Author: Miles Donavan

The government’s plan for change is clear in its determination to give every child the best start in life. Restoring the health in pregnancy grant would be a relatively low-cost, proven mechanism to do this. Ben Cooper is Research Manager at the Fabian Society. Later this year, the government will publish its child poverty strategy. It will be an opportunity to show how tackling child poverty will transform lives. Much of the focus will rightly be on announcements around the two-child limit, which the Fabian Society recommended should be scrapped. However, there should also be a commitment to support parents…

‘With this law, we are changing the balance of power in Britain and ensuring that the State can never hide from the people it is supposed to serve.” The long-awaited Hillsborough Law, which will force public officials to tell the truth during investigations into major disasters, is being introduced into Parliament today by the Labour government. The landmark Public Office (Accountability) Bill, widely known as the ‘Hillsborough Law’ will force public bodies to cooperate with investigations into major disasters and will compel public officials to act with honesty and integrity at all times and they could face criminal prosecution if…

Reform is becoming more Tory 2.0 by the day A former Tory health minister under Boris Johnson Maria Caulfield, who lost her seat in the 2024 election, has defected to Reform. Caulfield, who returned to nursing after being ousted as MP for Lewes by Lib Dem James MacCleary, told right-wing channel GB News that she had joined Reform a month ago. Caulfield said:  “If you are Conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot.” At their party conference in Birmingham ten days ago, Reform platformed anti-vaxxer and consultant cardiologist Aseem Malhotra, who linked…

And a vote will be held on the party’s official name next month… Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have announced that their new party, temporarily named Your Party, will hold its inaugural conference in November. In an email to supporters, Your Party has said it will open membership applications by the end of September, two months before the conference. Precise dates have not yet been given for the conference. However, the email said that “thousands” of delegates will be “chosen by lottery to ensure a fair balance of gender, region and background”. A vote will also be held in October…

‘Reform’s paper to council is full of conspiracy theories and garbage science.’ Reform UK’s attempt to scrap Kent County Council’s climate emergency declaration has been blasted by opposition councillors. The motion, which will be debated at full council on Thursday, argues that the declaration, which was introduced in 2019, “has had no discernible effect on the world’s climate”. It also claims that the declaration is “stifling debate” and “has endorsed the unproven view of anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change”.  Reform is also calling for the council to scrap its target of achieving net zero emissions in its operations by 2030.  According…

‘Honestly he should go back to running his car company and as I think the Americans would say, butt out of our politics.’ Labour’s Ed Miliband has slammed Elon Musk as a ‘publicity seeking narcissist’ who should ‘butt out of our politics’, after the tech billionaire was accused of ‘inciting violence’, following his appearance at a rally organised by far-right thug Tommy Robinson. Musk appeared at the Unite the Kingdom protest on the weekend via video link where he addressed the crowd and told them: “You’re in a fundamental situation here where whether you choose violence or not violence is…

He seems to have forgotten that he’s no anti-establishment outsider, having been a Tory MP and a member of a party which failed the country for 14 years. Danny Kruger has become the first sitting Tory MP to defect to Reform UK, and tried to portray himself as anti-establishment in the process, for which he has rightly been mocked. Kruger, the MP for East Wiltshire, who was elected in 2019, has been a shadow work and pensions minister under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership. Announcing his defection, Kruger said: “The Conservative Party is over, over as a national party, over as the…

‘Trump’s politics are not welcome here. This second state visit is a stain on our collective consciousness.’ Activists from Fossil Free London protested inside Windsor Castle yesterday against Donald Trump’s state visit. Trump’s second UK state visit will begin tomorrow and last until Thursday 18 September.  In the grounds of the castle, the group of climate activists unveiled a banner with a photo of President Trump which read: ‘Climate criminal. War criminal. The only place he’s welcome is The Hague’. They also chanted “climate criminal, war criminal, Trump’s not welcome here”, drawing attention to his record on climate change and…

To mark International Day of Democracy today, campaigners are calling on the Prime Minister to overhaul the relationship between government and people To mark International Day of Democracy today, campaigners are calling on the Prime Minister to overhaul the relationship between government and people and to introduce a radical programme of democratisation. In a letter to Keir Starmer, leading democracy and civil society advocates have cautioned the PM against the temptation to hoard power in Whitehall. Instead, signatories urge Starmer to use ‘phase 2’ of his premiership to “lead a democratic revolution – rewiring the relationship between Whitehall and the…

The Reform leader failed to register a trip to the US where he headlined at a Republican fundraising event Nigel Farage has admitted to breaking parliamentary rules by failing to declare a trip to the US where he spoke at a Donald Trump fundraiser. The Reform leader did not record the trip in his register of interests, despite being required to do so. Farage was the main speaker at a $500 per head Republican party dinner in Florida in March.  Guests could even pay up to $25,000 (£18,440) for a “Trump sponsor” package at the dinner, which included photos with…