Political news

• General election 2017: May says she intends to be 'bloody difficult' in Brexit negotiations – as it happened

  02-05-2017 23:37
  
  All the day’s campaign action, as Nick Clegg speaks out for Lib Dems, Tom Watson hits out at Boris Johnson, and Theresa May sets out to find votersThe Snap: sign up for our daily election email and read today’s
  Latest Guardian/ICM poll gives Tories 19-point lead over Labour 10.37pm BST 8.59pm BSTIreland should get special economic support from the EU over Brexit’s impact on the island, a Dublin government report recommends.Irish negotiators are asking for financial help over th
  
  Read more

• Theresa May Mocked For Eating Chips, And Ed Miliband Feels Her Pain

  02-05-2017 23:32
  
  Who’d be a politician? Theresa May perhaps should have been aware of the dangers of eating food while on the campaign trail as she tucked in to a cone of chips during a visit to a seaside constituency.
  During a walkabout in Mevagissey on the north Cornwall coast, the PM was snapped tucking in to the salty snack.It didn’t look the most comfortable of experiences.
   
   As social media was anxious to point out."I love these tasty human potato sticks""Chips, Theresa, they are cal
  
  Read more

• Jo Cox's Husband Brendan Speaks Movingly About His Late Wife Ahead Of First Anniversary Of Her Murder

  02-05-2017 23:25
  
  Brendan Cox has spoken movingly about his late wife Jo, ahead of a series of national events to celebrate her life and work.
  With the first anniversary of the death of the Labour MP due to fall next month, her husband said that the past year had been “incredibly painful” but organising a range of projects in her memory had helped him with his grief.
  He has written a memoir about Jo, who was murdered on June 16 last year by far right extremist Thomas Mair, as part of a new book &ndash
  
  Read more

• Theresa May accused of hiding from voters on Bristol visit

  02-05-2017 23:21
  
  Criticism follows similar complaints in Cornwall that reporters were shut in a room and banned from filming the prime ministerGeneral election 2017 – live updates
  Theresa May was accused of hiding from residents on a Bristol housing estate and shutting reporters out of a factory visit in Cornwall, as the tightly controlled stage management of the Conservative election campaign came under scrutiny. The prime minister addressed at a social club on a housing estate in Brislington in the Labou
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Steve Bell on Theresa May's election campaign – cartoon

  02-05-2017 23:18
  
  Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Theresa May's 'First Sharp Encounter' With A Voter Ends With Brexit Lecture

  02-05-2017 22:38
  
  The Conservative Parrty’s election campaign has faced criticism for being overly-stage managed and limiting the exposure of Theresa May to the media and the general public.
  A typical Tory ‘rally’ involves a rote speech to a hand-picked audience of activists, followed by three questions where the answer will at some point involve the words ‘strong and and stable’.
  Her speech in the South West today looked and sounded much like her speech in Lancashire a day earlier.
  
  Read more

• Theresa May has cone of chips while visiting St Austell – video

  02-05-2017 22:00
  
  Theresa May visits St Austell in Cornwall to support MP Steve Double on Tuesday. However, when faced with a cone of chips to eat while Double showed her the area, the prime minister looked distinctly uncomfortable, quickly leading to widespread mockery online Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Car crash interviews, election edition — the hall of infamy

  02-05-2017 21:59
  Diane Abbott just the latest in a parade of close encounters of the excruciating kind
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Tata deal with Liberty House saves 1,700 UK steel jobs

  02-05-2017 21:28
  
  Five British sites saved from closure and 300 more jobs created in £100m spin-off of speciality steels businessTata Steel has completed the £100m sale of its speciality steels business to Liberty House, safeguarding 1,700 jobs and creating 300 more in the north of England.The deal secures the future of five UK sites in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth in south Yorkshire, as well as smaller sites in Bolton, Lancashire, and Wednesbury in the West Midlands. It also includes two di
  
  Read more

• Labour expects to spend less than half as much as Tories on general election

  02-05-2017 21:28
  
  2017 campaign will be party’s most frugal in years, with insiders predicting only £7m will be raisedLabour is expecting to spend less than half as much as the Tories on the general election campaign amid a drive for money donations from its 500,000 members.
  Insiders said Labour had already raised around £3.8m for a possible poll when Theresa May announced a snap election two weeks ago. The party added that it had since received £1m in small donations.Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Brexit: Theresa May says she'll be 'bloody difficult' to Juncker

  02-05-2017 21:09 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Theresa May responds to claims she clashed with the EU Commission chief over Brexit.
  
