Category Archives: Keir Starmer

Antony Blinken to visit UK for talks on Ukraine and Middle East

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US secretary of state will be most senior US official to have travelled to London since Labour’s election victory

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will head to London next week to discuss the Middle East and Ukraine, the state department announced on Saturday, in advance of a US visit by prime minister Keir Starmer.

Blinken’s visit to London on Monday and Tuesday will be the most senior by a US official since the Labour party won the general election in July, ending 14 years of Conservative rule.

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Tory health reforms left UK open to Covid calamity, says top doctor’s report

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Britain’s pandemic response was among the worst and the NHS had been ‘seriously weakened’, says leading surgeon

• Three reports lay bare scale of NHS malaise, but will Reeves fund a remedy?

Britain was hit far harder by the Covid-19 pandemic than other developed countries because the NHS had been “seriously weakened” by disastrous government policies over the preceding decade, a wide-ranging report will conclude this week.

An assessment of the NHS by the world-renowned surgeon Prof Ara Darzi, commissioned in July by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, will find that the health service reduced its “routine healthcare activity by a far greater percentage than other health systems” in many key areas during the Covid crisis.

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Keir Starmer optimistic for ‘deep’ reset of relations with Ireland

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Starmer to hold talks with Irish counterpart on first official visit of a British PM to country for five years

Keir Starmer has said he believes there can be a “deep” reset of relations with Ireland after arriving in Dublin for his first official visit, with Northern Ireland, Brexit and joint international interests on the agenda.

It is the first official visit of a British prime minister since Boris Johnson visited in 2019 to try to salvage a Brexit deal after years of strained relations.

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‘À la carte’ new Brexit deal with EU not on table, Micheál Martin warns

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Ireland’s deputy PM welcomes warmer relations as Keir Starmer arrives for official visit – but cautions UK cannot ‘cherrypick’ issues

The UK cannot have an “à la carte” reset of the Brexit agreement, Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said, just hours before Keir Starmer headed to Dublin for his first official visit to Ireland.

The tánaiste said the EU wanted an improved EU-UK relationship but that the UK could not “cherrypick”.

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Starmer leads with compromise for new family pet – and gets ‘dog-like’ cat

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Siberian kitten at No 10 may get frosty reception from chief mouser Larry, who took on George Osborne’s cat, Freya

On the face of it, the kitten that joined Keir Starmer’s family appears to have had a peaceful first week at an address where feline and human rivals have been known to get their claws out.

The arrival of the Siberian cat – as yet unnamed in public – was revealed on Monday by the prime minister, who said his children had been pushing for a dog to join them at Downing Street.

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Sixth-generation wire-maker blames Brexit for shredding its business

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Owner of Ormiston Wire in London urges Keir Starmer not to forget small manufacturers in his dealings with EU

The head of a family-owned company that has made specialist wires and cables for six generations for clients ranging from naval vessels to film sets has blamed Brexit for shredding its business.

Mark Ormiston, the owner of Ormiston Wire, said small businesses such as his had been flushed “down the toilet” by the masterminds of Brexit who gave little thought to the real-life consequences for UK manufacturing.

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Priti Patel knocked out of Tory leadership race with Robert Jenrick securing most votes in first round – UK politics live

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Former home secretary finishes behind Mel Stride after only securing 14 votes

PMQs is starting soon. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

Kemi Badenoch is the clear favourite of Conservative members for next leader, and will be very hard to beat if she makes it into the final ballot of two, according to a survey by ConservativeHome.

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Starmer to face test next week as MPs vote on limiting winter fuel allowance

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Plan to means-test benefit for pensioners criticised by opposition parties and some Labour backbenchers

Keir Starmer faces a test of his authority next week after promising a vote on the government’s plans to limit winter fuel allowance to the poorest pensioners.

MPs will get the chance to vote on secondary legislation on Tuesday that will introduce means-testing of the benefit after pressure from opposition parties and Labour backbenchers.

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Scottish government announces spending cuts worth £500m – as it happened

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Shona Robison, Scottish finance secretary, says current financial situation facing Scottish government is ‘not sustainable’

Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, is launching his campaign for the Tory leadership. There is a live feed here.

Tugendhat started by saying that he did not actually want the job, because he does not want to be leader of the opposition. He wants to be prime minister, he said.

Politics is not a game, and we all know the cost when government isn’t sober and serious. We saw it in the lives lost in Afghanistan and then in that wasted chaos of that withdrawal. We saw it during Covid, not just in the lost years of education that cost so many or the opportunities missed, or even in the grief for lost loved ones or those left to cope alone, but through the disrespect.

That’s why I’m standing before you today, because this country can change. We must change, and Britain deserves better, and we need a different government.

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Starmer criticises Labour MP over tenants’ complaints of mould and ants

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PM says ‘it’s unacceptable’ when asked about Jas Athwal allegations but adds MP is ‘taking action to put it right’

Keir Starmer has criticised a Labour MP who has been accused of renting out flats with black mould and ant infestations, calling the conditions “unacceptable”.

The prime minister addressed the accusations against Jas Athwal, the MP for Ilford South, on Monday after a report by the BBC quoted several of his tenants complaining about the conditions in the properties they rented from him. One said there were ants “everywhere”, adding: “They are on my kid’s body and on their clothes.”

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Starmer rejects Badenoch’s claim Labour is ‘clueless’ and urges Tories to apologise for the ‘mess they made’ – as it happened

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PM says he will not take lectures from previous government as Kemi Badenoch launches Tory leadership campaign

Kemi Badenoch is speaking now. She says she wants to talk about the future.

