Political news

• Sturgeon criticised on health and education record

  21-05-2017 23:57
  First TV debate of Scottish party leaders ahead of UK general election
  
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• Labour Promises Students Starting University This Year Will Escape Tuition Fees

  21-05-2017 23:37
  
  Students starting university this September will have their first year fees written off if Labour wins the election, the party has announced.  
  Jeremy Corbyn’s party’s pledge goes further than its existing promise to scrap tuition fees from 2018 under a Labour government.
  Corbyn, launching the policy in tandem with Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner, says the plan will save 400,000 students an average of around £27,000.
  The move, to discourage students deferring unti
  
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• Theresa May under pressure over 'dementia tax' social care shakeup

  21-05-2017 21:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Conservative candidates are reporting plan to make the elderly pay for care in their own home is going down badly on the doorstepTheresa May is coming under pressure to drop or water down her controversial shakeup of social care that has been branded a “dementia tax”, amid warnings that it is unfair and could deter older people from seeking care.The prime minister has faced a backlash about the proposal to make the elderly pay for care in their own home unless they have less than &po
  
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• The Guardian view on fear of the future: a failure of political imagination | Editorial

  21-05-2017 20:58 via theguardian.com
  
  A general election campaign is meant to offer vision for the road ahead but Labour and Tories are both blocked by nostalgiaElection campaigns routinely prove the wisdom of Simon Hoggart’s “law of the ridiculous reverse”, which states that a political phrase is meaningless when no one in their right mind would assert the opposite. Continue reading...
  
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• How might Labour get a fair hearing for its popular policies? | Letters from Frank Field and others

  21-05-2017 20:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Frank Field says if Labour lose on 8 June then Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto must be the starting point from which a new leader is chosen by the PLP alone, while other readers tackle the hostile media landscape faced by the partyCan I develop Gaby Hinsliff’s argument (Labour’s ideologically left-behind are at last shooting for the stars, 19 May)? A leadership that aims for an election result as good as our last defeat, which was one of our worst ever, hardly instils confidence. Con
  
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• Bridging the Tories’ infrastructure gap | Letters

  21-05-2017 20:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Reader Nick Mayer highlights the vital role of infrastructure projects in rebooting Britain’s economy, while others examine the Institute of Directors’ recent call for more airport runwaysLarry Elliott notes (Ten years after Blair, the old problems remain, 15 May) that social-democratic ideas for infrastructure investment will seem more mainstream if there is another crisis. We surely face such urgency today, with not a moment to lose. The Tory record is woeful: the weakest reco
  
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• Washed-out blue for washed-out policies? | Letters

  21-05-2017 20:47 via theguardian.com
  
  Printing problems with postal votes | Manifestos and party slogans | Winter fuel pricesIt appears that many people will be unable to use the postal voting system even if they have already applied. Because of the volume of demand at the printers, our local council, Wychavon, is unable to send out postal votes before 31 May, by which time people may already have gone on holiday and may not be able to use their vote. I assume that this could be a countrywide problem, caused by Theresa May&rsqu
  
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• Martin Rowson on the fallout from the Tory manifesto – cartoon

  21-05-2017 20:12 via theguardian.com
  
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• We wanted a politics of audacity. May’s manifesto delivers it | Matthew d’Ancona

  21-05-2017 19:45 via theguardian.com
  
  A prime minister often dismissed as risk averse is now pursuing a dramatic break with her party’s historyIn the seven years since she became a senior cabinet minister, it has been commonplace to describe Theresa May as risk averse. I have done so myself. Well, no more.Whatever you think of the Conservative manifesto, it is emphatically not a blueprint for hedge-betters, difference-splitters, or cautious technocrats. This document represents the most adventurous restatement of Conservatism
  
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• Donald Trump Strikes Softer Tone On Muslims In Saudi Arabia Speech

  21-05-2017 19:43
  
  Donald Trump has opted against the inflammatory language about Muslims that has characterised his political career to date during his first foreign trip in Saudi Arabia.
  The US President repeatedly criticised Barack Obama’s administration for its unwillingness to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism”, and in March said: “I think Islam hates us.”
  He’s also claimed that he saw Muslims cheering on 9/11 as the World Trade Center was attacked, and in 2015 he
  
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• After 100 years, is it time to remove 'empire' from UK honours system?

