Reeves tells Americans she does not know why they launched Iran war – as it happened

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has told an American audience she does not know why they went to war against Iran.Reviving criticisms of Donald Trump she has already stated, she said that she was “not convinced that this conflict has made the world a safer place” and that Trump seemed to have ended up in a worse position than he was before the war started.Speaking at a CNBC event in Washington, where she is attending IMF meeting, Reeves said:double quotation markThere were diplomatic negotiations happening before this. So if the aim is to now to get diplomatic negotiations, well, they were already happening before the conflict started …We’ve never been clear about what the goals of this conflict is, which is why the impacts in our economy, but also here in the US economy and around the world, and particularly for our allies in the Gulf, like Saudi and Qatar and the UAE, are so immense.Reeves said that it was important to reopen the strait of Hormuz to reduce energy prices

Scottish Labour leader says claim he tried to do Reform deal is ‘desperate lie’

Anas Sarwar has dismissed as “a desperate lie from a desperate man” a claim by Reform UK’s Scotland leader, Malcolm Offord, that he offered to do a deal with the rightwing party to keep the Scottish National party out of power.Offord made the claim on Channel 4’s Scottish leaders’ debate on Tuesday evening, alleging the Scottish Labour leader came “bouncing up” to him at an event in December last year, suggesting they “work together to remove the SNP”.The row escalated when Offord told reporters after the debate that he stood by the remarks. Thomas Kerr, a Reform UK candidate in Glasgow, claimed Sarwar had made similar overtures to him some months earlier.Sarwar immediately dismissed the accusations as “nonsense” but the SNP posted the exchange on social media, saying it was evidence of Scottish Labour seeking “a grubby deal”

Questions asked and answers given – up to a point. Welcome to lo-fi PMQs | John Crace

Credit where credit is due. The last few prime minister’s questions have been an exercise in nihilism. The embodiment of existential futility. Questions asked by Kemi Badenoch but not even a pretence by Keir Starmer of answering them. It was like the worst days of Boris Johnson’s time in No 10

Starmer rejects accusation Labour is ‘complacent’ on defence funding

Keir Starmer has said he does not agree with George Robertson’s comments about the government’s “corrosive complacency” on defence funding, as the prime minister faced sustained pressure on the issue.Questioned in the Commons about the claims by Robertson, the former Labour defence secretary and Nato chief who co-authored a defence review for the government, Starmer insisted that defence spending was increasing rapidly.Pressed by Kemi Badenoch about whether he agreed with Robertson, now a Labour peer, that social security should be cut to boost defence, Starmer said his government was tackling both areas – and argued that previous Conservative governments neglected them.Government sources have not denied that Rachel Reeves has proposed increasing the budget by less than £10bn over the next four years amid concerns that any more would be unaffordable.While the government has committed to reach 2

How a £2m bitcoin order made Nigel Farage the political face of UK crypto

A thumping electronic beat provides the soundtrack to the video as Nigel Farage appears in front of a bank of screens.At first glance, it could be yet another of the Reform UK leader’s “second jobs” – whether promoting gold as a pension fallback or recording Cameo videos. And in a sense, it is: Farage is promoting a £2m cryptocurrency purchase by a company in which he has £215,000 invested, Stack BTC.“So we are about to place our bitcoin order,” says Farage with a smile, drawing on the communication skills honed as a politician and GB News anchor.After pressing a button, he shrugs theatrically as a bugle marks the “purchase” before the clip cuts to him standing on a roof with Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Tory chancellor known for his disastrous 2022 mini budget in the government of Liz Truss

‘Bizarre’ lack of urgency in putting UK on war footing, says defence review co-author

A co-author of Britain’s strategic defence review has joined criticism of Keir Starmer’s leadership on military policy, warning of a “bizarre” lack of urgency in defence planning.Fiona Hill, a former chief adviser to the White House on Russia, echoed the concerns of George Robertson, her co-author with Gen Richard Barrons on the strategic defence review (SDR), over what he had called the prime minister’s “corrosive complacency”.Robertson, a peer and former head of Nato, has publicly aired his frustration at the government’s failure to come forward with its 10-year spending plans for defence following publication of the SDR last June.Elaborating further on Tuesday night in a speech in Salisbury, Wiltshire, he accused “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism” and warned that “we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”.Robertson also disclosed he had a discussion with the defence secretary, John Healey, on Monday about his intervention