  Read more

• EU talks guidelines threaten citizens’ rights | Letters

  02-05-2017 20:55
  
  Dr David Ellis and Jeremy Goldsmith call for more flexible Brexit negotiationsPerhaps the most urgent issues in the upcoming Brexit negotiations are the future residency rights of the approximately 3.3 million EU citizens in the UK, and of the 1.2 million UK citizens elsewhere in the EU. Many in the UK government and many EU27 leaders have advocated an early reciprocal agreement on this issue; the security of millions of ordinary citizens is at stake, and they have already suffered a year of unc
  
  Read more

• Lib Dem voters may be a problem for a progressive alliance | Letters

  02-05-2017 20:51
  
   Local authority politics can often better reflect the wishes of the electorate than in parliamentary constituencies. In wards that elect more than one councillor here in York, for instance, we have recently elected Labour and Green councillors, which the voters seem to like. On the other hand, progressive Liberal Democrats, following their parliamentary colleagues in 2010, are in coalition with the Tories, keeping out Labour as the biggest party, reflecting the fact that Lib Dem voters do
  
  Read more

• Deeply moved by Corbyn’s human warmth | Letters

  02-05-2017 20:44
  
  As a Labour Party member you would expect me to be supporting Jeremy Corbyn for PM. However, last Sunday my nephew and I got a train from London to Wolverhampton following a Bob Dylan concert at the London Palladium, and who should join us on the train but the Great Leader himself, casual and relaxed in second class, talking to some young children about their lives? At Wolverhampton station I button-holed him before he went off in a black Range Rover to a meeting in Telford. He had no security d
  
  Read more

• Proof the centre is holding? The mask of moderation still wins UK elections | Rafael Behr

  02-05-2017 20:32
  
  Far from being in the grip of post-EU referendum anti-establishment rage, voters are actually put off by leaders whose policies appear too radicalThere have been so many dizzying gyrations in politics that it is easy to lose all sense of orientation. Episodes from the recent past already feel remote, given the way ground has shifted beneath our feet, as if they took place in some distant realm. Cleggmania, for instance. Yes, it really did come to pass in 2010 that a Liberal Democrat leader wowed
  
  Read more

• UK election countdown: Diane’s disaster

  02-05-2017 20:25
  37 days to go: if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try again
  
  Read more

• UK Election Countdown: Diane’s diaster

  02-05-2017 20:25
  37 days to go: if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try again
  
  Read more

• UK election countdown: Diane Abbott’s disaster

  02-05-2017 20:25
  37 days to go: if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try again
  
  Read more

• Labour defends Diane Abbott over stumbling interview

  02-05-2017 20:18
  
  Party says shadow home secretary’s confusion over funding pledge was uncharacteristic slip-up from effective media performerDiane Abbott will continue to be a key figurehead in Labour’s general election campaign, the party has indicated, despite a stumbling radio performance in which she struggled to explain how a pledge to hire 10,000 extra police officers would be funded.The shadow home secretary tripped up when asked by LBC host Nick Ferrari how much the key law and order pledge w
  
  Read more

• Osborne begins reign at Evening Standard with attack on Brexit

  02-05-2017 19:46
  Ex-chancellor sets out clear editorial line, calling EU exit a ‘historic mistake’
  
  Read more

• Brexit leads first Evening Standard under George Osborne

  02-05-2017 19:40 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Relations between the PM and EU lead the Evening Standard on the ex-chancellor's first day as editor.
  
  Read more

• Theresa May 'Doesn't Recall' Details Of That Awkward Dinner With Jean-Claude Juncker

  02-05-2017 19:25
  
  "I don't recall the account that has been given of the meeting that took place", @theresa_may tells @bbclaurak https://t.co/5qa6G7C0Xe pic.twitter.com/dp7oRO6mBM— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) May 2, 2017
  Theresa May has said she “does not recall the account” of a disastrous dinner with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker which suggested the PM had major Brexit “delusions”.
  May renewed her contention that the story printed in the German newspaper Fr
  
  Read more

• Man who campaigned against cut in widowed parent's allowance dies

  02-05-2017 19:22
  
  Father of two’s death weeks after changes came into force means his family is entitled to £50,000 less than if he had died before 5 AprilA terminally ill man who revealed that his family would lose more than £50,000 if he survived beyond midnight on 5 April has died just weeks after the government changed the rules for bereavement benefits.Alan used an emotional interview in the Guardian to speak out about “callous and brutal” cuts that dramatically reduced the amou
  
  Read more

• One rotten dinner must not poison Brexit talks

  02-05-2017 19:18
  Britain and the EU should take a breath and bridge dangerous gaps
  
  Read more

• Scottish Labour calls for ‘protest’ vote in local elections

  02-05-2017 19:17
  Kezia Dugdale urges voters to oppose Tory cuts and SNP’s drive for independence
  
  Read more

• General Election 2017: Nick Clegg sets out Lib Dem EU Remain bid

  02-05-2017 19:12 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The ex-deputy PM says the Lib Dems would hold a referendum on any Brexit deal - and campaign to Remain.
  
