Category Archives: POLITICS

Will Donald Trump’s Mugshot Be Released?

Posted on by
Reply

Donald Trump is expected to voluntarily turn himself in to a New York district attorney’s office on Tuesday over charges related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

The former president will have his fingerprints and mugshot taken and appear for arraignment in court. He will likely be released and allowed to head home, experts have said.

Mugshots are not public record under New York state law, though they have leaked in the past.

Trump could seek to have the picture released himself in the hopes of a political boost as he makes another bid for the White House.

Within minutes of word of his indictment breaking, his 2024 presidential campaign was sending fundraising messages off the back of the news. His campaign has said it has raised more than $5 million and logged more than 16,000 volunteer signups since the indictment.

Trump could follow the path of other politicians. Texas governor Rick Perry posed for a mugshot photo in August 2014 after he was indicted on felony charges of abuse of power and coercion of a public servant.

Perry was looking to build momentum for a 2016 presidential run that ultimately fizzled out in a matter of months – much like the case against him, which never went to trial.

An attorney for Trump has said they are against the former president’s mugshot being released.

Alina Habba told CNN: “I like transparency. I think that in certain situations, it’s a good thing. I do have a problem with leaking of pictures. I think that because we’re in a campaign, because he’s the leading GOP candidate, it’s not going to help anything.”

Trump’s campaign has announced he will deliver remarks on Tuesday night from his Mar-a-Lago club after returning from Manhattan. He is expected to be joined in Florida by supporters as he tries to project an image of strength and defiance to boost his presidential run.

The Associated Press has reported Trump is facing multiple charges of falsifying business records in the indictment handed up by a Manhattan grand jury last week. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has blasted the investigation as a “witch hunt”.

Share Button

Journalist Torpedoes Tory Claims That Brexit Is Not To Blame For Dover Chaos

Posted on by
Reply

A journalist has torpedoed the claims of senior Tories that Brexit is not to blame for the traffic chaos at Dover.

Simon Calder, The Independent’s travel editor, said the French authorities were doing what “we asked them to do” by painstakingly checking the passports of everyone trying to get across the Channel.

Thousands of holidaymakers trying to get away for the Easter holidays have been caught up in huge tailbacks in Kent in the past 48 hours.

Doug Bannister, the chief executive of the port at Dover, said that the “post-Brexit environment means that every passport needs to be checked”.

But home secretary Suella Braverman said: “I don’t think that’s fair to say this has been an adverse effect of Brexit.”

And local Tory MP Natalie Elphicke said she was “incredibly disappointed to see French border control problems once again adding to traffic mayhem” at the Kent port.

Appearing on Sky News today, Calder calmly explained why both Braverman and Elphicke were wrong.

He said: “For decades we’ve had so-called juxtaposed border controls at Dover.

“That very simply means French passport officials checking everything before you board the ferry. Normally that’s great because it means as soon as you get to Calais or Dunkirk, you’re free to go.

″Unfortunately, it was never designed, the port of Dover, which as you know is a very constrained area beneath the white cliffs, there was never idea that we would be a hard, external EU frontier just the same as they have in Russia and Turkey.

″But that was exactly what we signed up for after Brexit.

“So previously you would turn up in your car or on a coach and just wave your passport and if they really wanted to a passport official could check ‘is this Anna Jones, is this a valid passport’ and off you’d go.

“Now, they are required – as we asked them to do – to go through, check all your stamps to stamp the passport, and that on a coach needs to be replicated 50 or 60 times.

″And however many French frontier officials you can send over, it’s simply going to back up.”

Extra sailings were run overnight to try and clear the backlog and by Sunday morning the port estimated some travellers would face waits of up to eight hours, depending on the ferry operator.

A port spokesman said: “The additional sailings have assisted in clearing some of the traffic, although currently both DFDS and P&O have two full lanes of coaches in the port before French border controls, with a processing time of about 4.5 hours.

