Rishi Sunak given fixed penalty notice after being caught not wearing seatbelt

Published

2 years ago

January 21, 2023

admin

Rishi Sunak has been given a fixed penalty notice after being caught not wearing a seatbelt.

Lancashire Police issued the notice after the prime minister appeared without a belt in a clip on Instagram as he promoted his levelling-up funding in Lancashire.

Mr Sunak has accepted the fine.

‘Hapless’ Sunak has photo-op blow up in face, says Labour – politics latest

Number 10 said: “The prime minister fully accepts this was a mistake and has apologised. He will of course comply with the fixed penalty.”

The force said: “You will be aware that a video has been circulating on social media showing an individual failing to wear a seatbelt while a passenger in a moving car in Lancashire.

“After looking into this matter, we have today issued a 42-year-old man from London with a conditional offer of fixed penalty.”

Mr Sunak is the second serving prime minister – after Boris Johnson – to be found to have broken the law while in office.

He has previously been fined by the Met Police for breaking lockdown rules.

He and Mr Johnson were fined by the Metropolitan Police over a birthday held in Downing Street for the former prime minister when curbs were in place.

Sunak ‘a total liability’

Labour said the prime minister has been turned into a “laughing stock”.

A party spokesperson said: “Hapless Rishi Sunak’s levelling-up photo op has blown up in his face and turned him into a laughing stock.

“He started the week hoping people would be grateful for a partial refund on the money that has been stripped from them over 13 years of the Tories. But instead he got a warring party and yet another fine from the police.

“Just when you thought this Tory government couldn’t get any more ridiculous, they manage it.”

The party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner added: “Rishi Sunak is a total liability.”

The Liberal Democrats said the prime minister had “shown the same disregard for the rules as Boris Johnson”.

Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader, said: “From partygate to seatbelt gate, these Conservative politicians are just taking the British people for fools.”

Sunak’s slip-ups could be exploited by opponents to brand him out of touch

Joe Pike

Political correspondent

@joepike

Downing Street will be hoping that once the PM has paid up, voters and journalists will move on and forget this rather embarrassing unforced error.

To Rishi Sunak’s credit, he put his hands up and admitted the error almost immediately.

But it is a reminder that in the top job, with a permacrisis of strikes, NHS delays and high inflation, mistakes can slip through the Number 10 net.

Failing to wear a seatbelt is illegal, but filming it and publishing the evidence on social media suggests a lack of checks within the PM’s team.

This is the second police fine Mr Sunak has received in nine months, after the Met Police punished him for attending a lockdown-busting birthday gathering for Boris Johnson.

In recent months Mr Sunak has struggled with contactless payments, had an awkward conversation with a homeless man about financial services, and demonstrated a fondness for using private jets to travel around the UK even for relatively short journeys.

Added together, such slip-ups may be exploited by the PM’s enemies to claim he is out of touch.

There is certainly a danger these small missteps distract from Mr Sunak’s attempts to stabilise the economy and sort out seemingly intractable issues like migrant crossings and delayed discharges.

Like many occupants of Number 11, Rishi Sunak was a “submarine chancellor”. Invisible below the waves for months on end, he occasionally rose from the deep to launch a killer economic intervention: his “whatever it takes” COVID budget, the furlough scheme, Eat Out To Help Out.

But as Gordon Brown (the last politician to move from 11 to 10) found, similar manoeuvres are not possible as prime minister.

You are constantly in the spotlight. And it is an unsparing existence.

‘Not a criminal offence’

Sky News’ policing analyst Graham Wettone said he is “not surprised” about the notice, adding that it is the “right and proper” resolution.

“It is exactly what would happen to anybody else if they were to commit a similar offence and the police discovered it.”

Mr Wettone dismissed criticism that the prime minister has been treated unfairly, suggesting the case was “fairly simple” and that the law must be applied “impartially”.

One of Mr Sunak’s Tory colleagues sought to downplay the significance of the notice, however.