  Read more

• Arbitration on trial: the US and UK’s fear of the supranational

  02-05-2017 19:07
  The courts and panels that help shape global trade are being urged to adapt to a different political climate
  
  Read more

• May says Juncker will find her ‘a bloody difficult woman’

  02-05-2017 18:52
  No 10 tries to turn damaging Brexit dinner leak to her advantage
  
  Read more

• UK needs £15bn in cuts or tax rises to clear deficit by 2022, says IFS

  02-05-2017 18:35
  
  Tory austerity drive has made little difference to public spending as a share of national income, leading thinktank findsIt will take an extra £15bn of spending cuts or tax rises to eliminate the budget deficit by the time of the 2022 election, a leading thinktank has said as it laid bare the damaging legacy of the financial crisison UK living standards and public finances. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that despite “two parliaments of pain”, the Conservative-led auster
  
  Read more

• May on how Juncker will face 'bloody difficult woman'

  02-05-2017 18:00 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Theresa May says she will be "bloody difficult" to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
  
  Read more

• General Election 2017: Greens pledge second Brexit poll

  02-05-2017 17:19 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Voters should be able to vote on any deal, with option to stay in the EU, says Green Party's sole MP.
  
  Read more

• Leaving Commons

  02-05-2017 16:52 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Who is joining George Osborne in stepping down as an MP, and who plans to return?
  
  Read more

• Theresa May awkwardly eating chips could be 2017's 'bacon sandwich'

  02-05-2017 16:43
  
  Campaigning in Cornwall, the prime minister made a meal of eating one of the seaside’s most traditional offeringsThere’s nothing more traditionally British on a visit to the seaside than eating chips in the open air, but during a campaign visit to Cornwall on Tuesday Theresa May looked distinctly uncomfortable while tucking into a cone of them.Pictured on a walkabout in Mevagissey, May looked for all the world like she had never eaten chips before – or at least not without a kn
  
  Read more

• Tony Blair's 4 Ways Back To Frontline Politics - But Should He Come Back At All?

  02-05-2017 16:37
  
  David Cameron once claimed Britain and Twitter are not the same thing, and Tony Blair must be hoping he is right.
  If the social media network is to be believed, there are only two views of the former Prime Minister: a lying, war-monger who despite winning three elections actually destroyed the Labour Party; or an unstoppable vote-winning machine whose every utterance should be treated with the reverence of a deity.
  The former view seems to be more prevalent than the latter, and Blair himself ack
  
  Read more

• Diane Abbott says she 'misspoke' on Labour's police policy

  02-05-2017 15:59 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Diane Abbott insists she can be trusted after getting the cost wrong of Labour's policing pledge.
  
  Read more

• Diane Abbott has several numbers on police costs – sadly they are all wrong | John Crace

  02-05-2017 15:35
  
  Shadow home secretary blunders through LBC interview on officer recruitment, making up figures as she goes alongGeneral election 2017 – live updates
  Think of a number. Any number. Jeremy Corbyn had thought of a number. He had thought of the number 10,000. That was how many new policemen and women Labour were promising to put on the beat if they won the election. He’d show the Tories he too could be tough on law and order.Think of a number. Several numbers. The shadow home secretary,
  
  Read more

• Theresa May Accused Of Dodging 'Any Form Of Public Scrutiny' After Keeping Journalists At A Distance

  02-05-2017 15:11
  
  Theresa May’s efforts to avoid journalists on the campaign trail have led Labour to accuse her of “going to extraordinary efforts to avoid any form of public scrutiny”. 
  May visited a diving equipment factory in Cornwall this morning, not that you would know it from reading Cornwall Live, which used its live blog to stress how hard it was to get close to the prime minister.But the Conservatives have hit back, saying May has taken “four times as many questions”
  
  Read more

• Beware the easy promise of a post-Brexit wage boost

  02-05-2017 15:02
  Employers prove unwilling to raise pay even when the labour market tightens
  
