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For almost three weeks, at the height of a once-in-a-generation crisis, Dominic Raab was in charge of the UK government.

When Boris Johnson was admitted to intensive care with COVID in April 2020, it was Mr Raab who took over at the top.

Addressing the public during a Downing Street news conference shortly after taking over the prime minister’s responsibilities, Mr Raab vowed that he and the rest of the cabinet would “not blink or flinch in the task ahead at this crucial moment”.

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“He’s not just the PM – our boss – for all of us in cabinet he is also our colleague, our friend,” Mr Raab said. “If there is one thing I know about this prime minister; he’s a fighter.”

Later that year, he revealed just how serious that moment had been, saying: “I really worried we might lose him.”

It may have marked the most dramatic moment in his time at the top of government, but even without it, the period since he first joined the cabinet in 2018 has not been short of political tumult.

Dominic Raab arriving in Downing Street, London after Rishi Sunak has been appointed as Prime Minister. Picture date: Tuesday October 25, 2022.

Before politics

An Oxbridge-educated lawyer, Mr Raab also had a career in the legal sector and then as a Foreign Office lawyer during the New Labour years.

This included defending then prime minister Tony Blair in a lawsuit lodged by Slobodan Milosevic, the ex-leader of Yugoslavia.

In 2006, Mr Raab, a karate black belt, moved into politics, working as an aide to then shadow home secretary David Davis.

He also had a spell working for Dominic Grieve, who went on to serve as attorney general during Theresa May’s premiership.

Entrance into parliament

In 2010, Mr Raab stood to be the MP for Esher and Walton after fellow Conservative Ian Taylor stood down.

The seat’s majority surged from just over 7,000 to close to 20,000 as David Cameron came to power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Mr Raab spent his early years in parliament as a backbencher, at one point co-authoring a book on economics called Britannia Unchained: Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity.

His co-authors on the treatise were Liz Truss, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Skidmore and Priti Patel.

In the 2015 election, Mr Raab’s majority in Esher and Walton swelled to close to 30,000.

He was subsequently appointed as a junior minister under Michael Gove, who was then the justice secretary.

Mr Raab’s role included being the minister for human rights.

LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 08: Justice minister Dominic Raab gives a speech at the 'Vote Leave' campaign headquarters in Westminster on June 8, 2016 in London, England. Mr Raab was today joined by Justice Secretary Michael Gove as they made a case for Britain leaving the European Union on the basis of increased border control and security. Britain will go to the polls in a referendum on the 23rd of June on whether or not to leave the European Union. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
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Mr Raab gives a speech at the Vote Leave campaign headquarters in June 2016

Support of Brexit and entrance to the cabinet

In 2016, Mr Raab announced he would be supporting the departure of the UK from the European Union.

He was a prominent campaigner working with the Vote Leave organisation.

Mr Raab spoke of his confidence that the UK would strike a trade deal with the EU in the wake of Brexit.

Following the result of the referendum and the resignation of Mr Cameron, Mr Raab stayed on as a government minister in the justice department under Theresa May.

His majority then slipped from close to 30,000 to around 23,000 in the 2017 general election.

In January 2018, Mrs May reshuffled her government and he became a housing minister under Sajid Javid.

It was only a few months later, in July 2018, that Mr Raab joined the top table of government.

When his former boss, David Davis, resigned as Brexit secretary over Mrs May’s Chequers proposal, Mr Raab was tapped as his replacement.

Shortly after taking up the position, Mr Raab was criticised for his comments when he said he “hadn’t quite understood” how reliant UK-EU trade was on the crossing between Dover and Calais.

In November 2018, Mr Raab resigned from the government over his opposition to the Brexit deal which had been agreed with the EU.

But by the following March, amid the nights of endless votes on Brexit, Mr Raab changed tack and voted to support Mrs May’s deal, as he said otherwise there was a “significant risk of losing Brexit altogether”.

Dominic Raab launches his Tory leadership campaign
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Mr Raab launched his Tory leadership campaign in 2019

Failed leadership run – and actually running the country

After Mrs May stood down as prime minister in 2019, Mr Raab ran to replace her.

While he was never expected to win, his 30 or so supporters gave him negotiating power for a plum job with eventual winner Boris Johnson.

Coming out of the race, he was appointed foreign secretary – one of the great offices of state.

