35 h. ago The Guardian view on Scottish politics: Labour wins the seat but not – yet – the argument | Editorial

A Tory collapse, the SNP’s slump and Reform’s rise signal a volatile shift – and the return to deal-making after the next Holyrood electionLabour’s victory in the Holyrood byelection offers the UK government a rare political comfort but not, perhaps, the strategic breakthrough it might like to imagine. A late flurry of welfare signalling, a dogged ground campaign and a carefully staged visit to a Govan shipyard by Sir Keir Starmer helped shore up Labour’s appeal to its traditional voters in Scotland’s industrial belt. Yet as Prof John Curtice has noted, Labour’s share of the vote actually declined compared with the last time voters cast ballots here in 2021 – a year in which the party was placed a distant third and was polling at the same dismal level of public support, 20%, it has today.The prime minister will gladly pocket Davy Russell’s win in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. But it is a foothold. There is still a steep climb to the summit. More te...

Politics

36 h. ago ‘Lots of bumps in the road’: Keir Starmer faces testing month before one

From spending review to China audit to assisted dying vote, June’s events have potential to lift or darken Labour moodAs Keir Starmer approaches his first anniversary in Downing Street, there will be several things he wishes he had done differently. But before he can contemplate that July milestone, he faces a busy month strewn with political bear traps.June has proven a difficult time for successive prime ministers: Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak all had to contend with deeply unhappy parliamentary parties reeling from heavy local and European election losses. Continue reading...

Politics

47 h. ago Keir Starmer's muddled politics are reaching their limit. It's time for him to make a choice | Andy Beckett

Veer left or double down on the right? Either way, the prime minister needs to commit and sell it to an impatient electorateAfter less than a year in power, Labour has reached a familiar place. Keir Starmer’s troubled government is at a fork in the road, wondering which direction to follow. With the delivery of its spending review next week after several acrimonious delays, and a Commons vote on its divisive welfare cuts expected later this month, the government’s unity and morale are fragile. The public finances are severely strained, with ever more competing demands, such as for extra defence spending. Though much more energetic than its Tory predecessor, this government often seems opaque, unable to explain its purpose in a compelling way.Many voters and journalists – even more impatient than usual after years of manic politics – are already considering what might replace Starmer’s administration. At barely 20% in the polls, Labour is as unpopular as in its most disliked days und...

Politics

2 d. ago Why is defence such a hard sell? The same reason Starmer is struggling in the polls | Martin Kettle

Decades of failures have left liberal democratic governments unable to command public confidence when it really mattersDefence reviews and foreign policy resets seem to turn up almost as often as the Sussexes’ lifestyle brand relaunches these days. Labour’s strategic defence review this week comes less than two years after the Conservatives’ hardly less detailed defence white paper in July 2023, which in turn was a “refresh” of Boris Johnson’s ambitious integrated review of defence and foreign policy of March 2021. By this measure, it must be doubtful if, come the 2030s, analysts will look back on Keir Starmer and John Healey’s review and say it broke the mould.The Labour government was entitled to try to put its own stamp on defence policy, of course, and its review team of George Robertson, Richard Barrons and Fiona Hill did a good, reasonably independent job. Yet this 2020s pattern of repeated strategic adaptation and refocus feels like the new normal now. It is also true that gr...

Politics

4 d. ago DAN HODGES: Keir Starmer's just told the most serious lie a prime minister's made in my lifetime. Labour can't be trusted to keep us safe. War's now a real risk

In his first major speech of last year's General Election campaign Keir Starmer posed a rhetorical question.

Politics

5 d. ago Keir Starmer is criticised for making 'deeply dishonest' claims about Labour's record on small boats after PM's boast that 'almost 30,000 people' had been removed from Britain

Sir Keir boasted in an online post that 'almost 30,000 people' had been removed from the UK. However, this figure refers to all types of foreign nationals who have no right to live in the UK.

Politics

5 d. ago Inquiry launched into appointment of football regulator chairman

David Kogan, a media rights expert, was named as the Government’s preferred candidate.

Politics

5 d. ago Starmer acknowledges need for swift clarity on winter fuel payments

The Prime Minister also did not steer away from suggestions that an announcement on the payment could come at the spending review on June 11.

Politics

5 d. ago Keir Starmer says 25,000 Scottish defence jobs protected by Labour funding boost as he attacks SNP on Trident

Starmer made the commitment as he launched the Strategic Defence Review at the BAE site in Govan.

