The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Local Government – which has Tory representation – has called for massive tax-raising powers to be handed to local authorities. Nicely timed with devo-mad Burnham’s entry to No10…
The newly published proposals:
There is a striking proposal to let all authorities raise taxes by however much they want:
“One example is removing the referendum principles, which place a ceiling on the percentage of council tax local authorities can raise… Ministers could restore this autonomy simply by choosing not to issue referendum principles for 2027-28, restoring the position before the Localism Act was introduced…if councils facing acute financial pressures can be trusted to set higher council tax rates – some because of their own poor leadership – why can’t all local authorities do so?”
The APPG is made up of two Labour MPs, a LibDem, and even Tory MP Simon Hoare. Everyone is scampering to offer Andy Burnham ideas on how to make the tax burden even worse for Brits…
Veteran politician Ann Widdecombe was killed in a “targeted attack”, counter-terrorism police investigating her death have said.
Kemi Badenoch has begun her purge of the wets, with Theresa May’s former chief of staff Gavin Barwell finally dumped earlier this week after he spent months moaning about the Tories becoming a “Reform tribute act“. The Tories say all parliamentary candidates need to back plans to scrap net zero and leave the ECHR. A sound move, although it looks like a few bedwetters are still slipping through the cracks…
Jamie Mulhall, a councillor on Derby City Council and one of its “climate champions,” posted that he was “proud to be part of Kemi’s team as an approved Conservative candidate” and ran a 2024 campaign praising the party’s record on cutting emissions. Lucy Trimnell, a councillor recently selected to stand for the Bruton seat on Somerset Council, said she was “honoured to have been accepted onto the candidates list” and has previously argued the UK “shouldn’t need to leave the ECHR” to deport criminals. Dr Daniel Pitt, an advisory board member of the pro-net-zero Conservative Environment Network, welcomed his place on the national candidates list. CEN argued just last year that Conservatives should “lean into” being environmentalists…
Likewise Miranda Jupp, a former chief of staff to Simon Clarke and an approved candidate, previously shared a warning that Badenoch shouldn’t “reject the popular priority of caring for our planet” via Net Zero. Meanwhile the dripping wet ‘pressure group’ Prosper UK – spearheaded by Barwell – continues to insist the party should be a ‘broad church’, which really means it should walk and talk like the LibDems. Badenoch clearly has her work cut out…
UPDATE: Simon Clarke defends his former chief of staff Miranda Jupp, saying she is “like a Saharan breeze of dryness”:
“We need a hard reset of energy policy and to replace the net zero commitment that has run so far ahead of what both available energy technology and our economy can sustain, and I know from many conversations that Miranda agrees.”
The Good Law Project has apologised and cancelled a pro-Trans Rights ad campaign after its imagery offended Trans Rights campaigners. Oh dear…
A billboard campaign featuring monstrous animals like sharks and dinosaurs with the text “Of course I support trans – I’m not a monster” has rubbed people up the wrong way. From Jolyon Maugham today:
“We want to apologize for how the ‘Monster’ campaign has been received by the trans community. We’ve heard you – and we’ve instructed our media partners to take the campaign down.
The ‘Monster’ campaign was commissioned from the preeminent public artist Martin Firrell, whose work evidences a long record of support for the LGBT+ community, to speak specifically to cis people about what it means to oppose trans people, rights, spaces and joy. The campaign tested very positively with cis allies and the team that worked on it included a number of trans people. The campaign was funded by a single donation and in its very brief existence has brought in at least one four figure donation.
We think it’s important that we speak both to the cis people, who we need to persuade, and the trans community, for whom ultimately we do this work. Later this month a project we funded for the trans community, the 86-metre Trans Unity Quilt, with two trans co-artistic directors, will be carried along the route of London Trans+ Pride and then at further events outside London.
All of this is true – but none of it matters if it damages the trust we enjoy with the trans community and it has. So it will be taken down today – and I repeat my apology, on Good Law Project’s behalf, to those the campaign has upset. We remain, as ever, extraordinarily grateful to the many members of the trans community who continue to support our work for the community.”
Chalk that up as another loss…
Labour whips have cancelled the Tories’ Opposition Day, which would have included a vote to force Andy Burnham to face the House of Commons for at least a day before recess. Running from scrutiny…
As it currently stands Thursday will be recess day for the long summer break and MPs won’t return to the Commons until 1 September. Labour whips have switched proceedings for opposition day and assigned some random government business. This is exceedingly rare – is Andy scared?
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”