UK Politics

A top Labour minister has defended Sir Keir Starmer’s under-fire chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, amid mounting attacks over the failure to declare donations to his Labour Together think tank. The organisation, where Mr McSweeney was director before coming to work for Sir Keir, was fined by the elections watchdog over its handling of £740,000 donations in 2021. But the Tories claimed a leaked email from a lawyer to Mr McSweeney had sought to mislead the Electoral Commission.Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden on Wednesday said the Conservatives were targeting Mr McSweeney because he is a “very talented man”.Pat McFadden said he had full confidence in Downing Street chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney More

A new political party, Advance UK, has had its inaugural launch event cancelled by a council-owned hotel in Newcastle.The party is led by former Reform deputy Ben Habib and backed by right-wing activist Tommy Robinson and billionaire Elon Musk. It was scheduled to hold a conference in the city on Saturday. While the venue was not initially disclosed, it was understood to be the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the city centre.Newcastle City Council confirmed the hotel management cancelled the booking “on health and safety grounds” following an online protest.When Advance UK announced the event in August, it said it had chosen Newcastle because it was “the symbolic heart of Brexit”. The party vowed to “fight unapologetically for sovereignty, free speech, and restoring pride in our nation”.Tommy Robinson speaks during the recent Unite the Kingdom march in London More

There is growing public support for a “super-digital identity card” which would allow people to access public services and report problems in their local area, a new report from Sir Tony Blair’s think tank suggests. The report, which surveyed more than 2,000 adults, saw 62 per cent of people say they favour introducing a form of digital ID alongside an app that would allow them to report things such as potholes and missed bin collections. Three-quarters of those polled supported the use of such an app to track the progress of applications made to local authorities, while some 69 per cent said they wanted it for voting or receiving official notifications, the Tony Blair Institute report showed. The Tony Blair Institute surveyed 2,000 people on digital ID More

Rachel Reeves needs to row back on her manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, a leading think tank has said, as the chancellor seeks to fill a £30bn black hole at the Budget. The chancellor should “reject the path of least resistance” and consider rowing back on her “rash” commitment not to raise the three main taxes at the Budget, the Institute for Government (IfG) said, arguing Labour’s “unrealistic” approach to tax has left Ms Reeves reaching for “piecemeal changes”.It comes amid a growing expectation that the Treasury will have to increase taxes by as much as £30bn in the upcoming Budget, as a result of sluggish productivity, government U-turns and higher than expected interest payments. Higher tax and spending cuts are set to drag on UK growth next year More

President Donald Trump unleashed an extraordinary tirade at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, saying Britain and Europe are “going to hell” because of immigration and dismissing climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.In a spectacular outburst, the US leader said Western nations are being taken over by “illegal aliens” and warned that “immigration and suicidal energy ideas will be the death of western Europe”.And only days after enjoying dinner with the King and Queen at Windsor Castle, he falsely claimed that London is adopting Islamic sharia law and called Sir Sadiq Khan a “terrible, terrible mayor”.The president’s hour-long address touched on many familiar grievances and elicited some groans and uncomfortable laughter from delegates. He said the UN is “funding an assault on Western countries and their borders” by supporting illegal immigration, and he claimed green energy projects aimed at reducing their carbon footprint were causing irreparable harm to their economies and cultures.President Trump addresses the UN General Assembly More

British children will be forced to undergo drills to prepare for mass shootings if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister, Sir Ed Davey has claimed. In a highly controversial attack on the Reform UK leader, Sir Ed warned Mr Farage would roll back gun laws in a bid to turn Britain into a version of Donald Trump’s America. In a keynote speech at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth Sir Ed claimed that Mr Farage represented the “forces of darkness” supporting Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Elon Musk.He painted the Liberal Democrats as the party to stop Reform’s rise to power at the next election.Responding to Sir Ed, Reform stressed that looser firearm rules are not party policy, despite Mr Farage having called in 2014 for them to be relaxed. A party source said Sir Ed had “squandered his big moment by spouting total madness”. Ed Davey warned Nigel Farage would turn Britain into a gun-ridden dystopia More

One of Andy Burnham’s closest allies has launched a damning attack on Sir Keir Starmer on the eve of Labour’s conference, accusing the prime minister of overseeing “rot” in the Labour Party. Former donor Sacha Lord said it is the first of the party’s annual gatherings he will miss since joining in 2022, accusing Sir Keir of having abandoned Labour’s values. He lashed out at “poor decisions being made from the top” and warned hundreds of Labour councillors stand to lose their jobs in May as a result. Sacha Lord is skipping Labour’s conference in protest at Keir Starmer’s leadership More

Rachel Reeves has suffered a fresh blow ahead of her autumn Budget with an international report warning that her high-tax and spend policies will stifle economic growth and cause a surge in inflation.The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said Britain’s “tighter fiscal stance” will see growth ease sharply, from 1.4 per cent this year to 1 per cent in 2026.Economists from the influential organisation also predicted that the added impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs will give the UK one of the highest rates of inflation in the G7 leading economies.The conclusions come as Ms Reeves is under pressure to hike taxes even more in her Budget to close a black hole in her spending plans, believed to be around £40bn.For a chancellor who came into office last year with the “no one mission” of bringing about economic growth, the report makes for difficult reading.Rachel Reeves’ Budget must attempt to close a fiscal ‘black hole’ More