Watch live: Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs after Reeves vows winter fuel U-turn
Watch live as Sir Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs on Wednesday (4 June), days after unveiling the UK's defence strategy for the next decade.
On Monday (2 May), the prime minister announced his Strategic Defence Review with the aim to move the UK to 'warfighting readiness'.
The government said that it will increase defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product from April 2027.
Sir Keir also announced plans to build up to 12 new attack submarines which will replace the current fleet from the late 2030s onwards, and also confirmed that £15billion will be spent on its nuclear warhead programme.
As the Labour government hikes up defence spending, opposition leaders will likely challenge the Prime Minister over what funding areas will have to be slashed in order to compensate.
He will face questions in the Commons at noon, the majority from the Conservative leader who trivialised the plans as 'just an announcement' as 'a lot of the things they've announced in this strategic defence review require money'.
Badenoch could also press the prime minister on the increasing numbers of small boat crossings.
On Saturday (31 May), more than 1,100 migrants arrived in the UK, the highest number recorded on a single day so far in 2025.
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What Washington can learn from a legendary London meltdown
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How that psychodrama played out in the UK could have lessons for the US — not least because Cummings eventually succeeded in undermining Johnson's political career, ultimately defenestrating the prime minister through relentless briefings and leaks. When someone who was inside the room and was perceived to be central to a political project says it's all a sham, the damage can be significant. For those who don't know, Cummings was the chief strategist of the successful Brexit campaign in 2016 but then largely disappeared from view when it came to actually defining what Brexit should look like. Unlike Musk, Cummings was a lifelong political operative, albeit one who cultivated a reputation for actually reading books. Three years later, with his political standing inflated by a film in which he was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch as an insane genius, Cummings returned to maneuver Johnson into Downing Street. Once inside government, Cummings broke all the standard operating procedures of the British state to finally 'get Brexit done' and sever the UK's relationship with the EU in January 2020. When I look back at my occasional text exchanges with Cummings from that era, usually while trying to check stories about the funding of the Brexit campaign or his desire to defund the BBC, they mirror what he said in public. He held a seemingly sincere belief that most of the British media was fake news, that the British state was not fit for purpose, and that the political party he was nominally working for, the Conservatives, was little more than a helpful vehicle for an insurrection. One ally approvingly described the chief of staff of a Conservative government to the BBC as a 'Leninist.' 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SNP ‘running down the clock' before losing power, claims Anas Sarwar
The SNP's 'balloon has burst' and John Swinney is 'running down the clock', Anas Sarwar, Scotland's First Minister, has said after Labour won a shock by-election victory. The Scottish Labour leader said his party's knife-edge win in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse contest showed voters wanted to oust the SNP from power in next year's Holyrood election. Labour's Davy Russell won the Scottish Parliament seat by 602 votes from the SNP's Katy Loudon, with Reform's Ross Lambie only 887 votes behind her. The Tories finished a distant fourth, barely saving their deposit, after their support collapsed. Mr Swinney was left humiliated by the loss of the SNP seat after repeatedly claiming the by-election was a straight fight between his party and Reform. Alex Neil, the former SNP minister, said the First Minister should resign. Speaking the morning after the victory, Ms Sarwar accused Mr Swinney of running a 'disgraceful campaign' that 'deliberately' encouraged people to vote for Reform. Mr Sarwar said the result demonstrated that next year's Holyrood election would really be a 'straight choice' between the SNP and Labour, with Reform merely a 'spoiler' who could not win power. But Prof Sir John Curtice, the country's most eminent psephologist, said Reform had achieved a 'highly creditable' third place by attracting a slew of former Labour voters. Writing in the Telegraph, he warned Nigel Farage's party risked 'severely denting' Mr Sarwar's hopes of being First Minister. Sir John also said Labour's performance, its vote share in the constituency declined, was 'well short of what is needed to demonstrate it is currently on course to win next