Category Archives: Politics

Police officers injured amid standoff in Plymouth – England riots as it happened

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Devon & Cornwall police report violence against officers and damaged police van as calls grow for recall of parliament

Local people joined council workers to clear up around the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Manvers, near Rotherham in South Yorkshire, on Monday morning.

Police officers stood guard outside the main entrance and at other locations around the building as teams swept up glass from the numerous broken windows at the front of the hotel, PA reported.

That’s not what we’re doing right now. What we’re doing right now is keeping in close contact with MPs.

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Priti Patel criticises Nigel Farage for comparing far-right riots to BLM protests

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Tory leadership candidate says Reform leader’s comments are deeply misleading as she urges parliament recall

The Conservative leadership candidate Priti Patel has criticised Nigel Farage’s response to the far-right riots, saying it was wrong to compare the violence to Black Lives Matter protests.

The former home secretary has also written to the prime minister and home secretary, urging them to recall parliament, drawing parallels with the 2011 riots when MPs returned for a government statement on civil disorder and to condemn the violence.

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Pharmacies in England cutting services amid financial pressures, research finds

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Poll reveals emergency contraception, free prescription deliveries and extended opening hours among services hit

Pharmacies across England are unable to provide critical NHS and public health services owing to the overwhelming financial and operational pressures they are facing, according to research.

A poll of pharmacy owners representing more than 2,100 pharmacies found that more than 96% of respondents said they had stopped providing locally commissioned services over the past 12 months.

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Conservatives left UK wide open to far-right violence, says former adviser

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Exclusive: Dame Sara Khan, who advised May, Johnson and Sunak, says recent administrations failed the country

The Conservative government left the UK wide open to the far-right violence erupting across parts of the country by ignoring red flags and stoking fires with a culture war agenda, a senior adviser on extremism to Tory prime ministers has said.

Dame Sara Khan, who was Rishi Sunak’s independent adviser for social cohesion and resilience until May this year and acted as counter-extremism commissioner under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, said the recent administrations had failed the British people.

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Keir Starmer decisive on mob violence but faces dilemma over Reform

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Some within Labour worry that PM is failing to challenge Nigel Farage’s anti-migrant insinuations head-on

Keir Starmer sounded uncharacteristically angry as he appeared in front of a podium in Downing Street on Sunday to condemn the violent mobs causing damage and spreading fear.

Just a few weeks into government, the prime minister has been confronted with an appalling triple murder of three young girls, followed by days of rioting whipped up by online disinformation that a migrant was responsible.

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UK food industry says lack of testing capacity forcing imports back to EU for checks

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Trade bodies blame lack of lab facilities at Brexit border posts for longer delays and shorter shelf life of food

Imported food coming into the UK through Brexit border posts is being sent back to Europe to be tested due to a lack of laboratory capacity in Britain, food bodies have said.

The SPS Certification Working Group, which represents 30 trade bodies covering £100bn worth of the UK’s food supply, has written to the government warning that members are being advised that some samples of imported foods are being sent to countries such as Germany to be tested before they can be released at the border.

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UK pensioners left on ‘financial cliff edge’ by cuts to winter fuel payments

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New analysis shows tens of thousands of older people may end up worse off than those who retain energy benefit

Tens of thousands of pensioners are on a financial cliff edge because of the government’s decision to radically restrict winter fuel payments, a new analysis has revealed. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, opted to introduce a means test for the payments, with only those on pension credit qualifying, stating it was one of the “difficult decisions” she had to make, as she accused the Tories of leaving £22bn in unfunded commitments.

The decision removes the payments from about 10 million pensioners in England and Wales. Officials said this weekend the policy would be among a package of measures “to fix the foundations of the economy”.

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‘I worry about populist politics’: Mel Stride says even progressive voters should want a strong Tory party

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Leadership contender says the Conservatives need to recover to ensure Britain does not lurch into ‘negativity and division’

Progressive voters who oppose the Conservatives should still want the party to recover to ensure British politics does not lurch towards populism based on “negativity and division”, a Tory leadership contender has said.

Mel Stride, the former cabinet minister who emerged as a surprise candidate to replace Rishi Sunak, warned that attempting to jump to a “magical ideological square” after the party’s disastrous general election result would fail to solve its problems.

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The far right has moved online, where its voice is more dangerous than ever

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Social media such as X are fuelling the growth of extremism by allowing its figureheads a platform to direct violence

The resurgence of far-right violence in the UK is in part due to Elon Musk’s decision to allow figures such as Tommy Robinson back on to the social media platform X, researchers say.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and those of his ilk are not leaders in the traditional sense and the far right has no central organisation capable of directing the disorder and violence that has been seen, experts say.

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Labour axes ‘gimmick’ anti-strike law as it plans major reset for workers’ rights

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Memo tells ministers to disregard minimum service levels rules, as part of reforms to reorder industrial relations

The government will begin the task of rolling back years of anti-trade union laws within days, the Observer can reveal, as ministers are ordered to ignore a key measure passed by the Tories as part of a wider “reset” of industrial relations in Britain.

As a first step, departments will be told effectively to ignore a law passed last year designed to force workers across a series of industries to provide a minimum level of service during strikes. The legislation – described as a “pointless gimmick” by ministers – paved the way to severely curtail the rights of border security, ambulance services, fire and rescue, teachers and rail services to take industrial action.

