UK Politics

Sir Keir Starmer is under mounting pressure to scrap the two-child benefit cap after his child poverty taskforce is set to recommend the move.The prime minister established a group of ministers and officials to look at how to bring down child poverty, with its recommendations due before Rachel Reeves’s Budget on 26 November. The much-delayed recommendations, however, are set to include the prime minister being told that scrapping the benefit cap is the most effective way to lift children out of poverty and that he must pursue the move. According to The Times, the taskforce has drawn up the main planks of a child poverty strategy, with lifting the two-child limit the top recommendation. And Dame Meg Hillier, chair of parliament’s Treasury committee, said it would be “unconscionable” if Labour failed to alleviate child poverty, pointing to scrapping the two-child cap as the most effective measure. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the senior Labour MP said: “I’ve been looking at it in detail, and I’m convinced that the quickest and easiest way to lift 350,000 children out of poverty and 700,000 children out of deep poverty, would be to really pick up the cap.” The prime minister established a taskforce to look at how to bring down child poverty More

The Tories have put in a formal complaint to the parliamentary standards commissioner over allegations of irregular donations to Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign in 2020.Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake has asked for an investigation after claiming he had uncovered new evidence regarding the role of Sir Keir’s now chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, in running the leadership campaign.He alleged that Mr McSweeney’s then thinktank Labour Together had in effect made undeclared donations to the Starmer campaign.The Conservatives have called for an investigation into donations made to Labour Together, a campaign group previously led by chief of staff Morgan McSweeney More

A family of three have become the first asylum seekers to arrive in UK as part of the government’s high-stakes new ‘one in, one out’ deal with France.It comes after four migrants were deported to Paris under Sir Keir Starmer’s flagship agreement, which ministers claim will dissuade migrants from making the deadly Channel crossings by showing they could be immediately sent back. In return a family, which includes a small child, have become the first to arrive in UK through the new legal route. But the prime minister is under pressure to demonstrate the scheme is working after more than 1,000 migrants arrived by small boat last Friday, after returns to France began.Migrants on a small boat in the Channel More

Andy Burnham, a minister in the Blair and Brown governments who has been reborn as the mayor of Greater Manchester, was almost prime minister, you know. He may already be the “King of the North”, but he could now be trying, for the third time, for an even more exalted position – leader of the Labour Party, and with it, the premiership. It was a laughable proposition for almost the whole of Keir Starmer’s period of previously unassailable dominance, but suddenly, in a panicky mood, the Labour Party seems to have caught what might be termed “the Tory disease” – the delusion that a change of leader can solve all its problems, coupled with an addiction to plotting. Burnham, away from Westminster for most of the past decade, could be the nearest thing they have to a fresh start. Not for the first time, though. It is forgotten now, but way back in 2015, after Ed Miliband had led Labour to a poor election result and quit the leadership, Burnham was the favourite to succeed him. Had some Labour MPs – who should have known better – not “lent” their nominations to put Jeremy Corbyn on the ballot, Burnham might well have won, beating Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall. As it was, Burnham lost miserably to Corbyn – 19 per cent to 59 per cent. It was not much better than when he fought, and lost, the leadership election after the 2010 defeat when Gordon Brown stood down. He got 9 per cent and finished behind Ed Miliband, David Miliband, and Ed Balls, and only just ahead of Diane Abbott.(Left to Right) Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Jeremy Corbyn – the Labour leadership candidates in 2015 More

Nigel Farage has been condemned for peddling false information and “wild conspiracy theories” after he falsely accused Romanians in Britain of eating swans in parks in his latest attack on migrants living in the UK. The Reform UK leader claimed “swans are being eaten in royal parks” and said carp were being taken out of ponds “by people who come from different cultures”. Asked who he believes are eating Britain’s swans, which are a protected species in the UK, Mr Farage said: “People who come from countries where that’s quite acceptable.” Farage’s comments about Romanians eating swans are an echo of the US president’s warning that Haitian migrants were eating Americans’ pets More

Jeremy Corbyn has relaunched Your Party’s paid-up membership service, apologising to supporters for “the confusion getting to this point”, after a string of embarrassing setbacks and infighting.The former Labour leader urged backers of the new left-wing outfit to “move on” and sign up as founding members ahead of its first conference in November. It comes after Mr Corbyn last week said he was seeking legal advice after his party’s co-leader, Zarah Sultana, sent an “unauthorised email” from Your Party’s account, inviting its supporters to become paid members, apparently without his backing.That promoted a furious row between the pair, which saw Ms Sultana claim she had been on the receiving end of “baseless attacks” and announce she had consulted defamation lawyers. But in a video posted on X (Twitter), Mr Corbyn appeared to be trying to move on, saying: “We’ve had some drought days in the last week, as you will no doubt be very aware, and to be honest, we haven’t covered ourselves in glory. The former Labour leader urged backers of the new left-wing outfit to ‘move on’ and sign up as founding members More

Andy Burnham has said Britain needs “wholesale change” in his biggest challenge yet to Sir Keir Starmer, warning the prime minister that he risks handing the keys to No 10 to Nigel Farage without a major change of course.The Greater Manchester mayor and former cabinet minister comes into the crucial Labour conference with supporters talking up his prospects as a leader and potential prime minister for the party.And his message, in an interview in The New Statesman, comes as Sir Keir continues to falter in the polls, with Labour MPs openly questioning whether he can continue if the party has another poor set of elections next May.Andy Burnham is a potential leadership candidate if he can get back into parliament More

Sir Sadiq Khan has dubbed Donald Trump “racist, sexist, misogynistic” and “Islamophobic” in the latest in a long-running war of words between the feuding pair. It came after Mr Trump branded Sir Sadiq a “terrible mayor” in a stinging attack over immigration and carbon-reduction policies.Addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the US president said: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. “Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.”Khan: ‘I’m just thankful that we have record numbers of Americans coming to London’ More