Prime minister to launch strategic defence review in Glasgow this morning
Here is the clip of Keir Starmer in his Today programme interview refusing to say when the government will raise defence spending to 3% of GDP.
In an interview with the Times published on Saturday John Healey, the defence secretary, said that he had “no doubt” that Britain would reach the 3% target by 2034 – ie, before the end of the next parliament. Yesterday he described this as an “ambition”.
Continue reading...Morning rain could affect Northern Ireland and Scotland but southern and eastern parts likely to remain dry
Temperatures could hit 27C on Saturday, as the UK’s sunniest spring on record draws to a close. But more changeable weather is forecast next week.
Temperatures reached 25.7C at Heathrow on Friday – about 7C hotter than the average for the time of year – and the trend is due to continue into Saturday, with highs of 27C possible in some areas, the Met Office said.
Continue reading...Scotland’s first minister criticises byelection campaign video that claims his rival ‘will prioritise Pakistani community’
The SNP leader John Swinney has demanded that the owner of Facebook act on Reform UK’s “racist” byelection advert that attacks the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar.
The Facebook video, which incorrectly claims Sarwar has promised to prioritise Pakistani communities, is now subject to formal complaints from Scotland’s two main political parties. Scottish Labour contacted Meta, Facebook’s parent company, about the video two weeks ago and has yet to receive a reply.
Continue reading...Popular stop on M5 tops Which? survey with Tebay second, while Bridgwater is judged the worst with one-star rating
There are less than 80 miles between them, but the gulf in quality is massive, according to a Which? survey that ranked Gloucester services top of the stops, and Bridgwater bottom.
For many people motorway service stations are a place to take a break, grab a snack and use the toilet, but the rankings from the consumer recommendation group, which surveyed users of nearly 100 service stations across Great Britain, highlight the best and worst.
Continue reading...Shabana Mahmood is making a statement to MPs now about the findings of the sentencing review
The Conservatives are taking the credit for the near-50% fall in net migration. They say it is the changes to visa rules that they introduced that brought the numbers down.
This is from Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary.
Net migration has halved - dropped by 430,000 - in 2024 compared to 2023
This is thanks to measures put in place by the last Conservative Government
This drop is because of the visa rule changes that I put in place.
Labour will try to claim credit for these figures but they criticised me at the time, and have failed to fully implement the changes.
Continue reading...Climate Change Committee says original goal of a 75% emissions cut by 2030 will now be delayed by up to six years
The UK’s climate watchdog has warned that Scotland needs to take “immediate action at pace and scale” to cut its emissions after ministers axed a series of policy pledges.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC), an official advisory body, said ministers in Edinburgh needed to take urgent action to curb emissions from buildings and transport to cut Scotland’s overall emissions to nearly zero by 2045.
Abandoned a target to cut car miles by 20% by 2030.
Dropped a pledge to rapidly decarbonise homes by mandating low-carbon heating systems.
Cut funding for tree planting.
Missed targets to restore degraded peatland.
Ignored calls for a plan to cut meat and dairy consumption, and failed to use their powers to tax air travel more heavily.
Continue reading...Family of Kayden Moy, 16, say he will be ‘sorely missed’, while police continue investigation and call for information
A 17-year-old boy has been charged in connection with the death of Kayden Moy, 16, who died after a “targeted” attack on a Scottish beach.
Police were called to reports of a teenager being seriously injured at Irvine beach in North Ayrshire on Saturday at about 6.45pm.
Continue reading...Liam McArthur opens debate on assisted dying, saying too many face ‘horrendous choices and bad deaths’
Scottish politicians have been urged to show terminally ill people compassion and choice in how they die as they began to debate a new law to permit assisted dying.
Liam McArthur, a Scottish Liberal Democrat MP, said too many dying people faced “horrendous choices and bad deaths”, including unregulated suicides or prolonged trauma because they were denied the right to an assisted death.
Continue reading...Former Scottish first minister expresses concern about interim advice from EHRC
The lives of transgender people in the UK are at risk of being made “unliveable”, Nicola Sturgeon has said in her first public comments about the supreme court ruling on the legal definition of a woman, which was prompted by legislation she oversaw in the Scottish parliament.
The UK supreme court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act referred only to a biological woman and to biological sex. This was the conclusion of a long-running court action by the gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland, who objected to a law passed at Holyrood aimed at improving women’s representation on public boards being extended to transgender women.
Continue reading...Actor joins four days of national events including concerts, church services and a military procession in London
Eighty years after Winston Churchill addressed the nation from Downing Street with the words “This is your victory!” a recitation of his famous VE Day speech will be broadcast as the nation commemorates the day the Allies formally accepted Germany’s surrender in 1945.
Events across four days of national UK commemorations include a military procession through central London on Monday, with tens of thousands expected to line the route from Parliament Square to Buckingham Palace, and a service at Westminster Abbey on the 8 May anniversary on Thursday.
Continue reading...Soaad Al Shawa had been barred from spending final days with her family, who fled Damascus to settle in Glasgow
A Syrian grandmother who is dying of cancer has been given permission to come to the UK to spend her final days with the grandchildren she has never met, after a Home Office U-turn.
The government had wanted to bar Soaad Al Shawa, who has liver cancer and has been given just weeks to live by doctors, from travelling to spend her last days with her daughter Ola Al Hamwi, son-in-law Mostafa Amonajid and their three children aged seven, five and one. Al Shawa has only been able to communicate with her grandchildren on video calls.