She was born in the UK, but “grew up under socialism”, she says (referring to her childhood in Nigeria).

Labour have no ideas. At best, they are announcing things we have already done, and at their worst, they are clueless, irresponsible and dishonest.

They are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public about the state of Britain’s finances, placing political donors into civil service jobs, pretending that they have no plans to cut pensioner benefits before the election and then doing exactly that to cover the cost of pay rises for the unions with no promise of reform, But their model of spend, spend, spend is broken, and they don’t know what to do, and this will only lead to even more cynicism in politics.

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Ignore ‘vicious’ social media criticism, Blair tells Starmer

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Former UK prime minister praises Labour leader’s handling of riots and advises him not to put off the ‘hard decisions’

Tony Blair has urged Keir Starmer to ignore “vicious” social media platforms during his time as prime minister, saying that poring over the inevitable criticism that will rain down on him will trigger psychological problems.

“You know, you start scrolling through social media that’s written about you, it’s going to do your head in,” Blair says in an interview with the Observer’s chief political commentator, Andrew Rawnsley, about his new book, On Leadership, Lessons for the 21st century.

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Voters believe Labour on UK’s woes, but not on its proposed fixes

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Keir Starmer struggling to sell his remedies for the problems facing Britain after Tory mess

The prime minister is struggling to communicate how his government will address the significant problems facing the UK. While the public readily accepts that the last government left a mess, selling Labour’s remedies as necessary or fair is proving more challenging.

The incoming government’s first job was to assign blame for the country’s current woes. This proved relatively easy, given the last ­government’s unpopularity and the Conservatives’ poor campaign.

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The lady’s not for returning – but where has No 10’s Thatcher portrait gone?

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Painting that hung in former PM’s study since 2009 no longer there – but aides are tightlipped as to whereabouts

In a summer punctuated by an election and then riots there has not really been a “silly season”, the traditional news-light period when holidaying MPs become worked up about trivialities. That is until now – thanks to a row about a portrait of Margaret Thatcher.

What is known is that the slightly austere painting of the former prime minister by the artist Richard Stone has been moved from the Downing Street study where it had hung since 2009, when Gordon Brown commissioned it.

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Starmer faces pushback from pubs over ‘bonkers’ outdoor smoking curb plans

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Hospitality industry expresses concern about impact on businesses of leaked proposals not denied by PM

Keir Starmer is on a collision course with the hospitality industry and political opponents after signalling plans for major curbs on outdoor smoking.

The proposals, not denied by the prime minister, would potentially prohibit tobacco use outside pubs and restaurants, including on pavements. The restrictions would come on top of existing plans to gradually outlaw smoking year by year.

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EU states working on fresh proposal for youth mobility scheme with UK

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Giving young people chance to work, learn and train across Europe is ‘glue’ between countries, says German ambassador

EU member states are working on an updated proposal for a youth mobility scheme with the UK after an earlier paper by the European Commission was rejected out of hand by Labour in April, it has emerged.

EU sources say the 27 countries hope to come up with viable negotiating points for Brussels in coming weeks to feed into the expected negotiations on a reset of EU-UK relations being sought by the British prime minister, Keir Starmer.

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Starmer promises ‘project of hope’ in UK amid concern about rise of far right

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Prime minister says ‘progressives have to provide the better answer’ during visit to Germany

Keir Starmer has expressed concern that the UK could face a rise in mass far-right populism as seen in Germany and France, as he said it was his mission to “inject some hope” into the country.

Speaking to reporters in Germany, where the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) could come top in three state elections next month, Starmer said the increase in support for such groups was “something that occupies my time”, especially after UK riots partly inspired by far-right misinformation.

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Starmer hails ‘once in a generation’ treaty with Germany – as it happened

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Prime minister says agreement will be a ‘boost to our trading relations’. This live blog is closed

Keir Starmer is due to hold a press conference with Olaf Scholz soon. You can watch via the live stream at the top of the page. You may need to refresh the page for it to come up.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has refused to rule out a rise in inheritance tax or capital gains tax, reports the PA news agency.

I’m not going to write a budget two months ahead of delivering it. We’re going to have to make difficult decisions in a range of areas.”

The UK economy is just emerging from the recession that we entered into last year, and two quarters of positive economic growth is not going to reverse more than a decade of economic stagnation.

Much work is needed to rebuild the foundations of our economy so we can rebuild Britain and make working people better off, and that is why growing our economy is absolutely essential.”

Unless we grow the economy, we’re going to continue to be in a situation where taxes are at too high a level and public spending is not sustainable.

We’ve got to break out of this doom loop, which is why growing the economy is the number one priority of this new government.”

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Labour hopes to deepen economic ties with Europe outside EU’s structures

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Finding new trade arrangements to boost growth will be hard given party has ruled out rejoining single market and customs union

Before a whistlestop European tour to Berlin and Paris, Keir Starmer promised to mend “the broken relationships left behind by the previous government” and drive forward UK economic growth.

Changing the tone with European leaders is the easy bit. Changing the substance – especially finding new arrangements to boost growth – is a much taller order.

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Starmer appears to leave door open for potential EU youth exchange scheme

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PM does not rule out setting up system in future after meeting with Olaf Scholz, who stressed desire for closer ties

Keir Starmer has held the door open for some form of youth mobility exchange with EU countries after talks in Germany with Olaf Scholz, who stressed to the British prime minister his wish for closer such ties.

While Starmer said at a press conference with the German chancellor that the UK did not have plans to join the EU’s youth mobility scheme – with No 10 having previously ruled out such a move – speaking to reporters later, he pointedly did not rule out setting up some sort of system for other link-ups, for example student exchanges.

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