Politics

The Conservatives were warned ex-Tory MP Mark Menzies’s alleged misuse of party funds may have constituted fraud but the whistleblower was told there was no duty to report it Mr Menzies, the MP for Fylde in Lancashire, gave up the Tory whip in the wake of reports in The Times that he misused party funds.

Nicola Sturgeon has described her personal situation as “incredibly difficult” after her husband was charged in connection with the embezzlement of SNP funds. Peter Murrell, who was chief executive of the party until March 2023, was rearrested on Thursday amid a long-running Police Scotland investigation into the SNP’s finances, dubbed Operation Branchform. The 59-year-old remained

Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell, who is a former SNP chief executive, has been re-arrested amid a police investigation into the party’s funding and finances. It comes more than a year after Mr Murrell was first arrested and released without charge, which saw the couple’s home searched by police and a blue forensics tent erected

Following allegations Tory MP Mark Menzies misused campaign funds, Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips, and Ruth Davidson examine the fallout for the government and for the politician who has been suspended from the parliamentary party. He denies all the claims. And after the Commons votes to ban anyone born after 1 January 2009 from buying cigarettes,

An MP has lost the Conservative Party whip while newspaper claims about alleged misuse of campaign funds are investigated. Mark Menzies, the MP for Fylde, disputes the allegations reported by The Times but the Conservative Party is looking into the claims. A spokesperson for Chief Whip Simon Hart said: “Following a call with the Chief

The government is “working on operationalising” Rwanda flights, a minister has said – amid reports RAF planes could be used for the controversial deportation scheme. Laura Trott did not deny a story in The Times newspaper which said migrants might have to be flown to the east African nation on RAF Voyagers because the Home

It has been two years since Boris Johnson first proposed sending asylum seekers arriving in the UK to be sent to Rwanda to have their claims processed. Since then the government has spent £240m trying to get the scheme off the ground, argued – and lost – its case to send migrants to Kigali in

New defeats for the government’s Rwanda bill in the House of Lords have set up a parliamentary showdown on Wednesday – forcing MPs to consider changes to Rishi Sunak’s stop the boats plan. Downing Street wants to get the bill – which declares Rwanda a safe country and stops appeals from asylum seekers being sent

MPs have rejected a series of Lords’ amendments to the government’s Rwanda bill – as a week of parliamentary showdown on the legislation begins. The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is currently in the middle of what is known as ping-pong, where the two houses propose, debate and vote on amendments. So far,

Lord David Cameron has urged Israel to “think with head as well as heart” and not retaliate to Iran’s missile attack. The foreign secretary said the nation needed to be “smart as well as tough” and think about the consequences of escalating violence in the region. UN warns of ‘devastating conflict’ – Middle East latest

At every level of the British diplomatic machine, the focus after Saturday night’s Iranian attack on Israel is now to do whatever possible to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East. The message from the UK government is twofold. First, that it stands with Israel and backs its right to self-defence – after all, this terrifying

UK jets shot down “a number of drones” launched by Iran in its unprecedented attack on Israel last night, Rishi Sunak has said. The prime minister called the assault by Tehran a “dangerous and unnecessary escalation” of conflict in the Middle East, warning the “the fallout for regional stability would be hard to overstate” had

Liz Truss has revealed she considered abolishing the UK’s economic watchdog and replacing leaders at the Treasury and Bank of England, accusing the bodies of being “pro-China” and “pro-Remain”. The country’s shortest serving prime minister said she discussed scrapping the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) with her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng but concluded it would have

As with most political scandals, the heat in the Angela Rayner housing row is less about the (alleged) crime and more about the (alleged) cover-up. Or, to put it another way, this is all about how honest and transparent the Labour deputy leader has been in responding to allegations about her living arrangements a decade

Police have launched an investigation into Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner. Ms Rayner has faced claims she may have broken electoral law over information she gave about her living situation a decade ago. A Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokesperson said: “We’re investigating whether any offences have been committed. This follows a reassessment of the information

A libel case against Science Secretary Michelle Donelan has now cost the tax-payer £34,000. It was revealed last month that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) had paid out £15,000 in damages to an academic whom the minister had falsely accused of supporting Hamas in a letter she posted on X. But the