Rishi Sunak will feel ‘reset week’ was job well done – but a horrible reality check awaits

Published

1 year ago

April 26, 2024

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Call it the Rishi Sunak reset week or, to borrow from The Spectator’s Katy Balls, the shore-up Sunak week – the prime minister will be going into this weekend feeling the past few days have been a job well done.

He has got his flagship Rwanda bill through parliament and is promising a “regular rhythm” of flights will be getting off the ground from July.

He has also got off the ground himself, with a dash to Poland and then Germany, in a show of strength with European allies in the face of Russian aggression.

As the US finally approved a $61bn military aid package for Ukraine, our prime minister announced he’d lift the UK’s defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030.

That would amount to £87bn a year by the start of the 2030s, with the UK spending a cumulative extra £75bn on the military over the next six years.

That of course all hinges on winning an election, which I’ll come to soon, but it is a commitment that throws a challenge to Labour and will delight those in his party who have been calling for increased defence spending for months in the face of growing global threats from Russia, China and Iran.

? Listen above then tap here to follow Electoral Dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts ?

In Electoral Dysfunction this week, we discuss whether Rishi Sunak, having been battered for much of his premiership, is finally having a week on top?

There is after all a longstanding tradition in this country that when the chips are down, you jump on a plane to try to go somewhere where you’re more appreciated.

And Ruth agrees this week that this has been “one of the better weeks that he’s had in his premiership” and is fully behind his defence spending pledge, while Jess points out that Labour is committed to the “exact same plan for upping defence spending”.

The difference between the two parties is that Rishi Sunak set out in some detail how he plans to get to that point over the course of the next parliament, while Sir Keir Starmer has said only he wants to get to 2.5% “when resources allow”.

And that matters because, as it stands, it’s very likely that it will be Sir Keir who is having to decide whether to increase defence spending levels in the next parliament rather than the incumbent.

Cue an election debate on which leader really cares more about defence and, if Sir Keir really does want go toe-to-toe with Mr Sunak on the 2.5%, how does he pay for it?

That will be a discussion for many other days (Labour’s line on this is that the party will hit the 2.5% “when circumstances allow” rather than setting a firm date) as we head into the general election.

But I had to ask Ruth and Jess, why was he on a publicity blitz announcing it now? Was it something to do with the rather large matter of the local elections?

‘Sunak needs to look big’

At this, both furiously shook their heads and looked at me with a touch of derision. “When it comes to the local elections, I want my bins done, I want my schools to be good, and I want my potholes done. That’s what I care about,” says Ruth.

“The people in Birmingham Yardley speak of nothing else but the 2.5% defence spending,” jokes Jess.

“I see why [he’s doing it this week] but actually I don’t think he’s doing for just another example of doing it this week. He needs to look big in front of his party.”

And there are a couple of things to explore in that.

First, the party management issue of a PM very likely to get completely battered in the local elections throwing his party some red meat ahead of that slaughter to perhaps try to protect himself.

Because the local elections could be bad, very very bad. And that throws up questions about Rishi Sunak’s future and also the date of the next general election.

There is a reason why the prime minister will not be drawn on the timing of the election beyond the “second half of the year”.

While it’s true he doesn’t want to have to “indulge in a guessing game”, as one of his allies put it to me, it’s also true that he can’t rule out a summer election given the unpredictability of next week’s local elections and what could follow.

The Armageddon scenario of losing 500-plus seats, alongside the West Midlands and Teeside mayors, could propel his party into fever pitch panic and possibly trigger a vote of confidence in Rishi Sunak.

Does he then decide to call a general election instead of allowing his party to try to force him out?

‘A man enjoying himself’

For what it’s worth, he did not appear, in any way to me, as a prime minister on that plane over to Berlin from Warsaw, who wanted to give up the job. He seemed, for the first time in a long time, a man enjoying it and getting on with the stuff he wants to get done.

There is also the small matter of being 20 points behind in the polls. I suspect his instinct is very much to hold on in the hope that things begin to turn in his favour.

Because, despite what the critics say, he does seem a man who genuinely believes his Rwanda plan, welfare reforms, defence spending and economic management are all stepping stones on his path to perhaps winning back some support in the country.

