Tag Archives: conservative party

Tories Shamed Over UK’s Polluted Water Supply: ‘They Turned A Blind Eye’

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The Conservatives have been torn apart by a Labour MP after thousands were impacted by a parasite in their water supply last week.

Approximately 16,000 households and businesses in Brixham, Devon, have been urged to boil their water before use after traces of cryptosporidium were found and some people were hospitalised with the bug.

South West Water has promised to pay £3.5m in compensation to customers impacted by the diarrhoea-inducing parasite – but others are still holding the government responsible.

Speaking in the Commons on Monday, shadow minister Emma Hardy said: “Another day, another example of the depths of failure that this government have taken us.

“I cannot believe that I am about to say this, but after 14 long years of Conservative rule, in 21st Century Britain, our water is no longer safer to drink.

“The government will of course be flailing around, desperate for someone else to blame, but this crisis is theirs.”

She called for the government to take responsibility for the ongoing issue, blaming them for weakening regulations around the UK’s Victorian-era sewage system.

“They turned a blind eye and left water companies to illegally pump a tidal wave of raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas,” Hardy said.

The Labour MP recalled that her party had warned the Conservatives last week about the health implications of the UK’s contaminated water.

She said: “Is this an example of their plan working? Is this what they think success looks like? And now this, the icing on the cake of failure – a parasite outbreak in Brixham, with South West Water?”

More than 100 people have reported symptoms and two others, including a 13-year-old boy, have been admitted to hospital.

“This is appalling. Enough is enough,” Hardy said.

She called for the government to put the water companies under special regulations, to make law-breaking bosses face criminal charges and for company bonuses to stop until the crisis is addressed.

Concerns about the cleanliness of UK water has been a pressing concern for some years now.

According to Surfers Against Sewage, there were more than 584,000 discharges of raw sewage into UK waterways last year alone – and 75% of UK rivers pose a serious risk to human health.

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Wes Streeting Rejects Archbishop Of Canterbury’s Call To Axe Two-Child Benefit Cap

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Wes Streeting has rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s call for the “cruel” two-child benefit cap to be scrapped.

The shadow health secretary said that although he personally opposed the policy, he could not promise that an incoming Labour government would end it.

The two-child cap was brought in by the Tories as part of their efforts to slash the welfare bill.

It means that families only receive Universal Credit or child tax credit payments for the first two children they have.

Welby told The Observer: “The two-child limit falls short of our values as a society. It denies the truth that all children are of equal and immeasurable worth, and will have an impact on their long-term health, wellbeing and educational outcomes.

“Shamefully, children from ethnic minorities and homes where someone is disabled are most affected.

“Children should grow up in families and households where they can flourish and be supported to find their place in the world. Yet the two-child limit prevents many from accessing the resources they need.

“This cruel policy is neither moral nor necessary. We are a country that can and should provide for those most in need, following the example of Jesus Christ, who served the poorest in society. As a meaningful step towards ending poverty, and recognising the growing concern across the political spectrum, I urge all parties to commit to abolishing the two-child limit.”

Appearing on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News this morning, Streeting said he “really welcomed” the Archbishop’s intervention, but could not commit to agreeing to his request.

He said: “One of the consequences of the Conservatives’ disastrous
handling of the economy is the public finances are in a mess and there are harder choices to make.

“So unless and until I can sit on your programme and say we will do X by funding it through Y, that’s not a commitment I’m able to make today.”

Streeting added: “I voted against the two child limit, so by definition, I wish it
wasn’t there. But as we’ve seen across the board, it’s a lot easier to get rid of stuff that is to put stuff back.

“And that’s the frustrating thing about the vandalism we’ve seen through
14 years of conservative government.”

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Yet Another Senior Tory MP Is Quitting Parliament As The Party Heads For Defeat

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A cabinet minister has become the latest Tory MP to announce they are quitting parliament as the party braces itself for election defeat.

Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said it had been an “honour and a privilege” to represent Daventry since being elected in 2010.

But in a letter to Rishi Sunak, he said: “I feel the time is right for me to look for new challenges.”

That total is edging ever-closer to the 75 Tory MPs who said they were standing down ahead of the 1997 Labour landslide.

Announcing his decision on X (formerly Twitter), Heaton-Harris, who was a Tory MEP for 10 years before entering the Commons, said: “After 24 years in politics I won’t be standing at the next election.

