Union leader Sharon Graham says Keir Starmer risks ‘limping into Downing Street’

Labour’s biggest union backer has warned it may divert election funding earmarked for the party, amid claims that Keir Starmer is diluting plans to overhaul workers’ rights.

In an interview with the Observer , Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said the Labour leader risked “limping into Downing Street” if he backed down in the face of intense lobbying from businesses.

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The Home Office last week launched a nationwide operation to round up asylum seekers, leaving many fearful and confused

At 2.37pm on Thursday news that a man had “disappeared” rippled through London’s raid-resistance WhatsApp groups. The asylum seeker had walked into the Home Office immigration reporting centre in Hounslow, west London, for a routine appointment, as many people seeking refuge in Britain are required to do. His brother waited outside.

But the man did not come out. Ten minutes passed, then 20, then an hour, then three. The brother waiting outside went in, and came out with bad news: his sibling had been detained and told he faced being deported to Rwanda.

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Only women can rid the club of the guardians of the Y-chromosome’s ‘we’ve always done it this way’ misogyny

Here’s a surprise: the Garrick Club is a really lovely place.

It’s full of lively and fascinating people. The staff are superb, the food is great, the wine list divine. The library is to die for (or in), we have the finest theatrical portraiture in the world, sumptuous sitting rooms and chic bedrooms a wallet’s throw from the Royal Opera House.

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Tuesday’s debate on whether the existing rules do not in fact bar women comes amid rising resignations and threats

In May 1924, the Manchester Guardian revealed a “recent innovation in the Garrick Club to admit ladies to one of its rooms” meant that the queen of Romania would be lunching at the club during her visit to London. “What would Queen Victoria have said about such a notion!” the article wondered.

A hundred years later, the club’s lethargic advance towards allowing women into the building on equal terms with men continues. On Tuesday, members will once again vote on the matter.

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Individuals could win £25,000 or more if they are successful in claim Uber broke taxi booking rules

More than 10,500 of London’s black-cab drivers have launched a £250m legal case against Uber, accusing it of breaking the capital’s taxi booking rules and deliberately misleading authorities to secure a licence.

The case, which has been filed in the high court in London by the litigation management firm RGL, resurrects a claim first raised five years ago, related to the way the ride-hailing app operated in London between 2012 and 2018.

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There is consensus in parliament that indeterminate sentences are unjust. So why is the government dragging its heels?

• Sir Bob Neill KC (Hon) is chair of the justice select committee

Last year I tried to lay to rest a ghost that has haunted four successive governments: the fate of those still in prison under imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences. The sentences, now widely acknowledged as both wrong in principle and unworkable in practice, were described by the former supreme court justice Lord Brown as the “ greatest single stain on our criminal justice system” and by David Blunkett as the “ biggest regret ” of his time in government . Yet, as I quickly found out, there is still a lack of political will to end this injustice – and neither the government nor the opposition supported my amendment to the victims and prisoners bill.

IPP sentences were introduced in 2003 as a new form of custodial sentence. Designed to appear tough on crime, they were indeterminate sentences that could be given to offenders who had committed violent or sexual offences and were deemed to pose a significant risk of causing harm to the public. Unlike a normal sentence, those given an IPP sentence would have to serve a minimum tariff in prison before being detained for an indefinite period until they could prove to the Parole Board that they were no longer a risk.

Sir Bob Neill KC (Hon) is the member of parliament for Bromley and Chislehurst and a former local government minister. He is currently chair of the justice select committee

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Exclusive: DNA expert whose work led to Andrew Malkinson case breakthrough says job should be given to forensic scientists

Interns have been given the job of weeding out potential wrongful convictions for rape and murder in a major case review prompted by Andrew Malkinson’s exoneration, the Guardian can reveal.

The miscarriage of justice body the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said last month that it would be re-examining cases it had refused to refer to the court of appeal to check for new DNA testing opportunities.

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Freedom to Write index says there are 107 people in prison for published content in China, with many accused of ‘picking quarrels’

The number of writers jailed in China has surpassed 100, with nearly half imprisoned for online expression.

The grim milestone is revealed in the 2023 Freedom to Write index, a report compiled by Pen America, published on Wednesday.

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I would feel deeply uncomfortable if patients ‘chose’ to die because care that would make life worth living was unavailable

• Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor

Which is worse? Being driven to end your life prematurely to avoid future suffering, or because the suffering you experience is unbearable now? Which form of preventable anguish is the most unacceptable? The kind we could avoid by giving patients the right to an assisted death, or the kind we could avoid with half-decent palliative care? Who suffers more?

The correct answer to these questions – and I write with the authority of two decades of medical training and practice, eight years of which have been exclusively in palliative medicine – is that I really, truly don’t know. Matters of dying – when, how, and by whose hand – are as ethically complex as they come. This week’s parliamentary debate of a petition demanding a change in the law – signed by more than 200,000 people and spearheaded by Esther Rantzen, who has terminal lung cancer – was, then, reassuringly measured, with thoughtful contributions from all sides . For if ever a topic demanded nuance and gravity, it is surely that of state-sanctioned killing, albeit on merciful grounds. What we absolutely don’t need, if we want to get this right, is for the debate around assisted dying to become yet another example of entrenched, polarised, pick-a-side-politics in which “pro” and “anti” camps shriek dogma in each other’s faces.

Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and the author of Breathtaking : Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic

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