Keir Starmer’s future once again hangs in the balance over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington, despite the peer’s well-known links to China and friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The prime minister accused the Foreign Office of hiding from Downing Street that the UK Security Vetting organisation recommended that Mandelson be denied full security clearance. But today the former head of the Foreign Office, the recently sacked Olly Robbins, told a parliamentary hearing there was an “atmosphere of pressure” and a “very strong expectation” from No. 10 that Mandelson should be “in post” as quickly as possible. Robbins believes he and the Foreign Office “made the correct decision”, said the BBC’s Henry Zeffman – but Starmer’s position is “the exact opposite”.

What did the commentators say?

It’s far from ideal for a prime minister to plead to the House of Commons that he has not lied to MPs because “he didn’t know what was going on in his own government”, said The Independent in an editorial. His defence is that “nobody told me”, even when he asked. “So much for absolute prime ministerial power.” Until there’s evidence to the contrary, his defence has to be accepted, “even if it beggars belief”. Starmer will “most likely survive at least until the May elections and beyond” – but “his troubles and the weaknesses of the government remain”.

It could be worse, said John Crace in The Guardian. Many MPs long ago decided Starmer wasn’t the right person for the job, but the Iran war and local elections next month mean it’s not the right time to replace him. “The party and the country wouldn’t thank them for turning a drama into a crisis.” But clearly it doesn’t occur to Starmer to “ask the questions that any normal person would” – such as, did Mandelson pass his security vetting? Starmer’s credibility is “on the line”. Because if he didn’t know, it was his job to know. “It would almost have been better if he had known about the vetting and approved it regardless. At least he would have been in control.”

The latest twist is “not enough to oust Starmer, but it has undermined the faith of MPs in the PM” and “removed the gloss he had accumulated” by staying out of the war with Iran, said Tim Shipman in The Spectator. “It makes it marginally more likely that he will be removed after May’s local elections.”

It is “clearly absurd” that Robbins didn’t tell Starmer, regardless of the legality. But Starmer knew about the red flags and decided to appoint Mandelson anyway. “This remains the fundamental original sin of this episode, which no amount of gabbling about process can excuse.” Yes, there is a “damaging lack of coordination and cooperation” at the top of government, but Starmer remains a “semi-detached, bizarrely incurious leader who seems barely engaged” with its activities. About 53% of voters believe he has been dishonest about the whole affair, according to YouGov polling.

Starmer’s dismissal of multiple advisers has also “added to the sense that a scapegoat can always be plucked from officialdom”, said Dan Bloom and Sam Blewett in Politico. There could be a “chilling effect” – civil servants might become “more defensive and suspicious”. And what then? Plenty of prime ministers have discovered that the civil service – famously compared to a Rolls-Royce by Michael Heseltine – is “capable of growling, not just purring”.

What next?

Starmer has announced an inquiry into the security concerns raised during Mandelson’s vetting. But clearly the man appointed to handle “what is perhaps Britain’s most sensitive of foreign relationships” was doing so despite the recommendation that he be denied security clearance, said Politico.

One “huge potential curveball” remaining is the planned release of thousands of emails and WhatsApp messages between Mandelson and government figures in the coming weeks. “Not even Starmer can be sure how the story will evolve from there.”

Keir Starmer is to address the Commons this afternoon over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, after it emerged that the Labour grandee was approved by the Foreign Office despite failing internal vetting.

Following an internal fact-finding review, No. 10 are said to be “confident it will show he was kept in the dark over the details of the process until Tuesday night and therefore did not mislead Parliament”, said The i Paper.

What happened?

Mandelson, a Labour veteran, has been a central figure in the party since the 1980s. He played a key role in New Labour and the 1997 landslide election victory, was MP for Hartlepool and held ministerial positions but was twice forced to resign.

Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador in Washington in December 2024, but he was sacked last September, after Downing Street said new information about the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein had emerged.

But it’s since transpired that in January 2025 he had failed a “developed” security vetting carried out by UK Security Vetting (UKSV), a division of the Cabinet Office. The decision to overrule the UKSV was made by the Foreign Office without Downing Street’s knowledge, according to reports.

Civil servants at the Foreign Office were able to override security warnings by deploying a rarely used, high-level authority to grant clearance despite a recommendation to deny it. According to The Guardian, they acted on the understanding that the prime minister wanted the appointment to proceed.

Did Starmer know?

The so-called Mandelson files released so far show that Starmer was warned of the reputational dangers of the appointment, but there was no mention in any documents that Mandelson did not pass the security vetting process. More files are yet to be released.

At least two senior civil servants knew several weeks ago that Mandelson had failed security vetting for his US ambassador role, according to Sky News. A Cabinet Office spokesperson said that they didn’t pass the information to Starmer because they were waiting for legal checks on what information could be released.

Starmer said he was “absolutely furious” that he wasn’t made aware that Mandelson had failed the security vetting and described the situation as “completely unacceptable”. He insisted that he would have reversed the appointment had he known. Beth Rigby, Sky News’ political editor, said that although the PM is “normally not one to show emotion”, he was “near apoplectic”.

Who else knew?

The Foreign Office’s top civil servant, Olly Robbins, was “one of the few people who knew the true outcome of the vetting process”, said The Telegraph. He discovered this in January 2025 but decided to override the recommendation not to approve the peer for the US ambassador role, although he is thought to have “harboured private concerns about the appointment”. Robbins was sacked on Thursday after the revelations became public, and is said to be considering taking legal action.

As the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy had to formally give approval for Mandelson, to be given the go-ahead, but did so against his own wishes and was apparently unaware of the failed vetting, said the broadsheet. Allies of the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said she did not find out until the story broke on Thursday, two days after the PM found out.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has proposed to increase defence spending by less than £10 billion over the next four years, despite the Armed Forces highlighting a £28 billion funding gap in the same period, and warning that Britain’s “national security and safety is in peril”, said The Times.

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, a former Nato secretary-general, accused the Treasury in a speech on Tuesday of “vandalism” for inaction on defence. Leader of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review, Robertson said that for the UK “building deterrence will not be quick or cheap”. He added that “the public need to face that uncomfortable fact or suffer the consequences of not being safe in a very turbulent world.”

With a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East and continued conflict in Ukraine, many fear that the government’s pledges to defence will prove difficult to fulfil.

What has the government pledged?

Minister of State for the Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard stated in the House that the government was undertaking the “largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War”, in response to Lord Robertson’s claims, but this is a “low bar”, said Ben Chu on BBC News. Defence spending has been on an “almost constant downward path since the fall of the Berlin Wall”.

The UK government currently spends 2.4% of GDP on defence, and Keir Starmer has committed to hitting 2.5% from April next year. This will then rise to 3% “at some point during the next parliament”, said The Times, though some critics think that the UK “should be hitting the 3% target now”.

More broadly, in June last year the government also committed to a Nato-wide agreement to spend 5% of GDP on national security. This figure will be split into 3.5% on “core defence” and 1.5% on “resilience and security” by 2035.

What state are the Armed Forces in?

In 1990, at the end of the Cold War, the Army had “153,000 regular soldiers in its ranks”, said the BBC. Now, it has less than half that number, just 73,790, according to the Ministry of Defence.

When it comes to recruitment, “Britain is at serious risk of being left behind” as other countries look to bolster their ranks, said Cahal Milmo and Jane Merrick in The i Paper. European neighbours Germany, Finland, Poland and France are “forging ahead with rearmament schemes” and programmes to increase numbers applying to their armed forces.

In the year to September 2025, the number of applications to the British Army Regular Forces (108,020) decreased by 36.6% compared to the previous year (170,380), according to the MoD.

In terms of equipment, in 1990, the Royal Navy had 13 destroyers and 35 frigates, which has since dropped to six and 11 respectively, said the BBC. Similarly, in 1990 the RAF had 300 combat jets. Though the current 137 Eurofighter Typhoons and minimum 37 Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning IIs are “technically superior”, they are fewer in number. The use in combat of unmanned drones, which did not exist in 1990, is rising, and these also form part of the UK’s military aircraft.

How have recent ventures fared?

The “sad state” of the Armed Forces was illustrated by the delay in the deployment of HMS Dragon to the Middle East, said Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian. Even after the delay, the destroyer “needed further repairs almost as soon as it arrived”. It is the Navy’s “lone destroyer available to help protect British interests” in the Middle East, as the Navy’s “largest and most expensive” ships, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales – which “cost more than £6 billion” – were unavailable.

On land, ministers are facing “scrapping” the Ajax armoured vehicle programme, due to health concerns for its operators. Its issues are “so serious that vibration and noise have made soldiers training on it sick, with some suffering hearing loss”. More than £6 billion has been spent on the project, and it is “already eight years late”.

The government is also “under increasing pressure” to deliver its “long-delayed” Defence Investment Plan, said The i Paper. This promises to “overhaul Britain’s military capabilities with about £300 billion of investment over a decade”, said the outlet. Though expected to have been released last October, due to concerns over the MoD funding gap, it is not expected “until June at the earliest”.

What needs to be done?

The war in the Middle East should be a “wake-up call” for the UK to recognise its “vulnerabilities”, said George Robertson in Prospect. “There are many.” Public attention is mostly focused on the tangibles – such as planes, tanks and ships – but they are the “baubles on the Christmas tree”. “We need to focus on the tree itself” by addressing “crises in logistics, engineering, cyber, ammunition, training and medical resources”.

“This is gutter politics,” was Armed Forces Minister Al Carns’ reply when quizzed about the theft. “We’ve got two wars on, one in the Middle East, one in Ukraine, and we’re talking about someone’s phone.”

But like it or not, the theft of Morgan McSweeney’s work phone is a big political issue, said Alex Glover in The Spectator. In October, when he was still Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, McSweeney was walking down a street in Pimlico, phone to his ear, when a man on a bicycle snatched it from his hand and pedalled off with it. Or so McSweeney told the police.

But that phone held text messages to his friend Lord Mandelson, messages that could have cast light on how the latter got to be appointed our US ambassador, and which would now have to be disclosed as part of the inquiry into the Mandelson/Epstein scandal.

Holes in the tale

To many, the theft sounds too convenient to be true. Not to Starmer, though. As he puts it: “The idea that somehow everybody could have seen that some time in the future there would be a request for the phone is, to my mind, a little bit far-fetched.”

I don’t know the exact fate of the “stolen” phone, said Dan Hodges in the Daily Mail, but I know this: “Starmer is lying his posterior off about what happened.” The phone was reported stolen over a month after Mandelson was sacked as ambassador, by which time everyone, Starmer included, knew the huge significance of his chief of staff’s phone messages. Indeed, meetings were held in Downing Street to “game-out” how to proceed should the government be forced, as it now has been, to release documents relating to Mandelson.

Understandable reaction

And there are huge holes in the tale McSweeney told police, said Amy Gibbons in The Daily Telegraph. He did say that it was a “government phone”, but he never mentioned that he worked for Starmer and that it contained sensitive information. He even gave them confusing details about where the theft took place. Amazingly, the stolen phone wasn’t reported to the intelligence services, nor did No. 10 make any attempt to recover it.

I’m confused, said John Crace in The Guardian. For years, right-wing hacks have been going on about London being “a hellscape ... where simply using your phone is an invitation to be mugged”. Yet instead of cutting McSweeney some slack, they’ve convinced themselves that his is “the only phone in London not to have been nicked”.

Not getting details right just after you’ve been mugged is understandable behaviour for anyone in shock, but not in McSweeney’s case it seems. “After all, it’s a well-known fact that men with ginger hair and a beard can’t be trusted.”

Oil prices jumped last night after Donald Trump said the Iran conflict was “nearing completion”. Despite the US president saying the attacks on Tehran would end in “two to three weeks” and America doesn’t “need their oil”, the markets were not soothed.

“A word – or social media post” – from Trump “used to spark big moves in prices”, said the BBC. Investors would leap on “signs” that things “could escalate or come to an end”. But now traders seem “to be growing more sceptical about the value of his comments”.

What did the commentators say?

At the outset of the conflict, oil prices were “sensitive to Trump’s comments” but his view of the war “seems to change hour by hour”, said Tom Saunders and Eir Nolsoe in The Telegraph. “His stream of often contradictory statements” have made many wonder “whether they can trust the messaging” coming from the US administration, and some traders have drawn back from the market, “leaving prices increasingly untethered from reality”.

However many solutions to the current global oil crisis Donald Trump comes up with, the oil market isn’t listening anymore – “and the price of oil keeps rising”, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. There’s simply no point in Trump “trying to talk the price of oil back down again. It just won’t work.”

His “Persian Taco” tactic “may have run its course”, said Eduardo Porter in The Guardian. “Making extreme threats” and then walking them back may “provide Trump with the illusion of agency” but he “no longer has control of events in Iran”. The markets are “figuring out” that it will probably be Tehran, not the US, that gets to decide when the conflict ends.

What’s next?

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is today chairing a virtual summit with almost three dozen nations, to explore measures to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government is determined to find a solution to the energy challenges, although “it will not be easy”.

And yet, “after nearly three weeks of this conflict”, the global financial system is “functioning without panic or alarming signs of stress”, said Zachary Karabell in the The Washington Post. “It’s important to distinguish between price movements” and stability. “The smooth functioning” of the financial system, “in the face” of crises like the oil shock, “gets little attention, probably because stability is not news”. But central banks, financial institutions and governments have “improved at monitoring” risks, and that should “at least provide some relief in a world full enough of fears”.

With oil and gas prices soaring and supply severely disrupted by conflict in the Middle East, households fear a corresponding spike in their energy bills and calls are coming for the government to act.

Keir Starmer today outlined government measures to “bear down on costs”. The prime minister pointed to Ofgem’s new energy price cap, which amounts to a 7% decrease in energy bills, as well as increases to minimum wages. Starmer also pointed to the £1 billion-a-year Crisis and Resilience Fund that will help vulnerable households with heating oil prices. But the best way to bring down costs for families is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Starmer stressed. That means “pushing for de-escalation in the Middle East”.

The price cap resets at the end of June – and according to forecasts, the next is set to increase by 18%. The Conservatives have called on the government to remove VAT from household energy bills for the next three years, while the Green Party said ministers should increase the tax on energy firms’ profits. Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick accused Rachel Reeves of “acting like a bystander” and not the chancellor.

What did the commentators say?

“The prime minister seems to be suffering from a dangerous degree of complacency in the face of the mounting energy crisis,” said The Independent in an editorial. While other countries’ governments implement measures to conserve energy and support families, such as Australia making some public transport free and Ireland cutting fuel duty, Starmer “has merely urged the British people to ‘act as normal’”. The government is “silent” on any plans it might have to “ameliorate prospectively crippling gas and electricity bills later in the year”.

The soaring price of fuel oil and petrol is playing out against “stagnating living standards” and a “succession of tax rises on work and employment”, more of which kick in this month.

Charities say this month’s increases to council tax, water, broadband and mobile phone tariffs are also “threatening to stretch many households to breaking point”, said the Press Association.

Businesses aren’t protected by the price cap, either. They’re set for “painful increases in their gas and electricity tariffs” as the situation in the Middle East “sends wholesale prices soaring”. Electricity costs have already increased by between 10% and 30% since the conflict began, while gas prices have soared by between 25% and 80%, according to energy analyst Cornwall Insight.

This April 1st is “no joke” for millions of families and small businesses, said the Liberal Democrats in a statement. We need an “urgent cost-of-living plan”.

But we can’t afford more state aid in the form of energy bill subsidies, said The Times. Reeves talks of “targeted” help, but with millions of pensions and welfare claimants, “that could be a very big target”.

The “ruinous spending” of lockdown “crippled this country’s finances”, which Liz Truss ignored when she proposed a universal cap to blunt the impact of the Ukraine war. Gilts “went into freefall” and Truss “was toast”. Since then, the bond market has “consigned Britain to the naughty step”.

Our national debt is at a “crippling 96%” of GDP, the servicing of which will cost £112 billion this year. Inflation and interest rates are set to keep rising, and recession is a “distinct possibility” if the war continues. The government “dare not increase the debt with another universal handout”. The bond markets “will not wear it”.

What next?

Reeves told BBC Breakfast that any support for energy bills would be based on household income, targeted at those who need it most, unlike the universal support rolled out in 2022. “I want to learn the lessons of the past because when Russia invaded Ukraine, the richest, the best-off third of households got more than a third of the support,” the chancellor said. “That makes no sense at all.”

The chancellor said it was “too early” to say who would get help, as demand for energy is at its lowest in the summer. But she “hinted help might not come” until autumn, said the broadcaster.

The Bank of England published its financial stability report today, its first since the US-Israeli war broke out. Domestically, the “economic outlook has deteriorated”, but the UK banking system “has the capacity to support households and businesses”, it said, “even if economic and financial conditions were to be substantially worse than expected”.

“Angela Rayner is no longer ‘on manoeuvres’,” said Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. The former deputy PM is now targeting Keir Starmer “with live rounds”. In a speech last week to the soft-left Momentum group, she said that Labour was fighting for survival and “running out of time”. She also condemned the PM’s plans to make it harder for migrants to gain settled status, calling them “un-British” and a “breach of trust”.

A leftward change of tack

Rayner is clearly setting herself up to replace Starmer after Labour’s expected hammering in May’s local elections – and she may succeed. She’s popular with the Labour movement, and her fellow MPs are desperate. Prior to Labour’s catastrophic by-election loss in Gorton and Denton a month ago, they were “prepared to tolerate a strategy that focused on neutralising Reform UK”. But they now regard the Greens as an existential threat.

A leftward change of tack – whether under Starmer or Rayner – makes electoral sense for Labour, said Andy Beckett in The Guardian. Analysis shows that its loss of support to the Greens, Lib Dems and other parties is “larger and more reversible” than its loss of support to Reform. With today’s fragmented electorate, fortune will favour parties that get their vote out. Securing as little as 25% of the electorate could win a lot of closely contested seats.

‘Power over process’

But is Britain ready to accept Rayner as PM, asked Jason Cowley in The Sunday Times. There’s no doubt that she’s a deft operator with a great life story and considerable charm. “Watch her when she is with the King,” an MP told me. “Now imagine her in the Oval Office with [Donald] Trump. It would work.” Rayner would lead in a different way to Starmer – “not least because, unlike him, she relishes power over process”. With the row over her tax affairs expected to be settled before May, she is ready to join the fray.

But while her attacks on immigration reform may cheer some Labour MPs, they won’t go down well with many voters. Targeting that policy is a “strange decision”, said John Rentoul in The Independent. If, as Rayner claims, Labour must “show the British people whose side we’re on”, it makes little sense to make “soft on immigration” one’s signature policy.

“Keir Starmer is no longer really in charge of this government”; we are ruled by Ed Miliband, said Michael Gove in The Spectator. The man who “messed it up” as Labour leader a decade ago now has “real power and popularity” within the cabinet, the unions and the wider party membership, said Will Lloyd in The New Statesman.

