Politics

Conservative MPs are still worried about the removal of the £20-a-week uplift to Universal Credit this coming October. Two of them — Peter Aldous and John Stevenson — have written to Boris Johnson to urge him not to press ahead with the cut, which will restore the benefit back to its pre-pandemic levels. The pair argue that the extra £20, while expensive, is ‘one of our best legacies from the pandemic’. Perhaps some of the MPs like Aldous and Stevenson who were in parliament then remember how difficult it was to defend a policy that didn’t make much sense They’re not the first within the party to try to stop

The Afghan evacuation is feared to be entering its final hours, and with it a new desperation is building among people trying to get out of the country and those helping them. On the ground, troops are warning that Kabul airport could be overrun by people who are ineligible to leave but desperate to do so nonetheless. Embassy workers are trying to process visas, ministers are being bombarded with requests to look at cases where vulnerable Afghans have been overlooked or cannot make it to the airport safely. I have heard from people who waited until their children couldn’t stand and have stopped speaking due to the trauma Boris Johnson

As expected, the emergency G7 leaders’ summit on Afghanistan has broken up without agreeing an extension to the 31 August deadline for evacuations from Kabul. Boris Johnson tried to put a positive spin on the virtual meeting, which he had convened, when he gave a pool clip after, saying the group had set a condition for the Taliban to ‘guarantee, right the way through, through August 31 and beyond, safe passage for those who want to come out’. He added that while some might not accept that, it was worth noting that ‘the G7 has very considerable leverage – economic, diplomatic and political’. But he conceded that the deadline extension

It’s less than a fortnight until MPs return from their hols and already familiar faces are being spotted around SW1. But having publicised their own recommendations for books to read this summer, Mr S thought it only fair to look at what the MPs themselves have been perusing in the House of Commons library. Some £208,000 worth of newspapers and periodicals subscriptions are currently funded each year to aide our rulers in their search for enlightened judgement. Some 57 different regional and national newspapers are available to honourable members, from the Belfast Telegraph to the Yorkshire Post. While the Fleet Street giants account for much of the sales, it is the Birmingham Post