The former director general of the border force warned a defence committee hearing this morning that ‘The navy can’t prioritise saving life and stopping migrants at the same time’. Sir Charles Montgomery, who is also a retired royal navy officer, made the comments during an evidence session on the use of the military in countering…
Analysis released today by Citizens Advice shows the struggle that many people, particularly single-parent families, have with debt as the cost of living crisis begins to bite. Citizens Advice’s figures show that around 280,000 people in England and Wales sought one-to-one help with debt in 2021, with many more using its website. Of those, almost…
Labour’s Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner, described the Met Police’s investigation into alleged Downing Street parties as “a truly damning reflection on this nation’s highest office”. Rayner told Michale Ellis, the paymaster general, that “the country have made up their minds”, and asked him “when will his party catch up?” Ellis responded by saying the details…
Ian Hislop says standards in British public life are “very depressing”, as he denounced the lobbying culture of MPs in a standards committee session this afternoon. Asked by the standards committee chair, Chris Bryant, how MPs were doing on standards in British public life, Hislop complained they were “not good”. The editor of Private Eye…
Julian Knight has told Colin Graves to ‘put up or shut up’ as he accused the former Yorkshire Country Cricket (YCCC) chair of interfering in the running of the club. The chair of the digital, culture, media and sport, committee read out a letter from the club’s former chairman, Roger Hutton, accusing Graves of “substantial…
Christian Wakeford’s shock defection from the Conservative party to Labour has been the talk of Westminster this week – with Sir Keir Starmer surprising almost everyone – including his own MPs. The high stakes move by Labour’s leader to let the MP for Bury South into the Party has raised questions as to whether Labour…
The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) estimates it has underpaid 134,000 pensioners, mostly women, over £1 billion of their State Pension entitlement, with some of the errors dating as far back as 1985. In January 2021, DWP started an official exercise to correct the errors, the ninth such exercise since 2018. The errors –…
The housing secretary Michael Gove has argued that developers should “pay the price” for the cladding scandal, as he set out the government’s plans to fix the crisis in the House of Commons this afternoon. Gove told the Commons “it is morally wrong that they [leaseholders] should be the ones asked to pay the price.”…
Labour MP Jack Dromey has died suddenly today, his family has said. Aged 73, he passed away in his flat in his Birmingham Erdington constituency. Jack Dromey was elected as the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington in 2010, being reelected in 2019 with a majority of 3,601. Dromey had been serving as a Shadow Home Affairs spokesperson. He…
The Housing secretary Michael Gove will today announce plans to overhaul the government’s previous proposals for tackling the cladding crisis. Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 in which 72 people died, recommendations from phase 1 of the Grenfell inquiry has led to major changes in fire safety standards. But the Fire Safety Act 2021…
