Havering a great time: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage celebrates his party taking control of Havering Council, the first London council to turn turquoise. © PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
Labour’s predicted local election wipeout has been borne out, to the dismay of the declining number of Starmer loyalists within the party. At the time of writing, Labour has lost over 680 seats, shedding control of 15 councils, while Reform has gained over 890 new councillors, winning control of Essex, Suffolk, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Sunderland, Thurrock and Havering. The Conservatives have also performed poorly, losing over 420 seats, but taking back control of Westminster and their effective re-seizure of Wandsworth has helped to soothe the pain. The Greens have won a further 180 seats so far and the mayoral election in Hackney, but are yet to take control of a council. The Lib Dems have increased their number of councillors by 69, taking Portsmouth and achieving a North Korean-style clean sweep in Richmond, where they now control every single ward. Farage revelled in Labour being “wiped out”, while Kemi Badenoch more humbly opted for the opinion that her party was showing "signs of renewal.” The full extent of Labour’s decimation is yet to be seen, but it could be on course to collapse even further than the 1,800 seat fall it had been briefing as a worst-case scenario. Starmer came out swinging, declaring he was “not going to walk away”, and a mood of hesitancy appears to have settled over his challengers. His only saving grace (and this is truly a stretch) is that results from Greater Manchester councils such as Wigan and Tameside show such large Reform gains that Andy Burnham may struggle to win any potential future by-election in his hometown…
Results are also coming in across Scotland and Wales, with the SNP likely remaining the largest party in Holyrood. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has already (expectedly) conceded defeat despite some signs of encouragement, with his party picking up a seat from the SNP. The Scottish Tories are also in a grim mood, dropping one seat so far and looking likely to lose their place as the second largest party. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats, usually strong in parts of the highlands and islands, lost Shetland for the first time to the SNP. Labour is also set for a bruising result in Wales, with mounting losses in the Senedd proclaiming the end of the party’s traditional dominance. Labour’s support has crumbled in the face of an increasingly polarised competition between Reform UK and Plaid Cymru, so far losing 25 seats, including that of its Welsh leader and First Minister, Eluned Morgan. The Conservatives have also fared badly, dropping 13 seats. While Labour commiserates on its thumping loss, all eyes turn Plaid Cymru and Reform UK and, who have so far won 30 and 22 seats respectively. It won’t be long before we have a full picture of this week’s colossal changes…
100 – number of years David Attenborough has graced our planet…
1,300 – number of postal vote applicants in Cardiff who did not receive their ballot papers
£33,241 – annual minimum wage for somebody in a full-time, 7.5 hour-per-day job with a one hour paid lunch break under the Green Party’s plans
81 – number of years since VE day
£18 million – extra funding for the Met Police to tackle antisemitism
3 – number of British people reported to have hantavirus on board MV Hondius
$53,241 – profits Shell made per minute in the first quarter of this year
£56,000 – cost of an individual ticket to the Met Gala
96 mph – speed Paul Hollywood was caught at whilst taking his cat to the vet
The Government has launched a “lightning” consultation on relaxing flight take-off and landing rules in an effort to provide certainty for passengers and businesses ahead of the summer holidays. Both the Government and UK airlines have confirmed they are not facing jet fuel supply issues; however due to growing concern in other countries due to disruption caused by the conflict in the Middle East, temporary measures are being considered that would allow airlines to consolidate schedules on routes with multiple flights to the same destination on the same day.
Hate crime prosecutions will be fast-tracked, following a spike in antisemitic incidents, the Director of Public Prosecutions has said, amid what he described as a “period of crisis for the Jewish community”. This followed a meeting in Downing Street on Monday, convened by the PM, which brought together leaders from across society to call for ‘action on all forms of antisemitism.’
Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, said that the Party would open migrant detention centres for people awaiting deportation in Green Party-controlled areas, explaining that the areas would be prioritised due to the Green Party’s support for “open borders”. He argued that “this is the fairest approach to ensuring democratic consent for all aspects of our mass deportation programme.” A Green Party spokesperson called the proposal a “disgusting idea”, while Labour Party chair Anna Turley called it a “grotesque policy”.
The Greens, meanwhile, launched their new ‘Workers Charter’ setting out a series of pledges to further strengthen employment rights, including a £15 minimum wage for all workers regardless of age by April 2027; a 1:10 pay ratio within all organisations; more statutory holiday alongside more and fairer parental leave; and a new Employment Rights Act, which would include unfair dismissal rights from day one, full bans on fire and rehire and on zero-hours contracts, and the scrapping of all anti-union and anti-strike laws introduced since 1979.
Modern slavery and human trafficking are likely to become ‘increasingly adaptive, transnational and embedded within legitimate systems unless preventative action is taken globally’, so found the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner in her new report out this week. She set out a number of key recommendations to tackle the issue, including: embedding lived experience in policymaking and oversight; publishing a Modern Slavery Strategy; making it a whole-of-Government priority; protecting survivors of exploitation and providing specialist care for child victims; and strengthening law enforcement capability to disrupt modern slavery.
