Category Archives: Conservatives

From Park Lane to Palm Beach: London club owner eyes Florida rival to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

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Exclusive: Robin Birley closes in on Sunshine State venue as wealthy Britons flock to area around Donald Trump

A London private members’ club owner is closing in on a deal for a venue in Palm Beach, in the hopes of creating a rival to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and to take advantage of an influx of wealthy British people to the Florida region.

Robin Birley is understood to be close to securing a property for his latest club, part financed by the billionaire Reuben brothers, who in 2024 were named the third-richest family in the UK by the Sunday Times Rich List.

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‘Could be the making of him’: Starmer’s allies praise stance on Trump and Iran

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Refusal to kowtow to US president has won public backing – and left Badenoch and Farage playing catch-up

It is not often that Keir Starmer’s allies believe he has Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch on the run – but on Iran, they think he is on the right side of history and public opinion.

“It could be the making of him,” said Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, who was first out of the blocks to say she thought Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran were illegal. “You’ve not had a British prime minister say no to an American president since Vietnam. This is a big deal.”

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So Badenoch, Farage and Blair think the Iran war is a great idea? Hmm … | John Crace

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Kemi may be all in favour, but at least economic realpolitik is forcing her to take a slightly different tack

There have been any number of opportunities for people to decide they wanted no part of America’s war with Iran. The first was after the US had launched its first wave of strikes. To be fair, this was the moment Keir Starmer and most of the UK reckoned enough was enough and that our involvement would be limited to defensive strikes only.

You couldn’t really fault the logic. Did the UK really want to be part of a war that was illegal in most versions of international law and for which the Americans had no clear vision of how it might end? Other than Donald Trump gets bored and lets everyone else clear up his mess. Like a baby. Nor was the UK’s track record of wars in the 21st century any source of pride. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya had all been in chaos. Iran was shaping up the same way. So Starmer decided to sit this one out. Applying the doctor’s principle of “first, do no harm”.

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Labour accuses Badenoch of scoring ‘cheap political points’ over Iran strikes

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Defence minister urges ‘serious politics’ after Tory leader criticises prime minister’s stance at spring conference

Labour has accused Kemi Badenoch of scoring “cheap political points” after the Conservative party leader said Keir Starmer was “too scared” to join strikes on Iran.

Al Carns, the defence minister, said “serious politics” was required in response to Badenoch’s speech at the party’s spring conference where she criticised the prime minister’s stance on the US-Israel strikes on Iran a week ago.

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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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