Tag Archives: Politics

Major Boost For Rishi Sunak As Tories See Off Labour Challenge In Uxbridge

Posted on by
Reply

The Conservatives have narrowly beaten Labour to retain Boris Johnson’s former seat following a bitter by-election campaign.

In a major blow for Keir Starmer, Steve Tuckwell beat Tory candidate Danny Beales by just 495 votes to become the new MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

The by-election was called following Johnson’s dramatic resignation last month after he was found guilty by the privileges committee of repeatedly lying to parliament over partygate.

The former prime minister retained the seat with a majority of 7,210 at the 2019 election.

Tuckwell received 13,965 votes to Beales’s 13,470 to claim the constituency for the Tories once again.

The Conservatives effectively turned the by-election into a referendum on Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to expand London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across the whole of the city from next month.

The result of a huge boost for Rishi Sunak, who had been braced for the Tories to lose the seat, given the unpopularity of the government and Labour’s commanding lead in the national polls.

A Labour spokesperson said: “This was always going to be a difficult battle in a seat that has never had a Labour MP and we didn’t even win in 1997. We know that the Conservatives crashing the economy has hit working people hard, so it’s unsurprising that the ULEZ expansion was a concern for voters here in a by-election.”

Elsewhere, Labour have won the Selby and Ainsty by-election after toppling one of the safest Tory seats in the country.

And in the third by-election of the night, the Lib Dems pulled off a stunning victory in a previously safe Tory seat of Somerton and Frome.

Despite the Conservatives avoiding a three-nil defeat, the swing in the vote went away from the Tories in every seat.

Share Button

Trump’s Plan To Expand Presidential Powers Faces Republican Resistance

Posted on by
Reply

WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump’s sweeping plans to remake the presidency ― and give himself more power than ever if he is elected to the White House again ― have met with a chilly reception from members of his own party in Congress.

The former president and his allies are vowing to bring independent federal agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission under direct presidential control, revive the practice of “impounding” funds appropriated by Congress, and strip employment protections for thousands of civil servants in the executive branch, ostensibly to replace them with Trump’s own chosen political appointees.

The proposals, outlined in a New York Times story earlier this week, stem from years of Trump’s grievances about the so-called “deep state”, the media, and Congress itself standing in the way of his autocratic tendencies. They hinge on a thesis, long popular on the right, called “unitary executive theory”, a model where the president has sole power over the entire executive branch of government, including independent agencies and even federal prosecutors ― like, say, the ones investigating the president himself.

Republican Senator JD Vance, who has already endorsed Trump’s bid for a second term, said Trump’s power grab would be necessary to rein in the power of bureaucrats and agency officials. He called Trump’s plan to give the presidency even more power “necessary to have a constitutional republic”.

“To have true separation of powers, the president has to have the prerogative over the administration of laws,” Vance told HuffPost. “If you have all these alphabet soup agencies where the bureaucrats can’t be fired and aren’t under control of the president, you’ve effectively created a fourth branch of government totally unaccountable to the people. That’s a real problem.”

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Russ Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget and a leading proponent of the power grab, told the Times.

There is some debate on the left about how seriously to treat the scheme, and whether it’s just campaign fodder that likely wouldn’t become law. For now, it is clear Democrats in Congress would unanimously oppose the plans, with at least some Senate Republicans prepared to join them. An expansion of presidential power would ultimately come at a steep cost to members of Congress, who prize their ability to oversee industries and appropriate funds.

Top Republican appropriators also voiced their opposition to the idea of reviving the president’s impoundment authority. Congress in 1974 passed a law banning the tactic after a fight with President Richard Nixon, who withheld $40 billion in funding that Congress had passed during in his first term in office. Reviving the practice would require another act of Congress.

“The Constitution is very clear about the role of Congress and the power of the purse, so I would not do so,” Senator Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate appropriations committee, told HuffPost.

“I don’t think I agree” with the plans of the Trump team, Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who also serves on the committee, said. “I want to have the independence of an appropriator.”

Republicans who serve on the Senate commerce committee were similarly wary of ways Trump could infringe on their power.

“I think those are independent agencies designed to be that way for obvious reasons, so I’m not sure what that accomplishes,” Senator John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told HuffPost, when asked if he would support bringing the FTC and FCC under presidential control.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz ― chair of the commerce committee, which oversees the two agencies ― didn’t endorse the plan, either. He instead shifted to bashing FTC Chair Lina Khan, a top target of Republicans due to her aggressive strategy in taking on big tech companies.

“I will say Lina Khan’s abuse of power of the FTC is going to add considerable momentum to congressional efforts to rein in out-of-control, supposedly independent agencies,” Cruz said.

Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who also serves on the commerce committee, said he “would have to look very, very carefully” at any proposal to bring the agencies under executive control. He expressed his desire to see the FTC and FCC act in a nonpartisan manner.

According to the Times, Trump’s allies are drafting an executive order that would require independent agencies to submit actions to the White House for review. The move, if enacted under a second Trump presidency, would likely face a legal challenge.

“I think it’s very important for us to remember that he can’t just wave a wand and invalidate the statutory structure for these expert agencies,” Democrat Senator Brian Schatz said of the twice-impeached former president. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. The law is the law. If he wants to change the structure of the agency, then he’s going to have to ask someone to introduce a bill.”

Schatz said that if Trump wants to change the structure of federal agencies, he should do so by appointing commissioners who agree with him.

“It’s exciting to think of the new ways that Mr Trump would do damage, and it’s always worth worrying about, but the truth is there are statutes in place and he’s going to have to abide by them,” Schatz said.

Share Button

Marjorie Taylor Greene Shows Photos Of Naked Hunter Biden At IRS Whistleblower Hearing

Posted on by
Reply

WASHINGTON — A pair of career IRS agents told the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that the Justice Department stifled their investigation into tax crimes by the son of US president Joe Biden and pursued weaker charges than they had recommended.

But some Republicans did not want to delve into the whistleblower allegations, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who used her question time during the hearing to display what appeared to be naked pictures of Hunter Biden obtained from his laptop.

“What’s even more troubling to me is that the Department of Justice has brought no charges against Hunter Biden that will vindicate the rights of these women,” Greene said, holding up pictures that appeared to show the president’s son making sex tapes with women whom Greene claimed were sex workers.

“Should we be displaying this, Mr. Chairman?” the committee’s top Democrat Representative Jamie Raskin asked committee Republican chair James Comer, who did not answer.

Naked pictures of Hunter Biden are exactly the sort of sordid material that Comer once said he considered “very counter to a credible investigation”.

Comer had called the hearing to hear from IRS whistleblowers who have claimed the Justice Department prevented them from taking investigatory steps they thought were warranted to bring charges against the president’s son.

The younger Biden has been open about his addictions to drugs and alcohol spiralling out of control following his brother’s death in 2015. He made questionable business deals with foreign nationals that earned him millions and created an appearance of conflict of interest because of his father’s government service. He’s due in court next week on misdemeanour charges relating to his alleged failure to pay tax on income he earned in 2017 and 2018.

The IRS whistleblowers said they recommended he be charged with felonies, but their recommendations were rebuffed by Justice Department officials in an unusual manner. And they said the federal prosecutor overseeing the case, US Attorney David Weiss, a holdover from the Donald Trump administration, told them he couldn’t bring charges outside of Delaware. Weiss and US Attorney General Merrick Garland have insisted Weiss had complete authority to bring charges however he wanted.

The hearing did not resolve the contradiction between the IRS agents’ previous allegations and the denials from the Justice Department. In their public testimony, the agents essentially repeated what they’d already told lawmakers in a private deposition.

“It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the US attorney in Delaware, in our investigation, was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalised by DOJ officials as well as other US attorneys,” IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler told the House Oversight Committee.

The other whistleblower, Gary Shapley, a supervisory agent in the IRS criminal division, said he didn’t know if Garland had deliberately lied.

“I have never claimed to have evidence that Attorney General Garland knowingly lied to Congress,” Shapley said.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said Republicans would move to impeach Garland if the whistleblower testimony proves true. “We need to get to the facts, and that includes reconciling these clear disparities,” McCarthy said in June.

The allegation that the Justice Department went easy on a member of the president’s family has become a centrepiece of an overarching Republican message that there’s a two-tier justice system persecuting Trump and his supporters and protecting the Bidens. The former president has been indicted on federal charges related to retaining classified public documents and he could face additional charges for his efforts to undo the 2020 election.

Democrats suggested the discrepancy between statements from the Justice Department and the whistleblowers reflected their frustration with the common phenomenon of prosecutors not following through on investigators’ recommendations.

“I think you have a tough view on what you think the law should be. This is why we have a prosecutorial system,” Democrat Representative Ro Khanna said. “It turns out, often your recommendations on who should be charged differ from some of the other folks, and that’s what happened in this case.”

Shapley testified that such disagreements occur in “the vast majority” of cases but insisted the Hunter Biden case was different from any other he’d worked on.

Raskin said it appeared Hunter Biden had not received any favouritism.

