British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was fined by police on Friday for taking off his seat belt to film a social media video in a moving vehicle.
Sunak, 42, has apologized for making an “error of judgement” while recording a message for Instagram from the back of an official government vehicle during a visit to northwest England on Thursday.
The Lancashire Police force said it had looked into video “circulating on social media showing an individual failing to wear a seat belt while a passenger in a moving car in Lancashire.”
Photo: Reuters
The force said, without naming Sunak, that it had “issued a 42-year-old man from London with a conditional offer of fixed penalty.”
Failing to wear a seat belt is punishable by a penalty of up to ￡500 (US$620), although fixed penalty notices for such offenses are usually ￡100 if paid promptly.
The conditional offer means that the person fined accepts guilt, but does not have to go to court.
Police did not say how much Sunak was fined.
Sunak’s office said in a statement that “the prime minister fully accepts this was a mistake and has apologized. He will of course comply with the fixed penalty.”
It is the second time Sunak has been fined during his political career. Last year, when he was chancellor of the exchequer, he was fined ￡50 for breaching COVID-19 pandemic lockdown rules by briefly attending a party inside government offices.
He was one of dozens of officials fined over the “partygate” scandal, including then-British prime minister Boris Johnson.
Sunak took office as prime minister in October last year, promising “integrity, professionalism and accountability.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS