Latest news with #ex-Labour
Saudi Gazette
4 days ago
- Business
- Saudi Gazette
UK to build up to 12 new attack submarines
LONDON — The UK will build "up to" 12 new attack submarines, the prime minister will announce, as the government unveils its major defense review on Monday. The new conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines will replace the seven-strong Astute class from the late 2030s onwards. The review is expected to recommend the armed forces move to "warfighting readiness" to deter growing threats faced by the UK. The prime minister is also expected to confirm the UK will spend £15bn on its nuclear warhead program. Sir Keir will say that, alongside the UK's nuclear-armed submarines, the new vessels would keep "Britain and Nato safe for decades". The threat posed by Moscow has been a key part of the government's pitch ahead of Monday's review, led by ex-Labour defense secretary Lord Robertson, which was commissioned by Labour shortly after it took office last July. The report will make 62 recommendations, which the government is expected to accept in full. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme ahead of its publication, Sir Keir said the danger posed by Russia "cannot be ignored" and the "best way" to deter conflict was to prepare for it. The government has committed to increasing UK defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of national income by 2027, a move welcomed by opposition parties amid a growing consensus on boosting military expenditure. But the run-up to the review's release has been dominated by a political row over when UK spending should hit the next milestone of 3%. The government says it has an "ambition" to hit the target by 2034 at the latest, after the next general election, but the Conservatives say the move - which would hike spending by around £20bn a year - should be met by the end of the decade. Sir Keir said he would only commit the government to a timescale when he knew how it could be paid for, adding a date would otherwise be "performative". Shadow defense secretary James Cartlidge said Labour's review should be "taken with a pinch of salt" unless the government showed there would be enough money to pay for it. The Liberal Democrats have said Labour's 2034 timeline is "far too late" and have suggested an earlier date should be found in cross-party talks. The party's defense spokesperson Helen Maguire called for a "concrete commitment" on funding to back up the submarines announcement, adding that Labour had left "serious questions" over how the project would be financed. PA Media Image shows Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in a white shirt and glasses, speaking to workers during a visit to Glass Futures in St Helens, Merseyside, on 29 May, 2025PA Media Other announcements in the review will include: Commitment to £1.5bn to build six new factories to enable an "always on" munitions production capacity Building up to 7,000 long-range weapons including missiles or drones in the UK, to be used by British forces Pledge to set up a "cyber and electromagnetic command" to boost the military's defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace Extra £1.5bn to 2029 to fund repairs to military housing £1bn on technology to speed up delivery of targeting information to soldiers Defense Secretary John Healey has signaled he is not aiming to increase the overall size of the Army before the next general election. On Sunday, he said his "first job" was to reverse a decline in numbers with a target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers "in the next Parliament". The Astute class is the Royal Navy's current fleet of attack submarines, which have nuclear-powered engines and are armed with conventional torpedoes and missiles. As well as protecting maritime task groups and gathering intelligence, they protect the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the UK's Trident nuclear missiles. The sixth submarine in the current Astute series was launched last October, with the seventh, the final one in the series, currently under construction. The next generation of attack submarines that will replace them, SSN-AUKUS, have been developed with the Australian Navy under a deal announced in 2021 under the previous Conservative government. Meanwhile work on modernizing the warheads carried by Trident missiles is already under way. The £15bn investment into the warhead program will back the government's commitments to maintain the continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent. In his announcement on Monday, Sir Keir is to repeat a Labour manifesto commitment to deliver the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines, which are due to replace the aging Vanguard fleet from the early 2030s onwards. The MoD's Defence Nuclear Enterprise accounts for 20% of its budget and includes the cost of building four Dreadnought class submarines. — BBC
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
UK taxpayers no longer own NatWest - but 17 years on, are banks safer from collapse?
