Politics
Kemi Badenoch Criticised Over Welfare Cut Proposal
Kemi Badenoch has been condemned over an “unworkable” Tory plan to slash the benefits bill.
The Conservative leader said the long-term unemployed who haven’t contributed enough tax into the system will see their Universal Credit payments cut by nearly a third if she becomes prime minister.
The new “subsistence level” benefit they do receive would be loaded onto a pre-payment card, which would ban spending on cigarettes, alcohol and betting.
Badenoch said the policy was aimed at cracking down on those who see being on benefits as “a lifestyle choice” and would encourage them to get a job.
According to the Tories, the move would save £538 million a year by reducing the benefits of 350,000 claimants.
She said: “Some will say this is unfair on people claiming benefits. What is unfair is a system where someone who can work chooses not to and earns more from benefits than someone in a job.
“If you can work, you should work. Helping people into work is not punishment.
“The best welfare is a well-paid job. So, we will be tough on those who exploit the system because the current system is unfair to workers, taxpayers and those who truly need support.
“We should not be borrowing from our children and grandchildren to support people who simply refuse to work.
“Welfare must be a safety net for those who genuinely need it, not a lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered.”
But a Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Conservatives had 14 years to fix our welfare system but they completely failed to make meaningful reforms.
“Now they are proposing an unworkable new card scheme, which does nothing to tackle the numbers of people their system left signed off and written off.
“While the bill for the taxpayer rose by £33 billion in their last year in government, this Labour government is introducing effective and sustainable welfare reform alongside a £3.5 billion employment support package to help people stay in or return to work, and the national rollout of the jobs guarantee for young people who have been on universal credit.”
Reform UK Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick, who defected from the Tories at the start of 2026, said Badenoch’s plans do not go far enough.
He said: “This welfare plan is so weak the Lib Dems could have authored it.
“The Tories left more people on long-term benefits and benefit fraud at record levels.
“Now they offer a spending card that won’t even put a dent in the coming £400 billion bill. It’s a sticking plaster on a wound they opened.”
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Miriam Margolyes’ next role will bring her into the James Bond franchise for the first time.
While the world awaits news of the casting for the long-awaited 26th film in the 007 series, it’s been announced that Miriam has landed a role in an audio adaptation of Charlie Higson’s Young Bond series.
en McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
The Bafta winner will lend her distinct vocal talents to Cleek MacSawney, a character described as “a violent henchperson on the Scottish estate of villain Lord Hellebore”.
Miriam will portray a gender-swapped version of Cleek MacSawney, who was originally depicted as male in the source material.
“Cleek is a violent, probably insane semi-criminal who works for Lord Hellebore on his estate in Scotland,” the former Harry Potter star enthused of her role in the audiobook of Young Bond: SilverFin.
“You wouldn’t want to meet her on a dark night, that’s for sure. I do enjoy playing nasty people!”
Meanwhile, Isaac Rouse – who previously played a close friend of Prince William’s in the final season of Netflix’s The Crown – is set to take on the role of the future 007 during his days at Eton.
The news of Miriam’s casting comes as fans eagerly await an announcement about who will be succeeding Daniel Craig as 007 in the iconic James Bond movie series.
While it was recently suggested that Slow Horses star Jack Lowden was in consideration, it’s also been reported that Heartstopper’s Jack Barton is producers’ favourite pick for the job.
Interestingly, Young Bond author Charlie Higson recently made headlines with his feelings on the subject matter, admitting that he was less than convinced by the idea of Jack Lowden at the helm of the franchise.
Other names supposedly still in the frame include Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, Harris Dickinson and Paul Mescal.
Daniel Craig last played James Bond in 2021’s No Time To Die. In the years since, the brand has spawned two seasons of a competition reality show and a well-received video game, First Light.
Sunderland Deaf Society darts team
Ben Reilly, Chief Commercial Officer
| Flutter UK & Ireland
It was encouraging to hear Andy Burnham talk about his affection for grassroots sport earlier this month and say he always backs it to the hilt.
As the country’s leading betting and gaming operator it’s fair to say we haven’t agreed on much with the Government lately – particularly as higher gambling duties threaten jobs and investment.
