Uk politics

Questions from backbenchers dominated PMQs. Sir Edward Leigh is keen to end unfettered immigration and he announced a way to stop the boats that might actually stop the boats. ‘Detain all those who land illegally on our shores and offshore them immediately,’ he said. His specific goal was to prevent children from being shoved onto leaky inflatables crewed by emaciated refugees who paddle across channel at the dead of night. ‘End this callous trade,’ he said, citing the risks to innocent kids. No one could quibble with that. The PM agreed.  Sir Keir Starmer has quietly rebranded the Labour movement as ‘the changed Labour party’ ‘He’s right,’ said Rishi. He

Unsurprisingly, the overnight results from the local elections have been very bruising for the Conservatives. Local election results day is often quite formulaic, though, given there are always predictions of a ‘bloodbath’ for one party or the other for months ahead of polling day. This means that the losses can be priced in to the political narrative, and the spinners for the most damaged party can highlight surprising results. This morning, the Tories are putting great store by holding onto Harlow, which Keir Starmer visited twice during the campaign. They are also relieved to have only come second, rather than third, in Blackpool South, given how hard Reform campaigned in

Is that Monty Panesar? The old England spin bowler is stood in a crowd in Parliament Square, with a vacant, million-mile smile. George Galloway is standing in front, talking to the press. Galloway is meant to be revealing the 200 candidates that his new ‘Workers Party’ is putting up at the next election (Panesar is one of them) but instead he’s just laying into Angela Rayner, the House of Lords and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. ‘…Angela Runner, as you might come to call her! …Two cheeks of the same backside! …The largest war machine in the world today!’ Galloway likes talking to the media; these days he is more celebrity than politician.

Humza Yousaf is stepping down as first minister of Scotland. After feverish speculation over the weekend, Yousaf has announced this lunchtime in a press conference at Bute House that he intends to stand down from the role once an SNP leadership contest has taken place to find his successor. Acknowledging the events that had led up to this moment, Yousaf said he had ‘clearly underestimated the level of hurt’ that ending his party’s power-sharing agreement with the Greens caused the SNP’s minority partner. He said trust was ‘fundamental’. Yousaf went on to say that from his discussions over the weekend with figures in the Scottish Greens and Alba, he had

After finally getting his Rwanda legislation through the Lords, Rishi Sunak is in Warsaw today to meet with Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. There, the Prime Minister is expected to announce that Britain will spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030. Previously the government line has been that the Tories will increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent ‘as soon as economic conditions allow’. The pledge would mean the UK would be committed to spend £70 billion more on core defence spending over seven years than it does currently.  The expected announcement comes after Sunak has faced criticism from his own side on the issue. Tory MPs have

It’s less than a fortnight till the local elections where Rishi Sunak will face his last major electoral test before going to the polls for a general election later this year. Tory MPs are braced for it to be a difficult night. The loss of Tory councillors en masse seems inevitable. If Sunak is really unlucky, he could lose one or both of the two Tory metro mayors. The West Midlands mayor Andy Street is viewed to be the most vulnerable – one poll last week suggested he is on course to lose, another said he could hold on by two votes. If the Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen goes

The great trans hoax is coming to an end. The idea of thousands of people being ‘trapped’ in the wrong body is an interpretation of gender dysphoria that is increasingly being seen as damaging nonsense. The invasive treatment regimes, particularly for teenagers, carried out by the NHS, are unravelling too. And so is the claim that women don’t need protected spaces, separate from biological males. Giving campaign groups such as Mermaids and Stonewall influence in setting public policy in this area is looking more and more like the terrible mistake that many of us have long argued it was. It isn’t only Johnson seeking to carry out a rapid repositioning

David Cameron is stateside today as the Foreign Secretary tries to muster up support for the US to send aid to Ukraine. While Cameron plans to discuss other urgent issues on the trip, such as the situation in the Middle East, the priority is to make the argument for the US to step up funding to Ukraine; senior Republicans are accused of blocking a £49 billion package for Kyiv. The push comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned on Sunday that his side would lose to Putin if American aid was withheld and Ukrainian air cover is not improved. Will the charm offensive work? The last time Cameron tried to