“P&O have some coaches waiting at the cruise terminal and DFDS have some at service stations in Kent.

“Once coaches are processed in an operator’s lane, more are being sent to the port. Currently, the estimated total time is six to eight hours dwell time.”

Share Button

George Osborne Says There Is ‘No Prospect’ of Boris Johnson Becoming PM Again

Posted on by
Reply

There is “no prospect” of Boris Johnson ever becoming prime minister again, George Osborne has said.

The former chancellor said the civil war inside the Tory Party “has ended” because Johnson is now fighting to even remain as an MP.

The ex-prime minister is waiting for the privilege committee’s verdict on whether he misled the Commons over lockdown-busting parties inside 10 Downing Street.

On the Andrew Neil Show on Channel 4, Osborne also praised Rishi Sunak for improving the Conservatives’ fortunes since taking over as PM from Liz Truss and said they now had a chance of winning the next election.

Speaking after an interview with safeguarding minister Sarah Dines, Osborne said: “I think things are much better for [Sunak’s] administration at the end of this series of this show than they were when we started at the beginning of the year.

″Not least because the internal rebellion has ended in the Tory Party.

“You were asking the minister about Boris Johnson – there’s no prospect of him coming back. He’s battling to stay in the House of Commons itself.”

Johnson gave a fiery appearance in front of the privileges committee last month during which he admitted he did mislead the Commons, but insisted his comments were made “in good faith” after being assured by his advisers that no parties had taken place.

An interim report by the committee earlier this month said it should have been “obvious” to him that lockdown rules were broken.

If the committee recommends that Johnson be suspended from parliament for at leats 10 days, and the Commons votes for it, he would face a recall petition and potentially a by-election in his Uxbridge seat.

Share Button

Pressure Builds On Keir Starmer As Crunch Local Elections Loom

Posted on by
Reply

Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s elections co-ordinator, had a simple message for the shadow cabinet last Tuesday.

“The polls have tightened and so discipline is key,” she told them in her latest presentation ahead of the local elections on May 4.

With Rishi Sunak having enjoyed the best month of his premiership following the passing of his Brexit deal, a disaster-free Budget and the introduction of his plan to stop small boats crossing the Channel, the pressure is suddenly on Keir Starmer to respond.

Mahmood told her frontbench colleagues that Labour will focus relentlessly on three areas in the run-up to polling day – the cost of living, crime and the NHS.

“We must have confidence to stick to the issues we want to talk about, confidence that they are the issues the voters want to hear about and resist being led away by the Tory pied piper,” she said.

Two days later, Starmer was in Swindon to formally launch Labour’s election campaign.

The choice of location was significant. Although Labour has never controlled the local council, its two parliamentary seats are key targets for next year’s general election.

It is further evidence that May 4 is being seen by party bosses as a dry run for 2024.

“Two months ago, those around Keir were saying that Swindon will be the barometer,” one senior Labour insider told HuffPost UK. “I think we’re looking good there, but they’re not leaving anything to chance.”

In all, 8,141 seats and 230 councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are up for grabs next month.

The Tories currently hold 3,290 of them, with Labour on 2,062 and the Lib Dems on 1,205. Independents and others make up the remaining 1,600 seats.

One source said: “People probably have their expectations in the wrong places. They expect this to be a complete bloodbath for the Tories, with Labour hoovering up hundreds of seats.

“But the key thing to look out for is where Labour is winning and what our vote share is compared to the 2019 general election.”

No Labour supporter will need reminding of what happened in 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn led the party to its worst defeat since 1935.

With Corbyn now blocked from standing as a Labour candidate next year, Starmer wants to convince voters that it will be a very different party next time round.

Keir Starmer takes a selfie with shadow cabinet members and Labour members at the party's local election launch in Swindon.
Keir Starmer takes a selfie with shadow cabinet members and Labour members at the party’s local election launch in Swindon.

