Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Home Secretary delivers another snub to Welsh First MInister
The broadcaster says that Shabana Mahmood's stance comes as the Labour party remains split over whether Cardiff Bay politicians should have direct control of criminal justice:
First Minister Eluned Morgan called for the devolution of policing last Thursday in a speech which warned Westminster Labour to act now to prevent pro-independence parties dominating the Senedd.
Plaid Cymru said the House of Commons exchange exposed "deep divisions" and a "lack of coherence within Labour's ranks".
Mahmood's white paper, published on Tuesday, could see the number of forces in England and Wales cut by about two-thirds.
An independent review will look at which forces should merge. The Welsh Liberal Democrats warned against a single Welsh organisation, fearing it could worsen local policing.
In the Commons, Plaid Cymru's Liz Saville Roberts said three independent commissions had recommended justice and policing be devolved to Wales.
She asked the home secretary: "Does she not agree that this package of radical changes is exactly the right time for the devolution of policing to Wales?"
In a short reply, Shabana Mahmood said: "No, I do not."
The Labour-led Welsh government has for years called for policing and criminal justice powers to be devolved to the Senedd.
Advocates of that policy argue it would allow the Welsh government to set policies that were more aligned to Wales' existing health and education systems.
The Welsh government commission on justice in 2019, external argued there was also "no rational basis" for Wales to be treated differently from Northern Ireland and Scotland, where policing is devolved.
Labour MPs have struck a different tone, however, with the now Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens saying in 2024 that problems with crime were too urgent to begin "fiddling" with policing powers.
Having already been snubbed by Labour MPs over her call for the control of Welsh railways to be devolved to the Senedd, Eluned Morgan has now had the same treatment from the Home Secretary. She just can't catch a break.
Monday, January 26, 2026
Is blocking Burnham a fatal mistake for Starmer?
The paper says that in a vote of the 10-strong “officers’ group” of the NEC, only one person, Lucy Powell, the party deputy leader and a close ally of Burnham, voted to allow the Greater Manchester mayor to compete to be a candidate in the seat vacated by Andrew Gwynne this week.
They add that the other eight members, which included the prime minister Keir Starmer, voted against the move, with the NEC chair, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, abstaining:
Allies of Starmer characterised the NEC’s decision as simply upholding party rules. But those who had urged Starmer to allow Burnham to stand said the decision was a calamitous mistake.
One source on the party’s soft left said: “No 10 have chosen factionalism over what’s right for the party. They will have to change course, not least once they realise they will lose the byelection without Andy.”
There was no immediate reaction from Burnham. But Mainstream, the left-leaning Labour group associated with the Greater Manchester mayor and other senior figures such as Powell, said: “Labour must reverse this decision if it is serious about putting country before party. We urge the party to reconsider in the interests of taking on Reform and building the strongest possible team in Westminster.”
Another Labour source said the NEC meeting, described as “respectful and collegiate”, had heard concerns about the cost of holding a mayoral byelection to replace Burnham two years into his term, and worries about a divisive campaign by Reform UK.
One tweets summs up how Starmer has put his future on the line by this decision:
In the knifing of Burnham, no senior Labour politician got blood on their hands. Shabana Mahmood, shielded by convention, chaired the crucial NEC meeting but did not vote (on the morning media round she had praised Burnham as an “exceptional politician”). Deputy Leader Lucy Powell, unsurprisingly, cast a lonely vote for Burnham. Wes Streeting condemned the anonymous briefings against Burnham as “disgraceful” and, without endorsing Burnham’s run, said the party needed “the best possible candidate” in Gorton and Denton. Ed Miliband said Burnham should be allowed to stand. So did Sadiq Khan. Those publicly trashing Burnham’s run were a selection of backbenchers. The figures on the NEC who voted to block Burnham are not household names. This is a decision that will be entirely put at the door of Keir Starmer. And if this decision results in the loss a safe Labour seat, in the party’s heartland of Greater Manchester, the Prime Minister will find that it is very, very lonely at the top.
