Category Archives: Local elections

‘This is not the country I moved to’: the British Indians showing support for Nigel Farage

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Savitha Prakash, a first-generation immigrant running in local elections in Harrow, says Reform UK aims to ‘put Britain first’

Savitha Prakash, an NHS doctor living in the London borough of Harrow, believes there are similarities between the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. “He’s [Modi] one of those people, like Nigel, he walks the talk. He made [a] difference to the country,” said Prakash, who chairs Reform UK’s branch in Harrow.

In particular, the 47-year-old said Farage and Modi – who have each been accused by their critics of scapegoating marginalised communities – were focused on putting the needs of the majority first.

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Labour claims Reform UK won’t protect women, as poll suggests Farage’s party heading for ‘seismic’ wins in May – UK politics live

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Poll projects major political earthquake across Britain with Labour losing Wales and England’s Red Wall

In the light of what George Robertson, who led the strategic defence review for Labour, said about defence spending in his speech last night, there’s a good chance Kemi Badenoch will choose to raise this at PMQs later.

She may well raise the Times’s splash, which says Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is proposing to raise defence spending by less than £10bn over the next four years.

The State of It political podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times has been told that Reeves is unwilling to break her fiscal rules or increase taxes to boost defence spending.

John Healey, the defence secretary, is pressing for a bigger increase as there are concerns that £10bn will not be enough, given the increasing likelihood that British forces will be deployed to Ukraine and the Middle East.

Lord Robertson produced his first SDR as Tony Blair’s defence secretary in 1998, and the historian David Edgerton noted then that Britain was committing itself “to acting primarily with the USA in a wide-ranging programme of global policing”. The structure of the armed forces is designed not for autonomous defence but because “the composition … is what allows Britain to be the USA’s principal partner”. Only 15% to 20% of spending, Prof Edgerton reckoned, related to purely national defence. In that sense, the model Lord Robertson now defends was never primarily about defending the UK at all. It was about plugging into a US system and piggybacking on its arms industry base.

The Treasury is right to question prioritising defence now. Cutting welfare would hit demand and weaken growth. As Khem Rogaly of the Common Wealth thinktank argues, defence spending provides a weak economic stimulus compared with public investment – and is even worse as a job creator. Moreover, the UK is not using higher defence spending to build its own independent military, but to reshape its armed forces around a US-style venture capital and tech ecosystem. With Mr Trump in office, there is no better time to ask: whose security are we funding – Britain’s or America’s?

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Starmer implies he didn’t tell Trump he was ‘fed up’ about his impact on rising UK energy bills – as it happened

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Prime minister says conversation with US president on Thursday night focused on need for ‘practical plan’ to open strait of Hormuz

Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, has joined those saying the government should allow drilling for oil and gas in the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea.

Both applications were approved by the last Conservative government, but then overturned by a court ruling. Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has to make a decision about the revised applications operating in a quasi-judicial capacity, which means he has to follow due process and can’t take the decision purely on political ground.

The current debate [on energy policy] is deadlocked between two incomplete responses. The government argues the answer is to accelerate Clean Power 2030, focusing on decarbonising the electricity system as quickly as possible. The opposition argues that the answer is to expand domestic oil and gas production. Both positions contain elements of truth, but neither addresses the core strategic problem: outside the power sector the UK economy remains overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels, and electricity is still too expensive to support mass electrification.

The UK is caught in a self-reinforcing high-cost, low-electrification trap. High electricity costs suppress demand, slowing the uptake of electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial electrification. Weak demand growth, in turn, means that the fixed costs of the system – from networks to long-term contracts – are spread across a smaller base, keeping prices high. The result is a system that is too expensive to electrify and therefore remains dependent on fossil fuels and exposed to global shocks …

The first of these vital measures will ban anyone from possessing or publishing harmful pornography that shows incest between family members, and sex between step or foster relations where one person is pretending to be under 18.

A further amendment will criminalise the publication and possession of pornography where an adult is roleplaying as a child.

This government is uncompromising in our mission to protect women and girls online, and we have taken action to stop tech firms from publishing this abusive content.

In February, we told platforms that they must remove reported non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours.

I greatly welcome the government’s plans to fully address harmful pornographic content such as incest, step-incest and the mimicking of child sexual abuse. This content that is freely and widely available online is deeply harmful, normalising child sexual abuse and abusive relationships within families …

Today the government has answered our calls for change, and I am delighted that once again the UK is leading the way on regulating this high harm industry.

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Zack Polanski tells NEU teachers’ union that Greens would abolish ‘toxic’ Ofsted – UK politics live

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The Green party leader said Ofsted is a ‘failed institution’ and that teaching should move ‘toward a genuinely collaborative model’

Starmer complained about other parties whipping up division, and he specifically criticised Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, for “complaining about Muslims praying in public”.

Labour, by contrast, values bringing people together, he said.

