‘Rayner for leader’ site proves race to succeed Starmer is well under way
As Keir Starmer fights for his political life, the contest to replace him has already begun.The prime minister was already under pressure when the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called for on Monday a change of prime minister.Sarwar’s comments followed the resignations from Downing Street of Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, and Tim Allan, his communications director.Now the revelation that a website claiming to launch a leadership campaign for Angela Rayner was briefly published last month has added to speculation about when the prime minister could go and who may replace him.As the phoney war has gathered pace in recent weeks, allies of Rayner and the health secretary, Wes Streeting, have been taking aim at each other.
“Anyone that has any association with Peter Mandelson should be nowhere near government,” Steve Wright, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, told the BBC on Sunday, in an apparent swipe at Streeting, who has long been close to the former Labour politician and diplomat,Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, told the same programme: “Of course, there are people in cabinet who need to question their own positions, because they were very close to people like Peter Mandelson,They may have known what was going on, who knows,But there are a couple in cabinet … and they know who they are,”Allies of Streeting have hit back, accusing Rayner’s friends of trying to distract from her own political difficulties given tax officials are yet to decide whether the former deputy prime minister underpaid stamp duty when purchasing a flat in Hove last year.
“The truth is Wes wasn’t very close to Mandelson, their relationship has been wildly overwritten.It’s not like Wes was invited to his wedding,” one of the health secretary’s allies said.Streeting insisted on Monday he was not pushing for the resignation of the prime minister, saying: “Keir Starmer doesn’t need to resign … Give Keir a chance.”But the lack of a vacancy has not stopped allies of the leading candidates touting the credentials of their favoured contenders.Friends of Rayner have told reporters she is “ready” to run should Starmer step down.
One senior Labour figure recently told the Guardian: “Angela says she took the scars for Jeremy Corbyn, she took the scars for Keir Starmer, and so the next time she takes the scars it will be for herself.”The Sunday Times quoted one friend of Rayner as saying MPs who were “frothing at the mouth” at the chance to install Streeting as leader were “mad because he has been damaged by association with Mandy [Mandelson]”.Those close to Streeting accuse these Rayner allies of exacerbating divides within the party.One said over the weekend: “The Labour party is pretty sick of the toxic briefing culture in No 10 and will not want to bring in something even more nasty.”Streeting and Rayner are not the only two potential candidates being talked about in Westminster.
Some on the soft left of the party, who would normally be Rayner allies, are concerned about polls that show she is one of the least popular Labour figures with the public at large.“A lot of her friends, people who know her well and love her, just think she is fundamentally unelectable,” one said.The person suggested the deputy Labour leader, Lucy Powell, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, or the defence secretary, John Healey, could all be alternative candidates.Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, has not given up hope of returning to the Commons, having been blocked from standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection.However, a leadership contest in the next few weeks will be too early for him given the party leader must be drawn from the ranks of sitting MPs.
Those close to Miliband say he does not want to lead the party again, having lost the 2015 election, though the Sun on Sunday quoted one Labour source as saying: “Ed is preparing to run again,He has told people, despite what he says when he is interviewed,”Some in the party believe Shabana Mahmood, who has conservative social views but economic views on the left of the party, would be the best successor,Her standing among Labour members has been hit, however, by the tough stance she has taken on immigration as home secretary,Others despair at the options from the top of the party as it stands and so are looking to the more junior ranks of recently elected MPs.
One unlikely candidate being talked up by some among the 2024 intake is Al Carns, a former Royal Marines officer.He has many admirers inside and outside the party.“Carns understands about building a team and could do certain things that most MPs couldn’t do,” one political expert recently said.Unfortunately for Carns that expert was Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff Dominic Cummings.