On the argument that allowing Burnham to become an MP could have added to speculation about the Prime Minister's future, blocking him in this way has stirred up even more discontent within the Labour Party.
Allowing Burnham to stand would have been the wise choice for Starmer. There was no guarantee that the Manchester mayor would have won the by-election, it was a gamble for him just as it much as it would have been for the Burnham. But without Burnham, the seat is likely to go to the Greens or Reform and, as the tweet says, that will undermine Starmer even more.
This act by the Prime Minister is a sign of weakness, not strength.
Update: It has been pointed out that as the Manchester Mayor holds PCC functions then s/he cannot also be an MP. I have removed the section that referred to this.
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Labour Welsh First Minister snubbed by her own MPs
Nation Cymru reports that a Welsh Labour MP has argued against a major amendment to the Railways Bill which would devolve powers over the railways to Wales:
The amendment, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, would remove rail transport from the list of powers reserved to Westminster and require responsibility for infrastructure, investment and the long-term strategy of Welsh railways to be transferred to the Senedd within two years.
During the Committee debate, Labour MPs clarified that they do not support devolution of Wales’s railways through the Railways Bill.
Labour MP for Wrexham, Andrew Ranger, said he was “not convinced” by including the devolution of rail as part of the Bill, urging the Committee to “work with the situation as it stands”. However, he did claim the matter was “worthy of future consideration”.
The Labour Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Keir Mather, said that the amendment would introduce “boundaries” that risk fragmentation.
“By reopening the devolution settlement and mandating the transfer of responsibilities that are already being addressed through strengthened partnership working, it risks diverting attention from implementation and delivery. The Bill already enhances joint working.”
Mr Mather continued to oppose the devolution of rail to Wales, saying that reserved powers to Westminster play “an important part” in maintaining cross-border services.
However, the amendment would put Wales on a similar footing to Scotland, who manage cross-border services between Scotland and England without issues.
It comes after criticism that English rail projects were being designated as “England and Wales” projects, such as rail links between Liverpool and Hull, Oxford and Cambridge, and the HS2 project – despite none of these having any physical tracks running into Wales.
The classification of “England and Wales” means that Wales does not receive a Barnett consequential, which is money allocated to the devolved nations in response to spending on public services in England.
Welsh Liberal Democrat David Chadwick MP, who is the party’s Westminster spokesperson, believes the debate exposed a contradiction after Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan promised “a new era of devolution”, including rail should they win the Senedd election.
He said: “Labour Ministers have now put it on the record that they do not support devolving rail to Wales. That tells you everything you need to know about how seriously Labour takes devolution when it actually matters.
“The First Minister speaks about a ‘new era of devolution’, but she can’t even get her own MPs to back her. Everything outlined in her speech is empty rhetoric unless that changes.
“Scotland already has these powers. Wales does not. Until Labour matches words with action, Wales will continue to be short-changed by billions of pounds, depriving communities of much-needed transport investment.”
If Eluned Morgan cannot convince her own colleagues to support her, what chance does she have of persuading voters?
Saturday, January 24, 2026
King Charles' forgotten Hamlet
Coed Darcy is a new estate built on the old BP works in Llandarcy. St Modwen, the developer behind the project and the owner of the entire 1,000 acre Coed Darcy site, originally announced a 25-year vision for a £1.2bn, 4000-home 'urban village' with 10,000 residents and four schools, however the development stalled and so far only has a few hundred houses, a play area and an empty shop.
The estate was meant to be a model of urban renewal, but before the development started in earnest, the company tasked with transforming the area, decided to pay homage to the then Prince Charles' interest in 'classic' architecture. The BBC even did a news piece on the hamlet fronted by Griff Rhys Jones, which can be viewed here.
