Tory Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake said he would form a coalition with Reform over the LibDems. You’d hope so…
Hollinrake was on the Daily T podcast with Reform’s Tim Montgomerie and insisted that was his preference “if there was no other choice at all.” Badenoch is allegedly “not interested in a coalition”…
The party chairman said the main issue today was migration: “Certainly Tim and I are far more closely aligned in terms of migration. That’s the reality.” Montgomerie for his part went further:
“There are parts of northern England, the Red Wall seats, parts of Wales, colliery communities and parts of Scotland that are never going to vote Conservative. Reform can reach parts of the electorate that the Conservatives just can’t. There are probably southern seats Reform cannot win that only the Conservatives can win. Let the British people decide. I think Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage could form a strong coalition together where they agree on the key issues. Immigration is the biggest challenge facing this country. What we don’t know is how bad the economy is going to be.”
Something weighing heavily on right-of-centre minds in SW1…
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has said that the government will consider following Australia in attempting to ban social media for under 16s. Labour will hardly be able to resist the hand-wringing campaign to do so regardless of the evidence…
Pressed by Sophy Ridge on Sky News on the government’s nervousness to pull “really really big levers” Phillips said:
“We will look at what is happening in Australia and absolutely take whatever from the world where the best practice is, it’s very very new that is happening in Australia.”
The full Violence Against Women and Girls strategy, long delayed, is due for release today. Along with a slew of other potentially problematic announcements in a final pre-Christmas rush…
This one comes with a threat from pro-Magna Carter Labour MP Karl Turner:
“I have pleaded with the PM not to march us all up the hill to be marched back down again. Many more MP’s, not on this letter, have said they will rebel if necessary!”
38 Labour MPs say in a letter to the PM that “the proposals to remove trial by jury for all but the most serious of cases will have an incredibly limited impact while also depriving individuals of a fundamental right to trial by their peers.” It raises serious procedural questions about the existing proposals…
Hilariously most of this is what Lammy used to say when he campaigned in favour of retaining full jury trials. Tempora mutantur…
Read the full letter and list of mostly left wing signatories below:
Continue reading “38 Labour MPs Write to Starmer to Demand Jury Trial U-Turn”
The Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) – the referee in trade union disputes – is beefing up its ranks ahead of the implementation of the Employment Rights Bill, with five deputy chair roles now available for ambitious socialists who fancy “adjudicating on the recognition and de-recognition of trade unions for collective bargaining“. They’re obviously expecting their caseload to build up pretty soon…
For a day’s work, each deputy chair will earn £633.96 courtesy of the taxpayer. That would be just over £165,000 on an annual salary, but since this is trade union-related work the appointees will only be required for 3 days per month. Kate Dearden, the minister explaining the job profile, nonetheless claims it is a “critical” time to join the CAC. The best bit: all applications include the line “you will not be subject to the provisions of employment law”…
Yesterday the government launched an “urgent review into foreign financial interference in UK politics” to be led by Whitehall longtimer Philip Rycroft. It will report before the local elections and is apparently the result of the conviction of Reform’s Nathan Gill for taking bribes from the Russian state…
The review is meant to “build on the launch last month of the Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan to disrupt and deter spying from states” and provide broad recommendations but its practical result will be to give Labour cover to impose restrictions of how Reform is funded. Especially crypto and US cash…
The key statement:
“Mr Rycroft’s report, which will be sent to the Housing Secretary and Security Minister at the end of March, will focus on the effectiveness of the UK’s political finance laws, as well as the safeguards in place to protect our democracy from illicit money from abroad, including cryptocurrencies. It will also examine the rules governing the constitution and regulation of political parties and the Electoral Commission’s enforcement powers, as well as explore the role of the current checks and balances in the system.”
The allotted time and scope of the review will not allow it to address numerous questions that would be embarrassing for Labour. Will Rycroft look into the pervasive influence of the Bangladeshi Awami League in UK politics, the party of ex-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq’s dictator auntie? A scandal which implicates Starmer…
Significant additional interference also looks to be missed out, particularly with regard to the energy sector. Will Rycroft examine the lobbyists…
It is not known, for example, what exact services UK lobbying firm Portland Communications provided to its client Gazprom or other Russian state-linked entities from 2005-2014. Portland was of course founded and run until 2019 by the current Downing Street director of communications Tim Allan. Russia has admitted that its strategic goal is to disrupt European energy self-sufficiency – including preventing shale extraction. There is no suggestion that Allan personally lobbied on behalf of Gazprom or the Russian state when the former was retained as a Portland client – any deep review would presumably examine that sort of thing. Co-conspirators can decide for themselves whether Rycroft will go there…
Starmer loyalist and Housing Secretary Steve Reed told Sky News that Starmer should not be replaced:
“We saw what the Tories did. They were in power for 14 years, and after 2016, I think we had nine education secretaries, seven chancellors, and five Prime Ministers. Doomscrolling through Prime Ministers doesn’t resolve the problem.”