Cracks showing for Labour close to backyards of Starmer’s top team
Keir Starmer hates to lose.Unsurprisingly, he refused to walk away and end his premiership as Labour’s local election losses began to trickle in on Friday morning.Upon entering Downing Street in July 2024 after leading Labour to a historic general election victory, Starmer promised the public that his government would “fight every day until you believe again”.Now, Starmer is faced with the uncomfortable truth that the frustrated yet united coalition that brought him into No 10 hoping for change is completely fractured and its discontent cannot be dismissed as early midterm blues.The cracks are showing very close to the political backyards of Starmer and his top team.
Reform UK has pushed through into Labour’s old working-class heartlands across parts of northern England and the Midlands, many of which voted for Brexit.Meanwhile, the Greens undermined Labour’s progressive base with mayoralty wins in Hackney and Lewisham.Soft left members of the parliamentary Labour party believe Starmer should see the losses, and the fragmentation of politics, as a sign to re-engage progressive voters who feel cast aside.But it is clear the challenge Labour faces is multidirectional, which could prove difficult for strategists around Starmer who have been focused on the threat of Reform.On Starmer’s local council of Camden, the Labour group leader, Richard Olszewski, failed to win a seat in the Holborn and Covent Garden ward, losing out to the Greens, although the Greens appeared disappointed not to be able to eat into Starmer’s old local ward of Kentish Town.
In Sunderland, the education secretary Bridget Phillipson’s patch, Reform won full control of the city council.In Wigan, the culture secretary Lisa Nandy’s constituency, Reform won 24 of the 25 seats available on the council.Labour lost its majority in Tameside, a Greater Manchester borough it had held for 47 years, to Reform, which may come as worrying news to allies of Angela Rayner, the Ashton-under-Lyne MP.The chief whip Jonathan Reynold’s Stalybridge and Hyde constituency is also nearby.Luke Tryl, the UK director of the research group More in Common, told the Guardian: “Labour cabinet ministers and a whole raft of senior Labour figures are facing a real challenge from Reform.
The right vote is growing, which means Reform can turn people out and there are Labour-to-Reform switchers.”Meanwhile, the Greens gained 17 seats on Manchester council, making it the second largest party, which could frustrate those close to Andy Burnham, the regional mayor, who is understood to have plans for a “radical rewiring” of the state as part of a Labour leadership bid.The danger is not just that Labour is losing seats to Reform, the Greens and, in areas such as Blackburn, to independents, but that the losses are geographically uneven.And the picture is darker in the devolved nations.In Wales, the Labour first minister, Eluned Morgan, lost her seat in the Senedd elections, an indicator of a near wipeout for Labour, leaving the Cabinet Office minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, in trouble in his Torfaen seat.
Douglas Alexander, the Scotland secretary, may feel nervous about his Lothian East seat given Labour’s poor performances in Glasgow and North Lanarkshire in the Holyrood elections,Tryl said: “The scale of this is beyond midterm blues,I’m struggling to see how Starmer gets another hearing from the electorate, given his impact,He is seen as a big part of this,In focus groups, people regularly say that he hasn’t brought about the change he promised and he represents a continuation of what we’ve had with the Tories.
There’s also a perception of weakness, alongside the sheer number of U-turns the government has made so early on,”
Formula One agrees to engine changes from next season after widespread criticism
Formula One has agreed to make engine design changes for the 2027 season in response to the unhappiness of many leading drivers at the way this year’s new-generation engines have affected how they race.At a meeting on Friday, the FIA, F1, teams and engine manufacturers reached an agreement, subject to formal approval, to fast-track changes to the regulations to allow fresh engines to be used next season.The intention is to address the level of energy management drivers undertake on each lap, with the current engines at almost a 50-50 split between the internal combustion engine (ICE) and electrical energy. This has led at times to counterintuitive driving and the yo-yoing of positions that has left many drivers frustrated – as well as safety concerns because of closing speeds.From 2027 the split will be closer to 60-40 in favour of the ICE, through an increased fuel flow to the combustion engine, and reducing the power output of the hybrid unit from 350kW to 300kW
Premier League crunch time, the clásico and international cricket – follow with us
Welcome to another weekend and two days of enthralling action. There’s no better place to get things underway as the season reaches its climax than our rolling football blog. Coming up are five Premier League fixtures, both the Championship and League One play-off semi-finals, a Scottish Premiership title-cruncher, plus the best of Europe’s top games to monitor. Co-hosts Emillia Hawkins and Barry Glendenning will offer breaking news and updates from around the grounds, plus readers’ thoughts and queries. Why not join the conversation? Email matchday
British sprinter CJ Ujah among 10 suspects charged over alleged cryptocurrency fraud
The British sprinter CJ Ujah, who won 4x100m relay gold at the 2017 world championships, is one of 10 suspects charged with conspiracy to defraud as part of a police investigation into cryptocurrency fraud.It is alleged that the suspects were part of an organised crime group linked to a scam involving phone calls to multiple victims, from people purporting to be police officers and cryptocurrency companies.Police said victims were tricked into sharing important security details, including seed phrases, before discovering funds in their crypto wallets had been stolen. One of the victims is said to have lost more than £300,000.The arrests and charges were made after an investigation by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit across Kent, Essex and London
How reading the Guardian led to a million-pound move for Cornish Pirates
“I think my family already thought I was crazy so this is nothing new,” says Kenn Moritz from his home office in faraway Pittsburgh. The Moritz family may have a point. Given all those baseball, football, ice hockey and basketball franchises in the United States, why opt instead to invest in a second-tier English rugby club in Cornwall that almost folded less than two years ago?The catalyst turns out, ahem, to have been your correspondent’s article about the Cornish Pirates in the Guardian last December. Moritz was sitting where he is now, trawling through his trusted worldwide news sources when he stumbled across the Pirates’ quest for fresh investment. Somewhere inside him a light flicked on
Wardley v Dubois is bout of uncertainty far more interesting than Fury v Joshua
Saturday’s WBO world heavyweight fight pits fascinating pair armed with knockout power against one another Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley are very different characters but, in the ring, they share a knockout ratio of 95% in the combined 42 fights they have won. The unbeaten Wardley has knocked out 19 opponents in his 20 victories while Dubois has stopped 21 of 22 vanquished rivals. It’s an impressive statistic which belies the vulnerability at the heart of each man.Wardley, the WBO world heavyweight champion, comes from a white-collar boxing background with minimal experience as an amateur. The only blemish on his record is a draw in March 2024 with the Olympic medallist Frazer Clarke – whom he then knocked out with shocking brutality in the first round seven months later
England’s men to host more five-Test series but play some one-off games overseas
England’s men will face a lopsided Test schedule in the next future tours programme (FTP), with a move to stage more five-match series at home to be offset by an increase in one-off Tests overseas.The England and Wales Cricket Board is abandoning the principle of aiming for reciprocal home and away series in the next World Test Championship (WTC), which will begin with the home Ashes series next summer. The ECB has already held talks with South Africa and Pakistan over touring for five Test matches for the first time in decades, but on the flipside England’s future tours to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh could comprise a single Test complemented by white-ball games that are more commercially viable to the host boards.The ECB is responding to the International Cricket Council’s plans to expand the WTC to all 12 Test-playing nations, with Ireland, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan to be included for the first time in a single division.In another significant change, one-off Test matches are set to be included in the WTC for the first time, whereas previously a two-Test series was required for championship status
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