“The fact that Hunter Biden faced a four-year criminal probe involving dozens of agents and prosecutors from the IRS, the FBI, the US attorney’s office in Delaware,” Raskin said, “demonstrates in my mind at least that he received no special treatment, but arguably tougher treatment than the millions of people who never faced criminal investigation for doing the same thing.”

Share Button

Grant Shapps Mocked For ‘Invoicing’ Labour For Damage Caused By Just Stop Oil

Posted on by
Reply

Grant Shapps has faced ridicule for “invoicing” the Labour Party for damage caused to a government department building by activists Just Stop Oil.

Two campaigners from the climate group have admitted spraying orange paint onto the department for energy security and net zero’s headquarters in Westminster on Wednesday after it issued more than 100 new oil and gas licences in the UK.

In a letter to Labour leader Keir Starmer, Shapps, who runs the department as energy security and net zero secretary, made a spurious link between the opposition party and Just Stop Oil.

It’s based on Dale Vince, the green energy entrepreneur, donating money to Just Stop Oil and some Labour politicians, including leader Starmer.

But that’s not the same as Just Stop Oil funding the Labour Party. Yet, Shapps claims Labour are the “political wing” of Just Stop Oil.

It’s a familiar attack line from the Conservatives – and one that fell apart under light scrutiny on BBC Question Time.

By that principle, the Conservatives would be responsible for any of its donors’ actions – which could be eye-wateringly expensive.

In his letter, Shapps said: “I am writing to you to ask you to pay to repair the damage to the department. The British public should not have to foot the bill for your mates in Just Stop Oil.”

Shapps claimed the damages are worth £3,000 to £4,000, adding: “We will send you the invoice.”

Just Stop Oil activists last Friday disrupted the opening night of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall after running on to the stage, setting off confetti cannon and sounding air horns.

On the same night, three activists interrupted the start of the live Channel 4 comedy show, The Last Leg.

Protesters have also disrupted sporting events across Britain this year, including the Ashes and Wimbledon, as well as other events such as the Chelsea Flower Show.

No-one on Twitter seemed especially persuaded by the Shapps “stunt”.

Share Button

Barge To Accommodate Asylum Seekers Docks In The UK

Posted on by
Reply

A vessel that will house up to 500 asylum seekers arrived in the UK on Tuesday after parliament passed its long-debated bill to curb migration.

The barge Bibby Stockholm was pulled by a tug into Portland harbor, off the Dorset coast in south west England, after the government’s controversial legislation overcame resistance in the House of Lords and was passed.

The vessel and the bill are both parts of prime minister Rishi Sunak’s strategy to stop migrants from making risky English Channel crossings in small boats. The legislation will become law after receiving the assent of King Charles III.

The Conservative government has pledged to “stop the boats” – overcrowded dinghies and other small craft that cross from northern France carrying migrants who hope to live in the UK. More than 45,000 people crossed the Channel to Britain in 2022; several died in the attempt.

The bill is intended to deter those journeys and will prevent migrants from claiming asylum in the UK. if they arrive illegally. Under the legislation, those caught will be sent back home or deported to another safe country and banned from ever re-entering the UK.

The government planned to send some of those who arrive without authorisation to Rwanda, but last month the Court of Appeal ruled it was illegal. The government is appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Sunak cheered the passage of the bill but said the government must prevail at the higher court for the law to function properly.

“This is an important part of our work to stop the boats. Obviously it needs to be paired with the Rwanda partnership,” said Sunak’s spokesperson, Max Blain. “It’s right that we have this power in place so it can be utilised swiftly and we remain confident we will be successful in the challenge in the Supreme Court.”

The bill was approved after an all-night tussle on Monday between the House of Commons, where the governing Conservatives have a majority, and the unelected House of Lords, which can amend but not block legislation.

Elected MPs defeated amendments that would have included protections for modern slavery and child detention limits.

The United Nations human rights and refugee chiefs said the bill was at odds with Britain’s obligations under international law and will have “profound consequences” for people seeking protection.

The UN warned that the law would even deny protection to children with legitimate claims who are traveling without parents – some of whom might have survived human trafficking.

The Bibby Stockholm is expected to start housing people in two weeks. Its arrival on Tuesday at the port inspired two groups of protesters opposed to it.

Some locals are worried about the impact new arrivals will have on their town. A second group, Stand Up to Racism, said it welcomed refugees but objected to what it calls a “prison barge”.

Share Button

‘What Planet Are They On?’: Tory Minister Slammed Over Private School Fees Claim

Posted on by
Reply

A Tory minister has been criticised after claiming the cost of sending a child to private school can be the same as a family holiday abroad.

Education secretary Gillian Keegan made the comments as she attacked Labour’s plan to remove the private school sector’s charitable status.

