Politics

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Ex-PM John Major, wasn't known for his strong personality when leading the country, but he was very animated when he discussed the Brexit Campaign on Andrew Marr's BBC show. Major, who was born in Brixton and whose father was in the circus, called Boris Johnson a "court jester." He also told Marr "All my life people have regarded me as being guilty of understatement. I am angry at how the British people are being misled."...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg was booed and hissed at during a Q & A with the Labour leader. Corbyn raised his hands to calm the activists, but did not attack them for their hostile reaction. Many Corbyn supporters see Kuenssberg as "biased" and this comes just a day after a Vide documentary on Corbyn said the BBC was "obsessed" with attempting to discredit him and ruin his leadership. It seems clear from this...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to bin the EU’s highly controversial free trade deal (TTIP) with America. During an anti-Brexit rally he promised to get rid of the trade deal if he is voted in as PM before it is implemented. He hates the deal so much he said he is happy to work with rebel Conservatives and SNP in parliament to halt the deal. TTIP has worried people on both sides of the electoral divide...

By Simon Horton Whatever happens in the poll on June 23rd, David Cameron will be doing plenty of negotiations from June 24th onwards, both with the European Union and within his own party. So what strategies should he be taking? The odds-on favourite with the bookmakers is that we will stay within the union and if this happens there will be no need for too much negotiation with Europe, most of that already took place earlier this year. The mother...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor For the second time NHS England has refused to fund a preventative treatment for HIV. Earlier this year they said they would not fund pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a drug described as a "game changer" by HIV charities.
 The decision has caused wide spread anger by AIDS charities and those at high risk of catching the infection and the wider general public. PrEP helps prevent infection in people without HIV who are at substantial risk of...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The issue of Twitter abuse raised its ugly head again after a Labour MP was subjected to 600 rape threats in one evening. Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, received the abuse when she launched a campaign to stop sexual and sexist bullying on-line. The backlash she experienced was appalling and led her to declare that social media platform Twitter is “dead.” She discovered that in total there were almost five thousand notifications on...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s communications chief, believes that their PMQs preparations are being leaked internally. During a documentary for Vice News, where they followed Corbyn for eight weeks, Milne mentioned the “annoying” leaks. These leaks are giving the Tories the advantage at PMQs, the main focus for holding the government to account for their actions, and by far the most watched Commons session. With so many dissenters in his party it is hardly surprising that some...

Lord Sugar has made a huge u-turn on Europe after a video was leaked of him supporting Leave principles just six months ago! The entrepreneur recently announced that Brits would be "the mugs of the world" if we voted to leave the EU, saying free trade is vital to keep our economy "strong and open". In an open letter he said: "I’ve been in business for 50 years. I’ve seen some pretty daft ideas in my time. And I’ll tell you one of...

JD Wetherspoon founder Tim Martin has weighed in to the EU debate to counter the high-profile intervention of Ryanair's Michael O'Leary, but could run in to trouble with the Electoral Commission. The pub chain is to print 200,000 beer mats to be distributed across all 920 UK pubs which could violate electoral law if the company isn't registered. The cost of printing and distribution the mats is likely to come close to the £10,000 threshold allowed for campaigning without being registered, something Vote...