Kemi is walking into an ECHR trap of her own making
If you think Keir Starmer is rattled by Reform's awkward-squad views on human rights, spare a thought for Kemi Badenoch. In a speech today obviously aimed at Conservative voters thinking of defecting to Nigel Farage with his unapologetic call to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), she will announce that the Tories too are indeed deeply unsatisfied with the convention, and are determined to do something about it.
So far so good. Listen further, however, and you see not so much as a position taken as an exercise in bet-hedging. Rather than going full-on for withdrawal, she is – you guessed it – setting up a committee, albeit one embodying the 'sharpest legal minds'. One can see why she has chosen a non-committal managerialist solution like this. Unfortunately, there is every indication that Kemi's scheme will turn out to be a damp squib.
The first difficulty is that, while many issues lend themselves to committee-style compromise, ECHR membership is not one of them.
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Times
2 hours ago
- Times
By-election win a breather for Labour before spending review gloom
It was a brief moment of respite. At 3am on Friday the prime minister was woken by a call from an aide informing him that, against the odds, Labour had won the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse Holyrood by-election. There may have been just 602 votes in it, but for Sir Keir Starmer at this stage of his premiership a win is a win. It was, he said, a 'fantastic' victory. For one local resident it mattered more than most. Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff, lives nearby with his wife Imogen Walker — she is the MP for the overlapping constituency of Hamilton & Clyde Valley — and is said to have taken a close interest in the campaign. The Times has been told that Starmer's decision to announce a U-turn on winter fuel payments earlier this month, rather than waiting until the spending review next week, was made partly with Hamilton in mind. Those on the ground said it had almost immediate cut-through, with winter fuel payments going from being the biggest issue on the doorstep at the start of the campaign to being relatively marginal. 'People got that we had listened,' was how one MP put it. But the win was far from clean. Reform UK went from a standing start to winning 26 per cent of the vote, just three per cent behind the SNP and five per cent behind Labour. It also showed Nigel Farage's party could siphon off votes from the Conservatives in Scotland as well as England, as support for the Scottish Tories collapsed from 17 per cent at the 2021 Holyrood election to 6 per cent. Richard Tice, Reform's deputy leader, claimed the result was 'truly remarkable'. The spending review promises to be one of the most challenging moments of Sir Keir Starmer's premiership THOMAS KRYCH/STORY PICTURE AGENCY A cabinet minister insisted that Labour's victory showed that the party could come through the middle to win next year's elections to the Scottish parliament. The SNP's tactic of telling voters to back them to stop Reform backfired dramatically. But any sense of relief for Starmer will be short-lived. The spending review next week promises to be one of the most challenging moments of his premiership. The government will seek to frame it as being about 'investing in Britain's renewal', with money going into security, the NHS and the economy more broadly. In one sense Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has a positive story to tell, with a £30 billion uplift in funding for the NHS, significant investment in the military and £113 billion worth of capital spending — including investment in local transport projects, nuclear power and other schemes. Reeves has been telling colleagues that the capital spending 'must be felt everywhere', with investment in shovel-ready projects across the country. But while the government would like to focus on the winners from the spending review process, many of the headlines are likely to be about the losers. The decision to increase spending on the NHS and the Ministry of Defence means that unprotected departments are facing real-terms cuts. Some of the negotiations between the Treasury and cabinet ministers have been brutal. Talks between Reeves and Angela Rayner, the local government and housing secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, are going down to the wire. The discussions between Cooper and Reeves in particular are said to have been particularly robust, with one Treasury official describing them as 'explosive'. Cooper has been making the case that without additional funding the government will be unable to deliver on several of Starmer's flagship pledges, including halving knife crime and halving violence against women and girls. Her case has been made both publicly and privately by the police. Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, has written to Starmer directly along with other police chiefs warning that without additional funding forces will face 'stark' choices about which crimes they investigate. When pressed on Rowley's intervention this week, Reeves's response was curt. 'We will be increasing spending on police,' she said. However she did not say whether she would meet the demands of police for a real-terms rise in spending, which lies at the heart of the row. JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE TIMES Rayner, who is seeking to protect local council budgets from cuts, is also said to have been 'forthright' in fighting her corner. One report claimed she had stormed out of a meeting with Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, slamming the door on the way out. Rayner's allies denied this, saying that while she had been tough in the talks she could not have slammed that door because the meeting had been held virtually. They added that they were now 'making progress' but were happy to go down to the wire. 'The deadline is when the document has to go to the printers,' they said. Reeves's room for manoeuvre is inherently limited by the state of the public finances and global events, something she alluded to at a CBI dinner on Thursday night. 