Category Archives: Politics

Premier League and Channel 4 to train teenagers in Labour’s £45m work drive

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Ministers to announce sweeping changes to welfare and out-of-work support, aiming to get people off benefits

Teenagers will get skills training at the Premier League, Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4 as part of a government drive to get hundreds of thousands into jobs or education and make sure “no young person is left behind”.

Some of Britain’s biggest cultural and sporting institutions will provide work or training opportunities as part of a £45m “trailblazer” scheme across eight English regions, including Liverpool, Tees Valley and the East Midlands.

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UK government vows to do all it can to help Briton captured by Russia

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Foreign secretary offers support for James Scott Rhys Anderson, who was fighting for Ukraine reportedly in Kursk

The UK government has promised to do all it can to assist a former British soldier fighting for Ukraine who has been taken prisoner by the Russian army.

Two videos of a man who identified himself as James Scott Rhys Anderson surfaced on Russian Telegram channels over the weekend. They featured interrogation of a bearded man in military fatigues, who had his hands tied and spoke slowly in English to give details from his biography, including that he served as a signalman in the British army between 2019 and 2023. Anderson is 22, according to the date of birth he gave in the video.

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UK politics live: safeguarding minister Jess Phillips urges people to intervene if women are being harassed in public

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Phillips says people have to be mindful of their own safety but ‘you can definitely ask if someone is alright’

Q: Are you feeling the pressure? There is a petition signed by 2 million people calling for another election.

Starmer says he is not surprised that people who did not support Labour in the first place want the election to be re-run. But that is not how the system worked.

I’m not surprised, quite frankly, that as we’re doing the tough stuff, there are plenty of people who say, ‘Well, I’m impacted.’

I think anybody who’s turned around an organisation or a business will tell you, and they’re right, if you’re really going to turn something around, you have to do the hard yards upfront. Don’t look at a tough decision and then leave it for a year or two.

So we’re doing the tough stuff. But in the budget, which is probably the toughest, I’m really pleased that we were able to put so much money into the National Health Service … Anybody watching this who uses the NHS will know we absolutely had to make that a priority.

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NHS bosses who silence whistleblowers face sack under government plans

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Ministers to launch public consultation on regulating managers in effort to end ‘culture of cover-up’ in NHS

NHS managers who silence whistleblowers or endanger patients through misconduct face being sacked and barred from working in the health service for life under radical government plans to regulate thousands of bosses for the first time.

Ministers will begin a public consultation on Tuesday seeking views on the proposals, which they say are designed to eradicate a “culture of cover-up” in the NHS. It follows a series of scandals over the last decade at trusts including Morecambe Bay, East Kent and Shrewsbury and Telford.

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Ministers speaking out against assisted dying ‘are giving false impression’, says peer

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Labour’s Charlie Falconer says vocal opponents are leading voters to think government is against change

Senior ministers who have spoken out against assisted dying are giving voters a “false impression” about the government’s position, a leading proponent of changing the law has said.

Charlie Falconer, a Labour peer and former justice secretary, said opponents to the change were “getting more coverage” because ministers in favour of legalising assisted dying were “playing by the rules”.

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‘Slippery slope’ fears over assisted dying have echoes of abortion debate

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Since the 1967 Abortion Act, the law has been changed twice but the criteria have remained the same

“It is entirely possible that future generations will puzzle over how such a fundamental right could ever be denied to them.” These are the words of David Steel, the veteran former leader of the Liberal party and a Westminster MP for more than three decades, referring to this Friday’s historic vote in parliament on whether to legalise assisted dying.

But Steel could just as well have been referring to a private member’s bill he brought before parliament 57 years ago that was also about the right to bodily autonomy and was the subject of fierce debate and vocal opposition from church leaders.

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Former Taiwan leader was due to visit UK for two days in October, leak shows

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Exclusive: letter reveals dates for visit that was planned by Tsai Ing-wen before Foreign Office intervened

Taiwan’s former president Tsai Ing-wen had been due to visit the UK between 16 and 18 October before the Foreign Office intervened, the Guardian can disclose.

