UK launches search for ‘town of culture’ among places ‘written out of national story’

Too many places have been “written out of the national story”, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said as she launched a search for the UK’s first “town of culture”.The town of culture designation comes after the success of the cities of culture programme, which has put Derry, Hull, Coventry and, this year, Bradford in the limelight for a year, boosting the local economy, tourism, civic pride and access to the arts, according to its supporters.The government said the first winning town would get £3.5m to help it develop a cultural programme in the summer of 2028.The competition for the 2029 UK city of culture has also opened, with the winner being promised £10m, the first time the government has put an upfront figure on its contribution

Lettings agency takes blame in Rachel Reeves licence row

Keir Starmer appears to have escaped the huge political damage of potentially losing his chancellor weeks before the budget, after 24 hours of intense scrutiny over whether Rachel Reeves broke the law when she rented out her family home.The Conservatives said Reeves must be sacked if she committed an offence by not obtaining a council licence before letting out her four-bedroom house in south London when the family moved into 11 Downing Street. No 10 was initially unable to explain why Starmer believed an apology from the chancellor was sufficient.But after a chaotic day, the lettings agency employed by Reeves said it was to blame for not applying for the licence, and apologised for the error.Emails subsequently released by Downing Street between the agency and Reeves’s husband, Nicholas Joicey, a senior civil servant, supported this version of events

Starmer feels the effects of setting high standards for his party in opposition

There is a theory in British politics, often attributed to Tony Blair, that you need to be careful about throwing a boomerang in opposition, because when you make it to power it could come back and hit you in the face.As opposition leader, Keir Starmer became adept at landing blows on the Conservatives. Over the Partygate scandal in particular, he called for Boris Johnson to quit over his rule-breaking. “You cannot be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker and it’s time to pack his bags,” he said.After Durham police launched an investigation into whether he had broken lockdown rules himself over having a beer and curry at a campaign event, he took a huge political gamble and said he would quit if he was found guilty

Reeves says she should have checked rental licence had been obtained as letting agent apologises – as it happened

Downing Street has now released the new material.Here is the letter from Rachel Reeves to the PM explaining what happened.She says the letting agency had told the family that they would sort out the licence, and failed to do so. But she accepts that it should have been her responsibility to check that this had happened.The lettings agency that rented out Rachel Reeves’s family home has taken responsibility for the failure to apply for a council licence and apologised for the error, quashing speculation about the chancellor’s position

What has Rachel Reeves done wrong – and how serious are things for her?

Less than a month before she is due to deliver the budget, Rachel Reeves has admitted breaking rules by failing to apply for a licence from her local council before letting out her south London home.Keir Starmer accepted an apology from Reeves, who said she had not known a licence was required, and declared the matter closed.However, there was a further development on Thursday when Reeves found emails showing that the letting agent for the property had told her husband that a licence would be necessary. The property manager offered to submit the application for them and then failed to do so – having resigned before the tenancy started.Reeves told the prime minister she took “full responsibility” for the failure to obtain a licence and that she was sorry for not finding the information sooner

How one bad oyster did for the Liberal party | Letter

The article on oysters (The £1 oyster: cut-price shellfish is all the rage – but is eating it advisable?, 27 October) brought to mind the significant role that a single oyster played historically in the decline of the Liberal party.In December 1914, Percy Illingworth, the universally respected Liberal chief whip, ate what turned out to be a bad oyster and died soon after from typhoid, aged only 45.Thereafter, Herbert Asquith had immense difficulty in finding an effective and trusted chief whip, finally ending up, in the hung parliament following the 1923 general election, with Vivian Phillipps, whose fatal flaw was that his personal loyalty to Asquith was coupled to a deep dislike of David Lloyd George.As the problematic parliamentary arithmetic of the first Labour govenment played out over the months of 1924, the split between Asquith and Lloyd George deepened, and Phillipps was unable to exercise the crucial unifying chief whip role, with disastrous results for the Liberal party thereafter.Thus a single oyster changed British political history