The Home Office has confirmed the returns pilot with France is "no longer processing new cases". Around 1,500 people were sent back at a reported cost of £56,000 each, as ministers point to a fall of more than 40 per cent in small boat arrivals so far this year.
Vicky Richter · 2 October 2026The Environment Secretary says the public, not shareholders, should decide where billions of pounds of water investment goes. Ministers will ask Parliament to repeal Margaret Thatcher's restrictions on public ownership. Thames Water, around £20bn in debt and still fighting to secure its financial future, is the immediate test.
Vicky Richter · 2 October 2026North Yorkshire Council staff who handle anti-terror work were taught that the Virgin Mary "wore a hijab", in a training programme on Islamophobia that the state has helped to pay for.
Vicky Richter · 2 October 2026The Afghanistan inquiry has cost the taxpayer £58m and has run for more than three and a half years without publishing a finding. As it drags on, the association representing more than 5,000 serving and former Special Forces personnel says it is ready to take the Government to court over separate Northern Ireland legacy legislation. Brigadier Ed Butler warns that years of unresolved legal jeopardy are already deterring soldiers from attempting SAS selection, and Britain's most dangerous military work depends on a small number of volunteers. The question is what happens to that pipeline if the men who do it come to believe the law will follow them for the rest of their lives.
Vicky Richter · 1 October 2026Andy Burnham has used his first Labour conference speech as Prime Minister to reopen the question of Britain’s relationship with the European Union while unveiling plans to change the voting system, rewrite the pensions triple lock and expand the role of the state across major parts of the economy.
Vicky Richter · 30 September 2026Vickrum Digwa murdered the Southampton student and then told police his dying victim had racially abused him. On 5 November the Court of Appeal will decide whether his sentence was too long, while the Attorney General argues it was too short.
Vicky Richter · 30 September 2026Burnham says someone has to "rip the plaster off". From April 2030, the current triple lock goes, and the savings are earmarked for his National Care Service.
Vicky Richter · 29 September 2026Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, Labour's minister for nature and rural affairs, told a fringe meeting at her party's conference that a nostalgic vision of Britain built around warm ale, a black Labrador and a country pub was "a very far-Right nostalgic vision of Britain" that "never really existed". Her remarks have drawn criticism from Conservatives and the Great British PAC, as rural communities continue to face pub closures, rising costs and pressure on farming.
Vicky Richter · 29 September 2026He guarded Ismail Haniyeh for Hamas. Britain gave him asylum, then a passport. Now German prosecutors say Mr X, as the courts call him, was involved in an alleged plot to attack Jewish community centres, Israeli diplomats and pro-Israel rallies in Europe, timed for the second anniversary of October 7. A judge granted him anonymity for 100 years. It took a newspaper query to fix that. The allegation facing Mr X is extraordinary. The unanswered question for Britain is how much of his past was known, and by whom, before the state gave him its protection and, eventually, its passport.
Vicky Richter · 29 September 2026PAC funds Imperium Chambers to provide urgent legal assistance after Chagossian families were separated at the UK border, while one seriously injured British Chagossian father was rushed to hospital
Vicky Richter · 28 September 2026Great British PAC has committed a further £10,000 towards the next stage of a Judicial Review brought by Chagossians challenging the Government’s handling of decisions over the future of the Chagos Islands.
Vicky Richter · 28 September 2026The qualifying period for an Empty Dwelling Management Order is being reduced from two years to six months, and councils will no longer have to provide evidence on matters such as anti-social behaviour or community support when they ask a tribunal for permission to take over the management of a home. Other statutory tests, and the tribunal’s approval, remain. The change, announced during Labour’s conference in Liverpool, has drawn sharp criticism from property campaigners and senior Conservative figures. The government says no application for an order has been made since 2021.
Vicky Richter · 28 September 2026Stories originally reported by our sister title, the Conservative Post. Join the PAC to get them first.
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