Friday, February 28, 2025
Cutting overseas aid is wrong decision
The Guardian reports that cabinet ministers including Ed Miliband have raised concerns over Keir Starmer’s decision to slash overseas aid to pay for increased defence spending, while dozens of Labour MPs from all wings of the party have also expressed alarm at the plan.
The paper says that after aid agencies warned that the decision to cut the UK’s aid commitment from 0.5% of GDP annually to 0.3% would have a devastating impact in many areas, several MPs condemned the idea as shortsighted and unjustified:
While there is no suggestion of a revolt against Starmer’s plan, the Guardian understands that Miliband, the energy secretary, was among the ministers who expressed worry at the impact of the aid cut during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The prime minister discussed the move before he made the surprise announcement to the Commons. Speaking to broadcasters on Wednesday, Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, said that while it was “devastating” to cut aid, the cabinet was “united that the number one responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe”.
Starmer’s proposal to raise defence spending from 2.3% of GDP to 2.5% by 2027, three years earlier than planned, with the ambition to reach 3%, comes in the context of a continued threat from Russia and the decision by Donald Trump’s government to edge back from the US’s decades-long pledges to protect European Nato members.
In this context, it has been difficult for ministers or even Labour MPs to express their views publicly. However, MPs from several wings of the party told the Guardian they were deeply worried at the plans.
“It’s incredibly disappointing,” one said. “Reducing our foreign aid budget reduces our soft power and support for developing countries, which will impact us; it will make migration more likely.”
Another said: “The increase in defence spending is absolutely right but they could have done it another way. The aid programme, if directed, can play a crucial role in future conflict prevention and is also crucial for climate migration in some of the world’s most climate-stressed places which, if not supported, will mean millions will have to leave their homes as they are uninhabitable.”
Putting aside the moral issues for a minute, foreign aid is soft power, it helps to build alliances and trade partners. Pulling back from that leaves the door open for China and other powers to step in and extend their influence. This is a cut the government could soon regret.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Has the world given up trying to tackle climate change?
The paper says that the FTSE 100 fossil fuel company has promised shareholders it will increase its target for oil and gas production by 2030 to the equivalent of about 2.4m barrels a day – about 60% higher than the figure in its net zero plan set out five years ago:
The move back towards fossil fuels represents a stark shift from the investment plan put forward five years ago by the former chief executive Bernard Looney. He had promised to shrink the company’s fossil fuel production to about 1.5m barrels a day and make BP a net zero energy company by 2050.
Auchincloss said BP would instead focus on strengthening its production portfolio by starting up 10 large-scale oil and gas projects by 2027 and a further eight to 10 projects by the end of the decade.
The strategy reset has come amid growing pressure from investors to shrug off its green pledges, which initially won praise from green groups but have since been diluted as BP’s share price has suffered.
BP has lost almost a quarter of its market value in the past two years while the market value of its rivals Shell and ExxonMobil has increased as they pursue greater oil and gas production.
This is clearly a disturbing trend but it is in no way out of kilter with the way the world now appears to be moving. Look at the evidence:
There is of course the polluter-in-chief, Donald Trump who, in his first few weeks in power has issued a flurry of executive orders reversing the Biden administration’s policies on climate change and scientific integrity, directing federal agencies to fast-track energy permitting.
This malaise has spread to the UK with the government handing major oil companies the right to drill for fossil fuels in twenty four new licence areas across the North Sea as part of their mission to extend the life of the ageing oil and gas basin. And of course there is the intention of Chancellor Rachel Reeves to promote the building of a third runway at Heathrow.
The impression being given by all these actions and many more is that the world has given up on tackling climate change. Perhaps it was just too difficult, or maybe key decision makers have decided that the battle is lost so they may as well pretend it isnt a problem.
The real explanation though has a more cynical root. It is money. The future is being sacrificed for monetary greed and economic imperatives and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Welsh Labour MP predicts “we are absolutely doomed”.
The greatest interest though is the view of anonymous Labour MPs as to the way that the Welsh Labour Government has become its own worst enemy. The reference of course, is to the rather bizarre electoral system designed to give maximum control to poltical party bosses and imposed on us without proper consultation, which with the rise of Reform, takes the next Senedd election into uncharted territory,
Welsh Labour's prospects are summed up by one Welsh Labour MP, who is quoted as saying: “You say ‘Welsh Labour’ and people just go. I’ve got a lot of time for Eluned Morgan. If anybody can do it, she can. But is it an insurmountable task?”:
Some in Welsh Labour feel they have been ignored in recent years, not just by the UK government but by their own party at a UK level, with Scottish Labour getting more attention. A key factor is that the former has been more successful, having won every Assembly and Senedd election since 1999, but the aggrieved also say the latter has been seen as the “sexier” of the two autonomous units of UK Labour.
Welsh representatives now warn that the UK Labour leadership is heading for a rude awakening at the next Senedd elections on 7 May 2026. Recent polls show Labour level with – or even slightly behind – Plaid Cymru, which currently has 12 Senedd members (MSs), compared to 30 Labour and 16 Tories. Labour is also level with Reform UK, which has no MSs and just three councillors in Wales; support for the Conservatives has collapsed.
“We’re 18 months away from Senedd elections. We’ve got a Labour government elected now, which we are working with far more effectively than we were able to with the previous Conservative government. That’s beginning to make a big difference,” says Mick Antoniw, Labour MS for Pontypridd.
“Of course, the other side of that is a lot of media attention where you’ve had issues around the winter fuel allowance, the farming inheritance issue and so on. Politics is incredibly volatile.”
Getting the most electorally difficult policies out of the way early in a UK Labour government’s term is unfortunate timing for the party in devolved assemblies, where elections are being held mid-term from a Westminster perspective. The two big controversies around winter fuel payments and inheritance tax paid by farmers are particularly challenging in Wales, where there is an older population and a strong farming sector.
Running on a “change” platform would be tough in Wales, where Labour has always governed, one of Welsh Labour’s new MPs points out. Instead, the message to Welsh voters in 2026 will be that “having a Labour government at both ends of the M4 is important”.
The rows between devolved administrations and the UK government have been fierce in recent years. “Surely it’s better for Welsh Labour to suck up to the UK than have the governments clashing,” the MP says. “That’s why it’s so important we deliver. It’s all about delivery.”
Others worry that double incumbency will see the international trend of voters punishing incumbents hit Labour hard in Wales. “People are feeling very let down by Keir,” says the first anonymous Welsh Labour MP, adding: “Welsh Labour is a complete shitshow.”
“It’s like Brexit all over again, isn’t it? Kicking back against the system,” they continue. “The Reform thing is real. We need to seriously, seriously, wake up to it.” The MP predicts that in areas like Llanelli, where Reform came just 1,500 votes behind Labour in July, “we are absolutely doomed”.
If the Welsh Government can't convince their own MPs then what chance do they have with the electorate.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
How accountable is the House of Lords?
The paper says that one in 10 members have been hired to give political or policy advice, according to their own declarations, and others do paid work for companies that could conflict with their role as legislators:
The findings expose weaknesses in the Lords code of conduct and raise questions about whether the rules on lobbying and paid employment should be tightened in line with restrictions signed up to by MPs.
The investigation sheds new light on the extent to which money flows into politics from those who hold peerages or go on to secure them, with more than £100m given to the three main parties over the last two decades, much of it by a small group of influential super-donors.
