Politics

• De voormalige vicepremierminister zei dat ze er graag 'haar deel zou willen spelen' in het geval van een strijd om het leiderschap • Volledig rapport: Angela Rayner vrijgepleit door HMRC over belastingzaken, wat de weg vrijmaakt voor een mogelijke kandidatuur voor het leiderschap • In haar interview met ITV zei Angela Rayner, de voormalige vicepremier, dat ze geen pact zou sluiten met Andy Burnham om Keir Starmer uit te dagen. "Ik sluit geen deals of iets dergelijks", zei ze.

• Angus Taylor houdt vanavond speech als reactie op de begroting. Volg het nieuws van vandaag live • Ontvang onze breaking news-e-mail, gebruik de gratis app of luister naar onze dagelijkse nieuwspodcast • Goedemorgen en welkom bij onze live politieke blog. Ik ben Martin Farrer met de belangrijkste verhalen van vannacht, waarna Nick Visser het stokje overneemt (met Krishani Dhanji die vanmiddag klaarstaat in de aanloop naar de reactiespeech van Angus Taylor op de begroting).

Een aantal bondgenoten van de minister van Volksgezondheid riep op tot het aftreden van de premier, maar Streeting heeft nog niet opgeroepen tot een formele uitdaging voor het leiderschap Report: Starmer krijgt een reddingslijn nadat uitdaging van Streeting uitblijft Goedemorgen. Er staan vandaag twee belangrijke gebeurtenissen op de agenda. Op dit moment is het nog niet geheel duidelijk welke van de twee consequenter zal blijken. Om 11.15 uur arriveert de koning bij het parlement voor de officiële opening. De troonrede zet het wetgevende programma voor het komende jaar uiteen. Kiran Stacey geeft hier een vooruitblik. Lees verder...

De ontmoeting vindt plaats te midden van een voorlopige handelstest, maar Iran, Taiwan en spanningen over wereldwijde toeleveringsketens zullen complicerende factoren zijn. Meld u aan voor de Breaking News US-e-mail. Hallo en welkom bij onze live verslaggeving van de Amerikaanse politiek. Donald Trump is onderweg naar Beijing voor cruciale gesprekken met de Chinese leider Xi Jinping, terwijl zij proberen een voorlopige handelstest te handhaven en tegelijkertijd navigeren door kwesties rond Iran, Taiwan en de dominantie over wereldwijde toeleveringsketens. Lees verder...

De premier staat op een kruispunt; Yvette Cooper en Shabana Mahmood zoudenst onder anderen zijn die hem oproepen een tijdsschema voor zijn vertrek op te stellen.

Exclusief: staat nu zonder limieten op politieke donaties of openbaarmakingsvereisten, enkele maanden voor de verkiezingen in november Ontvang onze breaking news-e-mail, gratis app of dagelijkse nieuwspodcast “Onbeperkt dark money” zal blijven instromen in de Victoriaanse politiek nadat Labor er niet in is geslaagd een akkoord te bereiken met de Liberals of de Greens over donatiehervormingen die de regering-Allan beloofde via het parlement te versnellen. Victoria is nu zonder limieten op politieke donaties of openbaarmakingsvereisten, enkele maanden voor de verkiezingen in november, nadat het hoogste hof vorige maand de donatiewetten van de staat ongeldig verklaarde. Lees verder...

• Het is de eerste keer in bijna een decennium dat een Amerikaanse president China bezoekt, waarbij het laatste bezoek dat van Trump was in 2017. • Welkom bij onze live verslaggeving van de Amerikaanse politiek. Donald Trump staat gepland om deze week naar China te reizen voor een ontmoeting met Xi Jinping, de leider van China. • Gezien alles wat er tot nu toe is gebeurd in de tweede termijn van Trump – een handelsoorlog en vervolgens een daadwerkelijke oorlog met Iran die heeft geleid tot wereldwijd explosief stijgende olie- en gasprijzen – zal de sfeer van dit bezoek waarschijnlijk heel anders zijn.

De premier zal proberen Labour-parlementsleden te overtuigen hem te steunen na de zware verkiezingsverliezen van vorige week.

