Category Archives: Politics

AfD’s success in German elections piles pressure on a fragmented EU

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The centre ‘may be holding’ but if the far right continues to win elections, the European project faces a rocky few years

Alternative für Deutschland’s stunning success in Germany’s regional elections was described as “bitter” and “worrying” by chancellor Olaf Scholz. It is also concerning for the EU, which is grappling with existential problems, from Russia’s grinding war on Ukraine to the climate crisis, while at the beginning of a new five-year cycle after the European elections earlier this summer.

“A dark day for Germany is a dark day for Europe,” said French centrist MEP leader Valérie Heyer. While the results in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony were not a surprise after the AfD’s strong showing in June’s European parliamentary vote, they confirm the steady rise of parties once considered beyond the pale.

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Tory leadership frontrunners hit out at rivals’ promises to leave ECHR

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Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly both reject idea of leaving European Court of Human Rights to revive Rwanda plan

Two frontrunners to be Conservative party leader have criticised their rivals’ promises to leave the European court of human rights (ECHR) as the contest turns combative with days to go until the first MP is eliminated.

Kemi Badenoch, the shadow communities secretary, and James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, both rejected the idea of leaving the ECHR on Monday despite calls from some of their colleagues to do so.

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UK suspends 30 arms export licences to Israel after review

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Foreign Office says review found ‘clear risk’ UK arms may be used in violation of humanitarian law

The UK has broken with the Biden administration on a significant part of their tightly coordinated policy towards Israel by announcing it is suspending some arms export licences to Israel because of a “clear risk” they may be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

The Foreign Office said a two-month internal review had raised concerns about the way Israel had conducted itself in the conflict in Gaza and that the decision specifically related to concerns around the treatment of Palestinian detainees and the supply of aid to Gaza.

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Starmer criticises Labour MP over tenants’ complaints of mould and ants

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PM says ‘it’s unacceptable’ when asked about Jas Athwal allegations but adds MP is ‘taking action to put it right’

Keir Starmer has criticised a Labour MP who has been accused of renting out flats with black mould and ant infestations, calling the conditions “unacceptable”.

The prime minister addressed the accusations against Jas Athwal, the MP for Ilford South, on Monday after a report by the BBC quoted several of his tenants complaining about the conditions in the properties they rented from him. One said there were ants “everywhere”, adding: “They are on my kid’s body and on their clothes.”

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Starmer rejects Badenoch’s claim Labour is ‘clueless’ and urges Tories to apologise for the ‘mess they made’ – as it happened

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PM says he will not take lectures from previous government as Kemi Badenoch launches Tory leadership campaign

Kemi Badenoch is speaking now. She says she wants to talk about the future.

She was born in the UK, but “grew up under socialism”, she says (referring to her childhood in Nigeria).

Labour have no ideas. At best, they are announcing things we have already done, and at their worst, they are clueless, irresponsible and dishonest.

They are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public about the state of Britain’s finances, placing political donors into civil service jobs, pretending that they have no plans to cut pensioner benefits before the election and then doing exactly that to cover the cost of pay rises for the unions with no promise of reform, But their model of spend, spend, spend is broken, and they don’t know what to do, and this will only lead to even more cynicism in politics.

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Kemi Badenoch to urge Conservatives to do more than criticise Labour

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Shadow minister will launch leadership campaign with call to think afresh and move on from landslide election defeat

Kemi Badenoch will say the Conservatives must do more than criticise Labour in order to win the next general election, as she launches her campaign to lead the party.

Potential dividing lines with her leadership rivals already appear to be forming, after Robert Jenrick said on Sunday he would oppose Labour’s “declaration of war on the middle classes”.

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Labour MP pushes for watchdog to assess PFI costs under budgets bill

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Stella Creasy says she wants to put school and hospital debts and impact of trade deals ‘on nation’s books’

A senior Labour backbencher is seeking to have liabilities from schools and hospitals built under private finance initiative (PFI) deals scrutinised under a new budget responsibility bill.

Stella Creasy, who has tabled two amendments to the bill, said this would help highlight the scale of debt incurred. She also wants trade deals such as the post-Brexit arrangement with the EU to fall under its remit, arguing these can have an even greater fiscal impact.

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Ignore ‘vicious’ social media criticism, Blair tells Starmer

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Former UK prime minister praises Labour leader’s handling of riots and advises him not to put off the ‘hard decisions’

Tony Blair has urged Keir Starmer to ignore “vicious” social media platforms during his time as prime minister, saying that poring over the inevitable criticism that will rain down on him will trigger psychological problems.

“You know, you start scrolling through social media that’s written about you, it’s going to do your head in,” Blair says in an interview with the Observer’s chief political commentator, Andrew Rawnsley, about his new book, On Leadership, Lessons for the 21st century.

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NHS queues mean most Britons expect to pay for healthcare, says report

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Joseph Rowntree Foundation points to ‘critical shift in expectations’ and says the public now budget for many routine services

Most people in the UK now believe they will have to spend their own money on private healthcare for routine services such as dentistry, physiotherapy and counselling because they won’t be able to get them quickly on the NHS, pioneering new research has found.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says its findings, based on extensive focus group analysis, is evidence that Britons have undergone a “critical shift in expectations” about the health service’s capacity to meet their needs.

