Actor also says dealing with press headlines about Fox’s remarks has made her ‘stronger’
Billie Piper has said she dislikes being told or asked about her ex-husband Laurence Fox’s incendiary comments.
However, Piper, 41, who was married to the actor turned political campaigner from 2007 until 2016, believes dealing with press headlines over his remarks had made her “feel stronger in many ways”.
Continue reading...Mary Kelly Foy, the MP for Durham, is recuperating from surgery and is expected to make a full recovery
A Labour MP has urged women to attend breast cancer screenings as she revealed her own diagnosis.
Mary Kelly Foy, the City of Durham MP, said she was recuperating from surgery and was expected to make a full recovery thanks to an early diagnosis.
Continue reading...Latest round of negotiations end without breakthrough and talks will not resume until after India’s election campaign
The UK and India have closed their 14th round of trade negotiations without reaching a deal and will put the discussions on ice until later this year.
The UK government ended the latest round of talks on Friday night after two weeks of intensive negotiations with Indian officials failed to bear fruit.
Continue reading...Hackney MP endorsed a post saying it was unlikely she would be allowed to rejoin Labour despite the support of senior figures
A reader asks:
Is there anything other than convention which says elections must be on a Thursday?
The reason for choosing Thursday, it is said, was as follows. On Fridays the voters were paid their wages and if they went for a drink in a public house they would be subject to pressure from the Conservative brewing interests, while on Sundays they would be subject to influence by Free Church ministers who were generally Liberal in persuasion. Therefore choose the day furthest from influence by either publicans or Free Church clergymen, namely Thursday. Although these influences are much less significant today, the trend towards Thursday becoming a universal polling day has continued, because Urban District Councils and Rural District Councils all polled on a Saturday until they were abolished under the 1972 Local Government Act. Their successor District Councils poll on a Thursday and the Parish Council polling day was changed from Saturday to Thursday at the same time.
If it ends up being an autumn election as Sunak has indicated, how does that impact the conference season - do they still go ahead? - and does the summer recess have any affect on when a government can call an election?
Continue reading...Tory donor has been widely condemned over racist and misogynistic comments about prominent black MP
It has been four days since the Guardian reported on the extraordinary remarks by the Tory donor Frank Hester about Diane Abott. They elicited widespread condemnation for being racist and misogynistic. Here are some of the key voices – and what they have said:
Diane Abbott MP
Continue reading...Roadworks mean stretch between junctions 10 and 11 will be closed for first time, from 9pm on Friday to 6am on Monday
Drivers have been warned to steer well clear, turn off the satnav and stick to the official diversions as some of the biggest roadworks since the Romans results in part of the M25 motorway fully closed for the first time in its history this weekend.
Epic traffic jams are anticipated, with a five-mile stretch of Britain’s busiest motorway, the London orbital motorway, closed for engineering from 9pm on Friday.
Continue reading...RAF jet was taking defence secretary back to UK from Poland, and flying near Russian exclave of Kaliningrad
Russia is believed to have jammed the satellite signal on an RAF aircraft carrying Grant Shapps back from Poland, according to government sources.
Defence sources said there was no danger to Shapps, who was travelling back to the UK, though they called it a “wildly irresponsible” act of electronic warfare.
Continue reading...Deputy Labour leader says party must follow procedures but says she would personally like MP to have Labour whip restored. This live blog is closed
In his speech Keir Starmer has just confirmed that Labour would stop ticket touts buying up tickets for events and re-selling them at rip-off prices.
This is what Labour said about the plan in a news release this morning.
Reselling tickets for profit has already been banned in many countries, but under the Tories, fans have been let down.
Too often, genuine fans are missing out on getting tickets only to see those same tickets on secondary ticketing websites at far higher prices, making them unaffordable and putting them out of reach.
My first ever trip abroad was to Malta with the Croydon youth Philharmonic Orchestra. You will know that excitement you feel when you have an encounter with the arts that changes your life. Everyone in the room will know that the sense, I suppose, of being drawn into something that seems bigger than ourselves, of being truly moved by a piece of music, or painting, or a play …
Even now even now, listening to Beethoven or Brahms as I read the Sunday papers, takes the edge off some of the more uncomfortable stories.
Continue reading...Holyrood standards committee to examine findings of inquiry that upheld three complaints against ex-minister
The former Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson faces being suspended from Holyrood after wrongly claiming nearly £11,000 in expenses for an iPad roaming bill run up on holiday.
An official inquiry by the Scottish parliament found Matheson breached two parts of its code of conduct by failing to abide by parliamentary policies and by making “improper use” of its expenses.
