PM wants to harness historic 'partnership of purpose' between Britain and America to fight economic downturn Gordon Brown today lavished praise on Barack Obama before flying to Washington for his first White House meeting with the new US president. In an interview with TalkSport radio, the prime min...

Labour began its own inquiry today into allegations that four of its peers told undercover reporters that they were willing to use their influence to help to amend legislation in return for money. As Gordon Brown condemned the allegations as "very serious", Lady Royall, the leader of the Lords, was ...

Gordon Brown today announced plans to fund an extra 35,000 apprenticeships as he began a three-day tour intended to highlight what the government is doing to help Britain through the recession. The prime minister used a visit to a Rolls-Royce plant in the east Midlands to publicise an extra investme...

David Cameron today accused the government of having "lost its moral compass" in a hard-hitting new year's message to the Conservative party. The Tory leader said that Gordon Brown's Labour party had been "corrupted by power" and that it was immoral for the government to be raising the levels of pub...

Ministers have defended the benefits system following the publication of figures today showing that 140,000 families are receiving more in benefits than the average take-home salary. Official figures show 140,000 households are receiving benefits worth a total of more than £20,000 every year. The T...

David Cameron today announced that he would oppose Labour's "shameful" plans to force lone parents with pre-school children to prepare for work. At a news conference at Westminster, the Conservative leader said the proposals relating to the parents of very young children were the "rotten apple" in a...

The row over why police were allowed to raid an MP's parliamentary office escalated today when opposition parties threatened to pull out of an inquiry into the incident. Theresa May, the shadow leader of the Commons, accused ministers of trying to "pack" a committee – announced by the Speaker, Mic...

Lap dancing "is not sexually stimulating", the chairman of the Lap Dancing Association told a parliamentary committee today. Simon Warr made the claim, which was greeted with scepticism by MPs, while he was giving evidence to the Commons culture committee as part of an inquiry into the operation of ...

Alistair Darling was embroiled in a row with the Tories today over opposition claims that his pre-budget report will penalise anyone earning more than £19,000 a year. The chancellor denied the claim, saying that only those earning more than £40,000 a year will end up losing out when all the tax ch...

Alistair Darling will announce today that income tax for those earning more than £150,000 a year will rise to 45p in the pound during the next parliament to help pay for Labour's £15bn anti-recession emergency package. Faced with the challenge of reducing state borrowing from an expected £120bn n...