Mr Raab was also given the title of first secretary of state – becoming de facto deputy prime minister.

In the December 2019 election, Mr Raab’s majority collapsed from around 23,000 to under 3,000.

But he kept his position in the cabinet of Mr Johnson’s new majority government.

Dominic Raab gives the government's daily coronavirus update
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Mr Raab gives the government’s daily coronavirus update in 2020

The first secretary of state role is one that puts a minister above all other secretaries of state, which is the rank of most cabinet ministers.

Held by George Osborne under David Cameron, John Prescott under Tony Blair and Michael Heseltine under John Major, it is a role not always filled and not one often called upon.

But during the COVID pandemic, Mr Raab had to step up to the plate and lead the government when Mr Johnson was admitted to hospital with coronavirus.

After Mr Johnson was diagnosed with the virus at the end of March 2020, it was confirmed Mr Raab would be in charge of the country should the prime minister be unable to discharge his duties.

On 5 April that year, Mr Johnson was admitted to hospital and Mr Raab stood in, chairing meetings, delivering news conferences and responding at Prime Minister’s Questions.

It was only on 27 April 2020 that Mr Johnson once more took over again as prime minister.

 Islamabad, Pakistan. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab visits an army look outpost on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
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Mr Raab visits the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan as foreign secretary. Pic: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

Hong Kong, Afghanistan and exiting the Foreign Office

After stepping back from running the country, Mr Raab returned to running the Foreign Office.

He was still dealing with the impacts of the pandemic, and it was soon announced that the international development brief would be added to his portfolio.

In the summer of 2020, Mr Raab announced the UK would offer a route for people from Hong Kong who held British National (Overseas) status to Britain after China effectively took over the region.

He announced in the Commons that China’s actions constituted a “clear and serious breach” of the treaty agreed between China and the UK in 1984 regarding the semi-autonomous city.

More than 144,000 people have since applied for the visa scheme.

The final act of Mr Raab’s tenure as foreign secretary arrived with the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The country was plunged into chaos, with a resurgent Taliban capturing swathes of the nation as Joe Biden and US allies pulled out their troops.

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What’s life like under the Taliban?

Evacuation efforts – known as Operation Pitting – were beset by issues, including people waiting in sewers to get into Kabul airport, and hanging from the side of aeroplanes as they took off in an attempt to flee the Taliban.

It soon emerged that Mr Raab was on holiday in Crete, and he fought off calls to resign following reports he was rejecting phone calls while away.

He later said that with the “benefit of hindsight” he would have returned earlier.

Mr Raab was mocked for telling Sky News that he was not paddleboarding as “the sea was closed”.

By mid-September, Mr Johnson had reshuffled his government and Mr Raab was removed from the Foreign Office. He was made justice secretary and deputy prime minister.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab walks past the The Household Cavalry at the Palace of Westminster ahead of the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords, London. Picture date: Tuesday May 10, 2022.

Replacement of Boris Johnson

Amid swathes of Conservative government resignations and calls for Mr Johnson to step down as prime minister in mid-2022, Mr Raab remained in post as justice secretary.

After Mr Johnson announced his resignation, Mr Raab announced his support for Rishi Sunak and was one of his most vocal supporters.

When Liz Truss won the race to be prime minister, Mr Raab left the cabinet and spent the following weeks engaging on social media with constituency issues.

Once the Truss premiership collapsed, Mr Raab returned to government once again as justice secretary and deputy prime minister.

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Raab ‘ruined lives’ with behaviour

Bullying allegations and downfall

Soon after Mr Sunak entered Downing Street, allegations began to swirl about another one of his allies – Gavin Williamson.

Eventually, Mr Williamson offered his resignation, but the spotlight soon turned to Mr Raab.

In November 2022, Mr Raab requested an investigation into the bullying claims made against him – although he insisted at the time that he was “confident that I have behaved professionally throughout”.

Adam Tolley KC was charged with leading the investigation.

Now Mr Raab has left the government, he is facing the likelihood of losing his seat as an MP at the next general election.

It is a top Liberal Democrat target, and his majority of less than 2,000 is looking precarious with the current unpopularity of the Conservatives.

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‘My voice box was removed after NHS missed my throat cancer’

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'My voice box was removed after NHS missed my throat cancer'

Steve Barton is angry, and he has every right to be.

