Reeves has just announced:
Stay tuned for how Labour will fill that black hole. Coming this autumn from the people who brought you “£40 Billion In Tax Hikes,” it’s: ‘Reeves Budget Two’…
Matters are coming to a head this week as Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus visits London to receive an award and – according to Bangladeshi officials – speak with Keir Starmer. The UK side has been strangely quiet about the upcoming meeting sought by Yunus, suggesting there is nervousness in Downing Street about what might be brought up…
Last week Yunus said he would raise Bangladesh’s efforts to recover funds allegedly embezzled by Awami League figures in Sheikh Hasina’s regime and stored in assets abroad. Former anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq has also put herself on the agenda this weekend…
In a letter to Yunus which was briefed to The Guardian Siddiq requests a meeting with Bangladesh’s leader in order to “help clear up the misunderstanding perpetuated by the anti-corruption committee in Dhaka that I have questions to answer in relation to my mother’s sister, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina.” Siddiq promoted her enthusiasm to clear matters on an X post with the comments turned off…
Tulip and her lawyers have always denied all wrongdoing and she adds in the letter: “I have no property nor any business interests whatsoever in Bangladesh. The country is dear to my heart but it is not the country where I was born, live in or have built my career in.” Meanwhile over the weekend the Anti-Corruption Commission in Bangladesh said it had seized 87 pages of tax returns filed in the country by Siddiq which “cover the assessment years 2006–07 to 2018–19″…
The Awami League party of Tulip’s aunt Sheikh Hasina is protesting the visit, telling Downing Street “that any formal meeting lends legitimacy to an unelected and unconstitutional administration.” As revealed on these pixels Starmer has hobnobbed with senior Awami League staff – including Hasina – for years and was seen doing so as recently as December…
Yunus’ office for its part says it never received that letter from Tulip and therefore “we cannot comment on something we have not seen.” If Starmer actually meets with Yunus the pair has the opportunity to discuss the case in detail…
A new report from Grayling Energy has torched any lingering belief that Ed Miliband’s pipe dream of net zero by 2030 is remotely achievable. Out of over 2,000 respondents, a solid 55% of the public say the clean power target is unattainable, while a paltry 9% strongly believing the target is achievable. Ed’s bluster about a carbon-free utopia is seen by the public as just more hot air…
A whopping 58% of Brits would back a delay to net zero if it meant dodging blackouts and soaring bills while, 61% say cutting energy costs should be the government’s top priority, more than double those who think decarbonisation comes first (just 25%). Shadow Scotland secretary Andrew Bowie said:
“Kemi Badenoch has been clear – the current Net Zero by 2050 is impossible. We must change course. We need a properly thought through approach, not more hot air from Net Zero nutters intent on leaving us all weaker, poorer and less secure.”
In Labour internal voices against Miliband’s agenda are getting louder…
Tom Harwood and the Looking For Growth campaign made a splash on X over the weekend by cleaning graffiti off a Bakerloo line train. Why is TfL not doing this themselves…
Guido had a look at how much taxpayers are contributing towards the non-existent graffiti-cleaning services procured by TfL. Since at least 2017 cleaning services have been performed by ABM Facility Services with repeated contract extensions. The bill to taxpayers has only risen…
A 60-month tender from earlier this year for cleaning services including “Graffiti Removal Services” on “London Underground sites and trains” is worth £775 million excluding VAT. That means taxpayers are paying £12.9 million per month for graffiti cleaning on the Tube. £3.2 million per week, £461,310 per day…
TfL’s excuse for the train Harwood cleaned was that “a track defect in the depot meant we were unable to use our automatic train wash for a few weeks.” Guido doesn’t think that will wash with Londoners…
If anything is a sign that the tide is turning against the ECHR, it’s arch-remainer and LibDem leader Ed Davey proposing the convention be changed. Davey was on Times Radio this morning to say he wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of rewriting the ECHR “collectively.” Classic LibDemese…
“However, if you could do it collectively, working through with the court, with European colleagues to try to make sure that human rights are protected fundamentally but it doesn’t have perverse consequences, yeah, one could look at that, but one should tread very carefully.”
Eagle-eyed co-conspirators may have spotted that Starmer’s tech failed at his short speech this morning. As he was launching… London Tech Week…
The PM’s teleprompter clearly failed and he was forced to riff for a couple of minutes about how great it was to see everyone and how many “microseconds faster” AI is than existing systems in medical tech. Eventually an aide rushed to the podium with a paper copy of his speech to put the audience out of their misery. Write your own jokes…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”