  21-05-2017 19:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Centenary has sparked calls not only for the word ‘empire’ to be consigned to history but for a rethink of the whole honours systemFor many it is the ultimate honour; for others it is an anachronistic relic tainted by colonialism and slavery.As members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire celebrate its centenary with a service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday, there are calls to consign to history an order of chivalry whose insignia still bears the wording: &ldq
  
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• Lynton Crosby deserves respect as a campaign strategist

  21-05-2017 18:34
  The Tory adviser is brutally effective, as I discovered in Australian elections
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn Gatecrashes Wirral Live Music Festival Headlined By The Libertines

  21-05-2017 18:26
  
  Jeremy Corbyn was greeted with ‘oh, Jeremy Corbyn’ chanted to the tune of The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army after gatecrashing a music festival in the Wirral.
  The Labour leader made a surprise appearance on stage in front of around 20,000 people at the festival headlined by The Libertines.
  Corbyn’s speech at the Wirral Live music festival at the Tranmere Rovers’ ground, Prenton Park, saw him pledge to get Premier League clubs to invest 5 per cent of their income
  
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• Senior Tories were kept in the dark over ‘dementia tax’

  21-05-2017 18:12
  Manifesto pledge to shake up social care system devised by tight-knit group
  
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• UK designers produce world’s cheapest solar lamp

  21-05-2017 17:53
  Hand-sized light that sells for $5 tempts homes across Africa away from kerosene
  
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• Sunday Shows Round-Up: Corbyn's IRA Views And Boris Johnson's Missing £350m For The NHS

  21-05-2017 17:24
  
  The Andrew Marr Show
  Ukip leader Paul Nuttall downplayed the importance of his party securing MPs – which is a strange tactic with the election fewer than three weeks away. He claimed support for the anti-EU party will rise again once the Brexit negotiations are underway and Theresa May begins making concessions to Brussels. UKIP 'could be bigger than it has ever been' after #GE2017, says @paulnuttallukip #marr pic.twitter.com/doWimQ37E5— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 21,
  
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• Theresa May has got it right about business

  21-05-2017 17:02
  Market capitalism can only work within frameworks that secure the consent of citizens
  
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• General election 2017: Boris Johnson 'understands reservations' about social care plan – live updates

  21-05-2017 16:45 via theguardian.com
  
  All the day’s campaign news as Conservative ministers are wheeled out to defend the manifesto and Jeremy Corbyn seeks to shore up support among older voters 3.45pm BSTThat’s your lot today. Here’s a summary: 3.28pm BSTLabour is fighting to halt a slide in its traditionally rock-solid minority ethnic vote which threatens to cost it even more seats, according to a new study, writes Vikram Dodd. The survey by the non-party Operation Black Vote says: “Black minority ethnic [B
  
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• Dim and Dimmer: two Tory car crashes for the price of one

  21-05-2017 16:44 via theguardian.com
  
  If Damian Green had hoped to provide gravitas on Marr Show, Boris Johnson’s Peston tactic was to go for full-on levitasDamian “Nice but Dim” Green looked miserable before the interview with Andrew Marr had even begun. Of all the TV studios in all of the world, he had to walk into this one. After spending four weeks hidden away from the public on the orders of the Supreme Leader’s High Command, the work and pensions secretary was finally being let out at the very moment wh
  
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• Labour risks losing more minority ethnic voters to Tories, study finds

  21-05-2017 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Operation Black Vote says Labour faces challenge to hang on to its traditionally solid support among ethnic minoritiesLabour is fighting to halt a slide in its traditionally rock-solid minority ethnic vote which threatens to cost it even more seats, a study released on Monday finds.Operation Black Vote (OBV) says 45 of the 50 most marginal seats have a minority ethnic population bigger than the majority of the winning party. Continue reading...
  
