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Shadow cabinet talk with Whitehall officials after Keir Starmer meets head of civil service All members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet are to meet top civil servants in Whitehall departments before Easter as Labour steps up preparations to form the next government, according to senior party sources.The Observer has been told that Starmer recently held a first round of so-called “access talks” with the...

Former PM says she remains committed to supporting Sunak as she decides to ‘pass the baton on’ after 27 yearsTreasury minister Gareth Davies has denied the number of Conservative MPs stepping down signifies a lack of confidence in the party’s electoral prospects.He told Sky News he was “personally sad” to see Theresa May step down after “a pretty good innings” of “27 years of...

Losing party says ‘Galloway only won because Labour did not stand’ and calls him ‘a damaging force in our public life’Full story: George Galloway wins Rochdale byelectionLabour says George Galloway is “only interested in stoking fear and division”.In a statement issued about the byelection result, the party apologised to the people of Rochdale for the fact that it did not have a proper candidate....

Galloway claimed his victory signalled a ‘shifting of tectonic plates’. The reality is perhaps less apocalypticUK politics live – latest updatesWhile George Galloway’s portentous declaration of “a shifting of the tectonic plates” was the sort of hyperbole he specialises in, his sweeping victory in the Rochdale byelection does carry some lessons for other parties, and not reassuring ones.It is not the first or even...

Politicians from Conservative and Labour parties get close protection and chauffeur-driven vehicles Three female MPs have been given bodyguards and chauffeur-driven cars after concerns about their safety, it was reported. Representatives of the Conservative and Labour parties had their security upgraded after a risk assessment, according to the Sunday Times.The MPs, who have not been named, have been given close protection by private companies...

The business and trade secretary says Henry Staunton gave an interview ‘full of lies’Good morning. Yesterday Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, accused the former Post Office chair, Henry Staunton, of giving an interview “full of lies” about the conversation they had when she sacked him recently. Josh Halliday has the story here, and here is one of the tweets from a thread...

As fresh party infighting erupts after two byelection losses, the right are targeting public service funding to pay for tax cuts while others urge restraintRishi Sunak is being warned he risks taking his party further towards disaster by sanctioning a new public spending squeeze in a desperate pursuit of pre-election tax cuts, as more Tories said they feared an election wipeout.With more infighting erupting...

Despite victory in two Conservative safe seats, a Labour government is not a foregone conclusion, say party hawksFor the past few months, with Labour enjoying a stubbornly large double-digit lead in the polls, close allies of Keir Starmer remained obsessed with the notion that complacency will slip into the mindsets of MPs, advisers and activists.In a breathless week that saw Labour veer from having...

Formal rules to block relevant candidates will make it easier to ‘weed out the bad apples’, politicians sayRishi Sunak has been urged to push through new rules to block anyone convicted of a sexual offence from standing to be an MP before the next election.At least six MPs have lost their seats because of alleged sexual misconduct since the 2019 general election, and 10...

Swing of 28.5% in Wellingborough and 16.4% in Kingswood would give Labour secure majority if repeated in general electionUK politics live – latest updatesKeir Starmer has hailed Labour’s “fantastic” results in the Kingswood and Wellingborough byelections after the party secured two victories which suggest the party is on course for a majority at the general election this year.The Labour leader said the gain of...

Swing in both seats would easily secure a majority at national level, but disillusion among voters is clearUK politics live – latest updatesThe records continue to fall for Labour. The result in the Wellingborough byelection, in which the party achieved a 28.5% swing from the Conservatives, was the biggest Labour victory over the Tories since 1994 and the second biggest since the war.Along with...

Labour seeking to take two seats from Tories on Thursday amid fraught week of candidate suspensionsMy colleague Phillip Inman has this analysis on this morning’s inflation figures:Good news came from the food industry, where inflation fell from December to January, but the annual rate remains high at 7% and food and non-alcoholic beverage prices are about 25% higher than they were two years ago,...