But when it comes to grassroots sport, there absolutely is common ground.
Flutter UK & Ireland is well known for its high-profile sponsorships in sports and beyond. Sky Bet has been the title sponsor of the English Football League since the 2013-2014 season – when Brentford were promoted from League One. The partnership was renewed in 2023 for five years and has seen tens of millions of pounds invested into the game.
Paddy Power’s campaigning with the brilliant Prostate Cancer UK, to encourage hundreds of thousands of men to check out their risk, revolves around the brand’s sponsorship of the World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace every December.
It was incredibly powerful to hear Luke Humphries speak about the importance of the campaign when he won the World title in January 2024 given his father-in-law was diagnosed and treated for the disease.
But away from the national headlines we’re particularly proud of an initiative that invests back into communities across the UK – Cash4Clubs.
The Cash4Clubs programme dates back to 2008 and was founded with the simple idea of offering small grants to grassroots clubs and neighbourhood organisations who are vital to so many communities, yet struggle to get the funding so vital to what they do.
In recent years we have been able to increase our support for the programme and earlier today announced that we will once again be making £500,000 available to clubs in the 2026-2027 Cash4Clubs edition. This year, on top of grants of £2,000 for 225 clubs, we will be giving away a bigger package of £10,000 to five.
Grants are available to clubs who need that little bit extra to pay for vital equipment, an extra coaching programme or money to help with marketing and encourage people to try out a new activity. The focus as always is on helping those in disadvantaged areas.
Cash4Clubs may not have the financial firepower of the Government’s own Pride of Place programme – or the significant funds the National Lottery can put towards UK athletics, the arts or heritage projects.
But we’ve been taken aback by the sheer number of applications in recent years from clubs who are desperate for funding to be able to keep people active and drive participation in sports or health and fitness, often in the more forgotten corners or constituencies in the country.
It’s all too easy for critics to forget this when they attack the betting sector’s involvement in sport.
Last year, our research showed us that 40 per cent of adult grassroots sports clubs were cancelling services due to financial pressures, with a quarter at risk of closure without external funding within 12 months.
Put simply some clubs might not be around today without the Cash4Clubs grants they’ve received. It’s against that backdrop that it’s so encouraging to see how the funding has made a difference.
In Sunderland every Tuesday, a group of locals play darts at the UK’s first deaf-owned pub, run by the Sunderland Deaf Society. World darts ace Chris Dobey visited them a year ago to reveal they were among the Cash4Clubs winners in 2025 – picking up £2,000.
This year, Mille Perkins and Jodie Stewart from the club will represent England at the Indoor Games in October in Newport, Wales at a tournament that brings together deaf and hard-of-hearing athletes from across the Home Nations.
Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis are best known for their incredible 1985 final at the World Snooker Championships. But they are also ambassadors for No Tier Snooker in Congleton, Cheshire, another of the clubs to have secured Cash4Clubs funding. No Tier Snooker aims to help those with early-onset dementia and talks about how the grant has made a significant difference in allowing the group to put on more sessions and welcome new members.
Goal Getters walking netball in Greater Manchester was set up with the purpose of using sport to help older adults stay active, connected and supported in retirement. The Cash4Clubs funding has helped the group cover venue hire and bring in a private trainer.
Maria Rowlands from Goal Getters says: “Some people feel rather isolated when they retire, especially if they live on their own. Half our members do live alone, and this group helps them get out and be part of a very friendly community.
“The grant gave us more inspiration and motivation knowing we can continue with ease.”
Increasing numbers of MPs have engage with the programme in recent years, from Conservative Caroline Dinenage, who took part in an archery session with the Gosport Bowmen, or Labour’s Amanda Martin, who welcomed a grant for the Portsmouth-based Cosham Park Bowls Club.
If you are interested in promoting the scheme this year with one of your local clubs please click here.
Many people talk about good causes – but we believe Cash4Clubs is a great one.
