There's fury among parliamentary staff after being given a smaller pay rise than MPs IPSA said the move reflects growing demands on MPs, like "higher levels of complex casework, and abuse & intimidation" However, staff say it's "mind-blowingly tone deaf" and fails to appreciate pressures they face

Read in full Starmer's letter to Labour MPs after their bruising by-election defeat Obtained by PolHome, it says Polanski's party embraced the "sectarian" politics of George Galloway to win It also sought to assure Labour MPs that the Greens won't be able to replicate their success at the next GE

Labour MP tells me: “Even with the world’s best campaign you can’t win without having/delivering progressive policies. This is a result of the strategy Downing St has set” Senior Labour MP adds: “Labour needs to be offering hope to progressive voters. Just an anti-Reform [strategy] isn’t enough”

Starmer’s letter to Labour MPs following Gorton and Denton:

Like in Caerphilly last year, G&D shows ‘stop Reform’ is a real motivator. The Green & Labour combined vote shade was more than double Reform’s. Goodwin’s candidacy likely fuelled it. Obv at a GE there’ll be many seats where it doesn’t apply. But in terms of a Reform majority, it’s a real hurdle.

That's an astonishing result, bloody hell. Appallingly bad for Labour, which is being devoured from both left and right, the "electoral valley of death" - @robfordmancs.bsky.social. It could be a dire sign of what's to come in May, and raises fresh, huge Qs for party strategy and leadership…

Government is preparing to launch its digital communications overhaul The work, months in the making, is expected to see the New Media Unit given expanded capacity to boost the Labour administration's digital reach, PolHome understands @zoecrowther.bsky.social & @adampayne26.bsky.social report

Story w/ @zoecrowther.bsky.social: The government's digital comms overhaul is to be launched imminently Months in the works, it's expected to redeploy Whitehall staff and resources to an expanded New Media Unit…

Pleased to be invited to speak on BBC news yesterday about the government‘s SEND reforms and how they’re landing with MPs Coverage from the day linked below www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Fascinating interview by @siennamarla with Reform UK's Danny Kruger - who (among other things) tells her political parties have a "limited but important" role in undoing the sexual revolution and UK is suffering from a "totally unregulated sexual economy". www.politicshome.com/news/article...

@philipjcowley.bsky.social finding the head of the nail

“He's political up to his eyeballs" Is Wes Streeting a details man? What do his days look like? Who does he delegate to? @siennarodgers.bsky.social & @zoecrowther.bsky.social explore how the Health Secretary runs his department

In comparison to those considering Reform, Green considerers are more numerous, but less convinced. Zach is a ‘breath of fresh air’, and offers the focus on social justice many 2034 Labour voters are looking for. But few believe the Greens can win, and many are worried they’re too idealistic.

How strong is Green support? Ahead of Gorton & Denton, PolHome teamed up with @thinksinsight.bsky.social to have a close look at people considering voting for the party at the next general election The findings suggest Polanski has some work to do to turn mid-term popularity into hard votes...

Our Sunday read from @adampayne26.bsky.social is a really good look at how popular the greens truly are right now www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Sorry, but the guy who has survived longer an achieved more of his priorities than anyone else in politics over the past two decades, who has outmaneuvered multiple leaders of two larger parties and reoriented politics around his priorities is not “bad at politics”. This is cope.

My weekend read on the issue of student loans - and why the debate is not going anywhere anytime soon ➡️Several Plan 2 Labour MPs have had discussions with sympathetic ministers ➡️Labour Together and IPPR look at what could be done ➡️Tories, Lib Dems, Reform forming policies in this area

The workload facing MPs and their staff is growing, in ways that aren't visible to the public: casework and the inbox. For @thehousemag.bsky.social, I delved into what the workload looks like, why it's growing, and what this means for how MPs can balance the different aspects of their role

This, as set out by recent insider Ben Judah, should obviously happen. For all of its charm, the No 10 set up, especially in relation to the rest of Whitehall, is absolutely mad www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

The government has U-turned on delaying some local elections, hears PolHome’s Harriet Symonds Labour MPs have today been told that elections in 30 areas will go ahead as originally planned in May The decision is believed to relate to new legal advice

This means that if you put on £10, you’ll win £0

I never really sign stuff. But this was different. It's not about trying to facilitate or block a particular party's route to power. It's about an electoral system that's unsuited to the political realities we face today and risks giving us government after government with no convincing mandate.

Over 50 academics write to the the government warning that first past the post + multi-party politics will unleash distortion on an “unprecedented” scale at the next election The letter, shared exc with PolHome, urges ministers to “engage” with electoral reform, writes @zoecrowther.bsky.social

Unprecedented PolHome / House scenes as — for the first time — the three editors — @siennarodgers.bsky.social, @franciselliott.bsky.social & I — gather around the mics We reflect on a mad week and ask, what next for Starmer? hosted by @alaintolhurst.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

The PM has been having meetings with female Labour MPs in recent days as he faces calls to tackle the party's boys' club problem, @matildamartin.bsky.social reports Emily Darlington MP tells PolHome she wants to hear the PM talk about VAWG more + calls for Steph Driver to return to No 10 comms

Getting really tired of "this is all a media concoction"... Starmer has the lowest approval rating of any PM in history bar Truss. Senior ministers are openly and unsubtly positioning. His Chief of Staff, Director of Comms and Cab Sec have all resigned on the same day. I mean come on...

