Public perceptions of Starmer and Farage are perhaps a bit hazy
The optics could hardly be more different.On one stage, Nigel Farage was in a Welsh former steel town talking about reopening coalmines.On another, Keir Starmer enjoyed a cosy chat with a tech multi-billionaire wearing a £7,000 leather jacket.Does this therefore show that the Reform UK leader has been successful in, to use his words, parking his tanks on Labour’s lawn and becoming the voice of working people? As ever in politics, it’s all a bit more complicated.For one thing, Starmer is not exactly a stranger to the factory floor.
Little more than a week ago, he used a glass plant in St Helens, Merseyside, as the backdrop for a speech condemning Reform’s fiscal plans.Recent months have seen him pop up at car production lines, armaments companies and rail infrastructure depots.As a prime minister you need to take every industry seriously, and it made sense for Starmer to open London tech week alongside Jensen Huang, even if the head of US semiconductor firm Nvidia is a man whose trademark look is a Tom Ford leather jacket.The complications work both ways.For all that Farage used his speech in Port Talbot to deliver a Donald Trump-like message of fossil fuel-led reindustrialisation, his natural milieu involves a bit less dirt under the fingernails.
To take one example, on Monday Farage briefly mentioned being in Las Vegas two weeks ago “launching our crypto and digital assets bill”, when he was in fact a guest speaker at the lavish bitcoin 2025 conference.It is not known if Farage was being paid for the appearance, but he is no stranger to corporate gigs.Since becoming an MP he has trousered £40,000 for a speech to an offshore taxation conference, and £280,000 promoting gold bullion, not to mention a TV job that pays about £2,500 per hour.And yet, in a poll released last week, it emerged that slightly more British voters think Farage – a public school-educated former City trader – is more working class than Starmer, who is, as we heard many times during the general election, the son of a toolmaker.What is going on?One bit of context is that actually not that many people believed it about either – 19% for Farage, and 17% with Starmer.
Why so few for the prime minister? In part, it’s likely to be his long pre-politics career as a lawyer and then director of public prosecutions – and particularly the knighthood that resulted.More generally, it’s fair to say that voters’ impressions of politicians are often a bit hazy.A long-running YouGov tracker of the most popular British politicians has Brexit-backing Conservative peer David Frost top, and the shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, third – unlikely results widely assumed to be because people have mistaken them for the more fondly recalled late TV host and Olympic cyclist respectively.More pertinent is that when it comes to actual voter support, Reform is the top choice among working-class voters.One poll last month said that just 17% supported Labour, against 39% for Reform.
Farage is very aware of this current advantage, and makes a point of regular speeches at working men’s clubs, channelling Trump’s paradoxical political status as a wealthy man who largely spends time with other wealthy men but nonetheless attracts support in deprived areas,All that said, Starmer is determined to shift those Reform tanks by pointing out another similarity with Trump – the fact that Farage’s policies seem more generally aimed at the managerial class than those on the factory floor,Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, argued recently that Farage was “cosplaying” as a voice of the working classes, and that his opposition to the government’s employment rights bill and lack of a coherent economic plan showed his lack of authenticity,Even as Farage talks up the return of heavy industry and calls for the water industry to be nationalised, expect more of the same from Downing Street, plus Starmer’s insistence that a “Liz Truss 2,0” policy of mass tax cuts would hurt ordinary families the most.
And if you run a factory, brace yourself for more political visits.
