Polish parliament speaker says confidence vote should be next week
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Monday he would call for a parliamentary vote of confidence in his coalition government, after his candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, lost a presidential election on Sunday.
"We are hearing information that it should be soon. I convinced the Prime Minister that we should wait with this for a while," Holownia told journalists.
"I suggested to the Prime Minister that the motion be submitted this week so that we can discuss it at an additional session on Tuesday."
Nationalist opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki narrowly won Poland's presidential election, delivering a blow to the centrist government's efforts to cement Warsaw's pro-European orientation.
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The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
Could this be the way Starmer placates his revolting MPs?
Keir cannot afford another fiasco like welfare,' one Starmer loyalist told me, recalling the government's humiliating climbdown on proposed cuts to disability benefits after a revolt by Labour MPs. The prime minister knows the episode showed that his way of governing is unsustainable. He is consulting people widely this summer about how to turn things round. There's a fierce internal debate taking place. In Keir Starmer's right ear, Morgan McSweeney, his influential chief of staff, tells him to focus on wooing back voters in the red wall from Nigel Farage. In his left ear, soft-left cabinet ministers urge a more progressive approach to woo centre-left voters who have deserted Labour for the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. They argue that these lost voters outnumber defectors to Reform by a margin of three to one. The soft left's allies in Downing Street want Starmer to emulate Bill Clinton, who fought back against a right-wing populist – Newt Gingrich, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives – after a rocky start to his first term in 1993. One minister admitted: 'There is a battle over the direction of the government. There is only one person who can resolve it. Keir has got to decide for himself – based on his values, who he is, who he wants to be.' The left-ear whisperers want the PM to trust the instincts that are serving him well on foreign affairs and apply them to the domestic agenda, too. Starmer appeared to be tacking leftwards when he told Tom Baldwin for the paperback version of his biography, published on Thursday: 'We have to be the progressives fighting against the populists of Reform – yes, Labour has to be a progressive party.' He has hinted that he wants to tackle child poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit limit. The PM has nodded to Labour critics who argue – persuasively – that his government has sometimes acted left but talked right, and that it's no wonder, therefore, that it gets little credit from progressive voters. He said that issues such as clean energy, nationalising the railways and increasing the national minimum wage should be shouted louder from the rooftops. 'We should show we're proud of all that,' he told Baldwin. Starmer views this as part of 'telling a better story'. But you can only tell one if you know the direction in which you are heading. The battle isn't over yet; I'm told McSweeney is not convinced about a shift to the left. His critics say the shortcomings of attacking Reform head-on were illustrated when the science secretary Peter Kyle claimed Farage was on the paedophile Jimmy Savile's side in the heated debate over internet regulation. The attack line was reportedly approved by No 10, but it backfired. It was the sort of smear we might expect from Reform. The lesson for Starmer: Labour can't 'out-Farage Farage', and the public will vote for the real thing if Labour tries to look like Reform-lite. Allies of McSweeney believe the red wall will decide the next general election, so Labour's primary pitch must be to the white working class. His internal opponents insist that trying to re-run the 2024 election triumph, McSweeney's greatest hit, will not work next time. They dispute the idea that Labour 'won' the north and the Midlands last year, saying that it reaped the benefit of a split on the right between the Conservatives and Reform, and that Labour regained seats seized by the Tories in 2019 mainly because Tory voters switched to Reform. At the next election, Farage will likely hoover up the right-wing vote. Crucially, the left vote will be split this time – inflicting deep damage to Labour unless Starmer can appeal to left-of-centre voters. He won't do that by tacking right, cutting benefits for the disabled and pensioners or aping Farage. For Starmer to win a presidential contest against the Reform leader, being the anti-Farage candidate will not be enough: he will have to offer progressive voters more than he has offered them so far. Another reason why Starmer should listen to the buzz in his left ear is that the new socialist party launched by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will present another alternative to disenchanted Labour voters. It already has 600,000 registered supporters. Starmer won't lurch to the Corbyn hard left – and rightly so. But the sensible decision he should make this summer is that it's time for Labour to live up to its name and its values, and stop pretending to be something it is not.
