Tag Archives: Politics

Trump Addresses Andrew’s Arrest As Former Prince Released From Custody

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Donald Trump has described Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest as “a shame” and “a very sad thing”.

The former prince was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office today while his homes in Norfolk and Berkshire were searched by police.

He was released under investigation this evening and police officers have since concluded searching his home on the Sandringham estate.

The royal’s arrest comes after documents released by the US Congress revealed dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s extensive friendships, including with Andrew.

Appearing in the dossier is not an indication of wrongdoing.

Andrew has always denied all allegations of wrongdoing in connection to Epstein.

The US president, who is also named in the documents, told reporters today that he thought Andrew’s arrest is a “shame”.

He said: “I think it’s a shame. I think it’s very sad. I think it’s so bad for the royal family. It’s very, very sad. To me, it’s a very sad thing.”

“To see it, and to see what’s going on with his brother [Charles] who’s obviously coming to our country very soon, he’s a fantastic man – King,” he said, referring to Charles.

Trump continued: “It’s really interesting, because nobody used to speak about Epstein when he was alive, and now they speak, but I’m the one that can talk about it because I’ve been totally exonerated.”

Referring to his own appearance in the files, he added: “I did nothing, in fact, the opposite. He [Epstein] was against me. He was fighting me in the election which I just found out throughout the last three million pages of documents.”

Asked if any American associates of Epstein would be arrested, Trump said: “I’m the expert in a way because I’ve been totally exonerated.”

Police said in a statement this evening: “Thames Valley Police is able to provide an update in relation to an investigation into the offence of misconduct in public office.

“On Thursday we arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

“The arrested man has now been released under investigation.

“We can also confirm that our searches in Norfolk have now concluded.”

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Trump Changes His Mind On Starmer’s Chagos Deal Again, Calling It A ‘Blight’ On The UK

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Donald Trump has attacked Keir Starmer’s Chagos deal once again, describing it as a “big mistake” and a “blight” on the UK.

The UK government announced last year that it was going to pay Mauritius £9 billion over the next 99 years so the UK-US military base at Diego Garcia will continue to operate as it does at the moment.

The US president initially seemed in favour of the deal but, at the height of his row with Europe over the sovereignty of Greenland in January, he changed his mind.

He accused Britain of giving away the “vital US military base” for “NO REASON WHATSOEVER”.

He then backtracked just two weeks ago, after a phone call with the prime minister, describing it as the best deal Starmer “could make”, though he warned that the US retains “the right to militarily secure and reinforce the American presence in Diego Garcia”.

The US did give its official backing to the UK’s plan to cede sovereignty of the territory only on Tuesday.

However, Trump has just changed his mind again, writing on TruthSocial that he has told Starmer “leases are no good when it comes to countries”.

He claimed to have warned the PM that “he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 year lease”.

He added: “Prime minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before. In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature.”

Trump suggested the US might need the archipelago if Iran does not agree to a new nuclear deal.

The president concluded: “We will always be ready, willing, and able to fight for the UK, but they have to remain strong in the face of Wokeism.”

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The deal to secure the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia military is crucial to the security of the UK and our key allies, and to keeping the British people safe.

“The agreement we have reached is the only way to guarantee the long-term future of this vital military base.”

Talks between the US and Mauritius are scheduled for next week.

Read Trump’s full message below:

I have been telling Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, that Leases are no good when it comes to Countries, and that he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 Year Lease with whoever it is that is “claiming” Right, Title, and Interest to Diego Garcia, strategically located in the Indian Ocean. Our relationship with the United Kingdom is a strong and powerful one, and it has been for many years, but Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before. In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature. Should Iran decide not to make a Deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime — An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly Countries. Prime Minister Starmer should not lose control, for any reason, of Diego Garcia, by entering a tenuous, at best, 100 Year Lease. This land should not be taken away from the U.K. and, if it is allowed to be, it will be a blight on our Great Ally. We will always be ready, willing, and able to fight for the U.K., but they have to remain strong in the face of Wokeism, and other problems put before them. DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The post should be taken as the policy of the Trump administration, it’s coming straight from the horse’s mouth.

“When you see it on Truth Social you know it’s directly from President Trump, that’s the beauty of this president in his transparency and relaying this administration’s policies.”

Tory shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said these remarks will be an “utter humiliation” for Starmer.

She said: “It’s time Starmer finally saw sense, U-turned and scrapped this appalling deal altogether.”

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey wrote on X: “Trump’s endless flip-flopping on the Chagos Islands shows why Starmer’s approach is doomed to fail.

“Britain can’t rely on the US while Trump is in the White House. It’s time to strengthen our ties with allies we can depend on, starting with our neighbours in Europe.”

