Lord Taverne obituary

Dick Taverne’s brief moment of political fame – or notoriety – came in 1973 when he beat Labour, the party for which he had been an MP, in a byelection in his own Lincoln constituency. It served as a precursor of the Labour party’s internecine 1980s strife and an early indication of the divisions that Europe has continued to cause in British political life.Taverne, who has died aged 97, fell out spectacularly with a leftwing faction of the local party in Lincoln, where he had been the Labour MP for a decade, over his support for Britain’s entry into the Common Market. He was deselected, but instead of quietly serving out his term he resigned, stood as a Democratic Labour candidate and won a spectacular byelection victory despite a heavyweight campaign by the national leadership to defeat him.The day after his victory, the Guardian wrote hyperbolically: “Nothing quite like it has been seen this century in British elections

Would a written constitution save Britain from the far right? | Letters

George Monbiot is right that having a written constitution would be better than not having one if the far right takes power (We must act now: without a written constitution, Reform UK will have carte blanche to toxify our nation, 23 October). But, as he points out, it’s not a guarantee of sane government. At least 75% of what Donald Trump is doing is unconstitutional, but it’s permitted by a compliant Congress and a rubber-stamp supreme court that is suddenly discovering presidential powers in the constitution that its framers never intended. The true problem is that a large proportion of the US electorate is content to let this happen.Marina Hyde noted the same trend here – too many people are so dischuffed (some with good cause, some not) that they are willing to press the “F you” button and smash the system

Keir Starmer shares post-punk passion and revisits musical past

Keir Starmer has said he is a fan of the Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice and northern soul, in a deep dive of his musical tastes and personal life.On BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions, Starmer chose a selection of his favourite music including works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Elgar, and reflected on his own musical journey, which included learning to play violin alongside Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim, at school.Starmer was a keen musician in his childhood, playing flute, piano, recorder and violin, and won a Guildhall School of Music and Drama scholarship. He said he still listened to music every day as a form of escape.He described the jangle pop band Orange Juice as “absolutely fantastic” and said he had discovered their music after moving to Leeds for university, where he studied law in the 1980s

Reform MP’s remarks about TV adverts were ‘racist’, says Wes Streeting

Wes Streeting has accused the Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin of making racist remarks after she said seeing adverts full of black and Asian people “drives her mad”.The health secretary said Pochin was “only sorry she’s been caught and called out”, adding she had “said the quiet bit loud”, as he warned of a return to “1970s, 1980s-style racism”.Streeting’s comments went further than Labour’s official remarks from the party chair, Anna Turley, who on Saturday night condemned Pochin’s remarks and said Reform was “more interested in dividing our country than uniting it”, but stopped short of explicitly calling the comments racist.On Friday, Pochin, who is Reform UK’s MP for Runcorn and Helsby, complained that “every advert” seemed to feature “black and Asian people”, as she responded to a viewer on TalkTV who had complained about the demographics of advertising.Pochin, 56, said the viewer was “absolutely right”, adding: “It doesn’t reflect our society and I feel that your average white person, average white family is … not represented any more,” blaming the “woke liberati” in the “arty-farty world”

‘We have to book bigger rooms’: Green membership surge causes novel problems

A surge in membership levels is causing the Green party some novel problems. “Our local association went from 400 to over 1,000,” one activist said. “We had meetings booked in rooms with a capacity of 50, and loads of people were being turned away. We’ve had to start booking bigger rooms.”The Greens have long been a party on the rise

Companies that donated to Labour awarded £138m in contracts, study finds

Companies that have recently donated to Labour were awarded contracts worth almost £138m during the party’s first year in government, according to research that raises fresh concerns about the relationship between political donations and public spending.A report by the thinktank Autonomy Institute has identified more than 100 companies that have given money to political parties and then won government contracts, under both Conservative and Labour administrations.The study follows a previous investigation by the Guardian that revealed how companies linked to Tory donors had been given billions in public funds since 2016.The new analysis shows the pattern has continued under Labour, with eight companies that donated more than £580,000 to the party receiving government contracts worth nearly £138m within two years of their donation (between July 2024 and June 2025).Looking beyond a two-year window, the thinktank found 25 Labour-linked companies had won contracts worth £796