Labour has enjoyed poll leads of more than 20 points throughout the campaign, but Sunak insisted on Sunday that he will still be Prime Minister come Friday morning…reports Asian Lite News
The deputy prime minister warned that the country’s upcoming general election faces threats from hostile actors such as Russia seeking to influence the UK’s democratic process.
The country will go to the polls on Thursday, in an election expected to oust the governing right-wing Conservatives and put the opposition Labour party in power.
His comments came after the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that it had uncovered five Facebook pages spreading the same pro-Kremlin talking points.
Some of them encouraged support for the hard-right Reform UK party led by Brexiteer Nigel Farage — a big challenger to the ruling Conservatives in Thursday’s vote.
“There is a threat in all elections, and indeed we see it in this election from hostile state actors seeking to influence the outcome of the election campaign,” Oliver Dowden told Sky News.
“Russia is a prime example of this, and this is a classic example from the Russian playbook,” he added, noting however that the examples were “relatively typical, low-level stuff”.
Farage — an admirer of former US president Donald Trump — dismissed claims that Russian bots might interfere in the election as “cobblers”, using a British slang term for nonsense.
He has been criticised in the campaign for saying that the West provoked Russia’s invasion of its neighbour Ukraine.
His anti-immigration party is tipped by pollsters to contribute to a landslide win by the centre left opposition Labour party by taking votes away from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Tories.
Labour has enjoyed poll leads of more than 20 points throughout the campaign, but Sunak insisted on Sunday that he will still be Prime Minister come Friday morning.
“I’m fighting very hard and I think people are waking up to the real danger of what a Labour government means,” he told the BBC.
Labour, led by Keir Starmer, received another boost Sunday when the influential right-of-centre newspaper the Sunday Times endorsed his party. Music sensation Elton John also announced he was backing Labour.
London, United Kingdom. Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden visits the reopening of the Tate Modern. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
The conference aims to spark and strengthen Saudi-UK partnerships in 13 sectors such as tourism, culture, education, health, sports, investment, trade and financial services…reports Asian Lite News
UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden underlined London’s goal of reaching £30 billion ($37.7 billion) of bilateral trade by 2030.
“The idea of this (GREAT Futures Conference) is to be a sort of shop window to show the opportunities for our two countries and then out of that, I think there’s huge opportunities for further trade and investment,” he said.
“We set an ambitious goal by 2030 of £30 billion of bilateral trade. It’s already growing quite rapidly. It’s about £17 billion. I think we can push it to that.”
The two-day conference from May 14, hosted at King Abdullah Financial District, features 47 sessions and workshops with 127 speakers from both the public and private sectors.
The conference aims to spark and strengthen Saudi-UK partnerships in 13 sectors such as tourism, culture, education, health, sports, investment, trade and financial services.
It welcomed 450 British delegates and company heads to meet with Saudi businesses and officials. Dowden said he that he thinks “the relationship between our two kingdoms is stronger than it’s ever been.
“It’s based on very firm foundations, whether that’s diplomatic, military or the relationship, indeed, between His Majesty (King Charles III) and (Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) in the royal family of Saudi Arabia.”
Dowden underlined that what he has witnessed during the GREAT Futures Conference and through the previous visits is “the huge opportunities for the future.
“The crown prince has set out the Vision of 2030. UK companies … want to be part of that vision, and that’s why I’ve brought the largest trade delegation the UK has taken to any country in the world in the past decade, the largest ever, to Saudi Arabia,” he told Arab News.
In the opening remarks of day one, the deputy prime minister spoke on a panel alongside Dr. Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi, the Saudi minister of commerce.
He said there is a lot more that the two countries can do in the fields of technology and artificial intelligence.
“I think there’s a lot more we can do to collaborate together there because there’s huge expertise in artificial intelligence in Saudi Arabia,” Dowden said.
Dowden also underlined that North East England is poised to receive investments worth £3 billion from the Kingdom.