Keir Starmer has told Labour MPs he will not "walk away" from No 10 and that he will keep fighting "as long as I have breath left in my body” A minister told PolHome the Prime Minister was “stronger than he was at the beginning of the day” after addressing a restless Parliamentary Labour Party

Rachel Taylor MP told tonight’s PLP meeting where Starmer is speaking that Anas Sarwar’s intervention was “selfish”, I’m told, and that Labour “needed to come together for the good of the country” A tricky time for Labour’s Westminster-Holyrood relations

🚨Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar has called for Keir Starmer to resign as Prime Minister, saying "the distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change" "The situation in Downing Street is not good enough"

Tim Allan only joined No10 in September last year as part of the most recent (very turbulent) 'reset'...

Tim Allan quits as 10 Downing Street director of communications after around five months in the job “I have decided to stand down to allow a new No10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success," he says in a short statement

Cllr David Taylor from Worcestershire County Council resigned from Reform UK **live on air on the BBC** "I walked in here today as a Reform county cllr - I won't be leaving this studio as a Reform county cllr" Taylor was unhappy with Reform's wish to increase council tax by up to 10% from April

Where Starmer's disastrous week leaves him — and his potential successors Big, detailed PolHome read on what comes next, ft Rayner, Streeting, Carns ("Al-mentum") and the “wounded buffalo" PM w/ @siennarodgers.bsky.social @matildamartin.bsky.social @zoecrowther.bsky.social & Harriet Symonds

Starmer's reported condition - incredibly unpopular, shorn of authority, probably un-reelectable and yet will stagger on for want of an alternative - is just the new normal of how Britain is governed. It was also true for two-thirds of May's premiership, half of Johnson's and all of Sunak's.

Sacking Morgan McSweeney won’t be enough to ease this sense of decline writes Labour MP @barrygardiner.bsky.social

This week's episode of The Rundown is such a great conversation about the student loan debate ft @theifs.bsky.social's Kate Ogden, the @smfthinktank.bsky.social's Dani Payne, Labour MP @chriscurtis94.bsky.social and colleague @siennarodgers.bsky.social Hosted by @alaintolhurst.bsky.social

“Brutal” is how one Labour MP describes PMQs, saying that, unlike previous weeks when back benchers have had Starmer’s back, there was “no willing him [the PM] on” this time. Feels like a dangerous few hours for the government.

One piece of good news for Mandelson this week... I can reveal the council is NOT taking any enforcement action against him for pissing in the street, due to a "lack of evidence"

To the lay person, perhaps someone hearing about this story for the first time, of whom there will be many, ‘we knew he had a relationship with a peadophile, just not the extent of it’ must be such a ludicrous position

Is the extraordinary Mandelson scandal the final nail in the coffin that is McSweeney’s time in No10? Labour MPs tells our Tom the PLP “direction of travel” is towards Starmer’s CoS having to go. Even some PM loyalists think Starmer may have to remove his close ally to shore up his own position.

The growing Mandelson scandal has resulted in renewed pressure on the position of Keir Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who was instrumental in the decision to bring him into government, reports PolHome's Tom Scotson

I think Labour Party historians should get the ball rolling on discussing how we discuss/frame the history of New Labour in light of the latest Mandelson scandal.

Mandelson faces being the 1st person to lose their peerage title via an Act of Parliament in 109 yrs. It was last used in 1917 to remove it from a quartet for siding with Britain's WW1 enemies. It would put him in the same pub quiz answer as Henry Taaffe, 12 th Viscount Taaffe and Baron Ballymote.

What the PM said to Cabinet about Mandelson this morning: “He said the alleged passing on of emails of highly sensitive government business was disgraceful, adding that he was not reassured that the totality of the information had yet emerged”

An essential dissection of the Gorton & Denton contest by perhaps the best-placed observer on Earth, @robfordmancs.bsky.social

Tables are up now. The number of respondents for the headline voting intention, once don't knows and won't votes are removed, is 51. <Meaningful stare>

This morning, Welsh FM Eluned Morgan refused to say Keir Starmer was a good PM when asked by the BBC Welsh Labour is trying to distance itself from the Westminster party in its bid to avoid a Senedd wipeout But, Tom Scotson reports, the party's Welsh MPs are currently hesitant about regime change

Well at least he's honest 😂

New polling shared with PolHome suggests that public opinion of digital ID has not shifted after government removed the mandatory element of the policy The data suggests that "government’s climb down on its mandatory nature has had little impact on general sentiment", said Savanta's Chris Hopkins

an early contender for David Brent moment of the political year www.theguardian.com/politics/202...