Ed Miliband says Labour will ‘win fight’ against UK net zero critics

Ed Miliband has said the government will “win this fight” against critics of Britain’s net zero plan, in part by creating more offshore wind jobs in the country’s former industrial heartlands.The energy secretary appeared to take aim at his political opponents in the Conservative and Reform UK parties as he launched a £1bn investment scheme to bolster job opportunities in the offshore wind supply chain.He told an energy industry conference on Tuesday that the investment would usher in a “green industrial revolution” for workers in manufacturing heartlands such as Teesside, Scotland, south Wales and East Anglia.Britain’s former industrial towns have shown growing support for the Reform party, which has promised to scrap Britain’s net zero agenda if it comes to power in the next election in 2029.The Conservative party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, has also vowed to drop her party’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2050 after describing the legally binding climate target as “impossible”

Starmer says he picked up Trump’s dropped papers to avoid security scare

Keir Starmer said he rushed to pick up papers dropped by Donald Trump at the G7 summit in Canada mainly to avoid anyone else stepping forward to do so and being tackled by the US president’s security team.Speaking to reporters in Kananaskis a day after Trump fumbled some of the documents about a UK-US trade deal, letting a sheaf of papers tumble to the ground, Starmer said he had little choice but to bend down and help out.The UK prime minister said: “I mean, look, there weren’t many choices with the documents and picking it up, because … as you probably know there were quite strict rules about who can get close to the president.“I mean, seriously, I think if any of you [the media] had stepped forward other than me – I was just deeply conscious that in a situation like it would not have been good for anybody else to have stepped forward, not that any of you rushed to. There’s a very tightly guarded security zone around the president, as you would expect

Green party trying to purge gender-critical voices, claims expelled former spokesperson

The Green party is veering away from its founding culture towards a more leftwing authoritarianism, its former health spokesperson has claimed.Dr Pallavi Devulapalli said trans rights had become an obvious totem in the new climate, and accused the party of trying to purge anyone with gender-critical views.Devulapalli, a GP and member of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk council, was expelled from the party for a rules breach that she has said was due to her beliefs on gender. Her expulsion this month, she said, has exposed a rift in the party’s leadership on transgender issues that threatens to widen during this summer’s leadership election.The party’s current co-leader Adrian Ramsay, who has argued that members should not be thrown out for saying trans women are not women, is pressing internally for Devulapalli’s expulsion to be reviewed

Reeves considers softening inheritance tax changes amid non-dom backlash

Rachel Reeves is considering caving in to City lobbying and softening changes to inheritance tax that affect wealthy individuals who would previously have been “non-doms”, reports suggest.In her autumn budget, the chancellor confirmed that she would scrap the non-dom tax status, which allowed wealthy individuals with connections abroad to avoid paying full UK tax on their overseas earnings.“Those that make the UK their home should pay their taxes here,” she said at the time.Her predecessor Jeremy Hunt had already sounded the death knell for non-dom status but Reeves’s changes were expected to raise an additional £12.7bn over five years

British woman laments Brexit rules that would stop her Italian husband moving to UK

A British woman whose family cannot return to the UK because of Brexit visa rules has said she feels “forgotten and rejected” by the country of her birth.Sarah Douglas moved to Italy to teach English in 2007 before marrying Matteo Ricci, an Italian software developer, in 2010.The couple had always planned to settle in the UK, where Douglas wants to be closer to her parents, who are in their 70s.But under the current, post-Brexit immigration regime, she must earn more than £29,000 and have been working in a job paying that for at least six months in the UK before she can apply for a family visa that would allow her husband to move here, or have £88,500 in cash savings.The rules mean she would have to return to the UK from the family’s home in Perugia, Umbria, with their three children – Alba, 13, Mirryn, 10 and Arthur, five – before Ricci could join them

Britons in Israel told to notify Foreign Office to receive instructions on how to leave

British people in Israel are being told to register with the Foreign Office ​s​o the UK government ​c​an assist them if they wish to leave the country.David Lammy, the foreign secretary, told MPs on Monday his department was asking all British nationals to notify the government and receive instructions on how best to leave, after the country closed down its airspace.With Israel and Iran continuing their air attacks against each other, fears are growing for hundreds of thousands of Britons living in the broader region.Lammy told the Commons: “We are asking all British nationals in Israel to register their presence with the FCDO [Foreign Office], so that we can share important information on the situation and leaving the country.“Israel and Iran have closed their airspace until further notice, and our ability therefore to provide support in Iran is extremely limited