Five questions leaders could face in tonight’s Sky News event – and what the data really says
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will be interrogated by Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby and members of the public tonight.
During The Battle For Number 10, they will talk and be questioned at length about their ambitions, so viewers can understand in detail what their plans are.
Mr Sunak is somewhat on the back foot as he has to defend his party’s 14 years in government, while Labour is yet to publish its manifesto, making it harder to get to the bottom of some of its plans.
But here Sky News picks apart some of the claims – and counterclaims – each is likely to make.
Cost of living
Labour likes to claim families have become £5,883 worse off in total over the last five years.
But fact-checking organisation Full Fact pointed out the figure doesn’t take into account a broad enough basket of goods, or changes in wages or benefits over the same time.
Factoring these in, the decrease in real disposable income is more like £166, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has found.
Meanwhile the Tories claim Labour would leave families £2,000 out of pocket. But the calculations behind it are based on assumptions, as Labour has not yet published its manifesto, and the Tories assume Labour’s plans would be funded by taxes rather than possible borrowing.
Mr Sunak defends his record on the basis of the COVID furlough scheme – which he oversaw as chancellor – and the fact inflation has finally fallen to 2.3%, down from a 42-year record high of 11.1% in October 2022.
But external factors worked in the PM’s favour.
The worst price shocks from the war in Ukraine (namely on fuel and food) eased regardless of government policies.
However, falling inflation does not mean falling prices, and any amount of inflation still means prices are rising on top of already higher costs.
Wage growth has now overtaken inflation – but there’s still a gap between how much prices have increased vs wages in the long run, according to ONS data.
This, combined with stubbornly high interest rates which increase the cost of mortgage rates and other loans, explains why people are still feeling the pinch.
NHS
The waiting list for NHS England peaked at 7.8 million last August – and has since inched down to 7.5 million.
But as other parties love to point out, it is still 300,000 appointments higher than the 7.2 million in January 2023, when Mr Sunak originally pledged to cut it.
Labour says it would get waiting times back down to a maximum of four months – as per the NHS target – by the end of their first term.
They’d do this by adding “40,000 extra appointments and operations every week”, including more on evenings and weekends, and buying more equipment.
Sky News analysis has shown that these measures alone may do little to bridge the gap, however.
It takes five additional NHS appointments to remove one treatment pathway from the waiting list, according to thinktank The Heath Foundation.
With this conversion rate, Labour’s 40,000 additional appointments equates to 8,000 removed from the waiting list, shown in the bar in orange in the chart above – still falling far short of tackling demand.
Migration
Both leaders are keen to position themselves as tough on migration, saying that the record levels of net migration since Brexit in 2016 – reaching 685,000 last year – are too high.
Mr Sunak claims his plans, which include the controversial Rwanda deportation policy and an unspecified cap on net migration numbers, are the answer.
But, as Sky News analysis has already shown, caps have failed in the past.
Former prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May both vowed to cap net migration in the “tens of thousands”. Both failed.
Meanwhile, the Rwanda policy addresses only a tiny fraction of overall numbers, despite its hefty price tag.
It is already set to cost £370m before any removals take place, according to government spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO), and could reach an estimated £661m.
It is designed to deter small boats crossings, but these make up only a fraction of asylum claims, and asylum seekers accounted for only 81,000 migrants last year, compared with 432,000 workers and 379,000 students.
Labour have confirmed they will scrap the scheme “straight away”, while the Conservatives have a poor track record of implementing the scheme, so it remains to be seen what the final bill will be.
Nearly two thirds (64%) of 229,000 workers visas granted in 2023 were for healthcare roles like nurses and care workers.
The Tories say their Albania deal shows that deterrence works, with numbers down 90%.
Labour has pledged to “reform resettlement routes to stop people being exploited by gangs”.
Climate and net zero
A key dividing line is whether to pump more oil and gas from the North Sea.
Mr Sunak wants to “max out” what’s left. Labour says it would stop issuing licences for new projects.
But even though it opposes them, if elected Labour would not actually revoke those handed out by the Tories – which environmentalists have criticised.
The Conservative manifesto says more extraction would “provide energy to homes and businesses across the country”.
But it’s somewhat of a storm in a teacup, because there isn’t much oil or gas left in the North Sea anyway.
The red and blue lines in the chart above show how much – or little – extra the UK might get from new licences – so the decision is more symbolic.
The Tories say they will back renewables, but haven’t really lifted an effective ban on onshore wind farms as promised. Labour wants to double onshore wind power to 35GW by 2030.
Labour’s plans to plug the wells in the North Sea are already putting off some oil majors from turning on the taps at existing projects – and could kill off thousands of jobs, the industry lobby group Offshore Energies UK says.
In reality the parties are more aligned than some of their members would have us believe.
Both back some form of windfall tax until 2029, want to decarbonise most or all electricity by 2030, plan to drive up EVs and want to ramp up solar and offshore wind.
D-Day gaffe
It seems no one in Sunak’s team thought an early departure from D-Day commemorations in Normandy would matter.
