Damning report on long-term care system blames uneven funding and a lack of a plan for failure

The government has brought adult social care in England “to its knees” with years of uneven funding and a “woefully insufficient plan” to fill thousands of staff vacancies, MPs have said in a damning report on a system that provides long-term care for 835,000 people.

The public accounts committee said “chronic underfunding, rising waiting lists and patchwork funding” has placed sustained pressure on local authorities, and the government is falling short on Boris Johnson’s promise in 2019 to “fix the crisis in social care once and for all” .

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Recent missteps from the prime minister have added to Tory MPs’ concerns about their disastrous poll ratings. But are they ready to act against Rishi Sunak? Pippa Crerar reports

It has been a torrid 10 days for the prime minister: he’s faced criticism over his handling of the racist comments of his party’s leading donor. He’s lost an influential MP to Reform UK. His party is at catastrophic polling levels against Labour despite a tax-cutting budget the country can barely afford to fund. And now, everywhere he looks in Westminster there is evidence of his colleagues plotting to replace him.

As the Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar tells Hannah Moore, the Easter recess cannot come soon enough for Rishi Sunak. But the plotters have their own problems, too: they risk making the party look ridiculous if they try to overthrow another leader. They can’t necessarily agree on a single figure to unite around. And with an election due in the coming months, they are running out of time

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In an update to healthcare leaders, Amanda Pritchard expresses shock at entrepreneur’s comments about Diane Abbott

The boss of the NHS has condemned “racist, sexist and violent” remarks by Frank Hester, the health tech entrepreneur and Conservative donor.

Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, made clear her shock at Hester’s comments about the former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott in a briefing to senior health service leaders.

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Readers respond to the government’s proposed new definition of extremism and its implications

Rafael Behr says that the killers of Jo Cox and David Amess “cannot be used to discredit the causes they appropriated” ( There is a far bigger threat to Britain than fringe extremists, 13 March ). However, Thomas Mair, Cox’s killer, shouted “Britain first” as he attacked her, and that he did this after weeks of often intimidatory nationalist rhetoric by some leave campaigners suggests that Behr’s conclusion does not always apply.

Ironically, the leave campaign, in which Michael Gove played a leading role, is probably the strongest case of a nonviolent campaign inspiring violent action – there was a wave of attacks against Europeans, Muslims, gay people and others. Not a case for banning Vote Leave, as Gove’s new plans might lead us to conclude, of course, but cause to reflect on where the inspiration for extremism has been coming from in British politics over the last decade.
Prof Martin Shaw
University of Sussex

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Chancellor says month is last possible time that would also allow for review of Whitehall budgets before next April

• UK politics – latest updates

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has suggested a general election could be held in October.

Speaking in the House of Lords, Hunt said the Treasury would need time to push through a review of Whitehall budgets before next spring, making an October date the last time when an election would be possible.

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A new proposal aims to bring greater oversight to AI development, from deepfakes and ‘cheapfakes’ to electoral misinformation, but it could highlight a divide between parties

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The politics of AI regulation became a little clearer this weekend, after an influential Labour thinktank laid out its framework for how the party should approach the topic in its manifesto.

From our story :

The policy paper, produced by the centre-left Labour Together thinktank, proposes a legal ban on dedicated nudification tools that allow users to generate explicit content by uploading images of real people.

It would also create an obligation for developers of general-purpose AI tools and web hosting companies to take reasonable steps to ensure they are not involved in the production of such images, or other harmful deepfakes.

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The artist, who took lockers from a gay sauna into galleries, has turned the former home secretary’s speech about the illegal migration bill into a sinister sonic maelstrom

Prem Sahib ’s most disconcerting sculptures include a giant flea, a pair of hoodies suspended in the jaundiced glow of a sodium street lamp, and a cracked obsidian mirror which emits real-life hate speech recorded in a gay chatroom. His latest work is inspired by a figure arguably more sinister than anything he has previously confronted: Suella Braverman.

Alleus – the title is “Suella” spelt backwards – is a sound sculpture which aims to “send back” one of the former home secretary’s speeches, making her eat her words. Taking as its starting point a recording of Braverman addressing the House of Commons about the illegal migration bill, Sahib slows down her voice, isolates incendiary phrases, then reverses the audio until it becomes a tangle of nightmarish noise and backbench braying. In doing so, he seems to dredge up some primordial toxicity from within Braverman’s words.

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Shadow chancellor to deliver prestigious Mais lecture and will announce plans to rewire the Treasury

Good morning. Rachel Reeves , the shadow chancellor, is delivering the Mais lecture today, an annual City of London event where someone from the world of finance is invited to give an hour-long, heavyweight address on economics. (It’s called the Mais lecture, not the Mais speech, for a reason.) It’s a very presitigious gig, and the organisers like to invite someone powerful and important. It seems they didn’t want to hear from Jeremy Hunt.

We won’t get the full text of Reeve’s lecture until later, but Labour has released some substantial extracts in advance and there are two elements of particular note.

We have found ourselves in a moment of political turbulence and recurrent crises with the burden falling on the shoulders of working people.

With at its root, a failure to deliver the supply side reform needed to equip Britain to compete in a fast changing world ….

And unlike the 1980s, growth in the years to come must be broad-based, inclusive, and resilient.

Growth achieved through stability – built on the strength of our institutions. Investment – through partnership between active government and enterprising business. And reform – of our planning system, our public services, our labour market, and our democracy.

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Chair of Office for Space says move would boost prosperity, health and personal freedom and could help solve housing crisis

A leading government adviser on cities has urged ministers to make urban areas friendlier for walking and cycling, saying this would boost prosperity, health and personal freedom, and could even help solve the housing crisis.

In a report that takes a notably different stance to Rishi Sunak’s recent “plan for drivers” , which seeks to prioritise car use at the expense of active travel and bus use, Nicholas Boys Smith, who chairs the government’s Office for Place, said cars “diminish liberty as well as enhancing it”.

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