Tag: United Kingdom

Keir Starmer has welcomed the landmark ruling that biological sex should determine whether people can use same-sex spaces.

In his first comments since the verdict, the prime minister said he was “really pleased” that the Supreme Court announcement has given “much-needed clarity” on gender issues. 

The UK’s highest court, delivering its judgement last Wednesday, ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.

On a visit to a school in south-west England, Starmer told the BBC: “I welcome the decision of the Supreme Court, which has given us clarity, much-needed clarity, and I think for those that are now drawing up guidance, it’s a much clearer position.

“So I’m really pleased that the court has now clarified the position. We can move on from there and I think that’s been very helpful, and I would welcome that.”

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Asked further whether this means he does not believe a trans woman is in fact a woman, the PM said: “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.”

Starmer also suggested guidance needs to be shared to public bodies to ensure all organisations following the ruling.

“We need to move and make sure that we now ensure that all guidance is in the right place according to that judgment”, he told ITV West Country.

Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister and education secretary, is expected to give a House of Commons statement on the Supreme Court’s ruling as parliament returns from Easter recess on Tuesday.

The prime minister had faced criticised for not commenting or issuing a statement on the court’s ruling since it was unveiled on Wednesday.

Speaking on Tuesday morning, Conservative spokesperson Chris Philp said the prime minister should apologise “to the country” and to a former Labour MP for his previous comments on gender identity.

Philp, the shadow home secretary, told Sky News: “Keir Starmer has been all over the place on this. He claimed a year or two ago, that women could have penises, which is ridiculous.

“He even drove Rosie Duffield out of the Labour Party for taking a common sense view of this issue, which has now been vindicated by the Supreme Court judgement.

“So Keir Starmer should apologise to the country for what he said a few years ago. He should particularly apologise to Rosie Duffield for driving her out of the Labour Party on this issue. So I completely welcome the Supreme Court judgement.”

Philp added: “Keir Starmer has been totally silent on this issue, for the last 6 or 7 days since that ruling came out.”

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.

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Source: Politics

A former key adviser to David Cameron has announced he is running for governor of California in 2026.

In a video announcement posted to X, Steve Hilton highlighted his past growing up in London and working in 10 Downing Street. The businessman, author and media personality criticised the leaders who have long held power in the famously Democrat-voting “blue state”.

“This is not just any other state. California means to America what America means to the world”, Hilton said. “Let’s make California the land of opportunity again. Great jobs, great homes, great kids.”

“There’s only one way to do that”, he added. “We’ve got to end the one-party rule that got us into this mess. It’s time to end the years of Democrat failure.”

Hilton, author of Califailure, said in his campaign launch video that he was inspired to work with former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher after leaving university (New College, Oxford).

He went on to serve as director of strategy for David Cameron, and was seen as a driving force behind the former Conservative leader’s bid to modernise his party. 

Hilton, famous for padding around Downing Street in bare feet, was satirised by the BBC comedy The Thick of It as the herbal-tea drinking publicist Stewart Pearson.

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Hilton is the second prominent Republican to enter the 2026 gubernatorial race. No member of the GOP (Grand Old Party) has won the governor’s race since Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Hilton said that California “really reminds me of Britain in the 1970s.”

He said: “The UK was called the ‘sick man of Europe’. There’s no other way of looking at California today than the ‘sick man of America’.”

Gavin Newsom, the incumbent governor, is termed out of the race. Media reporting in the United States suggests Kamala Harris, the former vice president, is among the Democrats considering running to replace Newsom.

Hilton and his wife moved to California in 2012, while she worked for Google and he taught at Stanford University. He hosted “The Next Revolution”, a weekly show on Fox News from 2017 to 2023, and is the founder and former CEO of Crowdpac, a tech startup.

Hilton is an ardent supporter of president Donald Trump and called for an investigation into the 2020 presidential election when Trump lost to Joe Biden.

Hilton has already been endorsed by former presidential candidate and current Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Steve Hilton represents American excellence. He’s a great entrepreneur & communicator, and he’ll be a dominant Governor of California”, Ramaswamy posted to X on Monday afternoon. “I’ve known him for years [and] enjoyed welcoming him to Ohio for our launch in Feb. He has my full endorsement.”

