Lammy flew overnight to Gibraltar on board the largest plane in the ministerial fleet, landing at quarter past midnight. It’s not a long flight…
He is expected to finalise a deal with the EU on the territory which has been in the works for some time. Sources say the FCDO will endeavour to rubber stamp negotiations and sign as quickly as possible. Guido hears it is penned in for today to coincide with the Spending Review, which is also a useful distraction…
The deal is centred around border arrangements and increasing the speed at which people have been crossing the Schengen barrier (which has been a running problem). Sources say it is is expected to include a trade agreement. Officials have some experience coming up with post-Brexit arrangements for UK territories…
Lammy will jet to Brussels straight away – landing at circa 1 p.m. Labour’s form on EU negotiations will have Eurosceptic hairs raised very high today…
Rachel Reeves will finally unveil her spending review in a 45 minute-long speech after PMQs today. It follows weeks of wrangling with departments over who gets what, with home secretary Yvette Cooper the last to sign off after being on ‘resignation watch’ over what funding her department will receive. Here’s what Reeves is expected to announce:
The day‑to‑day budget will increase by 2.8% in real terms each year to cover staff, equipment, and operational costs.
£2.4 billion for West Midlands Metro.
£2.1 billion for West Yorkshire Mass Transit, with construction starting by 2028.
Science and technology (£86 billion over four years) This had also already been announced by the Tories…
New drug treatments
Longer‑lasting batteries
Artificial intelligence breakthroughs
Public sector pay (3% to 5% increases)
4% pay rise for NHS consultants and teachers
Estimated additional cost of £2 billion to £3 billion per year across departments
Keeping the £3 bus fare cap (up to 2027)
Police funding (real‑terms increase over three years) Yvette Cooper has warned this will not be enough to meet the government’s pledge to recruit 13,000 frontline officers by 2029…
Border security and surveillance (£680 million)
£100 million in the first year
Remaining £580 million spread over the next three years for staff, technology, and monitoring systems
Welsh rail project upgrade (£445 million)
While Reeves isn’t expected to announce any tax changes, today’s announcements will lay the groundwork for hikes in the Autumn Budget. She’s already been rolling that pitch…
Co-conspirators will be aware of UKRI’s generosity with taxpayers’ cash – especially when it comes to funding bizarre and baffling research projects. One of which may raise eyebrows is a project discovered by the Taxpayers’ Alliance titled ‘The Vocabulary of Touch: Encountering Otherness through Contact Improvisation’. The project – running from 2020 to 2025 and backed by UKRI’s Art Council – was a awarded to researcher Rosalind Holgate-Smith at Kingston University. Holgate-Smith was given a taxpayer-funded Techne scholarship worth £72,177 for three years. Some of the results from her research so far include:
The Unveiling: A performance in which students are invited to “dive into the affects of touch, and explore the skin as continuous, through the orifices of the mouth, nose, anus and into the digestive tract.” That spelling mistake is not Guido’s…
The Pleasure Patchwork: where students can experience “interactive soft sculpture” using “a crochet blanket made of worm like, phallic and invaginated forms, that can be turned inside out. Cocks up, down, and enfolded” to explore the “depth, tone and density of contact with human and non-human matter.” Eh?
The Taxpayers’ Alliance Joanna Marchong told Guido:
“It is absolutely absurd that taxpayers are funding this madness. UKRI has serious questions to answer over how these bizarre academic projects are approved, and whether they serve any public good. Ministers must rein in this artsy excess and stop taxpayers’ cash being wasted on touchy-feely nonsense.”
Bonfire of the quangos, anyone?
Angela Rayner has in parliament refused to deny claims she threatened to resign over missing her manifesto housing target. According to plugged-in sources in Lord Ashcroft’s biography of Starmer, Red Flag, “one occasion she threatened to resign because she felt she’d been set the impossible target of Labour building 1.5 million new homes.” The sources add that “it took a call from Tony Blair to talk her down.“ Guido identified Rayner’s issues with the ambitious target last summer…
In response to that Rayner’s team said at the time: “We do not recognise the claims made. Angela is proud to be serving as Deputy Prime Minister in Keir’s cabinet and delivering on Labour’s crystal clear commitment to build 1.5 million homes as part of our Plan for Change.” This is what is known as a thin-as-string denial…
In response to a written question from Kevin Hollinrake asking Rayner “whether she has had discussions with Tony Blair on the deliverability of the 1.5 million housebuilding target” her department replied: “The Deputy Prime Minister joined Tony Blair for a Q&A event in December 2024 at the Tony Blair Institute. This was an informal Q&A event which did not touch on details of government policy.” A non-denial, a swerve…
Reeves at the Spring Statement pinned much of the Labour’s required growth on Rayner’s housing policies. Despite Rayner’s enthusiasm for housing construction some in Labour see the 1.5 million manifesto target as a deliberate doomed-to-fail caper…
Civil servants have consistently whinged about having to haul themselves into the office a mere three days a week. Still, they’ve been sparing no expense on making home-working as cosy as possible despite empty pleas from Labour to cut back on waste…
An FOI fired from UK DOGE reveals that pen-pushers at the Department of Health and Social Care spent a whopping £178,500 on work-from-home gear between January 2024 and April 2025. That includes an eye-watering £72,651 on chairs, £23,049 on desks, and a staggering £63,645 on monitors. An eye-watering £104,095 of that has been blown since Labour took office…
For that you could:
The taxpayer may have a view on which should be prioritised. UK DOGE recommends costs are cut here…
A group of “experts” commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council has attacked the Chagos surrender deal as it is agreed between the UK and Mauritius.
The “experts,” who are made up of three UN special rapporteurs and a member of the “Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent,” say the deal “fails to protect the rights of the Chagossian people, including their right to return to Diego Garcia, effective remedy and reparations and their cultural rights.” Chagossians have always been against the deal due to continued persecution from Mauritius…
Apart from complaining about the US base on Diego Garcia the UN group says “the agreement appears to be at variance with the Chagossians’ right to return” and “contains no provisions providing for the full panoply of the right to adequate and effective reparations.” They aren’t satisfied…
“In light of these significant concerns, we call for the ratification of the agreement to be suspended and for a new agreement to be negotiated that fully guarantees the rights of the Chagossian people to return to all islands of the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia. This includes their right to adequate and effective remedy and reparations, including restitution, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition, as well as their cultural rights.”
The “experts” say they are in touch with the United Kingdom and Mauritius regarding these issues. After giving the woke UN what it wanted and betraying Chagossians in the process, Starmer has still not fed the beast to fullness…
Read the full UN release below:
Continue reading “UN Human Rights Council Slams Starmer’s Chagos Surrender”
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”