# data[].attributes.body
A major transport plan brought in to increase efficiency of transport to the north, is to be scrapped. A lot of funding and resources that may not ever be used. I wonder how this would go down with the electorate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
And there we have it. After all the talk of shiny new transport infrastructure, the Tory conference delegates are heading home - with today's train strike to contend with.

We'll be off soon too (we'll take our neglected lukewarm cups of tea with us). But there's plenty more for you - whether you just want the headlines, or all the juicy details.

We've got:

Six key takeaways from Sunak's speech here

Analysis from our political editor Chris Mason here

The main stories on the HS2 news here, gradual smoking ban here and new qualifications here

Fact-checking from BBC Verify on everything from taxing meat to inflation here

Want to chew over the details and gossip further? Newscast will drop on BBC Sounds later here.

We will of course be back next week for the Laour Party conference, which kicks on Sunday in Liverpool.

But from all of us in Manchester, and in London, thanks for joining us and have a lovely evening.

Iain Watson

Reporting from Manchester

This was Rishi Sunak's first conference as PM.

While rank and file representatives queued from first thing to hear his speech, some attendees at least may have been open to the possibility it could be his last.

There was something of an appetite to sample the political menu on offer from some of those touted as potential successors should the party lose power next year - with a queue, too, to gain access to Suella Braverman's conference speech where she warned of a 'hurricane' of immigration.

Kemi Badenoch also attracted a large crowd at a fringe event and of course the person the party members actually voted for as leader - Liz Truss - rather unhelpfully played to a full house on the fringe too, calling for the tax cuts Rishi Sunak can't quite promise yet.

So was it a good conference for the PM? It was better than some feared but not quite as smooth as some had been predicting.

The central problem was one of communication.

He wanted to give context to his decision to axe HS2 phase two and therefore save the announcment for his speech today, but that meant questions about its future overshadowed the preceding days and gave a platform to his critics.

The speech itself was not short of substance - with sharper dividing lines with Labour and quite a few with some in his own party .

One MP privately warned of civil war over his proposal (albeit on a free vote) to slowly but surely make smoking illegal.

His difficulty is in convincing voters he is the candidate offering change rather than continuity come the next election.

A fringe meeting featuring Theresa May's old pollster James Johnson unveiled findings from focus groups - with one sceptical voter wondering why he wanted credit for bringing inflation down, when it was on his party's watch that it had gone up...

Blinked and missed it all? Don't worry, we'll get you up to (high) speed in no time:
HS2
Sunak scrapped part of the high speed rail line from the West Midlands to Manchester, saying the project had come from a "false consensus" that links between big cities were "all that matters".

Instead, he said the government would invest in road, rail, and tram projects across the country.

The decision has angered some, including local leaders, such as Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, businesses in Manchester and former PM David Cameron. You can read more here.
Smoking ban
The prime minister said the age at which people can buy cigarettes and tobacco in England should rise by one year every year so that eventually no-one can buy them. He says he'd let MPs vote how they like on any new law.

It would mean a child aged 14 today would never be allowed to by tobacco. Our health correspondent Nick Triggle has the story.
Replacing A-levels
A-levels and T-levels will be replaced by a new qualification for all school leavers in England - it's a long-term plan that won't affect anyone currently at secondary school.

Students would be able to combine both academic and vocational elements, with typically three major and two minor aspects including maths and English. Our education team have written it up here.
Plus a bit of bonus content...
Turns out Sunak is a fan of rom-coms - the cheesier the better. That's according to his wife, who made a surprise appearance to introduce him at the conference.

Brian Wheeler

Reporting from Manchester

As the last stragglers depart Manchester's Tory Party conference, let's look back at who had a good time - and a not-so-good time - this week.
Good conference:

Suella Braverman: In a week of pretty lacklustre speeches in the main hall, there was a real buzz about the home secretary's appearance. Extremely self-assured, it was the performance of someone auditioning to be the next leader of the party.

Nigel Farage: Partying with top Tories, posing for selfies with adoring activists, being talked up as a future leader if he ever returns to the fold - it's fair to say the former Ukip leader's first Tory conference in nearly four decades went pretty well.

Bad conference:

Transport ministers - HS2 dominated this conference, as Rishi Sunak refused to confirm what everyone knew about his decision to scrap much of the project.

Pity poor Mark Harper, then, the secretary of state for transport, who made a speech to a half empty hall on Monday in which he mentioned the high speed rail line just once.

Huw Merriman, the minister notionally responsible for HS2, had an even more miserable time, avoiding questions about the future of the project at fringe meetings and from journalists eager for some kind of steer on what the PM was up to.

Although Sunak confirmed earlier that the HS2 rail project would travel all the way to Euston station in London (as originally planned), a new government document makes clear that the plan for Euston itself has been scaled back.

The Department for Transport (DfT) document shows that the number of platforms for high-speed trains at the terminus has been cut from 11 to six

A planned pedestrian tunnel linking Euston with the nearby (but separate) Euston Square tube station has been axed

The plan was attacked as being "totally unambitious" by railway consultant William Barter.

The DfT document stated: "We are going to strip back the project and deliver a station that works, and that can be open and running trains as soon as possible, and which has the leadership in place to deliver maximum value to the taxpayer."

NJ Convery

Reporting from Bradford Interchange station

I've been down at Bradford Interchange - the city's main railway station - speaking to passengers about the PM's announcement cancelling HS2 and promising more investment in northern rail and roads.

While most people I spoke to were excited about the offer of new infrastructure in the region, there was scepticism about whether the plans could or would be delivered. A new Bradford station has been announced previously but locals here will be hoping that Rishi Sunak's speech today will guarantee it now goes ahead.

Utter nonsense again. It's spending the taxpayers' money, promising things and not delivering' as they've done for the last 13 years... Most other countries have got a high-speed rail network but we don't and our government can't seem to organise it."

Fiona Nun, Halifax

What we need (is) a new project which will cut time when travelling to different places. Driving down to Manchester takes at least 40-50 mins depending on traffic, so if we've got other means that will take us less time then I'd probably go on the train."

Nadeem Rafiq, Bradford

In our latest 5 Minutes On Podcast, the BBC's political correspondent Damian Grammaticas guides us through and offers analysis on what's been billed as Rishi Sunak's biggest speech since he became prime minister.

Rishi Sunak said earlier that despite cancelling the second phase of HS2, the government could provide "quicker trains and more capacity between Birmingham and Manchester".

But that appears to be at odds with the conclusions of the government's Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands from 2021.

On the question of quicker trains - between Birmingham and Manchester - it said: "No improvement is possible without additional track capacity into Manchester, given the need to serve intermediate towns as well."

On the question of capacity it said: "Only when a new line and new platforms at Manchester Piccadilly are built can more services... be accommodated".

We know there is not going to be a new line. We have asked the government if it is still planning to build longer platforms at Manchester Piccadilly for the HS2 trains.

A man who says he was forced to sell his house by HS2 said the failed project has "destroyed his life".

Roly Bardsley learned his home in Stanthorne, Cheshire, was affected by the planned route when he received a letter containing a map of the line.

After being denied a compulsory purchase order, the 59-year-old said he had "lost everything".

"I tried to sell it and estate agents laughed at me. It was blighted forever," he said.

The BBC has contacted the Department of Transport for comment.

Environmental and wildlife groups have given their own cautious welcome to the PM's announcement about cancelling "the rest of the HS2 project".

The Wildlife Trusts said the route's northern leg would have destroyed "nearly 190 hectares of woodland, hundreds of kilometres of watercourses and thousands of hedgerows."

But Joan Edwards, the Trusts' director of policy and public affairs, said the environmental damage of the London to Birmingham route was still "profound" and called for its design to now be modified.

Richard Benwell, CEO of coalition group Wildlife and Countryside Link, said the government needed to learn lessons for future infrastructure projects and that the rest of the prime minister's speech had "been silent" on investment for nature and climate.

"A leader's speech without a plan for environmental improvement has a massive hole at its heart," he said.

As well as those opposing the prime minister on the HS2 question, it's worth a reminder that plenty of others have endorsed his decision to chop the northernmost part of the rail scheme.

Cllr Jamie Stephenson, the leader of Madeley Parish Council in Staffordshire, said landowners who'd been forced to move out of the area to make way for rail lines would be "relieved" to hear of the cancellation - but added that they needed compensation.

Conference delegates reacted enthusiastically. Jane MacBean - a Tory councillor - told the BBC she was glad Sunak was "able to make the tough decisions". Another party member, Jonathan Rowlands, said the move was "pragmatic" after the Covid pandemic.

And the Stop HS2 campaign welcomed the development, saying Sunak had realised there was "no business case, no environmental case and no money to pay for HS2".

Erica Witherington

Reporting from Manchester Piccadilly

At Manchester Piccadilly this morning, I spoke to two ladies from nearby Stalybridge about the plans to scrap the Manchester HS2 link.

"I don't go to London a lot," one tells me. "So personally I just think it's an awful lot of money to spend for what you're saving on your journey to London - half an hour?"

I ask if they would prefer the money spent on local transport.

"Certainly," came the reply.

During his speech, Sunak described HS2 as "a project whose costs have more than doubled".

A lot of that money has been already spent on the parts of the project that have now been cancelled. Let's look at how much...

Some £300m was spent on the cancelled sections from Birmingham to Crewe and then on to Manchester in 2022-23, taking the total amount spent so far on that cancelled section to £1.6bn.

Another £700m has been spent on the sections from the West Midlands to East Midlands Parkway in Nottinghamshire, which is now being scrapped, and the West Midlands to Leeds line, which was cancelled in 2021.

That takes the total spent on cancelled sections to £2.3bn.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rishi Sunak speech: PM scraps rest of HS2 and says A-levels will be replaced - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In his first speech as PM to the Conservative Party conference, he also proposes trying to create a "smoke-free generation".

# data[].attributes.headline
candidate for US presidential election beliefs (republican) 

# data[].attributes.subject
candidate for US presidential election beliefs (republican) 

# data[].attributes.body
Vivek wants
1. to ban social media use of anyone under the age of 16
2. The H-1B visa programme should end (the programme that allows foreign skilled workers to work in the US for 6 years)
3. raise the voting age from 18 to 25 (anyone that is 18 can vote only after taking the same test one has to complete to become a US citizen)
4. ukraine should make concessions (vivek doesn't believe anymore weapons should be supplied to ukraine as it will drive russia into chinas hands... the Russian and Chinese alliance is the biggest threat to US military)
5. there should be no national abortion ban

(Mr Ramaswamy does not support a federal ban on abortion because, in his words, "the federal government should stay out of it".)
6. The FBI should be abolished

(put forward plans to scrap a number of federal departments including the Department of Education, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI.

"In many cases, these agencies are redundant relative to functions that are already performed elsewhere in the federal government," he told NBC News.

the FBI's funding would be distributed instead to the Secret Service, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Defense Intelligence Agency.)
7. the govt have told lies about 9/11
(vivek has made comments he has denied about this beleif but there was radio proof that the quotes were correctly interpreted

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Vivek Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old biotech multi-millionaire running for US president, has said he wants to ban "addictive" social media for children.

"If you're 16 years old or under, you should not be using an addictive social media product," he said at the second debate between Republican candidates.

With no previous experience of political office, he has positioned himself as an outsider willing to develop former President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda with his own personal spin.

That includes some unconventional proposals on everything from abolishing the FBI to ending the war in Ukraine. Here are seven things he believes.

Mr Ramaswamy has criticised social media platforms and described their products as addictive. He even recently called TikTok "digital fentanyl".

"I worry about the impact that it has on 12 or 13-year-olds that are using this product that they probably shouldn't be," he said.

And during the second Republican debate, he called for a ban on children using the platforms in order to, among other things, "revive... the mental health of this country".

"This isn't a Republican point or a Democrat point," he said.

Mr Ramaswamy, however, has been criticised by his Republican opponents for joining TikTok himself just days after he labelled it "digital fentanyl".

In response, he said the move was an attempt to reach younger voters.

Mr Ramaswamy said he wants to "gut" the H-1B visa system, which is used by employers to hire skilled foreign workers in the US.

The visa is open to people with specialised skills and education and is tied to a job offer. It allows foreign employees to live and work in the US for up to six years, after which it can be renewed.

It is also incredibly popular: for 2024, US businesses have already submitted 780,000 visa applications.

In a recent statement, Mr Ramaswamy said the visa is "a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company," and that it needs to be replaced by "meritocratic admission".

Mr Ramaswamy has come under fire for these comments, particularly because he used the same programme to hire workers for his pharmaceutical company, Roivant Sciences.

When asked about this, Mr Ramaswamy said his company played by the current rules of government, and he would reform the visa programme if elected.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services website shows Roivant Sciences has applied for at least 12 visas under the H-1B programme since 2018.

Mr Ramaswamy has voiced support for raising the voting age to 25.

But under his proposal, those over 18 would be able to vote if they meet a "national service requirement", either by being an emergency first responder or by serving for at least six months in the military.

"We must think ambitiously about reviving civic duty in America," he said earlier this year.

He suggested that those over 18 would also be able to vote if they pass the same test given to those seeking US citizenship.

"I understand not everyone will like this proposal and that it will take persuasion to convince many of its merits, but I'm ready to take that on," he said.

Raising the voting age would require changing the US Constitution, meaning, among other things, that two-thirds of Congress would need to approve the measure.

In a departure from most Western sentiment on the war, Mr Ramaswamy has called for Ukraine to make "major concessions" in order to end the conflict.

"What I think we need to do is end the Ukraine war on peaceful terms that, yes, do make some major concessions to Russia, including freezing those current lines of control in a Korean-war style armistice agreement," he told ABC News in June.

He believes the "number one threat to the US military" is the Chinese-Russian alliance, and so called for "a permanent commitment not to allow Ukraine to enter Nato. But in return, Russia has to leave its treaty and its joint military agreement with China".

Mr Ramaswamy opposes sending aid to Kyiv and instead believes the president should focus on American interests.

"I think that by fighting further in Russia, by further arming Ukraine, we are driving Russia into China's hands." he said.

Mr Ramaswamy does not support a federal ban on abortion because, in his words, "the federal government should stay out of it".

He has supported six-week bans on the procedure at state level, however, and described himself as "unapologetically pro-life".

"If murder laws are handled at the state level, and abortion is a form of murder, the pro-life view, then it makes no sense for that to be the one federal law," he told CNN.

Mr Ramaswamy has put forward plans to scrap a number of federal departments including the Department of Education, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI.

"In many cases, these agencies are redundant relative to functions that are already performed elsewhere in the federal government," he told NBC News.

He has proposed a reorganisation in which the FBI's funding would be distributed instead to the Secret Service, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Former President Donald Trump, the current frontrunner to win the Republican nomination, has repeatedly attacked the FBI as being part of a "witch hunt" against him.

And a Fox News poll in June showed public confidence in America's top law enforcement agency had eroded from 80% in 2017 to 59%, mostly among Republicans.

Mr Ramaswamy has been widely criticised for remarks he made about the 9/11 attacks in an interview with The Atlantic magazine.

"It is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers," he said.

"Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero," he continued. "But if we're doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened... absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to."

An official bipartisan commission, in a final report published in 2004, established the events of 9/11 and found no evidence of a government plot.

Mr Ramaswamy later said he had been misquoted by the magazine, telling CNN: "The truth is there are lies the government has told about 9/11. But it's not the ones that somebody put in my mouth."

The Atlantic then published audio which showed his comments had been accurately transcribed.

(With additional reporting from Nadine Yousif)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Vivek Ramaswamy: Seven things Republican presidential candidate believes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Republican candidate for president, 38, has suggested abolishing the FBI and raising the voting age.

# data[].attributes.body
A Ukranian man that had fought in a nazi unit was applauded by parliament, the prime minister of Canada apologised. The images of the applause have been exploited by russia for propaganda

speaker Anthony Rota, who has assumed responsibility for inviting Yaroslav Hunka, 98, resigned on Tuesday.

Mr Poilievre (leader of the conservative party in canada) called the incident the "biggest single diplomatic embarrassment" in Canada's history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Justin Trudeau apologises after Nazi veteran honoured in parliament

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The prime minister says it was a mistake that “deeply embarrassed parliament and Canada”.

