Tag: United Kingdom

Keir Starmer will back organisations including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the National Trust, as he accuses the Conservative Party of attacking them to stoke a “divisive” culture war.

In a response to Conservative attacks on “woke” politics, the Labour leader will echo former prime minister and current foreign secretary David Cameron’s “big society” vision. 

He will accuse the Conservatives of “sabotaging civil society to save their own skins” and shore up the party’s weak poll position.

He will add: “They got themselves so tangled up in culture wars of their own making, that instead of working with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – an organisation the late queen was patron of for 70 years – to find real solutions to stop the small boats, their rhetoric has helped demonise them.

“Instead of working with the National Trust so more people can learn about – and celebrate – our culture and our history, they’ve managed to demean their work. In its desperation to cling on to power, at all costs, the Tory party is trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect.”

Both the RNLI and National Trust have been the targets of attacks from Conservative politicians in recent years. 

Starmer, who holds an 18-point lead over Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives in the polls, will say: “Let me tell you, waging a war on the proud spirit of service in this country isn’t leadership”.

“It’s desperate. It’s divisive. It’s damaging. It comes to something when the Tories are at war with the National Trust. That’s what happens when politics of self-preservation prevail over commitment to service.”

Echoing David Cameron’s vision of the “big society”, he will urge charities, community leaders and faith groups to play an active role in Britain’s public life.

He will say: “Cameron talked about the big society, but when austerity kicked in, we ended up with the poor society”.

“Now we need a new vision for a new era. A renewed social contract. A new focus on those who build the bonds that connect us, the communities that nurture us, the institutions that support families and provide a bridge between the state and the market: a society of service.”

Starmer’s speech marks the first time since Cameron that a major party leader has outlined a vision for the sector, according to the charity providing the setting for his speech.

Pro Bono Economics chief executive Matt Whittaker has said: “Keir Starmer’s speech today is the first time a political leader in the UK has set out a strategic vision for how the sector can serve as a partner to government since David Cameron’s ‘big society’ concept in 2010.

“Since then, the sector has changed enormously and now has a workforce totalling just shy of one million.

“While it has grown in size and become ever more vital to supporting the most vulnerable in society, the charity sector has had to deal with £1.7 billion less government funding in real terms and four million fewer volunteers over the same period.

“Charities sit at the centre of everything the nation aspires to – from the health of the economy to the quality of life we enjoy. It is vital then that the government which comes to power following the next general election does what it can to help the sector unleash its full potential.”

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Under the Conservatives, NHS dentistry is dying a slow death.

Labour analysis shows that 8/10 dentists aren’t accepting new adult patients, and 7/10 are shutting their doors to new child patients. In some areas, 99% of practices are taking on no new NHS patients.

The collapse of NHS dentistry has left millions unable to get an appointment when they need one, with appalling consequences for patients. Sarah Champion, MP for Rotherham, told the house during last week’s dentistry debate that one of her constituents wrote to her after trying and failing to get a dentist’s appointment for a year. After more than a year spent on painkillers and soup, her constituent went private and was told:

“Your teeth are in a very poor condition with most of your remaining teeth decayed and unsavable. All your teeth except two… need extracting.”

Stories like this have become quite common in this country. According to YouGov polling, 1 in 10 adults have attempted some form of DIY dentistry.

This Dickensian picture of Britain, where people are resigned to pulling their own teeth out with plyers, is reinforced by the grim state of child dental health. Today, the UK has some of the worst child health outcomes in Europe. Rotting teeth is the number one reason children aged 6 to 10 are admitted to hospital, with on average 169 children undergoing extractions every single day. Tens of thousands of children are left in pain for months, if not years, waiting for procedures, often making it harder for them to eat, sleep and learn at school.

Every child deserves a healthy start in life. Yet after 14 years of Tory government, not every child gets that chance. In Brighton, one of Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP’s constituents has contacted over 30 dental practices. Not a single practice is accepting her and her one-year-old child, who desperately needs dental treatment. Recently I was contacted by a constituent whose daughter was told she would have to wait four years for an appointment to get braces. She is 13 now and will be 18 by the time she is seen.

Unlike the Tories, whose dental recovery plan was promised last April and is nowhere to be seen, Labour has a fully-costed plan to keep kids’ teeth clean and keep them out of hospital. As part of our plan to rescue NHS dentistry, we will introduce supervised toothbrushing in schools for 3–5-year-olds, targeted at the areas with highest childhood tooth decay.

