Category Archives: Politics

Primodos patients ‘betrayed’ after being left out of health scandals redress report

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Families who may have been affected by hormone pregnancy tests not included in patient safety commissioner’s review

Campaigners have accused the UK government of betraying them after a review of redress for victims of health scandals excluded families who may have been affected by the hormone pregnancy test Primodos.

A report published on Wednesday by the patient safety commissioner, Dr Henrietta Hughes, found a “clear case for redress” for thousands of women and children who suffered “avoidable harm” from the epilepsy treatment sodium valproate and from vaginal mesh implants.

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Wes Streeting says Labour would reform NHS dentists’ contract within days of taking office – UK politics live

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Shadow health secretary says much of Tory NHS dental plans ‘lifted from what Labour has announced’

During her media round this morning Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, faced awkward questions about funding for NHS dentistry.

In an interview on BBC Breakfast, she repeatedly refused to confirm that the budget for NHS dentistry has fallen over the past decade.

Seeing a minister duck and dive on the reality of dental funding cuts will be hard to swallow for millions who have been left waiting for so long under this government.

The reality is they’ve left our dental services to rot and now think they can rebuild it with a handful of toothpicks.

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NHS dentistry ‘recovery plan’ not worthy of the title, dentists say

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British Dental Association says government’s plan does not offer hope to millions struggling to access care

Rishi Sunak has been accused of making a U-turn on his pledge to restore NHS dentistry as experts say his “recovery plan” does not offer enough money to incentivise dentists to take on extra NHS patients.

The prime minister’s long-awaited proposals have been criticised for failing to ringfence funding for the dental sector and reform the NHS dentistry contract, which means millions across the country will continue to struggle to access care.

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Rishi Sunak accused of personally holding up deal to end doctors’ strikes

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Exclusive: Sources say PM has blocked talks due to concerns about knock-on effect of more generous pay offer

Rishi Sunak has been accused of personally holding up a deal to end doctors’ strikes in England despite warnings from the health department and NHS England that waiting lists will continue to soar unless the industrial dispute is resolved.

Sources told the Guardian it had been made “abundantly and repeatedly” clear to the prime minister that there would be no progress on his pledge to drive down NHS waiting lists until a deal was struck.

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GMB members support ballot on strike action over allegations of bullying within union

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Union has been implementing recommendations of 2020 independent report that found it institutionally sexist

A row has broken out at the GMB, one of the UK’s biggest unions, after members of its largest region supported a move towards industrial action over “serious allegations of bullying and harassment”.

Staff in the north-east, Yorkshire and Humberside (NEYH) region overwhelmingly supported a consultative ballot on strike action – used as a shot across the bow when members want to raise a serious issue.

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Birmingham given go-ahead to raise council tax by up to 10%

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Michael Gove approves exceptional rise for UK’s biggest local authority, affecting 1m people, and three other bankrupt councils

Council tax in Birmingham is likely to increase by up to 10% after the government allowed the local authority to bypass the national cap without the need for a local referendum.

The increase will affect more than 1 million people in the UK’s largest local authority, which declared itself effectively bankrupt last year due to a £300m budget gap.

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Houthis claim fresh attacks on British and US ships in Red Sea

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Two vessels not badly damaged but incident casts doubt on success of UK-US strikes on Yemen missile sites

Houthi rebels say they have successfully targeted a British and a US ship in the Red Sea, casting doubt on the effectiveness of three waves of US-UK strikes on missile sites belonging to the group in Yemen.

Neither of the two ships were badly damaged but the incident will underscore the need for commercial ships either to pay higher insurance premiums or take longer, more expensive routes to avoid the threat of Houthi attacks. A third ship was targeted on Tuesday afternoon, but not struck, at least reassuring Britain that the Houthi capabilities may have been degraded by the US-UK airstrikes.

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Don’t wait for Post Office-style scandal before regulating AI, ministers told

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Government to say binding measures for overseeing artificial intelligence are needed, but not immediately

Ministers have been warned against waiting for a Post Office-style scandal involving artificial intelligence before stepping in to regulate the technology, after the government said it would not rush to legislate.

The government will acknowledge on Tuesday that binding measures for overseeing cutting-edge AI development are needed at some point – but not immediately. Instead, ministers will set out “initial thinking for future binding requirements” for advanced systems and discuss them with technical, legal and civil society experts.

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Sunak ‘out of touch’ for betting £1,000 on Rwanda plan’s success, says Labour

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PM also criticised for saying ‘the facts speak for themselves’ when asked if Keir Starmer was a terrorist sympathiser

Rishi Sunak has been called “out of touch” after taking a £1,000 bet with Piers Morgan on whether deportation flights to Rwanda will take off before the general election.

Morgan said to the prime minister on TalkTV: “I’ll bet you £1,000 to a refugee charity you don’t get anybody on those planes before the election. Will you take that bet?”

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We must act on Ethiopia food crisis, says UK minister

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Andrew Mitchell warns of ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ triggered by El Niño-driven drought and conflict

The risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in northern Ethiopia is growing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s Africa minister, said on his return from a two-day trip to the region.

“We have an opportunity to stop a looming humanitarian catastrophe in its tracks. But we must act and act now,” Mitchell said on Monday.

The country is suffering from the impacts of long-term El Niño-driven drought and brutal conflict, including the two-year war in the northern region of Tigray that ended in November 2022.