# data[].attributes.body
Very interesting article which talks about the influence of Murdoch in politics through his media power particularly over the 1992 Labour defeat.
- Very useful when looking at rule of media in general elections
- Article argues may be the end of such major power in the hands of media.
- Article also says could be a time of transition where parties try to get Murdoch on their side.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Press play to listen to this article

LONDON - One of the most powerful people in British politics is leaving a media vacuum.

Newspaper and TV baron Rupert Murdoch struck fear and awe into the hearts of political leaders in London from the 1970s onwards. But his departure as chair of News Corporation - which owns the Times and Sun newspapers plus Times Radio and TalkTV in the U.K. - could fundamentally change the relationship between politics and the press.

Some argue Murdoch was a one-off, the likes of whom will never be seen again in a changed media landscape. "If Murdoch was starting out again now, I just don't think he would rise to the influence he was able to build then," said Peter Mandelson, a former Cabinet minister who was instrumental to the New Labour project thatcourted the Australian.

Others argue the change in leadership could spark major change in a media-obsessed Westminster. "When there is a handover of power, that is often the moment at which things reset," said Craig Oliver, who headed up communications in No. 10 Downing Street for David Cameron. The handover, announced Thursday, will see Murdoch's son Lachlan take his father's role at the global News Corporation and Fox Corporation brands - although Murdoch will remain in the background as "chairman emeritus" of the business.

Still others expect more of the same under Lachlan. "Congratulations to Rupert Murdoch for pulling off a seamless transition within the family's global media empire - something no U.K. political leader has ever achieved at Number 10," quipped Tom Watson, a former Labour deputy leader who battled with Murdoch amid a scandal of tabloid hacking of private voicemails. Watson added: "It's the son what won it."

That's a reference to the infamous "Sun wot won it" headline, splashed across the Sun's front page after Labour leader Neil Kinnock - who failed to gain the backing of the top-selling tabloid - lost the general election in 1992.

Whether the Sun and other Murdoch titles really ever did, or still do, have such influence on British politics is up for debate - but there's no doubt the proprietor acted like it. Murdoch was in and out of No. 10 over the decades, rubbing shoulders with prime ministers and seeking to pull strings in British politics.

'Don't upset Rupert'

After that 1992 loss, the New Labour project wanted to avoid again becoming the target of the right wing-press Kinnock was. Tony Blair and his spin doctor Alastair Campbell were desperate to court Murdoch - as was Chancellor Gordon Brown who would succeed Blair as prime minister.

"There was a fairly strong maxim of government which was 'don't upset Rupert,'" said Mandelson. "Upsetting Rupert was definitely a no-go area."

Mandelson recalled one night when Brown as prime minister was grappling with a Cabinet reshuffle. The phone in Downing Street rang and he heard Brown referring to the caller as James. Mandelson assumed it was James Murdoch, another of Murdoch's sons - although it turned out to be Cabinet minister James Purnell, calling to inform Brown he was quitting. Mandelson said that assumption illustrated "how uppermost in our minds was the likelihood of the Murdoch press deserting us."

Oliver said Cameron had a "strained" relationship with Murdoch, who thought the then-Conservative leader, who went on to become prime minister, was too much a member of the liberal establishment. He also hated Cameron's stance against Brexit.

But Murdoch was a staunch conservative, and so would back the Tories by default wherever possible, in particular when they were on course to win. His newspapers would be clear in their coverage about his interests - and would kick off about plans he didn't like.

"They managed to get a real grip of British journalism and changed it profoundly, so it became a much more binary, aggressive campaigning thing," said Oliver. "It was certainly made clear that they understood their power and were prepared to utilize it if they felt there was something that was needed or necessary to change."

Former Murdoch newsroom staffers tell of how the boss would fly in ahead of an election and sit in the Sun's morning news conferences, "not saying anything." Come election night, his "legendary" parties upstairs would keep some execs detained past the exit poll - if the result was going the right way.

"There was definitely a feeling everyone was more focused with him around," quipped one,who spoke anonymously to freely discuss their workplace. "You were definitely aware when he was in London and that he would be scrutinizing what we were writing," said another, although the person added they were never told the boss wanted specific stories.

"Contrary to what many people believe, he never interfered," John Witherow, former editor of the Times and the Sunday Times, told Times Radio on Friday. "He never told us what to do. We decided what to do because he trusted us and we had to do what the readers wanted, essentially. He knew newspapers had to service the readers, and he knew that he couldn't interfere on these matters. Indeed he didn't want it. He just let us get on with it."

'Poisonous'

Others say Murdoch newsrooms featured a network of informers who would gather intelligence and feed it back to the boss - something that weakenedafterthe phone hacking scandal.

Politicians who didn't win Murdoch's approval soon knew about it. Oliver recalled seeing then Labour-leader Ed Miliband looking for a chance to chat with Murdoch at one of the newshound's parties at the upmarket Orangery Restaurant garden next to Kensington Palace. By then, the phone hacking scandal was in full swing - and days later Miliband was in the Commons attacking Murdoch. The Sun pilloried the Labour leader - in particular over an unedifying shot of him eating a bacon sandwich.

Jeremy Corbyn, who followed Miliband as Labour leader, never bothered to court Murdoch - although he did deal with his journalists. The far-left Corbyn project saw itself as antithetical to Murdoch's interests.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, who served as Corbyn's press secretary, claimed one Sun hack laughed in his face when he argued taking energy firms into public ownership would reduce household bills. "They are a campaigning newspaper for vested interests and cannot be treated in good faith," said Zarb-Cousin.

James Schneider, who also headed up comms for Corbyn, said Murdoch had been "a profoundly poisonous influence on British public life, adding: "A free media is necessary for a free society. But we don't have one."

Corbyn's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell added: "Murdoch dragged journalism and politics into the gutter where truth and basic journalistic standards were rendered irrelevant. He debased the quality of political discourse in this country."

End of an era?

The good news for the left is that many in Westminster believe the era of the powerful press barons is over - with the explosion of new media outlets and social media.

"Murdoch was a massive political force, no doubt about that. But the influence of mainstream media and newspapers in particular is weakening," said Mandelson. "There are now many more news sources, not necessarily more reliable ones unfortunately, and the public's trust in most of them has fallen."

"I think we've grown out of press barons - individuals who use media power to lay down the law about politics," Mandelson added. "People are not so accepting of powerful individuals lording it over the electorate in the way that Murdoch and others were able to do."

But the right wing press in Britain does still have influence - and tries its best to wield it against the people and policies it doesn't like.

Indeed, Labour leader Keir Starmer - hoping to oust the Conservatives at a general election expected next year - sought a one-to-one with Murdoch at the media boss's June summer party in London. And when Murdoch was last in town he had private meetings with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

Even if the media landscape is shifting, Britain's politicians will already be straining to work out where Lachlan sits - unsure of whether he will want to exert the same level of influence in the U.K. or even take the same level of interest in politics as his powerful father. Some believe little will change while Murdoch senior looms in the background.

Whether the new era of weakened media barons and the rise of social media is better than what came before it is another question.

Oliver said politicians will always prefer to have powerful people batting for them - and argued the permanent campaign dynamic of social media, coupled with the division and disinformation of online platforms, is not particularly helpful for those trying to govern.

But, he added, "having massive figures that bestride the landscape and dominate isn't particularly healthy either."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rupert Murdoch dominated UK politics. He may be the last of his kind

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'Upsetting Rupert was definitely a no-go area,' says Labour grandee Peter Mandelson - as experts mull what comes next.

# data[].attributes.headline
New Oil Reserves approved in UK waters. 

# data[].attributes.subject
New Oil Reserves approved in UK waters. 

# data[].attributes.body
An interesting move from the UK government. This may not help contribute to the net zero targets that Sunak recently mentioned. Perhaps he moved back the targets with this in mind...
Though this will help with energy security within the UK, and should also help raise funds for the Government

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rosebank oil field: Will it mean cheaper energy bills?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Regulators have approved the development of a controversial oil field in the North Sea.

# data[].attributes.headline
UN human rights- British bill of rights?

# data[].attributes.subject
UN human rights- British bill of rights?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
n March last year, I stood on the station platform in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv in the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion of that country, witnessing a huge refugee movement. Millions were on the move. It was a profoundly shocking and moving moment and one that, sadly, I have witnessed too many times in my career.

As families struggled to board the few trains leaving for Poland, men - forbidden from leaving - kissed children and hugged wives, uncertain of what the future might bring.

I've travelled that train line a lot in the intervening period of the war. Now, however, the story is a different one. The flows have reversed, with many Ukrainians returning to areas they have decided are safer.

The dynamics of refugee movement are complex. Most of the time, most people do not want to leave their homes. Some choose to stay despite real threats to their safety. Others leave and immediately regret it. Some seek to make new lives, feeling they have reached a point of no return.

The refugee experience is dynamic. It is not static. That people might become refugees does not mean they will. That they are currently refugees does not mean they will remain so.

All of which is important to understand amid the dishonest claims being pushed by home secretary, Suella Braverman, and her allies over the definition of what a refugee should be, suggesting 780 million people could fall under the vague rubric they see of being eligible to seek asylum, under threats including those related to gender and sexuality.

The reality is that the dubious figure of 780 million, proposed last year by the former Downing Street chief of staff Nick Timothy and co-author Karl Williams in a paper for the rightwing Centre of Policy Studies, is essentially meaningless, and designed to be alarmist.

Who hosts these refugees? Not Britain. A third are hosted by just five countries: Turkey, Germany, Iran, Colombia and Pakistan

Because 780 million people could, theoretically, become refugees, it does not mean they will, or even that their status would be permanent. As a useful point of comparison, the global number of forcibly displaced people - according to the UN high commissioner for refugees - is at present 110 million.

Of those, however, the vast majority - 62.5 million - are internally displaced. Refugees in other countries account for 35.3 million. Just over 5 million people globally are asylum seekers.

And who hosts these refugees, covered by the UNHCR mandate? It is certainly not Britain. More than a third are hosted by just five countries - Turkey, Germany, Iran, Colombia and Pakistan. Three-quarters are hosted in low- and middle- income countries, and 70% by neighbouring countries.

That 780 million, seen in this light, is nothing more than a bogus figure being pushed in pursuit of a grubby and cruel argument. Braverman and her supporters' mooted reform of the 1951 refugee convention is based on straw-man arguments, cooked up to justify her own hard-right populist position on migration.

What exactly does Braverman want to unpick? The 1951 convention was a milestone in humanitarian law. Drawn up close to the end of the second world war, which saw vast refugee displacements, it provided a single, legal and universal definition of what it meant to be a refugee, as well as significant rights, including non-discrimination.

It also included the key principle of non-refoulement: the guarantee that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.

For Braverman, however, the refugee convention is not to be celebrated for the humanitarian protections that it offers but to be criticised for driving "illegal migration". For while the figure of 780 million has been deployed as deliberately eye-catching, it is a subtext to Braverman's more pernicious central argument: her refusal to recognise that some of those crossing the Channel might qualify as refugees under the convention's definition.

Braverman would do this by weakening the central thrust of the convention that defines the refugee condition as having a "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" to suggest that some seeking refugee status were simply facing "discrimination" and not worthy of asylum.

While it seems unlikely that Braverman will find much of a serious international audience for her ideas, her speech marks the latest concerning coarsening of the terms of the debate in the UK around migration and refugees by attacking a key pillar of humanitarianism in pursuit of headlines.

That Braverman should be making this argument even as thousands of Armenians are fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh speaks volumes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grubby, cruel and cheap: Suella Braverman stoops low with her bogus refugee figures

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The home secretary is attacking a key pillar of postwar humanitarian law in pursuit of eye-catching headlines. Instead, the 1951 refugee convention should be celebrated

# data[].attributes.headline
Channel migrant numbers top 15,000 as government cracks down on social media adverts

# data[].attributes.subject
Channel migrant numbers top 15,000 as government cracks down on social media adverts

# data[].attributes.body
the government has reported that the number of emigrants coming into the UK on life rafts have crossed 15,000. and have joined with social media companies to try and help stop advising fro this method of entry into the country.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Channel migrant numbers top 15,000 as government cracks down on social media adverts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As 15,000 people cross the Channel in 2023, the government wants to stop gangs using social media.

# data[].attributes.body
A summary of the PM's speech and some of the key points made. Most importantly, it makes an emphasis on moving away from the previous extreme green policies. Rishi is trying to gain the electorate back through scrapping these green policies. An attempt to gain the "silent majority".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Rishi Sunak has delivered a speech in which he set out changes to the government's green commitments.

This includes delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, as well as a promise not to move ahead with proposals for things including car-pooling and taxes on meat.

However, the prime minister insisted that he was committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 - this is where a country does not add any additional greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Here are some of key takeaways from his speech:

Mr Sunak said that people would still be able to buy new diesel and petrol vehicles until 2035 - a delay of five years on the previous plan, which set out to ban them by 2030.

He added that even after that, petrol and diesels cars would still be able to be sold second hand, saying a similar approach is being taken in countries such as Germany, France and Spain.

The prime minister said the change was being made to give people more time to make the transition to electric vehicles, saying the "upfront cost is still high".

"It should be you the consumer that makes that choice, not government forcing you to do it," he added.

However, he said that he still expects the "vast majority" of cars sold by 2030 to be electric, "because the costs are reducing, the range is improving, the charging infrastructure is growing".

Read more about net zero

What about boilers?

The speech also touched on the heating of homes, particularly efforts to transition from boilers to heat pumps, although there were no major policy changes in this area.

The government has set out an exemption to phase out fossil fuel boilers by 2035 - pushing it back from 2026. This is expected to cover about a fifth of homes.

Mr Sunak also announced an increase in grants to help those making the transition from boilers to heat pumps - this would rise from £5,000 to £7,500.

"There are no strings attached - the money will never need to be repaid," he said, adding that people would not be forced to make the change.

"We'll never force anyone to rip out their existing boiler and replace it with a heat pump," he said.

The prime minister also pledged to scrap policies that would force landlords to upgrade energy efficiency in their homes, but would "encourage" households to do so.

The old policy was that from 2025, new tenancies would only be possible on properties with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of C or higher - from 2028, this would apply to existing tenancies as well. Both have been scrapped.

An EPC shows how energy-efficient a building is, in relation to the amount of heat and light it uses, and gives scores ranging from A-G.

Mr Sunak also said his government would "continue to subsidise energy efficiency".

Net zero 2050 target remains

Despite the policy changes, Mr Sunak insists that the net zero target for 2050 would remain in place, but insisted that he wants to bring people along with him.

He called this "the only realistic path" to net zero, saying that people needed honesty and pragmatism.

"That's how we'll turn the challenge of net zero into the greatest opportunity - and the proudest achievement - of our lifetimes," he said.

He also confirmed he will attend COP28, which will take place in Dubai in late November and early December, where he promised to "set out the next stage in our ambitious environmental agenda".

And what about recycling?

Sunak also said that the debate around net zero has "thrown up a range of worrying proposals" that would never be approved under his government.

This included policies on car-pooling, which he promised to scrap, and also said he was scrapping a proposal that the government "should force you to have seven different bins in your home".

The prime minister also said he would scrap a proposal that meat should be taxed, saying this would force people to change their diets and "harm British farmers".

None of these proposals have previously been adopted, but had been discussed as potential policies that could help the UK reach its net zero targets.

Other proposals he said would be halted included taxes that "discourage flying or going on holiday", as well as a ban on new oil and gas in the North Sea - this "would simply leave us reliant on expensive, imported energy", he said.

Simon Clarke, a Conservative MP and former cabinet member, accused the prime minister of listing "a lot of straw men" that weren't ever government policy.

"Nobody serious in politics was talking about banning flying, taxing meat, etc," he said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rishi Sunak: Cars, boilers and net zero - key takeaways from PM's speech

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The PM announces changes to his green approach, but says 2050 net zero targets will still be met.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Michael Gove will appoint commissioners to run Birmingham council's finances

The commissioners are expected to sell off Birmingham's assets to raise funds

Michael Gove has outlined plans to appoint commissioners to take over Birmingham City Council and to launch a local inquiry into the authority's finances after it declared itself effectively bankrupt earlier this month.

The Leveling Up Secretary said he was 'satisfied that Birmingham City Council is failing to comply with its best value duty' after the local authority issued a Section 114 notice on September 5 due to being unable to pay a £760million equalities claim.

Mr Gove told MPs: 'In line with the Local Government Act 1999 therefore, I can announce that I am today writing to the council to set out my proposal to intervene and to appoint commissioners and that I intend to launch a local inquiry in due course.

