
Journalists given wrong steer about Keir Starmer's tariff briefing
Sir Keir Starmer wanted to shout the news of his trade deal with the US from the rooftops — unfortunately, he'd sent all the microphones to the wrong place. Keen to celebrate this foreign policy coup, No 10 organised a press conference at a Jaguar Land Rover plant in Solihull, with the lobby required by 2.45pm. None had arrived by 2.30pm and they soon realised that their email had actually sent the nation's press to the JLR in Coventry. Reporters such as BBC political editor Chris Mason were already set up in the car park at the latter address and hastily found ways of getting to Birmingham. 'I think the PM should pick up our taxi fares,' said one famous journo. Another hack said: 'I
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Top Gear
30 minutes ago
- Top Gear
GMC Sierra EV Price & Specs
Subscribe to the Top Gear Newsletter Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox.


Telegraph
37 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Miliband has got his nuclear plans wrong. Here's what we should do
Yesterday, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced a new 'golden age ' of nuclear energy. But with the wrong technology, unfit regulation and no real delivery plan, his golden age already looks tarnished. He's pinning his hopes on an already out-dated large-scale nuclear technology that has been plagued by construction problems in Finland, France and the UK and whose developer EDF is already moving on to a newer version. And while his commitment to small modular reactors (SMRs) is commendable, they are at best a decade away with no examples in existence in the West. While it is tempting to think you could simply hoist a submarine reactor onto a dock and call it a power station, this is unrealistic. Military reactors are designed for stealth, speed and war, not for civilian safety, grid connectivity or cost-efficiency. So Rolls Royce has had to develop an entirely new concept. In fact the current market leaders in Western SMR-design are GE-Hitachi whose small boiling water reactors recently began construction in Canada. However, given the imminent retirement of all but one of our existing large nuclear reactors, bigger is better for the nuclear ambition, and in this, Miliband's plan is woefully inadequate. Luckily, there is a solution ready and waiting: the Korean APR1400 design which has been successfully completed in both South Korea and UAE with eight units now in operation, built in an average of 8.5 years, at an average cost of $5-6 billion. Far cheaper than the £40 billion some analysts expect Sizewell C to cost. Around £6 billion is thought to have been spent already. The Korean design has been approved by both US and European regulators and should be a no-brainer for the UK: build what works. But to do this we need to take an axe to our overgrown thicket of nuclear regulation. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) bizarrely reports to the Department for Work and Pensions, not the Energy Secretary, and sits beyond any meaningful strategic oversight. This well-intentioned separation has resulted in a regulatory regime akin to requiring 57 seat belts in your car – technically thorough, but practically unhinged. One requirement is that each new reactor design must expose workers to even less radiation than its predecessor. That might sound like progress, until you realise that radiation levels inside a modern nuclear plant are already so low they're hard to detect at all. The plant manager at one of our old Advanced Gas Cooled reactors (AGRs) once told me that the only time his radiation detector registered anything other than zero was when he left it on his desk and the sun shone on it. Nuclear workers are typically exposed to more radiation on the street than inside the plant. At this point, further exposure reductions offer no safety benefit. They just add cost, complexity and delay. The environmental regulators are as bad. The Sizewell C design is exactly the same as Hinkley Point C and the site is almost identical to Sizewell A and B. So why on earth were 40,000 pages of environmental statements required? This regulatory excess is expensive and draws out the process of approving new reactors beyond what is remotely reasonable. Britain risks running out of electricity. We had a near miss blackout event in January that was likely a factor in the renewal of the controversial biomass subsidies. We are also likely to see further small extensions to our ageing AGRs which are nearing the ends of their lives. But with a third of our fleet of gas power stations dating back to the 1990s and expected to retire in the next five years, Britain can ill afford delays to new nuclear plants. Particularly not the sort of avoidable delays our overzealous regulators have created. If Miliband is serious both about his golden age of nuclear, and more particularly, keeping the lights on in a decarbonised world, he needs to be far more ambitious. A truly serious plan would involve a programme of 5-6 large-scale reactors, and since the Koreans have the best track record, we should sign them up. He needs to get tough on the regulators. Abolishing ONR altogether and creating a new regulator, as part of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, with staff who are experts in risk management as well as nuclear safety, and severely curtailing the power of environmental regulators. One of the biggest benefits of nuclear power is its high energy density: it uses very little land to create a lot of energy. That should be taken into account, with regulators forced to look at the national picture rather than taking a strictly site by site approach. And he needs to stop wasting time with incentives for investors. They are not interested in the risk of our shambolic regulatory landscape. He should face this reality, and commit public money for the construction of the first two new reactors, re-financing once construction is completed. This would be a profitable strategy: the Government can borrow more cheaply than the private sector, the Korean design (with suitable regulatory restraint) can be built faster than the Hinkley design, meaning lower financing costs, and nuclear reactors are very profitable to run so investors will be very interested once the risky construction phase is over. He could even offer shares to the public in a 21st Century version of 'Just tell Sid' which remains the most successful public share subscription in UK history, and would perfectly align with Chancellor Rachel Reeves' ambition for UK savers to deploy their capital in the interests of national infrastructure.


Sky News
38 minutes ago
- Sky News
Who are the two Israeli ministers who have been sanctioned by the UK?
The UK government has sanctioned two prominent Israeli ministers for "inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank". Britain has been joined by Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway in imposing sanctions on Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich - who are opposed to Palestinian statehood and are on the far right of Israeli politics. The ministers are being sanctioned in their personal capacities and are now subject to a freeze on UK assets and director disqualifications, as well as a ban on entering the country. Here we take a look at who they are and why they have been sanctioned. Itamar Ben-Gvir Mr Ben-Gvir is Israel's security minister and the leader of the Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party - one of the members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition. The 49-year-old has previously been convicted of supporting a Jewish terrorist organisation and has supported the removal of Palestinians from their lands - including calling for Gaza's people to be resettled from the territory. The minister has also called for the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem to be replaced with a synagogue. The mosque - the third-holiest site in Islam - is built atop the Temple Mount - the holiest site in Judaism, and which was once home to two Jewish temples. Mr Smotrich is Israel's finance minister and leader of the National Religious Party-Religious Zionism - which is another part of Mr Netanyahu's coalition. He is in charge of Israel's administration of the West Bank - the occupation of which is illegal under international law. He has also approved an expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and called for aid not to be let into Gaza. Mr Smotrich has recently said not "a grain of wheat" should be allowed to enter Gaza, saying it will be "entirely destroyed" and its people should be encouraged to leave in great numbers to go to other countries. What has the UK and its allies said? In a joint statement with foreign ministers from the four other countries who have announced sanctions, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the two senior Israelis had incited "serious abuses of Palestinian human rights". The statement added: "These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now - to hold those responsible to account." Meanwhile, a Number 10 spokesman said the sanctions have been applied in the "personal capacities" of the two ministers and "not their ministries and departments". What has Israel said? Mr Smotrich, speaking at the inauguration of a new settlement in the Hebron Hills in the West Bank, spoke of "contempt" for Britain's move. "Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we cannot do it again. We are determined, God willing, to continue building." Israel's foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar said it was "outrageous" that the UK had sanctioned the two ministers. He also said he had spoken with Mr Netanyahu and that an Israeli response would be decided at a "special government meeting early next week". The countries have used the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 to designate the ministers "involved persons". What can't they do?