News

Nigel Farage claims it is in the “national interest” for him to “help break down barriers” between the Labour government and Donald Trump’s new top team. Mr Farage, a close friend of President-elect Trump, said he has a role to play in smoothing over relations following previous comments made about the Republican by senior Labour figures.Speaking on GB News on Wednesday (6 November), Mr Farage said the UK government and the Republicans have “huge differences” that need to be resolved.The Reform MP said: “On areas like intelligence, defence, trade and investment, it is an essential national interest that we resolve them.“If I can help in any way at all, I will do. It’s in the national interest and that’s the point.” More

New Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has confronted foreign secretary David Lammy over his previous criticism of Donald Trump following his election to US president.Mr Lammy, has previously compared Trump to Hitler and called for his state visit to be canceled during his last presidency.In her first PMQs as Tory leader on Wednesday (6 November), Ms Badenoch asked Mr Lammy: “The prime minister and the foreign secretary met him in September. Did the foreign secretary take that opportunity to apologise for making derogatory and scatological references, including, and I quote, ‘Trump is not only a woman-hating Neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath, he is also a profound threat to the international order’?” More

Home secretary Yvette Cooper has said an additional £75 million for the Government’s border command is new funding from the Budget.Ms Cooper was pressed on Labour’s plans to tackle people smuggling ahead of the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow on Monday (4 November).The home secretary told BBC Breakfast: “It’s part of the Budget settlement. It’s in addition to the £75 million we’d already talked about, which is only just starting to be invested now.”The further amount doubles the border command’s funding to £150 million over two years.The money will be used to fund high-tech surveillance equipment and 100 specialist investigators who will target criminals engaged in people smuggling. More

Kemi Badenoch dismissed the furore over Partygate, describing the scandal as “overblown” in her first television interview as the new Tory leader on Sunday, 3 November.The MP for North West Essex criticised the then-government for fining people for what she described as “everyday activities” during coronavirus lockdowns.She declined to be drawn into a “post-mortem” of the previous government but said there had been “serious issues” under Boris Johnson’s premiership — though she added that the Partygate scandal was not one of them.Partygate saw Mr Johnson fined for attending a party in Downing Street, one of several that took place under his tenure in breach of Covid lockdown regulations. More

Rachel Reeves has admitted she was “wrong” to say during the election campaign that she would not need to raise taxes but insisted further increases will not be needed.On June 11, the chancellor said she would not need to raise taxes beyond the increases already set out in the Labour Party’s manifesto.However, in Wednesday’s Budget, she announced £40bn of tax rises including increases to employers’ national insurance contributions and changes to inheritance tax and capital gains tax.Ms Reeves told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips she had been “wrong” because she did not “know everything” about the state of public finances. More

Kemi Badenoch dismissed Rachel Reeves’ historic position as the first female Chancellor, describing her milestone as smashing through “a very, very low glass ceiling” and “nowhere near as significant as what other women in this country have achieved.”Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg in her first television interview since being elected Tory leader, the MP for North West Essex described how she found it astonishing Ms Reeves kept talking about her achievement.”She’s the first female chancellor which in my view is a very, very low glass ceiling in the Labour Party,” Ms Badenoch added. More