Analysis shows content is aimed at working-class over-50s, and plays on fears of crime, stirs anger and pushes conspiracy theories
Are you a cleaner or builder who likes Primark, the pub or reality TV – but doesn’t care about the environment? If yes, the Conservative party wants your vote.
These are some of the interest categories used by the campaign team for the Tories’ candidate for London mayor, Susan Hall, to target audiences on social media.
Continue reading...Whoever wins the next election, a reckoning is overdue on the costs of Britain’s nuclear deterrent
When Rishi Sunak visited Barrow-in-Furness on Monday he said the Cumbrian town was “mission critical for our country” because of its role building four new nuclear submarines to carry the UK’s nuclear weapons. If you believe Sunak’s erstwhile ally, Dominic Cummings, then that mission faces serious problems.
Cummings, once Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, said this month – in characteristically aggressive terms – that spiralling costs were making a mockery of the government’s budget plans. He wrote on X: “the nuclear enterprise is so fkd [sic] it’s further cannibalising the broken budgets and will for decades because it’s been highly classified to avoid MPs thinking about it.”
Continue reading...Survey of 15,000 people suggests even party leader Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire seat is at risk
The Conservatives are on course for their worst election result, winning fewer than 100 seats, according to a new poll.
The seat-by-seat analysis gives the Tories 98 constituencies compared with Labour’s 468, giving Sir Keir Starmer a 286-seat majority, the Sunday Times has reported.
The 15,000-person poll, conducted by agency Survation on behalf of Best for Britain, gives Labour a 45% vote share with a 19-point lead over the Conservatives.
Rishi Sunak’s party is on track to win 98 seats with none in Scotland or Wales, according to the research. It also suggests the prime minister is at risk of losing his own constituency, the new Richmond & Northallerton seat in North Yorkshire, to Labour with his lead less than 2.5 percentage points.
Continue reading...Chair of foreign affairs select committee Alicia Kearns said at a Tory fundraiser that legal advice would mean the UK has to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay
• Analysis: scale of suffering will make war crimes harder to deny
The British government has received advice from its own lawyers stating that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza but has failed to make it public, according to a leaked recording obtained by the Observer.
The comments, made by the Conservative chair of the House of Commons select committee on foreign affairs, Alicia Kearns, at a Tory fundraising event on 13 March are at odds with repeated ministerial denials and evasion on the issue.
Continue reading...Pressure on Michael Gove to act as householders see bills rise 40%, with many saying that they cannot afford to pay
Some of the UK’s largest housing providers have dramatically increased annual service charges by thousands of pounds, plunging residents into financial crisis, an Observer investigation has found.
Many residents who bought shared-ownership properties built as affordable homes have been sent bills in recent weeks with increases of more than 40%. Some say they are unable to sell the properties having now been lumbered with “extortionate” charges and no cap on future increases. More than 1,000 people across the country are now threatening to refuse to pay.
Continue reading...Party claims financial position still strong as it continues to hold a commanding lead in opinion polls
Labour has suffered a sharp fall in membership over the past two months following controversies over its policy on Gaza and its U-turn on green investment, according to figures released to its National Executive Committee (NEC). The drop of more than 23,000 members comes despite the party holding a commanding lead in the opinion polls, which suggests it is now seen by the wider electorate as ready and able to form the next government, after 14 years of Tory rule.
Labour sources said the party’s overall financial position remained strong despite membership subscriptions falling off, because donations large and small were healthy, and the expectation was that the unions would still give very substantial backing to the election effort.
Continue reading...City’s mayor outlines ‘internationalist’ vision in manifesto as he bids for third term in May
London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan is to offer young people studying in the capital a new version of the EU’s Erasmus scheme of student exchanges as part of his bid for a third term.
He will unveil plans under which students would receive grants and other help to study and undertake work experience, not just in the EU but other major world cities, with reciprocal arrangements for students from overseas to do the same in London.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Members say flag may alienate ethnic minority voters as some associate it with far right
Keir Starmer is facing discontent from Labour MPs over the dominant use of the union flag in election campaign material amid concern it may alienate ethnic minority voters and others.
Concerns were raised at recent meetings of the party’s black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) group at Westminster and also by London members of the parliamentary Labour party. There is also unhappiness among some activists who are reluctant to handle the material.
Continue reading...Education secretary says conference proposals describing Israeli government as racist ‘reflect NEU’s divisive ideology’
Gillian Keegan has strongly criticised the National Education Union over a motion to be debated at its annual conference describing Israel’s government as “racist” and “guilty of apartheid policies”.
The education secretary said the motion and amendments were “wholly inappropriate and completely ignore the horrific terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on 7 October … These motions reflect the NEU’s divisive ideology, which I don’t believe is representative of our teachers.