The Treasury has announced the sale of its final shares in the NatWest Group. It means the bank will be under full private ownership, almost two decades after it was bailed out by the taxpayer amid the 2008 financial crisis. This marks a symbolic end to a dramatic chapter in British banking history. It was gone midnight – the early hours of Monday 13 October 2008 - when Chancellor Alistair Darling turned in for the night, leaving a team of officials, surrounded by curries and pizza boxes, finalising the detail of the biggest state intervention in the private sector since World War Two. The next morning he announced the first instalment of a rescue that would cost the taxpayer more than the entire defence budget. In total the government spent £45bn (£73bn in today's money), buying an 84% stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which now trades as part of the NatWest Group. At the time, RBS's balance sheet (outstanding loans) was bigger than the entire UK economy. Its collapse would have devastated it. The question is, why has it taken some 17 years for the Treasury to sell the last of its stake? And given that in the decades since fresh risks have emerged - including the threat of a cyber attack from a hostile state - how vulnerable does that leave UK banks today? Are they still "too big to fail", as they were widely described in 2008 - and were Britain to face another financial crisis, would the taxpayer have to step in once again to deliver a bailout? The current chair of NatWest group, Rick Haythornthwaite, has told the BBC that the bank and its employees remain thankful for that intervention in 2008. "The main message to the taxpayer is one of deep gratitude," he says. "They rescued this bank. They protected the millions of businesses and home-owners and savers." A lot has changed since 2008. Gone are £1.5 trillion in outstanding loans, gone are tens of thousands of employees in job cuts, and gone is around £10bn of taxpayers' money – never to be recouped. The amount spent by the government looks like a poor investment, but as Baroness Shriti Vadera – former senior adviser to the government and chair of asset manager Prudential - told the BBC, this wasn't an investment, it was a rescue. "Nationalising RBS was hardly a voluntary investment," she says. "What was important then was assessing the impact of RBS and other banks on the overall economy and in particular the ability to keep functioning – lending, putting cash in ATMs. "It was never about saving the banks, it was about saving the economy from the banks." The consequences of a banking collapse would have been serious. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, even talked about putting soldiers on the streets. In a book by ex-Labour spin doctor Damian McBride, Brown is quoted as saying: "If the banks are shutting their doors, and the cash points aren't working, and people go to Tesco and their cards aren't being accepted, the whole thing will just explode. "If you can't buy food or petrol or medicine for your kids, people will just start breaking the windows and helping themselves." RBS was of course not the only bank that faced collapse. A tsunami of bad loans had been triggered by an earthquake in the US mortgage market. Risky loans to borrowers with low credit ratings had been packaged up and sold to banks around the world. By 2007, no-one knew exactly where these grenades were hidden in bank balance sheets, so they all stopped lending to each other – which saw the whole global financial system seize up. Northern Rock relied on borrowing funds to finance its own risky mortgages and in 2007, the BBC reported that it had turned to the Bank of England for help. This prompted a "run on the bank", which finally saw it fully nationalised in February 2008. Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, worked as the Bank's Chief Cashier during those turbulent months. He says if the state hadn't nationalised RBS, the costs would have been "incalculable". "It would have been huge, because we were talking about the collapse of the banking system as we knew it at that time," recounts Bailey. US Banks were also in deep distress. In March 2008, Bear Stearns was absorbed by Wall Street rival JP Morgan. In September of that year, US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalised. Here in the UK, HBOS was absorbed by Lloyds and then of course, Lehman Brothers failed – defying expectations that the US government would step in to save it. But for the UK economy, RBS was the big one. The UK had a large banking sector, compared to the size of its economy; and within that mix, RBS was a particularly important bank. The once sedate RBS had become in some measure the biggest bank in the world. In 2000, it bought NatWest and just a year before the crash, it had bought Dutch bank ABN Amro. Its buccaneering boss Fred Goodwin had been knighted for his services to banking. But Mr Goodwin became a lightning rod for public outrage at the risks banks had taken and the bonuses their executives had collected. He left with an annual pension of £700,000 but was later stripped of his knighthood. The years following the rescue saw thousands of companies complain that the bankers RBS appointed to help them out of the crisis were driving them to the wall, forcing them into bankruptcy or selling their