Latest news with #GeneralElection
The Journal
4 hours ago
- Health
- The Journal
Historic vote sees MPs back legalising assisted dying in England and Wales
ASSISTED DYING IS a step closer to being made legal in England and Wales after the proposed legislation cleared the House of Commons in a historic vote – albeit with a narrower majority. More than 300 MPs backed a Bill that would allow terminally ill adults with a life expectancy of less than six months to end their lives. Yes campaigners wept, jumped and hugged each other outside parliament as the vote result was announced, while some MPs appeared visibly emotional as they left the chamber. Others lined up to shake hands with Kim Leadbeater, the Bill's sponsor through the Commons. Kim Leadbeater has been the MP behind the assisted dying bill PA PA Last October, the Dáil voted to 'note' a report completed by the Oireachtas committee on assisted dying. That vote was not to approve recommendations in the report but rather 'take note' at the fact that the report had been completed and published. The Assisted Dying Bill was tabled by People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny in 2020. Kenny lost his seat in last year's General Election. In a post on social media today, Kenny described the Westminster vote as a 'monumental decision'. He described assisted dying as a 'profound issue that transcends politics and needs careful navigation through legislation'. He called on the Irish government to 'take note and prepare a legal framework for voluntary assisted dying'. 'Compassion and dignity has won,' he added. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's Department of Health said it has no plans to propose new laws in the Stormont Assembly. 'In Northern Ireland, assisting or encouraging suicide or killing someone on compassionate grounds remains a criminal offence,' it adds. Commons vote Despite warnings from opponents around the safety of a Bill they argued has been rushed through, the proposed legislation has taken another step in the UK parliamentary process. MPs voted 314 to 291, majority 23, to approve Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at third reading. Advertisement This means the Bill has completed its first stages in the Commons and will move to the House of Lords for further debate and scrutiny. Both Houses must agree the final text of the Bill before it can be signed into law. Due to the four-year implementation period, it could be 2029 – potentially coinciding with the end of this Government's Parliament – before assisted dying is offered. Encouraging or assisting suicide is currently against the law in England and Wales, with a maximum jail sentence of 14 years. Supporters of assisted dying have described the current law as not being fit for purpose, with desperate terminally ill people feeling the need to end their lives in secret or go abroad to Dignitas alone, for fear loved ones will be prosecuted for helping them. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer remained supportive of the Bill, voting yes today as he had done last year. Campaigners in Parliament Square, central London, ahead of the vote PA PA Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch voted no and urged MPs to vote against the legislation. She described it as 'a bad Bill' despite being 'previously supportive of assisted suicide'. Today was the first time the Bill was debated and voted on in its entirety since last year's historic yes vote, when MPs supported the principle of assisted dying for England and Wales by a majority of 55 at second reading. Labour MP Leadbeater has argued her Bill will 'correct the profound injustices of the status quo and to offer a compassionate and safe choice to terminally ill people who want to make it'. During an hours-long date, MPs on both sides of the issue recalled personal stories of loved ones who had died. Conservative former minister James Cleverly, who led the opposition to the Bill in the Commons, spoke of a close friend who died 'painfully' from cancer. He said he comes at the divisive issue 'not from a position of faith nor from a position of ignorance', and was driven in his opposition by 'concerns about the practicalities' of the Bill. MPs had a free vote on the Bill, meaning they decided according to their conscience rather than along party lines. The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. Public support for a change in the law remains high, according to a YouGov poll published on the eve of the vote. The survey of 2,003 adults in Britain suggested 73% of those asked last month were supportive of the Bill, while the proportion of people who feel assisted dying should be legal in principle stood at 75%.
