‘Nothing works anymore’: Tories accused of having ‘broken Britain’ with public services ‘in crisis’
The Conservatives will be accused of having “broken Britain” in a keynote speech by the new leader of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) attacking the state of the economy and public services.
In his first speech as head of the union federation, Paul Nowak will highlight that “nothing works in this country anymore and no one in government cares”.
He will point to problems such as sewage in the rivers and the school concrete fiasco as proof that the country needs “urgent political change”.
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Addressing union delegates in his home city of Liverpool, Mr Nowak will say on Monday: “Nothing works in this country anymore and no one in government cares. The Conservatives have broken Britain.
“They’ve had 13 years to sort out crumbling concrete in our schools. But five days before the new term they tell schools they can’t open.
“Because – and I quote the education secretary – everyone is ‘on their arses’.
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“Could you think of a more perfect metaphor for this government? A crisis of their making, but someone else gets the blame.
“Yet, this government that can’t keep our rivers clean, or run trains on time, or run a functioning NHS can find time to attack the right to strike.”
Mr Nowak’s speech will come on the second day of the annual TUC conference which opened in Liverpool on Sunday.
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TUC reports government to the UN’s watchdog on workers’ rights
The event kicked off with Mr Nowak announcing in a news conference that he is reporting the government to the UN’s workers’ rights watchdog over its controversial “anti-strikes” legislation.
Unions ‘will fight anti-strikes law on picket line’
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill seeks to ensure a legally mandated level of service across key sectors like the NHS during a strike, and will allow bosses to fire employees who ignore notices ordering them to work on strike day.
The government has said the purpose of the legislation is to protect lives and ensure people can continue to access vital public services during strikes.
But in his speech Mr Nowak will argue that rather than preserving services for the public, the new law is about “telling us to get back in our place and to not demand better”.
He will warn: “When the first worker is sacked for refusing to work on a strike day, we’ll fight it in workplaces and on the picket lines.
“Congress – this movement will fight it every single day until it is repealed.”
Debates about how to oppose the the legislation are expected to dominate the TUC conference, which will also hear from deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner.
Sir Keir Starmer will not address the conference but he will host a private dinner for members of the TUC general counsel on Monday.
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Unions will also discuss issues like the cost of living crisis, workers’ rights and nationalising public services.
It comes after a bruising week for the Tories which saw the escape of a terror suspect turn into a political row about the state of the justice system and cuts to staffing and funding.
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Meanwhile over 100 schools were forced to shut or partially shut because of collapse-prone concrete, with embattled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak facing accusations he refused to fully fund a programme of repairs while chancellor.
‘Years of austerity have left services reeling’
Unions used the two crises’ to argue the Conservative governments’ austerity agenda had left public services reeling as they opened four days of debate.
Listing problems in the public sector Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “The longest NHS waiting lists in history, huge cuts to police forces and councils going bust. Care services are unable to deliver for patients, their families, or the workforce, but generate huge profits for offshore private equity trusts.
“Inmates are escaping overcrowded prisons and unsafe schools are crumbling, although you can bet Eton, Winchester and Harrow won’t be among them.
“Workers across all public services, and everyone who relies on them, can see austerity has fractured and smashed the economy.”
In a scathing attack on Westminster leaders she added: “This is the most venal, corrupt, inept government I can remember.”
Labour ‘must be more like Atlee in 1945’
The conference follows a year of unprecedented industrial action by hundreds of thousands of workers including nurses, teachers, civil servants and railway staff.
Unions are calling for change in the form of a Labour government.
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Senior union leader Sharon Graham defends Labour criticism
In his speech, Mr Nowak will attack the current “cabinet of millionaires” and in a ringing endorsement of Sir Keir Starmer say: “When the time comes I will tell anyone who ask: vote for working people, vote for change, vote for the party we named for our movement. Vote Labour.”
But while Labour traditionally enjoys the support of trade unions, others had some choice words for the potential future incumbent of Downing Street.
Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Services union, called on Labour to commit to a radical programme of investment to tackle low pay, homelessness, under-staffing in prisons, library closures and “crumbling” school buildings.
Sharon Graham, leader of Labour’s biggest union donor Unite, accused the party of becoming a “1990s tribute act” – a reference to its last time in office under Tony Blair.
She said Sir Keir’s leadership needs to be more radical than then because there is less money in the public coffers to spend – and options such as wealth taxes and nationalising energy should be considered to raise capital.
In a reference to the post-war Labour government of Clement Attlee, which founded the NHS, she told Sky News: “Britain is in crisis. And what we need to do now is not to look back to 1997. What we need to do is be more like in 1945. The country needs a reboot and Labour needs to put policies forward that give it that reboot.”