“June [or July] is just party management,” says one former cabinet minister. “They are not ready for it and the polling doesn’t work obviously.”

Jess sees the flurry as a “his last ditch attempt” of another reset, and says “the Labour party is not worrying” as the PM tries to pin them on Rwanda or defence spending: “Whatever he goes on is absolutely pilloried within seconds,” she says.

But Ruth argues the defence spending was “actually authentic and a real thing”, and says of the expectations for the local elections that “it’s not just going to be a rout, but an apocalypse, that actually at this point in the cycle it works quite well for Sunak in terms of keeping his job at the back end”.

Observing his various grip and grins this week as I trailed after him meeting the Polish PM, the German chancellor and the NATO secretary general, he is a man that really does want to hold on to that job.

The local elections then are probably going to come as a horrible reality check in just a week’s time as this prime minister, riding high from his European tours, is reminded that his time in office looks like it will be coming to an end – and perhaps even sooner than he might have initially planned.

Politics

French crypto entrepreneurs to receive extra security amid recent kidnappings: Report

Published

4 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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French crypto entrepreneurs to receive extra security amid recent kidnappings: Report

Crypto entrepreneurs and their families in France will receive enhanced security measures amid a recent rise in crypto-related kidnappings in the country, Politico reported.

According to the May 16 report, the measures include priority access to police emergency lines, home security assessments, and safety briefings from French law enforcement to ensure best practices are being followed.

France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau introduced the security measures as part of a broader effort to counter the recent wave of attacks.

“These repeated kidnappings of professionals in the crypto sector will be fought with specific tools, both immediate and short-term, to prevent, dissuade and hinder in order to protect the industry.”

Law enforcement officers will also undergo “anti-crypto asset laundering training,” Retailleau noted.

Retailleau met with several local leaders from the crypto industry to discuss the measures following three crypto-related kidnapping incidents in recent months.

Two kidnappings and a failed attempt in France this year

The latest incident occurred on May 13, when assailants attempted to abduct the daughter and grandson of Pierre Noizat, CEO of the French crypto platform Paymium. Fortunately, they managed to fend off the attack, which occurred in broad daylight.

The assailants tried to force the pair into a waiting van, but Noizat’s daughter managed to take one of the guns off an assailant and throw it away, local police said.

En plein Paris, un homme a été violenté par des individus cagoulés, habillés tout en noir. Ils tentaient de l’enlever. Un homme a surgi, extincteur à la main, pour les faire fuir. →https://t.co/P0qV6PR40v pic.twitter.com/9f4r2Gi7ho

— Le Figaro (@Le_Figaro) May 13, 2025

On May 3, Paris police freed the father of a crypto entrepreneur who was held for several days in connection with a 7 million euros ($7.8 million) kidnapping plot.

In January, the co-founder of crypto hardware wallet provider Ledger, David Balland, was abducted from his home in central France during the early hours of Jan. 21. He was held captive until a police operation on the night of Jan. 22 secured his release.

Retailleau said earlier this week that he believes the incidents were likely connected.

There have been over 150 crypto-related robbery or kidnapping incidents since 2014, with 23 of those incidents occurring in 2025 alone, according to a GitHub database maintained by Bitcoin cypherpunk Jameson Lopp.

Lopp noted many of these criminals typically identify future victims through social media posts, public conversations, meetups, and conferences.

He strongly advises against peer-to-peer trades — particularly with people you don’t trust — flaunting wealth on social media and wearing crypto-branded clothing.

Magazine: Binance Wallet ‘killing’ MetaMask and airdrops, Chinese RWA tokens

Politics

Bitcoin breaks out while Coinbase breaks down: Finance Redefined

Published

8 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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Bitcoin breaks out while Coinbase breaks down: Finance Redefined

News broke on May 15 that Coinbase was the target of a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data for social engineering scams.

While less than 1% of Coinbase’s active monthly users were reportedly affected, the expected remediation and reimbursement expenses range from $180 million to $400 million, as the exchange pledged to repay all phishing attack victims.

