Local and mayoral elections in England are to go ahead in May as planned, the government has confirmed, with councils allocated extra money to help make voting and the counting process safe amid coronavirus. Under a plan published on Friday by the Cabinet Office, polling stations will be fitted with screens and hand-sanitiser, while voters … Read more
Pressure is growing on the government over its support for a new coalmine in Cumbria, as the UK prepares to host the most important UN climate summit since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015. Developing country experts, scientists, green campaigners and government advisers are increasingly concerned about the seeming contradiction of ministers backing the … Read more
Philip Hammond has given an interview that has once more ripped open the wounds of the Conservative party over Brexit. He says some deliberately revealing things: that Theresa May genuinely had no idea what sort of a Brexit she intended, so that when she made him chancellor after the referendum. “I sat in the cabinet … Read more
The contrasting fortunes of England and Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic are stark. The UK passed 100,000 deaths at the end of January, whereas Australia, where life has largely returned to normal, has lost fewer than 1,000 people. The economic prospects of the two countries differ markedly. Just as stark, unsurprisingly, is the contrast in … Read more
The Department for Education (DfE) was “surprisingly unconcerned” with suspected large profits made by a private contractor at the centre of a free school meals fiasco and failed to reduce the costs, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded. A report by a cross-party committee found that Gavin Williamson’s department failed to renegotiate the terms of a … Read more