Prime minister says he held on to his US residency until 2021 only because he had not got around to revoking it
Rishi Sunak has insisted he does not want to move to the US and that he kept his green card for years only because returning it was “not something I got round to”.
The prime minister said he had “acted in accordance with all the rules” when in possession of a US green card, which he gave up only in 2021, while he was chancellor.
Continue reading...National Education Union leader says morale among teachers is at ‘an all time low’ in radio interview
There is widespread agreement in the UK and the US that Israel has “gone too far” in its war against Hamas, Darren Jones, a Labour Treasury spokesperson, said this morning.
In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Jones said:
I think what we’ve seen from President Biden, from Keir Starmer, and now from Lord Cameron, our own foreign secretary, is that countries that supported Israel’s right to defend itself and to recover its hostages from Hamas terrorists in Gaza, which clearly is their right to have done in the first place, have all said that you’ve gone too far, that we need to bring this war to an end, we need to get around the negotiating table, we need to aid to get to people who desperately need it in Gaza.
This latest situation, not only has it resulted in the death of aid workers, which is unacceptable, but it’s now making it much harder for aid to be made available to people who are in the most desperate situations.
The fact of the matter is if the UK, for example, stopped supplying arms, the war would not end. What we need to do is get the parties to a position where the fighting can stop.
As always, on questions of international law, it’s for judges and courts to make that decision, not for politicians.
Continue reading...Liberal Democrats say PM is ‘laughing in the face of people crying out for change’
At the weekend the Observer splashed on a story by Toby Helm saying government lawyers have told ministers that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law in Gaza.
In an interview today, asked about the legality of what Israel is doing, Rishi Sunak said the government believes Israel has “the intention and the ability” to comply with international law. He said:
Our view is longstanding that Israel has both the intention and the ability to comply with international humanitarian law, I’ve made that very clear to prime minister Netanyahu whenever I’ve spoken to him.
There have been too many civilian deaths in Gaza, of course we want to see an immediate humanitarian pause so that we can get the hostages out and more aid into the region.
Continue reading...Analysis suggests wealthiest would save millions and Sunak’s own family could benefit to tune of £250m
Conservative plans to abolish non-dom status are riddled with loopholes worth hundreds of millions of pounds for the wealthiest people in the country, Labour has claimed.
Analysis by the party found that the policy, announced by Jeremy Hunt in this month’s budget, could theoretically see Rishi Sunak’s family benefit from tax savings of nearly £250m.
Continue reading...Whoever wins the next election, a reckoning is overdue on the costs of Britain’s nuclear deterrent
When Rishi Sunak visited Barrow-in-Furness on Monday he said the Cumbrian town was “mission critical for our country” because of its role building four new nuclear submarines to carry the UK’s nuclear weapons. If you believe Sunak’s erstwhile ally, Dominic Cummings, then that mission faces serious problems.
Cummings, once Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, said this month – in characteristically aggressive terms – that spiralling costs were making a mockery of the government’s budget plans. He wrote on X: “the nuclear enterprise is so fkd [sic] it’s further cannibalising the broken budgets and will for decades because it’s been highly classified to avoid MPs thinking about it.”
Continue reading...Survey of 15,000 people suggests even party leader Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire seat is at risk
The Conservatives are on course for their worst election result, winning fewer than 100 seats, according to a new poll.
The seat-by-seat analysis gives the Tories 98 constituencies compared with Labour’s 468, giving Sir Keir Starmer a 286-seat majority, the Sunday Times has reported.
The 15,000-person poll, conducted by agency Survation on behalf of Best for Britain, gives Labour a 45% vote share with a 19-point lead over the Conservatives.
Rishi Sunak’s party is on track to win 98 seats with none in Scotland or Wales, according to the research. It also suggests the prime minister is at risk of losing his own constituency, the new Richmond & Northallerton seat in North Yorkshire, to Labour with his lead less than 2.5 percentage points.
Continue reading...Some Tory MPs had reportedly called for Farage to be made ambassador to US in exchange for him not standing for Reform UK
The Conservatives have ruled out making any sort of pre-election pact with Nigel Farage in exchange for him not standing for Reform UK at the general election, saying: “We don’t do deals.”
The statement, coming after Labour called on Downing Street to dismiss the mooted idea that Farage could be made the UK’s ambassador to Washington, risks angering Tory backbenchers, who are increasingly anxious at the likely impact of Reform on their re-election chances.
Continue reading...Mohamed Mansour, a Conservative senior treasurer, is one of several surprise recipients of honours
A businessman and former Egyptian government minister who donated £5m to the Conservative party last year has unexpectedly been given a knighthood on the recommendation of Rishi Sunak.
