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Nadhim Zahawi, the MP for Stratford-on-Avon, has confirmed he will not be standing at the next general election. This takes the number of current Conservatives who have announced they are stepping aside to 64.
Thursday 9 May 2024 10:35, UK
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Rishi Sunak has met with university bosses in Downing Street to call on them to take a “zero tolerance” approach to antisemitism.
The prime minister invited vice-chancellors of leading universities for a meeting to address the rise in antisemitic abuse on campus and disruption to students’ learning.
Jewish students have said they face a “toxic” environment as a growing number of Pro-Palestine encampments are set up at universities in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
While there has not been violent scenes like those seen in the US, the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) has warned the rhetoric emanating from these encampments “is increasing in hostility” – and called on university leaders to do more to keep Jewish students safe.
Representatives from the UJS were also in attendance.
The size of the waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England was unchanged in March, following five consecutive monthly falls.
An estimated 7.54 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of March, relating to 6.29 million patients, the same numbers as in February, NHS England said.
The list hit a record high in September 2023 with 7.77 million treatments and 6.50 million patients.
Meanwhile, the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted was 42,078 in April, down slightly from 42,968 in March, NHS figures show.
The record high for a calendar month is 54,573, which occurred in December 2022.
The number waiting at least four hours from the decision to admit to admission fell from 140,181 in March to 134,344 in April.
Some 74.4% of patients in England were seen within four hours in A&Es last month, up from 74.2% in March and the highest figure since April 2023.
The NHS recovery plan set a target of March this year for 76% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
By Alix Culbertson, political reporter
MPs have warned about an increasing shortage of vets due to post-Brexit visa and food security requirements.
A scarcity of vets poses a danger to protecting animal and human health, the UK’s £4.2m meat, dairy and egg export trade, and guaranteeing animal welfare and food security, according to a letter from Tory MP Sir Robert Goodwill, chair of the environment, food and rural affairs committee.
The letter to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Steve Barclay calls for more funding for veterinary degrees, higher salaries for public health vet roles and a reduction in the minimum salary required to obtain a skilled visa for overseas vets.
MPs on the committee spoke to veterinary sector leaders in March and said the shortage of vets has worsened since a reduction of 11.5% in 2018, however, due to a lack of data “we have no clear picture of the scale or nature of the shortages”.
They said a shortage is of particular concern as due to Brexit there are more biosecurity measures for animals coming into the UK, food and animal certification has changed and it is harder to recruit vets from overseas.
You can read more from Sky News below:
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen has hit out at the “chaos” in the Tory party and said responsibility “ultimately lies with Rishi (Sunak)”.
His victory was one of the few bright spots for the Conservatives in an otherwise dismal set of local elections last week.
But he told BBC Radio Tees: “Things don’t look great for the Conservative party at the moment.”
He said: “There is still a way through but that way through is getting narrower by the day.”
Asked if Mr Sunak was to blame, Lord Houchen said: “There’s lots of people fighting with each other in the Conservative Party, there are defections going on and ultimately the public do not vote for parties who are not united and are not presenting a united front and also aren’t talking to the public.
“If they’re fighting with each other like rats in a sack instead of saying to the public ‘this is what we’re going to do for you’, that doesn’t win elections.
“Obviously, it ultimately lies with Rishi but there are lots of people that need to get their act together, stop messing about and start talking to the public about what they can offer them, rather than just fighting with each other.”
John Swinney is Scotland’s new first minister.
Humza Yousaf announced he was stepping down last week after little more than a year in the hot seat.
Former deputy first minister John Swinney won the SNP leadership contest and went on to receive the backing of Holyrood to take over as the seventh Scottish first minister.
Former finance secretary Kate Forbes had been tipped to join him, but later announced she would not stand and instead threw her support behind Mr Swinney.
You can read more from our Scotland reporter Jenness Mitchell here:
By Tomos Evans, Wales reporter
The Welsh parliament has voted to approve an increase of more than 50% in its number of members.
The Senedd, located in Cardiff Bay, currently has 60 members – but the now-approved government plans will see that figure rise to 96.
This week marks 25 years since the Welsh Assembly, as it was then known, conducted its first election.
The Senedd Reform Bill needed a supermajority of the Senedd – two thirds of members – to give it the green light.
Fourty-three members voted in favour of the bill on Wednesday evening, with 16 against.
You can read more from Sky News below:
The Sky News live poll tracker – collated and updated by our Data and Forensics team – aggregates various surveys to indicate how voters feel about the different political parties.
With the local elections complete, Labour is still sitting comfortably ahead, with the Tories trailing behind.
See the latest update below – and you can read more about the methodology behind the tracker here.
We just discussed the UK media regulator’s new rules for social media companies designed to keep children safe online with the technology minister, Michelle Donelan.
The new Ofcom rules include age verification and reformulating algorithms to keep children away from “toxic” content. But parents whose children have died as a result of exposure to harmful content have called the rules an “insult”.
You can explore this more on the Sky News Daily, on which Niall Paterson is joined by technology correspondent at the Financial Times Cristina Criddle to discuss what the measures are and how they can be delivered.
Niall is also joined by John Carr, who is on the government’s principal advisory body for online safety and security for children, to discuss the challenges of enforcing the rules and if they go far enough to protect children.
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, has said it would be “totally inappropriate” if Natalie Elphicke was offered a peerage after joining Labour.
The Conservative MP crossed the floor shortly before Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, the second former Tory member to do so in two weeks.
Another – Christian Wakeford – made the same move in 2022.
Ms Dodds said: “Of course Natalie Elphicke is the third Conservative MP now to have taken that decision to have been clear that the Conservative Party can’t deliver the change that our country needs, that it’s only Labour that’s got a plan to turn our country around, give Britain its future back.
“And so, you know, very obviously she did make that decision in dramatic fashion yesterday. But following after two other Conservative MP have done the same.”
The frontbencher is asked how Ms Elphicke’s defection has gone down in the party, and whether her move suggests Labour is lacking principles.
“I don’t think anyone who reads Natalie Elphicke’s statements could come to that conclusion,” Ms Dodds says.
“She’s very clear in that statement that she believes it’s only Labour that can deliver the hope and optimism that our country needs and it’s only Labour that can deliver on issues that matter to her constituents.
“And she’s specifies the conservative failures on migration.
“The fact only Labour has a plan to deliver on migration, the kind of security that we need in the future, but also that it’s only labour that has a plan to deliver the homes that are desperately needed.”
Ms Elphicke is not standing for her seat in Dover at the next general election.
After a disastrous set of local election results, Rishi Sunak remains in Downing Street, but his party is moving on.
Over the weekend, former homer secretary Suella Braverman made her pitch to the party in a rather personal attack on the prime minister.
On Wednesday, Robert Jenrick made his.
His intervention couldn’t have come at a more pertinent moment.
Less than a three hours later, Natalie Elphicke, who represents the constituency of Dover, where illegal boat crossings are a major issue, crossed the floor to join the Labour Party.
Many Tories were left bemused that Ms Elphicke, who has always been on the right of the party and just months ago was being hugely critical of Sir Keir Starmer’s immigration policy, had jumped ship.
But it speaks to the splintering of a party that really has lost its way, that in same day on the same subject, one Conservative talks of the threat of Reform when it comes to migration policy while another defects to Labour.
Read Beth’s full analysis here:
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