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Starmer’s live facial recognition plan would usher in national ID, campaigners say

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PM accused of ignoring civil rights and aping autocracies as he proposes new powers after far-right unrest

Civil liberties campaigners have said that a proposal made by Keir Starmer on Thursday to expand the use of live facial recognition technology would amount to the effective introduction of a national ID card system based on people’s faces.

Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said it was ironic the new prime minister was suggesting a greater use of facial matching on the same day that an EU-wide law largely banning real-time surveillance technology came into force.

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Robert Jenrick focuses Tory leadership bid on promises to cut immigration

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Former Home Office minister says he is open to capping immigration and wants to reimpose Rwanda scheme

Robert Jenrick has said he would hope to detain and deport people who arrive in the UK on small boats “within days” if he wins the Conservative leadership race and the next general election.

The former immigration minister said he was “open” to a cap restricting immigration to fewer than 10,000 people a year and shared his hopes of reimposing the Rwanda scheme.

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Keir Starmer confirms new violent disorder unit after ‘thugs’ rioted in wake of Southport attack – live

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As exclusively revealed by the Guardian, the PM has announced a new unit to deal with violent disorder in the wake of the Southport rioting

The British Medication Association (BMA) said action by GPs in England will be a “slow burn” rather than a “big bang”.

Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the BMA’s GP committee for England (GPCE), said:

This will not be a ‘big bang’. It will be a slow burn. It’s likely that impact may not be felt for some time. We hope this will give the new government time to consider our proposed solutions including fixing our contract once and for all.

General practice should be the front door of the NHS, not the doormat. We don’t want to have to take this next step, but must if we’re to stop our services from collapsing completely.”

We had a huge response to this ballot, and the results are clear – GPs are at the end of their tether. This is an act of desperation. For too long, we’ve been unable to provide the care we want to.

We are witnessing general practice being broken. The era of the family doctor has been wiped out by recent consecutive governments and our patients are suffering as a result.”

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Relief for borrowers as UK interest rates cut but little sign big reductions to come

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Incremental cuts likely over two to three years with rates expected to stay well above pre-Covid levels of 0.75%

Borrowers will breathe a collective sigh of relief. The Bank of England has cut interest rates by a quarter point to 5% and major lenders are shaving their best-buy mortgage offers in response.

Those wanting to get on the housing ladder should find property slightly more affordable after the cut, which ends a year of ultra-high borrowing costs and is the first rate cut in more than four years.

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Far-right riots: Starmer to announce setting up of new violent disorder unit

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PM and police chiefs agree plans for unit that aims to boost intelligence gathering on ‘extremist troublemakers’

A new national violent disorder unit is to be set up to clamp down on rioters, the Guardian has learned, after far-right riots this week.

Keir Starmer is expected to make the official announcement as soon as Thursday, having agreed it with police chiefs at a crisis meeting.

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Labour tries to attract clean energy contracts with record £1.5bn for auction

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The new budget comes after the previous government failed to award a single new offshore wind contract in 2023

The Labour government will make record amounts of funding available to clean energy developers after it increased the value of its summer subsidy auction by 50%, to £1.5bn.

The addition, compared with figures previously announced, means the total budget is seven times the amount available at last year’s auction, the government said.

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Benefit cap traps families in crowded, rat-infested homes, report finds

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Limit on welfare support, introduced in 2013, leaves some with just £4 a day for each family member

Low-income families affected by the benefit cap are living on as little as £4 for each person a day, often in overcrowded, rat-infested and damp homes with little prospect of escape, according to a new study.

The cap puts a ceiling on the amount a working-age family can receive in welfare support if no one in the household is working or they are on very low wages. Families affected by it in many parts of the country are, in effect, trapped in poor quality, private rented properties they cannot afford, even though these are often already the cheapest homes available in their local area, the London School of Economics study said.

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Goals to stop decline of nature in England ‘off track’, report warns

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Audit of Environmental Improvement Plan finds it inadequate as government announces overhaul of goals

Goals to stop the decline of nature and clean up the air and water in England are slipping out of reach, a new report has warned.

An audit of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), which is the mechanism by which the government’s legally binding targets for improving nature should be met, has found that plans for thriving plants and wildlife and clean air are deteriorating. This plan was supposed to replace the EU-derived environmental regulations the UK used until the Environment Act was passed in 2021 after Brexit.

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Greens say Labour should focus more on building council homes and that new housing plan is flawed – UK politics live

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Rayner says housing target system will raise number of homes planned to 370,000 and confirmed targets will be mandatory

Balls, who, of course, is a former Labour cabinet minister, and a former shadow chancellor, questions whether Reeves is right to suggest that Jeremy Hunt is wholly to blame for the black hole. He says that other cabinet ministers and departments drew up the spending plans that she says were unfunded.

Reeves repeats the point she has been making all morning about how the public were misled. (See 8.06am.)

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French audit cautions Élysée over €475k cost of King Charles dinner

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Versailles banquet among lavish spending in 2023 that has plunged president’s office €8m into red

The French president’s office spent nearly €475,000 (£400,100) on a dinner for King Charles last year, the country’s top audit court said in a report cautioning about high spending.

In September 2023, King Charles attended a lavish state banquet at the Palace of Versailles attended by more than 150 people, part of a “soft power” visit aimed at improving ties between London and Paris.

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