UK

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentThe prime minister will avoid an embarrassing investigation into a failure to declare a donation by a Labour peer that paid for dresses for his wife Victoria.Sir Keir Starmer was facing questions from the Opposition over the £5,000 donation from Lord Waheed Alli, which he initially failed to put on his register of interests. The peer, a leading Labour donor, received a high-level security pass for Downing Street in the weeks after the election and made a donation to Sir Keir of accommodation over several weeks worth more than £20,000.The prime minister has insisted his team had sought advice on what declaration should be made and that rules were being followed.Tory chairman Andrew Griffith asked the parliamentary standards commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, to investigate a potential breach of the rules.Mr Griffith wrote: “There must be a full investigation into this scandal given this is not the first instance of the prime minister failing to declare donations and abiding by parliamentary rules.“It beggars belief that the prime minister thinks it’s acceptable that pensioners on £13,000 a year can afford to heat their home when he earns 12 times that but apparently can’t afford to clothe himself or his wife.Sir Keir faced questions over his alleged failure to register on time high-end clothing given to Lady Starmer by a prominent party donor More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentWatch live as David Lammy announces Labour’s pledge to have the UK be the first major economy to deliver clean power by 2030.On Tuesday, 17 September, the foreign secretary will position action on the climate and nature crisis as central to his department’s remit as he pledges the Foreign Office’s commitment to the global clean energy transition.Speaking at Kew Gardens in Richmond, Mr Lammy will say Labour is “firing the starting gun” on its pledge to create a global clean power alliance that will facilitate sharing knowledge and technology to help more countries reach net-zero emissions.Of the government’s 2030 pledge, Mr Lammy will say: “We will leverage that ambition to build an alliance committed to accelerating the clean energy transition.“And today we are firing the starting gun on forming this new coalition.“While some countries are moving ahead in this transition, others are being left behind.“We need to accelerate the rollout of renewable energy across the globe in the way that this Government is doing at home.”The alliance also aims to help countries “leapfrog” fossil fuels, transition to renewable power systems with global investment and finance, and speed up the supply of critical minerals needed for energy grids and storage. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House Correspondent European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen is expected to unveil the members of her new team for the next five-year tenure at the head of the bloc on Tuesday. But it has been a tumultuous ride to get it ready for office — the search for the 26 members of her college was chaotic and scandal-ridden even before the parliament is to start hearings on whether to accept each proposed candidate. French heavyweight Thierry Breton resigned and openly criticized von der Leyen for allegedly “questionable governance” on Monday and accused her of backroom machinations to oust him. Many saw his shock resignation more as a removal by von der Leyen of one of her most open internal critics after exerting pressure on French authorities. Compounding such problems was the defiance of many of the 27 member states as von der Leyen struggled to get anywhere close to gender parity on her Commission team — they staunchly refused to give her a choice between a male and a female candidate. After days of secret talks with individual European governments about their picks, von der Leyen huddled with the leaders of the political groups at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, to discuss the makeup of her college. Her full announcement was expected later Tuesday. Even if the Commission’s makeup has hardly become the talk of bar rooms or barber shops across the vast EU of 450 million people, it has enthralled the upper echelons of politics and bureaucracy, as they sought to boost one candidate or undermine another.The Commission proposes legislation for the EU’s 27 member countries and ensures that the rules governing the world’s biggest trading bloc are respected. It’s made up of a College of Commissioners with a range of portfolios similar to those of government ministers, including agriculture, economic, competition, security and migration policy.The Commission is to start work on Nov. 1, but speculation is rife that it might not get down to business before January.A former German defense minister, von der Leyen has been pressing smaller countries to change their minds. In recent weeks, a man who was the preferred candidate of the government in Slovenia withdrew and a woman was proposed in his place.She decides which country gets which portfolio, and some of them, like those involving trade or finance or EU enlargement, are coveted by certain countries. Plum jobs like the post of vice president — the commission has seven of these — are also much sought after. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentDiane Abbott has accused Sir Keir Starmer of treating her like a “non-person” during a race row over comments made by major Tory donor.In March, The Guardian reported that Frank Hester had told colleagues that looking at Ms Abbott makes you “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.The veteran Labour MP said she expected more support from the prime minister and the Labour Party, having been left feeling in danger by Frank Hester’s comments.