The misogyny that many women working in parliament experience on a regular basis reared its ugly head over the weekend. Senior Conservative MPs briefed the Mail on Sunday to accuse Angela Rayner of distracting Boris Johnson during Prime Minister’s Questions by crossing and uncrossing her legs (yes, you really did read that correctly). Anonymous Tory MPs are quoted as saying that Rayner deploys a “fully-clothed parliamentary equivalent of Sharon Stone’s infamous scene in the 1992 film Basic Instinct“. Just as appalling as the film reference is the dog-whistle description of the deputy Labour leader offered in the paper: a “socialist grandmother who left school at 16 while pregnant and with no qualifications before becoming a care worker” who engages in “flirty” exchanges with Johnson. 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more. 📷 UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor.

The first round of voting for a new President of France should send chills down the spine of every Labour member and voter here in the UK. The combined vote of the soft-left Socialist Party (PS), the harder-left France Insoumis (Unbowed) and the Greens came to less than 30%. More tellingly, their divided efforts didn’t just fail electorally but failed politically. The debate in France was all about how right-wing the country is and should be. The reasons for this abject failure are deep. The UK isn’t France, but there are critical lessons for Labour. 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more. 📷 Victor Joly / Shutterstock.com.

It’s two years to the day since the first lockdown was announced. As we emerge from the Covid pandemic, we now face another crisis: the spiralling cost of living. In the Spring Statement today, working people – in the midst of the worst wages and bills crisis for half a century – were counting on Rishi Sunak to channel the same fighting spirit that went into addressing the pandemic. 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more from @tradesunioncongress’s Frances O’Grady.

A majority of UK adults support bringing energy companies back into public ownership, exclusive polling by Savanta ComRes for LabourList reveals amid the energy crisis that will see household bills rise by £693 on average in April.⁠ ⁠ The new research has found that a total of 55% back the renewed public ownership of energy, while just 8% said they would oppose the policy. 23% said they neither supported nor opposed it, and 15% said they did not know.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more.

Russia has been warned of an “increased response” from the West if it uses chemical weapons in Ukraine.⁠ ⁠ “I would say to anybody in Russia thinking about this: do not cross that line, do not inflict any more misery and suffering on the Ukrainian people,” minister for technology Chris Philp told Times Radio today.⁠ ⁠ He added that he would not “speculate” on the form an increased response would take, but insisted the use of chemical weapons is a “line that Russian governments should not cross”.⁠ ⁠ Boris Johnson yesterday raised concerns that Vladimir Putin’s regime might use chemical weapons and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the world should be “on the lookout” for the use of chemical and biological weapons.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more.⁠ ⁠ 📷 Sasa Dzambic Photography / Shutterstock.com.

Footage coming out of Ukraine shows civilians fleeing their homes as shells land close by.⁠ ⁠ A bombardment of Irpin, a town near Kyiv, has seen entirely residential areas made the focus of a Russian assault.⁠ ⁠ Russian forces have been accused of dropping cluster bombs on schools and hospitals.⁠ ⁠ A mother and her two children were among those killed by mortar fire as they fled along an evacuation route from the town.⁠ ⁠ Russia has said it is opening new humanitarian corridors – but Red Cross operations director Dominik Stillhart explained this morning that there have only been agreements “in principle” so far, which have immediately broken down over imprecision as to the routes and who could use them.⁠ ⁠ “How many families like this have died in Ukraine? We will not forgive,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said overnight, accusing Vladimir Putin’s regime of “deliberate murder”.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more from @chappellelliot's daily briefing.⁠ ⁠ 📷 UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor.

Keir Starmer has declared that Russia “must be isolated”, its “finances frozen” and “its ability to function crippled” by “the hardest possible sanctions” – while warning that the UK must be braced for “economy pain” as it feels repercussions.⁠ ⁠ “We must make a clean break with the failed approach to handling Putin, which after Georgia, Crimea and Donbas fed his belief that the benefits of aggression outweigh the cost. We must finally show him he is wrong,” the Labour leader said.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more.