“If you look at the North East of England, just one part of the UK, we’ve agreed £3 billion worth of investment that will support 2,000 jobs. I think there’s much more that we can do like that,” he said.
Leading up to the conference, the deputy prime minister stressed the importance of the event in building partnerships between the business sectors of Saudi Arabia and the UK.
“It (GREAT Futures) also allows British companies to familiarize themselves with relevant business regulations, incentives, and advantages for conducting business in Saudi Arabia,” Dowden said.
Saudi Arabia, UK launch art and heritage campaign
Saudi Arabia’s Royal Institute of Traditional Arts, or Wrth, has launched an initiative with the UK titled “A Shared Heritage of Two Kingdoms,” which celebrates how art bridges cultures.
It is a part of the GREAT Futures Initiative Conference held in Riyadh on May 14 and 15, which showcased opportunities for UK businesses in Saudi Arabia.
The event began with several workshops and other activities in the King Abdullah Financial District, where artists from both nations focused on traditional practices and crafts including Najdi wooden doors and sadu weaving.
The campaign will move to London with a similar workshop planned for May 16 at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The session will focus on the “art of creating traditional Saudi doors” to foster cross-cultural understanding and greater artistic exchange, the organizers stated.
The campaign concludes at the Wrth headquarters in Riyadh on May 18, where British artist Harriet Frances will hold a workshop on jewelry embroidery so that local artists can learn about different cultural traditions.
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lucy Frazer said: “I think it is really valuable for the sector as a whole because the Royal College of Art is one of our finest institutions, it’s produced artists like Tracey Emin, Ridley Scott, and it’s got a huge amount of knowledge. We want to share that knowledge and also learn from the Saudis as well in these important areas of arts, architecture, and design.”
The “Two Kingdoms” campaign runs in conjunction with World Cultural Diversity Day on May 21, which reinforces the Wrth’s mission to preserve traditional arts worldwide while empowering the artists who practice them.
British weapons sales to Israel gained traction in recent days amid the political fallout following the killings of three British aid workers, an attack Israel said was a “grave mistake”…reports Asian Lite News
The Deputy Prime Minister has said Britain would “not supply arms” to Israel if was unable to do so under international law but added that, at the moment, the legal advice over the issue remained unchanged.
Oliver Dowden’s comments to the BBC on Sunday come as pressure mounts on ministers to reveal what legal advice they have received on continuing arms exports to Israel.
Dowden said on the Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg TV programme that the Israelis had made “big mistakes” during the war, but would not be drawn into revealing the content of advice to ministers.
British weapons sales to Israel gained traction in recent days amid the political fallout following the killings of three British aid workers, an attack Israel said was a “grave mistake”.
“If it is the case that we can’t lawfully, in accordance with the Act, do so, of course we won’t supply those arms, but that is precisely the position, for example, even in respect of the United States or any other country around the world,” Dowden said.
“We rightly hold ourselves to a high standard, and we hold the countries to whom we export arms to a high standard, and I think that is what you would expect. And it contrasts so strongly, our adherence to very high values, with the appalling atrocities that have been committed by terrorist organisations against Israel.”
The Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch makes decisions on arms export licences, based on advice from the Foreign Secretary, David Cameron.
In an article in the Sunday Times, Lord Cameron said there is “no doubt where the blame lies” for the attack on the aid workers, adding that “this must never happen again”.
“Our backing is not unconditional,” he said in the article, while supporting Israel’s “right to self-defence. We expect such a proud and successful democracy to abide by international humanitarian law, even when challenged.”
Appearing on GB News, also on Sunday, Dowden said he could not rule out that Anderson could be restored as a Conservative MP if he does apologise, but said it was a matter for the party’s chief whip…reports Asian Lite News
The deputy prime minister has declined to say whether Lee Anderson’s comments were Islamophobic and said the MP would have kept his role had he apologised.
On Saturday Anderson was suspended as a Conservative MP after refusing to apologise for saying London Mayor Sadiq Khan is controlled by “Islamists”. Oliver Dowden told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Anderson was not “intending to be Islamophobic”.