Hilton responded: “An incredible honor to be endorsed for California governor by my friend  [Vivek Ramaswamy] who will be a fantastic governor of Ohio! We both believe so deeply in the strength and energy of our people, and this great nation. Winners not whiners!!”

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.

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Source: Politics

As a Member of Parliament, I always look forward to local elections. They’re a vital opportunity for communities to shape the future of their neighbourhoods, hold elected representatives accountable, and make their voices heard. There’s an unmistakable buzz in the air during campaign season — door knocking, lively debates, and a real sense of civic engagement. It’s democracy in its most local and personal form.

And yet for many blind and partially sighted voters, elections mean exclusion, uncertainty and humiliation. I want to fix that.

On Thursday 1 May, elections will be held for 23 councils and six Mayors in England. Around a third of electors in England are eligible to vote, and more than 1,600 councillors will be elected. Even more excitingly, next year — pending the results of the consultation on Cumbria’s proposal for a directly elected Mayor — Cumbrians could head to the polls to elect our first Mayor. But in all of these elections, will blind and partially sighted voters be able to make their choices in secret?

It’s been more than 150 years since the Ballot Act 1872 guaranteed the right to vote in secret, but for thousands of people with sight loss, this has never been a reality.

Let’s rewind, not to the late nineteenth century but to the late twentieth; it was the 1990s when I first began work on this issue. Sadly, I’m not quite young enough for this to have been a school project — it was actually an excellent campaign led by the disability charity Scope, for whom I had the privilege of working at that time. I would love to say that all the issues we identified have been resolved. Many were, but nearly three decades on, too many remain.

There’s no doubt that we care about electoral integrity, evidenced by the media debate on Artificial Intelligence and the risk it poses to democracy. Yet accessible voting for so many in our society has not been addressed. The law mandates ‘reasonable adjustments’ for voters with disabilities, but all too often these promises fall short in practice — and our democracy is all the poorer for it.

Recognising that there is still a long way to go when it comes to ensuring our democracy is open to all, I have introduced a Ten-Minute Rule Bill: the Elections (Accessibility for Blind Voters) Bill. Garnering diverse cross-party support, the Bill sets out the barriers facing voters with sight loss as well as the simple solutions available to make voting more accessible.

At its core, this bill makes clear that depriving people with sight loss of their ability to vote independently and in secret is a breach of basic human rights. Anna Tyler, RNIB Chair of Trustees tells me that a secret ballot is key to a healthy democracy and yet too many still cannot vote independently without fear of someone interfering with their vote either explicitly or implicitly. The simple fact is that the majority of blind voters cannot independently review the information on the ballot paper or make their mark under the current voting system.

But this is not out of reach. The technology is available, and the solutions are low-cost and effective. It’s really not rocket science: an audio-tactile device enables blind and partially sighted people to vote independently and in secret. This device, the McGonagle Reader, is the best solution currently available. Its tactile overlay is placed on top of the ballot paper, and the integrated audio player plays an audio recording of the candidate list. This combination allows blind voters to easily navigate and mark the ballot paper with autonomy, dignity and certainty.

A recent UK trial found that the audio-tactile device enabled 93% of participants to vote independently and in secret. I find it truly extraordinary that in 2025, when the world has advanced in so many ways, these solutions are still not routinely available in our polling stations as standard.

In the run up to these elections, I’m backing RNIB’s call for audio tactile solutions to be made available for all voters with sight loss. The charity’s research following the last general election was unequivocal: the voting experience of blind and partially sighted people won’t improve without significant changes to the system.

According to RNIB’s 2024 Turned Out report, only a quarter of voters with sight loss felt that the current system allowed them to vote independently and in secret. I simply won’t accept that it’s good enough that only half of blind and partially sighted voters were satisfied with their voting experience, and that nearly three quarters did not even know that they could request reasonable adjustments from their local polling station.

It’s safe to say that much remains to be done to address this issue. This must start with policymakers and electoral officials recognising that action is needed and finding ways forward to ensure solutions are routinely available in polling stations up and down the country. I will continue to play my part in working with the government to address this injustice in any upcoming legislation on elections.

Let’s make each election more inclusive than the last. I urge all blind and partially sighted voters to visit the RNIB website to learn how to request reasonable adjustments when they vote.

