Keir Starmer’s director of communications, Tim Allan, steps down
Tim Allan, Keir Starmer’s director of communications, has stepped down after only five months in the job, his resignation coming a day after that of the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.Allan said in a brief statement: “I have decided to stand down to allow a new No 10 team to be built.I wish the PM and his team every success.”The resignation is another blow to Starmer’s position amid a furious row about the decision to make Peter Mandelson ambassador to Washington despite his close links to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Starmer addressed Downing Street staff on Monday to reiterate his regret at Mandelson’s appointment, while insisting his government could “go forward from here”.
A Downing Street spokesperson, when asked if Allan had been sacked, said it was the communications head’s own choice to stand down.Asked if the the prime minister was going to resign, the spokesperson said: “No.” He added: “The prime minister is concentrating on the job in hand.He is getting on with the job of delivering change across the country.”Allan, a former deputy press secretary for Tony Blair who went on to found the PR agency Portland, returned to Downing Street in September as part of the last shake-up of Starmer’s team, in which Darren Jones also moved to No 10 from the Treasury.
Allan replaced James Lyons, who had been director of strategic communications for only a year.Shortly after Allan arrived, Steph Driver, who was the No 10 head of day-to-day communications, quit after some concern that Allan had in effect been recruited above her.Allan had been a somewhat controversial appointment, in part because of some of the clients taken on by Portland.But losing two senior staff members in less than 24 hours will increase the sense that Starmer’s Downing Street operation is in freefall.McSweeney announced his resignation on Sunday afternoon after days of pressure from many Labour MPs, saying he took “full responsibility” for his advice to send Mandelson to Washington despite a relationship with Epstein that continued beyond the disgraced financier serving a jail term for sexual trafficking.
While allies of Starmer hope the departure of McSweeney will assuage the anger of MPs, the loss of the man seen as the architect of Starmer’s rise to power is a huge blow and has turned attention to why the prime minister himself approved the Mandelson decision.Senior Labour sources have said McSweeney’s departure leaves the prime minister dangerously exposed as he heads towards a series of policy and electoral challenges – including the Gorton and Denton byelection later this month – that could determine his political fate.In Starmer’s address to staff, part of which was released by No 10, he paid tribute to McSweeney and again addressed the Mandelson issue.“I have been absolutely clear that I regret the decision that I made to appoint Peter Mandelson.And I’ve apologised to the victims, which is the right thing to do,” he said.
“I’ve known Morgan for eight years as a colleague and as a friend,We have run up and down every political football pitch that is across the country,We’ve been in every battle that we needed to be in together,Fighting that battle,We changed the Labour party together.
We won a general election together,And none of that would have been possible without Morgan McSweeney,“His dedication, his commitment and his loyalty to our party and our country was second to none,And I want to thank him for his service,”Citing policies connected to the cost of living, child poverty and NHS, he ended: “We must prove that politics can be a force for good.
I believe it can.I believe it is.We go forward from here.We go with confidence as we continue changing the country.”The Conservatives have attempted to keep the focus on Starmer.
Speaking to the BBC on Monday, Kemi Badenoch said Starmer had allowed McSweeney to “carry the can” for his own decision,The Conservative leader said: “Keir Starmer knew, he knew,It is his judgment and the fact that he has been dishonest, he was dishonest – he claimed not to know, then he changed his story and claimed that he had been lied to,”Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, who sits in the Lords, told Sky News it had been McSweeney’s decision to leave,She said: “It was Morgan who thought about the position that he was in, and particularly, as I say, the extent to which he’d become the story, and decided that the best thing for the government that he had worked hard to ensure got into power was able to carry on doing the work for the country.
