Ukrainian leader will attend UK meeting along with French president and German chancellor
Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz for talks in Downing Street on Sunday to discuss support for Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader will visit the UK with the French president and German chancellor after a week of heightened hostilities and Vladimir Putin’s rejection of his proposal of face-to-face talks on Moscow’s war.
Continue reading...Technology secretary Liz Kendall says she is ‘very concerned’ about role of social media but will not be ‘bullied off’ X
The government is considering fresh action to halt the spread of misinformation during public crises, Liz Kendall has said, insisting she will not be “bullied off” Elon Musk’s X.
The technology secretary was speaking after rioting broke out in Southampton over the police response to the fatal stabbing of Henry Nowak, a case about which Musk has repeatedly posted.
Continue reading...Prime minister’s office responds after JD Vance blames British teenager’s death on mass migration
Keir Starmer has suggested the US is trying to interfere in British democracy after JD Vance, the US vice-president, blamed the murder of the British teenager Henry Nowak on mass migration.
The prime minister’s office responded after the senior Republican politician claimed in a post on X that Nowak would be alive “if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate advocates public ownership of water companies as he prepares for potential leadership bid
Thames Water should be nationalised, Andy Burnham has said, revealing public ownership of water companies would “absolutely be an option” under his potential leadership of the Labour party.
Burnham, Labour’s candidate in the Makerfield byelection, has previously called for “greater public control” over the companies. In an interview with the Guardian, he has confirmed this could mean nationalisation.
Continue reading...Jess Asato’s lawyer says others want to take action over demeaning sexualised material created by Grok AI tool
New claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk’s company xAI after the Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case against the firm over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool.
A handful of complainants contacted Asato’s lawyer on Thursday in response to coverage of the MP’s decision to sue Musk’s company for damages over its creation and circulation of fake images of her in a bikini and an AI-created video that she said showed her “being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault”.
Continue reading...PM says Britons are ‘reasonable, tolerant people’ and backs MP’s legal action against Grok firm over fake sexualised images
Elon Musk is “interfering in our politics” and attempting to create division, Keir Starmer has said in a significant toughening of government language about the X owner.
The prime minister’s comments come after weeks of posts by Musk on his social media platform about the murder of Henry Nowak, many of which have used far-right themes and talking points.
Continue reading...Peter Kyle says British politics fails to reward political accomplishment and Labour risks aping Tory instability
The Labour party has not learned the right lessons from the Conservatives about changing leader, a senior cabinet minister has warned, saying in a swipe at potential challengers that “entitlement is not a qualification”.
Peter Kyle, the business secretary, said he was worried that British politics “rewards the wrong behaviour” and there was little credit for the work of his own department, including negotiating trade deals, rescue packages for companies and preserving British industry.
Continue reading...Darren Jones’s messages include requests for advice on the reshuffle and remarks about former business secretary Jonathan Reynolds
The prime minster’s close ally Darren Jones sent his commiserations to Peter Mandelson after he was sacked as US ambassador in messages that were not disclosed as part of the humble address release.
Jones’s texts also included requests for advice on the reshuffle and disobliging comments about the then business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and the influence of trade unions.
Continue reading...Health secretary announces expansion of Transform trial but does not back population-wide testing
Thousands more black men will be invited to take part in a prostate cancer screening trial as the health secretary insisted he was “following the science” in not backing population-wide testing.
James Murray accepted a recommendation from the UK national screening committee (UKNSC) that will result in only a few thousand high-risk men with a gene mutation being screened for the disease.
Continue reading...NHS bosses giving evidence to public accounts committee admit current position is unacceptable
GPs in England are so “overloaded” that they cannot help older people who are at risk of falling in what NHS bosses accept is an unacceptable failure of care, the House of Commons’ public accounts committee has said.
Pressure on GPs’ time has intensified as a result of the government’s decision to give patients online access to their services, according to a report by the influential cross-party group of MPs.
Continue reading...Home secretary says officer wrongly linked to case had to relocate after footage emerged of victim being handcuffed while dying
BBC Scotland has more details of the Peter Murrell hearing this morning on its live blog. And, on its live blog, Sky News has pictures of some of the items purchased by Murrell with stolen SNP funds.
Andy Burnham will not call an early election if he becomes prime minister after the Makerfield byelection, a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester mayor has said.
Continue reading...UK government says it would prefer workers to be guaranteed between eight and 20 hours a week based on regular hours
Ministers are facing criticism from unions and employers after laying out details of plans for a guaranteed regular working week as part of a ban on zero-hours contracts.
Under rules poised to come into force next year, employers will have to offer staff, including agency workers, a contract that guarantees a minimum number of hours each week based on their regular working hours.