Keir Starmer was harassed outside parliament yesterday, when anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine protesters shouted “traitor”, “disgrace”, “Freemason” and “New World Order” at the party leader, along with accusations about “protecting paedophiles”. As the Labour leader was returning to parliament from a briefing at the Ministry of Defence, he was targeted by a mob who shouted questions about jailed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and about serial sex offender Jimmy Savile. 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more. 📷 Ilyas Tayfun Salci / Shutterstock.com.

The ‘levelling up’ white paper is finally unveiled today.⁠ ⁠ This lays the foundations for what is to become the flagship levelling up and regeneration bill.⁠ ⁠ Michael Gove has been put in charge of this government’s central promise: to carry out a decade-long project that will shift power from Whitehall to local leaders, focus investment on ‘left behind’ areas of the country and ultimately narrow disparities of all kinds between regions.⁠ ⁠ The white paper has not had the best start, with not only a backdrop of law-breaking parties in Downing Street (there are further revelations today) but also briefings that everyone “thinks it’s shit” – including Gove.⁠ ⁠ The announcement has been criticised especially for involving no new money: the Levelling Up Secretary admits that he is recycling, “tilting” the funds that had already been made available in the spending review.⁠ ⁠ In fact, on his media round this morning, Gove employed the interesting tactic of not particularly disagreeing when journalists raised such concerns.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more.⁠ ⁠ 📷 Willy Barton / Shutterstock.com.

Keir Starmer has called on Conservative MPs to “spare the country from a Prime Minister totally unworthy of his responsibilities” following the publication of a report into numerous allegations of Covid rule-breaking parties in Downing Street.⁠ ⁠ Sue Gray carried out an inquiry into the allegations, more than one of which involve the Prime Minister. The findings of the senior civil servant were published today. She had been asked by the Metropolitan Police Service to make only “minimal reference” to incidents the police are looking into after they launched their own investigation.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more.⁠ ⁠ 📷 UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor.

When it comes to long-awaited reports, Sue Gray has nothing on Martin Forde QC.⁠ ⁠ A new deadline was set this week for the release of the Forde Report: the chair of the inquiry into a highly controversial leaked Labour report now hopes to deliver it in February.⁠ ⁠ After 18 months, what’s another to wait?⁠ ⁠ No reason was given for the repeated delays, only denial that it was political interference.⁠ ⁠ An earlier explanation given by Forde was that the Information Commissioner’s Office was investigating the same leaks and the Forde Report could prejudice that if released.⁠ ⁠ The ICO’s work is not complete – and yet it is suggested the full report could be given to the NEC next month.⁠ ⁠ The Forde Inquiry now tells LabourList the ICO was “only one factor in the delay in publication”, but this contradicts Forde’s February 2021 letter.⁠ ⁠ No wonder there is “ill-informed speculation”, as Forde describes it.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more.⁠ ⁠ 📷 UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor.

Since becoming Labour leader, Keir Starmer has made consistent efforts to show that he is not Jeremy Corbyn and the party has changed.⁠ ⁠ What better way of doing that than welcoming a defector from the Tories while Starmer’s predecessor is barred from the parliamentary party?⁠ ⁠ The decision to welcome Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, when he crossed the floor yesterday is clearly a divisive one within Labour.⁠ ⁠ Many on the left will look at his record and see that he not only followed the Tory whip on controversial issues (as you would expect) but also called Labour a “bunch of c****” amid its criticism of the Universal Credit cut and was enthusiastic about the nationality and borders bill.⁠ ⁠ Going from Tory to Labour is probably the most difficult of all switches.⁠ ⁠ But the Labour leadership is squarely focused on the electoral benefits.⁠ ⁠ 🔗 Tap the link in our bio to read more from our daily email.⁠ ⁠ 📷 Rupert Rivett / Shutterstock.com.