Starmer has lost 10 ministers after rent hike row departure
In a letter to the PM, Ms Ali insisted that she had followed 'all relevant legal requirements' and took her 'responsibilities and duties seriously'. The departure heaps more woe on Sir Keir, who has seen a significantly faster rate of attrition than his predecessors.
Since Labour won the general election in July 2024, the premier has lost 10 ministers. They include former Transport Secretary Louise Haigh and international development minister Annelise Dodds - previously a close ally of Sir Keir. In contrast, Rishi Sunak lost nine Government members in the first 13 months - two of whom were ministerial aides. The equivalent figure for Boris Johnson was six and Theresa May three, not including reshuffles.
Liz Truss's premiership lasted only a month and a half, during which there were three departures. Ms Ali's resignation came after it emerged that she had hiked rent on a property she owns by hundreds of pounds just weeks after the previous tenants' contract ended. The MP has repeatedly cast herself as a voice for hard-up tenants, and spoke out against private renters 'being exploited and discriminated against'.
And she championed the Renters' Rights Bill, currently going through Parliament, which will ban landlords who evict tenants from re-listing a property for a higher rent until at least six months after the occupants have left. Her actions would have been illegal under this law. In a round of broadcast interviews this morning, energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said Ms Ali had 'not broken any rules or any laws' when asked by Sky News if the allegations about her colleague were a 'good look'.
Ms Fahnbulleh added: 'She's chosen to resign, and that is a personal decision for her. What we care about as a Government is that we are levelling the playing field for renters. 'So we absolutely recognise that across the country. I hear stories all the time of people who are not getting a fair deal as a tenant. 'In the end, if you're a renter, you want security in the thing that is your home and so that is what the Renters' Rights Bill is trying to do. I think that is absolutely right.'
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch had led the calls for Ms Ali to be sacked, telling the Daily Mail: 'I warned that Labour's Renters' Rights Bill was a mess. Now we find out the minister responsible is doing the opposite of the what the Bill proposed – the homelessness minister is making people homeless. 'Rushanara Ali's hypocrisy is shameful.' Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake added: 'I think it shows staggering hypocrisy. Rushanara Ali has been somebody who's obviously a government minister in charge of homelessness. She's spoken out about exploiting tenants, about providing more protections to tenants.
'You can't say those things, then do the opposite in practice, as a landlord.' He said the conduct appeared to be 'unethical, not illegal' but 'we can't just say one thing and do another'. Ms Ali is the third Labour minister to have resigned over a personal matter. Tulip Siddiq resigned as City minister in mid-January, 26 days after the Mail revealed she was facing a major corruption probe in Bangladesh, which she denies. Louise Haigh stepped down as Transport Secretary in November last year following media revelations that she had pleaded guilty to a fraud charge a decade ago.
Ms Ali is alleged to have told four tenants to move out of the £900,000 four-bedroom home in east London, only to relist the property at a rent of £4,000 a month – a £700 increase – amid suggestions she failed to find a buyer for the property. Laura Jackson, a 33-year-old self-employed restaurant owner, was one of those who rented out the house – roughly a mile from the Olympic Park – in March 2024 at £3,300 a month. She then received an email in November telling her the lease would not be renewed this year, and that she and her housemates would need to move out, giving them four months notice, taking them to March. The current occupants are said to have moved in 'four to five months' ago on the increased terms.