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Voters believe Labour on UK’s woes, but not on its proposed fixes

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Keir Starmer struggling to sell his remedies for the problems facing Britain after Tory mess

The prime minister is struggling to communicate how his government will address the significant problems facing the UK. While the public readily accepts that the last government left a mess, selling Labour’s remedies as necessary or fair is proving more challenging.

The incoming government’s first job was to assign blame for the country’s current woes. This proved relatively easy, given the last ­government’s unpopularity and the Conservatives’ poor campaign.

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Labour MP accused of renting out ant-infested flats with black mould

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Jas Athwal, the Ilford South MP, ‘shocked’ by allegations and ‘profoundly sorry’ for condition of his properties

A newly elected Labour MP has been accused of renting out flats with black mould and ant infestations.

Jas Athwal, the MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, according to a report by the BBC.

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UK MPs urged to give up freebies from tobacco, alcohol and junk food firms

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Health groups challenge Starmer to ban ‘unhealthy products’ firms from lobbying MPs by giving them gifts

MPs are being urged to stop accepting freebies to sports and cultural events from tobacco, alcohol and junk food firms because their products cause so much illness and death.

More than 100 health groups are urging Britain’s lawmakers to reject offers of gifts and hospitality from “unhealthy products industries” because they use an array of underhand tactics to disguise the harm they create in order to protect their sales.

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Ex-TV news presenter Mike Nesbitt to return as Ulster Unionists’ leader

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Health minister at Stormont was sole candidate to replace Doug Beattie when nominations closed

The former television news presenter Mike Nesbitt is to become the leader of the Ulster Unionist party for the second time, succeeding Doug Beattie who quit last week.

Nesbitt, 67, who led the UUP between 2012 and 2017, was the only declared candidate when nominations closed on Friday evening. He is expected to be formally ratified as leader at an extraordinary general meeting of the party on 14 September.

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Watchdog launches review after UK civil service ‘cronyism’ row

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Announcement follows questions over exceptional appointments of Labour donor and former thinktank staffer

The civil service appointments watchdog has launched a review of exceptional appointments to official jobs after a row about alleged cronyism, following a Labour donor and a former thinktank staffer being given roles.

Gisela Stuart, the first civil service commissioner, has written to the heads of all government departments asking for details of any appointments since 1 July that were made without going through the normal civil service recruitment processes.

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Government seeking to make ‘fewer places where you can smoke’ – UK politics live

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Jacqui Smith says Labour hopes to ‘make it much more likely’ that smokers will want to give up

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has said the UK is “deeply worried” by the “methods Israel has employed” in an IDF military operation in the occupied West Bank.

In a statement on Friday morning, an FCDO spokesperson said:

The UK is deeply concerned by the ongoing IDF military operation in the occupied West Bank.

We recognise Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

We inherited a Tory housing crisis.

Too few homes have been built.

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‘The race is wide open’: MPs’ vote looms for six Tory leadership hopefuls

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Badenoch and Jenrick are the bookies’ favourites but the party’s reduced ranks make the numbers extremely tight

When the Conservative MPs who remain return to Westminster, they will briefly seem like some of the most popular people in SW1. With the party so reduced in numbers, over the next few days there will be a furious wooing of those who have not yet declared for one of the six leadership candidates.

“The race is wide open,” one senior Tory said. “There are barely any public endorsements so no one can tell who is the favourite. The public polling has been all over the place. Often they seem to be just based on who has paid for it.”

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The lady’s not for returning – but where has No 10’s Thatcher portrait gone?

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Painting that hung in former PM’s study since 2009 no longer there – but aides are tightlipped as to whereabouts

In a summer punctuated by an election and then riots there has not really been a “silly season”, the traditional news-light period when holidaying MPs become worked up about trivialities. That is until now – thanks to a row about a portrait of Margaret Thatcher.

What is known is that the slightly austere painting of the former prime minister by the artist Richard Stone has been moved from the Downing Street study where it had hung since 2009, when Gordon Brown commissioned it.

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Who are the six leadership candidates to be voted on by Conservative MPs?

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Tory MPs will vote next week in a series of ballots to narrow the field down to four candidates

Conservative MPs will start whittling down the leadership candidates to four next week, the first stage in a long contest from which a winner will not emerge until 2 November. Here are the six candidates in the running to replace Rishi Sunak.

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Suicide rates in England and Wales reach highest level since 1999

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Samaritans charity calls on government to invest in suicide prevention as it has with smoking reduction

Ministers have been urged to treat suicide as a public health crisis after the rate at which people killed themselves in England and Wales reached the highest level in more than two decades.

The official figures, described by the suicide prevention charity Samaritans as “worse than expected”, showed 6,069 suicides were registered in the two nations in 2023, up from 5,642 in 2022 and the highest rate since 1999.

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Special relationship at risk if UK bans arms sales to Israel, says Trump adviser

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Robert O’Brien says UK could face US counter-embargos and put its role in F-35 fighter jet project in danger

Labour risks a serious rift in the UK’s special relationship with the US if it goes ahead with a ban on arms sales to Israel, Donald Trump’s last national security adviser has warned.

Robert O’Brien, still one of the key security voices in the Trump circle, said the UK was endangering its future role in the F-35 project as well as facing the risk of US congressional counter-embargos. The F-35 fighter jets are made in part by British arms firms and are used by Israel’s air force as part of its bombing of Gaza.

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