Budget has preserved Starmer’s job until at least May elections, say Labour MPs
Labour MPs have said they believe Keir Starmer’s leadership is safe until at least the May elections, after a budget that avoided any major damaging measures but which few MPs believe will revive the party’s fortunes,More than a dozen previously loyal MPs told the Guardian they did not believe the budget would shift the fundamentals required for the party to beat Reform,“It only delays what is inevitable,” one minister said,On Wednesday night in the Commons after the budget, many of the cabinet did the rounds chatting to MPs, including the health secretary and the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, a tacit declaration of peace after the fallout from a week of furious briefing about Streeting’s leadership ambitions from allies of Starmer,Those close to Starmer were adamant he would never have walked away had the budget fuelled more criticism of his leadership.
“The idea he’d walk away if somebody said the budget hadn’t landed well is nonsense,” a senior No 10 source said.MPs said they had been “love bombed” in the run-up to the budget when Rachel Reeves met more than 100 MPs individually, name-checking many of them in her budget speech.“Everyone is getting photo ops and invites to Chequers,” said one MP.“The budget doesn’t change the fundamentals that they are one crap decision away from catastrophe.”A number of MPs on the party’s right, however, said they were deeply unnerved by the budget, with one calling it “focused on the bond markets and the backbenches” and not on ordinary voters, who would feel their incomes considerably squeezed in order to pay for additional headroom, the welfare U-turn and the two-child benefit cap.
“It’s a tactical victory, the political and economic trends are all still heading in the wrong direction and it’s not going to turn any of that around,” one senior Labour figure said.“There simply isn’t a wider economic or political story that gives you any idea where we’re going or what this is for, beyond survival.“I don’t think it kills challenges stone dead.And it would be better to try to find a way to do it before May.”Streeting, who has robustly denied any leadership plotting, has been noticed by MPs to be spending time publicly defending key figures on the party’s soft left, including Lucy Powell, the new deputy leader with whom he had previously privately clashed.
Streeting has also publicly praised Angela Rayner, his main potential rival for any future leadership, sparking rumours of a potential pact,One frontbencher said he believed that in any future contest, Streeting would attempt to collect more votes from the party’s left, after having been more outspoken on anti-racism, Gaza and the need to fight harder against Reform,They said they believed Streeting would reach the threshold of 80 MPs, as would the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, should she decide to run,But any candidate from the soft-left group of MPs would likely eat into the vote of both, although there is no obvious person, aside from Rayner – who is in two minds about whether she should be a candidate,The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, who has been mentioned as a potential candidate, is considered by most allies to be highly unlikely to run.
“He would want to be a kingmaker if he could,” said one MP close to the former Labour leader.Sign up to Headlines UKGet the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morningafter newsletter promotionThe Tribune group of soft-left MPs, which has been revived by the former cabinet minister Louise Haigh and the former whip Vicky Foxcroft, welcomed much of the budget, especially the lifting of the two-child benefit cap, but MPs aligned with the group said they expected its lobbying efforts would now focus on living standards.Those around Keir Starmer know that next May’s local elections pose an even greater challenge to the prime minister’s hopes of staying in office.“If the budget is a dangerous moment, then the local elections are perilous,” one senior Downing Street figure said.Discussions are already under way in No 10 – led by Miliband’s 2015 campaign manager Spencer Livermore – about how to limit the damage in what is widely expected to be a disastrous set of results.
There are fears Labour will be badly hit in thousands of council races across England, including London, and could lose Wales to Reform UK and slip into third place behind the SNP and Reform in Scotland, where at one stage the party was tipped for power.“We’ve got to have enough of a story to talk about a win, even if the results overall are terrible,” the No 10 figure added.“If we can find some indicative places where we’ve done well against the Greens or Reform, for example, then we can argue that there’s a route to doing that nationally.”Some MPs, particularly those in Wales and Scotland, think that is thin gruel.“Morgan is more positive than most about how we’ll do north of the border but it’s difficult not to worry when you look at the polls,” one said.
