Category Archives: Scottish politics

UK politics: Reform UK on course to win in two mayoral contests – as it happened

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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.

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Badenoch declines to criticise Jenrick over Reform coalition comments – as it happened

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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.

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Scottish government abandons plan to fight court ruling on gender recognition

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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.

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Gender critical campaigners win at UK supreme court over definition of woman

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Judges rule that Equality Act definition excludes transgender women holding gender recognition certificates

Gender critical rights campaigners have won their supreme court challenge over the definition of a woman.

Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

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Asylum system risks ‘damaging social cohesion’, Glasgow city council warns

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Council says cost running into tens of millions, as homeless refugees granted asylum across UK come to city for support

The asylum system risks “damaging social cohesion” with homeless refugees putting “unprecedented pressure” on Glasgow services, the city council has warned.

Glasgow city council, the largest asylum dispersal area outside London, had welcomed asylum seekers for decades, said the city convener for homelessness, Allan Casey.

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Minister refuses to rule out more benefit cuts amid backlash over Liz Kendall move to slash disability payments – UK politics live

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Stephen Timms, social security and disability minister, says ‘who knows what will happen in next five years’ as welfare bill is increasing even with cuts

Matt Hancock, the former Tory health secretary, has just started giving evidence to the Covid inquiry as part of its inquiry into PPE procurement.

There is a live feed here.

Of course people who can work should work - no one is questioning that - but for my relatives, friends and neighbours, and your constituents who have the misfortune to suffer from a chronic, debilitating, long-term condition that leaves them bed-bound, unable to leave their home or crushed by mental illness, these cuts will not motivate them to get back to work, it will instead scare and humiliate them and strip them of their dignity and self respect and for some it will send them to an early grave. The blame for this will lie squarely with you and the sycophants within your party who passively support these dreadful cuts.

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Minister refuses to say disability benefits for people unable to work won’t be cut – UK politics live

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Stephen Timms, social security and disability minister, says government is ‘fully supporting’ people who would always be unable to work

The Reform UK press conference is about to start. There is a live feed here.

Nigel Farage is going to announce that 29 councillors have defected to his party, according to the Guido Fawkes website.

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UK politics: Unison attacks ‘shambolic’ announcement of NHS England’s abolition – as it happened

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Union says staff will have been left reeling after surprise news that body will be scrapped

Starmer is now talking about regulatation, and giving examples of where he thinks it has gone too far.

l give you an example. There’s a office conversion in Bingley, which, as you know, is in Yorkshire. That is an office conversion that will create 139 homes.

But now the future of that is uncertain because the regulator was not properly consulted on the power of cricket balls. That’s 139 homes. Now just think of the people, the families, the individuals who want those homes to buy, those homes to make their life and now they’re held up. Why? You’ll decide whether this is a good reason because I’m going to quote this is the reason ‘because the ball strike assessment doesn’t appear to be undertaken by a specialist, qualified consultant’. So that’s what’s holding up these 139 homes.

When we had those terrible riots … what we saw then, in response, was dynamic. It was strong, it was urgent. It was what I call active government, on the pitch, doing what was needed, acting.

But for many of us, I think the feeling is we don’t really have that everywhere all of the time at the moment.

The state employs more people than we’ve employed for decades, and yet look around the country; do you see good value everywhere? Because I don’t.

I actually think it’s weaker than it’s ever been, overstretched, unfocused, trying to do too much, doing it badly, unable to deliver the security that people need.

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Watchdog suggests alleged ‘two-tier’ sentencing guidelines may breach Equality Act – UK politics live

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Lady Falkner, chair of the EHRC, says moves run the risk of positive discrimination

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

PMQs is about to start.

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Badenoch challenges Starmer over defence spending and Chagos deal ahead of his Trump meeting – UK politics live

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PM fields questions on his announcement that the UK will raise defence spending and cut the foreign aid budget

PMQs is about to start.

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

The threat from the far right is real, but that leaves me all the more convinced that working together is not only the right choice, but the only choice …

More unites us than divides us. Now is the moment to make that real by uniting behind shared values, shared standards of behaviour and shared political norms, and unite against the rise of the far right.

I want us to work together to agree a common approach to asserting the values of our country, to bringing people together and creating a cohesive society where everyone feels at home …

It is time to come together, to draw a line in the sand, to set out who we are and what we believe in, because a politics of fear is a politics of despair …

I want to work with other political parties to set out clearly and boldly to the public what we can agree on as the norms and the values of our society and how we can protect those because I think they are under threat, I think they’re under very, very vigorous threat, from the politics of Farage.