  Read more

• Beware easy promise of a post-Brexit wage boost

  02-05-2017 15:02
  Employers prove unwilling to raise pay even when the labour market tightens
  
  Read more

• Jo Cox's Husband Brendan Urges One-Hour General Election Truce On May 21 To Unite The UK

  02-05-2017 14:39
  
  The husband of murdered MP Jo Cox has urged all political parties to suspend general election campaigning for one hour later this month to pay tribute to local groups working to unite communities across the country.
  Brendan Cox said the groundbreaking initiative, scheduled for Monday May 21, will seek to get candidates and party leaders to come together to remind voters of the values they have in common as they attend events held by voluntary groups.
  Revealing his plan to HuffPost UK, Cox said t
  
  Read more

• Beneath Abbott's police funding gaffes, Labour's numbers make sense

  02-05-2017 14:31
  
  The shadow home secretary stumbled but reversing cuts to capital gains tax would pay for 10,000 extra officersShadow home secretary Diane Abbott may have misspoken several times during her “car crash” tour of broadcasting studios on Tuesday morning to launch Labour’s campaign pledge to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers, but that doesn’t mean that the underlying figures she quoted don’t add up.The worst of what the Tories seized on as “Diane’s morni
  
  Read more

• A terrible start to the Brexit conversation

  02-05-2017 14:22
  Returning to a more constructive atmosphere should not be impossible
  
  Read more

• Brexit about to trigger sky-high costs for British food industry

  02-05-2017 14:15
  
  Both consumers and producers of food will be hit hard by Brexit
  
  Read more

• Diane Abbott Told 'Hugely Embarrassing' LBC Interview 'Reduces Her Credibility'

  02-05-2017 13:59
  
  "I'm concerned you don't want to talk about policing" @HackneyAbbott to @Jo_Coburn "...you're not willing to talk about the real issues" pic.twitter.com/UXHimbGl9i— DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) May 2, 2017
  Diane Abbott has denied she has lost credibility as a future home secretary after she struggled to explain how much Labour’s policy of recruiting 10,000 more police officers would cost.
  In an interview with LBC this morning, the shadow home secretary appeared to suggest
  
  Read more

• Labour's block on Tory-limiting alliance a 'betrayal', says Lucas

  02-05-2017 13:54
  
  Green co-leader says Labour is giving Conservatives blank cheque for hard BrexitGeneral election 2017 - live updates
  The co-leader of the Green party, Caroline Lucas, has said the Labour leadership is blocking a desire among many of the party’s members for some form of electoral alliance to limit Conservative gains, saying this was a betrayal of the British people.Lucas announced her party’s election policy on Brexit – calling for a second referendum to ratify any deal and give
  
  Read more

• Tom Watson Goes Full Boris Johnson By Calling Foreign Secretary A 'Cheese-Headed Fopdoodle'

  02-05-2017 13:51
  
  Tom Watson has labelled Boris Johnson a “cheese-headed fopdoodle” in an apparent attempt to mimic the Foreign Secretary’s idiosyncratic brand of insult.
  Boris threw the campaign into disarray last week when he called Jeremy Corbyn a “mutton-headed mugwump”, sending British journalists running for their dictionaries.
  Boris was building on a reputation for bizarre insults, but it appears ‘mugwump’ may have been the last straw for Watson.
  In a speech i
  
  Read more

• Donald Trump's CBS Interview With John Dickerson And 7 Totally Batsh*t Moments

  02-05-2017 13:49
  
  Another interview, another collection of mind-numbingly astounding comments from the most powerful person on Earth.
  This time saw Donald Trump being interviewed by CBS’s John Dickerson in the plush surroundings of the Oval Office.
  Here are some of the erm... highlights.-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
  
  Read more

• Britain's energy supply is in jeopardy after Brexit, warn MPs

  02-05-2017 13:35
  
  Business committee says leaving EU means exiting European atomic power treaty, which could ‘threaten power supplies’The future of Britain’s power supply has been jeopardised by Brexit and the government must act urgently to ensure nuclear power stations stay open, MPs have warned.The influential Commons business, energy and industrial strategy committee said that any gap between the UK leaving a European atomic power treaty and entering into secure alternative deals would &ldqu
  
  Read more

• Barista visas do UK hospitality sector a disservice

  02-05-2017 13:35
  Hotels and restaurants face staffing and skills crisis without flow of EU workers
  
  Read more

• Barista visa plan does the UK hospitality sector a disservice

  02-05-2017 13:35
  Hotels and restaurants face staffing and skills crisis without flow of EU workers
  
  Read more

Follow @political_UKnws on Twitter!