All posts tagged: Theresa May

I wasn’t sure if Trump would stay in NATO – POLITICO

I wasn’t sure if Trump would stay in NATO – POLITICO

“But having had the conversation in private with him, when we went into the press conference, I wasn’t sure what he was going to say,” May said. “Thankfully, he did commit to NATO.” On the face of it, 2024 is no different from 2016. Over the last few weeks, the Republican frontrunner and top aides around him have sent mixed messages, alternating between a scaled-down protection level for under-paying NATO members and showing “100 percent” commitment to staying in the military alliance. “We’ve got the same issue now were he to win the presidential election,” May said. “He’s been saying some contradictory things about NATO. But it’s that unpredictability that I think is the difficulty.” Trump has long accused European countries of not meeting the target to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. Up to a third of NATO’s 32 countries are expected to fail to honor their pledge to bring up defense spending to this level by the end of this year, according to the alliance. “The word I would always …

Meet the new Dominic Cummings preparing to take over Whitehall – POLITICO

Meet the new Dominic Cummings preparing to take over Whitehall – POLITICO

“You’re a chief of staff — just shut up and do your job,” a second Labour official said. “There have been a couple of things where I question whether she is naive or if she is just seeking the spotlight.” The Labour official quoted at the top of the piece said her interview with Baldwin, in particular, had been a distraction from the party’s core messaging. “If we win the election, why would we need a citizens’ assembly … when we have a mandate from the public?” they said. The need for discipline One Labour backbench MP added that Gray’s comments were “extremely unhelpful, when we are always being told to stay disciplined.” Craig Oliver, No. 10 Downing Street communications director under David Cameron, told POLITICO that he found Gray to be “always professional, thoughtful and capable” when he worked alongside her during her years as a civil servant. He added, however, that as an adviser “you never want to become the story — but there’s an inevitability about that happening to Sue Gray. With …

The Brexit prime minister who should have been great – POLITICO

The Brexit prime minister who should have been great – POLITICO

Sunak was among those who paid tribute, saying that May “defines what it means to be a public servant.” Her predecessor David Cameron, who now serves as foreign secretary, added: “She has been the most dedicated of public servants. The House of Commons will miss her.” Andrew Gimson, author of “Gimson’s Prime Ministers,” says of May: “At heart she was a very decent person who always did her best. Unfortunately, her best was not enough.” At the outset of her premiership, May’s vista appeared promising. As she stood on the steps of Downing Street she promised to end the “burning injustices” she felt bedeviled Britain at the start of the new century. She portrayed herself as a smart, meritocratic grammar school girl, in contrast to the empty charm of her Eton-educated predecessor David Cameron. Unusually for an ex-prime minister, May stuck around the House of Commons for seven years after her tearful departure from No. 10 | Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images She had chafed against Cameron during her six years serving him as home …

The political life of Theresa May – in pictures | Politics

The political life of Theresa May – in pictures | Politics

Theresa May has announced she will not stand as an MP in the next general election. We look back over May’s political career, from being elected as MP for Maidenhead in 1997, to her time as home secretary for David Cameron, stewarding Brexit after Cameron’s resignation, the snap election that backfired, dancing at Tory party conferences, and her life as an MP since resigning as leader of the party Source link

Theresa May Announces She Is Stepping Down

Theresa May Announces She Is Stepping Down

Theresa May has announced that she is quitting as an MP. The former prime minister said she had “taken the difficult decision” to stand down at the next general election. It means she is the 60th Tory MP to announce they are leaving parliament as the party braces for defeat. In a statement to her local paper, the Maidenhead Advertiser, May said it has been “an honour and a privilege” to serve as the town’s MP since 1997. She was prime minister from 2016 until 2019, when she was forced to resign over her failure to get her Brexit deal through the Commons. May, 67, said: “Being an MP is about service to one’s constituents and I have always done my best to ensure that I respond to the needs of local people and the local area. “Since stepping down as prime minister I have enjoyed being a backbencher again and having more time to work for my constituents and champion causes close to my heart including most recently launching a Global Commission on Modern …