The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
This is how we do it: ‘I need some emotional connection before sex, but he is ready to go at any time'
There was an occasion when we had sex eight times in one day – we still call it our dirty weekend Ricky and I have been together for 12 years and married for three. I still think about the first time we had sex – it was incredible. I remember thinking: how is this our first time? Because in my experience first times had always been a bit awkward. It was so instantly fun and pleasurable, and felt very safe straight away. Ricky seemed so confident, and I thought: this guy must really know what he's doing. It was only later that I found out he hadn't slept with many people at all. I'd known him for less than a week, but it was some of the best sex I'd ever had. I don't think there is a correlation between penis size and sexual prowess, but Ricky has got a really nice penis. He went down on me that first time, which was rare for me. There was an occasion when we had sex eight times in one day – we still call it our dirty weekend. Now we sometimes have sex once in eight days – but I'm still just as happy and satisfied. When you meet someone new it's crazy and exciting, and then you just become really comfortable together. I have not once thought: I wish we were having more sex. Sometimes I have wondered: should we be having more sex? But that pressure is societal more than anything. We have realised that although we don't have sex that often now – maybe once a fortnight – when we do, we really do it. Sex will last an hour and it is very active. In that moment, neither of us is thinking about anything else. We are very connected. We have quite a set routine now, but it works for us. I need some emotional connection before having sex, even if it's just watching TV together. I like to have a shower and be prepped, whereas Ricky is ready to go at any time. We are both so busy that, despite living together, we can go a few days without even having time to chat about our day. So, for me, it is important to prioritise that kind of intimacy before sex. If you're keen to talk to us about your sex lives you can get in touch by filling in the form below. It is very important that both sexual partners are happy to participate. I was not only falling in love with Anastasia, I was falling in love with sex as well Before Anastasia, my relationship with sex was defined by its absence. I was a late bloomer and didn't have sex until I was at university, but I thought about it so much. They say that if you want something, the worst way to get it is to want it too badly, and that was me when it came to losing my virginity. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion I was discovering so much about myself at that time, and my early sexual experiences ended up being very good. I'm pretty sure the girl who I lost my virginity to didn't know I was a virgin. And then suddenly there was this person who I was falling in love with, and it felt very mature. It was fantastic to have the person who was my first consistent sexual partner then become my permanent partner. I was not only falling in love with Anastasia, I was falling in love with sex as well. I've got so used to having sex with someone who I absolutely love. When we got together she was so complimentary about the first night we had sex because I made her come and I went down on her, and it was generally a really good time. Even after 12 years, when we have sex we never half-ass it. It always feels really good. You fall into the habit of knowing one another and knowing what the other likes and dislikes. I do feel as if I can be slightly impatient, as Anastasia really likes the scene to be set before we have sex. In fact, sometimes if we haven't laid the groundwork enough, we can start and then just fall out of sync. Though I'm very content with the amount of sex we're having, I think we would be happier having more. Often she'll suggest it to me and I'll be like: 'Yeah, OK.' Then, within two seconds, I'm like: 'This is the best. Why don't I do this every single day? How do I distract myself so successfully that I don't want to do this twice a day?'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘It wasn't an error': Ofqual boss defends regulator after withdrawn data row
