Yvette Cooper says government will work with police rather than ‘blaming them from afar’
Phillip Inman and Graeme Wearden report:
The UK should not be “seduced” into thinking the battle to calm inflation is over despite price rises easing to the Bank of England’s target, according to an interest rate setter at the central bank.
Continue reading...Labour minister says she removed social media platform’s app from her mobile phone when Elon Musk took over
A government minister said she has scaled back her use of social media platform X, arguing it had become “a bit despotic” and was “a place of misery now”.
Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said although she had previously been “massively addicted to Twitter”, referencing the former name of X, she had removed the app from her phone after Elon Musk took over the company in October 2022.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Move highlights ambition to reconnect with Beijing but minister will face pressure over human rights
David Lammy is planning a visit to China in September that would fall within the first 100 days of him taking office.
The foreign secretary is in talks over a trip to Beijing next month that would signal the UK wants to resume high-level engagement with the country.
Continue reading...The monarch held calls with Keir Starmer and senior officers and paid tribute to the emergency services
King Charles has sent his “heartfelt thanks” to the police for restoring order after speaking to Keir Starmer and senior officers following the week of unrest across the UK.
The king and the prime minister held a phone call on Friday evening, Buckingham Palace said. Gavin Stephens, a chief constable and chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the UK gold commander Ben Harrington, chief constable of Essex police, held a separate joint call with the king.
Continue reading...The Elon Musk-owned platform remains a vital tool for politicians despite misinformation about disorder in Britain
When Keir Starmer was running to be Labour leader in 2020, his aides seriously considered whether they should leave Twitter for good.
A number of those who remain close to Starmer as prime minister were then enthusiastic about moving off the platform. The party was still feeling wounded by the brutal election campaign and by the bitterness of the way it had been conducted on social media.
Continue reading...England research shows huge benefits with resulting savings for NHS and councils
Curbing child poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit cap would save hundreds of lives a year and avoid thousands of admissions to hospital, the largest study of its kind suggests.
Keir Starmer has faced repeated demands from within Labour ranks and opposition leaders to abolish the policy, which was announced in 2015 by George Osborne, then chancellor. Almost half of all children in some towns and cities now live below the breadline.
Continue reading...Senior figures praise repeal of law but privately some want full workers’ rights overhaul implemented without delay
Unions have welcomed the government’s move to formally scrap a “draconian” anti-strike law that would have ensured a minimum level of service during industrial action as the legislation had restricted workers’ rights.
The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, have written to government departments with sectors that were most affected by the strikes to give a “clear message” the measures will be repealed and have urged all metro mayors to start engaging with local employers on the change.
Continue reading...Some within Labour worry that PM is failing to challenge Nigel Farage’s anti-migrant insinuations head-on
Keir Starmer sounded uncharacteristically angry as he appeared in front of a podium in Downing Street on Sunday to condemn the violent mobs causing damage and spreading fear.
Just a few weeks into government, the prime minister has been confronted with an appalling triple murder of three young girls, followed by days of rioting whipped up by online disinformation that a migrant was responsible.
Continue reading...Memo tells ministers to disregard minimum service levels rules, as part of reforms to reorder industrial relations
The government will begin the task of rolling back years of anti-trade union laws within days, the Observer can reveal, as ministers are ordered to ignore a key measure passed by the Tories as part of a wider “reset” of industrial relations in Britain.
As a first step, departments will be told effectively to ignore a law passed last year designed to force workers across a series of industries to provide a minimum level of service during strikes. The legislation – described as a “pointless gimmick” by ministers – paved the way to severely curtail the rights of border security, ambulance services, fire and rescue, teachers and rail services to take industrial action.
Continue reading...PM and police chiefs agree plans for unit that aims to boost intelligence gathering on ‘extremist troublemakers’
A new national violent disorder unit is to be set up to clamp down on rioters, the Guardian has learned, after far-right riots this week.
Keir Starmer is expected to make the official announcement as soon as Thursday, having agreed it with police chiefs at a crisis meeting.
Continue reading...Limit on welfare support, introduced in 2013, leaves some with just £4 a day for each family member
Low-income families affected by the benefit cap are living on as little as £4 for each person a day, often in overcrowded, rat-infested and damp homes with little prospect of escape, according to a new study.
The cap puts a ceiling on the amount a working-age family can receive in welfare support if no one in the household is working or they are on very low wages. Families affected by it in many parts of the country are, in effect, trapped in poor quality, private rented properties they cannot afford, even though these are often already the cheapest homes available in their local area, the London School of Economics study said.
Continue reading...Audit of Environmental Improvement Plan finds it inadequate as government announces overhaul of goals
Goals to stop the decline of nature and clean up the air and water in England are slipping out of reach, a new report has warned.
