Politics

Angela Rayner has said she is “worried” about the online abuse aimed at This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby after allegations they skipped the queue to see the Queen’s coffin. Speaking at a fringe event at Labour’s conference in Liverpool, the party’s deputy leader said the attack they are facing on social media

A union boss has said Sir Keir Starmer must “cosy up to working class people” to be effective in Opposition against the Conservative government. Speaking to Sky News’ chief political correspondent Jon Craig ahead of Labour’s party conference, RMT chief Mick Lynch said Sir Keir must “show a way that he identifies with the struggles

The Labour Party’s annual conference begins today – and policies on neighbourhood policing and clean energy are among those on the agenda. The Labour leader is seeking to set out the dividing lines between his party and the new Tory government during the four-day event. Speaking at a London Labour reception on Friday evening, Sir

Labour will attempt to fight back against the chancellor’s Trussonomics tax giveaways by unveiling rival plans to boost economic growth at its conference in Liverpool. The four-day conference will begin with a tribute to the Queen by party leader Sir Keir Starmer and the national anthem, a move that will be criticised by left-wingers. Deputy

It may have been billed a mini-budget, but what Kwasi Kwarteng announced on Friday was massive. A package of tax cuts on a scale not seen for half a century, paid for through borrowing at increasingly expensive rates in the hope that it will deliver better growth. This is an administration that promised “shock and

Councils are calling on the new prime minister to honour her promise to put £13 billion into social care, as government plans to scrap the newly introduced national insurance levy were confirmed. Ahead of today’s mini-budget, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng said the tax hike – introduced in April to pay for social care and tackle the

People working part-time will face cuts to their benefits if they do not look for extra hours, the chancellor is set to announce. As part of his mini-budget on Friday, Kwasi Kwarteng will say claimants working up to 15 hours a week on the National Living Wage will have to take “active steps” to increase

Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats are part of a desperate attempt to justify his “catastrophic” failure in Ukraine, Liz Truss has said. In her first speech on the world stage as prime minister, Ms Truss accused the Russian president of “sabre rattling” after he said that his country would use “all the means at our disposal”

Liz Truss is putting the public finances on a “unsustainable path” with her plans to slash taxes while capping energy bills, a leading economic think tank has warned. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that the combination of higher spending and tax cuts means government borrowing is expected to hit £100bn a year

When Liz Truss was vying to be the Conservative Party leader and our next prime minister, some of her colleagues worried that, as the anointed choice of Prime Minister Johnson, she was going to be the Boris Johnson continuity candidate. On the economy, they could not have been more wrong. Since becoming the prime minister

Joe Biden will tell Liz Truss she must work with the EU to find a negotiated outcome to the Northern Ireland Protocol when they meet later today, the White House has said. The US president and the prime minister will hold a delayed meeting in New York on Wednesday, where world leaders have assembled for

The much-vaunted post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and US could be years away, Liz Truss admitted as she landed in the US before her first official bilateral meeting with President Joe Biden. The prime minister, en route to the United Nations General Assembly, told reporters on Tuesday: “There aren’t currently any negotiations taking place

The government is considering introducing a fixed discount for businesses on the amount they are charged per kilowatt hour for energy as part of its plans to tackle soaring prices, reports suggest. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy did not deny the policy was on the table ahead of the government’s mini budget,

An investigation into whether Sir Keir Starmer broke COVID rules cost Durham Police over £100,000, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. The Labour leader faced accusations after being pictured drinking a beer in an MP’s office in April 2021, with the incident being dubbed “beergate” by the press. He and his team were later

Train drivers will resume strike action next month in a long-running dispute over pay. A planned walkout by the Aslef union on 15 September was called off as a mark of respect following the death of the Queen. But now, drivers at 12 train firms will go ahead with industrial action on 1 October and

Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney has expressed “cautious optimism” talks between the UK and Brussels to resolve the dispute over post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland will restart within weeks. Private conversations he and the country’s prime minister Micheal Martin had had with Liz Truss’s recently installed administration indicated there was an opportunity for a “new

An official Chinese delegation has been barred from attending the Queen’s lying in state. House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle will prevent access to Westminster Hall because of sanctions imposed by Beijing against a group of MPs and peers, a parliamentary source told the PA news agency. It came as crowds continued to pay

