Parliament

JESY Nelson has shared her twin daughters’ spinal braces with an emotional message ahead of the upcoming Parliament debate.

The mum-of-two made a candid post explaining her daughters now have to wear them every day.

Jesy shared a snap of her twin daughters Ocean and Story’s spinal braces as she urged fans to attend the Parliament debate on SMA screening.

She captioned the image: “Just a reminder that future SMA babies’ lives don’t need to look like this!

“These are Ocean and Story’s spinal braces that [they] now have to wear every day.”

Jesy also shared a snap of the Parliament debate poster and wrote: “I hope to see as many of you there tomorrow. It’s going to be a big day.”

It comes after Jesy spoke out about the unjust and “nsane” SMA “postcode lottery” – which “decides if children will be disabled or not.”

The loving mum appeared on social media in a candid video expressing her deep frustrations over ‘unfair’ Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) heel prick testing.

The X Factor star – who has racked up over 150k signatures – is calling for SMA to be tested for at birth regardless of where you live.

The debate is set to take place tomorrow, June 22, and, if granted, SMA screenings will be added for newborns.

The singer’s daughters Ocean Jade and Story Monroe were born prematurely in May last year and were diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Type 1.

In the emotional video, the singer said: “I just wanted to come on here to basically chat about a few things that are just so incredibly important to me and I know so many other people.

“Some of you may be aware of the fact that I’ve been trying to get SMA as part of the heel prick test here in England, and thank God for you guys, the signatures got over 150,000 and because of that, it is now going to get debated in parliament this Monday coming up, which is just crazy to me to know that we did that and I just need you guys to know that this has never been debated in parliament before.

“There has been a whole community of people that have been screaming and shouting about this for years and years and years, and it’s never been able to get this far, because it’s been ignored every single time.

“But you guys did it, because you made enough noise and you supported this and you got it there and I cannot thank you guys enough…

“So many thoughts have been going through my mind over this week, because every time I think about it, I’m like, how am I going to Parliament on Monday to debate whether children, future children, are going to be disabled or not?

“That’s how deep it is, because if your child gets this treatment from birth with a simple heel prick test and they get this treatment, you would not even know that they have SMA. 

“That’s how deep it is, right? That is how life-changing this treatment is. You would not even know that your child has SMA, but if they don’t get this treatment and they don’t get the heel prick test, they will go on to be disabled…

“And not only be disabled, but they will go on to have breathing machines, coughing machines, constant operations. It never ever ends.

“And I still can’t believe that in this day and age, when we’ve had three life-changing treatments now for nearly six years, it’s still a thing. It’s still not here in England.

“It is being rolled out in October, but only in certain parts of England.

“How does that make sense? How are we playing postcode lottery with children’s lives? How is that okay? I cannot stress you how important this is.

“This is our future, future children we are deciding on. Mums now that are currently pregnant and maybe about to have a baby that could potentially have this disease. We’re basically going to decide whether they’re going to be disabled or not, like it blows my mind.

“And I just seem to stress this so much, because that’s how deep it is. We are playing with children’s lives and it is not okay.

“It’s not okay to be like, if you live in this area, your child won’t be disabled, but if you live in this area, yeah, they’ll be disabled.

“We’re not doing this anymore. We’ve made too much noise now for this to be ignored.

“Anyway, sorry for getting irate about this, but it makes me so sad to think that my children’s lives could look so different and not only my children’s lives, but so many other families and children are dealing with this across the whole of England.”

Alongside the tear-jerking post, she added: “We have had some amazing news that screening is due to start in October this year, which is a huge step forward!

“But there’s still a big problem… it will only cover 72% of England. That means some babies won’t be screened simply because of where they live.

“A postcode lottery like that just isn’t fair. Every baby deserves the same chance, everybaby’ss life matters!

“On Monday 22nd June, the petition will be debated by MPs in Parliament. I’ll be there alongside @gileslomax from SMA UK and we’re hoping this debate will help push for screening to be available for every newborn across England.

“We’ll be arriving at 5pm on Monday, and it would mean so much to see as many of you there as possible. We’d love to get a photo together outside Parliament before we head inside.

“Please if you can, tag your MP in the comments and ask them to attend the debate and support universal newborn screening for SMA.

“The areas currently missing out on screening are: Bristol, Cambridge, Portsmouth, Leeds, Liverpool, Oxford.

“No baby should miss out because of their postcode. Let’s keep fighting until every newborn has the same opportunity. Thank you for standing with us every step of the way!”

Approval of populist former leader is a shift for the EU country that was recently run by a liberal government.

