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The Greek prime minister’s party got the call that Rishi Sunak was cancelling his meeting with Kyriakos Mitsotakis when they were on the way to talks with Sir Keir Starmer in parliament.

It did not feel like a coincidence.

With the Conservatives trailing a disastrous average of 19 points behind Labour in the opinion polls, the thin-skinned British PM and his entourage are increasingly uptight about Starmer being treated as a prime minister in waiting – PMiW for short – especially by fellow VIPs.

It is fascinating to observe the shuffling in the corridors of power when an opponent starts to look like a credible challenger to the incumbent.

The PM cannot get away from them in a parliamentary democracy but how should they treat political rivals when they are on an upward arc? Ignore them? Snub them? Patronise them graciously?

None of these is a comfortable option. Not least because other foreign leaders and power brokers quite legitimately want to get to know someone who they anticipate could be taking over soon.

UK prime ministers behave no differently. Tony Blair made a point of meeting the conservative candidate Angela Merkel in the run-up to a German election, even though he was in Berlin on a final visit to the outgoing chancellor, and fellow social democrat, Gerhard Schroder.

More on Rishi Sunak

Sunak told MPs that he cancelled the invitation to the recently re-elected centre-right prime minister of a friendly European power “when it was clear that the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss substantive issues but rather to grandstand” about the Parthenon Marbles, sold to the British Museum by Lord Elgin.

The official-looking meeting

Far from impressing his audience, Sunak handed the Leader of the Opposition a grandstand opportunity to whack him with a severe PMQs spanking and to advertise his own credentials as a PMiW. Few would have noticed Starmer’s talks without the row.

Starmer wasted no time retorting that he had met “a fellow NATO member, an economic ally and one of our most important partners in tackling illegal immigration” and that “I discussed the economy, security and immigration with the Greek prime minister. I also told him we would not change the law regarding the marbles – it is not that difficult”.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) meets Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis in London. Picture date: Monday November 27, 2023.
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Sir Keir Starmer meets Kyriakos Mitsotakis

By agreement, Starmer’s meeting with Mitsotakis was an official-looking affair – complete with pool camera pictures. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, and other officials joined them around a conference table.

Trying to look like a prime minister has meant Starmer frequently falls in line with government plans to avoid controversy. With the scent of power in the air, and the Corbynistas largely sidelined, Labour MPs are going along with this in public. By contrast the Conservatives seldom miss an opportunity to disagree among themselves.

A previous Labour PMiW, sitting on a similar poll lead, might find the situation familiar. Tony Blair notes in his memoirs: “[John] Major decided on a long campaign… the hope was I would trip up, I would suddenly lose my head, or by some trick of fate or fortune the mood of the public would change… instead and rather more predictably the Tories fell apart.

“Every time Major tried to get them on the front foot, someone in his ranks resigned, said something stupid or got caught in a scandal.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak talks to former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair win the sidelines of the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai. Picture date: Friday December 1, 2023.
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Rishi Sunak talking to former PM Tony Blair at the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai

Leaders in office are well aware they are conferring status when they meet PMiWs.

In the run-up to the 1987 General Election, Neil Kinnock secured an audience with President Reagan, coinciding with Margaret Thatcher’s high-profile trip to Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow.

Point one on the confidential State Department memo to the president spelt it out: “WHAT DOES KINNOCK WANT? * To meet with the President as Leader of the British Opposition and potential prime minister to demonstrate that he is a serious figure in international affairs.”

Not surprisingly, given Reagan’s fondness for Thatcher, that encounter did not go well – Labour felt slighted by White House briefings afterwards and retaliated by claiming Reagan was not on the ball.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had a close political relationship
Image:
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had a close political relationship. Pic: AP

Presidents are also heads of state, which means they can rise above party politics when it suits them.

US presidents usually hold at least one meeting with British opposition leaders.

Party allegiances, between Conservatives and Republicans on the right or Labour and Democrats on the left, do not matter much.

Shortly after taking office in 2009, Barack Obama insisted on a half-hour meeting with David Cameron, then leader of the opposition, at the US ambassador’s residence, Winfield House.

Both sides fielded top teams of officials, including Tim Geithner, US treasury secretary and Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state.

Read more:
Elgin Marbles row intensifies as Greece denies promising not to raise issue
UK officials eye legally blocking Elgin Marbles return as Greek PM complains

The British monarch, Queen or King, may also facilitate contacts because opposition leaders are invited to state occasions.