“This is something millions of Britons experience every single year,” Scott Benton said.

“The Cabinet Office set out clearly last year that a fixed penalty notice isn’t a criminal offence.”

Another controversy

Downing Street said before the fine that Mr Sunak “fully accepts this was a mistake and apologises”.

A spokesman said: “It was an error of judgment, he removed it for a short period of time to film a clip, which you’ve seen, but he accepts that was a mistake.”

Fines of up to £500 can be issued for failing to wear a seatbelt when one is available.

There are a few exemptions, including when a car is being used for police, fire and rescue services, and for certified medical issues.

Mr Sunak came to office promising “integrity” after the scandals that eventually forced Mr Johnson from office.

Mr Sunak’s premiership has been hit with a series of controversies since he entered No 10 in October, from criticism for reinstating Suella Braverman as home secretary six days after she was forced to step down over a security breach to an ongoing bullying inquiry into Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister.

World

Pope Francis’s final moments reveal how quickly he deteriorated before death

Published

8 hours ago

April 22, 2025

admin

Pope Francis's final moments reveal how quickly he deteriorated before death

Pope Francis died little more than half an hour after being taken ill, Vatican sources have told Sky News.

Pope Francis woke at 6am on Monday, and was fine for at least an hour, sources said, as they revealed details of the pontiff’s final moments.

Around 7am, the Vatican’s medical unit received an emergency call from his Casa Santa Marta apartment.

Pope latest – Prince William to attend funeral

An urgent transfer to the Gemelli hospital, where he was treated for pneumonia earlier this year, was among the options considered.

A request for an urgent escort from the Vatican was received by Rome police after 7am, sources there said, but, given how quickly his condition worsened, it was cancelled by Vatican officials before 7.35am.

Francis died at the age of 88, a day after making his final public appearance at St Peter’s Square, where he greeted crowds on Easter Sunday, one of the most important days of the Christian calendar.

The Vatican said he died from a stroke that led to a coma and irreversible heart failure.

He is currently lying in state in the Santa Marta Domus in a private viewing for Vatican residents and the papal household.

Francis will be laid to rest Saturday, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects.

The funeral will take place outside, in the square in front of St Peter’s Basilica, and will start with a procession led by a priest carrying a cross, followed by the coffin and ordained clergy.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, will lead the service. Nine days of mourning begin afterwards.

Unlike his predecessors, Francis will be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (St Mary Major), as per his final burial wishes, announced on Monday.

The basilica is dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God, and is where Francis traditionally went to pray before and after foreign trips.

He will be the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican in more than a century.

In another change from tradition, he will be buried in a simple wooden casket, forgoing the centuries-old practice of burying the late pope in three interlocking caskets made of cypress, lead, and oak.

Prince William will attend the funeral on behalf of King Charles, Kensington Palace has said.

Cardinals will gather in a conclave to choose his successor afterwards.

Francis, the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff, had suffered from a chronic lung disease and had part of a lung removed as a young man.

Health issues plagued him throughout his later life, and he was admitted to Gemelli hospital in Rome on 14 February for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He stayed at the hospital for 38 days before being released.

World

Kristi Noem: Top Trump official’s handbag – containing $3,000 in cash and security pass – stolen in burger restaurant

Published

12 hours ago

April 22, 2025

admin

Kristi Noem: Top Trump official's handbag - containing ,000 in cash and security pass - stolen in burger restaurant

A bag belonging to the US Homeland Security Secretary was stolen on Sunday night – containing thousands of dollars in cash and an ID card that gives access to secure agency buildings.

Kristi Noem was eating at a Washington DC burger restaurant with family when a man in a face covering sat near her table and stole her purse, according to two people familiar with the theft.

Officials confirmed the theft to Sky News’ US partner NBC News on Monday.

The cabinet secretary was carrying $3,000 (£2,243) in cash because “her entire family was in town including her children and grandchildren”, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told NBC.

