STORY
Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Senedd member for Ynys Môn, has been confirmed as the new leader of Plaid Cymru as no other contenders stood for the position. He follows Adam Price, the previous leader who stood down in May 2023, having held the role since September 2018. Rhun ap Iorwerth, born in 1972, served as the deputy leader of the party from October 2018 and has been a member of the Senedd since August 2013.
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STORY
The date for the by-elections in Uxbridge and South Ruislip as well as in Selby and Ainsty will be held on 20 July 2023. The by-elections have been called after the resignations of Boris Johnson and Nigel Adams.
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The death of Glenda Jackson, the Labour MP for Hampstead & Highgate between 1992 and 2010 and then the Labour MP for Hampstead & Kilburn from 2010 until 2015, has been announced. She also served as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport between 1997 and 1999. Jackson was 87 years old.
STORY
Brendan Clarke-Smith, the Conservative MP for Bassetlaw, has launched an attack on the House of Commons parliamentary procedures, calling them “a kangaroo court” after the Conservative majority report found that Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, had knowingly lied to Parliament.
Clarke-Smith said about the processes of the House of Commons:
“I’m backing fairness and justice – not kangaroo courts”.
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A report published by the Privileges Committee’s report has found that Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister, deliberately lied to Parliament. Johnson, who resigned from the Commons in advance of the report’s publication, would have faced a recommended 90 day suspension from the House. The report, which was far more damning than had been expected, was led by a Conservative majority.
The now disgraced former Prime Minister was found to have lied to the Privileges Committee, willingly leaked material relating to the proceedings and undermined the democratic processes of Parliament.
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Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has said that Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister, attempted to get him to intervene with Johnson’s nominations for honours. The House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) confirmed that it rejected eight individuals who Johnson had recommended for honours, with Sunak saying that the former Prime Minister tried to get him to overrule the decision. Sunak said that:
“Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do, because I didn’t think it was right. That was either overrule the HOLAC committee, or make promises to people. Now, I wasn’t prepared to do that, so I didn’t think he was right. And if people don’t like that then tough.”
Johnson has yet to comment on the allegations.
NEWS STORY
The death of Silvio Berlusconi at the age of 86, the former Italian Prime Minister, has been announced. He served as the country’s Prime Minister between 1994 and 1995, 2001 and 2006 and then from 2008 until 2011.
NEWS STORY
Nigel Adams, the Conservative MP for Selby and Ainsty, has announced that he is standing down as an MP with immediate effect. Adams is the third MP to have announced their resignation over recent days, following the announcements from Nadine Dorries and Boris Johnson. Adams posted on Twitter:
“Yesterday, Selby Conservatives selected an excellent new parliamentary candidate. I’ve today informed the chief whip that I will be standing down as a Member of Parliament with immediate effect. It has been an honour to represent the area where I was raised, educated and I want to thank my constituents for their wonderful support since 2010.”
A source at Conservative Central Office said that they had been given no prior warning about the announcement. Adams has held the constituency since 2010 and secured a majority of 20,137 at the 2019 General Election.
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Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister, has announced that he is resigning from the House of Commons and triggering a by-election in his constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. His resignation comes after he received the report from the Privileges Committee which he said had recommended that he was suspended from the House of Commons. In his statement, he rejected the committee’s work, stating:
“Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court.”
He concluded his statement noting
“It is very sad to be leaving Parliament – at least for now – but above all, I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.”
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Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, has confirmed that she is planning to step down at the next General Election. In an open letter, the former party leader said:
“I love this city and its people, and I know how incredibly blessed I’ve been to have been given the opportunity to represent you, and to work alongside you. I have always prided myself on being, first and foremost, a good constituency MP. The people who have come to me in my regular surgeries are often desperate, feeling like they have nowhere else to turn – they’re looking for care and compassion not the tangled bureaucratic web that passes for a safety net, and that all too often just causes confusion and complication. I’ve done everything possible to help wherever I can and always worked to ensure that people feel heard, that their concerns matter, and that they are not alone.
But the intensity of these constituency commitments, together with the particular responsibilities of being my Party’s sole MP, mean that, ironically, I’ve not been able to focus as much as I would like on the existential challenges that drive me – the Nature and Climate emergencies. I have always been a different kind of politician – as those who witnessed my arrest, court case and acquittal over peaceful protest at the fracking site in Balcombe nearly ten years ago will recall. And the truth is, as these threats to our precious planet become ever more urgent, I have struggled to spend the time I want on these accelerating crises. I have therefore decided not to stand again as your MP at the next election.”
Lucas is the only Green MP in the current House of Commons and she currently has a majority of 19,940 over the Labour Party.
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