Speaking in the Commons, Keegan said: “Most of our private schools aren’t like Eton or Harrow – they’re far smaller and they charge a lot less.

″Many cost the same as a family holiday abroad and there’s plenty of parents who choose to forego life’s luxuries to give their children these opportunities.”

Shadow education secretary Bridget Philipson pointed out that average private school fees are around £16,000 a year – eight times the average cost of a foreign holiday.

“It’s not just Rishi Sunak that hasn’t got a clue,” she tweeted. “What planet are this lot on?”

Share Button

Kemi Badenoch Put On The Spot Over Failure To Sign US-UK Free Trade Deal

Posted on by
Reply

Business secretary Kemi Badenoch was put on the spot on Sunday morning over the failure of the government to secure a free trade deal with United States, as had been promised by many Brexiteers.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Badenoch was repeatedly pressed on the topic.

“There is no sign of that American trade deal that is promised,” Kuenssberg said.

“That Brexit promise of a sort of buccaneering Britain massively benefiting from trading around the world, that just has not come to pass has it?”

Badenoch said the lack of a trade deal with the US was because of the “change of administration” from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

“We can’t force other countries to do things that are different from what they want to do,” she said.

Kuenssberg pressed: “But that was a promise that was made to British voters.”

Badenoch said: “That was an agreement that was had with the previous president. You cannot force countries to join free trade agreements.”

Kuenssberg added: “So, it was a promise then that you were never going to be able to keep?”

A free trade deal with the US was one of the main selling points for Brexiteers in the run-up to the 2016 referendum.

But Liz Truss finally admitted in September last year – during her short time as prime minister – that it was not going to happen any time soon.

Rishi Sunak also conceded on a trip to Washington in June that an agreement was no longer “a priority” for either side.

Badenoch was speaking to the programme from New Zealand signed the UK up to the the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The trade zone of around 500 million people includes Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Badenoch hailed the agreement as having “so much potential” as “the world is our oyster”.

But the government’s own assessment of the deal suggests it could add only 0.08% to the size of the UK’s economy in 10 years.

Share Button

Keir Starmer Says Labour Will Keep The Tory Two-Child Benefits Cap

Posted on by
Reply

Keir Starmer has said he would keep the Conservative government’s controversial two-child cap on benefits if Labour win the election.

The announcement is likely to anger many within his own party as the policy has been condemned for “pushing families into deep poverty”.

Under the cap, parents are not able to claim child tax credit or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017.

It was designed to try and force parents of larger families to fin new jobs or work more hours.

The policy was described just last month by Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Jon Ashworth as “heinous”.

In February 2020, Starmer said in a tweet he wanted to “scrap” it in order to “tackle the vast social injustice in our country”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme this morning, the Labour leader was asked if the cap would be removed.

But Starmer said: “We are not changing that policy.”

Later in the interview he said that “of course” it was worth him angering people on the left of Labour if it was necessary to win the election.

“The Labour Party was created to give working people not just representation in parliament but a government in parliament that can govern on their behalf and change the lives of millions of people for the better,” he said.

“I have been changing the Labour Party to put us in a position where we are now credible contenders for the next election.”

The Child Poverty Action Group (Cpag) has warned the cap is “pushing families into deep poverty”.

According to the charity, it affects 1.5 million children including 1.1 million children growing up in poverty, with their families are missing out on up to £3,235 a year.

“The impact of growing up in poverty can be lifelong,” it warned. “Abolishing the two-child limit is the most cost-effective way of reducing child poverty.

Cpag said scrapping it – at a cost of £1.3bn – would lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and a further 850,000 children would be in less deep poverty.

In an interview with the Daily Mirror on June 3, Ashworth said the cap was “absolutely keeping children in poverty”.

“At this stage we are not outlining our full universal credit reform policy but we are certainly determined to tackle child poverty,” he said.

“We are very, very aware that this is one of the single most heinous elements of the system which is pushing children and families into poverty today.”

During a debate in parliament last week, Labour MP Kim Johnson joined with many Labour MPs to call for Starmer to commit to ditching the cap.

“We need to end this horrendous two-child policy and ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive and grow and not live in poverty,” she said.

“The cap has done immeasurable damage to so many families in this country, impacting poverty and driving more families into poverty.”

Humza Yousaf, the Scottish first minister, said: “Poverty experts say scrapping the two-child limit would lift up to 15,000 children in Scotland out of poverty.

“Why on earth is Starmer committed to keeping this cruel Tory policy? Only the SNP offer real change and the chance to escape Westminster control with independence.”