“She was using the withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities and Easter gifts.”

Just before 8pm, a man wearing an N-95 mask walked into the restaurant and up a few stairs to where Ms Noem was eating dinner.

He sat near her table and moved his chair close to hers before sliding her purse toward him with his foot, according to surveillance footage viewed by law enforcement, the sources said.

Within minutes, the man had Ms Noem’s purse under his jacket and walked out of the restaurant.

At least two on-duty members of the US Secret Service were in the restaurant – between Ms Noem and the front doors – according to a source who witnessed the meal.

They said the restaurant wasn’t very busy at the time.

The purse also contained credit cards, blank cheques, her passport, driver’s licence and a set of keys.

It’s unclear whether Ms Noem was specifically targeted – and investigators are looking into whether the man knew who the purse belonged to.

When asked about the incident, Ms Noem said: “I don’t think I can comment on it yet. It’s not resolved yet.”

She said the Secret Service was aware but said she hadn’t spoken to agency personnel about what happened.

Ms Noem is a vocal supporter of Donald Trump’s policies of deporting undocumented immigrants and fortifying the US-Mexico border to slow illegal migration.

World

Starmer and Zelenskyy discuss ending Russia’s ‘brutal war’ – as Putin says says he is open to bilateral talks on longer ceasefire

Published

15 hours ago

April 22, 2025

admin

Starmer and Zelenskyy discuss ending Russia's 'brutal war' - as Putin says says he is open to bilateral talks on longer ceasefire

Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about ending Russia’s “brutal war” on Ukraine in their latest phone call on Easter Monday, as Vladimir Putin said he was open to bilateral talks.

The prime minister and Ukrainian president spoke on Monday afternoon, when Sir Keir “reiterated his iron-clad support for Ukraine“.

A Downing Street spokesperson added that the prime minister “said that the UK supports Ukraine’s calls for Russia to commit to a full ceasefire and that now is the time for Putin to show he is serious about ending his brutal war”.

“They discussed the latest developments on the Coalition of the Willing, and looked forward to further progress towards a just and lasting peace,” the spokesperson added.

Mr Zelenskyy later said on social media that he had a “good and detailed conversation” with the prime minister, and added Ukrainian officials will be in London for talks on ending the war with Russia on Wednesday.

“We are ready to move forward as constructively as possible, just as we have done before, to achieve an unconditional ceasefire, followed by the establishment of a real and lasting peace,” he added.

The Ukrainian president added that the 30-hour Easter truce, which both Kyiv and Moscow accuse the other of violating, showed that Russia “are prolonging the war”.

It comes as Mr Putin proposed bilateral talks with Ukraine on a longer ceasefire, which would mark the first time Russia held such talks since a failed peace deal soon after the invasion in 2022.

Speaking to a state TV reporter, the Russian president said: “We always have a positive attitude towards a truce, which is why we came up with such an initiative (the Easter truce), especially since we are talking about the bright Easter days.”

When asked about Mr Zelenskyy’s calls to extend the 30-hour ceasefire into a 30-day pause on civilian targets, he added: “This is all a subject for careful study, perhaps even bilaterally. We do not rule this out.”

The Ukrainian president said on Sunday evening that the Russian army had “violated Putin’s ceasefire more than 2,000 times” during the day, and accused Russia of “failing” to “uphold its own promise of a ceasefire”.

It also comes after Donald Trump has said he hopes Russia and Ukraine “will make a deal this week,” after he and his secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that the US will walk away from efforts to broker a peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress soon.

The US president said on his Truth Social platform that both countries would “start to do big business” with the US after ending the war.

Last month, Ukraine accepted Mr Trump’s proposal for a 30-day truce, but Mr Putin refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire, saying crucial issues of verification had not been sorted out.

He then said he would agree not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. However, both sides have accused each other of breaking the moratorium on attacks on energy targets and at sea.