Public opinion ‘overwhelmingly in favour of change’, says broadcaster as MPs debate law in Commons
Jonathan Dimbleby has urged MPs to “get off the fence” on the issue of assisted dying and said public opinion is “overwhelmingly in favour of change”.
After his younger brother, Nicholas, died with debilitating motor neurone disease earlier this year, Dimbleby said the current law was “anachronistically cruel”.
Continue reading...Prime minister gives joint press conference with Olaf Scholz and denies misleading people over spending plans
With Rishi Sunak in Berlin, it is deputies’ day at PMQs, and Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, will be facing questions from Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader. It will be her first time at the despatch box since it was announced that Greater Manchester is fully investigating various allegations relating to the council house she bought and sold before she became an MP, and where she was living during that period. It has been reported that at least a dozen officers are on the case.
Rayner does not have to firm up her position with Labour MPs. She insists that she has done nothing wrong, and most people in the party believe that that the allegtions being made against her are little more than a smear (as Keir Starmer put it at PMQs last week).
Frank was a steadfast, highly successful and diligent campaigner against child poverty. It is largely down to Frank that we have child benefit today, a truly towering achievement.
He gained support and respect from across the political spectrum and defined the concept of the ‘poverty trap’, now commonly used to describe the difficulties for working people of getting better off while claiming means-tested benefits because of the high rate at which benefits are withdrawn as earnings rise.
Continue reading...Deputy Labour leader also criticises watering-down of leasehold reform plans while facing Oliver Dowden at deputy PMQs
Angela Rayner has accused ministers of “obsessing” over her living arrangements and urged them to focus on implementing long-promised housing reforms instead.
The deputy Labour leader came out fighting at deputy prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, weeks after police opened an investigation into the sale of her council house in 2015.
Continue reading...Commissioner expresses grave concern after Rishi Sunak’s asylum policy passes parliamentary stages
The Council of Europe’s human rights watchdog has condemned Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme, saying it raises “major issues about the human rights of asylum seekers and the rule of law”.
The body’s human rights commissioner, Michael O’Flaherty, said the bill, expected to be signed into law on Tuesday after passing its parliamentary stages on Monday night, was a grave concern and should not be used to remove asylum seekers or infringe on judges’ independence.
Continue reading...Lawyers prepare for legal battles on behalf of individual asylum seekers challenging removal to east Africa
Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill will become law after peers eventually backed down on amending it, opening the way for legal battles over the potential removal of dozens of people seeking asylum.
After a marathon battle of “ping pong” over the key legislation between the Commons and the Lords, the bill finally passed when opposition and crossbench peers gave way on Monday night.
Continue reading...Move follows vote in Commons where MPs voted down four amendments inserted by Lords yesterday
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
PMQs is starting soon.
Continue reading...Lords also press ministers to allow independent Rwanda monitoring as deportation bill returns to Commons
Rishi Sunak’s government is considering concessions on the Rwanda deportation bill to allow exemptions for Afghans who served alongside UK forces, parliamentary sources say.
Ministers are also being pressed to give ground to an amendment to the legislation so that the east African country could be ruled unsafe by a monitoring committee.
Continue reading...Evans says he was first to alert authorities after receiving messages in what is suspected to be part of wider attempt to target MPs
A Conservative MP has revealed that he was targeted in the Westminster sexting scandal and was the MP that first alerted the authorities.
Luke Evans said he was messaged in what is suspected to be part of a wider attempt to target MPs.
Continue reading...Jonathan Kay and Mick Greenhough made derogatory remarks about Muslims and black people on social media
Reform UK has dropped two more parliamentary candidates after accusations they made racist comments on social media.
Campaign group Hope Not Hate found tweets by candidates Jonathan Kay and Mick Greenhough in which they made derogatory comments about Muslims and black people.
Continue reading...UK does not ‘solicit, encourage or condone’ inhumane treatment, but critics say ministerial approval system contradicts this
• UK politics – latest updates
The number of requests for UK ministerial approval of intelligence-sharing where there was a real risk of torture, unlawful killing or extraordinary rendition has more than doubled in a year.
The investigatory powers commissioner’s report outlining the rise comes after a parliamentary debate on Monday in which MPs from across the political divide questioned the adequacy of the UK’s policy on torture under the Fulford principles.
Continue reading...Robert Halfon and James Heappey join exodus of Tory MPs from Commons as party languishes in polls
Two Tory ministers have quit the government in a double blow to Rishi Sunak, who has been forced to carry out a mini-reshuffle of the junior ranks.
The veteran MP Robert Halfon unexpectedly announced he would step down as education minister and would be leaving the Commons at the next general election.
Continue reading...MPs due to have free vote on proposal but some in party have privately expressed concerns it goes too far
Senior Labour figures want to water down proposed legislation to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales ahead of a historic Commons debate on the issue.
Later this spring, MPs are due to have a free vote on a proposal by the Labour MP Diana Johnson to abolish the criminal offence associated with a woman ending her own pregnancy.
Continue reading...Lords back amendments saying bill must comply with international law, on classifying Rwanda as a safe country and independent monitoring
Yesterday I covered quite a lot of comment on the Rachel Reeves’ Mais lecture based on a three-page press release sent out by Labour with advance extracts. The full speech runs to 8,000 words and it is certainly worth a read. Here is some commentary published after the full text was made public.
