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In September 2022, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed he was leaving office with "unemployment…down to lows not seen since I was about 10 years old and bouncing around on a space hopper." In reality, the number of people who were economically inactive had risen by almost 400,000, and an enormous rise in the number of people claiming long-term sickness benefits was already underway. How did Johnson get away with claiming unemployment was exceptionally low? Government unemployment statistics only look at those who are actively looking for work. If someone is studying, a caregiver, or categorized as long-term sick, they...

As Russia's war in Ukraine rages on despite high-level meetings to discuss a possible path to peace, CBS News has learned that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, issued a directive weeks ago to the U.S. intelligence community ordering that all information regarding the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations not be shared with U.S.-allied intelligence partners. The memo, dated July 20 and signed by Gabbard, directed agencies to not share information with the so-called Five Eyes, the post-World War II intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, multiple U.S. intelligence officials told CBS News. They spoke under...

Labour has lost almost 200,000 members in the past five years, according to the party's latest annual accounts. The party's membership has been steadily falling since Sir Keir Starmer became leader in April 2020, from a peak of 532,046 at the end of 2019. Despite the party's landslide election victory last summer, it shed another 37,215 members over the course of 2024, around 10% of its total membership at the start of the year. However, it is still the largest political party in the UK, with 333,235 members at the end of last year. Labour sources said membership numbers tend...

A record 111,000 asylum applications were made to the UK during the year to June, but the government is processing cases faster, new Home Office figures show. This is an increase of 14% from the previous year, and it is higher than the peak of 103,000 in 2002. But officials are processing more cases than before the general election, meaning that over the long term there may be fewer people in the system needing housing support. The latest data, which covers Labour's first year in office, comes as the government faces growing pressure over immigration. The figures also showed 71,000...

Latest DevelopmentsAid Trucks Looted: Data from the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) showed that between May 19 and August 5, more than 2,600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossed from Israel into Gaza. However, only 300 of these trucks reached their intended destinations in Gaza during that period, with some 2,309 trucks being “intercepted” and looted along their delivery routes — undermining the recent claim of Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, that “the vast majority of the aid gets to civilians.” UNOPS’s data did not distinguish between the parties responsible for the interceptions, noting only that...

Lucy Connolly has today been released from prison after being jailed for writing a 'racist' tweet during last summer's riots. The mother had spent more than nine months behind bars after admitting making the inflammatory post on X in the wake of the Southport attacks in July last year. Connolly, who is the wife of Tory councillor Ray Connolly, pleaded guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred and was handed a 31-month sentence in October.

Keir Starmer was facing a Labour revolt on Wednesday night as councils prepared to battle the Home Office over migrant hotels. Town hall leaders across the country said they are already looking to follow Epping Forest District Council and take legal action to prevent small boat arrivals being placed in local hotels. At least four Labour-run authorities were understood to be studying the ruling and considering their own course, posing a new headache for the Prime Minister. Kemi Badenoch wrote to all leaders of Tory-led parties on Wednesday night, pledging her support for any legal action they take, while Home...

Less than one percent of customers who filed detailed complaints about checking or savings account closures with the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the last 13 years accused banks of acting for political or religious reasons, even as the White House mounts a campaign to stamp out "systemic abuses" in the financial system that it says have wronged conservatives, a review of the agency's data shows. U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month signed an executive order requiring banks not to discriminate against clients on political or religious grounds, a practice known as debanking, after citing what Trump called...

A man is facing assault charges for allegedly injuring an intruder at his home in Lindsay, Ont., according to local police. The Kawartha Lakes Police Service says it responded to a call on Kent Street at about 3:20 a.m. on Monday. According to police, the resident had woken up to find an intruder inside his apartment. The two had an "altercation" and the intruder suffered life-threatening injuries, police say, and was later airlifted to a Toronto hospital. Police say the resident is facing charges for aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. The alleged intruder, 41, is also facing charges,...

The High Court judgement granting a temporary court injunction to prevent asylum seekers from being housed at a hotel in Epping will be a political and practical headache for the government. Practically, the Home Office has less than a month to find alternative accommodation for the asylum seekers housed at the Bell Hotel. The hope – though perhaps not the expectation – is that Tuesday's judgement does not set a precedent. Epping Forest District Council has to return to court in the autumn and it is possible the temporary ban on housing asylum seekers will not be made permanent. But...

