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.
- Theresa May is expected to approve the creation of about 10 Tory peers and hand at least one to Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party in an attempt to improve her weak position in the House of Lords, which has already voted 15 times against her government over Brexit.
- Tension between the Speaker and government ministers has flared into the open in an unprecedented series of exchanges in the chamber of the House of Commons over the past 48 hours.
- A bold attempt by Theresa May to crack the Brexit impasse ran into trouble on Thursday as the Irish prime minister warned a new customs plan signed off by her warring ministers could be insufficient to avoid a hard border.
- The mother of one of the victims of the Windrush scandal who died unexpectedly in March has accused the government of racism and said it still doesn’t “really care” about what happened.
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The former Tory MP Neil Hamilton has been ousted as leader of the Ukip group at the Welsh assembly after an often controversial two years at the helm.
On Thursdays local council byelections take place. There were three yesterday (for four seats). Britain Elections has three of the results.
Back on the by-elections tonight, with one Green defence, one Conservative and two Labour.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 17, 2018
Check out @andrewteale's previews here: https://t.co/TGIoWirsbP
Skerton (Lancaster) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 17, 2018
LAB: 57.8% (+20.8)
CON: 27.1% (+1.2)
LDEM: 9.4% (+9.4)
GRN: 5.8% (-3.7)
Labour HOLD.
No UKIP. (-20.4) and Ind (-7.4) as prev.
University & Scotforth Rural (Lancaster) result, top vote method:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 17, 2018
LAB: 47.7% (+12.3)
GRN: 24.3% (-8.2)
CON: 16.9% (-6.8)
LDEM: 11.0% (+2.7)
Labour HOLD.
Labour GAIN from Green.
