Turquoise sea: Nigel Farage celebrates big wins for Reform UK, during a visit to Newton Aycliffe on Friday morning © PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
And then there were five…. again. Reform UK won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by just six votes, the smallest post-war victory margin in a by-election. Former Conservative councillor Sarah Pochin becomes the new MP for the constituency, and the fifth Reform UK MP, winning on a 17.4% swing in one of Labour’s safest seats. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the result was “disappointing” and that his Government would go “further and faster” on the changes they are seeking to implement. A jubilant Nigel Farage marked the win by saying his party were “now the main opposition” and that “if you vote Conservative you actually get Labour.”
And that wasn’t all, as Reform UK had a stellar set of local election results, winning control of Staffordshire County Council, Kent Council, Nottinghamshire Council, Lancashire Council, Derbyshire Council, Durham Council and Lincolnshire County Council, as well as former Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns becoming Reform UK’s first Mayor, winning in Greater Lincolnshire. It was a bruising for both Labour and the Conservatives who only saw slivers of relief each, as Labour held onto the Mayoralties in North Tyneside, the West of England and Doncaster, while another former Conservative MP, Paul Bristow, is the new Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (and actually for the Conservatives). Results are still being counted, and it’s looking like time will only get worse for Labour and the Conservatives, as Reform UK, the Lib Dems and the Greens all take seats from them across the country.
6 – the margin of votes that decided the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, with Reform UK taking a seat that was once one of Labour’s safest strongholds.
29.3°C – the highest temperature recorded in London yesterday, marking the UK’s warmest start to May on record.
£94m – amount of working capital allocated by the Government to support British Steel, after taking temporary control of the Scunthorpe plant last month.
104,133 – the total number of votes secured by Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns to become Greater Lincolnshire’s first elected mayor…beating the Conservative candidate by more than 40,000 votes.
315 – the number of quango chief executives who receive a higher salary than the Prime Minister.
76% – the proportion of large UK organisations affected by cyberattacks in the past year, a figure brought into focus by recent incidents involving Marks & Spencer, the Co-op, and Harrods.
16 – the number of MPs who swapped PMQs for PBs by running the 2025 London Marathon on Sunday.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair caused a headache for the Government for this week by announcing that ‘any strategy based on either “phasing out” fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail’. The comments – contained in the forward to the Tony Blair Institute’s latest report on climate change – unhelpfully for Labour made the frontpage of several newspapers just days before the local elections… The TBI has since sought to clarify his comments, stating he supports the Government’s approach; but it forced the Prime Minister onto the backfoot, yet again having to reaffirm his confidence in his Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. The Green Party went on the attack, criticising Labour’s most electorally successful leader for trying to ‘mimic Nigel Farage’ and suggesting he was ‘speaking on behalf of petro-states like Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan for whom he has lobbied for more years than he was prime minister’.
Housebuilders will have to fit solar panels to all new-build houses from 2027, under new proposals seen by The Times this week. The plans are aimed at reducing the cost of future energy bills but will add more than £3,000 to the cost of building a home. The reports – expected to be confirmed soon – came on the same day the Government announced plans to create up to 18,000 training places for green jobs, and confirmed more than 4,000 applications were received for its subsidised Boiler Upgrade Scheme in March, up 88% on the same month last year.
Fly-tippers will get five years and a crushed van under a new Government crackdown on the ‘soaring’ levels of waste being illegally dumped around the country. Environment Secretary Steve Reed donned the customary ‘we mean business’ hard hat and high-vis on a visit to see a van crushed in Wokingham, as part of the in-no-way-conveniently-timed-purdah-breaking-announcement ahead of the local elections on Tuesday… that seemingly did nothing to dent the onslaught from Farage’s Reform…
Foreign nationals who commit sex offences will be excluded from asylum protections in the UK as part of a new amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The UN’s Refugee Convention – introduced almost 75 years ago – permits the Government to prevent anyone convicted of a ‘particularly serious crime’ from claiming asylum in the UK, but this is the first time it has been extended to foreign nationals who would qualify for the sex offenders register.
RAF Typhoons bombed a Houthi military facility in Yemen on Tuesday night, after military intelligence confirmed the buildings were being used to manufacture attack drones used on ships in the Red Sea. The orders were the first air strikes in Yemen approved by the new Labour Government. Defence Sec John Healey told MPs on Wednesday that the threat posed by the Houthis had led to a “drastic fall” in traffic through the Red Sea, with a 55% reduction since November 2023 as the majority of vessels now take a 5,000 mile diversion around the Cape of Good Hope.