Slovenia’s parliament has voted to bring back right-wing politician Janez Jansa as prime minister, after his last stint in power ended in 2022.

Legislators in the 90-member assembly voted 51-36 for Jansa on Friday – marking a shift for the small European Union country recently run by a liberal government.

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Jansa will need to return to parliament within the next 15 days for another vote to confirm his future Cabinet.

His appointment concludes a post-election stalemate after the vote two months ago ended in a tie when former liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement was unable to create a parliamentary majority by only securing a thin margin.

On Thursday, Jansa and his populist Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) signed a coalition agreement with several centre-right groups to form a new government, which now holds 43 seats in the assembly.

It will be the fourth time 67-year-old Jansa has been in office.

He was the country’s leader from 2004 to 2008, 2012 to 2013 and 2020 to 2022.

In the March 22 elections, the SDS came second with 28 seats, behind Golob’s Freedom Movement, which secured 29 seats.

The new coalition government is made up of the SDS, New Slovenia, Democrats, the Slovenian People’s Party and Focus. It also secured additional backing from the right-wing Resnica party, which will not formally join the government.

In a speech laying out the government’s future goals, Jansa listed the economy, the fight against corruption and red tape, and decentralisation.

He also promised to lower taxes for the rich and support private education and healthcare.

Earlier this month, Jansa told reporters that the coalition would ensure a “cheaper state but with better quality”.

Jansa is an admirer of US President Donald Trump and was also a close ally of Hungary’s former populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who was defeated in a landslide election last month.

The former PM is a supporter of Israel and was a staunch critic of the Golob government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state in 2024.

During his last term in office, Jansa faced accusations of clamping down on democratic institutions and press freedoms, leading to protests then and scrutiny from the European Union.

May 13 (UPI) — King Charles III set out the British government’s legislative program at the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday, focusing on expediting new agreements on closer U.K.-EU economic ties, tackling the cost of living, boosting defense AI and tech innovation and easing financial sector regulation.

The king’s 17-minute speech in the House of Lords referenced 37 bills in total, including legislation to renationalize British Steel, a Competition Reform Bill to fast-track reviews by the competition watchdog and a bill to help small businesses by hiking the interest suppliers can charge clients that fail to pay on time.

Charles opened his address with the geopolitical situation, saying Britain faced threats from an “increasingly dangerous and volatile world,” with the conflict in the Middle East the most recent example, and warned every “element of the nation’s energy, defense and economic security” would be challenged.

Honing in on the economy, Charles said the government would harness the power of the state “in partnership with business and enable reforms that support higher growth and a fair deal for working people.”

“My Government believes that the United Kingdom’s economic security depends on raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom. My Ministers will support measures that maintain stability and control the cost of living. They will use public investment to shape markets and attract further private investment,” he said.

The speech pledged progress on airport expansion and highway infrastructure projects and a Northern Powerhouse Rail program to better connect the big cities in the north with each other and the rest of the country, along with reforms to the police, National Health Service and criminal justice system.

An immigration and asylum bill was also promised to help tackle the issue of migrants and asylum seekers arriving on small boats.

One issue that received no mention was cutting welfare spending, an area where the Labour administration of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has twice been forced to back down in the face of his own MPs since coming into office in 2024.

While the address is called The King’s Speech, it is purely ceremonial with the speech actually given to him by the government to read out.

It was Charles’ third time to open parliament, a historic tradition that dates back to the 16th century as a way to periodically bring together three normally separate elements of British polity: the democratically elected members of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Crown.

The proceedings include Buckingham Palace taking an MP “hostage” to ensure the king is returned unharmed and a “search” of the basements of the Palace of Westminister for dynamite by the King’s ceremonial Yeomen bodyguards, a throwback to the gunpowder plot to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605.

Wednesday’s opening of parliament comes amid a leadership crisis at the top of government with scores of Starmer’s own MPs demanding he either stand aside or set a timetable for his departure after the party suffered heavy losses in local elections on Thursday.

“There’s deep uncertainty as to whether Starmer will be leading the government over the next 12 months or so. So it’s a bit of a paradox,” Craig Prescott, an expert in the constitutional and political role of the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London, told NBC News.

Starmer has insisted he is staying put and will lead his party into the next election, not a big stretch given his 165-seat parliamentary majority and that no MP or cabinet member has mounted a formal challenge to his leadership.

Nevertheless, Prescott described the parliament into which the king ventured on Wednesday as “febrile.”

“The politics of all this is a bit too close for comfort,” he said.

The BBC said allies of Health Secretary Wes Streeting had told it that he would formally challenge Starmer as early as Thursday. The pair held talks in Downing Street early Wednesday but there was no word on the outcome of their meeting.

