Category Archives: Politics

Escaping poverty has become much harder in past two decades, report says

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Six million of the poorest people would need more than double their incomes to move out of hardship, says Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Escaping poverty has become significantly harder over the past two decades, with progress to eradicate hardship in Britain having stalled under the Conservatives since 2010, a major report has warned.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said levels of hardship had deepened for millions of people across the country since the mid-1990s, having been compounded by years of “political failure” to tackle poverty.

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Labour pushes bill to tackle persistent school absenteeism

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Opposition day motion seeks to create a council-maintained register of children in England not on the school roll

Labour is planning to use an opposition day debate motion to bring forward legislation for a new register of children who are not in school as part of plans to tackle persistent absenteeism.

New Labour analysis found that “one in three children currently sitting their GCSEs have missed nearly three months of secondary school since the pandemic” and said this was likely to affect academic attainment.

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Alok Sharma condemns government’s oil and gas bill as vote passes first hurdle

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Former Cop26 president abstains from vote saying bill breaks UK’s promise to phase out fossil fuels

Alok Sharma has said the government’s oil and gas bill going through the Commons will not cut household energy costs or create jobs and instead will break the UK’s promise to phase out fossil fuels.

The government’s offshore petroleum licensing bill passed its second reading on Monday night with 293 votes to 211 against. No Conservative MPs voted against it, and Sharma – the former business secretary who served as president of the Cop26 climate talks – abstained. The legislation would place the North Sea Transition Authority under a duty to run annual applications for new offshore oil and gas licences.

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Families of four Israeli hostages urge Rishi Sunak to push for their release

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UK PM urged to apply pressure on Qatar to help free Liri Albag, Eliya Cohen and Ziv and Gali Berman

The families of four Israeli hostages have urged Rishi Sunak to apply pressure on Qatar to help free their loved ones.

The father of 18-year-old Liri Albag, the older brother of 26-year-old twins Ziv and Gali Berman, and the girlfriend of Eliya Cohen, also 26, pleaded with the prime minister to do everything in his power to secure their release after 108 days in captivity.

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Sunak’s Rwanda treaty to face first test in House of Lords – UK politics live

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Lords to debate whether it should delay ratification of UK-Rwanda treaty

My colleague Mark Sweney has more dismal news on the economy this morning:

More than 47,000 UK companies are on the brink of collapse after a 25% jump in businesses facing “critical” financial distress in the final three months of 2023, according to a new report.

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UK needs ambitious green plan to keep up with allies, says Labour frontbencher

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Jonathan Reynolds calls for version of US Inflation Reduction Act amid row over future of Labour policy

Britain needs its own ambitious green investment plan to keep up with its allies, a Labour frontbencher has said, amid an increasingly bitter row over whether Keir Starmer should stick to his £28bn pledge.

Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, said the UK should come up with a version of Joe Biden’s $369bn (£290bn) Inflation Reduction Act, which has provided support to a range of technologies including electric cars and renewable power.

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UK sends UN experts photographs of North Korean shipments to Russia

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Exclusive: Report shows Russian ships loading at North Korean port, amid accusation that Pyongyang supplies missiles and shells

The UK has provided satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia to a panel of UN experts as part of an attempt to trigger an official investigation into arms deals in violation of international sanctions.

North Korea has been accused of supplying ballistic missiles and hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to the Russian government for its war in Ukraine since Vladimir Putin met with Kim Jong-un in Russia’s far east in September.

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New Brexit checks ‘pose existential threat’ to UK fruit and flower growers

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Exclusive: NFU warns blanket import checks from April could fuel long delays and damage future crops

The UK’s fruit and flower growers face an “existential threat” from new post-Brexit border checks that could damage business and affect next year’s crops, the country’s biggest farming body has said.

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) warned that changes to import rules in April, which will impose checks at the border for nearly all young plants coming into the country, could cause long delays and result in plants being damaged or destroyed.

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Starmer to defend RNLI and National Trust from ‘desperate’ Tory culture war

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Labour leader’s speech will be his most outspoken response to ‘woke’ politics criticisms by Conservatives

Keir Starmer will defend organisations such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the National Trust on Monday, accusing the Conservatives of attacking them to stoke a “desperate” culture war.

The Labour leader will mount a forceful defence of the institutions during a speech to a civil society summit on Monday in his most outspoken response to Conservative criticisms of “woke” politics.

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Border Force hires private vessels for Channel patrols after new fleet delayed

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Contracts, which will cost £36m a year, tendered following news that existing boats will be replaced four years later than planned

The Home Office has had to procure private boats at the cost of £36m a year to help Border Force patrol the Channel for small boats, owing to a delay in plans to replace the current fleet.

Replacing the fleet of five cutters and six coastal patrol vessels, some of which are 20 years old, will now not begin until March 2026, four years later than planned.