Reform’s Nigel Farage also said: “Thank goodness Trump has vetoed the surrender of the Chagos islands.”

Four people who live on the Chagos island also set up camp on the archipelago’s remote atoll this week to protest the deal.

They refused to leave, despite facing eviction threats from the UK maritime patrol.

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Green By-Election Candidate Slaps Down Reform Rival’s Offer For Head-To-Head Debate

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The Green Party candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election has rejected her Reform rival’s invitation for a head-to-head debate.

While both parties have described the crunch contest to win another seat in parliament as a case of “Green vs Reform”, Hannah Spencer hit back at Matt Goodwin by pointing out they had already debated in two public forums.

Meanwhile, Labour insisted the Reform move demonstrated they were picking up more support in the traditionally red seat that expected.

It comes as the contest in the Greater Manchester, expected to be a three-horse race between the Greens, Labour and Reform, heats up.

In a post on X, Goodwin wrote: “I am hereby challenging the Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer to a one-on-one debate about the future of Gorton & Denton.”

In his attached letter to Spencer, the GB News preseneter said previous platforms had only offered one-minute answers to multiple candidates, meaning there was “limited room for a serious discussion”.

“As you have said yourself, this by-election is now a two-horse race between Reform and the Green Party,” he said, claiming there had been plenty of “misinformation” about the run-up to polling day.

He offered for it to be hosted by a Green-friendly platform with a moderator of their choosing, with his “only condition” being that it is recorded and published in full afterwards.

But, in a message to HuffPost UK, Spencer hit back: “Hi Matt, we literally just debated in the BBC studio and last week at the Manchester Evening News hustings.

“It’s not a game of the best of three. It sounds like you’re concerned you didn’t come across very well and want another go.

“I’m not sure anyone wants any more of your hot air and I’m focusing my time now on knocking on doors to talk about what really matters to the people of Gorton and Denton.”

Labour told HuffPost UK this race was “Labour versus Reform” last week.

Following on from Goodwin’s offer, a Labour spokesperson said: “This is a cynical move from a campaign that knows its struggling, and that the Labour vote is holding.

“While Matthew and Hannah play student politics, Labour’s Angeliki Stogia is busy, out on the doors, listening to what matters to the people of Gorton and Denton.”

Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell also responded to Goodwin’s letter, saying: “Funny. Matt knows what we know – he’s not doing as well as he’d hoped so is trying to big up the Greens (again) as his only route to victory is to split and suppress the Labour vote (which he knows is holding).

“That, or he’s frit after Angeliki slayed him at the hustings.”

An almighty row broke out at the Manchester Evening News’ debate last week when Stogia told Goodwin that “women are scared to leave the house” due to the rise in far-right rhetoric.

He replied: “I’m not going to be lectured to by a Labour politician from a party that consistently failed to investigate the mass rape and sexual abuse of working-class kids in this country for 30 years.

“And the reason I have security is because I have very real threats to my life in an area where people assure me everything is fine, and clearly in some parts of this country integration is not working as it should be.”

These spats come after Labour have mocked the Greens for misspelling “Gorton” on some campaign posters, while Rayner previously joked Reform could not find the constituency “on a map”.

There are 11 candidates standing in the by-election in total, including Charlotte Anne Cadden for the Conservatives and Jackie Pearcey for the Liberal Democrats.

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Labour Dubbed A ‘Zombie Government’ After Starmer Commits To Yet Another U-Turn

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The government is facing fresh backlash after U-turning on their plans to postpone elections for 30 local authorities.

Labour originally offered 63 councils the chance to delay their May local elections amid wider plans to re-organise local governments.

Ministers said 30 agreed to delay, pointing to the cost of holding elections during the council rejig.

But critics claimed the government’s move was motivated by a fear of losing those local elections, which Labour denied.

However, local government secretary Steve Reed has now decided to “withdraw his decision” to postpone the elections “in the light of legal advice”.

The reverse-ferret came as Reform UK prepared to take the government to court, so Nigel Farage is heralding it as a victory.

The government is now looking to “agree an order” with Reform to end the case and has promised to “pay the claimant’s costs of these proceedings’.

A total of 136 local authority areas across England will now hold elections in the spring – along with elections to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament.

The government will be offering £63 million in new funding to help with the reorganising.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said: “Following legal advice, the government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.

“Providing certainty to councils about their local elections is now the most crucial thing and all local elections will now go ahead in May 2026.”

Farage told Sky News that the U-turn was “extraordinary”, claiming: “We were due [in court] this Thursday. They’ve caved, they’ve collapsed. It’s a victory for Reform.

“But more importantly, it’s a victory for democracy in this country.”

The MP for Clacton then called Reed’s future in the government into question.

