Category Archives: Politics

A rats to riches story: Larry the Downing Street cat finds place in TV spotlight

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Popularity of Britain’s top mouser – ‘the guy to meet in No 10’ – to feature in documentary series

He’s on his sixth prime minister, has watched presidents and princes walk through the black door of No 10, and will soon become the longest continuous resident of Downing Street since Pitt the Younger.

The landscape of British politics has changed a lot in the past 15 years, but Larry the cat has remained a reassuring constant. Now his enduring popularity – the like of which some of his temporary owners would kill for – is to feature in a new Channel 4 documentary series exploring Britain’s love of cats. For his fans, the spotlight has been a long time coming.

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UK rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite warning of possible genocide

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Exclusive: British government adopted ‘least ambitious’ option months before RSF’s massacres in El Fasher

Britain rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite intelligence warnings that the city of El Fasher would fall amid a wave of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, according to a report seen by the Guardian.

Government officials turned down the plans six months into the 18-month siege of El Fasher in favour of the “least ambitious” option of four presented.

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Nandy breached code over appointment of donor to lead football regulator

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Culture secretary ‘deeply regrets error’ after inquiry finds failures in declaring past donations by watchdog nominee

Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has apologised to Keir Starmer after an inquiry found she failed to say that her choice of nominee to lead a new football regulator had donated to her and to Labour before she nominated him for the role.

Nandy said she regretted the errors highlighted in a report by William Shawcross, the commissioner for public appointments. Her apology comes a week after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, made her own written apology to the prime minister for failing to obtain a licence before renting out her family home.

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Lammy says he was right not to discuss mistakenly freed prisoner at PMQs

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Justice secretary says he did not have ‘all the detail’ at the time and there is ‘mountain to climb’ on prisons crisis

David Lammy has said the government has “a mountain to climb” to tackle the prisons crisis and insisted he was “not equipped with all the detail” when questioned in parliament the previous day about a mistaken prisoner release.

After a fraudster mistakenly freed from prison handed himself in on Thursday, the justice secretary said he had been right not to provide details to MPs at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday about the release of a sex offender who remains at large.

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Lucy Powell says Labour must stand by promise not to raise key taxes

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New deputy leader also calls on government to lift two-child benefit cap urgently and in full

Labour should stand by its manifesto commitment not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, its deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has said in a challenge that will put pressure on Rachel Reeves.

With the Treasury examining whether to raise income tax to plug a £30bn fiscal hole, Powell said it was “really important we stand by the promises we were elected on and do what we said we would do”.

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Lancashire’s Reform-run council plans to close care homes and day centres

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Questions about potential conflict of interest as council’s cabinet member for social care owns private care company

Lancashire’s Reform-run council has been accused of “selling off the family silver” through its plans to save £4m a year by closing five council-run care homes and five day centres and moving residents into the private sector.

One of the care home residents, a 92-year-old woman, said she would leave only by “being forcibly removed or in a box”.

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Second accidental release of prisoner ‘utterly unacceptable’, No 10 says, as Lammy blames system left by Tories – UK politics live

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Lammy, standing in for Keir Starmer, avoided answering questions on the mistaken release during PMQs

David Lammy starts by saying the PM is in Brazil.

He says the thoughts of all MPs are still with the victims of the appalling attacks in Huntingdon and Peterborough, where, he says, he was at school for seven years.

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Reform’s public-sector pensions plan could cost billions extra, union warns

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Prospect says proposals to make payouts less generous would damage public finances rather than save money

Reform UK’s plans to make public-sector pensions less generous could cost billions extra a year and cause a ticking timebomb in the public finances, a leading trade union has warned.

Prospect said the plans unveiled by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, would damage the public finances rather than save money “and end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of pounds in the years to come”.

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Police ‘urgently’ looking for prisoner freed by mistake in London

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Algerian man, 24, ‘released in error’ from HMP Wandsworth two days after stronger checks for jails were brought in

Police have launched an urgent manhunt for a second foreign prisoner freed mistakenly, two days after the justice secretary, David Lammy, brought in stronger checks for jails.

The 24-year-old Algerian was wrongly released from Wandsworth prison in south London last Wednesday, with the Metropolitan police informed only this week.

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NHS staff face ‘ugly’ racism akin to the 70s and 80s, says Wes Streeting

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Health secretary and NHS England chief warn of winter pressures and rising levels of abuse

An “ugly” racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s has become worryingly commonplace again in modern Britain and NHS staff are bearing the brunt of it, Wes Streeting has warned.

Incidents of verbal and physical abuse based on people’s skin colour now happen so often that it has become “socially acceptable to be racist”, the health secretary said.

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RMT accepts three-year pay deal for London Underground staff

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Agreement that will increase drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027 comes after strike action in September

The RMT union has accepted a three-year inflation-plus pay deal for London Underground workers, ending the dispute that led to travel chaos in London in September and increasing drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027.

