Politics

Boris Johnson has not ruled out shortages continuing until Christmas, but said the festive period this year will be “considerably better” than last year. “I’m very confident this Christmas will be considerably better,” the prime minister said during a visit to a youth club in Manchester. Live updates from the Conservative Party conference When it

Boris Johnson has not ruled out a further relaxation of immigration rules to help ease the UK’s fuel and supply shortages – but the prime minister insisted he does not want to see a return to “a lot of low-wage immigration”. Amid the continuing queues at petrol stations across the country, the government has said

Staff in care homes who don’t receive both vaccine jabs ahead of a looming deadline should “get out and get another job”, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has warned. His warning comes ahead of the 11 November legal deadline for care home workers to have had both COVID-19 jabs, but some unions and care homes are

The golden rule of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives is that an otherwise disparate party is at its most happy when it’s talking about Brexit and its consequences. At times of stress, it’s the trump card the PM routinely reaches for. Given the stage of the country, expect it to feature heavily during the party conference. As

The policing minister has said it would be “perfectly reasonable” for anyone being approached by a lone police officer to call 999 and seek reassurance in the wake of the rape and murder of Sarah Everard. Speaking to Sky News’ Kay Burley, Kit Malthouse gave advice on what people should do if they are approached

Sir Keir Starmer has said the Labour conference this week was a turning point for the party and it now has a “credible programme” to win the next general election. The Labour leader, speaking the morning after his 90-minute keynote speech, said if voters do not want to support the plans put forward at conference

The government’s coronavirus furlough scheme ends today after supporting millions of workers during the pandemic. Ministers say the wages of more than 11 million jobs were subsidised for at least some of the scheme’s duration, at a cost of about £70bn. There is now uncertainty over the almost one million people still thought to be

Sir Keir Starmer has been on quite a journey in the past 18 months Elected leader in April 2020 on a message of party unity and continuity, he has travelled a long way from that starting point. And it was on Wednesday that he finally crystallised what that really means as he faced down the

Sir Keir Starmer batted away hecklers during a mammoth speech in which he used his personal experiences to show off his human side as he announced a key climate change policy. Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, introduced Sir Keir before his conference speech by thanking the Labour leader for helping prosecute his

Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly refused to say if he is moving Labour away from the left to the centre of British politics, but insisted: “You can’t lose four elections and not change”. On the eve of his first in-person Labour conference speech as party leader, Sir Keir said he was focussed on turning Labour

Ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has revealed he spoke to Andy McDonald before he announced he was quitting Sir Keir Starmer’s top team – but he denied there had been “some deep-laid Machiavellian plot”. Sir Keir has been rocked by the resignation of Mr McDonald as shadow secretary of state for employment rights and protections midway

Sir Keir Starmer is being warned that his party’s Brighton conference is “falling apart” following the dramatic resignation of a shadow minister. The Labour leader has been rocked by Andy McDonald’s decision to quit as shadow secretary of state for employment rights and protections midway through the party’s gathering on the South Coast. Mr McDonald’s

Brexit is “obviously a contributory factor” to the shortage of HGV drivers that is having a knock-on effect across the economy, the shadow chancellor has told Sky News. Speaking to Kay Burley from the Labour Party conference in Brighton, Rachel Reeves said: “To deny that I think flies in the face of reality. Fuel supply

Sir Keir Starmer will look to move on from a row over his reforms of the Labour rulebook during the third day of the party’s conference in Brighton. After a bruising battle over his shake-up of the rules for party leadership contests – which saw the Labour leader forced to water down his initial proposals

Angela Rayner has declined to apologise for calling the Conservatives “scum”, saying she was using “street language” to convey her “anger and frustration” at the actions of the government. Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sunday on Sky News, Labour’s deputy leader said the comments were made “post-watershed…with a group of activists at an event last

Sir Keir Starmer’s watered-down proposals for changing Labour’s rulebook will be put to the party’s conference in Brighton following a bruising internal row. The Labour leader has been forced into retreat, amid opposition from trade unions and the party’s left wing, in his bid to alter the rules on how his future successors are elected.

Labour’s conference is opening in Brighton after Sir Keir Starmer was forced into a humiliating retreat over his attempt to re-write the party’s rulebook. He had to put his reforms on hold after a backlash from unions and party activists, in what left-wing MPs said was an own goal that had weakened his authority. The

Will Britain elect a prime minister people see as weak? This unfortunate question is one Sir Keir Starmer must confront on the eve of his first in-person party conference as Labour leader, however personally painful he finds it. Can he reverse voters’ first impressions of him by taking on his party in Brighton then imprinting

Labour have made a pitch to be the “party of home ownership” ahead of their annual conference.  The party have unveiled plans to force developers to sell homes to first-time buyers for six months after construction. They also propose to stop foreign buyers purchasing “swathes” of new developments, by capping the number of flats which

Dealing with David Cameron’s multiple texts, WhatsApp messages, emails and phone calls “did not take up a very significant part” of the Treasury’s time, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has told MPs investigating the Greensill lobbying scandal. Earlier this year, ex-prime minister Mr Cameron was revealed to have bombarded government ministers and officials – as well as