Hung parliament in UK as Theresa May's election gamble backfires

June 9, 2017

London, Jun 9: British Prime Minister Theresa May's bet that she could strengthen her grip on power by calling an early election backfired spectacularly on Friday, with her Conservative Party on the verge of losing its parliamentary majority and May facing calls to resign.

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The outcome - an astonishing turn following a campaign that began with predictions that May would win in a historic landslide - immediately raised questions even among her fellow Tories about whether she could maintain her hold on 10 Downing Street.

It also threw into disarray the country's plans for leaving the European Union, threatening to render Britain rudderless just days before talks were to begin with European leaders over the terms of the nation's exit.

As of 5 a.m., a projection based on a combination of exit polls and official results put the Conservatives at 318 seats - eight short of what they would need for a working majority in the 650-member Parliament and well down from the 331 they won just two years ago.

The Labour Party was forecast to win 262 seats - an unexpected gain of dozens of seats under far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn. The outcome gave him at least a chance, albeit a remote one, of becoming prime minister - something virtually no one had thought possible before Thursday's vote.

The results mark the second time in as many years that the British body politic has defied predictions, scrambled the country's direction and bucked the will of a prime minister who had gambled by calling a vote when none had been required.

But unlike last year's E.U. referendum - which delivered a clear if close verdict to get out of the bloc - the will of the voters who cast ballots on Thursday was not nearly as easy to decipher.

There was little doubt that the Conservatives would emerge, again, as the largest party. But as Labour unexpectedly picked off seats - especially in areas of London that had voted last year to remain in the EU - May's once-undisputed political authority was being called into question.

A triumphant Corbyn, crowing that the country had "had enough of austerity politics," demanded that she resign.

"The prime minister called the election because she wanted a mandate," Corbyn said in an early morning speech after winning reelection to his north London district. "Well, the mandate she's got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that is enough for her to go, actually."

Minutes later, May - her voice trembling - delivered her own speech in which she said that as long as the Conservatives remain the largest party, they should be allowed to govern.

"The country needs a period of stability," she said.

But it was not a given that May would be allowed to stay on. Within her own party, Thursday's results represented a catastrophic outcome that may prompt a search for a new leader - even if the Tories ultimately have the votes necessary to continue to govern.

"It was a dreadful campaign - and that's me being generous," Anna Soubry, a Tory member of Parliament who narrowly won reelection, told the BBC.

Asked whether May should resign, Soubry replied: "It's bad. She's in a very difficult place."

Other top Tories were declining to appear on television to discuss May's fate amid internal party discussions over whether Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson or another senior figure should be brought in to replace her, BBC anchors reported as dawnc broke on Friday.

The election results suggested no party is likely to win a majority - a scenario known as a hung parliament.

If the Conservatives fall short of 236 seats, it will set off a free-for-all, with both Labour and the Tories seeking to forge alliances that get them to the magic number for a majority.

It is far from clear which parties would team up, or under what arrangements, to try to govern. A "progressive alliance" - including Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and others - may have as many seats as the Conservatives. But the Conservatives would also have potential coalition partners if they fall short of a majority, including Unionists in Northern Ireland.

The results - and the turmoil they portend - prompted an immediate drop in the pound, which fell 2 percent against the dollar within minutes after exit polls were released following the end of voting Thursday night.

Tories were incredulous at the early numbers, saying that they thought the results had undersold the party's performance and that official tallies would give them a higher total.

But as the results rolled in, they grew more somber and acknowledged suffering losses that virtually no one had foreseen.

In Europe, observers were bracing for yet more instability out of Britain.

"Could be messy for the United Kingdom in the years ahead," tweeted former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt. "One mess risks following another. Price to be paid for lack of true leadership."

The results drew intense scrutiny to May's choice to gamble by going back on repeated promises not to call an election before the one that had been due in 2020.

In April, with her popularly spiking and the country seeming to rally around her vow to be a "bloody difficult woman" in talks with European leaders, May stunned Britain with her call for a snap vote that she believed would give her a stronger mandate before the negotiations began.