“It’s been an honour and a privilege to serve and I’d like to thank the good people of Daventry, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak for putting their trust in me.

“I started as a campaigner and I’ll be out campaigning for Conservatives at the next election because we are the only party that has and can deliver for the whole of the United Kingdom.”

In his letter to the prime minister, Heaton-Harris said he planned to remain as Northern Ireland secretary “but obviously would understand if you feel it best to replace me”.

His announcement comes as the Tories continue to trail well behind Labour in the opinion polls and with election experts unanimous in their view that the party is heading for a heavy defeat when the election takes place later this year.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg Has A Plan For A Tory Election Victory – But Not Even Tory HQ Likes It

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Jacob Rees-Mogg has a new plan to make sure the Conservatives win the next general election – but it’s not exactly popular.

Speaking on his GB News show last night, the former cabinet minister and current backbencher announced his plan to “reunite the right” with a “big, open, comprehensive offer to those in Reform”.

Yes, that’s Reform UK, a party originally set up by famous Brexit campaigner and ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage, now run by Richard Tice and Ben Habib.

Reform currently has just one MP, Lee Anderson, who defected from the Tories earlier this year shortly after resigning as the Conservative Party deputy chair.

It’s thought Reform could end up splitting the right-wing vote when the public next hit the ballot box.

So, Rees-Mogg suggested bringing famous right-wing figures back into the Conservative fold.

He said: “With the help of Nigel Farage in a Conservative government, with Boris Johnson probably returning as foreign secretary, as well [as] welcoming the likes of Ben Habib and Richard Tice into the Conservative Party.”

His nod to the former prime minister is no surprise, considering he served in his government.

The MP also claimed in his “Moggologue” that a truly Conservative government would then be able to look at “slashing migration”, “rolling back the disastrous green agenda” and “abolishing the Equality Act”.

He even suggested that if Farage rejoined Reform, the party would shoot up to 16% in the polls, just 5% behind the Tories – so merging the two parties together would take the Conservatives up to Labour’s current polling at just over 40 percentage points.

He said it is by doing so, “winning the next election is well within reach”.

However, the Conservative Campaign Headquarters told POLITICO’s Playbook they were “unequivocally” ruling out this idea.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats called for the Tories to suspend the whip.

The party’s deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, said the Conservatives are “a shambolic mess” with MPs in “open revolt” against Sunak.

“If the Prime Minister had any bottle he would suspend the whip from Rees-Mogg and rule out Nigel Farage being allowed into the Conservative Party,” she said, and called for a general election.

There is no denying that the Conservatives’ electoral chances are currently in dire straits – polling gurus predict there is a 95-99% of a Labour victory – but people could not help but laugh at this idea…

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Grant Shapps Fails To Float Anyone’s Boat With Bewildering New Pledge: ‘None The Wiser’

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Grant Shapps’s latest efforts to promote his government have turned into a bit of a shipwreck, judging from the online reaction.

The defence secretary was on the broadcast round this morning to discuss the “new golden age of British shipbuilding”.

He announced that the UK would be building 28 new ships and submarines for the Royal Navy, including “up to six new warships”.

But eagle-eyed critics on X (formerly Twitter) were quick to notice that Shapps was curiously inconsistent around the details.

For instance, the pledge sounded quite similar to another, relatively recent promise from the Conservatives – Boris Johnson’s famous vow to build up to 40 new hospitals.

Just last year, a review from parliament’s Public Accounts Committee concluded that it had “no confidence” the government would ever deliver on this promise.

People were also completely mystified over exactly how many ships were included in this promise.

Shapps said the government was looking to build 28 ships – but then changed it to “up to 28”.

Many critics also picked up on Shapps’s confusing conflation of the six ships the government promised to build two years ago and his current pledge.

He told journalists that the Tories had the “desire to” build these boats two years ago – but did not have the “means”.

He claimed that now the UK’s defence spending has increased, the government does have the means – and so will finally be following through on this two-year-old pledge.

So…how many is the government actually building? Social media seemed to decide it was anybody’s guess.

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Mishal Husain Slams Tories’ ‘Economic Competence’ In Spat With Jeremy Hunt

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Mishal Husain did not let Jeremy Hunt boast about the UK’s economic growth today and reminded him of the disasters the country has faced under the Tories.

While the chancellor was celebrating the news from the ONS that the UK is officially out of recession, the Today programme host kicked off the interview by saying: “It’s not a strong recovery is it?