Many members of the Lords make a valuable contribution to its main purpose of refining and scrutinising legislation. But their numbers have ballooned to 835 after a succession of prime ministers packed the house with donors and party loyalists. Labour has promised some changes, but there are calls for more ambitious reforms to an institution Keir Starmer has previously described as “indefensible”.
Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said: “The Lords should not be a political gated community filled with party donors, as well as friends and supporters of various prime ministers. These revelations again underscore the urgent need for Lords reform so there is far greater transparency and accountability to guard against conflicts of interest, which risk further corroding the public’s already rock-bottom trust in politics.”
Over the coming weeks, the Guardian will publish the Lords debate, a months-long investigation that has involved undercover reporting, and extensive analysis of parliamentary records, political donations and official documents.
It will reveal details of how:
* Nearly 100 members of the Lords are paid to give political or policy advice by commercial firms.
* A Labour peer offered access to ministers during discussions to sponsor an event in parliament.
* A former minister has earned millions of pounds since entering the Lords by working for 30 companies.
* Multiple peers are being paid by foreign governments including repressive regimes.
* More than £1 in every £14 donated to political parties since 2001 came from those who have sat as peers in the last parliament.
As the Guardian points out, ministers are in the process of removing the remaining 92 hereditary peers, amid opposition from many Conservative lords. However, further changes promised in the Labour manifesto – including an age limit of 80, reforming the appointments process, setting minimum levels of attendance, and a consultation on replacing the chamber – are yet to take shape and there are fears they will be kicked into the long grass.
More importantly, none of the proposed changes would tighten the rules on lobbying and paid employment. It is about time that government got to grips with reforming this overlarge retirement home for politicians, or better still replace it with an elected second house.
Monday, February 24, 2025
Karma and a leading Tory
The paper says that in a biography on his website, Mr Jenrick claims to have been "the joint youngest Cabinet Minister since the Second World War, tied with Harold Wilson and William Hague" when he was made Housing Secretary in 2019, but he was 37 at the time he was elevated to the cabinet, while Wilson and Hague were 31 and 34 respectively when reaching Cabinet minister status:
Mr Jenrick's lengthy LinkedIn bio runs to over 300 words, including grandiose statements about his "formative years" being "defined by fundamental conservative values".
In recent days he's attacked Labour politicians including Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds for correcting errors on their CV.
Mr Jenrick said on Twitter : "In the real world, if you lie about your CV you resign"
A source close to Mr Jenrick said the error had now been corrected.
A Labour Spokesperson said: “Honest Bob Jenrick has a lot to say about other people but now he’s been caught red handed telling porky pies about his own career.
“It’s an open secret that Jenrick is on manouevres given calamity Kemi Badenoch ’s bungling leadership, but watching him trying to pass off a Labour Prime Minister’s achievement as his own is a boast too far.
“The shadow justice role requires integrity.
“No one should take a thing that Honest Bob says seriously.”
Oops. Karma strikes again.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Can Starmer halt the rise of Reform?
Nevertheless, Labour appear to think that the Prime Minister is their secret weapon in getting the truth out about Reform for, as the Independent reports elsewhere, Starmer is poised to take the fight directly to the insurgent right-wing party, arguing its policies are “alien” to the needs of working people.
The paper says that the PM will use the Scottish Labour Conference in Glasgow today to challenge the gathered MSPs, MPs and activists to “show a path to the future”, warning that if his party does not then “others will fill that void”:
Sir Keir Starmer will condemn the "dangerous right-wing politics" of Reform UK and insist that Nigel Farage's party are "not the answer for Britain".
In a sign of growing fears in Downing Street at Reform’s surge in the polls, the prime minister will take the fight directly to the insurgent right-wing party, arguing its policies are “alien” to the needs of working people.
Mr Farage’s party topped Labour in Techne’s weekly tracker poll for The Independent for the first time last week, with 26 per cent of the popular vote, and is on course to win its first seats at Holyrood in next May’s Scottish elections.
And, addressing the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow on Sunday, Sir Keir will challenge gathered MSPs, MPs and activists to “show a path to the future”, warning that if his party does not then “others will fill that void”.
The PM will say that, with their "dangerous right-wing politics", Reform "will say they are the ones who can tilt politics towards the interests of working people".
But he will insist that "their proposals do precisely the opposite", adding that Labour has "to be ready for this test, ready to point out that beneath the bluster, the alternative they offer is alien to working people".
Hitting out at Mr Farage’s party, which won five seats in last year's general election, the Sir Keir will say: "You want to know what Farage and Reform are doing, on their rare visits to Parliament?
"They're voting against our employment right bill. They talk the language of workers' rights online and on doorsteps, but they want to charge people to use the NHS.
"They are not the answer people are looking for. That is not the answer for Britain. And it will never be the answer for Scotland."
Labour has increasingly been attempting to take the fight to Reform, amid fears the party is riding a wave of discontent at Sir Keir’s government and could unseat scores of his MPs at the next general election.
Sir Keir also privately wrote to his cabinet to warn of the threat of Reform, according to reports, telling his top team that “if governments are not changing the system in favour of working people, then voters will find someone else who does”.
Left-wingers have condemned the party’s attempts to apparently “outdo” Mr Farage, publishing videos of illegal working raids and deportation flights while highlighting its record on deportations using Reform-style posters.~
Veteran Labour MP and former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott has accused Sir Keir of turning Labour into “Reform-lite”.
Of course we've been down this road before. Many voters' views of politics are based on their gut instincts rather than facts. In a lot of cases they have a distorted view of what those facts are, especially on immigration, and won't take correction. I know, I've tried.
By all means set out the situation as it really is, and keep repeating it ad nauseum until some of it sinks in, but the real path to disarming Farage and his fellow travellers lies in fixing the country. That means getting the economy, the health service, education, public transport and basic infrastructure working as it is meant to. It also means not penalising groups of people who are needed to be part of that anti-Reform coalition through measures like abolishing the winter fuel allowance.
We need proper investment in our public services, and we need it now, not at some nebulous time in the future when economic growth is deemed sufficient. It is time for deeds not words. The stakes couldn't be higher.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Labour Minister under investigation
The paper says that the Solicitors Regulation Authority said on Friday it would look into allegations that Reynolds had incorrectly claimed to have worked as a solicitor even though he did not finish his legal training:
The confirmation comes after the website Guido Fawkes revealed Reynolds had not qualified, despite his LinkedIn profile listing one of his previous jobs as “solicitor”.
The SRA wrote to Reynolds in January after becoming aware of the error on his LinkedIn profile but decided not to take further action after it was corrected.
On Friday, however, a spokesperson for the regulator said: “We looked at that issue at the time we became aware of it and contacted Mr Reynolds about the profiles. The materials were corrected, and we closed the matter with no further action based on all the evidence we had at the time.
“However, we’ve now become aware of further information, so we will look at this.”
The spokesperson would not say why the regulator had changed its position since Wednesday.
The decision came after Robert Jenrick wrote to the SRA demanding a new inquiry. The shadow justice secretary earlier this week accused Reynolds of “criminal conduct” and called on the prime minister, Keir Starmer, to sack him.
