Category Archives: Politics

Business secretary claims workers’ rights bill U-turn doesn’t breach Labour’s manifesto – UK politics live

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Peter Kyle denies unfair dismissal policy U-turn is breach of manifesto pledge but unions and Labour MPs criticise decision

On Wednesday Kemi Badenoch had to respond to Rachel Reeves’s speech because, by convention, with budgets that’s a job for the leader of the opposition, not the shadow chancellor. And normally no one takes much interest, because what’s in the budget is more interesting.

But Badenoch’s speech has attracted a lot of attention, for two reasons. First, even by Badenoch’s standards, it was unusually personal, and brutal. The full text is here, but it’s best to watch it to get a full sense of what it was like. As an example of precision, parliamentary viciousness, it was like Norman Tebbit in the 1970s. Some people were appalled, but Tories have said it was easily her best Commons peformance to date and that view is shared by others too. Even Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, the gods of centrist punditry, judged it to be highly effective.

When I walked in for prime minister’s questions, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, she looks absolutely broken, this OBR leak must be very upsetting for her, I’ll pull my punches.’

And then she launched into the most extraordinary tirade against the Conservatives in her own speech. So she started it … And I thought, ‘Well, I’m not pulling any punches now.’

Well, you can’t please everybody.

But I also have to deal with a barrage of abuse every single week at prime minister’s questions. The prime minister can get very personal. Labour MPs shouting – there’s only 120 Conservatives. There’s well over 400 Labour MPs.

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‘Delays inevitable’: Starmer leadership safe until May elections, say Labour MPs

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While some call budget ‘tactical victory’, few MPs believe it is enough for Labour to beat Reform

Labour MPs have said they believe Keir Starmer’s leadership is safe until at least the May elections, after a budget that avoided any major damaging measures but which few MPs believe will revive the party’s fortunes.

More than a dozen previously loyal MPs told the Guardian they did not believe the budget would shift the fundamentals required for the party to beat Reform. “It only delays what is inevitable,” one minister said.

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UK rejects visa for girl left destitute in Jamaica by Hurricane Melissa

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Lati-Yana Brown’s parents had asked for application to be expedited so she could join them in UK after house ruined

An eight-year-old girl left destitute in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa has been barred from coming to the UK to join her parents.

The Guardian reported on the case of Lati-Yana Stephanie Brown after the hurricane. Her mother, Kerrian Bigby, a carer, moved from Jamaica to be with Lati-Yana’s British father, Jerome Hardy, a telecommunications worker, in April 2023, leaving their daughter to be cared for by her grandmother.

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Government to ditch day-one unfair dismissal policy from workers’ rights bill

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Flagship Labour plan to be replaced with six-month threshold after Peter Kyle vows to not let businesses ‘lose’ under new law

The government is to ditch its flagship policy from the workers’ rights bill, removing the right to protection from unfair dismissal from the first day of employment and replacing it with a six-month threshold.

The move comes after the business secretary, Peter Kyle, told businesses at the CBI conference this week that he would listen to concerns about the effects of the law change on hiring. A trade union source told the Guardian: “They’ve capitulated and there may be more to come.”

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Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm hired by company linked to Chinese military

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Global Counsel signed $3m contract with WuXi AppTec in Europe months after it was named in US national security drive

Global Counsel, the lobbying firm co-founded by Peter Mandelson, was brought in to advise the Chinese pharmaceutical company WuXi AppTec in Europe months after it was targeted in a US national security crackdown.

WuXi AppTec signed a $3m contract with Global Counsel last year to deal with the international fallout from claims that it had links with the Chinese military and was implicated in human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

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Starmer says budget did not break manifesto tax pledge – as it happened

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PM says: ‘We kept to our manifesto in terms of what we’ve promised. But I accept the challenge that we’ve asked everybody to contribute’

The Conservative party is attacking the budget on the grounds that Rachel Reeves is putting up taxes supposedly to fund more spending on benefit claimants. Even though the rationale for this claim is questionable, the Tories were making it before the budget was announced, and Kemi Badenoch firmed it up last night, claiming it was a “Benefits Street budget”.

On LBC this morning, asked if the budget meant “alarm clock Britain paying for Benefits Street”, Reeves said she did not accept that. She said 60% of the families that would benefit from the removal of the two-child benefit cap (the most expensive welfare announcement in the budget) were in work.

I don’t think children should be punished by this pernicious policy any longer. And the cost to society of this is huge, the cost for councils of temporary accommodation, when people can no longer afford the rent, putting families in B&Bs, kids having to move to school all the time because parents have moved from B&B to another lot of temporary accommodation, and there’s costs for years to come, because all the evidence shows that kids that are growing up poor are less likely to get into work and more reliant on the welfare state in the future for them.

