Josh MacAlister, the minister for children and families, said there has been “a complete rewiring of childhood” over the last decade due to social media and screen time.Speaking on the new government guidance for parents of young children, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “We’re trying to help create some new social norms.“There’s no judgment.It’s much easier to say these things than it is to do them, I appreciate.”That’s all from us on the UK politics blog, thanks for following along.

Here is a recap of the day’s developments:Keir Starmer said keeping children off mobile phones, tablets and TV screens “will require a fight” with social media platforms that put up addictive content online.His comments follow new government guidance that advises parents to limit screen time for children under five to no more than an hour a day.Josh MacAlister, the minister for children and families, said there has been “a complete rewiring of childhood” over the last decade due to social media and screen time.He said the new government guidance is designed to help parents and not to make them feel judged.Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said Iran “cannot hold the global economy hostage” as she met with US secretary of state Marco Rubio and other officials in France today for the meeting of G7 foreign ministers.

Peter Mandelson will be asked to supply messages from his personal phone as part of the government’s disclosure of documents related to his appointment as UK ambassador to the US.Concerns have been raised that messages might be lost after Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney had his mobile phone stolen last year.The prime minister said there is “a very strong case” for the government to apologise for its role in historical forced adoption in the UK.A report from the Commons education committee published today said the government should offer an unqualified apology as a step towards giving survivors “peace”.Starmer plans to make London’s mayor Sadiq Khan a lord and may offer him a role in his cabinet, the Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Ministers are facing pressure to appoint a Conservative former cabinet minister as the new chair of the media regulator Ofcom, as he battles for the role against a Labour peer.The job of running the regulator has become a key post in public life amid concern over the rapid growth of online content and the rise of more politically partisan broadcasting.No successor has been named to replace Michael Grade, the former BBC chair who has just weeks left in the job.It is understood there is a push to convince Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, to give the job to the former culture secretary and sitting Conservative MP Jeremy Wright, who was involved in the drafting of laws to tackle harmful online content.The legal pitfalls Ofcom is facing in implementing the new Online Safety Act have led to claims of paralysis at the regulator.

Wright has been shortlisted alongside the businessperson and former Channel 4 chair Ian Cheshire and the former Labour MP and life peer Margaret Hodge.Insiders believe the race is now between Wright and Hodge.Read the full report here:Keir Starmer has said there is “a very strong case” for the government to apologise for its role in historical forced adoption.Between 1949 and 1976, an estimated 185,000 children were taken from unmarried mothers and put up for adoption in England and Wales owing to a culture of shame surrounding pregnancy outside marriage.Religious organisations ran most of the mother and baby homes where pregnant women were sent to give birth, while charities and local authorities were also involved in funding the placements and finding adoptive parents.

A report from the Commons education committee published today said the government should offer an unqualified apology as a step towards giving survivors “peace”.Speaking to ITV News, the prime minister stopped short of issuing a direct apology to those who suffered but said there was a need to say sorry for government failings.“My own view is a very strong case for an apology.I’ve asked the teams to speed up what we’re doing,” he said.“We’ve got to get this right with the campaigners and with all those affected.

”The government has announced a £100m air defence package for Ukraine, saying it will help the country defend against Russia’s “relentless attacks”.In a statement, prime minister Keir Starmer said:double quotation markAs Putin continues his abhorrent attacks across Ukraine, my message is simple - there will be no let up in the UK’s support.Putin’s needless full-scale invasion has hurt households up and down the UK by increasing the cost of living and undermining European security.To ensure that never happens again, and protect people at home from the real threat that Russia poses, I am determined to do everything we can to support a sovereign and free Ukraine for generations to come.This vital air defence package will do just that, protecting millions of people in Ukraine from Russia’s barbaric strikes on cities and homes, as their armed forces courageously defend their nation and our values on the front line.

The funding adds to the £500m air defence support pledged last month, and follows Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to London last week.The prime minister plans to make London’s mayor Sadiq Khan a lord and may offer him a role in his cabinet.That’s according to reporting from the Financial Times, who cited sources familiar with the information.The mayor was awarded a knighthood last January but this move, expected to come around the May elections, would see Khan become a life peer.If Starmer follows through with the plan, it’s likely to be as part of a Downing Street reset (yes, another one) after council elections that are expected to be devastating for the Labour party.

