Political news

• Pressure grows on Starmer to sack chief of staff over briefing row

  12-11-2025 23:37
  Growing calls for Morgan McSweeney to go after extraordinary briefing operation against Wes Streeting Keir Starmer is coming under intense pressure from a wide range of ministers and MPs to sack his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, after No 10 was accused of an extraordinary briefing operation against the health secretary, Wes Streeting.Starmer is understood to have told MPs he will not sack his chief of staff and would not respond to several demands to ensure there were “consequences&rdq
  
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• Starmer Allies Suggest Possible Leadership Challenge

  12-11-2025 23:22 via bbc.co.uk
  The Prime Minister has denied there is a toxic culture at the heart of his government
  
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• Starmer regrets move to back Labour donor’s candidacy for football regulator’s role

  12-11-2025 22:54
  Embattled prime minister says it was an ‘unfortunate error’ for him to sign off on David Kogan’s appointment
  
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• Starmer approved football regulator’s head despite promising to recuse himself

  12-11-2025 22:54
  Embattled prime minister says it was an ‘unfortunate error’ for him to sign off on Labour donor David Kogan’s appointment
  
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• Dispute over money threatens EU-UK ‘reset’ talks

  12-11-2025 22:05
  France has demanded UK pays into ‘cohesion funds’ as price for reducing post-Brexit trade friction
  
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• Reeves to curb high-end bike purchases in Cycle to Work scheme

  12-11-2025 22:00
  Introduction of new cap comes after retailers warned some higher-rate taxpayers were exploiting the perk
  
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• Reeves to curb bike purchases through salary sacrifice in Budget

  12-11-2025 22:00
  Introduction of new cap comes after retailers warned some higher-rate taxpayers were exploiting the perk
  
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• Mandelson still in contact with Epstein in 2016, emails show

  12-11-2025 21:25 via bbc.com
  Lord Mandelson was sacked as the UK's ambassador to the US in September over his links to the paedophile financier.
  
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• The plots facing Starmer from across the Labour party

  12-11-2025 20:58
  Plummeting polling numbers and a misguided Downing Street briefing add to febrile environment
  
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• The five Labour factions plotting against Starmer

  12-11-2025 20:58
  Plummeting polling numbers and a misguided Downing Street briefing add to febrile environment
  
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• How Starmer is facing plots from across the Labour party

  12-11-2025 20:58
  Plummeting polling numbers and a misguided Downing Street briefing add to febrile environment
  
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• Peter Mandelson was in contact with Epstein till at least 2016, new emails reveal

  12-11-2025 20:36
  UK ambassador was sacked in September after other tranche of emails showed he told disgraced financier to ‘fight for early release’Peter Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington over his association with Jeffrey Epstein, was in contact with the pedophile financier as late as 2016, new emails have revealed.Mandelson was sacked in September over leaked emails in which he expressed his support for Epstein and urged him to “fight for early release”
  
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• Briefing war spotlights relationships between three of Labour’s most senior figures

  12-11-2025 20:14
  Rift said to be driven between Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney even before attacks on Wes StreetingOne way to flush out a leadership challenger, according to Gordon Brown’s one-time enforcer, is to push them over the edge.In his chronicle of his time at the centre of power, Damian McBride wrote that the New Labour darling David Miliband had a “tendency to treat rebellion like a reluctant bather inching his way into the sea at Skegness”. Continue reading...
  
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• Downing Street under fire after briefings plunge Starmer into leadership crisis

  12-11-2025 20:13
  Health secretary Wes Streeting criticises ‘toxic culture’ around Number 10 and denies coup plan
  
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• Downing Street briefings plunge Starmer into leadership crisis

  12-11-2025 20:13
  Health secretary Wes Streeting criticises ‘toxic culture’ around Number 10 and denies coup plan
  
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• Labour infighting puts chancellor’s budget plan to reassure bond markets at risk

  12-11-2025 20:11
  It was hoped manifesto-breaking tax rises might bring down borrowing costs – but party turbulence is likely to spook investorsThere is one narrow, perilous route by which Rachel Reeves can successfully deliver her 26 November budget, and it runs right through government bond markets.But the current outbreak of Labour infighting – driven by a flurry of pugilistic briefings from inside No 10 – risks cutting that route off with two weeks still to go before budget day. Continue rea
  
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• UK pauses some intelligence sharing with US over Caribbean boat strikes

