Rishi Sunak is holding a full cabinet call this evening which is thought to be about UK and US military strikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The meeting started at 7.45pm tonight, with senior figures including foreign secretary David Cameron seen entering Downing Street.
It comes after an emergency COBRA meeting was held this morning, followed by a call between Mr Sunak and Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi this afternoon.
Downing Street said the leaders discussed “the concerning rise in Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the disruptive impact on global shipping, including through the Suez Canal”.
“The prime minister said the UK would continue to take action to defend freedom of navigation and protect lives at sea,” a spokesperson added.
Attacks by Houthi fighters – both on Israel and on commercial ships in the Red Sea – have stoked fears of a wider conflict in the region already affected by the war in Gaza.
On Tuesday, a British warship shot down seven drones launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in an operation with US forces to repel the largest drone and missile attack to date.
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The attack came despite a warning by the United States, the UK and other partners issued a week ago to the group to end the targeting of commercial shipping or “bear the responsibility of the consequences”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also warned that “there will be consequences” for the continued Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
Holding a last-minute evening cabinet meeting is an unusual step.
Sky News’s deputy political editor Sam Coates said: “Downing Street haven’t formally briefed why this call is happening, but a cabinet meeting only happens at short notice when there’s a moment of national importance.”
Sir William Patey, a former ambassador to several countries in the Middle East, also told Sky News: “You don’t hold an emergency cabinet meeting unless you’re considering a military response.
“The Americans have clearly put some military options on the table and have invited us to participate.”
Sky News understands that Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has also been called to a briefing in Whitehall tonight.
Starmer to be briefed on cabinet call
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and the Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey are also to be briefed by the government shortly after the cabinet call, it is understood.
Veteran left wing MP John McDonnell said if military action is decided, it should not go ahead “without Parliamentary approval”.
He added: “If we have learnt anything in recent years it’s that military intervention in the Middle East always has dangerous & often unforeseen consequences. There is a risk of setting the region alight.”
It comes as the US confirmed a 27th Houthi attack on international shipping since 19 November.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that ‘there will be consequences’ if Houthi fighters will continue their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
The attack happened at 2am Yemen time in the Gulf of Aden.
No injuries or damage were reported, but in a televised briefing a spokesperson for the US military confirmed that UK and US forces downed 18 one-way attack drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and one anti-ship ballistic missile.
Brigadier General Pat Ryder said “dozens” of commercial ships were operating in the area at the time.
Asked if a change of approach in the Red Sea should be expected, he said he won’t “telegraph, forecast or speculate on any potential future operations”.
But he added: “I think that statement from multiple nations when it comes to the fact that there will be consequences, should the attacks not stop, speaks for itself. And I’ll just leave it at that.”
Sir William said that given the Houthis have ignored warnings to stop attacking shipping, continuing to intercept drones is not “in the long term very feasible”.
He said: “I’m sure that the Americans, Brits, and other members of the international coalition will be considering whether there are feasible targets that can be struck in Houthi-run territory of Yemen that are viable.”
However he said that an issue in the past has been finding viable targets, which he defines as bases where missiles are launched from or stored.
The US in particular is under pressure to re-establish proper deterrents against the Houthi rebels.
Concerns are growing about the global economic impact of the disruption to shipping through the vital Red Sea, with vessels choosing to divert, pushing up the cost of trade and potentially causing inflation to rise.
The Houthis, a group of Shia Islamists based in western Yemen, oppose US and Israeli influence in the Middle East – with its slogan containing the words “death to America”, “death to Israel” and a “curse upon the Jews”.
In a workshop in the far corner of the Styal prison estate, glass, plastic and metal are being smashed to the beat of pumping music.
Women at workstations are dismantling electronics with the energy of gym enthusiasts.
TVs and laptops, discarded at local recycling centres across England, have ended up here, on the edge of Wilmslow, Cheshire.
But amid the whiz of drills, the crunch of screens being separated from their plastic casings and the clatter of electronic boards ripped out and chucked in big bins, something else is being recycled – women’s lives.