The deal, with an initial 3.4% increase backdated to this April, means London Underground staff pay will rise in line with RPI inflation – higher than the CPI rate normally used for index-linked pay rises – with guaranteed minimum rates if inflation falls, making the total deal worth at least 9.2%.

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Phillipson calls for ‘less public debate’ from EHRC on gender recognition rules

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Minister responds to calls from watchdog’s chair to approve new guidance on transgender rights ‘as soon as possible’

Bridget Phillipson has urged the equalities watchdog to focus more on helping ministers do their jobs and less on having public debates as a row continues about how long it will take to implement new rules on gender recognition.

The comments by Phillipson, who is the equalities minister as well as the education secretary, come after the Equality and Human Rights Commission took the unusual step of urging the government to “act with speed” in approving its statutory guidance on responding to a landmark supreme court ruling on transgender rights.

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Reeves to lay groundwork for tax rises in ‘candid’ speech about budget

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Chancellor to promise ‘fairness and opportunity’ but will not repeat manifesto pledge on tax, after PM’s hint at breach

Rachel Reeves will lay the groundwork for a tax-raising budget that could break Labour’s election promise on income tax, in a major speech in which she will be “candid” about the tough choices ahead.

The chancellor will give the speech as the markets open on Tuesday, when she will promise to make fair choices at this month’s budget but decline to repeat her manifesto pledge of no rise in income tax, VAT or national insurance.

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French taxi driver cleared of stealing from David Lammy after fare dispute

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Nassim Mimun, who left with Lammy’s and his wife’s bags after ‘tone escalated’, acquitted owing to lack of evidence

A French taxi driver accused of stealing money and luggage from David Lammy has been acquitted due to lack of evidence, a prosecutor said.

Nassim Mimun, 40, drove the deputy prime minister and his wife, Nicola Green, more than 600km (370 miles) from Forli, near Bologna in northern Italy, to the ski resort of Flaine in the French Alps on 11 April.

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Farage accused of betraying pensioners after triple lock hint in speech Tories say was rambling and incoherent – UK politics live

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Reform leader refuses to commit to keeping mechanism that guarantees how pensions are increased

Farage is speaking now. He says another “depressing budget hoves into view”. It will be a budget that “doesn’t have the guts to cut public spending”.

He says Britain has been living under an illusion.

I think for some years we’ve actually been living under an illusion. We’ve not been prepared to face up to just how much of an economic mess we genuinely in.

As we slipped down the global league tables, we kid ourselves that it’s OK, we’ve got GDP growth.

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Nigel Farage backtracks on Reform UK’s promise to cut £90bn of taxes

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Party leader says proposal had been an ‘aspiration’ and accuses Tories and Labour of ‘wrecking the public finances’

Nigel Farage has rowed back from his party’s election promise to cut £90bn of taxes, accusing Labour and the Tories of “wrecking the public finances” and saying Reform UK would need to get public spending under control first.

The Reform leader rejected suggestions he had been forced to break manifesto promises in order to gain economic credibility, suggesting the proposal had only ever been an “aspiration”.

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UK politics: Worries about immigration are ‘manufactured panic’ says charity as poll shows issue not a local concern – as it happened

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YouGov poll say only 26% of people say immigration is an issue locally but more than half believe it to be a national issue

There were six council byelections yesterday. Here are the results, from Election Maps UK.

Reform gained two seats, from Labour and from an independent group.

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Ministers’ claims to have helped JLR in doubt as £1.5bn support left untouched

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Exclusive: No cyber-attack assistance cash has gone into carmaker’s accounts or to struggling suppliers

Jaguar Land Rover has not drawn down any of a £1.5bn loan facility guaranteed by the government, with suppliers expressing anger over ministers’ claims to have supported the carmaker’s supply chain after a crippling hack.

Britain’s biggest automotive employer was forced to shut down all of its wholly owned factories from 1 September for more than a month, after cyber-attackers compromised key computer systems.

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Lettings agency takes blame in Rachel Reeves licence row

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Agency says staff member offered to apply for licence to allow chancellor to rent out family home, but failed to do so

Keir Starmer appears to have escaped the huge political damage of potentially losing his chancellor weeks before the budget, after 24 hours of intense scrutiny over whether Rachel Reeves broke the law when she rented out her family home.

The Conservatives said Reeves must be sacked if she committed an offence by not obtaining a council licence before letting out her four-bedroom house in south London when the family moved into 11 Downing Street. No 10 was initially unable to explain why Starmer believed an apology from the chancellor was sufficient.

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Starmer feels the effects of setting high standards for his party in opposition

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Despite pledges to run a squeaky clean administration the prime minister and some in his cabinet have been caught out

There is a theory in British politics, often attributed to Tony Blair, that you need to be careful about throwing a boomerang in opposition, because when you make it to power it could come back and hit you in the face.

As opposition leader, Keir Starmer became adept at landing blows on the Conservatives. Over the Partygate scandal in particular, he called for Boris Johnson to quit over his rule-breaking. “You cannot be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker and it’s time to pack his bags,” he said.

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