Ever the iconoclast, on his state visit in 2019 Trump claimed he had turned down a request from then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: “He wanted to meet today. I said no. He is somewhat of a negative force.”

Rachel Reeves and David Lammy have been on official trips to Washington DC, but Starmer has not yet had a formal meeting with Joe Biden even though this president has been to the UK five times, though never on a state visit.

Perhaps this is just as well given the polarisation of US politics with an election year approaching in both countries. For now, Sunak or Starmer are transparently eager not to be seen anywhere near Donald Trump.

Opposition ‘left out’

Number 10 and the Foreign Office are certainly not making it easy for Labour.

Rishi Sunak during PMQS
Image:
Rishi Sunak during PMQS

Reportedly, the prime minister has not yet given the green light to the civil service to begin the briefings for the opposition, which are normal courtesy in the run-up to an election.

There was no invitation to a Labour minister to join in the recent international talks on AI security at Bletchley Park.

This week, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch posted on X from the government’s investor conference: “It was sad to hear from some investors yesterday that they’d move their HQs out of UK if Labour win.

“They tell me Labour relentlessly talk down the economy. Labour are like one of those candidates on The Apprentice who get fired early on. All talk no substance.”

She did not respond to challenges to name any such investors.

In the business community, a different rumour has been circulating; that attendees were quietly warned their invitations to the Hampton Court junket would be withdrawn if they committed prominently to one of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ over-subscribed events.

Labour says the chancellor pressured “a load of businesses” not to sign up to their “British Infrastructure Council”.

This autumn, French President Emmanuel Macron invited Starmer and colleagues to the Elysee for talks.

Rishi Sunak is Britain’s only Brexiteer prime minister by life-long conviction.

He is super sensitive about relations with Europe and turned down an EU invitation to hold regular EU-UK ministerial summits.

Barbs at PMQs

During PMQs he chided Starmer, with no justification beyond the Greek meeting, that “no one will be surprised that he is backing an EU country over Britain”.

Keir Starmer during PMQS
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Keir Starmer during PMQS

Starmer stuttered back that the PM was digging himself into a deeper hole: “Let me get this straight: the prime minister is now saying that meeting the prime minister of Greece is somehow supporting the EU, instead of discussing serious issues”.

If the prime minister was trying to energise a group of voters, the pickings may be slim. Well over 60% now tell pollsters that Brexit has not gone well and would like better relations with the EU.

Is it important for a PMiW to mix with current leaders on equal terms? It is surely good preparation if they end up getting the job. For some voters, it will be reassuring that a new leader might already count for something in international negotiations.

Sunak and Starmer both attended the COP28 climate summit in the UAE this weekend, where the King made a speech.

The PM dashed in for less than 24 hours. Starmer stayed three days until Sunday – to fulfil requests for meetings from a number of heads of state and government, according to his staff.

Neither the Elgin Marbles nor, frankly, Greece, are at the top of the diplomatic agenda. The UK government and opposition agree they are not going to change the law so the sculptures can be handed over.

Read more:
How did the Elgin Marbles end up in the British Museum?
Ex-culture secretary: PM did not need to be ‘front and centre’ of row

The difference is that Sunak has made a diplomatic incident of it and, unlike Starmer, he has also obstructed the attempts to broker a compromise by a former Conservative colleague George Osborne, who is now chairman of the British Museum.

Perhaps the most painful swipe at PMQs for the prime minister came when Starmer risked a question, with the merest hint of a sizeist jibe at Sunak’s diminutive stature: “Why such small politics, prime minister?”

Or was it more humiliating when the Speaker rose to quell rowdies drowning out the PM’s peroration that “the British people aren’t listening” – to Starmer, he meant?

Whether they are listening now or not, come the general election the wait will be over for Sunak and Starmer. It will be up to the British people to choose who they think looks like the next PM.

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One year of Starmer: Nine charts that tell us whether Labour’s first year has been a success or failure

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One year of Starmer: Nine charts that tell us whether Labour's first year has been a success or failure

It might feel like it’s been even longer for the prime minister at the moment, but it’s been a whole year since Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won a historic landslide, emphatically defeating Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives and securing a 174-seat majority.

Over that time, Sir Keir and his party have regularly reset or restated their list of milestones, missions, targets and pledges – things they say they will achieve while in power (so long as they can get all their policies past their own MPs).

We’ve had a look at the ones they have repeated most consistently, and how they are going so far.

