MPs wary of move against Starmer while war is raging
A week after Labour’s election victory in July 2024, officials at Labour HQ held their first crisis meeting about the May 2026 local elections.The party had just secured a 174-seat majority and already strategists were predicting it would be very tough, though none were assuming the prime minister’s own position would be vulnerable.Now, according to multiple officials, it will be nothing short of a “bloodbath” – though it is an open question whether the parliamentary Labour party will use it to depose Keir Starmer.One Starmer ally said it would be impossible to spin the results.“There’s no point us doing expectation management, as the results are going to be terrible anyway,” they said.
“Afterwards, we need to remind everybody that this is classic midterm stuff, but worse, because the public hates the system more than ever and they see us as part of that,We need to spend every day of the next three years showing them we’re on their side,”Starmer will launch Labour’s local election campaign on Monday with a warning against risking the progress Labour is making with a vote for Reform or the Greens,That could also be a warning he hopes his MPs will heed,In the immediate aftermath of the results, there is a three-pronged strategy – to attempt to minimise the salience of the results as a judgment on the government, to remind MPs of the perilous international situation, and to distract immediately with a new king’s speech and potentially a cabinet reshuffle.
One thing Starmer has control over is the timing of the king’s speech – set for 13 May, just after the local elections.Officials are expecting parliament to be prorogued some time in late April, ahead of election day.That timing is convenient – it gives MPs less physical time together in the building to organise any coups while anger is hottest in the post-election fallout.“It would be much harder for somebody to challenge Keir and argue we need to take the government in a different direction when the king is about to come to parliament and announce our plans for the next year,” one senior government source said.Downing Street also hopes it will be clear of the next tranche of files relating to Peter Mandelson, which it hopes will be ready to release shortly after Easter.
The documents are understood to now be with the intelligence and security select committee, which will examine anything that may need to be redacted,Two senior government sources said there was also advance planning in place for a cabinet reshuffle – though one said Starmer had yet to take the final decision on whether that would go ahead,The reshuffle is not expected to result in a return to the cabinet for Angela Rayner, a key leadership rival, nor for Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary turned key soft-left critic,Rayner is not thought to be coveting any immediate return,“What has she got to gain? She’s better off on the outside.
At least she can say and do what she wants,” one ally said.Any reshuffle is therefore likely to focus more on senior cabinet ministers thought to be unhappy in their existing departments, and on promotions in the junior ministerial ranks for new MPs.It would also probably involve a shake-up of the whips’ office – dubbed the Wags’ office by MPs because so many of its members are related to current or former advisers or ministers.It has been clear for some months that MPs distrust their whips and that more experienced hands are needed there.Even if the most apocalyptic scenario happens in the May elections, the US-Israeli war with Iran has given many MPs pause for thought.
“I think everyone can see that a challenge right in the middle of a huge international crisis would look foolish,” one pessimistic minister said.“That doesn’t mean the fundamentals – that we are heading towards fourth in the polls and have the most unpopular prime minister on record – have gone away.”“Can you imagine what it would look like having a leadership contest in the middle of a global crisis?” another MP said.“Totally self-indulgent.The electorate would be right to punish us after that.
”But others said they had genuinely changed their view on whether Starmer should survive long term.“I think so far Keir is showing some obvious good judgment, both on our non-involvement in the war [and] resisting an urge to rush to judgment over whether we need to intervene to stop an energy bills crisis and keeping the language open-ended,” one senior MP said.Both Wes Streeting and Rayner have told allies in recent days that they understood MPs thought the prime minister should be able to focus on the Middle East crisis – and the economic fallout at home – and that it would be unwise to oust Starmer during it.“Both of them are self-interested enough to know that it would be fatal for them to do that,” one Starmer ally said.After May, No 10 hopes that the king’s speech will move the narrative on to how much time Labour has in power to make real change.
Insiders say the speech will focus on measures being taken to tackle the cost of living, but also, crucially, on public service reform.The next sessions will include Send reform as well as a major drive on the digitisation of public services.Investments promised in the spending review will begin to happen.Public services, several insiders said, are the barometer for people to measure how the state is functioning, where they can make simple comparisons with previous experiences – booking appointments, receiving government documents – and see whether things are improving.“There are three years left of this government,” one senior strategist sad.
