Category Archives: Politics

Andrea Leadsom criticises ‘failures of leadership’ in No 10

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Former business secretary does not call on PM to resign but says MPs must ‘decide on right course of action’

The former cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom has criticised Boris Johnson’s “failure of leadership” – the latest in a string of senior Tory figures to express doubts about the prime minister’s future.

The former business secretary, who has twice run for the party leadership, stopped short of calling for Johnson to resign but said individual MPs would decide on how best to restore confidence.

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Labour urges spending watchdog to assess impact of chancellor’s £21bn package

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Shadow Treasury secretary asks Office for Budget Responsibility to examine Rishi Sunak’s emergency cost of living measures

Labour has called for an independent assessment of whether Rishi Sunak’s £21bn cost of living emergency package could cause inflation to rise even higher and a verdict on the fiscal impact of substantial borrowing.

Pat McFadden, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, wrote to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to ask it to analyse the impact of the measures.

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Hinkley Point B owner says it will not extend life of nuclear plant

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EDF Energy tells staff reactors will be shut down in summer despite concerns of blackouts later this year

The owner of one of the UK’s six nuclear power plants has said it will not extend its life beyond a planned shutdown in summer, despite officials raising concerns over the danger of blackouts in the months that follow.

The French-owned EDF Energy sent a memo to staff on Monday in which it said it would not postpone the closure of the two reactors at Hinkley Point B in Somerset, which are scheduled to be shut down on 8 July and 1 August.

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Johnson’s lurch to the right adds to momentum for leadership vote

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Several Tory MPs believe the 54-letter threshold has been reached and that a challenge to PM could be mounted as soon as next week

Boris Johnson’s lurch to the right after Partygate is fuelling even more anger among rebel Tory MPs, with momentum now building for a leadership challenge next week.

Conservative whips spent the first day of recess anxiously phoning round the parliamentary party to shore up support for the prime minister, as three more MPs called on him to resign, including Jeremy Wright, the former attorney general.

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Blair and former PMs should not act as political ‘figureheads’, says Ed Balls

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Ex-Labour minister tells Hay festival that the involvement of former leaders in the ‘next phase of politics’ may not be sensible

Ed Balls has said former prime ministers such as Tony Blair and David Cameron should not attempt to return as “figureheads for the next phase of politics”.

The former cabinet minister’s comments addressed Blair’s upcoming Future of Britain conference, which is seen as an attempt to reinvigorate centrist politics in the UK by taking inspiration from the success of La République En Marche, the recently created centre-left party that brought Emmanuel Macron to power in France.

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UK about to deport up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers to Iraq despite dangers

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Foreign Office warns against all travel to the country where Islamic State is still a threat

Up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers are facing deportation to Iraq in the first Home Office flight of its kind for a decade.

Iraq is deemed to be so dangerous that the Foreign Office warns against all travel there, warning of “a high threat of kidnapping throughout the country including from both Daesh [Islamic State] and other terrorist and militia groups”.

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Visa scheme for graduates from top 50 non-UK universities is launched

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‘High potential individual’ route will allow eligible individuals to come to Britain without a prior job offer

Graduates from the world’s top 50 non-UK universities can apply to come to Britain through a new visa scheme.

Ministers hope the “high potential individual” route, which launches on Monday, will attract the “brightest and best” at the beginning of their careers to work in the UK.

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‘Same nightmare week after week’: UK firms fed up with post-Brexit EU trade

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Exporters fear Northern Ireland protocol row will spur trade war with Brussels, making an already difficult job even harder

Mark Brearley is still frustrated by Brexit. More than a year from Britain’s formal withdrawal from the EU, on terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, exporting the goods his company produces hasn’t got any easier for the London-based manufacturer.

Describing it as “the same nightmare week after week”, he says: “A lot more time is spent with things going wrong. The EU really feels like the hardest place in the world to ship things to sometimes.”

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Ukrainian MP urges west to supply long-range rockets or risk Russian victory

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Kira Rudik says on visit to UK that without further military help Ukraine will fail to push back invaders

A Ukrainian MP visiting Britain has urged the west to supply long-range rockets to her country – and warned without further military help her country risked deadlock or defeat in its war against Russia.

Kira Rudik, the leader of the opposition liberal Golos party, said she was afraid of the three-month long war “becoming the new normal” and that the west would not supply the Nato-standard weapons Ukraine needed to push back the invaders.

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Minister disputes claims No 10 pushed Sue Gray to dilute Partygate report

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Brandon Lewis ‘absolutely confident’ investigation was independent and she was not lobbied to alter details

A senior minister has disputed claims Sue Gray was pressured to water down her report into law-breaking parties across Westminster, saying he is “absolutely confident” the investigation had been entirely independent.

Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, dismissed suggestions that senior figures in Downing Street pushed for detail about the so-called “Abba party” in Boris Johnson’s flat during lockdown and staff members’ names to be stripped out.

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Over 500 Ukrainian children stuck waiting for UK visa decision

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Exclusive: sources say most have hosts ready under Homes for Ukraine scheme but have heard nothing

More than 500 Ukrainian children who fled the war without their parents are stuck waiting in limbo across Europe after applying to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, sources working closely with the Home Office say.

