Keir Starmer has said there is a “real sense of relief” in the Gulf at the Iran ceasefire – but also that there is “a lot of work to do” to make it permanent.Speaking to broadcasters at the King Fahd Air Base in Taif, Saudi Arabia, the PM said:double quotation markThere’s work to do.It’s early days.There is a real sense, I think, of relief you can feel it at the base here in Saudi Arabia, for 39 days, they’ve been acting in our collective self-defence.You can feel the relief.

But what they want to know, what people in the United Kingdom want to know, who will share that relief, is that this needs to be permanent, and it’s our job to work with other countries in the region, not only on the cessation of possibilities, but also on opening the Strait of Hormuz,Because the impact on our energy prices, you can see it on a daily basis over the last 39 days, it’s our job to make sure that the strait is open, that we’re able to get the energy that the world needs out and stabilise the prices back in the United Kingdom,So I say we’re not getting drawn into this war,We’ve always acted in collective self-defence, but my job is to protect the UK lives, of course, which is what we’ve been doing here from this place, but also to protect our interests and through our interests, our national interest, to get the Strait of Hormuz open,Addressing British military personnel, Starmer thanked them for their work in the “collective self-defence of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom” but said there was more to do.

double quotation markWe now, as you’ll have seen from the news, have a ceasefire, but there’s a lot of work to do, as you will appreciate, a lot of work to make sure that that ceasefire becomes permanent and brings about the peace that we all want to see,But also a lot of work to do in relation to the strait of Hormuz, which has an impact everywhere across the world,Keir Starmer has arrived in Saudi Arabia to meet leaders in the Gulf region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran,Labour has pledged to spend £30m on giving Scottish artists and musicians a living wage, mirroring a similar scheme in Ireland guaranteeing artists a basic income,Sadiq Khan has said he can understand why some former Labour voters are “flirting” with other parties in the run-up to May’s elections, but said that they may regret seeing a Green or Reform-led council in their areas.

The government has named the City veteran Ian Cheshire as its preferred choice to chair the media regulator Ofcom.For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.Gina Davidson, the Scottish political editor of LBC, points out that there was a divide between Richard Tice and Malcolm Offord on shale gas at the Reform UK press conference earlier.double quotation markRichard Tice in Aberdeen today suggested fracking for shale gas in his Lincolnshire constituency to bring bills down - bit of a divide with Reform Scotland leader Malcolm Offord who emphatically told business leaders at a hustings last week he was not in favour of shale.We would like readers to help us compile information on the election leaflets that political parties are distributing.

There are details about how to help here,Nick Davies from the Institute for Government thinktank has posted this on Bluesky critcising the Tory plan to ban councils from letting staff work a four-day week on full pay,(See 11,02am,)double quotation markThe constant Westminster-based attacks on S.

Cambs by Conservatives and Labour are both depressing and incredibly boring It’s good for councils to try new things! Evidence suggests the 4 day week scheme has been successful! If residents don’t like it, they can vote out the Lib Dems next month!Here is some evidence in favour of the South Cambridgeshire distric council scheme.And here are Tory activists holding a photocall to publicise their policy.This makes it clear it is all about attacking the Liberal Democrats.Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has claimed that Keir Starmer won’t get much of a welcome during his trip to the Gulf.Asked about the PM’s visit at a campaign even in Bexley, south-east London, Farage said:double quotation markWhy bother? What’s [Starmer] going to say?He’s upset the Americans, he’s upset the Cypriots, he’s upset the Gulf states, and this level of indecision and chopping and changing your mind is quite extraordinary.

So my guess is he will not be treated today with a great degree of respect.Nigel Farage has repeated his claim that Reform UK is not cold calling people asking them to be candidates in the local elections – even though they are.As Rowena Mason and Alexandra Topping report in today’s Guardian, Reform have been cold calling people who have provided email addresses to the party so they can receive updates about what it is doing.At least one person who has received a call of this kind is a Guardian journalist.Clearly, the quality of Reform candidates would improve enormously if they did start recruiting Guardian journalists, but it is understood that the person concerned resisted Farage’s kind invitation and has decided to stick with the day job.

Asked about the story today, Farage replied:double quotation markCould you think of anything more ludicrous than going through the phone book and saying, ‘Please would you be a candidate?’ It’s absolute rot.If one of their [The Guardian] reporters is a paid-up member of the party, masquerading as a supporter, when in fact they’re not, that’s why they would have got a phone call.Farage is entitled to say that Reform UK does not seem to be calling total strangers, picked at random from the phone book.But it is not just paid-up members who are being approached; the cold calling extends to people on Reform’s email mailing lists.Another person who has been approached in this way is the Lib Dem councillor Sam Webber, who posted this on social media in response to Farage claiming yesterday his party was not cold calling people.

double quotation markThis is a lie from @Nigel_Farage & @reformparty_uk on ‘cold calling’.They are not *just* phoning their members as why else would I have received two calls from them when I’m clearly not just a member of another party but an elected @LibDems Councillor.And this is from Festus Akinbusoye, a Tory former police and crime commissioner.double quotation markA @Conservatives member that I campaigned with last weekend told me he got an email from Reform asking if he would consider standing in the East London ward.How are they getting random people to contest? This can only result in costly by-elections later on.

