Category Archives: Labour

British voters do not like Trump ‘because they don’t really know him’, Farage claims – as it happened

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Keir Starmer has hosted veterans and charities at Downing Street with defence secretary John Healey in the lead-up to Remembrance Day, PA Media reports. PA says:

The informal reception was held after Starmer pledged £3.5m in support for veterans facing homelessness.

Peter Kent, 99, the oldest veteran at the event, said he was pleased by the increase in funding and described Starmer as a “good guy”.

State visits take a while to organise. So in the next year, I’ve got to tell you, I think that would be a bit of a tall order. But [Trump] was genuine in his respect and his affection for the royal family.

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Tax unhealthy foods to tackle obesity, say campaigners

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Health and children’s groups urge UK ministers to impose levies on products containing too much salt or sugar

Dozens of health and children’s groups have urged ministers to tackle obesity by imposing taxes on foods containing too much salt or sugar.

New levies based on the sugar tax on soft drinks would make it easier for consumers to eat more healthily by forcing food manufacturers to reformulate their products, they claim.

74% think food firms are not honest about the health impact of their products.

61% worry about the amount of sugar and saturated fat in what they eat.

Only 13% believe producers will make their food more nutritious without government intervention.

72% worry about high levels of processing used in food production.

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Proportion of children in Great Britain with gambling problem has doubled, data reveals

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Gambling Commission figures show shock rise to 85,000 in number of young people suffering gambling harms

The proportion of young people in Great Britain with a gambling problem has more than doubled, according to “astonishing” official data that prompted calls for urgent government intervention.

New figures from the Gambling Commission, which regulates bookies, online casinos and the national lottery, revealed a shock rise, to 85,000, in the number of children classified as having a gambling problem under widely used diagnostic criteria.

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No 10 believes it has done its homework for a Trump presidency

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Keir Starmer’s team expected a Trump win and has long been building bridges despite political differences

While Kemi Badenoch was the first politician since the US presidential election result to publicly challenge Keir Starmer over Labour’s previously tense relationship with Donald Trump, she is unlikely to be the last.

Yet the UK prime minister, according to government sources, is less anxious about the return of the divisive populist to the White House than the new Tory leader, and many in his own party, might have assumed.

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Starmer and Badenoch congratulate Trump on ‘historic election victory’ – UK politics live

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Both PM and leader of the opposition offer congratulations with more full-throated support from Tory rightwingers such as Truss and Braverman

Another Labour politician who has criticised Donald Trump strongly in the past is Emily Thornberry, shadow foreign secretary when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader and now chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee. In an interview on the Today programme this morning she said Trump’s victory (or apparent victory – he still has not officially hit 270 electoral college votes) was “disappointing”, and that it made the world “unpredictable”.

When it was put to her that she described him as a “racist, sexual predator” when he visited the UK during his first term as president, she replied:

Well, he is. But he is the president of the United States, and we need to work with him.

I know that many Londoners will be anxious about the outcome of the US presidential election. Many will be fearful about what it will mean for democracy and for women’s rights, or how the result impacts the situation in the Middle East or the fate of Ukraine. Others will be worried about the future of NATO or tackling the climate crisis …

The lesson of today is that progress is not inevitable. But asserting our progressive values is more important than ever - re-committing to building a world where racism and hatred is rejected, the fundamental rights of women and girls are upheld, and where we continue to tackle the crisis of climate change head on.

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Wetherspoon’s boss warns of pub price rises as result of Labour budget

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Tim Martin blamed increases to the minimum wage and employers’ national insurance contributions

Pubgoers should expect prices to go up as a result of Labour’s first budget in 14 years, the politically outspoken boss of Wetherspoon’s, Tim Martin, has said.

Speaking as the hospitality chain announced record quarterly sales, Martin pinned the blame for an expected increase in pubs’ costs on the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, whose economic “pedigree” he has previously praised.

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China blocking UK plans in Beijing amid east London mega-embassy dispute

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Exclusive: UK rebuild of Beijing embassy held up as Angela Rayner faces fraught decision on Royal Mint Court site

China is blocking requests to rebuild the British embassy in Beijing while the fate of its controversial mega-embassy in east London is being decided, the Guardian can disclose.

Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, faces a politically fraught decision over whether to approve plans for a new Chinese embassy at Royal Mint Court.

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Smoking to be banned outside schools and hospitals, but pubs get reprieve

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Parliamentary bill will also ban the advertising of vapes and restrict their flavours, packaging and marketing

Smoking is set to be banned outside schools and hospitals as part of a crackdown on one of the UK’s biggest killers and its most common cause of cancer.

But the government has dropped plans to outlaw smoking outside pubs and restaurants, prompting health campaigners to complain about “vested interests” covertly influencing policy.

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Starmer says people smuggling should be seen as ‘global security threat similar to terrorism’ – UK politics live

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PM gave speech at Glasgow’s Interpol general assembly as Kemi Badenoch works on shadow cabinet appointments

Starmer went on to say the government was “going to treat people smugglers like terrorists”. And he explained what that meant.

So we’re taking our approach to counter terrorism, which we know works, and apply it to the gangs with our new Border Security Command.

We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies, recruiting hundreds of specialist investigators, the best of the best, from our National Crime Agency, Border Force, immigration enforcement and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and our intelligence agencies, all working together.

We have the powers to trace suspects’ movements using information from the intelligence services.