Reynolds is the second Minister to be accused of having incorrect information on his Linkedin profile. Chancellor, Rachel Reeves has also had to correct her profile after it said she had been an economist at the bank HBOS when she actually worked in retail banking. It isnt a good look.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Orgies, fights and ‘KGB agents’ in brothels
The paper says that the book covers orgies, Matt Hancock’s abrupt departure to the I’m a Celebrity... jungle, a Tory MP becoming stuck in a brothel, and the various misconduct scandals that engulfed members of Rishi Sunak’s government:
Hart recalls that, just one month into the job, an MP elected in 2019 called him at 2.45am to report that he was in a brothel with a woman he suspected was a Russian agent.
Hart recounts the MP telling him: “I met a woman as I left the Carlton Club who offered me a drink, but I now think she is a KGB agent. She wants £500 and has left me in a room with 12 naked women and a CCTV.”
After discussing the issue with a special adviser, Hart sent the MP a taxi to return him to his hotel, before receiving a second call at 4.10am in which he was told that the taxi driver was an “Afghan agent” who had asked for £3,000 for a sex act.
In his diaries, Hart says Rishi Sunak appointed a minister to his cabinet during a reshuffle despite saying: “Let’s all agree about one thing. She is f***ing useless but we can’t get rid of her.”
He also criticises the minister for failing to appreciate her new role, writing: “[She] is less grateful than her promotion deserves and more entitled than professionals should be when selected by the PM for high office.”
Hart does not disclose the name of the minister, but only three women were promoted to the cabinet or given enhanced briefs during the February reshuffle.
Kemi Badenoch, now the Tory leader, was handed business brief on top of her role as international trade secretary, while Michelle Donelan was promoted to become science and technology secretary.
Lucy Frazer was promoted to culture secretary, having previously been housing minister.
Hart recounts being told that in February 2023, while at dinner at the Hurlingham Club, a senior married MP got “a bit fruity” with a journalist and suggested that her “dress would look better discarded on my bedroom floor”.
When Hart informed Boris Johnson that Harriet Harman was to publish her privileges committee report, which would recommend he be subject to a 20-day suspension, the former PM asked if there was a way to “kill off the report or at least vote it down”, the book claims.
“In any normal circumstances, a former PM asking for special treatment would be a big deal, but this being Boris, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” writes Hart. “Worryingly, it doesn’t even annoy me that much either.”
Upon being reminded that it was he himself who had set up this process and accepted Harman as its chair, Johnson replied: “But I was in India and I wasn’t concentrating. I left it all to the whips.”
Hart reports that, on Halloween 2023, a special adviser went to an orgy and another employee dressed up as prolific paedophile Jimmy Savile.
“Among today’s HR joys is the report that a departmental Spad went to an orgy over the weekend and ended up taking a crap on another person’s head,” he writes.
“To make matters worse, in a separate incident a House employee went to a party dressed as Jimmy Savile and ended up having sex with a blow-up doll, for which he has been subsequently dismissed. Just another day at the office, I guess.”
The Welsh Assembly was a tea party in comparison to that lot.
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Senior Tory scores own goal
The paper says that, in what appears to have been an attempt to dig up information on Labour’s record, the shadow paymaster general used a written parliamentary question to ask how many new prison places were built under the previous Labour administration, between May 1997 and May 2010, and the previous Tory administration, between May 2010 and July 2024.
Unfortunately for him, the response from justice minister Sir Nicholas Dakin revealed that the Tories increased the capacity of the prison estate by just 455 spaces in their fourteen years in power - fewer spaces than the current government has created in its seven months in office:
The previous Labour government boosted space by 27,830 new prison places, the data shows.
A further written question asked by Mr Holden also revealed that between 2010 and 2024, the Tories closed the doors of more than 7,500 prison cells.
However, when he pressed for further information from the House of Commons library, separate data showed that between 1997 and 2010 - under the previous Labour government - the number of prisoners in double bunked cells had increased by more than 9,000. And between 1999 and 2010, those placed in overcrowded accommodation increased by around 7,000.
Oops!
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Rising bills highlight Labour's first major misstep
The paper says that Whitehall sources have indicated that they expect bills in most UK regions to increase by around £9 a month over next three months, hitting Labour’s pledge to curb the cost of living:
Forecasts of exactly how much rates will rise again in April vary, but most key analysts agree they will be increasing. Large energy firms such as British Gas, E.On and EDF predict the price cap will increase by between five and seven per cent.
Experts say increased volatility in the global gas market is a key source of the rises. The transit deal that allowed gas to flow to Europe from Russia via Ukraine recently ended, adding more uncertainty.
Meanwhile, the lack of gas storage in Britain and Europe is also adding to the issue at a time when cold weather has greatly increased demand in recent months.
Mr Miliband, the energy secretary, has now written an urgent letter to Ofgem, asking the regulator to move faster to protect consumers against coming price rises. Writing to chief executive Jonathan Brearley, he said there are steps Ofgem could take to combat the “rollercoaster” of global gas markets.
“In recent months we have seen once again the dangers for our country of being exposed to fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators,” he wrote, adding that the UK is “highly exposed to these global gas markets.”
“Once again, the British people and British businesses will face the consequences of fossil fuel markets we do not control,” he said.
Labour's problem though goes deeper than worries about the country's lack of gas storage and dependence on fossil fuels. Another price increase will serve to rmeind voters once again about their misjudgement in abolishing the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Labour under friendly fire over migration and asylum policy
The paper says that the group, in a joint statement, singled out the Home Office’s decision, revealed last week, to refuse citizenship to anyone who arrives in the UK via “a dangerous journey” such as a small boat over the Channel:
The statement also criticised ministers for highlighting the number of people being deported from the UK, with a Home Office publicity blitz last week using footage and images showing people being removed on planes.
The statement, coordinated by the Labour Campaign for Free Movement and the left-leaning Labour group Momentum, has been signed by seven MPs – Nadia Whittome, Diane Abbott, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Clive Lewis, Jon Trickett, Brian Leishman and Steve Witherden – as well as four ex-Labour MPs who now sit as independents, and four of the party’s peers.
It read: “Last week the government has published videos of deportations, restated its intention to criminalise people arriving irregularly, and banned them from ever becoming British citizens.
“These measures mimic the performative cruelty of the failed Tory governments rejected by voters last July. They also breach Britain’s international obligations to respect the right to claim asylum and guarantee safe routes.
“Far from being a drain on this country, migrants from all over the world enrich our society in every sense. Anti-migrant politics will not build a single house, staff a single hospital or raise anyone’s wages. Instead, by echoing its rhetoric, the government is simply fuelling the rise of Reform UK.
“We urge Labour’s leaders to recognise that Labour’s only route to victory is to deliver for the vast majority of people. We need to reverse austerity, address the climate crisis, take on the water and energy companies ripping us off, and foster a politics of working-class solidarity.”
Ministers have faced previous warnings from within the party and its backers that attempts to try to limit the threat from Reform by talking and acting toughly on migration could backfire.
This month Labour launched a series of adverts with Reform-style branding and messaging about how many people the government had deported, including a series from a group called UK Migration Updates.
On Sunday, Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison, and nine Church of England bishops were among 148 signatories of a letter saying that the plan to deprive almost all asylum seekers of citizenship would “breed division and distrust” and could fuel attacks on migrant hotels.
The letter asked Cooper to “urgently reconsider the decision to effectively ban tens of thousands of refugees from ever becoming British citizens”.
