Political news

• Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron Unite In Poignant Tribute To Labour MP Jo Cox

  15-06-2017 23:00
  
  Four ex-Prime Ministers have united to remember Labour MP Jo Cox and ask the public to take part in an event in her honour.
  Sir John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have all recorded their thoughts in a specially commissioned video in support of Jo’s belief that we all have “far more in common than that which divides us”.
  The 41-year-old was murdered a year ago outside a library in her Batley and Spen constituency, in an act of right wing extremism that left t
  
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• Brendan Cox: 'Jo's death took the heart out of our family. But we are not broken'

  15-06-2017 23:00
  
  MP’s widower has spoken on the anniversary of her murder at the start of a series of events celebrating her lifeThe widower of Jo Cox has spoken out on the eve of the anniversary of the MP’s death, describing how her murder had “taken the heart out of our family” but not broken them. Brendan Cox was joined by all four of Britain’s living former prime ministers in paying tribute to the MP and the impact she had on the country’s political discourse.They spoke as
  
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• Candidates line up for Lib Dem leadership race

  15-06-2017 22:15
  
  Parliament’s summer recess will be time to appoint successor says Tim Farron who quits role after two yearsSenior Liberal Democrats are already jockeying for position to replace Tim Farron, after he stepped down as party leader, citing an irreconcilable conflict between his deeply held Christian beliefs and political leadership.Jo Swinson, who was equalities minister in the coalition government, and regained her East Dunbartonshire seat at last week’s general election, is widely thou
  
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• Grenfell is a shameful symbol of a state that didn’t care | Gaby Hinsliff

  15-06-2017 22:14
  
  It is hard to think of a more literal representation of the words ‘poverty trap’ than that burning pyre Grenfell Tower fire: six victims provisionally identified, say police – latest updates
  Home is the place we go to feel safe. Or at least it should be. Parents should have the right to put their children to bed, secure in the knowledge that everyone will wake up in the morning. Every human being should have a warm, dry place of refuge to call their own, a way to shut out their
  
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• Steve Bell on the Grenfell Tower disaster – cartoon

  15-06-2017 21:57
  
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• Experts warned government against cladding material used on Grenfell

  15-06-2017 21:57
  
  Safety experts compiled report last year that warned an increasing number of buildings are being wrapped in ‘potentially combustible materials’• Grenfell Tower fire – latest updatesThe government’s building safety experts warned last year that the drive for greater energy efficiency meant more and more buildings are being wrapped in materials that could go up in flames.In a report compiled before the Grenfell Tower disaster on Wednesday, the Building Research Establi
  
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• Controversial Lib Dem donor gave £200,000 to election campaign

  15-06-2017 21:42
  
  Sudhir Choudhrie, who denies acting as middleman in Rolls-Royce deals, is party’s adviser on IndiaA businessman facing claims in India that he had a role in the Rolls-Royce bribery scandal gave £200,000 to the Liberal Democrats’ general election campaign, it has emerged. Sudhir Choudhrie has denied that he acted as a middleman in Rolls-Royce deals investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, after calls by anti-corruption campaigners for a criminal inquiry in New Delhi. Continue r
  
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• The lesson from Grenfell is simple: stop building residential towers | Simon Jenkins

  15-06-2017 21:13
  
  High-rise blocks are wholly out of place and character. Rather, a modern, sociable city needs neighbourhoods
  • Grenfell Tower fire: six victims provisionally identified, say police – latest updatesHow many times should we say it? Don’t build residential towers. Don’t make or let people live in them, least of all families. They are antisocial, high-maintenance, disempowering, unnecessary, mostly ugly, and they can never be truly safe. No tower is fireproof. No fire engine c
  
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• Tory-DUP deal 'in breach of Good Friday agreement', claims Sinn Féin – video

  15-06-2017 21:06
  
  Theresa May is in breach of the Good Friday agreement claims the president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams. The statement was made after meeting May to discuss the resumption of power-sharing in Northern Ireland, and his party’s concerns about the proposed deal between the Tories and the DUPSinn Fein accuses Theresa May of not honouring Good Friday agreement - as it happenedContinue reading...
  