'I do not take these decisions lightly, but it is imperative in order to protect the interests of the residents and taxpayers of Birmingham, and to provide ongoing assurance to the whole local government sector.'

Mr Gove pointed out in the Commons that as well as Britain's second city, mismanagement in Labour-run Sandwell and Liverpool had also led to Government interventions.

Labour's Angela Rayner had claimed the 'Conservatives' wrecking ball' was to blame for a string of local authorities effectively declaring themselves bankrupt.

Mr Gove replied: 'This intervention in Birmingham, like our intervention in Sandwell, like our intervention in Liverpool, have all been in Labour-led local authorities that have comprehensive mismanagement extending back over years.'

The new commissioners will run the council's financial affairs and are expected to sell off assets to balance Birmingham's books, with possible sales including the Library of Birmingham and the council's 18.7% stake in Birmingham airport.

The Alexander Stadium, which hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2022, could also be sold to raise funds.

The city's Grade II listed Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which holds the world's largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and the 50-year-old Sarehole Water Mill, which is near where Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien grew up, could also be up for sale.

The council may also be forced to sell off the Grade I listed Jacobean manor Aston Hall, which was first bought by the Birmingham Corporation in 1864, before the body became Birmingham City Council in 1986.

Mr Gove told MPs that Max Caller CBE, a former chief executive of the London boroughs of Hackney and Barnet, would lead the commission that takes over Birmingham City Council.

Mr Gove also said an inquiry would be launched to look into how Birmingham City Council had ended up in its current financial position.

He told MPs that the soon to be launched inquiry will examine the 'more fundamental questions around how Birmingham got to this position' and options for how it can become a 'sustainable council' in future.

'It is important that we all get to the bottom of how we found ourselves in this position and that is why as well as sending in commissioners, I'm also making it clear that we need a local inquiry which can look at all of the deep questions - including assessing the council's ongoing management of issues which were identified in the Kerslake review in 2014,' Gove said.

The cabinet minister explained that 'under the oversight of the commissioners' Birmingham City Council will be expected to 'prepare and agree an improvement plan within six months, which would set out the council's own plans to make the necessary improvements to the whole council to return it to a sustainable financial footing.'

Mr Gove said that 'some tough decisions' would need to be taken in Birmingham, but added the Government was 'prepared to extend additional financial support to the city'.

The decision to appoint commissioners has seen Birmingham council become the latest local authority to be taken over by central government, after Thurrock and Woking councils were both declared effectively bankrupt this year.

In a report published earlier today, Birmingham City Council warned its financial state means an urgent 'redesign' is necessary to balance its books.

This redesign could in turn see the local authority increase taxes and business rates, cut costs, and sell off assets, the report issued by council chief executive Deborah Cadman says.

Mr Gove's announcement comes after Birmingham City Council declared itself effectively bankrupt on September 5, due to lacking sufficient resources to pay a £760million equalities claim.

The £760million bill, which is currently accruing at rates of between £5million and £14million a month came after the council was ordered to pay compensation to staff following claims it had paid female workers less the male workers.

Costly efforts to install the Oracle ERP financial reporting software on Birmingham council's IT systems were also blamed for the local authority's financial state.

The failed bid saw Birmingham City Council forced to spend £46.53million to fix 'urgent' issues with its IT systems in June 2023, as it estimated the total cost of overhauling the system would be in the region of £100million.

Councillors blamed the situation on 'long-standing issues' including 'huge increases in adult social care demand... dramatic reductions in business rates... rampant inflation' and central government cuts.

Birmingham City Council has been forced to cut its costs by £1billion since 2010 due to reduced funding from the UK's central government.

The local authority in turn announced that all new spending would stop immediately, with the exception of those statutory services and those that protect vulnerable people.

John Cotton, the leader of Birmingham City Council welcomed Mr Gove's announcement, and described it as an 'important step' to get the council's budget back on track.

He added: 'Although this is a challenging time, and comes after a decade of cuts totalling £1 billion, we will make the tough decisions needed to transform the council, restore financial sustainability, and deliver the services that the people of Birmingham deserve.

'A report outlining elements of our initial response will be considered and discussed by full council on Monday September 25 and we will continue to be on the side of our residents as we build a better Birmingham.'

Shaun Davies, chairman of the Local Government Association, urged the Government to come up with a long-term plan to help other councils at risk of financial ruin.

He said: 'Councils in England face a funding gap of almost £3 billion over the next two years, at the very least.

'None are immune to the risk of running into financial difficulty and others have already warned of being close to also having to issue Section 114 notices themselves.'

Trade union Unite, meanwhile, warned it would fight any attempt to cut jobs of its members at the council ahead of the commissioners' takeover.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: 'No one should be under any illusion, Unite will never sit back and allow our Birmingham city council members' jobs to be sacrificed to pay for others' failures.

'If there is any attempt to cut the jobs, pay or conditions of our members, Unite will fight those proposals using every resource available to the union.'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Birmingham City Council will be taken over by commissioners

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Communities Secretary said he was 'satisfied that Birmingham City Council is failing to comply with its best value duty' after it issued a Section 114 notice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The UK government's block on Scottish gender recognition reforms is unlawful, Scotland's top law officer has said.

The Scottish government is seeking to overturn the veto at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain said the court had a "constitutional duty" to review the unprecedented use of a Section 35 Order by Downing Street.

The UK government has raised concerns about the impact of the legislation on Britain-wide equality laws.

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which would allow people in Scotland to self-identify their sex, was passed by the Scottish Parliament in December last year.

But for first time since the creation of the devolved parliament, the UK government used Section 35 of the Scotland Act to prevent a bill receiving royal assent.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack raised concerns that it would affect the 2010 Equality Act, which applies in Scotland, England and Wales.

It sets out different "protected characteristics" including those of sex and gender reassignment, and underpins the rights and protections afforded to these groups.

The civil case at the Court of Session, which is being heard by Lady Haldane, began on Tuesday and will last several days. If the result is appealed, it could ultimately be heard in the Supreme Court in London.

Ms Bain, representing the Scottish government, said conditions required to use a Section 35 Order had not been met, meaning its use was unlawful.

She told the court the case did not concern the "merits of the bill", which was passed by 86 votes to 39 at Holyrood, nor the Scottish secretary's opinion on it.

The Lord Advocate warned that if the UK government was successful, Westminster "could veto practically any act of the Scottish Parliament having an impact on reserved matters because he disagreed with it on policy grounds".

She added: "That would be tantamount to the Scottish Parliament being able to legislate only insofar as the UK executive consented."

Ms Bain argued such an approach would contradict the "overarching" purpose of the Scotland Act.

'Errors of law'

The court heard that a Section 35 Order was designed to be "narrowly construed" and "tightly controlled" and should only be used in very specific circumstances as a "last resort".

Ms Bain raised questions about the timing of the UK government's intervention, four weeks after the bill was passed in the Scottish Parliament.

She argued Mr Jack made two "material errors of law" - namely that nothing in the bill makes modification of the law as it applies to reserved matters, nor does it have an "adverse effect" on the operation of the law as it applies to reserved matters.

The Lord Advocate told the court that because the bill only changed the process for getting a gender recognition certificate, not the actual effect of the certificate itself, there was no impact on equalities laws.

She said the reasons given by the UK government for using the Section 35 Order were "insufficient in law".

Mr Jack's suggestions that the bill would have "adverse effects" on reserved matters, Ms Bain argued, were "either unfounded, too speculative or hypothetical or insufficiently cogent and material to justify the exceptional step of making the order".

She described complaints about divergence between Scottish law and laws in other parts of the UK as irrelevant, pointing out that gender recognition is devolved to Holyrood.

The Lord Advocate told the court Westminster had long established that divergence is acceptable and characterised Mr Jack's argument as irrational.

And she described concerns that the legislation would lead to an increase in fraudulent applications for gender recognition certificates as an "irrelevant consideration" that did not relate to reserved matters and was not based on "credible evidence".

Ms Bain accused Mr Jack of presenting a "partisan" case against the reforms, ignoring arguments in favour of it and failing to take "reasonable steps" to understand relevant information.

Westminster argument

David Johnston KC, who is acting for the UK government, urged the court to reject the Scottish government's petition.

He said it was not Mr Jack's "duty" to scrutinise the bill as MSPs do, but to "protect the interests of the United Kingdom if he identifies adverse effects on the operation of law as it applies to reserved matters".

The lawyer described Section 35 as "integral to the constitutional distribution of power in the Scotland Act". He said it was "express recognition" that devolved bills could have an adverse effect on the operation of reserved law and that the UK government should have limited power to intervene if that happens.

Mr Johnston will be given further time to set out the UK government's case on Wednesday.

The UK government's objections to the reforms are largely based on concerns about how the 2004 Gender Recognition Act - which set up the certification process which is being reformed - interacts with the Equality Act.

The UK government argues it is "highly problematic" to have two different gender recognition systems within the UK.

It cites several potential issues, including with single-sex organisations, schools and tax rules.

The reforms would see applications for a gender recognition certificate handled by Scottish registrars, rather than a UK panel, and would remove the need to obtain medical reports with a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

The plans would also cut the amount of time applicants need to have lived in their acquired gender from two years to a matter of months, and cut the age at which people can apply to 16.

The UK government claims making the gender recognition process easier could "significantly" increase the risk of fraudulent applications from those with "malicious intent", which could lead to people "no longer feeling safe in any sex-segregated setting and self-excluding from such settings even though they could significantly benefit from them".

For nearly 500 years the Court of Session has considered the thorniest and weightiest matters of the moment.

There can hardly be a more fundamental issue than what it means to be a man or a woman.

Judge Lady Haldane, in civilian attire rather than robe and wig as this is a civil not a criminal case, is familiar with the topic, having issued a hotly-debated ruling about the definition of sex last year.

But the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC, representing the Scottish government, says these proceedings are different.

The court, she says, is not being asked to rule on whether changes to gender law approved by Holyrood "could or should have been different or better."

Rather, argues Ms Bain, the issue is whether or not the Scottish Secretary Alister Jack overstepped his constitutional authority in deciding to block the bill.

She argues that he did. The UK government obviously disagrees, as we will hear from its counsel, David Johnston KC, in the coming days.

But whatever happens here, in the airy, wood-panelled courtroom number one of Edinburgh's Parliament House, is unlikely to be the end of the matter.

An appeal to a panel of three judges in what is known as the Inner House of the Court of Session may well follow.

And, given that the case hinges on the unprecedented use of a provision of the Scotland Act which established devolution, it would be odd indeed if it did not end up before the UK Supreme Court in London.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
UK block on Scottish gender reforms unlawful, court hears

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A court battle between the Scottish and UK governments over controversial legislation has begun.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66855482

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Starmer challenged on Labour’s HS2 rail policy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sir Keir Starmer says the government should “get on with it” after suggestions that the HS2 rail line may not reach Manchester…

# data[].attributes.body
A bold and interesting move from Starmer and the Labour Party. This relates to the party image and how they portray themselves to allies ahead of the general election. Interesting to see if there is a response or reaction from Sunak.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Keir Starmer holds ‘get to know you’ talks with France’s President Macron

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Labour leader is hoping to project the image he is a PM in waiting, as he reopens party discussions on Brexit.

# data[].attributes.body
Angela Rayner once again taking the lead in the Labour party, discussing a 'New Deal' for workers. This 'New Deal' is of, course, in reference to the 'New Deal' introduced by Roosevelt in the US during the Great Depression which incorporated the three R's: relief, reform, recovery. It should be noted that the New Deal did not bring the US out of depression, but rather the war effort did. It will be interesting, and likely painful, to see how this 'New Deal' affects the UK.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Angela Rayner pledges Labour will give unions new rights

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Labour's deputy leader won a standing ovation at the TUC Congress after setting out the party's plans for workers.

# data[].attributes.body
This article discusses a re-write of the Brexit deal if Labour wins the next election. This re-write will essentially bring the UK closer to what it was with the EU prior to Brexit. At least, as far as the anti-Brexit Starmer can go without losing the electorate's support.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Henry Zeffman & Oliver Slow

Chief political correspondent

Sir Keir Starmer has said he will seek a "much better" Brexit deal with the EU if Labour wins the next general election.

The opposition leader told the Financial Times that the current deal, which is due for review in 2025, is "too thin".

Sir Keir was speaking at a conference of centre-left leaders in Montreal, Canada.

But he ruled out re-joining the customs union, the single market or the EU.

It remains unclear, however, if Brussels would be open to making major changes to the agreement, which was agreed by former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021.

A Conservative spokesman accused the Labour leader of changing his position, saying: "Three years ago he promised he wouldn't seek major changes to the UK's new relationship with the EU, but now his latest short term position is that he will.

"What price would Keir Starmer be prepared to pay to the EU for renegotiating our relationship?"

Sir Keir has repeatedly said he would not seek to rejoin the EU if his party comes to power, promising to "make Brexit work".

His party has consistently held double-digit leads in the political opinion polls, with a general election expected to take place some time in 2024.

"Almost everyone recognises the deal Johnson struck is not a good deal - it's far too thin," he told the Financial Times.

"As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK," he said, although he did not specify what parts of the deal he would seek to improve.

He added that he was confident a better deal could be negotiated with Brussels, as well as a "closer trading relationship".

"We have to make it work. That's not a question of going back in, but I refuse to accept that we can't make it work," he said, adding that he was thinking about "future generations".

"I say that as a dad. I've got a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. I'm not going to let them grow up in a world where all I've got to say to them about their future is, it's going to be worse than it might otherwise have been.

"I've got an utter determination to make this work."

This is a significant piece of political positioning from Sir Keir. He has spent much of his leadership trying to reassure voters that he would not take Britain back into the EU, or seek membership of the single market or customs union.

That position has not changed. But figures around the Labour leader believe that having got over the message that he does not want to undo Brexit, he has now earned a hearing to talk about changing the terms of the settlement.

The Trade and Co-Operation Agreement signed by Mr Johnson already has a review in 2025 written into it. The current thinking in Brussels is that this would only involve minor tweaks, though Sir Keir may have further-reaching changes in mind, including agreements on deeper trade ties, more exchanges for young people and students and easier rules for touring musicians and artists.

The willingness to put improved relations with the EU at the heart of his political offer is a sign of Sir Keir's growing political confidence. This was also in evidence last week when Sir Keir visited The Hague, in the Netherlands, to talk about how better co-operation with the EU could help deal with small boats crossing the Channel.

The Conservatives have already seized on Sir Keir's comments about Brexit. They believe that his position could push Brexiteers who backed the Conservatives in 2019 back towards Rishi Sunak. A Conservative spokesman said that Sir Keir "wants to take Britain back to square one on Brexit, reopening the arguments of the past all over again".

Sir Keir spent the weekend meeting fellow centre-left leaders in Canada, including the country's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

He is also expected to travel to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron later this week, where post-Brexit relations are expected to feature heavily in talks.

His visit to the Hague last week to meet with the EU's law enforcement agency Europol, seeking a deal to try and stop smuggling gangs bringing people across the channel in small boats led to accusations by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman that his party was planning to let the UK become a "dumping ground" for 100,000 migrants from the continent each year, claims he said were "complete garbage".

There is some anxiety in Labour about the row Sir Keir found himself embroiled in about whether Labour would accept a quota of asylum seekers from the EU as part of a 'burden-sharing' migration agreement. On Sunday, the Labour leader ruled this out after days of debate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brexit: Labour will seek re-write of deal, Starmer says

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The agreement is due for review in 2025, which the Labour leader says is a key moment to reset relations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Under parliamentary convention, the party of the departing MP normally starts the formal process for a by-election. It usually takes six or seven weeks from then to polling day. But there is nothing to stop others tabling a motion, which MPs could then vote on.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lib Dems aim to force earliest possible Mid Beds by-election

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The party is looking to kickstart the formal process for the vote when Parliament returns on Monday.

# data[].attributes.headline
Communication chief leaves downing street

# data[].attributes.subject
Communication chief leaves downing street

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The PM's director of communications, Amber de Botton, has resigned 10 months after taking the job, saying it was "the right time to move on".

Announcing her decision on social media, she said it had been "an honour and privilege" to do the job, and thanked Rishi Sunak for his "support and leadership".

Ms de Botton left her job as an ITV News journalist to join No 10.

The PM's current press secretary, Nerissa Chesterfield, will replace her.