Stefan Rousseau via PA Wire/PA Images

One shadow cabinet member pointed out that the last time these council seats were contested four years ago, the Tories did so badly that it cost Theresa May her job.

“A lot of Tories went independent in 2019 and the chances are they will switch back this time,” he said.

“The narrative for us has to be what Labour does nationally and how we perform in they key seats we need to win next year. We’re concentrating our resources there.

“If we wake up on May 5 and the BBC story is ‘Tories lose 100 seats and Labour win 200 so the general election is too close to call’ we’ll have done a bad job of managing people’s expectations.”

Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s campaign director, reinforced that message in his own address to the shadow cabinet.

“He said that the Tories and us are going to be campaigning in different places,” a source told HuffPost UK. “So just because the response we get on the door will feel good, the Tories will be relentlessly working the areas they lost in 2019 and will win some of them back.”

Nevertheless, the mood among Tory MPs remains gloomy. One minister, having seen the returns from Conservative canvassers around the country, recently told a Labour colleague: “You’ll have my job next year – we are fucked.”

Starmer hopes that the local elections are indeed a stepping stone on his road to 10 Downing Street.

Share Button

MP Accuses Tories Of ‘Witch Hunt’ After Refusal To Give Him Party Whip Back

Posted on by
Reply

A senior MP has accused the Tories of conducting a “witch hunt” against him after his appeal to have the party whip restored was turned down.

Julian Knight said he should be welcomed back into the Conservative fold after being cleared by police of a sexual assault allegation.

But government chief whip Simon Hart rejected his appeal after “further complaints” were made against him.

“These complaints, if appropriate, will be referred to the relevant police force, or appropriate bodies,” Hart said.

Knight, who has been MP for Solihull since 2015, hit back: “This statement from the chief whip smacks of [a] desperate attempt to cover up the identities and motives of those in parliament who colluded for many months to bring the false allegation against me to the police.

“The police have confirmed today that there is no evidence to support that allegation and closed their investigation. They did not even need to interview me to do so.

“Yet the whips office now seems intent on continuing a witch hunt against me in an attempt to prevent my naming names.”

Knight, who is chairman of the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee, recused himself from parliament last December.

Earlier this afternoon he hit out at the Tory whips for publicly naming him when the first allegation against him was made.

He said: “Their actions meant my name was dragged through the mud and my good reputation immeasurably damaged.

“The conduct of one person in the whips office, and the language used towards me, was particularly egregious.”

Knight also took aim at the police for the way they handled their investigation into him.

“Had the police taken the simple step at outset of interviewing me under caution, they would have seen that the allegation was false and scandalous,” he said.

“Instead, they waited four months, without ever talking to me, before deciding there was nothing for them to investigate.

“I have been left effectively to prove my innocence through my public statements and letters to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the chief whip. That cannot be right.

“It is now my intention to use every legal route available to pursue those inside and outside parliament involved in having this allegation brought against me.”

Share Button

Jeremy Corbyn Set To Run Against Labour After Being Blocked By Keir Starmer

Posted on by
Reply

Jeremy Corbyn has dropped a major hint that he will stand against Labour at the next general election.

The former party leader said he had “no intention of stopping” being the MP for Islington North, the seat he has represented for 40 years.

He spoke out after Labour’s ruling NEC backed Keir Starmer’s bid to stop him being a candidate for the party next year.

Corbyn has been sitting as an independent since losing the Labour whip in 2020 after claiming anti-semitism in the party while he was leader had been “overstated” by his political opponents.

Officials voted 22-12 in favour of a motion in Starmer’s name which said Labour’s election chances would be “significantly diminished” if Corbyn is allowed to run again.

Corbyn, who led Labour from 2015 until 2020, said the move was “a shameful attack on party democracy, party members and natural justice”.

In a statement, he said: “Today’s disgraceful move shows contempt for the millions of people who voted for our party in 2017 and 2019, and will demotivate those who still believe in the importance of a transformative Labour government.

