Woman jailed for harassing Rachel Reeves’s MP sister

A woman who tried to summon her MP, the solicitor general Ellie Reeves, to court has been jailed for harassment in London.Tracey Smith sent Reeves 22 emails and 10 voicemails calling her “transphobic” and accusing her older sister – the chancellor, Rachel Reeves – of physically assaulting her at a buffet bar.Smith, who is a trans woman, used phrases including “a person is dangerous when they have nothing to lose” and “bullets will be flying around”.The 58-year-old was jailed for 26 weeks and ordered to pay costs of £650 at Westminster magistrates court on Friday.District judge Michael Snow also ordered a restraining order without time limit to be imposed

Labour MPs to demand more concessions on workers’ rights after government climbdown

Labour MPs are preparing to demand further concessions on workers’ rights as the price of accepting ministers’ decision to ditch plans for day-one protection against unfair dismissal.MPs who are unhappy about the move will push for stronger protections in other areas, such as bogus self-employment arrangements, as part of Labour’s “make work pay” agenda.But the government looks set to get its amended employment rights package through the Commons despite backbench anger at the eleventh-hour compromise, which critics say breaches a Labour manifesto commitment.Ministers announced on Thursday that they were axing a plan to give workers the right to make an unfair dismissal claim against an employer from the first day in a new job. Andy McDonald, Neil Duncan-Jordan and Rachael Maskell have been among the Labour MPs to criticise the decision

Only people power can save us from populism | Letters

Timothy Garton Ash has produced an excellent list of safeguards against extremism (My guide to populist-proofing your democracy – before it’s too late, 25 November). Unfortunately, they don’t work in the long term. The finest minds of the Enlightenment devised the checks and balances of the US constitution, and an authoritarian like Donald Trump brushed them aside in two minutes.Laws and regulations to guarantee good government only work if the people want them to. If they’re not bothered, then no amount of safeguarding is of much use

A public inquiry on Brexit might make it easier for us to rejoin the EU | Letters

Better late than never, Jonathan Freedland (Rachel Reeves is studiously ignoring the cause of Britain’s woes: the Brexit-shaped hole in the roof, 21 November). Brexit was supposed to “take back control” and sort out the immigration crisis. In both respects, it failed. Polish plumbers have been replaced by Afghans in asylum hotels, and the UK has forfeited the mechanism to return them to the EU. Meanwhile, with trade, investment and labour choked off, the economy grinds along at the bottom

The Green party’s policies on Israel are appealing to young British Jews | Letter

We were fascinated to read your article on the important report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) on Jewish voting patterns in the UK (British Jews turn to Greens and Reform UK as support for main parties drops, 20 November). This demonstrates that growing numbers of Jews are deserting the Labour and Conservative parties in favour of the Green party and Reform UK.As JPR points out, there is no symmetry here. The turn to Reform among Jewish voters is half the size of the growth in support for the party within the population as a whole. On the other hand, support for Greens among Jews is 900% the size of the turn to the Green party overall

No 10 dismisses claim that OBR revelations show Reeves misled public about need for tax rises in budget – UK politics live

Downing Street has brushed off claims that Rachel Reeves misled voters ahead of the budget about the state of the public finances.At the No 10 lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson was asked why, in her speech on 4 November, and again in a Radio 5 Live interview a few days later, she said that the downgrade in the productivity growth forecast meant meeting her fiscal rules would be very difficult.Reeves told R5L on 10 November: “It would, of course, be possible to stick with the manifesto commitments [not to raise the main taxes]. But that would require things like deep cuts in capital spending.”Asked today if these warnings meant Reeves misled the public in the run-up to the budget about the state of the public finances, the PM’s spokesperson said: “I don’t accept that,”Asked why Reeves was claiming that there was a black hole in the public finances, when the OBR today is saying there wasn’t (see 12