Mohamed Mansour, a senior treasurer of the Conservative party for just over a year, was one of several surprise recipients of honours on Thursday, with the citation saying it was given for business, charity and political service.
Continue reading...Latest estimate from ONS says GDP declined by 0.3% in final quarter of 2023
Official figures have confirmed that the UK economy went into recession at the end of last year, after the latest estimate found it contracted in the last two quarters of 2023.
In a blow to the government’s economic standing, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, shrank by 0.3% in the last three months of the year, unrevised from an earlier estimate.
Continue reading...Robert Halfon quits as skills, apprenticeships and higher education minister as James Heappey confirms decision to step down
In interviews this morning Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, admitted that special educational needs provision was in crisis, Ben Quinn reports.
Universities in England could be told to terminate their arrangements with foreign countries if freedom of speech and academic freedom is undermined, the government’s free speech tsar has said. As PA Media reports, Prof Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at the Office for Students (OfS), said many universities and colleges in England have “international arrangements” – including admitting overseas students on scholarships and hosting institutes partly funded by foreign governments. PA says:
The higher education regulator launched a consultation on guidance about freedom of speech, ahead of universities, colleges and student unions taking on new free speech duties.
The guidance includes examples to illustrate what higher education institutions may have to do to fulfil their new duties – due to come into effect in August – to secure freedom of speech within the law.
University A accepts international students on visiting scholarships funded by the government of country B. Scholars must accept the principles of the ruling party of country B, and direction from country B’s government via consular staff. Depending on the circumstances, these arrangements may undermine free speech and academic freedom at University A. If so, that university is likely to have to terminate or amend the scholarship agreement.
If it means that there are people who are employed by an institute who are preventing legitimate protests or shutting down lecturers from covering certain kinds of content regarding that country for instance, or that country’s foreign policy … If that behaviour amounts to a restriction of freedom of speech within the law, and someone brings a complaint to us, then we may find that the complaint is justified and then we make recommendations …
If there are problems, universities will have to do everything they can to act compatibly with their freedom-of-speech duties. Insofar as that means a rethinking of their relationship with other countries, obviously that’s something that would be a good idea for them to start thinking about now.
Continue reading...Robert Halfon and James Heappey join exodus of Tory MPs from Commons as party languishes in polls
Two Tory ministers have quit the government in a double blow to Rishi Sunak, who has been forced to carry out a mini-reshuffle of the junior ranks.
The veteran MP Robert Halfon unexpectedly announced he would step down as education minister and would be leaving the Commons at the next general election.
Continue reading...Labour lead would soar to 24 points if Kemi Badenoch or Suella Braverman became leader, according to Opinium poll
Three out of the four Tory MPs seen as the most likely replacements for Rishi Sunak would fare even worse than the current prime minister in a general election battle against Keir Starmer, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
The Conservatives have been involved in a fresh bout of leadership speculation over the past week, after rumours surfaced of a plot to dump Sunak and replace him with Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House, before the next election.
Continue reading...Drawing on his years at No 10, the UK foreign secretary is happy to ruffle feathers on the international stage while setting the agenda
It is only four months since Rishi Sunak brought him back into government as foreign secretary but already, having felt the pace quicken around them, officials and diplomats have given David Cameron their own title: prime minister for external affairs.
“Cameron is on a whole other level,” said one diplomat on the inside. “Before, we had [Boris] Johnson, we had [Dominic] Raab, we had [Liz]Truss and then [James] Cleverly. Cameron can read a room – he immediately sees the elephant in it, if there is one. He constantly comes back on summonses and wants to know: ‘When can I get more on this? When can I get an update on that?’”
Continue reading...Exclusive: newly obtained footage and leaked documents show how a ‘mass casualty event’ could arise from aggressive tactics employed by border forces
French police funded by the UK government have endangered the lives of vulnerable migrants by intercepting small boats in the Channel, using tactics that search and rescue experts say could cause a “mass casualty event”.
Shocking new evidence obtained by the Observer, Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde and Der Spiegel reveals for the first time that the French maritime police have tried physically to force small boats to turn around – manoeuvres known as “pullbacks” – in an attempt to prevent them reaching British shores.
Continue reading...Lords back amendments saying bill must comply with international law, on classifying Rwanda as a safe country and independent monitoring
Yesterday I covered quite a lot of comment on the Rachel Reeves’ Mais lecture based on a three-page press release sent out by Labour with advance extracts. The full speech runs to 8,000 words and it is certainly worth a read. Here is some commentary published after the full text was made public.
