British leader Keir Starmer under pressure after heavy election losses
Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, is facing increasing pressure to set a date for his departure after elections across much of the country resulted in massive losses for his ruling Labour party.With the bulk of results now counted after voting on Thursday, Labour had lost more than 1,400 representatives from English councils, the local government structures that deliver many neighbourhood services.Starmer’s party also crashed to defeat in the election for the devolved parliament of Wales, where it had dominated the country’s politics for a century, and went backwards in representation in the Scottish parliament.Adding to the panic in Labour, the party lost to a series of challengers, including the rightwing populist Reform UK party, the leftwing Greens, and pro-independence nationalists in Wales and Scotland.The elections, the biggest since Starmer won power in mid-2024, showed how the UK’s traditional two-party system of Labour and the Conservatives has been smashed, with Reform taking the most votes, and the Greens, Conservatives, Labour and the centrist Liberal Democrats bunched up behind.
While Starmer does not have to face an election to the national parliament in Westminster for three years, increasing numbers of his MPs want him to announce a timetable for his departure, believing he is too politically damaged to turn things around.Speaking on Saturday morning, Debbie Abrahams, the MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, an area in the north of England that used to be solidly Labour but has increasingly turned to Reform, said Starmer must “put the country first”.She said: “We have to recognise the dangers that we’re in now, that on this trajectory it doesn’t look good.” Asked how quickly Starmer should go, she said: “I think it is a matter of months.”For now, however, Starmer has the backing of his senior ministers, at least in public, including the two routinely named as likely challengers: Wes Streeting, the health minister, and Angela Rayner, who was deputy prime minister until last year.
Complicating matters for any plotters is that the person viewed by many in Labour as the best potential replacement for Starmer, Andy Burnham, is not in parliament,He is the mayor of Greater Manchester and could only return to the House of Commons if another MP stood down and he fought the election to replace them,Starmer has vowed to fight on,In an opinion article for the Guardian on Saturday, the prime minister said he accepted the results were “very tough”, and that lessons needed to be learned,But he rejected the argument from some MPs that to recover, Labour must do more to bring back left-leaning voters who have shifted their allegiance to the Greens.
He wrote: “While we must respond to the message that voters have sent us, that doesn’t mean tacking right or left,It means bringing together a broad political movement,”There is a consensus, even among his closest allies, that while Starmer has had some policy successes, and has dealt adeptly with Donald Trump and the wider international situation, his government has made too many missteps and U-turns,More broadly, many in Labour worry that Starmer is unable to properly challenge either Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, the politician best known for pushing the UK to vote to leave the European Union in 2016, or the Greens, who have surged in the polls under the leadership of the self-styled “eco-populist” Zack Polanski,However others in the party argue that changing prime ministers mid-government annoys voters just as much.
From 2016 to 2022, the then-ruling Conservatives switched prime ministers four times, and were heavily punished by the electorate at the next election.Under their new leader, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservatives fared badly in Thursday’s voting, losing more than 500 councillors and giving ground in Scotland and Wales.
Lacunar strokes caused by widening of arteries in brain, study suggests
The cause of a type of stroke that affects about 35,000 people across the UK each year has been uncovered by researchers and may explain why some medications are ineffective as treatment.Lacunar strokes, which account for a quarter of all strokes in the UK, had been linked to the blockage of arteries in the brain by fatty deposits.However, a study published on Wednesday suggests they are not caused by blocked arteries but by the enlargement and widening of arteries in the brain.This would help to explain why aspirin and other blood thinners, commonly used to prevent ischaemic strokes, are not as effective in preventing lacunar stroke.The research by academics at the University of Edinburgh and the UK Dementia Research Institute analysed 229 patients who had experienced either a lacunar or mild non-lacunar stroke
Attempts to stop prison drone drug deliveries hampered by crumbling Victorian walls
Weak and crumbling walls in Victorian prisons are hampering attempts to halt drones from delivering drugs and weapons to inmates.Plans to install tougher netting and window grilles to stop drones from entering have been hampered because the walls have been unable to take the extra weight, prison governors said.Recent attempts to fix anti-drone netting at HMP Pentonville, the Victorian prison in north London, were stalled after they found that the bricks were too soft, sources have said.Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales, said last month that the Prison Service had “ceded the airspace above many of our prisons to serious organised crime”, resulting in a “national security threat”.The number of incidents at prisons involving drones has risen by more than 1,000% over four years, with gang members able to fly packages carried by drones direct to cell windows
MPs v the manosphere: ministers battle misogyny as they take a different message to men and boys across Australia
“Gender equality isn’t women versus men or a zero-sum game,” Ged Kearney says.“It delivers better outcomes for everyone. It’s important that, as we engage with men and boys, we make that really clear.”But as the assistant minister for the prevention of family violence sets off on a national listening tour with the special envoy for men’s health, Dan Repacholi, they are up against a pervasive and very different conception of how men and women relate, fostered by the loud voices of the manosphere and men’s rights activists.For decades, those activists have called for Australia to have a minister for men
Black people in England twice as likely to suffer stroke as white counterparts
People from black backgrounds in England are twice as likely to experience strokes as their white counterparts, while also being less likely to receive timely care, according to the largest study of its kind.The study, conducted by researchers at King’s College London and presented at the European Stroke Organisation conference, analysed 30 years of stroke incidents from the South London Stroke Register, one of the longest-running population-based stroke registers in the world.The register is unique due to the fact that unlike clinical trials, it recruits every single person who has had a stroke in a defined area.Within a population of 333,000 people, according to the analysis, 7,726 strokes occurred. And while stroke incidence fell by 34% between 1995-99 and 2010-14, the rate rose again by 13% between 2020 and 2024
Prosecutors to ‘fast-track’ hate crime cases in England and Wales after spate of attacks
Prosecutors in England and Wales have been told to “fast-track” hate crime prosecutions after a spate of antisemitic attacks that the prime minister on Tuesday called a “crisis for all of us”.Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, issued guidance to his staff on Tuesday telling them to bring forward prosecutions against any sort of hate crime as quickly as they could, rather than waiting until they had gathered all possible evidence.Keir Starmer urged groups including universities, arts groups and charities to do more to tackle antisemitism during a summit in Downing Street.As well as imposing new reporting requirements on universities and the Arts Council, the prime minister threatened “consequences” against Iran if it was found to have been behind last week’s stabbing in Golders Green, north London.Parkinson said in a statement on Tuesday: “The acts of extreme violence and criminal damage that we have seen against the Jewish community in recent months have been deplorable
Rage workouts: the best way to exercise – or just infuriating?
Angry gym classes are booming, with activities including pummelling tyres with a sledgehammer. But they might not be as cathartic as they at first appearName: Rage workouts.Age: Would this be a good time to invoke Aristotle’s beliefs on catharsis?Appearance: Pumped-up, red-faced, veiny, on the brink of a disciplinary hearing.Is this about being angry at the gym? Because, this morning there was a guy just sitting, using his phone, on the machine I needed … You’re close, but you’re not quite right. This isn’t about getting angry while you’re exercising, it’s about getting angry in order to exercise
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