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UK politics - live: Reform level with Labour in new poll as Treasury responds to gloomy economy update

New poll by FindOutNowUK marks a fresh political blow for Sir Keir Starmer who has overseen a rocky start to his leadership of the country

Jabed Ahmed,David Maddox
Thursday 09 January 2025 14:36 GMT
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Sir Keir Starmer has been dealt a further blow with a new poll predicting Labour would lose its overall majority if an election was held now.

The poll by FindOutNowUK has put Reform level pegging with Labour on 25 per cent and the Tories five points behind on 20 per cent. According to the calculations, if the result was repeated in a general election Labour would lose 173 seats but remain the largest party on 238.

Reform would leap into second place from the five MPs to 170, taking deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel’s seats. The Tories would be left with just 89 seats and a viable government could only be formed with a deal between Labour and the Lib Dems on 70 seats and SNP on 42.

The poll, which comes after a survey by think tank More in Common that also found Labour would lose its majority, marks a fresh political blow for Sir Keir who has overseen a rocky start to his leadership of the country.

There are also fears over the economy with the pound plunging to its lowest level for over a year after a rout in the bond markets. And with government borrowing costs also increasing, Treasury minister Darren Jones has warned that “public services will have to live within their means”.

Watch: Shouts of ‘shame' as Badenoch claims grooming scandal one of worst in history

Shouts of ‘shame' as Badenoch claims grooming scandal one of worst in history
Andy Gregory9 January 2025 05:00

Political party funding rules may be reformed amid Musk interest, Starmer says

The government will look at potential reforms to political party funding, Sir Keir Starmer said, as the leader of the Liberal Democrats raised the “spectre” of Elon Musk’s possible donation to Reform UK.

Harry Taylor reports:

Political party funding rules may be reformed amid Musk interest, Starmer says

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey called for changes amid the US businessman’s continued interest in British politics and support for Reform UK.

Andy Gregory9 January 2025 04:00

Need for social care reform ‘bleedin’ obvious’ but must get Starmer’s backing, MPs told

Sir Keir Starmer’s backing for reform of social care will be “absolutely critical” if much-needed change is to be made, a key figure has said.

Sir Andrew Dilnot described it as “blindingly… bleedin’ obvious” that something should be done in an area which remains “pretty invisible”.

The economist, who was the architect of plans for a care costs cap more than a decade ago, welcomed the fact that a newly announced commission would be “another chance to try to raise this set of issues up the agenda”.

But he insisted it should not take three years to produce a final report and recommendations, suggesting it is “perfectly feasible” for the Government to set out by the end of this year what it is going to do.

Dilnot: Need for social care reform ‘bleedin’ obvious’ but must get PM’s backing

The economist said three years is an ‘inappropriate length of time’ for a final report from the new commission into social care.

Andy Gregory9 January 2025 03:00

Former Tory schools minister backs Robert Jenrick in race row

Former Tory schools minister Jonathan Gullis – who lost his seat in July’s election – has backed Robert Jenrick over his controversial remarks about grooming gangs and immigration.

Mr Gullis said on X: “It’s completely accurate for [Mr Jenrick] to say some immigrants (legally and illegally) coming to the UK have medieval attitudes to women. Any Conservative MPs anonymously moaning about Robert speaking out about grooming gangs need to give their heads a wobble.”

Kemi Badenoch was urged on Tuesday to sack Mr Jenrick after he suggested the Tories could cap immigration from “alien cultures with medieval attitudes towards women”:

Badenoch urged to sack Jenrick over ‘immigrants with alien cultures’ comments

Robert Jenrick stood by his claim that Britain has failed at integrating immigrants from some countries, pointing to the grooming gangs scandal as apparent evidence

Andy Gregory9 January 2025 02:00

British state has become a ‘greedy master of the people’, Reform MP claims

The British state has become a “self-serving, greedy master of the people”, a Reform UK MP said on Wednesday as he called for quantitative easing to be prohibited.

Rupert Lowe argued that MPs should be given the right to block the introduction of new money into the supply by the Bank of England, under his Quantitative Easing (Prohibition) Bill.

As he walked to present the Bill in the Commons, Mr Lowe was jokingly dubbed “future leader” by another MP in the chamber who could be heard shouting out. It came after US billionaire Elon Musk appeared to endorse Mr Lowe as a replacement for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

The Great Yarmouth MP was also heckled on Wednesday by Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who said “absolute shambles” after Mr Lowe stumbled through the list of MPs supporting the Bill before having to repeat the names.