Ms Chesterfield worked at the free-market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, before being hired by Mr Sunak to join his communications team in the Treasury early in his tenure as chancellor in 2020.

Ms de Botton began her role in Downing Street, a few days after Mr Sunak became prime minister.

Praising her former boss, she said: "The team he has built around him is dedicated and focused because those are the qualities he inspires.

"I also want to thank my colleagues - No10 is a demanding and high pressure place to work - yet the professionalism and talent they display every day is exceptional."

Before joining Downing Street, Ms de Botton worked as head of politics at ITV and deputy head of politics at Sky News.

The prime minister has thanked her "for all her hard work" and "calm professionalism".

"She brought with her top-level journalistic and management experience that has been invaluable," he said.

Amber de Botton leaving is a classic of a very particular kind of Westminster news story - Person leaves a job you didn't know they had.

But Westminster is full of important and powerful people - or more accurately important and powerful jobs - occupied by folk who are not public figures in and of themselves.

The No10 director of communications is a vital role at the heart of government - talking to senior journalists daily, and often more frequently than that - attempting to explain what the government in general and the prime minister in particular is doing, and why.

Talking up what they see as triumphs and putting the best gloss they can on cock-ups, catastrophes and calamities.

They help define the tone and tenor of the prime minister's public image.

Amber de Botton was a long standing and highly regarded journalist - at Westminster and beyond - before being hired by Rishi Sunak.

She brought to Downing Street particular knowledge of how television news works.

But unlike her successor Nerissa Chesterfield, she hadn't been alongside Mr Sunak as he rapidly climbed the Westminster ladder, nor had she been through his first failed attempt to become prime minister, when he was beaten by Liz Truss.

People don't tend to take jobs at the top of politics with job security a priority and there are personal reasons that have contributed to Amber de Botton leaving now.

I have been BBC Political Editor for less than 18 months, and I am on to my fourth Downing Street director of communications.

Ms de Botton's departure comes a comes a day after Mr Sunak carried out a mini-reshuffle of his cabinet following the departure of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace from frontline politics.

Grant Shapps replaced him, with Claire Coutinho taking his old job of energy security and net zero secretary.

Meanwhile, UK Music chief executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin is stepping down from his role after three years to become the prime minister's new director of strategy.

Mr Njoku-Goodwin has previously held a number of roles within government, including acting as an adviser to former minister Matt Hancock and at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rishi Sunak's communications chief Amber de Botton leaves No 10

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The former ITV journalist Amber de Botton said it was "the right time to move on".

# data[].attributes.headline
Grant Shapps Promoted to Defence Secretary

# data[].attributes.subject
Grant Shapps Promoted to Defence Secretary

# data[].attributes.body
This links in well with our topic about PMs as this is another example of Sunak rearranging his cabinet. Perhaps, more interesting is that replacing Shapps as energy secretary is Claire Coutinho, a Sunak ally who has only been an MP since 2019. She will also be the youngest current cabinet minister at 38. This promotion is similar to a Johnson cabinet appointment of promoting political allies to ensure loyalty. It is very different to Mays strategy of keeping powerful Conservative MPs likely to cause her problems on side through cabinet collective responsibility.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grant Shapps gets defence job in mini reshuffle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rishi Sunak promotes veteran Grant Shapps and newcomer Claire Coutinho in a limited shake-up of his ministerial team.

# data[].attributes.headline
labour and Lib Dems prepare for by-election battle as Nadine Dorries resigns 

# data[].attributes.subject
labour and Lib Dems prepare for by-election battle as Nadine Dorries resigns 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nadine Dorries resigns: Labour and Lib Dems gear up for by-election battle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Mid Bedfordshire seat is up for grabs after Nadine Dorries quit with a scathing resignation letter.

# data[].attributes.body
How the Conservative Party needs to move on from the legacies of the Johnson era if it wants to succeed at the next election

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The departure of Nadine Dorries hasn't been met with much sadness in the Tory party. "I'm yet to speak to a colleague who is sorry to see her go," one Conservative MP told me. "If by sadness you mean relief and delight, yes," added a former minister.

The relief is that Dorries, a key Boris Johnson backer, has finally begun the process of formally quitting the House of Commons, 78 days after she first announced her intention to do so with "immediate effect", after a row over a peerage. The delay, along with the fact that she had not spoken in the Commons since June 2022, has provided opposition parties with plenty of attack lines over the summer recess.

Dorries meanwhile has been focused on attacking her own side - accusing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of "demeaning his office by opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy" against her, after he voiced disapproval of her in an interview. The former culture secretary used her resignation statement to lambast Sunak's record, and in a subsequent television interview refused to rule out voting for another party such as Reform.

Given Dorries is a well-known Sunak critic, the content of her attacks isn't so surprising - but the venom with which it has been delivered has taken some aback. "Yet more psychodrama," complains another of Dorries's soon-to-be former colleagues.

While it's generally No 10's desire to avoid byelections - particularly given the current state of the polls - this coming vote in Dorries's constituency of Mid Bedfordshire is seen as the lesser of two evils. There was a growing sense in the government that her refusal to go was becoming electorally toxic and a distraction.

Optimists across the party can see upsides to her departure. She now joins Johnson and Nigel Adams on the outside - the other two MPs who quit back in June as the row exploded over who was to blame for Adams and Dorries failing to receive peerages as Johnson had intended. It means the biggest Boris backers are now outside parliament.

While they can still cause problems for Sunak - and Dorries plans to do so with her forthcoming book on what she views as the political assassination of Johnson - they cannot do so by voting against the government on key issues or even threatening no-confidence letters. Their options are much more limited now. What's more, the likelihood of a Johnson comeback has diminished at least in the medium term now he doesn't have a seat. With all three out, MPs hope that it could mark an end to the turmoil of the Johnson era.

But just because it is seen as the least bad option, does not mean it is without problems for the government. Given the writ will be moved when parliament returns next month, the byelection will take place in October at the earliest. That is precisely the time that Sunak and his team hope to boost his premiership through the party conference and the king's speech. Mid Bedfordshire is, on paper, one of the safer Tory seats, with its majority of 24,664. Were Labour to take it, it would be among the largest collapses in support for the Conservatives ever in a byelection. And while byelection results don't always offer reliable indicators of what will happen in a general election, a loss would still alarm MPs with more moderate majorities of below 15,000. The hope in CCHQ is that the vote splits between the Liberal Democrats, independents and Labour, thereby allowing the Tories to go through the middle.

While some Tories are already saying a bad byelection result is "priced in", a loss would complicate Sunak's hope to shake things up in the autumn. The first stage of Sunak's leadership - which has been spent trying to calm both the markets and his party - is coming to an end with a plan to be more political come the autumn. Ahead of an election year, Sunak now plans to try to go beyond his " five priorities " and offer a bit more hope.

A damaging byelection, however, will do the opposite and add to the fatalism felt by those Tory MPs who worry that the election is already lost. That's not the view in No 10, where aides insist the Labour lead is soft. A byelection defeat would make it even harder for Sunak to suggest to anyone outside Downing Street that this is the case.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nadine Dorries has gone, but Sunak's electoral problems are still front and centre | Katy Balls

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
MPs are relieved to see the back of the Johnson era, but know they are still staring into the abyss, says Katy Balls, political editor of the Spectator

# data[].attributes.body
highlighting the ideas of ministerial responsibility, specifically individual ministerial responsibility. After making a promise to resign she has been pressured into following her through with her promise especially as her contribution to parliament had been scarce since june when she announced her resignation on june 9th - aoife willis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nadine Dorries has resigned from the Commons, more than two months after pledging to go "with immediate effect".

She launched a blistering attack on Rishi Sunak in her resignation statement, telling the prime minister "history will not judge you kindly".

The Mid Bedfordshire MP first announced her intention to quit on 9 June.

She accused Mr Sunak of abandoning "the fundamental principles of Conservatism" and said the country was now run by a "zombie Parliament".

Ms Dorries, whose salary as an MP is £86,584, had come under increasing pressure to act on her promise to resign as she had not spoken in the Commons since June 2022.

The former nurse said she had submitted her resignation letter to the prime minister and published the eviscerating text on Mail Online.

The Treasury confirmed it had been notified of her intention to formally step down.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to appoint Ms Dorries to the historical position of Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern on Tuesday - the arcane mechanism by which MPs can leave the Commons before an election.

This will enable the Conservative Party to call a by-election in Mid Bedfordshire.

Despite saying in June that she would quit with immediate effect, Ms Dorries subsequently said she wanted to find out why she was refused a seat in the House of Lords.

It was widely thought she would be made a peer by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his resignation honours list.

In a lengthy statement Ms Dorries accused Mr Sunak of "demeaning his office by opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy" against her.

This, she said, resulted in "the police having to visit my home and contact me on a number of occasions due to threats to my person".

Who is Nadine Dorries?

Born in Liverpool, the mother of three says her childhood was warm and loving but she told the Guardian she also remembers having to "hide from the rent man as we couldn't pay him. Some days there would be no food."

After school she trained as a nurse and her profession frequently informed the political issues she took up - from Group B Strep testing for pregnant women to pushing for the time limit on abortions to be reduced.

She came late to politics and had considered joining Labour, but her views were swung by the Right to Buy scheme which had allowed her mother to buy her council house.

She was elected MP for Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, although her decision to go on ITV's I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in 2012 led to her suspension from the parliamentary Conservative party.

She would later serve as a health minister before being appointed to the cabinet in 2021 when Boris Johnson made her culture secretary.

Having written a series of novels, her latest book The Plot: The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson is due out in September.

In a criticism of Mr Sunak's leadership, she said: "Since you took office a year ago, the country is run by a zombie Parliament where nothing meaningful has happened.

"You have no mandate from the people and the government is adrift. You have squandered the goodwill of the nation, for what?"

She continued: "It is a fact that there is no affection for [Labour leader] Keir Starmer out on the doorstep. He does not have the winning X factor qualities of a Thatcher, Blair or a Boris Johnson, and sadly, prime minister, neither do you."

She added: "Your actions have left some 200 or more of my MP colleagues to face an electoral tsunami and the loss of their livelihoods, because in your impatience to become prime minister you put your personal ambition above the stability of the country and our economy.

"Bewildered, we look in vain for the grand political vision for the people of this great country to hold on to, that would make all this disruption and subsequent inertia worthwhile, and we find absolutely nothing."

She accused the prime minister of failing to work with UK companies to boost opportunities.

"You flashed your gleaming smile in your Prada shoes and Savile Row suit from behind a camera, but you just weren't listening," she said.

Flitwick and Shefford town councils in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency had both urged Ms Dorries to stand down immediately, saying she had "abandoned the local area".

Shefford's mayor, Ken Pollard, told the BBC her constituency office had closed a few years ago and was now a dance studio.

"It got to the point where it was difficult to contact Nadine on any level," he said.

In her statement, Ms Dorries disputes this, saying: "My team of caseworkers and I have continued to work for my constituents faithfully and diligently to this day."

But Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the people of Mid Bedfordshire "deserve better than this circus act that has followed the Conservatives these past few months."

Sir Ed, along with Labour's Anneliese Dodds, ruled out any election pact. He said the people of Mid Bedfordshire "deserve a choice".

Ms Dodds told BBC Breakfast: "Labour won't be cooking up any deals."

"I think it is a real relief for the people of Mid Bedfordshire," she added when asked for her reaction to Ms Dorries' resignation. "They desperately need an MP who will be focused on them full-time."

Rishi Sunak's political opponents haven't waited for Nadine Dorries's formal resignation to begin campaigning in her Mid-Bedfordshire seat.

Had the former culture secretary actually resigned in June, the by-election would have been and gone before Parliament rose for its summer recess.

But because she delayed her departure, Mr Sunak now faces a difficult contest in the autumn - possibly around the time of his party's conference, placing him under renewed pressure.

Nadine Dorries has a majority of nearly 25,000, but Conservative majorities almost as large have been overturned in the past year.

As a close ally of the former PM Boris Johnson, Ms Dorries's criticism of Rishi Sunak is unsurprising - but it is also unrelenting.

If the opposition parties haven't yet written their by-election literature, they now have plenty of material.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nadine Dorries resigns: Conservative MP attacks PM as she quits Commons

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More than two months after saying she would go, she tells Rishi Sunak "history will not judge you kindly".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Bibby Stockholm is a three-story barge, currently berthed in Portland Port, Dorset, which is intended to hold around 500 men while they await the outcome of their asylum applications.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bibby Stockholm: Migrant barge faces legal challenge over fire safety

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Firefighters have raised concerns about overcrowding and fire exit access on the Bibby Stockholm.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nadine Dorries resigned as Conservative MP from her Mid Bedfordshire seat with a blistering attack on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Here is her resignation letter in full:

It has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life to have served the good people of Mid Bedfordshire as their MP for 18 years and I count myself blessed to have worked in Westminster for almost a quarter of a century. Despite what some in the media and you yourself have implied, my team of caseworkers and I have continued to work for my constituents faithfully and diligently to this day.

When I arrived in Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, I inherited a Conservative majority of 8,000. Over five elections this has increased to almost 25,000, making it one of the safest seats in the country. A legacy I am proud of.

During my time as a Member of Parliament, I have served as a back bencher, a bill Committee Chair, a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State before becoming Minister of State in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the Covid crisis, after which I was appointed as Secretary of State at the department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS). The offer to continue in my Cabinet role was extended to me by your predecessor, Liz Truss, and I am grateful for your personal phone call on the morning you appointed your cabinet in October, even if I declined to take the call.

As politicians, one of the greatest things we can do is to empower people to have opportunities to achieve their aspirations and to help them to change their lives for the better. In DHSC I championed meaningful improvements to maternity and neonatal safety. I launched the women's health strategy and pushed forward a national evidence-based trial for Group B Strep testing in pregnant women with the aim to reduce infant deaths. When I resigned as Secretary of State for DCMS I was able to thank the professional, dedicated and hard-working civil servants for making our department the highest performing in Whitehall. We worked tirelessly to strengthen the Online Safety Bill to protect young people, froze the BBC licence fee, included the sale of Channel 4 into the Media Bill to protect its long-term future and led the world in imposing cultural sanctions when Putin invaded Ukraine.

I worked with and encouraged the tech sector, to search out untaught talents such as creative and critical thinking in deprived communities offering those who faced a life on low unskilled pay or benefits, access to higher paid employment and social mobility. What many of the CEOs I spoke to in the tech sector and business leaders really wanted was meaningful regulatory reform from you as chancellor to enable companies not only to establish in the UK, but to list on the London Stock Exchange rather than New York. You flashed your gleaming smile in your Prada shoes and Savile Row suit from behind a camera, but you just weren't listening. All they received in return were platitudes and a speech illustrating how wonderful life was in California. London is now losing its appeal as more UK-based companies seek better listing opportunities in the US. That, Prime Minister, is entirely down to you.

Long before my resignation announcement, in July 2022, I had advised the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, of my intention to step down. Senior figures in the party, close allies of yours, have continued to this day to implore me to wait until the next general election rather than inflict yet another damaging by-election on the party at a time when we are consistently twenty points behind in the polls.

Having witnessed first-hand, as Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss were taken down, I decided that the British people had a right to know what was happening in their name. Why is it that we have had five Conservative prime ministers since 2010, with not one of the previous four having left office as the result of losing a general election? That is a democratic deficit which the mother of parliaments should be deeply ashamed of and which, as you and I know, is the result of the machinations of a small group of individuals embedded deep at the centre of the party and Downing Street.

To start with, my investigations focused on the political assassination of Boris Johnson, but as I spoke to more and more people - and I have spoken to a lot of people, from ex-prime ministers, cabinet ministers both ex and current through all levels of government and Westminster and even journalists - a dark story emerged which grew ever more disturbing with each person I spoke to.

It became clear to me as I worked that remaining as a back bencher was incompatible with publishing a book which exposes how the democratic process at the heart of our party has been corrupted. As I uncovered this alarming situation I knew, such were the forces ranged against me, that I was grateful to retain my parliamentary privilege until today. And, as you also know Prime Minister, those forces are today the most powerful figures in the land. The onslaught against me even included the bizarre spectacle of the Cabinet Secretary claiming (without evidence) to a select committee that he had reported me to the Whips and Speakers office (not only have neither office been able to confirm this was true, but they have no power to act, as he well knows). It is surely as clear a breach of Civil Service impartiality as you could wish to see.

