‘Minister for common sense’ who has criticised Whitehall waste is said to have received £39,000 in two years

• UK politics – latest updates

A cabinet minister who has criticised Whitehall waste has claimed tens of thousands of pounds in expenses to rent a London flat despite her husband owning a property a mile away.

Esther McVey, who was appointed “minister for common sense” last year, has received £39,000 in taxpayers’ money to rent the flat over the last two years. She lives there with her husband, the Tory MP Philip Davies.

Minister says ‘labelling ups and downs of life as medical conditions holds people back and drives up benefit bill’ as report comes out into women’s pensions

Vine repeats his claim that Starmer has a record of ditching difficult policies. He mentions a ceasefire in Gaza, the two-child benefit cap, what happened with the Rochdale candidate, his stance on Margaret Thatcher.

Starmer does not accept Vine’s point. He starts with Gaza, and says that after the 7 October attack, telling Israel not to use force to get its hostages back was not something any serious politican was going to say.

What our politics and government need is a restoration of continuity and stability – not a premature resignation

The Conservative party needs another leadership election right now like it needs a hole in the head. Most observers agree about this. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg accepts that four Tory leaders in one parliament would be more than the country could tolerate. This side of the general election, the die is cast. After the election is another matter.

So far, so fairly obvious. But here’s a thought. If Rishi Sunak leads the Tories to defeat this autumn, as most of his MPs now suspect will happen, he should not then resign immediately. Instead, Sunak should stay on as opposition leader. British politics doesn’t need a premature pre-election leadership contest of the sort that was again floated this week. But it doesn’t need a premature post-election contest either. And nor, in particular, does the Conservative party.

The court of appeal ruled on Monday that the ‘consent’ defence could not be used in the cases of climate activists. Sandra Laville reports

Over the last year, many climate protesters facing trial for criminal damage have used the “consent” defence, arguing that if the property owner had known more about the climate emergency, they would have agreed with the activists’ actions.

On Monday, in a case brought by the attorney general, Victoria Prentis, the court of appeal ruled that such a defence could not be used in future cases.

Peers voted for numerous amendments making it improbable the legislation will return to the Commons this side of Easter

Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation bill is expected to be put on hold until at least next month after the House of Lords inflicted seven defeats on Wednesday.

The safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill, which aims to block Strasbourg from halting the removal of asylum seekers to east Africa, is not expected to return to the Commons until after the Easter break.

Keir Starmer takes shots at open goals while PM is running on fumes as the disasters keep coming

MDMA, before it was called ecstasy, was going to be called empathy, having been devised as a marriage counselling drug. The theory was that it would amp up your compassion and dial down your threat response to the degree that you’d be able to hear the truth with an open heart.

Then it turned out to be better as a party drug and was criminalised, and maybe it’s all for the best, but just once I would love to hear PMQs with everyone on E. Because a lot of what Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday was probably true: Keir Starmer, if he wasn’t Labour leader, probably would enjoy going back to being a lawyer. He probably did get a lot of satisfaction from successfully defending people’s human rights. “I would have thought that, out of everybody, [Starmer] would be the most grateful”, Sunak said of his – always subject to revision – plan to hold an election later rather than sooner. And isn’t that, if you think about it for five seconds, most likely true? Say what you like about the Labour leader, he’s no seat-of-pants merchant.

The mania for deportation is expensive, cruel and doesn’t work. My family history shows how the UK can benefit from refugees

• Guli Francis-Dehqani is a member of the independent Commission on the Integration of Refugees

This week, as the Rwanda bill ping-pongs between the Lords and the Commons, delaying even further the government’s unrealistic deportation plans for refugees, an independent commission has published some concrete solutions aimed at permanently fixing Britain’s failing asylum system. As one of the 22 members of this group, I have spent the past two years working on these recommendations, which could improve life for refugees and the wider British public, upskill the UK economy and raise a net income of more than £1bn.

At the same time I have been opposing the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda – the latest contentious and divisive plan from a government that is producing few realistic or cost-effective alternatives in an increasingly polarising area of policy. The government’s strategy to meet its target to clear the backlog of asylum claims by the end of 2023 and the Illegal Migration Act are just two others, and at the time of the commission concluding its work, the next steps on both were still not clear.

Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani is the bishop of Chelmsford and the Church of England’s lead bishop for housing

Prime minister faces questions from MPs after Lee Anderson’s defection and controversy over Frank Hester as poll says voters want new leader for election

Good morning. Hands up who’s heard of John Robert Clynes? He was leader of the Labour party at the time of the 1922 general election and, according to a new history of Labour in opposition, he is the only leader of the party ever to be defeated in a leadership challenge. That is extraordinary when you consider that, at least since the 1970s, Conservative leaders normally haven’t resigned at a time of their own choosing and, even if they have not all been forced out after a leadership contest, at least the last three quit because they knew defeat after a leadership challenge was otherwise inevitable.

All of this helps to explain why today is a tricky day for Rishi Sunak; as Conservative party leader, you are permanently on probation, and today he has a tricky “performance appraisal” with his employer – the 1922 Committee. He has also got PMQs, another form of performance review.

We are well and truly on the path to sustainably lower taxes.

We started that journey in the autumn with a 2p cut to national insurance worth £450 for the average worker on £35,400 a year. And the Chancellor cut taxes again in this month’s budget which now means that 27 million employees will get an average tax cut of about £900 a year.

We did this because I believe in the fundamental dignity of work. When people work hard, they should be rewarded, not taxed more. It’s not right that income from work is taxed twice, while all other income is only taxed once. This is why I have cut national insurance, the second tax on work, by a third in the last six months. And it is why my long-term plan, ultimately, is to cut it to zero.

Ex-UK PM was required to seek permission for paid role with Merlyn Advisors, for whom he spoke to Venezuela president

Boris Johnson did not seek permission from the post-ministerial jobs watchdog before taking a role as a consultant to a hedge fund, on whose behalf he met the Venezuelan president.

As a former minister, Johnson is required to seek the advice of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) for two years from September 2022, when he left office. The committee’s advice typically comes with restrictions on lobbying and contact with the UK government. It was writing to Johnson on the matter, a source said.