president zelensky welcomes the decision president zelensky welcomes the decision to make his country an official decision to make his country an official candidate for the european union official candidate for the european union membership as a victory for his embattled nation. the union membership as a victory for his embattled nation. his embattled nation. the taliban a- eals his embattled nation. the taliban appeals for his embattled nation. the taliban appeals for international - his embattled nation. the taliban appeals for international support | appeals for international support after the devastating earthquake in afghanistan. and.let the music begin. the glastonbury festival is set to get under way after a 3 year interuption. borisjohnson has suffered a major blow after the conservatives lost two by elections in one night. in the devon seat of tiverton and honiton, the liberal democrats secured more than 22 and half thousand votes overturning a nearly 30% co
Cannot know how the rest of the day is going to go. along political day ahead. mark my words, the prime minister s political operation will be doing all they can to shore up support, phoning each and every cabinet minister and phoning them again, encouraging them to go on the airwaves and to tweet, and we have not seen very much of that. we ve seen the deputy prime minister on the airwaves, we have seen priti patel the home secretary doing the same, but it is, in terms of the line to take, they have quite a different balance to calibrate. on the one hand they are having to say, as the prime minister says in kigali that we have heard the messy converters, but then they are challenged to say what they were a change in terms of policy or approach as a result and then they are less forthcoming. it is not entirely clear. deputy prime minister dominic raab said the conservative government needed to avoid distractions on things like
It s the biggest majority ever lost in a by election. in west yorkshire, labour won back the wakefield seat, less than three years after the tories snatched it in the last election. the labour party won by almost 5,000 votes. in response, oliver dowden has resigned as conservative party chair saying the election result is a clear judgement on the party and that the country deserves better . the prime minister has said he would listen to voters but has vowed to keep going. he was speaking in rwanda where he s attending the commonwealth leaders conference. i conference. think that what governments have got i think that what governments have got to recognise is although i don t want in any way to minimise the importance of what the voters are saying, it is also true that in mid term governments post war, they lose by elections. if you look back to last may, the astonishing thing was that we managed to win hartlepool in very different circumstances. what we need to do now is reflec
Confided in me was going to l this way? i cannot say that he i confided in me was going to resign but he has made it clear he is very unhappy that he was turfed out of a culture department without any explanation whatsoever. and parachuted into central office, which is in a complete mess, because they have moved a lot of the people up they have moved a lot of the people up to leeds, and they lost some of the best of their officials. the conservative party machine just doesn t work properly at all any more. and oliver dowden was losing influence, because boris doesn t like critics. he does not like people telling him things he doesn t want to hear. and oliver dowden was not happy party chairman, and i m not happy party chairman, and i m not surprised he has gone. he is a decent man, he wants a political career which is not filled with failure. so i think that we are done but there is no obvious rival for boris s campaigning style and boris is convinced he can recover over the
With his authority at stake, he is currently more than 4,000 miles away, in rwanda, but will no doubt have some explaining to do back home where he has been dealt another big blow with the resignation of the chairman of the conservative party. oliver dowden wrote to the prime minister, we cannot carry on with business as usual. leaving borisjohnson with a key question to answer, whether he remains a vote winner. mark lobel, bbc news. our political correspondent has been travelling with the prime minister. he is 4000 miles away with some pretty dramatic events back home. those events will inevitably overshadow what was planned here for today and that is the opening of this official meeting of commonwealth leaders. borisjohnson