The brothers and sisters are starting to get restless.
Monday, February 17, 2025
The doubting Tories
The paper says that some MPs are complaining that their fledgling leader is raising the wrong topics and picking unconvincing lines of attack against the prime minister at PMQs, which is her most prominent opportunity to make the political weather, while others have been concerned about the level of support for her from colleagues during the exchanges:
While most MPs are sympathetic to Badenoch, who is less than four months into the job, some MPs and frontbenchers want to see her bolster her advisory team with Tory figures seasoned in the difficult task of landing political blows.
One former cabinet minister said there had been complaints among MPs that Badenoch kept avoiding obvious attacks on Starmer’s handling of the economy, instead opting for “Westminster village-orientated” topics that she persevered with for too long. “People are putting on a brave face at the moment, but the comment I’ve heard more often than any other is that she keeps picking the wrong subjects,” they said. “There are some big things going on that could really resonate – like the economy.”
An MP who shared the concerns said: “We have people who have been involved in PMQs prep for a long time and I hope she’s got some continuity there, because it’s important we get it right. It doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll be perfect, but she needs experience behind her. You need wise heads who know what they’re doing.”
The discontent surfaced after this week’s outing, in which Badenoch confronted Starmer over an attempt by a family from Gaza to use a Ukrainian resettlement scheme to come to the UK, as well as the appointment of a new borders inspector who lives in Finland.
However, Starmer responded by stating that the government was already reviewing the findings of the case of the Gazan family, while the borders inspector had been appointed by the last government – and had now been instructed to work from the UK.
Sympathetic Tory MPs said that the complaints over Badenoch’s approach were simply evidence of how hard it was to make an impression as opposition leader and pleaded for colleagues to give her time. “No one’s going to be a rock star immediately,” said one frontbencher. “It’s going to be incredibly difficult and she’s got to grow into the job. If it does seem clunky, she’s got four years to get this right. Having said that, Starmer is unbelievably crap.”
The paper adds that Tory figures are concerned about what could happen should the Conservatives suffer a poor set of local elections in May, as expected, with MPs saying that any discussion about replacing another leader would make them look absurd and must be avoided.
All in all. it's a right mess they've got themselves into.
Sunday, February 16, 2025
The prince is no pauper
They says that Labour peer George Foulkes has had the first of what he intends to be a number of questions about Andrew accepted, after “helpful” discussions last week with the deputy speaker in the House of Lords, John Gardiner.
The paper adds that these talks came after Lord Foulkes said recently that he had been refused permission to table a question proposing a public register of royal interests. He has called for greater scrutiny of the royals, including in parliament:
Parliament’s standing orders and Erskine May, the “bible” of procedure, prevent scrutiny at Westminster of the conduct of members of the royal family. Erskine May states: “No question can be put which brings the name of the sovereign or the influence of the crown directly before parliament, or which casts reflections upon the sovereign or the royal family.”
George Foulkes plans to ask further questions about the use of taxpayers’ money by the monarchy. Photograph: Patrick Seeger/EPA Foulkes, 83, has argued that there should be changes to the rules to allow parliament to go beyond the current limit of questions, mainly about the cost to the taxpayer of royal residences and events attended by the royals, particularly in the light of continuing concerns over the conduct of Andrew. Lord Gardiner does not appear to have gone that far but has helped Foulkes navigate the restrictions, which also include the requirement that parliamentary questions should relate to matters of government responsibility.
Foulkes has asked ministers to publish details of any briefings provided to the Duke of York by the Ministry of Defence after he left the Royal Navy and during his tenure as the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment from 2001 until 2011. Foulkes has asked for details on the nature of the briefings, when they ceased and the reasons for their continuation post-service.
“There are some suggestions he may have had sensitive briefings and then used the information while talking to other people,” Foulkes said.
He has also tabled a question asking the government to publish annual figures for the cost of royal security and plans further questions about the use of taxpayers’ money by the royal family.
Foulkes, who is awaiting written replies from ministers, said there has been less scrutiny and debate in parliament about the cost of the royals since the civil list was replaced in 2012 by the sovereign grant, which is automatically benchmarked to the equivalent of 12% of the profits of the crown estate, an independent business that hands all its profits to the Treasury.
In the Commons, there has been no opportunity for MPs to discuss concerns about the duke’s activities. MPs have proved unable or unwilling to circumvent Erskine May, and the Commons public accounts committee chaired by the Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has not made investigating the duke’s taxpayer-funded activities a priority.
This is a welcome development, but it doesnt go far enough. The medieval rules about not being able to scrutinise the way the royal family spends the £86m a year of public money it receives or how it uses its influence to affect legislation and policy are not fit for purpose in twenty first century Britain.
It is time that the rules were swept aside so that MPs can scrutinise the royal family in the same way as they scrutinise other aspects of government.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Labour are failing business
The paper says that in the wake of Rachel Reeves’ national insurance hike on employers, the inheritance tax raid on farmers and other reforms, Campbell said that of 300 business people at a recent event, the overwhelming majority told him Labour was performing “worse than expected”, and he warned that one of the major reasons was “disappointment on the much vaunted “reset” with Europe”:
In his lecture to Labour Movement for Europe he also hit out at Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, saying facts were the way to take on the Brexiteers’ arguments, as he extolled the Independent’s recent front page setting out the true cost of Brexit.
In his speech, he said: “That Labour needs to win over the business community, or perhaps that should be “re-win over”, is not in doubt.
“I did an event last week, 300 business people, and asked them, on a show of hands, whether the Labour government was A) performing as expected; B) better than expected, or C) worse than expected … my exercise had zero hands raised for “better than expected”, around 20 per cent “as expected” but an overwhelming majority “worse than expected.”
He also warned Labour that it has to “stop debating Brexit on your opponents’ terms”.
The party should “stop being so defensive about spelling out the facts, the scale of the disaster that the Brexit deal inflicted on us,” he said.
Labour politicians also had to “stop treating Nigel Farage like some exotic celebrity who manages to play the media like a fiddle… treat him like a politician, take apart his arguments, expose his record, show that beneath the bonhomie and the bluster is an agenda that would take this country in a dark and dangerous direction.”
He also urged the group to “memorise (and) never tire of using” the facts of Brexit set out by The Independent on the fifth anniversary of Brexit.
He told them that these included “the £30bn divorce settlement; the 15 per cent long term hit on trade, as assessed by the Office for Budget Responsibility; the £27bn drop in exports attributed to new Brexit trade barriers; the 118,000 tonnes fall in seafood exports since 2019; the 16,400 businesses, some of whom may well have bought the idea Brexit would mean less not more red tape, which have just given up on exporting to the EU because of the bureaucracy… and – remember “take back control” – the 2.3million net migration into the UK since EU free movement ended.”
The Brexit deal to leave the EU was now something that “only (Boris) Johnson and (ex-Brexit secretary Lord) Frost are left defending”, he said.
If Rachel Reeves doesn't have business on board and if the government don't sort out our relations with Europe then her ambitions for growth may well turn out to be just another pipedream.
Friday, February 14, 2025
Reeves under pressure
The paper says that the BBC has alleged that before entering parliament, the chancellor was one of three employees investigated by Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) for using her expenses to "fund a lifestyle" with inappropriate spending on dinners, events, taxis and gifts.