The 68-year-old retired engineer stares at his medical notes that, he says, expose in black and white the moment his life changed forever.

“I have somehow missed… due to my mistake,” a doctor writes in one of the notes, after it became apparent that Mr Barton had not been urgently referred to specialists over what later became an aggressive form of throat cancer.

Steve now has a prosthetic voice box and is one of many British patients fighting medical negligence claims after being misdiagnosed.

NHS officials in Scotland are dealing with thousands of cases annually. Meanwhile, Westminster’s Public Affairs Committee (PAC) recently disclosed England’s Department of Health and Social Care has set aside £58.2bn to settle clinical lawsuits arising before 2024.

Mr Barton, who lives in Alloa near Stirling, repeatedly contacted his doctors after he began struggling with his breathing, speaking and swallowing. His concerns were recorded by the NHS as sinus issues.

As panic grew and his voice became weaker, Mr Barton paid to see a private consultant who revealed the devastating news that a massive tumour had grown on his larynx and required part of his throat to be removed immediately.

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“I am angry, I am upset, I don’t want anyone else to go through this,” Mr Barton told Sky News.

“There were at least four, possibly five, conversations on the phone. He [the doctor] said to me that it sounds like I’ve got reflux.”

‘He was palmed off’

Mr Barton is now unable to work and cannot shower by himself because if water enters the hole in his neck, he could drown.

And a windy day can cause a debilitating coughing fit if a gust catches his prosthetic voice box.

Steve in hospital
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Steve Barton is one of thousands battling medical negligence cases

Asked if he believes this was avoidable, Mr Barton replied: “Absolutely. 100%.”

His wife, Heather, told Sky News: “He hates this. You see him crying. It breaks my heart. It’s been hard emotionally.”

She added: “Everybody knows their own body. He was palmed off and the consequence is a neck dissection. It [life] changed overnight.”

Legal battle over compensation

The Barton family have been locked in a legal battle over their ordeal with the Medical and Dental Defence Union Scotland (MDDUS) – a body which indemnifies GPs.

It has not admitted formal liability in this case but has agreed to settle financial compensation to Mr Barton.

Steve

Izabela Wosiak, a solicitor from Irwin Mitchell who represents the Bartons, said: “Cases like Steve’s are complex and usually quite difficult, but solicitors have accepted there was no defence to this case.

“They have arranged to make an interim payment; however we are still in the process of negotiating final settlement.”

A MDDUS spokeswoman refused to comment while talks are being finalised.

What is the scale of medical negligence in Britain?

The NHS in Scotland is under the devolved control of the Scottish government.

Figures suggest there were almost 14,000 clinical negligence claims and incidents in 2023/24, an increase on the previous year.

It comes as PAC warned that the total liabilities in England’s health service has hit £58.2bn.

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PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP told Sky News: “I extend my sympathies to Steve and his family. Unfortunately, he is not alone.

“Some are really heart-wrenching tales. Every single claim somebody is involved, someone has been in some way injured, so this is a terrible thing.

“We are going to be working on how we can make the whole system less litigious and get compensation paid out quickly because if the state does harm to somebody, the least they could do is to compensate them as quickly as possible.”

Paul Whiteing, the chief executive of patient safety charity Action Against Medical Accidents, told Sky News: “The NHS itself last year [in England] paid out just over £5bn in compensational set aside money for compensation that it would need to pay out.

“It’s a huge cost and of course that doesn’t speak to the cost to every individual, every family, every person who is impacted by the consequences of some form of medical accident and the trauma that can go with that.”

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‘Shameful’ that black boys in London more likely to die than white boys, says Met Police chief

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'Shameful' that black boys in London more likely to die than white boys, says Met Police chief

It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.

In a wide-ranging interview with Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the commissioner said that relations with minority communities are “difficult for us”, while also speaking about the state of the justice system and the size of the police force.

Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.

“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”

He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.

However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”

Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.

“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.

“The challenge for us is, as we reach in to tackle those issues, that confrontation that comes from that reaching in, whether it’s stop and search on the streets or the sort of operations you seek.

“The danger is that’s landing in an environment with less trust.

“And that makes it even harder. But the people who win out of that [are] all of the criminals.”

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said racism is still an issue in the force
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Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley

The commissioner added: “I’m so determined to find a way to get past this because if policing in black communities can find a way to confront these issues, together we can give black boys growing up in London equal life chances to white boys, which is not what we’re seeing at the moment.