businesses at knock-down prices. RBS was the poster child for banking recklessness, hubris, greed and cruelty. Why then did it take so long for the government to sell out of RBS - at a loss of £10bn? At the same time the government took a stake in RBS, it also took a stake in Lloyds. But that was sold in May 2017, yielding a profit of £900m. RBS was infinitely more complicated than Lloyds as it had a large US business which was the subject of lengthy investigations by the US Department of Justice. The prospect of heavy fines hung over the bank for many years and proved well-founded when it was fined $4.9bn (£3.6bn) in 2018 for its role in the US mortgage crisis. RBS was also a pretty unattractive investment. It announced a £24bn loss for 2008 – the biggest loss in UK corporate history. It made losses every year until 2017. With the shares depressed by these concerns, the government was reluctant to sell its stake at low prices as it would crystallise a politically uncomfortable loss for the taxpayer. After all, following 2010, austerity was the name of the game and the then-Chancellor George Osborne could ill afford to be seen to be chalking up losses by selling RBS shares when he was making cuts elsewhere. But many think that was a mistake as – chicken and egg-like – it prolonged the reluctance of private shareholders to buy stakes in a company majority-owned by the government. As Baroness Vadera puts it: "I'm not sure it was necessary to take 17 years to reverse out of the shares." Mr Haythornthwaite, who took on the role of NatWest Group chairman in April last year, describes the sale of the final shares as a "symbolic" moment for the bank, its employees, investors - but also on a wider scale. "I hope it's a symbolic moment for our nation [too]," he says. "That we can put this behind us. It allows us to truly look to the future." But how exactly does that future look - and have lessons from the past really been learnt? Andrew Bailey certainly thinks so. He says that if a bank faces collapse now, it's less likely the taxpayer will have to step in. There are now alternative methods of rescuing a failing bank, he says, including buying assets and providing emergency cash. "The big distinction is that we think we can handle [bank crises] without using public money," Bailey says. "The critical thing is that we have to preserve the continuity of their activities, because they are critical to the economy … critical to people. "When we say we've solved 'too big to fail', to be precise, I think what we mean is we don't need public money." It is true that the Bank of England now stress-tests banks much more rigorously to see how they would cope under pressures like a collapse in house prices, rocketing unemployment or rampant inflation. Sir Philip Augar, a veteran of the City of London and author of multiple books on banking, agrees that British banks are in a more resilient position now than they were in 2008 - essentially because they hold more cash in their coffers, rather than just relying on debt. "What's happened to improve things since then is that the amount of leverage in the system has come right down, and the capital cushion that banks have to hold […] has increased substantially. So it's less likely now that a bank would collapse - but it's not impossible." Today, there are also new risks to consider. Take the series of cyber attacks that recently hit the systems of household names like Marks and Spencer, Co-op and Harrods. Should an attack take out critical banking functions like business lending, company payrolls and ATMs, it would be far more damaging. Indeed, in what he calls the "league table" of financial risks, Andrew Bailey identifies the threat of a cyber attack as a rapidly growing one. "Of course you have to mitigate it, but [cyber] is a risk that will never go away, because it continually evolves," he says. "We're dealing with bad actors who will continually refine the lines of attack. And I always have to say to institutions, 'You've got to continue to work at this'." Recent bank collapses in the US – like Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank - have highlighted another major risk. Customers don't have to queue round a block to get their money out; it can be done with the stroke of a key on a laptop or mobile in seconds. Banks are built on trust: customers put money in, believing they can get it out again whenever they want. And a good old-fashioned bank run is now a modern digital bank run. But banks are still not like normal companies. They are not standalone entities but interconnected, and together they form the bloodstream of the economy. They are the arteries through which credit is extended, wages are paid, savings are stashed or withdrawn. And when those arteries get blocked, bad things happen. That is as true today as it was in 2008. BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below. Gold is booming - but investors lured in by the hype could lose out, warn experts Xi's real test is not Trump's trade war The secretive US factory that lays bare the contradiction in Trump's America First plan
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
As Labour chases Reform, they're bleeding votes on the left