Most are teenagers who thought they would be eligible and have British families waiting to host them, but have heard nothing from the Home Office.

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Don’t make Partygate official Martin Reynolds our man in Riyadh, urge Tories

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Senior figure warns that man mentioned 24 times in Sue Gray report would be ‘representing the Queen’ as ambassador to Saudi Arabia

Senior Tories are warning Boris Johnson against appointing an official at the heart of the Partygate scandal to a top diplomatic job after it emerged that the man was being lined up to be Britain’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Martin Reynolds quit as Johnson’s principal private secretary in February following outrage about Partygate. He left after an email emerged in which he had invited hundreds of Whitehall staff to a “bring your own booze” party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020.

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New Commons partygate inquiry poised to derail Tory conference

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Privileges committee looks set to report in October, when Boris Johnson will be aiming to win back members’ trust

A House of Commons inquiry over whether Boris Johnson misled MPs over Partygate is on course to coincide with a Tory party conference already seen as crucial in resetting his leadership.

The prime minister appeared to have survived any immediate threat to his leadership in the wake of last week’s Sue Gray report on Downing Street parties, which revealed damning details of rule-breaking, drunkenness and abuse of No 10 staff during Covid lockdowns.

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Loophole could let North Sea oil and gas giants slash UK windfall tax bill

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Critics warn chancellor Rishi Sunak will raise only a fraction of planned £5bn if firms offset new investment against profits

North Sea oil and gas companies that already benefit from huge tax breaks could use fresh rules to slash how much they pay under a new windfall tax announced by Rishi Sunak as part of his £15bn cost of living package, according to a thinktank.

The chancellor risks raising a fraction of the £5bn he expects from the complex scheme – which allows the cost of new investments to be offset against profits – should oil and gas companies take the opportunity to dramatically reduce their contribution to the exchequer, said the left of centre Common Wealth.

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Top Tories say Boris Johnson is ‘plunging party into an identity crisis’

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Partygate and U-turns on tax are ‘undermining message’, say Conservative MPs as more call for him to quit

Boris Johnson has plunged the Conservative party into an acute identity crisis as a result of Partygate and U-turns over tax policy, senior Tories warned last night, as more MPs called for him to resign as prime minister.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith told the Observer his party had been left with an “enormous identity problem” because it had raised taxes instead of cutting them under Johnson and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, undermining a core Tory message that had helped win it successive general elections.

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Ukraine pleads for weapons as Russian onslaught threatens to turn the tide

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As support among some European allies appears to waver, Kyiv calls for advanced rocket systems to hit Russia’s supply lines

Ukraine is in a race against time to save the eastern Donbas region as relentless Russian artillery and air strikes threaten to turn the tide of the war, and support for Kyiv’s continued defiance among some west European allies appears to be slipping.

Ukrainian officials say they urgently need advanced US-made mobile multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) to halt Russian advances in Luhansk and Donetsk. The rockets would be capable of striking Russian firing positions, military bases, air strips and supply lines at a range of up to 300km (185 miles).

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Boris Johnson to reportedly bring back imperial measurements to mark platinum jubilee

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Move is an apparent attempt to win support from Brexit voters in seats Tories fear losing

Boris Johnson will reportedly announce the return of imperial measurements to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee, in an apparent attempt to garner support among Brexiter voters in battleground seats that the Conservatives are in danger of losing.

Britain currently uses a mix of imperial and metric measurements, with speed limits in miles per hour and milk and beer bought in pints.

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Loss of EU funding clips wings of vital crow study in Cambridge

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Laboratory chief blames Brexit for closure as money for corvid brain power research dries up

One of Britain’s most important, and unusual, centres for studying cognition is facing imminent closure as a result of Brexit. Set up 22 years ago to study the minds of crows, rooks and other birds noted for their intelligence, the Cambridge Comparative Cognition Laboratory is set to cease operations in July.

Its director, Professor Nicola Clayton, told the Observer she was devastated by the prospect of ending her research there. Nor was she in any doubt about the prime reason for the centre’s closure.

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Revealed: Afghan journalists facing death threats and beatings, despite UK pledge to save them

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Group who worked with UK media to sue government over failure to relocate them to Britain

A group of Afghan journalists who worked closely with the UK media for years have revealed how they face beatings, death threats and months in hiding, and accuse the government of reneging on a pledge to bring them to Britain.

Having fought in vain for clearance to come to the UK since the return of Taliban rule last summer, the eight journalists are now taking legal action against the government. They have applied for a judicial review after waiting months for their applications to relocate to the UK to be processed. They report only receiving standard response emails from the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) programme.

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‘We have been mistreated’: cousin of Whitehall cleaner who died speaks out

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Vincente Gomes is a cousin and former colleague of Emanuel Gomes, who died after going into work with a fever

A government cleaner has described how he and his colleagues feel powerless to refuse difficult situations such as clearing up after parties, amid alleged maltreatment and low pay.

Sue Gray’s report on the Partygate scandal disclosed that government cleaners and security guards were subjected to a “lack of respect and poor treatment” while officials drank excessively, spilled wine on the walls and partied into the small hours.

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