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Keir Starmer to launch local elections campaign with focus on cost of living

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PM will also cite Iran war as reason to stick with Labour, as party adopts new slogan: ‘Pride in Britain’

Keir Starmer will say that a vote for Reform UK will put at risk progress Labour is making on the cost of living, arguing that Britain’s values are being tested in a volatile world.

Launching the party’s local elections campaign with a new slogan: “Pride in Britain”, Starmer will urge voters to stay the course with Labour. A dire set of results are predicted for the party in Wales, Scotland and English councils, especially in the north-east of England and London.

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Farage backs Tory attack on Muslim iftar event, saying public prayer ‘was a shock’ – UK politics live

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Nigel Farage echoed Nick Timothy’s comments after he said public prayer for Ramadan was an ‘act of domination’

Cleverly is trying to show a video, but it is not working. So he just invites Kemi Badenoch to start her speech.

The Conservatives are launching their local elections campaign. There is a live feed here.

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Starmer says Reform’s pledge to restore two-child benefit cap in full is ‘shameful’ – UK politics live

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Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now.

He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending.

The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious …

We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work.

We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow, and paid for by working people who can’t afford them themselves.

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MPs and political candidates face ‘industrial’ levels of abuse, minister says

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Exclusive: Young people deterred from politics, Rushanara Ali warns, as government plans stricter punishments

MPs and political candidates are facing “industrial” levels of intimidation and harassment, a minister has warned, as the government outlines plans for stricter punishments for those found guilty of abuse.

Rushanara Ali, the minister for democracy, said her colleagues were suffering worse harassment than ever before and warned this was deterring many young people from becoming politically active.

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Starmer ‘completely rejects’ suggestion he echoed Enoch Powell in immigration speech, No 10 says – as it happened

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David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has just started taking questions in the Commons. In response to the first question, Hamish Falconer, minister for the Middle East, said the UK has joined calls for an urgent meeting of the UN security council this afternoon to discuss the situation in Gaza.

After Foreign Office questions, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, is asking an urgent question about the Mansion House accord – a deal with pension companies intended to get them to invest more in UK firms.

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Now Farage not Starmer is feeding public’s appetite for change

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The Reform UK leader has somehow dodged responsibility for the economic damage of Brexit and is winning over disaffected Labour voters

There was a time when any election campaign featuring the name Nigel Farage would have featured the word “Brexit” just as prominently.

And yet, almost a decade after Farage orchestrated Britain’s great EU schism, and with the Reform leader emerging as a bigger political threat than ever, at this week’s local elections Brexit was not a word on the lips of voters.

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Labour targets international students claiming asylum after losses to Reform in local elections

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Exclusive: Ministers understood to be drafting white paper this month in move to reduce legal migration

Ministers will crack down on international students applying for asylum in the UK in a move designed to tackle migration figures, after a series of bruising losses to Reform in the local elections.

An immigration white paper setting out the proposed reforms in mid-May will include measures to bring down the numbers of UK student visa holders who make asylum claims, the Guardian understands.

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Is Nigel Farage’s quest to rid Reform of ‘amateurism’ paying off?

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Runcorn win was much bigger than polls implied, suggesting overall effectiveness of ground campaign

For the last few months, Nigel Farage has been promising to professionalise his Reform UK party, saying its general election result of five seats had been hampered by the party’s “amateurism”.

Friday’s narrow victory in the Runcorn and Helsby byelection suggests his strategy is starting to bear fruit. Not only did the party win a seat in which it came a distant third less than a year ago, but it did so with a much bigger swing than implied by the national polls – demonstrating the effectiveness of the party’s ground campaign.

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Local elections: voters head to the polls across England – UK politics live

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Labour face first electoral test since general election with more than 1,600 council seats up for grabs

One of the signs that Bluesky is functioning as a decent alternative to Elon Musk’s X is the fact that it has become a decent source for #dogsatpollingstations. Here are some of the nicer pictures I have seen there this morning.

The Metropolitan police has confirmed that counter-terrorism police are investigating footage that appears to show Irish language rap band Kneecap calling for politicians to be killed, and shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”.

On April 22, we were made aware of an online video believed to be from a music event in London in November 2024. Following this, we were made aware of a further video, believed to be from another music event in London in November 2023.

Both videos were referred to the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit for assessment by specialist officers, who have determined there are grounds for further investigation into potential offences linked to both videos.

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Fly-tippers’ vehicles to be crushed in bid to save England from ‘avalanche of rubbish’

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The scheme, part of policy blitz for local elections, will encourage councils and police forces to work together

Councils will be encouraged to work with police forces to seize and crush vehicles used by fly-tippers, in the latest phase of a government policy blitz before Thursday’s local elections.

Under a scheme being led by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), new legislation will impose jail sentences of up to five years for people who illicitly transport waste in England.