We can shut down their bank accounts, cut off their internet access, and arrest them for making preparations to act before an attack has taken place.

I will work with anyone serious who could offer solutions of this, anyone, because without coordinated global action, it will not go away.

And unless we bring all the powers we have to bear on this in much the same way as we do for terrorism, then we will struggle to bring these criminals to justice.

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UK says it voted against UN nuclear war panel because consequences already known

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Foreign Office argues scientific study into modern effects of nuclear war not needed

The UK was one of three countries to vote against creating a UN scientific panel on the effects of nuclear war because, the Foreign Office argued, the “devastating consequences” of such a conflict are already well known without the need for a new study.

The UK, France and Russia were the only countries to vote on Friday night against a UN general assembly committee resolution drafted by Ireland and New Zealand to set up an international scientific inquiry to take a fresh look at the multifaceted impact of nuclear weapons use.

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Senior Labour MPs frustrated at lack of Black officials in No 10

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Exclusive: one frontbencher said the absence was a ‘serious embarrassment and a blind spot’ as Tories elect first Black leader

Senior Labour MPs have expressed their frustration at the lack of Black representation in No 10 as the Conservatives elected Kemi Badenoch as their new leader.

Labour sources said the WhatsApp group for Labour MPs of colour contained some furious messages from those who believe the party is not doing enough to represent Black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups at the top of government.

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Rachel Reeves ‘missed opportunity’ to raise £900m from online casinos

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Labour’s links to gambling industry questioned again after decision not to raise tax rate for online gaming

Rachel Reeves has been criticised over a “missed opportunity” to raise £900m from online casinos in her first budget as chancellor, amid concerns about the Labour party’s ties to the £11bn-a-year gambling sector.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Derek Webb – one of Labour’s largest donors – questioned the chancellor’s rejection of proposals to double remote gaming duty (RGD), levied on online games of chance, from 21% to 42%.

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Kemi Badenoch says Partygate scandal was ‘overblown’

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New Tory leader calls Boris Johnson a ‘great prime minister’ who fell into a ‘trap’ over Covid rules

The new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has said the Partygate scandal was “overblown” as she rejected the need to “churn over” everything that went wrong with previous Tory prime ministers.

Badenoch won the party leadership on Saturday and said she was going to be “honest” about what went wrong in the party under her predecessors.

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Labour challenges Badenoch to back billions for public services and tax rises

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Rachel Reeves throws down budget gauntlet to new Tory chief as party’s first black leader is congratulated on win

Labour has thrown down an immediate challenge to the new Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, to back Rachel Reeves’s budget plans for big increases in tax, spending and borrowing, as a huge political divide threatened to open up over economic policy and the future of public services.

All the main party leaders congratulated Badenoch on Saturday on becoming the first black leader of a main UK party after she stormed to victory over former immigration minister Robert Jenrick with 56.5% of the vote among Conservative party members.

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Private schools to take legal action against planned VAT on fees

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Independent Schools Council says its focus is on children and it is concerned about impact on specialist schools

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) has said it will launch legal action against the government’s decision to impose VAT on independent school fees.

The council, which represents more than 1,400 private schools in the UK and abroad, reached its decision after a board meeting held on Thursday.

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EU citizen who applied for pre-settled status is to be deported from Scotland

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Greek Cypriot Costa Koushiappis to be removed from UK even though his application is pending with Home Office

An EU citizen caught up in a Home Office backlog of applications for post-Brexit residency status is to be deported by Border Force officials in Scotland.

Costa Koushiappis, 39, who is Greek Cypriot, has been told to show up at Edinburgh airport at 7am on Friday to be forcibly put on a flight to Amsterdam just weeks after he received an email from the Home Office to say it could take a further 24 months to process his application for status.

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Housing, social care and universities: who lost out in the UK budget?

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Rachel Reeves made funding the NHS a priority but people working in other areas said they were disappointed

Rachel Reeves’s first budget emphasised raising taxes to help the NHS, as the health service tries to cope with huge waiting lists and an ageing population. Funding the NHS was a top priority but people in other sectors – from universities to social care – feel the budget was a missed opportunity to tackle impending crises or introduce desperately needed reforms in their areas.

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Reeves’s long-term spending figures almost as unrealistic as Tories’ were, IFS says – UK politics live

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Institute for Fiscal Studies says budget ‘looks like the same silly games’ as seen under the Conservatives

Rachel Reeves is now being interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

She is being interviewed by Ed Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor who is now a TV presenter. He asks her to confirm that workers will end up losing out because of the employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) increase.

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Ed Davey: care sector will be ‘pushed to brink’ by national insurance hike and should be exempt

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Lib Dem leader says rise in employer’s contribution risks worsening NHS crisis

The Liberal Democrats have called on the government to exempt the social care sector from the increase in national insurance in Labour’s budget, as an organisation representing many smaller care providers warned that the impact would be substantial.

In the biggest fiscal measures of Wednesday’s budget, raising an additional £25bn a year by the end of the parliament, Rachel Reeves announced an increase of 1.2 percentage points on the national insurance paid by employers, with the salary threshold at which this begins falling from £9,100 a year to £5,000.

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The budget: Labour returns to tax and spend – Politics Weekly UK

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Rachel Reeves has finally laid out Labour’s spending plans in the party’s first budget in almost 15 years. The Guardian’s John Harris is joined by political editor Pippa Crerar and political correspondent Kiran Stacey to discuss the fallout

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