Labour and Conservatives face a challenging electoral test | Letters
Talk of electoral pacts between the Conservatives and Reform UK for the right-of-centre vote has been widely reported.Your editorial (24 April) notes that as the policies of these parties move further right, some traditional Conservative voters will shift their allegiance away.Yet these voters are not going to the Labour party, as its leadership follows rightwards.A litany of government policies must seem as abhorrent to “old school” Conservatives as they do to traditional Labour values.Instead, there is steady growth in support for parties that are broadly in the soft left, socially and environmentally aware space: Liberal Democrats, Greens, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru.
These four parties, albeit each with their own distinctive policy stance or geographic focus, now have a combined voting-preference share larger than that of Labour, the Conservatives or Reform.This can be seen in the three most recent nationwide opinion polls – More in Common: 26%; YouGov: 30%; Find Out Now: 30%.This trend, little reported on – an exception being Gaby Hinsliff (We obsess over the angry young men going Reform.But what of the anxious young women going Green?, 25 April) – of younger, more educated women’s despairing shift to the Green party can surely only broaden and deepen.For society is fragmenting as living standards fall, not least in response to climate breakdown, even while governments worldwide ignore this along with their electorates’ own views on global heating.
It should not only be the right-of-centre parties talking of electoral pacts to gain power and make a difference to our lives, but also parties to the left of this government.Otherwise, a future Nigel Farage-led government, incorporating the remains of the Conservative party, seems only too likely.Neil BrownOban, Argyll and Bute Your editorial assesses the threat posed by Reform to the Conservatives in the local elections.Equally concerning is the threat Reform also poses to Labour in the forthcoming Runcorn byelection.Labour’s first few months in government have done little to stem the flow of disillusioned voters turning to Reform, with its seductive and simplistic solutions to complex problems.
Keir Starmer knows that the self-imposed fiscal constraints belong to another economic era that has been swept away by Donald Trump’s unravelling of global market orthodoxies.If people are to see real change in public services and their economic wellbeing, the fiscal shackles must come off.With the Tory party failing to offer an effective alternative, creating real change in voters’ lives is the only solution to stop Nigel Farage emerging as the victor in future elections.Peter RiddleWirksworth, Derbyshire I am 67 and after a lifetime of voting Labour, I voted Green in the last election.I don’t know who to vote for now that Labour has ceased to be a party of the left.
I believe in social justice and I get the impression that many in this country would like the same.I don’t agree with the current appetite for pitching groups of people against each other to stoke culture wars.If young men feel angry with their situation, perhaps we should be seeing what injustices they face before insulting them.And if young women are turning to the Green party, maybe Labour needs to remind itself of the principles on which it was founded.Janice HillTaverham, Norfolk Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Adidas warns Trump tariffs will put up US shoe prices
Adidas has said the price of its popular trainers, including the Samba and Campus models, is likely to rise as a result of Donald Trump’s tariffs.The German group said the uncertainty around US import tariffs had prevented it from raising its outlook for sales and profit this year despite reporting strong first-quarter results.“Since we currently cannot produce almost any of our products in the US, these higher tariffs will eventually cause higher costs for all our products for the US market,” said Adidas’s chief executive, Bjørn Gulden. “Given the uncertainty around the negotiations between the US and the different exporting countries, we do not know what the final tariffs will be.”Fashion brands, and especially sports shoe producers such as Adidas, will be hit by the introduction of tariffs as the bulk of their products are made in countries including Vietnam, Indonesia and China
Macquarie ‘very proud’ of Thames Water ownership despite loading it with debt
The investment bank that sold Thames Water in 2017 after loading the company with debt has said that it is “very proud” of its record, even as the water utility teeters on the verge of collapse.Australia-headquartered Macquarie led a consortium that owned Thames Water from 2006 until 2017. Macquarie has been criticised by some politicians and analysts for its control of the business, accusing the bank of setting it on course for financial collapse.Thames Water supplies water and sewerage services to 16 million customers in London and south-east England. However, it has reached the edge of collapse after debts rose to near £20bn, and it last month won court approval for £3bn in emergency funding