Paul Mason, the former economics journalist who is now an active Labour supporter, says in a blog for the Spectator that Reeves is proposing an approach that should make it easier for the government to justify capital investment. He explains:
Reeves effectively offered markets a trade-off. She set out the same broad fiscal rule as the government: debt falling at the end of five years and a deficit moving towards primary balance. She will make it law that any fiscal decision by government will be subject to an independent forecast of its effects by the OBR. But, she said: “I will also ask the OBR to report on the long-term impact of capital spending decisions. And as Chancellor I will report on wider measures of public sector assets and liabilities at fiscal events, showing how the health of the public balance sheet is bolstered by good investment decisions.”
Why is this so big? Because the OBR does not currently model the ‘long-term impact of capital spending decisions’. It believes that £1 billion of new capital investment produces £1 billion of growth in the first year, tapering to nothing by year five. Furthermore, since 2019 it has repeatedly expressed scepticism that a sustained programme of public investment can produce a permanent uplift in the UK’s output potential.
George Eaton at the New Statesman says the Reeves speech contained Reeves’ “most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments”. He says:
In her 8,000-word Mais Lecture, delivered last night at City University, the shadow chancellor offered her most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments. Though she praised New Labour’s record on public service investment and poverty reduction, Reeves warned that the project failed to recognise that “globalisation and new technologies could widen as well as diminish inequality, disempower people as much as liberate them, displace as well as create good work”.
She added that the labour market “remained characterised by too much insecurity” and that “key weaknesses on productivity and regional inequality” persisted. This is not merely an abstract critique – it leads Reeves and Keir Starmer to embrace radically different economic prescriptions.
Mais lecture is the most intellectually wide-ranging speech Rachel Reeves has given. Worth reading for takes on Lawson, austerity, New Labour, link between dynamism & worker-security, and how geo-politics changes our national growth story (& more besides)
Continue reading...Prime minister held key meeting with backbenchers, who are worried he is leading them to catastrophic defeat in May
Rishi Sunak has sought to unify his fractious party ahead of what could be a brutal set of local elections, urging his MPs to ignore dissenting voices and present a coherent front.
The prime minister’s address to the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers gave the appearance of agreement, with much of the traditional banging of desks and no public criticism, although some attenders doubted how genuine it all was.
Continue reading...Report also discloses approval was rushed through without developing safety plans or consulting councils
Rishi Sunak’s plan to save public money by moving asylum seekers out of hotels is in tatters after Whitehall’s spending watchdog disclosed that the government’s alternative sites will cost millions of pounds more.
The National Audit Office said attempts to place people seeking refuge in a barge, two former RAF bases and former student accommodation will cost £1.2bn – £46m more than keeping them in hotels.
The Home Office is considering scaling back the number of people at Wethersfield – which is in the constituency of the home secretary, James Cleverly – after reports of self-harm and violence among asylum seekers.
Officials secured large sites to house people before talking to local councils and MPs and used emergency planning regulations to ensure plans were rushed through.
The department pursued the programme despite “repeated” assessments that it “could not be delivered as planned”.
Reviews by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority rated the Home Office’s work on large-scale accommodation as “red”, meaning “successful delivery of the programme to time, cost and quality appears to be unachievable”.
The Home Office also rated its own performance as “red” as it recognised the challenges of the work, repeatedly revising accommodation targets “downwards”.
The department “prioritised awarding contracts quickly, and modifying existing contracts over fully-competitive tenders”, with “overly-ambitious accommodation timetables” leading to “increased procurement risks”.
Continue reading...Former US president understood to have discussed AI and other subjects with PM on informal ‘courtesy’ visit
Barack Obama has held talks with Rishi Sunak as the former US president paid a “courtesy visit” to Downing Street during a trip to London.
The pair are understood to have discussed a range of subjects during an hour-long meeting, including one of the prime minister’s favourite topics, artificial intelligence.
Continue reading...Libertarian faction of Conservatives expected to stage a rebellion but measure has widespread support
Rishi Sunak’s public health policy banning the next generation from being able to buy cigarettes is to be introduced in parliament this week, with officials braced for a backlash from Conservative rebels.
While the policy commands considerable support in Conservative ranks, the scale of an expected rebellion by libertarian Tories – whose ranks includeLiz Truss – has yet to become clear.
Continue reading...Allies of Commons leader say other future candidates for top job are trying to make her look disloyal
Penny Mordaunt’s rivals in a future Conservative leadership contest have been blamed for briefing coup rumours meant to ruin her chances of eventually taking over from Rishi Sunak, the Guardian has been told.
The Commons leader, who came a close third in the leadership contest won by Liz Truss in 2022, has in recent days been at the centre of speculation over an alleged plot to try to oust the prime minister to avert a general election disaster for the Conservatives.
Continue reading...