UK politics

UK politics

You can listen to the full episode with Angela Rayner here You can listen to the full episode with Nicola Sturgeon here You can listen to the full episode with Catherine Ashton here You can listen to the full episode with Andy Burnham here

Legal row over Lord Waterford's right to shoot, hunt and fish could open up new front in planning wars

Leonardo has warned the UK government that it may be forced to shut down its helicopter manufacturing operations in Britain if it fails to secure a flagship £1 billion Ministry of Defence contract, a move that would threaten the future of the country's last remaining helicopter factory. In a letter to defence secretary John Healey, Roberto Cingolani, chief executive of the Italian defence group, said the contract to replace the long-serving Puma helicopter was central to Leonardo's long-term commitment to the UK.

Keir Starmer has no coherent strategy to tackle entrenched inequalities harming the life chances of millions of people, the government's social mobility commissioner has said. A major official report warned last week that young adults in Britain's former industrial heartlands were being left behind as a result of failed or abandoned promises by successive governments. The Social Mobility Commission (SMC), a government advisory body, said big cities such as Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol were starting to thrive. In a Guardian interview, the commission's chair, Alun Francis, urged Starmer to outline a bold vision to tackle the defining social mobility challenge of our generation.

Trail hunting is set to be banned in England and Wales as part of a new animal welfare strategy to be published by the government on Monday. The practice sees an animal-based scent trail laid for dogs to follow rather than a real animal, while a group of hunters follows the pack on horseback. It has remained legal since the 2004 hunting ban came into force, because it does not explicitly involve the killing of animals.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

Prof Liz Sayce, the chair of a scathing review into the government's treatment of unpaid carers, last week called for an overhaul of management and culture at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Days after the publication of the review, the DWP's top civil servant in charge of carers' allowance, Neil Couling, said carers themselves were at fault for the decade-long failures.

How long had you to go: months, weeks, hours? We all know bad news sells. Political reporters cannot handle prime ministers sleeping soundly at night. But the terminal gloom around Keir Starmer's position is absurd. Not a morning passes without rivals being declared, and not an evening without the BBC's Chris Mason dragged from his supper to stand in the cold. He just frowns and forecasts Armageddon.

Although Keir Starmer would deny it, re-joining the Erasmus programme is a symbolic first step towards re-joining the EU. Leaving the programme was an act of educational vandalism which Boris Johnson allowed despite denying in 2020 that it would ever happen,

Trade unions are meant to be vehicles for workers to collectively organise, represent and lead ourselves, so my election should be an unremarkable event. Yet I will be the first ordinary member to lead my union in its history. This represents a huge opening for the democratic renewal of the labour movement. The fact that my election is so unprecedented tells its own tale.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

Downing Street's director of communications, Tim Allan, unveiled the plan on Thursday without consulting the group of political journalists known as the lobby who traditionally attend briefings twice a day to question the prime minister's spokesperson. Allan said the government would be reducing the briefings to one a day, and would sometimes replace the single briefing with a press conference. Held at 9 Downing Street, lobby briefings are on the record but not broadcast.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

Banks and card providers will be given the power, from March, to set a maximum - or unlimited - single payment amount without the need to enter a four-digit PIN. But they are also being encouraged by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to allow cardholders to set their own individual limits, or switch off contactless entirely. Some banks already offer this function.

Essex Police said it could not investigate the Clacton MP because more than a year had passed since the alleged offence. It followed a former member of Farage's campaign team claiming Reform spent more than the 20,660 spending limit set by law. A police spokeswoman said: "Any prosecution for such an offence must commence within one year." She said an "allegation around misreported expenditure by a political candidate" in July 2024 was made on 5 December.

It is not fair that Wales is treated the way it is, and it is not fair that Welsh ministers are humiliated and we saw it this afternoon having to run to catch up because they don't know what's being said from London,

No 10 normally holds two briefings on most days that parliament sits to allow the lobby political journalists that cover Westminster to question the prime minister's official spokesperson. But in an email on Thursday, Tim Allan, Downing Street's executive director of communications, said there would be no afternoon briefings from next month. He said No 10 would instead hold occasional afternoon press conferences with ministers, as well as technical briefings with officials.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Richard Pearson is visiting Surrey to close down his late father's home and settle his affairs and, everywhere he looks, the flag of St George is flying from suburban gardens and filling stations and branch post offices. How nice, he thinks, how festive. Soon he learns the truth. So runs the opening not of a recent piece of journalism, but a novel by JG Ballard, Kingdom Come, which despite being almost 20 years old anticipates today's Britain with eerie precision.

Chair of the committee Dame Chi Onwurah started by asking about cellular coverage, noting that the government's aim in its Proposed Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP) is to have high-quality standalone 5G in all populated areas of the UK by 2030. She asked what that meant. Sadly, Baroness Lloyd struggled to articulate what "high-quality standalone 5G" means. She offered that "standalone 5G, which is sometimes called 5G-plus, is the next capability on from 5G. It allows much better data transfer."

Keir Starmer has appointed the career diplomat Christian Turner as the new ambassador to Washington, government sources have confirmed. Turner will be replacing Peter Mandelson who was forced to quit over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Turner, the ambassador to the United Nations, was previously political director at the Foreign Office and brokered a close relationship with the new Labour administration before he left for New York.