Farage has been for years leading the argument which has been hostile to migration. And I think it’s based on a fundamentally racist view of the world. I reject that. I think migration is an advantage for Scotland.

There is a very live and active threat to our security from the aggression of Russia, and I think Farage is an accomplice to the Russian agenda and an apologist for the Russian agenda.

So to anybody in this country who thinks that Farage represents a means of protecting this country from the external threats that we face, I would say, have a good close look at what Farage has been connected with and what his MPs are saying about the Russian threat and their trivialisation of the Russian threat.

I’m simply making the point today that it’s important that those of us who are repulsed by the politics of Farage and the far right come together to … stress the importance of the values that we hold dear.

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Scotland ‘likely to miss net zero climate target by up to 20m tonnes’

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Exclusive: Top officials and climate policy experts believe delays in cutting emissions make it improbable 2045 target will be met

Scotland is likely to miss its legally binding climate target by up to 20m tonnes, according to official data seen by the Guardian.

The Scottish government set itself the world-leading target of reaching net zero – the point where any excess carbon emissions are soaked up by trees, peat or carbon capture – by 2045.

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Reeves’s growth plans ‘exactly what economy needs’ say UK business groups – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Reeves says the supply side of the economy has been held back.

Politicians have lacked the courage to confront the factors holding back growth.

They have accepted the status quo. They have been the barrier, not the enablers, of change.

Without economic growth, we cannot improve the living standards of ordinary working people, because growth isn’t simply about lines on a graph. It’s about the pounds in people’s pockets, the vibrancy of our high streets and the thriving businesses that create wealth, jobs and new opportunities for us, for our children and grandchildren.

We will have succeeded in our mission when working people are better off.

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MPs call for greater criticism of Israel’s policies over Gaza – UK politics live

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Palestinians trapped in a ‘doom loop of hell’, MPs told

At the end of last week Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary and runner-up in last year’s Tory leadership contest, said the child abuse grooming scandal started with “mass migration” and “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women”. In response Samuel Kasumu, a former Tory adviser on race issues, said that comments like that could lead to people being killed, while Kemi Badenoch defended her colleague.

In an inteview on the Today programme this morning, asked if Kasumu’s comments made him reconsider his views, Jenrick replied:

That’s complete nonsense. MPs have been killed in this country in recent times by a jihadist and by a neo-Nazi. They were killed because of the views of those individuals, not what anything an MP has said. We have to fight extremism in this country, wherever we find it, and you fight that by standing up to the extremists, you don’t fight it by shying away, by turning a blind eye, by looking the other way.

I’m not going to tiptoe around this issue. Millions of people in our country are listening to your programme this morning, and they are appalled by what is happening to young girls, and they are shocked that there might be girls in that situation today. We have to stop this.

I think some people who come from that country do. I’m not saying everybody.

NR: Did Sajid Javid’s family [the former Tory chancellor] come with a medieval culture to this county?

RJ: I’m saying some people do.

Robert Jenrick’s attempt to exploit this appalling scandal for his own political gain is completely shameless. He didn’t lift a finger to help the victims when a minister, now he’s jumping on the bandwagon and acting like a pound shop Farage.

Kemi Badenoch should sack him as shadow justice secretary and condemn his divisive comments, instead of letting him run a leadership campaign under her nose.

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Swinney to warn opposition of fuelling populism if Scottish budget not passed

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Scottish Labour, Greens and Lib Dem MSPs accuse first minister of ‘creating false narrative’

John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, will warn opposition parties that they will fuel populist forces if they prevent his budget from being passed this month.

In a keynote speech in Edinburgh on Monday to mark the new year, Swinney will say Scottish voters would be astonished and public services damaged if MSPs fail to allow the budget to go through.

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‘Eyewatering’ £100m spent on repairs in Scotland’s ‘ferry fiasco’ over past decade

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Government plans for publicly funded operator CalMac have been mired in controversy, with replacement vessels delayed and costs spiralling

Almost £100m has been spent over the past decade on repairs for eight of the largest publicly owned ferries in Scotland.

The figure has been described as “eye-watering” by Sue Webber, transport spokesperson for the Scottish Conservatives, who obtained details of the repair bill from ferry operator CalMac.

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Two-child benefit cap ‘will be scrapped’ in Scotland, vows SNP

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Scotland’s finance secretary, Shona Robison, reveals plans in budget to end ‘pernicious’ policy

The Scottish government has unveiled plans to scrap Westminster’s controversial two-child benefit cap to lift thousands of “children out of poverty”.

