Category Archives: Politics

Monday briefing: What can Andy Burnham learn from Spain’s Pedro Sànchez?

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In today’s newsletter: The Spanish prime minister has remade himself as Europe’s leading leftwing standard-bearer. Could his success offer the UK’s PM a route forward?

Good morning. To international onlookers, Pedro Sànchez appears to have achieved the impossible. Where other European leftist and left-ish premiers have flopped and flailed, the Spanish PM has endured.

Since June 2018, Sánchez has ruled from Madrid, implementing a raft of progressive policies. More recently, he has emerged as a leading, and often lone, left-wing European voice on the global stage, striking a defiant tone on everything from the Trump administration’s war in Iran (“the smokescreen of war to hide their failure”) to Israel’s actions in Gaza (“exterminating a defenceless people”). The fact that the international press has nicknamed him El Guapo (the handsome one) can’t hurt.

UK economy | The UK should expect to see a new cost of living crisis, with official figures released this week by the ONS expected to show how soaring energy bills drove up inflation close to 3% in July.

Ceuta | Moroccan police arrested 111 people this weekend, who were trying to enter Spain’s north African territory of Ceuta, amid tightened security on both sides after social media posts called for another mass crossing.

Jason Arday | The University of Cambridge has defended its mental health support for the academic Jason Arday.

UK politics | Andy Burnham is being urged to protect 4 million gig economy workers, who thinktanks warn miss out on key statutory rights including: parental leave, redundancy pay and protection against unfair dismissal.

Indonesia | Rescue crews dug through collapsed buildings and landslide debris in eastern Indonesia on Sunday, searching for bodies after a powerful earthquake killed at least 51 people, and injured more than 100.

Sànchez understands that anchoring his party to the left … is where he can govern.

Monday | Nominations close for candidates seeking to replace Anas Sarwar as Scottish Labour leader.

Tuesday | Opening arguments expected to begin in a lawsuit brought by multiple US states against Meta about social media addiction.

Thursday | Students in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland will receive their GCSE results.

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Loosening of planning rules in England to allow more new homes near stations

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Angela Rayner to launch guidance for ‘default yes’ on developments near transport hubs, including on green belt sites

Thousands more homes could be built within 10 minutes of transport hubs, including on green belt sites, under a loosening of planning policy announced by Angela Rayner on Monday.

The housing secretary will set out changes to national planning guidance for England that will include an order for councils to have a “default yes” approach to housing developments that are within a reasonable walking distance of well-connected train and tram stations.

Stronger support in principle for development, meaning a more explicit presumption in favour of building in sustainable locations.

Pubs will get protection from being turned into housing or offices with developers having to prove there is no reasonable prospect of keeping a pub as a going concern, including evidence that it was marketed for sale for at least a year.

A requirement for at least 40% of homes to be accessible on bigger developments and stronger protections for community facilities.

Stronger support for growth and infrastructure including support for AI growth zones and datacentres.

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Reform accused of targeting the most vulnerable with £50bn benefit cut

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Robert Jenrick takes aim at disabled people and foreign nationals after saying UK guilty of ‘suicidal empathy’

Reform UK has been accused of excluding the most vulnerable from society and punishing non-Britons living in the UK as it prepared to outline £50bn of cuts to benefits for disabled people and foreign nationals.

Robert Jenrick, Reform’s finance spokesperson, will detail the plans for £20bn of cuts to disability benefits overall, as well as another £21bn from stopping foreign nationals – including EU citizens with settled status – claiming almost any benefits, among other cuts.

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Taliban threaten former Afghan police worker after MoD leak reveals identity

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UK has refused resettlement application despite ‘years of loyal service’ that have resulted in ‘constant fear’ of reprisals

A man has received threats from the Taliban after his work for the Afghan police was revealed by a Ministry of Defence leak and the UK refused his application for resettlement.

Hamid* worked for the Afghan national police special unit and received certificates for his work signed by senior British figures praising his “dedication, unparalleled service and leadership”. His details were also included in an accidental 2022 leak by an MoD official that identified 18,700 Afghans who had worked with or for the British government.

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Burnham announces £65m for drought-hit farmers after Labour pressure

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PM steps up climate response with measures including better water access and support for building farm reservoirs

Farmers must not carry the risks of the climate crisis alone, Andy Burnham has said, as he announced £65m of funding to help them manage the devastating drought.

The prime minister is stepping up his response to the immediate climate crisis after facing a backlash from his own MPs and Labour’s grassroots for not addressing the climate crisis despite wildfires tearing through Britain and a drought affecting food producers. Labour MPs argued Burnham had taken too long to talk about the climate crisis and had not made it a priority.

