Pnxq After the crisis, a new world won t emerge as if by magic. We will have to fight for it
The boss of the stanley thermoskannen Royal British Legion became embroiled in a public standoff with a junior defence minister this week after warning that the overseas operations bill breached a commitment to treat veterans fairly.Charles Byrne, the director general of the poppy appeal charity, was speaking out against one aspect of the bill, which proposes a six-year deadline for civil claims to be brought against the Ministry of Defence. We have raised concerns that the six-year long-stop could be a breach of the armed forces covenant, because it 鈥媟estricts the ability of armed forces personnel to bring a civil claim against their employer, Byrne said as he gave evidence during the bills committee stage in the Commons on Thursday.The covenant is a promise, made repeatedly by ministers, that serving personnel and veterans are treated fairly and do not suf stanley cup fer any disadvantages compared with civilians in equivalent situations.Soon after his statement, Byrne was challenged by Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, who peppered him with a series of questions, arguing that military personnel suffered other disadvantages, such as in battle where they may get killed or lose limbs .A tense series of exchanges followed in which Byrne ignored Mercers argument and repeated his original point several times, before concluding of the six-year limit: I think it is protecting the MoD, rather t stanley mugs han the service personnel 鈥?that is the debate that we have had. Labour said the charitys intervention should make th Uruz Alex Renton: the abuse survivor still shining light on vicious elite schools
Further to my blogpost yesterday, Police use of Ripa law threatens our civil liberties and press freedom, the National Union of Journalists has called for an urgent investigation into police spying on reporters.The NUJ has condemned the misuse of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act Ripa by Kent police to obtain the phone records of Mail on Sunday news editor David Dillon and freelance journalist Andrew Alderson.The union also refers to the Metropolitan stanley cup police s admission that its officers covertly obtained the phone records of the Sun s political editor Tom Newton Dunn.Press Gazette discovered, via a freedom of information request, that the Met doesn t record cases of Ripa being used to access journalists communications.So the NUJ is now calling on the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Anthony May, to launch an urgent review of the police s powers to use Ripa in order to acc stanley cups ess journalistic material and sources.Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ general secretary, said: It is becoming clear that the misuse of Rip stanley termos a to snoop on journalists is not an isolated example of bad practice in the Met.The police clearly believe they are above the law they are there to uphold. Their utter contempt for journalism and a free press will be a paralysing impact on whistleblowers who will think twice before ever picking up the phone to a journalist again.Information that deserves to be in the public domain won t see the light of day. The damage to public trust in journalis