UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe foreign secretary said Iran’s attack on Israel was a “double defeat” for Tehran as he urged Benjamin Netanyahu to “take the win” and not retaliate. Lord Cameron said the weekend attack – which saw the country launch an unprecendeted assault against Israel using more than 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles – was a “failure” and has “revealed to the world their true nature as the malign influence in the region”. The former prime minister also urged Israel to “think with with head as well as heart” as he said that “the right thing to do is not to escalate”. The weekend’s assault was launched in response to a strike widely blamed on Israel upon an Iranian consular building in Syria earlier this month, which killed two Iranian generals. It marks the first time a direct military assault has been launched by Tehran on Israel despite enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Lord Cameron told Times Radio on Monday: “Israel has every right to respond as an independent sovereign country being attacked in this way. But I think we’re very anxious to avoid escalation and to say to our friends in Israel ‘it’s a time to think with with head as well as heart’.“And in many ways this is a double defeat for Iran. Not only was their attack an almost total failure, but also the rest of the world can now see what a malign influence they are in the region and understand their true nature.Foreign secretary Lord Cameron said the attack had been a double defeat for Iran More

David Cameron has urged Israel to “think with head as well as heart” after Iran’s attack.The foreign secretary added that the “right thing to do is not to escalate” and instead focus the world’s attention back onto Hamas.Israel said Iran launched 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and at least 120 ballistic missiles in an assault that set off air raid sirens across the country on Sunday 14 April.“We are urging them – as friends – to think with head as well as heart, to be smart as well as tough,” Lord Cameron told BBC Breakfast.He also described the attack as a “double defeat” for Iran. More

Boris Johnson was only removed as prime minister because he didn’t eat a piece of cake, Nadine Dorries has claimed.The former Conservative MP was a guest on GB News on Sunday (14 April) to discuss her thoughts on Mr Johnson making a return to frontline politics.Speaking to students in Washington, the former prime minister refused to rule out a political comeback amid ongoing speculation about his future.Mr Johnson was forced out of Downing Street in 2022 following a series of scandals.Ms Dorries said: “The only truthful reason why Boris Johnson was removed as prime minister was because he didn’t eat a piece of cake, that was brought to him at his desk for which he was given a fixed penalty notice for.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe health secretary has said that flights carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda will take off “within weeks” despite being unable to disclose whether the government had found a carrier.Victoria Atkins maintained she wants flights to take off “as quickly as possible”, adding that it’ll be “certainly within weeks”.But when quizzed on Sky News about which airline would be carrying out the return flights, Ms Atkins was unable to answer.She said: “The Home Office is working on this… believe you me the Home Office is ready to go.”Health secretary Victoria Atkins said flights to Rwanda will take off ‘within weeks’ More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe row over Angela Rayner’s previous living arrangements has deepened as her former aide reportedly wrote to police contradicting her claims.Former staff member Matt Finnegan, who made an employment tribunal claim against Ms Rayner in 2018, said there was “no doubt in my mind that this was Ms Rayner’s family home” when he visited her at what she says was her husband’s address in 2014.Police are investigating whether Labour’s deputy leader broke electoral law after Tory allegations that she may have given false information about her main residence a decade ago.She was registered at a former council house she bought in Stockport, but it is understood Conservative Party deputy chair James Daly has suggested neighbours say she lived with her husband at a separate property.Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has denied any wrongdoing over the row about her previous living arrangements More

A Cabinet minister has said the Government’s troubled Rwanda deportation scheme should be running “within weeks”.Health Secretary Victoria Atkins told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “We want them to take off as quickly as possible… We very much plan to have it within weeks”.Asked whether the Government has a carrier yet, Ms Atkins said: “The Home Office is working on this, and so believe you me, the Home Office is ready to go.”“They haven’t got one, have they?” Sir Trevor asked her. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailDetails of her first and last meeting with the late Queen and fleas being in No. 10 are among the stories revealed in Liz Truss’ new memoir.The first excerpt of her book, titled Ten Years to Save the West, made several candid confessions including how her husband predicted how her short premiership would end in tears and that she did not listen to the Queen’s advice.The bombshell revelations include that she spent several of her six weeks as prime minister “itching” because Downing Street was “infested” with the pests.In extracts from the book published by the Daily Mail, Truss admitted she went into “a state of shock” when told of Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022.Of her historic meeting at Balmoral in Scotland, which occurred just two days before the monarch’s death, Truss says the 96-year-old Queen “seemed to have grown frailer” since she had last been in the public eye.Liz Truss Book More

Liz Truss Book (PA) Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Liz Truss has detailed her short tenure in Downing Street including her meeting with the late Queen in her new memoir. In the first excerpt of her book, titled […] More