Author: Ben Quinn Political correspondent

But for the Iran crisis, Labour’s first major policy announcement since the party’s calamitous defeat in the Gorton and Denton byelection would have been arguably the biggest political story of the week.Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, pressed ahead with what is intended to be the party’s full-throated answer to the competition it faces from Reform UK as she declared an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of state support from some asylum seekers.It immediately put her on a collision course with many Labour backbenchers, but it also left the party’s soft-left majority, who had been pushing for a…