Shadow chancellor distances himself from words after Robert Jenrick accused of racism in comments he made about Handsworth
Asked about the Jenrick story, Badenoch again suggests Guardian reporting is reliable.
Q: Jenrick was making a distinction between white faces and brown faces.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor sets out spending plans as party conference continues in Manchester
Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, was doing an interview round for the Conservatives this morning, and Miatta Fahnbulleh, the faith and communities minister, was on the air on behalf of the government. They were both asked about the latest development in the flag phenomenon – the former footballer turned property developer Gary Neville saying that he took down a union flag flying at one of his building sites because he felt it was being used in a “negative fashion”.
Asked if Neville (a Labour supporter) had a point, Fahnbulleh told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
I think he’s really right, that there are people who are trying to divide us at the moment …
I spent a lot of time going around our communities, talking to people. People are ground down. We’ve had a decade-and-a-half in which living standards haven’t budged and people have seen their communities held down. And you will get people trying to stoke division, trying to blame others, trying to stoke tension.
I think people that put up flags, the vast majority of people that do, do so for perfectly reasonable patriotic reasons. And I think reclaiming our flag as a flag of unity and decency and tolerance, which is the way most people see our flag, is a very positive thing.
So I’m afraid I really cannot agree with the comments that he’s made.
Continue reading...Mel Stride outlines plans to slash £47bn a year from public spending, including £23bn welfare cut
Overseas nationals denied benefits under a Conservative plan to limit social security to UK citizens would have the option to return to their own countries, the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, has said.
Before his speech to the Conservative conference on Monday, Stride set out Tory proposals to cut £47bn a year from public spending, with the biggest chunk, £23bn coming from reductions in welfare.
Continue reading...Annual rate slows in May from 3.5% in April despite record increase in chocolate prices
Inflation in the UK eased slightly to 3.4% last month as a steep fall in air fares and petrol prices was offset by a jump in the cost of food.
May’s decline in the consumer prices index (CPI), down from the official figure of 3.5% for April, complicates the Bank of England’s interest rates decision on Thursday, although policymakers are still almost certain to hold interest rates at 4.25%.
Continue reading...February GDP rise was bigger than forecast – but impact from Donald Trump’s tariff war is yet to come
The UK economy unexpectedly expanded by 0.5% in February, figures show, in a boost for the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, before an expected downturn sparked by Donald Trump’s tariff war.
The increase in gross domestic product in February was five times larger than the 0.1% that a poll of City economists had forecast, while January’s figure of a modest fall of 0.1% was revised up to 0.0% growth.
Continue reading...ONS data showing 0.1% fall in GDP in January comes less than two weeks before chancellor’s spring statement
The UK economy contracted by 0.1% in January, dealing a blow to Rachel Reeves before the spring statement later this month.
In a surprise to City economists, who expected 0.1% growth in January, the Office for National Statistics data showed the services sector failed to offset a decline in the industrial sector and maintain growth from the previous month.
Continue reading...Ex-work and pensions secretary becomes second casualty of contest, leaving four MPs vying to succeed Rishi Sunak
Mel Stride has been knocked out of the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative party leader after Robert Jenrick topped the poll of MPs for the second time.
The former work and pensions secretary on Tuesday became the second casualty in the extended leadership contest, which is due to culminate in early November.
Continue reading...Former home secretary got two fewer votes than Mel Stride, while Robert Jenrick leads race to succeed Rishi Sunak
Priti Patel has been knocked out of the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative party leader in the first round of voting by Tory MPs.
The former home secretary received 14 votes from her colleagues, leaving her two behind the fifth-placed candidate, Mel Stride.
Continue reading...Badenoch and Jenrick are the bookies’ favourites but the party’s reduced ranks make the numbers extremely tight
When the Conservative MPs who remain return to Westminster, they will briefly seem like some of the most popular people in SW1. With the party so reduced in numbers, over the next few days there will be a furious wooing of those who have not yet declared for one of the six leadership candidates.
“The race is wide open,” one senior Tory said. “There are barely any public endorsements so no one can tell who is the favourite. The public polling has been all over the place. Often they seem to be just based on who has paid for it.”
Continue reading...Tory MPs will vote next week in a series of ballots to narrow the field down to four candidates
Conservative MPs will start whittling down the leadership candidates to four next week, the first stage in a long contest from which a winner will not emerge until 2 November. Here are the six candidates in the running to replace Rishi Sunak.
Continue reading...Veteran Conservatives on the party’s liberal wing have criticised the rightwards shift by some senior figures
Tory grandees have accused senior figures in their own party of using divisive language that inflamed anger over immigration before the recent rioting, amid warnings that too many Conservatives have “turned a blind eye” to a shift to the right.
The criticisms come as fears grow on the party’s liberal wing that the leadership election risks pulling the party further into populist polices designed to take on Reform UK.
Continue reading...Leadership contender says the Conservatives need to recover to ensure Britain does not lurch into ‘negativity and division’
Progressive voters who oppose the Conservatives should still want the party to recover to ensure British politics does not lurch towards populism based on “negativity and division”, a Tory leadership contender has said.
Mel Stride, the former cabinet minister who emerged as a surprise candidate to replace Rishi Sunak, warned that attempting to jump to a “magical ideological square” after the party’s disastrous general election result would fail to solve its problems.
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