I am going sleep now12/10/2023 She said this represents "a net increase of seven premises since the start of 2023". In a letter to parliament's Home Affairs Committee, published earlier today, Ms Braverman said that a total of 387 hotels are being used to house asylum seekers. The day after the first asylum seekers moved on board the Bibby Stockholm barge, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has confirmed how many hotels are being used by the government. Is it too flashy? Too boring? Too foreign? Bad for the environment? And who is really paying for it? Prime ministers struggle to hit the right note with their holidays and usually get it wrong. The modest length of his holiday will not take targets off his back. Only a few miserable souls will begrudge the prime minister some time off, especially since we are told that he will be back at work, in Blighty, in only a few days. Veteran campaigners from Greenpeace have given Just Stop Oil a lesson in how protest can be done, attracting attention without antagonising the public, by draping the Sunaks' Yorkshire mansion in black.Įven the prime minister's sartorial choices have come under attack with an arrows-point-to-defective-parts scrutiny of his made to measure suits. Rishi Sunak's desire to get away can only have increased as he suffers personalised indignities. Labour is still 20 points ahead of the Conservatives in the poll of polls.Īs he contemplates his political future and the lack of progress on his five pledges, it is understandable that the prime minister might want a summer holiday break from the day job. Interest rates are up, house prices are down, the small boats are still coming, and NHS doctors are striking. And we'll do it by handing communities power and control of the routes, fares and services they depend on."īut despite some punchy tweets and a rather snazzy Twitter graphic, it seems Labour has not quite been able to seize back the narrative from the Conservatives yet today. But the Tories' broken system is failing people. Labour's shadow transport secretary described the decline in bus services as "nothing short of vandalism in our communities" and tweeted this morning: "Buses matter to millions. The government has described the figures as "misleading", and pointed to an investment since 2020 of £3.5bn into bus services. The figures, which are based on annual reports by traffic commissioners, show there were 8,781 bus services in the year to March 2023, compared to 17,394 in 2011.Īlmost 2,000 routes were cut since the 2021/22 period alone, the data suggests. Instead, Labour has spent today highlighting the number of bus services in the UK, which has halved since 2011. Sky News approached Labour HQ to see if they wanted to say anything on it at all, but they pointed us to shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper's comment yesterday, accusing the Tories of "flailing around chasing headlines rather than getting a grip". Justice Secretary Alex Chalk defended Mr Anderson's "salty" comments, and Downing Street said the minister was "speaking on behalf of the government".īut the Labour Party has seemingly not wanted to get involved in the row.Īlthough London mayor Sadiq Khan condemned Mr Anderson for "stoking up more division and hate", not one member of the shadow cabinet has commented on it at all today. The Conservative Party's deputy chairman Lee Anderson has dominated the political headlines so far today after saying that if illegal migrants don't like being housed on a barge, they should "f*** off back to France" (see post at 9.30am). Ms Parkes is crowdfunding her own legal costs. "We will be asking the court to declare that planning permission is required, and that the home secretary must follow the relevant procedures." "The home secretary's plans have caused widespread concern in our client's local community, and have deprived the council of its ability to exert relevant planning control. Her solicitors, Deighton Pierce Glynn, said: "The home secretary is circumventing planning permission procedures to use the Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate vulnerable asylum seekers in conditions which are clearly inadequate. Local mayor Carralyn Parkes is fighting against this on the grounds the government didn't obtain the necessary planning permission, according to her solicitors.ĭorset Council has said it considered planning permission was not needed for the barge because it lies below the mean low water mark.īut Ms Parkes argues it is within the jurisdiction of the local planning authority. The Home Office is planning to house over 500 asylum seekers on the barge in Portland Harbour, Dorset. The mayor of Portland is set to challenge the home secretary over the government's use of the Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate asylum seekers.
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