Continue reading...Michael Gove has named five groups to be examined but some fear many more will ultimately be included
Far-right and Islamist groups are among those expected to be included in a list the government will publish in the coming weeks as part of a new definition of extremism.
The communities minister, Michael Gove, named five groups to MPs on Thursday – three Muslim-led and two far-right – which he said would be examined under the new legislation.
Continue reading...Bill proposes dividing large estates into smaller lots to spread land ownership and boost rural populations
Scottish lairds will be ordered to break up their estates into smaller parcels during sales under plans to reverse the country’s heavily concentrated patterns of land ownership.
A land reform bill proposes introducing rules that could force someone selling an estate larger than 1,000 hectares (2,740 acres) to divide it into smaller lots, if it is was needed to increase the number of people owning land or living in the area.
Continue reading...Scottish Tory leader says all of Hester’s donations should be reviewed after racist and misogynistic comments
The Conservative party has been urged to decline or return a reported further £5m donation made by Frank Hester, whose remarks about Diane Abbott have been widely condemned as racist and misogynistic.
Rishi Sunak faces increasing pressure over the £10m previously given by the millionaire businessman, with Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, saying on Thursday that the donations should be looked at by the party.
Continue reading...New extremism definition to be published by Michael Gove is already being challenged by Muslim groups and experts
Ministers and civil servants will be banned from talking to or funding organisations that undermine “the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy”, under a new definition of extremism criticised by the government’s terror watchdog and Muslim community groups.
Michael Gove, the communities secretary, will tell MPs on Thursday that officials should consider whether a group maintains “public confidence in government” before working with it.
Continue reading...Group’s annual report notes rise in anti-migrant activism and asks if Tory voters are ‘falling out of love with democracy’
British voters are restless, angry and demoralised and more than half of them are pessimistic about the future, according to polling that a counter-extremism organisation has said shows warning signs of future unrest.
More than one in four respondents (43%) described the UK as “declining”, just 6% agreed that the political system was working well and 79% said politicians “don’t listen to people like me”.
Continue reading...Grosvenor says it is prevented from making 3,000 visits a week as it pays migrant workers to sit at home because permits not renewed
One of the UK’s biggest home care providers says it is paying dozens of migrant workers to sit at home and do nothing because the Home Office has not renewed key immigration permits.
Thousands of workers, mostly from Africa, were welcomed into the UK to help fill the one in 10 care worker jobs vacant after the Covid crisis. But after scammers abused the system, leading to allegations of modern slavery, the government appears to have tightened the application of the rules.
Continue reading...Legislation will overturn convictions of theft, fraud and false accounting during Horizon scandal
Ministers will publish legislation to quash the convictions of hundreds of post office operators who were prosecuted during the Horizon scandal, marking a significant victory for victims after decades of campaigning.
The legislation on Wednesday will automatically overturn convictions of theft, fraud and false accounting that were handed down in connection with Post Office business during that period. It will cover prosecutions brought by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales between 1996 and 2018.
Continue reading...Clerics say Michael Gove’s anti-extremism strategy risks targeting Muslims and may threaten freedom of speech and peaceful protest
The archbishops of Canterbury and York have joined the growing list of critics of the government’s new extremism definition, which they have warned risks “disproportionately targeting Muslim communities” and “driving us apart”.
Michael Gove will present his new counter-extremism strategy on Thursday, which he says will target organisations that undermine British democracy.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Union says Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement deportations
Civil servants have threatened ministers with legal action over concerns that senior Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the government’s Rwanda deportation bill.
The FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, have warned they could also be in violation of the civil service code – and open to possible prosecution – if they followed a minister’s demands to ignore an urgent injunction from Strasbourg banning a deportation.
Continue reading...Hackney MP says she feels more vulnerable after Tory donor said looking at her makes you ‘want to hate all black women’
Kwasi Kwarteng, the Conservative former chancellor, has said that the remarks about Diane Abbott attributed to Frank Hester were clearly racist and sexist. But he said he did not know for sure that Hester actually used those words.
Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live, Kwarteng said:
[Those comments] are clearly racist, and they’re clearly sexist.
And I think Diane [Abbott] was right to point out that the call to violence, even in a flippant way, is really inappropriate. So they were very stupid remarks.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sarah Olney to press in parliament for details of scheme being drawn up in event of supplier’s collapse
Ministers must come clean on the secret details of an emergency plan for a taxpayer bailout in the event of Thames Water collapsing, a Liberal Democrat MP has said.
Sarah Olney will press in parliament this week for details of a behind-the-scenes rescue operation being drawn up for the biggest privatised water company in England. Olney said keeping the details of the contingency plan secret amounted to a cover-up.
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