Victims of sexual offences face ‘postcode lottery’ with police, says home secretary – as it happened

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said victims of sexual offences face “a postcode lottery” in terms of how the police will deal with their report.“It is a postcode lottery at the moment if you are a victim in terms of the standard of service you are going to get when your allegation is being investigated by the police and whether that is going to lead to charges ultimately and hopefully a successful prosecution”, Mahmood told Trevor Phillips on Sky News.The home secretary was responding to claims from the Institute for Government that currently up to 50 per cent of police officers currently on sexual violence and rape squads are trainees. She said the government plans to get a specialist squad in ever force.Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood tells @TrevorPTweets that the standard of police responses to rape and sexual assault allegations is currently a "postcode lottery" as she announces a new violence against women and girls strategy

Infighting, broken promises and insisting on the national anthem: what seven months of Reform UK in charge actually looks like

Nigel Farage’s party is gunning for power – so what is it like in the places where they’ve already got it? We embedded with Lancashire county council to find out what happens when rhetoric meets reality22 May 2025: a new dawn for Lancashire. Outside Preston’s grand old county hall, 53 brand new Reform UK councillors in turquoise ties – and one petite woman with an enormous turquoise hair bow – are hot-footing it past a gaggle of protesters for their first full council meeting. Most keep their heads down and get into the building as quickly as possible. But Joel Tetlow, a first-time politician who has made a few unfortunate headlines before even taking his seat, is intrigued. He stands in the doorway, vaping, as a demonstrator bellows: “Reform is a far right party and Nigel Farage is a racist and a fascist!”Tetlow – late 40s with a full head of vertiginous hair, wearing a powder-blue three-piece suit – insists he isn’t bothered

Government’s process behind tackling violence against women ‘worse than under the Tories’

Leading organisations have criticised the development of the government’s flagship violence against women and girls strategy, calling the process chaotic, haphazard and “worse than under the Tories”.Ministers are gearing up for a policy announcement blitz before the publication of the long-awaited plan next week.Important voices in the violence against women and girls (VAWG) sector have privately accused ministers of sidelining first-hand expertise and expressed concern that the strategy will not be sufficiently radical to achieve the government’s flagship manifesto promise to halve the rate of VAWG in the UK in a decade.Initially expected in spring, the VAWG strategy was delayed until summer and then autumn.On Friday it emerged that schoolboys would be the target of the strategy, which the BBC reported would be built around the pillars of preventing radicalisation of young men, stopping abusers and supporting victims

UK politics: Trump talks ‘complete nonsense’ about crime in London, says Met police commissioner – as it happened

Wes Streeting was not the only person doing an LBC phone-in this morning. Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, was on too, and he used his interview to accuse President Trump of talking “complete nonsense” about London.Trump has regularly complained about the level of crime in London, apparently inspired by alarmist reports he has seen on TV or social media, and he criticised the city again in a recent interview with Politico. He said he hated to see what is happening there, and he blamed the mayor, Sadiq Khan.In an interview last month with GB News, he claimed that there were areas in the capital that were no-go areas for the police, and he claimed sharia law applied there too

Tory transport culture wars risked making roads less safe, says minister

Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.Lilian Greenwood, whose Department for Transport (DfT) role includes road safety and active travel, said seeking to divide road users into categories was pointless given most people used different transport methods at different times.Speaking to the Guardian after the announcement of more than £600m for new cycling and walking schemes across England, Greenwood condemned the way Conservative governments had moved from boosting cycling under Boris Johnson to clamping down on active travel measures when Rishi Sunak was prime minister.Sunak’s government explicitly sought to present its transport policy as prioritising drivers over the needs of cyclists and others, a shift in tone accompanied by an occasional embrace of conspiracy theories about supposed efforts to limit driving.Such an approach was “infuriating”, Greenwood said, and had potential repercussions for safety

Reform councillors accused of ‘rash promises’ as council tax rises loom

Reform UK council leaders have been accused of making “rash promises” after a local authority led by the party has been told it will have to increase council tax by the maximum amount, despite its election promises to cut costs.Warwickshire county council has been warned by its executives that anything less than a 5% maximum council tax increase will put its financial viability at risk.In a report published on Thursday, the council’s board said anything below a 4.99% council tax rise – the equivalent to a £1.75 a week increase on a band D property – is a “riskier financial strategy” that would threaten the medium-term sustainability of the local authority