Wales-on-line tells us that not far from the current community, nestled amidst green fields, scrubland and trees is a quaint little hamlet of red and grey-roofed homes. There are streets, something that looks like it could be a little school or community hall and some ponds:
The white-fronted buildings look pretty with their different coloured brightly painted doors and neat windows.
Look for any length of time, and you won't see a single person. No lights will illuminate the windows on an evening, and there won't be a sound to be heard, other than the wind or the steady thrashing of rain we've become accustomed to of late.
In fact, if you are anywhere near you will have had to traipse over rough ground, as there are no proper roads leading to this ghost community.
The houses were built on the site of the former BP oil refinery in Llandarcy, Neath, in 2013, with traditional Welsh stone and using cutting-edge construction techniques.
They were designed as a showcase for an environmentally sustainable village made up of thousands of new homes, and even had the backing of Prince Charles.
But six years since they were built, these particular homes, distant from other development on the massive old industrial site, remain empty with no infrastructure connected to them.
In fact, more than a decade on from when the plans were first submitted in 2006, just 250 homes have been built in the new village named Coed Darcy.
The original vision was for the empty houses to be part of an environmentally-sustainable urban village of 4,000 homes, similar to Prince Charles' Poundbury village in Dorset.
The Prince even visited the site himself when they were completed in 2013.
He said he was "trying to break the commercial mould with the kind of challenges the world is now facing," by backing the project.
This article is from just over six years ago and the homes are still empty, which in a housing crisis is not a good look.
Friday, January 23, 2026
Are Welsh Labour in panic mode?
The UK government has refused to devolve control of the crown estate, refused to give Wales powers over railways or reclassify rail projects like HS2 so that we get the Barnett consequentials and refused every request for extra powers including over the justice system.
In that time Eluned Morgan and her predecessors have talked up the benefits of having a Labour government at both ends of the M4 despite the fact that so far this collaboration has produced very little for Wales.
Now, with Labour tanking in the polls, she and her colleagues appear to have woken up. The BBC reports that Morgan has publicly come out to call on the Prime Minister to help stop pro-independence parties winning the next Senedd election by giving her country more powers.
The broadcaster says that the First Minister has warned that the "threat to the United Kingdom will become real" if parties wanting to leave the union were leading in both Scotland and Wales:
Speaking to the Institute for Government earlier in the day, Morgan said the most recent opinion poll gave "two pro independence parties Plaid and the Greens a majority in Wales".
"Separatism is now very much on the agenda in our nation," she said.
She said the significance of that was "not reverberating as it should".
"Support for independence tends to rise when politics feels stuck or uncertain, and it falls when people see devolution deliver."
Devolution is the "best way to lower the temperature and raise trust", she said.
"The UK government can play a leading role in helping us to resist separatism and the break up of the union. They can support us by giving us the tools to help improve life for the people in Wales."
Following her speech, Morgan said the "threat to the United Kingdom will become real" if pro-independence parties came out top in Wales as well as in Scotland, where pro-independence SNP are hoping to return to government following May's Holyrood election.
Morgan apparently used her speech to make a list of requests for more powers and money from Westminster, as well as a "new deal for devolution" including those elusive powers over natural resources, the Crown Estate, and policing and justice, which have mostly been rejected by the UK government.
There is a hint of panic in this long-awaited public break with the UK government. Unfortunately, it looks like it might be too little, too late.
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Is Farage too busy earning money to stick to the rules?
However, Daniel Greenberg said that following an investigation, he had concluded that the breaches were "inadvertent" and therefore would not be recommending any sanctions for the Clacton MP:
Rule five of the parliamentary code of conduct states that new MPs should register all their financial interests received in the 12 months before their election and that MPs "must register any change in those registrable interests within 28 days".
Farage missed the deadline 17 times, with delays spanning from four days to as long as 120 days.
The highest payment registered was £91,200 from gold dealer Direct Bullion, for whom he works as a brand ambassador.
A Labour Party spokesperson said Farage "isn't on the side of working people - he's just lining his pockets when he should be standing up for his constituents".
