Markus Andrews

Angela Rayner is facing questions after her taxpayer-funded bodyguards were seen helping her partner move belongings into her second home. The former deputy prime minister, who quit Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet after underpaying stamp duty on the purchase of a seaside flat, was accused of wasting public money. Pictures published in the Mail on Sunday showed two close-protection officers helping the former Labour MP Sam Tarry, Ms Rayner’s boyfriend, move bags and boxes in a BMW X5 between their two homes.Angela Rayner is facing questions over the use of her personal security detail More

Police are to be given greater powers to restrict repeated protests, the home secretary has announced, hours after hundreds were arrested at a Palestine Action demonstration in London. The event went ahead despite calls from Keir Starmer and others in the wake of the terror attack on a synagogue in Manchester during which two people were killed. The home secretary Shabana Mahmood said repeated large-scale protests had caused “considerable fear” for the Jewish community. Palestine Action protest More

Sir Mel Stride has issued a warning to any Conservative colleagues plotting leadership challenges, urging them not to risk derailing the party just as he says it is starting to get back on track.On the eve of the party conference, the shadow chancellor has told The Independent that voters “will never forgive” the Tories if they return to “self indulgent” leadership contests again – less than a year after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader.It comes after a dismal first year out of power for the party, which has continued to slip in the polls – despite Labour’s woes – while Nigel Farage and Reform UK have surged ahead and now sit as the most likely challengers to the government at the next election.The Conservatives’ downfall has promoted speculation that Ms Badenoch could face a serious leadership challenge, with shadow cabinet colleagues Robert Jenrick and Sir James Cleverly tipped as the main contenders to replace her, but Sir Mel has insisted a change at the top now would be counterproductive.“I think we’ve got to hold our nerve,” he said. “Look, nobody finds it comfortable to be where we are in the polls. “Nobody finds it comfortable to have lost the last election as decisively as we did and the difficulties we had in the more recent local elections. So I understand totally why people are uncomfortable with that, but what we’ve got to do is hold our nerve. Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride (Jeff Moore/ PA credit) More

Kemi Badenoch is an unknown politician who the public do not trust, Britain’s top polling guru has said. The Tory leader has been unable to halt the decline in support for her party, which collapsed over Partygate and Liz Truss’s premiership and has been falling ever since, Professor Sir John Curtice said. In a damning assessment ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Sir John said: “The Tories are now barely more popular with those that voted Brexit than they are with the people who voted Remain, despite being the party that delivered Brexit.” Even Conservative supporters do not believe the party is ready for government More

A majority of Conservative Party members support Britain’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, despite Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to scrap landmark climate legislation if the Tories win the next election. In a survey of Tory members, by Professor Tim Bale at Queen Mary University of London, 51 per cent said they back the UK’s net zero plans, while 45 per cent said they were opposed. Among the general public, 69 per cent said they support the net zero target, while just 20 per cent said they were opposed to it.A row over net zero could overshadow the Tory conference in Manchester More

In a country that ranks poorly internationally for gender equality, the new president of Japan’s long-governing Liberal Democrats, and likely next prime minister, is an ultra-conservative star of a male-dominated party that critics call an obstacle to women’s advancement.Sanae Takaichi, 64. admires former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and is a proponent of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative vision for Japan. Takaichi is the first female president of Japan’s predominantly male ruling party that has dominated Japan’s postwar politics almost without interruption. First elected to parliament from her hometown of Nara in 1993, she has served in key party and government posts, including minister of economic security, internal affairs and gender equality. Female lawmakers in the conservative Liberal Democratic Party who were given limited ministerial posts have often been shunned as soon as they spoke up about diversity and gender equality. Takaichi has stuck with old-fashioned views favored by male party heavyweights.Women comprise only about 15% of Japan’s lower house, the more powerful of the two parliamentary chambers. Only two of Japan’s 47 prefectural governors are women.A drummer in a heavy-metal band and a motorbike rider as a student, Takaichi has called for a stronger military, more fiscal spending for growth, promotion of nuclear fusion, cybersecurity and tougher policies on immigration. She vowed to drastically increase female ministers in her government. But experts say she might actually set back women’s advancement because as leader she would have to show loyalty to influential male heavyweights. If not she risks a short-lived leadership. Takaichi has backed the LDP policy of having women serve in their traditional roles of being good mothers and wives. But she also recently acknowledged her struggles with menopausal symptoms and stressed the need to educate men about female health to help women at school and work.Takaichi supports the imperial family’s male-only succession, opposes same-sex marriage and a revision to the 19th century civil law that would allow separate surnames for married couples so that women don’t get pressured into abandoning theirs.She is a wartime history revisionist and China hawk. She regularly visits Yasukuni Shrine, which Japan’s neighbors consider a symbol of militarism, though she has declined to say what she would do as prime minister. Political watchers say her revisionist views of Japan’s wartime history may complicate ties with Beijing and Seoul.Her hawkish stance is also a worry for the LDP’s longtime partnership with Komeito, a Buddhist-backed moderate party. While she has said the current coalition is crucial for her party, she says she is open to working with far-right groups. More