Share Button

Hunter Biden’s Lawyer Sends Cease-And-Desist Letter To Trump Legal Team

Posted on by
Reply

A lawyer for Hunter Biden sent a cease-and-desist letter to Donald Trump’s legal team on Thursday, warning the former president to stop spreading dangerous rhetoric online, ABC News first reported.

In the letter, attorney Abbe Lowell argued that Trump’s posts and language “could lead to [Hunter Biden’s] or his family’s injury”, citing several examples from recent months.

Trump has frequently targeted Hunter Biden — in fact, Lowell claimed in the letter that his name has appeared more than 20 times in Trump’s posts in July alone.

This week, Trump dragged in Hunter Biden’s name amid an investigation of a small baggie of cocaine found this month near a visitor entrance at the White House, suggesting the cocaine might have belonged to Hunter Biden, who is a recovering addict.

“You know, if Mr Trump does not, that Mr. Biden has neither committed nor been accused of the charges that your client is claiming … and that the Biden family was not at the White House (let alone in the vestibule) in the period when the cocaine was found,” Lowell wrote. The Secret Service concluded the cocaine investigation on Thursday with no suspect found.

A day later, Trump put up a post attacking David Weiss, the federal prosecutor who oversaw Hunter Biden’s tax investigation, according to the letter. Biden reached an agreement in June and will plead guilty to some federal charges. Trump called Weiss a “coward” and asserted that he “gave out a traffic ticket instead of a death sentence”.

“You may respond that this was a mere figure of speech. However, we have seen that what might pass as such a phrase when uttered by [rational] people is heard by too many in this country as some terrible injustice for which they must take physical and violent action,” Lowell wrote in the letter, referring to Trump’s alleged incitement of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Throughout the letter, Lowell continued to cite notable examples of Trump using dangerous rhetoric and language to incite violence. Last month, Trump also posted on his social media site the alleged address of former President Barack Obama’s Washington, DC, residence, NBC News reported. The post was reshared by Capitol riot defendant Taylor Taranto, who was arrested June 29 after approaching Obama’s house while his van was parked nearby with weapons inside.

“This is not a false alarm,” Lowell wrote in the letter. “We are just one such social media message away from another incident, and you should make clear to Mr Trump ― if you have not done so already ― that Mr Trump’s words have caused harm in the past and threaten to do so again if he does not stop.”

Trump has faced legal repercussions for rhetoric he has spread both online and offline, which, as Lowell cautioned in the letter, has the potential to escalate if he doesn’t dial back on it. The attorney encouraged the former president’s legal team to explain to him “how his incitement can further hurt people and cause himself even more legal trouble”.

HuffPost reached out to Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina, who declined to comment.

Share Button

Tory Minister Doubles Down On Mickey Mouse Mural Removal: ‘Clearly The Correct Decision’

Posted on by
Reply

The Conservative government has made clear it is unrepentant over removing murals of cartoon characters at an asylum centre for children in Dover.

It was immigration minister Robert Jenrick who ordered the artwork of Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters be painted over last week, the i newspaper revealed.

Jenrick reportedly felt they gave the impression Britain was too “welcoming” to people crossing the English Channel in small boats.

The Kent Intake Unit mainly processes children who arrive solo unaccompanied by an adult. The move comes as Rishi Sunak’s government has made cracking down on immigration one of its central goals.

In the House of Lords on Tuesday, minister for migration and borders, Lord Murray of Blidworth, dismissed the concerns of Labour’s Lord Dubs, who fled the Nazis as a child.

Lord Dubs said: “The minister has just said that the government takes the welfare of unaccompanied children seriously.

“How does that relate to the arrival centre in Dover which had cartoons and welcoming signs for children and which were ordered to be removed by the Home Office minister because it might make the children feel too welcome? Isn’t that a disgrace?”

Lord Murray responded: “The murals he refers to were provided by our detention contractors and were not commissioned or approved by the Home Office.

“It is clearly the correct decision that these facilities have the requisite decoration befitting their purpose.”

Conservative peer Lord Brownlow responded by saying he was “quite frankly ashamed at your last answer minister”, adding: “I think people in this House and the wider community would have preferred your answer to have been ‘it was a mistake to paint over those murals and that a contractor would be commissioned to repaint them’.

“We are a welcoming country and whilst I accept the bill is needed to deter it is time we showed some compassion.”

In response, Lord Murray said: “This is a detention facility for those who entered the country unlawfully and it’s appropriate that it be decorated in a manner which reflects its purpose.”

The government has pledged to stop overcrowded dinghies making the journey from northern France to the UK. More than 45,000 people arrived in Britain across the Channel in 2022, and several died in the attempt.

The courts have ruled the plan to deport refugees to Rwanda is unlawful.

Share Button