Newslinks for Sunday 31st August 2025 | Conservative Home

Conservatives pledge to scrap net zero restrictions on drilling in the North Sea

“Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said her party will remove all net zero requirements on oil and gas companies drilling in the North Sea if elected. Badenoch is to formally announce the plan to focus solely on “maximising extraction” and to get “all our oil and gas out of the North Sea” in a speech in Aberdeen on Tuesday. Reform UK has said it wants more fossil fuels extracted from the North Sea. The Labour government has committed to banning new exploration licences. A spokesperson said a “fair and orderly transition” away from oil and gas would “drive growth”. Exploring new fields would “not take a penny off bills” or improve energy security and would “only accelerate the worsening climate crisis”, the government spokesperson warned. Badenoch signalled a significant change in Conservative climate policy when she announced earlier this year that reaching net zero would be “impossible” by 2050.” – BBC

Reeves tax raid to “add £24,000 to cost of a new-build”

“Rachel Reeves’s “insane” plan to raise landfill tax could cause new-build prices to rise by £24,000, critics claim. Industry leaders believe a 36-fold uplift to the levy will send construction costs soaring, causing developers to either stop building homes or demand higher prices from buyers. Concerns over the tax increase come after Labour pledged to build 300,000 homes a year to tackle the country’s housing crisis and boost affordability for first-time buyers.” – Sunday Telegraph

Asylum 1) UK “may introduce digital ID cards for all” to tackle illegal immigration

“Britain may introduce digital ID cards for all, Labour minister Pat McFadden has hinted. They would help crack down on illegal immigrants and black market jobs, he said. And he said they would let the UK embrace the “technological revolution” or we risk being “behind the curve”. The Cabinet Office minister told The Times: “If you go for a job it’s perfectly reasonable you’ve got to prove who you say you are.” Labour MP Jo White also called for ID cards. She said: “Not only will it help deal with fraud but it will be a recognition of British citizenship.” – The Sun on Sunday

Asylum 2) Epping hotel judge ‘reported to conduct office’ over bias allegations

“The judge who ruled that asylum seekers can remain in a hotel in Epping has been reported to the conduct authority for alleged “bias” over links to Left-wing causes and organisations. On Friday, Lord Justice Bean and two other Court of Appeal judges ruled that an injunction banning the Bell Hotel from housing asylum seekers should be overturned. The ruling was a legal victory for the Home Office and has prevented the Government’s asylum policy from being plunged into chaos.” – Sunday Telegraph

• Police make three arrests during Epping protest – BBC
• Zia Yusuf: Reform’s deportation plans will be like Trump 2.0 – Sunday Times
• Is Keir Starmer blowing it? The PM is in for a stormy autumn – Sunday Times
• We don’t need the European human rights brigade telling our tolerant and liberal nation how to deal with the migrant crisis – Daniel Hannan, Mail on Sunday
• The migration backlash was a long time coming – Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times
• Reform UK councillor suspended from job at Home Office processing asylum claims – The Guardian

>Today: ToryDiary: Rifkind, Blunkett and Straw give Starmer cover to suspend the ECHR

Votes for 16-year-olds “would boost Corbyn”

“Jeremy Corbyn’s new left-wing party would all but eliminate Labour’s lead among 16 and 17-year-olds, a new poll showed — just as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to hand them the vote. More than one in five 16 and 17-year-olds would vote for Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s movement at the next election, creating a three-way tie with Labour and Reform for the youth vote. The hard-left group, which has the working name of Your Party, would knock six percentage points off Labour’s share among the new voters, leaving Starmer’s party on 24 per cent, Nigel Farage’s Reform on 23 per cent and Corbyn’s new party on 21 per cent. The Green Party would be the biggest loser, however, with its vote share more than halving from 14 per cent to 6 per cent.” – Sunday Times

Rayner 1) Boyfriend has job as lobbyist

“Angela Rayner is at the centre of a new hypocrisy storm after it emerged her boyfriend Sam Tarry works for a lobby group whose client got a £280,000 cash boost from the Labour Government. The Deputy PM — already under fire over claims she saved £40,000 in stamp duty after buying her third home — had spent years in Opposition attacking the Tories for their ties with political lobbyists. Angela Rayner’s boyfriend works for a lobby group whose client got a £280k cash boost from Labour. Our shock revelation that partner Tarry was paid by political lobbying and consultancy group Henham Strategy will plunge her into a fresh row on the eve of Parliament’s return tomorrow.” – The Sun on Sunday

• Can you imagine her outrage if a senior Tory Cabinet member had behaved the same way? – Leader, The Sun on Sunday

Rayner 2) “Wealth protection” firm used in house deal

“The controversy over Angela Rayner’s tangled financial affairs deepened today as it emerged that she employed the services of a company which specialised in ‘wealth protection’. The embattled Deputy Prime Minister – already accused of ‘flipping’ the designation of her main home to limit her liabilities for stamp duty and council tax – split the ownership of her £650,000 constituency home with a trust administered by blue-chip law firm Shoosmiths. At the time of the deal, in 2023, the company boasted that it had a dedicated ‘wealth protection team’ to help its private clients.” – Mail on Sunday

