Category Archives: Conservatives

It’s been decreed: something must be done about student loans in England

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The education secretary wants a fairer system and the Tories have leapt in with their own plan – but why now?

For anyone who attended university in England in the last 15 or so years, the idea of student loans feeling like some sort of debt trap is hardly news. But three weeks ago, when the journalist Oli Dugmore discussed this on the BBC’s Question Time, it felt like a moment.

It was less the size of the initial debt, he explained, than the way above-inflation interest rates meant the interest charged alone was now almost as much as the original sum. “So was it mis-sold to me?” he asked, rhetorically. “Yes, I’d say so.”

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Starmer, Polanski and Farage in final pitch to voters as polls open in Gorton and Denton byelection – UK politics live

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Voting begins in one of the most eagerly awaited and fiercely contested byelections of recent years

Good morning. In Gorton and Denton, on the outskirts of Manchester, people have started voting in one of the most eagerly awaited, and fiercely contested, byelections of recent years. All the polling suggests the result will be very close. The political scientists argue that, if a party wins a contest like this by just a few hundred votes (or perhaps ever fewer – Reform UK won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection last year by just six votes), it is irrational to draw broad conclusions about the state of UK politics over a result that could easily have gone the other way had it not been for a few random incidents (like activists not closing the door in a cafe). But politics isn’t rational; a win will firm up a narrative that will shape the way the main parties do politics in the months ahead. (And, whoever wins, the result will confirm that we now have multi-party politics trying to operate in an electoral system constructed for two-party politics, which is quite different.)

Here is Josh Halliday’s preview.

The choice at today’s by-election could not be more stark. Unity or division. Driving down the cost of living with Labour or driving a wedge between communities under Reform. Moving forwards together, or opening up anger and division that holds our country back.

Reform’s Matthew Goodwin thinks people who aren’t white can’t be English and wants women who choose not to have children to pay more tax. Vote Labour in Gorton and Denton today to send him and his toxic politics packing.

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Foreign Office denies minister’s claim the Chagos Islands deal has been paused – UK politics live

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Minister told MPs the deal had been been paused, but that was immediately denied by the Foreign Office

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published figures showing that local authorities in England dealt with 1.26m flytipping incidents in 2024/25 – 9% increase on the previous year.

And there was an 11% increase in incidents involving a “tipper lorry load” amount of rubbish. There were 52,000 of these, up from 47,000 in 2023/24. Defra said these alone cost councils £19.3m.

These figures show the equivalent of 142 monster landfills a day took place, confirming what communities across the country know all too well – our beautiful countryside is being used by criminal gangs as their personal landfill.

For far too long, waste gangs have pocketed millions in illegal earning, poisoning our environment and our health without consequence. The Liberal Democrats are demanding an end to this environmental vandalism.

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Phillipson says Send reforms needed ‘even if money were no object’ because current outcomes ‘not good enough’– UK politics live

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Education secretary says education, health and care plans (EHCPs) shouldn’t be the ‘only way’ for children to get help

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been speaking about the Send reforms at an event in Peterborough.

This is what she said about the need for inclusion.

Inclusion is a choice. It is an educational choice, and it is also a political choice because we could duck this challenge, ignore the injustice of a postcode lottery in life chances putting off fixing the Send system yet again.

The system works well for some at least.

We welcome the scale of vision contained in the white paper which has the potential to create an education system that fully values children and young people with additional needs and their families.

We also welcome the commitment to retain statutory education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for children and young people whose needs cannot be met through this new model. We know that many parents will welcome the legal requirement for schools to create individual support plans (ISPs) for all children with Send.

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Martin Lewis ambushes Badenoch on Good Morning Britain over student loans plan

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Finance campaigner marches on to set and tells Tory leader her policy to cut interest rates will only help top earners

Kemi Badenoch has faced what could be described as the stuff of nightmares for a UK politician being interviewed about a personal finance policy: being ambushed and contradicted live on air by Martin Lewis.

As the Conservative leader was being interviewed on ITV about her party’s plans to cut interest rates for some student loans, Lewis, a campaigner and finance expert, marched on to the set to announce that he completely disagreed.

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OBR says its inadvertent release of budget report is ‘worst failure’ in its 15-year history – UK politics live

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Office for Budget Responsibility says Rachel Reeves ‘had every right to expect that the [report] would not be publicly available until she sat down at the end of her budget speech’

Q: Yesterday you said Rachel Reeves was lying. Today you are saying she gave out false information. Are you still accusing her of being a liar?

Badenoch replies: “Yes.”

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GB News urged to cut ties with contributor accused of racism

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Rightwing activist claimed Commons deputy speaker Nusrat Ghani should be barred because she was born in Pakistan

GB News is facing calls to cut ties with a regular contributor who has been accused of racism after claiming that the House of Commons deputy speaker, Nusrat Ghani, should not be allowed in the house because she was born in Pakistan.