Despite the attack on the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, investor sentiment remains optimistic, with the Fear & Greed Index remaining firmly in the “Greed” zone above 69, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Adding to investor optimism, Coinbase saw over $1 billion worth of Bitcoin withdrawn on May 9, marking the highest net outflow recorded in 2025 so far, triggering analyst predictions of a supply-shock driven Bitcoin rally.

Coinbase faces $400 million bill after insider phishing attack

Coinbase was hit by a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data, the company said on May 15.

Coinbase said a group of external actors bribed and coordinated with several customer support contractors to access internal systems and steal limited user account data.

“These insiders abused their access to customer support systems to steal the account data for a small subset of customers,” Coinbase said, adding that no passwords, private keys, funds or Coinbase Prime accounts were affected.

Less than 1% of Coinbase’s monthly transacting users’ data was affected by the attack, the company said.

After stealing the data, the attackers attempted to extort $20 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from Coinbase in exchange for not disclosing the breach. Coinbase refused the demand.

Instead, the company offered a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the scheme.

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$1 billion Bitcoin exits Coinbase in a day as analysts warn of supply shock

Institutional demand for Bitcoin is growing, as Coinbase, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, recorded its highest daily outflows of Bitcoin in 2025 on May 9.

On May 9, Coinbase saw 9,739 Bitcoin, worth more than $1 billion, withdrawn from the exchange, the highest net outflow recorded in 2025, according to Bitwise head of European research André Dragosch.

“Institutional appetite for Bitcoin is accelerating,” Dragosch added in a May 13 X post.

The outflow occurred as Bitcoin traded above $103,600 and just days after the White House announced a 90-day reduction in reciprocal tariffs between the US and China, easing market concerns and lifting broader investor sentiment.

The 90-day suspension of additional tariffs removed the risk of “sudden re-escalation,” which may help Bitcoin, altcoins and the wider stock market rally due to improved risk appetite, Nansen’s principal research analyst, Aurelie Barthere, told Cointelegraph.

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DeFi lender Aave reaches $40 billion in value locked onchain

Aave, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has reached a new record of funds onchain, according to data from DefiLlama.

In an X post, Aave said it topped $40.3 billion in total value locked (TVL) on May 12. Onchain data reveals that Aave v3, the latest version of the protocol, has about $40 billion in TVL.

Aave is a DeFi lending protocol that lets users borrow cryptocurrency by depositing other types of cryptocurrency as collateral. Meanwhile, lenders earn yield from borrowers.

“With these milestones, Aave is proving its dominance in the Lending Space,” DeFi analyst Jonaso said in a May 12 X post. TVL represents the total value of cryptocurrency deposited into a protocol’s smart contracts.

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SEC delays Solana ETF as decisions for Polkadot, XRP loom

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pushed back its decision on a proposed spot Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF), with the cryptocurrency industry now looking to the deadlines for the Polkadot and XRP-based ETFs in June.

The SEC delayed its decision on listing Grayscale’s spot Solana (SOL) Trust ETF on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to October 2025, according to a May 13 filing by the securities regulator.

The decision came the week after the SEC delayed its ruling on Canary Capital’s Litecoin (LTC) ETF, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart wrote in a May 5 X post.

Spot ETFs are key drivers of liquidity and institutional adoption for digital assets. For Bitcoin, the US spot Bitcoin ETFs accounted for an estimated 75% of new investment after launching, which helped BTC recapture the $50,000 mark in February 2024, a month after the ETFs debuted for trading.

While a Solana ETF may generate only a fraction of the inflows of Bitcoin ETFs, it could increase Solana’s institutional adoption in the long term by offering investors a “regulated investment vehicle” that may still attract billions of dollars in capital, Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, told Cointelegraph.

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Starknet hits “Stage 1” decentralization, tops ZK-rollups for value locked

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform Starknet has reached a decentralization milestone laid out by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and is now the largest zero-knowledge rollup-based network by total value locked.

Starknet said in a news release shared with Cointelegraph that it has hit “Stage 1” decentralization, according to a framework Buterin laid out in 2022, which means the network operates with limited oversight or “training wheels.”

