“Small boat migrants could still be arriving in Britain by the time of the next general election, Rishi Sunak admitted. In an interview with Conservative Home, the PM conceded his flagship Illegal Migration Bill won’t work “overnight”. And he refused to promise channel crossings will stop in time for a late 2024 general election. The PM has made ending illegal migration one of his five priorities before Brits take to the national polls. And last month Cabinet Minister Oliver Dowden pledged the government was “committed” to stopping small boats “by the end of this Parliament”. But Mr Sunak said: “It is a complicated problem where there’s no single, simple solution that will fix it and I’ve also said it won’t happen overnight. “People should know it’s very important to me, it’s hugely important to the country that we need to fix the system, as a matter of fairness.” – The Sun
“Rishi Sunak issued a fresh plea for Tory unity as he said the Conservatives were ‘starting to see the fruits’ of party togetherness since the turmoil of last year. The Prime Minister told his party that ‘coming together, focusing on delivering for people’ is ‘the best way to win the next election’. He urged the Tories to ‘look forward’ and repeated his message for Conservative MPs to ‘unite or die’. But he dodged a question on whether Mr Johnson could return to the Cabinet under his premiership. In an interview with ConservativeHome website, Mr Sunak insisted that voters were ‘fed up with talk and want action’ as he called on his party to move on from the bitter infighting of last year.” – Daily Mail
“Rishi Sunak distanced himself from Sir Keir Starmer by saying no women have a penis as he vowed that female-only spaces must be “protected”. The Prime Minister said he takes a “different view” to the Labour leader, who last week said some women did have male genitalia. In an interview with ConservativeHome website, the Prime Minister said biological sex was “vitally important”. He also called on the NHS to hire more private health firms in a bid to reduce waiting lists, and refused to promise that small boats would stop crossing the Channel by the time of the next election. Last week Mr Sunak said he wanted to rewrite the Equality Act to make it easier for venues to bar trans people from women-only spaces such as changing rooms and lavatories.” – Daily Telegraph
“Rishi Sunak has been accused of ditching housebuilding targets to court Tory members while he was running to be party leader and prime minister. In an interview with the ConservativeHome website on Thursday, Mr Sunak acknowledged that the “vast majority of people want to own a home” and insisted it was something his party “continue to be incredibly supportive of”. However, he said that during the summer Tory leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson, he had spoken to Conservative members, activists, and councillors and they expressed “no support” for national housebuilding targets. “I spent a lot of the time over the summer when I was talking to so many of our members, so many of our councillors, about our planning system and their views on it,” he said.” – Sky News
“In the wide-ranging interview Sunak also supported a greater role for the private sector in the NHS and appeared to criticise President Macron’s attempts at a rapprochement with Beijing. He insisted that the UK had no need to align with other European countries in its stance on China, saying that the UK was a “foreign policy superpower” in its own right. When asked about his role in ousting Boris Johnson he said the party must move on from the turmoil of the past 12 months and focus on “delivering” for people.” – The Times
“The Prime minister is a formidable communicator. It was less than four years ago that he first came to the nation’s attention, when Boris Johnson sent him, the most junior member of the cabinet, as his representative for the TV leader debates in the last general election…He sounds different now, and today’s 35-minute interview with Paul Goodman, editor of Conservative Home, the Tory activists’ website, offered a preview of the next election campaign. If Keir Starmer was watching, he should have been alarmed – his opponent came across as confident, polite, focused and articulate.” – The Independent
“Michael Gove has been accused by his predecessor as housing secretary of imposing “anti-business” restrictions on homeowners who want to rent out their properties on sites such as Airbnb. Amid growing Tory tensions over the government’s housing strategy, Simon Clarke criticised Gove over plans that would force homeowners to seek planning permission if they want to offer their properties as holiday lets. However, Rishi Sunak insisted that he would not impose “top down [housing] targets” on local areas, saying there was no support for forcing new developments on councils. Speaking to Tory activists during a question and answer session on the Conservative Home website, Sunak defended the decision, made last year, to drop mandatory housebuilding targets for local areas.” – The Times
“Joe Biden rebuked Rishi Sunak for not working closely with Dublin to break the Brexit deadlock at Stormont after correcting himself for saying the Irish rugby team had “beat the hell out of the Black and Tans”. The clanger came just hours after Mr Biden’s speech in Belfast, which was given after he was accused of hating the UK by senior DUP politicians including Arlene Foster, the former first minister. In a speech to both houses of the Irish parliament on Thursday, Mr Biden made clear he mis-spoke before urging Mr Sunak to convince the DUP to drop its 14-month boycott and get back to Stormont. “I think the United Kingdom should be working closer with Ireland in this endeavour,” said Mr Biden, who also urged Britain to work with the EU to boost Northern Ireland.” – Daily Telegraph