“You get a lot of frustration out, because obviously a lot of girls have got a lot of anger, you know,” says Joanne*, who is serving time for drug offences.
She has joined this activity not for the £10 per 70 TVs she breaks apart, but because the programme – called Recycling Lives – could give her the skills and the support to keep her out of jail in the future.
Only 12% of women are employed six months after leaving prison, compared to 25% of men. In the general population employment levels between men and women are 78% to 72%.
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Ex-prisoners with a job are far less likely to re-offend. So, women prisoners are at a disadvantage. Often a man is connected to the crime they committed.
“For 90% of the women in prison, there’s always a male involved in why they’ve committed crime, it is the case with me as well,” says Joanne, who tells me she was pressured into dealing drugs by her partner.
Official Ministry of Justice statistics say that at least 60% of women in prison are victims of domestic violence and most will have experienced some form of abuse as a child.
Many, too, are mothers and they feel the guilt of separation every day. Joanne says of her son: “It’s my sister picking him up from school, not me.
“It’s my sister there on Christmas day, not me. Birthdays, all the special occasions. It’s heart-breaking.
“People think prison is easy. You are ripped away from your family and your children. It’s not easy.”
As if in illustration, the glass cracks on an iPad, as she peels it away with her screwdriver.
Official figures say there are around 3,500 women in prison and it is estimated that about half are mothers.
‘I’m trying to give them a future’
The workshop manager Yvonne Grime knows this all too well. A former serial offender herself, she’s the first former inmate at Styal to now hold a set of keys to the prison.
“The biggest thing for me [as a prisoner] was leaving my children,” she says, “and I still carry that guilt round, but I have come through it.”
Part of her redemption is to help the women in her workshop. The Recycling Lives programme transformed her life, and she wants to give back.
She says: “I’m trying to give them a future. I’m trying to give you some hope that they can that they can change.
“Get the children back, find a job, find a home. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Her work is part manager and part mentor. “When I first started, I thought I’m just going to come in and run this workshop,” she said.
“I didn’t realise I had to be their mum, their dad, their brother, their sister, the doctor, the nurse, the everything that comes with it.
“If I had a salary for every one of those professions, I’d be absolutely minted.”
Styal isn’t what you expect a prison to look like.
Inside the high fences and barbed wire are sixteen austere red-brick Victorian houses.
Once an orphanage, they’re now the prison’s accommodation blocks.
Ted the prison cat, wanders from block to block, and has already served several of his nine lives in the compound.
Along with recycling TV sets, women can learn to guide and drive forklift trucks.
They are quick with their tools, spinning through one appliance after another with remarkable and methodical destructive pace.
But the real advantage of the programme is that it continues on the outside. Only 6% of people who go through Recycling Lives go on to commit further crime. The general reoffending rate is 25%.
In a warehouse in Preston, former inmates are involved in recycling food from supermarkets and farms, then sent to foodbanks.
Here we meet Naomi Winter, who – three years since being released from jail – is now a manager at the food distribution depot.
The hardest thing about prison for her too was being separated from a child.
“I was put in prison when my baby is only three months old,” she said.
“So, it was like losing an arm, like losing a piece of my DNA.
“I still woke up for night feeds in the night and stuff like that.”
She says there wasn’t the mental health provision inside of prison to help her deal with post-natal depression, and she spent way too much time alone with her thoughts.
She was in and out of prison for drug offences and violence eight times by the age of 30 and first jailed aged 15, for breaching an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO).
She feels even short prison sentences can ruin lives, and says: “You take women who’s robbed a block of cheese to feed the child.
“They put them in prison for 28 days. They take the home, take the kids, they lose the family, and they get out with nothing. You just create a criminal right there.
“You’ve just created a woman who’s got nothing to lose. You’re also releasing them with a sleeping bag in a tent and telling them to go and sleep in the woods.”
Alternatives to custody
The government recognises that prison isn’t working for many of the women who end up there.
It’s why, with women being mostly non-violent offenders and serving short sentences, the government is setting up a Women’s Justice Board to look at reducing the number who go into prison with alternatives such as community sentences and intervention projects tackling the root causes of re-offending.
The Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, told Sky News: “For many women, prison isn’t working. Most women in prisons are victims themselves. Over half are mothers, with a prison sentence separating parent and child.
“That’s why I am establishing a new Women’s Justice Board, tasked with reducing the number of women in prison by exploring alternatives to custody for female offenders.”
Chief Executive of Recycling Lives, Alasdair Jackson says: “There are certain things we all need as human beings: One is a place to live, one is a job to be able to pay for that place to live and then a support network.
“But there are a lot more factors that women have to contend with; there’s children, there is maybe domestic abuse, there’s everything that goes on around that, but when you give people a chance, when you give people the skills that they need, it is life-changing.
“And when you change a woman’s life, you are often changing the family’s life and the children’s life.”
Prison is supposed to be part punishment, part repair job. But there are limited programmes like Recycling Lives, and for many women entering jail currently, the only recycling is back into criminality.
The world’s oldest man has died at the age of 112, the Guinness World Records has announced.
John Tinniswood was born in Liverpool on 26 August 1912, the year the Titanic sank. He was a lifelong Liverpool FC fan, born just 20 years after the club was founded.
He died on Monday at a care home in Southport, Guinness World Records said.
In a statement, his family said: “His last day was surrounded by music and love.
“John always liked to say thank you. So on his behalf, thanks to all those who cared for him over the years, including his carers at the Hollies Care Home, his GPs, district nurses, occupational therapist and other NHS staff.”
In April 2024, aged 111, he became the world’s oldest living man, following the death of 114-year-old Juan Vicente Perez from Venezuela.
Mr Tinniswood’s key advice for staying healthy was to practice moderation. “If you drink too much or you eat too much or you walk too much; if you do too much of anything, you’re going to suffer eventually.”
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But when asked the secret to his longevity after turning 112 in August, Mr Tinniswood put it all down to “just luck”.
“I can’t think of any special secrets I have,” he said. “I was quite active as a youngster, I did a lot of walking.
“Whether that had something to do with it, I don’t know. But to me, I’m no different [to anyone]. No different at all.
“I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.”
Apart from a portion of battered fish and chips every Friday, Mr Tinniswood did not follow any particular diet, and said earlier this year he felt “no different” turning 112.
“I don’t feel that age, I don’t get excited over it. That’s probably why I’ve reached it.
“I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.”
He lived through both world wars and was a Second World War veteran – having worked in an administrative role for the Army Pay Corps.
In addition to accounts and auditing, his work involved logistical tasks such as locating stranded soldiers and organising food supplies. He went on to work as an accountant for Shell and BP before retiring in 1972.
He met his wife, Blodwen, at a dance in Liverpool. They were together for 44 years before Blodwen died in 1986.
Mr Tinniswood is survived by his daughter Susan, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and lived to be the fourth-oldest British man in recorded history.
His family added: “John had many fine qualities. He was intelligent, decisive, brave, calm in any crisis, talented at maths and a great conversationalist.
“John moved to the Hollies rest home just before his 100th birthday and his kindness and enthusiasm for life were an inspiration to the care home staff and his fellow residents.”
The oldest ever man was Jiroemon Kimura from Japan, who lived to the age of 116 years 54 days and died in 2013.
The world’s oldest living woman, and oldest living person, is Japan’s 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka.
Two teenage boys have been arrested after the suspected stabbing of a 12-year-old girl.
South Wales Police were called to Barry Island in the Vale of Glamorgan at around 5pm on Sunday to a report of an assault near the Harbour Road car park in the seaside resort.
The girl, whose condition is described as not life-threatening, was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff with serious injuries.
Police say they have arrested two local boys, aged 13 and 15, on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and they both remain in custody.
The younger of the two has also been arrested on suspicion of possession of a bladed article.
Detective Inspector Phil Marchant from South Wales Police said the incident and “the ages of those involved” would “cause worry within the community”.
He said the two suspects are “known to the victim” and were arrested within an hour.
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“At this stage we are not looking for anyone else in connection with the assault,” he added.