Starmer attacks Badenoch and Farage over Iran war support U-turns at raucous PMQs
Keir Starmer has attacked Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage over their stance on the war in Iran, accusing both of U-turning on their support for Donald Trump.At a raucous prime minister’s questions, Starmer accused the leader of the opposition of making the “mother of all U-turns” and furiously trying to backpedal after on Tuesday she denied calling for the UK to join the US president’s war on Iran, after previously saying Starmer should do more to “stop the people who are attacking us”.Last week Badenoch repeatedly pressed Starmer on his decision not to launch offensive strikes to destroy missile bases, asking: “Why is he asking our allies to do what we should be doing ourselves?”On Wednesday, Starmer said: “If I’d asked her last week, her position would be, we support the initial strikes and we want to join the war.This week, she says, we don’t want to join the war.That is the mother of all U-turns on the single most important decision a prime minister ever has to take, whether to commit the United Kingdom to war or not.
”To cheers from his own backbenchers, he added: “She has utterly disqualified herself from ever becoming prime minister, thankfully she never will.”Starmer told MPs that the UK’s armed forces were “working day and night to protect British lives and British interests in the Middle East”, adding that the RAF had flown more than 230 hours of defensive operations over multiple countries and shot down multiple drones.“We thank them for their courage and for their professionalism,” he said.He accused Badenoch of insulting the UK’s RAF personnel by saying they were “just hanging about” during an interview with BBC Breakfast on Friday.Speaking in the Commons, Starmer said: “Let me tell you what they’ve been doing: flying sorties in seven of the 10 countries in the region, day and night, taking out incoming strikes, protecting the lives of others whilst risking their own.
If she had any decency, she’d get up and she would apologise.”Badenoch said she had never criticised the armed forces, but had criticised Starmer.Speaking after PMQs, Badenoch’s spokesperson accused Starmer of seeking to “completely misrepresent our position”, arguing that the Conservative leader had never argued that the UK should join the war.Badenoch had, he said, called for the UK to allow the US to use British bases for the initial attacks on Iran, and she now supported UK action in response to the targeting of British bases in Cyprus.Asked if this was not the same as joining the war, he said: “We are at war.
The difference is, we’re not joining the war.We’re in the war.”Asked if Badenoch understood the goals of the war, the spokesperson said she did not receive the same intelligence briefings as ministers.Questioned as to how she could back a conflict without knowing its aims, he added: “We support our allies.”On Tuesday, Farage said the UK should “not get ourselves involved in another foreign war”, in contrast to his previous assertion that the “gloves need to come off” when dealing with Iran.
After the start of the war, the Reform leader said he was in favour of “regime change” in Iran and told a press conference in Westminster: “We should do all we can to support the operation.”Badenoch used her questions in the Commons to repeatedly ask Starmer about petrol prices and why he thought “now is the right time to increase the cost of petrol?”Starmer denied that the government was increasing the cost of petrol, saying fuel duty would remain frozen until September.The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said families were seeing petrol prices increase, mortgage rates go up and fixed energy deals get more expensive “all because of a war they did not start and do not support”.Turning his criticism to the Tories and Reform, he said: “The leader of the Conservatives has been competing with [Nigel Farage] to be Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleader, and the prime minister was right to reject their costly warmongering.”Starmer said Davey was right, adding of Badenoch and Farage: “Last week, they were urging us to join.
If they had been leading the country, we’d be at war.”Davey called on Starmer to guarantee energy bills “won’t rise by hundreds of pounds” in July when the next quarterly price cap takes effect in July.Ministers are understood to be thinking about how they might protect consumers, but analysts have said that household energy bills could climb by £160 a year from this summer after the war in Iran pushed the UK’s gas market to a three-year high.Starmer said he wanted to “reassure households” that the cap was in place until July.“We are working with the sector and with others and with allies to do everything we can to make sure those energy bills don’t rise,” he said.
“We’re working around the clock on that.The most important thing, the most effective thing we can do, is to work with our allies to find a way to de-escalate the situation.”