The broadcaster uncovered documents it said showed Ms Reeves was accused of spending hundreds of pounds on the items, including one gift for her boss. Concerns were reportedly raised about her spending on taxis and on a Christmas party, with one whistleblower believing it to be excessive, the BBC said.
A former colleague told the BBC Ms Reeves was among senior managers who had “a very cavalier attitude regarding the budget in the department,” and cited a leaving meal for a colleague costing more than £400 for which Ms Reeves used a company spending card.
The BBC investigation also found Ms Reeves stopped working for the Bank of England nine months earlier than it stated on her LinkedIn profile.
The reports are a major embarrassment and are likely to lead to more questions over whether she can continue as chancellor, as the economy struggles under the impact of her Budget.
But Reeves’ spokesman said she did not recall being investigated by HBOS or facing questions over her expenses.
Sir Keir Starmer backed Ms Reeves, and his official spokesman said the prime minister he has no concerns about her conduct.
But Labour grandee Siobhain McDonagh, said there are “questions to be asked” even as she described the chancellor as “one of the most hardworking, honest politicians that I have ever met”.
She said: “We’ve got to be sure about what happened with the expenses scandal. As far as I’m aware she absolutely denies that she was approached by anybody about the expenses scandal. So I think there’s still questions to be asked about what is going on and we’ll see what happens.”
Labour are discovering how difficult it is to stick to their agenda when stories like tis emerge.
Thursday, February 13, 2025
The nasty party?
The Guardian reports that the Home Office has been accused of quietly blocking thousands of refugees from applying for citizenship if they arrived in the UK by small boats or hidden in vehicles.
The paper says that guidance for staff assessing people who have applied for naturalisation says that, since Monday, applicants who have “made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship”:
The Refugee Council said that the move will potentially bar 71,000 people who have successfully applied for asylum from claiming UK citizenship. A leading immigration barrister has claimed that it is a breach of international law.
The development will be seen as the latest evidence that Keir Starmer’s government has adopted a hardline “hostile environment” stance on asylum to fight off a poll surge by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Senior Tories claim that the government’s new border security bill, which passed its second reading on Monday, will repeal parts of the Illegal Migration Act, which would stop irregular arrivals from becoming British citizens.
One Labour MP has joined charities in calling for the government to reverse the guidance with immediate effect.
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, wrote on X: “This should be changed asap. If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them [a] route to become a British citizen.”
The changes, first disclosed by the Free Movement blog, were introduced to guidance for visa and immigration staff on Monday.
Described as a “clarification” to case worker guidance when assessing if a claimant is of “good character’, it says: “Any person applying for citizenship from 10 February 2025, who previously entered the UK illegally will normally be refused, regardless of the time that has passed since the illegal entry took place.”
In another new entry to the same guidance, it says: “A person who applies for citizenship from 10 February 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship.
“A dangerous journey includes, but is not limited to, travelling by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or other conveyance.”
Most people who enter the UK on small boats are eventually granted refugee status. A majority of those granted refugee status eventually claim British citizenship. Seeking UK citizenship costs £1,630 an application, and there is no right of appeal against a refusal.
Colin Yeo, an immigration barrister and editor of the blog, wrote on Bluesky: “This is bad, full stop. It creates a class of person who are forever excluded from civic life no matter how long they live here. It’s also a clear breach of the refugee convention.”
Article 31 of the UN refugee convention says: “The contracting states shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees.”
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the move “flies in the face of reason. The British public want refugees who have been given safety in our country to integrate into and contribute to their new communities.
“So many refugees over many generations have become proud hard-working British citizens as doctors, entrepreneurs and other professionals. Becoming a British citizen has helped them give back to their communities and this should be celebrated, not prevented.”
These changes go even further than the conservatives ever did, and leave the Labour Party open to charges that they are the new nasty party.
As this article in the Independent says even one of Nigel Farage’s long-term and loyal allies, Gawain Towler, has expressed shock at the way Labour are managing immigration and has suggested that Keir Starmer’s party is being “nasty” by publishing videos of migrant raids.
The paper says that Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness, adding that even before this new wave of anti-migrant policies was properly unleashed in November Labour peer Ann Mallalieu was warning Starmer that he was turning them into the “nasty party”:
Labour MPs are publicly and privately pleased that some of the more egregious Tory policies, like Rwanda deportations and detention of children, have been dropped by this government.
But that is as far as it goes.
Privately a number of them are complaining that the government under Starmer is “deeply unlikable” and “behaving too much like Reform-lite”.
One new MP even said: “We look like the nasty party now.”
This is playing badly in the polls and in core areas like Scotland and Wales.
Diane Abbott, writing over the weekend for The Independent, is one of the few to publicly say Labour is becoming Reform-lite, but others are privately pondering whether there may need to be a change of leader sometime.
Whether these tactics will impact on Reform's support has to be seen, but it appears that Labour has decided that selling its soul is part of the solution to its current problems with the polls.
The paper says that Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness, adding that even before this new wave of anti-migrant policies was properly unleashed in November Labour peer Ann Mallalieu was warning Starmer that he was turning them into the “nasty party”:
Labour MPs are publicly and privately pleased that some of the more egregious Tory policies, like Rwanda deportations and detention of children, have been dropped by this government.
But that is as far as it goes.
Privately a number of them are complaining that the government under Starmer is “deeply unlikable” and “behaving too much like Reform-lite”.
One new MP even said: “We look like the nasty party now.”
This is playing badly in the polls and in core areas like Scotland and Wales.
Diane Abbott, writing over the weekend for The Independent, is one of the few to publicly say Labour is becoming Reform-lite, but others are privately pondering whether there may need to be a change of leader sometime.
Whether these tactics will impact on Reform's support has to be seen, but it appears that Labour has decided that selling its soul is part of the solution to its current problems with the polls.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
The hidden scandals
I suppose it is because WhatsApp provides a supposedly secure and private forum that MPs and other politicians use it for confidential chats. The danger is when they get careless and believe that they can let rip with what they really think, believing that their views will never see the light of day, only to discover their error when the conversation adorns the headlines of every major newspaper.
At least two Labour MPs and quite a few Labour councillors are no doubt regretting doing just that this morning. The Independent reports that eleven Labour councillors have now been suspended from the party over their membership of a WhatsApp group that has already seen two MPs lose the whip.
The paper records that former health minister Andrew Gwynne was sacked over the weekend for offensive messages sent in the group, named Trigger Me Timbers, while on Monday, Oliver Ryan, who was elected as MP for Burnley last summer, became the second MP to have the whip withdrawn over his involvement in the group:
Now, almost a dozen more Labour members – including Mr Gwynne’s wife – are understood to have been suspended.
Other councillors who were administratively suspended on Tuesday are understood to include former council leader Brenda Warrington, and Claire Reid, a member of Labour’s national policy forum.
The group’s members come from Tameside and Stockport councils.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “As part of our WhatsApp group investigation, a group of councillors have been administratively suspended from the Labour Party.
“As soon as this group was brought to our attention, a thorough investigation was launched in line with the Labour Party’s rules and procedures and this process is ongoing. Swift action will always be taken where individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of them as Labour Party members.”
Mr Gwynne left government and was suspended from Labour at the weekend after reports he had sent messages to the group including a joke about a constituent being “mown down” by a truck.