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Daily Mail
24 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
As the elite FLOCK to an Australian capital city for art and parties... the poor face an army of security guards: CANDACE SUTTON exposes disturbing crisis at popular tourist spot
It is the time of year when Sydney and Melbourne 's elite flock to Australia's booming northern-most city of Darwin for its horseracing carnival, prestigious Aboriginal art fair and, this year, the lawyer's picnic that is the trial of Netflix star Matt Wright. Meanwhile, Thompson Nganjmirra, 76, is sitting in a park in central Darwin. He nervously eyes a growing storm in the distance and wonders whether he will have to spend the night sleeping in the rain. Thompson tells the Daily Mail that he is one of Darwin's 'long-grassers' - the local name for the city's homeless population. They are known as such because they slept and begged in the tall spear grasses which once ringed the city. Sitting in Civic Park, just a few hundred metres from the Northern Territory Parliament and Supreme Court complex, Thompson is without a regular bed to sleep in or even a blanket. He has been caught short in the rain before. Darwin is a city divided. By most indicators, it is booming. Property prices have surged and rents are high. The warm, dry summer attracts a huge influx from out of state and a party-like atmosphere in town. Meanwhile, the Northern Territory's homelessness rate is twelve times the national average. Ninety per cent of the homeless in Darwin are Indigenous, many sleeping in the city's parks and bushland. 'Sometimes it's hard to get enough to eat,' Thompson admits. The Daily Mail spent four days recently reporting from Darwin and speaking to the locals - and learned that much has changed in the city over the past six years. That was when Darwin's politicians and civic leaders turned to private security firms to patrol areas of Darwin's CBD and suburbs during the day and night - including the khaki-clad Public Order Response Unit, or PORU, focused on the suburbs; and the 'blue shirts' of Territory Protective Services, who patrol the city's CBD. Also on patrol is Larrakia Nation, a service run by the peak group of the local traditional Aboriginal landowners. The group aims to prevent alcohol-related disputes and resolve problems and conflicts. Thompson shrugs his shoulders at the mention of the 'blue shirts', who, locals said, often wake sleeping people in the night to move them on. 'Some are good, some bad,' Thompson said. 'They tell us we can go here, but not there. It's okay if you have a place to sleep.' He breaks into his native language, Kunwinjku, to speak to his niece, 54-year-old Lillian Yulidji, who is sheltered with her uncle and other relatives under a large park tree. 'Blackfellas are used to them (the blue shirts) now,' Thompson said. A spokesman for the so-called 'blue shirt' company, TPS, said it had been contracted by the NT Police to maintain public order for six years and did not condone violence or ill-treatment of Darwin residents. With Darwin's peak tourist season underway - the art fair lasting four days, attracting buyers from Sydney and Melbourne's elite, and the Darwin Cup running at the Darwin Turf Club at Fannie Bay - both PORU and Larrakia Nation were patrolling the shores of Lake Alexander, at East Point Park. When the Mail visited on an afternoon late last week, Aboriginal family groups were gathered together while white people jogged and exercised along the boardwalks. Sitting amid council signs warning 'no camping or sleeping overnight', the families sat watching the sun sink over the water. Some of the group were drinking. Officers from PORU and Larrakia spoke with them. They dragged one old man off into a van which had a containment unit at its rear, much like a police paddy wagon. Political debate erupts The treatment of the city's homeless population and the government's crime policies are a hot political debate. Darwin mayoral candidate Leah Potter, who is campaigning on an 'end homelessness' ticket at this month's council election, told the Mail 'it is not a crime to homeless'. Potter was furious about plans by the NT government to further expand its law enforcement forces. The government wants to arm transit and public housing safety officers - who currently patrol buses, supermarkets and public housing - with firearms as part of a crime reform package. The new police auxiliaries will be on the streets by 2026. 'You can just imagine how that will play out,' she said. 'It is not a crime to be homeless, but what could possibly go wrong?' Meanwhile, the NT Government has just issued a new Bus Dress Code policy, placing signs on buses advising passengers with 'dirty or stained clothes' will be refused travel. 'This is clearly aimed at Indigenous people, the homeless and the mentally ill,' Potter claimed. 'When you have no roof or running water, or access to laundry facilities, meeting these so-called 'standards' is impossible. So, they're punished for poverty.' The Northern Territory Department of Logistics and Infrastructure told the Daily Mail that its Rules of Travel, displayed on all buses, 'ensure a safe and respectful environment for everyone using public transport'. A spokesman said that under those rules, 'a passenger could be asked to leave a bus if they are wearing soiled clothing that may leave dirt, grease, bodily fluids or damage a seat which could be used by another passenger'. They said that drivers or transit officers could 'exercise discretion and ask a person not to board the bus'. However, 'it is extremely rare for someone to be refused entry due to hygiene.' Potter, who runs the Sunset Soup Kitchen in Darwin, is on personal terms with most of the 200 Indigenous rough sleepers who populate the inner city, some of them regularly setting up camp in her street. She is a Territorian by birth, with a rollercoaster history living in Sydney and Melbourne. 'I am campaigning to change the shame, disempowerment and other factors contributing to homelessness,' she said, 'which is inequality, education, health, joblessness, imprisonment, violence against women. 'Aboriginal women are killed in alarming numbers. They are more than 10 to 12 times more likely to be victimised, assaulted and murdered than any other group of women.' But she admits she is unlikely to win against the twelve other candidates, and that her Roadmap Out of Homelessness 'is a really hard sell to Territorians'. 'It's about dignity and respect. You've got 40kg blackfellas about to die of chronic disease. They are human beings,' she said. 'But instead the NT Government wants to focus on fining people for breaking the law because sleeping in public parks is illegal.' Although, even at this time of year the daytime temperature in Darwin is a steady 31 degrees, it can drop to 17 overnight, a shivering prospect under a wet tree. Darwin's shelters always fill up fast, especially on rainy nights, and places like Spin Dry out at Berrimah are too far to walk. 'The cost of living crisis has pushed even more people onto the streets of Darwin, and the bus dress policy will mean getting access to food, health care, Centrelink and even family will be more difficult,' Potter said. 'To be excluded from a public service simply because of the clothing you're wearing is appalling.' As for Thompson and his niece Lillian, thankfully, they have found an 'uncle' who can house them for at least one night, and that means they will get a feed. Thompson has been coming to Darwin on-and-off from Oenpelli, a mission bordering Kakadu National Park in West Arnhem Land, for 25 years, and Lillian for 'a long time'. They are considering a return to their country. 'Might go back for Christmas, it's really good back there,' he said.