The National
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
Alba rename UK Government energy department in protest over job losses
Party leader Kenny McAskill slammed the 'unjust transition', adding that Labour has 'failed to deliver' on the promises it made at the General Election. Alba held the protest outside of the offices of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on Friday. McAskill was pictured holding a sign with the department's name, with red pen highlighting the changes in a dig at the Government's energy policy. READ MORE: Palestine Action 'damage Union flag plane' in RAF break-in Speaking outside the offices, McAskill said: "We are here today outside the UK Government Office in Aberdeen to highlight the 'unjust transition' taking place. 'Labour has failed to deliver on the promises made before the UK Election to make Aberdeen and the North East an energy power house. "Keir Starmer promised to put Scotland at the 'beating heart of the UK.' 'Instead we are facing the prospect of losing 400 jobs, the equivalent of Grangemouth closing, every fortnight and the loss of 115,000 jobs over five years.' (Image: Alba) McAskill then pointed to claims that jobs were promised as part of plans to establish GB Energy, but have not come to fruition. 'The lack of activity is startling,' he added. 'This should be renamed the Department of Energy Insecurity and Net Job Losses. "The suits are coming into Aberdeen, a few dozen, maybe even a few more than that but what we are seeing are thousands of workers laid off in the North Sea. 'It's suits in, boiler suits out under this Labour Government. "The oil in the North Sea should be Scotland's resource. READ MORE: UK Government urged to publish legal advice on joining war on Iran 'The North Sea should be booming, Scotland requires it and yet what we are seeing is the North Sea being shut down with Aberdeen and the North East paying the price and few suits in will not replace the tens of thousands of boiler suits being lost. 'It's time for Independence. It's time we controlled our own North Sea oil and it's time we got the North Sea booming once again.' Ann Joss, RMT regional organiser, said: "What we have in real terms is what feels like total abandonment of a highly skilled workforce who feel badly let down and the continuous job losses are a reflection of that, not just directly in the sector but across the supply chain and our communities. 'A lot of focus needs to be on the progress of the skills passport, the new jobs in green energy, collective bargaining rights across the whole sector, so in a way we are talking about advancement in all of these things for our workers in the North Sea.' DESNZ have been contacted for comment. We previously told how £2.5 billion of investment that was due to go to clean energy projects via GB Energy was to go to funding nuclear energy instead. UK energy minister Michael Shanks refused to apologise after the funding cut emerged. Labour politicians have refused to confirm how many, if any, jobs GB Energy has created.
AsiaOne
16 hours ago
- Politics
- AsiaOne
PM Wong to nominate Seah Kian Peng as Speaker of Parliament, Indranee Rajah as Leader of House, Singapore News
Prime Minister Lawrence Wong intends to nominate Seah Kian Peng as Speaker of the Parliament and Indranee Rajah as Leader of the House when Parliament convenes in September. This was announced through a statement by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on Friday (June 20). The 15th Parliament is set to meet for the first time on Sept 5, following the last session in April 15 when the 14th Parliament was dissolved ahead of the General Election. Seah has served as the Speaker since 2023, and has "presided over our debates with fairness and ensured that proceedings are conducted with dignity and decorum," said PM Wong in a Facebook post on Friday (June 20). "I am confident he will continue to discharge his responsibilities with distinction." In a Facebook post on Friday, Seah thanked PM Wong for his "confidence, support and nomination" and expressed his gratitude to the Members of the House, past and present, for their support. "I also have my two Deputy Speakers and colleagues at Parliament Secretariat to thank for their solid support to me since I assumed this appointment in August 2023," he wrote. "If elected, I will as always endeavour to do my best and discharge my duties and responsibilities to the best of my ability." Indranee Rajah, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for Finance and Second Minister for National Development, has served as Leader since 2020 and will remain so. Senior Minister of State for Defence and Sustainability and the Environment, Zaqy Mohamad, will also be nominated to continue his role as the Deputy Leader. The 15th Parliament will have 99 MPs consisting of 97 elected MPs — 87 from the People's Action Party (PAP) and 10 from the Worker's Party (WP) — and two Non-Constituency MPs, Andre Low and Eileen Chong, both from WP. [[nid:718519]]
The Herald Scotland
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
The Tories are becoming two parties in one. Which one will prevail?