“We need to make sure the contest is about who leads Scotland at Holyrood, who will transform public services here, not about what Scottish voters think about Keir, because otherwise we’re stuffed,”
Why the needless mystery from Australia over Cummins and Khawaja for second Test? | Geoff Lemon
You could speculate about whether Cricket Australia deliberately prefers to be opaque regarding player availability and team plans, or whether it just has a deficiency in communications, but once again the fitness of players and the makeup of the XI is left to be inferred from the selection in the larger squad of 14 players for the second Ashes Test in Brisbane.Normally, a board naming an unchanged squad would not be much news. This time it is, thanks to the possible movement in either direction of Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja, neither of which has now eventuated.Cummins is the surprise for not being included, with the regular captain and fast-bowling leader deep into his recovery from the early signs of a stress fracture in his back. The only public acknowledgment of the situation was a cursory line with the squad release saying that “Pat Cummins will travel to Brisbane to continue his preparations”
Oscar Piastri boosts F1 title hopes with pole for Qatar Grand Prix sprint race
Oscar Piastri took pole position for the sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix. The McLaren driver beat the Mercedes of George Russell into second and, with Lando Norris in third, it was the result the Australian required for his world championship ambitions and allows a chance to narrow the gap to the leader Norris. The other title contender, Max Verstappen, was furious with his Red Bull’s erratic performance and will start in sixth. Drivers' championship standings1 Lando Norris (McLaren) 390pts2 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 3663 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 366Despite being level on points, Piastri (7 wins) holds second place due to more GP victories than Verstappen (6 wins) this seasonPoints still availableGP 1st 25pts, 2nd 18, 3rd 15, 4th 12, 5th 10, 6th 8, 7th 6, 8th 4, 9th 2, 10th 1Sprint race 1st 8pt, 2nd 7, 3rd 6, 4th 5, 5th 4, 6th 3, 7th 2, 8th 1Remaining race weekends 29-30 Nov Qatar (sprint race and GP)6-7 Dec Abu Dhabi (GP only)What Norris needs• He needs to emerge from the weekend having scored two points more than Piastri and Verstappen to be sure. • There are a maximum of 58 points left for each driver to win: eight in today’s sprint, 25 in tomorrow’s race and 25 in Abu Dhabi next Sunday
Lando Norris calm in the maelstrom as three-way title race enters final straight
British driver with world championship within his grasp is showing no sign of nerves despite Verstappen mind games and pressure from PiastriStanding outside the McLaren motorhome in the paddock for the Qatar Grand Prix as a warm desert breeze stirs the air, Lando Norris cuts a figure entirely at ease even in the maelstrom of an increasingly tense fight to claim his first Formula One world championship.While dozens of photographers jostle for space, the mic boom of the Netflix Drive to Survive series swaying over them, Norris has an air of assuredness as he speaks to the clacking of shutters that have increasingly become the backing track to the 26-year-old’s march towards the title.He is fiercely self-critical, but the British driver exudes only a steely determination allied to an almost disconcerting quiet confidence, even after the disappointment of being disqualified from second place at the last round in Las Vegas.“People can believe whatever they want but deep down I know I’ve just been doing a very good job,” he said. “I’ve been doing a better job than everyone else
Your Guardian sport weekend: a pivotal Qatar GP, Lionesses in action, and the big Chelsea-Arsenal clash
Yara El-Shaboury is at the controls of our essential gateway to the day’s football action. There’ll be team news and breaking stories from around the grounds as well as looking ahead to Saturday’s five Premier League fixtures. There are also 10 Championship matches, including Coventry, the runaway leaders, against Charlton plus lunchtime kick-offs in Stoke v Hull and Leicester v Sheffield United. Plus a nod to the Libertadores final as Flamengo play Palmeiras at 9pm. In the Scottish Premiership, top dogs Hearts travel to Motherwell
Derek Evered obituary
My fencing coach Derek Evered, who has died aged 100, began his working life as a lab assistant at 14 and rose to become reader in biochemistry, and deputy to the professor, at Chelsea College of Science and Technology, now part of King’s College London.His career included visiting posts in Zurich and Cambridge, and he authored more than 125 papers, published in journals including the Lancet and the BMJ, as well as founding the master’s course in biochemistry at Chelsea, and supervising more than 500 dissertations. He specialised in amino acids and inborn errors of metabolism, a group of genetic disorders that includes Hartnup syndrome.Derek’s great passion beyond biochemistry was fencing. He competed actively from the late 1950s onwards and in 1976, with his friend Derek Freeborn, founded Egham Fencing Club, in Surrey, not far from his home in Ashford
Will Constitution Hill rediscover electrifying best after startling dip in form?
The venerable Timeform organisation used a well-chosen four-letter word to describe Constitution Hill’s performance in the Boodles Champion Hurdle at Punchestown in early May, when the top-rated hurdler of recent decades started as the odds-on favourite but finished fifth of the six runners. It was, the firm’s post-race analysis said, a “disconcertingly tame display”.Tame. Ouch. It is not a word that could ever have been applied to the first dozen races of Constitution Hill’s career, which ranged from the electrifying, effortless brilliance of his first two seasons to the high drama of falls at Cheltenham and Aintree this year
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