News

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor There have been claims made in the Mirror that the Tory MPs in marginal seats used the now infamous RoadTrip battlebus to help with their campaigns. The sticking point is none of the members declared it in their campaign budget. The RoadTrip campaign is already under investigation by the Conservative disciplinary board following allegations against organiser Mark Clarke, including sexual harassment and bullying. He has been dumped out of the party. The MPs who failed...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor John Oliver has done his best not to discuss Donald Trump over the last 6 months. But he acknowledged that Trump's support is growing and it is time for the USA to address this problem. Presidential candidates who win the most states on Super Tuesday have gone on to secure their party's nomination in every election since 1988, Oliver breaks down exactly why Trump really isn't what he seems: 'He's tough': For a tough guy, he...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The eleven-time gold medallist Tanni Grey-Thompson begged peers to stop the “ideological” £30-a-week cut to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The powerful speech, from her wheelchair, by one of Britain's greatest Paralympic athletes led to the defeat of the planned cuts to the disability benefit in the House of Lords. The ex-athlete said: “many people are already close to crisis point. “They feel so beaten up by the changes they are finding it hard to articulate....

Whilst Support for Donald Trump grows, with the frontrunner of the Republican candidate race hotly tipped to win the Super Tuesday primaries in Texas and other states, do US voters care about the lies? Pulitzer prize winning political fact checking website Politifact shows 1% of Donald Trump's verifiable claims are true, whilst a whopping 78% are classed as false, mostly false or 'pants on fire'. As you can see from the yummy liar pie below, an astonishing 78% of Trump's...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The North of England is still the least economically active in the country, a study has shown. Towns and cities in this area are not keeping up with national trends and now have worse social and economic conditions than previously. Dundee, in Scotland, aside, the bottom ten places are all based in the North of England, making the Chancellor’s promise of a northern powerhouse seem a fantasy. The table, created by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,...

As British voters prepare for the greatest act of democracy in decades, the concept of democratic government is in retreat almost everywhere else. It's easy to criticise Britain's archaic first-past-the-post system and unelected upper house, but the last five years have seen referenda on Scottish indepence and electoral reform, stronger devolved administrations and a much more democratic Labour Party. Yet from Warsaw to Washington, democracy is under sustained attack. Poland's recently elected government's attempts to seize control of the country's...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The social media giant received 113 times more of taxpayers’ money to advertise on the site than the social network paid back in corporation tax. Various government departments spent a whopping £489,329 in 20014-15 on adverts with Facebook in the UK. In return the multi-billion dollar company gave the public purse £4,327, a lot less than most people in the UK paid in tax for the same period. Astonishingly, Facebook claimed they only needed to...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The pay rise for our esteemed elected officials, which was first reported around a month ago, has now been signed off. Come April they will find almost an extra grand a year in their already inflation busting pay packets. The salaries and expenses watchdog confirmed the payments (a 1.3% rise) would begin this April. The politicians, currently on £74,000-a-year, will get the further boost this spring. An Ipsa spokeswoman said: "The annual adjustment to MPs’...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor There have been claims that Cameron wants to force a further forty Tory peers into the House of Lords to ensure no more defeats for his party. It is hoped that this influx of Tory Lords would mean the upper chamber could not block government laws, like it did in the case of the tax credit cuts. Iain Duncan Smith's plan to cut a vital benefit for sick and disabled people was also halted in...