“More senior Conservatives have hit out at Suella Braverman’s “racist rhetoric”, accusing her of undermining the party for the sake of her own leadership ambitions. Pressure was mounting on Rishi Sunak on Thursday to intervene to protect the party’s reputation after the home secretary stoked renewed anger by criticising police for confiscating a set of racist dolls displayed in an Essex pub. Tory MPs, peers and activists have accused Braverman of inflaming racial tensions on a number of occasions over the past few months, saying they are worried that she is now at risk of repelling the kinds of swing voters the party is desperate to retain. A former senior minister from Boris Johnson’s government told the Guardian they believed Braverman was a “real racist bigot”. – The Guardian
“The NHS is bracing for a further wave of nursing strikes as union members appear poised to reject the government’s pay deal. On Friday the Royal College of Nursing will announce the results of a ballot which The Times has been told is likely to show that staff have not accepted an offer made by ministers. Nurses’ leaders are expected to announce a return to the picket line as soon as this month and are readying a prolonged campaign to force further concessions. Ministers insisted when a deal was struck last month that their offer was final and would not be improved. But frontline staff are said to be dissatisfied that an unparalleled wave of industrial action did not result in a better settlement.” – The Times
“Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has accused the International Monetary Fund of consistently underestimating the UK after it said that the economy would remain the slowest growing in a major country this year. Hunt, who is attending the IMF’s spring meetings in Washington, said the IMF had “undershot” in its forecasts for the UK economy in “every year since 2016, bar one” but the fund was “just one of a number of forecasters”. However, he added that the fund supported his government’s economic policies despite its gloomy outlook. His comments come after the IMF predicted that the UK economy would contract by 0.3 per cent this year, making it the worst-performing major economy and only the second to record falling growth, after Germany.” – The Times
“Labour’s claim that an average earner would have to work for 400 years to benefit from Tory pension tax cuts has been rubbished by leading experts. The lifetime allowance of £1.073m, which caps how much a worker can save tax-free into their pension throughout their career, is being scrapped by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in a bid to get over-50s back to work. Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, claimed that a worker with a pension of £107,000 would have to work and save for 400 years before their pot hit the cap. But these calculations were quickly debunked by pension experts who said the crude sums ignored the reality of how invested savings grow.” – Daily Telegraph
“To win the next election, Rishi Sunak needs three miracles. The first is for the small boats to stop, which now looks possible after the Albania deportations. Next, he needs to turn the widely predicted recession into recovery – which he may still do. But the third factor is one that he has no control over: he needs Keir Starmer to miss the historic opportunity in front of him and squander what was once a 30-point opinion poll lead. On that front, so far so good. His big achievement is making Labour electable again, by vanquishing Corbynism. But he stumbles when switching into political combat mode – as witnessed by the bizarre attack adverts claiming that Sunak, personally, does not believe that adults should be imprisoned for child sex offences.” – Daily Telegraph
“Recycling plans that would provide seven bins for every household have been delayed until after local elections amid concern over a backlash from Tory voters. The Government had planned to unveil its new recycling strategy in March, providing consistency across England in what councils collect for recycling. Households would be expected to separate seven types of waste into different containers to stop contamination before they reach recycling centres. But the plans have now been put on hold, amid concern in the Government about how it would have been received by voters ahead of the local elections next month, the Telegraph understands.“ – Daily Telegraph
“More than 7,500 days’ worth of raw sewage was dumped in the constituencies of cabinet ministers last year, an analysis has found. The Yorkshire seat of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was third on the leaderboard, with 3,455 dumping events, lasting 20,615 hours, Labour party analysis has found. The Central Devon seat of Mel Stride, the secretary of state for work and pensions, topped the list with 4,054 sewage dumping events lasting 33,921 hours, while the Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire constituency of the chief whip, Simon Hart, was second, with 3,783 dumping events lasting 29,415 hours.” – The Guardian
“Humza Yousaf has disclosed that a luxury motorhome confiscated by police from the home of Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law belongs to the Scottish National Party (SNP), but he was kept in the dark about its purchase. The new First Minister said he was shown a police warrant to seize items from the party, which included the £110,000 vehicle. Officers confiscated the vehicle from outside the home of Margaret Murrell, the 92-year-old mother of Peter Murrell. He is the SNP’s former chief executive and Ms Sturgeon’s husband. Mr Yousaf said he only discovered the SNP had bought the motorhome after winning the party leadership contest on Mar 27. It was reported earlier this week that it was intended to be a battle bus in the 2021 Holyrood election campaign.” – Daily Telegraph