Tuesday’s federal budget to include $500m to fund faster approvals for housing, energy and mining projects. Follow today’s news liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastGood morning, Krishani Dhanji here with you. Friends, it’s budget week, and it has come very quickly if you ask me!We’re getting a few final announcements from the government before Jim Chalmers hands down his budget tomorrow. That includes some money to speed up environmental approvals to boost productivity (more on that in a moment). Of course, all the big-ticket items – including reforms to capital gains tax, negative gearing and trusts, have already been out for weeks. Continue reading...

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused Congress of betraying DMK, stating their pre-2014 government 'survived largely because of the DMK' during a speech on Tamil Nadu's political situation. • Modi highlighted that Congress shared a 'close relationship' with DMK for 25-30 years, relying on the alliance to escape crises, but stabbed them 'in the back' for power when winds shifted. • The remarks underscore ongoing BJP-Congress rivalry ahead of elections, with Modi criticizing Congress's 'lust for power' and need for new allies to stay relevant.

MP says that unless a cabinet minister comes forward to challenge the PM by tomorrow that she willGood morning. There were many predictions for Labour’s future ahead of the English, Scottish and Welsh elections, which have been terrible for the party, but there is one outcome foreseen by no one: a leadership challenge by Catherine West.West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a junior Foreign Office minister until she was sacked in the reshuffle last year, announced yesterday afternoon that, unless a cabinet minister comes forward to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership by tomorrow morning, she will do it herself. She would need the support of 81 Labour MPs to trigger a contest; there is no evidence that she has those numbers and (for reasons that are probably a mystery to anyone under the age of 50 – more on that later) she is being described as a stalking horse.I’m not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in July 2024. I’m not going to plunge the country into chaos. Continue reading...

Several frontbenchers told the Guardian they agreed the prime minister’s time in office should not go beyond the end of the year2026 elections mapped: how Labour lost ground in different directionsIn the wake of the local election results, Keir Starmer faced calls to stand down after voters handed a damning verdict on the Labour party.Starmer took responsibility after Labour lost hundreds of councillors in England and suffered humiliation in Wales, but he made clear that he would not quit, saying “tough days like this don’t weaken my resolve”. Continue reading...

Greens leader celebrates his party’s first ever elected mayor, and winning three councils outrightElection 2026 live: latest news updatesFull results from England, Scotland and WalesZack Polanski has declared Britain’s two-party politics “dead and buried” as his Green party won its first ever mayoral election and gained councillors across England, including winning three councils outright.As Labour losses piled up across the country and the Conservatives endured another disappointing set of results, Polanski sought to present his party as emerging from the results as the most viable option for opponents of Reform. Continue reading...

Party has success in Labour and Tory heartland areas but one pollster says results suggest Reform may have peakedNigel Farage hailed sweeping election wins for Reform UK as a “historic shift in British politics” on a day when the populist party made gains at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives.Reform made advances in heartland areas of both parties, clocking up substantial early results in the English local elections by taking control of Essex county council, Havering, its first London local authority, and Sunderland city council. Continue reading...

Legislature has eliminated the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional districtSign up for the Breaking News US email Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of US politics. Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district as GOP lawmakers scramble to improve their fortunes ahead of the November midterms.The new map splits Shelby County, the home of Memphis, a majority-Black city that played a critical role in the civil rights movement, into three separate Republican-leaning districts. Continue reading...

While Labour losses and Reform gains are obvious, the nature of how people actually voted is much more nuancedElections 2026 – live updatesFull results from England, Scotland and WalesEnglish local election results require careful interpretation. Not all places have them at the same time, a relatively small proportion complete their counts overnight and the early headlines may not reflect outcomes later in the day.But the headline number on Friday morning – that Labour has lost more than 250 councillors - will only grow as the day progresses. While Labour will want to stress that these “mid-term” elections often go badly for the incumbent Westminster government, they rarely go quite as badly as this. Continue reading...