Scotland’s finance secretary, Shona Robison, said her budget for the coming year “offers hope for Scotland’s future”, announcing that the two-child cap on benefits would be scrapped in Scotland as she pledged record spending for both the NHS and councils.

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Russia imposes travel ban on cabinet ministers, calling it retaliation for ‘Russophobic’ policies – UK politics live

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Kremlin bans UK cabinet ministers including Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Yveette Cooper from entering country

The Federation of Small Businesses applauds the ambition in the government’s Get Britain Working, but says that overcoming the “pervasive poverty of ambition” about employment in the public sector won’t be easy. This is from Tina McKenzie, the FSB’s policy chair.

This is a start – but only a start – in fixing the pervasive poverty of ambition in the Jobcentre, health and other state systems when it comes to getting people back into work. Increasing employment is ultimately the most sure-fire way to drive up living standards and economic growth.

Ministers have a huge job to persuade public institutions that work is good for health and that everyone who needs work should be helped to get a job or start-up in self-employment – not least getting rid of the idea that the only good work is in graduate jobs, the public sector or volunteering.

The ambition behind the 80 per cent employment target is both clear and important ..

To deliver on this policy agenda, government and small businesses must work in partnership to drive real change through the whole employment system and make sure the country is helping those who most need work.

It is right to ensure that young people who are seeking work are helped to find a job or training. Positive early experiences in the jobs market are vital for young people’s future life chances. They must be supported to take part, not faced with self-defeating sanctions.

Success will also depend on ministers making the investment that’s needed in health services and quality training. Jobcentre staff must have a central role in redesigning their services, and devolution must never come at the cost of staff terms and conditions.

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Starmer says most farmers won’t be affected by inheritance tax change as Clarkson tells rally it’s a ‘hammer blow’ – UK politics live

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Jeremy Clarkson tells Westminster protest that government should admit plans weren’t ‘thought out and are a mistake’

In an interview with the BBC, Steve Reed, the environment secretary, defended imposing inheritance tax on some farms when Labour said in opposition that it was not planning to do that. Asked why the government changed its mind, he replied:

After we won the election, we discovered that the Conservatives have left a £22bn black hole in the public finances. And if we want to fix our National Health Service, rebuild all schools, provide the affordable housing that rural communities and across the country rely on, then we’ve had to ask those with the broader shoulders to pay a little bit more.

I’m sure we all feel betrayed because of the state that the Conservatives left the economy in. A £22bn pound black hole isn’t a small problem. It’s massive, and fixing that is necessary if we want to stabilise the economy and rebuild our public services.

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We can hit UK’s big carbon cut without disruption to people’s lives, says Starmer – UK politics live

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PM confirms target of 81% emissions cut at Cop climate summit but says ‘I’m not going to tell people how to live their lives’

Leadbeater introduces the next speaker, Nat Dye, who has terminal cancer. She says she thinks his views are the most important for people to hear at this press conference.

He says he has known “positive” experiences of death. His fiance and his mother both had relatively peaceful deaths. He says palliative care can work for some people.

Imagine I am dying and palliative care hasn’t improved. Well, I have no choice whatsoever: I die in pain or I die in pain.

I see this as a chance just to act with kindness and a choice for people at their darkest hour.

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Employment rights bill will cost firms £5bn per year but benefits will justify costs, government says – as it happened

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Analysis from business and trade department says bill will significantly strengthen workers’ right. This live blog is closed

In the past the weirdest budget tradition was the convention that the chancellor is allowed to drink alcohol while delivering the budget speech. But since no chancellor has taken advantage of the rule since the 1990s (and no one expects Rachel Reeves to be quaffing on Wednesday week), this tradition is probably best viewed as lapsed.

But Sam Coates from Sky News has discovered another weird budget ritual. On his Politics at Jack and Sam’s podcast, he says:

Someone messaged me to say: ‘Did you know that over in the Treasury as they’ve been going over all these spending settlements, in one of the offices, its full of balloons. And every time an individual department finalises its settlements, one of the balloons is popped.’

There couldn’t be a more important time for us to have this conversation.

The NHS is going through what is objectively the worst crisis in its history, whether it’s people struggling to get access to their GP, dialling 999 and an ambulance not arriving in time, turning up to A&E departments and waiting far too long, sometimes on trolleys in corridors, or going through the ordeal of knowing that you’re waiting for a diagnosis that could be the difference between life and death.

We feel really strongly that the best ideas aren’t going to come from politicians in Whitehall.

They’re going to come from staff working right across the country and, crucially, patients, because our experiences as patients are also really important to understanding what the future of the NHS needs to be and what it could be with the right ideas.

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