Politics
Politics Home | Cut bills, not corners: put energy efficiency at the heart of the cost of living fight
(Credit: Adobe Stock)
For millions of families, keeping the home warm is a major pressure – particularly for those on lower incomes and in poorly insulated homes
The cost of living remains a central concern for households across Britain. That is why First Secretary of State Louise Haigh’s new Cost of Living Taskforce matters. As she puts it, the task is about “putting people back in control” and making everyday essentials “more affordable and more accountable”.1 Energy efficiency should be central to that mission.
Any serious strategy to cut the cost of living must look beyond the price households pay for each unit of energy. It must focus on outcomes – ensuring upgrades deliver real reductions in energy use and lower bills, not simply installations on paper.
The cheapest energy for a household is energy it does not have to use
Improving Britain’s housing stock is one of the most practical ways to cut bills while making homes warmer and more comfortable. Better insulation reduces heat loss in winter and can prevent overheating in summer, allowing households to use less energy without compromising comfort.
For those least able to absorb higher bills, that means a lasting saving – not simply help with the next energy bill.
The benefits go beyond individual households. If millions of homes need less energy, we can reduce pressure on the electricity system, particularly at peak times, strengthening energy security and potentially reducing the need for additional generation and network capacity.
We know progress is possible. Between 2004 and 2015, gas consumption for a typical dual-fuel household fell by 37 per cent, while electricity consumption fell by 18 per cent, due to energy efficiency including insulation, despite households using significantly more electrical appliances.2
The Committee on Fuel Poverty has recommended greater focus on insulation3 arguing that it delivers significant savings to households and the state because heating savings are experienced every year. Building fabric improvements should sit alongside heating upgrades, not behind them. A better-insulated home needs less energy to heat, helping heating systems work more efficiently and potentially reducing running costs.
The potential savings for the country are substantial. Analysis using the UK Green Building Council’s Home Retrofit Calculator has indicated that combining insulation with cleaner heating could save between £150bn and £300bn over 25 years in electricity generation and grid costs.4
But investment must be judged by outcomes, not installations. Are homes warmer? Are bills lower? Is public money delivering lasting value?
Strong standards, accountability and consumer protection are essential. Poor quality work wastes money and undermines confidence. Support should reward businesses that deliver durable, measurable improvements.
A major programme of home improvement can also create skilled jobs across construction, insulation, heating and the wider retrofit supply chain.
Energy efficiency should not be an add-on to the cost of living agenda. It tackles the problem at source – making homes warmer, bills lower, communities stronger and our energy system more secure.
MIMA’s priorities
- Get the basics right. Treat building fabric alongside heating improvements. Better insulation can reduce the heat a home needs, helping heating systems work more efficiently and potentially allowing for smaller heat pumps and lower running costs.
- Reward results, not installations. Measure whether homes are warmer, cheaper to run and more comfortable – not simply how many measures have been fitted.
- Put consumers first. Stronger standards, clear accountability and effective redress are essential. MIMA advocates outcomes-based guarantees that protect consumers while rewarding businesses that deliver quality and lasting results.
Find out more at www.mima.info or contact Sarah Kostense-Winterton on [email protected].
References
- https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-puts-public-control-community-regeneration-and-cost-of-living-at-the-heart-of-plans-to-rewire-britain
- https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Energy-Prices-and-Bills-Committee-on-Climate-Change-March-2017.pdf
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/committee-on-fuel-poverty-annual-report-2026
- https://ukgbc.org/resources/home-retrofit-investment-calculator/
Reform UK are on course to win fewer seats than both Labour and the Tories at the next general election, according to a new mega poll.
The YouGov study found that Nigel Farage’s party would end up with 123 MPs if an election were held now.
Although that is well up on the eight they currently have, it is well down on the 311 seats a similar poll forecast they would get a year ago.
Reform MPs Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman – who defected from the Tories – would lose their seats to their former party.
Labour would be the largest party on 241 seats – well down on the 403 they currently have – with the Tories second on 130.
The findings of the MRP poll – which saw 14,000 people surveyed to give a seat-by-seat breakdown – suggest the UK is heading for a hung parliament, with every party well short of the 326 seats needed for a majority.
That suggests Andy Burnham would be forced to do a deal with the Lib Dems, who are forecast to stay on 71 MPs elected, to remain in power.
Elsewhere, the poll says the Greens would see their number of MPs increase to 8, while the SNP would go from 8 MPs to 48.
