Guardian Politics

Party briefing notes say: ‘Daily routine of hit jobs and smears will not deter us from winning next general election’ Reform UK has instructed its councillors to describe a police investigation into donations from the mother of George Cottrell as an establishment stitch-up, as polling showed the party’s popularity plummeting.Internal briefing documents circulated to the party’s councillors included instructions to respond to questions about a Metropolitan police investigation into party donation

With a flurry of cost-of-living measures and a day in Number 10 North, the new prime minister has hit the right early notesAppropriately enough, Andy Burnham ended a week of political signalling and first impressions back in Manchester on Friday. At the offices of the new No 10 North – where the prime minister hopes to work at least one day a week – regional mayors sat alongside ministers in an example of Burnhamism at work. It was an early statement of intent, ahead of what Mr Burnham bills as

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Retail politics while taking power out of London: if this works, Burnham’s premiership could be seriously transformationalOne of Andy Burnham’s first policy moves brought back a sharp memory. On Wednesday, he announced that single bus fares across England would be capped at £2, starting from January. It was part of a series of small, practical measures designed, said the new prime minister, to offer a little “breathing space” to a hard-pressed public, but this was the one that registered with me

A £10,000 bar tab was drunk, there was a ‘lot of anger’, and now ex-ministers are thinking how to cooperate in future Keir Starmer’s leaving party had been planned for some time. But in years to come it might be seen as the birth of a new Labour movement.Dozens of ministers, aides and Starmer himself headed to the Grafton pub in Kentish Town on Monday night to drown their sorrows, hours after the former prime minister left Downing Street for the last time. Continue reading...

Lib Dems call on PM to push for suspension of ‘bungled, malfunctioning’ system as overseas holiday travel peaksAndy Burnham has been urged to lobby EU leaders directly to suspend the new entry-exit system, EES, as the peak weekend for overseas holidays begins.About 2.2 million British holidaymakers are expected to head abroad between Friday and Monday, the majority to Europe, with all schools in the UK now on their summer break. Continue reading...

PM, on his first day at new base, says it will create ‘that sense of a more balanced country, that big things can be done from here’Andy Burnham has arrived by police convoy at No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester:Andy Burnham was probably feeling left out of the “Celtic alliance”, after apparently telling John Swinney that Scottish independence was “off limits”. Continue reading...

Outreach workers on the frontline of England’s homelessness crisis react to PM’s flagship policy pledgeUK politics live – latest updatesIt is close to midnight as two outreach workers from Spear, a homelessness charity in south London, shine their torches around bushes on the edge of a park in Twickenham.Suddenly they alight on an array of sleeping bags, airbeds, toilet rolls and plastic bags stuffed with belongings – a rough sleeping encampment that has popped up in the last two days. Continue

A low-key PM leaves the stage briskly, while a breathtaking athlete misses out on the attention he deserves And so it was over. You normally get a bit more notice when a prime minister is about to deliver their resignation speech outside No 10. The buildup. The sense of occasion. Keir Starmer did things differently. Continue reading...

Women have half the seats at the top table for the first time, but Oxbridge maintains its gripAndy Burnham has appointed the first cabinet of his premiership. Much has been made of how key allies of his predecessor, Keir Starmer, have been demoted or sacked, but what is the demographic makeup of the new team of senior ministers, and how does it differ from other governments? Continue reading...

A new survey suggests voters are becoming more cynical and pessimistic. A few goodwill gestures from No 10 won’t change all that – but it’s a startWho are we, the people Andy Burnham now governs? He inherits a miserable lot: grudging, angry pessimists, expecting the worst of all politicians, trusting no one to lead the country well, according to a long-running study. British folk feel the social contract is broken, they feel let down. Ignorant of basic facts, they are wilfully misled by malevole

The new PM’s localism agenda doesn’t stop the UK being one of the most centralised countries in Europe. Can you imagine Meloni in charge of social care or Macron discussing buses?Was this a joke? Andy Burnham claimed on coming to office to be a localist. Not for the new prime minister the hotspots of the capital, of posh Downing Street and Whitehall. His were the squares of Manchester and the pavements of Wigan. The centre was the enemy of local democracy.Yet his first week in office has been co

Burnham says ‘no one in government loses when power is shared’ as he revives Brown-era national economic councilIt’s not just a No 10 in the north, it’s an engine for growth throughout the whole UK | Andy BurnhamRegional mayors are to be given a leading role in the UK’s economic policy, Andy Burnham has said, as he called the opening of No 10 North “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen”.The new prime minister has revived the national economic council [NEC], first set up by Gordo

Landlords say high costs of running hospitality business outweigh potential savings of business rates discountOne of Andy Burnham’s first policy measures as prime minister is a 20% reduction in business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues.The policy, announced on Thursday, is part of a broader agenda to support the high street and will cost £100m. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Westminster survey finds one in two staffers experiencing clinical levels of psychological distressStaff employed by MPs are calling for urgently tightened security after reports of some being physically attacked and hundreds receiving threatening calls and messages.A survey of more than 500 MPs’ staff members found that 78% had received threatening communication and nearly one in three fear for their own safety or that of colleagues. Continue reading...

If Andy Burnham is minded to grasp the nettle, he will need to sell it to people like me. The right will call it a ‘death tax’ – why not a levy for ageing well?One of the last things Andy Burnham did before entering Downing Street was to go and see his father.Now living in a nursing home, Roy Burnham has Alzheimer’s and isn’t really aware of his son’s new job. But perhaps the prime minister wanted, in part, to try to explain why he might not be visiting so often in future.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guar

Power has been too centralised in Britain and tackling that is key to progress and prosperity. This initiative is ambitious: we’re remaking the stateAndy Burnham is prime minister of the United KingdomOn Monday, while the cameras were fixed on that famous black door in Downing Street, something important was happening 165 miles away. A small team of officials and advisers were walking into an office building in Manchester to set about the remaking of the British state.This was the beginning of N

Conservative leader is becoming more confident and forging a message for her party, but faces a new opponent “So, Andy Burnham seems like a nice guy.” Those were the slightly unexpected opening words of Kemi Badenoch’s first speech since the change in prime minister. But make no mistake: she was there to bury her opponent.Even Badenoch-sceptics inside the Conservative party and farther afield agree the Tory leader is becoming more confident, and has been able to forge an increasingly coherent me

MPs and others condemn behaviour of CT Group, which offered cash for positive coverage of clientsA political lobbying firm secretly paying journalists for articles favourable to its clients is facing calls to reveal full details of the payments, after the practice was denounced as a dangerous “attack on democracy”.MPs, senior lobbyists and transparency campaigners all condemned the behaviour of CT Group, the firm co-founded by the campaign strategist Lynton Crosby, an election guru previously hi

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