Starmer is facing a cocktail of dissent that is growing ever more potent

But for the Iran crisis, Labour’s first major policy announcement since the party’s calamitous defeat in the Gorton and Denton byelection would have been arguably the biggest political story of the week.Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, pressed ahead with what is intended to be the party’s full-throated answer to the competition it faces from Reform UK as she declared an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of state support from some asylum seekers.It immediately put her on a collision course with many Labour backbenchers, but it also left the party’s soft-left majority, who had been pushing for a more progressive offering in recent weeks, asking: “Is that it?”The victory speech in Gorton and Denton by Hannah Spencer, the newly minted Green party MP, contained the sort of lines that many on Labour’s backbenches yearn to hear their leader utter, or even nod towards. Hard-working people had become “sick of making other people rich” and now wondered what their toil would yield, said the young plumber.Yet while Keir Starmer’s troops expected at least some red meat this week from their party’s leadership to counter the Green challenge for economically squeezed traditional Labour voters, his instinctive response was to send a letter to MPs in which he repeated an attack line that sought to paint Zack Polanski’s party as extremist

From byelections to regime change: how gambling on any event fuelled the rise of prediction markets

As ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones rained down on the Middle East, one of the world’s most talked-about businesses was inviting wagers on whether nuclear Armageddon might be imminent.Polymarket is a prediction market, a relatively new breed of betting company that has burst on to the scene, particularly in the US, often seducing customers with little previous interest in gambling.Alongside its larger rival Kalshi, Polymarket offers the chance to stake money on everything from the result of last week’s Gorton and Denton byelection to whether the US will confirm the existence of aliens before 2027.Its market on nuclear Armageddon now appears to have been taken down, after widespread distaste circulating online for the prospect of wagering on the deaths of millions of humans. Polymarket did not return a request for comment

Australia v India: one-off women’s cricket Test, day one – live

26th over: India 99-4 (Jemimah Rodrigues 15, Deepti Sharma 4) Ash Gardner with the last over before the break, Rodrigues plays it away without incident. Deepti and Rodrigues, bump gloves but Australia had the best of that first session.“It was really exciting,” says Hamilton of her first Test wicket. “The support has been the biggest thing, getting my cap from Beth Rooney.”Time for me to grab a coffee, back shortly

Women ​built​, and still shape, our culinary culture every day

On 8 March each year, the calendar lights up: dinners celebrating women, panel talks, articles and online events amplifying female voices. The mood on International Women’s Day is joyful, the conversations energised and it feels as if the world is finally paying attention. But then 9 March arrives. Do the celebrations stop? Do we tuck away the banners with the last of the desserts? When the events conclude, are women no longer worth celebrating? The sad truth is that many International Women’s Day events can feel like lip service.Less so in the food world – or at least in our corner of it

Stephen Colbert on Republican double-speak for war in Iran: ‘A war that got a thesaurus for Christmas’

Late-night hosts unpacked the Orwellian double-speak of congressional Republicans trying to justify the Trump administration’s military strikes in Iran.“Folks, I really didn’t want to start the monologue by talking about the war, but in honor of this administration, I went into this without a plan,” said Stephen Colbert on Wednesday, five days after the US military, in conjunction with Israel, bombed Iran and killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.“I say ‘war’,” he continued, “because it sure looks like a war, and Trump keeps calling it a war, but Congress never declared it a war, and Maga was promised no new wars, so the White House sent out a list of talking points to all the congressional Republicans telling them in no uncertain terms that if a reporter asked ‘Can you promise the American people this will not be a long-drawn out war?’, the answer to give is ‘These are targeted, major combat operations.’”“So … it’s worse than a war,” said Colbert. “It’s a war that got a thesaurus for Christmas

Oil price heading for biggest weekly gain in four years, as strait of Hormuz traffic grinds to a halt – business live

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.The oil price is on track for its biggest monthly gain in four years, fuelling fears of an inflation spike that will reignite the cost of living crisis and hurt growth around the globe.The Iran conflict has driven Brent crude, the international benchmark, has soared by 17.65% this week to over $85 a barrel. That would be the biggest jump since the week to 4 March 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine