Politics

The resignation of Angela Rayner on Friday created two vacancies. The first was in her formal role as deputy leader of the Labour party; the second was her unofficial status as the next leader-in-waiting. Bridget Phillipson’s decision to stand to replace her can be seen as a bid to seize both mantles. The Education Secretary announced her bid this morning, declaring that she’s a ‘proud working-class woman from the north east.’ In a statement, she said that ‘I’ve shown we can beat [Nigel] Farage in the north-east, while staying true to the Labour party’s values of equality, fairness and social justice.’ Her role in cabinet means she will, rightly or

Jamie Borthwick is an uncommonly fine young actor who, frankly, is far too good for the increasingly strained and schlocky scripts that are churned out to him and the other residents of Albert Square. If you haven’t heard of him, then all you need to know is that he’s been a major character in EastEnders for the last two decades, playing Jay Brown, until very recently the manager of a (much in demand) funeral home in Walford. But no longer: Borthwick has been axed from the show after he used a slur once commonly used against disabled people, but in this occasion aimed at the people of Blackpool in general.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I have a better serving suggestion. How about revenge plated up simmering, every single day, again and again, inescapable and eternal? For surely that is the intended outcome of Emily Thornberry’s plan to – maybe, possibly – run for the position of deputy leader of the Labour party. Even that ‘possibly’ caveat has the air of somebody turning the knife. How she must delight in dangling this ‘I might, I might not’ eventuality before Keir Starmer. Because it was Starmer, after all, who stabbed her in the front after the 2024 election, chucking her unceremoniously out from her shadow position of

Shabana Mahmood wasn’t given long in her new gig before facing the media. She became Home Secretary on Friday afternoon, after former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner resigned over an ethics probe into her tax affairs, and this morning set out her stall on immigration. Positioning herself as a ‘whatever it takes’ minister, Mahmood says she is prepared to suspend visas for workers coming to the UK from nations that will not enter into returns deals – bringing Labour into closer alignment with the Conservatives and Reform on its immigration policy.  Mahmood promised she would go ‘further and faster’ than her predecessor Yvette Cooper on the small boats crisis, adding

Here we go again. In what appears now to be an annual event, the Japanese prime minister has resigned. In a press conference on Sunday evening, Shigeru Ishiba, who had only been in the job since last October, explained that he was leaving because his continuation in post would prove divisive for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It is time, he said, for the ‘next generation’ to take over.  Ishiba had lost his party’s majority in both lower and upper house elections (he headed a minority coalition government) and is now irredeemably tainted by failure. He has no faction or support group to stand up for him and couldn’t have

As of late August, Nigel Farage’s Reform party now has representatives in local government, Westminster, the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament. The group’s only MSP is Graham Simpson, a frontline Conservative politician for almost ten years, who defected just under a fortnight ago. I caught up with him at the Reform conference – amid deafening tannoy announcements, last-minute timetable shifts and an ongoing government reshuffle – to hear more about the party’s plans for next year’s 2026 Holyrood election.  What exactly attracted Graham Simpson to Reform? ‘I saw the party as something of a blank canvas,’ he explained. The period following his defection was ‘a bit rough’, Simpson told