Politics | kieransbrookholmes.claims

Mediation over Drumcree parade is ‘dead in the water’, say nationalists

The nationalist Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition has at the same time launched a fresh legal challenge to reimpose the almost 30-year ban on the Orange Order marching down their road, mounting fresh arguments that the…

Rafe Fletcher: Size matters – but only if Britain knows how to use it

Britain needs to be big. Look at a map. Britain is so small. ” So then British Prime Minister Tony Blair told aides Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell after the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. It was an anachronistic…

Burnham to fight next election on pledge to change voting system

In his first party conference speech as prime minister, he announced plans for a national commission to explore options for electoral reform. He invited other parties to work with the commission to ensure "everyone's…

EU to offer single-market access to candidate countries

In the waiting room Von der Leyen touches down in Albania for talks on Wednesday as part of her tour of the Western Balkans. She'll also visit Kosovo and North Macedonia, which will miss out on an expedited pathway to…

Xi Just Sent Trump a Message: America’s Unipolar Era Is Ending | Silk and Steel

In this episode of the Silk and Steel Podcast, Carl Zha speaks with Dr. Warwick Powell about the recent Xi-Trump summit and what it reveals about the changing global balance of power. While headlines focused on the…

Andy Burnham: UK could ‘go all the way’ by rejoining EU

The prime minister used a series of interviews after his emotional Labour conference speech to spell out how wide-ranging his consideration of Britain's future with Brussels could be because Brexit had caused "more harm…

What the gaps in Andy Burnham’s speech reveal

But what didn’t Andy Burnham say? Have the public understood the new PM’s big policy offer? And why was there nothing substantial on welfare reform? Sam Coates and Anne McElvoy examine the headline polling on the Burnham…

I heard one thing loud and clear in Andy Burnham’s landmark speech: the left has won the arguments | Owen Jones

"I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and the climate emergency," he wrote for this publication, "we have won the arguments and rewritten the terms of political debate." Given Boris Johnson's…

Guardian analysis of government figures found that councils responsible for social care spent a net £42.8bn on adult and children's services in 2025-26, equivalent to a record 71.9% of their combined core spending. Adult…

Edinburgh joins UK universities heading for strikes as cuts spread through entire sector

Instead, students were told about how their education was going to fit in around the strikes planned for this year, which for many will in effect wipe out a term of teaching. "This term I've got two courses and my…