UK Politics

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorCuts to pensioner winter fuel payments will save hundreds of millions less than anticipated, Rachel Reeves has been warned.The chancellor announced the controversial cuts in a bid to attempt to improve Britain’s finances, with the Labour government claiming that they had inherited a £22bn “blackhole”.The move is expected to remove payments from millions of pensioners across England and Wales, with only those receiving pension credit entitled to the payment.New analysis from the Observer however has thrown her projected £1.4bn savings in doubt, given that there had been a 152 per cent surge in claims for pension credit over the last eight weeks.Official government data suggests there has already been an additional 45,000 extra claims, which means that any savings could be significantly lower than the Treasury expected.Tens of thousands of additional claims have been made for pension credit More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorBenjamin Netanyahu should be “congratulated” for assassinating the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Kemi Badenoch has said, as the region teeters on the brink of all-out war.The Tory leadership hopeful said the killing of the militant group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah would “create more peace in the Middle East” and that what Israel did “was extraordinary”.But, with Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon continuing, the assassination marks a major escalation in the conflict and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed it “will not go unavenged”.On the opening day of the Conservative Party conference, Ms Badenoch was asked what she would be saying to the UK’s allies, including Israel, if she was the party’s leader.She told Sky News: “I would be congratulating prime minister Netanyahu, I think what they did was extraordinary. Israel is showing that it has moral clarity in dealing with its enemies and the enemies of the West as well.Kemi Badenoch said Israel’s killing of the Hezbollah chief was ‘extraordinary’ More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorRosie Duffield has quit as a Labour MP, criticising leader Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to scrap winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners and also his decision to retain the two-child benefit cap for parents.In a three-page letter, published in the Sunday Times, she also slammed his treatment of fellow MP Diane Abbot, as well as his “managerial style and technocratic approach.”She plans to sit as an independent MP. Below is her letter in full.Dear Sir Keir, Usually letters like this begin, “It is with a heavy heart…” Mine has been increasingly heavy and conflicted and has longed for a degree of relief. I can no longer stay a Labour MP under your management of the party, and this letter is my notice that I wish to resign the Labour Party whip with immediate effect. Although many “last straws” have led to my decision, my reason for leaving now is the programme of policies you seem determined to stick to, however unpopular they are with the electorate and your own MPs. You repeat often that you will make the “tough decisions” and that the country is “all in this together”. But those decisions do not directly affect any one of us in Parliament. They are cruel and unnecessary, and affect hundreds of thousands of our poorest, most vulnerable constituents. This is not what I was elected to do. It is not even wise politics, and it certainly is not “the politics of service”. I did not vote for you to lead our party for reasons I won’t describe in detail here. But, as someone elevated immediately to a shadow cabinet position without following the usual path of honing your political skills on the backbenches, you had very little previous political footprint. It was therefore unclear what your political passions, drive or direction might be as the leader of the Labour Party, a large movement of people united by a desire for social justice and support for those most in need. You also made the choice not to speak up once about the Labour Party’s problems with antisemitism during your time in the shadow cabinet, leaving that to backbenchers, including new MPs such as me. Since you took office as Leader of the Opposition you have used various heavy-handed management tactics but have never shown what most experienced backbenchers would recognise as true or inspiring leadership. You have never regularly engaged with your own backbench MPs, many of whom have been in Parliament far longer than you, and some of whom served in the previous Labour government. You have chosen neither to seek our individual political opinions, nor learn about our constituency experiences, nor our specific or collective areas of political knowledge. We clearly have nothing you deem to be of value. Your promotion of those with no proven political skills and no previous parliamentary experience but who happen to be related to those close to you, or even each other, is frankly embarrassing. In particular, the recent treatment of Diane Abbott, now Mother of the House, was deeply shameful and led to comments from voters across the political spectrum. A woman of her political stature and place in history is deserving of respect and support, regardless of political differences. As Prime Minister, your managerial and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long fourteen years to be mandated by the British public to return to power. Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear. How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?! The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party. Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp — this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister. Forcing a vote to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for — why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment or remorse? I now have no confidence in your commitment to deliver the so-called “change” you promised during the General Election campaign and the changes we have been striving for as a political party for over a decade. My values are those of a democratic socialist Labour Party and I have been elected three times to act on those values on behalf of my constituents. Canterbury made history when its voters elected their first woman, and only non-Conservative, MP since the seat was created in the thirteenth century. My constituents elected an independent-minded MP who vowed to put constituency before party, and to keep tackling the issues that most affect us here — Brexit fallout, funding for our universities, our desperately struggling East Kent NHS, dire housing situation, repeated sewage pollution and protecting our vital green spaces. I am confident that I can continue to do so as an independent MP guided by my core Labour values. Sadly, the Labour Party has never shown any interest in my wonderful constituency in the seven years that I have been in Parliament. But I am proud of my community and will continue to serve them to the best of my ability. My constituents care deeply about social issues such as child poverty and helping those who cannot help themselves. I will continue to uphold those values as I pledged to do when I first stood before them for election in 2017. As someone who joined a trade union in my first job, at seventeen, Labour has always been my natural political home. I was elected as a single mum, a former teaching assistant in receipt of tax credits. The Labour Party was formed to speak for those of us without a voice, and I stood for election partly because I saw decisions about the lives of those like me being made in Westminster by only the most privileged few. Right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them that anything has changed. I hope to be able to return to the party in the future, when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many before the greed of the few. Yours sincerely, Rosie Duffield MP More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditor Austria’s far-right Freedom Party could win a national election for the first time on Sunday, tapping into voters’ anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns following recent gains for the hard right elsewhere in Europe.Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to become Austria’s new chancellor. He has used the term “Volkskanzler,” or chancellor of the people, which was used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Kickl has rejected the comparison. But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner to command a majority in the lower house of parliament. And a win isn’t certain, with recent polls pointing to a close race. They have put support for the Freedom Party at 27%, with the conservative Austrian People’s Party of Chancellor Karl Nehammer on 25% and the center-left Social Democrats on 21%. More than 6.3 million people age 16 and over are eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, a European Union member that has a policy of military neutrality.Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties. In 2019, its support slumped to 16.2% after a scandal brought down a government in which it was the junior coalition partner. Then-vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned following the publication of a secretly recorded video in which he appeared to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.The far right has tapped into voter frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic. It also been able to build on worries about migration.In its election program, the Freedom Party calls for “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” and for achieving a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an “emergency law.”Gernot Bauer, a journalist with Austrian magazine Profil who recently co-published an investigative biography of the far-right leader, said that under Kickl’s leadership, the Freedom Party has moved “even further to the right,” as Kickl refuses to explicitly distance the party from the Identitarian Movement, a pan-European nationalist and far-right group.Bauer describes Kickl’s rhetoric as “aggressive” and says some of his language is deliberately provocative. The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of western military aid to Ukraine and wants to bow out of the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany.The leader of the Social Democrats, a party that led many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, has positioned himself as the polar opposite to Kickl. Andreas Babler has ruled out governing with the far right and labeled Kickl “a threat to democracy.”While the Freedom Party has recovered, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party, which currently leads a coalition government with the environmentalist Greens as junior partners, has declined since 2019.During the election campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has taken a tough line on immigration in recent years, as “the strong center” that will guarantee stability amid multiple crises. But it is precisely these crises, ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting rising energy prices, that have cost the conservatives support, said Peter Filzmaier, one of Austria’s leading political scientists.Under their