RT @YuanfenYang: I really welcome today's announcement that the government will be bringing in a social media ban for under 16s, after the…

The Government -and business groups - need to be honest on sick pay. The modest but good changes in the ERA are being spun as more than sum of their parts: - Many lower-income workers who fall ill still suffer the woeful system. - Businesses pay near lowest SSP in OECD

It's thoroughly depressing that Sikh MPs feel they have to/ a need to explain themselves and their community to the public for the act of one awful person. There are bad people in literally every faith group and ethnicity. It's called human life. The racist backlash is horrific. 💔😢

The more far right American white supremacists intervene in our politics to stoke racial tension, the more ordinary decent people start to question the close relationship of these individuals with Reform and Restore.

Brilliant exclusive by Martina Bett reveals a shocking case of the paternity leave system letting down the armed forces 👇 Two weeks' statutory #paternityleave is bad enough, but this Dad on a 6-month deployment in support of Ukraine is ineligible for any at all! @dadshiftuk

Amen to this. Had a defective build situation in Hackney myself. 7 years battling dodgy builder. Privatised building control. Developer registered channel islands. Managing agents who went bankrupt. No help from state or regulators Proper punishment needed for rogue developers

Doing this health warning now: MRP projections or UNS swings of Makerfield aren't designed for by-elections. They don't take account of specific nature of by-elections and Burnham's personal vote which from every focus group I can tell you is real. IMO Burnham starts as favourite

Finding a way to run Birmingham city council, with its £4.4bn annual budget, is going to be a tall order. Reform has 22 councillors, Greens 19, Labour 17, Conservatives 16, Independents 13 and Lib Dems 12.

A little odd our coverage of Richard Tice’s tax affairs is so occupying the deputy leader of Reform on polling day. And that he continues to assert we had some anti Reform objective. We just reported the facts: - £600k avoided through highly complex and unusual structure - unlawful failure to pay £91k in withholding tax - failure to pay £100k in corporation tax

Peter Kellner has this v useful guide on how to judge the English council election results for each party

Workers deserve a sick pay system which catches them when they fall 👇 Photos from the brlliant sick pay celebration yesterday with @FrancesOGrady @LucyMPowell @roswynnejones A privelege to have worked on this.

I think this is what you call boss level photo op ambush...

Brilliant to be joined by @LucyMPowell, Baroness @FrancesOGrady and many others in Parliament today as we celebrated #SafeSickPay! The Employment Rights Act now gives 10 million workers access to Statutory Sick Pay from day one of illness 🎉

Hungary under Orban a scary example of a EU state sliding towards dictactorship/Russian influence and kleptocracy This is quite the list. Can see why Trump amd Vance liked him so much

I think people outside Hungary may not understand just how far state institutions, media including private media, universities, the legal system, big business and the police have been made arms of Orban's political party. This is going to be a long haul

🇺🇦🇪🇺🎉

No civilisation thankfully died last night, but a Presidency deserves to. Here below a former senior US security official concedes that the ceasefire agreement Trump has signed is not “status quo ante bellum” ie the US is now worse off than at the start of this war of choice. To spell it out, Trump needlessly started a war at the urging of Israel, refused to listen to those experts urging caution, devised a strategy built on a misapprehension of Iran, sparked a ruinous regional conflict, caused the death of thousands of civilians, unhinged the world economy, strengthened, for now, the repressive instincts of the Iranian and Russian governments, left America more discredited & isolated, provoked serious questions about the President’s fitness for public office, laid waste to large parts of Iran and Lebanon, including medical research centres, primary schools and universities, did not resolve Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium or its future nuclear program, strengthened those in Iran backing possession of a nuclear weapon, and yes ensured Iran and Oman still plan to control and toll the Strait of Hormuz for the first time. A return to war will doubtless soon be threatened even before the 2 week ceasefire ends, but the use of force in this decades old conflict has now been test driven and proven the wrong vehicle since it can only achieve its objectives at an inconceivable price. Trump has now agreed that Iran’s 10 point maximalist plan is a “workable basis for negotiation”, and Trump’s 15 point plan will also be considered. But that leaves him worse off than when Witkoff and Kushner were in Geneva in February. The US with a weaker hand may need to send a team led by Vance and some proper nuclear experts to Islamabad to rescue the negotiating progress previously made, and prematurely spurned. Iran will feel less to no pressure to concede on its right to enrich uranium domestically, the single biggest previous point of dispute. Iran has also not explicitly conceded the need to negotiate over its ballistic missiles or support for proxy resistance groups such as Hezbollah. It will instead negotiate bilateral or multilateral “non aggression pacts with its regional neighbours”. Trump is now prematurely speaking of a golden era for the Middle East but scars are deep and negotiations will require far more than a fortnight. With luck the exhausting governing style of threats, deadlines, expletives, and menacing abuse that demeans America will now be set aside or denounced, starting with Cuba. Someone in the Trump cabinet may even look in the mirror and realise dollops of sycophantic praise may feed the narcissist, but only sullies them, and the political future of Republicans. Even Lindsay Graham might learn there is virtue in reticence. Some way of tethering Trump in the seven months to the mid terms is badly needed. European countries including UK Italy and Germany will now have to decide what lessons they learn from this shameful episode, and how they secure their national sovereignty. The European pillar in NATO may have to become the only pillar relatively soon. For when the US vice president crosses the Atlantic to campaign to keep a pro Russian authoritarian Viktor Orban in office, it looks as if America has tragically evolved into something more sinister than a wayward ally. As Mark Carney at Davos advised “it’s time to live in truth”.

An FT exclusive to send shivers down your spine- about our former ally now turned bullying kleptocracy. #Trump #America

This is well worth a read for anyone who cares about working-age health. Via @Prog_Change

The Government has made hugely positive changes, with millions set to get a much-needed sick pay boost next week, thanks to changes in the Employment Rights Act 🥳 But this piece acts as a salutory reminder of the work ahead to build on these welcome reforms #SafeSickPay