Labour News

The shadow health minister Jamie Reed has said Jeremy Hunt's admission that A&E departments need more staff was "shocking" in light of the "chaos" and job losses his government has presided over.

This is a shocking admission from Jeremy Hunt - his Government has presided over the loss of 4,500 nurses since the election, and now he says that more A&E staff are needed.

With A&Es in crisis and the NHS in chaos following the Tories' £3 billion NHS reorganisation, it's time Ministers accepted responsibility and got a grip. The NHS is just not safe in David Cameron's hands.

Watch: 'More A&E staff needed' to deal with growing demand, says Jeremy Hunt

• Health
• Labour
• Jamie Reed

Labour leader Ed Miliband has tweeted that Google's failure to pay tax shows a culture of "corporate irresponsibility" which is "totally unacceptable".

Google going to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying tax shows a culture of corporate irresponsibility which is totally unacceptable.

From @Ed_Miliband on Twitter: ( 3:07 pm, Thu 16 May 2013)

• Business
• Labour
• Ed Miliband

This vote is a further devastating blow to the Prime Minister's authority.

It demonstrates that David Cameron has managed to turn a Europe issue into a leadership issue.

This is a Prime Minister who has lost control of the agenda and tonight lost control of his Party.

David Cameron’s backbenchers have shown they simply won’t give up until he gives in.

The real risk is that he spends the coming month trying to get his party back in line, instead of focusing on getting our economy back on track.

• Politics
• Labour
• Douglas Alexander

The Labour Whips office estimate that there were around 115 Conservative MPs and 10 Labour MPs voted for an EU referendum:

Commons vote to reject EU Referendum Amendment to Queen's Speech 130 to 277. Majority 147 . Around 115 Tory rebels!

From @labourwhips on Twitter: ( 6:30 pm, Wed 15 May 2013)

For those asking, think 10 Labour MPs voted for EU Referendum

From @labourwhips on Twitter: ( 6:36 pm, Wed 15 May 2013)

• Politics
• Labour
• Europe

Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander had this response to the Prime Minister's decision to publish a Bill for an EU referendum:

This seems to be just the latest panicked response from the Prime Minister who is now following, rather than leading his backbenchers.

David Cameron is a Prime Minister who has both lost control of the agenda and lost control of his Party.

Labour have said that we don't think committing now to an in/out referendum up to four years from now is in the national interest because the priority must be getting growth into the economy not getting Britain out of Europe.

This latest step has more to do with trying to get his Party back in line rather than getting the economy back on track.

• Politics
• Labour
• Douglas Alexander

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has said there is "a clear common sense" argument for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom, after launching Labour's pro-union campaign.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond revealed in March that a referendum on independence would take place in September 2014.

Addressing a rally in Glasgow, Mr Brown said that Scottish values can best be realised as part of the UK and that Britain is strongest when pooling its resources together, citing the examples of the NHS, mining, shipbuilding and other core industries.

But Scottish nationalists have dismissed his claim that taxes would have to rise to fund its welfare plans if the country was granted independence.

• Politics
• Gordon Brown
• Labour

Labour has warned for months of the growing crisis in accident and emergency units across England. Now that the head of the Government's own watchdog has confirmed it, ministers can't continue to ignore it.

It's becoming clearer by the day that emergency care is in crisis, yet the Queen's Speech had nothing to say about the growing pressures on the NHS.

The NHS has been dragged down by a toxic mix of cuts and re-organisation.

• Health
• Labour
• Andy Burnham

The Labour Party has held Durham County Council with 94 seats:

#durhamelections All seats now declared; Labour 94, Independents 19, Liberal Democrat 9 and Conservative 4.

From @DurhamCouncil on Twitter: ( 4:36 pm, Fri 03 May 2013)

• Politics
• Labour
• Election

New make up of the Council Labour 28 seats, Lib Dem 23, Cons 14, Green 4, Independent 1 #bccvote

From @BristolCouncil on Twitter: ( 1:21 pm, Fri 03 May 2013)

• Politics
• Labour
• Liberal Democrats

It is a stunning result and I think it has the potential, and let's not put it at more than that, to be groundbreaking.

Before the last election, the main parties said that if there was a coalition the roof would fall in.

Well two things have happened since then - we have had a coalition and the roof clearly hasn't fallen in.

So I think you can look at today and see perhaps a sense that politics might, just might, be beginning to break up and people think well voting for a minor party can make a difference.

Of course the other factor is, that in the past people have tended to turn to the Lib Dems when they feel like making a protest and clearly they don't want to do that, because the Lib Dems are in government and they partly blame them for the problems.

I don't want to overstate these things, clearly there is an element of protest but I think the question is, is it a protest across that broader adjustment of peoples approach to politics and I think that's what would really worry the two biggest parties.

Nigel Farage has quite cleverly combined the issues of Europe and immigration by talking a lot about the threat, as he perceives it, of a lot of Romanians and Bulgarians coming here.

You're going to see him doing a lot more of that.

I think you will see Labour shifting its stance a little bit more on immigration perhaps.

The big question though is for the Tories. Obviously David Cameron has assumed that the secret to winning the next election is to occupy the centre ground and to make it very much a choice between him and Mr Miliband.

That may still work, but his going to have an awful lot of people in his party saying look at what's happening with UKIP, look at why people are voting for them - we've got to shift more over to the ground that they occupy.

• UK
• UKIP
• Labour