But worst of all has been the spectacle of a prime minister demeaning his office by opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy against one of his own MPs. You failed to mention in your public comments that there could be no writ moved for a by-election over summer. And that the earliest any by-election could take place is at the end of September. The clearly orchestrated and almost daily personal attacks demonstrates the pitifully low level your Government has descended to.

It is a modus operandi established by your allies which has targeted Boris Johnson, transferred to Liz Truss and now moved on to me. But I have not been a prime minister. I do not have security or protection. Attacks from people, led by you, declared open season on myself and the past weeks have resulted in the police having to visit my home and contact me on a number of occasions due to threats to my person.

Since you took office a year ago, the country is run by a zombie Parliament where nothing meaningful has happened. What exactly has been done or have you achieved? You hold the office of prime minister unelected, without a single vote, not even from your own MPs. You have no mandate from the people and the government is adrift. You have squandered the goodwill of the nation, for what?

And what a difference it is now since 2019, when Boris Johnson won an eighty-seat majority and a greater percentage of the vote share than Tony Blair in the Labour landslide victory of 1997. We were a mere five points behind on the day he was removed from office. Since you became prime minister, his manifesto has been completely abandoned. We cannot simply disregard the democratic choice of the electorate, remove both the prime minister and the manifesto commitments they voted for and then expect to return to the people in the hope that they will continue to unquestioningly support us. They have agency, they will use it.

Levelling up has been discarded and with it, those deprived communities it sought to serve. Social care, ready to be launched, abandoned along with the hope of all of those who care for the elderly and the vulnerable. The Online Safety Bill has been watered down. BBC funding reform, the clock run down. The Mental Health Act, timed out. Defence spending, reduced. Our commitment to net zero, animal welfare and the green issues so relevant to the planet and voters under 40, squandered. As Lord Goldsmith wrote in his own resignation letter, because you simply do not care about the environment or the natural world. What exactly is it you do stand for?

You have increased Corporation tax to 25%, taking us to the level of the highest tax take since World War Two at 75% of GDP, and you have completely failed in reducing illegal immigration or delivering on the benefits of Brexit. The bonfire of EU legislation, swerved. The Windsor framework agreement, a dead duck, brought into existence by shady promises of future preferment with grubby rewards and potential gongs to MPs. Stormont is still not sitting.

Disregarding your own chancellor, last week you took credit for reducing inflation, citing your "plan". There has been no budget, no new fiscal measures, no debate, there is no plan. Such statements take the British public for fools. The decline in the price of commodities such as oil and gas, the eased pressure on the supply of wheat and the increase in interest rates by the Bank of England are what has taken the heat out of the economy and reduced inflation. For you to personally claim credit for this was disingenuous at the very least.

It is a fact that there is no affection for Keir Starmer out on the doorstep. He does not have the winning X factor qualities of a Thatcher, a Blair, or a Boris Johnson, and sadly, prime minister, neither do you. Your actions have left some 200 or more of my MP colleagues to face an electoral tsunami and the loss of their livelihoods, because in your impatience to become prime minister you put your personal ambition above the stability of the country and our economy. Bewildered, we look in vain for the grand political vision for the people of this great country to hold on to, that would make all this disruption and subsequent inertia worthwhile, and we find absolutely nothing.

I shall take some comfort from explaining to people exactly how you and your allies achieved this undemocratic upheaval in my book. I am a proud working-class Conservative which is why the Levelling Up agenda was so important to me. I know personally how effective a strong and helping hand can be to lift someone out of poverty and how vision, hope and opportunity can change lives. You have abandoned the fundamental principles of Conservatism. History will not judge you kindly.

I shall today inform the chancellor of my intention to take the Chiltern Hundreds, enabling the writ to be moved on 4 September for the by-election you are so desperately seeking to take place.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nadine Dorries' resignation letter in full

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Tory MP published the eviscerating letter she wrote to Rishi Sunak.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nadine-dorries-resignation-rishi-sunak-b2400435.html

An interesting article, highlighting the division still with the Conservative party. Also illustrating the constant shift and fight for power between the executive and parliament.

# data[].attributes.body
Labour’s battle in Scotland: Labour faces a tough challenge from the SNP in the upcoming byelection in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, where it needs a 5% swing to win.
Labour’s radical policies: Labour defends its new deal for working people, which promises to ban zero-hours contracts, fire-and-rehire policies, and raise the minimum wage, among other rights.
Labour’s green investment: Labour pledges £28bn for green jobs and infrastructure, which is more than Joe Biden’s plan per capita, but faces criticism for delaying the spending by two years.
Labour’s class rhetoric: Keir Starmer writes an essay in the Scotsman, where he vows to smash the class ceiling and tackle inequality and poverty by talking about class. He also criticises the Tory government and the SNP.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the upcoming byelection in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Labour faces an altogether different battle from those fought recently in three English constituencies. Here, it confronts incoming on its exposed left flank in a firefight with the Scottish National party. Far from engaging in daily combat with English Tories and their press, Labour leaders parade their leftwing credentials in Scotland, without giving ammunition to the old blue enemy south of the border.

Both the SNP and Labour desperately need a win. It would only take a 5% swing for Labour to unseat the SNP here; if it can't, with all the brouhaha surrounding Nicola Sturgeon, her husband and police investigating party finances, hopes of capturing a tranche of crucial SNP seats at the general election will fade. But the first minister, Humza Yousaf, with low ratings and a quarrelsome party, will be urgently looking to shore up the SNP after 15 long years in power.

Knuckle-dusters are out already. SNP leaflets in the constituency target Keir Starmer's decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap, suggesting there's no difference between Starmer and Rishi Sunak. Labour ripostes that Rutherglen has been "failed by two sleaze-ridden governments and a shameless MP": the former SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, was ousted by a recall petition for travelling with Covid to London to speak in the Commons. The SNP boasts of its Scottish child payment, giving all families on universal credit an extra £25 a week per child. That's in contrast to Starmer's less-than-agile BBC interview in which, on the spur of the moment, he chose to prove Labour's fiscal discipline rather than cancel the two-child cap affecting 1.5 million children.

The two sides will fight over the recent claim that Labour has softened its radical workers' rights plan. Angela Rayner was in Rutherglen with a forceful rebuttal: it's just not so. Meeting apprentices in Glasgow, she promised that Labour's new deal for working people would be law within 100 days of the party coming to power: "the biggest levelling up of workers' rights in decades". And so it is.

It bans zero-hours contracts, and fire-and-rehire policies, makes the presumption of flexible working a day-one right, and strengthens parental leave and pregnancy protection. "We'll make sure work actually pays with a genuine living wage that covers the cost of living," Rayner has said. Ending bogus self-employment is "a key priority". Pledging fair pay agreements that vary according to sector means some sectors that can afford it will have to pay a higher minimum. Trade unions will see their membership rise steeply when they are given access to recruit in every workplace.

The issue that blew up last week concerned whether everyone would get rights from day one in a new job. Rayner said Labour would be "ending qualifying periods for basic rights, which currently leave working people waiting up to two years for basic protections", with "stronger protections against unfair dismissal". The claim is that Labour's national policy forum weakened this with some permissible probationary periods for new employees: it caused a furore, with Unite and Momentum accusing Labour of kowtowing to employers, but Labour says a probationary period was always there. The GMB, Unison and all other affiliated unions have backed the policy.

That's because the rights that Rayner spelled out in Scotland are indeed radical. Labour expects this policy to come under the same relentless Tory attack at the election as introducing a minimum wage did in the 1997 campaign. Tory HQ has drawn up a list of 20 "anti-business" Labour policies, which it calls a job-killing "Trades Union Congress wish list". Indeed, these rights were drawn up with strong backing from Frances O'Grady, the former TUC leader, and as Rayner told Glasgow apprentices, they would "raise living standards for all", tilting power back towards employees.

Is it because of a clumsy mishandling of messaging that Labour's two most radical policies of recent years have now been tarred as "retreats"? Or is it Labour's own ambivalence on whether to present them as radical or moderate? The £28bn pledged for Labour's green investments - for jobs in clean energy, battery factories and home insulation - is enormous and popular. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown never dared make such a spending promise in 1997, even when the economy was growing, not stagflating, as it is now. It's more money per capita than Joe Biden's mighty green infrastructure fund. Taking two years to build up to this huge spend is reasonable: how do you get £28bn worth of spades in the ground, without waste, on day one? Yet Labour has let this delay enter the political lexicon as a green retreat.

There are always doomsters eager to get disillusion with Labour in early, forever expecting betrayal. But Angela Rayner herself stands as guarantor for workers' rights: it's unlikely she would stand by and see those pledges seriously diminished. In the same way, Ed Miliband stands guard over Labour's green credentials. But nor do I think Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves has any less commitment to the radicalism of policies they drew up.

Nerves and lack of self-confidence seem to make Labour hesitate to issue loud rebuttals when these "retreat" stories appear. They know the Tories' well-oiled campaign machine (and its foghorn press) hasn't yet got out its knife sharpener to begin assaulting Labour with utterly mendacious distortions of its policies. They know, despite an 18-point lead, that 55% of voters say they might still change their mind. They know that the party scoring best on the economy always wins. Labour has shifted that dial: entering No 10 last year, Sunak was most "trusted to run the economy" by 33% to Starmer's 29%, according to Opinium. Though Labour now leads on the economy by six percentage points, that still feels precarious.

Fighting to win Rutherglen against an SNP foe purporting to be more leftwing is doing Labour good. As he travels up and down to Scotland almost monthly, do read Starmer's thundering essay in the Scotsman, full of words Blair and Brown feared to use. "In the recent past," he wrote, "Labour was afraid to speak the language of class at all - but not my Labour party. No, for me, smashing the 'class ceiling' that holds working people back is our defining purpose ... Because you cannot seriously take on inequality or poverty ... without talking about class. This is personal." On poverty, he wrote, "This isn't the trickle-down Tory nonsense that, for working-class communities, means jobs trickle out and power trickles up ... I don't look at our current social security system and think tinkering at the edges will be good enough." And he repeats Rayner's list of "a new deal that will strengthen workers' rights and finally make work pay".

Expect this to be the mood of Labour's October conference: messages get clearer as elections approach. As ever, Labour will do more in office than would be wise to promise in advance, but that requires some trust and patience from its natural supporters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Labour is parading its true leftwing credentials in the byelection fight against the SNP | Polly Toynbee

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the battle for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Keir Starmer has said that the party will smash the 'class ceiling', says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

# data[].attributes.body
Ross Kempsell, Boris Johnsons former aid of "spin doctor" as politico calls him has been appointed as a life peer in the HOL. This links well to the course especially over the issue of having an unelected body of government. This article shows how even despite the reforms to HOL and improved system of having an appointment committee, being an ally of the PM is a far too effective way into the HOL. This article could be used in an essay to argue for reform to UK's Parliament.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LONDON - A political journalist-turned-spin doctor who has barely settled into his 30s took his seat in the U.K.'s unelected House of Lords on Thursday as part of Boris Johnson's controversial farewell honors.

Ross Kempsell, 31, who serves as the former prime minister's spokesperson, is now Baron Kempsell of Letchworth.

He took his place in the Lords Thursday, where he'll be guaranteed a seat for life as a Conservative peer to scrutinize government legislation, and will be entitled to claim a £332 per day attendance allowance.

Other Johnson allies joining the Lords this week include the U.K.'s youngest-ever life peer, Charlotte Owens. The 30-year-old former special adviser becomes Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge. Kulveer Ranger, a 48-year-old management consultant and former Tory candidate who worked with Johnson when he was mayor of London, becomes Baron Ranger of Northwood.

Outgoing prime ministers of all political persuasions have long used their resignation honors to reward allies with seats in the Lords and honors including knighthoods.

Johnson's own list sparked particular controversy, with a row erupting over allies who didn't make the cut. He also took flak for rewarding figures at the center of the Partygate controversy, which saw coronavirus rule-busting gatherings take place in government on Johnson's watch.

Kempsell remains the go-to person for Westminster journalists hunting for the latest line from Team Johnson.

His winding career path saw him graduate from the University of Cambridge to a job at right-wing news site Guido Fawkes. He went on to become TalkRadio's political editor in 2018, where he got the scoop that the then-prime minister wound down from his political duties by painting model buses.

Kempsell then left journalism to become a media special adviser in Johnson's government from 2019 to 2020, after which he had a brief return to the industry as a special correspondent at Times Radio. He then shifted back to become a political director at Conservative campaign headquarters.

Kempsell once edited Cambridge University's magazine Varsity - where he treated readers to a column on "why [then-Chancellor George] Osborne's taste in rap music is killing the economy."

More from ... Bethany Dawson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
31-year-old Boris Johnson aide gets plum place in the House of Lords

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Johnson's spokesperson is now Baron Kempsell of Letchworth.

# data[].attributes.headline
Rishi Sunak on a potential referendum on net zero

# data[].attributes.subject
Rishi Sunak on a potential referendum on net zero

# data[].attributes.body
Links to the voting systems topic. Rishi ruling it out links to work on why referendums are held and when they are held. Also, links to PM topic as could argue this shows Rishi to still have control of his party as he is dominating Tory MPs calls for a referendum.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LONDON - Rishi Sunak batted away calls for a public vote on Britain's plan to cut carbon emissions by 2050 - amid anti-green pressure from Nigel Farage and some of Sunak's own Tory MPs.

"I'm committed to net zero ... I think actually there's agreement on it," the British PM told ITV Wednesday, when asked if he would put the emissions target to a referendum.

The U.K.'s pledge to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 has been the subject of much debate lately. While still committed to the legally-binding headline target, Sunak has called for a "pragmatic and proportionate" approach to cutting emissions and made a show of expressing his support for motorists.

Some in his party want Sunak to go further, citing the impact of a switch to clean energy on voters already hit by rising prices. Those calling for a rethink were boosted by a recent narrow London by-election win for Tories who campaigned against the expansion of a clean air plan.

Former Brexit Party leader Farage on Wednesday renewed his longstanding call for the government to put the target to a referendum, telling the Telegraph newspaper the target is "unrealistic, unaffordable, and our politicians, to date, are unaccountable."

"The only way we'll get change is through a referendum, just like with the EU," he argued.

Asked directly about such calls for a referendum, Sunak said Brits were already behind the target.

"I think most people are committed to getting to net zero but getting there in a proportion and pragmatic way ... I think that has broad support," he told ITV.

Opinion polls generally show that Brits back the headline target.

Supporters of the plan will be buoyed by fresh Ipsos polling Wednesday which showed a 13-point month-to-month rise in the proportion of Britons who say they are concerned about climate change and the environment.

One in four (25 percent) of those polled now cite it as an important issue for the country, the polling shows - putting it behind only the economy and inflation and level with the U.K.'s National Health Service in a ranking of voters' top issues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
UK's Sunak rules out referendum on net zero climate plan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brits are already committed to cutting carbon emissions, Sunak argued.

# data[].attributes.body
Indicates to me that Labour still has to put some effort in if they really want to nail the next election.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sir Keir Starmer had two goals at PMQs. He wanted to convince us that life is dreadful and it's all Rishi Sunak's fault. And he showcased a new phrase that he'd like us to spout whenever interest rates are mentioned: 'Tory mortgage penalty.' He used it several times which suggests that he authored it himself.

# data[].attributes.body
Also about Political Parties chapter. Discusses how the interparty conflicts/troubles in the SNP has created an opening for other opposition parties, namely Labour, to claim the seats.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The SNP implosion means Scotland is a crucial general election battleground. The Conservatives need to adapt their policies

# data[].attributes.headline
The arrogant Left are triumphant – and think they have a mandate to destroy Britain

# data[].attributes.subject
The arrogant Left are triumphant – and think they have a mandate to destroy Britain

# data[].attributes.body
Relates to the Political Parties section from Mr. Thomas's side of the course. Specifically showing that the Labour party has moved decisively away from New Labour returning to their key ideologies and principles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The arrogant Left are triumphant - and think they have a mandate to destroy Britain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
They wrongly conflate public anger at the Tories with an ideological mandate for socialism

# data[].attributes.body
BBC documentary about conspiracy theories and why people are susceptible to them. Links into populism and voter behaviour

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Marianna Spring investigates the spread of the conspiracy movement in the UK.