The poll’s findings are further confirmation of Reform’s fall in popularity in recent months, and of the increase in support enjoyed by Labour since Burnham replaced Keir Starmer as leader and PM.
A separate poll by the More in Common think-tank on Wednesday put Reform behind the Tories and Labour.
Data released by YouGov also found that anti-Reform tactical voting is also likely to scupper his hopes of becoming PM.
The poll of more than 6,000 voters found that in a seat with only a Labour or Reform candidate, 41% would back Burnham’s party, with only 26% backing Farage’s.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
If the government won’t stop the boats, the protesters will. That’s the message that has been sent by another demonstration, in another south-coast town, as another migrant dinghy was sailing its way into British waters.
Last night, in Hampshire, hundreds gathered outside a marina in Gosport in anticipation of another boat-load of illegal migrants arriving uninvited on its shores. Word had got out that the boat, which set off from Normandy on Monday, was bound for the Portsmouth area.
The authorities, usually a byword for uselessness, leapt into action. The boat was intercepted. Police were mobilised. The local MP was told a landing in Gosport was ‘increasingly likely’. A motorcade of police vehicles was filmed escorting coaches to the town, to scoop up the migrants and take them to processing centres.
But the protesters leapt into action, too. Locals and activists descended on the marina. Danny Tommo, leader of right-wing direct-action group Patriot Platform, sailed out into the Channel to film the dinghy’s voyage, before sending his balaclava-clad men to Gosport.
Eventually, the migrants were redirected to Dover, traditional landing spot of the small boats, thus never setting foot in Gosport and avoiding a frosty reception. But that doesn’t mean this is the end of the matter. After an almost identical flare-up in Portsmouth earlier this month, these spontaneous protests pose a serious challenge to a British state that has hitherto been facilitating illegal migration out of sight of the public.
Facilitate is the word. For what has been taking place across the English Channel is not ‘asylum seeking’ in any meaningful sense. Even Rory Stewart is now saying that anyone who is fleeing, for all intents and purposes, France has no real right to claim asylum in Britain. This is a funnel for illegal migration – and everyone knows it.
The government can bang on about its legal obligations all it likes – to aid vessels in distress, to process those who claim asylum here, to house those who have made a claim. What the public sees is illegal migrants being escorted into our waters, landed on our soil and put up at our expense. Because beyond the legal niceties of the situation, that is precisely what is happening here.
The conspiracy of silence around this issue has now come crashing down. A collection of activists, citizen journalists and populist politicians have put the ‘asylum’ issue firmly in the spotlight – spawning a bottom-up resistance movement against illegal migration that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.
All of this is set against a government that struggles to see there is a problem here at all, and is resigned to managing the inflow in a slightly cheaper, more efficient and more equitable fashion. Labour responded to the migrant-hotel protests of last summer by shuffling more migrants into HMOs and military bases, only for this to spark the fury of locals and flash-mob demonstrations, too. Even the posh village of Piddington has been in revolt against plans to stick 1,250 migrants on a nearby barracks, dwarfing the local population by four-to-one.
Some will take issue with the tactics of some of the protests, and the characters spoiling to lead them. Danny Tommo, an acolyte of Tommy Robinson, has an attempted kidnapping conviction from his particularly misspent youth. But there is clearly an appetite for these more assertive – though explicitly non-violent – forms of protest that these activist-influencers are tapping into.
Is this really such a shock? Brits voted to take back control of migration, only for legal and illegal migration to soar. They saw story after story of so-called asylum seekers committing murders, rapes, even terror attacks, then they saw people being arrested for speaking up about these horrors on social media. Now, with the government still refusing to enforce our borders, some have decided to take matters into their own hands.
Labourites are patting themselves on the back for a 44 per cent drop in illegal migrants crossing the Channel. I doubt even they believe this is down to them. Illegal entrants have fallen by a similar amount across Europe this year, aided by greater stability in ‘origin countries’ such as Syria. Meanwhile, Burnham is as unwilling as his predecessor to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and properly assert our sovereignty.
