Reeves must back defence investment plan or be sacked, says Unite union boss

The head of Britain’s largest trade union has demanded that Rachel Reeves be sacked as chancellor if the Treasury continues to hold up a multibillion-pound defence investment plan.Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said tens of thousands of jobs were at risk from political dithering and called on ministers to “back British industry” by signing off on future defence contracts.“If Rachel Reeves can’t grasp that concept and doesn’t care where things are made then she should go,” Graham said “Actually, you have to have a vision for Britain. You can’t just be in government, you can’t just say today’s a new day.”She also called on Keir Starmer “to do what he said he would do” after the prime minister promised in February last year to increase annual spending on the military to 2

Great Kemi revival stalls again as student loans debate turns into deranged tirade | John Crace

We hear a lot about the Keminaissance these days. Not least from Kemi herself. She is amazing, the best thing to have happened to the Tories since … Liz Truss. We are fantastically lucky to have her in our lives. She is a miracle worker

British public want deeper economic ties with EU, business secretary says

The British public are “not nostalgic” for the pre-Brexit past but are pragmatic and want to move forward and “deepen” ties with the EU on trade and the economy, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, has said.Signing an agreement in Brussels to cooperate closely on competition issues, Kyle said he thought the deal was “a real vindication of the reset and the relationships that have emerged between the EU and the UK” since Labour came to power.He said it marked an alignment on strategies on issues such as mergers and acquisitions, the result of frequent conversations the two sides were now having.The European Commission executive vice-president Teresa Ribera said it was “a privilege” to sign the deal, which was “reinforcing the current good cooperation” with the UK.Kyle said the public was behind the pragmatism that was now producing closer ties with Europe, which could drive economic growth

Tony Blair’s legacy was the destruction of Labour’s big tent | Letter

Like Emma Brockes, I watched Channel 4’s documentary The Tony Blair Story (It’s said that Tony Blair thought he was Jesus. At least Jesus never thought he was Tony Blair, 18 February). The last episode was the saddest, as Tony’s friends and family mithered about his legacy. Like all premierships, the Blair years were a mixed blessing – some great domestic policy, largely pushed by Gordon Brown, and a patchy foreign policy.But Tony’s biggest legacy would be the destruction of the coalition that had been the Labour party for the previous 90 years

Foreign Office denies minister’s claim the Chagos Islands deal has been paused – as it happened

Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.Controversial plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius are still on track, the UK government has insisted, after a minister caused confusion by telling MPs that the deal was “paused”.Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, was speaking on Wednesday as the deal came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the UK and from Donald Trump.In a bombshell intervention last month, the US president said that Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.Speaking in response to an urgent question put foward in the Commons by the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage (see 2

Role of Scotland’s top law officer questioned after ‘bombshell’ over Peter Murrell charges

Serious doubts have been raised about the dual role of Scotland’s top law officer after it emerged that the first minister was informed of criminal charges against Peter Murrell nearly a year before they were made public.The lord advocate, Dorothy Bain, who acts as Scotland’s chief prosecutor as well as the government’s principal legal adviser in cabinet, has faced calls to resign but the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service maintains she was acting in line with her duties.On Tuesday the office released a list of nearly 30 other cases the lord advocate had updated governments about over the last three decades. It emerged that on 20 March last year, Bain told John Swinney that Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, had appeared in court charged with embezzling more than £460,000 from the party. That detail did not emerge publicly until earlier this month