Our supervised toothbrushing scheme will cost £9 million per year, which is dwarfed by the estimated £51 million that it costs for child tooth extractions in hospital – that’s better value for money. Unlike the Conservatives, Labour understands that prevention is better than cure, for both the patient and the taxpayer.

In government, Labour will take immediate action to provide care for those in most urgent need of NHS dental services. Our plan will provide 700,000 more urgent appointments each year and incentives for new NHS dentists to work in areas with the greatest need. This will all be paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status, because our constituents need dentist’s appointments more than the wealthy need tax breaks.

We will also reform the dental contract to rebuild the service in the long run, so NHS dentistry is there for everyone who needs it.  As it stands, our NHS is tailored to providing late diagnosis, instead of early intervention, failing millions whose conditions are missed until it’s too late. With a relentless focus on prevention, Labour will reform our NHS and rescue NHS dentistry, so people can live healthier and happier lives.

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Misunderstood and shunned, for those eleven Conservative MPs who voted “No” to Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda Bill last week, defeat is a matter of perspective — and victory a matter of time.  

Small in number but strong in will, Conservative MPs Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, Sir Simon Clarke, Danny Kruger, Miriam Cates, Sir Bill Cash, David Jones, Mark Francois, Dame Andrea Jenkyns and James Duddridge marched proudly into the commons’ “No” lobby on Wednesday evening to signal their deeply felt opposition to the Safety of Rwanda Bill. (That’s 2.2 rebels per “family” — to extend the relevant mafiosi metaphor).

They would have been joined by former deputy party chair Lee Anderson had Labour MPs’ “giggling” not so riled the Red Wall Rottweiler — but their message was nonetheless clear: Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill will not work, cannot work and the government is risking electoral armageddon in insisting it might. 

Rebellion was not their preferred option, of course. In fact, the so-called “New Spartans” had spent much of the previous 48 hours in the commons “yes” lobby, alongside a slew of supportive colleagues, urging on the government to “toughen up” the legislation. Robert Jenrick, the mild-mannered lawyer turned modern-day Leonidas, led the charge at the bill’s committee stage — with as many as 60 Conservative MPs rallying in support. 

That only 11 of those 60 followed the logic of their committee stage rebellion through to its natural conclusion seems to me highly revealing. After all, it illustrates that the vast majority of Sunak’s committee stage rebels were not willing to countenance the collapse of his government that might have then resulted. 

But, crucially, a small subsection were. 

And how this principled “last stand” defeat was celebrated. David Campbell-Bannerman, the leader of the vehemently anti-Sunak Conservative Democratic Organisation, identified the remaining recalcitrants as the “New Spartans”. “At least we have 11 true, principled and courageous Tories in the party”, he consoled himself. 

The “New Spartan” name, as Campbell-Bannerman recognised, has a clear historical pedigree: first, as a reference to 480 BC when 300 Spartan warriors fought to the death against a vast Persian Army in battle of Thermopylae in one of history’s most famous last stands; and, latterly, to 2019 AD when 28 Conservative MPs voted against then-prime minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal on all three “meaningful votes”, essentially securing its defeat and her demise. 

Back in March 2019, the “Spartans” of Brexit yore briefed their chosen name to Paul Goodman of Conservative Home — from where it was quickly seized upon by the rest of the media. This week, Goodman followed Campbell-Bannerman in giving his verdict on the collective he termed “Spartans Two”. His account, a rather less hagiographic portrait than the CDO chief’s, nonetheless underlines the role Sunak’s Rwanda rebels seem destined to play in Conservative folklore. 

But it is also a role said “New Spartans” always wanted to play. Ahead of the Rwanda Bill’s committee stage this week, Sir John Hayes (leader of the Common Sense Group), Danny Kruger and Mark Francois wrote glowingly in the Telegraph of “The Brexit ‘Spartans’ who held firm set off a chain of events that saw Brexit delivered and a historic Conservative election victory”. They would do the same, was the unmissable message: “Standing firm is no more or less than our duty”. 

Robert Jenrick says PM’s Rwanda bill ‘doesn’t work’ as he proposes amendments

Still, the context the “New Spartans” find themselves in today is necessarily divorced from that of their 2019 AD and 480 BC counterparts. For while Leonidas saved his city and rebel leader Steve Baker defeated the then-PM’s withdrawal agreement deal, Rishi Sunak (a latter say Xerxes I or Theresa May), has ostensibly triumphed over the Rwanda Bill — in the commons at least. 