The energy security and net zero secretary may be facing huge pressure as the Iran war sends price shocks through the global energy market but he seems to be doing so from an unassailable position in British politics.

‘Ventriloquist’s dummy’

“Almost everything terrible that could be said” about Miliband has been said already, said Lloyd in The New Statesman. Now I hear “the confidence of someone who had been torched so many times” he can no longer feel fire. “His beliefs have deepened, not changed” and they have “influenced his colleagues, too, perhaps without them realising”. If Andy Burnham or Angela Rayner were to become Labour leader, they wouldn’t “deviate from the script Miliband has written”. Nigel Farage has even “told friends privately” that he expects Miliband himself to become prime minister by 2027.

I have news for anyone who fears such a development, said Gove in The Spectator: this is already Miliband’s administration. Starmer’s foreign policy, economic policy, “political positioning” and “very quest for meaning” are “All. Ed. Miliband.” He has his hand up Starmer’s back “where a spine should be, controlling the ventriloquist’s dummy”.

We all know that in last autumn’s reshuffle, Starmer tried to move Miliband from his current brief, but Miliband said no “and that was that”, said Tom Harris in The Telegraph. Starmer “dare not even ask” Miliband about his role in “deciding whether to exploit new oil and gas fields in the North Sea”. Doesn’t he know his job is to lead the government, not to wait for Miliband to tell him what to do?

‘Clown prince of the soft left’

Miliband was the “leader who broke Labour – and in doing so, broke Britain”, said Sarah Ditum in The i Paper. “He entrenched” the party’s “worst habits of self-loathing and internal schism”, lost one general election, and “set the stage for even worse”. His “miserable tenure” promptly ushered in the Eurosceptic Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour put up “only a vague shrug” of opposition to Brexit.

But by appointing him to the cabinet, Starmer has “treated Miliband as an elder statesman, rather than the clown prince of the soft left”. Handing the energy brief “to a man whose history as leader is a catalogue of incompetence” may well ensure a “catastrophic swing back to fossil fuels under a Reform government”.

The departures of Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney mean Miliband has “finally won” the tussle between New Labour/Blue Labour and the soft left, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. Starmer is “still quite likely to fall”, and any subsequent leadership battle “can only be held or won from the Ed Miliband position”. What Labour’s “lost leader” stands for is “irresistible within the party”. Miliband “will be its most important political force, whatever his formal job”.

It clearly tickled Donald Trump’s fancy. The debut episode of live sketch comedy “Saturday Night Live UK” went down so well with the US president, he treated his Truth Social followers to a clip mocking Keir Starmer for being scared to talk to him about the war in Iran.

But British reviewers were not so amused – and several were not afraid to find fault with the UK version of the long-running US show.

‘Tepid cosplay’

That “laughter-free yawn” was “not a patch” on the US original, said Deadline’s Baz Bamigboye. “What is it?! Painful, that’s what.”

“I do not want to condemn this whole endeavour outright,” said Charlotte Ivers in The Times. “But the spark is not there yet.” We and “our US cousins” have “wildly differing senses of humour”, and, watching this, you feel it “like a physical ache”.

No one “cried” or “fluffed their lines”, said Alison Rowat in The Herald, but “you could almost smell the tension in the studio”. There was “good” but also “bad” and “so-so”. Nothing was “hilarious”, but “some sketches raised a smile”, like the “movie junket interviewer who dares to tell stars their movie sucks”.

Saturday Night Live “represents the quintessence of the American comedic establishment” but its name doesn’t have “much Clapham omnibus cut-through here in Britain”, said Nick Hilton in The Independent. So “it’s a bit of a shame” that the team “plays it so safe” with the imported formula. It seemed like “tepid cosplay”.

British comedy shows used to be hammy and contrived like this, said Nicholas Harris in The New Statesman but they’ve become “more stylised, ironic”. I suspect the “failure” of “Saturday Night Live UK” has “more to do with the UK than ‘Saturday Night Live’”.

‘Stinging gags’

“It could have been a lot, lot worse”, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. And it’s likely to become “a lot, lot better” as it settles in over the coming weeks. It was “refreshing” that “an ambition/piece of madness like retooling a legacy US brand for this septic isle” was “even being attempted”, so “let’s hope it can build towards real success”.

The first episode was “competent, untroubled by either annoying American-isms or annoying Americans – and occasionally hilarious”, said Ed Power in The Telegraph. Guest host Tina Fey was “effortlessly commanding”, thanks to her “visible ease with the format” but the “real highlight was the Weekend Update section”, with its “stinging and completely non-woke gags” about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Trump and the Strait of Hormuz.

The schadenfreude with which social-media users were predicting it would “crash and burn” was “wide of the mark”. I’d say it “was off to a flying start”.

Wales goes to the polls on 7 May but 58% of Welsh voters don’t know how their votes will be counted. In the hugely important Senedd election that could topple Welsh Labour’s 27-year grip on devolved power, there will be a new voting system – but that’s news to all but 7% of the electorate, according to polling by YouGov/Cardiff University.

Labour has “topped” elections in Wales for years, said Politico, but now looks headed for defeat. Some even predict a rout so heavy, the party could be “fighting for a reason to exist”.

How will Senedd voting work now?

The elections to the Welsh parliament – which can raise local taxes and has the power to make laws on healthcare, education, local transport, social services and culture – will be held under a new closed list proportional system.

From 1999 until now, the Senedd was elected using the additional member system that is also used in Scotland. Voters would cast two votes: one for a constituency candidate, and one for a party. The constituency votes were counted on a first-past-the-post basis, and a special formula was applied to the count of party votes to select 20 additional members of the Senedd, each representing one of five regions.

But this year, voters will cast one vote only – and for a party (or an independent), rather than an individual. Each political party will prepare a list of up to eight candidates for each constituency, and MS seats will be allocated on the share of votes that each party (or independent) receives. The number of MSs will increase from 60 to 96, and the number of constituencies will decrease from 40 to 16.

One of the advantages of the new system is the end of by-elections: if an MS seat becomes vacant during a Senedd term, it will be filled by the next candidate on their party’s list. Or, if the departing MS is an independent, it will be left vacant until the next election.

But as well as potentially confusing voters, as the YouGov/Cardiff University polling suggests, the closed list system also “reduces voter choice”, said the Institute for Government think tank. Voters can no longer “express a preference” for a particular candidate, which could be said “to reduce the direct accountability between voters and MSs”.

The new system may also “benefit emergent parties in Wales, to the detriment of more established parties, whose candidates are more likely to have a strong personal profile”. Many think this will help Reform, “who are recognisable at a national level but lack a well-established local party presence or well-known candidates across Wales”.

Who will win and which issues will decide it?

Three key issues will decide the outcome of this election, according to a Savanta poll for the BBC: the cost of living; the performance of health and social care services, and the level of immigration. There is some demographic variation: health and social care is “particularly important” to older voters and women, while immigration is the key issue for those who voted Reform at the 2024 general election. Younger voters also singled out “a fourth issue: housing”.

Reform and Plaid Cymru are currently neck and neck, said Wales Online, and projected to be tied on 28 seats each”, with Labour “just behind on 26”. The Greens and the Conservatives are each projected to get 10% of the vote – meaning the Greens could win MS seats for the first time – with the Liberal Democrats on 7%. The most common prediction is a Plaid minority government propped up by Labour, “blowing a hole in Labour’s status as the default governing party”, said Politico.

What does it all mean for Keir Starmer? 

Nigel Farage said yesterday that the Senedd vote “doubles up as a referendum on Keir Starmer’s premiership”. He claimed Labour’s “dominance in Wales and, in particular, the Valleys” would end on 7 May, and, if we get this right, “we will get rid of the worst prime minister any of us have seen in our lifetime”.

Labour’s Eluned Morgan, First Minister of Wales, has said this is not a time for a protest vote against the prime minister, and voters should “wake up” to the prospect of two pro-independence parties – Plaid Cymru and the Greens – ending up in power when so much is at stake for the economy and public services.

The Bank of England today held interest rates at 3.75% and warned of higher-than-expected inflation, as the US-Israel war with Iran delivers a “new shock” to the UK economy.

“War in the Middle East has pushed up global energy prices,” said Bank governor Andrew Bailey. “You can already see that at the petrol pump and, if it lasts, it will feed into higher household energy bills later in the year.”

The direct impact of rising energy prices is likely to add about 0.75% to inflation this autumn, instead of an expected fall. And, if businesses pass their higher costs on to consumers, that could add a further 0.25%. All the signals point to “households and homeowners” suffering “further financial hardship”, if the Iran war does not end soon, said The Times.

What did the commentators say?

Seventy years ago, we had petrol rationing, triggered by the Suez crisis, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. That’s “ancient history now – or it would be, if it weren’t for what looks increasingly like” America’s “version of Suez”. Yet again, a global superpower is “starting a war it seemingly doesn’t know how to finish, against an enemy it woefully underestimated”.

Oil experts have warned that Britain “could be only weeks away from needing to ration fuel”, if tankers don’t resume sailing through the Strait of Hormuz soon. Other countries are “already being forced into drastic steps”. In Pakistan, schools have been closed and government offices have been put into a four-day week, Vietnam is “urging people to work from home”, and Bangladesh has stationed soldiers at fuel depots.

“The financial impact on the UK from” this war is “yet to fully play out, but the outlook is bleak”, said Rosa Prince on Bloomberg. Donald Trump’s “folly” has “kiboshed” Keir Starmer’s “economic revival”. For a “brief moment”, green shoots emerged, and a path opened up for him “to salvage his beleaguered premiership”, only for “Trump’s addiction to foreign escapades” to crush it.

The Iran crisis could “easily accelerate the death of manufacturing” in Britain if “vicious” energy-price rises last longer than a few weeks, said Ben Marlow in The Telegraph. They could crush “the life out” of our heavy industry, shutting down production lines and mothballing “entire factory complexes”. There is a “real risk of widespread de-industrialisation”.

There is “deep energy-linked frustration” in Europe, too, said the BBC’s Katya Adler. “The knock-on effects” of this Middle East conflict is “awakening ghosts of crises past” when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rocked the EU’s energy market. Europe has since ended its reliance on Russian gas and oil but it now depends heavily on the US and Norway for energy provision – “which won’t solve its problem with energy security” and won’t shield it from the current price spikes.

What next?

I see a “similar financial anxiety” in the UK as when Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, said Albert Toth in The Independent. “And that had a long-standing impact on the cost of living.” Volatility in the oil market directly impacts household finances in various ways, some of them more “subtle” than others. People will expect energy bills and petrol prices to go up but “less obvious” will be the rising cost of food, pushed up by increasing transport costs and disrupted fertiliser supply chains.

For Starmer, dealing with Trump’s demands for military back-up may be difficult, but managing the “war’s economic blow is trickier”, said Bloomberg’s Prince. He may as well blame the US president for “sending Britain’s cost of living spiralling”. This week, he announced £53 million in support for low-income households who are most exposed to the sharp increase in heating-oil prices but his government “will need a much bigger package if the conflict drags on”. And “that won’t be easy, given existing strains on the public purse”.

The British public was “expecting to be surprised” by the first tranche of the Mandelson files, said Ailbhe Rea in The New Statesman. Yet despite hopes for “damning correspondence” to be in the 147-page document, “there was very little I didn’t already know”.

As it turned out “the first drop of the Mandelson files contained neither a smoking gun nor bombshell revelation”, said Beth Rigby on Sky News. Details about Peter Mandelson’s severance payment after being sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US, and the “rushed” vetting process for his appointment have made the headlines, but the number of documents withheld, redacted or yet to be released mean the picture remains incomplete.

What did the commentators say?

Keir Starmer “must release all the Mandelson files”, said The Telegraph in an editorial. It appears some of the files “may not see the light of day for years” due to ongoing police investigations. The police are “entitled to do their job and proceed with their investigation without undue interference”, but “questions about the prime minister’s judgment on this matter are not going away. The public deserve to know just how credulous Sir Keir really was.”

The comment in the files by Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser who was also Tony Blair’s chief of staff, that the appointment of Mandelson was “weirdly rushed”, is a “quietly damning analysis that will haunt Starmer forever”, said Rea. And the decision to give Mandelson a “£75,000 payoff” after his dismissal, when his contract, also included in the release, showed that “he was owed precisely £0”, raises questions, too.

But there is undoubtedly a “missing piece of the puzzle”, such as the correspondence between the former No. 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and Mandelson. Reportedly, McSweeney asked Mandelson “three questions”, which Mandelson claimed he answered truthfully, a comment the government disputes.

It was clear from the files we have seen so far that due process was not followed in the vetting of Mandelson for the US ambassador role, said The Times in an editorial. The documents show Mandelson was “offered classified briefings” by government officials before he was granted appropriate security clearance: “it is hard to imagine this being granted to other ambassadorial appointments”. The government refuted allegations that the vetting process was “fast-tracked”, yet now it is claiming this was allowed “because Mandelson was a privy councillor, which does suggest due process was not followed”.

The files released in this first tranche “failed to include any interventions, comments or guidance from Starmer himself”, said Anna Gross in the Financial Times. “The prime minister emerges from this admittedly partial picture less as the main character in his own drama than as an oddly disembodied presence,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. We are left to wonder whether Mandelson’s appointment was the result of the PM’s readiness to “delegate” high-level decisions to McSweeney, or belief that the risk of having “his own personal Machiavelli” close to Donald Trump “was worth it”. Either way, as he was forced to admit this week, it was “his mistake”.

What next?

It will be several weeks at least before more documents are released, as they must first be examined by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. Senior government figures told The Guardian that Starmer “could suffer further resignations when ministerial WhatsApp messages are published in the next tranche”.

These files will include informal messages between Mandelson and government figures “for six months before his appointment, and during his time as ambassador”. These “could prove a powder keg for already inflamed tensions between Washington and London”, said Rigby. Only documents that pose “significant security concerns” will be withheld.

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”

That was Donald Trump’s assessment of Keir Starmer at an Oval Office press conference this week. The US president was “very disappointed” after the prime minister initially barred Washington from using the British-controlled Chagos Islands military base to launch the weekend’s strikes on Iran. It took the US “three or four days” to secure permission, Trump complained.

Starmer said he did approve a later, separate US request to use RAF bases for “specific and limited defensive” purposes, to target Iran’s missile facilities and rocket launchers to protect civilians from its retaliatory strikes. “We all remember the mistakes of Iraq,” he said. “And we have learned those lessons.”

But “is this a blip with Trump in a fit of pique”, said The Times’ Washington editor Katy Balls, or is it “the latest sign of a more permanent splintering in relations?”

What did the commentators say?

Officials in Washington and Westminster initially expressed surprise at how well Trump and Starmer “appeared to get on”. The pair don’t have much in common but still had “warm exchanges” – plus the UK “scored a trade deal before others”. But Starmer’s decision to deny the US request for UK help in Iranian strikes “marks a new, more fractious chapter in the so-called special relationship”. Trump “made clear that he sees relations as damaged”.

Clearly, Starmer is “no longer the Trump whisperer”, said The Independent’s political editor David Maddox. The “killer line” was Trump’s “almost wistful reflection that the relationship was ‘not what it was’”. Words like “disappointing” suggest “a certain regret”, rather than “his usual bombastic attack style”.

Trump’s tariffs on the UK and Starmer’s refusal to support his threats to Greenland had already “poisoned” the relationship. Then there’s the “collapse” of Starmer’s popularity. The administration is aware that Starmer’s days as PM “appear to be numbered”. The special relationship is over.

Rather than having broken down this week, the relationship was over the moment the US threatened its Nato allies for “resisting a land-grab” of Greenland, said James Schneider in The New Statesman. And good riddance: it was “never one of equals”; it was “a method by which Britain’s ruling class felt relevant by laundering US power with a clipped accent – and selling it to the public as shared values”.

What Trump does openly is what the US has long done in practice: “use access to its market, its currency, its intelligence networks and its military power to discipline friend and foe alike”.

Foreign policy is “the theatre in which the special relationship most reliably produces catastrophe”. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and now Iran: America's actions have “never commanded popular consent” in Britain.

Nevertheless, “reports of the death of the special relationship are greatly exaggerated”, said The i Paper’s chief political commentator Kitty Donaldson. Many times the two nations have “seemed on the brink of breaking off relations”, under Barack Obama and Joe Biden as well as Trump. Things might have gone “downhill” but the “underlying bedrock” of the “intertwined military and intelligence alliance” is unchanged.

Trump’s criticism is a “pattern of behaviour”, while his officials “crack on as usual behind the scenes”. Their British counterparts “eye-roll” at the claim that the special relationship is dead, said one source. The edifice is “far deeper than a spat”. We “partner more in defence and intelligence than ever before”. The UK and US are each other’s largest investors; each creates more than a million jobs in the other’s country, said Donaldson. As one British intelligence source put it: “It’s business as usual.”

What next?

Starmer is under pressure to “move leftwards” and many MPs and voters would “like a tougher line against Trump”, said Balls. In Trump’s camp, plenty of people would be “all too happy” to egg the president on in taking a “more aggressive approach with the UK”. Some are “already frustrated with the UK’s pivot closer to Europe”.

But there’s a personal aspect too. One insider describes an “ancestral yearning for the UK” in Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and the Maga movement more widely. Trump is invested partly because of his Scottish mother and “love of the monarchy”; he’s excited for the King’s visit to the US in April.

Starmer is “well aware of the scars Labour carries from Iraq, and the reluctance of voters to join another war in the Middle East”, said Donaldson. But there’s simply no “withdrawing from the special relationship, whatever temporary spat is taking place”.

Britain will deploy HMS Dragon and helicopters with anti-drone capabilities in Cyprus, Keir Starmer has confirmed.

In a post on X, Starmer said the UK was “fully committed to the security of Cyprus and British military personnel based there”. The prime minister said he had spoken with the president of Cyprus “to let him know that we are sending helicopters with counter-drone capabilities and HMS Dragon is to be deployed to the region”.

The deployment of extra protection follows criticism of the UK by Cyprus following a drone strike on the RAF base of Akrotiri, which forced locals to flee.

The government in Nicosia will make a diplomatic complaint and hasn’t ruled out renegotiating the status of British bases there after the attack “effectively dragged the island into the “unfolding crisis” in the Middle East, said Politico.

What is the UK’s history in Cyprus?

In 1878, Cyprus and its population of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots was transferred from the Ottoman Empire to British control. The Greek Cypriot majority wanted the removal of British rule and union with Greece, while Turkish Cypriots favoured continued British rule or partition.

In 1955, government and military installations and personnel were attacked by Greek Cypriot fighters. British reinforcements arrived and began a series of operations against the Greek Cypriots. By 1957, most of the Greek Cypriot leaders had been killed or captured and in 1959, the UK agreed for Cyprus to become an independent republic.

In the following decades, the island was “plagued with violence” between its Greek and Turkish communities, said the Imperial War Museum. In 1974, Turkey invaded and divided the island between Turkish Northern Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot Republic of Cyprus. It remains divided to this day.

