Starmer calls on Reform to sack Simon Dudley after ‘everyone dies’ Grenfell comments

Keir Starmer has called on Nigel Farage to sack Reform’s new housing spokesperson after he described the Grenfell Tower fire as a “tragedy” but added that “everyone dies in the end”.Simon Dudley, a former head of Homes England, announced in February that he was joining Reform, as Nigel Farage said he was planning to bring more “experts” onboard to advise the party.However, the new Reform housing spokesperson was embroiled in controversy overnight after he gave an interview to Inside Housing magazine in which he described building safety regulations introduced after the 2017 Grenfell tragedy as “regulation which is not working”.“That was a tragedy. It was a failure,” Dudley was quoted as saying, when asked if the fire was a warning

Starmer calls for ‘ambitious’ new UK-EU ties as Trump threatens to quit Nato

The UK will seek an even deeper partnership with the EU because of the instability wreaked by Donald Trump’s war with Iran, Keir Starmer has said, adding that the moment called for a more ambitious deal with Brussels to strengthen trade and defence.His comments came as the US president again said he was considering pulling the US out of Nato, which he described as a “paper tiger”. Trump has frequently lambasted the UK and European nations for failing to support the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and criticised their militaries.In another barb at the prime minister, Trump told the Daily Telegraph he believed King Charles would have backed his strikes on Iran. The king is scheduled to visit the US later this month, and will address Congress on 28 April

Energy crisis: why ‘keep calm but cut down’ may be a better message for Labour

Labour ministers asked in recent days about the looming energy crisis sparked by the Iran war, including Keir Starmer himself, have essentially stuck to that reassuring wartime slogan: keep calm and carry on.“I think people should go about their lives as normal, knowing that the government is taking action to bring energy bills down,” James Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday.But there are growing fears the government’s “don’t panic” messaging may be underplaying the scale of the challenges ahead and crowding out sensible advice on cutting consumption.“It’s the wrong message,” says Andrew Sissons, the director of the climate programme at the research foundation Nesta, referring to the government’s communications on the war’s impact. “The reality is that the global supply of oil and gas is going to be down by maybe 20%

Opaque party funding affects all of British politics | Letters

While I agree with much of Polly Toynbee’s opinion piece (How will we know Labour is really cleaning up party funding? When Reform and the Tories fight like hell to stop it, 26 March), I was left a little concerned about the tone, which seemingly presented this as uniquely a Tory/Reform UK matter.Dirty money (or just opaque funding) in British politics is not really such a sectarian issue. The proposals would appear to do nothing to prevent a party from accepting, for example, £4m from a hedge fund in the run-up to an election, and not declaring it until afterwards (Labour/Quadrature). Nor would they prevent a party engaging a thinktank that had itself accepted £200m from a rightwing American tech oligarch, bringing them into government, and installing staff in the heart of the policymaking process (Labour/Tony Blair Institute/Larry Ellison of Oracle).But it was heartening to see Toynbee begin to address the way that disparities in funding distort the democratic process

Starmer pledges to tackle new cost of living crisis at May elections campaign launch

The 7 May elections are taking place against a backdrop of “war on two fronts”, Keir Starmer has said, as he pledged action to tackle the resurgent cost of living crisis.Launching Labour’s English local elections campaign in Wolverhampton on Monday, the prime minister said: “We’re facing a war on two fronts – the Ukraine war, now four and a bit years in … and now the Iran war, which I know is causing huge concern.“People look at their screens and they’re worried when they see explosions, infrastructure blown up, the rhetoric that goes with it, worried about whether this is going to escalate even further.”Labour is braced for heavy losses in English council votes on 7 May, in particular in the north-east and London, amid challenges from Reform UK on the right and the Green party on the left. The contests are seen as a major test for Starmer’s premiership

MPs wary of move against Starmer while war is raging

A week after Labour’s election victory in July 2024, officials at Labour HQ held their first crisis meeting about the May 2026 local elections.The party had just secured a 174-seat majority and already strategists were predicting it would be very tough, though none were assuming the prime minister’s own position would be vulnerable.Now, according to multiple officials, it will be nothing short of a “bloodbath” – though it is an open question whether the parliamentary Labour party will use it to depose Keir Starmer.One Starmer ally said it would be impossible to spin the results. “There’s no point us doing expectation management, as the results are going to be terrible anyway,” they said