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Exiled Rwandan who survived murder attempt condemns UK deportation plan

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Opposition politician Frank Ntwali says country is unsafe and Sunak’s pursuance of policy ‘quite bizarre’

A Rwandan opposition politician who narrowly survived an assassination attempt has condemned the UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Kigali.

Frank Ntwali, chair of the exiled Rwanda National Congress (RNC) movement, said the country was unsafe and that Rishi Sunak’s persistence with the policy was “quite bizarre”.

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Cameron to be asked to clarify claim he took no decision over Israel arms sales

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Foreign secretary told MPs he had not made formal decision to continue, but papers reveal he recommended move

The chair of the foreign affairs select committee is writing to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, asking him to clarify his claim that he had not taken any formal decision to allow arms sales to Israel to continue amid the Gaza crisis.

Written evidence presented by the UK Department for Business and Trade shows the foreign secretary on 8 December recommended arms sales licences be allowed to continue when presented with three options: stopping arms sales, pausing them, or allowing them to continue.

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Jeremy Hunt claims Nigel Lawson’s mantle as he teases tax cuts

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Hunt draws comparisons with Thatcher’s tax-slashing chancellor as he claims UK is ready for economic boom

Jeremy Hunt has compared himself to former tax-cutting chancellor Nigel Lawson, as he joined Rishi Sunak in teasing further potential cuts in the spring budget.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the chancellor drew comparisons with the late Lawson, who was known for slashing personal taxation while serving in the Thatcher government.

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Sadiq Khan: ‘Free young people from Brexit work and travel ban’

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Mayor calls for ‘youth mobility agreement’ in one of the most pro-European interventions by a Labour politician since EU exit

London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for young people to be able to move freely to and from the EU for the first time since Brexit in order to lessen the economic and cultural damage caused by the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

Speaking to the Observer in one of the most pro-European interventions by a senior Labour politician since the 2016 referendum, Khan said he backs either a bespoke “youth mobility” agreement with EU countries, or changes to post-Brexit visa rules that currently restrict travel and the ability to work in other European countries.

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HMRC has not charged a single company over tax evasion under landmark legislation

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Powers bestowed by the Criminal Finances Act 2017 are not being used effectively, say critics

HMRC has not charged a single company under landmark legislation passed six years ago to crack down on corporate tax evasion.

Critics say the data, released under freedom of information laws to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and TaxWatch, suggests that HMRC is undermining its own deterrents against corporate tax evasion by failing to use its criminal enforcement powers.

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Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt David Lammy speech in London

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Shadow foreign secretary tries to continue as demonstrators shout and criticise Labour’s stance on Israel-Gaza war

A keynote speech by David Lammy at a Labour-linked thinktank’s conference has been disrupted by protesters who held Palestinian flags as they shouted “ceasefire now”.

As security officials at London’s Guildhall rushed to take the first two individuals out of the building, another three protesters began shouting and criticising Labour’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war as Lammy attempted to continue his speech at the Fabian Society event.

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Video game developers union membership in UK soars after thousands laid off

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Around 900 of the estimated 11,100 job losses in the workforce last year were in the UK’s £5bn a year industry

Mass redundancies in the video game industry, with thousands of developers losing their jobs, have led to a record surge in workers joining unions, organisers have told the Observer.

The fledgling Game Workers branch of the IWGB union saw its membership jump by almost half between December 2022 and December 2023 as job cuts worsened in the sector, including at the studios behind bestselling games such as Fifa, Skyrim and The Witcher.

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Who was behind poll predicting Tory wipeout – and what do they want?

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Nobody seems to know mystery organisation that funded YouGov survey but its agenda is clear

At the centre of this week’s mega-poll that projected an election wipeout for the Conservatives there lurked both a mystery and a statement of the obvious. Who was behind it? No one seemed to know. But what do they want? Seemingly, a change from Rishi Sunak.

It is a sign of Sunak’s plight that the poll – fronted by a Tory peer and explicitly framed as showing the prime minister’s policies are leading the party into doom – was not even the greatest act of disloyalty in a week when 60 backbenchers voted to amend his flagship migration policy.

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Netanyahu’s rejection of Palestinian state unacceptable, says David Lammy

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Shadow foreign secretary says Israeli president must explain how post-conflict Gaza will operate

The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has described Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state when the war in the Middle East ends as “unacceptable”.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he echoed Keir Starmer’s reaction to Netanyahu’s stance. Lammy said: “We are committed to the recognition of a Palestinian state. We want to work with international partners to achieve that.”

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EU silver filling ban could lead to dental care crisis in Northern Ireland, says BDA

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Dental union says region will be ‘disproportionately’ affected by EU amalgam phase-out as health service is weakest in UK

Concerns have been raised about the future availability of silver dental fillings in Northern Ireland due to an imminent phasing out of the amalgam across the EU.

The plan to phase out amalgam by 1 January next year will apply in Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit trading arrangements and will also affect dental care in other parts of the UK, dentist representatives said.

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