Category Archives: Politics

Workers at UK’s biggest container port Felixstowe strike over pay

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About 1,900 crane drivers, machine operators and stevedores involved in eight-day action

Workers at the UK’s biggest container port have gone on strike for the first time since 1989, with shipping companies and union leaders warning the action could impact supply chains and leave shoppers waiting for goods.

About 1,900 members of Unite at Felixstowe have walked out in a dispute over pay today, in the latest outbreak of industrial action to hit a growing number of sectors of the economy.

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Labour surges as Tory fears grow over Truss’s tax cut agenda

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Likely PM’s policies will mean ‘big trouble’, say critics, as Starmer’s energy price initiative boosts him in polls

Senior Tories have warned that their party will suffer dire electoral consequences under a Liz Truss premiership that fails to address the cost of living crisis, as Labour enjoys a poll bounce suggesting Keir Starmer could be on course for No 10.

Amid signs of mounting panic among high-ranking Conservatives about Truss’s economic policies, several former cabinet ministers told the Observer on Saturday the party would suffer devastating losses in blue and red wall seats unless Truss changes tack, if and when she enters No 10.

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Afghan female judge fleeing Taliban appeals after Home Office refuses UK entry

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Lawyers say the woman, who is in hiding in Pakistan with her son, will be killed if sent back to Afghanistan

A female former senior judge from Afghanistan who is in hiding from the Taliban with her son has filed an appeal to the Home Office after her application to enter the UK was denied.

Lawyers for the woman – who is named as “Y” – said on Saturday they had submitted an appeal on behalf of their client and her son at the Immigration Tribunal, saying she had been left in a “gravely vulnerable position” by the withdrawal of British and other western troops.

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Glum Sunak supporters hold out for gamechanging gaffe from Truss

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With Tory members seeming to tolerate a series of missteps, the frontrunner is on course for No 10 – barring a ‘spectacular foul-up’

Rishi Sunak’s supporters are understandably glum, but one thing alone means they have not totally given up hope of defeating Liz Truss. “We’re crossing our fingers for a gamechanging gaffe,” says one Conservative MP who has ended up supporting Sunak after initially backing another candidate.

John Curtice, the polling expert from Strathclyde University, this week put Sunak’s chances of victory at just 5%, saying Truss was almost sure to win unless she “fouls up in some spectacular fashion” in the final stages of the Tory leadership contest.

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Gove backs Sunak and says Truss is ‘taking holiday from reality’

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Former cabinet minister says he does not expect to return to frontbench politics as he backs underdog in race to be PM

Michael Gove has thrown his support behind Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership contest, warning that Liz Truss’s refusal to offer more support over rising energy bills and to just focus on tax cuts marked a “holiday from reality”.

In a sometimes hard-hitting article in the Times, Gove said he did not expect to be made a minister again and that many people expected Truss to win, but he believes Sunak “makes the right arguments”.

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Revealed: Liz Truss personally supported cuts to NHS and doctors’ pay

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Article by Tory hopeful arguing NHS ‘cannot be put on pedestal’ shows she fully backed 2009 cost-cutting pamphlet

Liz Truss personally supported cuts to the NHS, arguing the service “cannot be put on a pedestal” in an article in which she also criticised the “inexorable” rise in doctors’ pay.

The newly emerged opinion piece was written by Truss to support a thinktank report she co-authored that called for patients to be charged for GP appointments and doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10%.

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Government to take greater control of Liverpool city council

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Intervention expanded to include financial decisions and governance after report calls for urgent reform

The government’s intervention in the running of Liverpool city council is to be expanded to include governance and financial decision-making.

It comes after the publication of another critical report on the local authority by four commissioners appointed last year to work with the council staff in key areas after an inspection.

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Labour sets out plan to link minimum wage to cost of living

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Exclusive: Earnings of lowest paid could rise by £832; lower rates for 18- to 22-year-olds to be scrapped

Labour has drawn up plans to put hundreds of pounds into the pockets of the lowest paid by instructing the Low Pay Commission to factor in living costs when it sets the minimum wage.

They also want to scrap the lower pay categories for workers aged between 18 and 22, so they would all be paid at the higher rate.

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Recall parliament early to tackle soaring energy bills, Labour urges PM

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Letter to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak calls for action to help households before price cap rises

Labour has urged Boris Johnson to recall parliament next week so the government can offer more help to struggling households before the announcement of the new energy price cap.

The opposition has written to the prime minister and both Tory leadership candidates warning that it is a “crucial deadline” for government action to tackle soaring energy bills, after inflation topped 10% for the first time in 40 years.

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Liz Truss called for patients to be charged for GP visits, 2009 paper reveals

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PM hopeful co-authored pamphlet that also called for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% and abolition of universal child benefit

Liz Truss called for patients to be charged to see their GP and for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% in a pamphlet she co-authored in 2009, the unearthed document has revealed.

The Tory leadership frontrunner also wanted to see the universal child benefit abolished in the report, which she co-wrote with six other people when she was deputy director of the Reform thinktank.

