The next general election is only 17 months away at most. It is already seen as a “change election” – meaning that, on the basis of opinion polls and recent political contests, the party in power is likely to switch.
Conventional wisdom is that the Conservatives will most likely be out after 14 years continuously in power.
That outcome is of course in the lap of the electorate and cannot be taken for granted.
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‘ULEZ is why we lost in Uxbridge’
But it is the basis on which individual MPs make calculations about their futures.
Before any seats change hands, we can already say that there will be at least 75 new faces in the 2024/25 parliament.
That’s because 75 current members have already announced that they are not standing – and more than 50 of them were elected as Conservatives. A further 14 Labour MPs are stepping down, with seven from the SNP.
The overall turnover of MPs will be much larger anyway if is a change election.
The pollster Frank Luntz recently warned Tory MPs that any of them with a majority less that 15,000 is “at risk”. There are around 180 in that category – half the current parliamentary party.
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Next election ‘not a done deal’
Now is the time when the main parties are choosing the candidates to fight the coming election in the seats they hold, the seats they regard as winnable and the seats viewed as not worth wasting further resources on.
The types of candidate being chosen, especially in their safe or target seats, tells us a lot about what a party will be like in government or in opposition after the next election.
Since becoming Labour leader in 2019, Sir Keir Starmer has devoted more energy to exerting iron discipline on his party after the Jeremy Corbyn years than to developing radical new policies.
True to form, Labour is ahead of the Conservatives in choosing its prospective parliamentary candidate – more than halfway through – with more than 100 of an expected 200 of so new PPCs in place.
Of course, not all of them are first timers. Re-treads include the former Cabinet minister Douglas Alexander, who is hoping to win back East Lothian from the SNP, Anna Turley fighting to regain her Red Wall seat of Redcar and former Wolverhampton MP Emma Reynolds, who is now standing in Wycombe.
These three ex-MPs embody the middle-aged, middle-of-the-road cut of the Labour candidates being selected. Only about one in 20 of them are below the age of 30.
Newly elected MP Keir Mather with Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner
In spite of the recent by-election victory by the new Baby of the House, Labour’s Keir Mather, parliament is not proving welcoming for younger members. Those standing down include two young MPs who had been picked out as rising stars.
The SNP’s Mhairi Black calls Westminster “toxic”, Bishop Auckland Tory Deheena Davison finds it “unsociable”.
The Labour leadership are ruthlessly weeding out left-wing candidates.
Suspension from the party is the most brutal method. Jeremy Corbyn is no longer a member of Labour so he cannot stand as one of their candidates at the next election. His dwindling band of supporters in the Commons have been carefully biting their tongues to avoid joining him in the reject bin.
Before constituency parties get to vote on their candidate, a panel made up of trusted members of Labour’s National Executive (NEC) and local supporters draws up a “long list”.
As serving Mayor Jamie Driscoll found out to his cost in a similar process to select a candidate for the new mayor of the North East, this is how strong candidates not liked by the leadership can be excluded.
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Mish Rahman, a current member of the NEC supported by Momentum, is a typical example of the sort of PPC that Sir Keir does not want. He was blocked in the highly win-backable seat of Wolverhampton West in spite of being backed by five trade unions. He commented he was not surprised since none of his fellow “Bernie Grant Leadership” alumni have been selected. That programme, in memory of the black far-left Tottenham MP, was set up to promote candidates of his ilk.
Labour’s stand out PPC selection this time round typifies the change of mood. Charlie Falconer had to be sent to the House of Lords to serve in the Blair government. He refused to take his children out of private school and no constituency would have him.
Now the product of that public school education, his son Hamish Falconer – a well-regarded diplomat in his own right – has been selected as Labour candidate in marginal Lincoln.
Sir Keir Starmer and his closest aides – including Morgan MacSweeney, Matthew Faulding, Carol Linforth, David Evans and Marianna McFadden – are right to be careful.
Their opponents will target candidates with “extremist” skeletons in their closet.
Nadine Dorries has not yet stood down as promised to trigger the by-election in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency.
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Dorries ‘can stay in the jungle’
The Daily Mail has already exposed Labour’s clean-cut candidate Alistair Strathern for taking part in a Greenpeace protest at the Home Office, dressed as a zombie.
A few places demand a high-profile and colourful candidate. The retiring Green MP Caroline Lucas has made Brighton Pavilion one of those constituencies. The Greens have already chosen Sian Berry, one of their other best-known politicians, to defend it for them.
The comedian Eddie Izzard, who has failed to be selected elsewhere numerous times, has local connections and is fighting hard for the Labour nomination.
The number of LGBT+ MPs now stands at a record 61 and is set to remain strong. Women and ethnic minorities are doing loess well.