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• Headteachers win more powers in Scottish schools shake-up

  15-06-2017 20:40
  SNP responds to criticism of declining literacy and numeracy standards
  
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• That supposedly ‘suicidal’ 1983 Labour manifesto | Letter

  15-06-2017 20:30
  
  Tim Barnes says it wasn’t Michael Foot’s policies that caused his election defeatHow sporting of Polly Toynbee to concede that Labour is electable with a left-leaning (others would say “traditional”) leader like Jeremy Corbyn (This is Corbyn’s moment: he’s rescued Britain from the chains of austerity, 13 June).What she has not apologised for is her repetition of Gerald Kaufman’s untruth that the 1983 Labour manifesto was the “longest suicide note i
  
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• Britain is stumbling into a knockout blow | Letters

  15-06-2017 20:30
  
  We have been punching above our weight for years but our competitors are getting heavier, warns John MarriottI couldn’t agree more with Prof Linda Colley (Britain and the US once ran the world. Now they’re all at sea, 14 June). Since the 1960s an unjustified sense of entitlement has permeated our society from top to bottom. I am sure this played an important role when people voted in last year’s EU referendum.Those of us who have lived and worked abroad for any length of time a
  
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• Rookie ministers forced to weather MPs' anger over Grenfell Tower | John Crace

  15-06-2017 20:15
  
  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the new housing minister and policing and fire minister struggled to offer an adequate response to the urgent questions raised by the fireIt took a while, but parliament got there in the end. After listening to MP after MP express their outrage at the Grenfell Tower fire for the best part of 90 minutes in an emergency meeting, housing minister Alok Sharma finally caved in to the pressure. “I can promise that everyone will be rehoused in the local area,” he sai
  
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• Sadiq Khan Confronted By Young Boy When Meeting Angry Grenfell Residents

  15-06-2017 20:14
  
  London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Grenfell Tower residents “I share your anger” as he braved heckles from a crowd at the scene. 
  As tensions mounted in the wake of the disaster, Khan was amidst a throng of angry residents demanding answers from power-holders. 
  He even interrupted a media appearance on Sky News to respond to a dazed young boy, who asked: “Mr Khan, How many children died? What are you gonna do about it?”
  Before shaking his hand, Khan told him he person
  
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• Queen's speech to take place next Wednesday

  15-06-2017 20:05
  
  Theresa May presses on with state opening of parliament, despite Sinn Féin claims that any Tory/DUP deal would breach Good Friday agreement Post-election fallout – the day in politicsTheresa May faced a backlash from republican parties at a series of meetings in Downing Street on Thursday over her plan to strike a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party to prop up her minority Conservative government.The leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, announced
  
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• Glasgow East: where just 75 votes stopped Labour ousting the SNP

  15-06-2017 20:00
  
  In the run-up to the general election, six Guardian reporters visited constituencies across the UK to find out what matters in your area. In the final dispatch from Glasgow East, Lisa O’Carroll finds disenfranchised voters may not have been swayed by Corbyn, but many young people were. Photographs by Murdo MacLeodIn 2015, all seven Glasgow seats were taken by the Scottish National party in the electoral tsunami that wiped out Labour across Scotland. Two years later and with another bloody
  
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• 'No deadline' for DUP-Tory deal says Nigel Dodds

  15-06-2017 19:56 via bbc.co.uk
  
  DUP says that the timing of the Queen's Speech is "not relevant" to when a deal will be done.
  
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• Health secretary signals shift on nurses’ pay

  15-06-2017 19:47
  Jeremy Hunt says he will discuss the public sector remuneration cap with chancellor
  
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• DUP's Arlene Foster allegedly tried to curb Scots' gay marriage law

  15-06-2017 19:47
  
  Foster letter ‘urged bar on Northern Irish same-sex couples converting partnerships to full marriages in Scotland’The row over the Democratic Unionist party’s stance on gay rights has deepened after it was alleged that the Northern Irish party’s leader, Arlene Foster, tried to restrict Scotland’s gay marriage laws. It has emerged that Foster, while a minister in the Northern Ireland assembly at Stormont, wrote to the Scottish government in 2015 asking ministers in E
  
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• The Guardian view on Grenfell Tower: Theresa May’s Hurricane Katrina | Editorial

  15-06-2017 19:44
  
  The 2005 hurricane that devastated New Orleans exposed failings in leadership and a terrible disdain for the lives of the poor. The London fire is doing the sameGrenfell Tower fire – latest updatesLeadership requires courage, imagination and empathy. In the two long days since the first flames licked up the newly fixed cladding on Grenfell Tower in west London, the prime minister has failed to show any of these qualities. On Wednesday, the first day, she said nothing at all until 6.30 that
  
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• Austerity is dead. Long live austerity

