Starmer’s been backed into a corner, declaring he has “full confidence” in his Transport Secretary Louise Haigh after her remarks almost torpedoed a whopping £1 billion investment deal from DP World. His team is now scrambling to spin her “success,” highlighting her ability to “deliver significant investment in electric buses” and supposedly end “industrial disruption.” Meanwhile, when Haigh was asked today if she felt “thrown under the bus,” she marched off in a huff…
Now, Haigh’s latest stroke of genius is to dish out £300 bonuses to train guards who can muster up the strength to work five days a week. Staff at CrossCountry, who typically clock in for just four days, will pocket this bonus alongside their regular pay through mid-November in a bid to avert Saturday strikes. A plan that’s unlikely solve disputes forever, but Haigh, ho…
Starmer supplied a stodgy speech on investment to the International Investment Summit. Lobby hacks have enthusiastically written up his plegdge to “rip up” regulation and cut bureaucracy – while Labour’s new legislation does largely the opposite…
After the speech Starmer sat in for a 30-minute Q&A with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, whose first comment was: “I was shocked when Labour said it was in favour of growth.” Starmer sulkily replied that “wealth creation is the number one mission of a Labour government”…
The Q&A was watched live on LinkedIn, where it was hosted, by a pitiful average of 440 people. Hilariously about 20 minutes of the entire chat was taken up by AI as business leaders constantly rediverted to the topic. Starmer just repeatedly said it’s a “real game-changer.” Maybe there was a good reason Sunak bothered to invite Elon Musk to chat about the new technology – especially as Musk has just invented AI-powered robots…
The latest instalment of Conservative Home’s Shadow Cabinet league table has lifted the scores of most current Tory figures. The conference effect…
Only Sunak and Mitchell are in the negative while Hunt enjoys a post-election uplift. Benefits of basically being LOTO for a few months…
Badenoch remains in the lead, though ironically the biggest gains have been accrued by Cleverly and Tugendhat, both out of the leadership race. They’ve gained 16 and 13 points respectively. Jenrick isn’t recorded as he isn’t a Shadow Minister. By this time next month the new Tory leader will be in place and the Shadow Cabinet will look a bit different…
Breaking news from the corridors of Westminster: the power’s out in the journalists’ offices in Parliament, and with it, the hacks’ ability to sit around in their usual haunts, drink coffee, check X and of course, find big scoops. The plugs have failed, the computers are dead. MailOnline cannot be browsed. Off to Old Queen Street Cafe they go…
This morning sees the start of the Investment Summit hosted by Rachel Reeves and she has put out the line to The Times that “investments are a vote of confidence in the UK and the stability that this government has brought back to the economy.” She claims “Britain is open for business.” Unfortunately the Treasury also let it be known to the Guardian that officials are considering proposals to double taxes levied on the gaming sector, as Rachel Reeves “aims to pull every lever possible to raise funds in her upcoming budget.” Seeing as her manifesto revenue-raising proposals have been exposed as a fantasy…
UK gambling stocks slumped this morning following the report that Rachel Reeves is weighing proposals to increase taxes on the industry by as much as £3 billion. Whoops…
Jefferies investment bank analyst James Wheatcroft called the proposals “unrealistic” adding “the proposals apparently being considered would all but wipe out bookmaker profitability in the UK, per our estimates”. Shares in Ladbrokes-owner Entain Plc dropped 15%, casinos operator Rank Group Plc fell nearly 7%. Evoke Plc, owner of the William Hill betting brand, slid 16% and New York listed Flutter Entertainment tumbled 8.8% on the back of the tax hike report. Hardly the pro-business news that investors at the summit want to hear…
The British gaming industry is a global player, with the major groups employing software engineers and operations being major employers in Stoke, Manchester, Leeds, and Sunderland. Taxes on business are taxes on jobs…
Labour marked its 100 days in power by…losing its poll lead. Over the weekend, a poll from More in Common shows the Tories and Labour are neck and neck at 27%. Labour’s lead wiped out after 934 days, after 100 days in government…
Meanwhile, Reform polls just 6 percentage points behind at 21%, reportedly sparking some of Starmer’s allies to worry that Reform could overtake Labour by the time of May’s local elections. The real opposition…
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”