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• Theresa May and her man from another world

  21-05-2017 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, the Tory leader’s press secretary is a northern manMargaret Thatcher and Tony Blair had at least two things in common: they were the only post war prime ministers in power for a decade or more and they both appointed press secretaries from northern England who understood worlds they didn’t. Thatcher’s loyal henchman was Bernard Ingham, a former Guardian labour reporter and civil servant, while Alistair Campbell brought an understanding of
  
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• Cambridge: 'We don't talk politics. The cruel thing is it doesn't affect us'

  21-05-2017 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In the run-up to the general election, six Guardian reporters are writing from constituencies across the country to find out what matters to you and your area. In the second dispatch from Cambridge, Amelia Gentleman and photographer Antonio Olmos meet people in the city’s video games industry who feel disengaged from the election but seriously concerned about BrexitThe longer you spend with the entrepreneurs behind the video game industry cluster in Cambridge, the more the forthcoming gene
  
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• A Neil Kinnock mug and a Ukip magazine binder: the weirdest election merchandise

  21-05-2017 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Britain’s political parties are churning out tat in the run-up to 8 June. Can anything top the Tories’ ‘strong and stable’ postcards?What can we learn from our political parties’ online shops? If you visit Ukip’s online gift shop and, after being stuck in a click-loop between two defunct portals, you finally find the right link and all the item photography looks as if it was done on a Nokia N95 in a drainage ditch full of purple dye, could it be a sign that th
  
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• Boris Johnson mistakenly says £350m NHS promise is in Tory manifesto – video

  21-05-2017 13:57 via theguardian.com
  
  Foreign secretary Boris Johnson suggests Theresa May promised to give the NHS an extra £350m a week in the Conservative party manifesto, when neither she nor the document made any such promise. Asked on ITV’s Peston on Sunday why the £350m was not in the manifesto, Johnson says: ‘It is. It is. Theresa May, she said it at the launch of the manifesto’Watch the full interview on the Peston on Sunday YouTube channelBoris Johnson wrongly claims £350m NHS promise is
  
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• Watch As John McDonnell Blasts A Top Tory For Making A 'Fortune' Out Of The Water Industry

  21-05-2017 13:47
  
  Sofa chat (or an on-the-sofa tussle even) Damian Green vs John McDonnell #marr pic.twitter.com/wXrfPawQmp— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 21, 2017
  Labour’s John McDonnell accused a top Tory minister of making a “fortune” out of the UK water industry today in an extraordinary clash on live TV.
  In a well-planned ambush the Shadow Chancellor pointed to the money earned by Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green when he was a director of a water company as evidence th
  
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• Campaigners try to rally young people to vote as deadline approaches

  21-05-2017 13:29 via theguardian.com
  
  Voter registration closes on Monday at midnight, and youth groups and grassroots organisations are racing against the clockIsis Middleton has little sympathy for young people who decide not to vote. “I find it really irritating when people say politics is boring,” says the 19-year-old medical chemistry student, taking a break in the square of the University of East Anglia in Norwich. “You can’t get pissed off about politicians for ignoring us if you don’t vote.&rdqu
  
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• Boris Johnson wrongly claims £350m NHS promise at manifesto launch

  21-05-2017 13:23 via theguardian.com
  
  Foreign secretary caught looking at notes of interviewer before TV encounter during which he insisted pledge in Tory documentBoris Johnson has suggested Theresa May promised to give the NHS an extra £350m a week at the launch of the Conservative party manifesto, when neither she nor the document made any such promise.The foreign secretary was pressed on why there was no pledge from the Tories to use any proceeds from Brexit to fund the NHS, when handing over £350m a week was a flagsh
  
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• General election 2017: Tory 'wobble' over social care? – live updates

  21-05-2017 12:42 via theguardian.com
  
  All the day’s campaign news, as polls show a dip in the Conservatives’ lead and Jeremy Corbyn seeks to shore up support among older voters 11.42am BSTCorbyn’s comments on immigration are the main focus of attention for the Labour leader’s interview on Sky.11.31am BSTMeanwhile, Tim Farron is still getting bogged down over questions about his religion. Continue reading...
  
