LONDON: Jeremy Hunt, one of the two candidates vying to replace British Prime Minister Theresa May, said on Monday that rival Boris Johnson was a coward for avoiding public head-to-head debates on what to do about Brexit.
“On the question of debates, he is being a coward,” Foreign Secretary Hunt said. “It is cowardice not to appear in head-to-head debates.”
Hunt, 52, said it was disrespectful for Johnson to have turned down the opportunity for a head-to-head debate on Sky television.
“People need to know what you’re going to do and you need to answer those questions,” Hunt said. “I promise Boris Johnson the fight of his life and he’s going to have that and he’s going to lose.”
Johnson, 55, is the favorite to win a vote of 160,000 Conservative Party members who will decide who will be the next prime minister. Betting markets give him a 79 percent implied probability of winning the top job, down from 92 percent last week.
He has cast himself as the only candidate who can deliver Brexit on October 31 — with or without a deal — while fighting off the electoral threats of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and socialist Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.
Early on Friday, police were called to Johnson’s home after neighbors heard a loud altercation between him and his girlfriend. Police said there was no cause for police action.
The Guardian newspaper, which first reported the story, said an unidentified neighbor had heard Johnson’s girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, screaming followed by “slamming and banging.” At one point, Symonds could be heard telling Johnson to “get off me” and “get out of my flat.”
Johnson declined to answer questions about the incident at a hustings event in Birmingham on Saturday.
Hunt said the personal life of Johnson was irrelevant but that the candidates should explain their Brexit positions — and specifically what would a new leader do if lawmakers tried to sink a new government heading toward a no-deal Brexit.
“If parliament takes no-deal off the table before Oct. 31, will Boris call a general election?” Hunt said. “I think a general election would be catastrophic.”
Hunt said he would seek a better deal from the EU to leave on Oct. 31 and would, if absolutely necessary, leave without a deal. If parliament took a no-deal Brexit off the table, he intimated there would have to be delay.
“In that situation, you would have to carry on negotiating,” Hunt said. “I want to leave by Oct. 31 but if parliament stops it the prime minister has to obey the law.”
Johnson repeated on Monday that he would lead the United Kingdom out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal.
“We are going to come out of the EU on October 31,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph. “This time we are not going to bottle it.”
Like Hunt, Johnson promised lower taxes if he wins the top job.
When asked the naughtiest thing he had ever done, Hunt said: “When I was backpacking through India, I once had a Bhang Lassi — which is a kind of cannabis lassi — that’s the naughtiest thing I am prepared to confess to on this program.”
UK PM candidate Hunt: Boris Johnson is a ‘coward’ for avoiding debates on Brexit
UK PM candidate Hunt: Boris Johnson is a ‘coward’ for avoiding debates on Brexit
- Jeremy Hunt: It was disrespectful for Boris Johnson to turn down the opportunity for a head-to-head debate
- Hunt says candidates should explain their Brexit positions
Shooter kills 9 at Canadian school and residence
- The shooter was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound
- A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries
TORONTO: A shooter killed nine people and wounded dozens more at a secondary school and a residence in a remote part of western Canada on Tuesday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country’s history.
The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
The attack occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, a picturesque mountain valley town in the foothills of the Rockies.
A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated” by the “horrific acts of violence” and announced he was suspending plans to travel to the Munich Security Conference on Wednesday, where he had been set to hold talks with allies on transatlantic defense readiness.
Police said an alert was issued about an active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon.
As police searched the school, they found six people shot dead. A seventh person with a gunshot wound died en route to hospital.
Separately, police found two more bodies at a residence in the town.
The residence is “believed to be connected to the incident,” police said.
At the school, “an individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self?inflicted injury,” police said.
Police have not yet released any information about the age of the shooter or the victims.
“We are devastated by the loss of life and the profound impact this tragedy has had on families, students, staff, and our entire town,” the municipality of Tumbler Ridge said in a statement.
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.
“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.
He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.
He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.
“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things... just go off the rails,” he told AFP.
‘Heartbreak’
While mass shootings are extremely rare in Canada, last April, a vehicle attack that targeted a Filipino cultural festival in Vancouver killed 11 people.
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the latest violence “unimaginable.”
Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, said it was “one of the worst mass shootings in our province’s and country’s history.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee, whose athletes are competing in the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, said Wednesday it was “heartbroken by the news of the horrific school shooting.”
Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”
Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.
The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.
Tumbler Ridge, a quiet town with roughly 2,400 residents, is more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) north of Vancouver, British Columbia’s largest city.
“There are no words sufficient for the heartbreak our community is experiencing tonight,” the municipality said.