He also said hoped a 72-year-old woman would soon die after she asked a councillor about bin collections.
The MP for Gorton and Denton in Greater Manchester said he deeply regretted his “badly misjudged comments” and apologised for “any offence caused” in a statement.
Sir Keir Starmer dismissed him as a minister as soon as he became aware of the comments, it is understood.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that Mr Ryan appeared to mock a fellow Labour MP over his sexuality in exchanges in the group.
The newspaper does not name the MP being mocked in the group and notes he has never discussed his sexuality publicly and is not publicly known to be gay.
Mr Ryan is also said to have used an offensive nickname to refer to local Labour leader Colin Bailey.
It is not a good look for a party that professes to be socially liberal and tolerant of all beliefs.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
The Labour MPs under fire over the tractor tax
They say that on Monday, hundreds of protesting farmers blocked Whitehall before MPs entered Parliament to debate the petition:
Under the chancellor’s plan, a 20 per cent inheritance tax rate will be introduced on farms worth more than £1 million from April 2026. But it has sparked a furious backlash in farming communities and created a problem for many newly-elected Labour MPs in rural constituencies.
Analysis of the signatories of a petition, called ‘Don’t change inheritance tax relief for working farms’ and signed by 150,000 people, shows the Labour-held seats with the highest number of constituents signing it.
It comes as Save British Farming and the Countryside Alliance urge MPs to act on the issue or face losing their seat at the next election.
The Labour seat with the highest number of petition signatures (768) was Penrith and Solway, held by Markus Campbell-Savours.
Mr Campbell-Savours, who has more farms in his constituency than any other Labour MP, voiced reservations on the policy in a speech in the Commons last year.
More recently, the MP, who won his seat last year with a 5,300 majority, organised a survey of farmers over concerns he had heard on the viability of family farms and supply chains in Cumbria as a result of the plan.
He did not respond in time to The Independent for comment.
The Labour seat with the second highest number of signatures (686) was Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, where MP Steve Witherden became the first Labour representative to express doubts about the proposal last year.
Third was the Derbyshire Dales, where MP John Whitby won the seat with a majority of just 350. A total of 666 people have signed the petition in his constituency. In Mr Whitby’s maiden speech in October, he pledged to stand up for the farming community in the Dales.
MP David Smith’s constituency of North Northumberland and MP Anna Gelderd’s of South East Cornwall had 599 and 576 people signing the petition respectively.
Of the Labour MPs to win on the tightest majorities, MP Sam Carling’s constituency of North West Cambridgeshire had 294 signatures. Mr Carling won with a majority of just 39. In the Forest of Dean, 400 people signed the petition where MP Matt Bishop won with a majority of 278.
Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, whose constituency Suffolk Coastal had 325 people sign the petition, told The Independent she had passed on farmers’ concerns to the Treasury.
She added: “But at the heart of the challenges facing our farming industry is that of profitability. Without profitability, farmers cannot sustain their businesses or plan for the future. This isn’t to take away the real concerns that farmers have about the Agricultural Property Relief, but it has exposed a real and fundamental problem facing the farming industry.”
Ms Riddell-Carpenter is one of 46 Labour MPs who has signed an open letter to six major supermarkets calling for a better deal for farmers.
This is one that will be worth watching.
Monday, February 10, 2025
Could there be a Trump-style coup in the UK?
He says that there are two theories of British exceptionalism which we tell to reassure ourselves that this could never happen, one is the Good Chap Theory while the other is the Cable Street warm bath:
The Good Chap Theory was coined by Professor Peter Hennessy, himself the ultimate good chap, who has spent his life writing about how power is wielded in a country which has (unlike the US) no written constitution—nothing on paper—but which nonetheless muddles through. So taken with this notion is he that he called his collection of essays on the subject Muddling Through.
The Good Chap Theory is the idea that the letter of the rules is less important than the system being run by players who understand their spirit. It was a theory which sort of muddled through until tested to breaking point by Boris Johnson (aided by his sidekick Dominic Cummings) and then by Liz Truss, who got muddled and was rather quickly dispensed with.
The Cable Street warm bath is the one that basks in the fundamental moderation and decency of the British people. In the mid-30s, when fascism was on the rise throughout Europe, we Brits wanted nothing to do with it. Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts may have marched through Stepney in 1936—but they were met with honest working-class folk who gave them a thrashing.
Put these two fables together and we can amuse ourselves with the wild melodrama currently playing out in Washington DC and comfort ourselves that, to borrow the title of Sinclair Lewis’s 1936 dystopian novel, “it can’t happen here”.
Rusbridger is not so sure that these models work anymore:
You can be reasonably sure that there are a bunch of bright twenty-somethings in Tufton Street—the HQ of shadowy well-funded right-wing thinktanks—watching every move in Maga-land and plotting exactly how they could transplant it.
We know Elon Musk has developed a keen interest in British politics and might gladly fund Nigel Farage/Richard Tice/Tommy Robinson (delete as appropriate) to have a go at wreaking the same kind of chaos in London as he has in Washington. Blow the whole thing up and start again.
Or you could read the lip-smacking X posts of the British Right’s philosopher-in-chief, Matthew Goodwin, in the hour of Trump’s inauguration. He asked his followers to imagine Day 1 of an equivalent regime in the UK: “A national border emergency is declared; the military is sent to stop the boats; all constraints on North Sea gas and oil are removed; shut down woke ideology; immediately end DEI; establish a new department of government efficiency”. Sound familiar?
How hard would it be?
Coups generally start with capturing the media. Quite a large chunk of ours wouldn’t need much capturing: they’re practically there already. The BBC wouldn’t be a hard nut to crack. Sack the chair (there’s precedent) and get them to sack the director general (ditto). Abolish the licence fee and say the organisation must in future stand on its own two feet. They’d soon fall into line.
You’d need your own version of Fox News: welcome GB News! Do we still need Ofcom to regulate fairness and impartiality? Thought not.
But don’t stop there. Ask every regulator to resign and replace them with loyalists. This would require dealing with the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Happily this office, set up by the Nolan Committee to straighten out public life in 1995, has never been on a statutory footing. So abolishing it would be the work of a moment—done by an Order in Council.
He says that if this supremo has a comfortable majority in House of Commons and that MPs were as loyal/intimidated as Maga representatives seem to be, there would be little problem with parliament nodding anything through. Acts would be paased as skeletons with all the detail subject to secondary legislation and orders in council, while the House of Lords, troublesome civil servants and even stubborn judges could be removed by one way or another.
Without a written constitition, a determined Prime Minister with unquestioning support in the House of Commons could effectively write his own. It is not a pleasant prospect.
Sunday, February 09, 2025
Labour giving Farage credibility by copycat adverts
The paper says that instead the ads use the turquoise blue - and the straight-edged font - of Reform UK:
One Facebook page set up under Reform UK's colours is the UK Migration Updates, which is run for by the Yorkshire and Humber Labour party. It posts stories and updates celebrating Labour's deportation figures. The account appears to have become active at the start of January.
And a Reform UK-style attack ad has been posted on a Facebook page called Putting Runcorn First, which is run by Labour North West. It has a banner at the top reading "breaking news", with a caption saying: "Labour hits five-year high in migrant removals. Labour government removes a record 16,400 illegal migrants since taking power including 2,580 foreign criminals."