“Some people would call it anaemic. You’re not calling it strong are you?

“That’s not what it is. The economy has barely grown over the last two years.”

Hunt claimed over the last quarter, the UK had the joint-highest growth in the G7– and then blamed slow growth on the Bank of England’s high interest rates.

Husain hit back: “You’re portraying yourself as the people in whose hands the economy is safe, and yet many voters, particularly those who are perhaps finding themselves re-mortgaging this month on higher rates and seeing the facts that fixed rate mortgage deals have been edging up – and others – will be remembering what happened under Liz Truss and that mini-budget.

“And they’ll say: ‘How can you possibly, after the events of the last two and half years, portray yourself as the party of economy competence?’”

Sunak’s predecessor unveiled £45bn of unfunded tax cuts in her mini-budget in 2022, causing the pound to plummet.

“Well, there were some mistakes that were made in that mini-budget and we corrected them within weeks,” the chancellor said.

He also pointed to the energy shock triggered by the Ukraine war and said it was “just wrong” to attribute all price rises to the mini-budget.

“But, it wasn’t economically competent, was it, to do that?” Husain pushed. “And do you accept that it’s fair for voters to go into the next election, remembering that happened under the Conservatives?”

Hunt said the “overall picture” shows that the UK has grown faster than France, Germany, Italy and Japan since the Conservatives took over in 2010.

He also pointed to the IMF’s predictions that the UK would continue to grow faster over the next six years.

He failed to mention that the think tank OECD predicted last week the UK would be the second slowest-growing economy in 2024, and the slowest in 2025.

Hunt maintained that voters support the Conservative Party because “they trust us to take tough and difficult decisions in the long-term interest of the economy”.

“You’re asking us to ignore Liz Truss, aren’t you? To say Liz Truss never happened,” Husain said – which Hunt denied.

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Sophy Ridge Skewers Minister With 1 Gut-Punching Point About Ex-Tory MP’s Defection To Labour

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Sky News’ Sophy Ridge made a very good point when asking a government minister about Natalie Elphicke’s recent defection to Labour.

The ex-Tory MP dramatically crossed the floor yesterday and released a statement accusing Rishi Sunak of “failing to keep our borders safe”.

Elphicke was seen to be on the right of the Conservative Party and has repeatedly shared her hardline views about illegal immigration – while regularly criticising Labour’s own policies on immigration.

Last night, science secretary Michelle Donelan said her defection to Labour over immigration was therefore “completely and utterly nonsensical”.

“That’s the thing though isn’t it,” Ridge replied. “How bad does she think your plan is? She must think it’s really bad.”

“I don’t think that’s about our plan at all,” Donelan said.

Ridge replied: “Well it is, that’s what she said it’s about – that she doesn’t trust Rishi [Sunak] to deliver on illegal immigration.

“She doesn’t think Labour’s plan is great, but she thinks yours is even worse.”

The miniter said it was more about Elphicke’s judgement and that government’s plan was already getting illegal immigration down by a third.

The Sky News host said: “Sorry, illegal immigration is down by a third? What stats are those?”

When the minister explained she was talking about the boat crossings, Ridge cut across and said: “Currently, it’s at record levels.”

“Yeah but we haven’t finished the year – I meant annually,” Donelan replied.

“At this point in the year, it’s at record levels of small boat crossings. It’s not down by a third,” Ridge said.

The minister then blamed the figures on the delay in passing the Rwanda bill through parliament.

She also said the new act was already working as a deterrent as Ireland have been complaining that more refugees are arriving from the UK.

But Ridge replied: “I’m happy to say it’s a deterrent when we have evidence it’s a deterrent. Right now, it’s a deterrent for people already in the UK. Which I’m guessing, is not what you’re aiming for.”

Donelan continually tried to say the government has a “multi-prong strategy” but the Sky News host repeatedly reminded her: “It hasn’t worked!”

“Just having a plan isn’t enough,” Ridge reminded her.

Explaining how she empathises with Britons’ frustration over the issue, Donelan said: “I always view it as one of our values, fairness.

“It’s inherent in our values – we literally invented the queue.

“It’s downright unfair that illegal immigrants think they can bypass our systems and come here after having been in a safe country, and that’s what we are determined to stop.”

Actually, academics previously told The Times that is a “mistaken idea” that Brits invented the queue.

