Political news

• Lessons from the Victorians for funding big projects

  14-06-2025 06:00
  From housing to transport, infrastructure could be delivered faster using the finance models of earlier eras
  
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• Ed Davey: ‘Europe is crying out for closer relations with Britain’

  04-01-2026 06:00
  Lib Dem leader says his party is best placed to take on Reform UK
  
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• UK 'not involved in any way' in US strike on Venezuela, Starmer says

  03-01-2026 16:10 via bbc.com
  The PM has not spoken to US President Donald Trump about the US seizure of President Nicolas Maduro.
  
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• Thousands of new magistrates wanted to help clear backlog

  03-01-2026 06:07 via bbc.com
  Justice Secretary David Lammy says magistrates serve "a vital role" and "we need more people of every age and background to volunteer".
  
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• The messy art of escapism

  03-01-2026 06:00
  Britain’s relationship with alcohol is complicated. It was too simple to heap blame on the young and calculatedly reckless
  
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• Mike Nesbitt to stand down as Ulster Unionist Party leader

  02-01-2026 17:13 via bbc.com
  The current health minister informed assembly members and party officers on Friday morning.
  
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• MP abused by trolls loses 10 stone after taking Mounjaro

  02-01-2026 17:08 via bbc.com
  MP Carolyn Harris has lost nearly 10 stone on Mounjaro, but warns others wanting to slim down.
  
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• A year that will dictate Starmer’s fate as prime minister

  02-01-2026 15:00
  This government behaves as if it is being run as a riposte to Nigel Farage rather than because it believes in anything
  
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• Politicians have given away too much power to deliver pledges, says PM's ex-aide

  02-01-2026 12:59 via bbc.com
  Paul Ovenden, who left Downing Street in September, says the British state has been "emasculating itself".
  
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• Criteria for weight-loss jabs on NHS tightened in large parts of England

  02-01-2026 12:00
  Varying thresholds for eligibility highlight tension between Westminster and local health leaders
  
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• What to expect at Holyrood and beyond as 2026 election race steps up

  02-01-2026 10:03 via bbc.com
  BBC Scotland political editor Glenn Campbell looks at what lies ahead for Scottish politics this year with the Scottish Parliament election looming in May.
  
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• Controversial post-Brexit farm subsidy scheme 'landmark moment for Wales'

  02-01-2026 07:01 via bbc.com
  The post-Brexit subsidy scheme for farmers begins, almost a decade after the vote to leave the EU.
  
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• What are politicians talking about?

  02-01-2026 06:00
  The UK government keeps putting out messages but no one is listening because they are incomprehensible
  
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• The silver linings that could give Keir Starmer some economic cheer

  02-01-2026 06:00
  Falling UK inflation rate and prospect of interest rate cuts mean there could be upside surprises for PM in 2026
  
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• Swamp Notes: Is the US economy really K-shaped?

  02-01-2026 06:00
  High earners are doing great. Low earners are struggling. What does that say about the economy?
  
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• Home Counties most affected by VAT on private school fees, data suggests

  02-01-2026 06:00
  Few English local authorities report a rise in state school pupil numbers with a corresponding fall in private enrolment in 2024-25
  
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• Are you sure you want to leave the UK to avoid inheritance tax?

  02-01-2026 06:00
  Advisers say increasing numbers of clients are taking advantage of residency rules
  
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• What is Keir Starmer doing to push back the populists? Not nearly enough. We have a plan to take them on | Chris Powell

  01-01-2026 18:00
  There is much to learn from the New Labour playbook. We were disciplined, innovative, robust and proactive – and we won• Labour needs complete ‘reset’ to defeat threat posed by Reform UK, says strategist• Chris Powell is an election strategy analyst and advised the Labour party for more than 20 yearsThe next general election will be no ordinary democratic contest. Not the usual swing of the pendulum this way or that. It will be a key moment in the history of our democ
  
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• ‘Shameful’ 41,000 people reached UK by small boat last year, says Home Office

  01-01-2026 18:00
  Second highest annual number of irregular arrivals on record reached British shores in 2025More than 41,000 people crossed the Channel in small boats last year, figures branded “shameful” by the Home Office have revealed.The government said 41,472 people arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in 2025 – the second highest number on record after 45,774 made the journey in 2022. Continue reading...
  
