a “tendency” to break into people’s homes at night and, in some cases, “target an elderly woman living alone, to have sex with her despite her attempts to fend him off, and to threaten violence”.
Image: Louisa Dunne in 1933. Pic: Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Image: Headley during his arrest. Pic: Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Headley, from Ipswich, who did not give evidence, denied raping and murdering Ms Dunne, but was found guilty of both charges after a trial at Bristol Crown Court.
Detectives said forces across the country are investigating whether Headley could be linked to other unsolved crimes.
Mrs Dunne’s granddaughter, Mary Dainton, who was 20 when her relative was killed, told the court that her murder “had a big impact on my mother, my aunt and her family.
“I don’t think my mother ever recovered from it. The anxiety caused by her mother’s brutal rape and murder clouded the rest of her life.
“The fact the offender wasn’t caught caused my mother to become and remain very ill.
“When people found out about the murder, they withdrew from us. In my experience, there is a stigma attached to rape and murder.”
Image: The front of Louisa Dunne’s home. Pic: Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Image: Louisa Dunne’s skirt. Pic: Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Finding out her grandmother’s killer had been caught after almost six decades “turned my life upside down,” she said.
“I feel sad and very tired, which has affected the relationships I have with those close to me. I didn’t expect to deal with something of such emotional significance at this stage of my life.
“It saddens me deeply that all the people who knew and loved Louisa are not here to see that justice has been done.”
Image: Palmprint images. Pic: Avon and Somerset Constabulary
After her statement, Mr Justice Sweeting told Mrs Dainton: “It is not easy to talk about matters like this in public.
“Thank you very much for doing it in such a clear and dignified way.”
The judge told Headley his crimes showed “a complete disregard for human life and dignity.
“Mrs Dunne was vulnerable, she was a small elderly woman living alone. You treated her as a means to an end.
“The violation of her home, her body and ultimately her life was a pitiless and cruel act by a depraved man.
“She must have experienced considerable pain and fear before her death,” he said.
Sentencing Headley to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years, the judge told him: “You will never be released, you will die in prison.”
Detective Inspector Dave Marchant of Avon and Somerset Police said Headley was “finally facing justice for the horrific crimes he committed against Louisa in 1967.
“The impact of this crime has cast a long shadow over the city and in particular Louisa’s family, who have had to deal with the sadness and trauma ever since.”
The officer praised Ms Dainton’s “resilience and courage” during what he called a “unique” case and thanked investigators from his own force, as well as South West Forensics, detectives from Suffolk Constabulary, the National Crime Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Three managers at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
They were in senior roles at the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2015 and 2016 and have been bailed pending further enquiries, Cheshire Constabulary said. Their names have not been made public.
Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the hospital’s neonatal unit.
Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes explained that gross negligent manslaughter focuses on the “action or inaction of individuals”.
There is also an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which began in October 2023.
That focuses on “senior leadership and their decision-making”, Mr Hughes said. The intention there is to determine whether any “criminality has taken place concerning the response to the increased levels of fatalities”.
The scope was widened to include gross negligence manslaughter in March of this year.
Image: Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more
Mr Hughes said it is “important to note” that this latest development “does not impact on the convictions of Lucy Letby for multiple offences of murder and attempted murder”.
He added: “Both the corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter elements of the investigation are continuing and there are no set timescales for these.
“Our investigation into the deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neo-natal units of both the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital between the period of 2012 to 2016 is also ongoing.”
Earlier this year, lawyers for Lucy Letby called for the suspension of the inquiry, claiming there was “overwhelming and compelling evidence” that her convictions were unsafe.
Their evidence has been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hopes her case will be referred back to the Court of Appeal.