So this is a good investment in those kids, to give them the chances that I want for my kids, and everyone wants for their kids. It also saves money for taxpayers on that accommodation, on those additional health costs, and ensuring that those kids grow up to be productive adults.

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Rachel Reeves targets UK’s wealthiest in £26bn tax-raising budget

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Chancellor axes two-child benefit cap and cuts energy bills paid for by mansion tax and freezing tax thresholds

Rachel Reeves targeted Britain’s wealthiest households with a £26bn tax-raising budget to fund scrapping the two-child benefit policy and cutting energy bills.

On a chaotic day that involved key details of her budget accidentally being released early by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the chancellor defended the measures, saying she was “asking everyone to make a contribution to repair the public finances”, but that she wanted the wealthiest to pay the most.

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How Rachel Reeves’s budget was leaked 40 minutes early

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By the time the chancellor reached the dispatch box, the OBR had accidentally published its verdict in full online

Shortly before midday on Wednesday, a series of headlines about Rachel Reeves’s budget began appearing on the Reuters newswire, sending instant ripples though financial markets.

The details were jaw-dropping: they appeared to spell out the key policies of the chancellor’s budget more than 40 minutes before she was due to deliver them to a crowded Commons chamber.

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How Rachel Reeves’s budget was leaked 40 minutes early

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By the time the chancellor reached the dispatch box, the OBR had accidentally published its verdict in full online

Shortly before midday on Wednesday, a series of headlines about Rachel Reeves’s budget began appearing on the Reuters newswire, sending instant ripples though financial markets.

The details were jaw-dropping: they appeared to spell out the key policies of the chancellor’s budget more than 40 minutes before she was due to deliver them to a crowded Commons chamber.

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Mayors in England to get power to impose tourism tax on overnight visitors at ‘modest’ rate – UK politics live

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Government announces overnight levy ahead of tomorrow’s budget

John McFall is standing down early as Lord Speaker in the House of Lords so that he can care for his wife, Joan, who has was Parkinson’s. According to Sam Blewett and Bethany Dawson in their London Playbook briefing for Politico, the main candidates to replace him are Michael Forsyth, a rightwing Scottish secretary in the final two years of the John Major government, and Deborah Bull, a crossbencher and former Royal Opera House creative director. They reports:

Labour isn’t expected to put forward a candidate as McFall’s previous political affiliation means it’s seen as another party’s turn to rule the roost, Noah [Keate] writes in to say. Forsyth has garnered support from some Labour grandees who like his traditional approach and aversion to modernization while Bull has being promoted by some female peers keen for a woman to take charge. One Tory peer described Forsyth as a “political animal” who may struggle to encourage a consensus across the chamber. A list of candidates’ register of interests and election addresses (up to 300 words) will be emailed to all peers on Dec. 1. Watch your inboxes!

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander rejected a rival proposal from Arora Group, saying Heathrow’s own plans were “the most credible and deliverable option”.

The Heathrow proposals involve building a 3,500-metre runway and require a new M25 tunnel and bridges to be built 130 metres west of the existing motorway.

Following a comparative assessment of the remaining proposals for Heathrow expansion, the government’s view is that the Northwest runway scheme brought forward by Heathrow Airport Limited offers the most credible and deliverable option, principally due to the relative maturity of its proposal, the comparative level of confidence in the feasibility and resilience of its surface access plans, and the stronger comfort it provides in relation to the efficient, resilient and sustainable operations of the airport over the long-term.

The HAL scheme is considered comparatively more mature in its approach to road infrastructure. While the HAL scheme requires major works to the M25, assessment indicates that the HWL scheme would also have a considerable impact on the M25.

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Rachel Reeves expected to scrap £300m in tax breaks for Motability scheme

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Plan to remove relief from scheme that helps provide cars for disabled people likely to concern some Labour MPs

Rachel Reeves is expected to press ahead with scrapping about £300m in tax breaks for the Motability scheme that helps provide cars for disabled people, in a move likely to spark concerns among some Labour MPs.

The Treasury was reported to have been considering axing tax breaks up to £1bn but savings will not be as high as that figure, with concerns among ministers that some policy options could have led to Motability’s collapse.

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Reeves’s plan to cut cash Isa limit could raise mortgage rates, say finance bosses

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Building societies fear consumers will be put off from saving if chancellor’s budget announces a 40% reduction

Rachel Reeves’s plan to slash the annual cash Isa limit by 40% could lead to higher mortgage rates and deter consumers from saving, finance bosses have said.