All Labour’s more piddling measures – such as beefing up border policing in France – appear to be achieving is spreading the dinghy journeys across the south coast. Whereas boats would usually travel from Calais to Dover, the narrowest bit of the Channel, they are now beginning to leave as far west as the Bay of the Seine, before sailing more than 30 hours towards Hampshire.
If it continues down this path, the government is doomed to a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Where one route becomes tricky for the people smugglers, another, more dangerous one will spring up. Meanwhile, so long as the good weather holds, police can expect protests wherever boats land or migrants are accommodated.
Andy Burnham, MP for TikTok, is a prime minister obsessed with comms, with image. But the horrific optics of the small-boats crisis appear to pass him by. What we saw off the coast of Hampshire last night was the state scurrying to receive people who have no right to be here, ferrying them into free accommodation, before showing up to police the inevitable protest. More and more people are asking who the British state is actually for. So long as they do, these protests will continue.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is shifting its focus away from the North Carolina and Georgia Senate races as it works to shore up red states like Texas and flip other Democratic-held seats.
In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, Sen. Tim Scott, the chair of the NRSC, told Senate Republicans that the campaign arm will focus its spending going forward on defending GOP seats in Maine, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa and Texas and trying to flip the Democratic-held seats of Michigan and New Hampshire, according to four people in the room who were granted anonymity to share private details.
That list notably leaves out North Carolina GOP nominee Michael Whatley’s battle against Democrat Roy Cooper and Georgia GOP nominee Mike Collins’ effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Scott’s briefing is the clearest sign yet that Republicans have deprioritized the two states, as POLITICO has reported, while senior Republicans grow increasingly resigned to the possibility of losing those races. It’s a remarkable shift: President Donald Trump carried Georgia twice in 2016 and 2024 and North Carolina over the last three presidential elections.
In deprioritizing North Carolina, the NRSC is effectively ceding a state that Democrats haven’t won in the Senate since 2008.
Still, other GOP groups with massive war chests, including Trump’s MAGA Inc., could pick up the slack.
Scott also shared with the senators polling showing Republicans are locked in tight battles in several other key races, which tracks with much of the public polling, according to the four people.
For example, one poll found that GOP Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio is still trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Scott also showed polling indicating Republican John Sununu is essentially neck-and-neck with Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, a seat Republicans are laser-focused on trying to flip.
NRSC did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Collins’ campaign.
“As Roy Cooper said earlier this year about U.S. Senate races in North Carolina, ;Democrats are often ahead until they are not.’ And then just last week Cooper, correctly, observed, ‘We know a lot of undecided voters lean Republican.’ We’re confident we will have the resources to get our message out to North Carolina voters and win,” said Whatley Spokesman DJ Griffin in a statement.
Georgia GOP party chair Josh McKoon dismissed the notion that his state was being deprioritized by Republicans in Washington, even as he acknowledged beating Ossoff will be a challenge.
“Every cycle, someone in Washington leaks that they’re thinking about moving money,” he said in a text message. “What matters is who shows up — and what the actual numbers say.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is set to headline a fundraiser for Collins in Atlanta on Thursday, alongside the state’s popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp. The Collins campaign is also making the case that one in 10 Georgia voters — who backed Trump in 2024 and plan to vote for Jackson — are still “up for grabs,” according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.
“The goal in Georgia is to strike a balance where you are spending as little for Senate as possible while not derailing Rick Jackson’s, so far, very strong bid for Governor in a difficult environment,” said a GOP pollster granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape. Public polling shows the governor’s race has much tighter margins, with Jackson leading Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms in some recent surveys.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost his Senate primary to Trump-backed Ken Paxton, was also in the room. He later told POLITICO that the party has to make tough decisions.
“At some point I think the people spending that money are going to have to make hard choices and figure out where the money can have the biggest impact, and certainly Texas is the most expensive,” Cornyn said.
Q THE LANDSLIDE: Quinnipiac University released a poll today that found Gov. Kathy Hochul leading Republican Bruce Blakeman 58-39 — putting her on track for the fourth-largest landslide by a New York gubernatorial candidate in the past 200 years.
It’s by far the best poll for Hochul this year and certainly better than a Siena University survey out this morning that found her with a modest 9 point lead over the Nassau County executive.