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• Tory Minister Admits He Has No Idea How Many Pensioners Will Lose The Winter Fuel Allowance

  21-05-2017 12:41
  
  "Those in genuine need will still get winter fuel payment" says @DamianGreen #marr pic.twitter.com/5nZrkX5qXi— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) May 21, 2017
  Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green today was unable to say which pensioners would lose their winter fuel allowance if the Tories won the election.
  In an intense grilling on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show this morning, the Tory Cabinet Minister said the party would only decide who would lose the benefit – worth up to &pou
  
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• Older people must wait to find out cost of Tory cuts, says Damian Green

  21-05-2017 12:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Minister unable to say before election who will lose fuel allowance, and struggles to explain cost of social care changes• General election 2017 - live updates
  Older voters will have to wait until after the election to find out how much money they could lose as a result of Conservative manifesto pledges, a senior Tory cabinet minister has said.
  Damian Green, the work and pensions secretary, said he could not say which older people would lose their winter fuel allowances as a result of new m
  
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• Forget Brexit, the real challenge is creating enough wealth for an ageing population

  21-05-2017 11:58 via theguardian.com
  
  In or out of the EU, the focus should be on be boosting skills and productivity in the north to match those in the south-eastRoll the clock back a year and Britain was in the middle of the EU referendum battle. The remain side was warning about the economic consequences of Brexit; the leave side was extolling the benefits of taking back control. Leave won decisively but narrowly enough to give the remainers hope that the public would rethink its decision.The general election campaign has exposed
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn rallies music festival crowd at Tranmere Rovers ground – video

  21-05-2017 11:52 via theguardian.com
  
  The Labour leader takes to the stage on Saturday at the Wirral Live music festival, where the Libertines and the Coral were also performing. The festival was at the Tranmere Rovers ground, Prenton Park. Corbyn criticised the wealth of Premier League clubs and championed sport, culture and the artsGeneral election 2017: live updatesContinue reading...
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn rallies at music festival at Tranmere Rovers ground – video

  21-05-2017 11:52 via theguardian.com
  
  Jeremy Corbyn took to the stage amidst performances from The Libertines and The Coral at the Wirral Live music festival at Tranmere Rovers ground Prenton Park on Saturday. Corbyn criticises the wealth of Premier League clubs and champions sport, culture and the artsGeneral election 2017: live updatesContinue reading...
  
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• Conservatives make ground across England’s rust belt

  21-05-2017 11:41
  Tories are on course to grab seats as manufacturing areas switch from Labour
  
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• Conservative candidates wipe slate clean on Brexit

  21-05-2017 11:26
  Only half of those standing in top 100 target seats are clear on how they voted
  
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• Election campaigning to briefly pause in memory of murdered MP Jo Cox

  21-05-2017 11:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Politicians from all parties, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, will take one-hour break to remember Labour MPPoliticians will take a one-hour break from election campaigning to remember Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered by a far-right extremist during the EU referendum campaign last year.Candidates from all parties have been asked to choose an hour on Sunday in which to honour Cox and recognise that people have more in common than they have have differences, a message from her maide
  
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• Charities may face criminal sanctions as 'gagging law' backdated before election

  21-05-2017 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Electoral Commission says charities must declare all campaign spending since June last year, despite them not knowing a snap election would be calledUK charities face a permanent “chilling effect” on their campaigns after the Electoral Commission said they must declare any work that could be deemed political over the past 12 months to ensure they are not in breach of the Lobbying Act. At least one charity has been warned that if it does not, it may face “civil or criminal sanct
  
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• When Boris Johnson’s inner monster goes on the rampage | Stewart Lee

  21-05-2017 10:59 via theguardian.com
  
  After a ham-fisted encounter with Sikh culture last week, it’s no surprise to learn that Boris Johnson’s favourite character is the Incredible HulkLast Wednesday our chief Brexiter Boris Johnson dressed up in a Sikh costume to visit a Bristol gurdwara. There he told the alcohol-abstaining supplicants to take bottles of Johnnie Walker to Indian relatives to speed post-Brexit booze exports, leading one to comment that had he made that suggestion in India the foreign secretary would hav
  
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• How do the four main parties compare on the environment?

  21-05-2017 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Environment experts weigh up the manifesto pledges on issues such as air pollution, climate change, energy and waste Continue reading...
  