Observers hailed the move as a cunning bit of political strategy and predicted she would secure the sort of overwhelming parliamentary majority that predecessors Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair had enjoyed.

But after that, little went according to plan.

Thursday's vote follows a turbulent campaign that was interrupted by two mass-casualty terrorist attacks, and that was marked by a faltering performance by May even as Corbyn exceeded expectations.

May - known for her resolute and no-nonsense persona - claimed the nation's top job only last year, emerging from the political wreckage of the country's choice to leave the EU.

Since then she has had only a slender majority in Parliament - won in a 2015 election when the country was governed by her predecessor, David Cameron - and she had feared that without a bigger cushion she would lack the latitude she needs in steering the country to Brexit.

But the approval May enjoyed in office didn't translate to the campaign trail. A politician who endlessly touted herself as a "strong and stable" finished the race being tagged by critics as "weak and wobbly" after high-profile U-turns, including a particularly disastrous bid to force senior citizens to pay more for social care - a measure derisively dubbed "the dementia tax."

She also ducked debates, and rarely mingled with voters in unscripted moments.

"We've learned what we suspected all along: She's not particularly fast on her feet, she's not a natural campaigner, she's not really a people person," said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.

Lacking the common touch, May's strategy was to focus the campaign on a presidential-style choice between her leadership skills and those of Corbyn. She relentlessly hammered her rival as a far-left throwback to another era who would leave the country vulnerable in both the Brexit talks and at a time of growing terrorist threats.

Corbyn - for decades a backbencher who unexpectedly vaulted to the party's leadership in 2015 with his Bernie Sanders-style message of taking on the 1 percent - faced a steeply uphill challenge to sell himself as a potential prime minister.

But he was widely seen to have mounted a far more credible challenge than many thought possible, running a nothing-to-lose campaign focused on ending seven years of Tory austerity policies and shrinking the gap between rich and poor.

Even if he doesn't prevail, his performance has undoubtedly saved his job as Labour leader - a stinging blow for more-centrist party figures who had quietly hoped the harsh glare of a national campaign would leave him exposed and force him to step aside.

Deep into Friday morning, Labour lawmakers who had spent nearly two years trying to overthrow Corbyn lined up to appear on television and sing his praises.

The results are a vindication of Corbyn's decision to focus the campaign on Tory budget cuts, rather than allow it to be defined by Brexit.

May had wanted the vote to be a referendum on her Brexit plan. But Corbyn spent little time discussing the issue.

Like the prime minister, Corbyn halfheartedly favored a vote to "remain" in the EU during the Brexit referendum. But also like May, he promised not to obstruct the will of voters and to follow through on their desires if they approved an exit.

Negotiations with the remaining 27 members of the EU are due to kick off in a little over a week. Even before Thursday's vote, May had faced long odds in delivering the successful exit she has promised. If she is still in office, her job has become even harder following the rejection of her plea for a broader mandate.

May had vowed a hard break with the bloc that leaves Britain outside the single market, the customs union and the European Court of Justice. But she has also promised to deliver a free-trade deal that will preserve the best elements of membership without many of the onerous burdens.

European leaders scoff at such a notion, and say that Britain's demands for EU benefits without responsibilities will have to be denied lest the country's departure trigger a rush to the exits by other nations demanding the same sweetheart deal.

If she prevails, May also will be under pressure to deliver on pledges to expand the powers of police and other security services following three deadly terrorist attacks this spring, including two in the midst of the campaign.

After the most recent attack - a van-and-knife rampage in London that left eight dead - May said "enough is enough" and promised a sweeping review of the nation's counterterrorism rules.

Many observers thought the attacks would play to May's advantage. But Corbyn managed to flip one of his potential areas of weakness - security - to a strength by hitting out at May for the cuts to police budgets she had authorized as the nation's home secretary, the top domestic security official.

He promised to put more cops back on the beat - a message that aligned with his broader mantra.

"It's sort of like Labour offering a huge platter of beautiful juicy burgers and steak and fried food in front of voters. And the Tories are like, 'Think about the bill!' and the voters are like, 'We don't want cold radish again!' " said Rob Ford, a politics professor at the University of Manchester. "You can see why people find that appealing."

