Labour Party

Labour must stop talking down to voters, deputy leader Angela Rayner has said in the wake of the party’s damaging election losses. Rayner set out on Monday how Labour must change to reconnect with working class voters after the crushing defeat in the Hartlepool by-election. Her comments came after she was given greater authority within […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has sacked his shadow chancellor and chief whip as part of an overhaul in the wake of the party’s poor performance in the local elections. Rachel Reeves has been promoted to shadow chancellor as part of Sir Keir’s reshuffle of his “refreshed and renewed” top team, with former incumbent Anneliese […]

Politics has changed and one reader says Labour loyalists must stop looking to the past. The problem facing Keir Starmer is simple to state but immensely difficult to solve.  It is one that has been with us for a very long time. After two decades working in the coal industry, I became a writer and researcher. […]

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has been sacked as party chair and national campaign coordinator following poor local election results across England. Labour received a drubbing in the local elections in England, losing control of a host of councils and suffering defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in the Hartlepool by-election – the first time […]

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has suggested he would entertain becoming leader of the Labour Party “in the distant future”. Burnham was speaking to the media after being re-elected to office with a landslide level of support. Asked on Sky News whether he wanted to lead the party following reports he would be a […]

Mark Drakeford’s Welsh Labour has declared its strong Senedd election performance as “an extraordinary set of results in extraordinary times” as the party look favourite to retain control of the Welsh government. The party has exceeded expectations as counting for the Welsh parliament election continues, having so far lost just one of its seats and […]

Welsh Labour appears to have exceeded expectations as counting for the Welsh Parliament election continues. Only one of Wales’ so-called red wall seats, the Vale of Clwyd, fell to the Welsh Conservatives, while Labour sources are also confident of unseating the former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood in Rhondda. Changes to ensure social distancing at […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said that he will do “whatever it takes” to rebuild trust in the party following its “bitterly disappointing” by-election defeat in Hartlepool. Starmer has come under fire from all sides after Labour suffered a crushing defeat. In a stunning result, the Conservatives took the seat – which had been […]

Campaigning in the Hartlepool by-election, Sir Keir Starmer said repeatedly that Labour had a “mountain to climb” if it was to regain power. Now that the votes are in and counted, that task looks every bit as formidable as the party seeks to chart a route back to No 10. It is hard to see […]

Sir Keir Starmer has written an open letter to the country ahead of this week’s elections, setting out his “burning desire to build a brighter future” for Britain. The Labour leader claimed it is “a changed Labour Party” in the letter ahead of Thursday, which will be his first electoral test since taking over from […]

A new book shows how Christians are turning away from the Labour Party. Does it impact their chances? Labour, Harold Wilson once said, owes more to Methodism than Marx. Its founder, Keir Hardie – after whom its present leader is named – was a lay preacher. Its early leaders were devout men; Ramsay Macdonald, its first […]

For those dreading a return to the pitched battles of IndyRef1, the Scottish Labour leader may offer the best hope There are two schools of thought in Scotland about the conduct of the 2014 independence referendum. One is that it was a festival of democracy, a carnival of marches, song, poetry and political awakening. The […]

New research shows how the Conservatives are hoovering up Christian support The past six years have seen the old rules of British politics torn up. Identities such as ‘Tory’, ‘Labour’, ‘working class’ or ‘middle class’ have been replaced by ‘Remainer’ or ‘Brexiteer’ and voters are deserting their traditional parties. The Conservatives, once the party of choice for middle-class professionals, […]

Len McCluskey has been a large, often disruptive, figure in the Labour Party. With his departure, will his Unite union revert to its former, steadying role? Keir Starmer had a bit of good news this week, for a change. Not only is his most dangerous enemy, Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite trade union, […]

Mitch Benn told Labour leader Keir Starmer to be a little less stiff – but getting thrown out of a pub is taking matters too far… GEAR SHIFT OF THE WEEK Sir Keir Starmer, about whom, you may recall, I was complaining last week; specifically about how he’s taking so subtle and reserved an approach […]

The town’s by-election will be of immense significance for the Labour Party, but its fate is not an issue that is particularly troubling the locals. Outside a cafe near Hartlepool’s marina, Eve Parker, a student, and Stuart Bown, who works as a gravedigger for the council, are queueing for lunch. They are among a significant percentage of the public […]

The Tories are on course to face their worst defeat of a candidate for the London mayoral race since the office was created Polling shows Sadiq Khan is set to secure a second term as London mayor on May 6. He is easily beating his Conservative rival, Shaun Bailey, who looks likely to suffer the […]

Scottish Labour has announced plans to pay television licence fees or help cover broadband bills for the over-75s. Party leader Anas Sarwar said the “staying connected” policy would provide every household with people aged over 75 with the £159 cost of a TV licence. Free TV licences for all seniors ended in 2020 after the […]

A year into his leadership, being ‘not-Corbyn’ is not enough. The Labour leader has to be visibly ‘post-Boris’. Here is some advice for the leader of the Labour Party from an unexpected source: “It’s odd, the Keir Starmer thing: he’s articulate, intelligent, good in the Commons, lots of common sense. But, for some reason, he […]

Welsh Labour would not support holding a referendum on Welsh independence unless Plaid Cymru won a majority in the Senedd, leader Mark Drakeford has said. Plaid is committed to holding a referendum by 2026 if the party forms the next government in Cardiff Bay. But Drakeford, the Welsh Labour leader and current first minister, said […]

The London Labour party is considering making a formal complaint to the BBC and the head of the civil service about Boris Johnson’s verbal attack on Sadiq Khan during a government press conference on coronavirus. Johnson accused Khan of “blowing” Transport for London’s (TfL) finances through an “irresponsible fares policy” after he had left them […]

Public health budgets are effectively being cut or frozen in a host of areas where Covid-19 case rates are higher than the national average, according to Labour. The party said new pressure on public health spending, which has impacted 2021/22 budgets, will hit efforts to tackle the pandemic, especially in “red wall” areas of traditional […]

Labour must be ready to fight a general election in as little as two years, Sir Keir Starmer has warned as he promised bold action to “get Britain working again”. Sir Keir, who marks the first anniversary of his election as party leader, said Labour’s ambition “must match the moment” with a plan to build […]

Keir Starmer has claimed that there is a ‘British sense’ that would reject using vaccine passports if the coronavirus is brought properly under control. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, the Labour leader indicated that there could be opposition to the idea amongst the public if death rates are near zero and hospital admissions […]

Labour has ratcheted up pressure on Boris Johnson over the £200,000 renovation of his Downing Street flat by calling on the Electoral Commission to launch an investigation into the funding. Cat Smith, a shadow cabinet office minister, instructed solicitors at Edwards Duthie Shamash to write to the Electoral Commission. In a letter sent by the […]

A former senior Labour staffer is one of 21 people suing the party for libel over a leaked internal report into the handling of allegations of anti-Semitism. An 860-page report on Labour’s governance and legal unit, which found “no evidence” of anti-Semitism being handled differently from other complaints, was leaked in April last year. The […]

The Labour Party has lost a last-minute bid to have Anas Sarwar’s name included on ballot papers for the Scottish election. The party took legal action against the Electoral Commission over what it said was the refusal to allow the slogan “Anas Sarwar – Labour’s National Recovery Plan” to be on regional list ballots for […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he was “disappointed” by the findings of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities’ report published so far. Tony Sewell, who is chairman of the Commission, said while there was anecdotal evidence of racism, denied there was any proof that it was structural. But the leader of the […]