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: "Five Jobs Farage is spending far too much time jetting off to talk our country down in the US and cashing in from his GB News show."
Farage is boycotting Prime Minister's questions. missing key votes, is hardly seen in his constituency and spends a huge amount of time jetting off to the USA and elsewhere. No wonder he is missing deadlines, he hardly has time to do the job he was elected to.
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Will Labour backtrack on leasehold reform?
The paper says that Rayner has intervened in a tense standoff between Steve Reed, the housing secretary, and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, over whether to stand by Labour’s promise to limit annual charges for existing leaseholders:
The measure was part of a draft leasehold bill due to be published last year, which was delayed after Reeves became concerned that capping ground rents could deter property investors.
Government insiders say Starmer is due to decide between his warring ministers on Tuesday, as pressure mounts from Labour MPs to publish the draft bill as soon as possible.
In an article for the Guardian, Rayner writes: “Over recent decades … ordinary homeowners have increasingly been charged high and escalating amounts of ground rent, leaving them in financial distress and often unable to sell or re-mortgage their homes.”
She adds: “Labour made a promise to leaseholders that we would fix this injustice, but ministers are currently subjected to furious lobbying from wealthy investors trying to water this manifesto commitment down.
“There are those who argue we cannot act on our promise as it could risk a backlash from investors, including pension funds. It’s hardly surprising – the system works just fine for them.
“They get an annual return for doing absolutely nothing, they can raise ground rents and pile up service charges without transparency and with total impunity, regardless of the devastation it causes to families.”
Labour promised in its manifesto to “finally bring the feudal leasehold system to an end”, including banning the sale of new leasehold flats. The manifesto added: “We will tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.”
Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, has been working on the draft bill since Labour entered government, including a measure to cap ground rents at £250 a year for current leaseholders. New leasehold properties must be sold with peppercorn, or nominal, ground rents, under legislation passed by the last Conservative government.
He was supported for much of that time by Rayner, who was also the housing and local government secretary before she left government last year after admitting to underpaying property taxes on her new property in Hove, East Sussex.
Pennycook was due to publish the draft bill in December, but the plans were postponed at the last minute after Treasury officials became concerned that the ground rent cap could hit pension funds that own freehold properties.
Labour MPs have become increasingly frustrated by the delays, given there are an estimated 5m leasehold homes in England, and have raised the issue repeatedly with the prime minister in the Commons.
The Tories bottled proper leasehold reform, we should expect better of the Labour Party. Leasehold tenure is an antiquated and unfair feudal system that should follow rentcharges into the dustbin of history.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Reform have mutated into the Truss/Johnson Tory Party Mark II
Readers of the Independent seem to agree. The paper says that they now see the party as little more than a refuge for self-serving ex-Tories. Commenters on the paper's site have argued that high-profile figures such as Robert Jenrick, Nadhim Zahawi, and Nadine Dorries switched allegiance to protect their political careers rather than to represent constituents:
Readers criticised Reform for taking in hard-right ex-Tories and recycling discredited politicians, saying it undermines the party’s anti-establishment image.
They also highlighted past Conservative failings in public services, social care, and immigration, arguing that with so many ex-Tory MPs, Reform offers little more than a continuation of the same policies.
A small minority suggested the defections might allow the Conservatives to rid themselves of unpopular MPs and regroup.
However, the dominant view was one of cynicism, that Reform is largely a vehicle for political survival, and its MPs cannot be trusted to act in the public interest.