EXCLUSIVE: The Reform UK MP is calling for a change of government amid the ongoing issue of migration.Lee Anderson hit out at Sir Keir Starmer in a bombshell chat with the Express – dubbing the Prime Minister "evil". The Reform UK MP for Ashfield exposed the Prime Minister's plan on migration during an interview in Canary Wharf, the location of recent protests after asylum seekers were moved into the Britannia International Hotel. Speaking with Express Investigations Editor Zak Garner-Purkis, Mr Anderson said: "This Keir Starmer, in my opinion, is evil. If you speak out, he'll put you in prison. And...

Asylum seekers are due to be removed from an Essex hotel after a council was granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking them from being housed there. The injunction was sought by Epping Forest District Council to stop migrants being placed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, which is owned by Somani Hotels Limited. Thousands of people have protested near the hotel in recent weeks after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the town. Mr Justice Eyre made his judgement after refusing an 11th-hour effort from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to get...

A council has won its High Court bid to temporarily block asylum seekers from being housed at The Bell Hotel in Essex – despite a late bid by the government to intervene. The injunction was sought by Epping Forest District Council to stop migrants being placed at the venue in Epping, which is owned by Somani Hotels Limited. Thousands of people have protested near the site in recent weeks after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Mr Justice Eyre made his judgement after refusing an 11th hour effort from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper...

Warning: This article contains strong languageListen to Helen read this article The video opens with some white cliffs and a politician standing on a beach. This isn't Dover, and it's not Nigel Farage (although the echoes with Reform UK are deliberate). Rather, it's a campaign video for the Green Party's leadership hopeful, Zack Polanski. Amid slick filming and a moody orchestral soundtrack, he delivers an animated and uncompromising message. Small boats, he declares, are an "obsession that has gripped the country," blamed for a "crumbling" NHS and "obscene" rents, while people are told there's no money left. "Well," he says,...

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee mocks the BBC after it implied Israel starved a Gazan woman who, in fact, died of leukemia. Sharing journalist Melanie Phillips’ critique, he quips the BBC would apologize “the same day a Baskin Robbins opens in hell.” .....

Sir Keir Starmer will speak to western allies on Sunday ahead of Volodymyr Zelensky’s White House meeting with Donald Trump. The Prime Minister, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz will host the meeting of the coalition of the willing on Sunday afternoon. The coalition, made up of 30-plus nations, is prepared to deter Russian aggression by putting troops on the ground in Ukraine once the war is over. The meeting, which is expected to take place at approximately 2pm UK time, comes on the heels of US President Mr Trump’s summit in Alaska with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp has said the primary risk the UK faces is from an alliance “of the hard left and Islamist extremists” and that he fears civil war because politicians are too myopic to take action. Colonel Richard Kemp, a high-profile Infantry officer who fought counter insurgency on home ground in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, served in the Gulf war and Bosnia, commanded an Afghanistan operation, and who had political-facing senior roles in Westminster including the powerful Joint Intelligence Committee and the Cabinet Office crisis centre COBRA, has expressed concern about unrest and even civil war...

The UK's Defence Secretary has said that Britain is willing to “put boots on the ground” to help enforce a ceasefire in Ukraine, in the event that one is agreed. Defence Secretary John Healey has commented the peace summit today in Alaska "could be the first step" towards peace in the Ukraine conflict. The minister also stated the government was prepared to "step up economic sanctions and pressure on Putin if he shows today in Alaska he really isn't serious". The Defence Secretary has affirmed the UK will continue to stand by Ukraine during these peace talks and has said:...

A suspended Labour councillor who said far-right protesters should have their throats slit has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder. Ricky Jones, 58, drew his finger across his throat and called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" at an anti-racism protest in east London last August following the Southport murders. Jones, a borough councillor in Dartford, Kent, from 2019, said he felt it was his "duty" to attend the protest in Walthamstow, despite being warned by his party to stay away. He was suspended the day after the incident. Jones, of Dartford, who denied one count of encouraging violent disorder,...

EHRC calls for clearer guidance for officers to avoid creating a ‘chilling effect’ on freedom of expression The UK’s official human rights watchdog has written to the government and police expressing concern at a potentially “heavy-handed” approach to protests about Gaza and urging clearer guidance for officers in enforcing the law. In the letter to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, and Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan police, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the perception that peaceful protest could attract disproportionate police attention “undermines confidence in our human rights protections”. ...