Events

7 d. ago Starmer: Wave of investments will make military an ‘integrated fighting machine’

The new funding will see UK munitions spend hit £6 billion during this Parliament and support around 1,800 jobs throughout the country.

Events

7 d. ago UK to spend £1.5bn on new weapons factories in response to threat posed by Putin

Labour defence secretary John Healey and prime minister Keir Starmer to unveil new strategic defence review as war rages on the edge of Europe

Economics

7 d. ago DAN HODGES: I know the real reason Keir Starmer will never set foot in a truly working

Finally. The Labour Party have discovered the British white working class do exist. Or, at least, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has.

Politics

7 d. ago Voices: It is time the left made a case for immigration – and how to control it

A credible migration plan means investing in UK skills, enforcing fair rules, and building a country where all workers – wherever they’re from – are treated with dignity, writes Paul Nowak

Politics

8 d. ago Labour minister defends Keir Starmer's top legal adviser over 'appalling' claim that calls for UK to quit ECHR echo early Nazi Germany

In an astonishing speech last night Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, hit out at MPs and the media for being behind a 'siren song' pushing for Britain to drop international law.

Politics

9 d. ago Keir Starmer and Labour are accused of standing in the way of a ban on cousins marrying each other

Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons are most likely to support the first cousin marriages, with 39 percent of those polled saying it should be legal.

Politics

9 d. ago Keir Starmer says Nigel Farage is ‘Liz Truss all over again’ – UK politics live

Prime minister says ‘you cannot trust Farage with your future and your jobs’ as he gives speech in north-west EnglandStarmer to say Reform’s spending plans would cause Truss-style meltdownWhen “something sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is too good to be true”, water minister Emma Hardy has said, reports the PA news agency.Asked about the “threat” which Reform UK poses to Labour, Hardy told GB News:I think it’s really important that any political party is held to account for the promises that they’ve made and we know – gosh, don’t we just know – what happened when [former prime minister] Liz Truss made her £45bn of unfunded tax cuts: the economy tanked, mortgages went up, rents went up, bills went up.When something sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is too good to be true. If [Farage] wants to be taken seriously as a political party, then he needs to come up with some serious policies and he needs to be held to account.Now, had I come on your programme and said, ...

Politics

9 d. ago 'Political incompetence': Labour veteran John McDonnell calls for grassroots challenge to Keir Starmer's government

John McDonnell, who was suspended from the party last year for voting to scrap the two child benefit cap, accused the Prime Minister of ‘callousness and political incompetence’

Politics

1 week ago UK politics live: minister defends Labour’s justice record after warnings of threat to public safety

Housing minister says previous government left prison system in state of ‘criminal neglect’ amid warnings over early release plan The government is seeking to give a boost to smaller developers with faster planning decisions and financial backing to speed up building new homes.It will set out the detail of proposals to cut red tape and for planning decisions to be shifted away from councillors and towards expert officers as part of efforts to meet Labour’s pledge to build 1.5m homes by 2029-30.We’ve inherited, as you know, a housing system that’s not building enough homes part of the reason it is broken is that we’re overly reliant on a small number of large volume housebuilders. So we’ve got to diversify the housing market and get smaller housebuilders back in the game.In the 1980s they used to produce about 40% of all homes. Today it’s less than 10%, and so the package we’re announcing today allocating land specifically to SME housebuilders, providing them with more financial supp...

Events

1 week ago Government ‘not going to rule anything out’ amid benefit cap pressure

The Government has been under pressure to axe the system which restricts certain benefits to the first two children in most households.

Politics

1 week ago Reform UK’s income tax plans ‘to cost up to £80bn’ warns IFS – UK politics live

Research institute says costs of plan to exclude those earning less than £20k from the tax will dwarf those of party’s winter fuel and two-child benefit changesThe co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Adrian Ramsay, has renewed his call for Russia to face greater sanctions. Posting to social media, the MP for Waveney Valley said “Putin has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian civilians because he thinks he’ll face no consequences. Much tougher sanctions are urgently needed to bring him into serious peace talks to end this horrific war.”As well as appearing on the media round today, shadow chancellor Mel Stride has written for the Daily Mail, saying that the Conservatives continue to back the two-child benefit cap. Continue reading...

Economics