Politics

He was cordial, but he was candid. Sitting next to his best British buddy, David Lammy, US vice president JD Vance politely but firmly spelt out how the two countries are deeply divided on the Middle East and free speech. As the pair met on Friday, first came the cordial part of the VP’s remarks….

Welcome to the house of scandal, scares and squabbles, Mr Vice President. Chevening is the ultimate ministerial perk. Apart from the prime minister’s hideaway, Chequers, it’s the most lavish of all government grace-and-favour mansions. Foreign Secretary David Lammy says he and his weekend house guest JD Vance get on because they “share a similar working-class…

JD Vance has said he does not want the UK to go down a “very dark path” of losing free speech during a meeting with the foreign secretary at his country estate. The US vice president has previously raised concerns that free speech is being eroded in the UK. However, during a two-day visit to…

2026 is five months away, but already, battle lines are being drawn for elections across the country. The Senedd (Welsh parliament) will be electing new members, along with council elections in various parts of England, including London, Birmingham, Newcastle, Sunderland, and Bradford. Electoral Dysfunction listener Marianne sent in a question to the podcast about one…

MP Rupert Lowe alerted the coastguard to potential migrants on a boat – who turned out to be a charity rowing crew. The independent Great Yarmouth MP posted a picture on social media on Thursday night of a boat near some wind turbines off the Norfolk Coast, saying he had alerted the authorities. He wrote…

What do we do about the non-doms?  It’s a question more than a handful of people have been asking themselves at the Treasury lately. Politics Hub: Follow latest updates It had seemed simple enough. In her first budget as chancellor, Rachel Reeves promised a crackdown on the non-dom regime, which for the past 200 years…

The government is seeking to introduce “restriction zones” to limit where convicted domestic abusers can go. Exclusion zones currently exist to stop perpetrators from going within a certain distance of where their victims live. The new plans would place greater limits where abusers can go, with the aim of allowing survivors to go about their…

Rushanara Ali’s swift and humiliating demise is a classic example of paying the price for the politician’s crime of “do as I say, not as I do”. She was Labour’s minister for homelessness, for goodness’ sake, yet she ejected tenants from her near-£1m town house and then hiked the rent. Politics Hub: Minister’s resignation as…

Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali has resigned after reportedly hiking the rent on a property she owns by hundreds of pounds. That was just weeks after the previous tenants’ contract ended, the i Paper said. In a letter to the prime minister, Ms Ali said that remaining in the role would be “a distraction from the…

The economy is stagnating and job losses are mounting. Now is the time to cut interest rates again. That was the view of the Bank of England’s nine-member rate setting committee on Thursday. Well, at least five of them. The other four presented us with a different view: Inflation is above target and climbing –…