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EU urged not to roll back green agenda in effort to revive faltering economy
EU leaders have been warned against a rollback of the green agenda before a summit focused on reviving the bloc’s waning economy.Campaigners from the Climate Action Network, a pan-European group of NGOs, said European industry was “under real pressure” from “high energy prices, ageing assets, global overcapacity and delayed investments”, but these issues could not be solved by watering down climate and environmental policies.“Deregulation is not an industrial strategy,” the group wrote in an open letter, which argued that the problems facing energy-intensive industries, including steel, cement and chemicals, were driven by prices of fossil fuel-derived energy and global market dynamics, rather than environmental regulation.The EU economy has been under pressure over the last year amid Donald Trump’s US tariff trade war. Last week the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, said the eurozone economy “remains resilient in a challenging environment” but the outlook was “uncertain” as it left interest rates on hold
Experts sound alarm over UK exports to firm linked to Russian war machine
The government has been urged to re-examine a British company’s contract to export hi-tech machinery to Armenia, after the Guardian uncovered links to the supply chain for Russia’s war machine.Sanctions experts and the chair of the House of Commons business committee questioned the government’s decision to award an export licence to Cygnet Texkimp.The engineering company makes machines that produce carbon fibre “prepreg”, a lightweight and durable material that can be used in a wide range of civil and military applications.The machines are understood to be undergoing final assembly at the company’s warehouse in Northwich, Cheshire, and could be just weeks away from being exported to a newly formed company in Armenia called Rydena LLC.Rydena was established two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by former executives of a company that has emerged as one of the Kremlin’s important military suppliers
Government on track to lower minimum age for train drivers to 18 in Great Britain
Labour will introduce legislation to lower the minimum age for train drivers to 18 in the House of Commons this week, as figures show fewer than 3% of drivers on Great Britain’s railways are under 30.The government is pressing ahead with its proposals for teenage recruits, lowering the minimum age from 20, in a move that ministers hope will stave off a potential shortage of thousands of drivers.A looming mass exodus through retirement threatens to intensify driver shortages and worsen train reliability, with a lack of crew already a big cause of late-notice cancellations.The current average age of Great Britain’s 24,000 train drivers is 48, and about 25% of them will reach retirement age before 2030.According to a National Skills Academy for Rail report, that could mean a shortfall of 2,500 drivers in four years’ time
Mandelson revelations show need for tougher UK constraints to resist rule of the rich | Heather Stewart
Peter Mandelson’s personal disgrace is deep and unique, and may yet bring down a prime minister – but by laying bare the dark allure of the “filthy rich”, it also underlines the need for tougher constraints on money in politics.It is hard to know what system or process could have shielded sensitive government decisions from the risk that a senior cabinet minister might nonchalantly pass on the details to a friend, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.But Epstein’s efforts to influence government policy – working to water down Alistair Darling’s bonus tax at a time when the banks had crashed the British economy, for example – underline the powerful forces with which politicians are faced.One bulwark against this is the expectation that most will display a probity and strength of character Mandelson clearly lacked.The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, spoke for many on Thursday when he unfavourably compared the disgraced Mandelson with the late Alistair Darling
Thinking of trashing a small business on social media? Please, think again | Gene Marks
A viral Reddit post mocks a $22 grilled cheese sandwich and helps to sink a Bay Area shop. A restaurant owner is forced to push back on a viral complaint. A small business owner in Maine faces a viral backlash after posting a “No ICE” sign. The owner of a furniture store mistakenly receives backlash after being confused with another store. An influencer calls out a South Carolina boutique in a TikTok video after a negative shopping experience
Bank chairs backtracking on climate commitments could face shareholder revolts
Bank chairs who water down their lenders’ climate commitments this year could face embarrassing shareholder revolts as campaigners try to hold bosses to account for environmental backtracking.ShareAction, a campaign group for responsible investment, will be issuing detailed reports to pension funds and asset managers in the coming weeks, outlining whether 34 of the world’s largest lenders are sticking to their climate goals.Its reports will closely analyse any changes in lenders’ environmental policies, which are usually published alongside their annual reports.The UK’s largest banks will be among the first under the microscope, with NatWest, Lloyds and HSBC all due to release their annual reports by the end of February. Barclays will publish its annual report on Tuesday
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