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Labour leader under pressure over claims Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali’s remarks went unchallenged at eventUK politics live – latest developmentsKeir Starmer is under pressure to suspend councillors who attended a meeting in Hyndburn over claims that they failed call out antisemitic remarks by Azhar Ali, the former Labour candidate for the Rochdale byelection.On Tuesday Labour suspended Graham Jones, the candidate for Hyndburn in Lancashire,...

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,...

In today’s newsletter: The party has disowned candidate Azhar Ali following his remarks about Israel and Gaza, with accusations of hypocrisy over antisemitism levelled at Starmer’s door • Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. This week ought to be an excellent one for Keir Starmer, and a terrible one for Rishi Sunak: ONS figures just out which show no fall...

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...

Entrepreneur Stuart Marks reportedly featured on – but was removed from – Boris Johnson’s resignation honours listA major donor to the Conservative party who reportedly featured on Boris Johnson’s original resignation honours list is among 13 new peers announced by the government on Friday evening, eight of them Conservatives.Stuart Marks, a technology entrepreneur who has served as a senior treasurer for the Conservatives, has...

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...

Charlotte Nichols says Brianna gave people someone to identify with and humanised discussion on gender issuesBrianna Ghey’s murder has “humanised the debate” around transgender people in her native Warrington, and stopped local Conservative politicians from using trans issues for “culture war” attacks, according to Brianna’s local Labour MP.“Most people haven’t necessarily met a trans person. And I think what happened to Brianna really gave...

Labour MP Barry Gardiner, former shadow climate change minister, criticised Starmer’s plan to scale back the £28bn plan Good morning. It will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following Westminster news in recent weeks, particularly if they have been reading the Guardian, to learn that Labour is no longer committed to spending £28bn a year on its green investment plan. The...

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...

Plans to reform social care and House of Lords are trimmed as Keir Starmer’s party opts for caution ahead of voteLabour is planning only limited first-term reforms of social care and the House of Lords and a smaller green investment plan as part of a stripped-down general election manifesto, as it seeks to make its policies “bombproof” to Tory attacks.Shadow cabinet ministers have been...

Sources say party will keep plan to invest in green infrastructure but will in effect cut green ambitions by about two-thirdsThe Green party is calling for a wealth tax to fund a green investment programme. Here is another extract from the statement issued by Carla Denyer, the Green party’s co-leader, criticising Labour for dropping the £28bn a year target for green investment. (See 9.19am.)...

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,...

Shadow chancellor says party aims to be champion of a thriving financial sector if it wins electionBusiness live – latest updatesLabour will not reinstate a cap on bankers’ bonuses if it wins the next election, the shadow chancellor has said.Rachel Reeves said she had “no intention” of bringing back the cap, saying she wanted to be the “champion of a thriving financial services industry”.The...

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...

Leader proposes taking steps to reduce availability of ‘zombie’ knives and creating bespoke plans for all offendersKeir Starmer has promised to “get a grip” on soaring knife crime as he announced that a Labour government would bring in a bespoke plan for every offender, including tags and curfews.The Labour leader said there would be an urgent crackdown on the availability of machetes and zombie-style...

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...

Shadow foreign secretary tries to continue as demonstrators shout and criticise Labour’s stance on Israel-Gaza warMiddle East crisis – live updatesA keynote speech by David Lammy at a Labour-linked thinktank’s conference has been disrupted by protesters who held Palestinian flags as they shouted “ceasefire now”.As security officials at London’s Guildhall rushed to take the first two individuals out of the building, another three protesters...

Exclusive: London mayoral elections in May will be ‘toughest fight yet’, Khan will tell Fabian’s Society conferenceSadiq Khan will urge voters not to “let the Tories do to London what they’ve done to our country”, as he hits out at the “hollow, desperate and divisive narrative” put forward by the party.Launching the Fabian’s Society conference on Saturday with a keynote speech, the London mayor...