The UK Prime Minister may have the regal touch in northern England, but he’s been wrong-footed on the constitutional challenges posed by the Celtic Alliance of first ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, argues KENNY MacASKILL
In February, I went to Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre after a year of asking the Home Office to be allowed to visit some of the most vulnerable women in their care and control.
Yarl’s Wood is on the outskirts of Clapham, Bedfordshire, and is a place where foreign nationals who may be subject to deportation are held. It is one of 13 such centres currently in Britain.
Having tried to arrange a visit for some time, I was glad to finally get the opportunity to see the conditions myself, especially as my visit came just after the news that 120 of Yarl’s Wood detainees had begun a month-long hunger strike.
Labour cannot win another election by accommodating racism, instead it should focus on finding solutions to social concerns that too often seek scapegoats, writes DIANE ABBOTT
As a proportion of GDP the total welfare bill is lower than it was 15 years ago. The claim that it is spiralling out of control is mythmaking, argues DIANE ABBOTT
The government’s latest asylum proposals abandon labour movement values and fuel division by aping Reform UK, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP


