Caroline Voaden says Reform UK leader grabbed her by the arm and tried to push past her in incident in May
A female Liberal Democrat MP has accused Nigel Farage of shoving her aside at the state opening of parliament after which one of her male colleagues intervened.
Caroline Voaden gave her account of the incident in May this year after Farage revealed on Wednesday that there had been a “physical altercation” in parliament which meant he had decided to avoid the budget.
Nigel Farage skipped the chancellor’s first budget because he was worried he would get in a “physical altercation” with another MP in a row over seating arrangements.
The Reform UK leader was not present in the House of Commons but gave a press conference afterwards in which he said he was “shocked” by the £10bn going to support Ukraine and doubled down on his party’s policies on cutting tax for crypto investors.
Greens say Labour has ‘no respect for young people’ amid reports chancellor will pause equalisation of minimum wage for under-21s with that paid to older workers
Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has not contested reports saying that, in the budget tomorrow, John Healey, the chancellor, will pause the process of equalising the lower national minimum wage paid to people under the age of 21 with the more generous national living wage that applies to older workers.
In an interview on the BBC this morning, Reynolds was asked to respond to a story suggesting the equalisation process has been put on hold because of concerns about youth unemployment.
John Healey will announce plans to increase the minimum wage by nearly 4% but slow the rise for young people after warnings that they are being priced out of jobs.
The Times has been told that the national living wage, which applies to those aged 21 and over, is expected to rise from £12.71 to around £13.20 – an increase of 3.9%.
The manifesto pledge on equalisation still applies, but it was always clear it would happen over time and we would take into account, as the minimum wage uprating each year always does, the relative strength of the labour market and other pressures …
Of course, you want not just good wages, but good work. And the way this has always been done – it is a balance of making sure the pressures on the labour market are taken into account. That is the approach you will see confirmed [in the budget].
Anyone doing a day’s work, needs to be paid the same rate for the same job. A young person’s rent and food bill is no less because they are young, so they need to receive the same wage.
Healey and Burnham are now breaking a manifesto pledge to young people that even Starmer managed to keep. Labour have no respect for young people, who appear to just be there for cheap labour for the wealthy and their corporate donors.
[It] wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but I wouldn’t ban anybody from doing so … I don’t want us to get into a world of cancel culture.
I’m not going to have run a party where we say you can’t talk about that person or that person. We have to be sensible about vetting. And we are.
Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump are arsonists who play at being firefighters. Nigel Farage is finding that act harder to pull off in Andy Burnham’s Britain
An election where one side represents chaos will nearly always be won by the party that promises order instead. Public fatigue after years of turbulent Tory rule accounted for Labour’s 2024 landslide victory more than any policy in Keir Starmer’s manifesto. Across the Channel, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), is currently on course to win next year’s presidential poll with a pledge of “restored authority and security” for a country that has spent years cycling between enervating stasis and explosive crisis.
Le Pen has been boosted in recent days by scenes of city centres ablaze and shops being looted as student demonstrations mutated into riots. Street confrontation is a more standard feature of the political repertoire in France than in most settled democracies, but the destruction was disturbing by any measure.
Angela Rayner's department funnelled taxpayers' cash into Left-wing propaganda seeking to prevent a Reform or Tory government in the wake of the Southport murders.
The Tories, Reform and Restore can't stand each other, but letting the Left win would be daft, argues Nick Rendell. Could fed-up swing voters force the Right's warring tribes to stop squabbling and get their act together?
The man charged with murdering Ann Widdecombe and targeting Nigel Farage, Joshua Kerry, had "an extreme Left-wing mindset" and hostility to Reform, a court has heard.
Reform UK did not break any laws when senior party figures were recorded by undercover journalists discussing a £500,000 gift from a foreign donor, an internal investigation has concluded.
A 15 year-old Reform activist has been arrested for a tweet in which he compared a Tory councillor in Wolverhampton to dressing like a "rent boy" to attend a council meeting.
The BBC has finally accepted that it should not have predetermined Nigel Farage's guilt by referring to his "failure" to declare donations. But, preposterously, it still claimed there was "no intent of bias".
Ann Widdecombe's alleged murderer, Joshua Kerry, has been charged with preparing acts of terrorism against Nigel Farage after "intensive" police investigation.
Police officers were lectured about Nigel Farage in a publicly funded talk about Islamophobia, with the Reform leader's doubts about Muslims' ability to adhere to British values compared to a racially aggravated offence.
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