So from imperial outpost to diplomatic headache, the Mediterranean island has occupied a significant place in British foreign policy. In 2010, a UK government minister said it was a “scandal and a tragedy” that the EU included a divided capital and divided island. A Greek Cypriot leader remarked that Britain bore much of the blame.

Why are British bases there?

When Britain “relinquished control” over Cyprus in 1960 a “condition of the handover” was that Britain retained two Sovereign Base areas: Akrotiri and Dhekelia, said The Telegraph. They cover “roughly 3% of the island” and are among the 14 surviving British Overseas Territories, such as Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands.

The bases “enable the UK to maintain a permanent military presence at a strategic point in the Eastern Mediterranean”, said the British Army. RAF Akrotiri is an “important staging post” for military aircraft and its communication facilities are an “important element” of the UK’s global links. The Akrotiri base has been used in the past for military operations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Why is Cyprus angry?

The drone attack was the first time one of the UK bases on Cyprus has been hit since a rocket attack by Libyan ⁠militants in 1986.

Expressing “dissatisfaction” towards Britain over the latest attack, a Cypriot government spokesperson, Konstantinos Letymbiotis, said that despite assurances to Nicosia, “there was no clear clarification” from Keir Starmer that the UK’s Cyprus bases “would under no circumstances be used for any purpose other than humanitarian reasons”.

Asked whether the Cypriot government, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, will seek to renegotiate the status of the bases, Letymbiotis said “in this context, we are not ruling anything out”.

The Greens’ first ever Westminster by-election victory has prompted further soul-searching for a listless Labour Party less than two years on from their landslide election win.

“By-elections seldom matter much once the circus packs up, but this one is existential” for Labour, said Patrick Maguire in The Times. The rise of Reform UK has been much talked about and the “essay question of British electoral politics remains how the left might beat them”. But now “nowhere in the country does the answer appear to be a vote for the Labour Party”.

But the Gorton and Denton result is as much about the Greens’ emergence as an electoral force as it is about the love Labour’s lost.

What did the commentators say?

The result caps six months in which Zack Polanski “has presided over a leap in his party’s poll ratings and sought to retool its message”, said Politico. In her victory speech Hannah Spencer, the party’s fifth and newest MP, followed the way Polanski has “tried to foreground cost-of-living concerns, at the expense of the Greens’ traditional eco message”. But the party has also faced claims that it is stoking division.

“The extent to which the party has campaigned in an unashamedly sectarian manner is shocking,” said The Times in an editorial. The party released a video in Urdu, appealing directly to the constituency’s large Muslim population, featuring Keir Starmer shaking hands with Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India, while Spencer said voters should “punish Labour for Gaza”. The win does nothing for “those who believe elections should be fought on issues, not religious identity or about conflicts far away”.

Nigel Farage claimed that there were high levels of “family voting”, an illegal practice which can include husbands instructing their wives how to vote. “Whether the vote was genuinely corrupt,” said Jake Wallis Simons in The Telegraph, “there is little doubt that we are witnessing the manipulation of tribal voting as a decisive power-play in our political system.”

But “in reality the result was not a victory for sectarianism or ‘cheating’”, said Adam Bienkov in Byline Times. Instead it showed the ability of “most voters in the Greater Manchester seat to reject the politics of Reform”. In Matthew Goodwin, Reform chose “an extreme and divisive candidate, with a history of dabbling in racist comments and discredited race science”, and he has been rejected by voters. “For now at least, in a battle between hope and hate, hope has won.”

What next?

The Green Party is now a “large, viable, organised electoral vehicle, aiming to replace Labour at the polls”, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman.

The result in Gorton and Denton “says to the one in three current Labour voters also giving thought to switching that a Green vote is no longer a wasted vote”. With the upcoming local and devolved elections in May, Green “gains in London and urban northern England, as well as Wales and Scotland, would embed the feeling that the Labour Party is no longer the pre-eminent party of the left”.

The Greens can now “position themselves as the ‘anti-Farage’ party in swaths of working-class Britain”, said George Parker and Jennifer Williams in the Financial Times. In 2024, they won 6.7% of the national vote and four seats at Westminster, “but the party came second in 40 constituencies, 18 of which were in London. In all but one of those seats, the party was second to Labour.”

The outcome of today’s by-election in Gorton and Denton, one of the most unpredictable in years, will be closely scrutinised as a political bellwether.

The southeast Manchester constituency was a Labour stronghold with a 13,400-vote majority until former MP Andrew Gwynne resigned. Now, polls have it as a three-way contest between Reform UK, Labour and the Green Party, whose candidate Hannah Spencer is a local councillor and plumber. Reform’s candidate, GB News presenter Matt Goodwin, has also painted the by-election as a referendum on Keir Starmer’s leadership. The prime minister blocked Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from standing as Labour’s candidate, selecting city councillor Angeliki Stogia instead.

But in an era of multi-party politics, by-election results are decided by increasingly tight margins, making turn-out and tactical voting significant factors. Last year, a split vote on the left meant Reform won Runcorn and Helsby from Labour by six votes.

What did the commentators say?

It can be “unwise to extrapolate from by-election results”, said The Economist in 2023. Turnout is poor and half the seats gained at by-elections between 1992 and 2019 were lost at the next general election. Some parties, like the Liberal Democrats, can “outperform” in them.

They are “awkward beasts and don’t necessarily follow the usual rules”, said Louise Thompson, politics lecturer at the University of Manchester, on The Conversation. Gorton and Denton is a new constituency, formed from parts of three others in 2024. There are “huge socio-demographic differences” between its predominantly white, working-class wards and areas with a “much higher student and Muslim population”.

The “likeliest split outcome is straightforward”, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman: Denton votes Reform; Gorton and its neighbours go Green. Yet that would “reveal little about the overall winner”. Forecasting site Britain Predicts has it as a “strikingly tight” race: Green on 31%, Reform on 30% and Labour on 29%. Based on expected turn-out, only “a few hundred votes separate first from third”.

There might also be a “squeeze” effect. In such contests, smaller parties “often underperform” because voters gravitate towards “perceived frontrunners, where their vote seems more likely to make a difference”. If the Greens are seen as the tactical voting preference, “they should win the seat emphatically”. If Labour is seen as the way to beat Reform, “they should eke out a narrow win”.

It’s therefore the system, not the outcome, that should be “receiving more attention”, said Ian Simpson of the Electoral Reform Society. First past the post is “not designed with more than two candidates in mind”. Where three or more parties are contesting a seat, candidates are increasingly elected with “fewer than a third of voters in their area”. More than two-thirds of ballots cast are “simply ignored”.

In a multi-party contest, the debate becomes dominated by tactical voting, around “which party is best placed to stop another party from winning”. In this case, both Labour and the Green Party tried to persuade voters that they were the only option to “stop Reform”.

But these claims have been “unsubstantiated”, said The Independent’s John Rentoul. To vote tactically, “you need to know how other people are planning to vote”. That hasn’t been possible here; people have already been voting by post. Stronger Green wards may have also been “over-represented” in polls.

Normally, this wouldn’t matter. By-elections exist to “register protest against the government”. Their history is “littered with sensational upsets” that nevertheless “left the governing party untouched and were reversed at the subsequent general election”.

But “Gorton and Denton feels different”. The government is “fragile”; MPs are “panicky”. Parliamentary politics is split five ways. “Will Reform or the Conservatives lead the right at the next election? Will Labour, the Greens or the Lib Dems lead the left?” Any outcome will “shape politics for months”. It could influence tactical voting calculations in the May local elections and even the general election. “Most by-elections do not matter. This one does.”

What next?

The results are due at 4am tomorrow. A Labour win would “embolden Starmer and prompt a thousand think-pieces about a corner turned”, said Rentoul.

A victory for Reform’s “divisive, hyper-online” Goodwin would be “the biggest sign yet” that Reform’s poll lead “represents real voter intentions” rather than just “dissatisfaction with the government”, said The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot.

But a Green victory might be “the most catastrophic result for Starmer’s leadership”. It would show that the Greens are “a serious progressive force, not a protest vote”.

Whatever the result, there are “big implications” for Starmer ahead of what are widely expected to be “disastrous results” for Labour in the local elections. But if this by-election has barely 1,000 votes between the top three parties, “each would be wise not to overanalyse the results – but that won’t stop anyone”.

Keir Starmer will ask his independent ethics adviser to investigate whether Cabinet Office minister Josh Simons breached the ministerial code, amid allegations he was involved in a smear campaign targeting journalists.

Simons was director of the Labour Together think tank when it allegedly paid a PR firm thousands of pounds to investigate the personal, religious and political backgrounds of journalists who were digging into how its undeclared funding bankrolled Starmer’s Labour leadership campaign.

“I have heard of black briefings, but never heard of anything like this,” former Labour MP Jon Cruddas, who helped set up Labour Together in 2015, told Democracy for Sale. “This is dark shit.”

What is alleged?

In November 2023, The Sunday Times reported that the pro-Starmer think tank Labour Together had failed to declare £730,000 in political donations between 2017 and 2020. It was headed at that time by Morgan McSweeney, who would later serve as Starmer’s chief of staff in Downing Street. The think tank attributed the discrepancy to an administrative error.

An investigation by Khadija Sharife and Peter Geoghegan, published on Geoghegan’s Substack site Democracy for Sale, revealed that Labour Together paid PR firm Apco “at least £30,000” for material on the journalists. At the time of the payment, the directorship of the think tank had passed to Simons, a former policy adviser to Jeremy Corbyn who was elected MP for Makerfield near Wigan in 2024. In September 2025, Simons became a Cabinet Office minister.

Apco’s report, codenamed “Operation Cannon”, divulged personal information about the journalists involved, including claims about the “faith, relationships and upbringing” of Sunday Times reporter Gabriel Pogrund, said the BBC.

Labour Together then passed “some of Apco’s material” on to the security services, “raising serious questions about whether public authorities were drawn into an effort to discredit legitimate journalism”, said Geoghegan in The Guardian.

What has the response been?

For a think tank so closely aligned to a political party to hire a PR firm to investigate journalists is “highly unusual”, said Sharife and Geoghegan, and the revelations have “sparked” a “furious response” both inside and outside Labour.

While not denying that Labour Together hired Apco, Simons has said he was “surprised and shocked” that the report included “unnecessary information” on Pogrund. “I asked for this information to be removed before passing the report to GCHQ.”

Starmer has said he “didn’t know anything” about the Apco report, and has asked the Cabinet Office to “establish the facts”. An investigation has since been launched by its propriety, ethics and constitution group, but critics claim this is the government effectively marking its own homework. More than 20 Labour MPs have written to the PM and Labour Party general secretary Hollie Ridley, demanding an independent investigation.

How deep does this go?

Simons is not the only Labour figure who is “either directly or indirectly connected to what is fast becoming another crisis threatening Sir Keir’s grip on power”, said The Telegraph.

Labour Together’s influence “goes deep into the heart of the government”. It provides a “crucial source of funding” for the party’s frontbenchers, “spending tens of thousands of pounds” to pay for assistants for the likes of Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper, David Lammy, John Healey and Shabana Mahmood.

Another connection is Kate Forrester, who at the time the report was commissioned in late 2023 was a director of Apco’s London operations, while also serving on Labour Together’s advisory board. She is married to Paul Ovenden, who was Starmer’s head of communications at the time.

“This scandal cuts to the heart of Number 10,” said Geoghegan in The Guardian, but it also “raises broader questions”. Chief among these is London’s position as “the global centre of the private intelligence industry”, which is worth a reported £15 billion a year and yet “remains almost entirely opaque”.

Keir Starmer’s painstakingly thrashed out plan to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is facing renewed challenge.

Donald Trump originally backed the deal, under which the UK would relinquish sovereignty of the archipelago in return for a 99-year lease on the crucial US-UK Diego Garcia military base. But he began to waver after intense lobbying from US and UK politicians, including Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch. And now, perhaps irked by the UK’s refusal to allow him to use the British base there to launch potential attacks on Iran, he’s said the deal would be “a big mistake”.

UK opponents of the deal are now “increasingly optimistic they can block” Parliament from voting it into law and “force Starmer into a U-turn”, said The i Paper’s deputy political editor Arj Singh.

What did the commentators say?

The amount of time, effort and political capital Labour has spent over this deal may seem “odd”, said former Foreign Office special adviser Ben Judah in The Sunday Times but “it was not human rights waffle or some misguided fantasy about pleasing the global south that brought us to this point”. Following a 2019 International Court of Justice “advisory opinion” against continued British ownership of Chagos, both the UK and US risked losing access to the strategically vital military base or, worse, it falling into the hands of China.

The problem for Starmer is that the “three-step logic” driving the deal “cannot be expressed in a Tweet, or by a government spokesman, without causing diplomatic pain and embarrassment”. This means the deal is open to attack “from all sides for what it is not”: “woke” lawyer activism, “a misguided soft power exercise drawn up by brain-dead diplomats, even treason”. Actually, it is “a piece of Realpolitik firmly grounded in geopolitical trade-offs”.

Despite his latest salvo on Truth Social, Trump “hasn’t explicitly stated whether he will veto the Chagos agreement”, said Kamlesh Bhuckory and Ellen Milligan on Bloomberg. “The UK government is looking into whether he has the power to do so”, aware that former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, a vocal critic of the deal, has said it will fail without US support.

Mauritius, for its part, has accused a group of Chagossians, who have “settled” on a remote island in the archipelago, of staging a publicity stunt to scupper the deal. There are also reports that Mauritius “may launch legal action for compensation” if the treaty is cancelled, said The Telegraph’s editorial board. This only shows that “the financial aspect of this deal is far more important to Mauritius than the spurious claim to sovereignty under international law”. Trump’s “new-found antipathy” has offered Starmer “a way out of the hole he has dug for himself. He needs to take it.”

What next?

Starmer “has to get the treaty ratified before May or it fails”, said David Maddox in The Independent. The government has pulled plans for a vote in the House of Lords on Tuesday but there is still “some small hope” for the PM with signs that Liberal Democrat peers may abstain when the vote returns in early March. Even then, it still has to return to the House of Commons for final ratification.

Whatever brickbats have been thrown his way, Starmer has been praised for “his international statesmanship” but “now the Chagos nightmare suggests even that is unravelling for this ill-fated PM”.

Keir Starmer has appointed Antonia Romeo as his new cabinet secretary, following the departure of Chris Wormald. The prime minister said that since he came into office, he has been “impressed by her professionalism and determination to get things done”.

Romeo will be the first woman to serve as the UK’s top civil servant in the role’s 110-year history. Despite investigations into her leadership style resurfacing, and criticism of the vetting process to fast-track her into the role, some believe Romeo could be the spearhead of Labour’s long-called-for cultural reset.

Who is Antonia Romeo?

Romeo has risen through the ranks of the civil service and spent “nearly a decade leading economic, public services and security departments”, said a government statement. She has been permanent secretary in three major government departments: the Department for International Trade, the Ministry of Justice and, most recently, the Home Office, a role she has held since April 2025.

Seen as “unorthodox and unconventional”, she is certainly “anything but the traditional stuffy Whitehall mandarin”, said Sky News. It is thought that she was instrumental in easing the overcrowded prisons crisis, instigating the Sentencing Review, among other initiatives.

During her career, and particularly as the UK’s consul general in New York in 2016-17, Romeo faced “multiple bullying complaints” and an expenses-related allegation, said the BBC. However, following investigations, government sources said there was “no case to answer”.

What has the reaction been?

In early February, Lord McDonald, the former head of the Diplomatic Service, launched an “unprecedented attack” on Romeo, “inviting Downing Street to go looking for bodies in Romeo’s resume”, said Politics Home. In a televised interview on Channel 4 News, McDonald said that “due diligence was vitally important”, and it would be an “unnecessary tragedy to repeat” the mistake of the appointment of Peter Mandelson.

“The underlying rumours around her are an example of sexist, misogynistic culture,” said Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA union. McDonald’s speech is “nonsense” and she has been “vetted within an inch of her life already”.

Amid the “vicious briefing war” surrounding Romeo’s appointment, the cabinet secretary’s allies have accused Foreign Office mandarins of preparing “misogynistic” briefings against her, said The Times. They “focused on her unapologetically ambitious personal style, charm, outgoing personality and her physical appearance”.

What now for the ‘Labour boys’ club’?

Starmer’s government has “faced accusations of being a boys’ club long before the Mandelson affair”, said Politics Home. “At the same time, Downing Street has been accused of overlooking women to give senior jobs to men.”

Now that former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and Wormald are out of Downing Street, the PM is “surrounded almost entirely by female advisers”, said The Observer. Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson are acting chiefs of staff, Amy Richards is his political director and Sophie Nazemi is acting head of communications. “The boys’ club may be over but what will determine whether Starmer survives is not the rise of girl power but the ability to get stuff done.”

After the “political horror show” surrounding the appointment of Mandelson and then of Matthew Doyle to the House of Lords, there is “hope in Labour circles that the ‘boys’ club’ might have gone”, said Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC. Though Romeo is only one change to the advisory panel aiding the PM, it “matters profoundly that one half of the population” is “fairly represented”, and that there are “different perspectives in the rooms where decisions are taken”. There is the prospect that, “at least for now”, there is a “determination that things will change”.

The government has abandoned plans to delay some of the May local elections in another screeching U-turn.

Labour had postponed 30 council votes until 2027, partly because of the cost of running elections for authorities that will be abolished in a reorganisation of local government set to be complete by 2028. Opposition parties argued that the decision disenfranchised 4.5 million voters, and Reform UK launched a legal challenge against the “undemocratic” delay.

Now, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said all local elections will go ahead, citing “new legal advice”. Steve Reed, the MHCLG secretary, said the government would provide up to £63 million to help fund councils’ reorganisation costs.

When are the local elections?

Millions of voters across England head to the polls on Thursday 7 May for the biggest ballot since the 2024 general election. Devolved elections will also take place on the same day. In Scotland, voters will elect representatives to Holyrood, the national parliament, and Wales will hold elections for the Senedd. (In Northern Ireland, local council and Assembly elections are expected in May 2027.)

Where are the local elections?

On 7 May, about 5,000 seats across 136 local councils will be “up for grabs”, said the BBC. These include:

Six county councils: East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and West Sussex.

Fifteen unitary authorities: Blackburn with Darwen, Halton, Hartlepool, Hull, Isle of Wight, Milton Keynes, North East Lincolnshire, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Reading, Southampton, Southend‑on‑Sea, Swindon, Thurrock and Wokingham.

Fifty-one district councils, 32 metropolitan borough councils (out of the total of 36) and all 32 London borough councils.

On the same day, six directly elected mayoral contests will also take place in Watford and the London boroughs of Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets.

Who is eligible to vote in local elections?

About 42 million people in England are eligible to vote, according to the Electoral Commission. These include British citizens, qualifying Commonwealth citizens and those with citizenship of an EU member state – although specific rules vary according to which country you are from. The registration deadline is mid-April, after which the exact number of electors will be published.

