Laura Trott MP is the Shadow Education Secretary.

This government is failing the young people of Britain.

They claim the mantle of fairness, but youth unemployment has climbed to its highest level in over a decade and graduate recruitment has fallen to record lows. Around 700,000 graduates are now on benefits. For the first time, Britain’s youth unemployment is higher than the European Union’s. This is a tragedy for young people and the future of our country.

In the face of this, the government still insists that expanding university participation automatically expands opportunity. They argue that questioning this is tantamount to pulling up the ladder behind you. But for many of the young people now leaving education into unemployment or trapped on welfare, the ladder has already been pulled away.

The expansion of university education in the late 1990s rested on a world of stable graduate jobs and predictable career ladders, where a degree reliably widened the prospects for a young person leaving university. Tony Blair’s ambition that half of young people should go to university belonged to that, very different, era.

The economy facing school leavers today is very different, and far less forgiving. Too many are channelled into courses with minimal teaching, leaving them saddled with debt and minimal job prospects. If we are to be honest, this cannot be described as a fair deal for young people. We can and must do better. And that is why last week I set out our Conservative vision, entitled ‘Our New Deal for Young People’.

The purpose of that New Deal is straightforward.

To restore real routes into work, not to punish aspiration, for a generation that has been sold credentials instead of real prospects. It rests on three changes that together would widen choice at 18, restore fairness in higher education financing and ensure that entering work allows young people to build something of their own that is durable.

The first is to make apprenticeships a genuine alternative to university rather than a rationed one. For too long policy has nudged school-leavers in one direction while treating other paths as second-best. This is not right.

Demand from young people to go into an apprenticeship already outstrips supply. Expanding high-quality apprenticeships by 100,000 places a year, backed by targeted wage support for firms that invest in young recruits, would open a route that combines earning, training and progression without the burden of debt. We also know the employers are taking a risk and making a big contribution when hiring an 18-year-old and we want to recognise that contribution.

We will provide employers up to £5,000 to go towards their wages – a third of the average wage of an apprentice – for each 18–21-year-old apprentice they take on who is a British citizen. We know incentives like this work because they have increased apprenticeship starts before.

The second is to restore basic fairness to student finance.

Plan 2 loans increasingly resemble a debt trap rather than a graduate contribution. Interest rates set three percentage points above the RPI measurement of inflation means balances can rise even as repayments are made, and the average graduate would need to earn around £66,000 simply to keep pace. The decision to freeze repayment thresholds has pulled more young earners into repayment, while also changing the terms of the loan after they had signed up. As with so much Rachel Reeves touches, the effect has been to make a bad system worse. Ending real interest on these loans would ensure that those who repay see their balance fall in real terms and would draw a line under debts that expand faster than they can realistically be cleared.

The third is to ensure that the first years in work allow young people to accumulate assets rather than merely service costs incurred in reaching employment. Redirecting the first £5,000 of National Insurance paid by someone entering full-time work into their own savings would help build a deposit or financial buffer at the very point when it matters most. The principle is simple work should help you get ahead, not just get by. That is something that all Conservatives should be able to get behind.

Taken together, these measures form Our New Deal for Young People. This plan recognises how far the world has moved on from the assumptions of the 1990s. Britain still needs strong universities and many degrees remain transformative. But pretending that ever-rising participation automatically delivers ever-rising opportunity has left too many young people with debt and too few prospects. That is why we want to fundamentally change the system.

The real injustice today is not that the old consensus is being questioned. It is that a generation is living with its consequences long after the whole system stopped working for them. A fair society should offer routes into work and a chance at genuine independence, not simply the old reassurances.

That is the change that Our New Deal for Young People is intended to bring about.

David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.

Most by-elections do not really matter but Gorton and Denton feels like a by-election of significance – even if the news quickly moved on.

Yes, there are some familiar attributes to the result – Governments do badly; a small party often does well; and, in seats with a large Muslim vote, the most vehemently anti-Israel candidate often wins.  At least we were spared George Galloway returning to Parliament.

We know that the Labour government – and Keir Starmer – are unpopular, and that was reflected in their dismal vote.  We know that Muslim communities often vote as a block, a tendency that was once very helpful to Labour and now is not.