British fintech Revolut gets full banking licence
Revolut can finally launch as a fully fledged UK bank after a five-year wait for regulatory approval.The fintech said it had received the all-clear from the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) for a full banking licence, allowing it to offer accounts for retail and business customers.It will start introducing current accounts to a small number of new customers within days, the group said.The move follows Revolut being granted a UK banking licence – with “restrictions” – in 2024, having first lodged its application in 2021.Revolut bosses were said to have grown frustrated with UK regulators, who had been slow to grant a full licence allowing it to hold customer deposits and branch out into more lucrative products such as loans and mortgages
CMA to investigate heating oil suppliers over ‘blatant profiteering’ from Iran war
Heating oil suppliers are to be investigated by the competition watchdog after accusations that firms are “blatantly profiteering” from the conflict in the Middle East by doubling the prices they charge to households.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had received “a number of concerning reports” in recent days from consumers reliant on heating oil about suppliers’ behaviour at a time of rising wholesale costs.About 1.7m households in the UK, mostly in rural areas that are not connected to the mains gas network, rely on heating oil to warm their homes, cook food and provide hot water.The CMA will look into consumer complaints about existing orders being cancelled, with customers then offered new quotes at significantly higher prices, and price increases for automated deliveries to customers that are triggered when the fuel in an oil tank drops to a certain level
World’s energy watchdog orders emergency release of 400m barrels of oil to curb prices – as it happened
It’s official: the International Energy Agency has ordered the largest release of government oil reserves in its history to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.The world’s energy watchdog said its 32 members had agreed unanimously to release about 400m barrels of emergency crude, a third of the group’s total government stockpiles and more than double the IEA’s previous biggest release.The emergency intervention far outstrips the 2022 release of 182m barrels of oil by IEA countries after Russia’s full-scale invasion of UkraineThe body’s executive director, Fatih Birol, sad: “Oil markets are global so the response to major disruptions needs to be global too. Energy security is the founding mandate of the IEA, and I am pleased that IEA members are showing strong solidarity in taking decisive action together.”The IEA said the emergency stocks would be made available to the global market, which has lost around 15m barrels of crude a day because of a block on trade via the strait of Hormuz, over a timeframe appropriate to the national circumstances of each member, bolstered by supplementary emergency measures from some countries
IEA orders largest ever release of stockpiled oil to reduce crude price
The International Energy Agency has ordered the largest release of government oil reserves in its history to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.The world’s energy watchdog said its 32 members had agreed unanimously to release about 400m barrels of emergency crude, a third of the group’s total government stockpiles and more than double the IEA’s previous biggest release.The emergency intervention far outstrips the 2022 release of 182m barrels of oil by IEA countries after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.The body’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said: “Oil markets are global so the response to major disruptions needs to be global, too. Energy security is the founding mandate of the IEA, and I am pleased that IEA members are showing strong solidarity in taking decisive action together
Labor must stop juicing house prices and make buying a home the Australian dream – not negatively gearing one | Greg Jericho
As uncertainty hits everywhere, the Australian housing market continues its usual path upwards.Less than two months ago, I let rip at the IMF for titling its latest World Economic Outlook as “Global Economy: Steady amid Divergent Forces” despite the fact a clueless fool sits in the White House ready to unleash chaos should his blood sugar levels fall too low.If the graph does not display click hereI can’t wait for the IMF’s April update, which will no doubt tell us that the forces remain “divergent” if steady.The war in Iran makes it rather impossible to say what will happen in the economy over the next six months – aside from gas companies profiting off human misery:If the graph does not display click hereBut there is, admittedly, one other constant in our economy: government policy that juices demand for housing will increase house prices and reduce affordability:If the graph does not display click hereOn Tuesday the latest dwelling price figures revealed that, in a shock to no one, the first home buyer 5% guarantee has caused dwelling prices to soar.In the December quarter, the average price of dwellings across Australia rose 2
Porsche to cut more jobs after costly reversal of electric car strategy
Porsche is to cut more jobs after profits were largely cancelled out by a costly writedown on reversing its electric car strategy, as the luxury manufacturer also battled a prolonged sales slump in China.The German carmaker appointed a new chief executive, Michael Leiters, on 1 January after four profit warnings last year that also contributed to it tumbling out of Germany’s DAX stock index.“The streamlining of the company needs to be sharpened and this will lead to further job reductions,” said Leiters on Wednesday. Porsche employs about 40,000 people and has previously said it would make about 3,900 job cuts by 2030.“We will streamline our management structure, reduce hierarchies and cut back on bureaucracy,” said Leiters, adding that more details would come in the autumn
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