#michael-gove

#michael-gove

Since Boris Johnson announced on Friday he was quitting as an MP, the condemnation has been widespread and not just from his own party.A number of Conservatives have expressed anger, relief or both at his departure from parliament some in coded words, others more directly.Rishi Sunak When it comes to honours and Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn't prepared to do, because I didn't think it was right.

Mild signs of a potential willingness to modernise have been observed in some of central London's establishment clubs in the past few weeks, led by the announcement that, after a wait of 166 years, women will finally be allowed to become members of Pratt's.The decision by the owner of Pratt's has been met mostly with resigned acceptance by the club's membership, which includes at least a dozen MPs, and has triggered renewed discussion of possible reform at the remaining hardcore handful of gentlemen's clubs that refuse to admit women.

The man behind the Secret Tory account on Twitter has unmasked himself as personal trainer Henry Morris.The parody account has built up nearly 200,000 followers since its launch in 2019, with its anonymous writer publishing a book last year.Followers have speculated that the person behind the account is a high-profile comedian or a real-life MP.

Accusations of downplaying the Holocaust, rants about Black Lives Matter, and strange ruminations on total biomedical self-mastery - the National Conservatism Conference has produced some startling moments.Pitched by the organisers as a venue which could stake out a new direction in British politics the conference attracted Tory party heavyweights.

Prominent public intellectual Douglas Murray is facing criticism over comments he made at the National Conservatism Conference which critics say downplayed the Holocaust and Nazism.Speaking at the conference Murray said: There was nothing wrong with nationalism in Britain.It's just that there was something wrong with nationalism in Germany.

You might wonder what a cabinet minister is doing at a National Conservatism conference.A group of conspiracy theorists and populist weirdos that already assumes the Conservatives have failed and are fighting for the soul of the party in opposition.That most Tory MPs need to be deselected in favour of candidates with purer Conservative thoughts.

A Liberal Democrat councillor in Salford has been urged to resign after winning a seat in the Cotswolds as well thanks to a loophole in electoral law.Chris Twells, who won a seat on Salford council last year in the Ordsall ward, stood as what his own party insisted was a paper candidate in the Cotswolds and confounded expectations by winning.

The Muslim Council of Britain has expressed deep concern over the appointment of the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to Israel as the chair of a review into civil unrest between Muslims and Hindus in Leicester last year.Lord Ian Austin has been appointed to chair the independent review, announced on Friday, into the unrest between British Pakistani Muslim and Indian Hindu communities that descended into widespread violence and vandalism, including attacks on places of worship.

An independent review of the violence which broke out in Leicester last year has been commissioned by Michael Gove.In September 2022, tensions between the British Pakistani Muslim and Indian Hindu communities spilled over into widespread violence and vandalism.The Secretary of State for communities announced on Friday that a review would establish the causes of the unrest.

Rishi Sunak has said the current international system for dealing with refugees is not working.In a statement issued ahead of his attendance later today at the Council of Europe summit, he said: Every single point on each route used by people traffickers to smuggle people across our continent represents another community struggling to deal with the human cost of this barbaric enterprise.

Ministers appear set to at least partly give way to Conservative rebels over removing safeguards from the illegal migration bill after a Home Office minister said the government was in listening mode, my colleague Peter Walker reports.Good morning.Both main parties believe that anti-social behaviour will be a key issue at the election and this morning, at a PM Connect event, Rishi Sunak will formally announce an antisocial behaviour action plan.

Michael Gove said he believed Boris Johnson was telling the truth when he told the Privileges Committee he did not think he was breaking Covid rules when attending leaving dos in No 10.The Levelling-Up Secretary said he accepted Mr Johnson's evidence that he saw thanking departing staff during the pandemic as part of the job of leading the country through the crisis.

Rishi Sunak's reshuffle is about both tightening his grip on power and putting more departments on the Treasury list for re-education.By splitting up the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which had challenged Mr Sunak when he was chancellor, the prime minister has decapitated a rival economic policymaker in government.

