One more hard-hat photo opportunity for Rachel Reeves | Brief letters

Your pictures of Rachel Reeves in various hard hats, such as the one in Saturday’s paper, threaten to erase the memory of photos of Theresa and Philip May exiting church. Perhaps you could furnish us with a photo of Ms Reeves explaining to a group of benefit recipients why she proposed to cut their annual incomes by thousands of pounds, an encounter which would produce yet another hard-hat photo opportunity.Roderick MacFarquharEdinburgh Will UK universities follow France’s Aix-Marseille University in offering US-based researchers threatened by Trump’s crackdown on academia a “safe place” to undertake their work (Report, 17 April)? Will the government support such an initiative, or will they worry about upsetting the possibility of a UK-US trade deal?Rhiannon JonesSheffield I’d like the government to explain how we got into a situation where the wronged party pays the fines of those who broke the law (Water companies’ pollution incidents in England increased by 30% in 2024, 16 April).Marc Smith-EvansBagabag, the Philippines Things can get better (The death of customer service: why has it become so, so bad?, 17 April). The Passport Office recently renewed my passport in under a week

Some British MPs spending equivalent of a day a week doing second jobs

A total of seven MPs have spent on average one working day a week on second jobs since the start of the 2024 parliament, with additional gigs as TV presenters, lawyers and consultants.A Guardian analysis of self-declared working hours found the seven had worked at least 300 hours since July – the equivalent of eight hours a week, in outside employment averaged across the parliament – totalling more than 3,000 hours between them. A further seven MPs had worked at least five hours a week on a second job.Nigel Farage has made more money than any other MP from additional jobs in this parliament so far. The Reform UK leader has declared an average of about 24 hours’ work a week as a cameo creator, GB News presenter, media commentator, public speaker, Telegraph journalist, brand ambassador and social media influencer

Ten assaults a day on asylum seekers in Home Office care, figures reveal

The Home Office is recording an average of 10 assaults a day on asylum seekers in its care, according to internal government data, amid harsh government rhetoric on those crossing the Channel.Figures reveal that there were 5,960 referrals of assaults upon asylum seekers while in the care of the Home Office between January 2023 and August 2024. There were also 380 referrals of victims of hate crimes to their internal safeguarding hub during this period.The data, obtained using freedom of information (FoI) laws, shows that the Home Office received 11,547 reports that people in its care were victims of trafficking and 4,686 reports that they were victims of torture.Ministers have introduced a series of harsh measures against people who arrive in the UK on dinghies, such as increasing forced removals back to their home countries, the deprivation of British citizenship, and exploring returning them to France or to Balkan countries

UK set to ramp up weapons production to reduce reliance on US and French imports

Britain is set to significantly increase its weapons production in order to no longer rely on importing from the US and France.This comes as British and European defence companies move away from buying US-made weaponry and equipment due to concerns over president Donald Trump making the country an unreliable military partner.First reported by The Times, BAE Systems, the UK defence company, has been developing new methods to make sufficient explosives and propellants in the UK to meet the Ministry of Defence and export requirements.One of the ways the company, the largest defence contractor in Europe, is doing this is by creating sites across the UK to produce RDX explosives, which are used in 155mm rounds in British Army guns and weapons. It will also be seeking to build three new sites to add “resilience and support our ramp-up of critical munitions production”

‘Children with cancer cannot wait’: the human cost of clinical trial delays after Brexit

Children are among the NHS patients being denied access to revolutionary cancer drugs as a result of red tape and extra costs caused by Brexit, according to a report leaked to the Guardian. Two examples illustrate how the UK’s departure from the EU is derailing UK cancer research, leaving patients in limbo and unable to access pioneering treatments.eSMART is a trial of new targeted drugs and chemotherapy for children, teenagers and young adults whose cancer has returned or treatment has stopped working.The cost of importing medicines for the study – a collaboration between Paris and Birmingham – almost quadrupled from €52,000 to €205,000 (£175,000) because of Brexit.A range of factors were cited, including the expense of additional requirements in the paperwork for packaging, licensing and importation

Nigel Farage defends allowing US chlorinated chicken into UK as part of trade deal

Nigel Farage has defended allowing labelled chlorinated chicken from the US into the UK as part of a trade deal, as a poll suggested his Reform UK party could be on course to take the highest number of seats at a general election.Speaking before the local elections in England on 1 May, Farage said British consumers already ate chicken from places such as Thailand reared in poor conditions, and accepted chlorine-washed lettuce.He told the Sunday Times: “If you have a look at the chicken we are currently importing from Thailand, you look at the conditions they’ve been reared in, and that every single bag of pre-made salad in every single supermarket has been chlorinated … once those basics have been accepted I’ll have a debate with you.”Asked how he would prevent British chicken farmers being undercut by cheap producers from the US, he said: “I want to promote British farming as being a high-end product. I think the growth of farmers’ markets, they are a much more discerning audience that wants to know where their meat comes from