2 h. ago Kemi Badenoch says company bosses should have right to ban burkas and face coverings in workplace

The Conservative Party leader also blasted first-cousin marriages and sharia courts as an ‘insidious’ barrier to cultural integration

Economics

7 h. ago Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe shot at campaign event

39-year-old opposition senator reportedly hospitalised in serious condition after being shot in the back, with one suspect arrestedThe Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has been shot in Bogotá, with reports he was taken to hospital in a serious condition.The 39-year-old senator, who is running for the presidency in 2026, is a member of the opposition conservative Democratic Centre party founded by the former president Alvaro Uribe. The two men are not related. Continue reading...

Politics

43 h. ago Kemi Badenoch refuses to kick Liz Truss out of Conservative Party

The Tory leader suggested such a move would be ‘neither here nor there’ for voters’ perception of the party.

Politics

60 h. ago In charts: can Kemi Badenoch stop Tory voters fleeing to Reform UK?

Conservative leader will harden her immigration stance, but her party is no longer trusted by voters on the right

Politics

64 h. ago Even Kemi Badenoch’s closest allies admit she needs to get better

When the best thing the most senior member of a party leader’s team can say about them is that ‘she will get better over time’, then the Tories know they have a problem, writes David Maddox

Politics

64 h. ago The Guardian view on the Conservatives and international law: a party trapped inside its own destructive obsessions | Editorial

Kemi Badenoch’s European human rights withdrawal plan would weaken Britain, delight authoritarians and achieve none of the goals the Tories imagineKemi Badenoch’s announcement of a Conservative party inquiry into a British withdrawal from the European convention on human rights (ECHR) should fool no one. The working party under the shadow attorney general, David Wolfson, announced on Thursday, will not look dispassionately at whether the UK should withdraw. It will merely try to say why and how. The policy of withdrawal itself is almost, to coin a phrase, oven-ready.This back-to-front policymaking process exemplifies the party’s rudderless drift under Mrs Badenoch. Tory policy is not now in the hands of the leader or the shadow cabinet. It is in the hands of Reform UK and the opinion polls. Mrs Badenoch is a follower of events. Hers is the approach of someone still trapped in a party bubble which is consumed by the belief that withdrawal is the key to regaining the Conservative...

Society

3 d. ago Mel Stride to vow Tories will be party of 'stability and fiscal security' after Liz Truss meltdown as he hammers Reform's 'magic money tree' promises

He is expected to promise the Conservatives will 'never again' make offers they cannot afford as the party seeks to forge a 'credible' financial plan for the future.

Events

3 d. ago Tories will ‘never again’ put economy at risk like Liz Truss did, Mel Stride to say

Shadow chancellor to accept Truss’s mini-budget badly damaged party in clearest repudiation yet of ex-PMThe Conservatives will “never again” risk the economy with unfunded tax cuts like those in Liz Truss’s mini-budget, the shadow chancellor is to say in the party’s clearest repudiation yet of the former prime minister.Making a speech on the economy, Mel Stride is expected to go beyond any comments made by the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, thus far to accept that Truss’s September 2022 fiscal plans, which involved about £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and quickly unravelled, badly dented the reputation of the party. Continue reading...

Economics

5 d. ago Man convicted of burning Quran outside Turkish consulate in London, Conservative Party calls it ‘wrong’ verdict

Man convicted of burning Quran outside Turkish consulate in London, Conservative Party calls it ‘wrong’ verdict  Mint

Events

5 d. ago Poland’s presidential election result is a morale boost for Maga forces in Europe | Catherine De Vries

Karol Nawrocki’s win is a blow for prime minister Donald Tusk – and it symbolises a larger battle over the political narrativePolish voters returned to the polls on Sunday for the decisive round of a presidential election whose outcome reverberates far beyond Poland’s borders. The race was a showdown between two candidates who represent the country’s stark political and ideological divide: Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the far-right opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), and Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal and strongly pro-European mayor of Warsaw representing the Civic Platform (PO) party of the prime minister, Donald Tusk. The razor-thin victory for Nawrocki, who secured just over 50% of the vote, is a domestic setback for Tusk, but it also threatens wide and gloomy repercussions within the EU and beyond.Tusk’s return to power as prime minister in 2023, after previously serving from 2007 to 2014, was widely seen as a bid to re-anchor Poland within the Europea...

