Heather Wheeler, Foreign Office minister. Brexiteer from Norfolk. Promoted from the ministry of housing, where she was homelessness minister. Unwisely described rough sleepers in her constituency as “the traditional type — old tinkers, knife-cutters wandering through.” Had to apologize. Interesting choice for the diplomatic corps given she tweeted during the 2012 Olympics that if you added all the medals up, the “British Empire” had come out on top. Later explained her comments were “tongue in cheek.”
TODAY IN WESTMINSTER
YOUTH VIOLENCE: Schools in areas with a higher risk of youth violence should be given dedicated police officers, MPs on the Commons home affairs committee say in a new report out this morning. The MPs say the current approach to violent crime is “completely inadequate” and radical action is needed, the BBC reports. Johnson made a whatsapp number list crackdown on crime a central part of his Tory leadership campaign and you can expect this one to run and run in the months ahead. Johnson’s new Policing Minister Kit Malthouse will be touring broadcast studios to respond to the report.
PRITI VS. FACEBOOK: Home Secretary Priti Patel takes aim at Facebook this morning following the “five eyes” security conference in London. Writing in the Telegraph, Patel will echo the calls of her predecessors for social media and messaging firms to give security services “lawful access” to encrypted messages through a “back door.” We’ve heard this all before many times, of course, and you can expect the big tech firms to keep on pushing back hard.
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