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Source: Politics

I know that sometimes, it can feel like there are so many issues to sort out that getting a grip on one is like trying to shoot fish in a barrel. That is why it’s really important that we stick to simple principles, like the polluter pays. If you break it, you buy it and it’s your responsibility to fix it.  That is exactly the case with PFAS, a group of over 10,000 synthetic chemicals that barely degrade in the natural environment, also known as ‘Forever chemicals’, which have polluted UK’s drinking water sources, supermarket food, our bodies, and even the iconic marine species such as harbour porpoises, which are also found in my constituency, South East Cornwall.

Their resistance to heat and ability to repel grease and water has led to their use in many areas of daily life, from sandwich wrappers to mobile phones. However, due to their persistence in the environment, PFAS pollution is everywhere, and the UK is no exception. Not a single river in England is in good chemical health due to cocktails of chemicals, including highly persistent chemicals such as PFAS. Tens of thousands of PFAS ‘hotspots’ have been detected across the UK and Europe. And more information about the UK’s most PFAS polluted sites has been coming to light recently, with communities being told to be ‘cautious’ about eating home grown produce and others recommended bloodletting carried out by medical professionals to help remove high levels of PFAS from their bodies.

This is a problem that affects both humans and animals. In my constituency of South East Cornwall, we are lucky to have harbour porpoises visiting our coastline. The harbour porpoise is widely loved and thought of as one of the most shy, charming whale species in the UK, they used to be known as ‘puffing pigs’ due to the noise they make when they come up for air. Between 2012 and 2014, 51 harbour porpoises around the UK were tested for a PFAS chemical, PFOS, which is linked to impacts on reproduction and the immune system in marine mammals. It was found in every single harbour porpoise tested.

It appears we are learning little from our recent past. Legacy pollutants banned in the UK in the 1980s called PCBs are still causing havoc for killer whales, harbour porpoises and grey seals today. There is clear evidence they are behind the decline in the UK’s killer whale population and evidence suggests higher concentrations of PCBs are connected to increased risk of infectious disease mortality for harbour porpoises.

Data is mounting from other places in the world on the presence of PFAS in seals, whales, dolphins, fish and other wildlife. Whilst we do not know what harm all 10,000 of these chemicals are doing, we cannot wait for all the evidence before acting. The European Environment Agency highlight PCBs as a substance whose early warning signs of harm were ignored. Had evidence of harm been acted upon earlier, many years of PCB use would have been avoided, and we would have ‘a more manageable, less costly problem than we are faced with today’.

Marine life in Cornwall is an important part of our history, identity and economy. The only option we have to overcome this new toxic legacy is following the approach being taken by other countries of phasing out all PFAS over a number of years, in line with EU laws enabling smooth interaction and clarity for UK businesses. Many sectors that use PFAS already have viable PFAS-free alternatives, and rapid innovation is underway in others. To raise awareness, I will be hosting a parliamentary event in April on this growing issue. We need to ensure action is taken to prevent further pollution and accumulation of PFAS in our environment, and to finally learn from the toxic mistakes of our past.

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Source: Politics

The Court of Appeal has upheld the sentence handed down to Stephen Yaxley Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. In a courtroom far removed from the social media echo chambers where Robinson built his brand, his legal counsel made an impassioned plea: that he had experienced an “evident decline in his mental health,” that he suffers from ADHD and PTSD, and that he struggles to “regulate his emotions.”

Without wishing to be unkind, these are precisely the arguments that figures on the far right routinely ridicule as “woke” when applied to others, particularly asylum seekers, refugees, and other minority groups. When an unaccompanied child from a conflict zone is found to be traumatised, when an LGBTQ+ prisoner is found to be experiencing poor mental health, or when a protestor cites neurodivergence in their defence, the right-wing commentariat dismisses these claims with derision. “Excuses,” they cry. “Snowflake culture.” “Wokeness gone mad.”

Suella Braverman described the UK’s asylum system as broken because it is too soft, even calling the arrival of asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution an “invasion,” completely disregarding their mental health trauma. Or take the 2024 summer riots. A recent report found that asylum seekers were so terrified they didn’t dare leave their homes. Yet instead of concern for their welfare, far-right influencers and even mainstream figures like Matthew Goodwin complained that calling such groups “far-right” was an elite attempt to silence ordinary people.