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Reform UK challenged to give details on donations after £2m mailshot campaign

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Exclusive: Liberal Democrats say voters need to know sources of funding for Nigel Farage’s party before local elections

The Liberal Democrats have publicly challenged Nigel Farage to give details of his party’s donations after calculating that Reform UK spent more than £2m on personalised letters to postal voters before the local elections.

In a letter to Farage, Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said people needed to know the source of the money before Thursday’s elections, given that Reform received only £281,000 in donations in the last set of publicly available figures, for the final quarter of 2024.

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‘Tories are not listening’: Ed Davey sure Lib Dems can woo more disgruntled voters

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Leader hopes local elections in many traditionally Conservative areas will help party build on recent success

Days before the local elections, with Kemi Badenoch demanding apologies over gender identity and Nigel Farage complaining about mental illness diagnoses, Ed Davey was quietly getting on with what he perhaps does best: having fun.

In a converted shed near Stratford-upon-Avon, the Liberal Democrat leader was joking with photographers as he made chocolate truffles alongside Manuela Perteghella, his party’s MP for the formerly true-blue constituency.

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For political parties judging this year’s local election results it’s all about the baseline

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The polls will be first electoral test for Labour government, while Reform is standing candidates in almost every contest

It’s all about the bass – well at least the baseline. With all political parties likely to win in some places it can be hard to judge what a good night looks like for any party when it comes to local elections.

One way to judge this is to compare with how parties did the last time these contests took place: the baseline. For the seats up for election next week that was 2021 – though many of the places that voted then will not be doing so in 2025. Those elections included places where elections were held over from 2020 because of Covid restrictions; these seats returned to their normal schedule last year.

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For political parties judging this year’s local election results it’s all about the baseline

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The polls will be first electoral test for Labour government, while Reform is standing candidates in almost every contest

It’s all about the bass – well at least the baseline. With all political parties likely to win in some places it can be hard to judge what a good night looks like for any party when it comes to local elections.

One way to judge this is to compare with how parties did the last time these contests took place: the baseline. For the seats up for election next week that was 2021 – though many of the places that voted then will not be doing so in 2025. Those elections included places where elections were held over from 2020 because of Covid restrictions; these seats returned to their normal schedule last year.

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GDP growth an ‘encouraging sign but we are not complacent’, says Reeves – UK politics live

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Chancellor says government ‘will remain pragmatic and cool-headed’ while seeking US trade deal

The care minister has defended the government’s cautious response to developments in global trade after the sweeping imposition of tariffs by the US administration in Washington.

Stephen Kinnock said “If we were to just jump in one direction or the other every time there’s a new development, we would be jumping around all over the place. I don’t think that that’s going to be in the interest of our economy or of our national security or of our business community.”

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Cooper says five grooming gang inquiries to go ahead after Tories claim they’ve been dropped in ‘cover up’ – as it happened

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During her BBC Breakfast interview Kemi Badenoch claimed that the government has dropped the plans for five local inquiries into grooming gang, or child rape scandals, that were announced in January. As she was trying to fend of the questions about Adolescence, she said:

One of the things that I’m more bothered by is the fact that just yesterday, we had Labour telling us that they’re not going to be investigating the rape gang scandal, something which had happened all across the country. That’s real. That’s happening right now. We’re not talking about that.

I am absolutely astonished that Labour has dropped what it said it would do in January. And, as I said to Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions, if he did not have a full national inquiry, people will start to think that there is a cover-up.

They are clearly uncomfortable with having inquiries that are looking into this issue.

As a rule I believe in mess ups rather than conspiracy.

But if true that Labour have shelved even the most limited public enquiries into grooming gangs, it does suggest that powerful Labour politicians have something to hide.

We are developing a new best practice framework to support local authorities that want to undertake victim-centred local inquiries or related work, drawing on the lessons from local independent inquiries such as those in Telford, Rotherham and Greater Manchester. We will publish the details next month.

Alongside that, we will set out the process through which local authorities can access the £5m national fund to support locally-led work on grooming gangs. Following feedback from local authorities, the fund will adopt a flexible approach to support both full independent local inquiries and more bespoke work, including local victims’ panels or locally led audits of the handling of historical cases.

There’s a huge information about this. This is completely wrong. We’re actually increasing, not reducing, the action being taken on this.

Child sexual exploitation, grooming gangs – these are some of the most vile crimes, things like rape or exploitation, coercion. We’re increasing the action against that.

I think that those are all important issues, and those were issues that I’ve been talking about for a long time.

But in the same way that I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what’s going on in the NHS, I don’t need to watch a specific Netflix drama to understand what’s going on. It’s a fictional series. It is not a documentary.

I’m saying very clearly that my job is not to watch lots of TV. My job is to get out there and make sure that I’m talking about the issues that are happening in the country right now.

Badenoch in the right. Stop basing public policy on telly

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