We also know that tactical voting means that if you are party that does not have a chance of winning, your vote will be squeezed very tightly.  Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats reached 2 per cent, which is tighter than ever but – where there are three plausible options for a victorious candidate rather than the usual two – not altogether surprising.

Not much will be said about the Liberal Democrats in the context of Gorton and Denton because their low showing was expected, but it is a reminder of the changed political geography compared to a generation ago.

There are some similarities with the Brent East by-election of 2003.  Here was an urban, multicultural seat where the Liberal Democrats had little historic presence (I was the Conservative candidate in 2001 and there was next to no Lib Dem activity in the seat in that election) but stormed to victory two years’ later at a time when the Tories were at a very low ebb, and the Government was unpopular with Muslims and younger progressives because of the Iraq war.  At that point, the Liberal Democrats were emerging as a real threat to Labour in urban seats and went on to win Manchester Withington (part of which is now in Gorton and Denton) in 2005.  The Greens are now the party of protest for urban progressive graduates and Muslims.

This sets the Greens up for a very good set of results in the London local authority elections in May and a realistic challenger in a swathe of urban Labour Parliamentary seats at the next General Election.  However awkward this might be for Labour, this is not something Conservatives should celebrate.  The Greens’ influence on our politics – whether directly as a Parliamentary force or indirectly by dragging Labour in its direction – will be detrimental to our economic wellbeing, national security, and, on the evidence of their by-election campaign, community cohesion.  If there is any consolation in their victory, it will come in the form of greater scrutiny of a party whose policy agenda could, at best, be described as flaky.

The Tories might also be tempted to take some pleasure from the failure of Reform UK to win Gorton and Denton.  That is certainly grounds for relief but no more than that.  Reform UK must have done well in the white working class areas of Denton and look well-placed to capture the Red Wall but should be kicking themselves for not having done better.  Matt Goodwin was an unlikeable candidate who attracted some unsavoury supporters; Nigel Farage spent the weekend before the by-election on a jaunt trying to reach the Chagos Islands which was hardly a priority issue in Manchester.

It was all rather self-indulgent.

A more substantial worry for Reform UK is that it is very effective in motivating people to turn out and vote for whoever is best placed to defeat them.  There have now been three by-elections where Reform UK was well-fancied where the result was something of a disappointment. In Runcorn & Helsby, they won but by a whisker as Conservative voters in Helsby voted tactically for Labour. In the Senedd seat of Caerphilly, Plaid Cymru beat them comfortably. Now the Greens have done so in Gorton and Denton.  The combination of tactical voting and a high turnout from anti-Farage voters is frustrating their progress.

This is the one crumb of comfort for Labour.  It was a terrible result but they can argue that Gorton and Denton is an unusual constituency and that at the next election there will be many seats where it will be a straightforward fight between the Labour incumbent and the Reform challenger.  Mid-term by-elections are inevitably a referendum on the Government, rather than a choice between alternative options.  In that context, Reform UK should not be viewed as unbeatable.

This, however, is very much looking on the bright side for Labour.  They are losing votes in all directions and it is currently hard to see which part of the electorate they can completely rely upon.  The decision to block Andy Burnham is once again being questioned.  He would have won last week, but a by-election for the Greater Manchester Mayoralty would have been difficult.  In any event, Starmer would not have lasted long as leader with Burnham in his Parliamentary party.  As it is, the Prime Minister has to hope that falling immigration and an improving economy (assuming both happen) ease his political woes but he will be lucky to survive the aftermath of the May elections.

For the Conservatives, the Gorton and Denton by-election was something of a non-event, notwithstanding the record low share of the vote.  The rise of the Greens, as I argued above, is no cause of celebration but it does offer opportunities in that the left’s vote is split and there is scope  to define the Tories against them as the pro-enterprise party.  A breakthrough for Reform would have been difficult, and a Labour government that drifts leftwards – assuming that is what it does – leaves behind plenty of space to be exploited.  There is nothing in these results to support the narrative that the Tories are bouncing back, but there is reason enough to believe that the potential is there.

There is a final point to be made.