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Standards watchdog resumes investigation into Nigel Farage over financial gifts

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Reform UK leader’s return to Clacton restarts inquiry into £5m gift from crypto-billionaire and support from fraudster

• UK politics live – latest updates

The suspended parliamentary standards investigation into Nigel Farage over accusations he failed to declare gifts and donations has resumed after the Reform UK leader’s re-election as the MP for Clacton.

The twofold investigation by Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, was paused after Farage resigned from his seat and called a byelection in protest at what he said was unfair scrutiny of his finances.

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Nearly 100 children detained as adults under UK-France migration deal

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Figures emerge in critical letter to Home Office from organisation appointed to scrutinise detention facilities

Nearly 100 children have been wrongly identified and detained as adults under Shabana Mahmood’s “one in, one out” deal with France, the Guardian can disclose.

Home Office staff said that of 304 age-disputed cases arising from the scheme over nine months, 94 (31%) – were ultimately found to be minors. Children are supposed to be excluded from the scheme, while government policy limits immigration detention of unaccompanied children to 24 hours.

Had been awaiting deportation for more than six months, despite being supposed be held for up to 28 days only “in exceptional cases”.

Were being readied for removal to France despite having TB or requiring hospital treatment.

Faced removal after being separated from family members with whom they had travelled, which she said had a “particularly damaging impact”.

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Government could pay higher rents to spread asylum accommodation across UK

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Greater use of private rental properties would form part of PM’s plan to spread accommodation more evenly across UK

Ministers are considering paying higher prices for housing asylum seekers in private rental properties as part of Andy Burnham’s plan to spread accommodation more evenly across the country.

Using more private rental accommodation, known as “dispersal”, as well as former military barracks, is cheaper than expensive hotels for asylum seekers.

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Yvette Cooper says Labour ‘did not do government very well’ under Starmer

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Health secretary praises more collegiate style under Andy Burnham and says previous No 10 sidelined her from key policy launch

Yvette Cooper admits Labour has “not done government very well” in the last couple of years, and accused Keir Starmer’s No 10 of sidelining her during the launch of a key immigration policy when she was home secretary.

Speaking on the Political Currency podcast with the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne, Cooper highlighted some of the difficulties ministers faced with Starmer’s leadership, which she summarised as “bring me solutions, not problems”.

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Thursday briefing: What happens after an asylum hotel closes?

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In today’s newsletter: With more sites closed and more lives upended, a look at the rhetoric and reality of where asylum seekers should be housed

Good morning. This week, immigration minister Anna Turley announced, with minor fanfare, the government will stop using a further 13 hotels to house asylum seekers across the country.

It brings the total shut this year to 44, in pursuit of Labour’s manifesto pledge, now reiterated by Andy Burnham, to cease hotel use completely by the end of this parliament. Doing so would remove what have become highly visible symbols of an increasingly toxic debate about migration. Less than 160 to go, according to the Home Office.

Solar eclipse | Wednesday’s eclipse began in Russia’s remote Arctic north, going on to trace an arc over much of western Europe. From the UK to northern Italy, tens of millions of people turned to the sky as the light of the setting sun was almost completely blocked out.

UK news | Nurses are collapsing during shifts amid “inhumane and impossible” conditions caused by extreme heat, their union has warned, as Andy Burnham promised to grapple with “the bigger questions” of climate adaptation.

US politics | Karoline Leavitt will step down as White House press secretary at the end of August, Donald Trump announced.

Science | Astronomers claim to have discovered a new kind of cosmic object, a black hole “star”, which is the size of the entire solar system and glows with a brilliant red light.

Middle East | Israeli militants have besieged two Palestinian families in their homes since the weekend, aiming to take over their properties in the West Bank village of Qusra through a campaign of terror.

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Category C and women’s prisons could be upgraded to ease overcrowding

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Exclusive: Ministers explore diverting male prisoners serving short terms or on remand away from tougher jails

Ministers are examining a possible upgrade of security at men’s category C and women’s prisons to deal with an overcrowding crisis across the England and Wales estate, the Guardian understands.

Officials have explored diverting prisoners on remand or serving short sentences away from category B “reception” prisons such as HMPs Liverpool, Manchester and Pentonville in north London.

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Immigration minister says poorer areas have taken ‘fair share’ of asylum seekers – UK politics live

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Anna Turley backs up Andy Burnham’s suggestion that affluent areas should house more asylum seekers in future

Just 20 staff are working on climate adaptation within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the part of government tasked with protecting the environment and maintaining food security, a freedom of information request has revealed. Sandra Laville has the story.