Party criticised for delay in acting over comments in which Azhar Ali suggested Israel had allowed 7 October attack to happenHousing minister Lee Rowley was on the media round for the government this morning, hoping to push their new housebuilding plans. He refused, however, to say how many more homes the government hopes will be built, telling the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he...

Candidate Azhar Ali issues apology after comments emerge in which he suggested Israel allowed Hamas attack to happenA quick scoot around the newspaper front pages. For the Daily Mail, the Labour Rochdale story leads, with the paper asking “So has Labour really changed?”That story also made the front of the Times, with the bonus ban at water companies being the lead item. Our Helena...

Shadow chancellor says Labour will receive a ‘bleak inheritance’ from Tories and has had to make changes as a resultRachel Reeves has defended Labour’s U-turn on its pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green projects.The shadow chancellor blamed the Tories and the economic impact of Liz Truss’s mini-budget, as she told BBC Breakfast she would not “make any apologies” for fiscal responsibility.I’ll...

PM says he is ‘not a betting person’ after making £1,000 bet during an interview with Piers MorganGood morning. Rishi Sunak gave an interview to Rachel Burden on Radio 5 Live this morning and he was asked about £1,000 bet he appeared to accept from Piers Morgan about the success of his Rwanda policy. The move has been widely condemned as distasteful. Sunak did...

PM also criticised for saying ‘the facts speak for themselves’ when asked if Keir Starmer was a terrorist sympathiserRishi Sunak has been called “out of touch” after taking a £1,000 bet with Piers Morgan on whether deportation flights to Rwanda will take off before the general election.Morgan said to the prime minister on TalkTV: “I’ll bet you £1,000 to a refugee charity you don’t...

The chancellor said he wanted to manage people’s expectations ahead of the spring budget In his interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, criticised Richard Hughes, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, for calling the Treasury’s long-term public spending forecasts worse than “a work of fiction”.Hughes told a Lords committee last month:Some people call [the projections] a work of fiction,...

The DUP has endorsed a deal with the UK government to restore power sharing in NI, paving an end to two years of political deadlockGood morning. Rail strikes are still going on in England, but in one part of the UK a long-running “strike” by key public sector workers seems about to come to an end. DUP MLAs (members of the legislative assembly) have...

Former PM is fomenting revolt describing proposal as ‘absurd’ as government set to go ahead with plans to ban disposable vapesGood morning. Two weeks ago Rishi Sunak saw off the Tory rebels wanting him to toughen up the Rwanda bill, last week former cabinet minister Simon Clarke was shouted down by colleagues when he called for a new leader, but the turmoil in the...

Opposition would do better on issues including the economy, health, education, the environment, immigration and crime, public saysMore than twice as many voters believe a Labour government would be better for housing than the Tories, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.The survey shows Labour is well ahead of the Conservatives on most issues including the economy, health, education, the environment, immigration...

Individuals deemed unfit for office still walked away with payments from taxpayers, says shadow Cabinet Office ministerLabour has pledged to reform the rules surrounding ministerial redundancy payments after it emerged that the high turnover of cabinet ministers under the past three prime ministers generated a severance bill worth more than £930,000 in the last financial year.Since 1991, sacked ministers under the age of 65...

Chris Philp says manufacturers found ploy to get around previous ban on previous ban on zombie knives Good morning. Labour and the Conservatives are in a bidding war over knife crime today, with Keir Starmer announcing or re-announcing various plans to deal with the problem on the day when the Home Office is laying legislation before parliament to ban zombie-style knives. Pippa Crerar has...

Lords to debate whether it should delay ratification of UK-Rwanda treatyThe Post Office Horizon IT scandal has placed into sharper focus the number of bodies that can bring prosecutions, and the TV Licensing authority is one of them. Possibly not for much longer, if the words of culture secretary Lucy Frazer this morning carry any weight.She said it is not appropriate for the BBC...