Author: James Carter

Benjamin Netanyahu faces the prospect of arrest if he travels to Hungary later this year, after the country’s incoming prime minister declared he intends to halt Budapest’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court and enforce the warrant issued against the Israeli leader. Péter Magyar, who is set to replace longtime Netanyahu ally Viktor Orbán as Hungary’s prime minister, said on Monday that his government would stop the ICC withdrawal process by 2 June — the deadline by which the move could still be reversed — and that once Hungary remained a member of the court, any individual subject to an…

Sir Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation covertly attempted to secure a senior ambassadorial posting for a peer who was later suspended from the Labour Party over links to a convicted child sex offender, while instructing the Foreign Office’s most senior official to conceal the plan from the Foreign Secretary, a parliamentary committee has heard. Sir Olly Robbins, dismissed last week as the Foreign Office’s permanent under-secretary amid the escalating Mandelson vetting scandal, told the Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday that Number 10’s private office contacted him in March 2025 to find a “head of mission” diplomatic role for Lord Doyle…

Shabana Mahmood told a heckler to “f*** right off” during a live podcast recording in London’s West End, before accusing those who challenge her immigration stance of harbouring a form of racism rooted in the belief that a “brown woman” should not be permitted to hold certain views. The Home Secretary was appearing on comedian Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast at the Duchess Theatre when a man in the audience confronted her, sarcastically claiming he wanted to “personally thank” her for “out-reforming Reform.” Two further hecklers chanted “refugees welcome” before being removed from the venue by security. Rather than deflecting…

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has extended its polling advantage to ten points, according to a new YouGov survey that will provide significant encouragement to the party ahead of next month’s local elections and comes at a moment of acute pressure on Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. The poll places Reform on 27 per cent — up three points from the previous week — with the Conservatives and Greens level on 17 per cent each, Labour fourth on 16 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats on 14 per cent. Restore Britain, the new party led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, registered…

Sir Keir Starmer’s political position has been severely weakened after the senior civil servant he publicly blamed for the Mandelson vetting scandal struck back, telling MPs he had been subjected to an “atmosphere of pressure” from Downing Street and had felt the appointment was being driven through regardless of security concerns. Sir Olly Robbins, who was dismissed from his role as the Foreign Office’s top official last week, gave explosive testimony to a parliamentary committee in which he said No10 had “chased” the posting and been “dismissive” of the need for formal security vetting. He described walking into a situation…

He wants to legalise every drug known to man, shut right-wingers out of society, and once claimed he could make women’s breasts grow larger through the power of hypnosis. Meet Zack Polanski — Green Party leader, self-styled political radical, and arguably the most colourful figure in British politics right now. This week, Polanski added a new entry to his already extraordinary public record, questioning on his own podcast whether people with right-wing views should simply be excluded from the society he intends to build. For a man whose past includes charging women £222 a session for hypnotherapy breast enlargement treatments,…

One of Labour’s most prominent green backers has turned on the party’s flagship home energy programme, arguing that nearly £2.7 billion earmarked for heat pump subsidies should be diverted to fill the Government’s growing defence spending gap instead. Dale Vince, founder of green energy company Ecotricity and a long-standing Labour donor, said the Boiler Upgrade Scheme — which offers households up to £7,500 towards the cost of installing a heat pump under Ed Miliband’s Warm Homes Plan — amounted to handing public money to people who already had the means to pay for the upgrades themselves. With Britain facing mounting…

Nigel Farage has set out the most detailed account yet of how a Reform UK government would tackle illegal migration, promising to pay unwanted migrants up to £1,000 to leave Britain voluntarily and warning that those who refuse would be forcibly removed by a newly created deportation unit. Farage and home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf presented the plans at a press conference, confirming that a Reform government elected in 2029 would conduct a retrospective review of all asylum grants made over the preceding five years. Those found to have entered the country illegally — whether by small boat, concealed in…

Sir Keir Starmer will face one of the most significant tests of his premiership in the Commons today, as he attempts to explain his role in the appointment of Lord Mandelson as US ambassador despite the Labour grandee having failed security checks. The Prime Minister is expected to make a statement addressing what he knew about the vetting process, following a week in which the affair has escalated rapidly into a full-blown political crisis. The Foreign Office’s most senior official, Sir Olly Robbins, was dismissed last week after it emerged that Lord Mandelson had been granted developed vetting status despite…

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has set out plans to detain and deport up to 400,000 asylum seekers should the party win the next general election, in what would represent the most sweeping overhaul of Britain’s immigration system ever proposed by a mainstream political party. The policy, unveiled as the party continues to build its pre-election platform, would target anyone who arrived in the UK illegally in the five years prior to a Reform government taking office. That encompasses those who crossed the Channel by small boat, entered clandestinely in lorries, claimed asylum using fraudulent documentation, or overstayed an existing visa…