On his visit to Stevenage, Andy Burnham also said he would visit the town on Remembrance Day to mark its 80th birthday.

I’m going to come back to Stevenage on 11 November. We will pay our respects for Remembrance Day around that time, but I’ll be here because if I’m right, that will be 80 years to the day that the post-war Labour government created the first new town right here in Stevenage.

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Andy Burnham to chair emergency Cobra meeting amid extreme heat

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PM touts ban on disposable barbecues as areas hit by wildfires – but some Labour MPs will be hoping for more ambitious ideas to tackle crisis

Andy Burnham will chair an emergency Cobra meeting in response to extreme heat, which has caused wildfires and plunged many parts of Britain into drought.

The prime minister will meet ministers, officials and agencies as high temperatures continue across the UK, with temperatures of 33C forecast on Wednesday and up to 38C on Thursday.

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Just 20 of 6,600 Defra staff working on climate adaptation amid drought and wildfires

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Exclusive: England ‘desperately unprepared’ for effects of crisis including water shortages and heatwaves

Just 20 staff are working on climate adaptation within a key government department tasked with protecting the environment and maintaining food security, a freedom of information request has revealed.

The officials make up 0.3% of staff within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

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UK heatwaves may have cost economy £4.4bn in lost output so far this year, analysis finds

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Verdant thinktank says cost could top £25bn a year by 2030 and calls for maximum temperature for working and urban redesign to cool down cities

Repeated debilitating heatwaves this summer are likely to have cost the UK economy more than £4bn in lost economic output by the end of July, new analysis shows.

Green thinktank Verdant had suggested June’s unseasonally hot weather had an economic cost of £2.36bn. Updating its assessment to include last month’s high temperatures, it finds a £4.4bn hit to output.

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Will Andy Burnham’s everyday fixes be enough to get the public on his side?

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The prime minister’s money-saving policies are popular but they are yet to convince voters he can take on the big things

It was last year that Martin Lewis, the money-saving guru, advised the government to find “100 small things that piss people off” and set about sorting them out.

That approach has been adopted almost immediately by Andy Burnham since entering office, as he began his programme of “everyday fixes” to tackle problems that can be dealt with through minor policy tweaks.

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Labour says Farage has ‘no serious answers’ to prisons crisis – UK politics live

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Reform says it will free up space in jails in England and Wales by rapidly deporting all foreign offenders

With parts of Britain set to experience their fifth heatwave of the summer this week, Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has accused the government of not recognising the severity of the crisis.

In a statement, he said:

We are now facing the fifth heatwave in months following the recent deaths of 3,000 people in our country from extreme weather conditions.

This is the greatest crisis this country has faced since the second world war and to complacently dismiss the demands for immediate action by saying everything is under control is gross negligence, blatantly untrue and misses the severity of the crisis.

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London mayor orders council to drop plan to ban new pubs and bars in Soho and West End

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Exclusive: Sadiq Khan urges Westminster council to adopt ‘positive vision of economic growth’ of nightlife

Sadiq Khan has ordered Westminster council to scrap a policy that would ban new pubs and bars from opening in Soho and the West End of London.

This comes after the Guardian revealed the council’s new licensing policy asks pubs to stop customers from standing up while consuming beverages, which it calls “vertical drinking”. The policy is under consultation and also asks pubs to have table service rather than allowing orders at the bar.

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Nicola Sturgeon ‘has not spoken to’ estranged husband, Peter Murrell, since he was jailed

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Scotland’s former first minister says she will not visit Murrell in prison, where he is serving five-year sentence for embezzling SNP funds

Nicola Surgeon has said she will not visit her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, in prison, has stopped speaking to him and views herself as a “mug” for worrying about his wellbeing and mental health earlier this year.

During a podcast recording at the Edinburgh festival fringe, Scotland’s former first minister said Murrell had lied to her until the day he pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from the Scottish National party.

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Sadiq Khan calls on Andy Burnham to commit to climate action as pressure grows over North Sea oil

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London mayor points to ‘terrifying scenes’ this summer amid speculation Burnham may back Jackdaw and Rosebank projects

Sadiq Khan has called on the government to commit to revamped climate action and to reduce the UK’s reliance on oil and gas, as the UK endures a summer of drought, wildfires and heatwaves.

Writing in the Guardian, the mayor of London said that Andy Burnham’s administration must reaffirm its commitment to net zero and make clear it will continue to reduce the UK’s reliance on oil and gas “to get Britain back on track.”

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