Just two weeks after Reform UK's local election triumph, the government announced a major crackdown on immigration. But while Labour scrambles to neutralise the threat from the right, it risks losing another, just as substantial, cohort to its left, argues Fonie Mitsopoulou. The electorate doesn't love Labour at the moment. Recent polls indicate that of those that voted Labour in the 2024 election, only 46 per cent would do so again were an election to happen tomorrow. In Labour's leftist flanks, there is a persistent feeling that Starmer has deserted his traditional base by shifting to the right by an unwelcome degree, cutting down on welfare and legal migration. 43 per cent of Labour voters feel that their party is trying to appeal to Reform UK voters. The party's manifesto vowed to lower net migration, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer's speech announcing plans to curb the influx went further than anything the party promised in the run up to the election. It wasn't lost on many that Starmer gave that speech just two weeks after Labour was doled a net loss of 187 councillors at the May local election. Right across, Reform's numbers swelled. The party netted 677 seats, from a standing start. But while the Starmer administration try to stop a bleed from the right, there is also a vacuum for disenchanted Labour voters who remain impervious to Reform's temptations. In fact, the largest portion of Labour's supporters are now undecided voters – up for grabs. In focus groups, More in Common pollster Ed Hodgson found an unprecedented number of people citing that the government is deaf to their concerns. 'Whereas, if you look at it objectively, the government now probably has more access to opinion data than they've ever had, and they probably are listening even more than any other government,' Hodgson said. While the government recently reversed the wildly unpopular winter fuel payment cuts, they incurred opprobrium for delaying it by ten months from when the policy change was announced. According to Hodgson, 'if people listen badly, it's almost worse than not listening at all.' Interpreting focus groups 'in bad faith' to 'basically justify what you want to do anyway,' or seeming like Number 10 is making decisions just because they poll well, then politicians lose 'a lot of their credibility and authenticity,' Hodgson added. Another explanation is that 2024 Labour voters aren't 'real', card-carrying Labour voters. For Steve Akehurst, pollster and director of Persuasion UK, Labour benefited as anti-Conservative voters rallied behind what seemed like the Tories' strongest opponent at the time. Where do disillusioned, leftist, ex-Labour supporters go? It depends on their age. 'The younger ones are pretty clearly going to the Green Party and … the older groups are pretty clearly going to the Liberal Democrats,' said Hosgson. Younger generations don't have as much of an entrenched party identity. 'In the past, you would have a much bigger flank of people who saw themselves as a Labour voter or see themselves as a Conservative person,' said Hodgson, noting that 'particularly with young people, those tethers are sort of disconnected.' While the dangers of Reform are making the political weather, it is Lib Dems that have taken the biggest bite out of Labour's voter share. As much as 12 per cent of them have defected to the Lib Dems. For Akehurst, this is 'just a bit nuts.' The Lib Dems gained 163 local councillors in the recent elections, bringing them up to 370. A Liberal Democrat source told City AM that at the 2026 local elections, it will become apparent in 'key areas in London' that the Lib Dems 'are the real challengers to Labour.' The Lib Dem conception of their charm is their ability to occupy an unreserved space as an unobjectionable alternative when the other parties disappoint. The source said that as 'both Labour and the Conservatives desert Middle England, we are proving to be able to fill that gap with our community politics at local level and refusal to kowtow to Donald Trump on the national stage.' Steff Acquarone, Lib Dem MP, summarised the party's brand – which is not always apparent – to City AM. 'We believe in business and free enterprise. We also believe in individual liberty,' he said. 'I don't really see the left-right spectrum as massively indicative anymore. I think we describe ourselves as progressive,' Aquarone said. However, Aquarone denies that they are 'One Nation' Tories – who perch on the socially liberal end of the Conservative Party – 'in a different colour.' What distinguishes the Lib Dems is, for Aquarone, their 'internationalist' stance. 'You can see Tory members shimmering in frustration with some of the frankly unhinged things that their party is saying at the moment, but I don't think we're One Nation Conservatives wearing a different colour.' The Greens are often discounted, but they snagged nine per cent of Labour's 2024 voters according to Akehurst, and they're hoping to convert even more. In fact, the party won a record high number of seats in the recent local elections, adding a net 43 to their ranks – 859 seats on 181 councils. But the Greens have a PR problem: the majority of people don't know how they feel about the co-leaders. 