Continue reading...Jagtar Singh Johal’s hopes of being freed on bail have been dashed for now despite being cleared of charges in one case
Hopes that Jagtar Singh Johal, a British Sikh man held in an Indian jail for seven years, would be released on bail were dashed on Thursday when his case was deferred by the Indian supreme court possibly until after the summer, prompting calls from MPs for the UK to intervene.
The foreign secretary, David Lammy, is due to meet Johal’s brother again next week.
Continue reading...‘Any strategy based on either phasing out fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail,’ says former PM
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
Keir Starmer is not expected to campaign in the Hamilton byelection, a critical contest for Scottish Labour which takes place in early June, Anas Sarwar has confirmed.
I wouldn’t expect Keir to be campaigning in the byelection. That’s not to say he won’t, but I’m not expecting Kier to campaign in the byelection.
I’ll be on the stump campaigning for a Labour win. I’m the candidate for first minister next year. I’m the one that wants to remove the SNP from government.
Next year, we’ve got to demonstrate to people that for all Nigel Farage might want to come here with his easy answers and create a bit of a circus, the reality is a vote for Reform only helps the SNP. If you want to get rid of the SNP, only Scottish Labour can beat them.
Continue reading...Revealed: Sources say bosses at R&A, which organises the annual golf tournament, were quizzed about 2028 event
Senior Whitehall officials have asked golf bosses whether they can host the 2028 Open championship at Donald Trump’s Turnberry course after repeated requests from the US president, sources have said.
Officials had asked senior people at the R&A, which organises the world’s oldest major golf championship, what the hurdles would be to hosting the 2028 Open at Turnberry.
Continue reading...Polling predicts victory for party in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull/East Yorkshire with the Greens possibly taking West of England
There are six mayoral elections next week. Two of them are for single-authority mayors (Doncaster and North Tyneside), but the others are for combined-authority mayors (or regional mayors – like metro mayors, but not just covering city regions). Today YouGov has released polling covering all four of these contests and it suggests Reform UK is on course to win two of them easily. And the Green party is narrowly ahead in a third, the poll suggests.
Here are the polling figures.
In theory the Tories should be winning in Lincolnshire as they hold most of the parliamentary seats in the area and have dominated local politics forever. But it’s also the most Reform-friendly part of the country. It contains Richard Tice’s constituency and numerous seats in which they came second. Plus their candidate is a former Tory MP – Andrea Jenkyns, famous for her Boris Johnson obsession and making a middle finger gesture at a crowd outside Downing Street. She is, by all accounts, quite a few sandwiches short of a picnic but, nevertheless, is strong favourite to win. Large chunks of local Conservative parties, including several councillors, have already defected.
Continue reading...Spokesperson for Tory leader says she agrees with colleague that ‘we need to bring centre-right voters together’. This blog is closed
Rosie Duffield, the independent MP who left Labour after the election in part because she felt her gender critical views made her unwelcome in the party (although her resignation letter focused on welfare issues), has claimed that Keir Starmer no longer arguing a trans woman is a woman shows he is a “manager rather than a leader”.
Speaking on LBC, Duffield said:
It’s just another sign of the prime minister’s lack of leadership skills. I’m bound to say that, he’s a manager rather than a leader. He responds and reacts rather than leads from the front, and this is what we’re seeing again from him.
Nigel Farage is peddling a dangerous fantasy by claiming the UK can be self-sufficient in gas.
After sixty years of drilling, the truth is the UK has already burned most of its gas. That’s down to geology, not politics, and no amount of hot air from Farage will change that.
Continue reading...Minister for women and equality makes statement after supreme court ruling on gender recognition
Some MPs and peers are calling for President Trump not to be invited to address parliament when he visits the UK. In 2017, during Trump’s first presidency, the then Speaker, John Bercow, vetoed a proposal for Trump to address parliamentarians in Westminster Hall.
In an interview with Times Radio this morning, Stephen Morgan, an education minister, said Trump should be allowed to give a speech in parliament. Asked if Trump should be allowed to address MPs and peers, Morgan said:
I look forward to the US president addressing parliament in due course.
Continue reading...Social justice secretary says Holyrood ‘fully accepts’ supreme court ruling and would amend guidance
The Scottish government has said it will abandon its plans to change legislation on gender recognition, the high watermark of Nicola Sturgeon’s progressive agenda, as it moved to reassure the trans community that “you are valued”.
In a statement to MSPs on Tuesday afternoon, the social justice secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said Holyrood “fully accepts” the judgment of the supreme court, which ruled against Scottish ministers last Wednesday in the culmination of a long-running legal action brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland.
Continue reading...UK government expected to sell remaining stake in bailed-out bank in coming weeks
This week, NatWest will hold its last annual shareholder meeting before returning to full private ownership, with the government expected to sell its remaining stake in the bailed-out bank in the coming weeks.
The bank, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), will host shareholders on Wednesday at its sprawling Gogarburn campus in Edinburgh, the £350m complex that became a symbol of the excesses that led to RBS’s £46bn bailout in 2008.
Continue reading...Emergency repairs and quality checks for 5m people in Scotland will not be done on Tuesday and Wednesday, union says
Scottish Water staff will strike for two days from the early hours of Tuesday as a standoff over pay continues at the state-owned company.
The striking workers’ union warned that emergency repairs and quality checks to water supplied to 5 million people across Scotland would not be carried out during the action on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Continue reading...