Visitors to Liverpool will pay a £2-per-night tax to help boost the city’s tourism economy from June, under new plans announced this week. A majority of hotels who voted in a ballot supported the idea. Liverpool becomes the second city in the UK to introduce a visitor tax after Manchester implemented a £1-per-night charge two years ago… which makes sense given “Liverpool 2 – Manchester 1” pretty much sums up this year’s Premier League season…
Former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney led the Liberal Party to victory in Canada on Monday, six weeks after he was sworn in as Prime Minister, and just three and half months after Justin Trudeau announced his resignation. Being sworn in as the new Canadian PM in March without ever having won a seat in frontline politics, he turned around a huge poll deficit, in a night that saw the Conservative leader – previously tipped to form a Government just a few months ago – lose his seat. Winning 169 of the 343 seats available (including his own), the Liberal Party has fallen 3 short of an overall majority but won enough to form a minority government. With so much of Carney’s campaign focused on standing up to Trump’s musings about making Canada the USA’s 51st state, questions have been swirling all week in Westminster over whether Keir Starmer should be taking a stronger stance on the outspoken US President.
The US and Ukraine finally signed a minerals deal which will give the United States access to Ukrainian minerals, as well as its oil and gas reserves, whilst setting up a joint investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine. The deal crucially does not include a previous US-demand for Ukraine to pay back the military aid provided under President Biden since Russia invaded in 2022, and leaves the door open to further US military aid to continue, as well as providing a firmer tone from the US than the Trump administration has been prepared to give in recent months – criticising ‘Russia’s full-scale invasion’ of the country.
The Government’s Fraud Bill completed its passage through the House of Commons, seeking to safeguard public money through new powers to better identify, prevent and deter public sector fraud and error, and enable the better recovery of money owed to the taxpayers where public money has been stolen or overpaid. It also introduces new powers to enable the Public Sector Fraud Authority to investigate public sector fraud outside of tax and social security; and improves DWP’s ability to tackle fraud and error in the social security system. However, concerns were raised across the House over powers in the Bill to enable DWP to recover money directly from people’s bank accounts, emphasising the importance of balancing individuals’ right to privacy. The Bill will now head to the Lords for scrutiny.
Following the power outages across Spain and Portugal at the start of the week, Energy Minister Michael Shanks delivered a Ministerial Statement on Wednesday discussing the resilience of the UK’s energy grid. He insisted that Great Britain has a “highly resilient” energy network and highlighted the cause of power outage is yet to be confirmed, encouraging others not to speculate on this after some MPs *cough Richard Tice* took the opportunity to immediately blame renewables. Other ministerial statements this week covered the UK air strike against the Houthi military and the visit of the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mustafa; while UQs discussed energy prices for energy-intensive industries, increasing tensions between India and Pakistan, Kneecap, and the Headingley attack.
Pessimism is proving hard to shake, as Ipsos’ latest polling shows three in five Brits think a recession is likely within the next year. 73% of the British public describe the current state of the economy as ‘poor’, compared to just 22% who view it as ‘good’. Unfortunately, it’s more doom and gloom, as three in five also expect the economy to remain in a poor state a year from now, with only 28% anticipating a positive economic situation. When it comes to who’s getting the blame, eyes are turning sharply towards the top. The decisions of the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves are seen as the biggest contributing factors (56%), with a further 43% citing the previous Conservative governments legacy. Turning to international matters, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is seen as another big contributing factor (44%), as well as the state of the global economy (43%) and US President Donald Trump (41%).
AI in the NHS? The British public are warming to the idea of the role of AI in the NHS, but not without reservations. A new poll by Ipsos shows that the British public are cautiously optimistic of the use of AI within the NHS, but are split on whether it presents more risks or rewards. There are high levels of comfort with AI being used for a range of scenarios, including reminding patients about follow-up appointments (61%), helping to identify potential health risks or early signs of disease via wearable devices (48%) and helping to identify those at increased risk of chronic illnesses (48%). However, the public is somewhat divided on whether AI represents more of an opportunity or a risk. 37% see it as an opportunity for the NHS as a whole, compared with 20% who see it as more of a risk and 31% who say it presents as much of an opportunity as a risk.
The Government needs to re-think its international economic priorities as it navigates a new era of global politics, the IPPR argues in the most recent report. In a time of economic turmoil and uncertainty, most notably elevated by the tariff disarray that has come with the second Trump presidency, the IPPR emphasises that the UK Government will need to make tough choices when it comes to delivering the country’s key objectives. In a nutshell, the Government must assess and weigh up trade-offs, rather than making choices on the basis that there are straightforward ‘win-wins’.
Sixteen Parliamentarians took part in the London Marathon last weekend, including Shadow Energy Security and Net Zero Minister Andrew Bowie. Bowie finished just shy of four hours, crossing the finish line at 03:58:46. However, his time failed to impress Government counterpart Michael Shanks, who took the opportunity to land a jab during DESNZ OPQs, quipping that the Shadow Minister “steamrolls through his question faster than he ran the marathon”. Ouch.