The comments by Lucy White, a rightwing activist, have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum amid warnings that explicitly racist language is becoming increasingly normalised in British life.

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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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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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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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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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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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Andy Burnham calls on Labour to rethink plans to make it tougher for asylum seekers to settle permanently – UK politics live

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The home secretary’s plans ‘may leave people in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate’, Burnham said

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is giving a speech in Salford this afternoon where he will set out details of his “good growth” plans, but he has already explained much of it overnight in a news release.

Explaining what his “new model of economic growth” is, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (the body Burnham runs) says:

Over the past decade, the city region has become the fastest growing part of the UK economy, driven by a high-performing centre unrecognisable from even 15 years ago.

Our trailblazing devolution deals and unique partnership approach have fuelled annual growth of 3.1 per cent – more than double the rate of the country as a whole. A recent report from Oxford Economics praised Greater Manchester’s growth journey, calling us a “trailblazer for local devolution.”

A new strategic partnership between GMCA and GMPF [Greater Manchester Pension Fund] – the first of its kind in the country – will prioritise local investment and align the GMPF’s investment to our integrated pipeline. Projects in the integrated pipeline will be able to access patient capital that aims for sustainable growth and long-term impact.

We’ll invest in a way that makes the most of every pound, delivering social as well as economic benefits.

Our Greater Manchester baccalaureate is transforming technical education, giving young people a clear line of sight to high quality jobs in our growing economy, and we’re helping residents to live healthier, happier lives and access new employment and training opportunities through our Live Well approach.

Underpinning all this is the Bee Network – our safe, green and affordable public transport system, which is seamlessly connecting people and places like never before. Next year eight rail lines will be brought into the network, which already includes bus, rail, tram, and active travel routes.

I appreciate the support, but I couldn’t have brought forward a plan of the kind I brought forward today [his Manchester “good growth” plan] without being fully focused on my role as mayor of Greater Manchester.

And I’m providing leadership on growth, which is what I think the country needs, and is helpful to the government right now.

And we’re doing this in advance of the budget, I hope, to really bring to life the growth story for the government.

I would just finish by saying this; I think part of the country’s problem is the political culture of Westminster, which is playing out in front of us right now. You go to Manchester, and we’ve built a new economy, and a new way of doing politics, and more of that is what the country needs.

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Allegations about Farage’s conduct as schoolboy ‘disturbing’, says No 10 – UK politics live

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The Guardian spoke to more than a dozen contemporaries of Farage at Dulwich college, a public school in south London

Healey is now taking questions.

Q: How close are are we to war?

It is Labour that is the party of defence.

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Reform’s plan to cut EU citizens’ benefits would risk trade war with Europe, Labour claims – UK politics live

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As Reform announces what it claims are £25bn in savings through cuts, Labour says ‘Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up’

Alf Dubs, the Labour peer and former MP who came to the UK on Kindertransport in 1939 and who campaigns on behalf of migrants, told the Today programme this morning that he was “depressed” by the asylum politicies announced by the government yesterday. He explained:

I find it upsetting that we’ve got to adopt such a hard line – what we need is a bit of compassion in our politics, and I think that some of the measures were going in the wrong direction, they won’t help.

The hard line approach will not, in fact, deter people from coming here – at least on the basis of people I spoke to in Calais, for example – I don’t think it will deter them.

I think there is a proper case for children, there’s a proper case for family reunion – when there are children who are on their own and who’ve got family in this country, then I think the right thing to do is to have family reunion and bringing children over here.

But to use children as a weapon, as the home secretary is doing, I think is a shabby thing – I’m lost for words, frankly, because my concern was that if we remove people who come here, what happens if they’ve had children in the meantime?

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Shabana Mahmood tells MPs asylum system is ‘out of control and unfair’ amid Labour backlash over proposals – UK politics live

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Labour MP calls government’s asylum plans ‘dystopian’ as home secretary announces measures in Commons

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has also denounced the government’s asylum plans. In a statement it says:

The home secretary’s new immigration plans are divisive and xenophobic.

Scapegoating migrants will not fix our public services or end austerity.

Draconian, unworkable and potentially illegal anti-asylum policies only feed Reform’s support.

The government has learnt nothing from the period since the general election.

Some of the legal changes being proposed are truly frightening:

Abolishing the right to a family life would ultimately affect many more people than asylum-seekers.

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Treasury won’t cut threshold for higher rate income tax, say sources – UK politics live

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Fallout continues over budget income tax U-turn, with Treasury saying expected fiscal gap has dropped to £20bn

This is from Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, on the market reaction to the chancellor’s reported budget U-turn.

Investors will have 2 broad concerns about news that Chancellor won’t increase income tax rates

1. Does it signal less willingness to do politically difficult things

Britain’s long-term borrowing costs were sent soaring as reports suggested the latest U-turn would leave Rachel Reeves scrambling to fill a gaping black hole in the nation’s finances just two weeks before the 26 November budget.