Former Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, pictured at a meeting at the White House in November 2025, on Saturday announced that he will step down from the Hungarian parliament to focus on rebuilding his party after its landslide defeat in recent elections. File Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo

April 25 (UPI) — Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Saturday said he will give up his seat in Parliament to focus on rebuilding his Fidesz-KDNP party after its election losses two weeks ago.

Orban said that he is leaving the parliament to focus on rebuilding the far-right, Russia-aligned party after it secured only 55 seats in Hungary’s parliament in elections on April 12, Politico and The New York Times reported.

Peter Magyar’s Tisza party won 138 of the parliament’s 199 seats in a landslide victory ending 16 years of Orban running the country.

“I am needed not in Parliament but in the organization of the patriotic movement,” Orban said in a video message posted on social media.

“Discussions are in full swing about renewing the patriotic camp, strengthening our parliamentary group and protecting our communities,” he said.

Magyar will take over as prime minister on May 9 and, because Tisza has more than two-thirds of the parliament’s seats, he can undue some of the actions Orban took during his rule, which included cracking down on the media and a host of democratic institutions.

Orban, who was in Hungary’s parliament since 1990 and prime minister since 2010, said he plans to remain in charge of Fidesz and will seek re-election in June to keep the job.

The Indian government is seeking to expedite the implementation of a 2023 law that reserves 33 percent of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women, but has linked the move to a sweeping redrawing of parliamentary constituencies, sharpening political tensions.

“We’re set to take historic steps to empower women,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said before a special sitting of parliament on Thursday as his government introduced three bills to be debated in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

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While two of the three bills relate to extending the number of women in parliament and state assemblies, a third bill relates to “delimitation”, as the process to redraw parliamentary boundaries based on population is called in India. The bill aims to increase the overall size of parliament from 543 Lok Sabha seats to 850.

The bills are being taken up during a three-day special session and will require a two-thirds majority in both houses to pass. Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) holds 293 seats in lower house of parliament while a two-thirds majority would require 360 votes.

Women currently account for 14 percent of the Lok Sabha members. “We are all united to give rightful positions to women in India,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Thursday.

Several Asian countries, including India’s neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh, have similar quotas for women in national legislatures. India already mandates that one-third of seats be set aside for women in local governing bodies.

Opposition alleges ‘gerrymandering’

While there appears to be broad bipartisan support for putting more women into parliament, opposition parties have raised concerns over changing the voting boundaries, warning it could tilt the political balance in favour of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP draws much of its support from the densely populated north, and critics said expanding seats in parliament would, therefore, benefit it the most. Leaders in southern states, where birth rates have declined more sharply, said a population-based delimitation exercise could increase seats in the north and disadvantage southern regions that have slowed population growth and built stronger economies.

The Indian Constitution mandates that parliamentary seats be allocated by population and revised after each census. However, boundaries have not been redrawn since the 1971 census as successive governments delayed the process.

The government is now proposing that delimitation of new seats be based on the last completed census, in 2011, and come into effect for the next general election in 2029.

But opposition parties want the government to wait for the results of an ongoing census, which was launched this month, a formidable logistical challenge that will take a year to carry out – and even longer for the data to be processed.

The main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, said that while his Indian National Congress party supports increasing the number of women in parliament, the government’s approach is aimed at consolidating power.

“The proposal that the government is now bringing has no connection to women’s reservation,” Gandhi said in a statement on social media. “It is merely an attempt to seize power through delimitation and gerrymandering.”

Congress parliamentarian Gaurav Gogoi alleged that the intention of the government was not to implement women’s reservation but to introduce delimitation “through the backdoor”, according to a report in India’s Scroll.in website.

Akhilesh Yadav, member of parliament from the Samajwadi Party, asked whether Muslims will be given some kind of reservation within the quota for women, The Indian Express reported.

The BJP pushed back on the criticism, saying it would implement a uniform 50 percent increase in seats across all states and maintain proportional representation nationwide. However, the draft delimitation bill does not explicitly spell this out.

Speaking in parliament, Modi said the legislation is “not discriminatory” and “will not do injustice to anyone”.

But the opposition was not convinced. Some members from southern states turned up in parliament dressed in black as a mark of protest.

MK Stalin, chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu and a rival to the BJP, burned a copy of the bill and raised a black flag in protest, urging people across the state to do the same.

“Let the flames of resistance spread across Tamil Nadu,” Stalin said, accusing the BJP of trying to marginalise the state through redrawn boundaries. “Let the arrogance of the fascist BJP be brought down.”