  15-06-2017 19:39
  Britain can choose to raise spending, but that will mean higher taxes
  
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• The Guardian view on Lib Dem leadership: scrutinise Brexit | Editorial

  15-06-2017 19:35
  
  Tim Farron’s personal contortions over religious belief let the Liberal Democrats down. But his – and his party’s – scepticism on Brexit may well be vindicated in the endThe Liberal Democrats are running out of opportunities to miss. Coalition government presented chances to change British politics but ended in electoral humiliation. Recovery looked possible when Theresa May called a snap poll two months ago. An avowedly pro-European party might have scooped up support fr
  
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• Jeremy Hunt hints at lifting of nurses' pay cap

  15-06-2017 19:20
  
  Health secretary says he has sympathy for case made on NHS pay, signalling that 1% annual limit on rises may endJeremy Hunt has hinted that the pay cap for NHS nurses might be lifted in recognition of their “absolutely brilliant” work, as ministers ponder whether to relax austerity across the public sector. The health secretary signalled that the government might scrap its current policy, which is to limit nurses to 1% salary increases every year until 2020. He intends to discuss the
  
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• Brexit Briefing: Have EU Stopped Laughing Yet?

  15-06-2017 19:02
  
  All you need to know from the world of Brexit this week.You can sign up for this briefing by clicking here, and you’ll receive it straight to your inbox every Thursday afternoon.
  If you like what you read, make sure you subscribe to our Commons People podcast here for even more analysis about what goes on in Westminster.1) Hard Brexiteers Are Worried It’s All Gone Soft The election result either definitely changed the direction of Brexit, or definitely didn’t, d
  
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• Brexit talks start on Monday and we have no idea what we're doing

  15-06-2017 18:56
  
  We have no government, no plan, no strategy, no functioning department and no hope. This is worse than the bleakest Remainer warnings.
  
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• Sinn Fein accuses Theresa May of not honouring Good Friday agreement - as it happened

  15-06-2017 18:38
  
  Follow all the day’s events in and around Westminster and beyondSign up to the Guardian’s Morning Briefing and start the day one step aheadAfternoon summary 5.36pm BSTThe prime minister will have to do a lot more, however, to convince us that the DUP tail isn’t wagging the Tory dog.Their influence on the British government is a cause for deep concern that must be addressed to assure the public and political parties of the independence of the talks process [intended to lead to t
  
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• Grenfell Tower Fire: Jeremy Corbyn Calls For 'Luxury' Properties To Be Taken Over To House Residents

  15-06-2017 18:35
  
  Jeremy Corbyn has called for empty “luxury” homes owned by foreign investors to be used to help those left homeless by the Grenfell Tower fire.
  The Labour leader said the Government should “requisition” nearby expensive properties to ensure residents were housed locally.
  His radical plan came as MPs met for the first time to discuss the blaze that left 17 people dead, with scores missing and many left in a critical condition in hospital.
  Speaking during an emergency meet
  
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• Brexit: UK and EU negotiations to start on Monday

  15-06-2017 18:09 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The start date had been in doubt due to post-election talks between the Tories and the DUP.
  
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• Labour leadership challenger returns to Jeremy Corbyn’s top team

  15-06-2017 17:55
  Owen Smith rejoins the shadow cabinet as the spokesman on Northern Ireland
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn brings back Labour leadership rival into top team

  15-06-2017 17:55
  Owen Smith rejoins shadow cabinet as Northern Ireland spokesman
  
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• Theresa May meeting five Northern Ireland parties

  15-06-2017 17:48 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The talks focus on attempts to restore devolution at Stormont by the end of this month.
  
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• Annual Mansion House event cancelled because of Grenfell fire

  15-06-2017 17:43
  Chancellor Philip Hammond had been expected to make case for softer Brexit in planned speech
  
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• Annual Mansion House event cancelled after Grenfell fire

  15-06-2017 17:43
  Chancellor Philip Hammond had been expected to make case for softer Brexit in planned speech
  
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• Tim Farron bows out as the Lib Dems struggle for relevance

  15-06-2017 17:38
  His successor needs to put the party in opposition to the Conservatives, writes Miranda Green
  
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• 'Sweeping' new powers for Scottish head teachers

  15-06-2017 17:26 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Education Secretary John Swinney sets out his plan to transform the way schools are run.
  
