The Latest Breaking News from Whitehall

Demos says Treasury should create separate spending category to help prioritise measures that prevent problems from arising

Labour mayors Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham, Tracy Brabin, Oliver Coppard and Steve Rotheram gathered in Leeds to warn against further rail cuts.

‘We’re not going to take things lying down – they will be hearing from us,’ says Manchester mayor

Exclusive: Whitehall sources say use of Pava to incapacitate children is under consideration amid sharp rise in violence

It has reportedly hired more than a dozen former Whitehall staffers as it prepares for a potential election victory

Exclusive: More than a dozen civil servants from different departments have moved to party in past 18 months

The prime minister has reset his party’s agenda with a wave of new initiatives. But is it a coherent strategy or a blind panic?

Defence secretary says it would be ‘irresponsible’ to finance scheme if cost soars

Sources say the PM wants to scrap the project’s section o Manchester before the party’s annual gathering in the city next weekend

By any Whitehall standard, the Ministry of Defence is a weird place. I am not just referring to its forbidding architectural lines, partly Orwell’s 1984 Ministry of Truth and Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, but its very nature. It is a hybrid, a frontline Whitehall ministry and an active military headquarters.

While local shops in countries such as France are protected, the UK is crippled by lax planning laws and sky-high business rates, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins