Latest news with #PrimeMinister
Times
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Cracks show in PM's team over best gags
Pity the prime minister's joke writers. For a start, they could be a team of Barry Cryers and they'd still be at the mercy of Sir Keir Starmer's delivery, but they also feel that their man doesn't give them enough credit for all his memorable jokes (yes — all of them). Chris Ward, the PM's PPS, told Five Live that Starmer will 'disown' a joke in rehearsals before finding it does well in the Commons. 'Then you'll bump into MPs and Keir's been going round saying 'I wrote this fabulous joke', ' Ward said. 'Which annoys all of us.' Ward added this is 'the right of the PM' — but Starmer will need to keep his allies on side, lest they decide they want to have the last laugh. Reform are trumpeting every win they get, so, at business questions, their MP Richard Tice raised Nigel Farage's victory in a poll of Britain's sexiest politicians by the adulterous dating website Illicit Encounters. He also acknowledged that Labour's Angela Rayner topped the female category and suggested to Commons Leader Lucy Powell that the pair celebrate by having dinner together. Powell said this would not be possible. 'I'm sure the deputy prime minister has a very full diary,' she said, 'washing her hair and the like.' While up in the International Space Station, the astronaut Tim Peake briefly thought he'd made contact with alien life. He tells All in the Mind that he looked out of the ISS's window and saw unexpected lights. The sun obscures the stars, so the appearance of three lights could only be an approaching spaceship. With no human visit scheduled, Peake thought he was about to meet ET … until his Russian colleague came in and said the lavatory was leaking. Peake explained: 'The 'spaceship' turned out to be urine that was freezing and crystallising and reflecting the light back from the sun.' So not first contact but a close encounter of the number-one kind. The bastions of the establishment are turning their backs on dress codes as we all wilt in the heat. The MCC even relaxed theirs at Lord's on Wednesday, lest men fry in their egg-and-bacon jackets. Not all places are as compromising. At Henley Royal Regatta, during a heatwave one year, an announcement was made: 'Members may remove their jackets — gentlemen will prefer not to.' The Rev Richard Coles's Radio 4 persona made him Britain's most famous parish priest, but he has unclerical tales to tell of his pre-frocked life as a member of the Communards. These include a multi-month blowout on Ibiza involving ecstasy, acid and paying for increasingly audacious forms of transport. 'We got barred from Avis for life because we got through a lot of vehicles,' he tells How to be in Love. 'Also, I bought a speedboat, and I don't know where it is. It's still there as far as I know.' Fortunately, the band were barred from buying a light aircraft. 'We went to the airport,' he recalled, 'but they wouldn't let us in because we'd forgotten to put our shirts on.'
Bloomberg
5 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Japan's Prices Climb by Most in Two Years Ahead of Election
Japan's key consumer inflation measure accelerated to a fresh two-year high as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba gears up for a summer election and the Bank of Japan mulls the country's price trajectory. Consumer prices excluding fresh food quickened for a third month to 3.7% from a year earlier in May, according to a Ministry of Internal Affairs release Friday. That's the fastest pace since January 2023 and above the 3.6% median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Labour whip quits over Starmer's welfare cuts
A Labour whip has quit over the Government's welfare cuts. Vicky Foxcroft said in a letter to Sir Keir Starmer that she could not support 'reforms which include cuts to disabled people's finances '. Her resignation followed the biggest rebellion against Sir Keir's premiership to date with more than 150 Labour MPs signing a private letter indicating opposition to the welfare cuts. However, the Prime Minister vowed at the weekend to face down the rebels, insisting the reforms must be pushed through. A package of £5 billion in annual savings from the disability and sickness benefits bill was unveiled earlier this year, including cuts to the personal independence payment . Legislation unveiling the specifics of the changes is expected to be published this week before a crunch vote at some point before Parliament breaks for summer recess next month.
The Independent
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Labour whip quits over Starmer's benefits cuts
Keir Starmer has suffered a blow after one of his frontbench team resigned, saying she could not back cuts that will hit disabled people. Vicky Foxcroft dramatically quit as a government whip and called on the prime minister to 'support more disabled people into work' instead. In a letter to the prime minister, she said she could not vote "for reforms which include cuts to disabled people's finances'. She added: 'With a heavy heart, I have written to the prime minister to tender my resignation as a whip. Whilst I will continue to support the government in delivering the change the country so desperately needs, I cannot vote in favour of the proposed reforms to disability benefits.' She said that she understood 'the need to address the ever-increasing welfare bill in these difficult economic times, but I have always believed this could and should be done by supporting more disabled people into work. I do not believe that cuts to personal independence payment (PIP) and the health element of Universal Credit should be part of the solution.'
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft resigns over party's welfare proposals
Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft has resigned as a Government whip over the party's welfare proposals. She said in a letter to the Prime Minister she could not vote 'for reforms which include cuts to disabled people's finances'. The Lewisham North MP wrote on X: 'With a heavy heart, I have written to the Prime Minister to tender my resignation as a whip. 'Whilst I will continue to support the government in delivering the change the country so desperately needs, I cannot vote in favour of the proposed reforms to disability benefits.'
