Category Archives: business secretary

Ron DeSantis Praises Kemi Badenoch For Her War On ‘Woke Ideology’

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Hardline US presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has praised Kemi Badenoch for her fight against so-called “woke ideology”.

The Florida governor met the business secretary on a trip to Britain ahead of a potential run against Donald Trump to be the next Republican candidate.

He singled out Badenoch for her views on Britain’s cultural debates, during an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.

The paper claimed his allies hope that Badenoch could be the next Margaret Thatcher to their new Ronald Reagan.

DeSantis praised the senior Tory, who is also minister for women and equalities, for her outspoken views.

He described “woke ideology” as “a war on the truth”, telling the paper: “When institutions get infected by woke ideology, it really corrupts the institutions.

“We look at woke infiltrating schools as a problem, woke infiltrating bureaucracies as a problem and woke infiltrating corporate America as a problem. We say that Florida is where woke goes to die.”

DeSantis said Badenoch “complimented what we are doing in Florida” and added: “I commend her and her efforts to make sure that this is not corrupting British society.”

In a post on Twitter following the meeting, DeSantis said she is such a “strong, outspoken leader in the United Kingdom”.

“We share the same goal of spurring economic growth for our people and I look forward to continuing our relationship,” he added.

DeSantis has not announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination but is widely expected to do so.

In his interview, he also addressed speculation over his potential run at the White House, telling the paper: “I’m going to go through our legislative session, get the people’s business done. I’m still in the midst of that.

“I’ve got about another week or so of that, and then I have the Budget and everything. I’m not going to make any decision before then.

“But the end of that time is coming, it’s closer now than it was six months ago. So just stay tuned.”

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‘Life And Limb Must Come First’ – Grant Shapps Defends Controversial Anti-Strikes Bill

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Grant Shapps today said “life and limb must come first” as he defended a controversial new anti-strike bill.

The Business Secretary was promoting the new law aimed at ensuring a minimum level of service in crucial sectors during industrial action.

Shapps said the government want to end “forever strikes” and argued that the government’s legislation would bring the UK “into line” with other European countries.

The move has sparked threats of legal challenges, while Labour has said it would likely repeal the legislation.

The bill will be introduced to parliament on Tuesday afternoon, a day after crisis talks between ministers and unions failed to resolve industrial disputes involving nurses, teachers and rail workers.

Shapps told GB News: “I’ll be introducing a minimum safety level bill, which will sort of say, ‘look, we will never withdraw the right to strike from people but when there are strikes on life and limb must come first, and there has to be a minimum safety standard put in place for that’.”

He added: “We don’t really ever want to have to use that legislation.

“In those most recent strikes, the Royal College of Nursing, the nurses, agreed a set national level of support.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get there with ambulances across the country, meaning there was a bit of a postcode lottery as to whether an ambulance would turn up in the case of something serious, like a heart attack or a stroke.

“We can’t have that, so common sense tells us that we need to have minimum safety levels.”

Health Secretary Steve Barclay is considering backdating next year’s NHS staff pay increase to prevent further strikes.

He suggested that improvements in efficiency could “unlock additional funding”, leading to an increased offer for the 2023/24 pay settlement in the spring.

Sara Gorton, from Unison, said there had been an “acknowledgement” that avoiding strikes would “involve a reach-back” into the current pay year.

It raises the prospect that the pay deal for 2023/24, which is due to be agreed in time for April, could be backdated and applied to the final quarter of the 2022/23 financial year.

Ministers have previously refused to discuss wages for nurses and other public-sector workers, insisting those were matters for the independent pay review bodies.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak will chair his first Cabinet meeting of in 2023 on Tuesday morning.

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