An audit of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), which is the mechanism by which the government’s legally binding targets for improving nature should be met, has found that plans for thriving plants and wildlife and clean air are deteriorating. This plan was supposed to replace the EU-derived environmental regulations the UK used until the Environment Act was passed in 2021 after Brexit.
Continue reading...Rayner says housing target system will raise number of homes planned to 370,000 and confirmed targets will be mandatory
Balls, who, of course, is a former Labour cabinet minister, and a former shadow chancellor, questions whether Reeves is right to suggest that Jeremy Hunt is wholly to blame for the black hole. He says that other cabinet ministers and departments drew up the spending plans that she says were unfunded.
Reeves repeats the point she has been making all morning about how the public were misled. (See 8.06am.)
Continue reading...Chancellor suggests budget, on 30 October, will involve tax rises and cuts to spending and benefits
Downing Street has refused to comment on a report saying junior doctors are being offered a pay rise worth about 20% over two years.
In a story for the Times, Steven Swinford reports:
The British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee has recommended an offer that includes a backdated pay rise of 4.05 per cent for 2023-24, on top of an existing increase of between 8.8 per cent and 10.3 per cent.
Junior doctors will be given a further pay rise of 6 per cent for 2024-25, which will be topped up by a consolidated £1,000 payment. This is equivalent to a pay rise of between 7 per cent and 9 per cent.
As we’ve said before, we’re committed to working to find a solution, resolving this dispute, but I can’t get into detailed running commentary on negotiations.
We’ve been honest with the public and the sector about the economic circumstances we face. But the government is determined to do the hard work necessary to finally bring these strikes to an end.
Continue reading...Social care and winter fuel payments also targeted as chancellor accuses Tories of covering up scale of fiscal shortfall
Rachel Reeves has scrapped the social care cap and curbed winter fuel payments, as well as announcing big cuts to hospital and road projects, as she seeks to plug what she called a £22bn hole in public spending that was “covered up” by the Conservative government.
In a statement to the Commons that mixed detailed economics and partisan politics, the chancellor justified the cuts with the repeated mantra: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Philippe Sands KC says non-binding opinion will nevertheless be seen as ‘authoritative statement of law’
The UK should stop arming Israel in order to comply with the historic advisory opinion by the UN’s top court that member states should not “render aid or assistance” to the occupation of the Palestinian territories, a lawyer who represented Palestine has said.
In a broad and damning ruling published this month, the international court of justice (ICJ), found that Israel’s settlement policies and occupation of the territories were in breach of international law. It also said UN member states were under an obligation to neither recognise the occupation as lawful nor abet it.
Continue reading...Steve Reed hits out at Conservatives’ handling of public services as chancellor prepares to detail ‘£20bn black hole’
The last Conservative government “deliberately covered up” the true state of public finances, a cabinet minister has said, as the chancellor prepares to detail a “£20bn black hole” in the public finances.
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said his cabinet colleagues “always knew” the inheritance from the Tories was “going to be bad”, but that since coming to office they had found “additional pressures” that had not been disclosed by the Tories.
Continue reading...Alongside prosperity in Holborn and St Pancras are thousands of households for whom lifting the two-child benefit cap could mean an end to hunger
• The two-child benefit cap: what is it, does it work and how much would it cost to scrap it?
It’s been one of Cat Onyac’s better days. Her two children are concentrating on their crochet project, sitting in the sunshine at HvH Arts in north London. And they’ve eaten. “All the children get a hot meal,” she says.
The family is at a summer scheme for children in Camden on the edge of Keir Starmer’s constituency, and food is just as important as learning photography, painting or music.
Continue reading...Reforms to inheritance and capital gains taxes could reduce £20bn shortfall and combat UK’s widening wealth gap
Rachel Reeves could quickly find around £10bn a year to plug half of the fiscal hole left by the Conservatives if she were to raise taxes on soaring levels of unearned wealth, according to leading economists.
New research by the independent Resolution Foundation published today finds that Britain is a country of “booming wealth” but “busted wealth taxes”, leaving ample potential for the chancellor of the exchequer to raise desperately needed funds by raising taxes on the richest.
Continue reading...Chancellor attempts to plug £20bn hole in spending but will commit to above-inflation public sector pay rise
Rachel Reeves is to delay a number of “unfunded” road and hospital projects on Monday as part of the Treasury’s anticipated plans to plug an apparent £20bn hole in spending left by the Conservatives, while committing to an above-inflation public sector pay rise.
The chancellor is expected to argue she has inherited capital projects that are “unfunded with unfeasible timelines” as part of her Treasury audit report to the Commons. The audit will be seen as an indication of the government’s early commitments and priorities.
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