MPs from Labour’s left to urge Ed Miliband to consider leadership bid
MPs from Labour’s left are expected to urge Ed Miliband to consider a leadership bid in the coming days, as Keir Starmer faced the prospect of a definite challenge from his MPs next week.Following grim results for Labour in elections on Thursday, former minister Catherine West said that if no cabinet ministers went public by Monday, she would launch a bid to end the impasse.It comes after a series of Labour backbenchers called on Saturday for Starmer to set a timetable for his departure from Downing Street.The prime minister has reiterated his determination to stay on, saying on Saturday that a change of leadership would “plunge the country into chaos”.A number of Labour MPs from across the party support Andy Burnham replacing Starmer.
However, the Greater Manchester mayor requires a time-consuming and uncertain byelection to re-enter parliament.There has been speculation that Wes Streeting might be considering a move next week, although this has been vehemently denied by the health secretary’s allies, who point to his public support for the PM on Friday.With any route for Burnham back to the Commons still unclear, dozens of backbenchers from the party’s left are now preparing to turn to Miliband.The group is expected to urge the energy secretary to step in and prevent a Streeting coronation, believing that Angela Rayner, Starmer’s former deputy, does not have the necessary support.MPs were weighing up their options a day after Labour’s disastrous election results, with some backbenchers adding their voices to calls for the prime minister to go.
But matters began moving at speed, with West, a north London MP who was sacked by Starmer as a Foreign Office minister last year, telling the BBC that in the event of no other challengers, she would ask colleagues on Monday to back her as a way of starting a contest.Saying she had the support of 10 MPs so far, well below the required 81 – 20% of the parliamentary party – to endorse any challenger.But her action could prompt others to act.“My preferred option is for the cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there’s plenty of talent, and for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role,” West said.She added: “I don’t have a candidate.
That’s part of the problem,But I think there are several people who would like to do it, who have been planning for months, but I’m very surprised that none of them has popped up today to say, ‘I will do it,’”Labour lost more than 1,400 councillors across England on Thursday, shedding support to Reform UK and the Greens in traditional heartlands,In Wales, the party lost power for the first time, plummeting to just nine Senedd seats behind Plaid Cymru and Reform, while also losing ground in the Scottish parliament,Starmer, who is due to make a speech on Monday about closer European links, began a fightback on Saturday with two new appointments he characterised as “future-looking” – involving Labour grandees Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman.
Brown, the former prime minister and long-serving chancellor under Tony Blair, has been made Starmer’s envoy on global finance, with a brief to advise on financial partnerships to help defence-related investments, particularly with Europe.Harman, who was Labour’s deputy leader under Brown, will be the prime minister’s adviser on women and girls, focusing on tackling violence and improving economic opportunities.Speaking on a visit in south London earlier in the day, Starmer said that while he accepted he had to “rebuild” after the losses, he would not step down: “I’m not going to walk away from this, that would plunge the country into chaos.”A series of further Labour MPs have called on Starmer to set a date to hand over the leadership, including Clive Betts, the long-serving Sheffield South East MP, and Debbie Abrahams, for Oldham East and Saddleworth.Abrahams said: “We have to recognise the dangers that we’re in now, that on this trajectory it doesn’t look good.
,Asked how quickly he should consider departing, she added: “I think it is a matter of months,”In a post on X, Tony Vaughan, the Labour MP for Folkestone who was first elected in 2024, said there “must be an orderly transition of leadership well before the local elections next year”,Another 2024-intake MP, Terry Jermy, released a statement saying Starmer “needs to consider whether he is the right person to take the party and the government forward”,Meanwhile, one of Labour’s most powerful figures outside Westminster, the West Yorkshire mayor, Tracy Brabin, warned the government it faces “oblivion” at the next general election without a renewed “boldness” from ministers.
Brabin described the local election losses as “catastrophic” after Labour lost overall control of several councils in her region to a Reform UK surge.Brabin stopped short of calling for Keir Starmer to stand aside but said: “This is a catastrophic set of results for the Labour party.Here in West Yorkshire, and across the country, we’ve lost dedicated councillors who have served their communities tirelessly without self interest … Two years on from a landslide general election victory, the Labour party is facing oblivion if these results are repeated.We cannot waste the opportunity of Labour being in government.”Additional reporting by Josh Halliday
US consumer confidence hits record low as Americans fret about rising prices; jobs report beats forecasts – as it happened
Newsflash: the US economy added more jobs than expected in April.Non-farm payrolls rose by 115,000 last month, the Bureau for Labor Statistics reports, beating forecasts of a 62,000 increase.That’s still a slowdown compared with March, though – where the NFP has been revised up to 185,000 jobs, from 178,000 initially.But February’s data is even worse than previously thought – payrolls that month are now estimated to have fallen by 156,000, down from a previous estimate of a 133,000 decline.Those revisions mean employment in February and March combined is 16,000 lower than previously reported
UK borrowing costs fall and pound rises after Starmer says he will stay as PM
UK government borrowing costs fell and the pound rose on Friday as Keir Starmer vowed to remain as prime minister despite the Labour party losing hundreds of council seats across England.Investors calculated that some of the intense pressure on Starmer’s leadership had eased, as Labour appeared on track for smaller losses than election experts had predicted.The yield – effectively the interest rate – had jumped earlier this week, amid fears that the prime minister could face a leadership challenge if the results from the local elections and the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales were particularly poor.But after Starmer insisted he would not walk away, the yield on benchmark UK 10-year gilts was down 5 basis points, or 0.05 of a percentage point, at 4
Who is Louis Mosley, the man tasked with defending Palantir against its critics?
The hall was packed with rightwing radicals when Louis Mosley heralded a coming revolution. Just as Oliver Cromwell – that “crusader for Christ and liberty” – routed King Charles I’s royalists, “a similar revolution is brewing today”, said the UK and Europe boss of Palantir. Globalism’s “twilight” was upon us, he said in a speech dotted with admiring mentions of the podcaster Joe Rogan and “Elon’s Doge”.It was not a typical peroration for a big UK government contractor with more than £600m in deals with the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and police. But Palantir, the world’s most controversial tech company, is no typical contractor
AI-powered surveillance company Palantir created a chore coat. Great, now I have no choice but to burn mine | Van Badham
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Bobby Cox, Hall of Fame manager and Atlanta Braves icon, dies at 84
Bobby Cox, the Baseball Hall of Famer who led the Atlanta Braves to their 1995 World Series title and was a four-time Manager of the Year, has died at the age of 84.The Braves announced Cox’s death in a statement on Saturday. The team did not give a cause of death.“We are overcome with emotion on the passing of Bobby Cox, our treasured skipper,” the team said. “Bobby was the best manager to ever wear a Braves uniform
Leicester hit Northampton for six as league leaders crumble in fiery derby
You can play all the classy rugby you want, you can be leading the table with a few matches to play, but certain elemental truths still apply. One of them is that if you find yourself overpowered up front away from home in a sold-out East Midlands derby, you will be blown away.Northampton could have secured themselves a place in the playoffs here if they had won with a bonus point, but – how to put this – they did not. In a ferocious atmosphere, records tumbled as Leicester claimed that bonus-point win to move third, within one point of Bath, who play Exeter on Sunday, and five shy of Saints. They scored more points than they ever have in this fixture; there were more cards than there have ever been in this fixture
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