The extent to which Farage's party is transforming into a mark 2 version of Truss's and Johnson's Tory Party is uncanny. With thanks to the twitter feed of Reform Watch UK Exposed, here is a list of leading defectors from the Tories so far:
Leader: Nigel Farage (former Conservative)
MP: Lee Anderson (former Conservative)
MP: Sarah Pochin (former Conservative)
MP: Danny Kruger (former Conservative)
MP: Robert Jenrick (former Conservative)
MP: Andrew Rosindell (former Conservative)
MS: Laura Ann Jones (former Conservative)
Deputy Leader: Richard Tice (former Conservative)
Chair: Dr David Bull (former Conservative)
Deputy Chair: Paul Nuttalls (former Conservative)
Leader in Scotland: Malcolm Offord (former Conservative Life Peer)
Mayoral Candidate: Laila Cunningham (former Conservative)
Mayor of Lincolnshire: Andrea Jenkyns (former Conservative MP)
Leader in London: Alex Wilson (former Conservative)
Leader of Kent Council: Linden Kemkaran (former Conservative)
Leader of Derbyshire Council: Alan Graves (former Conservative)
Leader of Worcestershire Council: Jo Monk (former Conservative)
Leader of Durham Council: Andrew Husband (former Conservative)
Leader of Leicestershire Council: Dan Harrison (former Conservative)
Leader of Lancashire Council: Stephen Atkinson (former Conservative)
Leader of North Northamptonshire: Martin Griffiths (former Conservative)
Lucy Allan, former Conservative MP
Alan Amos, former Conservative MP
Sarah Atherton, former Conservative MP
Jake Berry, former Conservative MP
Ben Bradley, former Conservative MP
Michael Brown, former Conservative MP
Aidan Burley, former Conservative MP
Chris Butler, former Conservative MP
Maria Caulfield, former Conservative MP
Simon Danczuk, former Labour MP
Nadine Dorries, former Conservative MP
Chris Green, former Conservative MP
Jonathan Gullis, former Conservative MP
Adam Holloway, former Conservative MP
David Jones, former Conservative MP
Marco Longhi, former Conservative MP
Anne Marie Morris, former Conservative MP
Lia Nici, former Conservative MP
Henry Smith, former Conservative MP
Mark Reckless, former Conservative MP
Ross Thomson, former Conservative MP and MSP
Ann Widdecombe, former Conservative MP
Nadhim Zahawi, former Conservative MP
And that's just the consequential ones. It is little wonder that Farage wants to put a deadline in place after which he says he won't accept any more Tories. Reform has become the Tory party that crashed the economy. Why would anybody expect them to do any different if they got into government again.
Monday, January 19, 2026
Greenland crisis should push the UK closer to the EU
They report that the EU and the UK are in emergency talks on how to face Trump’s latest threat of a 10 per cent tariff on goods from eight countries unless Greenland is sold to the US, with the tariffs set to rise to 25 per cent on 1st June.
What Trump doesn't appear to understand is that if he smashes Nato, the US will be vulnerable to the very threats from China and Russia that he claims he wants to protect against by bringing Greenland into the US:
Britain has stood by its Nato commitment and sent one officer as a token presence on a token European military mission to Greenland. As the UK has negotiated 10 per cent tariffs with Trump vs the EU’s 15 per cent, it has a little more to lose in a decline in UK-US trade.
But it has a huge amount to gain economically, culturally, and now in terms of its security, if the crisis caused by Trump is seized as an opportunity for Britain to rejoin the EU on terms that bind the UK to the mainland. This would make both parties safer – and stop Putin from dancing a happy jig around the Kremlin.
Last year the UK and the EU failed to agree terms for Britain to join the Security Action for Europe (Safe) programme. This is a €150bn loan mechanism to boost the EU’s defence industrial capacity in the face of Russia’s threat against Europe and invasion of Ukraine.
Britain was asked to stump up €4-6bn as the price of membership. Canada only had to pay $20m, but the UK would have been a full partner, not a “third-party” country with limited access to the funds.
Britain would have been able to benefit enormously from cherry-picking this EU facility without having to go for political integration – which is why the EU set the fee so high
.
But that was years ago in Trump time. Last December on our calendars.
The EU needs Britain’s arms industry. And Britain needs the EU economic and security blanket.
