The billionaire Tesla owner has continued his attacks on the prime minister overnight, and suggested he will be gone “soon”. Farage, the leader of Reform, has responded to Musk’s criticism of his leadership. Meanwhile, Health Secretary Wes Streeting is taking questions in the Commons.
Tuesday 7 January 2025 14:20, UK
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Hundreds of British politicians have called on the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to boycott next month’s Champions Trophy match against Afghanistan.
MPs and peers from across parliament, including Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn, and Lord Kinnock, called for the England men’s one day international side to refuse the fixture which is set for 26 February in Lahore, Pakistan.
Led by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, many in Westminster have said the boycott would be a way to take a stand against the Taliban regime’s assault on women’s rights.
Sky News explains in full below…
An urgent question was tabled in the House of Commons on the situation in Northern Gaza, and the Middle East minister has demanded that Israel do more to increase aid.
Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer told MPs: “The UK condemns Israel’s restriction on aid in the strongest terms. The scale of human suffering is unimaginable.
“We have been clear this is a man-made crisis, and Israel must act immediately to address it.”
He went on to describe reports that “up to eight children” have died from cold weather conditions as “unconscionable”.
“It is unacceptable that many medical facilities are no longer in use or are inaccessible to humanitarian actors, and we remain deeply concerned by reports of medics being killed or injured,” the minister said, adding that he will continue to raise this with Israeli diplomats in the UK.
Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, who tabled the urgent question, told the House about Mohammad, a surgeon living in the UK who operated on her, whose family are trapped in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza.
“I am sorry to report that this weekend, death didn’t come knocking, but rather it was dropped by a precision drone as Mohammad’s brother and his son walked 10 metres to get aid,” she said.
“The son died of a brain injury. Two 13-year-old girls and their mother have shrapnel wounds and Mohammad’s elderly father, who was already ill, is in hospital. That three-year-old, her mother and his mother are alone in a house with no one to help them get food.”
She said they were “obviously not militants” and so there is “no excuse for this”.
“Mohammad told me it feels like they’re living in The Hunger Games, dodging drones, scavenging for the basics, even if they wanted to leave, how can they?”
She appealed to the government to recognise an independent state of Palestine, stop arms sales to Israel, and ban trading with illegal settlements.
Minister Hamish Falconer replied: “The whole ministerial team in the Foreign Office has these people in our mind each and every day and I have been engaged through the break, as many others have, recognising that for most people in Palestine, there is no break from a truly dreadful situation.”
He added: “I can only join with [Ms Moran] in reaching out to those in Palestine in this situation, we have done much, we recognise there is much more to do, and my heart goes out to those people.”
By James Sillars, business and economics reporter
UK long-term borrowing costs have hit their highest level since 1998.
The unwanted milestone for the Treasury’s coffers was reached ahead of an auction of 30-year bonds, known as gilts, this morning.
The yield – the effective interest rate demanded by investors to hold UK public debt – peaked at 5.21%.
At that level, it is even above the yield in the wake of the mini-budget backlash of 2022.
The premium is up, market analysts say, because of growing concerns the Bank of England will struggle to cut interest rates.
Just two cuts are currently priced in for 2025 as investors fear its hands could be tied by a growing threat of stagflation.
What’s this jargon?
It essentially covers a scenario when an economy is flatlining at a time of rising unemployment and inflation.
Growth has ground to a halt since the second half of last year.
Labour accused the Tory government of crashing the economy following the market meltdown of 2022.
It is fair to expect the opposition to now claim that Labour has taken just six months to do the same.
You will recall that during the COVID pandemic, the then Johnson government unveiled a new £2.6m White House-style briefing room for news conferences.
Located in No 9 Downing Street, the studio has podiums, screens, and cameras for official news conferences.
Sir Keir Starmer has not used the facility since becoming prime minister, and it has emerged that it has been repainted.
The blue panelling has been painted grey, and some parts covered in new panelling in order to make it a “politically-neutral setting”, the PM’s official spokesman told reporters.
Blue is the colour attributed to the Conservative Party, and Labour is associated with red.
The cost of the refresh was under £80,000, the spokesman said, and noted that the spending should be set against the decision to slash the government’s communications budget by £80m a year.
The prime minister’s official spokesman has been taking questions from the media this morning, and he was asked if the announcement yesterday of the implementation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s recommendations is because of the current row on the issue.
He replied: “The government has been working since it came into office on measures to protect children, to halve violence against women and girls.”
