Lead News

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has refused to confirm whether the government is planning to scrap the two-child benefit cap. On Sunday, the Observer reported that Sir Keir Starmer had privately backed abolishing the limit and requested the Treasury find the £3.5bn to do so. The policy prevents most families from claiming means-tested benefits for any third or additional children ...

  South Western Railway (SWR) has been renationalised, making it the first train company to transfer to public ownership under Labour. The first nationalised service, from Woking to Surbiton, departed on time at 05:36 on Sunday, though the ongoing journey to London Waterloo was on a rail replacement bus due to engineering work. The government called the move a “new ...

Reform UK has said it will fully reinstate winter fuel payments to pensioners and scrap the two-child benefit cap, if the party gets into government. The commitments – to be unveiled at a press conference next week – come after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced pressure from Labour MPs to change his approach to both policies. By the time ...

Tina – an acronym, not a person – was very popular with the late Lady Thatcher. It was in 1980 that the then prime minister – introducing what were radical economic policies – first insisted “There Is No Alternative”. Although politically on the left, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has used similar rhetoric. She has claimed there is no alternative to last ...

Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside 10 Downing Street on Friday under the banner “Emergency Protest – Stop Arming Israel – Words Are Not Enough,” demanding the UK government halt arms exports to Israel and take concrete action in response to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. The protest, coordinated by several pro-Palestinian groups including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), comes ...

Wales’ first minister says she is worried Sir Keir Starmer’s migration plans will damage the country. Speaking to a BBC podcast, Eluned Morgan said she was concerned about “both” the prime minister’s policy and the language he used to announce it. Morgan criticised Sir Keir ahead of a meeting with him in London on Friday, telling Political Thinking with Nick ...

Sir Keir Starmer has signed a deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and lease back a key military base for £101m a year. The prime minister said the deal was the only way to maintain the base’s long-term future and strengthened the UK’s national security. Under the terms of the agreement Mauritius would gain sovereignty of the islands ...

The UK has suspended talks on a trade deal with Israel, summoned the country’s ambassador and imposed fresh sanctions on West Bank settlers, as Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the military escalation in Gaza “morally unjustifiable”. The move follows warnings of starvation in Gaza after Israel launched a new military operation over the weekend. There were fiery exchanges in Parliament ...

The UK is now in a better place on trade “than any other country in the world”, the chancellor has said. Rachel Reeves suggested the government wanted to go further on its new agreement with the EU but told the BBC a trade pact with countries in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, would be the “next deal”. She ...

A family who went to court to protect a young girl from her paedophile father have criticised government legislation intended to help others in a similar position. The Victims and Courts Bill includes an amendment which would remove parental responsibility from convicted paedophiles – but only if they have abused their own children. In 2023 the BBC reported on a ...