82 per cent don't hold an opinion on Adrian Ramsay; it's 75 per cent for Carla Denyer. The party is in the process of refreshing its brand and changing its leadership. Denyer is stepping down, and Green rules state that puts both leadership seats up for grabs. Zach Polanski, deputy leader, is challenging Ramsay in the running for Green leader (Green rules also dictate co-leaders must represent both genders). Polanski told City AM Starmer's stumbles explain the migration of voters. 'The Labour Party are absolutely letting people down from a range of policies, from the winter fuel payments, to the two child benefit cap,' to their 'appalling' record of 'standing up for refugees' and to the government's mutable stance on the 'genocide in Gaza, which they seem to be changing their rhetoric on.' 'There's this vacuum in politics, and we've seen Reform and Nigel Farage trying to step into it on the right,' he said. But Polanski has a plan to win over the voters on the left; 'there's a huge space for the Green Party to be bolder and really speak to people who used to vote Labour and say; 'you're not leaving the Labour Party, the Labour Party has left you'.' Polanksi doesn't identify his party with partisan politics, either. 'I don't see it as kind of the old spectrum of politics,' Polanski said. 'Actually, when you look at where we've won seats at council level from other parties, it's often equal between the Labour Party and Conservative Party,' he added. 'I think it's about being really clear about what we stand for and being really clear about what we stand against,' he said. 'Whether you're a young renter who is living in the city that wants rent controls, or you're a farmer who is being screwed over by aggregate corporate capital, or the supermarkets aren't paying you what you deserve for the food,' for Polanski, the Greens' appeal is cross-cutting. The fact that voters are more amenable to non-mainstream parties might indicate a trend towards issue voting. However, tracking parties' views without the left-right heuristic can become disorienting. Recent Reform voters disproportionately turned to Nigel Farage out of a desire for change, seeking a divergence from the same two parties that have alternated control of the government for decades. It seems that the Lib Dems and Greens are benefiting from the same inclination to vote in protest, enabling them to break out – at least for now – from their status as niche, non-establishment parties.
Daily Mirror
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Labour 'determined to follow in footsteps of Blair and Brown' on child poverty
The Work and Pensions Secretary refused to be drawn on the future of the two-child benefit limit - but said reducing child povety was a 'top priority' in an interview with The Mirror Liz Kendall has insisted Labour is determined to follow in the footsteps of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in slashing levels of child poverty in Britain. The Work and Pensions Secretary said it was a "top priority" after ex-Labour PM Mr Brown described the issue as a "stain on the soul" of the country. During his time as Chancellor in Mr Blair's government and as PM, millions of kids were lifted out of poverty - a decline that was reversed under the Tories. With figures on the rise Mr Brown this week called for action to help "austerity's children". He labelled the two-child benefit limit - an austerity-era policy introduced by George Osbrone and blamed for trapping kids in poverty - as "cruel" Asked whether she agreed with him, Ms Kendall told The Mirror: "Gordon is one of my great political heroes. His mission to drive down child poverty and his achievements along with Tony Blair and the last government, I think are one of the things I'm proudest of. We're determined to follow in their footsteps and bring those child poverty figures down again." But rates of child poverty are on the rise and an official analysis of her government's looming cuts to benefits suggests an extra 50,000 kids will fall into poverty. Many experts now agree the most effective way to lift hundreds of thousands children out of poverty would be to abolish the two-child limit. Keir Starmer declined to scrap the measure ahead of the general election but there is speculation No10 could revisit it. Ms Kendall refused to be drawn on the future of the policy on Thursday as she appeared at Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, to launch a scheme to help young people into work. The Cabinet minister said: "We've got a big commitment to a child poverty strategy. Child poverty will be going down at the time of the next election. And we're going to look at all the possible levers for doing that. We will publish that strategy and set out how we will pay for it and you will, I'm afraid, have to wait." Pressed on her personal view of the policy, she said: "I'm a member of the government and I believe in collective responsibility and I also believe if I ever make a commitment I will know how I'm going to pay for it." Labour's welfare chief also told The Mirror she understood concerns over looming disability benefit cuts - but insisted the reform was urgent. In March the government announced plans to cut around £5billion from sickness and disability benefits. Most of the savings will be made by restricting eligibility to Personal Independence Payments (PIP) - a key disability benefit. Over 100 Labour MPs have suggested they cannot support the measure with Mr Starmer facing the biggest revolt of his premiership so far at a vote next