Codes of conduct are on the rise, and have a focus on reputational risk as well as on harassment

When more than 1,300 lending bosses, regulators and MPs descended on Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane in London for a black-tie dinner in late February, they arrived informed.

Invitees to the Financing & Leasing Association event had been handed an “annual dinner code of conduct” telling guests about a new policy on discrimination and sexual harassment. The trade body would “not tolerate any such behaviour and will, along with our event agency, take immediate action to stop it”.

Continue reading...

Concerns grow over how new legislation will be policed and how it might affect freedom of speech

Enforcing Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act will “certainly” reduce public trust in the police, according to the general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation.

David Kennedy told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the law, which came into force on Monday and requires officers to assess “emotive” subjects such as online misgendering, “will cause havoc with trust in police in Scotland, it certainly will reduce that”,

Continue reading...

The Dutch legalisation spared her further misery. We don’t take euthanasia lightly; we’re just grateful to have the option

My mother, Jannèt, was 90 years old when she ended her life by means of euthanasia. For years she had been suffering from numerous serious and painful conditions that, although not fatal, did make her life miserable. She always worried about her health and was terrified of what the future undeniably held in store for her: more pain, more dependence on others, more suffering, more desperation.

On 20 June 2022 at 2pm she was visited by a doctor and a nurse. They had a last conversation with her, during which the doctor asked her if euthanasia was still what she wanted. My mother said yes. She had already decided that she would take the drink herself instead of being injected. She didn’t want to mentally burden the doctor more than necessary.

Renate van der Zee is a Dutch writer and journalist

Continue reading...

Questions surround ownership of demo tapes reportedly left by soul artist as a thank-you to his Ostend hosts

A collection of cassette tapes containing a host of unreleased Marvin Gaye songs has been found in the Belgian city of Ostend.

The collection, thought to contain 66 demo songs, belonged to the musician Charles Dumolin, in whose home Gaye stayed in 1981 as he underwent detox to fight cocaine addiction. When Dumolin died in 2019, the recordings were handed down to his family, along with a cache of Gaye memorabilia.

Continue reading...

The government insists the law, set to come into force on 1 April, is needed to protect victims but critics say it limits freedom of expression

A new law to tackle hate crime in Scotland will be implemented on 1 April, but the past few weeks have seen escalating concerns about how it will be policed and how it might impact freedom of speech. Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, has hit back at the “disinformation and inaccuracy” being spread about its implementation.

What are the aims of the new hate crime act?

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable

In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up.

Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers.

Continue reading...

High court strikes out part but not all of Bridgen’s case and orders him to pay Tory MP’s costs

The MP Andrew Bridgen has been ordered to pay Matt Hancock more than £40,000 in legal fees after an early stage of their libel battle.

The MP for North West Leicestershire is bringing a libel claim against the former health secretary regarding a January 2023 message on X that followed Bridgen posting a comment about Covid-19 vaccines.

Continue reading...

A group of men at the club who hope the male-only rule will change have nominated a set of possible new members

Seven women with leading positions in the British establishment have been nominated as prospective female members of the Garrick in the event that the club agrees to change its rules so that women are able to join.

The classicist Mary Beard, the former home secretary Amber Rudd, Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman and the new Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika are among the first names to have been put forward to the club as possible future members.

Continue reading...

Afghan regime’s return to public stoning and flogging is because there is ‘no one to hold them accountable’ for abuses, say activists

The Taliban’s announcement that it is resuming publicly stoning women to death has been enabled by the international community’s silence, human rights groups have said.

Safia Arefi, a lawyer and head of the Afghan human rights organisation Women’s Window of Hope, said the announcement had condemned Afghan women to return to the darkest days of Taliban rule in the 1990s.

Continue reading...