After the death of the Queen was announced last Thursday, MPs and peers stepped away from Parliament to observe a period of mourning for the monarch. But when they return to work in Westminster next week after the state funeral, they will have to hit the ground running with a busy in-tray of events and

The government will deliver a mini-budget on 23 September, Sky News understands. It is expected that details of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s plans to help households and business amid the cost of living crisis will be revealed. The new PM had vowed to hold an “emergency budget” during the Conservative Party’s leadership race “to get

A leading trade union has written to the head of staff at King Charles’s former household calling for him to halt planned job cuts at Clarence House. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the sixth largest union in the UK, has written to King Charles’s Principal Private Secretary Sir Clive Alderton, asking him to

Members of the public are queuing for hours to see the Queen lying in state – but MPs can skip the long wait. A House of Commons spokesperson confirmed that Members of Parliament can view the Queen‘s coffin without having to queue for miles – and can also bring up to four guests. Parliamentary House

Sir Keir Starmer has urged anti-monarchy protesters to “respect” people mourning the Queen and not “ruin” their experience. The Labour leader spoke out amid controversy over a small number of protesters being arrested during royal ceremonies. Sir Keir said protest was a “great British tradition” but that hundreds of thousands of people wanted to have

Businesses will learn next week about how the government will help them to navigate the energy crisis. A spokesman for Prime Minister Liz Truss said on Wednesday that the scheme will help businesses with October bills and will be backdated if the implementation is delayed. He said: “We will confirm further details of the business

An MP who travelled between London and Scotland in 2020 in breach of COVID rules has been told by a court to undertake a 270-hour community payback order. Last month, in a hearing at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Scottish MP Margaret Ferrier admitted that she culpably and recklessly exposed the public to risk of COVID-19 infection.

King Charles III paid tribute to the Queen and said he feels the “weight of history which surrounds us” as he addressed parliament for the first time as monarch. In the speech, he quoted William Shakespeare in a tribute to his late mother, saying: “As Shakespeare said of the earlier Queen Elizabeth, she was a

Liz Truss will visit the devolved nations with King Charles this week as the monarch leads the UK through a period of national mourning. Both the new prime minister and the King will head to Scotland on Monday morning, followed by visits to Northern Ireland on Tuesday and Wales on Friday. Downing Street said Ms

Liz Truss will visit the devolved nations with King Charles this week as the monarch leads the UK through a period of national mourning. Both the new prime minister and the King will head to Scotland on Monday morning, followed by visits to Northern Ireland on Tuesday and Wales on Friday. While King Charles and

In a “hot-mic moment” captured by Sky News in 2014, then prime minister David Cameron revealed that the Queen “purred down the line” when he told her a majority of Scots had voted against independence. Mr Cameron privately apologised and later called the remarks “a terrible mistake”. Yet they provided the rarest glimpse of an

Senior MPs have pledged their allegiance to King Charles III in a rare Saturday Commons sitting. Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle was the first to do so. He was followed by Father of the House, the longest serving male MP, Conservative Sir Peter Bottomley. Then came the Mother of the House, the longest serving female

This week will be remembered as one of the most significant in our nation’s history. Never before has a country lost a monarch and ushered in a new prime minister in such a short space of time. It was only on Tuesday that Queen Elizabeth II asked Liz Truss to form a government. By Thursday

Liz Truss has faced constant tests in the infancy of her premiership.  Forty-eight hours after being appointed by the Queen, the PM had to lead a nation in paying tribute to her. Today the Commons chamber was a sea of black as MPs stood for a minute’s silence, and the prime minister was again tasked

MPs have paid tribute to the Queen in the House of Commons, with Boris Johnson making his first appearance since stepping down as prime minister, asking the public to “think what we asked of her and think what she gave”. His successor, Liz Truss, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and the Speaker, Sir Lindsay

The King has held his first audience with Prime Minister Liz Truss at Buckingham Palace. King Charles III travelled back from Balmoral today after rushing there when the Queen‘s health deteriorated. He became King when the Queen died yesterday afternoon. Tears, cheers, and a kiss for the King – live updates Ms Truss only became