Such a move could reshape the electoral map ahead of the midterms by carving up a majority-Black congressional districtSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to push through a plan later today that would carve up a majority-Black congressional district.Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was released Wednesday. A federal judge has unsealed an alleged suicide note by Jeffrey Epstein, the first time the document has been made public.The Trump administration has claimed that migration has made Europe an “incubator” for terrorism, according to a recently published report on counter-terrorism strategies. The administration will focus counter-terrorism efforts on drug cartels.Republican politicians in Tennessee released a new congressional voting map that could go into effect before the midterm elections this November. The proposed map would eliminate the state’s only Democratic-controlled district by carving up a majority-Black voting bloc based in Memphis.More information was released on the suspect charged in connection to Monday’s shooting near JD Vance’s motorcade. The Texas man accused of firing a gun at law enforcement officers near the Washington monument this week was walking along the path of JD Vance’s motorcade before the shooting and made a vulgar remark about the White House after the confrontation, according to a court filing on Wednesday.The FBI’s director, Kash Patel, has allegedly given out customized bottles of bourbon at events, including ones where he is working in a official capacity, according to a report from the Atlantic.Donald Trump will be hosting the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for a visit, a White House source confirmed to the Guardian. Trump and Lula, who was elected in 2023, will discuss “economic and security matters of shared importance”, the source said. The meeting is expected to take place this Thursday. Continue reading...

• Ms Grace Fu, Singapore's Minister, delivered a keynote at the 13th Singapore Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources on May 7, 2026, describing Southeast Asia facing a 'perfect storm' from geopolitical developments and climate change. • She emphasized severe implications for the region, including supply chain disruptions and resource scarcity due to the dual threats. • The speech underscores the need for sustainable resource strategies to mitigate risks to economic stability and security.

The Venice Biennale, Eurovision and Cannes are framed as artists representing their nations. But in a fractured world, national identity seems increasingly futile• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAre the arts being drowned out by politics? A few days before the biggest week of the year in Europe’s cultural calendar, that impression may be hard to avoid. The Venice Biennale opens its doors to the public on Saturday, but talk in the run-up to the world’s largest contemporary event has focused little on the works that will go on display inside the national pavilions, and a lot on which pavilions are going to open their doors, or shouldn’t.The building housing the Russian national representation was open for press previews on Tuesday, pumping out techno, for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It’s a decision the biennale president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, seems to have made against the wishes of the Italian government that appointed him, and could cost the festival €2m in EU funds for a breach of its ethical standards. Russia has not participated in the past two editions due to its war in Ukraine. Its pavilion’s doors will be closed to the public when the biennale opens fully on 9 May, which a Ukrainian official told the Guardian was a “meaningful step”, after the biennale’s jury resigned en masse in April, in objection to entries from countries whose leaders are subject to international arrest warrants. Continue reading...

Polls suggest Reform could win most seats in Senedd election but party is unlikely to be able to form governmentUK politics live – latest updatesOn a sunny but cold evening in a shopping centre car park on the outskirts of Merthyr Tydfil, Reform UK supporters enjoyed free pizza and loud music as they waited for what the party leader, Nigel Farage, said was his last big speech before Thursday’s Welsh Senedd, Scottish parliament and English local elections.Reform could win the most seats under Wales’s new more proportional voting system but it is unlikely to be able to form a government, as other parties have ruled out going into coalition with it. Yet Farage’s outfit is the first rightwing party with a shot at winning in Wales since the 1850s. The surge in support for a party that got 1% of the vote in the last Senedd election is impossible to ignore. Continue reading...

• Actor-turned-politician Vijay's newly formed AMMK Makkala Needhi Maiam (TVK) party has dramatically disrupted Tamil Nadu's traditional Dravidian political landscape, preventing any single party from securing an outright majority and leaving the state with a hung assembly requiring coalition negotiations. • The TVK's emergence represents a significant challenge to decades of DMK-AIADMK duopoly in one of India's most politically important southern states, forcing previously dominant parties to recalibrate their governance strategies. • Political analysts question whether Vijay, despite his mass appeal as a film star, can successfully navigate coalition politics and complex state governance with limited political experience.

Lutnick has acknowledged he visited Epstein’s island with his family in 2012 after earlier claiming he severed ties in 2005Sign up for the Breaking News US email Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick will become the latest of Donald Trump’s cabinet to be questioned over ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein when he sits for a closed-door transcribed interview with the Oversight Committee later today.A majority of Indiana Republican legislators whose opponents were backed by Donald Trump lost their primaries on Tuesday, giving the president wins in a deep-red state just months after lawmakers there rejected his redistricting plan. Of the seven Trump-endorsed challengers to state senate candidates, at least five won. More here.Democratic senator Sherrod Brown and Republican senator Jon Husted won their party’s nominations in Ohio’s primary elections, according to the Associated Press – teeing them up for what is expected to be a high-profile and expensive Senate race in November’s midterm elections. More here.Senate Republicans have released a new immigration enforcement funding package that includes a proposed $1bn that could go to security measures related to the $400m ballroom that is part of Donald Trump’s “East Wing modernization project”. More here.Marco Rubio argued the US is in a “very fortunate” position as fuel prices continue to climb nationwide amid disruption sparked by the US-Israel war on Iran. With average US fuel prices now approaching $4.50 a gallon – their highest level in four years – the US secretary of state was asked on Tuesday how long Americans should accept them at such levels. Other countries were suffering “big time”, Rubio replied. More here.Seven of the leading contenders in California’s unexpectedly dramatic race for governor faced off on the debate stage Tuesday night, with the stakes now higher because ballots are in the mail. Becerra was a top target, as expected, given his steady rise in the polls. More here. Continue reading...