  12-11-2025 19:59
  Royal Navy maintains permanent presence in the region supporting British Overseas Territories
  
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• Keir Starmer expresses ‘sincere regret’ over appointment of Labour donor to football watchdog

  12-11-2025 19:59
  Prime minister apologises for rubber-stamping decision to make David Kogan head of regulatorKeir Starmer has said he made a mistake in rubber-stamping the appointment of the first head of the new football regulator given both his own connections to football and the fact the successful candidate had donated money to him in the past.Starmer expressed “sincere regret” to Laurie Magnus, his independent adviser on ministerial standards, regarding the appointment of David Kogan. It followe
  
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• The Guardian view on Labour leadership speculation: a symptom of failure to define a governing purpose | Editorial

  12-11-2025 19:30
  Downing Street briefings to flush out potential rivals have needlessly damaged the prime minister and raised the stakes around the budgetIt is extraordinary that Labour MPs are contemplating replacing their leader within 18 months of winning a landslide general election victory, a moment supposed to inaugurate years of stability and renewal. It is downright bizarre that the origin of a sudden surge in speculation about Sir Keir Starmer’s future is briefings by loyalists based in Downing St
  
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• No 10 says Starmer has confidence in Morgan McSweeney after PM condemns attacks on cabinet members – as it happened

  12-11-2025 18:30
  PM’s spokesperson says he has confidence in his chief of staff after Starmer challenged over ‘toxic culture’ at Downing Street. This live blog is closedThe No 10 briefing row is not the only story around this morning. Amy Sedghi is writing a live blog about the ongoing turmoil at the BBC and she has details of Donald Trump saying he has an “obligation” to sue the BBC.In a related development, Reform UK has pulled out of a BBC documentary about the party amid a row o
  
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• UK politics as it happened: Starmer denies authorising ‘attacks’ on potential challengers

  12-11-2025 18:19
  Health secretary Wes Streeting said he does not intend to take on PM for leadership
  
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• Victims' commissioner Baroness Newlove dies aged 63

  12-11-2025 17:42 via bbc.com
  Baroness Helen Newlove has been remembered as a commissioner who stood up for all victims.
  
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• Nicola Jennings on the woes of Keir Starmer and the BBC – cartoon

  12-11-2025 17:34
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• Keir Starmer and his team mount a leadership challenge … to himself | John Crace

  12-11-2025 17:33
  It’s as if everyone at No 10 has had a collective breakdown, an act of self-harm on an unimaginable scaleSometimes what you see is what you get. Usually in Westminster things happen for a reason. The logic may not be obvious but if you use your imagination you can come up with some logic for someone doing something that appears to be batshit crazy. But just occasionally, you reach a singularity on the space-time continuum where the laws of physics break down and nothing makes sense. A stat
  
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• Labour’s rebuttal to the Green party this week sums up the double standard that dogs our politics | Frances Ryan

  12-11-2025 17:15
  Why is it that the politics of hope offered up by the left is dismissed as naive, while the policies of the centre and right are portrayed as all that is possible?Britain is broken and nothing can ever get better. It doesn’t sound like a winning election slogan, but the sentiment is increasingly taking hold in politics and the media. The rise of Reform and the rightwards shift of the mainstream parties has made doom-spreading a sport, with GB News and Nigel Farage taking turns to pick whic
  
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• A word of warning to the hounds circling Starmer: be careful what you wish for | Martin Kettle

  12-11-2025 16:45
  With this level of unpopularity, the question of the PM’s future may seem simple. But what comes next could be nastily complicatedBe absolutely clear. Keir Starmer is in very deep trouble indeed. Perhaps belatedly, he himself grasps this. His team and his ministers knew it already. His party and the public get it too. For this deeply unpopular Labour prime minister, the words approval rating are a contradiction in terms.The eruption of speculation about Starmer’s future this week may
  
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• Reeves urged to prioritise lowering electricity bills in Budget

  12-11-2025 16:40
  Chancellor should sacrifice planned VAT cuts if necessary, say energy companies and consumer groups
  
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• Chancellor urged to prioritise lowering electricity bills in Budget

  12-11-2025 16:40
  Rachel Reeves should sacrifice planned VAT cuts if necessary, say energy companies and consumer groups
  
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• I have never authorised attacks on ministers, says PM, after leadership row

  12-11-2025 16:25 via bbc.com
  Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the prime minister of running a "toxic" Downing Street.
  
