Nigel Farage says Tories ‘not on the right in any measurable way’ and calls Labour authorities ‘miserable’ – UK politics dwell

The Inexperienced social gathering of England and Wales have responded to the information that Thames Water is being allowed to borrow £3bn by reiterating their name for water firms to be nationalised. In a message on social media, the social gathering mentioned:

Thames Water have been allowed so as to add one other £3bn to their present £19bn of debt. They’ve run up this invoice by paying out large quantities to bosses and shareholders as an alternative of investing in our water infrastructure. It’s time for water to be run for folks, not revenue.

Yesterday night, in an interview with the Mirror, social gathering co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay have been extremely essential of the Labour authorities’s stance on environmental points.

Ramsay instructed the paper “It’s incredible how much Labour has stumbled at its first six months. We’ve just had so many different policies – whether it’s on public services, poverty and inequality, on climate – where they’re not willing to take the action that’s actually needed.”

He mentioned the choice on permitting a 3rd runway at Heathrow was an instance of “Labour just not taking its environmental commitments seriously,” suggesting “there will be a lot of disillusioned Labour MPs.”

Denyer criticised Labour’s failure to usher in a wealth tax, saying “it’s been so absolutely, maddeningly frustrating. Over and over again, they say that there are no alternatives. And there are, they are just refusing to consider them.”

Essentially the most senior decide in England and Wales mentioned she has written to Keir Starmer over final week’s prime minister’s questions, telling reporters she was “deeply troubled”, PA Media experiences.

Conservative social gathering chief Kemi Badenoch raised the problem, describing a tribunal resolution that granted a Palestinian household the correct to dwell within the UK after they utilized via a scheme initially meant for Ukrainian refugees as “completely wrong”. Starmer mentioned in parliament that he didn’t agree with the choice, and that the Dwelling Workplace meant to shut the loophole.

The Girl Chief Justice Baroness Carr mentioned on Tuesday that she was “deeply troubled to learn of the exchanges” and instructed reporters:

I believe it began from a query from the opposition suggesting that the choice in a sure case and was fallacious and clearly the prime minister’s response to that.

Each query and the reply have been unacceptable.

It’s for the federal government visibly to respect and defend the independence of the judiciary.

The place events, together with the federal government, disagree with their findings, they need to achieve this via the appellate course of.

Additionally on financial information for a second, the UK-wide unemployment fee remained unchanged at 4.4%. PA Media experiences the employment fee in Scotland between October and December for these aged 16 to 64 was 74.2% – about 2,625,000 folks – up 0.9% on the earlier quarter however barely under the UK fee of 74.9%. The speed of individuals classed as economically inactive in Scotland was 22.8% previously quarter, down 1.2% on the earlier quarter.

The SNP’s deputy first minister Kate Forbes mentioned:

These figures point out that Scotland’s labour market is proving resilient regardless of a difficult financial surroundings. It’s encouraging to see payrolled employment stays near report ranges and Scotland has increased median month-to-month pay than the UK.

To assist extra folks into work our draft price range for 2025-26 allocates an additional £11m for Scotland’s employability companies. We’re additionally rolling out enhanced employability assist for disabled folks by this summer time to assist deal with limitations to employment as a part of our plans to deal with financial inactivity.

My colleague Phillip Inman has this evaluation at this time, suggesting that the earlier robust wage progress figures are more likely to delay any doable rate of interest cuts from the Financial institution of England, as policymakers on the central financial institution are more likely to take into account persistently excessive pay rises as inflationary.

Nigel Farage has mentioned that chancellor Rachel Reeves makes him wish to attain for the “cry tissues” and that the Labour authorities is “miserable” and “declinist” whereas being interviewed in London by Canadian self-help creator Jordan Peterson.

Requested concerning the household unit as a elementary pillar of civilised society, the Reform UK chief and MP for Clacton mentioned that when he determined to come back again into frontline politics forward of the final basic election the three issues that motivated him have been “family, community and country.”

Farage then lamented declining birthrates within the UK, saying:

Household issues enormously. After all, we want increased birthrates, however we’re not going to get increased birthrates on this nation till we are able to get some sense of optimism, and we want an entire 180 diploma shift in attitudes.