Starmer met with European Commission President Von der Leyen at the European Political Community Summit on Monday where they discussed their joint commitment to improving the UK-EU relationship ‘to deliver for consumers, businesses and collective European security.’ They also reflected on the UK’s plan to participate in the EU’s £78bn loan for Ukraine and agreed to commence negotiations on UK participation in the European Innovation Council Fund, including the Scaleup Europe Fund.
A third British national is suspected to have contracted hantavirus in connection with an outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, which is expected to dock in the Canary Islands this weekend despite concerns from local residents and officials. The FCDO is arranging a chartered repatriation flight for the remaining Britons on board, who will be asked to isolate for 45 days on their return to the UK as a precautionary measure.
A new wave of sanctions targeting 35 individuals and entities accused of supporting Russia’s war effort in Ukraine have been imposed by the UK, with the designations specifically focusing on networks involved in recruiting vulnerable migrants and supplying components for drone production.
Negative attitudes towards Green Party leader Zack Polanski have spiked following the Golder’s Green attack, according to a poll undertaken by YouGov this week. This follows Polanski’s repost on social media of a post criticising police officers for kicking the head of the Golders Green stabbing suspect to get him to relinquish his knife. The Green Party’s leader has seen an 8-point drop in popularity over the week, with 47% of Brits having an unfavourable view of him, compared to a mere 39% last week. Unfortunately for Polanski, this figure is more than double the favourable opinion of him, sitting at just 22%.
Young children in England are more likely to own a smartphone than be able to throw a ball, a new report from the Centre for Social Justice has claimed. The report warns that ‘England is raising a generation of children where only a small minority of children are mastering the basic movement skills they need to participate confidently in sport and physical activity’, as half of all pupils in English primary schools fail to meet ‘basic activity levels for a healthy life’. It recommends that the Government introduce a new School Activity Standard to embed physical activity throughout the school day and inclusive interventions to improve activity levels; impose new Ofsted rules establishing ‘physical development’ as a key evaluation area; and create new ‘shuttle run’ style fitness assessments to encourage schools to meet ambitious new activity targets.
The Iran war energy shock will impose significant costs on the UK economy, even if the government does not offer a universal support package, warned the IPPR’s latest publication, which called for a 'well-designed intervention that caps energy prices’ which can ‘limit inflation and insure against the worst outcomes, keeping inflation expectations in check and limiting second round effects, which would otherwise keep inflation higher for longer'. The think tank warned that relying solely on interest rates to lower inflation is a ‘mistake’ and called for the Government to set a cap on energy bills of £2,000 – to trigger automatically if Ofgem’s quarterly projections cross that threshold, and introduce an immediate temporary 10p fuel duty cut.
Metaphors can be a bit of a minefield… as David Lammy unfortunately discovered this week when defending Keir Starmer’s leadership on election night. Telling the BBC “you don’t change the pilot during a flight”, the Justice Secretary received the full internet-treatment when X users jumped onto the platform to remind him that you do, in fact, regularly change the pilot during the flight… Whether or not Labour MPs can agree on who’ll be taking over the controls is of course another matter. It seems a safe bet to say however that, in the widely-predicted forthcoming reshuffle, the Deputy Prime Minister won’t be stepping into the Department for Transport any time soon.
AI generated images of card games can also be a bit of a minefield too… as Donald Trump found out this week when posting (truthing?) on Truth Social a picture showing him holding a handful of oversized Uno cards with the caption ‘I have all the cards’. The only problem for the President is (as the internet thoroughly enjoyed pointing out – largely through expletive-ridden posts on X)… the aim of Uno is to get rid of all your cards. So, assuming his post is in relation to the war with Iran, and by implication of his ‘I have all the cards’ claim, Iran has no cards… is the President subtly letting us know he’s lost?
There are now so many political parties on the British right that even the people elected to represent them can’t keep track. At least that appears to be the case for newly elected Reform UK councillor Peter Reeve, who triumphantly declared “UKIP’s here!” in his very first message to voters on Thursday night. Reeve had just won the Stanground South seat on Peterborough City Council when, speaking to ITV Anglia, he accidentally named Nigel Farage’s former party instead of the one he has just won his seat for. After being corrected by the reporter, the councillor looked understandably red-faced – though perhaps he can take comfort in the fact he’s not alone. After all, even Nigel Farage has accidentally referred to Reform UK as UKIP before…
How much do you love working from home? Probably not quite as much as these civil servants who have reportedly been pulling off what senior managers at HMRC are calling a ‘drive-by login’. According to an investigation by the Telegraph, some staff have allegedly been driving to a nearby car park, briefly connecting to the office Wi-Fi so their location appears to register at the building itself, and then promptly heading straight back home to continue the day from the comfort of the sofa. It could go down as one of the great modern scams: not quite remote working, not quite office working, perhaps it can be generously described as ‘hybrid commuting’?