Starmer is likely to face criticism for the plan; in 2022 he referred to the House of Lords as “indefensible” and said that an incoming Labour government would replace it with an elected chamber.Instead he has offered more peerages than each of his four most recent Conservative predecessors.Once upon a time, the autobiography was the means through which a politician would espouse their background, their views and, most importantly, their vision for the country.But we’re in 2026 now, the golden era of podcasts.Angela Rayner wants to be the latest politico to launch one, according to reports.

It’s a sign that the former deputy prime minister wants to play a key role in the mainstream political conversation from the backbenches.The Times reports that she has interviewed Michael Gove, who like Rayner served as housing secretary.A reminder at this point that Rayner’s allies believe her HMRC problems could be resolved by the May elections, when many believe Keir Starmer will come under considerable pressure.In other news this morning, there have been reports that Peter Mandelson will be asked to hand over messages from his personal phone as part of the disclosure of files related to his appointment as ambassador to the US.MPs moved in February to force the publication of tens of thousands of documents amid questions over what was known about Mandelson’s links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before he was handed the Washington job.

There have been concerns that messages might be lost after Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney had his mobile phone snatched on a London street last year.The Cabinet Office is understood to hold a number of text and email exchanges between Mandelson and McSweeney despite the phone theft, and a tranche is expected to be publicly released as part of the Mandelson files in the coming weeks.McSweeney quit Downing Street last month, with many having blamed him for pushing Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US.Mandelson was sacked from the role in September last year over the Epstein scandal, and the issue has continued to plague the prime minister ever since.In Scotland, Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said the SNP has “completely failed” island and coastal communities.

Ferry operator CalMac said services had been “significantly disrupted” in some areas, including services to Arran and Mull, due to mechanical issues with vessels.Its statement yesterday indicated Arran had no major vessels currently in service, with Islay operating with one vessel to the island.During an election campaign stop which saw Cole-Hamilton take a speedboat ride down the River Clyde in Glasgow, he told the Press Association: “The SNP have completely failed our island communities and our coastal communities as well, and left them high and dry.”Keir Starmer’s comments about the “fight” to protect children from addictive content on social media platforms follows a trial in California which found Google and Meta liable for deliberately designing addictive products that hooked a young user and led to her being harmed.A jury in Los Angeles ruled yesterday that Google, owner of YouTube, and Meta, which runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, built platforms to hook young users without regard for their wellbeing.

Jurors found the tech companies to be both negligent and having failed to provide adequate warnings about the potential dangers of their products.The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder.The lawsuit, over social media’s alleged harm to young people, was the first of its kind to go to trial.Dara Kerr, a tech reporter for Guardian US, has more on this story below:Josh MacAlister, the minister for children and families, said there has been “a complete rewiring of childhood” over the last decade due to social media and screen time.Speaking on the new government guidance for parents of young children, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “We’re trying to help create some new social norms.

“There’s no judgment.It’s much easier to say these things than it is to do them, I appreciate.”Pictures: Keir Starmer meets pupils during a visit to a school in West Dulwich, south London, to talk about the government’s new guidance for parents on screen time for under-fives.The prime minister spoke briefly about people’s concerns over the impact of the Iran war on the cost of living.“I know that, because of what’s going in on the Iran war, people are really worried,” Keir Starmer told parents and teachers during a visit to a school in London.

“I think, first and foremost, they’re worried by what they see on their screens about the conflict, but also this deep sense inside: will it affect me? Is it going to mean my energy bills go up? Is it going to be more expensive to fill up the car?”Fuel duty remains frozen until September, but Starmer did not say what would happen after that.He said the energy price cap will protect most households until the end of June and “we’re obviously looking at what we can do after that”.Keir Starmer said he understands there are “strong views” on both sides of the debate over whether social media should be banned for under-16s.He said: “We are consulting at the moment on whether there should be a social media ban for under-16s.There are strong views on that either way, and we’re looking at how that might work, what the variations on it might be.

”He said the government was also working on how to tackle “addictive” content, saying algorithms in social media “try to keep adults and children on social media for a long time”.He highlighted how chatbots were “not sufficiently controlled” and that the government was “passing a new provision to deal with that”.Keir Starmer said keeping children off mobile phones, tablets and TV screens “will require a fight” with social media platforms that put up addictive content online.Speaking at a school in south London about the new government guidance for parents of young children, he said: “Some of this will require a fight.If we’re going to do more to protect children, we’re going to have to fight some of the platforms that are putting the material up there, because they’re putting this addictive stuff up there for a reason.

