A deadly thread runs through Sara Sharif case – and the government’s knee-jerk response misses it

Published

5 months ago

December 17, 2024

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Listening to the sentencing in the Sara Sharif trial, it’s hard not to be gripped with anger and disbelief.

Every detail evokes more horror than the last – the description of her small broken body, the note left by her father, her killer, that said “I lost it”, the lengths her abusers went to cover up their crimes.

What follows is the need to blame, to get answers and to feel that something urgent must be done to ensure this never happens again.

It is this public sentiment that has led, as it always does in these cases, to accusations levelled at the institutions that could have done more – her school, social services, the council, the police.

Their inaction at crucial moments is condemned and the government responds with reassurances that something is being done, that the gaps in the safety net are being closed.

In this case the vehicle is the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, presented to parliament today, which includes measures ministers say apply specifically to this case.

Sara Sharif sentencing as it happened

There will be a new register and a unique identification number to better track absent children and councils will be able to refuse applications for home-schooling made for at-risk pupils.

But it wasn’t the ease of home-schooling or the lack of data sharing that caused Sara’s death, it was the troubling misogyny that runs through this case like a deadly thread.

During the sentencing the judge described how she was forced to take on childcare and cleaning duties, was relentlessly beaten for being spirited instead of submissive, and how her older brother was spared the same fate.

It is also notable that her father’s pattern of aggression against women was all too evident to authorities, with numerous domestic violence allegations made against him, culminating only in him being asked to do a course.

When campaigners call violence against women and girls an epidemic, these are the circumstances they have in mind – women ignored, girls treated like second-class citizens in their own homes, a society watching on but not speaking up and a sense of depressing inevitability about how it all ended.

This is why the government’s long-term violence against women strategy, which aims to change culture over time and is driven by committed ministers like Jess Phillips, has a better chance than the latest legislation.

The sad reality is that there are so many more Sara Sharifs living in fear of the men in their lives, and many more women being abused and ignored.

A few new powers for councils won’t change that, but dedication to the cause that goes right to the top just might – and that is cause for some hope amid the horror.

Politics

‘No doubt’ UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

Published

2 hours ago

May 31, 2025

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'No doubt' UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.

This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.

Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”

A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.

The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.

This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.

The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.

While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.

A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.

The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.

“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”

Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.

The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.

On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.

Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.

He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.

“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.

“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”