Drugmaker AstraZeneca shifts more production to US amid Trump tariffs
AstraZeneca said it was shifting the production of some medicines sold in the US from Europe to the US, to counter the impact of Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.Speaking as the company reported higher sales and profits for the first quarter, the FTSE 100 pharma company reiterated that the UK, and the rest of Europe, risked losing out to the US and China unless they ramped up spending on new medicines. Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca’s chief executive, warned that well-paid advanced manufacturing and research jobs could move to the US in the long run.While the industry is holding its breath in case of threatened US tariffs on the pharma sector, which has been largely exempt from duties under a 1995 World Trade Organization agreement aimed at keeping medicines affordable, Soriot said the impact on AstraZeneca would be limited.If tariffs were imposed in the range announced against imports from other industries from Europe to the US, the drugmaker would still be able to achieve its targets this year, as it has built up inventories in the US, he said
BP green energy chief to exit as it retreats from low-carbon investments
The architect of BP’s failed green energy agenda will leave the embattled oil company within months as it continues its retreat from low-carbon investments amid a sharp fall in profits.The oil company said Giulia Chierchia, the executive in charge of BP’s sustainability strategy, would step back from her role from 1 June 2025 to “pursue other opportunities” outside the company. She will not be replaced.BP announced her departure weeks after its chair, Helge Lund, said he would step down from the company by next year, and later faced a shareholder rebellion at its AGM over his role in overseeing BP’s failed green agenda.Chierchia and Lund had faced questions over their future in the months since BP abandoned its green strategy in favour of a renewed focus on oil and gas to increase its profits and bolster its flagging market value
Nationalise gas power plants to boost energy security, thinktank urges UK ministers
Britain’s gas power stations should be nationalised to prevent their owners from holding the electricity market “to ransom”, a thinktank has urged.The country’s dwindling fossil fuel power plants are ripe for nationalisation as ministers aim to reduce gas consumption to just 5% of the electricity system by 2030, according to a report by Common Wealth.Taking the plants back under public control could also prevent the owners from commanding fees of up to 100 times the normal market rate to run when renewable energy generation is in short supply, the thinktank added.“Privately owned gas-fired power plants exploit a unique market power position in the ‘balancing mechanism’, holding the grid to ransom and demanding eye-watering sums of money to supply energy at short notice,” it said.“British households are effectively transferring their wealth to billionaire-owned private equity funds and even foreign governments,” it added, referencing a string of multimillion-pound payments made to a handful of power plants earlier this year
M&S betting on customer patience as cyber-attack threatens to ruin 2025’s strong start
Marks & Spencer was enjoying a strong start to 2025 thanks to a fashion revival and the warm spring weather. That has now been seriously undermined as the retailer scrambles to deal with disruption caused by a massive cyber-attack it first revealed a week ago.At a time when M&S – alongside most big retailers – are pushing more automation on its customers and workers, industry insiders say the retailer’s staff have been forced to return to pens, paper and clipboards to check stock in stores as internal systems have been put on hold.Every second counts now, for M&S’s bottom line and for its reputation. Shoppers report problems with the use of gift cards in stores while thousands of orders made on or after 23 April have been cancelled
‘It’s an existential moment’: Greens take on Reform in fight for fed-up voters
No 10 bullish about immigration, despite Labour MPs’ concerns about rightward shift
Starmer claims voters being ‘conned’ by Tories and Reform UK as parties are planning a coalition – as it happened
Sound the alarm for a KemiKaze breakfast, then hit snooze for the Starmer roadshow | John Crace
Labour and Conservatives face a challenging electoral test | Letters
Fathers ‘betrayed’ by Labour workers’ rights bill, say paternity leave campaigners