Kemi Badenoch: Tory plotters are ‘not my friends’

This week there have been reports of Tory ministers calling for Rishi Sunak to be replaced by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who consistently tops polls on the popularity of cabinet ministers. On Sky News this morning, Trevor Phillips showed Badenoch a graph which gave her a favourability rating of 64 per cent, contrasted with Rishi Sunak on minus twenty-six per cent, and asked her if she was involved in plotting for a leadership change. Badenoch said she was not, and said prime ministers ‘cannot be treated as disposable’, and Tory MPs needed to ‘stop messing around and get behind the leader’. Later on with Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC, Badenoch responded to a focus group that was disaffected with politicians by saying there was too much focus on personality in politics. Badenoch claimed the Tory rebels did not care about her or her family, ‘they are just stirring.’

Staff from UN agency for Palestinian refugees accused of participating in Hamas attack

The UK and other western nations suspended funding for the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine this week, after an investigation into 12 of its members of staff who may have participated in the Hamas attack on 7 October.