Continue reading...Some Tory MPs had reportedly called for Farage to be made ambassador to US in exchange for him not standing for Reform UK
The Conservatives have ruled out making any sort of pre-election pact with Nigel Farage in exchange for him not standing for Reform UK at the general election, saying: “We don’t do deals.”
The statement, coming after Labour called on Downing Street to dismiss the mooted idea that Farage could be made the UK’s ambassador to Washington, risks angering Tory backbenchers, who are increasingly anxious at the likely impact of Reform on their re-election chances.
Continue reading...Sixty-six MPs who already plan to stand down at election have 987 years between them, analysis shows
The Conservative party will lose almost 1,000 years of Commons experience just from MPs who have already announced they are standing down, a Guardian analysis has shown, amid an exodus likely to be even greater than in 1997.
So far, 66 MPs elected as Conservatives in 2019 have announced they will not stand again – this includes four who have since lost the whip and sit as independents – which is close to one in five of the total.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Millions more GP appointments potentially created as a result of closures
Almost 1,000 pharmacies in England have closed since 2017, potentially leading to millions of extra GP appointments, the Guardian can exclusively reveal.
There are more than 11,000 pharmacies in England. Guardian analysis of the official register of these chemists has found that parts of the country have lost more than one in five pharmacies in the last six years, with poorer areas experiencing proportionally more closures.
Continue reading...Experts say UK-imposed sanctions will make no difference when hacking is part of ecosystem of dealing with Beijing
With the announcement that the UK government would be imposing sanctions on two individuals and one entity accused of targeting – without success – UK parliamentarians in cyber-attacks in 2021, the phrase “tip of the iceberg” comes to mind. But that would underestimate the iceberg.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the sanctions were a sign that “targeting our elected representatives and electoral processes will never go unchallenged”.
Continue reading...High court strikes out part but not all of Bridgen’s case and orders him to pay Tory MP’s costs
The MP Andrew Bridgen has been ordered to pay Matt Hancock more than £40,000 in legal fees after an early stage of their libel battle.
The MP for North West Leicestershire is bringing a libel claim against the former health secretary regarding a January 2023 message on X that followed Bridgen posting a comment about Covid-19 vaccines.
Continue reading...A group of men at the club who hope the male-only rule will change have nominated a set of possible new members
Seven women with leading positions in the British establishment have been nominated as prospective female members of the Garrick in the event that the club agrees to change its rules so that women are able to join.
The classicist Mary Beard, the former home secretary Amber Rudd, Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman and the new Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika are among the first names to have been put forward to the club as possible future members.
Continue reading...Mohamed Mansour, a Conservative senior treasurer, is one of several surprise recipients of honours
A businessman and former Egyptian government minister who donated £5m to the Conservative party last year has unexpectedly been given a knighthood on the recommendation of Rishi Sunak.
Mohamed Mansour, a senior treasurer of the Conservative party for just over a year, was one of several surprise recipients of honours on Thursday, with the citation saying it was given for business, charity and political service.
Continue reading...Former PM’s meeting with President Maduro, in capacity as hedge fund consultant, is under further scrutiny
Labour is demanding answers over what the party said was “potentially serious impropriety” by Boris Johnson after it emerged that the former prime minister met the Venezuelan president in his role as a consultant for a hedge fund.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said in a letter to Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister and Cabinet Office minister, that there were concerns that Johnson may have breached the ministerial code.
Continue reading...Union says cuts will make the creative powerhouse unrecognisable and risk unprecedented industrial unrest
Staff at Goldsmiths, University of London have voted to strike over plans for an “almost incomprehensible” number of redundancies, a trade union has announced.
More than 87% of University and College Union (UCU) members at the south London institution voted for strike action in a ballot with a turnout of 69%, as well as backing action short of a strike, such as a boycott on marking papers and submissions.
Continue reading...Latest estimate from ONS says GDP declined by 0.3% in final quarter of 2023
Official figures have confirmed that the UK economy went into recession at the end of last year, after the latest estimate found it contracted in the last two quarters of 2023.
In a blow to the government’s economic standing, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, shrank by 0.3% in the last three months of the year, unrevised from an earlier estimate.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Man who has now given party at least £10m copied Steve Barclay into email about problems with bid, documents show
The Conservative mega-donor Frank Hester complained to the NHS and the health secretary last year over problems his IT business had bidding for a contract, documents show.
The Leeds businessman, who owns a healthcare tech firm responsible for 60m UK medical records, raised a complaint about procurement in December 2022 with the chair of NHS England, copying in Steve Barclay, the then health secretary, saying he was an “interested party”.
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