“They want more children, spend more time online, and we’ve got to fight them.”Keir Starmer is at a school in south London today, as new government guidance advises parents to limit screen time for children under five to no more than an hour a day.Screen time for children under two should be avoided except for shared activities encouraging interaction, families are advised.In addition, the government is considering Australia-style measures to limit or ban social media for under-16s.Starmer said the guidance would help families keep children safe and ensure they build healthy habits with screens.

The Guardian’s Jamie Grierson has more on this story here:Earlier this morning we heard comments from Keir Starmer about the wars in Iran and Ukraine, saying they would have “huge implications” for the future and could reshape the global order.He said how the UK responds to that matters, as he wants to use the moment to “change the way the country is set up”.“How they [the wars] end and on what terms could well define us for a generation,” he told Sky News.“And that’s why it’s really important that we approach this with our values and principles.That’s what we’ve applied in Ukraine, and that’s what we’ve applied in Iran.

And certainly we’re working with others to de-escalate the situation in Iran.”He added: “As we come out of this, the response is going to matter, and we have to change the way the country is set up.“We have to turn this into an opportunity to change that country for the better.”While we wait to hear more from the G7 meeting of foreign ministers, over in Scotland, Reform UK’s Scottish leader has hit out at “fake outrage” over a joke he made about the late singer George Michael, which he acknowledged was “probably” homophobic.“The fake outrage on this has been quite astonishing in the media,” Malcolm Offord told BBC Radio Scotland’s Breakfast programme.

“I have had a huge amount of public support from people on this, ‘you told a bad joke and you apologised for it Malcolm, what is the big deal?’”The joke was made at a rugby club dinner in 2018, but details of his remarks emerged this week as political leaders hit the campaign trail ahead of the Scottish parliament elections in May.When asked if his joke was homophobic, Offord said it “probably was”, adding: “It was a mistake.“I don’t have any issue with homophobia, I’ve got a lot of gay friends.”The second day of the G7 meeting near Paris is under way.We heard from Yvette Cooper earlier this morning before the summit began, saying she and other foreign ministers will discuss the conflict in the Middle East “where we want to see a swift resolution that reaches regional stability and security and opens the strait of Hormuz”.

The narrow waterway, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, has been effectively closed since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, with Tehran threatening to attack vessels in retaliation.The closure has sent oil and gas prices soaring around the world, particularly in Asia, where the crisis is impacting daily life.“Iran cannot be able to just hold the the global economy hostage as a result of a strait which is about international shipping routes and the freedom of navigation that has been so strongly supported at the United Nations, but also by countries across the world,” Cooper said.Hello and welcome to the UK politics blog, follow along to get the latest updates.Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper is in France today for the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Vaux-de-Cernay, near Paris, where she is expected to speak with US secretary of state Marco Rubio.

On top of the agenda is the conflict in the Middle East, with reports suggesting Rubio will ask ministers for help reopening the strait of Hormuz.In early comments ahead of the summit, Cooper said Iran “cannot hold the global economy hostage”, adding that she wants to see a “swift resolution” to the Middle East crisis.She also expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s ties with Iran “that have been longstanding in terms of shared capabilities”.The US and European powers have accused Russia of helping Iran target US forces in the region, which Moscow has denied.Russia and Iran have significantly deepened their military and strategic ties since Moscow’s continuing invasion of Ukraine.

The Russians have used Iranian drones extensively during the war and the two countries have devised ways to circumvent western sanctions to sell oil abroad.Prime minister Keir Starmer said the Iran and Ukraine wars could have “huge implications” for the future and could reshape the global order.“How they end and on what terms could well define us for a generation,” he told Sky News.In other news:Starmer is visiting a school in London this morning, as new government guidance advices parents to limit screen time for children under the age of five to one hour a day, while under-twos should not be watching screens alone.Peter Mandelson will reportedly be asked to hand over messages from his personal phone as part of the government’s disclosure of documents related to his appointment as UK ambassador to the US.

The government has so far only had access to his work phone.Starmer told Sky News that he “beats himself up” over Mandelson’s appointment, saying it was a mistake he would never repeat.