Boris Johnson tells Tories to stop ‘bashing green agenda’ or risk losing next election

Boris Johnson has warned the Conservatives they will not win the next election by “bashing the green agenda”.The former prime minister said he had not seen the Conservatives “soaring in the polls as a result of saying what rubbish net zero is”.Johnson’s intervention comes after Theresa May and John Major criticised the Tories for speaking out against net zero, making him the third former prime minister to step in on this issue.Kemi Badenoch has committed the party to repealing the Climate Change Act and abandoning the commitment to reach net zero by 2050, arguing that the target threatens to bankrupt Britain.The repeal of the act would remove the need to meet “carbon budgets” – ceilings, set for five-year periods, on the amount of greenhouse gas that can be emitted – and disband the Climate Change Committee – a watchdog that advises on how policies affect the UK’s carbon footprint

Rachel Reeves admits breaking rules by renting out her house without a licence

Rachel Reeves has admitted to “inadvertently” breaking housing rules by renting out her south London home without the specific £945 licence required by the local council.The chancellor admitted the error to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and to parliamentary ethics officers, after it was first disclosed by the Daily Mail.Reeves put her family home in Southwark up for rent after moving into No 11 Downing Street last year following Labour’s election victory.A spokesperson said the chancellor had used a letting agency to manage the process, and that while she should have been aware of the obligation to buy the licence, she had not been advised that she needed one.“She had not been made aware of the licensing requirement, but as soon as it was brought to her attention she took immediate action and has applied for the licence,” Reeves’s spokesperson said

‘The novelty will wear off’: Labour hopes publicity will be Farage’s downfall

After Nigel Farage dominated the summer headlines with weekly press conferences while his rivals were on their sunloungers and the news agenda was light, Labour strategists swore they would never let it happen again.Labour MPs had returned to Westminster after recess, fuming that the government had vacated the public arena and allowed Reform UK to shape the narrative to the extent that the mood hardened against Keir Starmer.“People in their constituencies have been getting terrible feedback. Farage has been everywhere,” one MP said at the time. “The mood was: this has been a fucking disaster

Farage reclaims centre stage as Reform’s Sarah Pochin keeps the world at bay

Sarah Pochin is unwell. She hasn’t been seen for days. Not at any of the three Reform press conferences on three consecutive days this week. It’s not as if Reform has so many MPs to go round that her presence wouldn’t be missed. The last Sarah sighting was on TalkTV last Saturday where she could be spotted frantically counting the number of black and Asian actors in adverts

Racism, intent and the diversity in TV adverts | Letters

The “now you see it, now you don’t”, “was it or wasn’t it” racism of recent days is nothing new, but it is profoundly dispiriting and corrosive (Nigel Farage defends MP’s complaint about TV adverts as ‘ugly’ but not ‘deliberately’ racist, 27 October). It reduces racism to a prejudice that leaks, unintentionally, out of clumsy words.Similar excuses were made after Frank Hester said Diane Abbott “makes you want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”, and after Robert Jenrick complained about not seeing “another white face” during his tour of part of Birmingham. Both said that their remarks had nothing to do with skin colour.The sad fact is that racism is not the preserve of self-declared Nazis advocating white supremacy with intent

MPs vote down Farage’s proposal for UK to leave ECHR – as it happened

The result is in. Nigel Farage was defeated by 154 votes to 96, a majority of 58.The vote is not particularly meaningful. The main parties were not whipping their MPs, and so the numbers do not say anything significant about opinion in the Commons on leaving the ECHR.The only parties in the Commons that clearly favour ECHR withdrawal are the Conservatives (119 MPs), Reform UK (5 MPs), and TUV (1 MP)