The commission has a postcode tool for voters to find out whether elections are coming up in their area and where to find their nearest polling station. You can apply to vote by post and receive a postal vote ballot pack, or you can apply to vote by proxy and nominate someone to vote in person on your behalf.

What ID do you need to vote?

After changes brought in under the Conservative government, voters in England now need to show photo ID at polling stations (you do not need this for a postal vote). This is the list of accepted forms of identification. The document does not need to be in date as long as the photo is recognisable. If you don’t have photo ID, you can apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate before the deadline on 28 April.

What are the results likely to be?

Councils now face an “unnecessary race against time” to organise ballots and book polling stations and staff, said Richard Wright, chair of the District Councils’ Network (a cross-party group that represents 169 English councils) in a statement. Voters will also be “bewildered by the unrelenting changes”.

Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, told The Guardian that parties will now be “scrabbling around to find candidates they didn’t think they needed”.

Local councils are “experiencing whiplash”, said Matthew Hicks, Conservative leader of Suffolk County Council.

“Firstly, we got brickbats for trying to delay elections,” one Labour strategist told the Financial Times, “and secondly, we are now bound to lose a load of seats, so there’s no pretending this is great for us.”

What impact will the U-turn have?

Labour and the Conservatives are both braced for heavy losses at the hands of Reform and the Green Party. The postponement was “never going to enable the party to hide from the potentially adverse judgement of the electorate”, said politics professor John Curtice in The Independent.

London, where 1,800 seats are at stake, is “prime Labour territory” – territory that is now, “given the party’s dire position in the polls, potentially under threat”. The Green Party has “a track record of performing well in local elections”, and in English cities such as “heavily Leave voting Barnsley and Sunderland”, Reform has a “potential breakthrough in their sights”.

In both Scotland and Wales, polls currently point to Labour “ending up in third place”. In Wales, where the party has not lost an election since 1931, such a defeat would be “cataclysmic”.

According to Curtice, the biggest impact of Labour’s U-turn will be on the four county councils, Norfolk, Suffolk, East and West Sussex – three of which are currently controlled by the Conservatives. “Those are large councils where all the seats are up for grabs, and these are the type of areas that should mimic where Reform did well last year,” he told the FT.

US tech giant Palantir has wrapped its tentacles around the British state, securing major contracts with the Ministry of Defence and the NHS in the last three years. However, many are questioning the transparency and procurement process of such deals, and asking whether the company’s ties to Peter Mandelson, Israel and Ice could derail the UK.

The company was criticised this week by hedge fund manager Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale in the film “The Big Short”. He claimed that the tech firm had “systematically unreliable” third-party language models.

In a 10,000-word essay on Substack, he said that the company’s $300 billion valuation will fall by more than two thirds once others realise that “Emperor Palantir has no clothes”.

What is Palantir?

Founded in 2003, Palantir is a technology company that sells software that “processes large sets of data” to help clients, including governments, “find patterns and make operational decisions”, said The Times.

Since it launched its “artificial intelligence platform” in 2023, it has recorded a “surge in sales growth”. The platform has allowed the integration of large language models created by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic into customers’ datasets.

Since this pivot three years ago, it has become a “stock market darling”, rising to a valuation of around $300 billion. Last year it “reported annual sales of $4.5 billion, up 56% year-on-year”.

What is its relationship with the UK?

In December, Palantir signed a contract with the MoD worth £240 million to continue its data analytics relationship. The contract is believed to be worth “three times more” than a previous MoD agreement signed in 2022, said the Financial Times. In 2023, Palantir, as leader of a consortium, also won a seven-year £330 million contract to help manage patient data across the NHS.

In briefings to Health Secretary Wes Streeting in June 2025, Department of Health and Social Care officials feared that Palantir’s associations with the Israeli military and Ice’s operations in the US would hinder the roll-out of the company’s Federated Data Platform in the NHS, according to documents seen by The Guardian. This would mean the contract would not offer value for money for the UK government.

This has arguably materialised. According to NHS data, the number of organisations within the health service using Palantir’s technology has increased from 118 to 151 since June last year. However, this is “well short of the target of 240 by the end of this year”.

Doctors are now being actively told “how to limit engagement with the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP)” because of the “controversial” ties with Palantir, said the British Medical Journal. Given the US company’s “track record” with immigration enforcement and “risks to patient trust” and “data security”, there must be a “complete break” between Palantir technologies and the NHS, British Medical Association chair of council Tom Dolphin told the BMJ.

A spokesperson for Palantir said that its software is “helping to deliver better public services in the UK”, including “delivering 99,000 more NHS operations and reducing hospital discharge delays by 15%”.

What are the concerns?

This week, the government came under pressure to review the MoD contract, due to Peter Mandelson’s links to the company, said The Times.

Mandelson co-founded and held shares in the lobbying firm Global Counsel, which worked with Palantir. Mandelson, as the UK’s ambassador to the US at the time, helped arrange a visit by Keir Starmer to Palantir’s showroom while he was in Washington in February last year and accompanied the PM on the visit.

During the visit, Starmer met Palantir CEO Alex Karp and the company’s UK chief Louis Mosley. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told the FT that this should be “looked at very, very closely”, as the meetings “were not minuted” and she said that the MoD deal last year was a “direct grant of £240 milllion – not a tender, not a bid”.

Palantir has shown an interest in the British state in other ways, too. Last year it hired four ex-MoD officials, said openDemocracy, as part of its “revolving door” recruitment, where firms “appoint outgoing ministers, senior civil servants and special advisers to lobbying or advisory posts”. Mosley also joined the MoD’s Industrial Joint Council, which the government describes as its “main strategic mechanism for defence sector engagement”.

More broadly, the £240 million MoD contract has “renewed a debate about Britain’s dependence on American technology”, said Politico. Despite promises from the MoD that Palantir’s AI technology would accelerate decision-making and protection, the recent contracts raise “potential risks of technical dependence”, or “lock-in” with the US, especially at a time of “heightened trade and wider geopolitical tensions between the US and its traditional European allies”.

Following a “tsunami of pressure” from Labour MPs, Keir Starmer has lost his right-hand man and the architect of his rise to become prime minister, said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper.

“Outraged” by the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his known links with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as a broader “autocratic culture in No. 10”, the MPs’ ire was directed, in part, at Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.

Following his resignation yesterday, McSweeney has been replaced by his former deputies, Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson, on an interim basis.

“In the end, the PM had little option,” said Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby. Starmer has “lost the backbone of his operation” but many MPs are now calling for his head.

What did the commentators say?

Starmer will be “disorientated” after McSweeney’s departure, said Patrick Maguire in The Times. Arguably, the Irishman “remade” the Labour Party, leading the charge against the confrontation-shy “Librarian Labour” stereotype, and his departure has left Starmer “adrift”. It is unclear what a post-McSweeney Labour Party stands for, apart from an “unreconstructed, middle-of-the-road progressivism” embodied by Starmer.

McSweeney’s resignation could offer a “new beginning” for the PM and his government, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. If the party wants to change public opinion, and recover from a series of major policy U-turns, Starmer had “better grab it”.

The former chief of staff had become the “punch bag for everything that has gone wrong” for Labour since the 2024 election. “Now it can change tack.” The PM’s change in personnel could “signal” a moment of “new purpose” for his struggling government. One thing is for sure: “there are no more excuses”.

No. 10 is in “full-blown survival mode”, said Rigby on Sky News. Starmer will be clinging to the hope that McSweeney’s departure will “go some way to satisfying some of his MPs who were demanding a reset”. Ultimately, however, “it might only serve to weaken him further now that his key ally and fixer has gone”. The operation is in “freefall” and if history is to be believed, “it’s near impossible to stabilise” in this situation.

Labour’s crisis “won’t be fixed by a sacrificial resignation”, said Neal Lawson in The New Statesman. Starmer is the face of a “deep-rooted and systemic crisis” of identity that has “dominated” Labour for decades. “In every sense – morally, politically and electorally – Labour has been brought to its knees.” If Starmer wants to drag the party towards success, he needs a “total reset of the Labour project”.

“What could a Starmer government possibly achieve now?” said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator. McSweeney’s departure will buy a little “extra time” for the PM, “like a patient bargaining for expensive life-extending drugs”. However, that “doesn’t change the diagnosis: this is a government that no longer works”.

What next?

Downing Street’s communications director, Tim Allan, stepped down from his role this morning, saying it would allow a “new No. 10 team to be built”. So the “second high-profile exit” from Starmer’s “crisis-hit team in less than 24 hours” leaves him looking for his fifth comms chief since he took office, said Politico.

Just six weeks ago, McSweeney told a group of special advisers that the government had “turned a corner”: indeed, it was “down a blind alley to oblivion”, said Maguire in The Times. Fast forward to today and it is “likely that Starmer will leave office – soon – having changed neither” Labour nor Britain.

If it was right for McSweeney to resign for recommending the appointment of Mandelson as US ambassador, then “why is it not also a resigning matter to act on that advice?” said John Rentoul in The Independent. “Advisers only advise; ministers decide.” Starmer is “running out of things to throw overboard to try to keep himself afloat”.

Frankly, sacrificing McSweeney “won’t work” and only “desperate measures” are now left. Starmer could follow Tony Blair’s “gambit” in 2006, when, undermining a leadership coup, he announced that he would be stepping down within a year to “buy himself” time.

If Labour comes third in the Gorton and Denton by-election on 26 February, “as seems likely”, this could “trigger the final moves”. With his “penultimate line of defence” breached, “we enter the endgame of Starmer’s premiership”.

As storm clouds gather over Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party, there’s one headwind that could worsen the outlook: his relationship with the trade unions.

Although they no longer wield the political clout they once did, they can still exert significant pressure – particularly on Labour, a party founded as their political arm and still reliant on their funding. Relations with the government have deteriorated, with two key union leaders openly hostile to Starmer. Some have withdrawn their support in response to poor poll ratings and rightward shifts in policy.

The head of the Fire Brigades Union warned last week that all 11 trade unions formally affiliated with Labour could come together to tell the prime minister to step down, if the May elections “are as painful for the party as predicted”, said PoliticsHome. Starmer is on his “last chance”, said Steve Wright.

What did the commentators say?

“There have been a lot of own goals,” said the FBU’s Wright in an interview with The House magazine, citing the government’s initial refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap (now being lifted in April). He also criticised the decision to block Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham from standing in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election. “I want to see Labour in a position to fight” off the “real threat” from Reform UK. “And I’m not sure who’s best to do that at the moment.”

The FBU leader’s words are just “the latest threat to the prime minister’s position before make-or-break elections” in Scotland, Wales and for English councils this May, said Max Kendix in The Times. Labour’s relationship with its two largest affiliated unions, Unite and Unison, had already hit a new low, with both now “run by general secretaries hostile to Starmer”.

Unison’s Andrea Egan, elected last year, has “publicly criticised Starmer, and attacked him” for blocking Burnham. Unite was, until recently, the Labour party’s biggest donor but its current general secretary, Sharon Graham, has been on a “tireless crusade” against Starmer, said Stella Tsantekidou on The Critic. Many a Labour member “raised an eyebrow” last summer when Unite voted to “re-examine” its relationship with the party. Graham has said voters could feel “duped” after the government scaled back plans to ban zero-hours contracts and introduce ‘day one’ workers’ rights. Labour has “one year to get this right because Nigel Farage is on their tail”, she told The Guardian.

Any formal disaffiliation by Unite would mark “the biggest rupture between the party and the trade union movement in recent history”, said Camilla Turner in The Telegraph. Sources say there is “intense frustration” with Starmer, from the top of the union down to the grassroots.

Should they be a leadership contest, the union vote will play a key part, said Morgan Jones in The New Statesman. The Labour electorate comprises party members and affiliate supporters. Who this means and how they vote has been “the subject of much change and controversy in the party’s recent history”. But, since 2021, any paid-up member of a Labour-affiliated union can vote, whether they are a member of the party or not. After a year of policies that “seemed designed specifically to upset” them, party members will “certainly” be fewer than they were, making affiliate votes more relevant. It could be trade union members, not Labour Party members, who “decide the outcome of the next leadership contest”.

What next?

Wright has promised to fight any attempt to disaffiliate his union from the party, if that is proposed at the FBU’s next conference in May. “I’m still of the view that we are best placed within the Labour Party,” he said.

As for Starmer, Wright sees a “benefit to keeping someone in position”. “No one liked the ever-revolving door of No. 10” when the Tories were in power, he said. “There’s hope. We’ll see what happens in May, won’t we?”

High drama continues in Westminster, as Keir Starmer ordered the release of files relating to his government’s appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

Mandelson was sacked from his US posting last September after emails emerged showing him continuing his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein as the American faced charges of soliciting a minor. This week, newly released Epstein files revealed that, when Mandelson was business secretary in 2008, he leaked Downing Street emails containing market-sensitive information to Epstein. The Metropolitan Police has formally launched a criminal investigation.

These latest revelations have left many Labour figures “seething with disappointment and boiling with betrayal”, said the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason. The “gravity of what is alleged” could build “to perhaps one of the biggest” political scandals “for a generation”, and calls into question Starmer’s judgement in sending Mandelson to Washington a year ago.

What is in the files?

Starmer has said he will release emails, documents and messages relating to Mandelson’s appointment – as long as they do not prejudice national security or damage diplomatic relations. The decision pre-empts the Conservatives’ plan to use a House of Commons debate today to try to force the publication of the records, including details of what Mandelson told the prime minister and his powerful chief of staff Morgan McSweeney about the nature of his relationship with Epstein.

“Attention will turn swiftly” now to that proviso for exempting documents and “which ones aren’t in scope”, said Politico. There will no doubt be “debate about whether WhatsApp messages sent on private phones will be included”. And it’s not yet clear “who is in charge of the process” and “which senior officials” have oversight.

The government has signalled its “intention is to be transparent”, while avoiding a situation where every single piece of communication is published, said The Guardian. The documents identified for release will also need to be assessed to check if they first need to be seen by the police. This process will take time and, as has been seen with the release of the Epstein files in the US, will inevitably lead to further political wrangling and accusations of a cover-up. Expect this story to run and run.

What does it mean for Starmer?

With most political scandals, “there is an agreed full stop, a time for the circus to move on” but, for Downing Street, Mandelson “risks being a headache that simply will not end”, said The Guardian’s senior political correspondent Peter Walker. How on earth did “the team around Starmer” think it was such “a good idea to appoint a tarnished, if well connected, figure to be the ambassador to Donald Trump’s court”?

Some Labour MPs are focusing their anger on McSweeney, “a former protégé of Mandelson”, who is believed to have pushed for his appointment as ambassador. But, as we have seen in previous administrations, “changing the team around the leader will buy you only a small amount of time if” most of your backbenchers, “and the electorate more widely”, think that “the problem is not the team but the person they advise”.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, seen by many as a potential challenger for Starmer’s leadership position, today defended the prime minister’s decision to appoint Mandelson, and rejected the idea that it could cost the PM his job. That would “let Mandelson off the hook”, Streeting told LBC. “This is his misjudgment, his misconduct, his irresponsibility.”

One factor that could play in Starmer’s favour, said Politico, is that he has never got involved with the Labour dinner circuit, like Streeting or McSweeney, and he has never been as close to Mandelson as McSweeney. “You could suggest that the PM has less to lose than others in government if cosy Labour texts to Mandelson end up in the public domain.”

Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor are coming under renewed pressure to testify before US Congress over their links to Jeffrey Epstein.

Mandelson resigned his membership of the Labour party last night to avoid causing any “further embarrassment”. On Friday, newly released documents revealed a picture of the Labour grandee in his underwear, payments from Epstein to Mandelson, and email exchanges between the pair that appear to show Mandelson leaking confidential Downing Street documents to Epstein. The new batch of Epstein files also implicated Andrew, including a series of photos of the former prince kneeling on all fours over an unidentified woman lying on the floor.

Both men’s association with Epstein has wrecked their public reputation but, as the furore over the last few days has shown, they will find it hard to remain out of the spotlight.

What did the commentators say?

Keir Starmer has called on Andrew to cooperate with US authorities who are investigating Epstein. It is “rare for a prime minister to intervene on matters relating to the royal family”, said The Times’ editorial board, but “such is the anger and outcry” that – in an unusually “deft reading of the public mood” – Starmer hopes to pressure Andrew “into finally doing what he should have done" a long time ago. Unless he “fully explains his past actions and what he knew about Epstein’s lifestyle”, this will remain “a running sore for the royal family”.

A lawyer representing some of Epstein’s victims told ITV News that Andrew should be extradited and forced to testify. But US investigators “face a succession of legal obstacles which make” that “unlikely”, said Cahal Milmo in The i Paper.

US investigators may not have more luck with Mandelson. Congress is “poised to issue the peer with a demand to testify in Washington”, said Connor Stringer in The Telegraph, but it “cannot compel testimony from foreigners”, so “he is under no legal obligation to respond”. Of course, “he could be subpoenaed if he sets foot on US soil” and “if he were to ignore that request, he would be liable to arrest”.

What next?

“There will be a lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill who want to exert as much pressure on this as possible,” The Spectator’s deputy political editor James Heale told Sky News. Some would like the US to invoke the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Britain, under which each country can request cooperation to secure testimony, via court order if necessary, from witnesses abroad. But, given the Trump administration’s proximity to the scandal, few expect this to happen.

In Andrew’s case, what might eventually force his hand is not threats of legal action but rather “internal pressure from within the royal household”, royal historian and constitutional expert Ed Owens told The i Paper. “Prime ministers do not generally speak on these sorts of things without checking with the Palace first” so “I’m wondering whether, behind the scenes, there has been a changing of the wind”.

The House of Lords is, in many respects, an anomaly. Most mature democracies have a second parliamentary chamber, but relatively few of these are, like the House of Lords, unelected (though Canada and Jamaica, for instance, have appointed second houses).

It is by far the world’s largest second chamber: the Lords has around 844 sitting members; the French senate, the next largest, has around 348. With its 24 Lords Spiritual (bishops of the Church of England), it is, with Iran, one of two legislatures in the world that reserves seats for religious leaders. There are also the 85 remaining hereditary peers; only Lesotho, Tonga, Zimbabwe and a few other nations have hereditary legislators.

Why does the UK have the House of Lords?

Though its origins lie further back, the division of Parliament into two houses, Commons and Lords, dates from Edward III’s time, in the 14th century. Originally, the Lords were more powerful, but the balance of power shifted under the Tudors. After the execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell abolished the Lords; Charles II restored it. As the franchise expanded in the 19th century, the primacy of the Commons became accepted in principle. But legally, until the early 20th century, the two houses had equal powers of legislation.

Then, in 1911, after a long struggle between David Lloyd George and his Liberal Party and a Conservative-dominated Lords over his “People’s Budget”, the Parliament Act was passed. It stopped Lords having any powers over bills (draft laws) concerning money, and replaced its right of veto over other bills with the ability to delay them for a maximum of two years.

