Politics

Angela Rayner has insisted the government can meet its target to build 1.5m homes over the next five years as ministers pledged an extra £350m for housebuilding. An extra £300m has been injected to the affordable homes programme, a move ministers believe will allow 2,800 additional homes to be built. More than half of these

The Labour Party has suspended 11 of its councillors over their membership of a WhatsApp group that led to a minister being sacked from the frontbench. It is understood most of the councillors are part of Tameside Council while two are members of Stockport Council. The move comes after the party sacked health minister Andrew

Has Sir Keir Starmer picked a fight with a bat tunnel that – in time – he will eventually discover he just can’t win? For the last six months, the prime minister has singled out the most hated construction site in Britain for criticism – a kilometre-long, £100m shed to protect bats in Buckinghamshire from

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has a ruthless streak when it comes to suspending MPs who’ve brought the party into disrepute or failed to toe the line. It’s no surprise that Andrew Gwynne was sacked before the story of his outrageous comments on WhatsApp had even been published, given that Sir Keir has built his

A Labour MP has said he “deeply regrets” comments he made on a WhatsApp group – a day after health minister Andrew Gwynne was sacked for alleged racist and sexist remarks posted on the same chat. Burnley MP Oliver Ryan is being investigated by the Labour Party over comments which a government source said were

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said the party now has more than 200,000 members and is aiming to overtake the Labour Party’s total of 309,000. Speaking to delegates at a regional conference in Wiltshire, the Clacton MP called his party’s growth “truly extraordinary” since its founding in 2021 as the re-launch of the Brexit

Margaret Thatcher died on 8 April 2013. But the UK’s longest-serving post-war prime minister still casts a long shadow over politics today, more than a decade later. Only last week the Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer cited her example in support of his deregulation plans. “In the 1980s, the Thatcher government deregulated finance capital…,”

Health minister Andrew Gwynne has been sacked over comments posted on a WhatsApp group. Mr Gwynne reportedly made antisemitic comments and ‘joked’ about a pensioner constituent, saying he hope she died before the next election, according to the Mail on Sunday. In the WhatsApp chat, which contained Labour councillors, party officials and at least one

Keir Starmer was touring the UK National Nuclear Laboratory in Preston when the Bank of England halved its 2025 growth forecast, cut interest rates for the third time in six months, warned of an uptick in inflation and said the national insurance hike on employers would hit prices and jobs more than expected.  It was

The Labour MPs who have set up a pressure group to counter the threat of Reform UK have been warned they risked promoting factionalism. Baroness Harman, a former deputy leader of the Labour Party, said setting up the group was also “problematic” because it gave the impression that those involved did not believe the leadership

The Foreign Office has revoked the accreditation of a Russian diplomat after a British official was expelled from Moscow last year. A Foreign Office spokesperson said the Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, had been summoned to a meeting with a senior British official to revoke the accreditation of the diplomat. “This is in

The government has been accused of “ignoring” the voices of people who lost family in the Grenfell Tower tragedy in its decision to demolish the building. Grenfell United, which represents some bereaved and survivors, criticised the government’s conduct as “disgraceful and unforgiveable”. The news was announced in a meeting attended by deputy prime minister Angela

The Conservative Party is pledging to tighten immigration rules after Reform topped a landmark poll for the first time earlier this week. In her first major policy announcement as Tory Party leader, Kemi Badenoch is pledging to double the amount of time an asylum seeker needs to have been in the UK before claiming indefinite

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana’s anti-terror case should have been kept open, a review into his attacks has found. Following the killings in Southport last summer, a rapid review was launched into Rudakubana’s contact with Prevent – a government strategy aimed at stopping people from becoming terrorists. Speaking in the House of Commons, Home Office minister

Britain’s foreign secretary is on a visit to Ukraine barely a fortnight after the prime minister said the UK will “play its full part” in securing a lasting peace, including by potentially deploying troops. With war with Russia still raging, David Lammy’s trip today also comes as Kyiv waits to hear how the new US

Millions of people face council tax hikes over normal thresholds after the government allowed six areas to boost rates above the usual 5%. More than two million people will be hit by increases of between 5 and 10%. Windsor and Maidenhead Council wanted to increase council tax by 25% but the plan was blocked –

