The Know Daily - Monday 13 November 2023

_{Read in 5m 24s ∙ Listening to The Cranberries}

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An expedition team in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains have rediscovered a long-lost species of mammal, more than 60 years after it was last recorded. The long-beaked echidna - or Zaglossus attenboroughi, named after David Attenborough - has “the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater, and the feet of a mole”, said The Independent.

💼 Suella Braverman sacked

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been fired by PM Rishi Sunak after she was accused of stoking far-right violence against police officers on Saturday. 

What had Braverman said?
Writing in The Times last Wednesday, Braverman had accused the Metropolitan Police of “playing favourites” by allowing a pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day to go ahead. 

The article provoked a row within the government, as it emerged that the Home Secretary had denied a request by Downing Street to tone down her comments.

So what happened this weekend?
“Skirmishes” broke out between police and far-right groups at the march in central London on Saturday, Reuters reported.

The former chief constable of Greater Manchester, Peter Fahy, said that calling the police biased had “encouraged” rightwing extremists and “created the conditions where it stoked up their anger”. 

Meanwhile, the Met’s assistant commissioner, Matt Twist, said in a statement on Saturday night that the “intense debate about protest and policing” had helped to “increase community tensions”. 

And now Braverman has been sacked?
Yes - at around 8:30am this morning. “The prime minister came under pressure to act after Ms Braverman was accused of undermining the operational independence of - and public confidence in - the police,” reported Sky News.

The Independent labelled the Home Secretary’s sacking a “dramatic move” which threatens to open up a “major rift” between the PM and backbench Tory MPs.