We’d like some very, very large cultural adjustments. We’ve acquired to get that spirit, that sense of optimism, again within the nation. We had it within the late Eighties. We really had it via a lot of the Nineteen Nineties. That’s what we’ve got to recapture

Frankly, being led as we’re by … I imply, God … doesn’t Rachel Reeves simply make you wish to attain for the cry tissues? It’s all so depressing. It’s all so declinist. Frankly, the Conservatives have been no higher.

We deem a change of angle in Britain, we get that proper, folks may have extra youngsters.

In October 2024 the ONS reported that the fertility fee in England and Wales had dropped to the bottom on report, saying “The number of children born in England and Wales has been falling for the last decade and is at its lowest since 1977, while the average age of first-time mothers is at an all-time high.”

Nigel Farage was put right into a considerably awkward spot throughout his interview by Jordan Peterson on the Alliance for Accountable Citizenship (ARC) convention in London, after Peterson requested him an extended rambling query which together with describing single moms and same-sex {couples} as “deviations from the norm”.

Peterson continued “You could make the case that that stable, committed monogamy, heterosexual child-centred monogamy is the kind of long-term commitment to community, to sacrifice and to future that’s the fundamental unit of civilised, organised, civilised society. And so I’m curious what you think about that?”

Farage mentioned, with some wry self-awareness, “Well, I may not necessarily be the best advocate for monogamous heterosexuality or stable marriage, having been divorced twice.”

Nigel Farage, chief of Reform UK, has been talking on the Alliance for Accountable Citizenship (ARC) convention in London, the place he was being interviewed by Canadian self-help handbook creator Jordan Peterson.

He rejected Peterson’s assertion that the correct was cut up within the UK, as a result of, Farage mentioned, “the Conservative party is not on the right in any measurable way.”

He mentioned their 14 years in authorities noticed “the highest tax burden since 1947 … legal, mass immigration on a scale hitherto never even dreamt … illegal migration, small boats crossing the Channel, and the government completely incapable of dealing with it, because they couldn’t face up to what membership of the European convention on human rights was all about, and 14 years that saw net zero enshrined into law by a Conservative government.”

Farage was requested about power manufacturing and internet zero insurance policies by Peterson, and the Reform UK chief mentioned “our platform is to reindustrialise Britain. Let’s produce all the stuff we need in this country. Let’s become not just energy independent. We could actually become an energy exporter right now.”

There was a prolonged interlude when Peterson spoke about what he referred to as “carbon apocalypse mongering and terrorising” and what Farage referred to as “carbon dioxide hysteria”. Farage mentioned “I’m an environmentalist in the old school sense” and instructed a deal with carbon had “actually blinded us to other environmental disasters that are going on.”

The primary of as much as 390 prisoners are being launched early because the Scottish authorities makes an attempt to deal with overcrowding within the nation’s prisons, PA Media experiences.

Emergency laws handed by MSPs in November will change the discharge level for these serving jail sentences of lower than 4 years from 50% of their sentence to 40%.

The Scottish authorities mentioned it expects the change to carry a couple of 5% discount within the jail inhabitants. These convicted of home abuse or sexual offences is not going to be launched early beneath the adjustments.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance instructed the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme:

It’s honest to say that when it comes to crimes of violence that isn’t an insignificant proportion of individuals serving short-term sentences.

However the essential level, and the raison d’être of this laws, is that we have to obtain a sustained discount within the jail inhabitants that’s vital to make sure that our prisons can proceed to accommodate those that pose the best danger of hurt, and in addition to assist rehabilitation with a view to scale back re-offending.

There’s an inextricable hyperlink between the work that goes on in prisons and the protection of our group.

In the direction of the top of final 12 months prisons in Scotland had a inhabitants of about 8,300 inmates, above the overall capability which is ready at about 8,000.

Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Liam McArthur mentioned: “For years, the government was warned that overcrowding in the prison system was a disaster waiting to happen and failed to act.”

The chair of the impartial sentencing evaluation has warned the federal government that it’s “only a matter of time” earlier than jail numbers exceed capability once more in England and Wales.

Former justice secretary David Gauke instructed BBC Radio 4’s At this time Programme:

It is just a matter of time earlier than, as soon as once more, jail numbers will exceed capability. The federal government was pressured into taking motion within the autumn, however we’re going to be in an analogous place most likely in some unspecified time in the future subsequent 12 months, and that’s removed from excellent.