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday morning, Sunak began with the optimistic claim that “the Conservative Party has come together” over the Safety of Rwanda Bill. (A Unity of the Tories Bill would right any remaining doubters). But, in some crucial senses, the prime minister was right — because despite the consistently significant rebellions in favour of hostile amendments at the bill’s committee stage, a vast swathe of the Conservative Parliamentary Party did fall into line at third reading. Sunak had called his rebels’ bluff; the Spartans had been crushed and their city, seemingly, sacked. 

But to call this a “victory” for the prime minister would be to misunderstand the logic of his New Spartan flank. In opposition, in condemnation from Britain’s columnist class, in isolation, in honourable, principled defeat, lies virtue — and the seeds of victory to come. 

The last stand of the 11

Step back, and there is little doubt that the events of this week could be reasonably construed as a proxy for a leadership challenge. 

On Monday, the Telegraph published the details of the poll which showed that the Conservative Party would be reduced to a mere 169 seats on current performance. The survey, conducted by a group called “Conservative Britain Alliance” in tandem with Sunak-sceptic peer and Telegraph columnist Lord Frost, was clearly designed to set the scene for the Rwanda Bill debate. 

Indeed, in a Telegraph article before Christmas, Lord Frost had counselled his Conservative counterparts in the commons to not “resign themselves to the coming electoral car crash”. He declared forebodingly: “If there is anything to be done to get us on a better path and increase our chances of winning, then I believe it must be done”. 

Beyond the Rwanda Bill: The Conservative Party faces a bitter, protracted reckoning

With this new poll in the Telegraph, Frost had his perfect “electoral car crash”, doomsday scenario. Thus, the former chief Brexit negotiator had presented the Rwanda maximalist brigade with some new ammunition at a crucial stage. Now, Frost’s subtext followed, is the time for MPs to leverage his poll and pursue the “better path” — his chosen euphemism for regicide.

Moreover, Kruger, Francois and Hayes’ attempt to style themselves as the “Brexit Spartans” reborn is also arguably revealing of hidden regicidal intentions. For while their selective reading of Brexit history argues the “Spartans” secured the 2019 “Conservative election victory”, they leave out a crucial step: the ousting of Theresa May. 

In spite of this, of course, Frost’s well-timed and well-placed poll did not have the desired effect on Conservative MPs. But in lieu of victory, there lies potentially something far stronger and politically potent in the long term: a narrative of betrayal. 

Of the eleven rebels who voted against the Rwanda Bill at third reading, five are spoken of as potential leadership challengers: they are former home secretary Suella Braverman, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, the New Conservatives’ Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, and former cabinet mainstay Sir Simon Clarke. 

Suella Braverman: ‘UK governed by foreign judges who do not have our interests at heart’

I think Jenrick’s role, here, is worth treating in some detail. The deference with which the former immigration minister was treated through the Rwanda Bill’s committee stage and third reading by his fellow rebels was remarkable. Danny Kruger thanked him for his “important work”; Sir Simon Clarke praised Jenrick for his “considerable political and personal courage”; New Conservative and committee stage rebel Tom Hunt argued Jenrick “knows [the Rwanda plan] issue better than anyone else”.

Thus, Jenrick, together with his new acolytes, calculate that he will soon be proved right on his own terms — and perhaps he will be. In his committee stage contribution, he argued that the unamended Rwanda Bill would, at best, secure a few “gimmick” flights for the prime minister ahead of an election. This statement, which overtly accepted Labour’s main criticism of the deportation scheme, shows the former immigration minister is guided not by mere short-term electoral goals — but ostensibly by his genuine fidelity to the small boats-stopping cause. 

That said, whether Jenrick’s proposed solutions would turn the Rwanda plan from “gimmick” into serious, workable policy is entirely moot. But it is also not really the point. The former immigration minister is setting up an “I told you so” windfall following the next election, from which will flow the adoration of Conservative Party members and “five families”-affiliated MPs. Campbell-Bannerman’s CDO will surely campaign on their behalf.

PMQs verdict: Keir Starmer can’t lose as long as Rwanda plan looms

In this way, any “New Spartans’” triumph cannot be calculated by mere commons arithmetic, but by their narrative consistency. They intend to outbid both Rishi Sunak in the short term, and leadership competitors in the long term, on what it means to be an authentic Conservative. The level of noise they made over the Rwanda Bill, they will conclude moreover, means no non-“Spartan” can reasonably say they weren’t warned. 

So, despite the ostensible unity won for the government at the Rwanda Bill’s third reading, the prime minister can be certain his “New Spartans” will be back. Simply put, by weaponising defeat as the epitome of purity, the Spartans have a platform on which to which top mount future battles and challenges — be they over the Rwanda Bill or some other totemic issue. 

