From Egypt to India, five jailed men who feel abandoned by Britain

The cases of five British men, held for years without a fair trial, are being highlighted as MPs, families, and campaigners fight for their release and better help for all those arbitrarily detained abroad. Who are the five, and what has happened to them?Alaa Abd el-Fattah, an activist and computer programmer, is arguably the most high-profile political prisoner in the Arab world, incarcerated for spreading false news and endangering national security.A key figure in Egypt’s 2011 uprising that overthrew the former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, he became known for his activism and writing about countering authoritarianism. His collection of essays and reflections, You Have Not Been Defeated, was in large part written from prison and smuggled out by friends. “I’m in prison because the authorities want to make an example of us

Is it time for another general election? I mean it’s been four months | John Crace

It’s the logical conclusion to the disposable society. Don’t like the result of the last general election? Then just have another one. Who cares if the new government has only been in office for four months? If you’re not feeling markedly better off already then the new prime minister is clearly a dud. No matter that it actually might take years to turn around an economy that has been on its knees for more than a decade. Just never give Labour an even break

‘We had no alternative’: Reeves defends her budget to the CBI

A defiant Rachel Reeves has rebuked critics of her tax-raising budget on Monday, telling disgruntled business leaders that they have offered “no alternatives” to her plans.Since Labour’s first budget in 14 years last month, business groups have warned that the chancellor’s £25bn increase in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) will force them to cut jobs and raise prices. Thousands of farmers have also protested against changes to inheritance tax.But Reeves told the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) annual conference in Westminster that no one has offered a better solution to the challenging situation left behind by the previous, Conservative government.“I have heard lots of responses to the government’s first budget but I have heard no alternatives,” she said

UK politics: Badenoch refuses to commit to reversing rise in employers’ national insurance in speech at CBI – as it happened

During the Q&A after her speech Kemi Badenoch would not commit to reversing the rise in employers’ national insurance in the budget.Asked if she would give such a commitment, Badenoch said that, if a tax increase is not raising money, the Tories would reverse it. “One of the things that we’re going to have to do is rewire everything,” she said. But she said she would not “comment on every bit of micro-policy” now.However, she did say the fact so many firms are complaining about the tax, and saying that it will make employing people on low wages unaffordable, meant that the government should “look again” at the plan

Alicia Kearns: the one-nation Tory taking on the Foreign Office

Alicia Kearns, as a former Foreign Office official and an outspoken voice on foreign affairs, is an MP who understands how the department ticks.She is also someone who does not give up easily, and with some freedom to operate since she is neither on Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative frontbench nor the Labour dominated foreign affairs select committee, a body she chaired until this summer.That makes her a rarity in the Commons: knowledgable about foreign policy but free to express her often strongly held views. Kearns’ record heading up the committee was generally admired – but she has one unfinished piece of business to attend to.With a small group of MPs and campaigners, she has set up an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs

Dozens of new Labour MPs join group pushing for electoral reform

Keir Starmer is under renewed pressure over electoral reform after dozens of newly elected Labour MPs signed up to a parliamentary group calling for the UK to move to a proportional voting system.More than half of the nearly 100 MPs who have joined the new all-party parliamentary group on fair elections are from Labour, with 43 from the intake elected in 2024. The group, formed in September, says it is growing all the time.It has released a report, Free But Not Fair, which argues that a change from the distortions of the first-past-the-post electoral system, under which Labour won more than 60% of Commons seats with just a third of the votes cast in July, would help restore trust to politics.A number of Labour MPs, including many from the 2024 intake, are known to be sympathetic to the idea of electoral reform, an idea to which the party is officially committed after a vote to embrace PR was passed overwhelmingly at its 2022 conference