What reforms have been made since?

After the Second World War, the Marquess of Salisbury helped to develop a set of conventions designed to help the Labour government pass its programme, despite having only 16 Labour peers in a house of 761. The Salisbury Convention commits the Lords not to oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto. Another major change came in 1958, when the Life Peerage Act allowed peers to be appointed on the basis of legislative expertise – including women, for the first time.

The next major reform came in 1999, when Tony Blair’s Labour government excluded 667 hereditary peers. Although it had pledged to eradicate them, it had to make a deal allowing some to stay. When one of these dies or leaves, a by-election is held among hereditary peers of their party to select a replacement. Oddly, these are now the Lords’ only elected members.

How does the Lords work now?

Its main role is to scrutinise legislation passed by the Commons. It spends more than half its time considering bills. Peers examine each bill over several stages and suggest revisions, before it becomes an Act of Parliament. Between November 2023 and May 2024, for instance, the House of Lords considered 2,377 changes to 67 bills, debating for more than 780 hours. Much of this scrutiny takes place in select committees – appointed to consider specific policy areas. Recent changes made to laws by the Lords include making both non-fatal strangulation or suffocation and threats to release intimate images specific offences. Other committees monitor the affairs of government departments, or specific policy issues.

And does it work well?

In many respects, yes. Its supporters argue that an unelected – and less-politicised – upper house functions as a useful brake on under-debated or kneejerk legislation; it is a vital constitutional check, opposing poor law-making. Some suggest the quality of debate in the Lords is higher than that of the Commons, since peers, unlike MPs, do not also have to make time to perform constituency duties, and few serve in government departments.

Moreover, the Lords is an “expert house” comprising many who have excelled in a wide range of disciplines, unlike the Commons, which is dominated by career politicians. Peers, some say, feel the weight of responsibility bestowed upon them by a lifetime peerage, making them more measured policymakers than MPs. Some even defend the hereditary principle, as part of Britain’s historical fabric.

What are the arguments against it?

That it is an unelected body with great power to undermine democratic mandates. Bills the Commons has passed but which the Lords is currently opposing include the assisted dying bill, which has wide public support, and the Crime and Policing Bill. Even if you accept the principle of an appointed expert house, the way Lords are selected is opaque and politicised.

Prime ministers have effectively unlimited power to appoint; most peerages are handed to former MPs, party officials and donors. Notorious recent examples include Boris Johnson’s ennobling of Charlotte Owen, then 29, who had worked briefly as his special adviser. There are regular lobbying scandals: two Lords were suspended late last year.

And it is unrepresentative: around a third of peers are women; just 6% come from a minority ethnic background; at least 50% attended private schools; over 40% are from the Southeast.

What are Labour’s reform plans?

The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill proposes to remove all remaining hereditary peers, though amendments allow current hereditary peers to remain until they leave the House. This is a “first step” in a series of proposed reforms, including a mandatory retirement age of 80; and establishing a new participation requirement to ensure active membership.

It also wants to strengthen rules for removing disgraced peers and reform the appointments process, to “ensure the quality of new appointments” and improve the “national and regional balance” of the Upper House. Lords reform is notoriously slow and complex; but a Lords committee is due to report on the proposed reforms before 31 July this year.

Who are the Lords?

Of the 844 peers, 282 are Conservative, 230 are Labour, 75 are Liberal Democrats, one is from Reform UK, and 177 are crossbench (non-party political). Although the Tories are the largest group, no party has a majority. The House of Lords Appointments Commission recommends individuals for appointment as crossbench peers – and vets all nominations on the basis of “propriety”, meaning that a person should be in good standing generally and not have past conduct that could bring the House of Lords into disrepute. It can only make recommendations and cannot veto.

From 2010 to 2025, 56% of life peers appointed were either ex-politicians, former advisers or major donors. The average age of members is around 71. In the last available accounts, for 2023/24, the House of Lords cost the taxpayer £143.8 million. Peers are not paid a salary, but can claim a tax-free daily attendance allowance of £371 (they can also claim £185, or nothing, if they think appropriate). In 2017, it was reported that one unnamed peer had “left the taxi running” while he popped in to record his attendance. Over the last Parliament, just 10% of all peers made more than half of all debate contributions; 28 Lords never attended at all.

Keir Starmer’s much-criticised trip to China could not have come at a better time for the beleaguered prime minister.

Following another gruelling week in which one potential leadership challenger was seen off – for now at least – when Andy Burnham’s attempt to return to parliament failed, and another, former deputy PM Angela Rayner, declared “I’m not dead yet”, you could perhaps forgive the PM for wanting a few days away from the never-ending Westminster drama surrounding his future.

What is driving this new leadership speculation is Starmer’s dire unpopularity with voters: in a recent YouGov poll, 75% said they viewed him unfavourably; only Liz Truss has ever had worse ratings.

For Labour MPs, it’s the prospect of losing the next general election to Reform that has them “bordering on cold panic”, and “turbo-charges questions about Keir Starmer’s future as prime minister and so raises the profile of those seen by some as possible successors”, said BBC political editor Chris Mason.

What did the commentators say?

The threat from Burnham may have been thwarted but he still poses a fundamental problem for Starmer: that he is everything the PM is not.

It’s just one of those “unfortunate coalitions”, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian: “everyone who wishes a Labour government stood for something, and had a discernible sense of purpose, likes Burnham; everyone who has fond memories of the Blair years likes him, but everyone who hated the Blair years also likes him”. Plus, “everyone who doesn’t really concentrate on politics likes him,” while those who do are “exhausted by watching the discourse” as “the entire mainstream seeks to chase off Reform politics by sounding exactly like it”.

The “real winner” from the NEC’s decision to block Burnham’s return was undoubtedly Wes Streeting, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. The health secretary, who has made little secret of his wish to one day take over the top job, is the “current front-runner” in the parliamentary Labour Party although among the rank-and-file membership, who he would need to win over, he is “more divisive”.

“Streeting would probably defeat Starmer in a head-to-head contest, but if he has to face off against another, more soft-left, candidate, it might be trickier.”

With Burnham out of the race, who could that other candidate be? Angela Rayner, who resigned as deputy PM in September after failing to get proper tax advice on a property sale, this week made clear to supporters her intention to return to the government. Allies told The Times she would have 80 MPs ready to back a leadership bid and would be “well placed to challenge” the PM “after what are expected to be a difficult set of elections in May”.

This still may be “too soon” for Rayner to stand against Streeting, said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper. Instead, some Labour MPs have “talked up the prospect” of former leader and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband becoming the “choice of the soft left”.

“I know he has said he doesn’t want it, and I think he wants to be chancellor, but who knows, maybe we can bring him round?” one left-learning MP told the paper.

What next?

The “pathway to a coup is still unclear” and Starmer’s team “cling to the hope that something may turn up” before the crucial 7 May local and devolved elections, or that his rivals will “lose their nerve”, said the Financial Times.

But barring a better-than-expected result, which few if any see as likely based on current voter sentiment, the pressure on the PM from his own MPs to make way following an electoral bloodbath could become overwhelming.

Even if Labour did decide to ditch Starmer, “they haven’t a mandate for such a departure”, said Danny Finkelstein in The Times. There is “no point” changing leader “unless they also embark on a new course” so whoever replaces him as PM “should call an election and present a new programme for government”.

For now, all the mooted candidates have denied they are plotting a run for the leadership, and Starmer told Bloomberg on Monday that the public had given him a personal mandate to lead Britain for five years and vowed to complete a full term.

“But as anyone in Westminster would tell you”, said Politico’s London Playbook, “it gets harder every week to find many Labour MPs who truly believe he will.”

When Keir Starmer touches down in Beijing on Wednesday he will become the first UK prime minister to visit China since Theresa May in 2018.

Against the background of the Chinese “mega embassy” controversy, the conviction of British citizen Jimmy Lai and tension over Hong Kong, Starmer says there are “significant opportunities” for British businesses, said Bloomberg.

In a sign of the wider implications of the visit, Starmer dismissed suggestions that he was “seeking stronger ties with China at the expense” of his closest allies.

What did the commentators say?

Starmer will have to “play it tough” in China if he wants his “ambitious” agenda to materialise, said Michael Kovrig in The Times. In diplomatic discussions with Beijing’s “autocratic” leader Xi Jinping, Starmer’s success will rely on three key areas: “resetting” bilateral relations between the two countries, “boosting” trade and investment deals, and “securing” visa and embassy “reciprocity”.

This will not be easy, especially considering the last decade of relations between the two countries. “Times have hardened, as has the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].” With China’s “abrogation” of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong, and with Starmer approving the new embassy in London, it has become clear that Britain and other Western countries have “accommodated Xi’s agenda in the vain hope of economic lifelines and competitive coexistence”.

As a result, Starmer is on the back foot, having already implicitly and explicitly ceded to China’s agenda. The only way his visit can be deemed a success is if he achieves “substantive outcomes, avoiding concessions and controlling the narrative”. This is “not easy”.

For China, the visit presents a “prime opportunity to draw another critical US ally closer” and out of Donald Trump’s orbit, said the Financial Times. China craves “greater access to UK markets”, an example being Ming Yang’s proposed £1.5 billion investment in Scottish wind turbines, a move the Trump administration has criticised on security grounds.

If Starmer’s trip is successful, China will hope this can “lay the groundwork” for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s arrival in February, as Beijing seeks to “repair strained ties with the EU”, as well as “further exploit growing divisions between the US and its Western allies”.

Continuing in his “international statesman” vein, Starmer is “racking up” the air miles, said Ben Marlow in The Telegraph. As he heads to Beijing, it is clear that he is the spearhead of a “massive coordinated attempt to cultivate stronger” diplomatic ties abroad, but he should not forget the “deep freeze” of how relations have been recently.

He should remember the ongoing friction between the two nations, brought about by “Beijing’s cyberattacks, espionage” and the conviction of British citizen Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong. There is also the recent “sudden arrest” of senior People’s Liberation Army figures, underlining how Beijing “operates under its own rules” and is notoriously “hard to predict”. For Starmer, this should be at the “top of his mind” as the long-awaited talks begin.

What next?

Starmer and his delegation – which includes Business Secretary Peter Kyle and senior executives from among other companies HSBC, Diageo, Octopus, Brompton and Jaguar Land Rover – will visit Beijing and Shanghai, before making a brief stop in Japan.

Though the meetings are bilateral, Trump’s looming presence over geopolitics means that Starmer has a “three-body problem”, a source told Politico. The PM does not want to strain relations with the US president and, unlike his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney, Starmer is “desperate not to paint this as a rupture from the US”. In a nutshell, “he doesn’t want any drama”, while “trying to ride three horses at once, staying friendly – or at least engaging – with Washington D.C., Brussels and Beijing”.

European leaders will be watching closely too, said The Observer. For months, they have been “beating a path to Beijing’s door”. China’s size and scale – a population of more than 1.4 billion and a “consumer class of about 900 million people” – make it an attractive market for European businesses.

Council elections will be postponed for at least a year in 29 areas across England, the government has confirmed.

The “vast majority” of the 139 local elections in May will go ahead as planned, said Local Government Secretary Steve Reed. But opposition MPs say that the delayed ones are disenfranchising four million voters, and Reform UK is threatening legal action.

Which elections are being delayed?

On 7 May, elections are due to take place for over 4000 council seats in England but polling will now be delayed for city councils in Exeter, Lincoln, Norwich, Peterborough and Preston; for district councils in Cannock Chase, Adur and Harlow; for borough councils in Ipswich, Cheltenham, Redditch, Basildon, Burnley, Thurrock, Chorley, Crawley, Blackburn with Darwen, Hastings, Hyndburn, Rugby, Stevenage, Tamworth, Worthing, Welwyn Hatfield and West Lancashire, and for county councils in West Sussex, East Sussex, Suffolk and Norfolk.

This means that about 650 councillors will no longer face election this year and will have their terms extended, probably until 2028. Of those, 238 are Conservative councillors, 206 are Labour, 81 are Liberal Democrat, 39 are Green, 26 are Reform, 7 are Your Party and 59 are independent. All four county councils affected are currently led by the Tories, but most of the other councils affected are controlled by Labour.

Why are the elections being delayed?

There’s a “major shake-up of local government” underway, which will abolish some local authorities altogether, said the BBC The “rejig” will mean the old “two-tier system of district and county councils” in many parts of England will be replaced with new “unitary” councils.

Some local authorities have therefore concluded that postponing the upcoming ballot is necessary, either because they are “concerned” about their ability to “run the polls alongside the overhaul of town halls” or because they want to save “the cost to taxpayers” of holding elections for councils that are due to be abolished.

All this means that, where councils are going to be “folded into” new unitary councils in 2027 or 2028, we have a curious situation: either polls are going ahead in May and councillors who are elected will only serve for a year or so, or polls are being postponed and current councillors, elected for four years, will end up serving up to seven.

Why has the delay been criticised?

Labour is “running scared of the electorate” and “denying millions of people a voice”, said Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey. Starmer’s government is “moving seamlessly from arrogance to incompetence and now cowardice”, said Tory shadow local government secretary, James Cleverly.

Reform, which had a run of success in local elections last May, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 councils, has also spoken out. Tory defector Robert Jenrick said that delaying local council elections is “almost certainly illegal”. Party leader Nigel Farage said he would be “fighting this denial of democracy in the High Court”. A hearing is scheduled for 19 February.

The Electoral Commission, the body that oversees elections, said it “recognises the pressure on local government” but does not see “capacity constraints” as a “legitimate reason for delaying long-planned elections”.

The government is dropping plans to require workers to sign up for its digital ID card scheme, and allowing people to use other digital forms of ID to prove their right to work in the UK.

The scheme, originally framed by Keir Starmer as part of a “crackdown on illegal working”, has been watered down out of concern it “could undermine public trust and lead to a cabinet revolt”, said The Times.

Following the concessions on inheritance tax thresholds for farmers just before Christmas, this is the second major U-turn within a month, and the 13th since Starmer came into office. Here are some of the other major rowbacks since the 2024 election.

Winter fuel payments

Mere months after their election victory, Labour announced plans to reduce the number of pensioners receiving up to £300 in winter fuel payments by restricting eligibility to those receiving pension credit. This would have cut claimant numbers from 11 million to one and a half million, and saved the government about £1.5 billion a year.

Less than a year later, the government backtracked on their winter fuel policy, restoring the payments to pensioners with an income of £35,000 a year or less, meaning that around three quarters of pensioners (about 9 million) in England and Wales will still receive the payment.

The debacle was an “administration-defining mistake”, said the Financial Times. What was meant to be a fairly innocuous cost-cutting measure, and arguably “the right thing to do politically”, snowballed into protests and endless media coverage. It “dealt a blow to the government’s popularity from which it has yet to recover”, and then the rowback set the perception that “the government retreats under pressure”.

And, since the U-turn, even the revised expected savings have “evaporated”, said The Times. The wall-to-wall media coverage has increased awareness of pension credit, meaning 46% more pensioners now claim it, costing the Department of Work & Pensions millions more than before.

National insurance

Famously, the 2024 Labour election manifesto promised not to “increase taxes on working people”, with a pledge not to raise VAT, national insurance or rates of income tax.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said, as she delivered her first Budget in October 2024, that “working people will not see higher taxes” and “that is a promise made and a promise fulfilled”. However, in that same Budget, she increased the rate of national insurance contributions from employers – not employees – from 13.8% to 15%, in a move that “risked indirectly hitting workers”, said The Telegraph.

That decision looked a “fairly clear violation of the pre-election promise”, said The Guardian. Paul Johnson, then director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, called it a “straightforward breach” of the manifesto.

Welfare reform

In March 2025, Labour unveiled plans for sweeping changes to the benefits system that it said would save £5 billion a year by 2030. The new “pro-work system” would make it harder for those with “less severe conditions” to claim disability benefits, said the BBC. It would also freeze extra health-related payments for current claimants and nearly halve the number of successful new claims.

But this “tweak of the assessment criteria” was met with “fierce opposition from campaign groups” and many Labour backbenchers, said The Independent. It was undoubtedly the “biggest rebellion” of Starmer’s premiership, said Sky News. More than 100 Labour MPs signed a “reasoned amendment” in opposition to the government's proposals, which would effectively have killed the legislation if it went forward as it stood. The main concerns of the mutineers were that the cuts were “too harsh” and would “penalise” the “most vulnerable”.

Starmer made a “dramatic climb-down”, hollowing out much of the bill’s “central planks”, and leaving his “political authority badly damaged”, said The Guardian.

Grooming gangs inquiry

At the start of 2025, the grooming gangs scandal was a “point of fierce political discussion”, said ITV’s Maya Bowles, as the government “repeatedly insisted” there was no need for a national inquiry, launching five “locally-led” investigations instead.

Widespread public interest in the scandal had been “sparked in part” by X posts from tech tycoon Elon Musk, as well as repeated calls for a national inquiry by both the Conservative Party and Reform UK, said the BBC. Musk shared a series of posts on X accusing Starmer of failing to prosecute the gangs and also called for safeguarding minister Jess Phillips to be jailed.

In response, the prime minister argued that those in favour of a national inquiry, instead of locally-led investigations, were “jumping on a bandwagon” and “amplifying” the demands of the far right.

Then in June, after “resisting calls for months”, Starmer launched a national inquiry – after a review of the whole issue by crossbench peer Louise Casey.

Anne Longfield will now lead the £65 billion three-year inquiry, after other leading candidates pulled out. Since June, four women have resigned from the inquiry’s survivors committee.

‘Day-One’ workers’ rights

One of the big promises of the Labour manifesto pledge to improve workers’ rights was reducing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal from two years’ employment to the first day of employment.

But in November, Business Secretary Peter Kyle announced that the qualifying period would be reduced to six months instead.

Labour’s Employment Rights Bill had become caught in parliamentary “ping pong” between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, slowed down by persuasive resistance from business owners. The government was forced to compromise to get the bill passed into law.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told Sky News that “sometimes you do have to adopt some pragmatism if you want to make sure that you get the wider package through”.

Keir Starmer has called the threat of further US tariffs on Europe “completely wrong” and “not the right way to resolve differences within an alliance”. But, as he played down talk of retaliatory tariffs and stopped short of criticising Donald Trump personally, he continues to walk a difficult tightrope between the Europe and the US.

The prime minister held an emergency press conference this morning, following a weekend of diplomatic turmoil as Trump ramped up the pressure on the UK, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden by threatening to impose 25% tariffs if they continue to oppose his proposed takeover of Greenland.

“There is a principle here that cannot be set aside because it goes to the heart of how stable and trusted international cooperation works,” Starmer said. Any decision about the future status of Greenland “belongs to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone”.

The PM’s tactic has always been to pursue “calm discussion” in the face of “the crash and noise of Trump’s second term”, said James Heale in The Spectator. Once again, he “just has to hope that speaking softly in private will mean more than sounding off in public”.

