Labour deputy leader being investigated over whether she gave false information a decade ago
Angela Rayner has handled the controversy over her living arrangements “in the right way”, Yvette Cooper has insisted after a former aide contradicted Rayner’s account.
The shadow home secretary said Rayner was “very keen to be able to provide the facts to the relevant authorities”.
Continue reading...Chancellor reportedly considering energy windfall levy as well as scrapping the non-dom status
The Conservative peer and former MP Stewart Jackson has also made the point about Rishi Sunak’s comments yesterday echoing what Suella Braverman has been saying. (See 9.25am.) He suggests Sunak is a weathercock, “buffeted by events”.
Rishi Sunak is now saying what #SuellaBraverman rightly said four months ago, and for which she was sacked. Tony Benn astutely divided politicians as between signposts and weathercocks. One can think ahead, the other is buffeted by events. We know which one is which, don’t we?
We commend the prime minister on his powerful speech at the CST dinner last night, pledging more funding to protect the Jewish community, outlining a new protocol to safeguard our elected representatives and effectively police protests, and drawing a clear line between democratic dissent and mob intimidation.
The last few months have seen an extreme rise in antisemitic hate in the UK, which has had a significant effect on British Jews. The prime minister’s announcement has made it clear - those bringing chaos to our streets and academic institutions will no longer be allowed to act with impunity.
Continue reading...Party to ask for details of individual relocation costs and any payments to the Rwandan government
Labour will table a vote in parliament on Tuesday calling for the release of documents relating to the UK government’s Rwanda deportation policy amid claims from Conservative centrists that Rishi Sunak has promised to uphold international treaties.
The vote, which will be part of a humble address on the opposition day debate in the Commons, will ask for any documents that show the cost of relocating each individual asylum seeker to Rwanda as well as a list of all payments made or scheduled to be made to Rwanda’s government.
Continue reading...Downing Street refuses to endorse home secretary as he says his aim is to reduce number of people crossing Channel on small boats to ‘zero’. This live blog is closed
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson claimed the government had “gone further” than promised in tackling the asylum application backlog. In response to comments from Labour and others saying the legacy backlog has not been fully cleared, the spokesperson said:
We committed to clearing the backlog. That is what the government has done.
We are being very transparent about what that entails.
I said that this government would clear the backlog of asylum decisions by the end of 2023.
That’s exactly what we’ve done.
Critics say Labour leader missed chance to sound more sympathetic to Palestinian suffering and accept that a Gaza ceasefire call was implied
For the last few weeks, Keir Starmer has been trying to avoid a confrontation with his party over Gaza. With dozens of MPs preparing to rebel and vote for the Scottish National party’s amendment calling for a ceasefire in the region, the Labour leader and his top team held a series of difficult meetings as they tried to thrash out a compromise.
The rebels suggested Labour submitted an amendment of their own, which Starmer agreed to. But they were also desperate for him to use the word “ceasefire”, and on that point he refused to budge.
Continue reading...Home secretary’s rhetoric is dividing Conservative MPs, who are frustrated that Rishi Sunak has not sacked her
Suella Braverman has demanded “further action” against pro-Palestine marches, as centrist Conservative MPs expressed despair at Rishi Sunak’s delay in sacking his rogue home secretary.
One senior backbencher predicted “a lot of noise” from angry colleagues when they return to parliament on Monday, with no signs of imminent action from Sunak after a series of controversies involving Braverman.
Continue reading...Yvette Cooper will announce scheme that will also offer mental health support
Yvette Cooper will set up a £100m “tough love” youth programme to help tackle a knife crime epidemic and a mental health crisis among UK teenagers if Labour is elected, she will announce.
On Tuesday, the shadow home secretary will tell the Labour party conference in Liverpool that the “young futures” programme will target 92 communities under a Keir Starmer-led government that are blighted by youth crime and violence.
Continue reading...Party says recruits with relevant skills could help tackle government’s ‘abysmal’ record on unsolved crimes
Directly recruiting new police detectives from parallel fields such as business fraud investigation could help tackle the government’s “abysmal” record on unsolved crimes, according to a proposal from Labour.
