Like a teacher's pet, Starmer is a sucker for rules. Which is why I fear he will doom Britain to a sorry future as an EU satellite, warns ROSS CLARK
How wonderful that Britain will have an 'adult in the room' for tomorrow's summit to reset relations between the UK and EU, not an infantile and petulant leader like Donald Trump. That at any rate is what the Government, and 'enlightened' Remainer opinion, will want us to think.
A more rational appraisal of the last few weeks would come to the opposite conclusion: that a Trump-like figure is exactly what we need in this situation – someone to lob a few grenades into the debating chamber, insult the other team and walk out of meetings (something which wouldn't be difficult for The Donald given his virulent dislike of the EU).
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The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Rachel Reeves in stand-off over policing and council budgets days before spending review
Rachel Reeves has been locked in a standoff over the policing and council budgets just days before this week's spending review, which is set to give billions to the NHS, defence and technology. Yvette Cooper's Home Office and Angela Rayner's housing and local government ministry were the two departments still at the negotiating table on Sunday fighting for more cash, after weeks of trying to reach a settlement. Whitehall sources said the policing budget would not face a real terms cut, but there was still disagreement over the level of investment needed for the Home Office to meet its commitments. Rayner's department is understood to have reached an agreement with the Treasury late on Sunday night after last-minute wrangling over housing, local councils and growth funds. However, any failure to strike a deal would raise the prospect of a budget being imposed on an unwilling department. The spending review, taking place on Wednesday, is a chance for Reeves to hold up billions of pounds of capital spending as a sign she is working to repair public services after years of Tory austerity. After tweaking her fiscal rules last autumn, she has an additional £113bn funded by borrowing for capital spending. Her plans will include £86bn for science and technology across four years and an extra £4.5bn for schools – taking funding per pupil to its highest level ever. However, day-to-day spending is more constrained in some areas, while the NHS and defence swallow up higher allocations. As well as policing, the Home Office budget covers the border force and spending on asylum costs, while the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been battling for funds for the affordable homes programme, councils, homelessness and regional growth. Labour has manifesto pledges to build 1.5m homes and deliver 13,000 new police officers. Pressed on the policing budget, the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, said Home Office and others would have to 'do their bit'. Funding for the police has the potential to become a politically difficult issue for Keir Starmer. Tory former shadow cabinet minister Robert Jenrick has been campaigning against transport fare dodging and Nigel Farage's Reform are also highlighting the issue. Asked about which public services will be prioritised, Kyle said 'every part of our society is struggling' and numerous sectors had asked Reeves for more money. 'On the fact that the police have been writing to the chancellor, they have,' he told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme. 'We also have letters from the universities, we have letters from doctors about the health service, we have letters from campaigners for child poverty writing to us, and other aspects of challenges in Britain at the moment. 'Every part of our society is struggling because of the inheritance that we had as a country and as a government.' He pointed to the £1.1bn extra funding already earmarked for police this year, as he defended Reeves's handling of the spending review process. 'We expect the police to start embracing the change they need to do, to do their bit for change as well. We are doing our bit,' Kyle said. 'You see a chancellor that is striving to get investment to the key parts of our country that needs it the most … You will see the priorities of this government reflected in the spending review, which sets the departmental spending into the long term. 'But this is a partnership. Yes, the Treasury needs to find more money for those key priorities, but the people delivering them need to do their bit as well.' While some areas of spending may be cut or receive only low increases, the NHS is set to receive a boost of up to £30bn by 2028, while defence spending is expected to rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. Kyle defended the chancellor's approach to public spending, saying she was like Apple founder Steve Jobs who turned the company around when it was 90 days from insolvency. He told Sky News's Trevor Phllips: 'Now Steve Jobs turned it around by inventing the iMac, moving to a series of products like the iPod. 'Now we're starting to invest in the vaccine processes of the future. Some of the hi-tech solutions that are going to be high growth. We're investing in our space sector. All these really high, highly innovative sectors. 'We are investing into those key innovations of the future. We know that we cannot break this vicious cycle of high tax and low growth by doing the same as we always have done. We have to innovate our way out of this and we are doing so by investing in those high-growth sectors.'
