Social care reform – and why we can’t simply tax our way to better public services

The cat of Tory tax rises has fewer than nine lives. Especially if these breach manifesto pledges and are generationally unfair.

Leadbeater’s first test: will she rebuke Shah’s call to criminalise cartoons of Mohammed?

With a Batley teacher still in hiding, the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion equates drawings with public vandalism.

After three by-elections and before tomorrow’s Covid announcement, here are five big challenges for Johnson

The further the act of leaving the EU recedes, the more 2019’s Tory voters will move on – as two recent by-elections reminded us.

WATCH: Bradley – Labour have ‘gone backwards’ in Batley and Spen

“They should be wiping the floor with us in seats like this. They just aren’t”, he argues.

Robert Halfon: Nearly a million white working-class disadvantaged pupils don’t and can’t have white privilege

The term pits one group against another and does more to damage race relations than enhance them.

Batley and Spen. Labour is following Galloway into the swamp of sectarian politics.

There is a back story to how it has come to issue a leaflet that takes sides in the dispute between India and Pakistan.

Iain Dale: Starmer is right to appoint one of Blair’s former advisers. But if other MPs can’t see that, Labour are doomed.

Plus: I’ll admit that I didn’t see the Lib Dem victory coming. And: So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.

Should Conservatives want Labour to win the Batley and Spen by-election?

Galloway is furthering a dangerous communalism – by dragging conflicts overseas towards the centre of domestic political discourse. 

Reports of Johnson’s political demise are greatly exaggerated

But this electoral Titan has an Achilles heel – tax rises which, rather than planning or HS2, are the real threat to future Chesham & Amershams.

Richard Holden: Levelling up is for voters in the South as well as my constituents in Durham

The Government’s planning proposals haven’t even gone out to consultation yet – and everyone knows that the current system’s broken.

David Gauke: Chesham and Amersham. Yes, a realignment is taking place in British politics. But it is likely to happen slowly.

Plus: Why Johnson will end lockdown in July, but is to blame for maintaining it. And: Labour. Seen as too anti-Semitic in some places… not enough in others.

Iain Dale: The student said men are physically stronger than women. Now she’s been referred to the Student Disciplinary Board.

Plus: Batley & Spen is no Hartlepool. LibDems eye Chesham & Amersham. And: will the West Ham variant hit Europe?

Labour voters make Kim Leadbeater, sister of Jo Cox, early favourite in the Batley and Spen by-election

They described Johnson as a “dictator”, and want a local champion. The Conservatives have now selected their candidate.

Selections today in Redditch and Exeter

Plus: we profile the latest tranche of newly selected candidates.

Battleground Seats 3) Yorkshire and the Humber

Continuing our ConservativeHome series, which will run each Monday during the election campaign, on the key contests in each region.