The National Conservatism conference, a loosely Tory party-allied gathering run by a rightwing US thinktank, has spent the past three days hearing from a range of politicians, academics and writers in Westminster.Here are 10 things we have learned so far. 1. NatCon has made a splash in Tory circles The last time the roving conference was in London, in 2019, the extent of its Conservative speakers was perennial backbencher Daniel Kawczynski.

Conservatives need to recognise that elections are won on economics and public services rather than culture wars, Michael Gove has said in what will be seen as a rebuke to Suella Braverman.Addressing the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference in Westminster, a day after Braverman gave a highly partisan speech to the same event which condemned experts and elites and political correctness, Gove was at pains to make no direct criticism of the home secretary.

In the words of rising Conservative star Miriam Cates, national conservatism was born out of the 2016 Brexit referendum and Tory 2019 election victory.Those moments were an instruction from the public that they expect us to govern with their interests, their values in mind.Not the values of the intelligentsia the globalised elite whose loyalties are to everyone and no one.

No more Mr Nice Guy.Rishi Sunak has always been keen to project himself as a thoroughly decent bloke.The sort of man even his opponents can trust.Someone who keeps his word.But bit by bit that mask is peeling off.On Wednesday he revealed himself to be an out and out sadist.How else can you explain the decision to leave Dominic Psycho Raab in post as his deputy and then skip off to Betty Boothroyd's funeral, leaving Psycho to step up for prime minister's questions?

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Senior figures from the Conservative and Labour parties met in secret to discuss the failings of Brexit and how to steer the UK away from terminal decline outside the European Union, according to reports.

The housing secretary has said it is "important" to honour a 2019 manifesto pledge to stop landlords evicting tenants from their homes without justification.Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, Michael Gove was asked why this had been implemented in Scotland, but not in England yet, and whether the bill was being rushed through ahead of a general election.

The Conservative Party is buzzing with ideas, Grant Shapps has said, as he played down suggestions of unrest within Tory ranks amid the fallout from the local elections.Rishi Sunak has faced a barrage of criticism over the weekend from within his own party, with anger from Conservative MPs and the grassroots about the loss of nearly 1,000 councillors and the decision to scale back post-Brexit plans to scrap EU laws.

Conservative chairman Greg Hands was accused of having a midas touch for opposition parties after figures showed his party was hammered in many of the places he visited during the local election campaign.The Tories lost more than 1,000 seats while Labour picked up more than 500 leading Sir Keir Starmer to claim his party is on course for a majority victory at next year's general election.

The great and the good are taking their seats for the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla as millions across the globe prepare to watch the historic ceremony.Celebrities, scientists, politicians and other public figures - wearing a colourful array of suits, fascinators, military uniforms and medals and religious clothing - were among those seen filing into Westminster Abbey on Saturday morning ahead of the big event.

Ed Davey has hailed what he called groundbreaking results for the Liberal Democrats in local elections, as party activists predicted they were on track to oust large number of Conservative MPs in so-called blue wall seats.In early results, the Lib Dems defeated the Conservatives to win control of Windsor and Maidenhead council, Theresa May's home territory.

All across the land the emergency alarm went off.Oliver Dowden had been appointed deputy prime minister.The harsh metallic tone of the mobile phone sounded suspiciously like the rattle of a barrel being scraped bare.Metal on metal.There's not an ounce of talent left in the Tory party.If it was a circus elephant you'd put a bullet in its head and have done with it.

A sweeping review of the relationship between faith and the state in recent times is due to be published within weeks, urging ministers to crack down on oppression, violence and radicalisation in religious settings.The report, by Colin Bloom, will be unveiled by Michael Gove's Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Landlords are to be given new powers to evict problematic tenants with two weeks' notice under government proposals to address antisocial behaviour.The measures would cover tenants who play loud music, use drugs, cause damage to their property or fall behind on their rent.All new private tenancy agreements will have to include clauses that specifically ban antisocial behaviour and the notice period for eviction on these grounds will be cut from four weeks to a fortnight.

The Levelling-Up Secretary has refused to guarantee that HS2 will terminate at Euston, saying he did not know where the final London destination would be.Michael Gove, quizzed on where the upgraded rail route could end in the UK's capital, said there was a debate about whether it should be Euston or Old Oak Common, a west London suburb.