Indeed, for a modern-day “Spartan”, unlike their classical precursors, there will always be another final “last stand”. The so-called “New” Spartans Suella Braverman, Sir Bill Cash, David Jones, Mark Francois, Dame Andrea Jenkyns and James Duddridge — who also rebelled on all three occasions against Theresa May — are living proof. 

Through the looking glass: Inside the topsy-turvy world of the Rwanda Bill

But there is a sense that, with this Rwanda rebellion, Rishi Sunak’s awkward squad is looking over and beyond him. His commons majority is so strong that parliamentary defeats remain fundamentally unlikely — the “New Spartans” may simply have to wait for the electorate to succeed where they continue to fail. 

In the meantime, “last stands” will come thick and fast. In fact, i news reports Jenricks is already limbering up for a battle over legal migration. His resignation as immigration minister in December, remember, flowed not only from his intra-government lobbying over Rwanda “plan B”, but also over his shunned, hardline “five-point plan” for legal migration.  

In such further fights, the New Spartans will likely rise and fall and rise again — with their tried and tested strategies, borrowed from the Brexit playbook, quivering the media at every turn. 

In the end, political battle could follow political battle until Lord Frost’s MRP poll manifests with raw, brutal rhapsody later this year. What comes next will reveal whether Jenrick and co’s rebel posturing was worth it after all.

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

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.

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The number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits in the United Kingdom for December 2023 has increased when compared to the same period in 2022. This data was released by the Office for National Statistics on the 16^th of January 2024. The Office for National Statistics includes “out of work Universal Credit claimants” and “Job Seeker’s Allowance claimants.”

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For 16 to 64 year olds, the national average for the number of claimants per local authority sits at 4,316 people. The latest figures reveal that, on average, 3.28% of the total population are claiming Universal Credit or Job Seeker’s allowance. There has been a very slight increase in the proportion of claimants when compared to last year. The data reveals that the national proportional average of claimants has increased by 0.07%.

Birmingham has the highest proportion of claimants against total population – with a figure of 8.6%. This figure was also the highest among Metropolitan Counties and Greater London. The Isles of Scilly had the lowest rate at 1.7%.

These maps were created by Polimapper. To find out more, visit polimapper.co.uk

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Our government is obsessed with migration. So obsessed it’s willing to implement irrational and harmful policies to bring down the net migration figure.

No, I’m not talking about the Rwanda policy — although as an example of an irrational policy, I could be. I’m talking about the government’s student migration policy.

I want to make an evidence-based and positive case for the migration of international students to the UK, on the basis that this group is crucial to the UK’s outstanding science and technology ecosystem.

The most recent development in the Conservative party’s campaign to reduce the number of international students in the UK came into effect on January 1^st. The new rules will prevent most international students from bringing their families to the UK while they study.

Additionally, the government announced it would “review” the UK Student Work Visa programme.  Finally, amid the performative noise about Rwanda, the government quietly increased the Immigration Healthcare Surcharge by a whopping 66%.

International students are a powerhouse of the modern economy. They bring crucial talent and expertise in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to the UK, cementing the world-leading status of our higher education system, and contributing greatly to our economy.

We should be encouraging more international students to study here, not fewer. And we should give them every opportunity to stay and contribute to our country after their studies.

Imagine you’re a top-class British engineering graduate with a family. You’ve spent a couple of years in industry, but now you want to explore a Masters. You’ve had an offer from the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Both TUM and Germany would be lucky to have your skills, but you can’t take up the offer because you can’t leave your family behind.

This is the dilemma we’re creating for talented people around the world – who we’d be lucky to have in our world-leading universities, and our economy. We’re sending a message to talented young people around the world, who will be at the forefront of innovation in science and technology over the next decade, that the UK doesn’t want them.

Of course, we won’t see international students ditch the UK overnight following the latest rule change. But we’re paving the way for a gradual decline in which STEM talent dodges the UK in favour of the US, Europe, or just about anywhere else.

Beyond the loss of talent and expertise in our universities and workforce, reducing our number of international students will hit the finances of our universities hard. UK universities are already struggling, with the IFS reporting that spending per student has fallen back to the low point of 2011.

International students provide roughly a fifth of our universities’ income, which helps to subsidise costs for students from the UK and drive forward vital research. So, on a purely financial basis, we need them.

So, what’s the argument for discouraging international students? They fill up our limited housing stock, contribute to backlogs in the NHS, and come here to sit on the couch watching daytime telly, right?

