The Daily T: Why Starmer could be facing another rebellion
Rachel Reeves has to find £5 billion to fill her black hole, and Tim Stanley and Cleo Watson discuss the Chancellor's conundrum, whether they could end up raising money through a wealth tax, and how Starmer's government has to get better at party management.
And on the anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings, we speak to Gordon Rayner about his Telegraph exclusive investigation into Samantha Lewthwaite aka the 'White Widow', who married one of the bombers before vanishing and joining forces with the terror group Al-Shabaab, becoming one of Britain's most wanted terror suspects.
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Telegraph
a few seconds ago
- Telegraph
Reeves scraps £600k ‘value for money' quango after just one year
Labour's cost-cutting quango is set to be scrapped just one year after being unveiled, The Telegraph understands. The Office for Value for Money (OVfM) was formed in 2024 to assess government spending, identify inefficiencies and scrutinise investment proposals to safeguard taxpayers' money. In that time the chairman, David Goldstone, was paid £950 a day and expected to work a monthly average of one day a week. Mr Goldstone also could not give advice on HS2 and the development of the Royal Navy's new Dreadnought submarines due to conflicts of interest – despite both projects having huge cost overruns. The OVfM was always planned to have a lifespan of at least one year, a Treasury official said. Documents published last year stated Mr Goldstone's remit of providing spending advice to Rachel Reeves came with the 'possibility of extension' – but the official confirmed there would be no such extension. The OVfM was formed in October last year and will be shut down around the same time this year. The closure comes after a damning report by MPs in January criticised the newly-formed taskforce and asked it to justify its cost to taxpayers. When the OVfM was launched, Labour said the independent body would conduct assessments of 'where and how to root out waste and inefficiency' and scrutinise Whitehall spending with a 'ruthless focus [on] realising benefits from every pound of public spending.' Bob Blackman, a senior Conservative MP, said: 'This was a gimmick to start with and it's not surprising it hasn't gone anywhere. When they are looking for dramatic savings, not wasting money might be a good idea to start with.' Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, said: 'This Value for Money tsar was a ludicrous virtue-signalling slogan which has wasted even more money and achieved nothing. It is being abandoned because Labour know their backbench MPs will not tolerate any cutbacks. This Government is bankrupting our economy.' Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, said: 'It seems to me to have achieved nothing in a year so perhaps it is at last achieving value for money by being shut down.' A Treasury review is now under way into whether the OVfM lived up to expectations and represented value for money for taxpayers, with the findings scheduled to be published in October. Labour outlined plans in April to cut dozens of quangos in an effort to reduce the size of the state. The announcement came after 27 new recommendation-making agencies were formed in the first eight months of Sir Keir Starmer's time in Downing Street. In January, MPs on the influential Treasury Select Committee published a report questioning whether the OVfM was a useful initiative, describing it as a 'red herring'. The cost to taxpayers of running the taskforce so far is £598,474, according to Treasury accounts published in March. This was less than its overall budget of £611,489. Mr Goldstone was paid £23,000 as chairman in the financial year ending in 2025. His full remuneration package amounts to £49,400 a year. This is equivalent to a full-time salary of £247,000, or £950 a day, and significantly more than Sir Keir Starmer's £166,786 salary. Dame Meg Hillier, the Treasury Select Committee's chairman, said at the time that the OVfM was 'an understaffed, poorly-defined organisation which has been set up with a vague remit and no clear plan to measure its effectiveness. 'All of which leads me to feel this initiative may be something of a red herring,' she added. The report recommended that estimates of how much the OVfM had cost the taxpayer be made public. It called on the quango to explain how it was working with existing Whitehall organisations and would avoid duplicating existing cost-cutting plans. As of December, the OVfM had 12 full-time members of staff, not including Mr Goldstone. It had the power to hire as many as 20 officials and considered using external consultants to fill any gaps in expertise, according to the select committee report. In its response to the report, the OVfM said it was 'committed to transparency of its costs' and that there was no intention to hire any external consultants. The OVfM has published studies with recommendations about budgeting for so-called 'mega projects' like the Sizewell C nuclear plant and the procurement of short-term residential accommodation by the public sector. Mr Goldstone was not involved in discussions that could be linked to his roles on the board of HS2 and as non-executive director the Submarine Delivery Authority – responsible for delivering the new Dreadnought-class submarine fleet – during his time at the OVfM, according to details of his employment published by the Government. The costs of HS2, the delayed high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham, was initially projected to be £38bn but will now likely exceed £100bn. The updated submarine fleet is likely to spend its extra £10bn 'contingency' funding on top of a £31bn budget, according to the House of Commons Library. A Treasury spokesman said: 'For too long, taxpayer money has been squandered, and we are putting an end to it. The Office for Value for Money is a unique, time-limited office based in the Treasury, with an independent chair, which has been working in partnership across government to place value for money at the heart of spending decisions.'