“Keir Starmer has instead launched an assault on the rights of his own Labour members, breaking his pledge to build a united and democratic party that advances social, economic and climate justice.

“I will not be intimidated into silence. I have spent my life fighting for a fairer society on behalf of the people of Islington North, and I have no intention of stopping now.”

Corbyn supporters have also condemned the decision to block his candidacy.

John McDonnell, who was shadow chancellor when Corbyn was leader, told Times Radio: “We’ve got a general election in 18 months time. We need to mobilise the whole of the party: left, right and centre. And this is so divisive, and it’ll demoralised quite a few people.

“And actually I think it might, in many ways, cost us votes in a number of constituencies. So I think it’s a really bad mistake.”

Meanwhile, Momentum founder Jon Lansman compared Starmer to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Share Button

‘She Told Him Where To Stick It’: Kate Forbes Rejects Humza Yousaf Job Offer

Posted on by
Reply

Kate Forbes has quit the Scottish government after new first minister Humza Yousaf tried to demote her.

The former finance secretary, who was narrowly defeated by Yousaf in the race to succeed Nicola Sturgeon, was offered the rural affairs brief in his new cabinet.

A source close to Forbes said she “told him where to stick it” and resigned instead.

The move is a major setback for Yousaf as he tries to unite the SNP after being elected party leader yesterday.

Yousaf defeated Forbes by 52% to 48% following a bitter five-week leadership contest, during which she criticised his record as a minister.

However, he had signalled he intended to heal the divisions by taking a “Team SNP” approach to forming his new government.

He said: “Where there are divisions to heal, we must do so quickly.”

Forbes will now return to the backbenches.

A senior SNP figure told HuffPost UK: “It’s a very poor start by Humza. He’s essentially ignoring the wishes of nearly half the party members.”

Share Button

Humza Yousaf Needs To Unite His Warring Party Before He Can Lead His Country

Posted on by
Reply

Humza Yousaf had better not be a superstitious man.

In a quirk of fate, his winning margin of victory over Kate Forbes in the SNP leadership contest was 52% to 48% – exactly the same result which saw Leave defeat Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Scotland’s first minister-elect (his elevation to the role will be confirmed by the Scottish Parliament tomorrow) will hope that history does not repeat itself in the aftermath of his success.

It has taken nearly seven exhausting years of bitter political battles for the UK to finally begin to come to terms with life outside the EU, although of course many will never reconcile themselves to that reality.

Yousaf must somehow bring his party back together in a much shorter space of time before he can even begin to think about leading his country.

The challenge facing him was perfectly encapsulated by a revealing tweet by SNP MSP Karen Adam.

She told her followers she was “relieved” that Yousaf had won – and, by extension, that Forbes had lost. What’s more, her post was then re-tweeted by the SNP’s official Twitter account.

Karen Adam's tweet - and the SNP's re-tweeting of it - demonstrated the bitter splits in the party.
Karen Adam’s tweet – and the SNP’s re-tweeting of it – demonstrated the bitter splits in the party.

Mike Russell – the SNP’s acting chief executive who admitted the party is in “a tremendous mess” during the leadership contest – was also refreshingly honest in the immediate aftermath of Yousaf’s victory.

Asked by Times Radio if the party could unite behind their new leader, he would only say: “The potential for unity exists.”

The fact remains, however, that despite being the SNP establishment candidate, Yousaf won by just 2,000 votes against a candidate who was roundly pilloried at the start of the campaign over her opposition to gay marriage and having children outside wedlock.

One senior SNP figure pointed out that at the start of the leadership campaign, Yousaf’s approval rating among the public was minus 16. By the end, it was minus 20.

“The more people see of him, the less they like him,” they said.

One MP told HuffPost UK that having failed to win the support of more than half of party members in the first round of voting (he got 48%), uniting the party behind him will be extraordinarily difficult.

“It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of Humza or the campaign he run,” the MP said.

“He’ll also not have enjoyed having to actually work for it. His sense of entitlement is off the charts.”

