‘I was naive in being hopeful’: Labour voters feel let down after first year

Labour supporters have told the Guardian of their dissatisfaction with the party’s first year in government, as Keir Starmer marks 12 months since becoming the first Labour prime minister since Gordon Brown.Members and voters said initial optimism had given away to unhappiness about the government’s record, although many were keen to state the positives they felt had been forgotten under the weight of recent events.Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen $https://uploads.guim.co

Big pay days and top of the polls: Nigel Farage’s first year as an MP

Nigel Farage has had one of the best years of his political career after voters finally elected him to parliament at the eighth time of asking. He is odds on to be the UK’s next prime minister, vying with Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting, with Kemi Badenoch trailing behind.Here are the key facts and numbers behind his first year in the House of Commons.Farage has been flying high in the polls, leading the pack in terms of popularity and outstripping Keir Starmer in some areas – although opinion is still divided. One achievement, aided by Starmer, is that the public is now more likely to see Farage as the main opposition rather than Badenoch, according to the pollster Ipsos

‘A mess of our own making’: Labour mayors reflect on Starmer’s first year

Keir Starmer’s government appears “disjointed” from the rest of the Labour party just a year after taking power, regional mayors have said, with one blaming No 10 for overseeing “a mess of our own making”.Steve Rotheram, the Labour mayor of Liverpool city region, said Downing Street’s repeated missteps were “winding up” people who wanted to back the government.Speaking as the party marked 12 months in government after a stunning election win last summer, during which Starmer campaigned on an agenda of national renewal centred around a message of “change”, Rotherham said people were willing to forgive the occasional miscalculation but that the climbdowns over winter fuel payments and the welfare bill had left Starmer’s operation looking like “a mess”.He said: “What I think has exacerbated this feeling by many, not just politicians but people around the country, who look at this and think it’s a mess. Well, it’s a mess of our own making,” he said

Reform MP James McMurdock resigns whip pending ‘business propriety’ investigation

A Reform MP, James McMurdock, has given up the party whip while he is investigated over allegations about his business conduct during the coronavirus pandemic.Lee Anderson, the party’s chief whip, made the announcement on Saturday, saying it related to accusations in the Sunday Times over government loans he is alleged to have taken out during the Covid pandemic.The report claims McMurdock took out £70,000 in loans in 2020, which it said were from the government’s Bounce Back scheme in 2020. It says he borrowed £50,000 for one business, JAM Financial Ltd, which had no employees and negligible assets until the Covid pandemic.For a firm to have been eligible for the loan, it would have needed to report a turnover of at least £200,000

Reform UK puts teenagers in charge of vital public services

Reform UK’s local election wins have led to teenagers being put in charge of vital public services, including a 19-year-old who is overseeing children and family services while at university.Two months after the elections in which Nigel Farage’s party took overall control of 10 councils, concerns have been raised about the experience of candidates who have been appointed to roles with wide-ranging responsibility.At Leicestershire county council, the Reform councillor Charles Pugsley, 19, has been made the cabinet member for children and family services.Pugsley’s elevation has caused particular concern, as has that of Joseph Boam, a 22-year-old who has been made the deputy council leader and handed the adult social care portfolio, despite having previously expressed the view that “depression isn’t real”.Both are defenders of a Reform policy that would block the council from flying community emblems such as the Pride and disabled people’s flags over council property

No 10 regrets choice of ‘insipid’ new cabinet secretary, sources say

Keir Starmer’s No 10 increasingly has “buyer’s remorse” about the new cabinet secretary, Chris Wormald, who has only been running the civil service for six months, Downing Street and Whitehall sources have told the Guardian.Wormald, who was the permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care during the Covid pandemic, was chosen by the prime minister from a shortlist of four names.Starmer made his pick in consultation with the head of the civil service and the first civil service commissioner, saying at the time that Wormald “brings a wealth of experience to this role at a critical moment in the work of change this new government has begun”.However, multiple sources said some people around Starmer were growing to view the choice of Wormald as “disastrous” for the prospects of radical reform of the civil service and had begun to explore options for how to work around him.One said Wormald was viewed as “insipid” and prone to wringing his hands about problems rather than coming up with solutions, and too entrenched in the status quo