Wildlife charities urge Labour to scrap ‘licence to kill nature’ in planning bill

Leading wildlife charities are calling on Labour to scrap a significant section of the planning bill that they say is a “licence to kill nature”, as new data reveals bats and newts are not the main reason planning is delayed in England.The RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts, whose membership is more than 2 million, said Labour had broken its promises on nature. They called for part three of the bill, which allows developers to avoid environmental laws at a site by paying into a national nature recovery fund to pay for environmental improvements elsewhere, to be ditched.Beccy Speight, CEO of the RSPB, said: “It’s now clear that the bill in its current form will rip the heart out of environmental protections and risks sending nature further into freefall.“The fate of our most important places for nature and the laws that protect them are all in the firing line

UK politics: Starmer accused of being ‘beneath contempt’ for attack on Chagos deal critics – as it happened

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, is responding to Healey.He starts by saying that what Keir Starmer said at his press conference about opponents of the deal being on the side of Russia and China was “beneath contempt”.He says by opposing the Chagos Islands deal, the Tories would not be traitors, they would be patriots.The UK has signed a £3.4bn agreement to cede sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after an 11th-hour legal challenge failed

Yeah but no but yeah but no but surrender. Life’s just one big betrayal for Kemi and co | John Crace

I fear for Kemi Badenoch’s sanity. She may need a little respite care. From herself. Little more than 24 hours after one of her by now customary car-crash outings at prime minister’s questions in which she didn’t appear to have noticed that Keir Starmer had U-turned on the winter fuel allowance, KemiKaze was emailing Tory party members to tell them the exciting news. She had had the prime minister on the rack and it was only down to her that Labour had done their reverse ferret

Tories must ‘get moving’ on new policies or face crisis, says Robert Jenrick

The Conservative party needs to “get moving” with new policies or risk being cut adrift in a social media-informed world where people make up their minds quickly, Robert Jenrick has said.While the shadow justice secretary did not directly criticise Kemi Badenoch for the time she is taking to formulate policies, and said he accepted there was a need for reflection after a bad election defeat, he warned that without rapid action the Tories faced an “existential crisis”.Badenoch, who defeated Jenrick in the party leadership race last year, has attracted some criticism within the party for her insistence that the Conservatives should not rush into policies but instead spend the next couple of years working to rebuild voters’ trust.Asked about generating new polices at an event in London on Wednesday evening, Jenrick said: “I do think you’ve got to get moving. That’s not a criticism

Talks to start on recognition of state of Palestine by western states

Talks will start on Friday at an official level about the possibility of recognising the state of Palestine.A senior Arab diplomat in London said:“If you asked me a fortnight ago if there will be wider recognition [of Palestine] by western states I would have said no, but now I am not so sure.”The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, suspended trade talks with Israel on Tuesday and described its refusal to lift a blockade of aid into Gaza as “abominable”.Lammy spoke to the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, on Wednesday about the barriers blocking aid. The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said this week: “We cannot leave the children of Gaza a legacy of violence and hatred

Labour could review other benefit cuts after winter fuel U-turn, sources say

Keir Starmer has announced a partial U-turn that would make more pensioners eligible for winter fuel payments as government figures opened the door to more tweaks to controversial policies.After a major backlash against one of the most unpopular measures announced by the Labour government, the prime minister indicated he would look again at the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the allowance.Downing Street said the change was a result of an improved economic landscape, with sources saying ministers could revisit policies including the two-child benefit cap or health and disability cuts if the economy continued to improve.“We’re open to adapting policy as the circumstances allow. So when there’s an opportunity to make people better off, which is our central purpose, then we’re going to take it,” a government source said