We needs to be rather more strategic about these items. You don’t wish to be speeding the discharge of prisoners out and motion goes to be wanted. What we’ve got seen for the final 30 years is one thing of a bidding struggle between political events as to who is ready to elongate sentences probably the most.

As a consequence, we’ve seen our jail inhabitants basically double over that point. We now have the very best incarceration fee in western Europe and with that comes penalties, not least the truth that jail is fairly costly.

Gauke, who was a Conservative justice secretary for 18 months in Theresa Might’s authorities, was requested to hold out a evaluation of the sentencing system this 12 months.

He discovered that successive governments’ overreliance on jail sentences and need to look “tough on crime” have pushed the justice system in England and Wales to the brink of collapse.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has mentioned Labour is proposing to “fundamentally rewire” railways in England to flee “decades of waste, inefficiency, fragmentation, with the privatised railways” launched by the Conservative authorities of the Nineteen Nineties.

Saying a session interval over the establishing of what is going to be referred to as Nice British Railway, Alexander mentioned “this is a brand new public organization that is going to bring together for the first time in decades, the management of the trains with the management of the tracks and infrastructure.”

Alexander additionally instructed viewers of ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the federal government was aspiring to arrange “a brand new passenger watchdog, which is going to have much greater powers than the travel watchdog that exists at the moment so that we can put passengers at the heart of the system.”

She mentioned:

During the last couple of a long time, we’ve got leaked cash to personal sector prepare working firms within the administration charges that we’ve got been paying. And so that is about making our railways extra environment friendly, offering higher worth for cash for the taxpayer, and finally bettering the reliability of these companies.

It’s actually essential that we do that correctly, as a result of we’re basically rewiring our railways. We’ve had a long time of waste, inefficiency, and fragmentation with the privatised railways.

I’m not going to faux that there aren’t issues on the rail community in some components of the nation, and I recognise that persons are bold for change. That’s the reason we’re going to have a radical overhaul of the way in which our railways are organised.

Reacting to these wage and unemployment figures, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall mentioned:

Since July, wages have continued to develop at tempo, placing important a refund in folks’s pockets as we work to make work pay and enhance residing requirements for all.

However these figures additionally present that too many individuals are being locked out of labor and denied that likelihood, together with these sick and disabled.

As an alternative of writing folks off and labelling them, we should step up our assist.

UK pay progress rises 6% and unemployment remained unchanged

Richard Partington

Richard Partington is economics correspondent for the Guardian

UK pay progress rose in December and unemployment remained unchanged regardless of warnings from enterprise that Rachel Reeves’s autumn price range would result in job losses.

Figures from the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics present annual progress in whole common weekly earnings rose by 6% within the three months to December, up from 5.6% in November and above a 5.9% forecast made by Metropolis economists.

Common pay, excluding bonuses additionally accelerated from 5.6% to five.9%, matching estimates.

Unemployment remained unchanged at 4.4%, confounding expectations for a marginal enhance to 4.5%.

Liz McKeown, an ONS director of financial statistics, mentioned: “Growth in pay, excluding bonuses, rose for a third consecutive time, with increases seen in both the private and public sector. After taking account of inflation, real pay growth also increased slightly.

“The number of employees on payroll was broadly unchanged in the last three months of the year, continuing a medium-term trend of slowing growth. The number of vacancies also continued to fall in the latest quarter, albeit more slowly, with the total number remaining a little above its pre-pandemic level.”

Learn extra right here: UK pay progress rises 6% regardless of job loss warnings after Reeves’s price range

London mayor Sadiq Khan is anticipated to inform diplomats at this time that “Brexit was a mistake” and renew backing for a youth mobility scheme.

In feedback briefed to the media upfront, the Labour politician, in his third time period as mayor, will inform delegates at a gathering with the EU ambassador and UK ambassadors of the 27 member states that Britain’s withdrawal from the EU “continues to have a negative impact.”

“As mayor, I’m strongly in favour of a new youth mobility scheme,” PA media experiences he’s anticipated to inform the gathering.

“This would help to aid economic growth across Europe, but also give young Londoners and EU citizens important life experiences – like the opportunity to work abroad and learn more about our respective languages and cultures.

“As part of this, I’m keen for us to look at how we can make it easier for schoolchildren from the EU to visit the UK and learn more about our shared ties and history.

“I’m a proud European and of the view that Brexit was a mistake that continues to have a negative impact – not just on my city and country, but on the European community as a whole”