leadership, Austria has experienced high inflation averaging 4.2% over the past 12 months, surpassing the EU average.The government also angered many Austrians in 2022 by becoming the first European country to introduce a coronavirus vaccine mandate, which was scrapped a few months later without ever being put into effect. And Nehammer is the third chancellor since the last election, taking office in 2021 after predecessor Sebastian Kurz — the winner in 2019 — quit politics amid a corruption investigation.But the recent flooding caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other countries in Central Europe brought back the topic of the environment into the election debate and helped Nehammer slightly narrow the gap with the Freedom Party by presenting himself as a “crisis manager,” Filzmaier said.Nehammer said in a video Thursday that “this is about whether we continue together on this proven path of stability or leave the country to the radicals, who make a lot of promises and don’t keep them.”The People’s Party is the far right’s only way into government.Nehammer has repeatedly excluded joining a government led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the country, but hasn’t ruled out a coalition with the Freedom Party in and of itself, which would imply Kickl renouncing a position in government. The likelihood of Kickl agreeing to such a deal if he wins the election is very low, Filzmaier said.But should the People’s Party finish first, then a coalition between the People’s Party and the Freedom Party could happen, Filzmaier said. The most probable alternative would be a three-way alliance between the People’s Party, the Social Democrats and most likely the liberal Neos.___Associated Press videojournalist Philipp Jenne contributed to this report. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorRosie Duffield has quit as a Labour MP, attacking Sir Keir Starmer’s “cruel and unnecessary policies” and the freebie row engulfing the party.The Canterbury MP and long time critic of Sir Keir will sit as an independent after resigning the Labour whip “with immediate effect”.In a damning resignation letter, Ms Duffield lashed out at Sir Keir’s acceptance of more than £100,000 of clothes, glasses and accommodation from Labour peer Waheed Alli.Rosie Duffield will now sit as an independent MP More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorTory grandees have warned the Conservative Party leadership candidates not to play into the hands of Reform UK as the contest threatens to spiral into infighting with the annual conference set to start on Sunday in Birmingham.As MPs and activists flock to the International Convention Centre, former prime minister Theresa May and ex-Tory leader William Hague said those vying to replace Rishi Sunak need to acknowledge the scale of the defeat suffered by the Conservatives in July.Lord Hague said the party must understand how resounding the general election defeat was and the monumental task it has to get itself ready for government again.He told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour: “They have to understand how big it is. It’s always tempting to think that you only have to change a bit, whereas really you have to change a lot.“This is a monumental task and just because the Labour government has had a difficult first three months, no one should be under the illusion that it becomes an easy task.”Hague warned leadership candidates not to ignore the scale of the party’s defeat in July More

Keir Starmer refuses to apologise to pensioners over winter fuel payment cutsYour support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseMy recent work focusing on Latino voters in Arizona has shown me how crucial independent journalism is in giving voice to underrepresented communities.Your support is what allows us to tell these stories, bringing attention to the issues that are often overlooked. Without your contributions, these voices might not be heard.Every dollar you give helps us continue to shine a light on these critical issues in the run up to the election and beyondEric GarciaWashington Bureau ChiefMP Rosie Duffield has resigned the Labour whip, accusing the prime minister of “hypocrisy” and pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies.In a resignation letter, Ms Duffield attacked Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and means-test winter fuel payments.In her resignation letter, she wrote: “The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale.”Ms Duffield, who will sit as an independent, also slated Sir Keir’s acceptance of more than £100,000 of freebies including clothes.Earlier, Kemi Badenoch warned that Tory members will be “very angry” if MPs take part in a “stitch-up” to lend votes to other candidates to keep her out of the top two in the leadership contest. Allies of Ms Badenoch claim she is the victim of a “dirty tricks” campaign, with Robert Jenrick in effect lending votes to James Cleverly, which the former has strongly denied. Asked whether she believed Mr Jenrick was taking this approach, she told The Times: “I think that may be happening. But what else is happening is that there is tactical voting.”Show latest update 1727575200Boris Johnson Unleashed: No Narcissus ever stared more intently into the limpid waters of self-loveSome have said that these were the nation’s worst years since the Napoleonic wars, and there is one politician who has blazed a meteoric trail across almost every page of this teeming history: Boris Johnson. But only now is he telling his story, for no less than a reported half a million pounds and counting.At that price, never mind setting the record straight, he’ll have to deliver. But what is in