He said: “What I do think now is the minister, Steve Reed, has clearly acted illegally. And given that the government has now given in, knew they’d lose to us in court, I think Steve Reed’s question as a minister should now be debated.”

Meanwhile, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “This is a zombie government. U-turn, after U-turn, after U-turn.

“No plan or programme to deliver anything. Even the simple stuff that should be business as usual gets messed up.

“And we’ve got three more years of this, because Labour MPs don’t want an early election – they know they will lose their seats.”

She also claimed Reed has “very serious questions to answer on whether political considerations were behind his decision”.

“He must come clean or we will use every means at our disposal to get to the truth,” she said.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “The Liberal Democrats have fought tooth and nail to stop this stitch-up and the government has been forced into a humiliating U-turn.

“Labour are terrified of Reform and we are the only party willing to stand up to Farage and beat him, as we do week after week in council by-elections.”

He also called on Starmer to support his party’s plans to stop governments from being allowed to “cancel elections on a whim ever again”.

Labour MP Florence Eshalomi – Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee – said: “I welcome this development.

“As I argued previously, democracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out during local government reorganisation process.”

She added: “Councils should not have been put in the position of choosing between frontline services or elections.

“I welcome the indication that the government will provide additional resources to ensure that local council elections can take place and look forward to seeing more detail on this.”

Councilor Richard Wright, Chair of the District Councils’ Network, said: “Council officers, councillors and local electorates will be bewildered by the unrelenting changes to the electoral timetable.

“Councils were assured by the government that elections could be legally cancelled but now it seems ministers have come to the opposite conclusion.

“It’s the government, not councils that have acted in good faith, which should bear responsibility for this mess which impacts on people’s faith in our cherished local democracy.”

He added: “We need to have faith in the government’s decision-making as we work on the biggest shake-up of councils in 50 years – but the government is doing little assure us that it has a strong grasp of the huge legal complexity involved.”

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‘F*** Away To Russia’: Ukrainian President Hits Out As Fresh Peace Talks Loom

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fumed at the idea of handing more territory to Russia in an angry social media post and called for the west to expel all Russians.

More peace negotiations are set to take place in Geneva this week but Moscow continues to drag its feet and stick to its maximalist demands.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the “main issue” to be discussed between diplomats from Ukraine, Russia and the US will be the matter of territory.

Despite already holding a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign land, Russia wants Ukraine to give up the entirety of its Donbas region in the east as part of a peace deal.

Kyiv has repeatedly rejected this call and refuses to withdraw its troops, even though the US is pushing for a peace deal sooner rather than later.

In a series of posts on X, the Ukrainian president Zelenskyy said it was a “big mistake” to ever reward the aggressor.

Pointing to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and Vladimir Putin’s occupation of parts of Georgia and Chechnya, Zelenskyy said: “Many mistakes were made.

“That’s why now I don’t want to be the President who will repeat the mistakes made by my predecessors or other people.”

The president said: “I’m not just talking about Ukraine. I’m speaking about the leaders of different countries that allowed an aggressive country like Russia to come onto their territory.

“Because you can’t stop Putin with your kisses or flowers.

“I never did it and that’s why I don’t feel that it’s the right way.”

Zelenskyy said that even giving into that demand from Putin would enable him to rebuild his military at a time when he “is losing 30–35 thousand people per month now”.

Instead, he called for stricter sanctions on Russia and the expulsion of Russians from the US and Europe.

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This is a big mistake to allow the aggressor to take something. It was a big mistake at the very beginning, starting with 2014. And even before that, during the attack and occupation of parts of Georgia. And even before that, when Chechnya was occupied, with total destruction and…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 16, 2026

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This is a big mistake to allow the aggressor to take something. It was a big mistake at the very beginning, starting with 2014. And even before that, during the attack and occupation of parts of Georgia. And even before that, when Chechnya was occupied, with total destruction and…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 16, 2026

Zelenskyy said: “Total sanctions means total. President Trump took strong steps sanctioning Lukoil and Rosneft. We are thankful to him. He can sanction all of their energy, in particular nuclear energy. And it will be a powerful message to the Europeans.

“Europeans have done a lot. But they haven’t yet sanctioned Russian nuclear energy, Rosatom, the persons and their relatives, their children, who live off their money in Europe, in the United States, who pay with these profits for their education at European universities, who own real estate in the United States. A lot of real estate. They financially support children and relatives everywhere.”

Speaking directly to the Russians who still live in the US and Europe, he said: “Fuck away to Russia. Go home. You don’t respect anybody in the United States. You don’t respect the rules. You don’t respect democracy. You don’t respect Ukraine or Europe. Go home.”

Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump insists that both Ukraine and Russia “want to make a deal” – though he continues to baselessly accuse Kyiv of holding up the talks.

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