Continue reading...Home secretary’s condenmation of ‘misinformation and inflammatory commentary’ comes after death threats to police
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has warned of a “dangerous undercurrent” in the wake of the murder of Henry Nowak, who was falsely accused of racism by a Sikh man who had fatally stabbed him with a ceremonial dagger.
Vickrum Digwa, 23, was sentenced on Monday to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years for the December 2025 murder of 18-year-old Nowak.
Continue reading...Emily Thornberry criticises Israel’s ‘staggering’ sense of impunity and rebukes Donald Trump for abandoning Gaza
The UK government has let down Palestinian people and failed to make it economically impossible for Israel to continue to act with impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, has said.
She accused her own government of lacking ambition and wringing its hands on the Palestinian crisis, and she chastised Donald Trump for declaring a ceasefire in Gaza and then walking away, leaving Gazans to live in rubble.
Continue reading...Party could struggle to push ratings as strategy increasingly focuses on views held by minority of voters, research finds
Reform UK is becoming increasingly reliant on socially conservative views for political support, and therefore could struggle to push its poll ratings much higher, a large-scale research project led by the leading psephologist John Curtice has found.
A study of Nigel Farage’s party carried out as part of the British Social Attitudes report found that while Reform supporters were disproportionately more likely to be unhappy with politicians and public services, recent recruits had seemingly more robust attitudes in areas such as diversity and welfare.
Continue reading...Sources predict ‘toe-curling’ revelations as more than 1,000 pages of documents relating to his appointment as US ambassador to be published
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the release of the Mandelson files today would be “an unprecedented piece of government transparency”.
He said that party political material would be included, despite precedent suggesting it should be included, and that some material had to be declassified to allow it to be published.
The broad scope of the [humble address motion – see 9.26am] has required the discovery, assessment, analysis and preparation of thousands of individual documents and messages.
This is a task that has involved every government department.
Yeah, I have changed what I would say. I wouldn’t say that phrase any more.
And I think that, you know, over the last few years, I think a lot of us, myself included, have thought about this question in quite some detail.
Continue reading...Judgment outlawing forcing of survivors of trafficking, torture and other forms of violence to share rooms is blow to Shabana Mahmood’s asylum plans
Shabana Mahmood’s plan to house more asylum seekers in former army barracks is facing a major hurdle after the high court ruled on Thursday that a policy change forcing torture victims to share rooms was unlawful.
According to a judgment seen by the Guardian, the government failed in its duties when it forced survivors of trafficking, torture and other serious forms of violence to share rooms with strangers.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Ministers are proposing new laws to crack down on damage to undersea cables amid “hostile activity by Russia”, the Press Association reports. PA says:
Tougher penalties for ship owners and operators who recklessly damage underwater infrastructure will be set out in a white paper later this year, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said.
Acts of sabotage linked to a hostile state already carries life imprisonment for the most serious cases but undersea malicious activity sometimes operates in a “grey zone” which is difficult to prosecute, DSIT said.
It’s astonishing that Reform have admitted they knew about Kenyon’s social media accounts. Nigel Farage needs to urgently explain to the public why, if his party was aware of his online history, he was happy to put forward a candidate who has made vile degrading comments about women, multiple homophobic posts and spread dangerous false narratives about the Manchester Arena bombing.
I am rough around the edges. I have made mistakes in my life. I’m not perfect. Nobody is. Not a single person in the world is perfect. I think everybody does say things that eventually they regret.
It was a crude attempt at a joke to probably about 50 followers.
No offence was meant, and it’s not something I’d do now.
I think I’ve addressed the issue. I think that no offence was meant and it wasn’t a direct comment to her. If you go into any building site in the area or any public barracks, I think you’d hear a hundred times worse said.
Continue reading...Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate understood to have changed stance on no recourse to public funds policy
Andy Burnham has rolled back from his previous calls for ministers to scrap a restriction on immigrants claiming benefits as the Makerfield byelection places greater scrutiny on his policy positions.
As Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham has called several times for an end to the rule known as no recourse to public funds (NRPF), which since 1999 has prevented new arrivals getting access to benefits or public housing before they are granted settled status.
Continue reading...What’s Carol Vorderman moaning about? All I said was how fit she was … must be going through the menopause or something
Another sweltering sub-Saharan summer’s day in late spring. If this is global warming, I say: “Bring it on.” I go outside to the van, turn on the engine and leave it running. This is the kind of day you want to burn as many fossil fuels as possible. Back indoors, I turn on the radio where Tony Blair is talking. There’s a politician who talks sense.
Bollocks to net zero. That’s what I say. It stands to reason. I mean, think back to the ice age. Let’s face it, there weren’t that many international flights a day while the Neanderthals were alive – five or six at most – and the world still got a whole lot hotter. So it’s all just woke nonsense. Make a note in my diary to ask if Tony is free to come up to Makerfield to do some door-knocking.
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