Tory MPs are hooked on plotting against their leaders – POLITICO

Tory MPs are hooked on plotting against their leaders – POLITICO

“There have been so many turnovers of leadership, and so many kind of assassinations that everyone is complicit,” former Conservative Chancellor George Osborne said on his podcast earlier this month. “If you were a Boris Johnson supporter, you’d say Sunak is an assassin, Sunak led a coup. Or if you were Simon Clarke, you’d say Sunak was unhelpful in the bringing down of Liz Truss,” Osborne added, referencing Truss ally Clarke’s recent call for Sunak to go for the good of the party. “There’s been years now of this, so it’s very hard for the leadership to call for unity when they themselves became the leaders on the back of a coup,” Osborne observed.  The Plot Some of the prime minister’s most staunch opponents certainly feel motivated by what they see as his deeply disloyal resignation as Johnson’s chief finance minister back in 2022. It helped set the herd in motion with a mass ministerial walk-out that ended Johnson’s time at the top.  “I will never forgive [Sunak] for basically putting personal ambition before country,” …

Deported and disgraced: the students wrongly accused of cheating – podcast | News

Deported and disgraced: the students wrongly accused of cheating – podcast | News

“You tell me, are you finding it difficult to understand my English?” says Muhammad Ali. Muhammad was in the UK to study between the ages of 18 and 26 but had his visa cancelled in 2014 when the Home Office accused him of cheating on an English language exam. He was one of 35,000 students whose visas were cancelled. He was denied an in-country appeal, and returned to his home in Pakistan. He lost his career, has been unable to travel and, a decade later, some of his family still believe the Home Office over him. “Who’s going to bring my time back? How long do I have to live with this tag of con artist or a cheat?” Amelia Gentleman, reporter and author of The Windrush Betrayal, Exposing the Hostile Environment, tells Nosheen Iqbal how the government handled the initial allegations exposed on a BBC Panorama investigation in 2014, and explores why nothing has been done since to help those wrongly swept up in the aftermath. Another former student Shana Shaikh has stayed in …

Britain’s Westminster power couples — 2024 ranking – POLITICO

Britain’s Westminster power couples — 2024 ranking – POLITICO

11. Richard Tice and Isabel Oakeshott The Reform Party is seriously spooking the Tories. And that means Richard Tice, its leader, gets a prominent spot. He doesn’t have the same political potency as his party’s founder Nigel Farage, but the GB News regular is becoming more and more interesting to SW1 as Reform’s polling improves. Oakeshott, a former Sunday Times political editor, has an uncanny ability to make the political weather too. Since last Valentine’s Day, her controversial lockdown files exclusive, in which she leaked a load of former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s 100,000 WhatsApp messages to the Telegraph after helping Hancock write his memoirs, dominated the news agenda for weeks. 12. Wes Streeting and Joe Dancey Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting — a close ally of Starmer, and one of the party’s strongest media performers — could find his other half sitting with him on the green benches if all goes well for Labour at the next general election. His communications and public affairs adviser partner Joe Dancey is standing in the new Stockton …

A boozy lunch with Tim Shipman – POLITICO

A boozy lunch with Tim Shipman – POLITICO

Host Jack Blanchard goes for lunch with the Sunday Times’ chief political commentator, Tim Shipman, as the deadline for his new Brexit tome approaches. Over a bottle of claret and (medium) rare steak, Shipman discusses the art of long-form political writing; recalls his best and worst interview experiences, from Donald Trump to Theresa May; considers his favorite moments of the chaotic past decade in British politics and offers tips to aspiring journalists on how to do a “proper” political lunch. Source link

Return to protectionism a ‘profound mistake’ – POLITICO

Return to protectionism a ‘profound mistake’ – POLITICO

contentonly Voiced by artificial intelligence. DAVOS, Switzerland — Britain’s top finance minister Jeremy Hunt has warned Donald Trump that a return to U.S. protectionism would be a “profound mistake” if he wins the U.S. election in November. Speaking during a press briefing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Hunt hit out at the Republican party frontrunner’s proposal for a universal tariff on all goods imported into the U.S. Asked by POLITICO if he was concerned about the impact on the U.K. economy “if the U.S. elects a protectionist candidate for president like Donald Trump”, Hunt replied: “I don’t support protectionist measures. I think they harm the people who introduce them as much as the people they are aimed at.” Hunt argued that a “huge flourishing of global trade” has helped to lessen poverty around the world, adding: “It would be a profound mistake to move back to protectionism.” In an interview with Fox News in August last year, Trump floated an automatic 10 percent tariff on all goods imported to the U.S. During his …