Times
24 minutes ago
- Times
Alex Salmond and the truth behind our fallout, by Nicola Sturgeon
In the dining room of my house in Glasgow on April 4, 2018, with just him and me across a table, Alex showed me a copy of the letter he had received from the Scottish government's permanent secretary, Leslie Evans, informing him of the complaints against him. The substance of the complaints, one in particular, shocked me. I felt sick. After appearing to be upset and mortified by the allegations, Alex became cold. He effectively admitted the substance of one of the complaints, but claimed that it had been a 'misunderstanding', for which he had apologised at the time. He made it obvious that he considered the whole process to be illegitimate. He would later claim differently, of course, but it was evident that he wanted me to intervene and to stop the investigation in its tracks or divert it into some kind of siding. I knew that I shouldn't do that. I didn't realise it then, but this decision made the break-up of one of the most successful partnerships in modern British politics all but inevitable. On the day before the Scottish government was due to publish the facts and outcome of the investigation, the story was leaked to the Daily Record. I do not know who leaked it, but it was not me or anyone acting with my authority or knowledge. It crossed my mind many times that it might have been Alex himself or someone acting on his behalf. To those with no experience of the dark arts of media manipulation, I know this will sound preposterous. However, in many ways it would have been classic Alex. I had known him to make these kinds of calculations in the past. If there is damaging information certain to emerge about you and there is nothing you can do to stop it, get it out in a way that gives you the best chance of controlling the narrative. At a stroke, he was able to cast himself as the victim of underhand dealing. As soon as the fact of the complaints had become public, Alex launched a judicial review of the process. As the government's defence was being prepared, it came to light that the investigating officer had engaged in conversations with the complainants prior to her appointment. There was no evidence that the investigating officer had been biased, but the Scottish government had no option but to abandon the case. • Nicola Sturgeon: 'I came perilously close to a breakdown' In Alex's narrative, he wasn't just a victim any more, he was now a vindicated victim. It was also at this point that his animus towards me was cemented. He was reportedly furious that I hadn't demanded the resignation of Leslie Evans. Leslie was the head of the civil service that had 'botched' the process. It was not unreasonable to say that the buck stopped with her. But I knew that, for him, Leslie's resignation was not about accountability. It was about vengeance. He wanted her punished for allowing him to be investigated in the first place. He would then have used her quitting as further 'proof' that he had been a victim all along. When evidence was disclosed in both the aborted judicial review action and his criminal trial in March 2020, a number of text and WhatsApp messages were revealed to him, some between women complainers and others involving SNP staff members. He spun these as evidence of people conspiring to bring him down, rather than simply what they were — messages between individuals who had loyally supported him over many years expressing deep upset at the nature of the allegations against him. In addition, women who considered themselves victims of his behaviour were seeking support and comfort from each other. That he tried to distort and weaponise genuine expressions of shock, in some cases trauma, was truly disgraceful, and it strikes at the heart of why I find it so hard to forgive him. A conspiracy against Alex would have needed a number of women deciding to concoct false allegations, without any obvious motive for doing so. It would then have required criminal collusion between them, senior ministers and civil servants, the police and the Crown. That is what he was alleging. The 'conspiracy' was a fabrication, the invention of a man who wasn't prepared to reflect honestly on his own conduct. This is what I found hardest to come to terms with. He was acquitted of criminal behaviour, but in the course of his defence a picture emerged of behaviour towards women that, on occasion, had been inappropriate. He seemed content during his trial to concede this, to persuade a jury that while he could have been a 'better man', he wasn't guilty of actual offences. What he never did was show any contrition. There was also never the merest hint of concern about the damage he did to the party he previously led. Indeed, it felt to me that he would have rather destroyed the SNP than see it succeed without him. He impugned the integrity of the institutions at the heart of Scottish democracy — government, police, Crown Office. He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all. After the reports of the two inquiries into mine and the Scottish government's handling of the matter had been published, I spoke personally to the two original complainants. I was the first minister during a Scottish government process that had let these women down. It was important to me to say sorry to them directly. It also let me hear first-hand the impact on them of the