🚨 The Cabinet Office is refusing to hand information about Boris Johnson’s latest alleged lockdown breaches to the official Covid-19 inquiry 👇 @RubyJLL
opendemocracy.net/en/cabinet-off… @RubyJLL 🔴 The Cabinet Office has also removed key details from evidence already shared with the inquiry, a damning letter from the inquiry’s chair has revealed
opendemocracy.net/en/cabinet-off…

🛤️ Public transport in the government’s flagship “levelling up” areas is still so inadequate that even their own MPs do not rely on it
opendemocracy.net/en/dehenna-dav… 🔴 It's been four years since the Tories pledged to close the gap between the capital and the rest of the country.

⛽️ Still, Conservative and Labour MPs for city regions outside London are driving hundreds of miles around their constituencies

💰 A former ‘playboy’-turned-businessman made a fortune supplying PPE during the pandemic, but the NHS may be unable to use millions of the gowns his company delivered 👇 @adambychawski
opendemocracy.net/en/covid-19-pp… 1/5 of gowns supplied by his company, Chemical Intelligence, were labelled “not fit for use”.

They were reported to have “failed the technical, clinical or regulatory compliance assessment”
opendemocracy.net/en/covid-19-pp…

🏳️‍⚧️ Today is Transgender Day of Rememberance #TDOR #TDoR2022
We wish to remember and honour the lives of trans people who have been lost to transphobic violence.
This 🧵 includes some of the work published by @openDemocracy surrounding trans rights and more ⤵️ 🏆 This feature by @shefalirafiq_ provides a glimpse into the lives of trans people in Kashmir. It received the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity
opendemocracy.net/en/5050/transg…

🔴 Jeremy Hunt's #AutumnStatement could mean a 'winter of hardship' for many
Read more 👇
opendemocracy.net/en/autumn-stat… 💰 The government estimates capping social rents will save it £630m over five years.
⛔️ Private rents, however, will remain unregulated.
opendemocracy.net/en/autumn-stat…

🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Weapons firms install 50 staff inside the Ministry of Defence

🧵 Thread ⤵️
opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-… The UK's biggest weapons manufacturer, BAE systems, pays the salaries of nine staffers on long-term secondment. Some of them have been embedded inside the department for years.

🚨 In the hours after Putin's mobilisation speech on 21 September, tickets for all visa-free destinations sold out.

Now, Russians are fleeing to Kazakhstan to avoid being called up to fight in Ukraine.

🧵 Thread 👇
opendemocracy.net/en/odr/putin-m… Since Vladimir Putin announced a mobilisation of Russian citizens to fight in Ukraine, thousands of men have fled the country.

Nearly 100,000 Russian citizens have crossed into Kazakhstan since last week, said the country’s interior ministry on Tuesday

🔴 Journalists should not be silenced by legal threats.

We are a small, not-for-profit organisation up against seriously big money. We have good lawyers helping us but our #legal bill is already in the tens of thousands.

We urgently need your support. 👇 gofund.me/00d8fe13

EXCLUSIVE: As @ofgem announce another huge rise to the #energy #pricecap we reveal the scale of the ‘revolving door’ between major energy firms and key government posts. opendemocracy.net/en/ofgem-energ… Among those given key roles in UK energy policy are a former British Gas director who is now responsible for setting the energy price cap at Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, and a non-executive director at the business department who remains a board chairman at energy giant BP.

🔴 BREAKING: Government power grab is exactly what experts feared.

opendemocracy.net/en/boris-johns… Former electoral commissioner David Howarth has accused Boris Johnson of “partisan interference” in plans for reform of the @ElectoralCommUK after details were announced this week.

🔴 Six months ago, at around 5am on 24 February, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war that started in 2014. openDemocracy has published hundreds of stories from #Ukraine and the surrounding region, about the conflict and its impact both inside and outside the country.

“Power has been snatched from ordinary people by an ever-growing tangle of rules. We need to reclaim it.”