Tsai was scheduled to visit London for two days as part of her first international tour since leaving office and was in discussions about addressing the UK parliament, according to a leaked letter.

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Angela Merkel ‘tormented’ by Brexit vote and saw it as ‘humiliation’ for EU

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Former German chancellor’s book tells how she tried to help David Cameron win over Britain’s Eurosceptics

Angela Merkel has said she was “tormented” over the result of the Brexit referendum and viewed it as a “humiliation, a disgrace” for the EU that Britain was leaving.

In her autobiography, Freedom, due to be published on Tuesday, the former German chancellor says she was dismayed by the notion that she might have done more to help the then British prime minister, David Cameron, who was keen for the UK to stay in the EU, but that ultimately, she concluded, he only had himself to blame.

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Trump depends on the EU and UK to act as peacemakers more than he thinks

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The US doesn’t need to spend more on Ukraine. Britain can bring funding to the table – and help Trump reboot alliances

With Donald Trump the very meaning of words is up for negotiation. What does he really mean when he promises to “build a wall”? When he pledges to end the Russo-Ukrainian war in one day?

His supporters say they don’t take him literally but seriously – but who decides what “serious” is? The very ambiguity can be part of Trump’s appeal. There’s something exhilarating in the sense one is in an exclusive negotiation with the president to define reality. It’s as if he’s welcoming you backstage from the reality show of politics to the discrete board room where meaning is made.

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‘One conversation really changed my mind’: the personal stories driving MPs’ decisions on assisted dying

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Traditional allies such as Diane Abbott and John McDonnell are split over Friday’s vote as politicians grapple with the issue

During a Labour away day ahead of the last election, the party’s candidates were put through their paces as parliamentary debaters. The topic chosen, assisted dying, was a deliberately intractable issue designed to test their analytical skills. Yet just months later, scores of new MPs find themselves having to make a very real decision over changing the law.

“I’m genuinely the most back and forth on this that I’ve been on anything,” said one new MP who has found themselves on either side of the debate over recent months. Like so many, with the issues so finely balanced in their mind, a single conversation can sway their thinking.

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UK justice secretary attacks assisted dying bill as ‘state death service’

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Shabana Mahmood has written to her constituents saying she is ‘profoundly concerned’ about Friday’s Commons vote

MPs will be placing the country on a “slippery slope towards death on demand” if they back legislation on assisted dying in England and Wales this week, the lord chancellor and justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said in a letter to constituents before a historic Commons vote on Friday.

Mahmood has received numerous letters about the bill from people in her Birmingham Ladywood seat, which has a big Muslim population, and sent out replies saying that she was “profoundly concerned” about the legislation, not only for religious reasons but also because of what it would mean for the role of the state if one of its functions became helping people to die.

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Revealed: Home Office ‘completely lost grip’ at notorious Manston asylum centre

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Court documents contain admissions by officials that they were unable to control the situation at the Kent facility where 18,000 asylum seekers were illegally detained

Home Office officials have admitted that “we completely lost our grip” on the situation at a notorious asylum processing centre that led to 18,000 people being unlawfully detained in horrific conditions.

Overcrowding at Manston, a former RAF base in Kent, in autumn 2022 led to an outbreak of diphtheria and scabies. Asylum seekers who had crossed the Channel in small boats were forced to sleep on filthy floors or on flattened cardboard boxes, while toilets were overflowing with faeces. Women and children were forced to sleep close to unrelated men and there were claims of assaults by guards.

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Starmer seeks to hire EU negotiator in pursuit of relations reset

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Salary of at least £153,000 offered by Cabinet Office for ‘principal adviser’ to prime minister

Ministers are hiring a new EU negotiator as Keir Starmer seeks to reset Britain’s relationship with Europe.

