British Politics Thread

Britain backed a $22 billion (18 billion pounds) expansion of London's Heathrow Airport on Tuesday, ending 25 years of indecision with an ambitious plan to boost global trade links following the vote to leave the European Union.

Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, defeated a proposal from smaller rival Gatwick to secure the first new full-length runway to be built near London in 70 years after environmental and political protests scuppered previous attempts.

The long-awaited decision put Prime Minister Theresa May on a collision course with several senior politicians including her own foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and the plan is also likely to be challenged in the courts.

But with a promise of jobs and greater trade links after Britons opted in June for Brexit, May is likely to win parliament's approval, triumphing over an issue that has paralysed successive governments in the past.

"After decades of delay we are showing that we will take the big decisions when they're the right decisions for Britain," May said of her Conservative government's backing for what will one of Europe's biggest infrastructure projects.

The decision in favour of a third runway at Heathrow, due to be built by 2025, is one of May's most significant acts since she took office in July. It follows her approval in September of a $24 billion nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point.

With established links around the world, Heathrow always offered the greatest economic potential. However, its position to the west of London, near several affluent suburbs represented in parliament by Conservative lawmakers including Johnson, drew a powerful coalition of opponents worried about noise and pollution.

A new runway will also require parts of the motorway circling the capital to be rebuilt, making it more expensive and complex than alternative options to extend an existing Heathrow runway or build a new one at Gatwick, south of London.

According to a three-year study by Britain's independent Airports Commission, a new runway at Heathrow would create 70,000 new jobs by 2050 and increase gross domestic product by between 0.65 and 0.75 percent over the same period.

It will also enable Britain to keep pace with Europe's biggest airports in Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, which have greater capacity.

But within hours of the decision, politicians were lining up to denounce it. Johnson, a leading Brexit campaigner, said the plan was "undeliverable" and "very likely to be stopped" while London Mayor Sadiq Khan, alarmed by the potential impact on air quality, said he was exploring legal options.

Zac Goldsmith, a lawmaker in May's Conservative Party, resigned over the issue, meaning a by-election will be held in his constituency near the airport and potentially threatening to reduce May's already slim majority in parliament.

Johnson, a former London mayor who once vowed to lie down in front of the bulldozers to prevent a new Heathrow runway being built, said he worried that a third would be followed by a fourth.

"You'd have New York, a city of beautiful skyscrapers, Paris the city of light, London the city of planes," he told reporters. "Is that really what we want for our fantastic capital city?"

Wary of being damaged by the issue, May has allowed her ministers to criticise the plan but not campaign against it before a vote in parliament in a year's time. Surveys show a majority of lawmakers will back her.

Lawyers said opponents could delay the decision on the 18-billion-pound project in the courts but were unlikely to be able to block it.

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said governments had prevaricated for too long.

Conservative lawmaker Zac Goldsmith, a vocal opponent of the expansion of Heathrow Airport, on Tuesday notified the government of his decision to resign from parliament, the finance ministry said in a statement.

Goldsmith, who represents a constituency near the airport, had previously pledged to quit if Heathrow was given the go ahead to expand — something which happened earlier on Tuesday.

The resignation will prompt an election for his west London seat. Goldsmith, who unsuccessfully ran for London mayor earlier this year, is expected to run as an independent candidate.

Labour has been fined £20,000 by the Electoral Commission, the largest imposed by the body in its history, for undeclared election spending during the 2015 campaign, including more than £7,000 on the so-called “Ed Stone”.

The commission launched an investigation into two payments totalling £7,614 missing from the party’s election return that were spent on the stone tablet on which then Labour leader, Ed Miliband, had carved his six key election pledges, promising to display it in the Downing Street rose garden if he won the election.

The problems with the party’s spending came to light when the commission published the return in January, and journalists immediately contacted the commission because they could not find any reference to the 8ft 6in, two-tonne slab of limestone. The commission then found the item was indeed missing from the return, and began a full inquiry.

After the commission launched its investigation, the party undertook an internal review, unearthing 24 other undeclared election expenses totalling £109,777.

However, the commission’s investigation then identified 49 further missing payments totalling £11,357 that related to the transport of the party’s activists on the Labour Express tour and Labour Students tour during the election.

Labour’s infamous pink bus, which toured the country speaking to female voters, was also investigated by the commission, which found that all its spend was in order. The Women to Women bus had been the subject of a complaint to the commission by Conservative MP Charles Walker, after his own party came under a similar, and highly publicised, investigation into transport of election activists.

The commission also found invoices were missing from the Labour party’s return, with 33 bills totalling £34,392 absent from the accounts.

The commission said Labour’s general secretary, Iain McNicol, who is also its registered treasurer, had committed two election offences, involving missing payments of £123,748 from the campaign spending return and for failing to deliver invoices and receipts of more than £200 for payments totalling £34,392.

The £20,000 fine, which has been paid by the party, is the largest fine the commission has imposed since it began operating in 2001. The commission said the party’s cooperation had been taken into account but called on the government to grant it the ability to impose even larger fines, given the scale of the underreporting.

In a statement, the commission said it was pushing the government for an increase to the maximum £20,000 penalty available to it for a single offence “to an amount more in proportion with the spending and donations handled by large campaigners”.

Other parties could still be in line for fines or legal action because of general election spending. In May, Conservative activists were claimed to have misallocated expenditure for their “Battlebus 2015” campaign and hotel rooms for activists. The bus appears to have cost more than £2,000 a day to run, but the expense was deemed to be a national campaigning cost, rather than constituency costs.

