UK politics

UK politics

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.

A series of concessions on Labour's flagship workers' rights reforms will save businesses billions of pounds, a government impact assessment shows. An initial analysis by officials found that implementing the party's measures to bolster workers' rights would cost firms up to 5bn a year. However, an updated analysis on Wednesday, which accounted for major concessions made by ministers, said it will now cost companies 1bn a year.

The reason for that is simple: the British state is big and getting bigger but as an agent of change it is not up to the job. This is true at both central and local levels. Over the years, the capacity of government to intervene has been pared back and professional expertise has been lost as council services have been outsourced.

A world on the brink. Regime change in Venezuela. Greenland under threat from Donald Trump. Shadow fleet tanker seized by the US and the Brits in the North Atlantic. The Europeans battling to keep America onside in any Ukraine peace deal. A woman gunned down by ICE agents in Minneapolis. So thank God that some things never change. Be grateful we still have Liz Truss. The UK's lone fixed point.

The current Government is about to take a billion pounds out of the Army this year, so I don't think we can sustain it and actually no one is fooled by it. We would be very stretched. We have a deployment in Estonia. We need to spend real money now, not in 2029, not in 2030, 2040. The OBR itself said that the British Government had not set out a path to 3.5% of GDP by 2035.

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

I have quite a lot of pressure to remove the BBC from X, he said. By the way, that is not what I'll be doing because we need to be on these platforms. We need to give quality information on to these social media platforms, bring people in. I actually think that's critical, because otherwise the Chinese, the Iranians they're flooding the zone. They're investing very hard. We are in a position where the majority of 16 to 34s come to BBC every week we're still fighting that battle.

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.

Good things may come to those who wait, but when it comes to repairing the Brexit settlement Britain was left with by Boris Johnson, the waiting has come at a heavy cost. Prices are higher, trade is weaker and our influence diminished. That is why Keir Starmer's promise to bring forward legislation this year to improve the UK's deal with the EU is the clearest signal yet that the era of warm words without delivery may finally be coming to an end.

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.

Yesterday, I stood side by side with our European and American allies and President Zelenskyy at the coalition of the willing meeting in Paris, Starmer said in introductory remarks. We made real progress on security guarantees, which are vital for securing a just and lasting peace. Along with President Macron and President Zelenskyy, we agreed a declaration of intent on the deployment of forces in the event of a peace deal. We will set out the details in a statement at the earliest opportunity.

I don't really care what colour a kid's skin is some deserve to be in poverty and some don't? That makes me pretty angry, she said. Does Nigel Farage want to go around and say: White? Yeah, you can have the money. Black? No, I'm sorry, it's not for you.' What sort of country does he think we are? If you're the mum next door who works in the NHS, has lived here all her life, her kids lived here all their life,

Labour watering down its sweeping overhaul of workers' rights is expected to slash the cost of the plan for UK businesses by billions of pounds, the government's own analysis shows. According to an updated Whitehall impact assessment published on Wednesday, concessions by ministers could reduce the cost of the employment rights bill for businesses to about 1bn. An earlier version of the document had suggested the package, which includes day-one employment rights and banning zero-hours contracts, could have cost firms up to 5bn.

The admission came as it emerged that Transport for London considered further extending the new line from Thamesmead to Abbey Wood, where passengers could interchange with the Elizabeth line only to rule it out on cost-benefit grounds. And in a separate development, City Hall staff were warned that job cuts were still on the agenda, despite London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan having received 155m more than expected in new Government grants.

Dan Norris, MP for North East Somerset and Hanham, was suspended from the Labour Party in April and has not attended Parliament since his release on police bail nine months ago. A petition claiming he cannot "fully support" his constituency and demanding his resignation has attracted more than 2,000 signatures. In his first statement since his arrest, Mr Norris said he continues "to represent" his constituents as well as "staying across local and national developments".

The influential Commons women and equalities committee has decided to stop using X after the social media site's AI tool began generating thousands of digitally-altered images of women and children with their clothes digitally removed. The move by the cross-party committee to mothball its official X account places renewed pressure on ministers to take decisive action after the site was flooded with images including sexualised and unclothed pictures of children, generated by its AI tool, Grok.

capitulated to Islamists

Tucked just inside the M25, Crews Hill near Enfield has been home to a cluster of horticultural businesses for decades, leading to it being nicknamed the golden mile. Many of these small, family-run businesses selling plants, fencing and paving fear they will be closed down and forced to move if the government selects Crews Hill and nearby Chase Park as one of its next generation of new towns.

The winning supplier will be asked to build an AI platform capable of so-called natural language call steering and host it in a UK-shored dedicated cloud environment. The DWP is the UK's biggest public service department, managing the State Pension and working-age and disability benefits for around 20 million citizens. Calls are currently answered by advisors within the authority's contact centers on one of the largest call-handling platforms in Europe.

With Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky insisting a plan to end the war with Russia is "90% of the way there", no-one in that room wanted to jeopardise keeping the Americans onboard. But there was an immense Greenland-shaped elephant in that grand and glittering Paris meeting. Greenland is the world's biggest island - it's six times the size of Germany. It lies in the Arctic but it is an autonomous territory of Denmark. And Donald Trump insists he wants it; needs it for US national security.

Labour will switch to an incumbency first model to protect MPs at the next election rather than targeting seats, the deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has told Labour MPs. Powell said the party would support MPs to become leaders in their communities and learn how to benefit politically from changes made by the government, which MPs have so far gained little credit for. But she also told MPs in the first parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meeting of the year that they needed to stop infighting amid continued discontent with Keir Starmer's leadership.

Constance has been given a written reprimand and told to make a statement to parliament to update the official record. The row dates back to September, when the justice secretary quoted Prof Jay - who is overseeing a review of the evidence on grooming gangs in Scotland - in parliament and told MSPs that the expert did not support further grooming gang inquiries. However, Prof Jay later contacted the government to clarify that her remarks did not refer to inquiries in Scotland.

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.

There was something happening that I couldn't quite recognise. They're not from school. They don't look like a family group. Emma Warren, a journalist and author of Up the Youth Club: Illuminating a Hidden History, explains to Helen Pidd how she realised that the man she was observing was a youth worker. Bringing people in, dropping them out. I was watching someone extremely skilful.

The funding will establish a Government Cyber Unit, led by the UK's CISO and overseen by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), to improve risk identification, incident response, and recovery capabilities. The unit will also create a dedicated Government Cyber Profession, elevating cybersecurity from its current placement under the broader Government Security Profession.

Two years ago Paul Patterson said Fujitsu had a moral obligation to pay financial redress to the victims of Horizon admitting it had known the accounting IT system was faulty since the 1990s with the government estimating the final cost to taxpayers of payouts to be 1.8bn. On Tuesday, Patterson was taken to task by the Commons business and trade committee for Fujitsu's continued refusal to reveal a compensation figure or make a provision for it in the publicly listed Japanese company's financial accounts.

The idea that executives, as a class, are individually contributing over 100 times more in value than the workers they rely on is simply not credible.