UK borrowing costs rise, then dip, as pressure grows on Starmer; Japan’s Nikkei hits record high after Takaichi’s election win – as it happened
UK borrowing costs are pushing higher, as pressure continues to mount on Keir Starmer.The yield, or interest rate, on 10-year government bonds is now up 7 basis points (0.07 percentage points) to 4.59%, as gilt prices continue to drop.That’s close to the two and a half-month high touched last week
NatWest to buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners for £2.7bn
NatWest has agreed a £2.7bn deal to buy Evelyn Partners, one of the UK’s biggest wealth managers, in the bank’s largest acquisition since it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008.The move signals an attempt to bolster the wealth management business for the banking group, which returned to full private ownership last year, and already owns the private bank Coutts.It makes NatWest the latest among the big four banks to push more forcefully into wealth management. Rivals including HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays have been working to lure more fee-paying affluent customers, ensuring lenders are less reliant on income from everyday loans that are linked to the rise and fall of interest rates
‘It felt hypocritical’: child internet safety campaign accused of censoring teenagers’ speeches
An internet safety campaign backed by US tech companies has been accused of censoring two teenagers they invited to speak out about the biggest issues facing children online.Childnet, a UK charity part-funded by companies including Snap, Roblox and Meta, edited out warnings from Lewis Swire and Saamya Ghai that social media addiction was an “imminent threat to our future” and obsessive scrolling was making people “sick”, according to a record of edits seen by the Guardian.Swire, then 17, from Edinburgh, and Ghai, then 14, from Buckinghamshire, had been asked to speak at an event to mark Safer Internet Day in 2024 in London in front of representatives from government, charities and tech companies.The tech-backed charity also edited out references to children feeling unable to stop using TikTok and Snap, social media exacerbating a “devastating epidemic” of isolation, and a passage questioning why people would want to spend years of their lives “scrolling TikTok and binge-watching Netflix”, the edits show.The 2026 iteration of the Childnet-run event takes place on Tuesday with more than 2,800 schools and colleges listed as supporters
‘I fell into it’: ex-criminal hackers urge Manchester pupils to use web skills for good
Cybercriminals, the shadowy online figures often depicted in Hollywood movies as hooded villains capable of wiping millions of pounds off the value of businesses at a keystroke, are not usually known for their candour.But in a sixth-form college in Manchester this week, two former hackers gave the young people gathered an honest appraisal of what living a life of internet crime really looks like.The teenagers in the room are listening intently, but the day-to-day internecine disputes they hear about is not the stuff of screenplays.“It’s just people getting into these online dramas and they’re swatting and doxing each other and getting people to throw bricks through their windows,” one of the hackers says.If the language sounds unfamiliar, it should – “swatting” and “doxing” involve people outing each other online by posting their genuine identities – but their message is clear: though cybercrime may seem alluring, the reality is anything but
Trying times for Welsh rugby | Letters
Re your editorial (The Guardian view on Welsh rugby: enduring an existential crisis with cultural roots, 4 February), what’s surprising is that it’s taken this long. In the amateur era, Wales, with a much smaller population than that of England, had more wins than losses against most of the home nations. Welsh clubs were among the very best in the world and Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Llanelli all beat the All Blacks.The game and its culture had great resonance in southern Wales, where relatively slightly built men, fleet of foot and with flair (many from south-west Wales and Welsh speakers) ran with the ball won by forwards often hardened by work in heavy industry. Schoolmasters were dedicated to encouraging talent and participation in team games
Winter Olympic officials to investigate why medals keep breaking
They are among the most prized possessions in sport, yet embarrassingly for Olympic officials the medals in Milano Cortina keep breaking.On Monday organisers promised to launch an investigation into why it was happening after Winter Olympic medallists, including the American downhill skiing champion Breezy Johnson, reported chipped, cracked and damaged medals.Johnson’s medal broke shortly after the podium ceremony on Saturday when she was celebrating. “I was jumping up and down in excitement, then it just fell off,” she told reporters, before showing her cracked and chipped medal in one hand as the separated ribbon hung around her neck.The Sweden cross‑country skier Ebba Andersson reported that her medal “fell in the snow and broke in two”, before adding: “Now I hope the organisers have a ‘plan B’ for broken medals
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