Overall, it amounts to what appears to be some success on economic metrics, but limited progress at best towards many of their key policy objectives.

From healthcare to housebuilding, from crime to clean power, and from small boats to squeezed budgets, here are nine charts that show the country’s performance before and after Labour came to power, and how close the government are to achieving their goals.

Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street.
Pic Reuters
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Sir Keir Starmer has been in office for a year. Pic Reuters

Cost of living

On paper, the target that Labour have set themselves on improving living standards is by quite a distance the easiest to achieve of anything they have spoken about.

They have not set a specific number to aim for, and every previous parliament on record has overseen an increase in real terms disposable income.

The closest it got to not happening was the last parliament, though. From December 2019 to June 2024, disposable income per quarter rose by just £24, thanks in part to the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

By way of comparison, there was a rise of almost £600 per quarter during the five years following Thatcher’s final election victory in 1987, and over £500 between Blair’s 1997 victory and his 2001 re-election.

After the first six months of the latest government, it had risen by £144, the fastest start of any government going back to at least 1954. As of March, it had fallen to £81, but that still leaves them second at this stage, behind only Thatcher’s third term.

VERDICT: Going well, but should have been more ambitious with their target

Get inflation back to 2%

So, we have got more money to play with. But it might not always feel like that, as average prices are still rising at a historically high rate.

Inflation fell consistently during the last year and a half of Rishi Sunak’s premiership, dropping from a peak of 11.1% in October 2022 to exactly 2% – the Bank of England target – in June 2024.

It continued to fall in Labour’s first couple of months, but has steadily climbed back up since then and reached 3.4% in May.

When we include housing costs as well, prices are up by 4% in the last year. Average wages are currently rising by just over 5%, so that explains the overall improvement in living standards that we mentioned earlier.

But there are signs that the labour market is beginning to slow following the introduction of higher national insurance rates for employers in April.

If inflation remains high and wages begin to stagnate, we will see a quick reversal to the good start the government have made on disposable income.

VERDICT: Something to keep an eye on – there could be a bigger price to pay in years to come

‘Smash the gangs’

One of Starmer’s most memorable promises during the election campaign was that he would “smash the gangs”, and drastically reduce the number of people crossing the Channel to illegally enter the country.

More than 40,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats in the 12 months since Labour came to power, a rise of over 12,000 (40%) compared with the previous year.

Labour have said that better weather in the first half of this year has contributed to more favourable conditions for smugglers, but our research shows crossings have also risen on days when the weather is not so good.

VERDICT: As it stands, it looks like “the gangs” are smashing the government

Reduce NHS waits

One of Labour’s more ambitious targets, and one in which they will be relying on big improvements in years to come to achieve.

Starmer says that no more than 8% of people will wait longer than 18 weeks for NHS treatment by the time of the next election.

When they took over, it was more than five times higher than that. And it still is now, falling very slightly from 41.1% to 40.3% over the 10 months that we have data for.

So not much movement yet. Independent modelling by the Health Foundation suggests that reaching the target is “still feasible”, though they say it will demand “focus, resource, productivity improvements and a bit of luck”.

VERDICT: Early days, but current treatment isn’t curing the ailment fast enough

Halve violent crime

It’s a similar story with policing. Labour aim to achieve their goal of halving serious violent crime within 10 years by recruiting an extra 13,000 officers, PCSOs and special constables.

Recruitment is still very much ongoing, but workforce numbers have only been published up until the end of September, so we can’t tell what progress has been made on that as yet.

We do have numbers, however, on the number of violent crimes recorded by the police in the first six months of Labour’s premiership. There were a total of 1.1m, down by 14,665 on the same period last year, a decrease of just over 1%.

That’s not nearly enough to reach a halving within the decade, but Labour will hope that the reduction will accelerate once their new officers are in place.

VERDICT: Not time for flashing lights just yet, but progress is more “foot patrol” than “high-speed chase” so far

Build 1.5m new homes

One of Labour’s most ambitious policies was the pledge that they would build a total of 1.5m new homes in England during this parliament.

There has not yet been any new official data published on new houses since Labour came to power, but we can use alternative figures to give us a sense of how it’s going so far.

A new Energy Performance Certificate is granted each time a new home is built – so tends to closely match the official house-building figures – and we have data up to March for those.

Those numbers suggest that there have actually been fewer new properties added recently than in any year since 2015-16.

Labour still have four years to deliver on this pledge, but each year they are behind means they need to up the rate more in future years.