“And it’s not simply about policing, is it?”

Sir Mark said: “I think black boys are several times more likely to be excluded from school, for example, than white boys.

“And there are multiple issues layered on top of each other that feed into disproportionality.”

‘We’re stretched, but there’s hope and determination’

Sir Mark said the Met is a “stretched service” but people who call 999 can expect an officer to attend.

“If you are in the middle of the crisis and something awful is happening and you dial 999, officers will get there really quickly,” Sir Mark said.

“I don’t pretend we’re not a stretched service.

“We are smaller than I think we ought to be, but I don’t want to give a sort of message of a lack of hope or a lack of determination.”

“I’ve seen the mayor and the home secretary fighting hard for police resourcing,” he added.

“It’s not what I’d want it to be, but it’s better than it might be without their efforts.”

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How police tracked and chased suspected phone thief

‘Close to broken’ justice system ‘frustrating’ and ‘stressed’

Sir Mark said the criminal justice system was “close to broken” and can be “frustrating” for others.

“The thing that is frustrating is that the system – and no system can be perfect – but when the system hasn’t managed to turn that person’s life around and get them on the straight and narrow, and it just becomes a revolving door,” he said.

“When that happens, of course that’s frustrating for officers.

“So the more successful prisons and probation can be in terms of getting people onto a law-abiding life from the path they’re on, the better.

“But that is a real challenge. I mean, we’re talking just after Sir Brian Leveson put his report out about the close-to-broken criminal justice system.

“And it’s absolutely vital that those repairs and reforms that he’s talking about happen really quickly, because the system is now so stressed.”

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Leveson explains plans to fix justice system

Challenge to reform the Met

The Met chief’s comments come two years after an official report found the force is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.

Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.

She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.

At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Baroness Casey insisted the Met deserved.

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However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.

A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sunday.

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More than 70 arrests at protests over Palestine Action ban

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More than 70 arrests at protests over Palestine Action ban

More than 70 people have been arrested at protests against Palestine Action being designated a proscribed terrorist group.

Protesters gathered for the second week in a row in central London, where the Metropolitan Police made 42 arrests.

Other demonstrations took place around the UK, including in Manchester, where police said 16 arrests were made, in Cardiff, where South Wales Police arrested 13 people, and in Leeds, where West Yorkshire Police made one arrest.

In London, two groups of protesters gathered underneath statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square, shortly before 1pm.

They wrote the message “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” on pieces of cardboard and silently held the signs in the air as they were surrounded by police officers and members of the media.

Police officers remove a person after they took part in a pro-Palestine Action protest in Parliament Square, London. Pic: PA
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Police officers remove a person. Pic: PA

Police with demonstrators as they take part in a protest in Parliament Square, London. Pic: PA
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Police with demonstrators in Parliament Square. Pic: PA

Some demonstrators could be seen lying on top of each other on the floor as police searched their bags, and took their ID cards and signs.

Officers then carried away a number of protesters, lifting them off the ground and into waiting police vans.

The last protester was lifted from the Nelson Mandela statue shortly after 2.30pm.

Forty-one of the 42 arrests at the London protest were for showing support for a proscribed organisation, while one person was arrested for common assault, the Met Police said.

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Palestine Action has been proscribed – but what does that mean?

People take part in a protest in Parliament Square, London, to call for de-proscription of Palestine Action. Pic: PA
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People take part in a protest in Parliament Square, London. Pic: PA

Palestine Action’s terror group designation means membership of, or support for, the group is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Greater Manchester Police said it had arrested 16 people under the Terrorism Act 2000 after responding to a protest in St Peter’s Square at around 2.30pm.

Police lead a protester away in Manchester
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Police lead a protester away in Manchester

South Wales Police confirmed 13 people were arrested on suspicion of offences under the same act in the vicinity of Central Square in Cardiff.

West Yorkshire Police said a person was arrested in Leeds on suspicion of demonstrating support for Palestine Action.

The Met Police arrested 29 people at a similar protest last weekend.

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Scotland Yard has said its stance remains that officers will act where criminal offences, including support of proscribed groups or organisations, are committed.

It added that this includes “chanting, wearing clothing or displaying articles such as flags, signs or logos”.

The move to ban Palestine Action came after two aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire last month.

Police said the incident caused around £7m worth of damage.

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