# data[].attributes.body
5 episodes
1: About her person and process of her rise to power
2: Her power over people and how it helped and hindered
3: How she deals and confronts her enemies
4: The tension around her
5: The explanation around her downfall

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The irresistible rise and dramatic downfall of Margaret Thatcher.

# data[].attributes.body
Interesting insight into impact of pressure groups on Parliament
Also interesting on impact of House of Lords on legislation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Slow-walk protest law heads for further Lords clash

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The government wants new regulations to give police powers to stop protests, but opposition parties are unhappy.

# data[].attributes.body
- Links to devolution and helps to explain current political situation in Northern Ireland with the historical context
- 5 episodes all roughly an hour
- Shows lots of testimonials of people's own experiences of the troubles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Unheard testimonies from all sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland, 25 years on.

# data[].attributes.body
-PM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Press play to listen to this article

LONDON - "It's like Basra after we bombed it."

That was the stark verdict of one dismayed Stoke-on-Trent resident this week as they rated the city's roads ahead of crucial local elections.

Voters head to the polls to choose councillors in more than 8,000 seats on 230 councils across England Thursday. Local elections, typically, are more likely to be determined by voters' takes on tarmac, trash, graffiti and street lighting rather than who should lead the country.

Reading across from local polls to glean general elections insight is fraught with danger, as experts and activists try to remind everyone at this time of year.

Yet after 13 years of Conservative rule at Westminster, and with Keir Starmer's Labour continuing to outpace Rishi Sunak's governing party in the national opinion polls, the line between the local and the national is blurring.

Between two walls

Labour and Conservative insiders are managing expectations ahead of the big day.

Labour officials insist 400 gains would be a good night - far fewer than suggested in some quarters - while the Conservative Party top brass has stuck rigidly to a warning by the Oxford academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher that 1,000 council seats could be lost.

It's widely acknowledged that the Tories should do somewhat better than the grimmest predictions, however, with Thrasher specifying that limiting the number of seats lost to below 500 will leave Conservatives thinking they've actually had a good night.

Yet Tories on the campaign trail report a general feeling of malaise among voters after 13 years of Conservative-led government. In turn, Labour officials are concerned about the introduction of mandatory voter ID for the first time.

"It's making life a lot harder for us," said one Labour campaigner. "We're having to expend energy which would normally be used to persuade people to vote for us on sorting out ID problems."

Liberal Democrats - who often go toe-to-toe with the Tories in more affluent areas - appear buoyant in contrast. Deputy leader Daisy Cooper confidently predicted on the eve of the election that "senior Conservative MPs are in for a big shock tomorrow."

A senior Conservative adviser, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly, admitted the ruling party was "feeling the pressure" in both the "red wall" areas the party snatched from Labour in 2019, as well as in the "blue wall" - historically Conservative areas where the Lib Dems are a real threat. A number of other officials in this article also asked not to be identified, as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Liberal Democrats - who often go toe-to-toe with the Tories in more affluent areas - appear buoyant in contrast to Labour campaigners, who are concerned about the introduction of mandatory voter ID for the first time | Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Tories expect to be challenged too by the Green Party expanding beyond its metropolitan base - and a high number of independent candidates creates an extra layer of unpredictability for the Conservatives.

Tory MPs in seats that heavily support Brexit point out how independents are standing on anti-migrant tickets, and promising to drive out asylum seekers. That may in part explain a hardline clampdown on asylum by Sunak's government at a national level.

'See you later'

While potholes and Christmas lights are among local priorities still high on the agenda, activists across the political spectrum say voters are citing wider national concerns too.

A Tory councillor for a part of the north-west where the Conservatives have traditionally held a handful of seats said he expected his group to be "wiped out" because of "a general sense that 'things aren't going well and you lot have had enough time to sort it out, so see you later.'"

"There's a palpable sense that nothing really works," he added. Inflation in the U.K. remains sky-high, while millions face long waits to see a doctor and schools are forced to shut as teachers go out on strike.

Chris Curtis, the Labour parliamentary candidate in Conservative-held Milton Keynes, said: "Elections are often about risk, and when you're in a situation where nothing works already, then turning away from the Conservatives feels less risky."

In the leafy Cotswolds, Lib Dem councillor Joe Harris said "we're encountering a lot of general dissatisfaction with public services and the NHS, so you've got national issues coming up more and more."

The big question is whether Sunak can counter that decline narrative in time to make a meaningful difference when the general election rolls along by 2025.

Narrow path

From blocking migration to cutting health service waiting lists, Sunak's to-do list remains a daunting one, and his MPs fear they are running out of time.

One red wall MP said: "People need to see tangible change in their communities that they can point at and say, 'the government invested in my town when no one else would.'"

Where Sunak's MPs seem more confident is in the prime minister's ability to avoid the high-level psychodrama which has dogged the party in recent years.

Conservatives are reassuring themselves that while voters may be cheesed off, it's not yet clear they are willing to make the leap and embrace the opposition | Carl Court/Getty Images

Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt told POLITICO that under Sunak the Conservatives were restoring their credibility. "He's got us back on the starting grid - we've done a few laps and we're starting to close that gap."

When the Conservatives lost control of key councils in London and the south of England at local elections last year, it was against the backdrop of deep turmoil over Boris Johnson's leadership.

"When the last set of local elections landed, we were in a total mess," commented another Conservative MP. "This time the party is more united and hopeful - even Rishi's harshest critics have to admit he's doing a good job."

They pointed to a phrase used by the party's election guru Isaac Levido - the "narrow path to victory" - which they said Tory MPs were now focused on.

"That route to victory will require the Conservatives to deliver on those five pledges by the prime minister, and for us to deliver locally on the ground that leveling up agenda," said Jonathan Gullis, Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North.

No done deal for Labour

Labour too has its own big questions to answer, with a sense the party has yet to seal the deal with voters.

Paula Surridge, professor of political sociology at Bristol University, said one thing to watch this week will be people's willingness to vote for alternatives: "Are the electorate still declaring 'a plague on both your houses', or ready for a new government that they think only Labour can provide?"

Tories are reassuring themselves that while voters may be cheesed off, it's not yet clear they are willing to make the leap and embrace the opposition. Starmer is rarely mentioned on the doorstep, two of his own activists said.

A shadow minister observed: "People are fed up with the Tories, and they're not hostile to Labour - unlike in 2019, which was the worst election I've ever experienced. But that willingness to have a conversation hasn't translated into enthusiasm for us yet."

If Labour can make progress beyond their last local elections high point in 2012, when they hit 38 percent of projected vote national share, they can begin to hope change really is afoot.
Emilio Casalicchio reported from Stoke-on-Trent.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rishi Sunak faces 13-year itch in first big electoral test

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
UK prime minister confronts 'a palpable sense that nothing really works' in local elections.

# data[].attributes.headline
Voter Apathy - Voter Behaviour and the Media, Referendums, Electoral Systems 

# data[].attributes.subject
Voter Apathy - Voter Behaviour and the Media, Referendums, Electoral Systems 

# data[].attributes.body
https://youtu.be/H6-IQAdFU3w

Direct democracy - referendums or General Elections may give the population a chance to vote and hold the government to account but does the population really want it?
Public’s opinion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
General Election: "You're joking - not another one!" BBC News

# data[].attributes.headline
Does age really matter?? PM and Cabinet 

# data[].attributes.subject
Does age really matter?? PM and Cabinet 

# data[].attributes.body
https://theweek.com/feature/briefing/1015081/biden-age-and-mental-state

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
President Joe Biden recently took a very public tumble after he tripped on a sandbag and fell while onstage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation. This has stirred up renewed speculation about his physical and mental fitness due to his advanced age.

The fall comes months after he formally announced his bid for reelection in 2024. The president entered the race amid lukewarm support for his reelection bid in polls. An April NBC News poll indicated that a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 remained unpopular among most voters. Biden's announcement may have clarified questions about his candidacy, but questions about his mental competency and advanced age still loom. The president's age remained a significant issue for nearly half of the respondents against him running for a second term.

Biden said he respected that voters have questioned his health and mental faculties due to his age and insisted he took that into account when considering whether to run again. "I took a hard look at it before I decided to run, and I feel good, I feel excited about the prospects," Biden said when asked about his age days after announcing his campaign. The most recent report from the president's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, said he was "fit for duty" and "fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations."

Why is Biden's age so noteworthy?

President Biden is 80 years old; at age 78, he became the oldest person to assume the presidency in U.S. history. By the end of his term, he'll be 82. Now that Biden has officially confirmed that he's running for reelection, he would be 86 by the end of his second term, eight years older than the average life expectancy for an American male. Ronald Reagan began his second term at the age of 73 and is widely believed to have suffered from Alzheimer's toward the end of his presidency. The median age of American presidents on Inauguration Day is 55.

Is he showing signs of cognitive decline?

Not necessarily. Biden frequently stumbles over his words, but that could be at least partially because of his history with a stutter. Journalist John Hendrickson described Biden's stutter, and his lifelong struggle to control it, as the president's "most visible weakness" but also "the main source of his grit and determination." Senior care experts note that some forms of dementia can lead to stuttering and that childhood stutters sometimes reemerge among elderly people, especially if they experience an increase in confusion or anxiety.

Last year, in an op-ed for The Hill, Marc Siegel noted that "at least 15% of those over the age of 75 have some cognitive impairment," that the president has several risk factors that could increase the likelihood of cognitive issues, and that the doctor's report following Biden's physical in November 2022 found "a significant worsening in the president's gait, which in some cases can be related to degenerative disease in the brain or the spinal cord." That report also concluded that Biden was "fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency."

What are commentators saying about Biden's age?

It might be "deeply unfair" to make assumptions about Biden's capacity to do his job because of his age. In his case, "it's impossible to deny that politics and conspiracy theories, rather than facts, fuel at least some of the concern," The New York Times editorial board opined. Still, Biden and other candidates shouldn't pretend that "advanced age isn't an issue." As Biden runs for reelection, he "will need to provide explicit reassurance to voters; many of them have seen family members decline rapidly in their 80s."

Democrats should see Biden's advanced age "as a not ideal situation but one that's better than the likely alternatives," Matthew Cooper wrote in the Washington Monthly. While Biden's satisfactory health reports have been "less than reassuring," Cooper said he has "been able to do the job well, and he's done it in better physical shape than previous presidents who overcame worse infirmities," such as Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. "Barring a cataclysmic health decline," Cooper added, "Biden will be in better shape in a second term than Reagan, FDR and certainly Wilson." Biden's age may be "unprecedented," but so would losing with his record, Cooper concluded.

Based on his unpopularity in recent polls, The Wall Street Journal's editorial board believed the public understands "that electing an octogenarian in obvious decline for another four years could be a historic mistake." Asking people to elect a man who's already the oldest president to hold office "is a risky act that borders on selfish." While the Journalcontended that the White House hides Biden's "real physical and mental state," the editorial board said, "his decline is clear to anyone who isn't willfully blind. "

What does polling show?

When Biden was a candidate in the 2020 race, his relatively strong debate performances and pandemic-driven minimalist campaign strategy inspired confidence that, despite his age, Biden was still in full command of his faculties. Just before the 2020 election, voters "believed [Biden] was mentally fit by a 21-point margin," Politico. reported.

That confidence didn't last. By November 2021, 48% of voters said Biden was mentally unfit for office. Three months later, that number was up to 54%.

About three in four Americans surveyed in the April Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll would prefer Biden didn't run again. Only 47% of Democrats polled want to see Biden on the ballot, yet 41% said they would support him if he ran, and another 40% said they might. "Interviews with poll respondents suggest that the gap reflects concerns about Biden's age," the AP explained, "as well as a clamoring from a younger generation of Democrats who say they want leadership that reflects their demographic and their values."

In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 68% of Americans surveyed said Biden was too old for a second term in office. His overall job rating also sunk to 36%, down from 42% in February. Only 34% overall felt that Biden had the mental sharpness to serve as president, and just 30% felt he had the physical fortitude needed for the role. The poll was conducted from April 28 through May 3, 2023, with 1,006 respondents and a margin of error of +/-3.5.

In an NBC poll released in April, 70% of Americans surveyed said Biden should not run for a second term in office, while just 26% said he should. Among Democrats, 51% voted against Biden seeking a second term, while 48% of those against Biden running said his age was a major factor in that stance. Former President Donald Trump, who has also officially put in his bid, didn't fare much better with the poll respondents, with 60% against him running again. The survey was taken from April 14 through 18, with 1,000 respondents and a margin of error of +/-3.1.
Updated June 6, 2023: This article has been updated throughout.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
He would be 86 by the end of his second term, eight years older than the average life expectancy for an American male

# data[].attributes.body
- the improvements the House of Lords have made to laws ( 1,029)
- the scrutiny they are under by the commons
- Appointments in the House of Lords

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Your report ( One in 10 Tory peers have given more than £100,000 to party, 29 December) and the analysis piece alongside it ( The 'indefensibles': donors, cronies and lackeys embody case to abolish Lords, 29 January) covered criticism of appointments to the House of Lords and calls for its replacement.However, neither article addressed two key questions: what does the House of Lords do? And does it do it well?

The Lords is a revising chamber that does the heavy lifting of improving legislation that has often been given scant scrutiny in the Commons. It does so through consensus and persuasion. In the 2019-21 parliamentary session 1,029 improvements to the laws that govern us all were made in the Lords; only 83 of those required a government defeat in a vote. Would a second elected chamber be as effective at quietly and expertly making these changes to legislation without getting into a standoff with the Commons?

It is important that appointments to the House of Lords are done on the right basis and steps are taken to avoid the accusation of cronyism. A strengthened appointments commission whose advice was binding on prime ministers could achieve this. A proposal for such a change is available in the form of Lord Norton's private member's bill. The government could make real progress by taking up its proposals.
Timothy Kirkhope
Conservative, House of Lords

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Key questions about the House of Lords | Letters

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Letters: Conservative peer Timothy Kirkhope on what the upper house does well and how to ensure appointments to it are done on the right basis

# data[].attributes.headline
How Scotland has gone downwards with the SNP

# data[].attributes.subject
How Scotland has gone downwards with the SNP

# data[].attributes.body
About devolution, the effects and dangers of populism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's note (June 12th 2023): On June 11th Nicola Sturgeon was arrested by police investigating the Scottish National Party's finances. She was later released without charge pending further investigation.
S COTLAND WAS the first part of Britain to get high on populist referendums. In 2014, two years before the Brexit vote, the Scottish independence campaign exhorted people to ignore the experts and revel in a glorious national renewal. The Scottish National Party (SNP) lost that battle but it won the peace. Since then the SNP has triumphed in election after election. It has made the intoxicating cause of independence the principal dividing-line among Scottish voters. Nicola Sturgeon, the party's leader until her resignation in February, managed to make liberals giddy, too, by being not just populist but progressive.

Enjoy more audio and podcasts on
Listen to this story.
iOS or Android.

Your browser does not support the <audio> element.

The wheels have come off the camper van in spectacular fashion. Ms Sturgeon's abrupt exit amid a police investigation into her party's finances has shattered the SNP's credibility. The inability of the Scottish government to call another referendum unilaterally means that the path to independence is blocked. Under Humza Yousaf, the party's new leader, the SNP is projected to suffer heavy losses to Labour in the next Westminster election, making it more likely that Sir Keir Starmer will win the keys to 10 Downing Street. The SNP 's grip on Holyrood, where it has held power continuously since 2007, will be in serious doubt at the election to the Scottish Parliament in 2026. Scottish politics is suddenly, dramatically, in flux.

And yet Scotland is also stuck. The country remains split down the middle on independence. Even if the chances of another referendum in the foreseeable future are very slim, the simplest electoral strategy for both the SNP and the Scottish Tories, the strongest unionist voice, will be to whip up the prospect for years to come. The SNP itself has become incapable of thinking beyond the next strategic gambit for divorce. Elementary tasks-procuring ferries, conducting a census-confound an administration that once claimed it could build an independent state in just 18 months. Genuine problems have been left to fester. Scotland is a parable with lessons that both encourage and dismay: that a populist movement can suddenly unravel and that the damage it causes can still endure.

Highland dudgeon

Scotland's problem is slow growth. Productivity has been stuck since 2014, and parts of the country remain shockingly poor. Business investment as a share of GDP has been flat since 1998-were Scotland an independent country, it would have been third from bottom in the OECD. In 2018 Scots launched 46 companies for every 10,000 of the population, versus 71 in the rest of Britain. North Sea oil is in long-term decline. Scotland's banking industry has become more dependent on London since the financial crisis. Good universities are constrained from admitting as many Scots as they should by a policy of free education.