But for the two parties of the right, there are more existential issues to keep in mind. The Tory party in Scotland finds itself in the hottest water it has encountered since devolution began. The party bumbled along for the first few terms of Parliament in the mid teens in vote share, translating to the high teens in seat numbers. As the anti-devolution party, they spent a fair bit of the first decade just trying to convince people they actually wanted to be there, with their first leader David McLetchie also making a good fist of putting into place some sort of liberal, free-market policy platform as an alternative to the social democratic consensus which was emerging. Read more by Andy Maciver The theoretical high-point of the party was when, under Annabel Goldie, it struck up an informal agreement to prop up the minority SNP administration of Alex Salmond. In reality, though, the SNP got what it wanted out of that arrangement for pocket change, and the Conservatives were unable to use those four years to derive any kind of sustained shift in sentiment. At its lowest ebb after the 2011 election, the party was saved, not by something to argue for but by something to argue against; independence. In the wake of the independence referendum, with the Labour Party in the grip of Jeremy Corbyn – who had indicated his agnosticism towards Scotland's future in the UK – and with the SNP having won a landslide victory in the 2015 General Election on a ticket of promising another independence referendum, the Tories scored the open goal with which they had been presented. In elections in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021, with constitutional temperatures running hot, the core Tory vote in the teens was joined by a large number of unionists who held their noses and voted for the party they thought would stop another referendum. The trouble is, though, that the party's vote was built on sand. The Tories should, by now, have realised that they have been victims of their own success. The UK Government's belligerent "no, never" approach to granting a referendum led to the Scottish Government pursuing the case in the Supreme Court that led to the now-famous judicial decision that the Scottish Parliament cannot legislate for an independence referendum. With independence off the table, and the Tories heading out of office, those "transactional Tories" who backed the party for four elections over five years chewed them up and spat them out. Add to the mix the rise of the Reform party, and you have the story of why, at the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, Scotland's primary party of the centre-right polled six per cent of the vote. We should understand what that means. Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse sits within the Central Scotland electoral region. In 2021, with over 18 per cent of the vote, the Tories returned three MSPs. In the neighbouring Glasgow region, its 12 per cent gave them two MSPs, and next door in West Scotland (where the party's leader Russell Findlay has his seat) a 22 per cent vote share gave them another three seats. Through east, in the other urban region of Lothian, a 20 per cent vote share gave them another three. That's 11 MSPs across those four urban regions – around one-third of the party's total. An outcome more like the six per cent the party polled in the by-election puts every one of those seats at risk. In all probability, there are enough rural areas in West Scotland and in Lothian to keep them in the game, but only just. There is angst within the Tory MSP group that the party's strategy amounts to no more than hoping Reform will implode. In reality, though, it's about the best strategy available to them in the short term. Cross your fingers, folks. This is not true, though, in rural parts of the country. It is interesting to look back at that 2024 General Election, at where the party kept its seats. The Tories have retained a good amount of land mass, up north and down south, still popular in rural areas. The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election changed the political ground in Scotland (Image: PA) There is an underlying story here, of two parties under one banner. There is the Tory party of the blue-collar, hacked off, law and order urbanite, driven by concerns over community issues from anti-social behaviour to potholes, with unsubtle views about the impact of immigrants and even more unsubtle views about the distribution of welfare to them, and a sensitive radar to woke issues. That is the party of Mr Findlay, for sure, but the trouble is it is also a mirror-image of Reform. If there is a distinction between Mr Findlay and defectors to Reform such as Glasgow councillor Thomas Kerr, then it is a distinction I am yet to spot upon hearing the two men speak. They are fishing from the same pool and, in the by-election and in national polling, it is Mr Kerr's party which is catching the bulk of the fish. Then there is the Tory party of rural Scotland; the entrepreneurs and small business owners, the free-market liberals concerned about the pernicious economic environment; the hard workers impinged by dismal infrastructure. Ironically, this is very much the party of Mr Findlay's Deputy, Rachael Hamilton. This party does fairly well, and in truth is more in tune with the needs of rural people and rural businesses than any other, including the SNP. We may find, in May next year, that the party's Holyrood map looks more like its Westminster one; strong to the north and to the south, but gutted in the middle. Maybe, as we inevitably move into a fractious parliament and perhaps to a future with more new entrants into Holyrood, and as Scotland's productive economy becomes more focussed on rural Scotland, it is this version of the Tory party which will prove its longevity. Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sparta planning school bond referendum vote for September. What it means
SPARTA − A bond referendum vote to build an addition to the Alpine Elementary School, upgrade science labs in the high school and make upgrades to heating/air conditioning/electrical at other district buildings is planned for Sept. 16, district officials said. Approval for the vote is expected this month from the state Department of Education as well as final numbers on the amount of state aid the projects will get and formally set the date for district voters. Because that state approval is not finalized, the district created a website ( which has preliminary information, but no financial numbers, on the projects. The site will be updated when the state's approval is received. 'Our schools are an important part of the Sparta community – people move here for the schools and the small community feel,' explained Superintendent Matthew Beck. 'This bond referendum would help us improve our schools to give our current and future students a place they can thrive academically and socially.' If the bond referendum gets voter approval, the biggest project will be an addition to Alpine Elementary School to address overcrowding. Currently, the school provides needed classroom space in trailers on school property. The high school would also see improvements to its science laboratories and there will be HVAC and electrical upgrades, as well as roofing and window replacements, in other schools to improve building efficiency and conditions. By state law, school bond referendum votes may only be held on specific dates in January, March, September, December or at the November General Election. The district said that by holding a vote in September, the district will have time to finalize project plans and solicit and receive bids, then act on those contracts in time for work to begin in late spring. This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Sparta planning school bond referendum vote for September
