America has special relationship with Israel now, UK’s new US ambassador says
The UK’s new ambassador to the US has described Keir Starmer as having been “on the ropes” over the Peter Mandelson scandal and said it is Israel rather than Britain that has a “special relationship” with the White House.Christian Turner, who took office in February to replace Mandelson as the UK’s most senior diplomat in Washington, made the remarks privately to a group of students visiting the US in the same month he was appointed.His remarks are embarrassing for Downing Street because they emerged in the same week that the king is carrying out his state visit under the president, Donald Trump, who has previously described Mandelson as a “really bad pick”.Mandelson was sacked by the prime minister last year for misleading him over the depth of his friendship with the late child sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein.Turner, 53, told the students it was “extraordinary” that the Epstein scandal “hasn’t touched anybody” in the US, while it had “brought down” Mandelson and “potentially the prime minister”, the Financial Times reported.
He said Starmer had at one point been “pretty clearly on the ropes” and his future had looked “quite touch and go” over the fallout from the scandal, adding that Starmer was a “stubborn guy” who would be unlikely to quit of his own accord.“The moment I would look to is the May elections,” Turner said.“If Labour does very badly … I suspect the party will be able to go over that threshold and remove him – seems to me to be the conventional thinking.”He added: “If they do OK, he might carry on going … that’s just for me as a citizen speculating because I have to serve whomever is there.”On the “special relationship”, Turner said it was “quite nostalgic, it’s quite backwards-looking and it has a lot of baggage about it”.
He added: “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States – and that is probably Israel,”Following publication of the remarks on Tuesday, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: “These were private, informal comments made to a group of UK sixth-form students visiting the US in early February,They are certainly not any reflection of the UK government’s position,”A Whitehall source said the discussion was informal and focused on questions from students about diplomacy and the political issues of the day, and had clearly been never intended as an on-the-record statement of government policy,No 10 had no immediate comment on Turner’s remarks, which were unusually candid for a diplomat.
Turner was appointed as a supposedly safe pair of hands as a career civil servant and diplomat after the disastrous political appointment of Mandelson,He was chosen over Starmer’s business adviser, Varun Chandra, who instead took on an expanded role in Downing Street, and Nigel Casey, the ambassador to Russia,Chandra was initially considered favourite for the high-profile post, but Olly Robbins, formerly the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, is understood to have lobbied against another political appointment,Robbins was dismissed by the prime minister earlier this month over his failure to tell him that Mandelson had failed security vetting – although Robbins maintains it was standard procedure to put in place mitigations and it was not as simple as a pass or fail test,At the time of Turner’s appointment, the prime minister said: “I’m delighted that Christian Turner has been appointed to be British ambassador to the United States of America.
“The United Kingdom and United States have a very special relationship, and Christian’s extensive experience as an outstanding diplomat will support this uniquely close bond and ensure it continues to flourish,“I warmly congratulate him as he starts his work to further build our strong economic and security ties and deliver for the British people,”Turner was previously ambassador to the UN, and had been political director at the Foreign Office,He brokered a close relationship with the new Labour administration before taking up his UN role in New York,
Singing activists disrupt NatWest meeting over ‘climate backtracking’
The chair of NatWest was forced to defend the bank against accusations of “climate backtracking” at a chaotic annual shareholder meeting, which was temporarily suspended owing to singing protesters.Not long after the meeting began in Edinburgh, it was adjourned for about half an hour after a protester interrupted Rick Haythornthwaite’s opening speech.Protesters in the audience, wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with “No more big oil” and “No bombs”, then sang a song to the tune of Frère Jacques, with a chorus of “No more bombs, no more oil”. They appear to represent the campaign group Extinction Rebellion’s XR Money Rebellion, which has targeted NatWest and other banks for financing fossil fuel projects.When the meeting resumed, it was dominated by questions from shareholders about NatWest’s climate policies, as well as staff wages compared with bumper executive pay packets
UAE quits Opec in ‘pivotal moment’ for oil producing group – as it happened
Newsflash: The United Arab Emirates has announced it is quitting the Opec group of oil producers.In an unexpected move, the UAE is leaving Opec and Opec+ (which includes allies such as Russia) from 1 May, a move which could allow it – in theory – to produce more oil and gas.The UAE’s energy ministry says in a statement that the decision “reflects the UAE’s long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile”, and follows a “comprehensive review” of its production policy, and its current and future capacity.Opec, created back in 1960, agrees and sets production quotes for members in an attempt to control the oil price. The UAE is a long-standing member, having joined in 1967
Europe’s smaller airports ‘under threat’ if fuel shortages cause many cancellations
Europe’s smaller airports may not survive if jet fuel shortages triggered by the Middle East crisis lead to widespread route cancellations, the industry’s trade body has warned.Although airlines insist there are currently no supply problems within the normal four- to six-week horizon, the US-Israel war on Iran and the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz have doubled the price of jet fuel, prompting some carriers to cancel flights.The Airports Council of Europe said regional airports were the most exposed and faced an “existential threat” if airlines cut capacity and raised fares, as demand on their routes was generally more price-sensitive – demonstrated when Lufthansa axed 20,000 summer flights operated by its regional subsidiary, CityLine.Olivier Jankovec, the director general of ACI Europe, said that smaller regional airports had still not recovered since the Covid pandemic, with traffic still 30% below 2019 levels, while larger ones had bounced back to growth.He said: “The current levels of jet fuel prices and the prospect of a new cost of living crisis mean that many regional airports across our continent are likely to face both a supply and demand shock
Barclays cuts back risky lending after £228m hit from UK mortgage firm MFS
Barclays is pulling back from lending to risky borrowers, as its chief executive warned of increasing numbers of fraud cases and the bank took a £228m hit from the failure of a mortgage lender.The mortgage lender Market Financial Solutions (MFS) collapsed in February amid allegations of fraud, and the UK’s financial regulator has since launched an investigation into the scandal.Barclays provided banking services to MFS and said the £228m hit had pushed total credit impairment charges to £823m in the first three months of 2026, up from £643m a year earlier.Last year the British bank reported a £110m loss over the US sub-prime auto lender Tricolor, which collapsed amid fraud allegations.The chief executive, CS Venkatakrishnan, said: “This [alleged] fraud, as with the one in Tricolor, indicates to us the importance of strong financial controls at borrowers and the difficulty ex-ante of identifying fraud
BP profits more than double as oil prices soar in Iran war
BP has provoked outrage by revealing its profits more than doubled in the first quarter of this year after its oil traders reaped the benefit of the war in Iran.The energy company capitalised on a surge in global oil market prices to report better than expected profits of $3.2bn (£2.4bn) for the first quarter, more than double the $1.38bn it made in the same period last year
Deloitte and Zoom’s trims to parental-leave benefits may hurt them in long run, experts say
Recent moves by US companies Deloitte and Zoom to reduce how much paid parental leave they offer employees could signal a larger reduction in benefits in corporate America, according to labor market experts.American workers are already seen as having less benefits and labor protections than many of their counterparts across the world, especially in Europe.Leadership at the huge accounting and communication technology companies probably made the decisions because the labor market has stagnated, meaning that people looking for jobs do not have the same leverage when considering a job opening, the experts say.But while cutting the benefit might help companies save money in the short term, some consultants argue that the moves will ultimately hurt companies because it will make workers less productive, among other negative consequences.“It feels like someone is just looking at a spreadsheet saying, ‘How can I get more hours?’” said Bobbi Thomason, a professor of applied behavioral science at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School
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