The fractious nature of the debate served only to highlight the deep divisions which Nicola Sturgeon had managed to keep a lid on for so long.

In his acceptance speech, Yousaf said: “The people of Scotland need independence now more than ever before, and we will be the generation that delivers independence for Scotland.”

He may find that bringing together the warring SNP tribes may be a harder task than persuading Scots that their best interests lie outside the United Kingdom.

Share Button

Labour Backs Laughing Gas Ban To Tackle Anti-Social Behaviour

Posted on by
Reply

Labour has backed the government’s proposed ban on the sale of laughing gas, saying it is a “blight” on communities.

Nitrous oxide will be banned under plans to tackle anti-social behaviour, Michael Gove announced on Sunday.

Senior Labour MP Lucy Powell agreed with the proposal and called for enforcement.

The shadow culture secretary told Sky’s Sophy Ridge: “I think we want to see it banned as well because I think it does cause a huge amount of littering, of disruption and of antisocial behaviour challenges as well.

“We do need to tackle at source these kind of crimes – well sometimes they’re not crimes – these kind of behaviours that are blights on our communities.

“It’s something when I go door knocking in my constituency in Manchester Central and I go out meeting residents – anti-social behaviour is probably the number one issue that they raise with me.”

Gove told the BBC nitrous oxide can have a “damaging effect on young brains” and its public use can lead to “greater lawlessness”.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recently advised against new laws to ban nitrous oxide.

Nitrous oxide, sold in metal canisters, is known as NOS and is the second most-used drug by UK 16 to 24-year-olds.

Confirming the ban on laughing gas, Gove told Sky: “I think anyone who has the opportunity to walk through our parks in our major cities will have seen these little silver canisters, which are examples of people not only spoiling public spaces but taking a drug which can have a psychological and neurological effect and one that contributes to antisocial behaviour overall.”

Share Button

Boris Johnson Is A ‘Man Of Integrity’, Cabinet Minister Insists

Posted on by
Reply

Boris Johnson is a “man of integrity” and “puts the country first”, a Cabinet minister has insisted.

Levelling up secretary Michael Gove said he believes everything Johnson said when he was hauled in front of MPs last week.

The former prime minister was interrogated by seven MPs over statements he made to parliament about the partygate scandal.

Johnson swore “hand on heart” that he did not lie to the House of Commons during the high stakes hearing with the privileges committee.

Their inquiry into whether he led misled parliament has the potential to end his political career.

However, Gove told Sky News Johnson is a “man of integrity” and is someone who “puts the country first”.

He went on to tell the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme he believed the former prime minister’s evidence.

Asked if Johnson had always told the truth, Gove said: “I think that all of us will at some point have told a white lie or an untruth.

“But I think the fundamental thing here —and again the privileges committee will make up its own mind, it has looked at all the evidence — but what was Boris’ argument? He was working incredibly hard, every hour that the lord sent in order to try and do the right thing.

“He believed that saying thank you to people who were leaving in the cramped and confined circumstances of 10 Downing Street was part of that job. Did he attend those events in a spirit of self-indulgence? No, he did so in order to show his gratitude to those who were working with him.”

Gove said he was inclined to give Johnson “not just the benefit of the doubt” but to believe him when he “places his hand on his heart”.

Johnson swore on the King James Bible to tell the truth before accepting that he misled MPs but insisted his partygate denials were made “in good faith” based on what he “honestly” knew at the time.

Johnson said if it was so “obvious” that rule-breaking was going on in No.10, then it would also have been “obvious” to others, including Rishi Sunak.

He also argued the process had been “manifestly unfair” and said if the inquiry is accusing him of lying, then it is also levelling the same charge at civil servants, advisers and MPs.

If the committee decides Johnson did mislead MPs – and the Commons backs suspending him for 10 days or more – he could face a by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

However, there is a long process to get through before the saga potentially reaches that stage.

Share Button