British Politics

Labour has said any allegations of racism should be investigated by Buckingham Palace after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex claimed a royal had raised concerns about how dark their son’s skin tone might be before he was born. During an Oprah Winfrey interview, Meghan said that when she was pregnant with Archie an unnamed […]

Tory party funds are not being used for the refurbishment of Downing Street, Boris Johnson’s press secretary has said. The Daily Mail reported that Conservative Party funds met a large part of the bill, which is said to be in the region of £200,000. But the prime minister’s press secretary Allegra Stratton told reporters: “Conservative […]

US president Joe Biden’s climate envoy has visited London for talks with Boris Johnson. The visit by former secretary of state John Kerry is the latest sign of the new administration’s dramatic break from the approach to climate issues under Donald Trump. The UK is hosting the major United Nations Cop26 summit in Glasgow on […]

Support for Scottish independence has taken a hit after a poll suggested a lead for the ‘no’ side following the Alex Salmond inquiry. The survey by Savanta ComRes is the first to take place after the evidence given to the Scottish parliament inquiry by Nicola Sturgeon and Salmond over the government’s handling of sexual harassment […]

“Glaring ommissions” made during lockdown were due to a lack of women in cabinet, a former Tory minister has claimed. Caroline Nokes MP, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, has previously accused Boris Johnson’s administration of having a “very blokey mentality”. The backbencher has said she wants a “gender-balanced cabinet” leading the government to ensure […]

Boris Johnson is famous for making babies. Now his Brexit is making babies unhappy. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where Boris Johnson dismisses the unfolding post-Brexit trade fiasco as mere “teething problems”, Michael Gove talks of “issues which I would not describe as teething problems” and manufacturers […]

Richard Tice has replaced Nigel Farage as leader of the anti-lockdown party Reform UK. Farage told the media over the weekend he was stepping back from active politics after 30 years of campaigning. The former UK Independence Party and Brexit Party leader is set to become an “honorary president” of the campaign group instead. He tweeted: “I […]

The government has tried to give NHS staff “as much as we possibly can” after recommending a 1% pay rise, the prime minister has said. The proposal has sparked talk of industrial action and demonstrations were planned across England on Sunday, with senior Conservatives also speaking out. An Opinium poll has suggested as much as […]

There were “bound” to be issues that needed ironing out between the UK and Brussels, the prime minister has said, as post-Brexit difficulties continue. Lord Frost, the cabinet minister who negotiated Britain’s trade deal with the European Union, provoked the ire of Brussels last week by unilaterally making changes that impacted upon the Northern Ireland […]

SNP plans for Scottish independence would be a “Brexit 2.0” that would harm the NHS and cost jobs, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has insisted. With Scottish parliament elections due to take place in May, the Lib Dem said voters were now “weeks from an election that could determine the fate of the United […]

The government has moved to unilaterally ease another element of the contentious Brexit arrangements governing trade to Northern Ireland. A ban on importing plants potted in soil from Great Britain to the region has been temporarily lifted. While most agri-food goods are, or will be, subject to extra regulatory processes to enter Northern Ireland under […]

The Northern Ireland Protocol undermines the guiding principles of the region’s historic peace deal, a former No 10 chief of staff has warned. Jonathan Powell, who worked for Tony Blair and was involved in negotiations that forged the Good Friday Agreement, said he understood why loyalists and unionists were upset by the economic border in […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has suggested the success of the coronavirus vaccine rollout has led to the Conservatives establishing a 13-point lead over his party. He said “people want the government to succeed” during a pandemic, but conceded there is a “lot of work to do” to rebuild support. The poll by YouGov for […]

Sky producers are searching for a Michael Gove lookalike to play the cabinet minister in the upcoming series, This Sceptred Isle. The five-part drama charts events surrounding the prime minister, Downing Street, and the country during the first wave of the global pandemic. A casting brief says producers are searching for a male “in his early 50s, […]

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has claimed that his party is a “better” choice for voters in Scotland than either Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP or Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. With the Scottish parliament election due to take place in May, Sir Ed is making his pitch to voters north of the border in a speech to the Scottish […]

Mark Drakeford has told a Welsh Affairs Committee that the union “is over” and a new one was needed to reflect a “voluntary association of four nations”. The first minister also condemned Downing Street’s approach of bypassing the devolved administrations through levelling up funds. He stated: “For the first time since devolution, we are dealing with a UK government […]

Health minister Nadine Dorries has been left to defend the government’s decision to give a 1% pay rise to nurses and other health workers, following the revelation that the figure has been submitted to the sector’s pay review body (PRB). She gave a series of media interviews on Friday defending the government’s position, saying nurses have […]

Brussels has warned it will launch legal action “very soon” following a move by the UK to unilaterally delay implementation of part of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland. European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic said the announcement by Government on Wednesday had come as a “very negative surprise”. The Cabinet Office Minister Lord […]

The government is understood to have agreed a “substantial” payout to settle a top civil servant’s employment tribunal claim after he quit amid allegations of Priti Patel’s bullying.Home Office chief Sir Philip Rutnam is reported to have accepted a six-figure sum after launching legal action against the home secretary. The department’s former permanent secretary dramatically […]

A Conservative former minister has suggested the majority of Britons are economically illiterate for supporting the chancellor’s corporation tax increase. Sir Christopher Chope criticised the move to raise the tax on company profits from 19% to 25% from 2023, suggesting it was a policy which had more in common with those proposed by former Labour […]

The Police Service of Northern Ireland is investigating sinister graffiti in a loyalist area of Belfast mentioning Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove. The message painted on a wall in Sandy Row included Gove’s name and an address above the words “We don’t forget, we don’t forgive”. It is the latest example of anti-Northern Ireland Protocol graffiti […]

The allocation of £1 billion funding to mainly Conservative seats “feels like pork-barrel politics”, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has claimed. He said of the 45 areas allocated cash under new towns deals, 40 were represented by Tories and it sounded “fishy”. But Boris Johnson said it was partly due to his success in the […]

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed that the SNP’s ‘little local difficulties’ is a clear reason not to hold a fresh independence poll in Scotland. The leader of the Commons claimed it would be “reckless” to hold another vote as the UK seeks to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic too. Speaking in the Commons, SNP […]

Labour has accused the chancellor of failing patients due to planned cuts to day-to-day spending in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Written Budget documents revealed that there is a planned cut of £30 billion in day-to-day spending from April of this year, falling from £199.2 billion to £169.1 billion. NHS England will […]

Labour’s shadow environment secretary has called on George Eustice to apologise for Brexit trade barriers which have left seafood companies on the verge of collapse. Luke Pollard said the deal had left the shellfish industry in a “mess” and that many fishermen felt “betrayed” by the government’s handling of their interests during the Brexit negotiations. The EU has […]

Rishi Sunak has handed 90% of a £1billion towns fund to Tory constituencies in the Budget yesterday. Of the 45 towns benefiting from the fund, 40 have at least one Tory MP with almost half of the towns in the so-called “Red Wall” northern seats taken from Labour in the 2019 election. Those towns will […]

The Commons speaker has lashed out at Rishi Sunak’s pre-Budget PR drive, telling the chancellor policies should be announced to MPs first. Sir Lindsay Hoyle said it was important the chancellor follow “tradition” after it emerged journalists had been pre-briefed on the Budget by the Treasury. Sir Lindsay said that “at one time the Budget was never […]

The UK government has defended its unilateral decision to continue Irish Sea border grace periods until October as the minimum step necessary. The first of the light-touch regulation schemes on goods from the rest of the UK transiting to Northern Ireland had been due to expire at the end of March. Supermarkets would have had […]