• Huge deposit put down on her new £800,000 seaside pad revealed – The Sun on Sunday
• Rayner urged to be transparent about her tax affairs – Sunday Times
• Deputy Prime Minister now facing questions over capital gains tax on Ashton home – Sunday Telegraph
• Stench of hypocrisy is a symptom of the deep malaise that grips Labour – Leo McKinstry – Mail on Sunday
• The real reason Rayner’s hypocrisy is so damaging to Labour – Mark Littlewood, Sunday Telegraph
• Taxes, hypocrisy and dangerous waters for Sir Keir – Leader, Mail on Sunday

Rayner 3) Claims she is planning “chicken run” to safe seat

“Angela Rayner has been accused of plotting a “chicken run” to a safer seat on the south coast after polls showed she was likely to lose to Nigel Farage’s party. Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, said the Housing Secretary was giving herself the “option” to flee the North by buying a home in ultra-safe Hove. The Tories also suggested Ms Rayner might be laying the groundwork to abandon the North for the south coast ahead of the next election.” – Sunday Telegraph

• How the Rayner scandal may belie a shrewd political move – Tom Harris, Sunday Telegraph

Labour MP “failed to disclose billionaire backing for campaign group he chairs”

“A Labour MP has failed to report the source or scale of private money behind a lobbying effort to protect horse racing from paying more tax before the budget. Dan Carden did not disclose that an offshore firm belonging to the billionaire Reuben brothers, and companies funded by the horse racing and gambling industries, had financed the group he fronted. He is chairman and lead officer of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Racing and Bloodstock composed of MPs with an interest in the sector.” – Sunday Times

Justice Secretary gives her six months to solve prison crisis

“The justice secretary has given herself six months to solve the prison overcrowding crisis “once and for all” and will announce sweeping sentencing reforms this week. Shabana Mahmood said the overhaul aimed to tackle high rates of reoffending, noting that too many offenders were coming out of prison “a better criminal rather than a better citizen”. The sentencing reform bill’s key measures include a shift away from short prison sentences to tougher community punishments, such as football and pub banning orders. Speaking before it is introduced to parliament, Mahmood said there would be a new presumption that all prisoners released on parole would be tagged for the supervised stage of their sentence.” – Sunday Times

Donors “desert Labour”

“Labour is facing a £4m hole in its finances as wealthy donors desert the party after a string of controversies and policy decisions. Several people who gave money in the runup to the general election have refused to renew their donations since Keir Starmer came to power. “The top donors are not interested,” one senior Labour figure with knowledge of fundraising said.” – The Observer

Other political news

• First week ‘critical’ to avoid children missing school later, parents told – BBC
• Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg “on defection watch” – The Sun on Sunday
• No 10’s new finance guru ‘has zero business know-how or market clout and is a fan of wealth taxes’ – Mail on Sunday
• Labour mulls ‘spy camera’ parking ticket powers – Sunday Telegraph
• Farage to raise Lucy Connolly case with Trump allies in US – Sunday Times
• Britons still can’t use e-gates at EU airports despite Starmer’s deal – Mail on Sunday
• White working-class schoolchildren punished more than any other group – Sunday Telegraph
• Nick Clegg to speak at Lib Dems Conference – Sunday Times
• Benefit fraudsters claiming £500million a year from abroad – Mail on Sunday
• Boris Johnson didn’t say sorry to Queen Elizabeth over Brexit – Sunday Times

Hannan: The peril of Ukrainian defeat

“Ideology, ultimately, is what is at stake here. Putin aims to destroy, not just the freedom of Ukraine, but the liberal world order that the Western allies have upheld since 1941. He attacked it directly when he broke a treaty to invade a sovereign state. And he attacked it symbolically by shelling a diplomatic legation, the clearest imaginable assault on the Vienna Convention. The US, the chief beneficiary and guarantor of the post-war order, has very suddenly switched sides. Britain, like Europe, is too poor and indebted to act alone. And so a bankrupt and exhausted Russia, reliant on Iranian drones and North Korean soldiers, with an economy about the size of Spain’s before the war and now closer to Portugal’s, is on the point of defeating Nato and, with it, the entire international order it defends. By heaven, we’re going to miss it when it has gone.” – Daniel Hannan, Sunday Telegraph

• Prominent Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy shot dead in Lviv – BBC
• White House ‘thinks Europe is undermining Ukraine peace efforts’ – Sunday Telegraph

News in brief

• Angela Merkel unleashed chaos on Europe – Gavin Mortimer, The Spectator
• Labour’s economic illiteracy will kill productivity – Ayushma Maharjan, CapX
• The Court of Appeal’s decision to keep Epping’s migrant hotel open has made civil disorder more likely, not less – Dr David McGrogan, Daily Sceptic
• King’s College London drops “diversity statement” requirement after free speech concerns – Freddie Attenborough, The Critic
• Protests about more than asylum – Fred Sculthorp, Unherd