Markus Andrews

What Sir Keir Starmer said in his speech in St Helens today mattered less than the extraordinary fact that he felt the need to do it at all.It is still less than a year after winning a majority of 174 seats in a sweeping general election result last year, yet Sir Keir felt the need to attack the leader of Reform UK which – checks notes – only has five MPs.The question was asked whether Nigel Farage is “living rent-free in the prime minister’s head”, and it felt rhetorical because the answer was clearly, yes.Starmer rolled up his sleeves to take on Reform More

Sir Keir Starmer has left the door open to scrapping the two-child benefit cap amid mounting pressure from backbench Labour MPs and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.MPs from across Labour have repeatedly urged the prime minister to scrap or ease the limit – first imposed by austerity architect George Osborne in 2015 – amid growing concern over the direction of the party. Days after Mr Farage said a Reform government would get rid of it entirely, Sir Keir said he is looking at “all options” to lift children out of poverty.The prime minister is under mounting pressure to scrap the cap More

Nigel Farage’s plans to restrict access to abortion would have “catastrophic consequences for women”, campaigners have warned. The Reform UK leader this week said it is “ludicrous we allow abortion up to 24 weeks” and the law is “totally out of date”.MPs and charities have hit back, saying there is “no clinical justification” for reducing the time limit and warned against the “imposition of cruel restrictions” on women seeking abortions. Nigel Farage said Britain’s abortion laws are ‘ludicrous’ More

In their haste to be seen as Donald Trump’s closest buddies, there is now a serious question mark over whether Sir Keir Starmer and his government should have shown more patience in getting a “great and beautiful” trade deal with the US.The deal, which was symbolically the first post-“Liberation Day” agreement signed by President Trump with any country, was put in place to reduce the impact of the tariffs the US president had imposed.But while Sir Keir and the rest of the world’s leaders were rapidly scrambling to respond, calmer, more measured voices in Washington were warning that the US president would never be able to go through with them.Now, it seems they were right, with the US Court of International Trade ruling that Trump “exceeded his authority” when he imposed his sweeping levies on countries across the world and has blocked the move.President Donald Trump’s liberation day tariffs have been ruled illegal by a court in the US More

Doctors no longer have the support of the public for strike action, Wes Streeting has warned, urging them to vote against proposed walkouts this week. Resident doctors in England, formerly known as junior doctors, are demanding a massive 29 per cent pay uplift to end the ongoing cycle of strikes that has caused “so much harm to patients and the wider healthcare system”. They have started receiving ballots for renewed industrial action after ministers last week announced that most doctors would receive a 4 per cent pay rise following the latest review of public sector pay, with resident doctors to receive an extra £750 on top of the uplift.While the British Medical Association (BMA), the union representing doctors, said the pay rise does not go far enough in restoring historical pay freezes, Mr Streeting warned: “We can’t afford to return to a continuous cycle of stand-offs, strikes, and cancellations.” Resident doctor members of the BMA have taken industrial action 11 times since 2022, with NHS England estimating the walkouts led to almost 1.5 million appointments being cancelled or rescheduled.Health Secretary Wes Streeting (Lucy North/PA) More

Portugal’s anti-immigration Chega party notched another political gain for Europe’s far right on Wednesday after it was assigned the second-most seats in parliament — meaning it will become the head of the parliamentary opposition to the new government.That shatters the pattern of Portugal’s center-right and center-left mainstream parties alternating between heading a government or leading the opposition.Chega’s strides since the May 18 election coincide with gains elsewhere by far-right forces. In Europe, those include France’s National Rally, the Brothers of Italy and Alternative for Germany, which are now in the political mainstream.Leading the opposition is quite the accomplishment for a once-fringe party that competed in its first election six years ago, when it won one seat. It has surged recently with its hardline stance against immigration and with the inability of traditional parties to form lasting governments. The May 18th election was Portugal’s third in as many years.Chega, which means “Enough,” secured 60 of the National Assembly’s 230 seats after it picked up two more seats on Wednesday from the overseas voters of the European Union country of 10.6 million people.“This is a profound change in the Portuguese political system,” Chega leader Andre Ventura told supporters after Chega bested the Socialists by two seats.The center-right Democratic Alliance, led by the Social Democratic Party, captured two more seats to take its tally to 88.Following the election, incoming Prime Minister Luis Montenegro was already looking at heading another minority government similar to the one that fell two months ago in a confidence vote after less than a year in power.But now Montenegro and other parties will face an emboldened far-right competitor that campaigned under the slogan “Save Portugal” and describes itself as a nationalist party.___Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. More