Seldom has a ruling by the Speaker of the House of Commons been so eagerly anticipated by MPs.
During the Brexit wars of a couple of years ago, pro-Remain John Bercow could be relied upon to deliver rulings to cause maximum turmoil and embarrassment for the government.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle is a much less partisan figure, however, and when he has to made a tricky or controversial ruling he relies on the advice of the Commons clerks and legal bods. Mr Bercow used to overrule them.
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PM avoids Tory rebellion over foreign aid
So when he had to rule on Tory MP Andrew Mitchell’s bid to use a piece of legislation on science research to reverse Boris Johnson’s overseas aid cut, cricket fan Sir Lindsay played a straight bat.
It wasn’t in order, he declared, to almost no-one’s surprise.
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What was more surprising was Sir Lindsay’s angry attack on the government at the end of his ruling. From straight bat to bowling the prime minister a hostile bouncer.
First he encouraged Mr Mitchell and his supporters to apply for an emergency debate on the aid cut, which he duly did and now MPs will have three hours to attack the government. A free hit for the PM’s critics.
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Then he rounded off his statement with some furious finger pointing at the government frontbench as he bluntly ordered ministers to hold a vote on the aid cut without delay – or he’d connive with MPs to find a way to hold one.
“I wish and hope, very quickly, that this is taken on board,” the normally cheery Sir Lindsay warned, his lip curling with disdain for the government’s attempts to dodge a vote.
“I don’t want this to drag on,” he said. “If not, we will then look to find other ways in which we can move forward.”
Image: MP Andrew Mitchell has been leading efforts to reverse the cut in overseas aid
Then when Sir Lindsay’s deputy, Nigel Evans, tested support for Mr Mitchell’s application for an emergency debate, no-one rose to their feet quicker than former prime minister Theresa May, who was seated just a few rows further forward.
She was one of around 30 Conservative MPs who had put their names to the Mitchell new clause to the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill, a Dominic Cummings legacy, no less. What an ironic twist.
The Tory rebels included old bruisers like David Davis and Sir Edward Leigh, but cabinet ministers from the May years like Jeremy Hunt and Damian Green and MPs from both the Brexit and Remain wings of the party.
In his response to Sir Lindsay’s ruling and then in his bid for an emergency debate, Mr Mitchell claimed that had the vote gone ahead he would have won by nine or possibly 20 votes. He reminded MPs, of course, that he is a former chief whip.
Really? That assumes all the Conservative MPs who put their names to his new clause would have trooped into the Aye lobby with Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP. Would Mrs May – victim of dozens of bruising rebellions as PM – go that far?
She has form for voicing her objection to a Boris Johnson policy and then absenting herself from a vote, no doubt because of a pressing engagement elsewhere.
Former prime ministers tend not to rebel, with the exception of Ted Heath during the Thatcher years. Not for nothing was he known as “the incredible sulk”.
Talking of ex-prime ministers, the Tories’ 0.7% aid spending pledge is a legacy of David Cameron’s time as Tory leader.
It was even written into law in 2015, as Sir Lindsay reminded MPs. That’s presumably why Mr Cameron’s former bag-carrier Sir Desmond Swayne was among the rebels.
Not that they would accept that they’re rebels. Since 0.7% was a Tory manifesto pledge, they’ve claimed throughout this row that they’re the loyalists.
Not sure that’s how the current chief whip, the burly, ruddy-faced Nottinghamshire farmer Mark Spencer, would see it.
With Mr Mitchell’s new clause ruled out of order, the debate that followed was a dismal anti-climax.
But hostilities will resume in the emergency debate and if and when the government brings forward a proper vote on the aid cut.
Sir Lindsay will no doubt continue to play a straight bat. But his mood suggests he is growing tired of the prime minister dodging the umpire’s rulings.
German law enforcement seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder funds stolen after Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.
The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.
The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.
eXch exchanged crypto without AML
In the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.
The platform had operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated about $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which were believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.
Example of flow of Bybit exploit funds moving through eXch and bridging back and forth between Ether and Bitcoin. Source: TRM Labs
“Among other things, a portion of the $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit crypto exchange, which was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, is said to have been exchanged via eXch,” the authorities wrote.
Multisig, FixedFloat among laundering cases
According to a post by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, eXch was also involved in laundering millions of funds from other crypto thefts and exploits, including Multisig, FixedFloat and the $243 million Genesis creditor theft.
Those were in addition to “countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders,” ZachXBT said.
Source: ZachXBT
ZachXBT was among the first security analysts to report on eXch’s links to laundering $35 million of crypto assets stolen from Bybit soon after the hack was confirmed.
“Lazarus Group transferred 5K ETH from the Bybit Hack to a new address and began laundering funds via eXch (a centralized mixer) and bridging funds to Bitcoin via Chainflip,” ZachXBT wrote in a Telegram post on Feb. 22.
“Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shut down our infrastructure […], we don’t see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] simply because some people misinterpret our goals,” it wrote.
Addressing the seizure, senior public prosecutor Benjamin Krause stressed the importance of action against “quick and anonymous opportunities for money laundering for any amount.”
“Crypto swapping is an essential component of the underground economy, used to conceal incriminated funds from illegal activities such as hacking or trading in stolen payment card data, thus making them available to perpetrators,” he said.
With Ruth away, Beth and Harriet are joined by Salma Shah, a former Conservative special adviser from 2014-2018 and now a political commentator.
They unpack Donald Trump’s surprise UK trade deal announcement and what it means for Sir Keir Starmer, who’s also landed a deal with India and is gearing up for key EU negotiations.
But while the global optics look strong, the domestic mood is tense. Harriet has some advice for the Labour backbenchers who are unhappy over welfare cuts and the winter fuel allowance policy.
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
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The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
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She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Image: Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-electionandcontrol of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.