Admittedly, I might agree with the first point, but that’s more a failure of our planning system than our student migration policy. The second two points couldn’t be further from the truth. International students are, by their nature, mostly young and healthy, and they’re incredibly hard-working and productive. Having spent a small fortune to be educated, they are highly motivated to ensure they get high-paying, productive jobs that pay significant amounts of tax.

The fact is, the government’s student migration policy isn’t based on logic, reasoning, or evidence. It’s driven by ideology, vote-chasing, and the prime minister’s desire to cut immigration at all costs. Student migration is an easy target for a government that isn’t willing to have an open and honest conversation with the country about migration.

Meanwhile, this policy directly contradicts Rishi Sunak’s stated desire to make the UK a science and technology superpower. Yes, the government recently announced an investment in the tech sector via its Autumn Statement. But without a thriving research ecosystem (which depends, in part, on international students), it’s all hot air.

The UK has a proud reputation as a hub for research and innovation, and if we want to maintain that status, we need to eradicate the idea that international students are a burden. Bad policy is bad policy, and it’s time we took an evidenced approach to student migration – not an ideological one.

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Keir Starmer has said he wouldn’t be “mates” with Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, because the pair are from “totally different worlds”.

The Labour leader admitted to an ITV documentary team that he gets on “alright” with the prime minister, but added he would not be friends with him outside of politics. 

Upon it being suggested to him that there might be some similarities between him and the PM, and that in different circumstances they could have been friends, Starmer said: “We wouldn’t be mates — we’re from totally different worlds.”

Starmer has frequently spoken about his working class upbringing, referencing his toolmaker father and mother who was a nurse. 

He attended a selective state school before going to university at Leeds.

The Labour leader made the comments as he allowed cameras to follow him around the country for an ITV documentary. 

In the film, Starmer also spoke about his time as a student at Leeds University in the 1980s.

It was noted that he wrote an article critiquing the “authoritarian onslaught of Thatcherism” in a Socialist Alternatives magazine at the time. Expanding on his critical words in Socialist Alternatives, he told ITV: “Even now I would say the same. What she did was a clarity of mission and purpose. But actually what she did was very destructive.”

Meanwhile, asked whether he had ever wanted Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister, Starmer said: “I didn’t think the Labour Party was in a position to win the last election, I didn’t obviously vote for Corbyn in 2015 or 2016. On the contrary, I resigned in 2016.

“I thought that once that 2016 Brexit referendum had happened, I took the view that what then followed in the next few years was going to be felt for generations and that I thought it was my responsibility to play a full part in that.”

While Starmer said he gets on “alright” with the prime minister, he has previously revealed his loathing for former prime minister Boris Johnson.

At a recording of comedian Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast, Starmer said in early 2023: “Is there anybody who’s had any relationship with Johnson — you know, in any sense of the word — who hasn’t ended up in the gutter?”.

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The Northern Ireland secretary has vowed to introduce “pragmatic” legislation in his latest bid to address the region’s political deadlock.

After the latest deadline to restore Stormont expired on Thursday, 18 December, Chris Heaton-Harris declared his intention to introduce new legislation in a statement. 

He said his new approach would be “pragmatic, appropriate and limited”.

Heaton-Harris had been under an obligation to call a fresh election if the institutions were not restored by 18 January.

The Northern Ireland secretary insisted his legislation will also “support Northern Ireland departments to manage the immediate and evident challenges they face in stabilising public services and finances”.

The Stormont Assembly has been collapsed for almost two years with the Democratic Unionist Party refusing to participate until unionist concerns over post-Brexit trading arrangements are addressed

Presently, senior civil servants are running Stormont departments with limited powers.

The DUP, led by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, maintained its position during a final failed attempt to recall the Assembly following a motion by nationalist party Sinn Fein on Wednesday.

Minutes after midnight, Heaton-Harris issued a statement signalling that he intends to introduce new legislation.

After more than 150,000 public sector workers walked-out over ongoing pay disputes on Thursday, Heaton-Harris said events in Northern Ireland this week “have shown the urgent action which is required to address a whole range of issues facing Northern Ireland”.

He continued: “I remain of the belief that a sitting Northern Ireland Executive is best placed to act quickly and effectively to resolve those issues.

“In the absence of a sitting Northern Ireland Executive I will update Parliament on the next steps.

“I intend to introduce new legislation which will take a pragmatic, appropriate and limited approach to addressing the Executive Formation period and support Northern Ireland departments to manage the immediate and evident challenges they face in stabilising public services and finances.”

The government has offered a financial package worth more than £3 billion — including money to deliver public sector pay awards — contingent on the restoration of Stormont.

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