Hannah Spencer elected as party’s first MP in northern England, as Labour sees a 25.3% drop in vote compared to 2024
The Green party has pulled off a landmark victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection in a significant blow to Keir Starmer.
Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green party councillor, was elected as the party’s first MP in northern England after overturning Labour’s 13,000-vote majority.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Minister ‘misspoke’ by telling MPs UK was ‘pausing for discussions with our American counterparts’, officials say
Plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius are still on track, the UK government has insisted, after a minister caused confusion by telling MPs that the deal was “paused”.
Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, was speaking on Wednesday as the deal came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the UK and from Donald Trump.
Continue reading...US president links deal with military strikes against Iran in connection with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions
Donald Trump changed his mind on supporting the Chagos Islands deal because the UK will not permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian has been told.
In his latest change of heart on the deal, the US president said on social media that Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.
Continue reading...Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now.
He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending.
The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious …
We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work.
We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow, and paid for by working people who can’t afford them themselves.
Continue reading...Group says they intend to establish permanent settlement but Mauritius’s attorney general calls their move a ‘publicity stunt’
Four Chagos Islanders have landed on one of the archipelago’s atolls to establish what they say will be a permanent settlement, in an attempt to complicate a British plan to transfer the territory to Mauritius.
The Mauritius attorney general said the move was a publicity stunt designed to create conflict over a 2025 agreement with Britain on handing over sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory, which is opposed by some Chagossians who accuse Mauritius of decades of neglect. Mauritius has denied the accusations.
Continue reading...New date to approve site near Tower Bridge in London aligns with Keir Starmer’s planned visit to Beijing
The government has delayed its decision on whether to approve China’s super-embassy in London until January, when Keir Starmer is expected to visit Beijing.
Ministers are expected to greenlight the controversial plans after formal submissions by the Home Office and Foreign Office raised no objections on security grounds.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...Spokesperson says move – seen as a victory for Zarah Sultana – shows organisation is ‘a truly member-led party’
Kemi Badenoch has reiterated her calls for the chancellor to resign on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, after accusing Rachel Reeves of breaking promises not to raise taxes.
In this year’s budget, Reeves froze tax thresholds for three years longer than previously planned, meaning that as wages rise more people will have to start paying income tax.
The chancellor called an emergency press conference telling everyone about how terrible the state of the finances were and now we have seen that the OBR had told her the complete opposite. She was raising taxes to pay for welfare.
The only thing that was unfunded was the welfare payments which she has made and she’s doing it on the backs of a lot of people out there who are working very hard and getting poorer. And because of that, I believe she should resign.
The shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, has written to the FCA (the Financial Conduct Authority). Hopefully there will be an investigation, because it looks like what she was doing was trying to pitch-roll her budget – tell everyone how awful it would be and then they wouldn’t be as upset when she finally announced it – and still sneak in those tax rises to pay for welfare. That’s not how we should be running this process.
Continue reading...UK had been pushing to join €150bn Safe fund, a loan scheme that is part of bloc’s drive to rearm Europe
Keir Starmer’s attempt to reset relations with the EU have suffered a major blow, after negotiations for the UK to join the EU’s flagship €150bn (£131bn) defence fund collapsed.
The UK had been pushing to join the EU’s Security Action for Europe (Safe) fund, a low-interest loan scheme that is part of the EU’s drive to boost defence spending by €800bn and rearm the continent, in response to the growing threat from Russia and cooling relations between Donald Trump’s US and the EU.
Continue reading...While some call budget ‘tactical victory’, few MPs believe it is enough for Labour to beat Reform
Labour MPs have said they believe Keir Starmer’s leadership is safe until at least the May elections, after a budget that avoided any major damaging measures but which few MPs believe will revive the party’s fortunes.
More than a dozen previously loyal MPs told the Guardian they did not believe the budget would shift the fundamentals required for the party to beat Reform. “It only delays what is inevitable,” one minister said.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Cabinet minister says PM would not have backed attacks on Wes Streeting but briefing is ‘longstanding aspect of politics’
Ed Miliband has said he was certain Keir Starmer would sack whoever had briefed against Wes Streeting, after a chaotic 48 hours in which No 10 launched an operation to shore up the prime minister against an anticipated leadership challenge.
The prime minister apologised to the health secretary in a phone call with him late on Wednesday. Starmer is facing mounting calls to sack his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the row.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Starmer defends Wes Streeting at PMQs but dodges question on his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney
Keir Starmer has condemned as “completely unacceptable” any briefings against cabinet ministers from inside Downing Street as he tried desperately to close a rift at the top of government.
Questioned by Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions, Starmer defended Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who was the apparent target of a pre-emptive No 10 push against a feared imminent leadership challenge against the prime minister.
Continue reading...Frustration with Starmer’s lack of visibility unlikely to be quelled by No 10 efforts to show up leadership challengers
For an operation that used to pride itself on its political instinct, Keir Starmer’s No 10 has been repeatedly caught off-guard.
There was the plunge in popularity in the immediate aftermath of the winter fuel decision, the decimation of loyalty among Labour MPs that led to the welfare vote catastrophe and the audacity of Andy Burnham’s open campaign for the leadership leading up to Labour conference.
Continue reading...Exclusive: No 10 said to be in ‘full bunker mode’ over fears of challenge after this month’s budget or May local elections
Downing Street has launched an extraordinary operation to protect Keir Starmer amid fears among the prime minister’s closest allies that he is vulnerable to a leadership challenge in the wake of the budget.
Starmer’s most senior political aides warned that any attempt to oust the prime minister over tanking poll ratings would be a “reckless” and “dangerous” move that could destabilise the markets, international relationships and the Labour party.
Continue reading...