Plan to means-test benefit for pensioners criticised by opposition parties and some Labour backbenchers
Keir Starmer faces a test of his authority next week after promising a vote on the government’s plans to limit winter fuel allowance to the poorest pensioners.
MPs will get the chance to vote on secondary legislation on Tuesday that will introduce means-testing of the benefit after pressure from opposition parties and Labour backbenchers.
Continue reading...Court documents show then immigration minister wrote to Home Office after Dana Abu Qamar spoke at university demonstration
The former immigration minister and Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick inquired into revoking a Palestinian student’s visa, court documents have revealed.
Dana Abu Qamar, 20, a law student who led the Friends of Palestine society at the University of Manchester, was stripped of her visa in 2023 after speaking at a university demonstration on Gaza’s historical resistance to Israel’s “oppressive regime” and a subsequent interview with Sky News.
Continue reading...Shona Robison, Scottish finance secretary, says current financial situation facing Scottish government is ‘not sustainable’
Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, is launching his campaign for the Tory leadership. There is a live feed here.
Tugendhat started by saying that he did not actually want the job, because he does not want to be leader of the opposition. He wants to be prime minister, he said.
Politics is not a game, and we all know the cost when government isn’t sober and serious. We saw it in the lives lost in Afghanistan and then in that wasted chaos of that withdrawal. We saw it during Covid, not just in the lost years of education that cost so many or the opportunities missed, or even in the grief for lost loved ones or those left to cope alone, but through the disrespect.
That’s why I’m standing before you today, because this country can change. We must change, and Britain deserves better, and we need a different government.
Continue reading...Simon Case criticises Tory government’s failure to hold regular spending reviews in letter to Jeremy Hunt – who had challenged figure
Simon Case, the head of the civil service, has backed the government’s figures showing that a £22bn shortfall was left by the previous Conservative administration.
The cabinet secretary said the Tories’ failure to hold regular spending reviews had contributed to the financial uncertainty.
Continue reading...£1.5bn auction awards record funding for new windfarms, solar farms and tidal power projects
Great Britain’s renewable energy auction has secured enough new clean electricity projects to power 11m UK homes after the Labour government made record funding available to suppliers.
The £1.5bn auction will support 131 new projects including windfarms, solar farms and tidal power projects after ministers increased the amount of funding available to seven times the sums offered last year.
Continue reading...Israeli PM says move will embolden a genocidal Hamas as British government faces growing backlash
Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the UK government’s decision to suspend some arms export licences to Israel, describing it as a shameful decision that would embolden a genocidal Hamas.
The Israeli prime minister said his country was at war to also protect British hostages and vowed the UK measures would not prevent it from winning the conflict in Gaza.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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