The UK’s armed forces are small and impoverished, with their chiefs saying they face a £28bn funding shortfall.
According to a recent report by the Centre for Economic Policy: “By 2025, we estimate that UK GDP per capita was 6–8 per cent lower than it would have been without Brexit. Investment was 12–18 per cent lower, employment 3–4 per cent lower, and productivity 3–4 per cent lower.”
Other estimates put Britain’s losses at lower levels, but there can be no doubt that Brexit has been a strategic economic failure.
The Europeans are not having an easy run either. Per capita GDP growth for the UK from 2016 has been 4.5 per cent, Germany has almost flatlined at 3.6 per cent. France’s is only 7.5 per cent.
The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said US tariffs would hit both sides of the Greenland debate but were a distraction from the "core task" of ending Russia's war in Ukraine.
"China and Russia must be having a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among allies," Kallas said on X.
"Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity. If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside Nato," she added.
The EU needs help from the UK to do that. Britain has much to give the EU: its armed forces and military industries would accelerate and improve the bloc’s security.
If the UK Government was so minded, and they should be, this crisis could get them much more favourable terms to rejoin the EU. It would certainly benefit our security and our economy if we did that.
Sunday, January 18, 2026
A lobbying imbalance
The paper says that its investigation has found that Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Elon Musk’s X, whose Grok AI image generator has sparked outrage with its sexualised images of women and children, were among the US tech companies holding hundreds of meetings with people at the heart of government:
Google, the $4tn California company, had the greatest access, with more than 100 ministerial meetings, according to an analysis of meeting records for the two years to October 2025, which campaigners said showed the tech industry’s “capture” of government. The industry lobbying group Tech UK met ministers at the rate of more than once every eight working days.
X attended 13 meetings, a small proportion of the overall number, but still more than the child safety campaign group the NSPCC or the Molly Rose Foundation, founded by the family of 14-year-old Molly Russell who killed herself after viewing harmful online content.
“The frequency of meetings between government and big tech and their advocates is astounding and points to the incredible power imbalance at stake when it comes to protecting children online,” said Andy Burrows, the chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation.
The government defended its position, saying “regular engagement with technology companies is vital to delivering economic growth and transforming public services”. Campaigners said the government should stop “bending the knee to US big tech companies” and that the figures revealed an “incredible power imbalance” when it came to protecting children online.
There has been growing controversy over X’s Grok AI tool, and a resurgence in the campaign for the government to follow Australia and ban social media for under-16s, which is opposed by tech companies. In the UK, 84% of people are concerned ministers will prioritise tech company partnerships over the public interest when it comes to AI regulation.
Dame Chi Onwurah, the Labour chair of the science and technology select committee, said the findings underscored “the reality that these firms have turnovers larger than the GDP of many countries, and their ability to influence stands in stark contrast to that of their users, our constituents, or those campaigning to make the internet safer”.
She said it was “crucial for big tech to be accountable to parliament – something that the disturbing recent news about ‘nudification’ tools has only underlined further”.
The technology companies and their lobbyists attended at least 639 meetings with ministers compared with just 75 meetings attended by the organisations and campaigners fighting for greater protections for children online, such as the NSPCC.
The tech firms’ access was also more than three times greater than that of organisations and campaigners seeking to protect creatives’ copyrighted works from being mined to build AI models, a development that figures including Elton John and Kazuo Ishiguro have said risks giving away artists’ “lifeblood”.
Ed Newton-Rex, a campaigner for creators’ rights, called the figures “shocking” and said they explained why ministers had launched their consultation on AI and copyright “with a ‘preferred option’ that read like a wishlist from big tech”.
“It is imperative that the government stop bending the knee to US big tech companies – which, as the recent Grok debacle has shown, don’t have the interests of the British people at heart,” he said.
As important as technology is, these figures are shocking. Government should be putting the safety of women and children ahead of the big tech companies and that should be reflected in the activities of ministers and their actions.