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Rishi Sunak’s ‘Hung Parliament’ Prediction In Tatters As Labour Takes 30-Point Poll Lead

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Labour has taken a 30-point opinion poll lead over the Tories – just days after Rishi Sunak said the UK was heading for a hung parliament.

YouGov put support for Keir Starmer’s party on 48%, with the Conservatives on just 18%.

Reform UK are just five points behind the Tories on 13%, with the Lib Dems on 9% and the Greens on 7%.

It is the biggest lead Labour has enjoyed since Liz Truss’s disastrous time as prime minister.

The poll is yet another hammer blow for Sunak, who is still reeling from Natalie Elphicke’s shock defection to Labour yesterday.

Earlier this week, the PM said last week’s local elections – in which the Tories lost nearly 500 council seats – “suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party”.

But according to the Electoral Calculus website, Labour would have a 452-seat majority if the YouGov poll was replicated at the general election, with the Tories left with just 13 seats.

Announcing his decision on X (formerly Twitter) he said: “The time is right for a new, energetic Conservative to fight for the honour of representing Stratford-on-Avon.”

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Susanna Reid Skewers Calls For Boris Johnson’s Return To Government With 1 Stark Reminder

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Susanna Reid effortlessly demolished calls for Boris Johnson to return to frontline politics on Tuesday by reminding his supporters about nothing other than partygate.

Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, former Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman said he would install Johnson as party chairman with a seat in cabinet, and make sure he got elected to parliament at the next general election.

He claimed: “He’s a great campaigner and we really are missing that now – we’ve seen that at these disastrous local elections.”

“You remember partygate?” Reid interjected.

Johnson actually stepped down as an MP days before the Commons privileges committee was set to announce he deliberately misled parliament over partygate when prime minister.

But, Campbell Bannerman said the ex-PM was “set up” on that, as Johnson’s keen ally Nadine Dorries claims in her book, The Plot.

Reid said: “Sorry, he was set up? Set up by whom?”

When the ex-MEP said it was Johnson’s own staff who were setting him up, Reid reminded him: “Boris Johnson was in charge during lockdown, [there was] legislation he introduced and [he] then proceeded to have a whole load of social events and breach of rules in No.10 Downing Street.

“In what way was that a set-up?”

Campbell Bannerman claimed Johnson “doesn’t like partying” to which Reid said: “I just saw him with a wine glass in his hand!”

When the ex-MEP just claimed the reality is very complex, Reid recalled how Johnson was fined for breaching lockdown rules.

Campbell Bannerman then claimed that “it was the media”, and said that Johnson was only a few percentage points behind in the polls – and that he does not understand why he resigned as an MP.

“I think he will be back,” Campbell Bannerman said.

Apparently not deterred by Reid’s reminders, the ex-MEP later added: “I say to Conservative MPs, for heaven’s sake, step up, get rid of Sunak, let’s have a new leader, which can bring Boris back as part of a team – it has to be Suella [Braverman] or Kemi [Badenoch].”

He added that he “would not be averse” to having Nigel Farage back into the Conservative fold, too.

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Rishi Sunak Has Admitted Labour Are On Course To Win The General Election

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Labour are on course to win the general election, Rishi Sunak has admitted.

In extraordinary remarks, the prime minister said they will be “the largest party” after the country goes to the polls.

However, he insisted an analysis of last week’s local elections, in which the Tories lost nearly 500 seats, showed Keir Starmer will not win a majority and will need to be “propped up by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and Greens”.

That was a reference to a projection by the polling expert Michael Thrasher, who said the local elections suggest Labour’s lead over the Conservatives is just seven points, well short of what opinion polls have been saying for months.

If that was repeated at the general election, it would leave Starmer short of an overall majority, Thrasher said.

Speaking to The Times, Sunak said: “These results suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party.

“Keir Starmer propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens would be a disaster for Britain.

“The country doesn’t need more political horse trading, but action. We are the only party that has a plan to deliver on the priorities of the people.”

However, other polling experts pointed out that Thrasher’s forecast was based on the assumption that Scotland – where there were no local elections last week – would vote the same way it did in 2019, when Labour won just one seat.

A senior Labour source told HuffPost UK: “That Sunak has put his name to this bollocks is utterly demeaning. He really is a totally empty vessel.”

A former Tory minister said: “It’s a stupid line because he’s essentially telling people to vote Labour to kick us out.”

Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips yesterday accused transport secretary Mark Harper of “grabbing at straws” after he also claimed the local election results showed the opinion polls “are not correct”.

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