It is not a new tactic for Labour to tailor its campaigning material depending on the region, demographic or subject matter of the ad. Similarly it is not unknown for other parties to use Labour's signature red in attack ads against the party. But it is the first time the use of Reform UK's colour as a deliberate choice has been so explicitly noticed, illustrating Labour's shift in starting to take Mr Farage's party more seriously.
Such targeted advertising is being rolled out in areas where Reform UK could pose a threat, such as constituencies where the party came in second place to Labour at the general election. It comes after Reform UK topped the UK's polls for the first time earlier this week. Elsewhere in the country Labour has used targeted ads to challenge the Tories or the Green party.
Some social media users did not look favourably on the tactics. Commenting on a post the UK Migration Updates, Facebook user Nicholas Graham said: "This page is absolutely disgraceful in branding values and message. If the Labour Party really has no higher ambition than to be mistaken for the witless rabble of Reform, you have thrown away whatever moral compass you may once have had."
Another user Anna Hubbard: "Appalling. You can't out Reform Reform. Stop pandering."
This really is scraping the barrel by Labour.
Saturday, February 08, 2025
New book that undermines Starmer
The Independent reports that Get In, by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund has left the prime minister facing a series of questions over a meeting with his voice coach while the UK was under strict Covid restrictions and details an attempted ‘coup’ by his deputy.
They add that The loss of the Hartlepool by-election in May 2021 came as a blow to the Labour leader, so much so that in its aftermath, he sacked the party chairman, Angela Rayner, triggering a stand-off:
She reportedly went to the pub and turned off her phone.
According to the book, a confident says she was ready to launch a coup against her leader: “We could have taken him out there and then, without a shadow of a doubt. All of the unions were on board. We had Unite. We had the money. Momentum were lined up. We were done. We had a rally of 5,000 people ready to go.”
In the end, Ms Rayner was eventually given not just one new job but three -including shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The book claims Rayner’s doubts over Sir Keir continued, however, and that she also complained she did not know who ran the Labour Party — adding that it could not be its leader, because he could not run a bath.
The paper says that the one story from the book that has caused the most problems for Starmer is when it emerged that former actress Leonie Mellinger, who was his voice coach, was made a ‘key worker’ during the Covid pandemic:
The two met on Christmas Eve to discuss his response to Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal, even though London was under ‘Tier 4’ Covid restrictions at the time. Ms Mellinger later travelled to Brighton, which was under ‘Tier 3’ restrictions, at a time when people were told not to travel between areas. Sir Keir has insisted no rules were broken and since hit back at the Tories saying: “I was working, they were partying.”
The Tories have called for the police to investigate, but on Wednesday they said they would not because too much time had passed.
For me the most damaging revelation is that Morgan McSweeney once questioned his boss’s lack of political nous by saying: “Keir acts like an HR manager, not a leader. What’s the point of circling the wagons if you can’t last?”
They add that another of Sir Keir’s senior advisers in opposition, jokingly referenced London’s driverless Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to say: “Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR.”
How these stories play out in the coming months will need to be seen, but in terms of the idea that Starmer is not up to the job could well haunt him to the next general electiuon.
Friday, February 07, 2025
The loss of a Welsh political giant
Very sad and shocked at the death of Dafydd Elis Thomas today.
I first met him when I was a student in, I think, 1980, at an NUS Wales conference, where he confessed to a table of us that he couldnt understand the logic of nationalists burning holiday homes when so many people were homeless.
We worked closely together on the Assembly Commission for a number of years, where Dafydd carved out an independent role for the parliamentary side of the Assembly, creating a separate identity for the organisation with its own chief executive and branding.
His role in developing bilingualism in the Assembly was not without controversy, but the settlement he helped to create persists to this day.
I would argue that he was one of the major architects of devolution. His influence is evident in all the subsequent Government of Wales Acts after 1998, while the organisational and political structure and processes used by MSs today, have his stamp all over them.
But he was also independent, stubborn, wilful, and determined, all characteristics of a first class politician with an exceptional political brain. He was also kind, attentive, and caring with a strong interest in the Welsh language and culture, a passion he was able to put into practise as a deputy minister in his final years as an AM.
He took a peerage in defiance of the wishes of his party, and told me often that when in the House of Lords he followed the Liberal Democrat whip.
He was a Welsh giant politically, and will be greatly missed. My thoughts and commiserations are with Mair and all his friends and family.
I first met him when I was a student in, I think, 1980, at an NUS Wales conference, where he confessed to a table of us that he couldnt understand the logic of nationalists burning holiday homes when so many people were homeless.
We worked closely together on the Assembly Commission for a number of years, where Dafydd carved out an independent role for the parliamentary side of the Assembly, creating a separate identity for the organisation with its own chief executive and branding.
His role in developing bilingualism in the Assembly was not without controversy, but the settlement he helped to create persists to this day.
I would argue that he was one of the major architects of devolution. His influence is evident in all the subsequent Government of Wales Acts after 1998, while the organisational and political structure and processes used by MSs today, have his stamp all over them.
But he was also independent, stubborn, wilful, and determined, all characteristics of a first class politician with an exceptional political brain. He was also kind, attentive, and caring with a strong interest in the Welsh language and culture, a passion he was able to put into practise as a deputy minister in his final years as an AM.
He took a peerage in defiance of the wishes of his party, and told me often that when in the House of Lords he followed the Liberal Democrat whip.
He was a Welsh giant politically, and will be greatly missed. My thoughts and commiserations are with Mair and all his friends and family.
Palmerston is back
The Independent reports that the former chief mouser has come out of retirement for a new, “purr-fect” job.
The paper says that the news, posted on Wednesday on Palmerston’s official DiploMog account on social network X, comes more than four years after it was announced that he was retiring from public life to a “quieter and easier” life in the countryside:
Palmerston had been adopted by Foreign Office diplomat Andrew Murdoch when he retired as chief mouser. Murdoch has now been appointed governor of Bermuda, a tiny British territory in the mid-Atlantic.
“Diplomacy and a purr-fect role have lured me out of retirement,” the post said.
“I’ve just started work as feline relations consultant (semi-retired) to the new Governor of Bermuda. I’ve been busy meeting very welcoming Bermudians.”
The Foreign Office said Palmerston “will attend only the meetings he deems important, offering advice when necessary and indulging in well-earned naps.”
Palmerston, who is named after the longest-serving British Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, arrived in government in April 2016 as a rescue cat. He was regarded with affection and showered with treats by Foreign Office staff, occasionally bringing them dead mice in return.
He had less-than-smooth diplomatic relations with Larry, cat-in-residence at nearby 10 Downing Street. The two were sometimes seen fighting in the street outside the British prime minister’s home.
Larry really has come out second-best this time.
Thursday, February 06, 2025
Rushed, misjudged and profligate
The paper says the Committee's report found that the department had a “troubling culture that repeatedly wastes public money” after examining the acquisition of the £15.4m HMP Northeye site to house new arrivals:
The cross-party committee said senior civil servants ignored expert advice available at the time during its bid to buy the site, in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, and bypassed processes designed to protect public money.
The report also said that a small ministerial group, which included leading Tories Robert Jenrick and Oliver Dowden, backed plans for the “rushed and misjudged” £15m purchase of the asbestos-ridden former airbase.