Labour has renewed its criticism of the Tory party’s response.
In a letter to the prime minister, Labour said it was right to suspend Anderson “after his disgusting racist and Islamophobic remarks”.
Khan, mayor of London, has already said the comments were “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist” and that they “pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred.”
On Friday Anderson prompted fury after he said: “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London, and they’ve got control of Starmer as well.”
He later added: “People are just turning up in their thousands, and doing anything they want, and they are laughing at our police. This stems with Khan, he’s actually given our capital city away to his mates”.
On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Dowden was asked repeatedly whether he would say those comments were Islamophobic. He declined to do so, but said: “I share concerns about how it could be taken that way.”
He went on to say: “The fact it could be taken that way is the reason why the [Conservative] chief whip asked for an apology”.
He added that he understood that Anderson’s comments “have caused offence”.
But he defended how the party had handled the situation, adding that asking him to apologise for the remarks was “the appropriate step to take”.
Appearing on GB News, also on Sunday, Dowden said he could not rule out that Anderson could be restored as a Conservative MP if he does apologise, but said it was a matter for the party’s chief whip.
Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth, who wrote to the prime minister on Sunday, called this “extraordinary” and said it suggested the Conservatives were “not taking the threat of Islamophobia seriously”.
With Sunak among the world leaders staying away from New York, Dowden and Cleverly were the most senior UK representatives to the UN General Assembly and the Climate Week events running alongside it…reports Asian Lite News
Artificial intelligence poses a “bracing test” to the multilateral system, the UK government has warned, as it seeks to align countries including China behind its vision for regulating the technology’s “societal-scale” risks.
Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden and foreign secretary James Cleverly defended Britain’s decision to invite China to an AI regulation summit initially described as including only “like-minded countries”.
Dowden said the UK was still “working through” the exact nature of China’s participation in November’s summit at Bletchley Park, a base for British codebreakers during the second world war, but added: “I don’t think we can have meaningful multilateralism without engaging with China.”
In a speech to the UN on Friday, Dowden said the challenge of unleashing AI’s potential while limiting its risks would change relations between nations and require “a new form of multilateralism” because of the “country-sized influence” wielded by some technology companies and non-state actors.
“The AI revolution will be a bracing test for the multilateral system,” he told the UN, adding that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
Dowden said he was “totally clear about the national security implications of China” but had held “positive conversations” over its involvement in the summit. There would be obvious differences between the UK and countries with “less liberal democratic models”, he said, but these should not invalidate engaging with them.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak has faced a backlash from sections of his own Conservative party over his government’s policy of engagement with China since the recent revelation that a parliamentary researcher was arrested in March on suspicion of spying for Beijing.
Cleverly also defended the principle of engagement, however. “We can’t pretend China is not going to be active in these issues,” he said: “This is going to be a global issue. Both its positives and potential negatives. So inevitably, it’s going to demand a global response, which the UK is very much leading.”
Dowden said governments should not repeat the mistakes they had made in regulating social media sites too slowly as online safety risks proliferated. “That cannot happen here,” he said. “We cannot do it after the event with AI; that option doesn’t exist.”
The UK was confident that its “Frontier AI” task force, created in June with £100mn in government funding, could evolve to become “a permanent institutional structure, with an international offer”, Dowden said.
With Sunak among the world leaders staying away from New York, Dowden and Cleverly were the most senior UK representatives to the UN General Assembly and the Climate Week events running alongside it.
Dowden rejected criticisms from several Climate Week participants of Sunak’s relaxation of several of the UK’s climate change targets, including a five-year delay to a ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars.
“I find that people are very reassured that the UK remains committed to net zero by 2050,” he said. “But there’s also . . . an understanding that in the domestic situation in the United Kingdom, we have to be mindful about the impact of measures on our citizens.”
“I think if you really believe in making sure that you tackle climate change, you have to bring your own citizens with you,” Dowden said: “And the way you bring people with you is to have a pragmatic, not a dogmatic, approach to this.”