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US says strikes on Iran-linked militias just ‘the beginning’ of its response

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National security adviser refuses to rule out targeting Iran after 85 sites were attacked in Iraq and Syria

US airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in the Middle East were just the beginning of a sustained response, the White House national security adviser warned on Sunday, as he refused to rule out strikes on Iranian soil.

Jake Sullivan said the strikes on Friday night against 85 targets in Iraq and Syria, designed as retaliation for the killing of three US soldiers, “were the beginning, not the end of our response, and … there will be more steps, some seen, some perhaps unseen, all in an effort to send a very clear message that when American forces are attacked, when Americans are killed, we will respond and we will respond forcefully”.

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Rishi Sunak visits Northern Ireland to meet new power-sharing executive

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PM hails ‘fantastic cause for optimism’ as he seeks to put his stamp on success of Stormont reconvening

Rishi Sunak has said there is “fantastic cause for optimism” after arriving in Northern Ireland to meet the leaders of a new power-sharing executive that ended two years of political deadlock.

The prime minister arrived in Belfast on Sunday evening in advance of a meeting on Monday with Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, who has made history by becoming the first nationalist first minister at Stormont.

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Labour’s proposals unlikely to be enough to end race disparities

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Voters will welcome announcement of what party’s reforms will look like but structural inequalities run deep

While Britain was still struggling through the Covid pandemic in autumn 2020, Keir Starmer announced that Labour would bring in a race relations act if it came to power.

His promise was driven by concern about the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus crisis on minority ethnic communities, confirmed in a report from Doreen Lawrence, the Labour peer and mother of the murdered black teenager Stephen.

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Labour plans to extend equal pay rights to black, Asian and minority ethnic staff

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Exclusive: Radical changes in a draft race equality act would give same protections as women now receive

A Labour government would extend the full right to equal pay that now exists for women to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) workers for the first time under radical plans for a draft race equality act seen by the Guardian.

The legal right, which would follow a consultation with business groups and unions, would be phased in to give employers time to adapt to paying all their staff fairly, with back pay only available from when the law changes.

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Free school meals ‘cut obesity and help reading skills’ in England, study finds

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Labour MPs call to extend provision to every primary pupil in England after study finds health and learning improve

Labour is facing calls from MPs to back the provision of free school meals for all primary school children in England, after a new study found evidence that it reduces obesity and boosts reading skills.

Levels of obesity were reduced by 7% to 11% among reception children in the four London boroughs that have already adopted the policy, according to the study seen by the Observer. For children in year six, who had been given free school meals for their entire time in primary school, there was a 5-8% reduction.

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‘It’s all a bit marginal’: claims of Brexit trade perks don’t add up, say firms

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A business department report trumpeting the four-year benefits of leaving the EU does not match the reality faced by companies

On the four-year anniversary of Brexit last Wednesday, business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch trumpeted its successes. “The British people’s conviction that the UK would excel as masters of our own fate has paid dividends,” she said, launching a report detailing the benefits.

Among the top achievements listed were booming sales of honey to Saudi Arabia, surging pet food exports to India, a rush of UK pork, worth £18m over five years, heading into Mexico’s restaurants and homes, and UK beauty products sales leaping in China, thanks to barriers being smashed.

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UK action against Houthis ‘not an escalation’, says Grant Shapps

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Defence secretary says third joint UK-US assault on Iran-backed group is to protect lives and ‘preserve freedom of navigation’

The UK has joined the US for a third time in conducting a wave of airstrikes on Iran-linked Houthi targets in Yemen.

The defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said the fresh assaults were “not an escalation”, but instead were designed to “protect innocent lives and preserve freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea amid Houthi attacks on boats.

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Labour ditches radical reforms as it prepares ‘bombproof’ election manifesto

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Plans to reform social care and House of Lords are trimmed as Keir Starmer’s party opts for caution ahead of vote

Labour is planning only limited first-term reforms of social care and the House of Lords and a smaller green investment plan as part of a stripped-down general election manifesto, as it seeks to make its policies “bombproof” to Tory attacks.

Shadow cabinet ministers have been given until 8 February to make policy submissions for the manifesto, as Keir Starmer’s party gears up for an election that, according to opinion polls, looks likely to return it to government for the first time since 2010.

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‘I will be a first minister for all’: Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill marks historic moment for once unionist state

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Countdown for republicans to potential Irish unification ticks louder as new first minister pledges to ‘serve everyone equally’ at Stormont

The chamber’s ornate ceiling remained blue, red and gold, and Portland stone still held up the Stormont edifice, but the beaming Sinn Féin faces declared this was a historic moment for Irish nationalism.

Michelle O’Neill became Northern Ireland’s first nationalist first minister in a day of symbolism and pomp that restored devolved government and etched an epitaph on the tomb of what was once a unionist state.

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Michelle O’Neill: Sinn Féin leader from IRA family who has vowed to respect royals

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She’s pledged to be first minister ‘for all’ and her ability to navigate political tensions will shape her Stormont tenure

When Michelle O’Neill is sworn in as Northern Ireland’s first minister, it will be a moment of personal triumph steeped in irony.

As a teenage mother, she was treated as if she had the “plague”, and wept, yet went on to ascend the ranks of Sinn Féin and is now poised to make history as the first nationalist to lead Northern Ireland – a state that, in theory, she wishes to eradicate.

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