Labour could ‘go under’ with Starmer at the helm, says outgoing Unite boss
Firebrand union leader Len McCluskey has fired a vicious parting shot against Sir Keir Starmer, claiming Labour’s ship could “go under” with him at the helm.
In hard-hitting memoirs to mark his retirement, the Unite general secretary known as “Red Len” suggests Sir Keir will fail to win back the “Red Wall” seats Labour lost to the Tories in 2019.
Mr McCluskey, still Jeremy Corbyn‘s chief union cheerleader, accuses the Labour leader of struggling to inspire the public, “vapid New Labour cliches”, and an “anti-democratic crackdown on the left”.
Len McCluskey is standing down as leader of the Unite union
In the book, titled Always Red, he settles old scores with enemies in the Labour movement including Tom Watson and Gerard Coyne – the rival he narrowly defeated in an election in 2017 who is now a candidate for general secretary once again.
And Mr McCluskey also confirms one of Westminster’s worst kept secrets: that he is in a relationship with Mr Corbyn’s chief of staff Karie Murphy, who is singled out for praise several times in the book.
Writing about rumours about their “personal connection” when she went to work for Mr Corbyn, he admits to “a game of cat of mouse” with the press. “We wanted our relationship to be kept private, away from the public gaze,” he reveals.
But in the very last sentence in the book, he writes: “Finally, thank you to Karie for persuading me to write this book and giving me the love and support to see it through.”
In a highly unusual move, several pages of what the publishers call “sensitive material”, including a showdown with Sir Keir about Mr Corbyn’s suspension from Labour, have been redacted until publication next month.
An uncompromising and highly critical chapter about the Labour leader, in which Mr McCluskey questions whether he is a “babe in the woods” or “altogether more calculating”, includes no fewer than 25 blacked out paragraphs.
Mr McCluskey was a staunch ally of Jeremy Corbyn during his tenure as Labour leader
The first redaction is about a phone conversation when Sir Keir told the Unite leader he had suspended Mr Corbyn over antisemitism, followed by more than two pages about a meeting with the leader and his deputy Angela Rayner.
Mr McCluskey writes: “Angela began by requesting our discussion be confidential. Given what happened subsequently, I no longer feel bound by that.”
Then comes the two-page redaction. And he adds defiantly: “I am so confident of the account I have given here that I have submitted it for use in legal proceedings and will stand by it in court.”
In a withering verdict on Sir Keir after Mr Corbyn’s suspension, Mr McCluskey writes: “I still hoped and believed that Keir Starmer could be Prime Minister.
“But I was fearful that if he continued on the course set in his first year of leadership he would not win back the red wall seats.
“If a general election was called early, which seemed possible, Starmer would have little time to rectify his mistakes.
“He still had the opportunity to change course, unite his party around a radical platform and make the promised ‘moral case for socialism’.
“But he needed to realise that if the ship he was captaining listed too far to the right, it would go under.”
On his feud with Mr Watson, Mr McCluskey talks about “the death of a friendship” when the then Labour deputy leader pulled out of peace talks with the unions during a coup against Mr Corbyn in 2018.
The first redaction is about a phone conversation when Sir Keir Starmer told the Unite leader he had suspended Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism
He adds: “I haven’t spoken to Tom since, save for a few barbed texts two years later when his attempt to unseat me as Unite’s general secretary failed.”
Accusing Mr Watson of “a view to doing Corbyn in” and being “duplicitous”, Mr McCluskey speculates that his motives may have been to become interim leader and maybe stay on without a contest.
“Whatever the truth, it was a squalid, ignoble way to end a valued friendship.”
On Mr Coyne, Mr McCluskey says; “There is no doubt that the 2017 Unite general secretary election was a proxy war. If they could take me down, they could take Jeremy down.
“Were it not for the group of right-wing MPs and officials sometimes dubbed the ‘West Midlands mafia’ – the likes of John Spellar, Jess Phillips and Tom Watson – I’m sure Coyne would have remained a man of no consequence.”
Accusing Mr Coyne of “pumping out lies” and a negative campaign, he writes: “It was vicious. It was horrible. It consisted almost entirely of personal attacks and smears against me.”
He also accuses his rival of being “not a good loser” and a “Trump-like crusade to overturn the election result”. But he also accuses Mr Watson of being involved in “this grubby attempt to dislodge me using underhand means”.
Mr Coyne is currently standing in the election to succeed Mr McCluskey against Steve Turner and Sharon Graham, with the result due in late August.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
Magazine: 10 crypto theories that missed as badly as ‘Peter Todd is Satoshi’
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
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