In a report released on Wednesday, the committee said the Home Office had also spent £34m on the Bibby Stockholm barge, which was towed away from Portland in Dorset last week having housed far fewer asylum seekers than expected. Another £60m was spent on a possible migrant housing site at RAF Scampton, the former home of the Dambusters, which was abandoned before it could open, and another £2.9m of taxpayer’s cash was spent on a cancelled site in Linton-on-Ouse, North Yorkshire.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Conservative chair of the committee, said: “Northeye was one of a series of failed Home Office acquisitions for large asylum accommodation sites, totalling a cost to the public purse of almost £100m of taxpayers’ money.
“Treasury rules for safeguarding public money are there for a reason and should only be overridden in extreme circumstances. This case clearly demonstrates why those safeguards should normally be followed.”
Rishi Sunak’s government ultimately paid £15.4m for the abandoned prison site a year after the previous owners bought it from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for £6m.
The government “chose to dispense with some established processes” to acquire the Northeye site for asylum accommodation at pace, leading to increased costs.
The National Audit Office (NAO) found in November that the main risks on the site were ground contamination, asbestos in buildings, flooding risks and issues with mains connection to utilities. It was estimated that sorting out these problems could cost more than £20m.
In December 2022, the then prime minister, Sunak, told parliament he would end the use of hotels to house people seeking asylum.
A month earlier, the government established the small ministerial group, which aimed to set up the former MoD sites at Wethersfield and Scampton, the Bibby Stockholm barge docked at Portland port, and the Northeye site to house asylum seekers.
Jenrick visited Northeye in November 2022 “and subsequently led on the acquisition through to the Home Office’s purchase of the site in March 2023”, the auditors’ report said.
The Home Office then dispensed with the usual processes to buy the site. The Home Office ruled that a “full business case” would not be needed to argue that the purchase was value for money, even though this was a condition for receiving Treasury approval. There was no formal “red book” evaluation of the site’s value.
The PAC report said while the Home Office identified “over 1,000” lessons from its acquisitions of large asylum accommodation sites, committee members remain to be convinced it can put that learning into practice.
The report added: “Given that some of these ‘lessons’ should have been evident at the time, we are concerned about the Home Office’s ability to put that learning into practice and prevent such an unacceptable waste of public money from happening again.”
Among the report’s recommendations it urged the Home Office to set out to the committee how it intends to reduce spending for asylum support, how it will fairly integrate asylum seekers across local councils, and by when the Border Security Command will reduce the number of migrants arriving by boat across the English Channel.
The obsession of Tory Ministers with the asylum agenda, their unrealistic targets on immigration and their profligacy in pursuit of these objectives has cost the taxpayer dear, and in the process failed to make any difference to resolving the issues they highlighted.
Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Are Labour's donors dictating policy?
The paper says that the plan, if implemented, would have scuppered any potential donations from the billionaire Elon Musk to Reform UK by making it illegal to donate unless donors were registered to vote in the UK or via companies owned by people based in Britain:
Labour has received £4m from a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands, Quadrature Capital, though it pays corporation tax in the UK on profits.
But Lord Alli, the party’s fundraising chief in opposition, is said to have stopped the planned speech by Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, and Gordon Brown to announce the changes, according to a new book about Labour’s path to power.
The former Labour prime minister had already booked accommodation in London for the speech announcing the changes when it was canned, according to Get In, by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.
Labour and Alli declined to comment.
The book contains a leaked policy paper for the speech intended to take place in December 2023 at Chatham House – and suggests it had been signed off by Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s now chief of staff.
Though McSweeney was reportedly concerned about seeming anti-donor, he is said to have agreed the plan on the basis it would prevent donations from those without “skin in the game”.
A Labour source told the authors that Alli had intervened to pull the announcement with a week to go, with no explanation.
Labour is said to be examining proposals to limit how much individuals and companies can donate to political parties as part of an effort to tighten the rules around money in UK politics. The Institute for Public Policy Research has recommended that ministers limit individual and corporate donations to political parties to £100,000 a year.
In its manifesto, Labour committed to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”. At the core of this promise was an aim to tighten protections around foreign interference in UK democracy.
Donation caps are among a number of measures the government is looking at as part of plans for an election and democracy bill in the next parliamentary session. The bill did not form part of the king’s speech in July.
According to the policy paper quoted in the book, Rayner’s proposal was to “close loopholes in UK donation law which currently allow dodgy money to enter our politics – primarily through the Tory party – via shell companies or companies with no connection to the UK.
“This policy will provide us with a robust defence to the Tories’ attack on our donations by laying out with full transparency the robustness of our donation due diligence, and inviting the Tories to close loopholes which allow foreign money into UK democracy.”
Whatever the truth, the impression that the government us being led by its donors is terribly damaging and of course plays into the hands of both Nigel Farage and the Tory Party.
Tuesday, February 04, 2025
Starmer's EU reset evidence that Brexit has failed
The paper adds that senior diplomats have reportedly said that the French president views the prime minister as the “demandeur”, a leader humbled into returning to the EU fold because Britain has been weakened by Brexit:
“The Brexit project, breaking away from the EU to create a global Britain, didn’t work. We thought it wouldn’t work because the UK is European, geographically and economically. Brexit was a project for a stable and prosperous world, but in a complicated world, obviously the UK will be closer to Europe,” one source told The Times.
Ahead of the visit, Sir Keir said that Brexit is “settled”, but added that “I do want to see a closer relationship on defence and security, on energy, on trade and our economy”.
“And that is what we’re working on,” the PM said.
But Brussels diplomats have said Donald Trump’s return to the White House, and the looming threat of a global trade war, have heightened the need for Britain to return to the EU’s orbit.
At a meeting of the 27 EU leaders on Monday, Sir Keir will place defence at the heart of his post-Brexit reset with Brussels, calling on European allies to double down on their support for Ukraine.
He will challenge EU countries to ramp up their defence spending to keep the continent safe from Vladimir Putin’s “campaign of sabotage and destruction”.
But while the PM wants to focus on defence and security, he is also facing questions about other parts of the UK’s relationship with Europe, notably over fishing and a youth mobility agreement.
A senior UK government source has indicated Britain is closer to agreeing to a deal on youth mobility, which would allow under-30s to study, work and travel across the European Union for a number of years.
The scheme, a key demand of Brussels in Sir Keir’s bid for closer ties with the EU, would run for up to three years under concessions being considered by the bloc. In a sign Labour could ease its opposition so far to a scheme, a government source told The Telegraph “we will look at anything that the European Union does put forward”.
Ahead of the meeting on Monday, Sir Keir was warned Brussels will play tough in negotiations about closer ties, with Sir Keir facing the same fate as Boris Johnson in talks with the bloc – with tough concessions demanded in return for any new relationship.
Sir Keir will be warned that progress on issues such as defence and security is not an option unless he is willing to give ground on issues such as EU access to Britain’s fishing waters and a youth mobility scheme.
In a boost for Sir Keir ahead of the meeting, Poland’s foreign minister said that while Brexit is not reversible, the EU would like to have Britain as “a major partner” on security and defence.
In my view Macron has judged the UK's weakness perfectly, as well as identifying a huge opportunity for Starmer to start to put things right. As Ed Davey has now started to say much more openly, we need to be part of the single market if we are to stand up to Trump and his tariffs, and if we are to kickstart growth.