Low growth is a problem that Scotland shares with the rest of the United Kingdom. But its predicament is worse, for two reasons. One is demography. The Scottish population is expected to peak sometime this decade and then fall back over the next 50 years. It will age more rapidly than England's. The over-65s will rise from a fifth to a third of the population by 2072. All this will knock half a percentage point off annual economic growth.

The second reason is that the flow of money from Westminster is becoming less lavish. The SNP has been able to recreate the trappings of a Nordic-style social democracy-free university tuition, free eye tests, free prescriptions-in part because of a generous supply of cash from the British government. An arrangement known as the "Barnett formula" determines by how much the biggest grant changes each year. This formula is going to become a squeeze in coming decades: the premium of per-person public spending in Scotland will fall from 124% of English levels in 2027 to 115% in 2057.

Improving Scotland's economic prospects, and reversing its demographic decline, ought to be the SNP 's focus-not just for the sake of the country, but also as a route to the party's revival. However, manufacturing outrage is electorally easier and more instantly rewarding than the long haul of fixing real problems.

As with all populism, weaning activists and voters off a habit of constitutional confrontation will require a cultural shift. Every issue is seen through the lens of social outcomes first and implications for growth last. The SNP has grown chilly to businesses and made the fuzzy idea of a "well-being economy" the centrepiece of its agenda; its Green coalition partners repudiate the measure of GDP growth. The party has hoarded power centrally in Edinburgh, when cities such as Glasgow ought to have been able to try out their own growth-enhancing policies.

In a country where devotion to the cause counts for more than competence, scrutiny has been sorely lacking. Holyrood lacks a vibrant backbench culture; the poison of polarisation has made think-tanks and academics hesitant to criticise the SNP. Mr Yousaf still seems wedded to a mix of giveaways, tax rises and constitutional fights. It will take a new party leader-perhaps Kate Forbes, the runner-up in the race to succeed Ms Sturgeon-to put growth first.

Giving populists what they want sometimes makes things worse. Westminster's tactic of heaping powers on Holyrood in an attempt to quell separatism has failed. Instead the British government needs to police the boundaries of devolution. It was within its rights to reject Scottish demands for another referendum and to strike down proposed gender-recognition reforms. Westminster needs a stronger role in overseeing strategic infrastructure in energy and transport. Ms Sturgeon refused to take questioning from parliamentary committees in Westminster; that should change. The Public Accounts Committee should take more interest in how the Scottish government spends its money.

This more businesslike approach will inevitably prompt nationalists to say that the English are recolonising Scotland. Mr Yousaf is unpopular, which makes it all the more likely that he will seek to win over SNP activists with one last heave for independence. Politics is about vision and emotion. But the parable of Scotland shows that even populists must eventually demonstrate that they can solve genuine problems. The country's political class has been on a long holiday from reality. Scotland cannot afford another wasted decade. ■
For subscribers only: to see how we design each week's cover, sign up to our weekly Cover Story newsletter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Scotland has been on a ten-year holiday from reality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Populism can unravel quickly. But its effects are long-lasting | Leaders

# data[].attributes.body
Political Parties
Also the executive and their role, and particularly how they interact with parliament. Also interesting on PM topic as good case study.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The latest:

Truss resigned from her post as prime minister of the U.K. less than two months after taking over from Boris Johnson, her disgraced fellow Conservative Party member. It was an incredibly brief tenure. "Liz Truss has been in office for just 45 days - the shortest tenure of any U.K. prime minister," the BBC reports. Previously, the kingdom's record for shortest-serving prime minister was held by George Canning, who held power for just 119 days before dying of tuberculosis.

Truss, of course, didn't die - but she also quickly found out that she couldn't get the job of leading Great Britain through the post-pandemic, post-Brexit era while a war in Europe is disrupting energy prices. "I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected," she said in her resignation remarks. Her fall had been widely predicted: "Ms. Truss's political viability had become tenuous after her proposals for broad unfunded tax cuts roiled markets and sent the pound's value plunging," the New York Times observes.

Did Truss ever really have a chance?

Possibly not. When she took over the prime ministership from the disgraced Boris Johnson on Sept. 6, 2022, there were already plenty of doubters. "A consensus has settled that Britain's new Prime Minister Liz Truss is done for before she even begins," James Johnson wrote for Politico in early September. With the United Kingdom's economy beset by skyrocketing inflation, due in large part to an energy crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a new Conservative PM was probably always going to have a short leash. But, Johnson added, "changes of leadership matter, and Truss will get a new chance by default." The new prime minister didn't have her predecessor's media savvy - he was a former journalist, after all - but she won leadership on the notion that "she gets things done." That reputation quickly took a major hit.

So what caused her downfall?

Soon after she took office - everything is "soon" in this story - Truss and her Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng announced a "mini budget" that included a big tax cut on top earners and large amounts of deficit spending by the government. "Rarely has a budget caused such political and economic damage," The Guardian reports. The value of the British pound plunged following the announcement, the Bank of England intervened to prop up the value, and after 10 days, Kwarteng announced that the tax cut plan was being scrapped. The political damage had been done: Truss fired Kwarteng last week.

One thing to note: The plan to cut taxes was one plank of a broader plan that also included big government spending to cap household rises in energy bills caused by the Russian war. And the British economy has also been sluggish in recent years, slammed by the one-two punch of the COVID pandemic and a loss of trade following Brexit. The tax cut proposal, then, was designed to jump-start the economy - a "bold but risky gamble that the payoff from higher growth will more than offset the risks from a big expansion in the government's deficit and debt at a time of high inflation and rising interest rates," The Wall Street Journal reported.

Why did her economic plans cause a backlash?

There are two major reasons. The first is that the markets obviously didn't like it: See again that plunging pound. But the tax cuts also didn't go over well with ordinary Brits, who are already suffering under the burden of inflation. The plunging pound stood to make "everyday products in Britain more expensive as importers face spiraling costs," NBC noted. Plus, an expected hike in interest rates - to help control inflation - is expected to inflate the costs of mortgages for British homeowners. Under Truss' tax plan, though, "the country's wealthiest households [stood] to make huge gains," CNN reported last week, with features that gave "workers making more than $1 million a year a roughly $58,000 tax cut." That led to widespread criticism that Conservatives were relying on the "trickle-down economics" of the Reagan-Thatcher years to get the country's economy growing again.

How hard were Conservatives hit in the polls?

Badly. "Liz Truss's personal popularity ratings are lower than those of Boris Johnson when his premiership came to an end," The Guardian reported on Oct. 1. Just 18 percent of Brits approved of her performance in that Opinium poll, while 55 percent disapproved - putting her underwater by an astounding 37 points. Johnson, meanwhile, was down 28 points when he left office.

What brought about her final downfall?

The last 24 hours before Truss' resignation were increasingly frenzied. "Lawmakers' anger grew after a Wednesday evening vote over fracking for shale gas - a practice that Truss wants to resume despite opposition from many Conservatives - produced chaotic scenes in Parliament," The Associated Press reports. There were rumors that party whips had resigned over the vote, although Truss said they remained in their posts. But Home Secretary Suella Braverman did resign on Wednesday, and after that, the writing was on the wall for Truss.

What's next?

Big changes, possibly. The Conservative Party is expected to name a new leader within the week, and Boris Johnson might be primed to make a return to the prime ministership. But it's possible that that is just the beginning. Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, has called for an immediate general election: "The Conservative party has shown it no longer has a mandate to govern," he said on Thursday. Conservatives have controlled the government since 2010 - around the time of the last major world financial crisis - but the Labour Party seems primed for a comeback.

There is a real question of whether Great Britain is governable. "Before Brexit, Britain had four prime ministers over 31 years," NBC's Sahil Kapur noted on Twitter. "Since Brexit, Britain has had four prime ministers over seven (7) years." Whoever leads next has a big challenge ahead of them - but they'll probably last longer in the job than Liz Truss.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The rise - and very quick fall - of the U.K. prime minister

# data[].attributes.body
- politicians under scrutiny for religious views
- was running for candidate to replace Nicola sturgeon but due to exposure to the media alot of things came out about her.
- kate forbes admitted she would not have voted for the same sex marriage bill in 2014
- also claims that pregnancy outside of marriage goes against religious views therefore being criticised as Anti abortion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Religion editor, BBC News

The lingering sense of shock Kate Forbes still feels at the scale of the backlash against her during the race for Scotland's highest political office is very clear.

The 33-year-old had been on maternity leave from her role as Scotland's finance secretary when Nicola Sturgeon suddenly said she was quitting as first minister and SNP leader in February.

Ms Forbes was considered a frontrunner to replace Ms Sturgeon but within days of announcing her candidacy she found herself at the centre of a political storm about her religious views.

In response to interviews questions, she said the idea of having children outside of marriage conflicted with her Christian faith and confirmed that she was anti-abortion.

Ms Forbes also said she would not have voted for same-sex marriage if she had been a politician in 2014 when the law passed.

The backlash against these views led SNP colleagues to abandon her campaign in droves.

In a frank interview with the BBC, Ms Forbes, who had been a high-ranking minister for three years, said: "I'd always been open about my views so there was no surprise that they were a topic of discussion and - in some quarters - concern.

"The surprise was that those who knew my position, immediately distanced themselves from me."

There was no way back after her campaign's dramatic downturn and in March she lost the election, coming second to Humza Yousaf, although by a narrower margin than many had predicted.

"If I had not been honest, if I had tried to make certain things more palatable or politically correct, would I have been more successful?," she says. "Perhaps."

But she adds that she does not regret what she said and has not changed any of her views.

Ms Forbes said she received "thousands" of messages from people who fundamentally disagreed with her position but supported her right to express her views and stand for office.

When Mr Yousaf was elected SNP leader and Scotland's first minister, Ms Forbes left the Scottish government and returned to being the backbench MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch.

She says with a smile that her faith tells her to forgive the colleagues she still works alongside who abandoned her campaign to be leader.

But her experience leads her to believe that people of faith are being squeezed out of political life.

She says: "I do think there is a fear which characterises right now any discussions about faith.

"I do think people of faith are a minority and certainly my experience is they are, by and large, fearful.

"So they either feel like they have to hide their faith or adapt it and that is a cause for concern."

'I can't pick and choose beliefs'

Ms Forbes says she does not know if seeing a public figure like her being "absolutely traduced" for her views has made them braver or more fearful.

At the heart of Ms Forbes' identity is her membership of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, whose evangelical Christian ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland in the 19th Century.

Ms Forbes feels that her own religious views were "100%" scrutinised more than those of Mr Yousaf - who has describes himself as a proud Muslim who fasts during Ramadan.

During the leadership campaign he was asked about his religious views and about gay marriage, something he said he supported even though he missed the vote on the issue in 2014.

Ms Forbes insists she holds to her faith "in its entirety" while others are making their religion more palatable in order to make themselves electable.

It is a view that dismisses the many politicians who say their deep faith is not in conflict with issues such as support for same-sex marriage.

Ms Forbes bristles a little at the suggestion that it was not just having a faith but her "brand" of faith - and the views it informs - that made it difficult for her to get elected.

"Yes, I talked at the time about fairly orthodox mainstream Christian teaching but my following the teachings of Jesus - which is based on a belief in the Bible - means that I don't feel I'm in a position to just pick and choose what I believe is truth or not," she says.

Given this stance, during the campaign it was confusing to some observers that while Ms Forbes said she would not have voted for gay marriage, now that it was the law she would defend the right of same-sex couples to marry.

"I'm a servant of democracy," she says again now. "And in a democracy you have a debate, there is a vote by majority, and then it's for every leader to uphold."

As bruising as her experience has been, Kate Forbes says she was heartened by what she calls "the backlash to the backlash" against her and the fact that she did go on to secure 48% of the SNP vote.

If anything, she says she feels it is now all the more important for someone like her to remain in politics.

"I'm obviously at a crossroads because I'm no longer in government," she says.

"I have a 10-month old baby who's most demanding of my time, and I've got a constituency that I've been absent from for the duration of maternity leave. So there's lots to be getting stuck into and we'll see what happens next."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kate Forbes says people of faith are fearful of politics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Forbes says she does not regret expressing religious views during unsuccessful campaign to be SNP leader.

# data[].attributes.body
Parliament:
- How the parties have to work together
- SNP threatening to make life difficult in the case of a hung Parliament
- Demanding in hung parliament that Labour give Scotland a second Indy Ref

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
SNP could make life difficult for Labour - Humza Yousaf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scotland’s first minister says SNP would not cooperate if Labour refuse indy powers in hung parliament.

# data[].attributes.body
NO, YOU’RE A LIAR: The Conservative Party is in a state of all-out war this morning, as Rishi Sunak and his predecessor-but-one continue to trade insults in their extraordinary bust-up over the events leading up to Boris Johnson’s dramatic resignation. Their private spat finally burst into the open yesterday, with Johnson accusing Sunak of “talking rubbish” for claiming his former boss asked him to do “something I wasn’t prepared to do” — intervene in the award of peerages. The briefing and counter-briefing continued late into the night.

-Source Politicos
-GOOD FOR PARTY DIVIDE

# data[].attributes.body
Related to devolution, party funding, and party mismanagement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why was Nicola Sturgeon arrested and what happens next?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The arrest of the former first minister is the latest remarkable twist in the investigation into the SNP’s finances.

# data[].attributes.headline
Crime bill: Lords defeats for government's protest clamp-down plans

# data[].attributes.subject
Crime bill: Lords defeats for government's protest clamp-down plans

# data[].attributes.body
New police bill:
huge piece of legislation that covers major proposed changes on crime and justice in England and Wales.

-Ministers were defeated, by 261 votes to 166, over plans to give the police new powers to stop protests

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Baroness Newlove said: "It is perverse that, despite three million crimes being committed against women in just three years, our legal and policing systems do not routinely recognise what we all know is blindingly obvious: the deep-rooted hostility towards women that motivates many of these crimes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Government defeated as Lords vote to make misogyny a hate crime

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Baroness Newlove said: "It is perverse that, despite three million crimes being committed against women in just three years, our legal and policing systems do not routinely recognise what we all know is blindingly obvious: the deep-rooted hostility towards women that motivates many of these crimes.

# data[].attributes.body
- "Those that have been released without charge I see no reason to suspend their membership."
- Humza Yousaf refuses to suspend her
- her aresset should have instigated a resignation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Humza Yousaf will not suspend Sturgeon from SNP

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Humza Yousaf says he sees "no reason" to suspend his predecessor following her arrest.

# data[].attributes.body
- Impact of events forcing government to rethink law
- Cross party support

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abortion legislation is "very much out of date" and should be overhauled, the chair of the Commons women and equalities committee has said, after a woman was jailed for procuring drugs to induce an abortion after the legal limit.

There was outrage on Monday after the woman, a mother of three, was sentenced to more than two yearsin prison.

She received the medication under the "pills by post" scheme, which was introduced during the Covid pandemic for unwanted pregnancies up to 10 weeks, after a remote consultation.

The woman, 44, pleaded guilty in March under the Offences Against the Person Act, legislation that dates back to 1861, and will serve half of her 28-month sentence in custody and the remaining under licence. She had originally pleaded not guilty to a charge of an offence of child destruction.

Caroline Nokes, a Conservative MP, said the judge in the case indicated he had believed there was a clear case for parliament to reconsider legislation surrounding abortion.

"I think he has a valid point. This is not something that has been debated in any great detail for many years now," she told Radio 4's World Tonight programme on Monday.

"And cases like this, although are tragic and thankfully very rare, throw into sharp relief that we are relying on legislation that is very out of date. It makes a case for parliament to start looking at this issue in detail."

The number of women and girls facing police investigations and the threat of life imprisonment under abortion laws has risen over the past three years, according to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

In 2022, a woman who used abortion medication in a failed attempt to end her own pregnancy was reported to the police by her medical team.

Commenting on the latest case, Amnesty International said it "underscores the desperate need for legal reform in relation to reproductive health".

Chiara Capraro, the women's human rights programme director at Amnesty International UK, said: "It is shocking - and quite frankly terrifying - that in 2023 a woman in the UK has been sentenced to jail because of a law dating back to 1861."

Prosecutors said the woman had knowingly misled the BPAS by saying she was below the 10-week cutoff, when she believed she was about 28 weeks pregnant.

