Jessica Elgot
@jessicaelgot
deputy political editor at the @guardian 📧 [email protected] 📸 by @StefanRousseau
Clearing out my grandparents flat this weekend and coming across these treasures - thank you cards from Denis Healey and Leeds MP Joe Dean - my grandfather made their suits. He was so proud of that.


NEW - Wes Streeting confirms strikes WILL go ahead after talks fail with BMA. He says they have "recklessly and needlessly opted for strike action." Action is "completely unjustified, completely unprecedented in the history of British trade unionism.."
🚨 Our latest podcast... 💩The big stink: will new watchdog clean up our waterways? 😇 What is Keir Starmer’s latest move to help restore public trust in politics? 🏆And as MPs break for summer @kiranstacey and I hand out our end-of-year awards! theguardian.com/politics/audio…
Suella, Jacob, even Liz? Inside Reform’s unofficial plan to bag a Tory big beast - a great read by @rowenamason theguardian.com/news/ng-intera…
Labour says Diane Abbott has been administratively suspended from the Labour Party, pending an investigation.
Jolly happy recess wishes from the PLP office, just as four MPs get suspended. “Beggars belief,” says one MP

Party source suggests the suspensions are targeted at MPs who have been organisers of rebellions, including on welfare and on planning. It’s not just voting records. But odd timing when No10 had seemed to suggest it would do things differently now.
Sources confirm that Labour suspending at least three MPs - others could follow and some expected to get warnings. They are three new MPs - Neil Duncan Jordan who spoke out first against winter fuel, Chris Hinchliff who led rebellion on planning and Brian Leishman.
Different perspective on the afghan resettlement saga 👇🏻
It's under 7,000 that have been brought across, at a cost of 450mn. I really wish people would do some basic fact checking - especially people who should know better. As someone who deployed to Afghanistan, speaks Pashtu, & worked on the ARAP scheme last year under this gvt -…
I hope curious MPs and peers will seek the proper disclosure after this ludicrous decision not to release this info under FOI
EXC: Parliament Refuses to Reveal Cost of Controversial Eyesore Security Fence order-order.com/2025/07/15/exc…
NEW: Wes Streeting tells PLP that resident doctors’ strikes would be “a gift to Nigel Farage” ahead of a meeting with the British Medical Association this week where he will seek to avert industrial action. Health secretary said that ministers were “in the fight for the survival…
Our analysis - with more detail on what the French deal means - with @kiranstacey How Robert Jenrick’s migrant returns advice was finally heeded – by a Labour PM theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/j…
Tory defections to Reform are disaster for Badenoch – but Farage needs to tread carefully My analysis - theguardian.com/politics/2025/…
I think the mission here is hugely important for the govt. The growth frame feels too abstract for many, who judge the economy on their day to day. Cost of living above all else is driving national misery - and sense that life is just about living to work/working to live.
Exc - Tonight a new group of Labour MPs launches calling on the PM to radically refocus on cost of living. They say progress made on incomes but there should be now a major effort to drive down every day costs of energy, childcare, food and housing theguardian.com/politics/2025/…
Quite a strange way to describe a seat that had been Tory for 99 years until last year
Amazing @reformparty_uk meeting in Penrith tonight . Traditionally a strong @UKLabour seat. Not anymore . Polling suggests a 16% swing to us with Reform UK taking this constituency . 🗳️. Tremendous work from our fantastic activists and supporters . Thank you
Energy and transport firms and a public affairs agency have all hosted these events on behalf of the party Full story here theguardian.com/politics/2025/…
EXC Labour MPs have privately raised alarm at the number of sponsored corporate receptions for backbenchers arranged by the party MPs received invitations that include explicit advertisements for property developers or outsourcing firms -sent to MPs directly from the PLP office