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• Ed Balls: my boozy lunches with Eddie George – and the famous Granita dinner

  21-05-2017 09:59 via theguardian.com
  
  The ex-chancellor recalls the Strictly tour, the ‘lasagne plot’ and what Nikolas Sarkozy thought of American foodWhen I was five, Dad did a job-swap and taught biology at Eton, so for a term I attended a nearby primary school and, each lunchtime, had to march to a building where a very strict woman would blow a very loud whistle if anyone spoke a word while eating. All my memories of that term are of awful, very frightening meals.Dad took a post at the University of East Anglia and w
  
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• When it comes to Corbyn, does the media matter?

  21-05-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Newspaper bias is a perpetually hot topic. But we need not look far for candidates who received no endorsements in the press and yet won electionsAn embattled Trump inveighs against the “liberal media” who are bringing him down. “No politician in history has been treated more unfairly.” Embattled Corbyn supporters, led by Len McCluskey, inveigh against the Conservative media (and BBC) who have never given him a chance to get up in the first place. And, pat on cue, dozens
  
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• From tax to Brexit, the Tories will do anything to stay in power

  21-05-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Nothing – not even policies for which Labour was excoriated two years ago – is too much to swallow for a party, and a leader, determined to rise above the frayJeremy Corbyn may score badly with the wider public, but for as long as I can remember the press have given even the most admired Labour leaders a hard time during election campaigns. A recent exception was Tony Blair, who – for a time – achieved rock star status with the media.Many reports have suggested that when
  
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• Join the tourists on a trip to Brexit land | Eva Wiseman

  21-05-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  See an iconic black cab, listen to Farage’s LBC show, watch the 4-mile queue of lorries at Dover and put a straight banana in your pocketThe New York Times is offering readers the trip of a lifetime. For $5,995, holidaymakers can join “experts” on a trip they’re calling “Brexit Means Brexit!” Leaving on 22 October they will take a group to London to “Meet with politicians, journalists and historians to discuss Britain’s decision to leave the EU and
  
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• 'I'm 8,000 miles from home, but I'll still vote'

  21-05-2017 02:13 via bbc.co.uk
  
  You don't have to live in the UK to vote in the general election - as these far-flung voters prove.
  
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• General election 2017: Politicians' clothes on the campaign trail

  21-05-2017 02:11 via bbc.co.uk
  
  No-one wants to seem too interested in clothes - but what can we look out for in this election campaign?
  
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• Theresa May takes on the older voter. That’s gutsy, but is social care any fairer? | Will Hutton

  21-05-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  In an ideal world, an insurance system would pay for care later in life but we must find a way to tax housing wealthMrs May, the soon to be crowned Tory prime minister who promises to end Conservatism’s embrace of neoliberalism, is also the woman who will end the 40-year property boom. British house prices are absurdly high in relation to incomes – in national historical terms and in comparison with other countries. Their fall has long been inevitable, but less obvious was what would
  
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• Theresa May and the 50% nation

  21-05-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  The Conservatives’ electoral coalition is broader than any in decades, but it is also fragile, driven by impossibly high expectationsTheresa May’s Conservatives have achieved something remarkable. For the first time in 60 years, a British political party is receiving close to an absolute majority – 50% – in the opinion polls.The last leader to achieve this was Harold Macmillan, who won 49.4% in 1959. No one has matched his achievement – Harold Wilson came closest wi
  
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• The elephants in May's room - cartoon

  21-05-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Chris Riddell on the Tory manifesto Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Mrs Thatcher saw dragons to be slain. Theresa is tough, too, but the dragons are very different’

  21-05-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Work and pensions secretary Damian Green says the PM is pragmatic, not politically hideboundOf all the people who sit in her cabinet, Damian Green has known the Supreme Leader for the longest. They first met four decades ago when they were students at Oxford and no one but Theresa May thought she could end up running the country.“Ever since Theresa became prime minister, people have asked me, ‘What’s she really like?’ And the answer I give is, ‘What you see is what
  
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• Pro-Europe cabinet minister calls for remain voters to back May

  21-05-2017 00:13 via theguardian.com
  
  Damian Green says ‘national mandate’ for Brexit negotiations will help achieve workable alternative to staying in EUThe most pro-European member of Theresa May’s cabinet has appealed to Remain voters to abandon hope that Brexit can be reversed – and instead back the prime minister to secure a “special partnership” with the EU.The appeal to those who voted to stay in the EU, including Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National party supporters – by wo
  
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