Politics

6 d. ago Populist Nawrocki’s triumph threatens Poland’s place at Europe’s top table

Victory of radical-right candidate could seriously destabilise the coalition government of pro-EU prime minister Donald TuskEurope live – latest updatesThe victory margin of the nationalist Karol Nawrocki in Poland’s presidential elections may have been wafer-thin, but it marks a huge upheaval in the country’s political landscape whose impact will be felt not just in Warsaw but across the EU.Backed by the previous ruling conservative Law & Justice (PiS) party and, openly, by Donald Trump’s Maga movement, Nawrocki, a radical-right historian, defeated his liberal rival, the capital’s mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, by 50.89% to 49.11%. Continue reading...

Events

9 d. ago ‘The brand is broken’: is there any way back from abyss for Tories?

Conservative party has repeatedly proved able to adapt and reinvent itself – but this time might be differentAt a carefully staged factory visit rich in pre-written lines, one part of Keir Starmer’s delivery felt entirely unscripted: his insistence that Reform is now his main electoral challenger, rather than a Conservative party “sliding into the abyss”.This was, one No 10 source said afterwards, “not posturing”, but simply an acknowledgement that under Kemi Badenoch there appeared to be no way back for a party slumping in the polls and that followed up a disastrous general election with almost equally bad local results at the start of this month. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Badenoch to go ‘probably this year’, says former No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings

Boris Johnson’s former aide described Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as a ‘vehicle’ for voters to say they ‘despise’ Westminster.

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on Farage’s cynical pitch: Labour must be bolder to see off the threat | Editorial

The Reform UK leader spies a route to power through appealing to blue collar voters. His speech is another wake-up call for Sir Keir Starmer’s governmentLast July, concluding his election victory speech after winning in Clacton, Nigel Farage announced that after inflicting grievous damage on the Conservative party that night, Reform UK would now “be coming for Labour”. Since then, on issues such as the nationalisation of Britain’s beleaguered steel industry, Mr Farage has carefully positioned his party as sympathetic to working-class concerns and fears. His heavily-trailed speech on Tuesday, in Westminster, was the most direct attempt yet to present himself as a new spokesperson for Labour’s traditional blue-collar voters.The most talented and cynical political opportunist of his generation, Mr Farage knows where the openings lie. Labour has tied itself in unedifying knots over its deeply unpopular cuts to the winter fuel allowance, and agonised over reversing the Tories’ ...

Events

1 week ago Trump hates wind power. But these Texas Republicans are embracing it

Wind turbines have become a financial lifeline in rural areas, but state legislators are now targeting themAs a Republican state lawmaker for 16 years, a Texas rancher and a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, John Davis’s conservative credentials are impeccable. But Davis has become horrified at his party’s assault upon an increasingly vital lifeline to many rural, conservative areas of the US – clean energy development.Davis allowed seven wind turbines to be situated on his ranch, in the rolling hill country near Menard, west of Austin, and has seen the income provide opportunities not only for his family but also his local community in what is one of the poorest counties in Texas. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘We’re totally smitten’: Boris and Carrie Johnson welcome fourth baby

Former prime minister and his wife share news of Poppy Eliza Josephine Johnson’s arrival in an Instagram postThe former prime minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie Johnson, have welcomed a fourth baby to the family.The former leader of the Conservative party can be seen holding his daughter, Poppy Eliza Josephine Johnson, in an Instagram post shared on Saturday. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Inside the UK’s first Reform pub with beer, black pudding baps and Belinda Carlisle

Once a Conservative Party social club, The Talbot in Blackpool has defected to Reform. Barney Davis heads north to see what all the fuss is about

Politics

2 w. ago IRA Brighton bomb victim's daughter backs Mirror campaign for terror attack monument

Jo Berry’s dad Sir Anthony Berry - a Tory party whip - perished along with four others in the blast at Brighton’s Grand Hotel on October 12, 1984 during the Conservative Party conference

Events

2 w. ago US investment firm Redbird agrees to buy Britain’s venerable Telegraph newspaper

A consortium led by U.S. investment firm Redbird Capital Partners has agreed to buy the publisher of Britain’s 170-year-old Daily Telegraph newspaper for about $674 million

Economics

2 w. ago Minister defends ‘good value’ Chagos deal as Badenoch says Trump ‘laughing’

Armed forces minister Luke Pollard faced questions about the Government’s estimation of the full cost.

Politics