So which one’s closer to reality?
The last time both pollsters released New York numbers on the same day was a few weeks before Hochul’s last election in 2022. Siena found at the time that her lead over then-Rep. Lee Zeldin was quickly shrinking, having dropped from 17 to 11 points.
The Q Poll painted a more dire picture for the governor.
“We released a poll in mid-October showing that Hochul had a 4 point lead over Lee Zeldin,” Quinnipiac spokesperson Mary Snow said. “And it went against the grain of other polls out there at the time.”
Hochul wound up winning that race by about 6 points.
Pollster vs. pollster results in prior elections have been mixed. Both Q and Siena nailed Andrew Cuomo’s eventual 23 point margin of victory in October 2018 polls, though Siena’s early November numbers that year found Cuomo’s lead had shrunk to 13. An infamous Q Poll from September 2010 found Cuomo with a stunningly small 6 point lead over Buffalo firebrand Carl Paladino, while a Siena poll the next day found a much more predictive 57-24 Cuomo advantage.
The biggest difference this time around is that Quinnipiac assumed a higher share of November’s turnout will be in deep blue New York City.
The five boroughs accounted for 31 percent of the statewide turnout in 2022 and 34 percent in 2018. Siena’s sample assumed 30 percent of this year’s voters will come from there, while 38 percent of Quinnipiac’s sample was from the city.
Quinnipiac also does more to avoid undecided voters. “One tweak that we made after 2020 was an adjustment to the questions that we ask, so that we try to cut down on the number of people who say they don’t know,” Snow said.
Only 3 percent of the Q Poll’s sample declined to weigh in on the Hochul-Blakeman race, while the comparable number was 9 percent in Siena’s poll. And it appears as if a lot of the Quinnipiac respondents who might not have answered Siena’s questions broke toward the incumbent: Siena has Hochul winning New York City 61-27 while Quinnipiac has her up 70-27; Siena had her up 57-34 among women while Quinnipiac found her lead at 63-34.
Another notable difference between the methodologies that may account for the divergent results is that Quinnipiac’s sample was based on asking respondents what party they affiliate with. Siena uses voter registration files.
“For a couple of years running, the New York Times/Siena Poll was ranked as the most accurate poll in America,” Siena spokesperson Steve Greenberg said. “Siena has been polling New York state for nearly a quarter of a century, and we have shown that we get it right almost all of the time.”
Republicans, for their part, believe both sets of numbers are far overstating Hochul’s advantage.
“Blakeman is closer in the polls I’ve seen than Lee Zeldin was at this moment in time four years ago,” state Senate Republican Campaign Committee Chair George Borrello said. “As I travel around New York state, I have seen literally thousands of Bruce Blakeman signs. Yet I can count on one hand the number of Kathy Hochul signs I’ve seen, unless you count the ones that say ‘Fire Hochul.’” — Bill Mahoney
From the Capitol
MEGAWATT DEAL: New York has made its first awards for large-scale batteries under a new program and secured contracts for new renewables that are close to getting built.
The state’s energy authority contracted for 719 megawatts from 13 solar, wind and hydroelectric projects and 950 megawatts of battery storage from eight projects.
NYSERDA President and CEO Doreen Harris announced the awards Wednesday during a Climate Week event hosted by the state’s renewable developers association.
“Everything that we do with respect to our energy system costs money,” Harris said. “When we invest in clean energy, not only are we talking about low single-digit percentage increases in cost, we are talking about benefits that far exceed those costs.”
Hochul warned that federal headwinds and rising expenses made a more ambitious pace of transitioning to clean energy too costly as she successfully fought to weaken New York’s ambitious climate law earlier this year. But she has highlighted her continued support for progress on offshore wind, renewables, storage and nuclear this week.
New York and developers are racing the expiration of federal tax credits. Renewables that didn’t start construction by July 4 — or don’t finish work by the end of the year if they start after that deadline — won’t be eligible for those key incentives that lower the cost of contracts for the state.
Read more from POLITICO Pro’s Marie J. French here.