“After May, we will spend a lot of time reminding people that much of what we have set in motion will start to bear fruit,”
‘They feel true’: political deepfakes are growing in influence – even if people know they aren’t real
Online content creators are not just building fake images and videos of prominent public figures, they are also fabricating people and using them in military contexts, which can make them money and even serve as effective propaganda, according to artificial intelligence researchers.Some of these online avatars are sexualized images of women wearing camouflage garb that have generated a significant audience and helped create an idealized image of political figures like Donald Trump, even if the viewer knows the content is not real, according to experts.“We are blending the lines between political cartoons and reality,” said Daniel Schiff, an assistant professor of technology policy at Purdue University and co-director of the Governance and Responsible AI Lab (Grail). “A lot of people feel like these images or videos or the stories they convey, feel true.”The amount of political deepfakes has increased dramatically in recent years, according to a Grail database
Sony to hike PS5 prices by $100 as AI and Iran war push up memory chip costs
Sony is raising global prices of its PlayStation 5 consoles, including a $100 increase in the US, marking its second hike in less than a year as the entertainment giant grapples with rising costs of key components such as memory chips.The tech industry’s race to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure has pushed memory makers to favor higher-margin datacenter chips, tightening supply for consumer devices like the ones Sony sells.The updated US prices, effective 2 April, will put the standard PS5 at $649.99, up from $549.99
Wikipedia bans AI-generated content in its online encyclopedia
Wikipedia has banned the use of artificial intelligence in the generation or rewriting of content for its voluminous online encyclopedia.In a recent policy change, Wikipedia said that the use of large language models (or LLMs) “often violates” its core principles and will not be allowed. The English language version of Wikipedia has more than 7.1m articles.The use of AI has been a contentious issue among Wikipedia’s community of volunteer editors but a vote among the site’s editors supported the ban, according to 404 Media
Number of AI chatbots ignoring human instructions increasing, study says
AI models that lie and cheat appear to be growing in number with reports of deceptive scheming surging in the last six months, a study into the technology has found.AI chatbots and agents disregarded direct instructions, evaded safeguards and deceived humans and other AI, according to research funded by the UK government-funded AI Security Institute (AISI). The study, shared with the Guardian, identified nearly 700 real-world cases of AI scheming and charted a five-fold rise in misbehaviour between October and March, with some AI models destroying emails and other files without permission.The snapshot of scheming by AI agents “in the wild”, as opposed to in laboratory conditions, has sparked fresh calls for international monitoring of the increasingly capable models and come as Silicon Valley companies aggressively promote the technology as a economically transformative. Last week the UK chancellor also launched a drive to get millions more Britons using AI
‘Accountability has arrived’: dual US court losses show shifting tide against Meta and co
In the span of just two days, the most powerful social media company in the world faced a more severe public reckoning than it has in years.Jurors in California and New Mexico gave back-to-back verdicts this week that for the first time ever found Meta liable for products that inflict harm on young people. For years, lawmakers, parents and advocates have raised red flags over how social media can hurt children, but now the tech firms are being held to account via court rulings that could set long-lasting precedents.A jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375m in damages on Tuesday over claims that its products led to child sexual exploitation, among other harms. The following day, a jury in California ordered Meta and YouTube to pay $6m over claims that both companies deliberately designed addictive products to hook young users
New York City hospitals drop Palantir as controversial AI firm expands in UK
New York City’s public hospital system announced that it would not be renewing its contract with Palantir as controversy mounts in the UK over the data analytics and AI firm’s government contract.The president of the US’s largest municipal public healthcare system, Dr Mitchell Katz, testified last week before the New York city council that the agreement with Palantir would expire in October.He said at the hearing that the contract, which focused on recovering money for insurance claims, was always meant to be short-term, and that there was an “absolute firewall” preventing Palantir from sharing information with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He said that the agency had “not had any incidents”.The contract and related payment documents shared with the Guardian by the American Friends Service Committee and first reported by the Intercept, show that NYC Health + Hospitals has paid Palantir nearly $4m since November 2023
County season arrives with fresh hope of domestic displays paving path to international stage
‘Worst case I get to ride a lot’: Lael Wilcox on her quest to become the fastest human to cycle round the world
Mercedes’ Wolff says Antonelli and Russell are ‘off the leash’ to race … for now
Leeds and Warrington thriller is fitting gift on Super League’s 30th birthday
Landmark changes to insurance cover for female athletes to be implemented
Andrew Bogut accused of body-shaming 36ers owner during NBL championship series