⚖️ Here's why we need fewer laws, according to barrister and author @Livesrunning 👇 🗣️ “You might be wondering why a left-wing lawyer would call for fewer laws. Isn’t it the Right that argues for shrinking the state? Isn’t it the case that every popular movement in history has gone into battle with the state?”

🔴 EXCLUSIVE: What was Boris Johnson doing during the pandemic? He’s spent a year refusing to tell us.

The (just about) prime minister won’t say who he met and spoke to. Critics say he doesn’t believe the rules apply to him
opendemocracy.net/en/boris-johns… 📓 We've spent over a year battling government to get access to ministerial diaries.

18 ministers still won’t say how they spent their time as Britain’s biggest health crisis in a century unfolded.

Boris Johnson’s office said there was “limited value” in handing over his diary

🚨BREAKING: As cabinet ministers hand in their resignation notices, survivors of sexual violence have hit out at @BorisJohnson and his government for creating a ‘boys club’ culture of misogyny and impunity.

opendemocracy.net/en/5050/rape-s… The accusations surfaced after the Prime Minister allegedly ignored numerous allegations of sexual misconduct by former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher.

This is Chatsworth House, the Duke of Devonshire's home.

He gets £69k a year from the taxpayer to heat it by burning wood – that’s £1,395,160 over 20 years.

His boilers have already paid for themselves, but he’s set to get the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) cash until 2033 This is Holkham Hall, home of the Earl of Leicester.

The Conservative peer burns wood from his 2000-acre woodland to heat his home.

He stands to get a taxpayer subsidy of £63,221.79 a year for 20 years – that’s £1,264,435 in total from the RHI scheme

🔴 REVEALED: Just 5% of Metropolitan Police officers disciplined for racism towards fellow officers in recent years were sacked.

All the details in this thread 🧵👇
opendemocracy.net/en/metropolita… Four officers of the 76 who had disciplinary proceedings for racism against their colleagues upheld were dismissed without notice between 2017-2021.

Three further officers resigned or retired during this period after claims against them were upheld

🗂️ Source: FOI requests

The past year has witnessed a continuous scapegoating of LGBTQ people in Ghana, with a proposed new law leading to attacks on the community.

@ahuoden explains how you can help ⬇️

(thread 🧵) opendemocracy.net/en/5050/ghana-… US evangelicals are "exporting hate to African countries", he writes.

"In the eyes of their members, Africa is a new breeding ground for their ideology, which has been rejected or resisted in the US and other Western countries"

🔴 Weapons makers, tobacco manufacturers and healthcare businesses are among the private firms that have bought access to Parliament through a £13m “back door” lobbying network.

More details in this thread 👇 🗣️ “Parliamentary authorities are just constantly turning a blind eye to MPs and peers abusing the system.”

– Francis Ingham, Public Relations and Communications Association
opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…

🔴 Pushbacks are becoming a “normalised” practice at European borders.

Our investigation reveals that three Turkish nationals seeking asylum in Greece were allegedly tortured by plain-clothes officials, who then illegally put them on a boat back to Turkey
opendemocracy.net/en/north-afric… 233 Turkish nationals have been illegally forced to return to Turkey, where they risked persecution

🔴 The right to protest is under threat.

The #PolicingBill threatens anyone in England and Wales who has a cause they believe in. But it’s not too late to stop it.

Please email your MP to say that you oppose this attack on our civil liberties 👇
do.opendemocracy.net/policebill In March this year, @sianberry wrote: "For five years I have been challenging the policing of protests in the London Assembly. Yet the government is trying to extend the controls on dissent"
opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…

🔴 A former Conservative minister who has criticised climate change policies and led calls to restart fracking has been paid £150,000 by an oil firm.

John Hayes has received a £50,000 salary from BB Energy since 2018.

~thread
opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra… Hayes' register of interests says he currently earns £50,000 for about 11 days’ work a year.

This comes on top of his standard MP salary of £81,932