Guido attended the right-of-centre pro-housing group Conservative YIMBY’s summer party last night, where the team launched a fresh set of proposals on planning reform. Shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake was the only Tory MP in attendance. Earning him the title of “most YIMBY Tory MP” from the hosts…
Kevin told Guido that co-conspirators can expect to see clear housing commitments from the Conservatives at Conference. He said the Tory’s housing target was 300,000 new homes a year. The same target as Labour…
Conservative YIMBY chairman Simon Clarke told Guido the group is open to supporting both the Conservatives and Reform on housing policy. His advice to Kemi: “Be brave” when it comes to reforming the planning system. Read some of Conservative YIMBY’s policy proposals below:
Latest polling from YouGov shows Starmer has a net favourability rating of -44, dropping 10 points since last month. Just 23% of Brits view him positively, the worst rating for a prime minister since July 2021 and May 2025. Reeves’ net rating is worse at -45…
King of the North Andy Burnham sees a net favourability rating of +7, while Jeremy Corbyn also fares better than Starmer on -37. Although Kemi Badenoch’s net approval rating is -35, Labour has a net rating of -39, while the Tories have -48. A fresh Opinium poll also shows Starmer has reached a record level of unpopularity 41%. Downing Street will be getting used to this dismal numbers by now…
Seeing as pretty much every front page this morning splashes on the secret Afghan settlement programme co-conspirators may have expected BBC News at Ten to lead on it. Don’t be silly…
Instead the half-hour long programme did four minutes on the scandal at its rear end. More salient in the eyes of BBC producers were:
At last year’s Mansion House speech Rachel Reeves stopped bothering to claim that she spent a “decade” as an economist and admitted she worked after the Bank of England “in financial services.” This time there was no mention of her distinguished economics career at all…
Guido’s exposé had made that pretence untenable for the Chancellor. One year later at the speech last night in which Reeves talked up a new smattering of financial deregulation policies she made no mention of the fact she was an economist or indeed that she had any expertise whatsoever. The state of the economy today doesn’t reflect well on whatever economic theory Reeves picked up during her short years at the Bank of England…
The Chancellor instead said she was “really proud of how far we have come in the last year as government and as a country” and issued a rallying cry:
“Regulators in other sectors must take up the call I make this evening, not to bend to the temptation of excessive caution, but to boldly regulate for growth.”
Any fan of growth would cry…
Read the full speech below:
Continue reading “Reeves Gives up on Calling Herself an ‘Economist’ at Mansion House Speech”
News of an MoD data breach leading to thousands of Afghans secretly being relocated to the UK – costing the taxpayer billions – has caused outrage. Naturally, the civil servants involved in the cover-up are being praised for their role…
Guido has seen a memo sent to civil servants at the Home Office – which managed the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) – from Second Permanent Secretary Simon Ridley in which he thanks civil servants for their hard “work” since the secret breach came to light:
“Many people in the Home Office have been involved in the response, working discreetly and diligently on this since we were made aware of the incident. I would like to thank them for their dedicated work, under often challenging circumstances. We hope you understand why those working on the response had to do so under such strict conditions.”
If only the conditions attached to the distribution of the spreadsheet in question were so strict…
The memo then goes on to offer “support” to colleagues who may be “distressed” by the news, adding that the MoD has taken “action in relation to this with the Information Commissioner’s Office.” Meanwhile, no one involved in the leak has lost their job, more than three years later…
Read the memo in full below:
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”