England's chief regulator of exams has put up a staunch defence of Ofqual after it was forced to withdraw a decade of statistics detailing the number of students granted extra time and other assistance for A-levels and GCSEs. In his first interview with a national media organisation since his permanent appointment as head of Ofqual, and just weeks after the data was dramatically pulled, Sir Ian Bauckham said there had been no error in the figures, blaming instead the way they had been interpreted. He also denied that the data 'misunderstanding', which comes five years after Ofqual's disastrous attempt during Covid to award GCSE and A-level grades by algorithm, had further undermined confidence in the organisation, saying: 'We've got a qualification system in this country to be proud of.' In an interview with the Guardian, the chief regulator also addressed the debate surrounding the government's curriculum and assessment review, warning against any wholesale move from exams to coursework because of concerns about students' growing use of AI. He also urged caution over the introduction of digital exams, saying that any assessment innovation must be secure and deliverable, and should not disadvantage poorer students who may not have had the same access to digital devices and software as their wealthier peers. Ofqual, which was set up in 2010 to regulate qualifications in England, shocked the education sector when it announced on 17 July that it was withdrawing official statistics for special access arrangements for exams going back to 2014, because they 'significantly overstated' the number of students. Access arrangements are adjustments to exams for students with special needs, disabilities or injuries, with 25% extra time being the most common. In 2012-13, 107,000 students in England were granted extra time, but in 2024 Ofqual said it was nearly 420,000 students, an increase of nearly 300%. The data appeared to show that 30% of students had been granted 25% extra time last year, with particularly high rates in private schools where nearly 42% of students received adjustments. Ofqual now thinks the actual rate is far lower. Bauckham said the confusion had arisen because, rather than showing access arrangements solely for students entered for GCSEs and A-levels in one particular year, the data includes a much broader list of access arrangements. Each access arrangement lasts two years. There can be duplicate applications for the same student, and the list may include pupils with special arrangements in place who did not sit exams that year at all. 'It wasn't an error, because the published data only ever claimed to be the long list of approved access arrangements,' Bauckham said. 'It never claimed to be that data mapped against actual exam entries, but it was interpreted as that. 'I've been clear that moving forward … we need to publish actual granted access arrangements that relate to actual entries in the year in question.' He said the final figure is likely to be much more in line with the proportion of pupils in England with special education needs and disabilities (Send), which according to the most recent official statistics stands at 19.5%, including those with education, health and care plans 'Just because this figure is significantly lower, doesn't mean that there may not have been a rising trend,' Bauckham added. 'I would be very surprised indeed if the final data, when we're able to pinpoint it, doesn't indicate a rising trend. So I don't think it takes away the problem, but it alters the scale of what we're thinking about.' On what appeared to be a growing gap between the use of access arrangements between private and state schools, he said: 'Of course in independent schools there is a slightly higher proportion of Send than there is in state-funded schools. 'I don't think it's unreasonable to hypothesise that there will still be a difference between state-funded schools and independent schools, not least because of that higher Send figure, but I'm absolutely clear that we must have data that informs the public debate on this issue.' Bauckham, who after a year as interim chief regulator was permanently appointed in February, said Ofqual had moved on a long way from the chaos of Covid when exams were cancelled and grades calculated using an algorithm had to be scrapped. 'Five years later, we've moved back to examinations which are widely trusted as the fairest way to accredit and assess what students know, understand and can do,' he added. On the government's curriculum and assessment review, due to report later this year, the Ofqual chief acknowledged concerns about the volume of exams pupils currently face, but he warned against reducing assessment to a single paper per subject. Students 'really value the opportunity to have at least two bites at the cherry, by which I mean two opportunities in two separate exam papers in the same subject',' he said. He is in favour of AI being used to support teaching and students' learning. 'But I would be very concerned about moving wholesale to a system where exams were replaced by extended writing coursework, because that would, in current circumstances, be open to malpractice.' 'I'm not worried about the future of qualifications,' Bauckham said. 'I think qualifications are going to be needed more than ever in the future, but I think in education, we've got to be clear that students still need rigorous intellectual training. They still need mastery of key knowledge. 'We still need to set our sights high for them and we mustn't succumb to the confused thinking that says, because AI will enable future workplaces, we don't need students to know, understand and be able to do skills and demonstrate knowledge at a high level, because I think the opposite is true.'