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• Labour needs complete ‘reset’ to defeat Reform UK threat, says strategist

  01-01-2026 18:00
  
  New Labour advertising guru Chris Powell says urgent plan needed to ‘wage and win the daily war for attention’Chris Powell: What is Keir Starmer doing to push back the populists? Not nearly enoughKeir Starmer does not have enough of a plan to defeat the “existential threat” that populism poses to UK democracy and should undertake a “fundamental reset”, New Labour’s former advertising strategist Sir Chris Powell has warned.Powell, who is the brother of Jo
  
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• Starmer vows to 'defeat decline and division' in new year message

  01-01-2026 16:45 via bbc.com
  The PM acknowledges "things have been tough" but says 2026 will see "positive change".
  
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• High blood pressure: who is at risk and why UK children are getting it

  01-01-2026 16:01
  Why it is so dangerous, how it is diagnosed and how to help prevent itHigh blood pressure was long considered a health problem of middle age, but rates are increasing in children and adolescents, with doctors reporting a surge in strokes among people of working age. Continue reading...
  
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• Call for routine high blood pressure testing of UK children as cases almost double

  01-01-2026 16:00
  Exclusive: Identifying teenagers at risk could help prevent organ damage, strokes and heart attacks in early adulthood, doctors sayLeading doctors have called for a national UK programme to monitor schoolchildren for high blood pressure amid concerns that rising rates in adolescents will increase cases of organ damage, strokes and heart attacks.Rates of high blood pressure have nearly doubled among children in the past 20 years, but no routine testing is performed in the UK, leaving doctors in t
  
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• Pete Songi on the UK government’s new year’s resolutions – cartoon

  01-01-2026 15:36
  Continue reading...
  
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• Small boat migrant arrivals jump by 13% to 41,000 in 2025

  01-01-2026 12:42
  Home Office data heaps pressure on Keir Starmer’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’
  
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• ‘They misjudged Caerphilly’: how the Reform juggernaut backfired in Welsh byelection

  01-01-2026 12:20
  It was assumed that Reform would sweep all before it – but locals rejected the party’s campaign of ‘lies and hate’Yuliia Bond works two jobs, raises two children and is studying at university. In the autumn, she also found time to take on Reform UK when it tried to win the Caerphilly byelection.Bond, a Ukrainian refugee who has settled in south Wales, said she could not remain silent as Reform tried to win the seat in the Senedd (Welsh parliament ). Continue reading...
  
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• The plot against London

  01-01-2026 12:00
  Distorted attacks by the populist right are really about demography
  
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• Hundreds of Blackpool families to be evicted in ‘mass dispersion’ of vulnerable people

  01-01-2026 10:06
  Up to 400 homes face demolition under a £90m regeneration scheme that promises only 230 replacement propertiesHundreds of families in one of England’s poorest neighbourhoods will be evicted under a £90m plan described by critics as a “mass dispersion” of vulnerable people.Four hundred homes in Blackpool will be bulldozed this summer and replaced with 230 new properties under levelling up proposals signed off by Rishi Sunak’s government. The area has more than
  
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• Senedd prepares for 'once in a century change' - but do voters know?

  01-01-2026 08:11 via bbc.com
  A number of big changes means the 2026 election will be like no other - but some people say they're out of the loop.
  
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• When racists shout ‘Go home’, and you come from 15 places, what to do? | Hugh Muir

  01-01-2026 07:00
  A DNA test showed me that theoretically I have links to a long list of countries – and that the way we look at belonging makes little senseWhile accepting that David Lammy, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary is, for many, the human embodiment of Marmite – loved or hated, with not much in between – one can still question whether, for all his faults, he should “go home to the Caribbean”. Whether you agree with him over this or that utterance or the broad
  
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