Campaigning and elected office is very demanding work,All the main parties sometimes try to get people to stand in local elections by telling them that they will be “paper” candidates, meaning they won’t be expected to do much because they will have no realistic chance of winning,But sometimes “paper” candidates do win – which can come as a shock if they are not ready for the work that comes with holding elected office,Keir Starmer has stressed his “values”, and their impact on his politics, while sidestepping a question about whether the Iran war has wrecked his relationship with Donald Trump,Responding to a question about Trump, he declined to criticise the US president directly.

But he implied that he thought Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran was deeply flawed.Asked if his relationship with Trump was “in tatters”, Starmer told broadcasters:double quotation markI’ve acted as you would expect of a British prime minister, which is by being absolutely focused on what is our national interest, and that’s why I’ve applied my principles and my values throughout.And my principles and values made sure that our decisions were that we wouldn’t get involved in the action without a lawful basis, without a viable, thought-through plan.That was the right position for the United Kingdom, and of course, that has included us taking action, collective self-defence …I act in the British national interest, but nothing, but nothing, is going to deflect me from that.Starmer spent the early months of his premiership cultivating a good, personal relationship with Trump and in 2025 he was able to claim this paid off when the UK was exempt from some of the US tariffs applied to other countries.

But the relationship started to sour when Starmer sided with other European leaders in firmly opposing Trump’s ambitions to annex Greenland and, over the past few weeks, Trump has frequently ridiculed and insulted Starmer in relation to the UK’s failure to fully support the US war effort in Iran.While other party leaders have been happy to condemn Trump publicly, Starmer has mostly not responded to the president’s provocations – beyond making a virtue of not being cowed by him.Keir Starmer has said there is a “real sense of relief” in the Gulf at the Iran ceasefire – but also that there is “a lot of work to do” to make it permanent.Speaking to broadcasters at the King Fahd Air Base in Taif, Saudi Arabia, the PM said:double quotation markThere’s work to do.It’s early days.

There is a real sense, I think, of relief you can feel it at the base here in Saudi Arabia, for 39 days, they’ve been acting in our collective self-defence,You can feel the relief,But what they want to know, what people in the United Kingdom want to know, who will share that relief, is that this needs to be permanent, and it’s our job to work with other countries in the region, not only on the cessation of possibilities, but also on opening the Strait of Hormuz,Because the impact on our energy prices, you can see it on a daily basis over the last 39 days, it’s our job to make sure that the strait is open, that we’re able to get the energy that the world needs out and stabilise the prices back in the United Kingdom,So I say we’re not getting drawn into this war.

We’ve always acted in collective self-defence, but my job is to protect the UK lives, of course, which is what we’ve been doing here from this place, but also to protect our interests and through our interests, our national interest, to get the Strait of Hormuz open,Addressing British military personnel, Starmer thanked them for their work in the “collective self-defence of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom” but said there was more to do,double quotation markWe now, as you’ll have seen from the news, have a ceasefire, but there’s a lot of work to do, as you will appreciate, a lot of work to make sure that that ceasefire becomes permanent and brings about the peace that we all want to see,But also a lot of work to do in relation to the strait of Hormuz, which has an impact everywhere across the world,Keir Starmer has taken just a handful of reporters with him on his trip to the Gulf.

One of them is Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, and he has written a lengthy post on social media about his trip.This is how it starts.double quotation markHours after President Trump announced a two-week cessation of hostilities against Iran, I travelled to the Gulf with the prime minister and his team, in the official government plane.We have just landed in Saudi Arabia.For diplomatic and security reasons, I have been asked not to disclose our itinerary or Starmer’s schedule of meetings with government heads.

But it does not take enormous intellectual effort to deduce that the first set of talks will be with arguably the most powerful of the Gulf leaders, Saudi’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman,The most pressing question in all Starmer’s meetings, including with MBS, is whether the ceasefire between Iran and America and Israel can endure long enough for there to be meaningful talks on a sustainable peace - which are scheduled to start on Friday in Pakistan,According to British sources - and frankly this won’t surprise you - the ceasefire is real, holding so far and very unstable,One source of anxiety is Israel’s somewhat ambivalent commitment to it - and notably that Netanyahu is explicit the hiatus does not restrict the Israel Defence Forces’ aggression in Lebanon,The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero says it has approved the Springwell solar farm farm in Lincolnshsire – which it says is set to be “the largest power-producing solar farm in the UK”.