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• Grenfell Tower Fire: Sky News Tells Expert John Edwards Not To Talk 'Politics' When He Raises Cuts

  15-06-2017 17:14
  
  A fire expert has hit back at claims it’s inappropriate to discuss cuts to the Fire Service in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, after he was shut down for raising it during a TV interview.
  John Edwards, who was a firefighter for 12 years and chairs the West Midlands Fire Authority, was speaking on Sky News on Thursday, the day after the blaze gutted the high-rise block and killed at least 17 people, injured scores and left many more homeless.
  When he mentioned that firef
  
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• UK ministers lose early access to official statistics

  15-06-2017 16:44
  ONS fears public could lose trust in numbers over speculation traders were getting data
  
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• London fire: MPs demand answers from ministers

  15-06-2017 16:23 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Minister says the "exceptionally complex" investigation will take several months.
  
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• Is a soft Brexit back on the cards? Politics Weekly podcast

  15-06-2017 16:07
  
  Anushka Asthana heads back to the House of Commons post-election to find out what the shock result of a hung parliament could mean for Britain’s EU exitSubscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast & Stitcher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter.Anushka Asthana heads back to a once-again bustling House of Commons to find out whether a soft Brexit is back on the table after last week’s shock election results.Continue reading...
  
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• City's Mansion House dinner cancelled after Grenfell Tower fire

  15-06-2017 15:46
  
  City of London Corporation cancels annual black-tie event after chancellor Philip Hammond pulls out in wake of tragedyThe annual Mansion House dinner for City grandees planned for Thursday night, due to include high-profile speeches by the chancellor and governor of the Bank of England, has been cancelled following the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower in west London.The chancellor, Philip Hammond, postponed his speech after concluding it would be inappropriateat this time to address the hundre
  
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• City cancels Mansion House dinner after tower tragedy

  15-06-2017 15:35 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The chancellor had been due to give a key annual speech at the event on Thursday night.
  
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• Theresa May takes risk by setting date for Queen’s Speech

  15-06-2017 15:27
  Conservatives remain in tense talks with N Ireland’s DUP on a post-election deal
  
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• Theresa May Snubs Grenfell Tower Survivors As Jeremy Corbyn Is Mobbed In Street

  15-06-2017 14:50
  
  Theresa May is facing a tide of anger after refusing to meet Grenfell Tower survivors when she visited the scene of the blaze this morning. 
  In stark contrast to Jeremy Corbyn, who was pictured hugging and greeting residents, the Prime Minister was flanked by security as she viewed the devastation at the Kensington high-rise disaster.
  But her ‘private’ visit meant she did not encounter residents, journalists or any members of the public - in a move some dubbed “appalling&r
  
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• Theresa May loses another top adviser in Downing Street reshuffle

  15-06-2017 14:45
  Will Tanner quits as deputy head of policy unit
  
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• Uncorking the bottle - the Tories' austerity dilemma

  15-06-2017 14:43
  
  The Tories have to end their austerity drive - but doing so could show the deficit lie for what it is
  
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• Boris Johnson’s ‘Get Stuffed’ Response To Question About London Firefighter Cuts Is Coming Back To Haunt Him

  15-06-2017 14:43
  
  Boris Johnson is being reminded he once told a Labour politician to “get stuffed” for daring to ask about cuts to the London Fire Brigade (LFB), in the wake of the devastating Grenfell Tower blaze.
  The fire has killed at least 17 people and police expect the death toll to rise. Hundreds have been left homeless and many remain missing, with firefighters saying they do not expect to find any more survivors.
  Firefighters were at the scene within minutes and worked long shifts to sa
  
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• More uncertainty for Brexit climate policy

  15-06-2017 14:40
  No clarity over future shape of green regulations for investors and companies
  
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• Theresa May Warns DUP Her Queen's Speech To Go Ahead On June 21 - With Or Without A Commons Deal

  15-06-2017 14:38
  
  Theresa May has signalled she will publish her Queen’s Speech programme for government with or without an agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
  Senior Tory sources said that the PM had agreed with Her Majesty that the State Opening of Parliament will now take place on Wednesday June 21.
  The date was originally set for June 19, but failure to finalise a deal with the DUP - to help prop up May’s minority Government - has led to a delay.
  Party sources refused to rule out
  
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• London fire: PM orders full public inquiry

  15-06-2017 14:35 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The prime minister has ordered a full public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.
  
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• Philip Hammond pulls out of Mansion House speech after Grenfell fire

  15-06-2017 14:31
  Chancellor withdraws from event amid concern in Whitehall over rising death count
  
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