Indeed, on his own X account, Yaxley-Lennon frequently derides leftism, feminism and Islam, as ‘mental health issues’.

Yet when it is one of their own in the dock, the language changes. Suddenly trauma matters. Suddenly ADHD is real and relevant. Suddenly empathy is not just acceptable but necessary.

So, do they not see the irony? Or do they not care?

The answer, in many cases, is both. Some genuinely fail to connect the dots. But many do see the hypocrisy and press on regardless, because the point was never principle, it was power. These arguments are not wielded to protect the vulnerable, but to preserve a hierarchy: who deserves compassion and who does not; who is seen as a human being and who is seen as a threat.

This is the real danger of selective empathy. It turns human rights into conditional privileges. It turns vulnerability into a partisan talking point. And it corrodes the public’s understanding of justice, encouraging the idea that mental health or trauma are only real when experienced by the politically palatable.

Let me be clear: Yaxley-Lennon should absolutely be afforded his legal rights. He should have access to mental health care, and the justice system should recognise his neurodivergence as a factor. But that must be true not just for him, but for everyone, especially those who are never given a platform, never given the benefit of the doubt, and never make the headlines.

Because if we only believe in trauma when it suits our politics, then we don’t really believe in it at all.

The challenge for us all is to keep making the case for universal dignity. That means defending rights even for those we disagree with. But it also means holding a mirror up to those who only discover their compassion when the defendant wears the right flag or shares the right Facebook post.

Human rights are not a weakness. They’re a strength. And they’re meaningless if not for everyone.

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Source: Politics

Well, I don’t imagine I made a lot of friends at Thames Water when I spent twenty minutes on my feet lambasting them in Westminster Hall at the start of April.

But I promised my constituents that I would fight for them every day in parliament on the issues that matter to them most. For many, that means holding failing companies to account who are making our lives, and our environment, much poorer. By that measure, Thames Water is certainly among the worst of a bad bunch.

Years of historic underinvestment in favour of profit has run the business into the ground. It now finds itself on the brink of collapse despite a financial lifeline that it ought not to have been awarded, when a court last month allowed the company to take on another three billion pounds of debt.

So you can imagine my frustration when recently, US private equity group KKR was selected as the preferred bidder to bail out Thames Water — a company whose involvement with Northumbrian Water has covered their reputation more in sludge than in glory.

Enough is enough. A company of this importance should not be allowed to carry on such a self-destructive and brazenly careless path. The government, in not stepping in, is allowing a failing company to lurch from crisis to crisis whilst slowly drowning in ever greater debt. The only flow being successfully managed is the flow of cash into the pockets of bankers, advisors, lawyers and private equity. Meanwhile bills are up and sewage continues to breach into our waterways at dangerous levels.

If I seemed harsh in my assessment of the company in Westminster Hall, it’s because I genuinely cannot fathom why we are allowing the situation to go on as it is. The government must step up, take the lead, and put the company into special administration.

It’s clear that without doing that — we’re sleepwalking into a major failure of the company. The government has been quick to reassure us that essential services would not be disrupted in the event of a collapse – but that’s cold comfort when we should all be expecting a lot more from utility companies than just keeping the tap water running. That is quite literally the bare minimum the British people expect.

What we all want to see is the adults in the room stepping in to stop infrastructure creaking, sewage spilling and bills rising.

Ofwat certainly isn’t able to compel these changes. The regulator is increasingly toothless and unable to enforce any meaningful changes or penalties. It is standing idly by whilst shareholders and executives profit from a declining system. It should be scrapped and replaced with a regulator that is unafraid, and well equipped, to do enforcement seriously.

But there isn’t enough time to simply wait for a new regulator to take its place. So the only solution is the one the government seems most reluctant to admit — that it should take temporary control of Thames Water to reset its activities, restructure its management and refocus its mission.

Because let’s be clear — that is what has fundamentally gone wrong at the heart of Thames Water. It is not just that they are a failing commercial enterprise, they are quite evidently an organisation that has lost the public service part of their mission — becoming instead a paragon of failure, debt and daylight robbery, all in the name of profit — and we are all suffering as a result.

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Source: Politics