Tory strategists at the centre wish they had the same grip on candidate selection as Labour, but they don’t. Just about the leadership’s only success has been blocking any candidacy by the former MEP and the serially disloyal Boris Johnson supporter David Campbell Bannerman.
Rishi Sunak and newly elected Conservative MP Steve Tuckwell in Uxbridge
After the turmoil of five prime ministers there is no centre, respected by all, to exert control.
PPCs are chosen by constituency associations whose members are the people who voted for Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and did not vote for Rishi Sunak.
The Tory Party factions are fighting out their differences in selections, constituency by constituency.
Unlike Labour they are choosing candidates who appeal to themselves, with little regard to who might attract floating voters in the centre ground.
Tory activists have already picked out two PPCs who they expect will still be battling for the soul of the party in a decades time.
In the One Nation corner stands Rupert Harrison, the PPC for Bicester, an old Etonian and former close aide to chancellor George Osborne. He looks like what Barbie’s Ken would look like were he to be a middle-aged Tory candidate.
The Nativist Brexiteer Corner is occupied by the cerebral and sometimes bearded Nick Timothy, who has taken over in Matt Hancock’s old constituency in Suffolk.
Nick Timothy
Male, middle-aged, middle class, there is a similarity in the profile, if not the politics, of the candidates being chosen by the two main parties.
Both of them now place a premium on the candidate having a local connection.
It is much harder for bright politically ambitious young people to shop around for a seat – even though some of them in the past have proved of prime ministerial calibre – like Churchill or Blair or Johnson.
The ConservativeHome website reports that in 12 winnable target seats, eight of the PPCs were local councillors, two more had local connections and only two were women.
Those following the selections most closely, including the journalist Michael Crick on his @tomorrowsMPs X (formerly Twitter) page and the Professor of Politics Tim Bale, believe that insistence on the local factor is seriously diluting the quality of the people who are becoming MPs.
Whether or not we are heading into a change election, we know already that there will be lots of new faces. They won’t look much different to those they are replacing and it is a fond hope whether they will be any better.
An emergency bill to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe blast furnaces has become law.
The urgent legislation gives ministers the power to instruct British Steel to keep the plant open.
The bill was rushed through the House of Commons and House of Lords in one day, with MPs and peers being recalled from recess to take part in a Saturday sitting for the first time in over 40 years.
Emergency bill becomes law – follow the latest reaction here
An emergency bill to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe blast furnaces has passed. Pic: Reuters
After passing through both houses of parliament, the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill was granted royal assent by the King.
The bill gives the government the power to take control of British Steel – or any other steel asset – “using force if necessary”, order materials for steelmaking and instruct that workers be paid. It also authorises a jail sentence of up to two years for anyone breaching this law.
Sir Keir Starmer hailed the legislation for “turning the page on a decade of decline”, adding “all options are on the table to secure the future of the industry”.
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What is the future of British Steel?
It will mean the steel plant in Scunthorpe will continue to operate as the government decides on a long-term strategy, and steelmaking in the UK more broadly.
Officials from the Department for Business and Trade arrived at the site before the bill had even passed, Sky News understands.
Earlier, staff from the plant’s ousted Chinese owners Jingye were denied access, with police called over a “suspected breach of peace” – though officers found “no concerns”.
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The role of steel in the UK economy
Ministers took the unusual step of recalling parliament from its recess to sit on Saturday after negotiations with Jingye appeared to break down.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the measures within the bill were “proportionate and necessary” to keep the Scunthorpe blast furnaces open and protect both the UK’s primary steelmaking capacity and the 3,500 jobs involved.
The emergency legislation stops short of full nationalisation of British Steel, but Mr Reynolds told MPs that public ownership remained the “likely option” for the future.
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During the debate, several Conservative MPs, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice and the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader Daisy Cooper all spoke in favour of nationalisation.
MPs had broken up for the Easter holidays on Tuesday and had not been due to return until Tuesday 22 April.
The business secretary accused Jingye of failing to negotiate “in good faith” after it decided to stop buying enough raw materials to keep the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe going.
But the Conservatives said the government should have acted sooner, with shadow leader of the house Alex Burghart accusing ministers of making “a total pig’s breakfast” of the situation regarding British Steel.
The government was also criticised for acting to save the Scunthorpe plant but not taking the same action when the Tata Steel works in Port Talbot were threatened with closure.
A major incident has been declared in Nottinghamshire after a gas explosion caused a house to collapse.
There is still a “substantial emergency service presence” in place after the explosion in John Street, Worksop just after 7.30pm on Saturday.