Specifically on mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, the spokesman noted that the PM and home secretary “called for these changes 10 years ago”.
He said work on implementing it “kicked off last year”, and “just concluded ahead of the announcement yesterday”.
The spokesman also said that given the ongoing row, it is “important the government explains to the public how seriously the government is taking this issue”.
“So I think it’s natural in response to the recent coverage the government explains what the government’s been doing in this space,” he said.
But asked how long it will take for all 20 recommendations from the inquiry to be implemented, he could not give a timescale.
He said the inquiry reported in 2022 and was “not acted on by the last government”, so this one is “working at pace” and “will provide any updates in due course”.
It’s a busy day in parliament today, with plenty happening in the chamber, in Westminster Hall, and in various committees.
In the Commons
In Westminster Hall
Committees
The Liberal Democrats are calling on Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to sack her shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, over comments made to the media this morning.
Mr Jenrick has been speaking about grooming gangs, and claimed Pakistani men are “over-represented in those who are involved in the grooming gangs”.
The Lib Dems’ deputy leader Daisy Cooper said in a statement: “Robert Jenrick’s attempt to exploit this appalling scandal for his own political gain is completely shameless.
“He didn’t lift a finger to help the victims when a minister, now he’s jumping on the bandwagon and acting like a pound shop Farage.
“Kemi Badenoch should sack him as shadow justice secretary and condemn his divisive comments, instead of letting him run a leadership campaign under her nose.”
Mr Jenrick defended his and the Tory party’s records when speaking to Sky News this morning – read more here.
Here’s a quiz question: how much would you say the supply of non-Russian gas to Europe (including the UK) has gone up since the invasion of Ukraine?
It’s a pretty important question. After all, in the years before the invasion, Russian gas (coming in mostly through pipelines but, to a lesser extent, also on liquefied natural gas [LNG] tankers) accounted for more than a third of our gas.
If Europe was going to stop relying on Russian gas, it would need either to source that gas from somewhere else or to learn to live without it. And while there might, a few decades hence, be a way of surviving without gas while also nursing important heavy industries, right now the technology isn’t there.
For decades, Europe – especially Germany, but also, to a lesser extent Italy and other parts of Eastern Europe – built their economic models on building advanced machinery, with their plants fuelled by cheap Russian gas.
All of which is why that question matters. And so too does the answer. The conventional wisdom is that Europe has shored up its supplies of gas from elsewhere. There’s more methane coming in from Azerbaijan, for one thing. And more too in the form of LNG from Qatar and (especially) the US.
But now let’s ponder the actual data. And it shows you something else: in 2024 as a whole, the amount of gas Europe had from non-Russian sources was up by a mere 0.5% compared with the 2017-21 average.
This isn’t to say that there wasn’t more gas coming in, primarily from LNG tankers, most (but not all) of them from the US. But that extra LNG was only enough to compensate for a sharp fall in gas produced domestically, for instance by the UK and the Netherlands. The upshot was that to all extents and purposes, the non-Russian part of the European gas mix was basically flat.
That’s a serious problem, given the amount of gas coming in from Russia has fallen by 37% over the same period. Essentially, Europe’s total gas consumption has fallen by an unprecedented amount without being supplemented from elsewhere.
By Tomos Evans, Wales reporter
A new council has been set up by the government in an effort to secure the long-term future of the UK’s steel industry.
It comes after the closure of Tata Steel’s blast furnaces in Port Talbot last year, as the company looked to transition to greener production methods.
Its closure meant nearly 3,000 job losses across South Wales.
The government says the council will bring together Tata Steel representatives, trade union leaders, as well as experts on the British steel industry.
The first meeting of the council will be chaired by Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds on Tuesday.
Council members will advise the government on its steel strategy, which the government says will be supported with £2.5bn of investment.
By bringing representatives of devolved governments on board, the government hopes the council will secure the future of the industry across the UK.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said steel communities had “had enough of lurching from crisis to crisis”.
He said the government was “committed to driving growth and innovation in the sector”.
Gareth Stace, director-general of UK Steel, said the formation of the council marked “a defining moment for the future of steelmaking” and was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for the industry.
The government is expected to launch its steel strategy in the spring.
It’s the first week back after Christmas, and ministers are getting down to business.
Sir Keir Starmer is right now chairing his first cabinet meeting of the year, where he is no doubt impressing on his top team the need to deliver amid crashing poll ratings and Reform UK surging.
Here are some photos of key ministers arriving in Downing Street this morning…
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