Lucy Dunn

It was widely briefed that the main focus of Sir Keir Starmer’s speech in Yorkshire today was his plan to do away with Whitehall red tape. What was kept under wraps was the Prime Minister’s plans for the NHS – specifically to scrap NHS England. In a bid to tackle bureaucracy in the health service,

There is little over a year to go until the 2026 Holyrood election and Scottish party selection processes are underway. This morning, two of the biggest names yet have said they will stand down at next year’s election: Finance Secretary Shona Robison and Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop have announced they’re off. ‘The decision to retire

It was to a packed-out auditorium that Nigel Farage announced his party’s mayoral candidate for Hull and East Yorkshire on Thursday night. Reform pulled out all the stops for its reveal of former Olympic boxer and gold medallist Luke Campbell, from sparkler firework lights to a mocked-up boxing ring. ‘The set up is immense,’ one

It’s allocation day for junior doctor jobs. Soon-to-be medical graduates across the UK find out what deanery they will work in upon finishing university. While it should be an exciting time for Britain’s future medics, recent changes to the system have sparked outrage as students hoping to work close to friends and family find out

The SNP may be outperforming Scottish Labour in the polls, but the party of government still faces tough questions on its record as it approaches the 2026 Holyrood election. Today’s education attainment figures won’t help the nationalists’ argument that they deserve another chance in power – as the stats show the attainment gap between Scotland’s

It was in a plush central London office space lined with leafy wall plants that Reform UK chose to make its big economic announcement today. Attendees were warmly welcomed with a lavish spread of wraps, canapés and even beer on tap – before Nigel Farage and Richard Tice cut to their news: ‘We will scrap

Embarking on the quest to lose weight can be a risky business. Yo-yo dieting, compulsive binging, muscle wasting and brain fog are just some of the many challenges that have waylaid dieters over the years. But now, thanks to the arrival of seductive weight loss drugs promising a quick fix, calorie counters are facing more contemporary health problems

As Rachel Reeves attempts to woo investors at Davos, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has stayed behind in London as work gets underway on Labour’s comprehensive spending review. Darren Jones also found time to set out his thinking in a keynote speech at the Institute for Government’s 2025 conference, where he laid out stricter

Five years ago, Reform UK had no presence in Scotland. Its Facebook and Twitter pages emerged during the latter half of the pandemic and despite briefly experiencing four months in Holyrood courtesy of a Tory defector, the group has since then remained very much out of sight and mind. Nigel Farage neglected Scotland during last

The leader of the opposition found it difficult to land her punches in Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, with Kemi Badenoch not quite able to work out how she wanted to attack Sir Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister fended off a number of issues from the Tories, from the economy to the Chagos Islands to Gerry

Will the elections taking place across Ireland today result in a whole new government? Not really, is the conclusion most Irish citizens seem to be coming to. ‘It’ll be the same two main parties in government – nothing will change,’ one hospitality manager notes reluctantly, nodding to the current three-party coalition in the Dáil of

In the history of devolution, no Westminster government has ever given Scotland as large a block grant settlement as the one announced by Labour on Wednesday. In her fiscal statement, the chancellor declared that politicians north of the border will receive £1.5 billion this year and a record £3.4 billion next year via the Barnett

When Kemi Badenoch took to the floor during GB News’s TV Q&A on Thursday evening, the atmosphere in the room climbed a notch. Robert Jenrick had just finished his pitch to the party and handled questions well, but it was clear even before the audience rated their leadership candidates that it was Badenoch the majority

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has made a lot of noise about the perilous state of the NHS, insisting the institution must ‘reform or die’. But while the rhetoric is right, what does Labour actually plan to do about it? There are ‘three shifts’, health minister Stephen Kinnock told Isabel Hardman at The Spectator’s ‘How to fix a

Junior doctors made headlines this week after they begrudgingly accepted the government’s pay deal. Two thirds of British Medical Association (BMA) members voted in favour of Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s offer, meaning medics across England will see a 22.3 per cent rise consolidated into their pay. Yet the move hasn’t entirely eased tensions between junior

Priti Patel’s Tory leadership launch in Westminster this afternoon was an upbeat affair, featuring mango lassi and a tonne of merchandise. With caps, tote bags and even festival-esque ‘tour’ date t-shirts on offer for enthusiastic supporters, today’s event was excitedly dubbed a ‘political Glastonbury’ by one of her team, already kitted out in pro-Priti gear.

Scotland’s exam results day has been something of a disaster this year. An already stressful time for anxious pupils has been made worse after hundreds of students across the country received blank email templates instead of their grades – a gaffe which the Scottish Qualifications Authority is scrambling to fix – while a flailing Scottish

Robert Jenrick chose a swelteringly hot day in sunny Newark to stage his official leadership campaign launch. ‘I’m in politics for you,’ he told the packed-out room, filled with a mixed crowd of young families and veteran Tory supporters. ‘We can persuade young people to join the Conservatives again,’ the 42-year-old insisted. ‘We must be