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Farage's proposal is just the latest undermining of the Barnett system
This, according to senior criminologists and ex-police officers, is not just a failure of admin, it's the result of austerity-era cuts that stripped police forces of capacity, dismantled the state-run Forensic Science Service in 2012, and left fragmented, underfunded systems to cope with ballooning evidence demands. Austerity didn't just weaken institutions; it disassembled infrastructure. READ MORE: Nigel Farage could cut the Barnett Formula. Here's what devolution experts think of that While these failings may seem like an English and Welsh concern, they tell a broader UK-wide story. Because when public services are cut in England, the Barnett formula translates those cuts into reduced budget allocations for Holyrood, too. Scotland has long borne the dual burden of being denied full fiscal autonomy while also seeing its devolved budget squeezed by decisions made for entirely different priorities south of the Border. Cuts to police, criminal courts, housing, public health, and local government in England have systematically eroded the spending floor on which Scottish services rest. So when justice collapses in England, it affects Scotland financially – even if the governance is separate. And now, against this backdrop of UK-wide budgetary degradation, Nigel Farage has called for the scrapping of the Barnett formula entirely. It's a move that's politically convenient, historically illiterate, and economically reckless. But more than anything, it's a distillation of what's already happening by stealth. Successive UK governments have undermined the foundations of the Barnett system – and devolution itself – for more than a decade. READ MORE: Furious Anas Sarwar clashes with BBC journalist over Labour policies It's obvious to every Scot that Farage's view relies on a mischaracterisation of Barnett as a subsidy, when in fact it simply ensures Scotland receives a proportional share of changes to spending in England for devolved services. It doesn't calculate entitlement or need, it mirrors policy shifts at Westminster. If England increases education or health spending, Scotland sees a relative uplift. If England cuts deeply, Scotland's budget falls, even if demand remains or rises. This has led to an absurd and punitive dynamic where Scotland loses funding not by its own decisions, but because England spends less. And when Scotland chooses to maintain higher standards in public services, it must do so from a proportionately smaller pot. Perversely, it doesn't stop there, though. Since the 2016 Brexit vote, Westminster has begun bypassing devolved governments directly. Funds like the Levelling Up Fund and Shared Prosperity Fund are allocated by UK ministers to local authorities, often bypassing Holyrood entirely. Promises made in The Vow on the eve of the 2014 independence referendum to deliver near-federal powers and respect Scottish decision-making have unravelled. READ MORE: SNP must turn support for independence into 'real political action' The Internal Market Act has overridden devolved laws under the banner of market 'consistency'. Powers that returned from Brussels in areas like food standards, procurement, and agriculture were supposed to go to Holyrood, but in many cases they were retained by Westminster. The Sewel Convention, once a safeguard of devolved consent, has been treated as optional. Farage's proposal to scrap Barnett isn't an outlier, it's the natural conclusion of a decade-long pattern: cut services in England, shrink the Barnett allocation, bypass devolved institutions, and then blame the devolved nations for 'taking more than their share'. There's no consideration of fairness, or implementation of a needs-based analysis, it's a strategy of erosion; one that gouges out the Union from the centre while draping itself in the flag. The failures of justice in England, catastrophic as they are, expose a deeper injustice: the systematic unravelling of the constitutional promises made to Scotland. Ron Lumiere via email
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Trump allies hit out as media call LA riots ‘an immigration protest'
The US media has come under fire from allies of Donald Trump for referring to the violent unrest on the streets of Los Angeles as 'protests'. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the US president had ordered the National Guard to the city to 'quell immigration protests'. Lauren Boebert, a Republican congresswoman, then wrote on X: 'To the media reporting on the situation in Los Angeles. The word you're looking for is 'insurrection'. 'Not protests. Definitely not 'mostly peaceful protests'. Insurrection!' JD Vance, the US vice-president, said 'insurrectionists' were responsible for the violence, adding: 'For the far-Left rioters, some helpful advice: peaceful protest is good. Rioting and obstructing justice is not.' The clashes in LA on Saturday were described as protests by CBS, ABC and CNN. Fox News and The New York Post, which support Mr Trump, referred to them as riots. Pictures taken overnight showed demonstrators launching fireworks towards police lines, as well as cars and shopping trolleys on fire. Fox News published a video showing border officials driving a van being attacked with rocks as they attempted to leave the scene of clashes in Paramount, California. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, responded to the video: 'This is a violent insurrection.' Trouble broke out after immigration raids were carried out across LA throughout the week. As many as 118 arrests linked to immigration were made in LA this week, which Gavin Newsom, the California governor, described as 'cruel'. Mr Trump responded to the violence in Los Angeles on Saturday night by ordering 2,000 National Guard soldiers to LA. The first troops arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning. 'Great job by the National Guard in Los Angeles after two days of violence, clashes and unrest… These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will not be tolerated,' Mr Trump posted on social media early on Sunday. Deploying the National Guard is a provision that is usually enacted by the state governor, and Mr Newsom described the order as 'unnecessary' and 'purposefully inflammatory'. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, warned that active duty Marines would be 'mobilised' if violence in Los Angeles continued, which Mr Newsom said was 'deranged'. On Saturday, a car was set on fire in the middle of an intersection in LA. Two individuals circled on motorbikes, as one waved a Mexican flag. The LA sheriff's department said it had arrested one person in the Paramount area, where two officers were treated in hospital for injuries. The department also said one car was burnt and that a fire at a shopping mall had been put out. Mr Trump has had a fractious relationship with the media since he first ran for office. On Sunday, ABC News suspended its veteran reporter, Terry Moran, after he posted tweets describing the president and his top adviser, Stephen Miller, as 'world-class haters'. Mr Moran interviewed Mr Trump in April to discuss the first 100 days of the president's second term. Commenting on his suspension, ABC said: 'ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others,' the representative said. 'The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards – as a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation.'
