Labour expected to drop two general election candidates

Published

1 year ago

June 4, 2024

admin

The Labour Party is expected to drop two of its general election candidates in Gosport and Barking following a crunch meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) today.

An email from the office of the general secretary, seen by Sky News, says the party is “not recommending candidates for endorsement” in Gosport or Barking as there are “outstanding NEC processes yet to conclude”.

Labour had selected Edward Batterbury for Gosport and Darren Rodwell, the leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, for the parliamentary seat of Barking.

It comes after Mr Rodwell issued a statement on X on Monday, in which he said allegations about his behaviour had been made to Labour’s complaints unit.

Election latest: Abbot makes cut for Labour

“I utterly refute what is being said,” he wrote.

“I have not engaged in sexual harassment of any kind. I did not indulge in ‘inappropriate touching’ of an attendee at an event last month.

“I have no recollection of meeting someone for a coffee to discuss development in Barking – there is no evidence of any such meeting in my diary.

“Likewise, I have no recollection of asking personal questions.”

He continued: “It’s not clear what drinks I was ordering, but for the record, I do not drink alcohol.

“It is inconceivable I would have touched someone’s hands, legs and body inappropriately.

“I can only imagine I am a victim of some sort of attempt to prevent me being selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Barking.

“I am prepared fully to address this complaint, I am in the process of consulting lawyers and I would ask it were expedited so my candidature can proceed.”

Sky News has approached the Labour Party, Mr Batterbury and Mr Rodwell for comment.

Labour’s NEC met this afternoon to approve its list of candidates going into the general election – including Diane Abbott, who has now been confirmed as the party’s candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

It follows the controversy surrounding Ms Abbott, who initially believed she had been barred from standing for Labour following her suspension last year for suggesting that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experience prejudice rather than racism.

Ms Abbott issued a swift apology following the comments, but was stripped of the Labour Party whip, forcing her to sit as an independent MP in the Commons.

With the deadline fast approaching for Labour to finalise its candidates, there were mounting questions over Ms Abbott’s future and whether she would be able to run for the party in Hackney North.

The Times then reported last week she had had the whip restored but would be barred from standing in the seat she has held for nearly 40 years.

A backlash against the decision – and the manner in which it was briefed to the media – followed, with Angela Rayner telling Sky News she did not see “any reason” why Ms Abbott could not run for the party on 4 July.

? Tap here to follow Politics at Jack at Sam’s wherever you get your podcasts ?

Sir Keir then declared that Ms Abbott was in fact “free” to run for the party while he praised her reputation as “trailblazer” and the UK’s first female black MP.

Ms Abbott has been critical of the way her case was handled and was one of a number of party figures to accuse the Labour leader of carrying out a “cull” of left-wing former MPs and candidates, after Faiza Shaheen was also blocked in Chingford and Woodford Green and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the former MP for Brighton Kemptown, was suspended after a “serious complaint” was made against him.

In a social media statement, Mr Russell-Moyle said he believed the “false allegation” was a “vexatious and politically motivated complaint” about his behaviour eight years ago that was “designed to disrupt the election”.

On Tuesday morning Ms Shaheen said she had resigned from Labour, saying she believed her “removal shows that the desires of the local members and my community mean nothing to the people at the top of the party”.

Sir Keir has denied blocking those on the left, saying he simply wants the “highest quality candidates” in the election.

The candidates standing in Gosport are:
Labour – TBC
Conservatives – Caroline Dinenage
Reform UK – Matt Mulliss
Green Party – Tony Sudworth

The candidates standing in Barking are:
Green Party – Simon Ronald Anthony
Liberal Democrats – Charley Hasted
Reform UK – Clive Peacock
Conservatives – Julie Redmond
Workers Party of Britain – Hamid Shah
Labour – TBC

The Electoral Commission deadline to become a candidate for the general election is at 4pm on Friday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

51 mins ago

July 5, 2025

admin

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

2 hours ago

July 5, 2025

admin

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Miguell Rocha played with Jota for around ten years with Gondomar Sport Clube in Portugal.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

The former captain was seen wiping away tears as he read messages and laid his tribute down.

UK

How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk

Published

7 hours ago

July 5, 2025

admin

How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk

Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.

Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”

Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.

After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.

“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.

“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”

Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.

Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.

He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”

The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.

Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.

“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”

The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.

“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.

“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”

The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.

I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.

“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.

He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.

“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.

“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”

He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.