“One of the reasons it made me frightened is two MPs have been killed in recent years,” Ms Abbott said.Diane Abbott was suspended after suggesting Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experience prejudice but not racism More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House Correspondent A speech by the Dutch king on Tuesday is to lay out the new government’s plans for the coming year as members of the hard right-led coalition bicker over its plans to drastically slash migration.The day, marked by pageantry as the royals are driven through The Hague in ornate horse-drawn carriages, also brings the first major test of a technocratic new government chosen by the right-wing parties that triumphed in last year’s elections. King Willem-Alexander’s speech to lawmakers from both houses of the Dutch parliament is written by the government and lays out legislative plans and the budget for the coming year.On Monday, a senior member of a party in the coalition said she would oppose the government’s plans to rein in immigration if a key political advisory panel rejects them.The comments Monday by Nicolien van Vroonhoven of the New Social Contract party triggered angry reactions from Geert Wilders ’s populist anti-immigration Party for Freedom, which won national elections last year, and the conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.The spat underscored the fragility of a coalition that was pulled together after months of negotiations. Prime Minister Dick Schoof was eventually chosen to head a cabinet made up of politicians and civil servants because the leaders did not want the outspoken Wilders as prime minister.While the government seeks consensus on a deal to drastically dial back immigration, a town in the northern Netherlands opened a sports hall overnight to accommodate asylum seekers who otherwise would have been forced to sleep outdoors because of a shortage of space at a reception center.The mayor of Ter Apel accused Margriet Faber, the minister responsible for asylum seekers and migrants, of allowing an accomdation crisis to escalate.“The minister is shunning her responsibility. She is responsible for people who come to the Netherlands for asylum. She has had enough time and sufficient opportunity to accommodate people in a decent way. She consciously does not do this,” mayor Jaap Velema said in a statement Monday.The government is planning to declare an “asylum crisis” to pave the way for tougher measures including reining in visas for family members of people granted asylum and making it easier and quicker to deport migrants who are not eligible for asylum. The government also plans to apply for an opt-out from European Union migration rules and step up border check following similar moves implemented Monday by neighboring Germany. It remains unclear how many of the Dutch government’s plans can be enforced. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentSir Keir Starmer has claimed that Britain can learn lessons from Italy on how to reduce migration, after far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration saw small boat arrivals fall by more than 60 per cent this year.Ahead of a visit to Rome, Sir Keir hailed Italy’s “dramatic” drop in unregulated migration and expressed interest in Ms Meloni’s proposed asylum processing scheme in Albania, just months after scrapping the Tories’ controversial Rwanda scheme.Claiming that his talks with Ms Meloni had marked a return to “British pragmatism”, Sir Keir also praised Italy’s “upstream work” in north Africa, saying: “I have always made the argument that preventing people leaving their country in the first place is far better than trying to deal with those that have arrived.”Reducing the number of perilous small-boat crossings across the Channel is a political priority for the Labour government, which has announced its intention to “smash” people-smuggling gangs but has stopped short of opening safe alternative routes for asylum seekers to travel to Britain to have their claims heard.The prime minister is now looking to Italy’s example, where the country’s interior ministry reported a 62 per cent fall in migrant arrivals on Italian coasts over the first seven months of 2024. Frontex, the EU’s border force, has calculated a 64 per cent fall in the number of people arriving from north Africa to Italy and Malta.More than 1,000 people arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel over the weekend, as eight people died trying to make the journey More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentSir Ed Davey is expected to lay out his plan to overtake the Tories at the next general election and “finish the job” his party believe they started this year.The triumphant Liberal Democrat leader, now heading a group of 72 MPs, will use much of his party conference speech in Brighton to focus on the Conservatives and their leadership contest to replace Rishi Sunak, which Sir Ed has described as “scraping the bottom of the barrel”.Sir Ed – who has become well known for his colourful stunts – will also focus on key priorities of the NHS and social care, and will insist that his party’s success in July means that it has to justify its actions to the voters.“The modern Conservative Party is so out of touch with so many of its former voters – so far removed from the real lives of ordinary people – that it no longer merits a place at the top table of our politics,” he is expected to say. “On 4 July we made a great start, but now let’s go further. Let’s finish the job.”It comes as senior sources in the party have made it clear that while the Lib Dems outperformed their wildest dreams in this year’s election, they have “far from maxed out” in taking seats from the Conservatives, who were reduced to a historic low of 121 seats. Other sources pointed out to The Independent that the Lib Dems came second in 27 seats – 21 of which are held by the Conservatives.Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper and Ed Davey on the general election trail earlier this year More