WPP chief Mark Read to step down as ad agency battles AI
The boss of WPP, Mark Read, has announced he will step down, as the advertising agency, which was once the largest in the world, struggles against the rise of artificial intelligence and with its shares at their lowest level in about five years.Read will leave WPP after more than 30 years, with just under seven spent in the top job. He will stay on as chief executive until the end of the year while the board starts to look for his successor.WPP’s share price has shed about half of its value under his leadership, as the company has struggled against the rise of AI tech that helps companies to automate the creation of adverts.The chair of WPP, the former BT boss Philip Jansen, said Read “played a central role in transforming the company into a world leader in marketing services”
Farage is like a tribune for the working class, says former Bank of England economist
Nigel Farage is the closest to a “tribune for the working class”, the former Bank of England chief economist has said, in a stark warning for Keir Starmer’s Labour party.Andy Haldane said the surge in support for Reform UK in the opinion polls suggested there had been “something of a moral rupture” between the government and many voters, which he said should spur Starmer to take action with a “radical reset” of its growth plans.Haldane said Labour’s misfiring growth strategy and decisions on winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit limit had opened the door to Farage by fuelling a sense that mainstream politicians promise change but fail to deliver.Asked whether Reform was the new party of the working class, Haldane said: “I do not know. [But] as things stand today, and doing no more than echoing what is in the polls … that is what the larger part of the working classes think – which matters rather more than what I think
Bidders demand Thames Water granted immunity over environmental crimes
Lenders vying to take over Thames Water have demanded that the struggling company and its management be granted immunity from prosecution for serious environmental crimes as a condition of acquiring it, the Guardian can reveal.Creditors want the environment secretary, Steve Reed, to grant the water company extraordinary clemency from a series of strict rules covering everything from sewage spills to failure to upgrade its water treatment works.The demands, if successful, would render the Environment Agency (EA) largely powerless to take enforcement action against Britain’s biggest water company for some of the most serious criminal breaches of its licences and permits.Thames Water has been a serial offender in recent years, paying tens of millions of pounds in fines and penalties, with multiple convictions for dumping raw sewage into rivers and streams and dozens more investigations under way.The fate of the heavily indebted utility was thrown into further doubt this week when the US private equity firm KKR quit an auction to buy it, citing concerns about politicisation and the poor state of its assets
Trump bill set to add trillions to US debt pile – can America stop it climbing?
Economists are concerned, politicians are angry – but the national debt keeps growing, no matter who’s in chargeIn this febrile political era, few issues command stronger bipartisan support than the need for fiscal responsibility. Barack Obama and Donald Trump committed to curtail the US national debt on their respective roads to the White House.And yet, no matter the party, Americans have been able to count on one thing above most: the national debt will keep climbing.And here we are again. With Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” threatening to add once more to the US’s huge debts, several Republican senators are threatening to block his current spending plans, with Rand Paul of Kentucky among those highly critical
UK banks to experiment with Nvidia AI in ‘supercharged sandbox’ scheme
The UK’s financial regulator is to allow banks and other City firms to experiment with the US chipmaker Nvidia’s leading AI products to “speed up innovation” and fulfil government orders to boost UK growth.The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it was launching a “supercharged sandbox” that would give successful applicants the chance to experiment safely with cutting-edge AI under the watchdog’s supervision, allowing them to use Nvidia’s accelerated computing products.The regulator is not dictating what those experiments might be, but some firms have previously suggested that AI could be used to identify and intercept authorised push payment fraud, in which victims are tricked into sending money to criminals’ bank accounts, or help identify stock market manipulation.The FCA’s chief data, intelligence and information officer, Jessica Rusu, said: “This collaboration will help those that want to test AI ideas but who lack the capabilities to do so. We’ll help firms harness AI to benefit our markets and consumers, while supporting economic growth
Tariff-hit firms should review bonuses or risk backlash, US lawyers warn
Businesses hit by tariffs should start reviewing their bonus policies and how deeply they may need to cut executive payouts if they hope to avoid a public backlash, lawyers have said.Partners at the Silicon Valley law firm Cooley said that while pay was probably the last thing on bosses’ minds as they scramble to adapt to Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff policies, pay committees should start assessing their options soon.“Many will encounter rising material costs and reduced profit margins, particularly given the significant pressure on the supply chain,” a memo by its top lawyers said.“Taken together with the recent stock market volatility, companies (both public and private) will need to address the impact of these challenges on their business and, importantly, consider the effects on director and executive compensation programs.”Cooley – whose clients have included Netflix, Apple, Meta, and Twitter before its takeover by Elon Musk and rebrand as X – said that without a proper review of pay policies, companies may end up handing big bonuses to bosses while the rest of the workforce suffers from cost cuts and job losses
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