What did the commentators say?

In spite of their “obvious differences”, Starmer has “invested huge political capital and personal energy in building a personal connection” with Trump, said Amanda Akass on Sky News. This has, his supporters argue, protected the UK from the worst excesses of the Trump administration and been crucial in keeping the president onside with Ukraine.

It was a “shrewd” move to position himself as Trump’s “most dependable and closest ally”, said Tom Harris in The Telegraph. But now that the US president’s expansionist global ambitions have stretched to include “the enforced purchase” of Greenland, this “carefully cultivated relationship” has become “an embarrassment”.

Having “assured voters” that the special relationship was “as strong as ever”, Starmer has “had to accept that, when push comes to shove, America lumps Britain with the EU” – and that is “painful”, said The Economist. Worse, said Harris in The Telegraph, the man who was “once seen as the conduit between Trump and Europe” is now “regarded with suspicion by both the White House and Brussels”.

Starmer’s “secret hope”, said ITV’s Robert Peston, is that moderate Republicans “will be so shocked by Trump’s attempted demolition of the so-called special relationship with the UK that they will urge the President to think again”. But “that may be naive”. If there is one thing we know about Trump, it’s that he “doesn’t respond well to being told he is wrong, even by his friends”.

What next?

These are “unprecedented developments and the options open to European powers are limited”, said the BBC’s Chris Mason.

For those European leaders who want to “send a warning to America, the simplest response is trade retaliation”, said The Economist. But while Germany has thrown its weight behind Emmanuel Macron’s call to consider a “trade bazooka”, Starmer has so far maintained a less confrontational stance, saying today that a trade war was in “nobody’s interest”.

That said, in the face of widespread international and domestic anger at Trump’s threat to take over Greenland and punish Nato allies who get in his way, there’s no doubt that Britain’s PM is now taking a stronger line with the US. It is “hardly a ‘Love Actually’ moment of brave UK defiance in the face of a domineering US president”, said Sky’s Akass, “but Keir Starmer has clearly decided it’s time to start pushing back”.

Keir Starmer once said “there is no such thing as Starmerism, and there never will be”. It was meant to signal his preference for pragmatic progressivism over ideological purity, but it has, for many, come to encompass all that is wrong with the current Labour government.

As it ditches part of yet another policy this week – on plans to make its digital ID scheme mandatory for UK workers – Downing Street faces a “political challenge”: its vision for the country looks less and less clear as “the climbdowns, dilutions, U-turns, about-turns, call them what you will, are mounting up”, said BBC political editor Chris Mason.

What did the commentators say?

A change of heart can be “strategic”, showing flexibility and “sensitivity to public opinion”, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. But “too many” of Starmer’s U-turns look like “the product of incoherent thinking and inadequate preparation”. The watering-down of the digital ID plans follows about-turns on changes to inheritance tax for farmers, business-rate relief on pubs and the winter fuel allowance, not to mention the reversals on welfare reform and a grooming gangs inquiry.

Successful governments have a defining purpose and message (think the push for privatisation under Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair’s public sector reforms) but, under Starmer, “missions, milestones and foundations have come and gone”. The U-turns “are ultimately a symptom of the government’s woes, rather than their cause”. Instead of moving “towards a clear destination”, Labour looks “as if it is merely going round in circles”.

U-turns are “rarely” down to “anger in the country”, said The Independent’s political editor David Maddox. They happen when a government doesn’t “have the strength to push through their agenda”. The “latest climbdown” on digital IDs suggests a prime minister in “survival mode”, lacking “the authority to get his policies through and to keep his backbenchers in line”.

Starmer is turning into the “Grand Old Duke of York”, one unnamed Labour MP told Dominic Penna in The Telegraph, and that is “building up resentment”. Hull MP Karl Turner, who is leading a backbench rebellion against jury reforms, said he and his colleagues now have to “think very carefully before defending policy decisions publicly” as any subsequent U-turns leave them “looking really stupid”.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, a likely leadership contender, has said it is important the government “gets it right first time”. To “put it very politely”, said the BBC’s Mason, “this is a work in progress” for the prime minister.

What next?

Future government reversals could be on anything from private landlord rental income to employment rights, said Matthew Lynn at MoneyWeek. “The one thing we know for certain about this government is that, as soon as it runs into any serious opposition, it quickly changes its mind.”

Ofcom has launched an investigation into X over reports that the social media platform’s AI chatbot Grok is generating deepfake nudes of people without their consent, as well as sexualised images of children.

Under pressure to act, X last week limited access to Grok’s image generation tool to paid subscribers. This was criticised by Downing Street as merely turning “the creation of unlawful images into a premium service” but, said No. 10, it proved X could move quickly to address the problem if it wanted to.

Now the UK media regulator could follow Malaysia and Indonesia in blocking Grok, or go one step further and recommend suspending access to X altogether.

How serious is the problem?

“The ‘put her in a bikini’ trend began quietly at the end of last year before exploding at the start of 2026,” said The Guardian. “Relatively tame requests by X users to alter photographs to show women in bikinis” quickly turned into “increasingly explicit demands for women to be dressed in transparent bikinis, then in bikinis made of dental floss, placed in sexualised positions, and made to bend over so their genitals were visible”.

Analysis by the newspaper found that, by the end of the first week of January, as many as 6,000 bikini demands were being made to the chatbot every hour. Some requests “asked for white, semen-like liquid to be added to the women’s bodies”.

“None of this should come as a surprise,” said Clare McGlynn in The New Statesman. Elon Musk’s AI chatbot was “designed to have fewer ‘guardrails’ than its competitors”.

While images of naked, non-consenting women had been “circulating with impunity on the platform for weeks”, the final straw, and what appears to have finally prompted Ofcom to act, was when Grok generated images of the Princess of Wales in a bikini.

What action could Ofcom take?

Ofcom will investigate whether X is in breach of the Online Safety Act, specifically whether non-consensual undressed images of people “may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography” and if sexualised images of children “may amount to child sexual abuse material”.

Under the law, the regulator can fine businesses up to £18 million, or 10% of their global revenue, as well as take criminal action. It can order payment providers, advertisers and internet service providers to stop working with a site, “effectively banning them, though this would require agreement from the courts”, said The Independent.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall has said the regulator would have her “full support” to block access to X in the UK if the platform was found to be in breach of the law and refused to comply.

“Other parties want Ofcom to move faster, or get out of the way,” said Politico. The Liberal Democrats have urged the National Crime Agency “to take charge”, arguing that “the situation went well beyond Ofcom’s remit as communications watchdog”. It comes after the Internet Watch Foundation warned that criminals have used Grok to create child sexual abuse imagery.

“We cannot wait for a far off verdict,” the party’s tech spokesperson Victoria Collins said, calling for Ofcom to immediately block X from operating in the UK while a full investigation takes place.

What has the reaction been?

Billionaire X owner Elon Musk said the UK government “wants any excuse for censorship”. A ban would also “cause uproar in Washington”, said The Telegraph. The White House has “become increasingly hawkish towards attempts to censor American companies and its citizens”.

There is a “chance” that blocking X in the UK could lead to the US sanctioning British officials, starting with those working at Ofcom, said The New Statesman’s US correspondent Freddie Hayward. “These threats are sold to Americans as free speech protections, but they are also designed to force the British government to change course.” Depending on the outcome of the Ofcom investigation, Keir Starmer “might have to accept that protecting free speech has become an issue of national security”.

The UK and France have agreed to deploy troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia, as part of a broader package of security guarantees aimed at preventing a repeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion nearly four years ago.

After talks in Paris, Keir Starmer said both countries will, in the event of a ceasefire, “establish military hubs across Ukraine” and build protected weapon facilities “to support Ukraine’s defensive needs”.

Their agreement – along with wider security guarantees from the Coalition of the Willing – has the backing of the Trump administration. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a “huge step forward”. But Russia has previously rejected any idea of a “reassurance force” in Ukraine.

What did the commentators say?

The announcement from Starmer and Emmanuel Macron is “not a magic wand”, said Bel Trew in The Independent. “But it is a key moment.” France and Britain have, according to Zelenskyy, already “worked out in detail” the “force deployment”, including numbers, weapons components required.

Perhaps to reassure a wary French public, Macron said that “these are not forces that will be engaged in combat” but rather deployed “away from the contact line” to provide the necessary “reassurance”.

“This does seem at first glance to be a well-developed framework for ending the conflict in Ukraine,” said Eliot Wilson in The Spectator. But one of the most “obvious problems” is that “it is not at all clear that the UK and France have the military resources available to do what they say”.

There are “deep divisions” over increased defence spending in France and “the British army is the smallest it has been since the 1790s”. About 7,500 UK personnel are already deployed internationally and “resources for our leadership of the Nato Multinational Battlegroup in Estonia are stretched”. Given this, “where will we find ‘boots on the ground’ for Ukraine?”

Then there is the lack of public appetite for a prolonged military intervention overseas. On this, Starmer “begins from a stronger position than almost any of his counterparts” in the EU, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. UK voters are “among the most pro-Ukraine in Europe”: a recent YouGov poll of voters in six European countries found 56% of Brits support sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, compared to 40% in France and Italy and 36% in Poland. That “speaks to the strength of this consensus – albeit one yet to be tested by events”.

What next?

Of all the wider security guarantees agreed in Paris, the “binding commitment to support Ukraine in the case of future armed attack” is the one most “riddled with questions”, said Euronews. Each Coalition of the Willing government “would have to convince their parliaments, many of which are paralysed by political deadlock, to agree to an exceptionally consequential commitment”.

Then there is Putin, who has shown “no sign” that he is “willing to countenance any of this”, said Politico. This week’s potentially game-changing breakthrough does, however, “thrust the ball further into his court”.

Any US attempt to seize control of Greenland by force would be the end of Nato and “post-Second World War security”, Denmark’s prime minister has said.

Mette Frederiksen issued her warning as Donald Trump reiterated his desire to take control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory, saying “we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security”.

European leaders, including Keir Starmer, have issued a joint statement saying that “it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland”. But the “mildness” of their words “illustrates the bind Europe finds itself in”, said Politico. The fear of “potential retaliation from Trump on trade or Ukraine if he perceives harm to US interests” means Europe has “mostly pulled its punches in responding to his sabre-rattling”.

Nato is also walking a “fine line to avoid antagonising the US president”. But, while many Nato countries have, up till now, “brushed off an all-out Greenland incursion as implausible, Trump’s comments are beginning to stir anxiety – and defiance – within the alliance”.

What did the commentators say?

Since Trump returned to office and made his designs on the island clear, Greenlanders and Danes have been imagining scenarios in which the US succeeds in annexing the territory. Trump could go for “force, coercion, or an attempt to buy off the local population of about 56,000 people with the promise of cutting them in on future mining deals”, said Shane Harris, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic. In fact, “because neither Denmark nor its European allies possess the military force to prevent the US from taking the island”, all it may take in practice is a Truth Social post announcing that Greenland is now an American “protectorate”. Given America’s status as Nato’s leading military and financial guarantor, such a development would “paralyse” the alliance.

Few, if any, expect a Venezuela-style raid on Greenland, said Sam Ashworth-Hayes in The Telegraph, because the US “has no need to” fire shots in anger. If Trump “really wants the territory”, he “can apply deeply painful leverage until he gets his way”.

Denmark – and Europe – “have few cards to play in the world of might-makes-right that Trump is ushering in”, said Marc Champion on Bloomberg. Their “entire economic and security postures” have been built “around the rules and alliance-based order that the US created for its friends” after the Second World War. “Now they’re too dependent on US arms to resist as he tears it down, with a strong assist from the likes of Vladimir Putin.”

Today Starmer joined other European leaders for a “coalition of the willing” summit at France’s Elysée Palace, during which “Europe will again seek US security guarantees for Ukraine”, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. For those wondering why Europe has been so cautious in their criticism of Trump’s Greenland claims, here is a “key part of the answer”.

What next?

I would wager that Trump will use his leverage “to get what he wants in Greenland through some means short of outright annexation”, said The Telegraph’s Ashworth-Hayes. He could look to trade America’s continued support with Europe’s eastern defence for a greater US security presence in the Arctic. In this case, “the diplomatic side will be smoothed over” but “the fault-lines will still exist”.

There is a belated acceptance in European capitals that they need to be less reliant on Washington. At the same time, there is still some wishful thinking that Trump’s new-found expansionism is a temporary aberration. “We know who our allies no longer are. It’s just we are still hoping we are wrong and the problem will go away,” a senior EU official told the Financial Times. “We know what needs to be done, we just need to bloody do it.”

Keir Starmer has told UK voters that the coming year will bring “positive change in your bills, your communities and your health service”. People across the country will “once again feel a sense of hope”, the prime minister said in his New Year message.

But a new Ipsos poll offers little evidence of faith in Starmer as the architect of change: fewer than half of those quizzed believed he would still be in No. 10 by the end of 2026.

What did the commentators say?

Pollsters have been “surprised” by the “level of apparent hostility” shown by respondents both towards Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, said George Parker, political editor of the Financial Times. But the PM’s allies believe he can “turn things around”, in part through renewed emphasis on reducing living costs.

There is “near-universal acceptance” among both Starmer’s “cheerleaders” and his “detractors” that the government must improve how it explains itself and defines its purpose, wrote the BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason. Downing Street is expected to launch a “blitz of public-facing activity” to this end. But the “key challenge” will be deciding what message they want to put out there, and, crucially, whether the government can stick to it. Core themes are likely to be “change”, “stability” and the cost of living

Starmer needs to carry out a “fundamental reset”, said former New Labour advertising guru Chris Powell in The Guardian. In 1995, Tony Blair’s team “planned scrupulously for a complete reorientation” of the party, involving “new strategy, new branding, new policy, new presentation and new organisation”. Starmer needs to embrace that same kind of “no-holds-barred thinking”, if he is to “win the daily war for attention”.

That could be easier said than done. Illegal migration is expected to “continue to dominate political debate”, said Sky News political correspondent Amanda Akass. Starmer hopes his tougher policies will “stop the boats”, but if progress is not made, “the pressure will only intensify”. “The moment of maximum jeopardy will come during May’s elections”: a poor showing “could lead to an open revolt against the PM”.

What next?

There are “good reasons to believe” Starmer may not last the year, said Patrick Maguire in The Times. But while many Labour MPs are attracted to the idea of a leadership change, there is far less enthusiasm for a full leadership contest. Even those “prone to silliness and self-indulgence” recognise that months of internal wrangling would be difficult to justify to the public.

That leaves only the possibility of a “bloodless coup and coronation”. But “Labour history suggests inertia is the most powerful force of all” and with no obvious alternative candidate, the question remains: who would replace Starmer? In the likely event that “the cabinet can’t agree on a challenger” after the May elections, it will be no surprise if the embattled PM survives the year.

“Overall, it feels like last year was the prologue and this year is the first chapter, one in which the storylines can really get some momentum behind them,” said Russh.

The magazine was describing horoscope forecasts for the coming year, but it could just as easily have been talking about how politics and the global economy will be shaping up in 2026.

Last year, The Week accurately predicted Donald Trump’s tariffs, the first signs of an AI stock market bubble, the rise of the far-right in the UK and Europe, and a ceasefire in Gaza. So what could 2026 have in store?

Politics

UK local and devolved elections in May are being seen as a make-or-break moment for Keir Starmer and the Labour government.

Squeezed from the right by Reform UK and from the left by a revived Green Party and the new Your Party (as well as Plaid Cymru in Wales and the SNP in Scotland), it is already looking like being a torrid night of results for Labour. Across the board, the party faces “potential collapse” and, for the first time in a century, losing control of its Welsh heartland, said Parli-Training. Were that to happen, Starmer could be forced out of Downing Street by the summer, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood among the favourites to replace him.

US midterm elections are also looking pretty bleak for the incumbent Republicans. With Donald Trump’s approval ratings continuing to fall, Democrats have opened up a double-digit lead in voting intention for the congressional races in November, said the Marist Poll.

“Everywhere Republicans look, they see big political trouble,” said Axios, with poll after poll showing support among swing voters down “on just about everything Republicans do, other than fighting crime and shutting the southwest border”.

In Europe, all eyes will be on the Hungarian parliamentary election in April, where Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule could end. Elsewhere, global research firm BMI sees a “greater likelihood of victories by the centre-right/right-wing opposition” in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, “while Israel could also see a political shift”.

The opaque process to select the next UN Secretary-General also takes place over the coming year, with the successful candidate formally taking up their post on 1 January 2027. Among those already declared or expected to throw their hat in the ring is Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jacinda Ardern, former PM of New Zealand, and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Economics

Following a bumpy year in which Trump’s tariff war played havoc with trade but markets continued to post record returns driven by AI investment, the outlook for the global economy in 2026 remains “dim”.

That is the assessment of the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, which “makes for sobering reading”, said Love Money. Growth is forecast at 3.2% next year, with “much of the drag” stemming from “US tariffs and the wider shift towards protectionism, which is sapping international trade, undermining confidence, and rattling markets”.

Interest rates (in the US, UK and elsewhere) are expected to continue to fall, however, while fears persist that this is the year the AI bubble could finally burst. Analysis from financial services firm Wedbush, reported by Investing.com, predicts tech stocks will be “up another 20% in 2026 as this next stage of the AI Revolution hits its stride”.

“Don’t count on the AI bubble popping immediately – but don’t count it out, either,” said Mashable, with chip maker Nvidia’s next quarterly earnings report, due in January, being a key moment to watch out for.

Conflicts

Despite repeated attempts to agree an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, fighting continues to rage in what is now Europe’s bloodiest conflict since the Second World War.

With Kremlin forces making slow but steady gains but at a terrible cost to life, the “arithmetic of attrition suggests that 2026 will bring either glacial progress, a conflict frozen from exhaustion, or some sort of deal”, said The Economist. “Two other scenarios are possible: a Ukrainian frontline or political collapse, aided by Kremlin subversion; or Russia’s economy buckling as aerial attacks shut down its oil industry”, but “either of the two would have massive consequences for Europe, and the world”.

Other conflict hotspots include India/Pakistan following a deadly skirmish in 2025, Congo/Rwanda, and the ongoing civil war in Sudan. Tensions are mounting between China and Taiwan, although 2027 is seen as the more likely date for an invasion as it marks the centenary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Donald Trump continues to threaten conflict against Venezuela but if he is persuaded to back down, manages to maintain the Gaza ceasefire and negotiates an end to the war in Ukraine, he could be in the running for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize announced in October.

On the pitch and out of this world

Fresh from winning the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize, Trump will be looking to use the 2026 men’s football World Cup – this year jointly hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico – to push his Maga agenda even further.

Sixteen venues across the continent will host the biggest-ever edition of the tournament, with the number of teams increasing from 32 to 48 and the tally of games upped from 64 to 104. While it is still six months until the first ball is kicked, sports statistics platform Opta Analyst has crunched the numbers and predicted that Euro 2024 champions Spain are the most likely to win the Jules Rimet trophy, followed by France, England, Argentina and Germany.