FROM CITY HALL
MAKING ROOM: Bellevue Hospital announced a major renovation and expansion of its inpatient psychiatric wing, fueled by an infusion of $26.5 million from the City Council.
Bellevue, which is part of the NYC Health + Hospitals system, will use the new capital funding to add 40 beds for adult psychiatric patients over the next few years — bringing the division’s total capacity to 204 beds.
Hospital officials said the expansion will ease the bottleneck of patients with severe mental illnesses who need to be admitted for continued observation and treatment; those inpatient psychiatric units have been operating consistently at 98% capacity.
“The need here demanded an investment of this scale,” Council member Virginia Maloney, who spearheaded the funding, said during a news conference in the hospital’s atrium.
Bellevue Hospital CEO Eric Wei said the facility has seen a bump in psychiatric patients since the April 2025 closure of Mount Sinai Beth Israel several blocks away. Bellevue’s dedicated ER for psychiatric patients, which Wei said sees about 30 patients daily, is undergoing its own $40 million expansion.
“We are unfortunately needing to transfer out about 90 patients a month to other inpatient units because there’s no room in our inpatient psychiatric units,” Wei said in an interview. “We’re always feeling like I’m toeing the line. We’re very busy.”
Bellevue was so overwhelmed as of late that hospital officials asked FDNY to stop bringing them patients with psychiatric emergencies, according to EMS union Local 2507. Those diversion requests continued for at least a couple weeks in late August and early September, a union spokesperson said. — Maya Kaufman
IN OTHER NEWS
— INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE: A NYC high school which once enrolled 3,000 students now has only 90. (The City Reporter)
— FIRST IN THE NATION: In a new TV ad, Hochul is touting her first-in-the-nation data center moratorium. (City & State)
— HITTING THE BRAKES: The rollout of electric school buses in New York state has been rocky. (The New York Times)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Kemi Badenoch has predicted that Andy Burnham will call a general election this December, describing the prime minister as a “gambler”.
Speaking on LBC Radio‘s phone-in with Iain Dale, the Conservative leader said an early poll was likely, despite expectations that the election will be held in 2029.
“I think it’s this December”, Badenoch said. “I think Andy Burnham is a gambler. I think he might fancy his chances, but we fancy ours as well.”
Asked whether she would welcome an early election, Badenoch said she had already set out a condition under which the prime minister should go to the country.
She responded: “I’ve said that if he cannot fund defence, which he needs to fund by cutting welfare, then he should call an election. That’s why John Healey resigned [as defence secretary]. He said the money that was going into defence was not enough.”
The timing of general elections is governed by the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022. This act repealed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which had introduced fixed five-year terms and set out specific conditions for an early election. The 2022 act restored the previous system, effectively returning the power to choose the election date to the prime minister.
By law, the latest possible date for the next general election is 15 August 2029.
Asked whether she would prefer a coalition with the Liberal Democrats or Reform UK after an election with no clear winner, Badenoch answered: “Neither. We would have to have another election.”
She noted that two elections were held in one year in 1974.
Badenoch added that the 2010-2015 coalition had stopped the Conservatives from delivering promises because of “concessions” to the Liberal Democrats, and “nobody thanked us for it later.”
The Conservative leader stated: “We need to be able to deliver what we promise to the public, and I am very keen to show that you can actually go into politics, say you’re going to do something, and deliver it.
“Right now, in this era of multi-party politics and concessions and deals behind closed doors, I just think that the public don’t know what they’re going to get. If you want Conservative policies, then please vote Conservative.”
Badenoch also criticised the prime minister’s meeting with US president Donald Trump, saying Burnham “agreed with everything that president Trump said.” She said she is willing to say publicly when she disagrees with Trump, and that “being too scared to disagree publicly” is a problem.
She said: “The way that these international meetings work is that you actually plan what you’re going to talk about in advance. I don’t know what the government officials are doing with the US or it may be that president Trump just is a bit erratic in what he chooses to cover.
“But what Andy Burnham said yesterday was very interesting. In the morning, he said that he wanted to bring back that terrible Chagos deal, the one where they’re giving British territory to Mauritius and paying £35 billion for it.
“And then he had the meeting with President Trump, and then said, ‘Oh, actually, maybe it’s not really a good deal.’”