A former British soldier who escaped from Wandsworth Prison has been found guilty of spying for Iran.
Daniel Khalife, 23, who was a lance corporal in the Royal Signals, used a sling made from trousers worn by inmates working in the kitchen to cling to the underside of a food delivery lorry on 6 September last year.
He was being held in the Category B prison accused of handing secret information, including a list of soldiers – some of whom were serving in the SAS – to Iranian spies.
MI5, the Ministry of Defence and counter-terrorism police launched a nationwide manhunt, fearing Khalife would try to flee to Tehran or get to the Iranian embassy in London.
Woolwich Crown Court heard that while on the run he bought a mobile phone to call his handlers, who used the code name “David Smith”, and sent the message: “I wait.”
Khalife was arrested on 9 September. Pic: Met Police
But Khalife was arrested on the morning of 9 September when he was spotted riding a stolen mountain bike along the canal towpath in Northolt, west London – about 14 miles away from Wandsworth Prison.
He initially pleaded not guilty to an escape charge but changed his plea after describing the break-out to jurors, saying it showed “what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison”.
Khalife, who first contacted an Iranian spy soon after he joined the Army aged 16, claimed he wanted to be a “double agent” and “thought he could be James Bond” but had only passed on fake or useless information.
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From October: Jurors shown CCTV of Khalife after escape
Giving evidence, he described himself as an English “patriot”, adding: “I’m certainly not a terrorist or a traitor.”
But he was found guilty of a charge of gathering, publishing or communicating information that might be useful to an enemy between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022, under the Official Secrets Act.
Khalife, from Kingston, in southwest London, was also found guilty of eliciting personal information about armed forces personnel that was likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism on 2 August 2021.
The charge related to a photo of a handwritten list of 15 soldiers, including some from special forces serving in the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS).
Khalife was found not guilty of perpetrating a bomb hoax at his barracks in January 2023.
Daniel Khalife joined the Army aged 16
‘The ultimate Walter Mitty’
Dominic Murphy, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism command, said while Khalife’s approach was “amateurish” with elements of “fantasy”, the reality was he provided “highly sensitive” information to the Iranian state.
“He’s the ultimate Walter Mitty character,” he said. “The problem is he’s a Walter Mitty character that was having an extremely significant impact on the real world.”
A Walter Mitty character is someone who is ordinary but has an extraordinary imagination and daydreams about personal triumphs to escape their dull life.
Mr Murphy said the “game” played by Khalife to “fuel his ego” posed “a significant risk to national security” and he had “enjoyed the thrill of the deception throughout”.
Police have disrupted 20 direct plots from the Iranian government, including assignations or immediate threats to life, and the state’s agents “pose a very real threat to national security and to individuals here in the UK”, Mr Murphy said.
Khalife told the jury he contacted an Iranian agent through Facebook because he wanted to endear himself to the UK security services after he was told he couldn’t pass developed vetting to fulfil his dream of working in intelligence because his mother was born in Iran.
A selfie of Daniel Khalife in Mill Hill Park. Pic: Met Police
Khalife collected cash in a dog poo bag. Pic: Met Police
Dead drops
Khalife left material in public locations in exchange for cash in an old-fashioned spy tactic known as the “dead drop” or “dead letter box”.
He first collected £1,500 in a dog poo bag in Mill Hill Park in Barnet, north London, in August 2019 and made a second £1,000 cash pick-up from Kensal Green Cemetery, in North Kensington, in October 2021.
He twice travelled from his barracks, in Staffordshire, to the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, in London, and even flew to Istanbul, where he stayed in the Hilton hotel between 4 and 10 August 2020, and “delivered a package” for Iranian agents, the court heard.
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Sky’s Shamaan Freeman-Powell reports from Woolwich Crown Court
The contact continued while he was deployed to Fort Hood, Texas, where he received training in Falcon, a military communications system.
Khalife repeatedly contacted the British security services himself saying he wanted to be a “double agent”, but MI5 reported him to police, who arrested him.
While on bail, he went AWOL from his base, leaving a device made from three laughing gas canisters bound with sniper tape on his desk.
Khalife left a fake device. Pic: Met Police
He stayed in a stolen Ford Transit van, later found containing a camp bed, around £20,000, and notes saying he wanted to defect to Iran.
Prosecutors said he planned to leave the country, having previously travelled to Turkey as a test for onward travel to Iran, and he was in contact with his Iranian handlers, making attempts to get to the embassy.
But he was arrested again three weeks later after a colleague spotted him in the leisure centre. He was then held on remand in Wandsworth Prison, where he managed to get a job in the kitchen.
