Author: James Carter

A Reform UK MP reduced the House of Commons to tears on Wednesday when she revealed for the first time that her mother had been pressured by the church into giving up a baby for adoption — a secret she carried to her grave — as Sir Keir Starmer issued a formal state apology for one of the most painful chapters in modern British history. Sarah Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, was visibly overcome as she told MPs that she only discovered her mother’s secret after her death, that she had been forced to pay privately to trace…

House prices edged down slightly in June but remain almost £6,000 higher than this time last year, according to Nationwide Building Society, as mortgage approvals slump and uncertainty surrounding the Middle East conflict and UK political turmoil continues to weigh on buyer confidence. The typical home fell by £540 compared to May to reach £277,484, though on an annual basis prices are up 2.2 per cent, a rise from 1.7 per cent recorded in May. Nationwide, Britain’s biggest building society, said prices were essentially flat on a monthly basis once seasonal adjustments were applied. Anthony Codling of RBC Capital Markets…

A social housing company that acquires newly built affordable homes from developers before leasing them to registered providers has entered administration after failing to meet its financial liabilities, with administrators moving quickly to reassure tenants that their arrangements remain unaffected. RPA1 Limited, a subsidiary of Rentplus-UK Limited and registered at an address on North Fourth Street in Milton Keynes, confirmed it had entered administration following “financial challenges resulting in it being unable to meet its liabilities.” The company has been operating since 2014, according to business information provider Endole, initially registered in Devon before moving to its current Milton Keynes…

Sir Keir Starmer has unveiled a £15 billion defence investment plan he says will protect Britain in an increasingly “volatile” world, but the package falls billions of pounds short of what military chiefs say they need and will see the UK scrap older equipment including Storm Shadow cruise missiles and a range of military helicopters. The plan, delayed for months by Treasury wrangling over funding, follows the resignation of John Healey as defence secretary earlier this month in protest at insufficient cash being made available. The Treasury subsequently agreed to give the Ministry of Defence an extra £1.5 billion, pushing…

Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez has drawn fierce criticism after admitting that international rescue teams were pulled away from ongoing earthquake recovery operations to attend a formal government ceremony — with survivors still trapped beneath collapsed buildings and the death toll rising past 1,400. Rodríguez herself confirmed the decision in a public statement, saying: “We wanted to pull them away from their vital tasks to say thank you.” The admission has sparked outrage in Venezuela and internationally, with critics describing the event as a cynical propaganda stunt that sacrificed precious time in the critical window for finding survivors alive. The…

Andy Burnham has announced plans to establish a prime minister’s office in Manchester if he becomes Prime Minister, describing it as the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain” designed to redistribute power and resources across the entire country rather than simply the North. The Labour leadership frontrunner confirmed that a “No 10 North” would be based in Manchester but stressed its purpose would extend far beyond the region. “It will only be based here,” Burnham said, “but its job would be to make power flow into the Midlands, into the South West, into the East of England and yes, into…

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is to create a new independent appeals authority to dramatically accelerate the processing of asylum cases, tackling a backlog of more than 150,000 people waiting for their claims to be heard in what amounts to the biggest shake-up of the immigration appeals system in a generation. The Independent Immigration Appeals Authority, due to be operational by late 2027, will replace the existing system with a single appeal route, cutting off the ability of those whose claims have been rejected to lodge successive further claims as a means of delaying removal. At present, the average time to…

Immigration Minister Mike Tapp has publicly apologised after posting and rapidly deleting a tweet in which he appeared to compare pressure from his boss, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, to his experiences fighting the Taliban. Tapp, a former soldier and MP for Dover and Deal, posted on X words to the effect of “I’ve seen off the Taliban and taken out terrorists. Country first, always,” in an apparent response to what he described as “attempted intimidation” from Mahmood. The post was deleted almost immediately, but not before it had been seen and shared widely online. In a subsequent apology posted on…

Nationwide has cut its mortgage rates for the third time in a month, offering some of the most competitive deals currently available in the market, as brokers warn borrowers to lock in rates now before geopolitical uncertainty and a change of Prime Minister unsettle financial markets. Britain’s biggest building society has reduced rates by up to 0.25 percentage points across deals for first-time buyers, home movers and those looking to remortgage, building on cuts of up to 0.28 per cent made early last week. The latest reductions leave Nationwide offering a market-leading two-year fixed rate of 4.19 per cent for…

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is set to sack her migration minister Mike Tapp after he breached the ministerial code by writing an unauthorised newspaper article pushing for migrant care workers to be given special exemptions from her immigration overhaul. Tapp, who serves as the MP for Dover and Deal, penned the piece for The Times without authorisation, arguing it was his “strong belief” that migrants should not face extended periods before being granted permanent settlement in Britain. The article directly contradicted the direction of Mahmood’s immigration reforms and publicly aired internal government policy discussions without permission. A Whitehall insider told…