The chancellor is expected to cut the maximum amount people can put into tax-efficient cash individual savings accounts from £20,000 a year to £12,000 in Wednesday’s budget.

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University students in England get two-thirds of funding of a decade ago, analysis finds

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University leaders says planned levy on international student fees will leave many institutions even worse off

University students in England get just two-thirds of the funding they would have received a decade ago, after inflation and government cuts have reduced the resources available for teaching, according to vice-chancellors.

University leaders said the situation was likely to get worse if the government went ahead with a new levy on international student fees in Wednesday’s budget.

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Theresa May and Cate Blanchett to guest edit BBC Today programme

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Former PM to examine issue of trust in politics and Oscar-winning actor’s show will discuss AI

The former prime minister Theresa May is to guest edit Radio 4’s Today programme and use it to explore the issue of dwindling trust in politics.

May, who resigned in 2019 with a tearful statement about the honour she felt in holding the office, will edit Today on New Year’s Eve.

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Rachel Reeves promises to ‘grip the cost of living’ in autumn budget

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Chancellor admits economy ‘feels stuck’ for many as she signals intention to freeze income tax thresholds

Rachel Reeves has promised to “grip the cost of living” in the budget as she prepares to scrap the two-child welfare limit and freeze rail fares, while putting forward a multibillion-pound tax-raising package.

The chancellor is preparing to give her second budget on Wednesday after weeks of uncertainty about the scale of the tax rises she will need to impose to plug a financial hole of about £20bn.

Freezing income tax thresholds for an extra two years to 2030, bringing more people into higher tax bands as wages rise.

Making salary sacrifice schemes less generous, including those for pension contributions.

Bringing in higher tax on the most expensive properties, including a surcharge on the highest-value houses.

A pay-per-mile scheme on electric cars to help fill the tax gap from petrol duty as more people opt for green vehicles.

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Lord Rothermere’s Telegraph takeover strengthens UK media’s rightwing tilt

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Many fear competition and diversity will be diminished as Daily Mail owner wins race to buy newspaper

As the dust settles from the battle for the ownership of the Daily Telegraph, one man has been left standing: Lord Rothermere, whose family have been a mainstay of British newspapers for more than a century.

“This is a very British stitch-up,” said Lionel Barber, the former editor of the Financial Times. “Lord Rothermere has played a very astute poker hand, he’s shown patience and he’s the big winner.”

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Iqbal Mohamed becomes second MP to quit Your Party

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Mohamed says decision to leave was after ‘many false allegations and smears’ against him and others

A second MP within a week has quit Your Party in acrimonious circumstances, throwing yet more doubt on the viability of the leftwing group co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

In a statement on X, Iqbal Mohamed, who was elected as the independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley last year, said his decision to leave was after “many false allegations and smears” against him and others, which he did not explain.

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Farage’s views on Russia likely to be further tested after jailing of Nathan Gill

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It would be expedient for Reform to take Labour’s advice and disavow ‘Putin talking points’

The discovery of a pro-Russian asset, Nathan Gill, at the heart of a British political party reads like the plot of a John Le Carré novel.

Russia was long known to have been trying to interfere in foreign politics with online bots and cyber-disinformation over the past decade.

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Reeves ‘not even sure what the popular path is’ on the budget – UK politics live

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Chancellor says ‘We can’t just carry on like this and muddle through. We have to make some decisions to get on a different path’

Prime minister Keir Starmer had a bilateral meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the G20 summit on Friday.

The two leaders discussed the 11-hour flight from London to Johannesburg in brief remarks in front of reporters, according to the PA news agency.

Energy bills are still far higher than five years ago, on top of sky-high mortgages and rents and prices in the shops.

The government has pledged time and time again to bring down energy bills – it is time for them to live up to their word and stop tinkering, committing to a real long term plan.

Liberal Democrats have a plan: we would slash energy bills in half by removing the renewables levy from bills, creating new energy loans for homeowners to insulate their homes and boosting renewables – the cheapest, cleanest and most popular form of energy.

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Reform UK’s former Wales leader jailed for taking bribes for pro-Russia speeches

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Police say Nathan Gill received at least £40,000 while he was an MEP from Oleg Voloshyn, an alleged Russian asset

Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, has been jailed at the Old Bailey for 10 and a half years for taking bribes to make statements in favour of Russia when he was an MEP.

Gill, a member of the Ukip and Brexit party blocs led by Nigel Farage in the European parliament, had pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery between 6 December 2018 and 18 July 2019.

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