Green leader said he hosted fundraisers for the Red Cross but accepts he should not have described himself as a spokesperson for itGood morning. Zack Polanski was largely unknown until he became the Green party leader in September last year and since then, as his party has soared in the polls, there has been intense scrutiny of his pre-politics career. The best-known embarrassing revelation about his past is the fact that he once told a woman he could enlarge her breasts if she listened to his hypnotherapy spiel. Nigel Farage, who also leads a dispruption party enjoying spectacular success, has scandals in his past too, and Polanski’s allies would argue that they are worse. Farage took a £5m donation from a political supporter which he did not declare, he still has not provided as good explanation as to how his partner was able to afford to buy a home in Farage’s Clacton constituency and arguably he told 30 million women that he could enlarge the size of their bank balances if they listened to his spiel on Brexit. Guardian readers can decide for themselves who is more dodgy.But, as we tell our children, life isn’t fair. And it certainly isn’t fair for leftwing politicians campaigning in an environment where the rightwing media have considerable influence. Polanski discovered that again last night when the Times printed a story with various claims about him, of which the main one related to an allegation about his embellishing his CV. Here is our version by Jessica Elgot.I hosted various fundraisers for the British Red Cross, and indeed I would go on stage and speak for them about the amazing work they do tackling humanitarian crises, on the climate crisis and indeed for refugees all around the world.I used the wrong word and I accept that.It feels some of these stories feel like scraping the barrel to go back 10, 15 years.I’ve had so many friends – I’m literally talking maybe 20 or 30 in the last few weeks – who have phoned me and said a Times journalist has been phoning and they’ve been desperately trying to find things about your past. They asked me lots of questions and seem disappointed that I didn’t have some juicy, dirty gossip. Continue reading...

Trump-endorsed candidate facing a long-shot challenge from car designer and YouTube provocateur Casey PutschHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is hoping to lock in his position as candidate in the race to become Ohio governor.Donald Trump has threatened that Iran will be “blown off the face of the earth” if it attacks US vessels trying to reopen a route through the strait of Hormuz. The US launched an operation to help hundreds of ships trapped with their crews in the Gulf, dragging the region back to the brink of full-scale war. While the US military claimed to have destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted both Iranian cruise missiles and drones, this was denied by Iran. More here.The Trump administration moved to block a lawsuit Minnesota officials filed almost six years ago alleging oil companies and a petroleum trade group deceived state residents about climate change. The justice department, the administration’s law enforcement arm, filed an action in federal court in Minneapolis arguing that the federal government has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, not states, and that Minnesota officials are trying to improperly impose their policy preferences on the rest of the country.The US supreme court went out of its way to help Louisiana Republicans redraw their congressional maps ahead of this year’s midterm elections. The procedural move comes less than a week after the court’s landmark decision striking down Louisiana’s congressional map and gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.The Trump administration is continuing to pressure the United Nations and the international aid sector more broadly to adopt trade-focused policies to benefit US firms – or face the threat of further budget cuts. Donald Trump’s second term has already seen USAID suffer mass layoffs and have its remaining operations folded into the state department, with a ripple effect across the globe that has many experts warning will cost thousands of lives as vital programs are cut. More here.The Trump administration’s attack on the 87-year-old food aid program that supports tens of millions of low-income Americans escalated last week as the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, claimed that 14,000 Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (Snap) recipients included owners of luxury vehicles such as Ferraris, Bentleys and Teslas. More here. Continue reading...