Yields on 30-year UK government bonds, also known as gilts, jumped as much as 14 basis points in early trading, and the yield on 10-year gilts also shot up 12 basis points – rising the most since July.

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Ed Miliband urges Labour to move on after Starmer apologises to Streeting for hostile briefings from No 10 – UK politics live

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Fallout from extraordinary briefing operation against Wes Streeting continues as calls grow for Starmer to sack his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney

Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.

Five UN experts have written to ministers criticising the ban on Palestine Action as something that would be expected in an authoritarian regime rather than a liberal democracy.

In the work of UN experts in monitoring counter-terrorism laws globally, abuse of laws to proscribe organisations as terrorist that are not genuinely so has more commonly occurred in states that are authoritarian and lack legal and political cultures of respect for human rights, legality, due process and independent judicial safeguards, in order to target civil society organisations, human rights defenders, political dissidents and minorities.

It is deeply concerning that such practices appear to have spread to a number of liberal democracies. Organisations must never be listed as terrorist for engaging in protected speech or legitimate activities in defence of human rights.

We are concerned that proscription and its consequences result in unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and the rights to take part in public affairs and to liberty.

The Scottish government’s tax decisions enable us to deliver higher investment in the NHS and policies like free tuition not available anywhere else in the UK.

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Starmer says any attack on his cabinet is ‘completely unacceptable’ and adds Streeting is doing a great job – UK politics live

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Kemi Badenoch probes Starmer over ‘toxic culture’ at Downing Street as PM denies authorising briefings against potential challengers

The No 10 briefing row is not the only story around this morning. Amy Sedghi is writing a live blog about the ongoing turmoil at the BBC and she has details of Donald Trump saying he has an “obligation” to sue the BBC.

In a related development, Reform UK has pulled out of a BBC documentary about the party amid a row over the broadcaster’s editing of the Trump speech. Robyn Vintner has the story.

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Nandy rules out taking action to remove Robbie Gibb from BBC board – as it happened

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Culture secretary also condemns MPs who dismiss BBC as ‘institutionally biased’ in swipe at Badenoch and Farage. This live blog is closed

Here is a round-up of what various lawyers and commentators have been saying about Donald Trump’s legal case against the BBC.

Joshua Rozenberg, the legal commentator and a former BBC journalist, has said in a post on his A Lawyer Writes Substack that the corporation should settle. He explains:

Given what Brito is claiming, the lawyer is unlikely to be impressed with the BBC’s assertion that “the purpose of editing the clip was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time”.

So the BBC would be well advised to draft a retraction and apology in terms that the president’s lawyer finds acceptable. Brito is also calling for this to be broadcast as prominently as the original programme. And the corporation will have to pay compensation.

George Peretz KC, chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers, says on Bluesky, commenting on Rozenberg’s blog, that the BBC might be better off with a more robust approach.

So at the moment, despite @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social’s piece, I wonder whether a better BBC response would be the Arkell v Pressdram one. proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/a...

(At least to the extent he’s seeking more than a formal apology limited to the obvious mistake and a very modest offer of compensation.)

There is, after all, the risk of a dangerous precedent here. The BBC will often offend foreign leaders – some worse than Trump. Sometimes it will make factual mistakes in reporting on them. Yield to Trump now, and who next?

Mark Stephens, a media lawyer, told BBC Breakfast that a court case could reflect badly on Trump. He said:

Every damning quote that he’s ever uttered is going to be played back to him and picked over – not great PR.

Trump risks turning what’s currently a PR skirmish with the BBC very much on the back foot into a global headline that the court finds Trump’s words were incendiary …

George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York and a former lawyer for the New York Times, told the BBC that Trump “has a long record of unsuccessful libel suits – and an even longer record of letters like the one you received that don’t end up as lawsuits at all”.

Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who is trying to recover costs from Trump after the president sued him unsuccessfully in the UK, says Trump’s latest threat is preposterous.

Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC in London is preposterous. He remains in breach of English High Court orders in a case he brought and lost against Orbis 18 months ago. So any further abuse of the UK courts by him for such legal tourism and intimidation should be prohibited.

Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, says the BBC has been told Trump does not have a case.

The legal advice to the BBC I am told is that President Trump was not meaningfully damaged by Panorama’s manipulation of his 6 January speech, and that therefore there is no legal necessity to pay him compensation. The BBC board is therefore likely to resist and fight his demand to be “appropriately compensated” out of court, and will risk him carrying through on his threat to seek $1bn in damages by going to court.

These times are difficult for the BBC but we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It’s our narrative. We own things.

I see the free press under pressure. I see the weaponisation. I think we have to fight for our journalism.

We have made some mistakes that have cost us but we need to fight for that.

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