the offing from such a maverick pen? As he might put it, a macédoine of regret, maybe mortification, and dismay? As the first parts of Unleashed are serialised, we finally get a hint of what might be to come.Read the full article here: Holly Evans29 September 2024 03:001727571600Tories facing ‘dire’ finances as businesses and donors switch to Farage and StarmerIn the weeks before the conference in Birmingham, set to get underway on Sunday, it was claimed that the party was still struggling to find a sponsor for its VIP blue room, previously sponsored by the retail company Regent Street Group.Read the full article here: Holly Evans29 September 2024 02:001727568000Starmer’s pragmatic approach to government is proving to be what’s best for the countryAlmost three months into his administration, Sir Keir Starmer’s self-styled “British pragmatism” has made a refreshing – indeed invigorating – change from the ideological obsession and grinding search for new culture wars that disfigured politics under the Conservatives.Such controversies as there have been – notably about the cuts to the winter fuel allowance and policy in the Middle East – have been fact-based and verging on the empirical. The same is true about his efforts to build a personal rapport with Donald Trump, and the apparent willingness to rethink taxing the super-rich non-doms, given reports that the Treasury fears little if any new revenue may be raised by attacking these extremely mobile people.Read the full article here: Holly Evans29 September 2024 01:001727564400Revealed: Starmer’s ‘three pillar’ blueprint to rebuild EU ties with youth mobility a negotiating chipRead the full article here:Holly Evans29 September 2024 00:001727560827Is this the moment that Rachel Reeves put ‘what works’ before dogma?This could be the moment that the Labour government started to find its feet. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is “ready to water down” her tax raid on non-doms because the Treasury fears that it may “fail to raise any money”, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.The timing of this realisation is interesting, the day after the end of the Labour conference at which the news might have been greeted with howls of “betrayal” from the marginalised, but still vocal, usual suspects.But what is important about this U-turn is that it means the cold light of realism has been allowed to penetrate the pie-in-the-sky slogans of Labour’s pre-election economics.Read the full article here now: Holly Evans28 September 2024 23:001727559616We trashed our brand, says ex-PM Theresa MayConservative former party leader and prime minister Theresa May has warned that the party “failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats” while focusing too much on Reform.Writing in The Times, Baroness May said the candidates for the leadership could “play into Reform’s hands” by failing to understand why they lost the election.She said the Conservatives lost power because the party had “trashed our brand”, losing its reputation for “integrity and competence”.Blaming the Partygate scandal and Liz Truss’s mini-budget, Lady May added the Tories had spent “too long tacking to the right in order to appease potential Reform voters” and “forgot that we are not a right-wing party but a centre-right party”.Jane Dalton28 September 2024 22:401727557936Tory party chair set to say sorry to members and voters The interim chairman of the Conservative Party will tell the membership that he is “profoundly sorry” for the election loss as he opens the party’s conference within hours.Richard Fuller will tell delegates in Birmingham that the parliamentary party “needs to learn and has to change”, and is also expected to announce details of a review of the general electionThe contest for the party leadership will feature prominently in the first conference since the election defeat in July.Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat will all have an opportunity to address the conference – which will run until Wednesday – and their campaigns will be lobbying MPs before parliamentarians pick the final two on 10 October.The final result will be declared on 2 November.Mr Fuller is expected to say: “I am profoundly sorry to you, the members of the Conservative Party.“To our activists. To our current and former councillors, police and crime commissioners and mayors who found their strong local records of service were dominated by negative national headlines.“To Conservative voters and to the country at large for the consequence: a reckless, ideological socialist government with a huge majority based on a paltry share of the electorate.“I am deeply sorry.”Jane Dalton28 September 2024 22:121727557221Labour freebies: The gifts Starmer and other MPs have accepted as PM under fireThe donation was declared to Parliament by the prime minister somewhat cryptically as “accommodation.”The nature of the massive donation from Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli had remained a mystery until Sir Keir was asked by the BBC about its purpose.Read the full article here: Holly Evans28 September 2024 22:001727556600Top Tories cash in on Duffield move to slate StarmerConservative leadership candidates have taken aim at the prime minister over Rosie Duffield’s resignation. Former security minister Tom Tugendhat said the move showed Sir Keir’s government was “about self-service”, while frontrunner Robert Jenrick said the government was “already in disarray, crumbling under the weight of their rank hypocrisy”.Jane Dalton28 September 2024 21:501727553621Watch: Who will be the next leader of the Conservatives?Who will be the next leader of the Conservatives?Holly Evans28 September 2024 21:00 More