I’m not writing my usual blog today but here, as an alternative, is the Politics Live readers’ edition. It is a place for you to discuss today’s politics, and to share links to breaking news and to the most interesting stories and blogs on the web.
Feel free to express your views robustly, but please treat others with respect and don’t resort to abuse. Guardian comment pages are supposed to be a haven from the Twitter/social media rant-orama, not an extension of it.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
And here are some of the main ones on our site this morning.
- David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has been threatened with legal action over his refusal to publish 50 secret studies commissioned on the impact of Brexit.
- Ministers have been forced to postpone next week’s debate on the EU withdrawal bill on a chaotic day that saw Michel Barnier warn of a “disturbing deadlock” in the divorce talks in Brussels and a growing whispering campaign against the chancellor in Westminster.
- Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund , has said it is unimaginable that Britain would leave the EU without a deal in March 2019, as she called for faster progress in the slow-moving Brexit talks.
- Maria Miller, the Conservative MP and former culture secretary, has revealed she has been sexually harassed “numerous times” and believes it happens regularly to women in the workplace.
- British nationals fighting with Islamic State in Syria are a “legitimate target” for drone strikes, the defence secretary has said, as he refused to confirm whether he believed reports that Sally Jones, who travelled to Syria in 2013, had died in a US strike.
On Thursdays local council byelections take place. There were eight yesterday. Britain Elects has six of the results.
Eight council by-elections today: five Labour defences, three Conservative.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
Read @andrewteale's previews here: https://t.co/80W3B6yH4y
Liberal Democrat GAIN Oxhey Hall & Hayling (Three Rivers) from Conservative.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
Oxhey Hall & Harling (Three Rivers) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
LDEM: 41.3% (+18.5)
CON: 28.3% (-8.4)
LAB: 26.3% (+4.4)
UKIP: 2.2% (-16.4)
GRN: 1.9% (+1.9)
Beighton (Sheffield) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
LAB: 48.6% (+5.2)
LDEM: 26.6% (+21.0)
CON: 16.3% (-0.8)
UKIP: 6.3% (-19.2)
GRN: 2.2% (-3.1)
Labour HOLD.
Chapelford & Old Hall (Warrington):
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
LAB: 54.7% (+9.8)
CON: 20.2% (+2.3)
LDEM: 17.8% (-3.2)
UKIP: 4.9% (-5.1)
GRN: 2.5% (-3.7)
Labour HOLD.
Labour HOLD Rossall (Wyre).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
Rossall (Wyre) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
LAB: 50.1% (+16.4)
CON: 35.1% (+8.9)
IND: 14.8% (+14.8)
No multiple Inds (-19.6) and UKIP (-20.5).
Labour HOLD Stanley & Outwood East (Wakefield).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
Hucknall North (Ashfield):
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
ASHI: 51.1% (+51.1) GAIN from Con.
LAB: 24.2% (-6.5)
CON: 20.4% (-10.6)
UKIP: 2.5% (-15.7)
LDEM: 1.8% (+1.8)
ASHI: Ashfield Independent.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
Tamworth and Aberdeenshire will be counting in the morning.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 12, 2017
