British leader Keir Starmer under pressure after heavy election losses
Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, is facing increasing pressure to set a date for his departure after elections across much of the country resulted in massive losses for his ruling Labour party.With the bulk of results now counted after voting on Thursday, Labour had lost more than 1,400 representatives from English councils, the local government structures that deliver many neighbourhood services.Starmer’s party also crashed to defeat in the election for the devolved parliament of Wales, where it had dominated the country’s politics for a century, and went backwards in representation in the Scottish parliament.Adding to the panic in Labour, the party lost to a series of challengers, including the righting populist Reform UK party, the leftwing Greens, and pro-independence nationalists in Wales and Scotland.The elections, the biggest since Starmer won power in mid-2024, showed how the UK’s traditional two-party system of Labour and the Conservatives has been smashed, with Reform taking the most votes, and the Greens, Conservatives, Labour and the centrist Liberal Democrats bunched up behind.
While Starmer does not have to face an election to the national parliament in Westminster for three years, increasing numbers of his MPs want him to announce a timetable for his departure, believing he is too politically damaged to turn things around.Speaking on Saturday morning, one MP, Debbie Abrahams, who represents an area in the north of England which used to be solidly Labour but has increasingly turned to Reform, said Starmer must “put the country first”.She said: “We have to recognise the dangers that we’re in now, that on this trajectory it doesn’t look good.” Asked how quickly Starmer should go, she said: “I think it is a matter of months.”For now, however, Starmer has the backing of his senior ministers, at least in public, including the two routinely named as likely challengers: Wes Streeting, the health minister, and Angela Rayner, who was deputy prime minister until last year.
Complicating matters for any plotters is that the person viewed by many in Labour as the best potential replacement for Starmer, Andy Burnham, is not in parliament,He is the mayor of Greater Manchester and could only return to the House of Commons if another MP stood down and he fought the election to replace them,Starmer has vowed to fight on,In an opinion article for the Guardian on Saturday, the prime minister said he accepted the results were “very tough”, and that lessons needed to be learned,But he rejected the argument from some MPs that to recover, Labour must do more to bring back left-leaning voters who have shifted their allegiance to the Greens.
He wrote: “While we must respond to the message that voters have sent us, that doesn’t mean tacking right or left.It means bringing together a broad political movement.”There is a consensus, even among his closest allies, that while Starmer has had some policy successes, and has dealt adeptly with Donald Trump and the wider international situation, his government has made too many mis-steps and U-turns.More broadly, many in Labour worry that Starmer is unable to properly challenge either Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, the politician best known for pushing the UK to vote to leave the European Union in 2016, or the Greens, who have surged in the polls under the leadership of the self-styled “eco-populist” Zack Polanski.However others in the party argue that changing prime ministers mid-government annoys voters just as much.
From 2016 to 2022, the then-ruling Conservatives switched prime ministers four times, and were heavily punished by the electorate at the next election.Under their new leader, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservatives fared badly in Thursday’s voting, losing more than 500 councillors and giving ground in Scotland and Wales.
AFL integrity unit to investigate Gold Coast Suns’ team manager over alleged links to gambling firm
Gold Coast Suns have made an assurance they are acting within AFL rules, despite a key figure inside the club’s dressing room allegedly working with a bookmaking firm which has been subject to disciplinary action by the Victorian regulator for inducing gambling at local footy clubs.Mark Opie, a longtime Richmond team manager and Tigers life member, moved to Gold Coast in 2024, and is now subject to an investigation by the AFL integrity unit.According to multiple reports, he was part of a partnership known as Okebet, which was fined $100,000 in 2024 by the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC), after it was found to have struck deals with local football clubs to encourage their players to open accounts in 2023.Okebet appealed the matter with VCAT, but the decision was upheld earlier this year, prompting VGCCC chief executive Suzy Neilan to declare that the decision showed the importance of protecting vulnerable individuals and community institutions from harmful gambling practices.“Local footy … clubs are often the heart of their communities, places where people come together to support one another
Novak Djokovic accepts ‘new reality’ after returning with defeat at Italian Open
Novak Djokovic believes he must accept the “new reality” of his continuous physical struggles in the latter part of his career as his return to competition after an injury-ravaged clay-court season ended in a second-round Italian Open loss to the young Croatian qualifier Dino Prizmic, who recovered courageously from a set down to topple his idol 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.Djokovic has not competed since the Indian Wells Masters event two months ago, his only other tournament since his spectacular run to the Australian Open final. As the fourth seed in Rome, he received a first-round bye. Despite starting the match positively, the 38-year-old was outplayed by his 20-year-old opponent, who wore the Serb down physically and played bold tennis to escape with the greatest victory of his career.“It’s not an ideal preparation, to be honest,” Djokovic said
County cricket as it happened: Nottinghamshire v Surrey, Glamorgan v Somerset and more
The vacancy sign over one England openers slot continues to swing. The selectors fancy James Rew, but he keeps wicket and bats in the middle order for Somerset. How to square the circle? Friday’s answer was Rew opening for Somerset for the first time in his first-class career. It was a short-lived experiment, Rew lasting just seven balls before being bowled for four.Around Rew there were runs for young Josh Thomas (71) and Tom Lammonby (45) before Glamorgan debutant Tom Norton picked the first of three wickets
Slimline Stokes makes impression with pair of wickets on red-ball return
To little fanfare, Ben Stokes has slipped out of the shorter formats. His last one-day international was at the 2023 World Cup, his last Twenty20 international helped England win its equivalent a year earlier. His most recent white-ball match of any description came during the Hundred in 2024, a tournament he has since shouldered arms to.Red-ball cricket is the thing that gets the England captain’s juices flowing these days and had he not fractured his cheekbone in the nets back in February, the plan was to be available for Durham from the start of the season. Fair play, given the additional money he could earn by diversifying in his final years
A Piece Of Heaven returns Chester to even keel after ground chaos
A Piece Of Heaven’s 7-1 success in the Chester Cup, the most popular and historic race of the year at the world’s oldest racecourse, was a fine way to round off the track’s May festival meeting on Friday, not least after a day when, for around an hour or so in early afternoon, the event had teetered on the edge of an expensive, embarrassing disaster.The odds that the middle day of Chester’s showpiece event would be abandoned, with around 15,000 spectators at the track for Ladies’ Day, seemed to be shortening at 2.30pm on Thursday, as a delegation of jockeys and trainers inspected the turf on the home turn.Several riders had reported slipping in the opening race, prompting emergency remedial work by Chester’s ground staff. A few minutes earlier, Maureen Haggas, assistant to her husband, William, at one of Newmarket’s biggest stables, had scratched Morshdi, the second-favourite, from the Dee Stakes, the day’s big Derby trial
Formula One agrees to engine changes from next season after widespread criticism
Formula One has agreed to make engine design changes for the 2027 season in response to the unhappiness of many leading drivers at the way this year’s new-generation engines have affected how they race.At a meeting on Friday, the FIA, F1, teams and engine manufacturers reached an agreement, subject to formal approval, to fast-track changes to the regulations to allow fresh engines to be used next season.The intention is to address the level of energy management drivers undertake on each lap, with the current engines at almost a 50-50 split between the internal combustion engine (ICE) and electrical energy. This has led at times to counterintuitive driving and the yo-yoing of positions that has left many drivers frustrated – as well as safety concerns because of closing speeds.From 2027 the split will be closer to 60-40 in favour of the ICE, through an increased fuel flow to the combustion engine, and reducing the power output of the hybrid unit from 350kW to 300kW
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