Donald Trump told Keir Starmer his immigration policies were “so stupid” during his second state visit to the UK, it has been revealed.
The US president started “ripping into” the then prime minister as the pair had lunch at Chequers, according to Trump’s former press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
It came after the pair had signed a “tech prosperity deal” between the UK and US at the PM’s country residence last September.
Starmer believed he had pulled off a diplomatic coup after King Charles invited Trump to the UK for an unprecedented second state visit.
But Leavitt, who quit the White House earlier this year, revealed the move backfired spectacularly when the president used the trip to personally attack the PM.
Appearing on former Fox News presenter Sean Hannity’s podcast, she said: “I remember sitting in a lunch with the president and Starmer, and we’re sitting round the table and we’re all enjoying lunch … and the president just starts ripping into him for his policies.
“He’s like your policies here are so stupid, you need to close your borders, you need to deport these people you have in your country.
“I know your country, I know you’re people, they hate what you’re doing. And Starmer’s just sitting there. And this is in his house, in his country. We’re not even at the White House, we’re not even on our own territory.”
Asked if she found it entertaining, Leavitt said: “Of course.”
Starmer initially struck up an unlikely friendship with the president when he first became PM in 2024.
However, relations between the pair had completely broken down by the time he left office in July after clashes over, among other things, Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and the war in Iran.
Trump took another swipe at Starmer as he held his first face-to-face talks with Andy Burnham at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
Asked about how relations are between the US and UK now, he said: “They are more up now than they were with your last prime minister, let me put it that way.”
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Clara Amfo has confirmed she was among the famous faces who was considered to take over as one of Strictly Come Dancing’s new hosts.
Ever since Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman announced last year that they were stepping down as Strictly’s resident hosts, the former Radio 1 star had been repeatedly mentioned as a potential contender for the gig.
During the latest episode of her podcast Into It, Clara finally revealed that she was indeed “in the mix” during the casting process.
“I can say it publicly now,” she told co-host Munroe Bergdorf. “I tried out for the main job of Strictly Come Dancing. Didn’t get it. [I was a] bit gutted at the time, but quickly got over it.”
Reflecting on the audition process, she explained that she “tried out” for the show “with another presenter” as a pair, but did not disclose who the other potential host was.
She added: “It was intense, man, But big up Emma Willis. We get on fantastically well. She’s going to be amazing.
“Johannes Radebe, that’s my boy, we love Jojo, and Josh Widdicombe – lovely, lovely man.”
Clara insisted: “I’m never mad at losing out on work to people I respect and who I think are really, really good at their jobs.”
However, Clara – who took part in Strictly back in 2020 – is not the only star to admit losing out on the Strictly hosting role.
In May, Zoe Ball shared that she’d gone through the “seven stages of grief and rejection” after missing out on the job, while Rylan Clark also confirmed that he’d unsuccessfully tried out for the role.
Ahead of their hosting debut, Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe opened up to HuffPost UK and other media outlets about the rigorous Strictly audition process.
“It was quite a long process,” Emma recalled. “And rightly so, because they really wanted to make sure that they were thorough in meeting all the people they wanted to meet – and doing screentests…”
Emma claimed that part of these screentests involved a “fake show”, with Josh noting: “You turned up and it was… I don’t know what you’d call it. Just a room, I suppose you’d call it, that’s all it was. It was a room with a table with a sparkly cloth, with Motsi [Mabuse] and Anton [Du Beke] sat behind it, playing themselves.
“And then Joe, the producer, doing an incredible impression of Craig Revel Horwood next to them. And a great Shirley impression…”
“They’d show a video of a dance, and then, the floor manager from Strictly would pretend to be a contestant, and you’d interview him as if he was Ed Balls,” he continued.
“You were reacting to these classic dances, and then you’d send them upstairs – or they’d be sent upstairs to you because you’d have a go at both roles – and by ‘going upstairs’ that meant ‘going three paces across the room to the next person that’s just stood there’. And then, you’d interview them.”
The trio made their hosting debut during Strictly’s pre-recorded launch show over the weekend, with the first live show of the new season taking place on Saturday night.
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