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service (NFRS) declared it a “major incident” and said “multiple houses in and around John Street have been evacuated”. Nearby Crown Place Community Centre has been opened as a “place of safety”, the service said. Around 20 people have sought refuge there, Sky News camera operator James Evans-Jones said from the scene.
Videos posted on social media showed the front of a terraced house blown out with the roof collapsed, while neighbouring houses had their windows damaged.
NFRS said in a statement late on Saturday: “This has now been declared a major incident, and we are likely to be on scene throughout the night and even into Sunday morning.”
The fire service said it was called to the scene at 7.39pm.
The back of the property where the explosion happened in Worksop. Pic: YappApp
Pic: YappApp
“This is a gas explosion involving a house that has been significantly damaged,” the service said in a previous statement.
One person posted on Facebook that they heard “a terrific bang, like a very loud firework” as they turned into Gladstone Street from Gateford Road.
“I thought the back end had blown off my car,” they said. “A house in John Street has had, presumably, a gas explosion!”
Emergency services at the scene on Saturday. Pic: YappApp
NFRS said it was also called to a separate incident shortly afterwards but does not believe the two are connected.
Ten fire engines were sent to the scene of the industrial fire in nearby Holgate Road in The Meadows, Nottingham.
“The building has been severely damaged but there are no reports of any injuries,” NFRS said.
Having been called to the incident at 8.11pm, NFRS said at around 10.30pm that it was scaling its response down with the flames “now under control”.
NFRS’s group manager Leigh Holmes said from the scene just after 11pm: “We will begin to relax the cordon in the next hour as we continue to scale down this incident.”
A damaged building at The Meadows in Nottingham. Pic: NFRS
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Sir Keir Starmer was flying the flag for domestic steel production on Saturday as his government passed emergency legislation to give itself extraordinary powers to intervene in the running of the steel works in Scunthorpe and elsewhere.
He wants voters to notice that his intervention-friendly government has stepped in to save virgin steel production which was days away from dying out for good because of what ministers call the bad faith behaviour of Chinese owners.
The politics and optics of Saturday’s intervention seem relatively simple. What happens next, however, is not.
Follow live updates: Emergency law to keep British steel plant open
Even before the emergency bill had made its way through parliament, officials had turned up at British Steel in Scunthorpe.
There’s a nervousness about what happens next. As one person close to the talks told me, keeping the blast furnaces alive is far from a foregone conclusion and there are difficult times to come.
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Emergency steel bill receives King’s approval
“We’re in for a very hard few days and week while government and UK management secure and ensure the vital loads of raw materials needed,” said a source.
“You can’t just do next day delivery on Amazon. Until this is in the blast furnaces keeping them going this won’t be a job done.”
It stands to reason the government will pull out all the stops and the furnace for now will be kept alive, whatever the cost, because the political cost of failure at this point is too high.
Future not secure
But the medium term prospects for virgin British steel are far from secure.
The blast furnaces being saved only have a few years life at best – but it remains unclear who will fund a transition to the new-style electric blast furnaces.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said: “The action I seek to take today is not a magic wand or a panacea.
“The state cannot fund the long term transformation of British Steel itself, nor would it want to do so.”
Nor would he say that steel production is an overriding national security issue, effectively guaranteeing future production. The wiggle room will be noted in Scunthorpe and beyond.
The government has provided a sticking plaster not a solution.
But this is about so much more than what’s going on in Lincolnshire, this is about Britain’s place in the world – and its resilience.
Is dependence on China inevitable?
Can our domestic steel industry survive if Trump continues to impose 25% tariffs on steel going from the UK to the US?
Can we make our own weapons for years to come – as part of Mr Starmer‘s newfound commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence – without British steel?
Is the eventual dependence on Chinese steel an inevitability?
Yet one of the fascinating features of Saturday’s debate was the most strident attack on a Chinese entity by a minister – the toughest assault since Mr Starmer’s government entered office.
Mr Reynolds said: “Over the last few days, it became clear that the intention of Jingye was to refuse to purchase sufficient raw materials to keep the blast furnaces running.
“In fact, their intention was to cancel and refuse to pay for existing orders. The company would therefore have irrevocably and unilaterally closed down primary steelmaking at British Steel.
“Their intention has been to keep the downstream mills, which colleagues will know are fundamental to our construction steel industry, and supply them from China rather than from Scunthorpe.”
This attack – at a time when ministers (most recently Ed Miliband) have been heading to Beijing to repair relations.
However, the accusation that a Chinese entity has been acting in bad faith in order to effectively scupper domestic steel production is a serious charge.
It also comes before we find out whether Donald Trump is going to make it harder for allies to trade with China.
The government has succeeded in protecting the domestic manufacturer of virgin steel for the short term.
But what happens in the long term, and where we might get it from, remains as murky today as it did before.
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