The prime minister said the attack in Golders Green is ‘part of a pattern of rising antisemitism’ in the countryGood morning. Keir Starmer has declared antisemitism “a crisis for all of us”. This morning he is hosting an event in Downing Street intended to get leaders across all areas of public life to address the problem and, according to the briefing from No 10, he will say:Last week’s terrorist attack in Golders Green was utterly appalling. But it was not an isolated incident. It is part of a pattern of rising antisemitism that has left our Jewish communities feeling frightened, angry, and asking whether this country, their home, is safe for them.These disgusting attacks are being made against British Jews. But, make no mistake, this crisis – it is a crisis for all of us. It is a test of our values. Values that are not guaranteed, but are earned. Every single day, through our actions.Jewish communities across England will receive a further £1m of government funding to tackle antisemitism and strengthen community cohesion in those places facing the greatest risk.An immediate £500,000 will also be allocated to Barnet council, reflecting recent serious antisemitic incidents in the borough and the large number of Jewish residents there. Continue reading...

Reform UK is ‘doing something right when it comes to visibility’ on multiple AI systems, say researchersAI platforms are more likely to reference Nigel Farage than any other UK leader when prompted about British politics, according to an AI search analytics firm.“We are confident in saying that Reform are showing up significantly more than you would expect,” said Malte Landwehr, an expert at Peec AI, the firm that did the research. “So they’re doing something right when it comes to LLM [large language model] visibility.” Continue reading...

Cole Allen remains in custody after being charged with attempting to assassinate Donald TrumpHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.The suspect from the 25 April shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has a hearing covering the conditions of his confinement scheduled for later today.Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, has been hospitalised and is in a “critical but stable condition”, his spokesperson said on Sunday evening. Ted Goodman, the spokesperson, posted on social media: “Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit its worst level during his two terms in office, with more than six in 10 Americans disapproving of the president’s job performance. Trump’s rating is at its worst on the cost of living and other economic issues since launching his deeply unpopular war against Iran in February, which has plunged the global economy into an oil crisis and sent gas prices rocketing to a four-year high.Trump has announced that the US will “guide” ships trapped by the Iran war out of the Gulf through the strait of Hormuz on Monday morning, and claimed his representatives were having “very positive” discussions with Iran. Trump wrote on his social media site that the operation, called “Project Freedom”, would be a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”.The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is to travel to Rome this week for a visit reportedly aimed at thawing frosty relations with the Italian government and the Vatican. Rubio is scheduled to be in the Italian capital on Thursday and Friday, which will also mark the one-year anniversary of the papacy of Pope Leo, the first US-born pontiff.Pete Hegseth’s purges of senior officers with impeccable reputations have caused alarm at the Pentagon, raising questions about whether a supposed last line of defense against the impulsive whims of a president with access to the nuclear codes still exists.Trump is attempting to select his own citizenry and control who can vote by gathering the personal details of all Americans, Arizona’s top election official has warned. Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, fears that the Trump administration’s active efforts to forcibly extract voter files from 30 states including Fontes’s own are part of a bigger plan to gather vital information on all US citizens into a centralised database. Continue reading...

The prime minister is backing the deal as it would allow British firms to access the contracts funded by the loanGood morning. In the UK many MPs will be spending the bank holiday campaigning for the elections on Thursday, but Keir Starmer is in Armenia, where he has announced that he wants the UK to join the EU’s €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine.Starmer is attending a European Political Community summit in Yerevan. The EPC is the group set up four years ago comprising all the EU countries, plus almost all the other European countries that are not EU members. Mark Carney, the Canadian PM, is also attending (on the grounds, presumably, that in the light of the geopolitical upheavel caused by Donald Trump, the Canadians now count as honorary Europeans.)In relation to the EU loan that we are discussing participating in, that is very good for Ukraine, because it will give Ukraine capability that is desperately needs in year five of this conflict.It’s very good for the UK, because of the capability that leads to jobs in the United Kingdom.The extra funding to Ukraine could unlock opportunity for British businesses to fill urgent capability needs for Ukraine as part of the initiative and give British defence industry access to major contracts.The move is a significant step towards a new ambitious relationship between the UK and EU – building on the prime minister’s calls at the Munich Security Conference in February to deepen defence and security cooperation to match the rapidly evolving threats faced by both sides. It also comes ahead of the UK – EU summit, expected to be held this summer, where both sides will discuss further economic and security cooperation. Continue reading...