{"id":112566,"date":"2018-02-15T10:03:23","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T10:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk?p=112566&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=112566"},"modified":"2018-02-15T10:03:23","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T10:03:23","slug":"todays-political-headlines-15-february-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/todays-political-headlines-15-february-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Political Headlines &#8211; 15 February 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><strong>Today&#8217;s Political Headlines include\u00a0calls to end rough sleeping, Boris Johnson&#8217;s speech on Brexit, and the breakdown of\u00a0talks to restore a Northern Ireland Executive.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Calls for Government action following the death of a rough sleeper outside Parliament<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Guardian<\/em> have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2018\/feb\/14\/homeless-man-dies-on-doorstep-of-houses-of-parliament\">reported<\/a> that MPs have expressed sadness after learning that a man believed to have been sleeping rough had died outside the Houses of Parliament. Numerous Labour MPs have responded on twitter, drawing attention to the man\u2019s death and criticise policies they said had contributed to a sharp rise in the number of rough sleepers in the UK.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris Johnson&#8217;s Policy Exchange speech called for &#8220;hope not fear&#8221; in the UKs departure from the EU<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The BBC<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-43045553\">reports<\/a> that the Foreign Secretary has told his fellow Brexiteers they should not &#8220;gloat&#8221; about the UK&#8217;s departure from the EU, which he said was a cause for &#8220;hope not fear&#8221;. He has urged people to &#8220;unite about what we all believe in&#8221;, an &#8220;outward-looking, confident&#8221; UK, and that leaving the EU was not a &#8220;great V-sign from the cliffs of Dover&#8221;. <em>The Guardian<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2018\/02\/14\/brexit-can-good-carrots-boris-johnson-tried-cheer-remoaners\/\">reports<\/a> that Johnson&#8217;s speech struggled to woo remainers, and used his speech to try to simultaneously reach out to remainers while doubling down on his arguments in favour of a hard break from the EU.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jean-Claude Juncker denies claims by Boris Johnson that he wants to create a European &#8220;superstate&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Independent<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/eu-directly-elected-president-jean-claude-juncker-european-council-donald-tusk-poland-rule-of-law-a8210736.html\">reports<\/a> that President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker has said that claims he wants to create a European &#8220;superstate&#8221; are &#8220;total nonsense&#8221;. He said that the President of the European Commission should be directly elected by the voters of Europe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Talks between the DUP and Sinn Fein broken down in attempts to strike a Northern Ireland deal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Sky News<\/em> are <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/no-prospect-of-northern-ireland-deal-as-talks-between-dup-and-sinn-fein-break-down-11250479\">reporting<\/a> that talks between the leaders of Northern Ireland&#8217;s two biggest political parties to re-establish a government in Stormont have broken down. DUP leader Arlene Foster said there was &#8220;no prospect&#8221; of negotiations leading to a new power sharing agreement with Sinn Fein. <em>The Telegraph <\/em>have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2018\/02\/15\/westminster-forced-set-northern-irelands-budget-increasingly\/\">reported<\/a> on comments made by former Northern Ireland Secretary, Theresa Villiers, saying that Westminster being forced to set Northern Ireland\u2019s budget is \u201cincreasingly inevitable\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>British Steel pensions scheme is a victim to a major mis-selling scandal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Financial Times<\/em> have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/eedd7ed0-1166-11e8-8cb6-b9ccc4c4dbbb\">reported<\/a> that British Steel pension savers were \u201cshamelessly\u201d exploited by \u201cdubious financial advisers\u201d after a restructuring of the scheme last year, drawing upon a <a href=\"https:\/\/publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/cm201719\/cmselect\/cmworpen\/828\/828.pdf\">report<\/a> by the Work and Pensions Select Committee that sharply criticised the Pensions Regulator and Financial Conduct Authority. <em>The Times <\/em>have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/factory-gate-vultures-feast-on-british-steel-pensions-nchgrmhql\">reported<\/a> that more than 50,000 British workers may be being cheated out of part of their pension each year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tories blame the SNP for Scotland&#8217;s productivity falling to its lowest level in eight years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Times <\/em>have run a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/tories-blame-snp-taxes-as-productivity-slides-down-hjbkl95fz\">story<\/a> explaining how Scotland&#8217;s productivity has fallen to its lowest level in eight years, with opposition politicians have claimed showed that the SNP administration was damaging the economy. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gov.scot\/Topics\/Statistics\/Browse\/Economy\/PROD17Q3\">report<\/a>, published by the Scottish Government, suggested that the financial crisis of 2008 had taken a long time to work its way through and the effects were still being felt within the Scottish economy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reports suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn met a communist spy at the height of the Cold War<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Sun have run a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/news\/5581166\/jeremy-corbyn-communist-spy-cold-war-briefings\/\">story<\/a> which found that Jeremy Corbyn met a Communist spy during the Cold War and warned the Soviet-backed spies of a clampdown by British intelligence during the height of the war. <em>The<\/em> <em>Daily Mail <\/em>have also run a similar <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-5393651\/How-Jeremy-Corbyn-met-Soviet-backed-spy-Cold-War.html\">story<\/a>, claiming that \u00a0Corbyn met the Czech agent at least three times after being vetted in 1986, with two meetings taking place in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><strong>How can\u00a0Vuelio Political services help you?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/public-affairs\/political-services\/?clid=Blog\" target=\"_blank\">Check out our services here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s Political Headlines include Boris Johnson&#8217;s Brexit speech, Labour&#8217;s animal welfare plan, McVey&#8217;s call for McDonnell to apologise and the Oxfam crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":111830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7367,3694,7271],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112566"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112568,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112566\/revisions\/112568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}