UK

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorSue Gray, the former senior civil servant who rose to fame when she was handed responsibility for untangling the ‘Partygate‘ saga, has resigned as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff and will take up a new role in government.Ms Gray said she was standing down because it had “become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change”.Concerns over the power of Ms Gray in government were recently raised when it was revealed she is paid more as chief of staff than the prime minister.The BBC revealed last month that Ms Gray asked for and was given a salary of £170,000 after July’s election – about £3,000 more than Sir Keir.Tensions flared in Sir Keir’s Downing Street operation after the salary revelation, although the party said at the time she “had no involvement in any decision on her pay”.A power struggle had reportedly been playing out between Ms Gray and Sir Keir’s election guru Morgan McSweeney since Labour’s general election win. Mr McSweeney will now replace Ms Gray as the prime minister’s chief of staff.Sue Gray said she looked forward to continuing to support the prime minister in her new role More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorJames Cleverly has overtaken Robert Jenrick in the race to become the next Tory leader, a survey of party members suggests. The former home secretary, who was lagging behind, has stormed ahead to second place in members’ first preferences just days before the next round of voting.In a hypothetical head-to-head simulation of the final round of voting, conducted by grassroots Tory website Conservative Home, Mr Cleverly is now forecast to defeat Mr Jenrick for the first time.The four candidates will be reduced to just two by 9 October after another round of voting from the parliamentary party More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorChancellor Rachel Reeves’s plan to increase borrowing in the budget risks pushing up interest rates, analysis from the Treasury indicates.The research paper, published in December, suggests rewriting the UK’s fiscal rules could increase the cost of debt. Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt claims it could lead to “mortgage misery” for people across Britain. The government is considering changing its fiscal rules to give it more room to borrow, which could open up £50 billion of extra spending.But the Treasury paper warns a “fiscal loosening” of just one per cent of GDP could lead to a “peak increase in interest rates” of as much as 1.25 per cent.The government is considering changing its fiscal rules to give it more room to borrow More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorBoris Johnson is accused of being “two-faced” and “untruthful” in his controversial memoir in an outspoken intervention by his Tory nemesis Amber Rudd.Former home secretary Ms Rudd, known for her provocative “not safe in taxis” jibe at the former prime minister in a TV clash, says his autobiography is more akin to the Beano comic than a serious book.In a withering new put down she calls him “Johnson the Janus” – a reference to the Roman god Janus who faced both ways and which has become a euphemism for “two-faced” or “deceitful”.Mr Johnson’s book, Unleashed, is the product of his “split personality” and reads like “Billy Bunter let loose in Westminster”, writes Ms Rudd in an article for The Independent.Rudd claims Johnson’s book is ‘farcical rather than factual’ More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorOne of Britain’s leading regional mayors claimed Keir Starmer’s government is preparing to abandon British-produced steel altogether and replace it with Chinese steel diverted through Brazil.Lord Ben Houchen, the Conservative Party mayor of the Tees Valley, raised the concern in an interview with The Independent after thousands of jobs were lost at the Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales when blast furnaces were closed down.But Lord Houchen’s biggest fear is the steelworks in Scunthorpe in the North East which he believes there is a secret deal to shut down and supply steel from Brazil instead.Worse still, he claims the agreement will make it look like the steel comes from South America, but is really being produced in China.Lord Ben Houchen, mayor of the Tees Valley, is worried about the future of steel production More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditor Thousands of protesters gathered outside the headquarters of Hungary’s public media corporation on Saturday to demonstrate against what they say is an entrenched propaganda network operated by the nationalist government at taxpayer expense. The protest was organized by Hungary’s most prominent opposition figure, Péter Magyar, and his upstart TISZA party, which has emerged in recent months as the most serious political challenge for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán since he took power nearly 15 years ago. Magyar, whose party received nearly 30% of the vote in European Union elections this summer and is polling within a few points of the governing Fidesz party, has been outspoken about what he sees as the damage Orbán’s “propaganda factory” has done to Hungary’s democracy.“What is happening here in Hungary in 2024, and calling itself ‘public service’ media, is a global scandal,” Magyar told the crowd in Budapest on Saturday. “Enough of the nastiness, enough of the lies, enough of the propaganda. Our patience has run out. The time for confrontation has come.” Both Hungarian and international observers have long warned that press freedom in the Central European country was under threat, and that Orbán’s party has used media buyouts by government-connected business tycoons to build a pro-government media empire. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders estimates that such buyouts have given Orbán’s party control of some 80% of Hungary’s media market resources. In 2021, the group put Orbán on its list of media “predators,” the first EU leader to earn the distinction.On Saturday, Balázs Tömpe, a protester that traveled several hours to attend the demonstration, called the state media headquarters a “factory of lies.”“The propaganda goes out at such a level and is so unbalanced that it’s blood boiling, and I think we need to raise our voices,” he said. “It’s nonsense that only government propaganda comes out in the media that is financed by the taxpayers.”A retired teacher from southern Hungary, Ágnes Gera, said dissenting voices were censored from the public media, limiting Hungarians’ access to information about political alternatives. “It’s very burdensome and unfortunate that the system works this way where the public only hears from one side and don’t even know about the other side,” she said. Magyar demanded the resignation of the public media director, and echoed complaints from many opposition politicians that they are not provided the opportunity to appear on public television to communicate with voters. He called his supporters to another demonstration on Oct 23, a national holiday commemorating Hungary’s failed revolution against Soviet domination in 1956. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorThe Conservative leadership contest continues to ramp up after the four remaining contenders made their pitches to voters and delegates at the party’s 2024 conference.Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat are the final candidates for the Tory top spot. Although the race was announced on 5 July, the leader will not be revealed until early November – although two candidates have called for the timeframe to be cut down.Until then, former prime minister Rishi Sunak retains the position and has refused to be drawn into the ongoing contest so far.Conservative MPs are set to whittle the field down to two final candidates on 9 and 10 October.Polls have put Ms Badenoch ahead of the pack, with Mr Jenrick closing in at just four points behind – up from 15 points six weeks ago. Dividing lines were drawn between the pair at the conference in Birmingham when Ms Badenoch suggested maternity pay in the UK is “excessive”.Although the former business secretary later backtracked, Mr Jenrick took the opportunity to reaffirm his support of maternity provisions, saying he is “firmly on the side of parents and working mums”.Meanwhile, the polling puts Mr Cleverly and Mr Tugendhat as third and fourth favourites. Although a separate poll showed that Mr Cleverly was the general public’s first choice, it is only Conservative Party members that will be voting in the final round.Here’s your guide to the four candidates to be the next Conservative Party leader.Kemi BadenochKemi Badenoch has previously been seen as a front-runner More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorJustice secretary Shabana Mahmood is facing pressure from the public to link early releases from prison to drug testing, a new poll suggests.Polling of 2,001 adults conducted by Opinion Matters revealed 90 per cent think drug testing is important to rehabilitation of prisoners while 77.8 per cent support 24/7 drug monitoring in prisons.Crucially, 40 per cent would be less concerned about early release if it was linked to drug testing with clean results.It comes as the government has faced criticism over the early release of thousands of prisoners in the last few weeks because of the overcrowded conditions they discovered when they took power from the Tories.Mahmood was faced with a prisons overcrowding crisis when taking office More