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Wes Streeting has slammed Liz Truss for lecturing the Labour government about the economy, telling the former prime minister she should “keep her head down”.Appearing on Sky News on Wednesday (3 September), the health secretary said the “last person Rachel Reeves should be taking advice from is Liz Truss”, after she chastised the chancellor for pushing “economic orthodoxy” onto the UK.He described Ms Truss’s mini-Budget – which resulted in economic turmoil in the UK – as a type of “self inflicted harm”.Mr Streeting added: “We’ll take no lectures from Liz Truss. In fact, we quite often resent former Conservatives popping up, complaining about the choices we’re making, as we clean up the mess they left behind.” More

Yvette Cooper has revealed that she has Union Jack and St George’s flags scattered around her home, and has encouraged Britons to display the emblems, saying people should “put them up anywhere”.The Home Secretary told BBC Breakfast on Tuesday (2 September) that she has tablecloths and bunting adorned with the Union Jack, St George’s flag, and the Yorkshire rose in her house.Appearing on Times Radio, Ms Cooper added, “Oh put ‘em up anywhere. I would put them up anywhere. I mean, we put them up anywhere. We have the St George’s flag above the Pontefract Castle. We fly [it] in my constituency,” insisting that the flags should not be used “for division.” More

Nick Robinson reminded Chris Philp that he, as immigration minister under the Conservative government, opened up the use of the Bell Hotel in Epping for the use of housing asylum seekers during a live interview on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, 1 September.Labour’s use of asylum hotels has led to widespread protests over the summer.Asylum seekers were moved into hotels during the coronavirus pandemic.“Who was the minister who opened the Bell Hotel to asylum seekers without consulting the community? Do you by any chance remember?,” Mr Robinson pressed Mr Philp.Mr Philp began to explain, “Well, the last government did open that hotel,” before Mr Robinson interjected with, “It was you, you were the immigration minister, you did it.” More

Nigel Farage is producing policies on the “back of a fag packet”, a Home Office minister has claimed.Appearing on NewsNight on Tuesday (26 August), Lord Hanson said that the Reform UK leader’s plans to mass deport 600,000 asylum seekers if his party wins have no “substance to them”.“He’s producing policies which I’m afraid are on the back of a fag packet… They are also not really deliverable in terms of what is a very complex and challenging issue,” he said.Unveiling the radical plans at a press conference on London earlier that day, Mr Farage also pledged to scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and secure deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran to return migrants to their countries. More

Nigel Farage has shared a bizarre AI video of himself dancing in a fur coat at Clacton Pier.The Reform leader can be seen surrounded by backing dancers as he performs an energetic routine outside the Clacton monument.Mr Farage shared the video, which has now been viewed more than one million times, on his Twitter account on Sunday (24 August), with the caption: “A little bit of fun.”The rap song accompanying the video has the words “2019 looks so right for Reform” and “party of the people”.This is not the first time the Reform leader has used rap in his political campaigns.Last year, he taunted former prime minister Rishi Sunak by channelling a song from rapper Eminem. More

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has defended Kemi Badenoch’s call for Conservative councils to consider legal challenges against the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.In a letter to Tory councils, Mrs Badenoch said she was “encouraging” them to “take the same steps” as Epping Council, “if your legal advice supports it”.Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Thursday morning (21 August), Mr Philp said councils didn’t need to take such action when the Conservatives were in power, as the party had been “getting hotel numbers down”.New Home Office data shows the number of asylum seekers in hotels has gone down from 32,345 in March this year to 32,059 in June 2025. Numbers peaked at the end of September 2023, when 56,042 asylum seekers were in hotels. More

Robert Jenrick said that he had bottles thrown at him during a visit to a migrant camp near Calais.The former Tory leadership hopeful posted footage of himself spotting a group of what he said was “60 or 70 migrants holding life jackets” at around 8:30pm on Sunday, 11 August.He said the group boarded a bus without tickets and was filmed following the bus to Dunkirk with his team. Mr Jenrick said there was no sign of the group by 4am, and called police to report that he had seen “a large group of maybe 40 or 50 illegal migrants in the cemetery off the main road by the beach.”Mr Jenrick added: “We’ve given £800 million to France and we didn’t see a police officer the whole day, and now we just phoned them and it doesn’t sound like they’ll even bother to come out.” More

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said on Thursday, 11 August, that there are “no immediate plans” to change interest levels on student loan repayments.BBC Breakfast presenter Charlie Stayt asked Ms Phillipson whether it was fair to make students pay 9 per cent interest on top of existing student loan debt.“We are looking at the student finance system; it is complicated,” the education secretary said. “However, I do think that it is right that students make a contribution to their education.”She reiterated that there were more opportunities for young people receiving their A-level results on Thursday to pursue other than university, including apprenticeships. More