claims of conspiracy, and the scars they bear as a consequence. For a while I told myself that the bonds between Alex and me would be stronger than his thirst for revenge. Eventually, though, I had to face the fact that he was determined to destroy me. I was now engaged in mortal political combat with someone I knew to be both ruthless and highly effective. It was a difficult reality to reconcile myself to. So too was losing him as a friend. I went through what I can only describe as a grieving process. For a time after we stopped speaking I would have conversations with him in my head about politics and the issues of the day. I had occasional, vivid dreams in which we were still on good terms. I would wake up from these feeling utterly bereft. And now? Before he died, I thought I had reached the point of feeling nothing and that I had come to terms with it, wholly and completely. The emotions I felt on hearing of his death suggested otherwise. Yes, I have made peace with how things are, but it is an uneasy peace. I know I will never quite escape the shadow he casts, even in death. © Nicola Sturgeon 2025. Extracted from Frankly by Nicola Sturgeon (Macmillan £28), published on Thursday. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members. Nicola Sturgeon discusses her memoir with Cathy Newman at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London SE1, on August 29;
Times
37 minutes ago
- Times
At least 200 arrests at Palestine Action protest outside parliament
Police have arrested at least 200 protesters gathered in central London to support Palestine Action, the activist group banned as a terrorist organisation. More than 500 people flooded Parliament Square in Westminster as Big Ben struck 1pm to hold up handwritten placards stating: 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' Rows of officers filed into the square to handcuff protesters within a minute of the silent vigil commencing. The first arrests were near the statues of Millicent Fawcett, the feminist campaigner, and Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian independence leader. Officers were met with chants of 'Shame on you' and 'genocide police' as they moved in. Many elderly activists quietly sat in the centre of the square to await their fate while a group of bystanders started singing the hymn 'We shall overcome'. Defend Our Juries, which organised Saturday's protest, claimed that as many as 700 people had turned out to risk arrest. However, this figure could not be corroborated by police. Among the protesters was La Pethick, 89, a retired psychotherapist from near Hastings, Sussex. She said she was 'apprehensive' about being detained but had the 'full support' of her five grandchildren. 'We are having our right to peaceful protest being taken away,' Pethick said. 'We have a common fear that there is a genocide going on [in Gaza] against international law.' Claudia Cotton, 89, a retired social worker who lives in London, is a Jewish refugee from Stuttgart who left Germany with her parents in 1939. Around her shoulders was a red keffiyeh scarf and she held a handwritten sign that read: 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.' She said: 'I am prepared to be arrested. In fact, I think it's a good thing because it shows how ordinary people are willing to go to prison to oppose when governments are doing evil things.' Cotton said it was her first time being arrested. 'Words fail me how the British government can do nothing when thousands of civilians are being killed.' The arrest of one protester required 12 officers as he was led away to a police van. Other demonstrators had to be lifted by four officers as they turned 'floppy' when they were confronted. Moazzam Begg, 57, the former Guantanamo Bay inmate, was arrested just before 2.30pm, holding a pro-Palestine Action placard in one hand and a yellow rose in another. He was surrounded by supporters of Cage, the controversial advocacy group that previously described Mohammed Emwazi, the Isis executioner known as Jihadi John, as 'a beautiful young man'. Just before he was detained, Begg said: 'This isn't about Palestine Action. This isn't about being arrested. It's about the children of Gaza, it's about the men of Gaza, it's about the women of Gaza and it's about a genocidal state.' He described being held as 'an honour'. Unlike previous protests since the ban of Palestine Action, which were dominated by middle-class white activists, Saturday's demonstration featured a small contingent of Muslim participants. One group of Muslim women who were not holding incriminating placards walked around the square thanking those who were risking arrest. By 2.30pm officers had formed a cordon around 200-300 activists sitting in the centre of Parliament Square as a police helicopter circled overhead. The restriction, under Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act, allows everyone inside to be detained. The police entered the cordon to arrest activists one by one. Journalists were blocked from entering. The Metropolitan Police has just over 500 cells at its disposal, many of which will already be occupied. However, officers can take the details of a suspect at the scene of a crime and order them to attend a police station in a practice known as 'street bail'. Bianca Jagger, the human rights campaigner and former wife of Sir Mick Jagger, attended the event but held a different placard which is unlikely to lead to her being detained. 