Category Archives: Harriet Harman

Tory party to lose almost 1,000 years of Commons experience when MPs quit

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Sixty-six MPs who already plan to stand down at election have 987 years between them, analysis shows

The Conservative party will lose almost 1,000 years of Commons experience just from MPs who have already announced they are standing down, a Guardian analysis has shown, amid an exodus likely to be even greater than in 1997.

So far, 66 MPs elected as Conservatives in 2019 have announced they will not stand again – this includes four who have since lost the whip and sit as independents – which is close to one in five of the total.

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Jeremy Clarkson’s Sun article on Meghan was sexist, says press regulator

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The Sun will have to print a front-page statement explaining that its columnist was found to have discriminated against the duchess

Jeremy Clarkson discriminated against the Duchess of Sussex when he used an article in the Sun to describe his “hatred” of her with a series of sexist tropes, a press regulator has ruled.

Clarkson used his national newspaper column to describe how he hated Meghan on a “cellular level” and suggested she had used “vivid bedroom promises” to transform Prince Harry into a “warrior of woke”.

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Boris Johnson insists Partygate leaving dos were ‘essential for work purposes’ during grilling by MPs – as it happened

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Former PM suggests ‘unsocially distanced farewell gatherings’ were allowed at work and that he didn’t think following guidance meant following it perfectly

Turning back to the Northern Ireland protocol deal vote for a moment, Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister, has said that Boris Johnson risks being remembered as a “pound shop Nigel Farage” for his stance on the Windsor framework.

Baker said that reviving the Northern Ireland protocol bill, Johnson’s declared alternative to Rishi Sunak’s deal (see 9.40am), would “wreck our relations with the European Union and damage our standing internationally”. Sky’s Sam Coates has posted the full quote on Twitter.

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MPs and peers retake parliamentary oaths to swear allegiance to King Charles III

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First MP to take new oath was Lindsay Hoyle, followed by Harriet Harman and Peter Bottomley, then Liz Truss

MPs and peers, among them Liz Truss, have formally retaken their parliamentary oaths to swear allegiance to the new King, followed by another round of tributes in both parliamentary houses to the late monarch.

The first MP to take the revised oath, which refers to the King rather than Queen, was the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, followed by the two longest-serving MPs, Peter Bottomley and Harriet Harman, then Truss and a dozen or so other senior MPs, mainly ministers, shadow ministers and party leaders.

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Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 policy critics: who says what?

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A selection of comments from across the political divide on PM’s handling of pandemic

The brewing rebellion among Tory backbenchers over the lack of scrutiny afforded to parliament on Covid-19 restrictions – as well as concerns about their impact – has left Boris Johnson facing criticism from within and outside his party. Here are some of the more pointed comments levelled against the prime minister and his policies from across the political divide.

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Lib Dems back Clarke or Harman over Corbyn to lead interim government

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Veteran backbenchers would garner more support as a temporary PM, says Swinson

The Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, has revealed the party’s proposals to stop a no-deal Brexit, including an emergency cross-party government, led by Kenneth Clarke or Harriet Harman, to replace that of Boris Johnson.

Speaking the day after Jeremy Corbyn urged opposition leaders to back a Labour plan to topple Johnson, via a no-confidence vote, and install him to lead a caretaker government before a Brexit-based general election, Swinson said she did not believe his plan was feasible.

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