Planning ahead: the political leadership campaigns that launched too soon
As any political adviser worth their salt will attest, it’s never too soon to start privately preparing for your candidate’s future leadership bid.Yet going too early with registering that all-important website risks telegraphing one’s intentions even before the starting gun has fired.Whoever is behind the site bearing her name, Angela Rayner is now facing awkward questions after it emerged that an unfinished site apparently touting her for Labour’s top job had briefly appeared online.Rayner’s team has dismissed the discovery as a “false flag” operation, but it does not appear to have been deliberately shared or leaked to journalists or political figures.The appearance of a site under construction in these circumstances is rare – but there is a long history of URLs being registered.
In this case, the domain angelaforleader,co,uk was secured within minutes of the apparent publishing error,In other cases, URLs have been locked down to prevent proxies for a rival ‘squatting’ on a web address, or to get in ahead of online registrars who routinely buy domain names with a view to selling them later at a profit,In recent years though, various Conservative civil wars have meant that it has been Tory politicians who have been getting ready for contests by snapping up domain names at an advanced stage.
Here are some of the most high-profile instances of would-be leaders jumping the gun.The Readyforrishi.com web address was registered a full six months before the would-be prime minister’s team registered his official website, Ready4Rishi.com, in July 2022 as he limbered to try to replace a tottering Boris Johnson at Number 10.Sunak’s spokesperson denied that his team was the owner of the first address, even if eagle-eyed observers noted that the spelling matched that of his campaign Twitter account.
The then foreign secretary registered her 2022 Conservative leadership campaign website, lizforleader.co.uk, days after Boris Johnson had survived a no-confidence vote in June that year.Truss officially launched her campaign on 10 July, eventually defeating Rishi Sunak and serving as prime minister for 49 days.The long-held ambitions of the then Portsmouth North MP appear to have been revealed by the digital footprint of her campaign website, pm4pm.
com, for the 2022 Conservative leadership contest.Records show it was registered in May 2019, two months before Theresa May resigned as prime minister.Mordaunt was unsuccessful in the 2022 Tory leadership contest won by Liz Truss, and pulled out later that year after an abortive second bid.The website, pm4pm.com, was re-registered in May 2024 but Mordaunt lost her seat in the general election.
While the current Tory leader went slightly off-piste last year with the name of her successful leadership campaign website, Renewal 2030, other records show that a number of others bearing her name had been registered some time before.One site, kemi4leader.com, was registered in April last year, months before Rishi Sunak resigned, and redirected to the Conservative party homepage.Another, backingbadenoch.co.
uk, was updated weeks before Sunak stepped down and was seen as a grassroots initiative.Meanwhile, the consequences of both failing to secure a website, or taking due care with one secretly stored up, have been underlined on two high-profile occasions in the US.A failure by the team behind Jeb Bush’s ill-fated attempt to secure the Republican party’s presidential nomination to pay his renewal on jebbush.com was seized upon by Donald Trump’s camp.Those visiting the site were redirected to donaldjtrump.
com.After he was defeated by Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, a “transition” website created for Mitt Romney in the event he had won went live.The site, with a banner of “The Office of the President-elect,” included the slogan: “Smaller, Simpler, Smarter: Believe in America.”
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Announce a £2.7bn acquisition and watch your stock market value fall by £3.1bn.NatWest picked a bad day to announce its big move in the fashionable field of “wealth management” – the noise from Westminster created a poor backdrop for UK assets such as gilts and domestic banks. But the main problem with its Evelyn Partners deal is that it is very much of the “one for the long term” variety
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UK borrowing costs dipped back on Monday after rising earlier in the day, as cabinet ministers voiced support for the embattled Keir Starmer.The yield, or interest rate, on UK benchmark bonds initially increased on Monday as traders reacted to Sunday’s resignation of the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.Yields rose further after the Downing Street communications director, Tim Allan, resigned on Monday morning, with long-term borrowing costs then hitting their highest level since November, as the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called on Starmer to stand down as prime minister.With the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, saying Starmer’s position was “untenable” after the departure of McSweeney, and the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, agreeing he should resign, the City of London was weighing up the prime minister’s survival chances, and assessing the impact of likely replacements on the public finances and the economy.At one stage, the yield on 10-year UK government debt rose by as much as 7 basis points (0
EU threatens to act over Meta blocking rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp
The EU has threatened to take action against the social media company Meta, arguing it has blocked rival chatbots from using its WhatsApp messaging platform.The European Commission said on Monday that WhatsApp Business – which is designed to be used by businesses to interact with customers – appears to be in breach of EU antitrust rules.An upgrade to the messaging platform last October means the only AI assistant available to use on WhatsApp is Meta AI, the agent developed by the US tech group, which also owns Facebook and Instagram.The European Commission said Meta was the dominant player for messaging in the EU market and was “abusing” this position by “refusing access to WhatsApp to other businesses”.That position may cause “serious and irreparable harm on the market”, the commission added
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Logitech’s latest productivity power-house updates one of the greatest mice of all time with smoother materials, a repair-friendly design and a haptic motor for phone-like vibrations on your desktop.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The MX Master 4 is the latest evolution in a line of pioneering mice that dates back more than 20 years and has long been the mouse to beat for everything but hardcore PC gaming
Winter Olympics 2026: Jutta Leerdam takes speed skating gold but GB medal wait goes on – live
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Twickenham crackdown with 24 fines for ‘public urination’ after England v Wales
Unruly spectators at Twickenham felt the force of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour at the match between England and Wales last Saturday, with Richmond council issuing 24 fixed-penalty notices for public urination, the Guardian can reveal.The Rugby Football Union is trying to persuade local residents to ditch their opposition to proposals to increase the number of concerts held every year from three to 15. Much of the opposition centres around antisocial behaviour experienced during England matches and, as revealed by the Guardian, the RFU hosted a drop-in event for residents in an effort to convince them that their concerns were being taken seriously.Last Saturday, it is understood that 24 FPNs were handed out to those committing urinating offences which took place in a number of places including front gardens, alleyways, main roads, and bushes. That is despite attempts to tackle the problem by installing barriers in hotspots and deploying plain-clothed officers and stewards to ward off potential offenders
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