Doctors later concluded the foetus was from 32 to 34 weeks' gestation (between seven and eight months) at the time of termination. In England, Scotland and Wales, abortion is generally legal up to 24 weeks but is carried out in a hospital or clinic after 10 weeks.

Stoke-on-Trent crown court heard how the woman discovered she was pregnant in December 2019 before arranging a telephone consultation with BPAS in May 2020.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Call to overhaul 'out of date' UK abortion laws after woman jailed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tory MP speaks out amid anger over 44-year-old's sentence for taking abortion pills beyond legal limit

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-63727562#

Supreme Court Ruling over a divisive Constitutional issue
What powers do the devolved nations have?
For how long should a referendum’s decision be held? -> until a new one can be taken? Should they be once in a generation?

# data[].attributes.headline
The Conservatives Immigration bill - is it really going to work?

# data[].attributes.subject
The Conservatives Immigration bill - is it really going to work?

# data[].attributes.body
A to the point and informative article that links into many different topics:
The UK foreign policy and international relations
Parliamentary sovereignty and the power of the executive
The Conservative policies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can the government's immigration bill succeed?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The government insists implementing its Illegal Immigration Bill will be straightforward but several important challenges will have to be overcome first.

# data[].attributes.body
- Newspaper headlines
- Context about PM/Boris Johnson scandal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newspaper headlines: 'Boris and Rishi at war' and 'Partygate report due'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The fallout from Boris Johnson's sudden exit from Westminster continues to lead several of the front pages on Tuesday.

# data[].attributes.body
Have voters finally seen through Johnson and will this punish the Conservatives at the next election?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
he spectacle of the shipwrecked Conservative party is a wonder to behold. Boris Johnson the destroyer will carry on sinking the remains of the galleon he once captained - out of sheer revenge. Cabals of every rightwing complexion include the old bastards of yesteryear - John Redwood still at it - and new red-wallers seeing their brief careers vanish before their eyes. Whipping and dangling ministerial office no longer work as the necessary force holding the party together.

Johnson loyalists may be few, but their noise is amplified by a Tory press infected with the same virus, bewailing his departure. Newly knighted Jacob Rees-Mogg writes in the Mail on Sunday that Johnson is "in pole position for a future leadership contest". Johnson ally James Duddridge tells the Telegraph, "He will be back. Full stop. As a matter of fact." Nigel Farage claims he is in talks with Johnson aides to set up a new party to " defend the Brexit legacy". Jake Berry tweets in fury, "You voted for Brexit - the establishment blocked it. You voted for @BorisJohnson - the establishment has forced him out. Who is in charge here ... The voters or the blob?"

Fantasy or not, such outbursts get megaphone treatment from those taking Johnson's popularity on his own assessment, as laid out in his resignation letter: "When I left office last year the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened." Not so. He was ousted because Labour was 11 points ahead, widened now to 16. Johnson's personal ratings are abysmal: Ipsos's Ben Page says he tops the list of prime ministers who did a "bad job".

But the Torysphere has its fingers in its ears, not listening to voters, obsessed by woke conspiracies, blobs, remainers, the "establishment", the liberal elite or any other "them" they can find to avoid looking in the mirror. They are the cause of their own downfall.

You might think this is only the usual turmoil that happenswhen the pendulum swings against a government too long in power. But this time it's different. Under its feet the ground is shaking, tectonic plates are on the move, all its belief systems are crumbling. The aftershocks of a financial crash, austerity, Covid and Brexit have set off a tidal wave sweeping away four decades of the Thatcher creed that has dominated the Tory party since her reign. The party is stranded on a far shore, with too few believers ever to return to power on a raft of those old ideas.

The Thatcher revolution of 1979 left a long legacy, its chickens coming home to roost one by one. Just about every one of her totemic policies is profoundly unpopular now. Sewage has been such a good metaphor for utility privatisations, with energy companies equally reviled. The loss of 4m council homes, unreplaced, is keenly felt. The "big bang" ignited dangerous dependence on finance and an explosion in obscene top salaries. Her industrial sabotage still resonates in desolate, left-behind zones; industrial policy, meanwhile, is popular, with investment in green growth, gigafactories, wind turbines, carbon capture and green hydrogen no longer dismissed as " picking winners ".

Only old ideologues believe Thatcher's mantra that all this should be "left to the markets". Her outsourcing of services deliberately avoided trade unions, cementing the bottom half of wages to the floor. She causedinequality tosoar, never to return to its 1970s level, with hard-won working rights lost to zero-hours contracts, agig economy and freelance insecurity. Yet, despite the recent strikes, more people think unions play a positive rather than a negative role in Britain today.

David Cameron and George Osborne's austerity was inspired by Thatcher: the smaller the state the better, they insisted. For decades, the UK collected far less tax than equivalent EU countries - and now pays a heavy price in a failing NHS, social care, education and everything else. But Tory MPs are blind to the seismic change in public attitudes: they put their faith in Sunak's promised tax cuts as the party's salvation, expecting a 2p income tax cut next March, and demanding more. Polling in key seats shows that that is no life raft, however. Just 12% prefer cutting taxes and spending less on public services, with 38% wanting to keep tax and spending as they are. Another 36% want taxes raised, with more spent on public services. Labour will be wary of trusting such public altruism, but it shows an extraordinary shift in sentiment, with Labour being more trusted on solid economic management. After the crash, austerity, Brexit and Covid, the public is rejecting old Thatcherite nostrums.

Michael Ashcroft's polling for the Mail on Sunday shows that people are most concerned about the cost of living and the NHS, followed equally by the economy and climate change. Yet the current Tory trope is that net zero should be dropped as unpopular. Immigration is not in the top five issues, with Brexit now marked as a negative against the Tories, says Ashcroft. Brexit broke their party and it may take a political generation to get it out of their bloodstream, while the young who voted overwhelmingly to remain will not forgive or forget.

Brexit's only blessing is that it may have vaccinated the UK against the nationalist populist wave sweeping some countries. Now Britain has seen the Brexit fallout, even if not quite Bregretters, it's hard to imagine any UK demagogue winning on an isolationist, Little England, pull-up-the-drawbridge message. Courtesy of Boris Johnson, we've been there, done it, and learned our lesson.

Onward, a Tory one-nation thinktank, warns of the party's existential collapse. Millennials are the first demographic cohort not to become more likely to vote Conservative as they age, they find, and "this situation is worsening." Each cohort is more educated, and the more educated are less likely to vote Tory, or turn Tory later, either.

Campaign group Next Gen Tories, trying to win that cohort back, says: "Age is the new dividing line in politics. It is now a stronger indication of voting intention than class, gender or race. For every 10 years younger a person is, they are nine points less likely to vote Conservative." It is a culturally different generation: more green, less capitalist as they have less capital of their own, sunk by childcare costs, needing good, affordable state nurseries and services.

Though none of this guarantees the permanent triumph of social democracy, Labour needs to seize the monumental meaning of this turning point. This is not 1997, when Thatcherism still had to be accommodated. This is 1979 reversed. Don't expect the speakers contending to be their idol's heir at Monday's Margaret Thatcher conference to face the fact that Thatcherism is finally dead, her policies electorally toxic. The party that selected Johnson and Liz Truss, the party with Suella Braverman as home secretary, will be a long time recovering. The party in which every candidate to be an MP has to worship at the Thatcher shrine may take many election losses to flush Thatcherism and Brexit out of their veins before they can re-emerge as an electably modern, internationalist, one-nation Conservative party.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This is Starmer's moment. Thatcherism has collapsed, and the Tories are at each other's throats | Polly Toynbee

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
he spectacle of the shipwrecked Conservative party is a wonder to behold. Boris Johnson the destroyer will carry on sinking the remains of the galleon he once captained - out of sheer revenge. Cabals of every rightwing complexion include the old bastards of yesteryear - John Redwood still at it - and new red-wallers seeing their brief careers vanish before their eyes.

# data[].attributes.body
Today’s Conservative Party is arguably as divided as it has ever been. The economic arguments between ‘New Right’ and ‘One Nation’ Conservatives have largely subsided. Indeed, there has been relatively little internal criticism of the Conservatives’ current economic policies. The Conservatives saw 91 MPs rebel over House of Lords Reform in 2012, and some 130 ConservativeMPs voted against gay marriage in 2013. Europe remains as controversial as it was under Thatcher and Major and is perhaps even more of a threat, as the rise of UKIP threatens the Conservatives’ right flank (see the UK update in this online issue: The 2013 local elections and the rise of UKIP).

# data[].attributes.body
- should she resign herself after her arrest
- states she was " innocent of any wrongdoings"
- Stated that " Ms sturgeon should sign her party membership"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Asked if the former first minister should be suspended if she does not quit the party, Ms Regan added: "I think Humza should consider it under those circumstances, yes, if she doesn't resign.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Calls for Nicola Sturgeon to be suspended from SNP following arrest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Humza Yousaf is being urged to suspend his predecessor after she was arrested and later released.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Humza Yousaf has won the SNP leadership contest and is set to be named as Scotland's new first minister, replacing Nicola Sturgeon.

The explosive leadership contest was sparked following Ms Sturgeon's shock resignation last month.

The winner will now face a vote at Holyrood on Tuesday before being formally confirmed as first minister.

Any MSP from any party can also be nominated. Following brief speeches, MSPs will then vote for their preferred candidate.

In the unlikely event of the Scottish Parliament not being able to elect a first minister within 28 days, an election will be held.

7:44

After Ms Sturgeon announced her intention to step down, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf, Finance Secretary Kate Forbes and former community safety minister Ash Regan entered the race for the top job.

The leadership contest featured rows over religious beliefs, arguments about the recollection of past events, and widespread criticism of secrecy surrounding the vote.

The contest also led to a number of other resignations, including that of Ms Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell as SNP chief executive.
Read more:
Five key challenges Scotland's new first minister will face
Sturgeon and Murrell: The downfall of SNP power couple in less than 150 days
SNP has lost around 30,000 party members since 2021
Sturgeon, SNP's 'cesspit of vipers' and a failed dream
28:59

The new first minister will face a number of difficult challenges as they take office.

Key priorities will include defining a clear plan for independence, how to progress with the controversial gender recognition reforms, tackling the country's drug-deaths shame, alleviating the cost of living crisis, and turning the NHS around.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Humza Yousaf announced as new Scottish National Party leader replacing Nicola Sturgeon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Humza Yousaf has won the SNP leadership contest and is set to be named as Scotland's new first minister, replacing Nicola Sturgeon. The explosive leadership contest was sparked following Ms Sturgeon's shock resignation last month . The winner will now face a vote at Holyrood on Tuesday before being formally confirmed as first minister.

# data[].attributes.body
- there is currently no single authority that addresses sexual misconduct cases in parliament there should be one
- plan to permanently ban MPs that have been involved in sexual misconduct
- prohibiting membership of MPs with a sexual misconduct charge

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Former senior party whips have told the BBC a "professional" HR system is needed in Parliament to handle sexual misconduct allegations against MPs.

It comes ahead of a debate on Monday on whether to ban some MPs under investigation for violent or sexual offences from Parliament.

Currently, there is no single authority at Westminster that deals with sexual misconduct cases against MPs.

Whips are senior MPs in charge of their party's discipline and welfare.

But they are often expected to handle misconduct cases.

Some allegations are reported to Parliament's Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, some to parties or whips, some to the Commons Speaker or leader of the House, and some to police.

The BBC has spoken to multiple senior MPs and former MPs, who have served as whips for different parties.

Many argue Parliament needs a formal HR system to stop allegations being dealt with in different ways, on a case-by-case basis.

"There should be a better HR system for the employment of members' staff," said a former chief whip, who wanted not to be identified.

MPs currently hire their staff directly, but the former chief whip argued they should be employed in the same way as ministers' special advisers.

"Although they are the appointment of the minister, they are centrally employed, and come under the HR umbrella of the rest of the civil service.

"That would give [MPs' staff] the protection of being able to speak to somebody else other than their employer, where it might be a very small office.

"So their employer is not necessarily the member of Parliament, but the House authorities," they said.

Others the BBC spoke to, who have served as whips, also said they wanted HR "beefed up" to help resolve grievances and other issues, citing a lack of clarity and training for whips on how to handle such cases beyond directing individuals to complaint processes, support services, or even the police.

Former deputy chief whip Anne Milton told the BBC: "In the short period of time I was involved with the allegations against Charlie Elphicke, I was clear that the whips' office was not the place to consider issues such as this.

"You can help people through difficult periods in their life - but the whips' offices are not equipped and don't have the expertise to deal with complaints of this nature."

Elphicke was a Conservative MP who was suspended by the party after "serious allegations" were referred to the police, and was subsequently convicted of sexual assault.

Ms Milton added: "I felt that the House of Commons - because allegations of misbehaviour or sexual harassment or sexual assault bring the House of Commons into disrepute - that the House of Commons needs to deal with that.

Whips 'not equipped'

"You need a process that should be handled by an external organisation, who are professionals, to investigate allegations swiftly."

She said the whips' office was an instrument of the party leadership - and in the case of the government, its role was to get government business through Parliament.

"The whips' offices do not have the HR skills needed."

Ms Milton said Parliament "absolutely" needed HR professionals.

"Trying to crack the nut of MPs acting like small businesses is quite a difficult nut to crack. But using an external agency to resolve workplace issues is not difficult.

"Neither Parliament nor the whips' offices are equipped to do it. This is highly specialised stuff."

She said whips could remove the whip from MPs, but "that's a political party decision".

"The whips shouldn't be enacting sanctions as part of the complaints process. It may be considered prudent by a political party to withdraw the whip pending an investigation."

Current MPs have also raised concerns about a lack of "HR professionals" to deal with cases like this.

One Conservative MP said: "Where does the buck stop? The whips, the police, the Speaker, there's also the parties. I don't see that there is any formal coming together of those."

Parties often "live in fear of someone saying: 'why didn't you take action?' That's where the judgement comes," they added.

This MP said that, while they still wanted a say in who their staff were, "I do think there's a benefit in more HR support for MPs - I'm not an HR expert."

They compared MPs employing their own staff with Parliament "dealing in effect with 650 small businesses".

What's proposed

Another former chief whip the BBC spoke to echoed the argument for "external supervision", saying the role of the whips was to "look after their flock, not to sit in judgement of them", and to persuade them to vote with their party the "right" way.

On Monday, MPs will debate proposals to bar some MPs under criminal investigation for violent or sexual offences from setting foot in Parliament.

The proposals have been drawn up by the House of Commons Commission, a body of senior MPs which oversees the working of the Commons, following a consultation.

If approved, the plans could allow MPs or peers to be barred from the Houses of Parliament if they are deemed to pose a risk.

The exclusion would apply to the parliamentary estate in Westminster and any parliamentary-funded travel.

MPs are being asked to have their say on the plans, but a formal vote has yet to be arranged.

The Commission has proposed that if the parliamentary authorities were presented with credible allegations of a sexual or violent offence by the police at any point in the criminal justice process, a staff panel would assess the claims.

If the panel undertook a full risk assessment on the basis of information provided by the police, it would consider the nature of the alleged misconduct and whether there were any safeguarding concerns.

If this led to exclusion being recommended, this would be put to an adjudication panel for a decision.

Under the proposals, excluded members would get a proxy vote so their constituents were not disadvantaged.

The BBC has been told there is some disagreement on the plans - with a number of MPs arguing members should not be excluded unless they are charged by police, and others arguing that the threshold for exclusion should be lower.

One former chief whip said excluding people who had not been charged flew "against natural justice".

"Allegations can be made against members of parliament that may be false, and they may be made in a vexatious way."

Ms Milton said she believed Parliament should be able to vote on excluding MPs from the Commons, because it was "quite a serious issue democratically".

"Their [MPs'] job is to hold the government to account. If you're going to withdraw an MP's ability to do this on behalf of their constituents. that's serious enough for the whole House to make a decision."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MPs' misconduct cases need professional HR, say former whips

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
MPs in charge of party discipline aren't equipped to handle misconduct allegations, one senior figure tells the BBC.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-is-over-boris-johnson-resign-mp-prime-minister-election-conservative-tory/

Highlights the difficult relationship between a former PM and a current PM - Changes within the Conservative Party - issues over “Proper Conservatism” - By-elections

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Has the former prime minister lost his mythical ability to wriggle out of impossible situations?