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Labour scrambles to save digital ID plans with ‘people’s panel’

Party to launch eight-week consultation in last ditch attempt to garner public support for policy Daily Telegraph 10/03/26 Labour is setting up a “people’s panel” on digital ID in a last-ditch attempt to turn public opinion in favour of the policy. Ministers have started an eight-week consultation on plans to create a new digital ID for government services, which were watered down after a rebellion of Labour MPs. Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, has pledged to create a system of “Government by app” and compared the service to the introduction of online banking. Ministers will also run a “people’s panel” on the policy, which the Government said would “bring together people across the country from different backgrounds” to have “in-depth discussions” and find “ways to move forward”. The panel will be formed of 100 randomly selected people from across the country in an attempt to secure public support for the policy after months of criticism. Polling shows...
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Mandleson has crippledthe Government

Telegraph Politics 11/03/26 The signs that this tranche of Peter Papers would be politically combustible were there at PMQs, two hours before release. Keir Starmer repeatedly tried to emphasise his superior judgment in a series of fiery exchanges with Kemi Badenoch. He came to the bear pit determined to lambast the Leader of the Opposition for making the wrong call on joining the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and to accuse her of political caprice. Badenoch simply wanted to press him on fuel duty – a sensible line of attack given mounting public concern over the economic fallout from the Iran conflict. Starmer’s real message was that, when it matters – war – his judgment is sound. Puffing himself up, he took on the Statesman cosplay. The public should see him as a steady hand: serious, forensic, with solid instincts. Unfortunately the Mandelson files have swiftly trashed that claim. What they show, in black and white, is that the risks surrounding the appointment were not obscure, hid...
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Farage's petrol station

When does a political stunt become a gimmick? Not today. Daily Telegraph politics 10/03/26 Even Reform’s detractors must give credit where credit is due: the party managed to pull off cut-price fuel at a petrol station in deepest Derbyshire, as lorries rolled past tooting their horns approvingly. Ed Miliband’s Stone or Kinnock: The Movie this was not. Alongside Robert Jenrick, one of Nigel Farage’s newest MPs, the Reform leader filled punters’ tanks with the “cheapest” fuel in Britain, in an attempt to give voters a flavour of what life under the party might feel like. “Reform rates,” Jenrick quipped, as he manually adjusted the prices on a totem sign. Farage and Jenrick pictured today at petrol station in Derbyshire Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick have reduced petrol prices at the Newhaven services, near Buxton Beneath the theatre was some policy: the party has promised to reinstate the 5p cut to fuel duty in its first budget, paid for using £12bn savings from the green energy ...
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Rachel Reeves says she’s for ‘working people’. Her actions suggest otherwise

Labour has raised taxes to a near post-war high – its language on raising living standards is just rhetoric Daily Telegraph 04/03/26 Listening to the Chancellor’s Spring Statement in isolation would give the impression that the Government is running an efficient economy with a realistic promise of improving living standards. Unfortunately, I don’t think that this was likely to be the case for most of us, even before we had the uncertainty imposed on us by international events. Improved living standards rely principally on the ability of the Government to do so through economic growth. This in turn relies on greater business investment and improved productivity. On taking office, Rachel Reeves declared that economic growth was to be her priority, but it has not worked out that way. A combination of the increase in employers’ National Insurance, business rates, and changes to the minimum wage has placed a heavy burden on business and reduced their incentive to take on addition...
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The Greens are finally coming under serious scrutiny – and they’re rattled

Fear not, Zack Polanski’s seismic by-election success will ultimately spell his downfall Daily Telegraph 04/03/26 What a rollercoaster week it’s been for supporters of the Green Party. One day they win a historic by-election. Then, a day later, the Supreme Leader of Iran is killed. From ecstasy to despair, in one fell swoop. The poor things will have been weeping into their ginger kombucha. Still, now they’re on the up again because a seismic YouGov poll has shown that they’ve overtaken both Labour and the Tories – with only Reform narrowly ahead. Even more astoundingly, the poll reveals that the Greens are the most popular party with all age groups under 50. At this rate, they must be dreaming of winning not just by-elections – but the next general election, too. Unfortunately for the Greens, however, this extraordinary upturn in their fortunes does have a downside. Which is that, at very long last, they’re starting to come under some actual scrutiny. And they clearly don’t like i...
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U-turns have become a reflex for Reeves

Delivering a Spring Statement is preferable to announcing policy for flip-flopping Labour Daily Telegraph 03/03/26 The Commons was mostly empty for the Foreign Office Questions that preceded the Spring Statement. Quite understandable. Once all the gangsters, tax exiles and make-up influencers have been repatriated from Dubai, our parliamentarians can do little to affect World War Three. Instead, it makes sense for them to focus on where they can make a real difference: shouting at each other across the benches. And there are few better opportunities for guffawing than the Spring Statement, perhaps the most pointless parliamentary session of the year. So they steadily filed in, enduring the tedium of questions on irrelevant side issues such as Chagos, Hong Kong and the multi-state war Britain had just joined in the Middle East, while they waited for the main event. As the Budget’s little brother no longer includes anachronistic fripperies such as “policy”, it is purely a homework-...
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As the liberal order dies, Starmer’s Britain is doubling down on its stupidity

The PM is unable to respond to the implosion of the global status quo other than by incanting Leftist platitudes Daily Telegraph 04/03/26 What happened to us? How did we fall so far, so quickly? Where is our moral compass, our self-respect, our pride? Sir Keir Starmer’s Britain stands alone, but for the most deplorable of reasons, unwilling to fight back when our bases are hit by drones, incapable of deploying what is left of the Royal Navy, unable to respond to the implosion of the old world order other than by incanting Leftist platitudes, debilitated, humiliated and disgraced. America and Israel are waging a moral and just war to punish an evil, millenarianist, Iranian Islamist regime that kills and maims, and yet Britain is a no-show, pathetically asserting the war violates “international law”, sabotaging Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s heroic efforts at every opportunity. Starmer’s non-response to the attack on our base in Cyprus by Iranian proxies is an act of such br...
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