His decision to step down was prompted by what he described as the political and media frenzy surrounding the ban on Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv from their team's match with Aston Villa in Birmingham. Days earlier, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood publicly stated that she had lost confidence in Guildford's leadership after sustained political and media pressure; it was the first time in two decades a home secretary has done so.
Restore Britain have been firmly backed to win an overall majority at the next general election. Rupert Lowe's party were backed by 71% of bets this week; the newly founded party's odds have tumbled from 80/1 into 20/1 as punters rally behind them.
Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said there was a clear case in principle that what we've seen in the past couple of years is a historically unprecedented dual negative shift in sentiment on immigration.
The Conservatives are calling for a proposed renovation of the Houses of Parliament to be paused and "refocused" over concerns about costs potentially running into the tens of billions. MPs have been presented with proposals to refurbish the ailing Palace of Westminster, including a plan that could cost almost 40bn and take 61 years to complete. The project team has warned delaying the restoration of the historic building, which costs 1.5m a week to maintain, would lead to "an expensive managed decline of the Palace".
James Evans has been removed from the shadow cabinet and had the whip withdrawn making him an independent, Tory Senedd leader Darren Millar has said. Millar said he did so on Tuesday morning "after being informed by James that he was continuing to engage with Reform representatives about the possibility of defecting to the party in spite of his personal assurances on Friday that he had rejected an approach they initiated last week".
Political U-turns come in various forms, and as news of the latest government reversal drifted out, this one connected to the plight of the pub trade, Labour MPs could take comfort in one thing: at least it happened quickly. While last summer's change of stance on benefit reforms was forced on Downing Street by open rebellion, and those for pensioners' winter fuel payments and inheritance tax for farmers followed months of dissent, the decision to revisit decisions on business rates took a matter of weeks.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has insisted Britain is not broken after her former minister Robert Jenrick criticised the party for failing to campaign on that line. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, she said: "Ours is still one of the most successful, resilient and influential countries on Earth," adding that telling voters their "country is finished" only "drags them down". She also insisted that the Conservatives were stronger after Jenrick was sacked, ahead of his defection to Reform.