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• Labour MPs 'furious' as leadership row goes public

  12-11-2025 16:21 via bbc.com
  Labour MPs 'furious' as leadership row goes public
  
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• Who will be the next director-general of the BBC?

  12-11-2025 15:26
  Tim Davie’s resignation triggers search to fill UK media’s top job
  
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• NHS medicines budget should not rise with inflation, says drug approval body

  12-11-2025 15:21
  Comments by head of Nice come as ministers offer to increase spending to appease pharma groups and Donald Trump
  
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• Henry Zeffman: Efforts to shore up Starmer's leadership may have backfired

  12-11-2025 14:38 via bbc.com
  Briefings aimed at seeing off leadership plots may have left the PM more vulnerable, some in Labour fear.
  
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• PM says BBC must 'put house in order' over mistakes

  12-11-2025 14:24 via bbc.com
  Sir Keir Starmer says it "must uphold the highest standards" but supports "a strong, independent BBC".
  
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• Military examiners to carry out driving tests in push to cut backlog

  12-11-2025 14:12
  Government seeks to bear down on long wait times to qualify in England
  
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• UK regulators set to gain greater powers over cyber security failures

  12-11-2025 13:39
  New legislation would give watchdogs the power to fine certain companies up to £17mn or 4% of annual turnover
  
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• Lib Dems call for 5% VAT cut for pubs and restaurants

  12-11-2025 11:59 via bbc.com
  The party also wants to axe the renewables levy from bills, funded by a windfall tax on big banks.
  
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• UK statistics agency cutting back work on health and crime data

  12-11-2025 11:00
  ONS wants to free staff to work on improving quality of critical statistics and surveys
  
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• Labour’s bitter divisions erupt in Downing Street attack

  12-11-2025 10:30
  Senior figures appear to gear up for a post-Starmer future; others see briefings as cock-up rather than conspiracy
  
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• Thousands of NHS staff in England to lose jobs after deal approved

  12-11-2025 10:00 via bbc.com
  The compromise deal would allow the NHS to overspend this year.
  
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• ‘Mad’: Labour in crisis after Starmer declares he will fight any challenger

  12-11-2025 09:32
  Recriminations fly in Downing Street after prime minister highlights weakness of his own position
  
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• Labour is standing on a precipice: if it breaks its election promise on tax, it will never be trusted again | Owen Jones

  12-11-2025 09:00
  Ruling out tax rises in its 2024 manifesto was utterly reckless and will fan the flames of the far rightIt’s rare to watch a political calamity advance with such gruesome inevitability. Rachel Reeves’s reported plan to shred Labour’s flagship tax pledge in the upcoming budget is so plainly disastrous that it invites the suspicion that the party leadership has completely lost its senses. But madness would be too generous an alibi for a faction that long ago abandoned any purpose
  
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• Wes Streeting denies plan to challenge Starmer

  12-11-2025 08:17
  Sir Keir Starmer’s allies say prime minister is prepared to fight any attempt to topple him
  
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• Wes Streeting accuses Downing Street of ‘trying to kneecap’ him in leadership row

  12-11-2025 08:17
  Sir Keir Starmer’s allies say prime minister is prepared to fight any challenge
  
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• Starmer denies authorising ‘attacks’ on potential challengers

  12-11-2025 08:17
  Health secretary Wes Streeting said he does not intend to take on PM for leadership
  
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• There’s a missing link in British public life – and it underpins crises from the BBC to our prisons | Rafael Behr

  12-11-2025 07:00
  A declining sense of collective identity is corroding trust in our institutions and undermining democratic politicsImagine you are given a pile of tokens, representing real money, and invited to donate to a common pot. There are other players but you can’t interact with them. The sum of collective contributions will be trebled, then shared equally among all players. What do you do?If everyone submits all their money, all get richer. But if everyone except you pays in, you can enjoy the col
  
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• Please Rachel, don’t sacrifice workers’ pensions

  12-11-2025 06:00
  Dismembering salary sacrifice is a short-sighted tax grab that will accelerate the UK’s retirement savings crisis
  
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• Starmer vows to fight on as Streeting’s allies deny leadership challenge

  12-11-2025 00:45
  Party’s MPs grow frustrated with prime minister’s leadership as crucial Budget nears
  
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