Andy Gregory9 January 2025 01:00

In Focus | The child abuse cover-ups that Musk is conveniently not getting outraged about

Journalist and author Rowan Pelling writes:

It’s a bit astonishing to wake up and find that – hallelujah! – the sexual abuse of young women is the number one story in the UK. And that the government has finally acted to make the reporting of child sex abuse mandatory. God knows, enough campaigners, like inquiry head Professor Alexis Jay, veteran journalist Julie Bindel, and Lucy Duckworth from the Survivors’ Trust, have strived for years to propel their life’s work to the top of the political agenda.

It’s just a shame that so many zealous new converts to the cause (yes, Elon Musk and his X-bro army) appear to believe that the rape perpetrated by men of Pakistani origin was a unique evil unparalleled in the annals of history.

No one denies that what happened in Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford is a huge, gutwrenching scandal; that some officials hesitated to investigate in the name of “race relations” and that much of the police force who are paid to protect us dismissed the abuse of white working-class girls – often in and out of care – who they regarded as unreliable witnesses.

In fact, there’s now a race to proclaim these oft-reported tidings loudest, by many who didn’t seem to give a monkey’s as recently as last week. But if you’ve ever looked into the sheer scale of sexual abuse against innocent young people in this country and the scandals that were covered up within living memory (not just Jimmy Savile), then you’ll be left reeling.

The child abuse cover-ups that Musk is conveniently not getting outraged about

As Musk and others clamour for an inquiry over grooming gangs in the north of England, where is the call for a closer look at what is going on elsewhere from the Church of England to our top private schools, asks Rowan Pelling, who says institutional cover-ups are rife across all levels of society

Andy Gregory8 January 2025 23:59

Tory MP warns education bill will make it ‘as if Blair had never been PM'

During the debate on the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, Tory former education secretary Damian Hinds warned the legislation will make it “as if Tony Blair had never been prime minister”.

He told the Commons: “I’m sure Labour MPs today will cheer what they will see as the final demise of the Gove/Gibb reforms, but what we have before us today reverses far further back than that.

“If this Bill passes anything close to its current form, it will be as if Lord Adonis was never the schools minister, as if Lord Blunkett had never sat in the secretary of state’s chair, it will be as if Tony Blair had never been prime minister and had never made central to his pledge and contract to the British people in 1997 those famous three words, ‘education, education, education’.”

Andy Gregory8 January 2025 23:00

Brexiteer meltdown as Starmer makes May’s chief EU negotiator Foreign Office chief mandarin

Brexiteer meltdown as Starmer makes May’s chief EU negotiator FCDO chief mandarin

Sir Oliver Robbins’s appointment is being seen as a signal of intent on Starmer’s plans to reset relations with the EU

Jabed Ahmed8 January 2025 22:00

Conservative MP calls for Lucy Letby retrial

Conservative former minister Sir David Davis has called for a retrial of child serial killer Lucy Letby.

During an adjournment debate in the Commons he told MPs: “There is case in justice, in my view, for a retrial. But there is a problem: one of the problems we face is that much of the evidence was available at the time.

“What I have described is an expert analysis of the case notes, which were there at the time, but it was simply not presented to the jury. This means the Court of Appeal can dismiss it, basically saying the defence should have presented it at the initial trial.

“It is in essence saying, ‘if your defence team weren’t good enough to present this evidence, hard luck, you stay banged-up for life’.

“Now that may be judicially convenient, but it’s not justice.”

Sir David said earlier in the debate: “There was no hard evidence against Letby, nobody saw her do anything untoward. The doctor’s gut feeling was based on a coincidence she was on shift for a number of deaths, and this is important, although far from all of them, far from all of them.

“It was built on a poor understanding of probabilities, which could translate later into an influential but spectacularly flawed piece of evidence.”

Letby, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Jabed Ahmed8 January 2025 21:00

Farage says Reform will host inquiry after Tory amendment loses

Nigel Farage has confirmed that Reform UK will “absolutely” work to set up its own inquiry into grooming gangs.

He told GB News: “Oh, absolutely yes. If the Government does not give in, we don’t get a proper inquiry into this, and goodness knows, we do need one, then we will raise the money and we will appoint or find some sort of independent retired judges to run the thing.

“Yeah, no, no, we’re not going to back off from this. The country deserves to know the truth about, firstly, the extent of what happened, and secondly, the extent of the cover up, and who was involved in that cover up.”

Jabed Ahmed8 January 2025 19:53

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