'To be able to make decisions is a huge privilege,' she said. 'However, there's a lot of things that are out of [my] control as well, whether that is tariffs or what's happening in the global economy. You've got to be very agile and respond to the world as it is.' Paul Johnson, the outgoing head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that he has 'genuine sympathy' for Reeves and the difficult choices she has to make. • UK public borrowing tops £20bn in blow for Rachel Reeves Speaking at his leaving drinks in Westminster he said: 'We had an almost 20-year period of continual growth, a sense of real optimism I think, and that's really been sort of beaten out of the economy, and I think probably to some extent beaten out of the electorate. 'Not only have we had, up till the late 2010s, a period of really serious cuts to public services, but no increase in people's incomes either. There's just really hard trade-offs.' The question hanging over the spending review will be that of tax rises. The government's U-turn on the winter fuel allowance — which will cost about £700 million — will only add to the pressure on the public finances. Plans to reverse the two-child cap on benefits could cost as much as £3.5 billion a year. All of this against the backdrop of a growing hole in the public finances, and the estimate of some economists that Reeves could be as much as £60 billion in the red by the time of the autumn budget. Reeves did little to calm nerves at the CBI dinner, when she highlighted the huge tax rises of her inaugural budget and said she was 'never going to repeat anything of that scale' — which is not the same thing as ruling out any further rises. In the Treasury there are concerns that for all the fireworks surrounding the spending review the broader economic outlook is bleak. 'Everyone is talking about who gets what at the spending review but the bigger picture is that no one is really talking about the unsustainable path government debt is on,' one official said. 'We need politicians to start thinking about how we get on top of it. We don't have long before there is a serious risk of a debt spiral.'
Scotsman
3 hours ago
- Scotsman
Hamilton by-election: How Labour 'defied the odds' and Reform ripped up the rulebook
Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Anas Sarwar was buzzing. The triumphant Scottish Labour leader told journalists his party had defied the bookies, the pollsters and the pundits by winning the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, and it was now 'game on'. He had a point. Almost everyone thought the SNP would keep hold of the seat, albeit with a much reduced majority. In the end, Labour's candidate, Davy Russell, beat his Nationalist rival by 602 votes. It was a narrow victory, but a win is a win. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad On Friday, as Labour held a victory rally in Hamilton, one party spinner purchased a "humble pie" - technically, an apple flan - from the Bayne's bakery next to their campaign HQ and used it to tease journalists who had written off Labour's chances. A Reform UK election billboard poster in Larkhall | PA Alas, it wasn't long before Professor Sir John Curtice, the polling guru, rained on their parade with some cold, hard numbers. The result, he said, was actually 'way below' what Labour needs if it wants to win next year's Holyrood election. "I think the honest truth is that neither Labour nor the SNP can be really particularly happy with this result,' he told The Scotsman. Professor Sir John Curtice has an important message about how to restore the public's trust in politics and democracy (Picture: Leon Neal) | Getty Images Instead, the most important development in terms of its wider implications lies elsewhere. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Hamilton by-election was a tight three-horse race between Labour, the SNP and Nigel Farage's Reform UK. The latter came in third, but still secured a remarkable 26 per cent of the vote, outperforming its national polling. In light of this, Sir John said, the possibility that Reform might come second next year, ahead of Labour, 'is not an outcome that we can presume is out of the bounds of possibility'. Like it or not, Reform is now a force to be reckoned with in Scottish politics, and all without having a separate leadership team in place north of the Border. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The spectre of Mr Farage dominated the by-election campaign, and his visit to the constituency on Monday received huge amounts of coverage. His rivals also spent a great deal of time talking about him. The First Minister repeatedly portrayed the by-election as a two-horse race between the SNP and Reform - an analysis that turned out to be somewhat flawed, to put it mildly. "Reform's performance, 26 per cent, is more than you would expect in Hamilton, if the result there were simply reflecting what the opinion polls have been telling us,' Sir John said. "Now there are [a few] possibilities. One is that the Reform campaign in the constituency might have been particularly effective. I certainly think that Mr [Ross] Lambie was a relatively strong candidate. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad "And it may well be that Labour and the SNP made the cardinal, classic mistake of giving lots of lovely publicity to your opponent's election campaign. "Or it may be that the polls are indeed underestimating Reform somewhat. We did see Reform doing better than expected in the English local elections, and then the polls caught up with what the local elections were saying." The polling expert added: "For those of us who weren't consumed by the day to day events in Hamilton, we were going 'hang on, the only thing that anybody is hearing about this by-election campaign is what Nigel Farage is saying, as advertised by Anas Sarwar and John Swinney'." Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse was prime territory for Labour, and exactly the sort of seat it should be winning. Nevertheless, a narrative developed during the campaign the party was in trouble, and there was speculation it could even come third. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad That did not happen, and Mr Sarwar is quite right to celebrate a hard-earned victory. Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour party, celebrates with deputy leader Jackie Baillie. | Lisa Ferguson Mark Diffley, the pollster, said it was a 'big win' for Labour. However, he said it was 'not right' to say the party had hugely outperformed its polling. 'National polling puts Labour at 20 per cent, down two points from 2021 Holyrood election,' he wrote on social media. 'In this by-election, Labour's vote share fell by two points from the Hamilton result in 2021.' Labour bosses credited their victory to activists rolling up their sleeves and hitting the doors. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad "For a long time, people looked at the SNP and thought they had the strongest communications strategy, the strongest digital outlook and they had the strongest field operation,' Mr Sarwar said. 'I genuinely believe we beat them in all three of those areas. We ran the most significant and best ground operation in any constituency in the history of the Scottish Labour party in this by-election." Meanwhile, John Swinney, the First Minister and SNP leader, told journalists he would 'consider the implications' of the result. 'There's nothing quite like being on the doorsteps for several weeks to hear what people are thinking and feeling, and you hear it very directly,' he said. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Asked about a potential Cabinet reshuffle, he said: 'Obviously I've got to consider all the issues about the ministerial team. [Energy Secretary] Màiri McAllan will be concluding her maternity leave soon, so these issues will be considered.' While his rival celebrated in Hamilton, Mr Swinney took questions at the SNP's HQ near the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. It was, understandably, a muted affair. But spare a thought for the Scottish Tories, who secured just 6 per cent of the vote. The party will meet for its annual conference in Edinburgh next weekend, where leader Russell Findlay will have the unenviable task of trying to build some momentum.
ITV News
3 hours ago
- ITV News
Reform UK to send first ‘Doge' team to look at council spending in Kent
Reform UK is set to send in its first Elon Musk-style Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) unit to look at 'wasteful spending' in councils. A team of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors will 'visit and analyse' local authorities, starting with Kent County Council on Monday, the party said. It follows the US Doge, which was launched during Donald Trump's presidency to cut federal spending. Billionaire Musk was involved but has since left his position spearheading the unit. Reform says its UK version will be led by a yet-unnamed man described as one of the country's 'leading tech entrepreneurs with a specialism in data analytics who has also been a turnaround CEO'. The party said that the unit will use artificial intelligence, advanced data analysis tools and forensic auditing techniques to 'identify wasteful spending and recommend actionable solutions'. A letter sent to Kent County Council, which Reform now controls after the May local elections, read: 'The scope of the review includes but is not limited to: Contractual arrangements with suppliers and consultants, all capital expenditure, use of framework agreements and direct awards, any off-book or contingent liabilities, use of reserves and financial resilience, any audit flags raised by internal or external auditors in the last three years. 'We request that all relevant council officers provide the Doge team with full and prompt access to: Council-held documents, reports and records (electronic and paper), relevant finance, procurement, audit and contract data, meeting minutes and correspondence concerning major procurements, any internal investigations or whistleblowing reports relevant to financial matters, any additional documents that might be of assistance.' It added: 'Should you resist this request, we are ready to pass a council motion to compel the same and will consider any obstruction of our councillors' duties to be gross misconduct. We trust this will not be required.' It is signed by council leader Linden Kemkaran, party chairman Zia Yusuf and party leader Nigel Farage. Mr Yusuf said: "For too long British people have been British taxpayers have watched their money vanish into a black hole. "Their taxes keep going up, their bin collections keep getting less frequent, potholes remain unfixed, their local services keep getting cut. Reform won a historic victory on a mandate to change this. "As promised, we have created a UK Doge to identify and cut wasteful spending of taxpayer money. Our team will use cutting-edge technology and deliver real value for voters." A Kent County Council spokesman declined to comment. The Liberal Democrats, who are the second-biggest party in Kent, say that when so much of the budget is mandatory, Reform have very little room to make savings. Liberal Democrat Cllr Richard Streatfield, Kent County Council, said: "Cuts are not part of the equation. "We have a growing population of over 65s who are using demand-led services and only 0.6% of our budget is on discretionary services. "We are using 99.4% of the county council's taxpayer's money for services that we are legally obliged to provide." Sarah Barwick, Branch Secretary of Unison said: "There's fears of job cuts. KCC's really reduced its number of staff in the number of years I've been employed. "We're right at almost the lowest point of staff that you can get without serious problems that could compromise the services." During a local election campaign launch in March, Mr Farage told supporters: "Frankly folks, what we need in this country to pay for the cuts that people deserve and need, we need a British form of Doge, as Elon Musk has got in America. Let's have a British Doge."