Before that, there is the small matter of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics taking place in February.

A little further from home, the Nasa-led Artemis II mission will attempt the first manned orbit of the Moon in over half a century. The four-person crew will embark on a 10-day flight to “explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars”, said the BBC Sky at Night Magazine.

Originally planned for April 2026, the mission could now launch as early as 5 February. And while it “won’t land on the lunar surface” it will take astronauts 5,000 nautical miles past the Moon and “further into space than any human has gone before”.

Keir Starmer is facing calls to strip Alaa Abd el-Fattah of his UK citizenship, days after the British-Egyptian dissident touched down in the UK following his release from an Egyptian jail.

In the latest of his string of prison sentences, el-Fattah had been convicted in 2021 of “spreading fake news” for sharing a Facebook post about torture in the country. On Boxing Day, Starmer said he was “delighted” by the return of the 44-year-old, a leading voice in Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising. “Alaa’s case has been a top priority for my government since we came to office,” the prime minister said on X.

But the celebrations ground to a halt as old tweets resurfaced in which the activist appeared to endorse the killing of Zionists and the police. In a statement today, el-Fattah apologised “unequivocally” for the “shocking and hurtful” posts, most of which were written between 2010 and 2012 – but said some had been “completely twisted”.

What did the commentators say?

His posts were “disgusting and abhorrent”, said Kemi Badenoch in an op-ed for the Daily Mail. He should have been given a “free and fair trial” in Egypt, but “there ends my sympathy”. It’s one thing to work to secure someone’s release from prison when they have been treated unjustly, but “quite another to elevate them, publicly and uncritically, into a moral hero”. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood must now consider options including whether el-Fattah’s passport should be “revoked and he can be removed from Britain”. Given the “real-world harm” that has resulted from “antisemitic rhetoric” in recent months, “calls for violence against Jews cannot be brushed aside”.

“There is no excuse for what he wrote,” said Chris Philp, who was immigration minister under Priti Patel when el-Fattah was granted citizenship in 2021. People expressing these types of extremist views “have no place in the United Kingdom”, Philp told BBC Radio 4’s “Today”.

Downing Street sources claim Starmer was “unaware” of el-Fattah’s comments, said The Telegraph in an editorial. “Really? These were hardly secret.” Surely a dossier would be compiled by the Foreign Office or MI6 “about an individual the state was investing so much time and effort into being released. Did he not read his briefs?” There is also the question of why the last Conservative government granted him citizenship in the first place.

The “blithe expressions of delight” by three secretaries of state about el-Fattah’s recent release reveal how “stupid” they are, said David Shipley on The Critic. “These people have spent years not bothering or not caring to check el-Fattah’s social media, an exercise which took people on Twitter less than a day.”

“There’s no way this is just a Labour thing,” said Dan Bloom on Politico’s London Playbook. “Tory and Labour ministers pushed for el-Fattah’s release for years.” Yet “it’s hard to imagine a trickier situation” for Starmer following his enthusiastic reaction. Labour ministers are among the voices now calling for el-Fattah to be stripped of his citizenship. The fiasco is a “kick in the face” following the recent antisemitic attacks at Bondi Beach, said an unnamed senior Labour MP. And while aides are insisting Starmer didn’t know about the tweets, said Bloom, “the question is… who did?”

What next?

Revoking el-Fattah’s citizenship would likely be a “pretty big headache” for Mahmood, said Bloom. The home secretary can take away people’s passports on terrorism and national security grounds, “but only rarely”. Doing so “could end up in the courts”, which “might look dimly on a government welcoming el-Fattah only to boot him out a few weeks later”.

The UK must “balance the tension between security and prosperity” in its relationship with China, the parliamentary intelligence watchdog has warned, after the prime minister called for a “more sophisticated” approach to its dealings with Beijing.

At a speech in the City of London, Keir Starmer recognised that China posed “national security threats”, but stressed that it was also “a defining force in technology, trade and global governance”.

The Intelligence and Security Committee’s annual report acknowledged the need for “dexterity” in dealing with Beijing, but found the government has been “reluctant to prioritise security considerations”. This despite renewed scrutiny of Chinese interference following the contentious collapse of a spying case, the ongoing row over the London super-embassy and reports connecting a recent cyberattack on the Foreign Office to Chinese-affiliated hackers.

What did the commentators say?

This was “typical Starmer, pursuing a balancing act amid overwhelming imbalances”, said Simon Tisdall in The Guardian. It is “true Britain’s stagnant economy badly needs foreign investment” but “doing business with this predatory authoritarian regime” for nothing more than the “uncertain hope of future dependency-creating economic, financial and tech benefits” is a price simply ”too high” to pay.

Like previous governments, Labour has “found it difficult to come up with a clear answer” as to whether China “should be regarded as a UK national security threat”, said The Sunday Times.

The Intelligence and Security Committee report accused the government of “dragging its heels” over whether to add China to the “enhanced tier” of its threat regime. Under the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which came into force in July, only those working for Russia and Iran are required to register and declare their activity in the UK, even though many experts agree China poses a greater threat to national security.

And the threat is “very real”, said Luke de Pulford, co-founder and executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, on UnHerd. It includes industrial espionage, cyberattacks and spying on politicians by Chinese operatives in the UK. It is all “part of a broader effort to shape UK institutions to be less resistant to the aims of the Communist Party, and to help Beijing assert its dominance by all and any means necessary, lawful or illicit”.

Make no mistake, China has “the means, manpower and intent to reshape our way of life” but we have chosen to fight “a house fire with a syringe filled with lighter fluid” – in this instance, “the syringe being the resources available to contain the threat, and the lighter fluid being the UK government’s seemingly irrepressible desire to make things worse”.

What next?

Early next year, Starmer will become the first British prime minister since Theresa May in 2018 to visit China. The aim, said The Independent, is to “strengthen economic and diplomatic relations with the state”. As a show of good faith, the government is expected to give the go-ahead for China’s controversial new “mega embassy” in London, despite concerns from the security services.

If he must go, Starmer should use the China trip to push for the release of Jimmy Lai and the “200-odd political prisoners in Hong Kong”, said Melanie McDonagh in London’s The Standard. Both the decision about the Chinese embassy in London and any future trade deal “should be conditional on Jimmy Lai’s release”. This is about “Britain’s honour, if we can still talk in these terms”.

Yet trying to separate politics and security from business and trade is “a naive approach”, said Tisdall in The Guardian. “In navigating the world, Starmer should follow a simple rule: hug friends close – and know your enemy.”

The UK’s return to the EU’s Erasmus student-exchange programme has sparked hope among die-hard Remainers that this is a first step towards Britain rejoining the customs union – and even, ultimately, the European Union.

The new agreement with Brussels allows UK students to participate in the EU-wide university scheme from 2027, without any additional fees. And it has excited those who support a return to the customs union, even though Keir Starmer has repeatedly rejected any such plan. This is a “clear step towards repairing the disastrous Conservative Brexit deal”, said Lib Dem MP Ian Sollom.

What did the commentators say?

Starmer has declared Britain’s “need to get closer” to the EU bloc, and, as talks continue about a “reset” deal on food exports, energy markets and a youth mobility scheme, “the breakthrough on Erasmus will help” him “demonstrate progress”, said The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar.

Labour strategists believe there is “a growing political benefit” to ministers in “arguing more openly for a closer relationship with Europe”.

The party “is waking up to the damage done by Brexit” and signalling they’re “intent on doing something about it”, said Chris Blackhurst in The Independent. With repeated polls showing that a majority of voters believe leaving the EU was a mistake, there is an element of “political pragmatism” at play “for a party desperate to put distance” between themselves and Reform UK, as well as the Tories.

There are also “concerns” that, without stronger ties to the EU, “the measures announced in last month’s Budget will fail to secure sufficient economic growth for the UK”, said Amy Gibbons in The Telegraph.

Minouche Shafik, the PM’s chief economic adviser, reportedly recommended rejoining the customs union, arguing it would cut costs for businesses and increase exports, said Oliver Wright in The Times. Starmer has argued, however, that a return to a customs union would undo recent deals with Donald Trump, which were particularly beneficial to carmaker Jaguar Land Rover.

What next?

Until ministers stop maintaining that “a return to full EU membership remains off the table”, said Jon Stone and Dan Bloom on Politico, there will be “scepticism” in Brussels “as to how much room for manoeuvre the British PM actually has”.

There are ways that Labour’s “manifesto ‘red line’ commitments” not to rejoin the EU, the customs union or single market “could be bypassed”, said Starmer’s biographer Tom Baldwin in The Guardian. They could, for instance, “announce the start of negotiations now on a much bolder deal, for inclusion in the next manifesto, with implementation only if Labour won a fresh mandate”.

Even though I voted Remain, I’ve always thought the referendum must be respected but now “posh lefties” have “spotted their chance” to make “cuddling up to Brussels the big issue at the next election”, said former Labour MP Ian Austin in The Sun. The hope is that they can “pile up the pro-EU votes in a crazy coalition of Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP and Uncle Tom Cobley to take on Nigel Farage” and “what remains of the Tory party” .

Reform UK has received a record £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne, a British-Thai cryptocurrency mogul, according to the latest quarterly declarations to the Electoral Commission.

It’s the largest-ever single donation by a living person to a British political party. News of the gift comes at a time when Reform is leading in the national polls, but has been forced onto the defensive over a series of other, less welcome, stories.

‘Toxic’ and ‘divisive’

Last week Nigel Farage denounced what he called “a false story” in the Financial Times, which reported that he had told donors that he expected “a deal or merger” between his party and the Tories ahead of the next general election. “The idea I’d work with them is ludicrous,” he said. Reform also faced more questions about Farage’s alleged behaviour at school.

Twenty-eight former pupils and teachers now claim to have witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him at Dulwich College in south London. Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said Farage’s accusers were peddling “made up twaddle”.

Farage has admitted that he was “offensive” at school, but insists he never made comments “with malice”. He angrily accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy”, saying it should apologise for all the politically incorrect programmes it broadcast during the same era, such as “The Black and White Minstrel Show” and “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum”.

Farage faced separate accusations of racism last week over a campaign video in which he lamented the “cultural smashing of Glasgow”, citing the recent finding that nearly one in three school pupils in the city speak English as a second language. The comment prompted Keir Starmer to call Farage a “toxic, divisive disgrace”.

This week, it emerged that Farage had been reported to the police over claims of falsified election expenses. A former member of his campaign team, Richard Everett, says the Reform leader exceeded the £20,660 local election spending limit during his successful bid for the Clacton constituency last year by about £9,000, because some costs – including the refurbishment of a Reform-themed bar in the campaign office, and the loan of an armoured Land Rover used in a rally – weren’t declared. A Reform UK spokesman denied any wrongdoing.

European leaders have agreed to look at how the European Convention on Human Rights is applied, in a way that takes into account the challenges posed by unauthorised migration.

Alain Berset, secretary general of the Council of Europe, said Europe’s leaders had taken an “important first step forward together” to agree a political declaration on migration and the ECHR, and support a new recommendation to deter smuggling of migrants “with full respect for human rights”.

Keir Starmer had earlier called on European leaders to modernise the interpretation of the ECHR. The “current asylum framework was created for another era” and should “evolve to reflect the challenges of the 21st century”, he said in a joint article with Danish PM Mette Frederiksen in The Guardian.

What did the commentators say?

“Human rights campaigners, Labour peers and some MPs” had condemned the government for calling for changes, “arguing they could open the door to countries abandoning some of the world’s most vulnerable people”, said Pippa Crerar and Rajeev Syal in The Guardian. The PM, they said, “should not be diluting protections that pander to the right”.

“Closing our borders to refugees is undoubtedly a crime. But worse than that, it is a mistake,” Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London, told Strategic Europe. The combination of “dubious deals, pushbacks at sea, and draconian deportation policies may look like success” but “every analysis tells us that Europe’s ageing population and shrinking workforce mean we need new workers” to “help generate the economic dynamism we so desperately lack”.

But there is growing consensus across Europe that something needs to be done. Both critics and supporters of the ECHR, which came into force in 1953, acknowledge that it is “woefully outdated” and “does not reflect today’s reality of people-smuggling gangs and the weaponisation of migrants by rogue states”, said James Rothwell, Joe Barnes and James Crisp in The Telegraph.

“While there is no suggestion that EU leaders will scrap the ECHR”, as some parties on the right, including Reform UK and, latterly, the Conservatives “dream of doing”, a growing number of member states have called “for it to be ‘reinterpreted’ to address current migration challenges”.

What next?

Berset told reporters that the “living instrument” is possible to adapt, and work will begin next year.

The key parts of the ECHR that have been identified as in need of an update are Article 8, the right to family life, and Article 3, the right not to be subjected to torture or inhumane treatment. Both are often cited – some would say abusively – in court by asylum-seekers looking to overturn their deportation orders. And restrictions on the application of Article 8 are crucial to the government’s radical asylum reforms, set out by Shabana Mahmood last month.

There has been some outcry at moves to tighten up interpretation of these articles but, “to put it bluntly”, Europe would not be plunged “into a dark age of injustice”, said Daniel Thym, a professor of European law at Germany’s University of Konstanz, on Verfassungsblog.

It is a sign of how high Starmer sees the stakes on this issue that he sent both Justice Secretary David Lammy and Attorney General Richard Hermer to Strasbourg today to make the case for updating the convention. Starmer’s two closest allies have “one task in mind”, said Andrew McDonald on Politico’s London Playbook: “securing reforms to the ECHR to save his Labour government and the 75-year-old treaty from those on the right who want to ditch both entirely. No pressure!”

Last week, it was announced that the Office for Budget Responsibility will only check if the government is meeting its fiscal rules once a year, instead of twice (though it will continue to publish two sets of forecasts annually, to accompany the Spring Statement and the Budget). That change, according to analysts, was a recognition that the everchanging economic outlook has contributed to economic uncertainty and rampant speculation about future tax rises. The disastrous leak of last week’s Budget on the OBR website, meanwhile, has piled pressure on the watchdog.

On Monday, it said the leak had been the “worst failure” in its 15-year history; and admitted that a previous report, published in March alongside the Spring Statement, had also been accessed “prematurely”. Its chair, Richard Hughes, resigned.

Why was the OBR set up?

The OBR was created by David Cameron’s coalition government, in 2010. Before then, the Treasury had produced its own economic and fiscal forecasts ahead of Budgets and spending reviews; being produced by the chancellor’s own staff, these were vulnerable to political manipulation and were consistently over-optimistic. In opposition, George Osborne had promised to set up a new official independent economic and fiscal watchdog. This, he said, would be made up of “wise men” who would “hold up a yellow card when the chancellor steps out of line”.

Osborne vowed that it would “change the way Budgets are made for ever”; and in the 15 years since, the OBR has emerged as one of Westminster’s most powerful bodies.

What does it actually do?

It monitors the government’s spending plans and provides forecasts for the economy and public finances covering the next five financial years – typically issuing them twice a year, at the Budget and Spring Statement. The forecasts assess possible changes to gross domestic product (GDP); population and employment rates; migration; productivity; borrowing costs; and inflation. It also evaluates the government’s performance against the fiscal targets it sets itself. (This government’s main fiscal rule is that day-to-day costs should be met by revenues by 2029/30, at which point it should only be borrowing to invest.)

The OBR issues a “pre-measures” forecast to the chancellor two or three weeks ahead; then a “post-measures” forecast assessing tax and spending plans, which is published on the day. It also assesses, at least twice every two years, the long-term sustainability of the public finances. The forecasts it produces are hugely influential: they move financial markets, and can leave governments scrambling to fill yawning gaps projected in the public finances.

Are its forecasts accurate?

It is widely regarded as one of the more credible official forecasters. Over one to three years, the OBR’s assessment of GDP growth tend to be “more accurate than the average of other official forecasters in Europe”, according to a 2023 review, and certainly better than the historic Treasury forecasts, which were plagued by optimism bias; though it has also had a tendency to underestimate government borrowing, and, in the longer term, to overestimate GDP growth.

Professor David Miles of the OBR likens its forecasts to a satnav estimate of a long journey: they are probabilistic long-term predictions, easily thrown off by changes in real conditions, and unlikely to be 100% right – but still a useful guide.

Why has the OBR been criticised?

Forecasts are obviously speculative and partial. Some argue that the OBR – an unelected body – exercises disproportionate influence over major fiscal decisions, reducing the scope for democratic debate or political discretion. On the Left, think-tanks such as the New Economics Foundation say the OBR has consistently underestimated the benefits of large public investments and bold social spending – that it has a structural bias towards austerity or “status quo” economics. But it has critics on the Right, too.

Kwasi Kwarteng, who refused to consult the watchdog before his infamous mini-Budget of September 2022, said recently that the OBR focuses too much on balancing the books, and not enough on growth. William Hague has complained that its five-year forecasts encourage short-term thinking.

Is the OBR too powerful?

Arguably. In April, the FT’s Chris Giles warned that we were already “witnessing a terrible spectacle of the fiscal watchdog’s tail wagging the government dog”, citing the example of Rachel Reeves announcing a package of welfare cuts (later abandoned) in response to an OBR forecast downgrade. “It is unacceptable,” he added, “that public services and taxes are set not in the ballot box, but by unelected and barely accountable officials in a small office above the Ministry of Justice.”

Giles redoubled his criticisms this week, following the leak of the entire Budget 45 minutes before Reeves announced it to the House of Commons, saying: “As the Budget showed, the fiscal watchdog’s predictions indirectly set our taxes. The minimum we require in return is competence.”

What’s the case for the defence?

That the OBR’s powers are conferred on it by Parliament, and that chancellors retain the right to set the fiscal rules by which they will be judged – they can change the assessment criteria if they wish – and also have a say in who fills the positions in the OBR’s top team. It was the current chancellor who chose to give the OBR more responsibility and independence, by allowing it to produce forecasts even when the government does not ask it to – an apparent response to the Truss mini-Budget. Besides, many of the fiscal problems encountered by Reeves in the past year could have been averted if she’d left herself more fiscal “headroom” in her first Budget, as previous chancellors have done.

The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, accused Rachel Reeves of lying to the public so that she could fund increased welfare spending with tax rises in last week’s Budget. Reeves faced calls from the Conservatives, the SNP and Reform UK for her resignation.

In a speech on 4 November, the chancellor had raised expectations of tax rises by warning that the UK’s productivity was weaker “than previously thought”, and that this would have consequences for the public finances. But it emerged last Friday that the Office for Budget Responsibility had told the Treasury on 31 October that the downgrade in productivity would be offset by larger tax revenues from higher wages, meaning that Reeves was actually on course to meet her fiscal targets with £4.2 billion to spare.

