Tightening Pip benefit eligibility could save £9bn a year, says Reform

Reform UK has set out plans for changes to personal independence payments (Pip) that the party says could save up to £9bn a year, with Lee Anderson, one of its MPs, saying he used to “game the system” to help people become eligible for the benefit.In Reform’s third consecutive Westminster press conference of the week, Anderson and the head of policy, Zia Yusuf, said the party would bar people with less serious psychological conditions such as anxiety from claiming Pip and would ensure anyone getting the payments would first receive a face-to-face assessment.“We are betraying our young people,” said Yusuf, who was formerly the party chair. “Reassessments are basically not happening any more. These young people are being labelled

Boris Johnson approved China’s London super-embassy proposal in 2018

Boris Johnson approved the China’s super-embassy proposal in 2018 and welcomed the fact it would represent “China’s largest overseas diplomatic investment” anywhere in the world, the Guardian can disclose.In a letter to Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, Johnson gave his consent for Royal Mint Court to house a sprawling diplomatic complex in May 2018. The Chinese government bought the 20,000 sq metres site for £255m that same month.The disclosure demonstrates that the Conservatives under Theresa May gave Beijing assurances that it could proceed with the proposal, which is still in limbo seven years later after attracting huge political and local backlash.Johnson’s letter, sent while he was foreign secretary, was a response to Wang setting out details of the planned project in April

Your Party to launch legal action against three of its ‘rogue’ founders, sources say

Your Party, the leftwing party steered by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, says it is preparing legal action against a group of its own founders after a final deadline to hand over at least £800,000 in donations passed without payment, the Guardian understands.Figures close to the party accused directors of MoU Operations Ltd (MoU) of having “gone rogue”, holding supporters’ funds to ransom and undermining its founding process “despite direct pleas from Jeremy and Zarah”.Party insiders say they “reluctantly” agreed to initiate legal proceedings after “exhausting every possible alternative” to recover the money still held by the directors of MoU.MoU is run by Andrew Feinstein, the anti-apartheid activist who ran as an independent candidate in Keir Starmer’s constituency; Jamie Driscoll, the former North of Tyne mayor; and Beth Winter, the former Labour MP for Cynon Valley. The three helped shape the movement’s early structure before relations broke down

Should the Home Office be broken up into two units?

“It’s not that the Home Office is too big. It’s that the brains of many of the people who run it are not big enough,” says one former departmental insider.Unwieldy, dysfunctional and plagued by poor morale, the Home Office is once again the subject of debate about whether it is beyond repair and should simply be chopped up into two more manageable units.No 10 is so far showing no appetite for a big restructure, but Shabana Mahmood, the new home secretary, has acknowledged that she has a turnaround job on her hands along with the new permanent secretary, Antonia Romeo.Politicians have been calling for the Home Office to be split up every couple of years when a major scandal shines a light on its persistent problems, such as those exposed in the Windrush and immigration centre abuse scandals

Reform wheels out Danny Kruger, the ‘brains’ of Nigel Farage’s operation | John Crace

Nigel Farage too Marmite for you? Lee Anderson too Lee Andersony? Richard Tice too smooth? Sarah Pochin a bit too racisty? Don’t worry. These things happen. But all will be well, because Reform have just the MP for you. Someone who can be passed off as a safeish pair of hands. Someone who won’t frighten the horses

John Major tells Tories alliance with Reform would be ‘beyond stupid’

John Major has told the Conservatives that forming an alliance with Reform UK would “for ever destroy” the party, which he said had already left traditional supporters “politically homeless” by lurching too far to the right.The former prime minister dismissed a pact with Nigel Farage’s party as “beyond stupid”, saying that any Tories tempted to defect to Reform should go now because his own party would be better off without them.As the Tories struggle with the existential threat posed by Reform’s surge in popularity, Major warned far more than the future of the party was at stake with autocracies on the march across the world.“Frustration with democracy should not blind us to the toxic nature of nationalism, or any and every form of populist or authoritarian government,” he said.Addressing a Conservative party lunch on Tuesday, he urged the party not to reject the centre ground of British politics, saying they were “seriously alienating” voters by coming down on the wrong side of public opinion on Europe, climate change and overseas aid