Scotland demands £24.5m from Westminster for Trump and Vance visits

The UK government needs to “step up” and reimburse the £24.5m cost of Donald Trump and JD Vance’s recent visits to Scotland, Holyrood’s public finance minister has said.Provisional costs of almost £24.5m for the two working visits have been published by the Scottish government.Ivan McKee said it was “ridiculous” that the UK government had so far refused to provide funding, framing both trips as private visits, despite the fact that the US president held meetings with the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, as well as the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, during his time in Scotland in July

Lucy Powell urged ministers to rethink legal action against Labour donor’s firm

Lucy Powell urged ministers to reconsider costly legal proceedings against a property development firm in her constituency founded by a Labour donor, in a move that could have saved his company millions, the Guardian can disclose.Powell, who is the favourite to be elected Labour’s deputy leader this week, wrote to Angela Rayner on behalf of Urban Splash, a property developer in Manchester founded by party donor Tom Bloxham.Powell asked Rayner, who was then housing secretary, to reconsider the government’s “disproportionate” legal action against the company, days after bumping into Bloxham at a Labour party fundraising event. She had met company executives about the case two weeks prior.Asked about the intervention, made while she was a cabinet minister, Powell said she had acted in her capacity as a constituency MP and had done so “openly and transparently”

Jenrick accused of being ‘anti-British’ after saying he would ‘probably’ ban burqa – as it happened

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has said that he would probably support banning women wearing burqas in public.In making the comment, in a phone-in on Talk, Jenrick contradicted the position taken by his party leader, Kemi Badenoch.Asked if he would ban the burqa, Jenrick replied: “I probably would ban the burqa.”Jenrick dismissed suggestions that this was an extreme position, saying that in Italy the prime minister Giorgia Meloni is introducing a burqa ban. He went on:I think there’s definitely a strong argument for it

Why is there a national inquiry into grooming gangs and how is it going?

A national inquiry into grooming gangs was announced by Keir Starmer in June but it is yet to get under way.So far, a suitable judge has not been identified, one of two named candidates to become its chair has said she will not stand and three survivors have stepped down from the panel overseeing the recruitment.It followed disclosures over many years that thousands of girls and women across UK towns and cities were groomed and raped by street-based groups.In a majority of these gangs, there appeared to be a pattern of men, often of Asian and Pakistani origin, grooming vulnerable girls.Nearly all of the cases were historical and date back to the 90s and 00s

How Rachel Reeves could balance Britain’s books and lower inequality | Letters

Rachel Reeves has said that higher taxes on the wealthy will be a part of the story at the autumn budget (Report, 15 October). The government must use this moment to ensure that the super-rich contribute their fair share rather than cutting services that impact the poorest and most marginalised.We all want the same things: thriving communities, good jobs and a future that we can look to with hope. But the rules have been rigged by the super-rich and powerful, allowing them to hoard wealth while the rest of us scrape by. This is fuelling division at a time when people desperately need meaningful change

Will no one think about poor Boris? Former PM smirks and sighs through Covid inquiry | John Crace

Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven. Just not if you happened to be a schoolkid during the pandemic. Then you were being asked to make the biggest sacrifices to protect elderly people, even though you were the least at risk. Still, I suppose there was a lesson in there somewhere. Almost everyone who comes into contact – however indirectly – with Boris Johnson generally finds they have been done over at some point