month. And on Thursday evening the cross-party Work and Pensions Committee - led by Labour MP Debbie Abrahams - wrote to Ms Kendall telling her to pause the reforms. Ms Kendall said: "I understand people's concern and I understand people are anxious. But we are consulting with disabled people and the organisations that represent them on our PIP review, to look at the assessment process. "I believe the task of helping people who can work, get work, is urgent." She added: "I am listening. I have great respect for Debbie Abrahams and members of the Committee. I am talking in detail with MPs... we want to get this right. I think the task of overhauling the system that has written off and denied people support for too long - there has been failure of the last government to deal with these problems - and I want to make a start." The Work and Pensions Secretary was also pressed on how long pensioners would have to wait to find out if they are eligible for winter fuel payments after Keir Starmer's U-turn. But she said details would be set out at the "next fiscal event" in the autumn. She said: "He [the PM] wants to look at that eligibility threshold again so more people can get support and we will do that at the next fiscal event. You will have to wait until we make some further announcements. We want to act as quickly as possible, we are determined." The Cabinet minister's comments came as she launched a programme aimed at helping young people to find work or training, or remain in employment. Appearing at Anfield Stadium she launched the first of eight young "trailblazer" areas that are being set up across the country - backed by £45million in funding. It aims to match 18-21-year-olds to job or training opportunities in the regions. New figures will be published today showing the number of young people not in education, training or employment. The figure currently stands at 987,000. She said: 'Young people are our future – and yet for too long they have been denied access to the opportunities and support they need. At Liverpool FC, the home of champions, we are championing young people to get the skills, education and jobs they require to achieve their ambitions."
NZ Herald
17-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Labour-endorsed Andrew Little formally launches campaign for Wellington mayoralty
Current councillor Diane Calvert, who has previously run for the mayoralty, told NZME she was 'shocked and frankly appalled' to see a last-minute recommendation from council officials to close Khandallah Pool. The buildings, which have been proposed for demolition or cuts, were described as 'places that bring people together' by Little in his speech. Investment in community facilities makes up a main portion of his proposal to voters. The first projects proposed for action would be an upgrade to Kilbirnie community facilities and ensuring the Tawa library becomes a 'modern community hub'. Little has labelled spending on the facilities a 'drop in the ocean', saying the council is dealing with a nearly $5 billion capital budget over the next decade. Speaking to a room of Labour faithful, journalists and members of the public, Little outlined his passion for 'housing, climate change and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.' Little said he had spent his time listening since his decision to run for Wellington City Council's top job, adding it was 'disheartening' that many locals had gone to the council for support and have had 'no real engagement'. Putting every major council decision to a community impact statement would show who was consulted, their comments and how it impacted the outcome. The ex-Labour MP suggested there had been 'rushed decisions' and people had been shut out. 'I'll open the doors,' the mayoral hopeful told supporters. 'Under my leadership, the days of excluding the public from council meetings will be over.' He is proposing to put the axe through the 'misuse' of commercial confidentiality, claiming it often shows the council does not want to be transparent about its spending. If he is elected, a public accountability report would be delivered each year. Little's campaign launch was attended by current Labour-backed councillors, along with Labour MPs Ayesha Verrall, Greg O'Connor, Ginny Andersen and Barbara Edmonds. Former Mayor Justin Lester was in attendance, alongside ex-Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer. Verrall, Labour's Wellington issues spokeswoman, addressed the crowd, saying she was 'very proud to call Andrew Little a friend'. Before the event, current Labour councillor Ben McNulty promised Little would have policy announcements at the campaign launch to stop the city council's 'shenanigans'. In a post to social media site X, he said people outside what he deemed a 'hellsite' loathed the current council, adding 'elected members have nurtured this culture'. Little secured endorsement from the local Labour branch last month, vowing to run a 'people-powered' campaign. Several other candidates have thrown their hat in the ring to be the leader of the next iteration of Wellington City Council, with the list including Graham Bloxham, Karl Tiefenbacher, Kelvin Hastie, Ray Chung and Rob Goulden. Incumbent Tory Whanau is stepping aside and is instead making a bid for the council's Māori ward, endorsed by the Greens.
