Boris Johnson to cut short Australian book tour due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’

Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson will cut short his Australian book tour after cancelling a Melbourne event this week.Johnson was due to speak at a dinner at the Sofitel hotel in Melbourne on Saturday to promote his political memoir, Unleashed. The event was to follow another show in Sydney, which will go ahead on Friday.Australian publicist Max Markson, who has been promoting the tour, confirmed the Melbourne cancellation to Guardian Australia.“Due to unforeseen circumstances, Mr Johnson has to travel back to the UK a day earlier than planned, therefore regrettably, the Melbourne event has had to be cancelled,” he said in a statement

Starmer seeks to relaunch premiership with new promise to crack down on crime

Keir Starmer will attempt to reset his premiership with a series of pledges to show he is “delivering change”, including 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and a named “bobby on every beat”.In a speech Labour hopes will set out the “next phase” of government, the prime minister will detail half a dozen “milestone” targets covering living standards, NHS backlogs, secure energy, housebuilding and children’s readiness for school.As part of a promise to crack down on crime and antisocial behaviour, he will say that every neighbourhood in England and Wales will have a named, contactable police officer.Each police force will also have an antisocial behaviour lead tasked with coming up with ways to tackle concerns raised by local residents and businesses.Starmer will pledge 13,000 more neighbourhood police, PCSOs and special constables by 2029, with an additional £100m of funding

The Guardian view on Sir Keir Starmer’s EU strategy: it might undermine future progress

When it comes to managing relations with the European Union, Downing Street holds to the adage that no news is good news. In opposition, Keir Starmer saw an electoral advantage in keeping the salience of Europe as low as possible – avoiding needless aggravation of pro-Brexit sensibilities among swing voters. Having secured a massive majority, Labour strategists see no compelling reason to now embrace conspicuous europhilia.The prime minister’s declared priorities for government, due to be set out in a speech on Thursday, focus on delivering in areas that voters consider most important. Technical adjustments to EU trade do not feature on that list, although they are an important component in the wider ambition to lift economic growth

Two-child benefit cap ‘will be scrapped’ in Scotland, vows SNP

The Scottish government has unveiled plans to scrap Westminster’s controversial two-child benefit cap to lift thousands of “children out of poverty”.Scotland’s finance secretary, Shona Robison, said her budget for the coming year “offers hope for Scotland’s future”, announcing that the two-child cap on benefits would be scrapped in Scotland as she pledged record spending for both the NHS and councils.The Labour government has come under pressure repeatedly to abolish the much-criticised policy introduced seven years ago by the Conservative government.Campaigners, charities and MPs across the political spectrum have said it is the UK’s biggest single driver of child poverty.Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, declared eradicating child poverty to be his government’s top priority, with Robison predicting that action to mitigate the cap – which means families can claim some benefits only for their first two children – will lift 15,000 youngsters out of poverty

Starmer and Badenoch clash at PMQs over Haigh’s undeclared criminal offence

The prime minister has again refused to give more details on the resignation of his transport secretary over a fraud offence before she became an MP.Keir Starmer refused repeatedly to elaborate on the “further information” that came to light leading to Louise Haigh stepping down last week.Haigh resigned after it emerged she had pleaded guilty to a criminal offence related to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013. It is understood the incident was disclosed to Starmer when she joined the shadow cabinet.During prime minister’s question time on Wednesday, Starmer was pressed repeatedly by the Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, to explain why he “knowingly appointed a convicted fraudster” to his cabinet

John Cartwright obituary

John Cartwright, who has died aged 90, was the last president of the short-lived Social Democratic party, after much of it had merged with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats. He was one of those rare politicians whose unassuming characteristics belied a sharply instinctive understanding of politics far exceeding that of many of the better-known figures who strode the national stage during his four decades in public life.He was MP for Woolwich in south-east London for 18 years from October 1974, first (for Woolwich East) on behalf of the Labour party and subsequently as a member of the SDP, for which he won the seat twice, in 1983 and 1987 – securing the best result in the country for the new party in 1983, thus demonstrating his personal popularity and the respect he had deservedly won from his constituents.Cartwright left the Labour party in February 1981, the 12th Labour defector among 29 MPs (of whom there was one Conservative) to join the fledgling SDP. He was persuaded to do so by one of the “Gang of Four” founding members, Shirley Williams, whose parliamentary private secretary (PPS) he had been in 1976-77, when she was education secretary