Markus Andrews

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe boss of a childcare firm backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife and hosted at a Downing St reception has said she is backing Labour after she saw at first hand how Tory infighting and the toppling of prime ministers prevented the introduction of key policies that would benefit parents.Supporting Sir Keir Starmer in the general election, Rachel Carrell, the CEO and founder of Koru Kids, said the Conservatives “are not serious people” but Labour’s top team would give the UK the stability that is “absolutely essential to business growth and … getting necessary reforms through”. She also said that she looked forward to “living in a country with competent leadership” after it had lurched from “crisis to crisis, embarrassment to embarrassment” under the Conservatives.Her verdict will come as a blow to Mr Sunak, who was at the centre of a conflict-of-interest row over his wife’s shareholding in the company last year. Rishi Sunak was at the centre of a row over the shares his wife Akshata Murty had in childcare agency Koru Kids More

A Tory minister has said it is “reasonable” for long-serving MPs to stand down as a post-war record of 78 Conservative MPs have announced they will not seek re-election.Speaking to Sky News, economic secretary to the Treasury Bim Afolami said: “It’s reasonable after people spending time doing a job for 20 to 30 years… that they choose to do something else.”Housing minister Michael Gove cited the “toll” of public office as he announced he was stepping down as an MP after almost 20 years.The total number of Tory MPs stepping down has surpassed the previous high of 72 who quit prior to Labour’s 1997 landslide. More

Sir Keir Starmer has said a Labour government would seek to extend the right to vote to 16 and 17-year-olds.Speaking on the campaign trail in Staffordshire on Saturday, 25 May, the opposition leader said anyone paying tax should “have a say” in how their money is spent.It came after the Times reported a change to the voting age would likely appear in the King’s Speech if Labour wins on 4 July.There is no firm indication of when the policy would be implemented. More

Rishi Sunak shared a joke with constituents in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, over his general election speech that was dampened by pouring rain.The prime minister was told by one constituent that she thought he’d “be in bed with pneumonia” as he met local ex-servicemen at one of their regular Saturday breakfast meetings.At the Buck Inn, a Wetherspoons pub, Vicky Rudd, sat next to her husband Doug, from Richmond British Legion, asked Mr Sunak about his health.”No pneumonia yet, my suit on the other hand… I’m not quite sure what state it will be in when I get back down to London,” the PM replied. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe UK will go to the polls in July after Rishi Sunak announced the date for the next general election – but scores of high-profile MPs will not be facing the electorate after deciding to stand down. Housing secretary Michael Gove and former business secretary Andrea Leadsom became the latest Tory MPs to announce they would not contest the next election, as the number of Conservative MPs deciding to stand aside hit a new post-war record. In his letter to constituents, Mr Gove cited the “toll” of public office as he said it was time to let “a new generation lead” following a political career spanning nearly 20 years.As of 25 May, more than 120 MPs have said publicly they were either standing down from parliament or not contesting their seat at the general election. Some 78 out of those were Conservative – a record number for the party. Veteran Tory MP John Redwood – notorious for once mumbling his way through the Welsh national anthem – also joined the list on Friday. Michael Gove has announced he will not be standing at the General Election (Jordan Pettitt/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailHe is soaked in Downing Street on his launch, drowned out by triumphant Blair’s anthem, his MPs are fleeing the battlefield and he visits a Titanic museum. When you think things cannot get worse for Rishi Sunak, they do. Is this the worst start to an election campaign in history?Those with a distant memory can recall Michael Foot’s 1983 election campaign for Labour with the manifesto dubbed by he late Gerald Kaufman as “the longest suicide note in history”. But what went down in folklore as the worst ever election campaign – one which nearly saw the destruction of Labour – may have found its match in catastrophic miscalculations and farce.There are a number of people apparently giving Mr Sunak advice – but whoever was responsible for getting the prime minister to visit the Titanic Museum should be sacked already. If the image of an unsinkable ship holed by an iceberg and sinking inexhorably to the bottom of a deep blue ocean is not a metaphor for what is happening to the Tories before our eyes, then nothing is.Sunak jets off to campaign More

Jeremy Corbyn’s Islington North constituents have given their views on their MP after he announced he would stand as an independent candidate in the general election.The former Labour leader was suspended by the party in 2020 after he refused to fully accept the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s findings that the party broke equality law when he was in charge.Mr Corbyn has now been banished from the party after announcing he will stand as an independent.Labour has selected Praful Nargund to stand against Mr Corbyn, who has held the seat for more than 40 years. More

Harriet Harman gave her final speech as an MP after more than 40 years in the House of Commons on Friday, 24 May.The “Mother of the House” was first elected in 1982 and holds the record as the longest-ever continuously serving female Member of Parliament.Ms Harman, 73, says she will not be standing again as an MP at this year’s general election.She used her final speech to pay tribute to her late husband, Jack Dromey, and her children for the support they have provided her.Ms Harman also encouraged women to enter politics, reflecting that though at times being an MP has been hard she “wouldn’t regret a single day.” More