Analysis by the party found that 90% of recorded crimes do not get solved and there has been a 60% reduction in the proportion of offences that result in a criminal charge since 2015.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yvette Cooper to tell RUSI thinktank that economic security and national security go hand in hand
Contractors linked to hostile foreign powers such as China will be targeted by a new security taskforce if Labour wins the next general election.
In a joint initiative from the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the new body will aim to anticipate risks to Britain’s national security.
Continue reading...Posters attacking Rishi Sunak on crime made Britons feel less favourable about both main parties, Opinium finds
Labour’s controversial “attack ad” accusing Rishi Sunak of failing to put paedophiles in prison has caused more voters to think negatively of Keir Starmer’s party than a Conservative poster that accused the Labour leader of being soft on crime, according to an Opinium poll for the Observer.
The striking result, when people were asked to react to the two posters, comes after 10 days of internal Labour ructions over its sudden switch to hyper-aggressive and personalised online campaigning.
Continue reading...Shadow home secretary was not consulted about the widely criticised advert that claims Rishi Sunak did not believe in jailing child abusers
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was not informed or consulted about the release of a widely criticised Labour advertisement that claims Rishi Sunak does not believe adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison, the Observer has been told.
As several senior party figures distanced themselves from the poster that has caused a huge row within the party, Labour sources said that Cooper “had nothing to do with it” – despite being in overall charge of crime policy for Labour.
Continue reading...This blog has now closed, you can read more on this story here
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, was not exactly on message in his Sky News interview with Kay Burley this morning. As well as implying that he thought the bullying inquiry into Dominic Raab was a mistake (see 10.37am), he made at least three other comments that suggest Rishi Sunak does not have the enthusiastic support of all his backbenchers.
Rees-Mogg said that Sunak was performing “perfectly competently” as PM. Asked how he was doing, Rees-Mogg replied: “I think he’s doing perfectly competently.” When Burley put it to him that that was not much of an endorsement, Rees-Mogg went on: “I made no bones about the fact I thought Boris Johnson was a better prime minister and I wanted him to remain.”
Rees-Mogg criticised the government for stalling the Northern Ireland protocol bill. The bill, which is popular with hardline Brexiters but widely seen as contrary to international law, because it would allow the UK to unilaterally ignore some of the provisions in the protocol treaty, passed through the Commons when Boris Johnson was PM. But it is stuck in the Lords, where it has not been debated since October and where a date has not been set for its report stage. Sunak has shelved it because he wants to negotiate a compromise on the protocol with the EU, and passing the bill would make agreement much harder. But Rees-Mogg said the government should pass it. He said:
The government has just got to get on with it. There’s a bill that has been through the House of Commons that is waiting its report stage in the House of Lords and I don’t understand why the government hasn’t brought it forward.
He renewed his criticism of the strikes (minimum service levels) bill. When MPs debated it last night, Rees-Mogg said he agreed with Labour criticisms of the Henry VIII powers in the bill.
The government doesn’t know what changes it will have to make once this bill is passed. Under clause 3, the secretary of state would be able to make regulations that “amend, repeal or revoke provision made by or under primary legislation passed before this act or later in the same session of parliament as this act”. This is a supercharged Henry VIII clause. Why should MPs or peers pay any attention to any related legislation that may be brought before them later in this session when they know that, unless they object, a secretary of state may simply amend, repeal or revoke it?
Continue reading...Chancellor did not contest claim when asked whether his department blocked a pay rise of around 10% for rail workers
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has refused to quash claims that the Treasury vetoed a pay offer that may have led to a resolution of the rail strike.
Last month the Daily Telegraph claimed that the Department for Transport wanted to offer rail workers a rise worth between 8% and 9% over two year, but that it was prevented from doing so by the Treasury.
There is unanimity across the government in that it wants high inflation to be temporary, and I think there is understanding that that is essential for the very people who are feeling most angry about their situation.
We have to be really careful not to agree to pay demands that have the opposite of the intended effect because they lock in high inflation.
