Hannah miller, has the story. In homes across the country and Public Services on the ground, it can seem like everyone is crying out for cash. We have got roads full of potholes. Are you confident that the chancellor will be persuaded to give you more money to spend on housing in the budget in a few weeks time . Well, im doing everything that i can. I mean, short of laying siege to his own home. Well, i want us to be, you know, l Cutting Taxes in a responsible way. Under pressure from backbenchers and with less money to play with than hed hoped for the chancellors scrabbling around for ways to pay for a tax cut on a scale that voters will notice. Today, mr speaker, im going to cut the main 12 rate of Employee National insurance. Last year, he chose to cut National Insurance contributions and its thought he may do that again. A tax cut for workers that brings no benefit to pensioners. The Number Crunching going on inside number 11 is not just about the state of the nations finances its
He raped and murdered sir everard and prince harry will appeal the high courts decision to downgrade his security status. Is he wasting the polices time or does he still face serious security threats. 7 serious security threats . And rishi sunak has summoned Police Bosses to downing street to tell them to use their powers to tell them to use their powers to crack down on protesters or risk losing britains streets to what he calls mob rule. And were also going to be discussing whether this west end play discussing whether this west end play should be allowed to only accept audience members who , as accept audience members who, as they say, identify as black in audience a week for two nights a week. Theres certainly going to be doing it for two nights, and i think its just two nights in total , right . One july and total, right . One in july and one september. An one in september. As an experiment. Should experiment. But should they be allowed is it allowed to do that, or is it just pure
tech bosses including meta s mark zuckerberg and linda yaccarino of x have been accused of having blood on their hands by a powerul us senate committee in washington. the hearing was called as concerns rise about children s mental health and safety online. politicians say big tech companies are not doing enough to protect children from sexual exploitation. they have been debating tougher laws, and demanded executives explain what has been done so far. in his opening remarks, senator lindsay graham, the top republican on the committee, took aim at facebook founder and ceo, mark zuckerburg. mr zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, i know you don t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your you have a product that is killing people. and i use it, we all use it. there s an upside everything here. of the dark side has not been dealt with. it s now time to deal with the dark side because people have taken youridea dark side because people have taken your idea and they ha
it s wednesday, 31st january. our main story. scotland s former first minister, nicola sturgeon is due to give evidence about the decisions she took during the pandemic, when she appears before the covid inquiry today. ms sturgeon, who led the scottish response to the coronavirus outbreak is expected to face questions surrounding lockdowns, and missing whatsapp messages as the inquiry continues sitting in edinburgh. our scotland correspondent lorna gordon reports. 1,044 positive cases were reported yesterday. nicola sturgeon was at the helm throughout scotland s pandemic response. as head of the scottish government, she was the key decision maker and first in the firing line when things went wrong. we will have made mistakes on all aspects of the handling. now about to be questioned on that handling and how decisions the truth, the whole truth. the former first minister s closest political ally amongst those who admitted texts between the pair no longer exist. are those t
statutory public inquiries are noted in if i wasn t prepared to give assurance and i would have the ability and the sabia judge let statutory public inquiry. however, now, she says, she noted key points from her whatsapps and then deleted them. i was very thorough, notjust in the pandemic but in all my work in government to ensure that things were appropriately recorded, but in line with the advice i had always been given since my first day in government, probably, was not to retain conversations like that on a phone that could be lost or stolen and therefore not secure. but did you delete them? yes. but others have provided whatsapps. the inquiry was shown messages for october 2020 in which ms sturgeon told her chief of staff, i m having a bit of a crisis of decision making in hospitality, not helped by the fact i haven t slept . after discussing the possible restrictions on pubs and restaurants in detail, ms sturgeon concludes, it is all so random but i think we need to