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The Guardian view on Britain and Europe: Labour must bring it on | Editorial

Sir Ed Davey – and even Kemi Badenoch – are saying new things about post-Brexit challenges. It is time for Sir Keir Starmer to do likewise A settled British relationship with the European Union has become an increasingly pressing part of Britain’s unfinished national business. Labour came into office promising a welcome post-Brexit reset with Europe. As a result, there have been some useful changes . Yet the reset remains more performative than substantive. In the material world, Britain has not yet moved a single inch – or, if you prefer, a single centimetre – closer to the more constructive trading relationship that should be at any reset’s core. But that may be about to change. Not before time. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/edwxJbA
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KemiKaze’s ‘relaunch’ speech reveals a Tory leader already out of ideas | John Crace

Kemi Badenoch says she’s sorry not sorry for the mess left by 14 years of the Tories, but offers no clue of how to dig us out of it Seeing is not always believing. Fair to say that Kemi Badenoch’s time as leader of the Tory party has not got off to the best of starts. Hopeless at prime minister’s questions and seemingly already out of ideas, many in the party are already looking around for possible successors. Even Robert Jenrick. Things really are that desperate. Even so, 10 weeks in feels a little premature for a relaunch. If that’s what it was. Hard to know really as no one was much the wiser after Kemi had finished what had been billed as an “important” speech at the Institute of Directors in central London. No one does pointlessness quite like KemiKaze. She is the queen of futility. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/rA3ITEc

UK women share their experiences of using fertility-tracking apps

More women are using apps instead of the pill, but while some find them ‘freeing’, others had unwanted pregnancies After 15 years on the contraceptive pill Francesca* decided that she wanted to know how her body felt without additional hormones. She started using a fertility tracking app – which tracks menstrual cycles or symptoms of ovulation to help estimate a woman’s fertile window – after learning about them on social media. “I had been taking hormones since my teens, and had no real conception of my menstrual cycle in my adult life,” said the Londoner, now in her early 30s. She had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) at 18 and told to continue taking the pill to help with symptoms. “Remarkably, pretty much all of my hormonal imbalance symptoms started to subside after stopping taking the pill,” she said. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/1ylY4kn

Stride’s Hamlet gag saves Reeves from slings and arrows of economic fortune | John Crace

Instead of evaluating chancellor’s performance, her shadow apes rightwing press and calls for her sacking You can only conclude that Conservative MPs are just too trusting for their own good. Either that or they are catatonically dim. The rest of us know enough to not always believe what we read on the front page of the rightwing papers, but Tory MPs seem to take everything at face value. If it’s in the paper, it must be true. It’s almost touching. Tuesday’s front pages of the Mail and the Telegraph insisted Rachel Reeves’s time was up. Going to China while the international bond markets crept upwards was the last straw. The chancellor should resign. What’s more, the prime minister had expressed his “full confidence” in Reeves, which could only mean that he was about to sack her. Let’s just say that Monday had been a slow news day in Westminster and some hacks had decided to make mischief. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/UBf0Cvn

The Guardian view on AI and public services: computers can’t cure all of Britain’s problems | Editorial

Public investment in technology is the right move. But ministers must not become boosters for an industry that causes harm as well as good Digital technology companies have reshaped our world and will continue doing so. Sir Keir Starmer knows his government must seek a role in shaping this new order – and avoid ceding all control to the US and China. According to official estimates, the UK is the third-largest AI market. Its universities are important incubators of talent. Google DeepMind, two of whose scientists won a Nobel chemistry prize last year , was a British company until Google bought it in 2014. But the world’s two largest economies, and particularly the US corporations that dominate our online lives, are a long way ahead. The danger for the rest of the world is being swept along in an AI wave over which it has little control. Expanding Britain’s publicly owned computing resource – a national asset known as sovereign compute capacity – is a necessary step toward securing ...

Missing Briton’s belongings found in Dolomites as rescuers continue search

Italy’s Alpine cliff and cave rescue corps find items belonging to Aziz Ziriat as search continues Items belonging to a British hiker who has been missing in the Dolomites since New Year’s Day have been found as the search for him continues. Sam Harris, 35, and Aziz Ziriat, 36, from London, last sent messages home on 1 January and the pair did not check in for their flight home on 6 January. Friends and relatives have travelled to Italy. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/6P3wvCp