year's Holyrood election.' He said Labour still managed to scrape victory thanks to a 17-point drop in support for the Nationalists, with independence supporters 'less forgiving than they once were of what many perceive as the SNP's poor record in government.' The contest was called following the death of Christina McKelvie, the Scottish Government minister, who won the seat for the SNP with a 4,582 majority in the 2021 Holyrood election. Although Labour won the equivalent seat at Westminster by almost 10,000 votes in last year's general election, the party's collapse in support during the early months of Sir Keir Starmer's government meant it was viewed as an outsider in the contest. However, Labour insiders attributed their victory to Mr Russell's popularity locally and a strong get-out-the-vote operation that saw more than 200 activists travel to the constituency on polling day. Speaking at a press call in Hamilton town centre with Mr Russell, Mr Sarwar said he was 'confident' that he could replace Mr Swinney as First Minister in 2025. The Scottish Labour leader said: 'I think what we're seeing now is the running down of the clock. This is an SNP government that's lost its way, the balloon is burst, they are out of ideas, they are out of steam. 'They have no positive offer for the people of Scotland, they've got no positive record to put in front of the people of Scotland and they're running down the clock.' He said there was a 'lesson' for pollsters and commentators who believed Mr Swinney's claim that the by-election was a straight fight between the SNP and Reform, arguing they should stop listening to the First Minister's 'nonsense.' Pressed on Sir John's view that Reform's strong performance would make it difficult for Labour to win power next year at Holyrood, he said the psephologist was only looking at a 'snapshot' of a particular by-election. Mr Sarwar argued this approach ignored 'the general mood music and the general momentum of a campaign going into next year'. He added: 'On the ground, people believe the SNP are done. They are sick to the back teeth of think they're a busted flush. They want them out.' Sir Keir sent his congratulations to Mr Russell on his 'fantastic victory.' In a post on social media, the Prime Minister said: 'People in Scotland have once again voted for change. 'Next year, there is a chance to turbo-charge delivery by putting Labour in power on both sides of the border. I look forward to working with you.' Speaking in Edinburgh, Mr Swinney said: 'Clearly, we're disappointed that we didn't win last night, but we made progress in the election compared to the general election last summer, and we've got to build on that and make sure that we strengthen our support in advance of 2026. 'So the SNP made progress last night, but it's not nearly enough and we've got to build on that.' Asked if it was a mistake to call the by-election a 'two-horse race' between the SNP and Reform, he said: 'I called it the way I saw it.' 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Reform finished third with 7,088 votes (26.1 per cent), which Sir John noted was 'well above' the 19 per cent support recorded in Scotland-wide opinion polls, despite the seat not being 'particularly fertile ground for Nigel Farage's party.' Richard Tice, Reform's deputy leader, attended the count and insisted he was 'delighted' with the result. He said it was 'truly remarkable', adding: 'We've come from nowhere to being in a three-way marginal.' But the result was disastrous for the Scottish Tories, who won only 1,621 votes. Their vote share declined from 17.5 per cent in the 2021 election to only six per cent. Speaking ahead of next week's Scottish Tory conference in Edinburgh, UK leader Kemi Badenoch said: 'Larkhall is not the place where the Conservative Party fightback starts'. She said it was 'interesting' that Reform was 'causing problems for all parties' and noted that 'we live in a very competitive political environment.' Miles Briggs, the shadow education secretary for the Scottish Tories, said the party knew it would be a 'difficult' by-election and blamed 'protest voting' for Reform and Labour. He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: 'We know what that challenge is and we have no doubt of the fight that we have to take forward into the election next year.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
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Labour beats Reform to surprise victory in Scotland ...The Standard podcast
Listen here on your chosen podcast platform. Today Labour's Davy Russell narrowly defeated the SNP to win the by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, with Reform coming a close third. The Standard's chief political correspondent Rachael Burford has the latest. And in part two, Rachelle Abbott meets the founder of hip hop band Cypress Hill, B-Real, to discuss the band's new album with the London Symphony Orchestra, which was recorded at London's Royal Albert Hall and was inspired by an episode of The Simpsons.