The post, worth at least £153,000 a year and advertised by the Cabinet Office, would act as a representative for all of the UK’s dealings with the bloc.

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Energy bills, mortgages, food: will cost of living surge again under Labour?

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The government claims to be fixing the economy but households may face more pressure in the months ahead

Labour swept to power in the wake of a cost of living crisis that hit households hard, with the price of food and energy rocketing alongside the impact of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget on mortgage rates.

At 2.3%, inflation is nowhere the 10% peak after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it is creeping up, and could hit 3% in 2025, say forecasters.

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Too many buildings remain unsafe after Grenfell disaster, housing minister warns

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Wajid Khan tells House of Lords remediation work is yet to start on half of properties with unsafe cladding

Far too many high and medium-rise buildings are still unsafe after the Grenfell disaster, with dangerous cladding remaining on at least 2,400 blocks, a housing minister has warned.

Wajid Khan, a Labour peer and housing minister, said on Friday that remediation work had not started at approximately 50% of properties being monitored for their unsafe cladding.

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Gordon Brown says daughter’s death showed value of ‘good’ dying over assisted dying

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Former PM, whose daughter died when she was 11 days old, says debate is moving too fast and calls for commission on palliative care

• Gordon Brown: We need better end-of-life care, not assisted dying

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has declared his opposition to the legalisation of assisted dying, saying the death of his newborn daughter in January 2002 convinced him of the “value and imperative of good end-of-life care”.

In a rare and poignant glimpse into the tragedy, he says the time he and his wife, Sarah, spent at their baby Jennifer’s bedside “as her life ebbed away” were “among the most precious days of [our] lives”.

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Rachel Reeves standing firm against U-turn on inheritance tax for farmers

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Chancellor understood to be determined to keep policy despite Treasury analysing ways to soften impact

Rachel Reeves is holding firm against a U-turn on inheritance tax for farmers, despite the Treasury analysing ways of softening the impact.

The chancellor is understood to be determined not to drop the policy even though some Labour MPs – and even ministers – are worrying about the political fallout that has led to farmers protesting in Westminster this week.

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Yvette Cooper to set out crackdown on antisocial behaviour including jail terms

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Persistent offenders will face up to two years in prison under Respect orders, as police get powers to seize vehicles

People who persistently demonstrate antisocial behaviour will face up to two years in jail under Labour’s Respect orders, the home secretary will say on Friday.

Yvette Cooper will also announce that police will be given new powers to immediately seize off-road bikes, e-scooters on pavements and street-racing cars as part of the clampdown.

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How John Prescott used humour and grit to unite old and New Labour

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Prescott, from proud working-class stock, represented the part of Labour that Tony Blair knew he had to carry with him

The first time I met John Prescott, we were in a helicopter flying over the Thames Gateway where he and Tony Blair, the then prime minister, also on board, were announcing a multimillion-pound regeneration plan.

It was August 2003 and I was a young pool reporter for the Press Association, there to ask the politicians about their plans on behalf of the rest of the media. The flight was noisy and we all wore ear protectors, so conversation was limited.

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Starmer condemns Badenoch for abandoning cross-party consensus on climate crisis policy – UK politics live

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Prime minister says Tory leader’s attacks on climate targets diminishes government ability to tackle central issue

British prime minister Keir Starmer says he is “deeply saddened” to hear that Prescott has died, and called him a “true giant of Labour”.

In a statement on X, he said, “I am deeply saddened to hear of the death of John Prescott. John was a true giant of the Labour movement. On behalf of the Labour Party, I send my condolences to Pauline and his family, to the city of Hull, and to all those who knew and loved him. May he rest in peace.”

He possessed an inherent ability to connect with people about the issues that mattered to them – a talent that others spend years studying and cultivating, but that was second nature to him.

He fought like hell to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol and was an unwavering champion of climate action for decades to come. I’m forever grateful to John for that commitment to solving the climate crisis and will miss him as a dear friend.”

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