Downing Street rallied to Reeves’s defence, insisting that there had been “no attempt to deceive in any form”. She also denied the charge, arguing that she had needed to put up taxes to increase her buffer against unexpected costs. On Monday, the OBR’s chair, Richard Hughes, resigned over his organisation’s accidental early publication of its analysis of the Budget.

Reeves is guilty of “staggering mendacity”, said The Daily Telegraph. In the run-up to the Budget, she spun a “tale of doom and gloom” while neglecting to mention the OBR’s forecast about tax revenues. There was no urgent need to raise £26 billion in taxes; she just pretended there was so that she could buy off Labour MPs with an extra £16 billion in welfare spending. It’s outrageous that the OBR chief Richard Hughes had to resign after this “Budget fiasco”, rather than Reeves, said the Daily Mail. Polling shows that Labour is now even less trusted with the public purse than the Tories were under Liz Truss. If the chancellor “had an ounce of honour”, she’d stand down.

“Liar” is a strong word, said The Independent, and not one that can be fairly applied to Reeves in this case. While she could have been more transparent and perhaps overdid “the gloom”, she didn’t utter any falsehoods. What’s more, Reeves was right to point out that she needed to increase her fiscal headroom, and that the OBR’s £4.2 billion surplus didn’t take account of U-turns on the winter fuel allowance and disability benefits. A more valid charge against the Budget is that the combination of tax hikes and higher welfare spending is “not what Labour said it would do, nor was elected to do last year”.

Speculation of a Labour leadership contest has gathered pace after Andy Burnham stopped short of saying he won’t stand against Keir Starmer. The mayor of Greater Manchester told “BBC Breakfast” last week that he hadn’t “launched any leadership challenge”, but he couldn’t “rule out what might or might not happen in future”.

No Labour prime minister has been “ousted by his party” or even “faced a formal leadership challenge from MPs” while in office, said The Guardian. But dire approval ratings have raised questions about Starmer – and his “potential successors”.

Andy Burnham

The mayor of Greater Manchester is the media favourite for a tilt at the leadership – he’s been at the epicentre of speculation about a move against Starmer since Labour’s autumn conference.

But there would be obstacles for him to overcome: he’d have to step down as Manchester mayor, win a Commons seat in a by-election and then be nominated by at least 80 Labour MPs. Clive Lewis has said he is willing to step down as MP for Norwich South to pave the way for Burnham to return to the Commons, but Burnham has insisted he is “fully focused” on his mayoral duties.

Wes Streeting

The health secretary is a “prime suspect for a hypothetical coup” and “suspicions” over his “ambitions may have been prompted by him appearing to rise above his brief in recent months”, said The Telegraph.

Earlier this month he was forced to deny he was plotting a challenge. He told the BBC he could “not see any circumstances under which I would do that to our prime minister”. Widely seen as a “more charismatic version of Starmer”, his “weakness is that he is seen as too right wing” by progressives within the party, said The Independent.

Angela Rayner

Rayner, who quit the front bench in September after a report concluded she had broken the ministerial code by underpaying stamp duty on a property purchase, is “often considered as a potential successor” to Starmer, said The Guardian, and has “declined to rule out running for the job”.

The “socialist firebrand” would probably be a leading choice of the Labour left, which has “felt frozen out” by Starmer’s “centrist government”, said The Telegraph. As she’s currently away from the front bench, she could brand herself as the “clean break” candidate, said The Independent.

Shabana Mahmood

The home secretary already “speaks like a leader”, said The Spectator. Mahmood has shown “much-needed leadership” on migration, said The Independent, but this may work against her; she “may be considered too right-wing for the tastes of many in the party”. In the event of a leadership contest, “it may become a choice between her and Streeting not to split the vote”.

Ed Miliband

The Sun reported in September that the energy secretary was “on manoeuvres” – “plotting against his former pal” and trying to “destabilise” Starmer.

As a former party leader who “lost his bid for No. 10” in the 2015 election, Miliband “might fancy a stab at the job he never got to do”, said The Telegraph. With his CV, he “can claim to have a strong understanding of how to manage MPs”, but his bruising loss to David Cameron 10 years ago will “probably go against him”.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced today the most significant change to UK asylum rules in a generation, saying the current asylum system is “out of control,” and “tearing our country apart”.

In a move calculated to seize back initiative for the government after months of false starts and plunging poll ratings, Mahmood unveiled proposals that will mean anyone granted refugee status will no longer have guaranteed housing and financial support, will face a 20-year wait before they can seek permanent residency, and could be returned to their home country in the meantime, if it is considered safe. She plans to narrow a refugee’s right to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, so it only applies to immediate family in the UK. And she has threatened visa bans on Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo unless they cooperate in taking back their citizens who are in Britain unlawfully.

These tough new measures have sparked outcry among progressives, including many in her own party. But Mahmood has warned that, if Labour does not do something now to tackle illegal immigration, the populist right will sweep to power and do something much, much worse. Or as The Atlantic’s David Frum once put it: “If liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will.”

What did the commentators say?

The UK’s new stance “draws inspiration” from Denmark “where refugee status is temporary, support is conditional and integration is expected”, said Laura Sharman and Christian Edwards at CNN. The Home Office has been impressed that “Denmark’s policies have reduced asylum claims there to a 40-year low and resulted in the removal of 95% of rejected applicants”.

The Danes’ tougher approach also helped nullify the threat from the far-right and secure re-election for the centre-left Social Democrat government last year. But it has also “drawn significant criticism, with rights groups saying the measures foster a hostile climate for migrants” and “leave asylum-seekers in prolonged uncertainty”.

Mahmood’s proposed visa bans “mirror measures introduced by Donald Trump during his first term”, said Matt Dathan and Ben Clatworthy in The Times. Those sanctions – on various African and eastern Asian nations – “have had varying success but the penalties imposed on the Gambia and Sierra Leone” did lead to “improved cooperation on returns”.

“Reducing ‘pull’ factors and making the UK less attractive to migrants is a massive long-term battle,” said the BBC’s Joe Pike. “Up against sophisticated people-smuggling gangs who have shown they can adapt fast”, the home secretary “will be hoping her ‘throw the kitchen sink at it’ approach gradually reduces arrivals and increases deportations”.

There’s no one “silver bullet” to deal with small boats, “and I think the government recognises that”, Dr Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at Oxford University’s Migration Observatory told the BBC. That is why “it is taking a broader approach, focusing on enforcement and return deals. Will people know about restrictions enough to deter them? We will have to wait and see.”

What next?

The challenge now for the government is selling these changes to Labour MPs, especially those on the left of the party or facing a growing challenge to their seat from the Lib Dems and the Greens. There is also “significant unease among senior aides” and at least one minister is on “resignation watch”, said Jessica Elgot in The Guardian.

Both the Conservatives and Reform have sought to exploit these tensions. Kemi Badenoch has offered to work with Mahmood to get the changes through, and Nigel Farage has said the “Home Secretary sounds like a Reform supporter”.

Writing in The Guardian, Mahmood has said she knows “some of these measures will face opposition” but “this is a moral mission for me” and “unless we act, we risk losing popular consent for having an asylum system at all”.

One government official put in starker terms to Politico’s Andrew McDonald: “We’ve got to restore order and control.” If we don’t do that, what will come after us “will be darker”.

As the festive period approaches, it’s fair to say the season of goodwill has not reached Downing Street yet, with reports over the weekend of a “very shouty” row between Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.

Streeting demanded to know whether No. 10 was the source of an apparent pre-emptive strike accusing him of leadership plotting, said The Sunday Times.

Starmer was forced to tell the House of Commons last week that he had full confidence in his chief aide, saying: “Morgan McSweeney, my team and I are absolutely focused on delivering for this country”.

But Starmer has been urged to fire McSweeney by former Labour home secretary David Blunkett, who said he should be replaced by someone who can “manage people well”.

Darker sequel

McSweeney “derives his power and influence from his track record as a political strategist”, said the BBC – he masterminded Labour’s landslide 2024 general election victory and Starmer’s 2020 Labour leadership bid.

But this isn’t the first time he has been the subject of the story rather than the conduit. Back in September the “heat” was on him because of the “furore” around the failure of his Labour Together campaign group to declare donations to the Electoral Commission, said The New Statesman.

But “the sequel is more serious, darker even”. Although the “picture is murky”, the “subject is clear: a lack of control at the centre”.

After this fresh crisis “roiled” Downing Street, talk has “inevitably turned” to how long McSweeney can “cling to his job”, said The Telegraph. There’s a “broader dysfunction within the Downing Street regime”, with insiders saying a “toxic atmosphere is paralysing the government and contributing to a collapse in support for Labour”.

Brain dead

But while “critics” say McSweeney has “lost control” of Downing Street, “allies” say he has “become a scapegoat when chaos strikes” in No. 10. They say that the “graveyard of Westminster careers is littered with the CVs of former Downing Street ‘svengalis’ who paid the price for the failures of their administrations”, such as Alastair Campbell and Dominic Cummings.

“The barbs against McSweeney are a modern twist on the words that have echoed down English history from dissidents who don’t want to go after the principal: ‘God save the King and damn his accursed ministers’,” said The New Statesman.

There is “a hope, possibly a vain one,” that McSweeney’s exit would make Labour “cuddly and nice again”. But what would it “actually bring”? Would Starmer, the “north London luvvy and former human rights barrister”, come “out of his shell”, or would his premiership be left “essentially brain dead” and “living on borrowed time”?

A Labour minister told The Independent that Starmer should “bring in someone that actually knows what they are doing” and who understands the parliamentary Labour Party. That might mean that McSweeney is replaced or someone is brought in to work alongside him, “but it can’t go on like this”.

But asked about McSweeney’s future, one senior Labour figure said he was: “Toast.”

Hotels housing asylum seekers became a lightning rod this summer for political and community tensions over illegal migration, and over the dramatic increase in the number of migrants arriving in Britain on small boats. Large numbers of people are still being housed in these hotels, though the government has promised to end the practice by the end of this parliament, in 2029. As of June 2025, 32,059 asylum seekers were being accommodated in hotels. That’s 8% up on last year’s level (though actually down from a peak of 56,042 in September 2023).

One council, Epping Forest, has argued in court – unsuccessfully – that using hotels in this way is a breach of planning laws. The government has also been criticised by the Home Affairs Committee of MPs for its general failures in its management of asylum accommodation, and for squandering billions on hotels.

What is the context to all this?

The number of asylum seekers coming to the UK has risen sharply in recent years, because of small-boat crossings. In the year ending December 2024, a record 108,138 people claimed asylum (84,231 main applicants plus 23,907 dependants). The figure for 2019 was 44,494. When asylum seekers have been processed, if they are judged to be “destitute”, as most are, they are eligible for accommodation and subsistence while their claims are being assessed (most are not allowed to work).

New arrivals are placed in “initial accommodation”. Then they are moved to longer‑term “dispersal accommodation” – flats or houses of multiple occupation, often in areas such as the North West, where housing is cheaper – until an asylum decision has been made. But when this is not available, “contingency accommodation” is used: usually hotels. All this accommodation is provided by private contractors: in 2019, the Home Office gave 10-year contracts to three companies: Serco, Clearsprings Ready Homes and Mears.

Why are hotels being used so much?

Until 2020, they were used only in very limited circumstances. But when the pandemic struck, the contractors began placing asylum seekers in hotels – partly for public health reasons, and partly because empty hotels were a useful place to house growing numbers of people. This was only ever intended as a temporary measure, as a response to the pressures of the pandemic. However, it soon became a major part of the asylum accommodation system: at one point, 400 hotels were being used.

After the pandemic, demand continued to grow – because of rising numbers, and because of Boris Johnson’s decision to stop processing asylum claims as his government pursued its Rwanda policy, meaning that more people were stuck in the system. Around a third of the total are now housed in hotels.

Why is it seen as a problem?

Firstly, asylum hotels are poor value for money. The average daily cost of housing an asylum seeker is about £145 per person – compared with £23 in “dispersal accommodation”; catering, laundry, onsite security and so on raise costs. As a result, the expected cost of those three 10-year contracts has risen from £4.5 billion to £15.3 billion, according to the Home Affairs Committee.

Hotels are also unsuitable for asylum seekers themselves: some spend years living in hotels. Bored and unable to work legally, asylum seekers have little to do but stay in their rooms or loiter in the local area; some have committed crimes. Residents living near these hotels often complain that they feel unsafe; The Bell Hotel in Epping, along with others, have become flashpoints for protests and violence.

Are there any alternatives?

There are few easy solutions. From August 2023, some 500 male asylum seekers were moved to the Bibby Stockholm barge docked off the Dorset coast; but that prompted protests and legal challenges, and within 16 months it had been emptied. At present, two large former Ministry of Defence sites are being used to house them: Napier Barracks near Folkestone – found by the High Court in 2021 to be “filthy” and overcrowded – and a former RAF base at Wethersfield in Essex. Napier is due to close by December.

Another option, proposed by the Refugee Council, would be for ministers to grant time-limited leave to remain in Britain to all asylum seekers from five countries (Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, Iran and Afghanistan) whose claims are almost certain to be successful, which would allow asylum hotels to be closed within six months.

What’s the government doing?

It wants to tackle the problem by reducing the number of people in the asylum system: speeding up the processing of claims; reducing irregular arrivals by cracking down on criminal gangs; stepping up returns of those who have been rejected; and perhaps tightening up the rules in general. Keir Starmer has said that he wants asylum hotels “emptied as quickly as possible”. Labour wants to open asylum camps on disused Army bases and on government land, including barracks in East Sussex and Inverness. It’s also trialling a plan to give asylum seekers £100 per week so they can live with family or friends.

Will the hotels be closed?

The PM has told ministers that he hopes to be able to end the use of hotels next year. By then, the government aims to have readied military sites, and made progress in cutting the asylum backlog (which Labour says has fallen by around 20% since it took office). Still, plans to house asylum seekers on government land are likely to encounter local opposition and legal challenges. It’s likely to be expensive, too: such sites often cost more even than hotels. The Home Office’s record does not inspire confidence: the Home Affairs Committee described it as “chaotic”. It had failed, for instance, to claw back millions in “excess profits” owed by contractors to the public purse until prompted by the Committee.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has abandoned plans to increase income tax in the Budget on 26 November, and will instead focus on a range of smaller tax-raising measures.

The U-turn – leaked mere days after briefings about a plot to challenge Keir Starmer – comes after new Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts decreased the size of the economic “hole” Reeves needs to fill. This means she no longer feels under pressure to break Labour’s manifesto and put up income tax rates.

What did the commentators say?

The OBR told the chancellor that the hole in the public finances is now “closer to £20 billion than the £30 billion originally expected”, said Steven Swinford and Mehreen Khan in The Times. Reeves promptly ripped up the manifesto-busting plan she knew would “aggravate mutinous” Labour MPs and “fuel anger among voters”.

Downing Street officials “insisted” the Budget re-write was not a “response to the leadership crisis that has engulfed Keir Starmer” this week, said George Parker, Anna Gross and Sam Fleming in the Financial Times. But the chancellor’s about-turn has had an immediate effects on the markets, with gilts having their “worst one-day sell off since September” when the news broke.

When Reeves finally delivers the Budget, she will probably favour a “smorgasbord” approach, raising money from multiple avenues, including levies on gambling and taxes on expensive properties. She is also expected to “extend a freeze on personal tax thresholds” for a further two years, pushing more people into higher tax brackets as their wages rise.

“Rachel Reeves is Queen of the U-turn,” said Harvey Jones in the Daily Express. “She was forced to backtrack” on scrapping the winter fuel payment” and “caved on” over proposed cuts to the “ballooning” benefit bill. In fact, she has been made “to correct everything from her CV and childhood chess achievements to claims she didn’t know she needed a licence to rent out her property”.

“It is a mess,” said Matthew Lynn in The Telegraph. The Budget is “turning into a shambles”. In a week of “in-fighting, plotting and leaks”, the chancellor is being “buffeted” by political events, instead of controlling them. The proposed “series of minor tax rises” to try to stay within the fiscal rules shows that her preparation has “descended into a farce”.

What next?

A gap of £20 billion is “still a big number”, said Pippa Crerar in The Guardian. In addition to freezing income tax thresholds, we should expect “taxes on salary sacrifice schemes” and even a “fuel duty equivalent for electric vehicles”.

Talk of a new “exit tax” on entrepreneurs leaving the country has dwindled somewhat, said Swinford in The Times, but, if it is brought in, it could have a “significant impact on investment and growth”, particularly “in the artificial intelligence and broader tech sectors”.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has denied leading a plot to oust Keir Starmer, saying “whoever’s been briefing this has been watching too much Celebrity Traitors”.

Streeting fiercely condemned the Downing Street aides behind the briefings, saying their attacks on him betrayed the “toxic culture” around the prime minister, and those responsible should be sacked.

After ruling out any involvement in a plot to oust the prime minister, the health secretary told Sky News: “Nor did I shoot JFK. I don’t know where Lord Lucan is, had nothing to do with Shergar, and I do think that the US did manage to do the moon landings. I don’t think they were faked.”

What did the commentators say?

Mounting anxiety about the vulnerability of Starmer’s position exploded into the open last night as Downing Street launched an “extraordinary operation” to protect the prime minister, said The Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar. Senior figures at No. 10 “said they had been told that Streeting had 50 frontbenchers willing to stand down if the Budget landed badly and the prime minister did not go”.

This is not “one wayward briefing“ from a special adviser “after too many pints”, said Andrew McDonald and Bethany Dawson on Politico’s London Playbook. “It all seemed rather co-ordinated”, with “multiple quotes variously attributed to cabinet ministers, senior officials and other allies or friends of the PM”.

The prime minister’s critics, “who are getting louder, you may have noticed”, think “the whole thing is an attempt to flush out Streeting and anyone else they suspect of plotting”. Others thought to be “on manoeuvres” include Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Defence Secretary John Healey and former Labour leader Ed Miliband. “No. 10 has gone into ‘full bunker mode’” and is “turning on their most loyal cabinet members for absolutely no reason”, one source said.

“A challenge against Starmer is not imminent,” said The i Paper’s Kitty Donaldson, although “conversations around his future have stepped up a gear in recent weeks”. There’s a “generational split” in the Parliamentary Labour Party. New MPs elected last year “fret that Starmer’s mistakes will see them booted from office at the next election”, while “the Cabinet and other senior party members consider the long-term”. To those who “experienced the Jeremy Corbyn years in opposition”, the “dangers of changing leader are obvious”.

What next?

Starmer is “alive to the growing threat to his position”, said Patrick Maguire in The Times, and he is already focusing on “outreach to backbenchers”.

But, “rather than shutting down speculation”, these co-ordinated briefings have “fuelled it”, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. Instead of “uniting the party around the PM”, this has risked “only achieving the reverse”.

Whatever the denials from suspected plotters of any plans to move against him, Starmer should be wary, said The i Paper’s Donaldson. “As anyone who watched ‘The Traitors’ knows, it doesn’t matter what they say when you’re in the room.”