Escape planned for ‘quite some time’
Khalife told the jury he planned the escape because he wanted to be moved to the high-security unit in Belmarsh to avoid sex predators and terrorists who wanted to do him harm.
Khalife escaped under a Bidfood lorry. Pic: PA
Khalife used a makeshift sling. Pic: Met Police
Police believe he had been planning the “pretty audacious” break-out for “quite some time” and he wrote in his prison diary of a “failed” escape attempt on 21 August last year.
Khalife told the jury he attached the makeshift rope to the Bidfood lorry on 1 September to test prison security as it made its daily deliveries.
“When I had made the decision to actually leave the prison I was going to do it properly,” he said, describing how he concealed himself, resting his back on the sling as the vehicle was searched.
The driver Balazs Werner said two guards told him someone was missing as they checked the truck with a torch and mirror and he was surprised he was allowed to drive off and that the prison wasn’t in lockdown.
Khalife said he waited for the lorry to stop, dropped to the ground and lay in the prone position until it moved off.
He used the phone at the Rose of York pub in Richmond before a contact withdrew £400 from a nearby cashpoint, which he used to buy a sleeping bag, a mobile phone and a change of clothes.
CCTV footage captured his movements as he bought clothes from Marks & Spencer, stole a hat from Mountain Warehouse, drank coffee at McDonald’s and even read about his escape in the newspaper.
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From October: Khalife caught on CCTV. Pic: Met Police
When he was arrested on the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in Northolt after four days on the run, Khalife told police: “My body aches. I f****d myself up under the lorry” and “I don’t know how immigrants do it”.
Police said he had no help from anyone inside prison, Iran or close family members in London but a 24-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were arrested earlier this year on suspicion of assisting an offender and the investigation is ongoing.
The prisons watchdog called for Wandsworth to be put into emergency measures in the wake of Khalife’s escape, while a security audit identified “81 points of failure” and resulted in “long overdue” upgrades to CVTV cameras which hadn’t worked for more than a year.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) later announced it would be redirecting £100m from across the prison service to spend over five years on bringing in “urgent improvements”.
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Meanwhile, Bethan David, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “As a serving soldier of the British Army Daniel Khalife was employed and entrusted to uphold and protect the national security of this country. But, for purposes of his own, Daniel Khalife, used his employment to undermine national security.
“The sharing of the information could have exposed military personnel to serious harm, or a risk to life, and prejudiced the safety and security of the United Kingdom.
“It is against the law to collate and share secret and sensitive information for a purpose against the interests of the United Kingdom.
“Such hostile and illegal activities jeopardise the national security of the United Kingdom, and the CPS will always seek to prosecute anyone that carries out counter state threats.”
UK
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The Prince and Princess of Wales have paid tribute to a teenage photographer who they met during an investiture at Windsor Castle.
Liz Hatton, who died yesterday, was pictured hugging Kate after the princess invited her to take pictures of the Prince of Wales at the event in October.
The 17-year-old from Harrogate started a photography bucket list appeal in January after she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer.
She was given between six months and three years to live.
Kate and Will with Liz (centre), her mother Vicky Roboyna, stepfather Aaron and brother Mateo. Pic: Andrew Parsons/Kensington Palace
In a statement, William and Kate said: “We are so sorry to hear that Liz Hatton has sadly passed away. It was an honour to have met such a brave and humble young woman.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Liz’s parents Vicky and Aaron and her brother Mateo at this unimaginably difficult time. W & C.”
Announcing her death on X, her mother Vicky Roboyna said: “Our incredible daughter Liz died in the early hours of this morning. She remained determined to the last.
“Even yesterday, she was still making plans. We are so very proud of the kindness, empathy and courage she has shown in the last year.
“She was not only a phenomenal photographer, she was the best human and the most wonderful daughter and big sister we could ever have asked for.
“No one could have fought harder for life than she did. There is a gaping Liz-shaped hole in our lives that I am not sure how we will ever fill.”
She asked people to share one of Liz’s photos in tribute using the hashtag #LizHatton and to support the family’s mission to fund research into desmoplastic small round cell tumours, which Liz was diagnosed with.
She has set up a JustGiving fundraising page with a goal of raising £100,000.
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In a personal message on social media after meeting Liz in October, William and Kate said: “A pleasure to meet with Liz at Windsor today.
“A talented young photographer whose creativity and strength has inspired us both. Thank you for sharing your photos and story with us. W&C.”
Ticking off items from her bucket list, Liz went on to photograph comedian Michael McIntyre, the red carpet at the MTV Europe Music Awards, the London Air Ambulances from a helipad and joined acclaimed photographer Rankin in leading a fashion shoot.
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