This was a by-election that demonstrated that political support is fragmenting.  Neither of the two big traditional parties finished in the top two; not unprecedented but very rare.  The Greens got over 40 per cent of the vote, which is not particularly low for a winning candidate, but we are in a world where MPs will win with a vote share of just a third or even lower.  Majorities become lower at the same time that voters become more volatile, resulting in greater MP churn and a focus on short term thinking.  Candidates focus more on winning the tactical voting battle than articulating their policies, leaving the electorate to guess how the rest of the constituency is going to cast their vote before deciding who is best placed to defeat the candidate they least want.  At the very least, this raises questions about the viability of the First Past The Post electoral system if this fragmentation is to be maintained.

This takes us back to the significance of this by-election.

It raises questions about our electoral system; it sees a breakthrough for the Greens and (one would hope) more scrutiny for them; it further destabilises the Prime Minister and will provoke a debate about Labour’s future that will likely see them moving leftwards; it highlights that Reform UK is a powerful electoral force, but also exposes its self-indulgence; is a reminder that by-elections in seats like this were once a Liberal Democrat speciality but not anymore.  As for the Conservatives, this is not where the recovery was ever going to begin.

The question for the Tories is where exactly that place will be.

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Which stars, TV shows and films are on the winners list from the 2026 Actor Awards?

Film

TV

Special Award

One reporter asked about the operation’s objectives. Another asked who Trump wanted to lead Iran since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the attack.

Instead of answering, Trump stopped to admire new statues of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin in the Rose Garden.

“Unbelievable statues,” he said as reporters shouted their questions. “You’ll see. Come and look at them.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported that Trump also did not speak to reporters on Air Force One during the flight back to Washington from Mar-a-Lago, as he typically does. He did, however, speak to some reporters by phone over the weekend as the operation unfolded.

Trump’s refusal to address the assembled media after igniting a major conflict overseas, but instead praising his new statues, led to harsh criticism on X:

We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI – prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

Daily reading and enjoyment of reading are at a more-than-20-year low among young people, according to new research.

The National Literacy Trust (NLT) surveyed over 80,000 young people aged 11 to 16 years old and found just one in five (18.8% of) boys aged 14 to 16 report enjoying reading, compared to 37.7% of girls.

The same survey, shared with the Guardian, found only 9.8% of boys between the ages of 14 and 16 read every day, compared to 17.6% of girls.

If these stats resonate and you’re hoping to gently steer your teen towards page-turners once more; these thrilling, funny, and ultra-engaging reads might just tempt them.

Just days after the US and Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran, Keir Starmer has insisted that the UK hasn’t been involved in the invasion.

Less than three minutes later, he then said the UK is allowing the US to use UK air bases to attack Iran. The footage has been edited so you don’t have to suffer him for that long, but the lies are intact:

The old saying that if you tell the truth you don’t have to have a good memory has never been more applicable.

Starmer and his front-benchers, along with all their enablers, are war criminals. Not satisfied with collaborating in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, they are now assisting directly in the US’s and Israel’s murder of Iranian children and illegal regime-change war in Iran.

Featured image via X

Holly Valance, Aaron Banks, Rod Stewart, Robert Jenrick, Derek Chisora, Christopher Horborne, Bonnie Blue, Suella Braverman, Charles Bronson, Tommy Ten-Names, Nigel Farage… your boy took one hell of a beating.

Holly Valance though? If you thought her singing was like auto-tuned auditory war crimes and her acting was like a hostage situation with lines, what could you possibly think about the Australian’s choice of British politicians?

I couldn’t care less either.

Labour’s red wall begins to fall under Starmer

Gorton & Denton has been a Labour fortress, in one form or another, for a hundred years. Indeed, the fortress was so reliably red it would make Stalin blush.

Yes, the trouncing of Farage and his crypto-racists was utterly delicious. This is a northern working class constituency and it was ripe for a Reform UK picking. But Reform was only ever in this position because Starmer’s genius centrist strategy alienated the left so hard that the actual fascists started looking like the “change” option.

Gorton & Denton wasn’t just a blip. It was the death-rattle of Starmerism, echoing through every red wall constituency. The only thing more humiliating for Labour would be if the detestable Starmer himself turned up in a hi-vis vest holding a “FOR SALE” sign.

This was the Green’s first ever Westminster by-election win, their first MP in the North of England. And it came with a massive 27% swing from Labour. This wasn’t a protest vote but a proper, majority-delivering “fuck you” with 4,400+ votes clear.