The Electoral Commission had applied to the high court for documentation about the Conservatives’ election spending – which trended on Twitter as #ToryElectionFraud – but then withdrew the action when the party provided the information. Its investigation is continuing and police forces across the country are also investigating in individual constituencies.

Other campaigns have also faced similar accusations, including the Better Together campaign in the Scottish referendum, which had undeclared expenses of about £57,000, and was fined £2,000.

The first officially recognised UK press regulator has got the go-ahead from an independent panel.

Impress, established by press reform campaigners, received formal approval from the Press Recognition Panel (PRP).

Campaign group Hacked Off has welcomed the decision, but bodies representing the press warned it will bring "state-sponsored" regulation of newspapers.

Most newspapers have signed up to rival Ipso - the press-funded regulator which did not seek official recognition.

Impress, which currently regulates 25 small specialist publications, has received funding from former Formula One boss Max Mosley, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and author JK Rowling.

It was given the go-ahead by the PRP, which was set up in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry to ensure any future press regulator met certain standards.

Evan Harris, joint executive director of Hacked Off, which campaigns for greater press regulation, said the decision paved the way for the "first regulator to have proven its independence and effectiveness" under the Leveson system of independent assessment.

"The days of failed industry-controlled regulators like the PCC and its sham replacement Ipso are numbered," he said. "This decision makes Impress the only regulator which the public, readers and victims of press abuse can trust to regulate newspapers and safeguard freedom of the press, while offering redress when they get things wrong."

However, Impress's bid for official recognition has angered many newspapers, who argue it would be a threat to press freedom.

Lynne Anderson, deputy chief executive of News Media Association - which represents publishers - said she was disappointed by the decision to recognise Impress, saying it had been set up "to trigger punitive costs sanctions against Britain's press".

She also defended Ipso - which represents most of Britain's main national and regional newspapers - saying it was "effective and independent".

She added: "Not a single significant national or regional newspaper or magazine has signed up to the state-sponsored system of regulation under the PRP."

Bob Satchwell, from the Society of Editors, said the PRP had been "set up by politicians with public funds" and has "no real work to do because Impress represents only a very small number of local publishers".

An Ipso spokesperson said: "We have been regulating the overwhelming majority of the UK's newspapers, magazines and news websites for the last two years and will continue to do so."

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley will now have to decide whether to activate regulations which could see newspapers face "exemplary" damages if they are sued for libel unless they agree to be regulated by Impress.

Triggering Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 would mean any newspaper that refused to sign up to the new regulator could have to pay the legal fees of a complainant who sued them for libel, even if the paper won the case.

However, appearing before the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Monday, Ms Bradley made clear she would be in no hurry to activate the regulations.

She told MPs there were fears among local newspapers in particular that they could be forced out of business if the rules were enforced and she wanted to consider all the options before making a decision.

Theresa May privately warned that companies would leave the UK if the country voted for Brexit during a secret audience with investment bankers a month before the EU referendum.

A recording of her remarks to Goldman Sachs, leaked to the Guardian, reveals she had numerous concerns about Britain leaving the EU. It contrasts with her nuanced public speeches, which dismayed remain campaigners before the vote in June.

Speaking at the bank in London on 26 May, the then home secretary appeared to go further than her public remarks to explain more clearly the economic benefits of staying in the EU. She told staff it was time the UK took a lead in Europe, and that she hoped voters would look to the future rather than the past.

In an hour-long session before the City bankers, she also worried about the effect of Brexit on the British economy.

“I think the economic arguments are clear,” she said. “I think being part of a 500-million trading bloc is significant for us. I think, as I was saying to you a little earlier, that one of the issues is that a lot of people will invest here in the UK because it is the UK in Europe.

Poor morale among doctors could put patients at risk, the General Medical Council has warned. The doctors' regulator said there was "a state of unease within the medical profession across the UK that risks affecting patients as well as doctors".

The warning is included in the GMC's annual report into the state of medical education and practice in the UK. The Department of Health said listening to the concerns of staff was central to plans to improve services.

The GMC noted that following the anger and frustration of the dispute between junior doctors and the Department of Health, levels of alienation "should cause everyone to pause and reflect". Its report also found that 582 fewer doctors had gone on to specialty training in 2015 following their two post-graduate foundation years, although a number take a break at this point to improve their skills either in the UK or abroad, or for personal reasons.

Most doctors planning to take a break (86.5%) gave work-life balance as the reason - of those, 47% cited burnout resulting from their clinical placements. The GMC said this suggested significant pressure on junior doctors, but added that problems in the workforce were "complex and multi-factorial, and some are long standing".

It criticised healthcare funding, saying that years of constraint coupled with social care pressures were leaving services struggling to cope with rising demand.

The BMA said: "Over the past year, junior doctors across the country have raised concerns about the reality of working in an overstretched health service and the impact that has on their morale and patient care."

NHS Employers said the report highlighted the need for skilled foreign workers in the NHS, adding: "We welcome the insight the report gives into the huge financial and service pressures the NHS is under."

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "The dedication and sheer hard work of our NHS doctors is absolutely crucial to delivering world-class care for patients.

"As the report makes clear, the standard of care provided by doctors working in the UK remains among the best in the world. 1.6 million more NHS operations now take place each year compared to 2010 and hundreds of thousands more people are seen in A&E within four hours.

"The government is investing £10bn to fund the NHS's own plan to transform services for the future - central to which is listening to the concerns of staff."