Paul Mason, the former economics journalist who is now an active Labour supporter, says in a blog for the Spectator that Reeves is proposing an approach that should make it easier for the government to justify capital investment. He explains:
Reeves effectively offered markets a trade-off. She set out the same broad fiscal rule as the government: debt falling at the end of five years and a deficit moving towards primary balance. She will make it law that any fiscal decision by government will be subject to an independent forecast of its effects by the OBR. But, she said: “I will also ask the OBR to report on the long-term impact of capital spending decisions. And as Chancellor I will report on wider measures of public sector assets and liabilities at fiscal events, showing how the health of the public balance sheet is bolstered by good investment decisions.”
Why is this so big? Because the OBR does not currently model the ‘long-term impact of capital spending decisions’. It believes that £1 billion of new capital investment produces £1 billion of growth in the first year, tapering to nothing by year five. Furthermore, since 2019 it has repeatedly expressed scepticism that a sustained programme of public investment can produce a permanent uplift in the UK’s output potential.
George Eaton at the New Statesman says the Reeves speech contained Reeves’ “most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments”. He says:
In her 8,000-word Mais Lecture, delivered last night at City University, the shadow chancellor offered her most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments. Though she praised New Labour’s record on public service investment and poverty reduction, Reeves warned that the project failed to recognise that “globalisation and new technologies could widen as well as diminish inequality, disempower people as much as liberate them, displace as well as create good work”.
She added that the labour market “remained characterised by too much insecurity” and that “key weaknesses on productivity and regional inequality” persisted. This is not merely an abstract critique – it leads Reeves and Keir Starmer to embrace radically different economic prescriptions.
Mais lecture is the most intellectually wide-ranging speech Rachel Reeves has given. Worth reading for takes on Lawson, austerity, New Labour, link between dynamism & worker-security, and how geo-politics changes our national growth story (& more besides)
Continue reading...Libertarian faction of Conservatives expected to stage a rebellion but measure has widespread support
Rishi Sunak’s public health policy banning the next generation from being able to buy cigarettes is to be introduced in parliament this week, with officials braced for a backlash from Conservative rebels.
While the policy commands considerable support in Conservative ranks, the scale of an expected rebellion by libertarian Tories – whose ranks includeLiz Truss – has yet to become clear.
Continue reading...Hackney MP endorsed a post saying it was unlikely she would be allowed to rejoin Labour despite the support of senior figures
A reader asks:
Is there anything other than convention which says elections must be on a Thursday?
The reason for choosing Thursday, it is said, was as follows. On Fridays the voters were paid their wages and if they went for a drink in a public house they would be subject to pressure from the Conservative brewing interests, while on Sundays they would be subject to influence by Free Church ministers who were generally Liberal in persuasion. Therefore choose the day furthest from influence by either publicans or Free Church clergymen, namely Thursday. Although these influences are much less significant today, the trend towards Thursday becoming a universal polling day has continued, because Urban District Councils and Rural District Councils all polled on a Saturday until they were abolished under the 1972 Local Government Act. Their successor District Councils poll on a Thursday and the Parish Council polling day was changed from Saturday to Thursday at the same time.
If it ends up being an autumn election as Sunak has indicated, how does that impact the conference season - do they still go ahead? - and does the summer recess have any affect on when a government can call an election?
Continue reading...Only he can save the UK in its hour of need, and he’ll start by taking out Angela Rayner at the general election
It’s a grubby job, but someone has to do it. There’s a House of Commons resolution dating back to 1688 that requires a new MP to be introduced by two current MPs at their swearing in. So all eyes were on who had drawn the short straw to stand with George Galloway.
One early contender had been the Tory MP David Davis, who takes his libertarian principles seriously. He may not like what you say, but he believes in your right to say it. But even he melted away after the prime minister’s deranged rant outside Downing Street on Friday evening. These days you can be found guilty of crimes against humanity in Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party for even thinking of observing parliamentary convention by coming to someone like Galloway’s aid. Davis has now been sent to the gulags for 20 years re-education.
Continue reading...Workers party leader says there are many places where it can win or ‘make sure that Keir Starmer doesn’t’
George Galloway has said he will target more seats in the next general election including the deputy Labour leader’s after his swearing-in at Westminster following last week’s Rochdale byelection victory.
Speaking outside parliament, Galloway singled out Angela Rayner’s constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne, where she is defending a majority of 4,263, as an example of where his Workers Party of Britain, or a candidate backed by it, could cause havoc for her chances of re-election.
Continue reading...Prime minister suffers defeats in House of Lords over Rwanda bill. This live blog is closed
There will be one urgent question in the Commons today at 3.30pm, on the Home Office’s decision to publish 13 reports from the former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration last week on Thursday afternoon.
The former minister Paul Scully has announced he will stand down at the next election in a statement suggesting the Conservative party has “lost its way” and is heading down “an ideological cul-de-sac”.
Continue reading...Politicians from Conservative and Labour parties get close protection and chauffeur-driven vehicles
Three female MPs have been given bodyguards and chauffeur-driven cars after concerns about their safety, it was reported. Representatives of the Conservative and Labour parties had their security upgraded after a risk assessment, according to the Sunday Times.
The MPs, who have not been named, have been given close protection by private companies and chauffeur-driven vehicles. “Many MPs are petrified by the abuse they are facing,” a senior security source told the newspaper.
Continue reading...Move will help Keir Starmer head off threatened rebellion from his MPs
New 20mph limits are helping cut speeds and will save lives, the Welsh government has insisted. PA Media says:
Drivers are travelling on average 4mph slower on main roads in Wales since the rollout of a new lower speed limit for built-up areas, data collected by Transport for Wales (TfW) shows.
The Welsh Labour government, which implemented the change in September last year, insists the lower speeds will lead to fewer collisions and people injured.
Continue reading...