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News Network
March 16,2024

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Ottawa, Mar 16: An Indian-origin couple and their teenage daughter were killed in a "suspicious" fire which tore through their home last week in Canada's Ontario province, police said on Friday.

A fire engulfed a home at the Big Sky Way and Van Kirk Drive area of Brampton on March 7, a press release by the Peel Police said.

After the blaze was put out, investigators located what was believed to be human remains within the gutted house, but the number of people killed couldn't be ascertained at the time.

The charred remains were on Friday identified as those of three family members: 51-year-old Rajiv Warikoo; his wife, 47-year-old Shilpa Kotha; and their 16-year-old daughter, Mahek Warikoo.

Police said that they resided at the address before the fire.

Peel police Constable Taryn Young on Friday said the fire had been deemed suspicious, the CTV news channel reported.

"At this time, we are investigating this with our homicide bureau, and we are deeming this as suspicious as the Ontario Fire Marshal has deemed that this fire was not accidental," the report quoted Young as saying.

"There's not much left to it," Young said when asked about the possible cause of the fire.

"Looking into something like that as a fire marshal, I'm sure it's very tough when there is not much left to look at. But we are exhausting all avenues," she said.

The deceased family's neighbour, Kenneth Yousaf, said that the family had lived on the street for about 15 years, and he never noticed any problems with them.

Yousaf said he was alerted to the fire last week by a family member, who heard a big "bang." "When we came out, the house was on fire. So sad. Within a few hours, everything was down to the ground," the report quoted Yousaf as saying.

In a press release, police said they are continuing to investigate the deaths of the three family members and urged anyone with information to come forward.

"The circumstances surrounding the house fire remains the focus of an active investigation, and anyone with information or video footage (dashcam or otherwise) is urged to contact Homicide detectives," police said.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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A teenager who led over 100 people to safety during Friday’s terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall, has been hailed as a hero. 15-year-old Islam Khalilov, who worked part-time in one of the cloakrooms at Crocus City, recounted the events of the tragic evening to the Ruptly video agency.

The concert venue situated just outside of Moscow was packed ahead of a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, when a group of terrorists armed with assault rifles forced their way into the building. They fired indiscriminately at fleeing people and then set the concert hall on fire.

According to the latest estimates, the attack has claimed the lives of at least 137 people, with about 180 injured.

Khalilov told the video agency that “it was when people started running from the escalator, from the stairway” that he realized that an emergency was occurring. The teenager said that he was acting on “instincts” at the time and used his thorough knowledge of the premises to quickly arrange visitors’ evacuation toward another building within the Crocus City complex.

“I started shouting all across the foyer, all across Crocus City Hall - ‘Folks, there’s a shooting! All run to the expo!’ – and I was showing where they had to go and was helping everyone,” he explained.

According to the cloakroom attendant, “there was a stampede, and everyone was in shock at first. No one knew what to do and where to go.”

Khalilov added that he himself was running behind the entire group to make sure he had not left anyone behind.

The teenager admitted to being “really scared” all along, but still managed to make the right use the instructions he’d previously been given on how to evacuate patrons in case of an emergency.

He told Ruptly that, at one point, he had caught a glimpse of one of the terrorists.

“I saw one, [he was] bearded and in green fatigues, he was walking around with an assault rifle,” the teenager recounted.

He also recalled seeing a man getting fatally shot by one of the assailants, adding that he “can’t stop thinking about it.”

The 15-year-old said he doesn’t consider himself a hero, and that he was just doing his job.

Explaining what helped him overcome fear, Khalilov reasoned that “It’s better to sacrifice yourself than to let a hundred people die.”

After Khalilov’s feat had been reported-on by several Russian media outlets, his favorite football club, FC Spartak Moscow, invited him to a meeting where he was presented with free passes to their matches.

Popular Russian rap artist Morgenstern said he had transferred 1,000,000 rubles ($11,000) to the teenager – something that Khalilov has confirmed to media.

The leader of Russia's Muslims, Mufti Ravil Guynutdin, has announced that Khalilov would receive a medal for his bravery.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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