If the 200,000 new EPCs in the year to March 2025 matches the number of new homes they have delivered in their first year, Labour will need to add an average of 325,000 per year for the rest of their time in power to achieve their goal.

VERDICT: Struggling to lay solid foundations

Clean power by 2030

Another of the more ambitious pledges, Labour’s aim is for the UK to produce 95% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

They started strong. The ban on new onshore wind turbines was lifted within their first few days of government, and they delivered support for 131 new renewable energy projects in the most recent funding round in September.

But – understandably – it takes time for those new wind farms, solar farms and tidal plants to be built and start contributing to the grid.

In the year leading up to Starmer’s election as leader, 54% of the energy on the UK grid had been produced by renewable sources in the UK.

That has risen very slightly in the year since then, to 55%, with a rise in solar and biomass offsetting a slight fall in wind generation.

The start of this year has been unusually lacking in wind, and this analysis does not take variations in weather into account. The government target will adjust for that, but they are yet to define exactly how.

VERDICT: Not all up in smoke, but consistent effort is required before it’s all sunshine and windmills

Fastest economic growth in the G7

Labour’s plan to pay for the improvements they want to make in all the public services we have talked about above can be summarised in one word: “growth”.

The aim is for the UK’s GDP – the financial value of all the goods and services produced in the country – to grow faster than any other in the G7 group of advanced economies.

Since Labour have been in power, the economy has grown faster than European rivals Italy, France and Germany, as well as Japan, but has lagged behind the US and Canada.

The UK did grow fastest in the most recent quarter we have data for, however, from the start of the year to the end of March.

VERDICT: Good to be ahead of other similar European economies, but still a way to go to overtake the North Americans

No tax rises

Without economic growth, it will be difficult to keep to one of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ biggest promises – that there will be no more tax rises or borrowing for the duration of her government’s term.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said last month that she is a “gnat’s whisker” away from being forced to do that at the autumn budget, looking at the state of the economy at the moment.

That whisker will have been shaved even closer by the cost implications of the government’s failure to get its full welfare reform bill through parliament earlier this week.

And income tax thresholds are currently frozen until April 2028, meaning there is already a “stealth” hike scheduled for all of us every year.

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One year of Keir: A review of Starmer’s first 12 months in office

But the news from the last financial year was slightly better than expected. Total tax receipts for the year ending March 2025 were 35% of GDP.

That’s lower than the previous four years, and what was projected after Jeremy Hunt’s final Conservative budget, but higher than any of the 50 years before that.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) still projects it to rise in future years though, to a higher level than the post-WWII peak of 37.2%.

The OBR – a non-departmental public body that provides independent analysis of the public finances – has also said in the past few days that it is re-examining its methodology, because it has been too optimistic with its forecasts in the past.

If the OBR’s review leads to a more negative view of where the economy is going, Rachel Reeves could be forced to break her promise to keep the budget deficit from spiralling out of control.

VERDICT: It’s going to be difficult for the Chancellor to keep to her promise

OVERALL VERDICT: Investment and attention towards things like violent crime, the NHS and clean energy are yet to start bearing fruit, with only minuscule shifts in the right direction for each, but the government is confident that what’s happened so far is part of its plans.

Labour always said that the house-building target would be achieved with a big surge towards the back end of their term, but they won’t be encouraged by the numbers actually dropping in their first few months.

Where they are failing most dramatically, however, appears to be in reducing the number of migrants making the dangerous Channel crossing on small boats.

The economic news, particularly that rise in disposable income, looks more healthy at the moment. But with inflation still high and growth lagging behind some of our G7 rivals, that could soon start to turn.


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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Sweden’s justice minister says to ‘turn up the pressure’ on crypto seizures

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Sweden’s justice minister says to ‘turn up the pressure’ on crypto seizures

Sweden’s justice minister says to ‘turn up the pressure’ on crypto seizures

Gunnar Strömmer reportedly said that Swedish authorities had confiscated more than $8.3 million worth of criminal profits since a law related to seizures was passed in 2024.

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US Senator Lummis’s crypto tax relief plan fuels DeFi momentum: Finance Redefined

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US Senator Lummis’s crypto tax relief plan fuels DeFi momentum: Finance Redefined

US Senator Lummis’s crypto tax relief plan fuels DeFi momentum: Finance Redefined

Increasing US regulatory clarity is enabling more traditional finance participants to seek out decentralized financial solutions.

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