BBC News
a few seconds ago
- BBC News
Labour councillor Ricky Jones acted 'out of character' at rally
A Labour councillor who called for far-right protesters' throats to be cut acted "completely out of character" and was in the wrong, a court has Jones, 58, is on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court after calling demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" during an anti-racism rally in Walthamstow on 7 August last Dartford councillor told police his remarks, captured on video as he addressed "tens of thousands" of people, were "ill-advised".Mr Jones, who was then a full-time official for the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) union, told jurors his comments were not intended to be "taken literally by anyone". He denies encouraging violent behaviour. Mr Jones' friend Kevin Courtney, a retired teacher, told jurors on Thursday that he was "surprised" by his comments. He said: "I had not heard him say those words or anything in any way similar to that..."I think they [the comments] are wrong. I was surprised that Ricky said them - I think it is completely out of character."The court heard Mr Courtney, a former joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), had previously attended rallies with the councillor. Asked by defence barrister Hossein Zahir KC, whether Mr Jones had ever encouraged any form of violence, Mr Courtney said: "No, it was a complete shock when I saw that video..."The mood was peaceful - Ricky's words just didn't gel with that at all."Mr Jones told jurors on Tuesday that his comments were not directed towards those at the said he was referring "specifically" to an incident where a 'National Front Rights for Whites' sticker had been found on a train with a hidden razor blade behind councillor told jurors on Wednesday that he felt "very emotional and very upset" after receiving pictures of the stickers the day before the said that the crowd in Walthamstow "clearly knew" his comments were made in relation to "what happened on the train". Mr Jones went against advice not to attend the rally held in response to protests which had taken place following the murder of three children in was arrested the day after making the comments and told the court he felt it was his "duty" to attend trial reporting by PA Media
The Independent
30 minutes ago
- The Independent
Death of girl left alone by fake ID worker was unlawful, jury inquest concludes
The death of a teenage girl, who was left alone at a children's mental health ward by an inexperienced agency worker using fake ID, has been ruled as an unlawful killing by an inquest jury. Ruth Szymankiewicz was being treated for an eating disorder at Huntercombe Hospital in Berkshire and had been placed under strict one-to-one observation when on February 12 2022, she was left on her own by the member of staff responsible for watching her. The 14-year-old was able to shut herself in her bedroom at the hospital's psychiatric intensive care unit – also known as Thames ward – where she self-harmed. She died two days later at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. On Thursday, an inquest jury sitting at Buckinghamshire Coroner's Court in Beaconsfield returned a conclusion of unlawful killing. 'Ruth was not prevented from accessing the harmful material which could be used to self-harm,' the jury foreman told the hearing. 'Ruth's care was insufficient to allow for discharge.' The foreman added Ms Szymankiewicz's parents were not given 'adequate information' about her care on the ward. Jurors could be seen crying as they recorded their conclusion, as well as the coroner and members of the family. The agency worker responsible for watching Ms Szymankiewicz – a man then known as Ebo Acheampong – had never worked in a psychiatric hospital environment before coming to Huntercombe on February 12 2022 for his first shift. A police investigation later found he was hired by the Platinum agency – which supplied staff for Huntercombe Hospital – under a false name. Mr Acheampong never returned to work at the hospital following the incident and fled the UK for Ghana. The court heard the ward was missing at least half of its staff on the day Ms Szymankiewicz, who had self harmed several times in the past, was left unsupervised. Mr Acheampong was originally working on a different ward, but was asked to join the team on Thames ward because they were so short-staffed nurses could not go on breaks, jurors were previously told. A risk management form known as a 'Datix incident' had been filed on the day by Michelle Hancey – a support worker with 18 years' experience at Huntercombe – who raised concerns the Thames ward team would 'fail to monitor patients on prescribed special observation because of staff shortage'. During the inquest, jurors were shown CCTV footage of the moment Mr Acheampong left Ms Szymankiewicz unsupervised while she sat in the ward's lounge watching TV, enabling her to leave the room. She had been placed on the 'level three observation' plan following earlier incidents of self-harm – meaning she had to be kept within eyesight at all times. In the footage, Mr Acheampong can be seen leaving the room repeatedly – at first only for seconds at a time, then for two minutes – prompting the teenager to walk up to the door and look into the lobby, seemingly waiting for the opportunity to leave the room. She was last captured on CCTV walking out of the ward's day room 'completely on her own' before going straight to her bedroom and closing the door behind her, coroner Ian Wade KC told the inquest. Around 15 minutes passed before a nurse discovered the teenage girl and raised the alarm. Huntercombe Hospital had been inspected twice by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) prior to the incident, the inquest previously heard. It was rated as 'overall inadequate' in a CQC report dated February 2021. Active Care Group, which owned Huntercombe at the time of Ms Szymankiewicz's death, has since closed the facility.