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No 10 denies ministers seeking political fight with rail unions

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Denial comes as language toughens on both sides and head of RMT again warns of de facto general strike

Downing Street has denied that ministers are deliberately seeking a political fight with rail unions, as both sides toughened their language further and the head of the RMT warned the impasse could continue “indefinitely”.

Just 20% of rail services ran on Thursday, in a sixth day of strike action since June involving the RMT and TSSA unions, with further disruption taking place on Saturday, which is likely to affect trains throughout the weekend.

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UK’s 10% inflation casts doubt on Truss and Sunak’s tax cut promises

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Soaring cost of living is forcing up government spending on benefits, pensions and debt leaving no spare cash to lower taxes

Britain’s first double-digit inflation in more than four decades has cast doubts on the plausibility of the tax cuts being promised by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak during their leadership battle, one of the UK’s leading thinktanks has said.

Following news that the government’s preferred measure of the cost of living rose by 10.1% in the year to July, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said higher inflation would mean extra spending on welfare benefits, state pensions and on debt interest.

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Rail strikes: Britons face three more days of disruption from Thursday

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Network Rail, several train firms, London Underground and London buses to be hit by latest action

Commuters and other travellers are facing further disruption over three days from Thursday on rail, tube and bus services, as tens of thousands of workers begin the latest round of strike action.

Network Rail, several train companies, London Underground and buses in the capital will be hit by industrial action due to long-running disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.

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Political strategist calling Sunak-backing MPs to win them over to Truss camp

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Exclusive: Mark Fullbrook having ‘long conversations’ with high-profile potential switchers

A veteran political strategist who used to work for Boris Johnson has been phoning senior Conservatives currently supporting Rishi Sunak to persuade them to back Liz Truss for prime minister.

Mark Fullbrook, who ran the prime minister’s successful leadership bid in 2019, has been playing a key role in the foreign secretary’s bid to win over more high-profile Tory MPs to cement her frontrunner status.

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Liz Truss’s plan for cost of living crisis would lead to ‘moral failure’, says Rishi Sunak – UK politics live

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Former chancellor says foreign secretary’s tax cut plan would provide no support for pensioners or other vulnerable groups

London’s mayor has warned of a rise in shootings and stabbings amid concerns that the increasing cost of living could lead to more violence and make it easier for gangs to lure vulnerable young people.

Sadiq Khan said millions of pounds more were being put into schemes to turn people away from violence. The Labour mayor has been criticised by some for his record on crime.

I am concerned about a potential increase in violence this summer as the cost of living crisis deepens and threatens to reverse the progress we have made in tackling violent crime. Violence, like poverty, is not inevitable and the government must now do much more to show it shares my commitment to building a fairer, safer London for all.

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North Korea – a model for Grant Shapps’ bicycle licence plate proposal?

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The secretive state demands each cycle display a registration number – although officially women are banned from bikes

• UK cyclists could be made to have registration plates

If the British transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is looking for a “model” for his bicycle registration plates proposal he could turn to one of the world’s most illiberal countries: North Korea.

After decades of being frowned upon as a primitive means of transport for citizens of a modern, socialist paradise, cycling gained official acceptance in the secretive state in 1992 – although it is officially banned for women.

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Registration plates and insurance for cyclists being considered by government – report

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Whitehall review is also said to suggest cycling speed limits, along with licence penalty points and fines

Bikes could be made to have registration plates and insurance as ministers weigh up bringing speed limits for cyclists into line with those for drivers.

The government is also considering the possibility of cyclists receiving licence penalty points and fines if they break speed limits or run red lights, the Daily Mail reported.

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Liz Truss faces Rishi Sunak in leadership hustings after comments about British workers leaked – as it happened

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Latest updates: leaked audio reveals favourite to be next PM said British workers lacked the ‘graft’ of their foreign rivals

Keir Starmer said the biggest cause of division in Scotland was the Conservative party.

The Labour leader said:

The single biggest driver of division in Scotland is the Tory party in Westminster.

I want to hold our UK together, I want to make a positive case for the UK as we go forward.

I think that this assumption that most people can afford these massive hikes in their energy bills is completely wrong.

I think the government in making that argument is completely out of touch.

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Sunak and Truss rule out freezing energy prices at leadership hustings

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Rival candidates questioned in Perth after frontrunner Truss makes belligerent remarks about Sturgeon

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have ruled out freezing energy prices by claiming it would be an expensive, short-term fix that would fail to solve the underlying problem with soaring energy costs.

The Conservative leadership contenders were questioned on whether they would back Labour’s new strategy to fix the domestic energy cap during a leadership hustings at Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday night.

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Foreign Office official raised ‘stark’ criticisms of Rwanda plan, court hears

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Guardian, BBC and Times seek release of documents about policy of sending asylum seekers abroad

A Foreign Office official raised concerns about plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, citing state surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture and killings by the country’s government, the high court has heard.

The court has been asked to consider an application by the foreign secretary to keep parts of certain government documents secret for fear the contents could damage international relations and threaten national security.

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