'Matter of conscience' Some of those taking part in the demonstration have been held at previous protests against the Home Office ban, which came into effect on July 5. They include Dr Alice Clack, 49, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, who remains on bail after being arrested at a smaller protest in Parliament Square on July 19. Clack, the granddaughter of a Jewish refugee who came to Britain on the Kindertransport, said she was attending Saturday's protest as a 'matter of conscience'. She added: 'In Gaza, we are witnessing not just the indiscriminate use of force against civilians, but also the targeting of hospitals and clinics, and the killing and intimidation of medical staff.' It was, she said, a 'gross abuse of state power' for the government to label Palestine Action a terrorist organisation. The direct action group has waged a campaign of attacks for many months on defence companies in Britain that it accuses of being complicit in Israel's military operations in Gaza. It was proscribed by Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and caused £7 million damage by spraying red paint into the engines of two Voyager aircraft. • A history of Palestine Action: from birth to ban The Home Office insisted on Saturday morning that it was not seeking to criminalise dissent over Gaza. A spokeswoman said: 'The home secretary has been clear that the proscription of Palestine Action is not about Palestine, nor does it affect the freedom to protest on Palestinian rights. It only applies to the specific and narrow organisation whose activities do not reflect or represent the thousands of people across the country who continue to exercise their fundamental rights to protest on different issues. 'Freedom to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy and we protect it fiercely.' The mass protest in Parliament Square against the ban coincides with a march to Downing Street by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. That event, which several thousand people were expected to attend, departed from Russell Square at noon and ended with a rally in Whitehall. The simultaneous demonstrations will stretch the Met. As well as deploying hundreds of its officers, it has called in at least 110 police from other forces under 'mutual aid' rules. They include officers from constabularies in South Wales, Greater Manchester, Humberside, Cheshire and Durham. Welsh police at the demonstration TOBY SHEPHEARD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES Groups behind the protest Defend Our Juries, a civil liberties campaign group, has previously backed climate change activists at court trials. One of its key figures is Tim Crosland, an Oxford-educated barrister who was disbarred in 2023 for disclosing an embargoed Supreme Court ruling on a third runway at Heathrow before it was officially meant to be published. Crosland, 55, previously worked as a lawyer at the National Crime Agency, described as Britain's equivalent of the FBI. The protest has also been promoted by the advocacy group Cage. Begg, one of its senior directors, has said the ban on Palestine Action 'must be opposed', adding: 'The government is criminalising the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century as it is livestreamed from Gaza.' More than 200 people, including an 83-year-old retired priest from Bristol, have been arrested at smaller demonstrations. Most of them have been detained under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This relates to 'wearing clothing or carrying or displaying articles in public in such a way as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation'. On Thursday, the first of these suspects, including two pensioners, both 71, were formally charged. The Met said case files on 26 other individuals arrested at the same protest in Westminster on July 5 would be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service soon. Ade Adelekan, a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, said: 'What sets this protest apart from others is participants are coming out not just to express a view, but with the aim of being arrested in very large numbers to place a strain on the police and the wider criminal justice system.' The highest number of arrests previously made by the Met at the same protest is thought to be 339 at the poll tax riots in 1990. The force detained 306 people in one day during Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in London in October 2019. Saturday's mass protest had the blessing of Huda Ammori, 31, a co-founder of Palestine Action. On July 30, a High Court judge granted her leave to bring a full judicial review of the Home Office ban. The case will be heard in November. The Home Office said: 'The decision to proscribe was based on strong security advice and the unanimous recommendation by the expert cross-government proscription review group. This followed serious attacks the group has committed, involving violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage. It also followed an assessment from the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre that Palestine Action prepares for terrorism, as well as worrying information referencing plans and ideas for further attacks, the details of which cannot yet be publicly reported due to ongoing legal proceedings.'