Starknet added that the framework was the “gold standard onchain tool for analyzing Ethereum scaling solutions,” and said it achieved the milestone through changes such as creating a security council and censorship-avoidance mechanisms.

While the system still allows intervention from a security council, it has implemented a fully functional validity proof system governed by smart contracts.

Starknet is now the only layer-2 ZK-rollup network to have reached Stage 1 and has grown to be the largest ZK-rollup blockchain with a total value locked of $629 million, just ahead of ZKsync’s $610 million, according to L2beat.

Starknet is the fifth-largest layer-2 network by value locked, with the top four all Optimistic rollup-based, having reached Stage 1 decentralization using fraud proofs.

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DeFi market overview

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green.

Solana-based memecoin Dogwifhat (WIF) rose over 43% as the week’s biggest gainer, followed by decentralized exchange Raydium’s (RAY) token, up nearly 19% over the past week.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.

Politics

MPs criticise terminally ill Esther Rantzen’s assisted dying intervention

Published

8 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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MPs criticise terminally ill Esther Rantzen's assisted dying intervention

Terminally ill journalist Dame Esther Rantzen was branded “disrespectful” and “insulting” by MPs during a debate on the assisted dying bill.

The broadcaster and Childline founder wrote to all MPs ahead of Friday’s Commons’ debate urging them to vote for what she called a “crucial reform”.

MPs were voting on amendments made to the bill – the report stage – following months of a committee going line by line through it after being introduced last year by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

The bill says people with six months to live who have the mental capacity can request medical assistance to legally end their life.

Dame Esther, who has stage four lung cancer, suggested many MPs who opposed the bill have “undeclared personal religious beliefs which mean no precautions would satisfy them”.

However, in a highly charged Commons session, some MPs took umbrage with that.

Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, who is a Christian and voted against the bill the first time, told the Commons: “This is frankly insulting to disabled people, hard working professionals up and down the country, who have raised many valid concerns about this bill, to have it dismissed as religious beliefs.”

Jess Asato, a Labour MP who, as a child, cared for her grandmother with serious health problems, said Dame Esther “accused those of us who have concerns about the bills as having undeclared religious beliefs”.

“Many colleagues found this distasteful and disrespectful,” said the MP, who previously voted against the bill.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who voted against the bill last year, backed Ms Asato’s criticism as he retweeted her X post saying Dame Esther’s comment about faith was “particularly distasteful”.

Ms Asato’s Commons comment was met with agreement by many MPs who said: “Hear, hear.”

‘Clumsy criticism’

Conservative MP Dr Kieran Mullan said there had been some “unhelpful remarks by high profile campaigners”, and while he is not religious he was “concerned to see a clumsy criticism” that those objecting to the bill are doing so because of their “religious beliefs”.

In a dig at Dame Esther’s comments, Rebecca Paul, Tory MP for Reigate, said she is not against assisted dying “in principle” but is against the bill – and wanted to put on the record: “I have no personal religious beliefs.”

The debate saw some MPs on the verge of tears as they described their own experiences of having debilitating conditions, or having family members in pain.

MPs do not have to vote along party lines for the bill.

How did MPs vote?

An amendment tabled by Ms Leadbeater, which “expands the protection” for medical practitioners to clarify they have “no obligation” to be part of an assisted death was passed by MPs.

It also provides legal protections for medical professionals to ensure they are not subject to any kind of punishment for refusing to carry out an assisted death.

Another new clause to allow employers to impose a blanket ban on staff facilitating an assisted death was rejected.

Since the bill was first introduced, there have been significant changes, including the replacement of a High Court judge to sign assisted dying off by a three-member expert panel – on top of two doctors having to approve.

The time at which assisted dying would come into effect was doubled to four years from when it becomes law, if voted through.

Medical colleges pull support

Opponents have argued the bill does not have enough safeguards and is being rushed through.

Three days before the debate, the Royal College of Psychiatrists pulled its support for the bill over the change that will mean a psychiatrist must be on the panel that decides if someone can die.

The next day, the Royal College of Physicians (the largest college) adopted a similar position.

However, supporters argue it is time to change the law, with Ms Leadbeater saying: “If we do not vote to change the law, we are essentially saying that the status quo is acceptable.”