Hannah Spencer just turned a safe Labour seat into flourishing Green turf. Voters preferred a working class woman who believes in rent controls, public ownership, and not boiling the planet over a suit-wearing focus-group zombie.

A plumber just proved you can win big by actually giving a shit about people and planet, instead of donor dinners and three-word soundbites.

Is anyone really that surprised?

Labour is as extinct as a dodo in a coal mine

There is no longer such a thing as a safe Labour seat. The Green party can absolutely win anywhere.

Labour has spent decades treating its traditional constituencies like that one armchair in you gran’s house – faded red, smelling faintly of defeat for the other parties, and are pretty much guaranteed to stay Labour forever. Seats with more than half of the overall vote, misguided generational loyalty, the working-class heartlands, ethnic minority strongholds. Labour had the lot.

Safe seats? They’re as extinct as a dodo in a coal mine.

Labour under Starmer has spent the last couple of years triangulating so fucking hard they’ve almost become the world’s most boring spreadsheet.

Austerity-lite budgets, slow-walking on green investment, hateful immigration rhetoric, foreign policy positions that alienate the progressive youth and Muslim communities, and a general vibe of “we’re not Corbyn, honest!”

Disillusioned left-leaning voters – young people, urban graduates, eco-conscious super recycling types, those absolutely furious about Gaza or the cost of greed crisis – aren’t staying home anymore.

They are going to the Greens in droves, especially where the Greens have built serious local machines.

Starmer’s response was almost as embarrassing as the defeat itself. He muttered something about being disappointed and he will “keep fighting the extremes” despite coming third place in a seat that has been held by his party since before most voters were born.

In reality, Labour just got curb-stomped by the common sense left and the extreme right in the same graveyard. That’s not fighting, Mr Starmer, that’s being the pinata at a funeral.

Time to throw out that old armchair

The swing from Labour to the Greens was a biblical 27.5 percentage points. If this swing was replicated nationwide at a general election, Polanski would be finishing the night with more than 100 seats, and Labour wouldn’t just be facing a bad night.

They would be experiencing total extinction.

Labour is no longer the default party for the left because the party under Keir Starmer has spent the last couple of years systematically alienating every voter who ever give a shit about progressive values. Whilst the Greens have quietly built a machine that actually delivers on them.

The default left party isn’t the one that promises “change” in a shitty PowerPoint to Labour-friendly hacks and staffers. It’s the one that delivers it with a sledgehammer in hope.

Labour’s entire campaign strategy was “only we can stop Reform UK and Farage”. After Gorton & Denton, that lie is well and truly exposed and dead. Voters now see that a Green vote isn’t going to be a wasted vote of protest – it’s winnable, even in the reddest of red heartlands.

Labour’s red wall is now a crumbling ruin overtaken by aggressive green kudzu that grows faster than the excuses flying out of No. 10.

If Labour doesn’t drastically change course, and I am not expecting them to, the Green’s won’t just nibble at the edges, they’ll start carving off whole chunk. Anywhere.

Even your Gran’s armchair might not be safe anymore.

Featured image via the Canary

Iran has fired a new barrage of missiles at Israel, with several penetrating Israel’s air defences to hit Haifa. Footage of one of the successful missiles was captured from several angles:

A map of alerts in the region give an idea of the scale of the attack:

Iran fired a barrage of missiles into North Israel

— Resist 🕎🍉 (@antizionistjew.bsky.social) 2026-03-01T18:38:10.263Z

Locals report explosions in Haifa and the area

— Resist 🕎🍉 (@antizionistjew.bsky.social) 2026-03-01T18:41:58.381Z

Advertisement

Anadolu Agency reports:

At least five explosions were heard in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and surrounding areas following the launch of missiles from Iran toward Israel, an Anadolu correspondent reported Sunday evening.

A strong explosion was also heard in the northern city of Haifa, according to eyewitnesses.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported that sirens sounded in several areas in southern and eastern Israel after a new barrage of missiles was launched from Iran. Additional sirens were later activated in the northern parts of the country.

The barrage comes after the Zionist ‘state’ and the US murdered Iranian leader Ali Khamenei and his family – and slaughtered over 150 schoolgirls, of a total school population of 180, by bombing their school.

Featured image via the Canary