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James Cleverly has outlined a raft of new restrictions on legal migration which he said will slash the number of people arriving in Britain by 300,000 a year.The home secretary said a ban on overseas care workers bringing family dependants and a drastically hiked salary threshold for skilled workers to £38,700 will deliver the “biggest ever reduction”.“We will stop immigration undercutting the salary of British workers,” Mr Cleverly told the House of Commons on Monday 4 December.The strategy, which will also make it harder for Britons earning under the national average to bring over foreign spouses, comes after net migration levels soared to a record high. More

Sir Keir Starmer has defended his praise for Margaret Thatcher in a Daily Telegraph article over the weekend.Taking questions from reporters on Monday 4 December, the Labour leader said he was simply trying to distinguish between post-war prime ministers “who had a driving sense of purpose, ambition, a plan to deliver and those that drifted”.“It doesn’t mean I agree with what she did,” Sir Keir said of Thatcher.“But you don’t have to agree with someone to recognise they had a mission and a plan… I want a mission-driven Labour government.”Sir Keir added that the last 13 years of government has seen a “complete lack of leadership and a real drift”. More

A Tory minister has issued a warning to Conservative voters who may be thinking of defecting to show support for another party.Rishi Sunak has been under pressure from right-wing Tory MPs to act to reduce record high net migration figures, with sacked home secretary Suella Braverman describing them as a “slap in the face”.Lucy Frazer told GB News on Monday (4 December) : “To those voters who might be thinking about voting Reform, if you want to get illegal immigration down you need to vote for the Conservative Party, because the only other alternative is a Labour government.” More

Rishi Sunak’s security minister defends the prime minister taking a private jet to the Cop28 summit in Dubai.Mr Sunak, King Charles, and foreign secretary David Cameron have all taken separate jets to the conference, prompting fresh outrage from climate campaigners.UK security minister Tom Tugendhat was quizzed on the decision by Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway on Thursday morning (30 November).Mr Tugendhat said: “There are many reasons why travel might be separate and it would be unusual, to put it politely, for senior members of government to travel on the same aircraft.” More

An MP described grey squirrels as the “Hamas of the squirrel world” during a debate in Parliament on Tuesday, 28 November.Jim Shannon, DUP MP for Strangford, compared the animals to the militant group while MPs discussed control of the grey squirrel population.Thanking a local group for their work protecting the future of the red squirrel in his constituency, Mr Shannon said: “The issue is the very presence of grey squirrels.”The Woodland Trust says the introduction of grey squirrels has had a “disastrous” on the red species as they carry the squirrelpox virus and compete with the native species to food. More

Sir Lindsay Hoyle issued a warning to MPs before Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, 29 November, not to visit each other’s constituencies on official business without giving notice.Without naming any specific MPs, the Speaker warned “colleagues in Lancashire” to “think about when they are going to others and just to let people know when you are going there. I believe this did not happen.”The House of Commons Members and Constituency Etiquette states that MPs intending to visit another constituency, other than on a purely private or personal matter, should inform the relevant colleague – failing to do so is “regarded as very discourteous.” More

Dominic Cummings acted as prime minister in “all but name” during his time as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, Sajid Javid has told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.Mr Javid said he resigned as chancellor in February 2020 because Mr Cummings made “many key decisions” on behalf of the former prime minister.“I felt that the elected prime minister was not in charge of what was happening in his name and was largely content with Mr Cummings running the government,” he told the inquiry on Wednesday 29 November.The inquiry was also shown a diary entry by former chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, in which he accused Mr Javid – the former health secretary – of “making policy on the hoof”. More

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused Rishi Sunak of “losing his marbles” in a Greek artifact jibe during Prime Minister’s Questions.In his opening remarks, Starmer joked:” In an effort to hide from his failures, the Prime Minister spent this week arguing about an ancient relic that only a tiny minority of the British public have any interest in – Mr Speaker, that’s enough about the Tory Party.”Starmer added: “Never mind the British Museum – it’s the prime minister who has obviously lost his marbles”. A diplomatic row over the sculptures was triggered when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled Tuesday’s planned meeting with Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis. More