The government says it could power over 180,000 homes a year, the equivalent of half the homes in the county.“The decision marks the 25th nationally significant clean energy project approved by the government since July 2024 – enough clean energy to power the equivalent of more than 12.5 million homes,” DESNZ says.Sadiq Khan has said he can understand why some former Labour voters are “flirting” with other parties in the run-up to May’s elections, but said that they may regret seeing a Green or Reform-led council in their areas.Peter Walker has the story.

Experts and campaigners have condemned Reform UK’s pledge to issue new licences for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.(See 12.49pm.)This is from Laura Anderson from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit organisation promoting informed debate on energy policy.double quotation markThe North Sea is a mature oil and gas basin in long-term decline, and that is a geological reality that no political slogan can change.

Even with new licences, overall production will continue to fall, meaning any strategy built on doubling down on oil and gas risks chasing a shrinking resource rather than planning for the future.And this is from Sandra Bell, a climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth.double quotation markAny party on the side of ordinary people would be proposing policies that will genuinely drive down bills and protect the most hard-up households from energy price shocks, not backing new North Sea oil and gas fields that will do nothing to ease rising costs.Approving Rosebank and Jackdaw would barely reduce the UK’s reliance on oil and gas imports from overseas, keeping us hooked on the expensive and volatile fossil fuels that are propelling us towards another energy crisis.To champion these as the solution to the nation’s energy woes is completely divorced from reality.

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.It’s a beautiful spring day in the north east, and the Reform UK press conference was of similarly sunny tone.Scottish leader Malcolm Offord employs a cheerful eyeroll strategy with media.Asked if he was a part-time leader because he took time off over the Easter weekend to take part in a yachting event, he guffawed: “Heaven forbid a man has a holiday”.And he dismissed questions about historic offensive or Islamophobic tweets by Holyrood candidates saying it was a “slipperly slope” delving into Twitter accounts from 10 years ago and that he took the decision not too.

Interestingly, Nigel Farage told the Guardian in January that vetting had been “piss poor in the past and it won’t be in the future”, insisting the party was “doing everything we can to make sure these candidates for the Scottish parliament are vetted, and are fit and proper people to put before the electorate,” It remains moot whether historic offence falls into the “fit and proper” category or not – Offord himself likely hopes it doesn’t after that disgusting George Michael joke he made at a Burns Supper in 2018,Many of the media questions related to the latest Ipsos polling for STV, which is really interesting to delve into,It’s pretty terrible news for Scottish Labour: they are down 5 points to 15% on constituency voting intention, neck and neck with Reform,The SNP lead on constituency VI on 39%, up 3 points from March, while SNP leader John Swinney’s approval rating has improved by 4 points.

Meanwhile Offord’s ratings have worsened, down 4.5 points since March, and not a great sign since the obvious conclusion is that this is the result of his increased visibility on the campaign trail over recent weeks.Given the potential for tactical voting and broader voter volatility, it’s worth noting that in both constituency and regional list votes, 42% of voters say they may still change their mind before polling day.And also keep in mind that those who say they’ll vote Reform or SNP are surer of their vote than supporters of any other party.With the prospect still very live of some sort of minority or coalition government arrangement after 7 May, I’d also draw attention to the fact the least divisive option for the public appears to be the Scottish Liberal Democrats – 32% say they would be happy to see the Liberal Democrats having influence over the Scottish government.

With the Scottish Lib Dems working away to secure a few more seats beyond their heartlands this campaign, I’ve been thinking for a while that their role could be pivotal next month.Keir Starmer has arrived in Saudi Arabia as he visits Gulf allies to push for a long-term resolution to the Iran conflict, the Press Association reports.PA says:double quotation markThe prime minister is set to hold talks with Gulf leaders on how best to support the pause in fighting and ensure passage is permanently restored through the key oil and gas shipping route.He is also expected to thank armed forces from the UK and allied countries who are posted in the region.At the Reform UK press conference in Aberdeen my colleague Libby Brooks asked about Reform’s position on Scottish independence, and whether it would be sustainable if the May elections lead to parties in favour of breaking up the UK in power in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

Malcolm Offord, the Reform UK leader in Scotland, replied:double quotation markIn Scotland we are saying that we’re the party of enough talk of referendum,We don’t want to talk about it, people have get no interest in it, there’s no appetite for it, and therefore can we just not talk about it and get on with making Scotland the most successful part of the UK,Offord is vulnerable on this because in the past he has implied he is not 100% opposed to a second independence referendum,At their campaign launch yesterday, the Scottish Conseratives used this as an attack line, claiming they were the only party that would fully protect the union,Asked how many Reform candidates have in the past backed independence, Offord said there were three, out of 73, “who have had that tendency in the past”