Ofsted needs to look at how schools can be rated inadequate overall if they only fail in one area in an inspection following Ruth Perry's death, Michael Gove has said.Ms Perry, who was headteacher at Caversham Primary School in Reading, killed herself in January while waiting for an Ofsted report which downgraded her school to the lowest possible rating, her family said.

Labour has denied claims that top civil servant Sue Gray was in talks about taking a job as Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff for more than 12 months.The move to appoint the official who oversaw the Partygate inquiry into Boris Johnson's government has sparked outrage from Tory allies of the former PM who cried stitch up.

Michael Gove said four more companies have signed up to post-Grenfell building safety contracts after he named and shamed some of the firms earlier this month that had not signed up to the agreement.The Communities Secretary had given companies until March 13 to sign up to the agreement aimed at addressing cladding issues following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, confirming earlier this month that 39 developers had signed contracts committing 2 billion to fund repairs to high-rise buildings which have unsafe cladding or other fire safety defects.

The Government will bring forward changes to its flagship Levelling Up Bill aimed at tackling problems with Airbnbs and other short-term lets, Michael Gove said.The Communities Secretary said ministers will make changes aimed at restricting the way that homes can be turned into Airbnbs as he acknowledged a problem with holiday lets preventing younger workers from living and finding a job near to home.

Shortly before George W Bush and Tony Blair launched their war, the Arab League issued a statement declaring that invading Iraq would open the gates of hell.Of all the pieces of intelligence that the CIA and British agents were gathering at the time, this turned out to be the only accurate one.The invasion was launched on evidence about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that consisted mostly of whatever it was Iraqi informants knew our intelligence agencies most wanted to hear and would happily pay for.

It is death by gangrene.No government seems to have the guts to kill HS2, Britain's biggest and craziest infrastructure project, so each merely lops off another limb.In 2021, it was Leeds.Now the opening of the Birmingham-to-Manchester and Acton-to-Euston lines has been delayed.HS2 to be delayed by two more years due to soaring costs This railway is a southern project on which the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is blowing a staggering 100m a week or 5bn a year.

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email A senior Tory MP has been reported to the parliamentary standards commissioner over claims he lobbied the head of the NHS for a firm which was paying him 1,600 per month.In a letter to the parliamentary watchdog, chairman of the Labour Party Anneliese Dodds said she was concerned about MP Steve Brine's actions.

The tragic death of Awaab Ishak should never have happened, Michael Gove said recently during a visit to Rochdale.Despite repeated complaints from Awaab's father about the black mould that ultimately caused the death of his two-year-old son, Rochdale Borough Housing failed to act.The problems in England's social housing extend far beyond this single tragedy.

Plans to drill for gas in the Surrey Hills will be put under judicial review and could be stopped, after local campaigners took the government to the high court.Ministers previously gave the green light to three years of exploratory drilling at a site near Dunsfold on the edge of the Surrey Hills area of outstanding natural beauty.

Private landlords have been accused of making up stories about the state of the rented sector in an attempt to persuade the government to scrap UK tax measures forecast to cost them close to 1bn a year.The allegation came after it emerged a lobbyist for private landlords in England and Wales, who has argued the tax rules have forced them to sell up in an exodus, said to allies it was not terribly helpful to have to acknowledge that the sector was actually increasing in size.

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email The chairman of the health select committee lobbied the head of the NHS on behalf of a firm paying him 1,600 a month, it has been reported.At the height of the Covid pandemic, former health minister Steve Brine said he had been trying for months to persuade the NHS to hire anaesthetists through Remedium, a recruitment company he worked for, leaked messages show.

Brexit has caused a decline in business investment which is costing the average UK household around 1,000, a leading Bank of England official has warned.Jonathan Haskell, an external member of the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), said investment had been stopped in its tracks by the decision to leave the EU.

The father of a toddler who died after exposure to mould at his housing association flat has spoken of his family's struggle with their loss as he welcomed a proposed new law in his son's name.Two-year-old Awaab Ishak died in December 2020 from a respiratory condition caused by mould at his home in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.