The symbolism was plain to see. Five years on from Brexit, the British prime minister on Monday was brought back into the club for one night only, invited to an informal dinner with the EU’s 27 leaders to talk about resetting relations after a bumpy Brexit. The invite was sent out weeks ago, with the

The UK and the US have a “fair and balanced trading relationship”, Number 10 has said, after Donald Trump claimed the UK is “out of line”. The American president suggested he is ready to impose tariffs on both the UK and the EU after he announced 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, and

Sir Keir Starmer will urge European countries to commit more in defence spending as he heads to Brussels for security talks. The prime minister will call on Europe to “step up and shoulder more of the burden” to fend off the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Sir Keir, the first prime minister to meet

The government has vowed to stop businesses recruiting foreign workers instead of training people already in the UK. Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper criticised the current “relaxed free market approach”, which she says has led net migration to quadruple over the past four years. “A big driver… has been

Chancellor Rachel Reeves this week confirmed government support for dozens of big projects to boost growth, on top of Labour’s existing promise to build 1.5 million new homes. Major planning system reforms are under way in a bid to meet targets, but among the challenges the government faces in delivery is who will build them.

Energy giant Shell is due to install a multi-billion pound gas platform in the North Sea this spring despite being blocked from drilling, Sky News understands. The Jackdaw field, which it is claimed could eventually power more than a million UK homes, has to get fresh approval from Downing Street to extract gas after a

Nigel Farage has compared Reform UK’s rise in the polls, with Donald Trump’s recent election victory in the US. At a rally held in Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s constituency, four of Reform’s five MPs gave speeches. During the North West Essex rally, Mr Farage told Reform members the Conservative Party “should be bloody scared of

Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband will find the government’s support for a third Heathrow runway “uncomfortable” but he won’t cause any “disruption”, Harriet Harman has said. The Labour peer told Sky News political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast Mr Miliband is a “green conscience” in the cabinet “but we’ve been here before”.

Former Labour prime ministers Gordon Brown and Sir Tony Blair have led tributes to “working class hero” Lord Prescott at his funeral. The great and the good of the Labour Party remembered the UK’s longest-serving deputy prime minister, who died in November aged 86 after a battle with Alzheimer’s. The funeral cortege included a Jaguar

Sir Keir Starmer has hailed John Prescott’s “fighting spirit” ahead of the former deputy prime minister’s funeral. Labour grandees, government ministers and MPs, prominent party supporters and trade union leaders are gathering today for the service in Hull Minister. Lord Prescott, who died on 20 November aged 86, was MP for Hull East for 40

Deregulation, streamlining planning decisions, and clamping down on judicial reviews – you might have found much of what Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday a bit dry and abstract. But keep reading, because it is also a very big deal, and years down the track will probably be looked back on – for good or for

The government supports a third runway at Heathrow, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced. The chancellor said there had been “no progress in 80 years” and that a third runway was “badly needed”. She said the airport “connects us to emerging markets all over the world” and its expansion would increase trade opportunities. Ms Reeves said

NHS and department of health officials show a “lack of ideas or drive” to transform the health service for patients, MPs have said. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has published a report into the future of the health service months after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer laid out plans for “three big shifts” in the

Sir Keir Starmer has warned the UK has a “cohort of loners who are extreme and need to be factored in” as a leaked Home Office review said the UK should deal with extremism by focusing on concerning behaviours and activity rather than ideologies. The prime minister said his government is “looking carefully where the

Ed Miliband has said the expansion of Heathrow and other airports “won’t go ahead” if they don’t meet the UK’s emissions targets – putting him on a potential collision course with Rachel Reeves. The chancellor has not commented directly on whether she would support a third runway at Heathrow, but she has indicated she would be prepared

The Scottish government is scrapping its plans to create a National Care Service. It is an embarrassing but perhaps predictable end to years of ambitious talk about finally coming up with a solution to the social care crisis. In a statement at Holyrood, the government tore up parts of the bill that would require major

Kemi Badenoch has defended blaming “peasants” from “sub-communities” in foreign countries for the grooming gangs crisis. Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, she insisted she would not be “shy” when talking about the scandal, which saw a string of child sexual exploitation convictions of men mostly from Pakistani backgrounds. Ms Badenoch told