So if we make the wrong choices now, we won’t have that 3.7% of inflation in January or February of 2024 and this will change from being a one-off problem, to being a permanent problem, which will be the worst possible thing for people working in public services. That is why it’s generally a very difficult issue.
I would urge everyone to boycott Netflix and make sure that we actually focus on the things that matter.
Continue reading...Former deputy chief whip Anne Milton tells Channel 4 Williamson used ‘leverage’ and threats against MPs
Sima Kotecha, Newsnight’s UK editor, has spoken to Tory MPs who are not surprised about the allegations about Sir Gavin Williamson being a bully.
Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary, has said that if Alistair Jack, the Scottish secretary, was confident about defending his record at an election, he would not be getting ready to accept a peerage. Referring to today’s Times story (see 10.55am), Murray said:
We cannot comment on speculation about peerages. Alister Jack is absolutely committed to representing his constituents and working with the prime minister to continue to deliver for people in Scotland.
Continue reading...Unsecured mobiles, email accounts and WhatsApp chats could pose national security risk, intelligence experts warn
Ministers risk creating “wild west” conditions in matters of national security by the increased use of personal email and phones to conduct confidential business, intelligence experts and former officials have warned.
After a week tainted by a row over the use of a personal email account by the home secretary, it was revealed on Sunday that Liz Truss’s mobile is alleged to have been hacked by overseas agents.
Continue reading...Latest updates: the Labour party leader used his conference speech to spell out his plan for the UK
The decision to pay Liz Truss’s new chief of staff, Mark Fullbrook, through a private company has been dropped after criticism from within the Conservatives as well as from opposition parties.
The government admitted over the weekend that Fullbrook would be paid through his lobbying firm, a move that could have helped him avoid paying tax. He had previously claimed the firm had stopped all commercial activities.
The world we are heading for is a bumpy few weeks. The chancellor is now going to have quite a tough time because he has now set out plans to balance the books in November. That is going to be very hard.
Actually balancing the books in November is going to be harder than it would have been to show you are balancing the books last week because higher interest rates will make it harder to do. You might need £15bn worth of tough choices now that you didn’t need last Friday.
In the end, lower taxes will mean worse public services, or other people’s taxes having to go up, and it is those choices and ducking those choices that markets are looking at and saying that is not what serious policymaking looks like.
Continue reading...Yvette Cooper requests more details about Boris Johnson’s meeting with Alexander Lebedev in Italy in 2018
Yvette Cooper has used an urgent question in the Commons to ask if Alexander Lebedev sought to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during a weekend party in April 2018.
A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that when foreign secretary he had met former KGB agent Lebedev without officials present, the shadow home secretary told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son.
Continue reading...More than 100 MPs write to Boris Johnson saying guidance will lead survivors to avoid seeking therapy
More than 100 female Labour MPs have written to Boris Johnson calling on him to scrap new guidance on pre-trial therapy for rape victims, which they say will make it less likely they will get the vital therapy they need.
Led by the shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, MPs including Yvette Cooper, Angela Rayner and Jess Phillips argue that the new rules “will cause many survivors to avoid seeking therapy, and make it more likely that cases will collapse when the prolonged stress of waiting for trials becomes too much”.
Continue reading...A fundraising event held for the shadow minister sparks rumours that he is readying himself to replace Keir Starmer if he resigns over Beergate
Labour rising star Wes Streeting has denied preparing a leadership bid to replace Keir Starmer after it emerged that the wealthy party donor Waheed Alli hosted a recent fundraising event for him and another MP at his central London home.
The Observer has been told that the actors Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman, as well the businesswoman and LGBTQ+ activist Linda Riley, were among 20 to 30 people present at the event in March, where Lord Alli picked up the £4,600 bill for a buffet and drinks.
Continue reading...Former shadow chancellor says he has ‘no intention’ of putting himself forward to stand for the West Yorkshire seat
Ed Balls has ruled out a return to politics as a Labour candidate in the upcoming Wakefield byelection.
The former shadow chancellor, who lost his Morley and Outwood seat at the 2015 general election, wrote on Twitter that he had “no intention of putting myself forward” for the contest.
Continue reading...