But oh how it did, drawing criticism from his own party, as well as Labour, and the general public alike.
The polls have not been kind either.
A snap YouGov survey showed two thirds (65%) of those surveyed found the behaviour to be completely or somewhat unacceptable. This rose to three quarters (75%) among the 65+ age group.
This was a gift to Labour, and something Starmer will likely want to capitalise on during tonight’s debate.
The Battle For Number 10 Leaders Special Event, Wednesday 12 June 7pm-10pm on Sky News – free wherever you get your news.
Freeview channel 233, Sky 501, Virgin 603, BT 313 and streaming on the Sky News website, app and across social channels. It is also available to watch on Sky Showcase.
Opinion by: Billy Campana, contract developer, Api3
Speculation is a cornerstone of price discovery for traditional finance institutions like hedge funds and major banks and plays an essential role in their day-to-day operations. It is the mechanism by which they can establish reliable valuations for everything, ranging from simple stocks and bonds to complex derivatives and structured products.
While decentralized finance (DeFi) is often criticized for its speculative “casino” nature, this is, in reality, one of its strengths: making practices like arbitrage more accessible to everyone and empowering individuals to participate in opportunities once out of reach
DeFi’s volatility
Critics have highlighted DeFi’s extreme volatility, a concern exemplified by Ether’s (ETH) recent 15% price drop that triggered over $100 million in long position liquidations. These dramatic market movements continually test market resilience and investor confidence in the ecosystem.
The accusations that DeFi platforms function essentially as gambling venues persist throughout the industry. Such criticisms have gained further traction following several high-profile memecoin crashes that collectively erased over $46 billion in market value, revealing the systemic vulnerabilities that speculative activities can introduce to the broader ecosystem.
Additionally, the recent Bybit hack spotlighted the major security concerns, exposing critical vulnerabilities within DeFi infrastructure and triggering intense scrutiny of the sector’s security protocols. These systemic risks have only escalated institutional skepticism, resulting in increasingly vocal calls for greater transparency and comprehensive regulatory oversight.
Simultaneously, the media narrative surrounding DeFi remains overwhelmingly focused on its spectacular failures, growing institutional skepticism and persistent market instability. This one-sided portrayal continues challenging DeFi’s credibility as a serious financial ecosystem capable of responsible innovation.
Evening the playing field
Critics consistently miss that DeFi democratizes the same speculative mechanisms that traditional finance has always employed for price discovery. The fundamental difference is that Wall Street gatekeepers no longer control who benefits from these opportunities.
While traditional finance has historically restricted arbitrage opportunities to institutional players with privileged access, DeFi effectively removes these gatekeepers, allowing anyone with an internet connection to participate in the price discovery process that hedge funds and banks have monopolized for decades.
Smart contracts have revolutionized financial operations that once required privileged access and teams of highly paid professionals. Smart contracts effectively break down the artificial barriers that have systematically kept ordinary people out of sophisticated markets.
Recent: Bitwise makes first institutional DeFi allocation
Leading financial institutions increasingly recognize this paradigm shift, with established businesses progressively adopting DeFi mechanisms to automate transactions and enhance operational efficiency. Institutional adoption validates speculation as a legitimate financial practice rather than dismissing it as mere gambling.
An arbitrage utopia
This unprecedented democratization manifests concretely in decentralized lending platforms that enable automated market makers (AMMs), enabling anyone to provide liquidity and earn fees previously reserved exclusively for institutional market makers with significant capital reserves.
With unprecedented data transparency across blockchain networks, even uncollateralized crypto loans can enable capital-efficient arbitrage opportunities spanning multiple blockchain ecosystems without requiring the millions in upfront collateral that traditional finance demands from participants.
As institutional involvement continues to grow and regulatory frameworks gradually mature, these speculative mechanisms steadily evolve toward the same legitimacy traditional finance instruments enjoy. This evolution reveals that speculation itself was never the problem — the exclusionary access to its benefits was.
The practical execution of this democratized speculation includes cross-exchange arbitrage through DeFi aggregators, crosschain bridges that naturally equalize asset prices across different blockchains and automated liquidation mechanisms that maintain system solvency.
All these components serve the same fundamental purpose as traditional financial instruments but with radically expanded access for participants worldwide.
As institutional investors and traditional financial markets return their gaze to the industry, with increased involvement from regulatory bodies and political figures in the US, DeFi must remember its core value proposition.
The actual value of DeFi is not in recreating the current structures that allow the powerful to benefit from methods that regular people don’t have access to but in making these opaque systems transparent and open to everyone.
Rather than apologizing for speculation, the industry should embrace and refine it as its revolutionary tool — one that brings financial opportunities to billions systematically excluded from traditional markets.
Innovation in DeFi isn’t just technological; it is also social, creating a financial system where opportunity isn’t determined by privilege but by insight, creativity and willingness to participate. The future belongs not to those who can eliminate speculation but to those who can make it fair, transparent and accessible to all.
Opinion by: Billy Campana, contract developer, Api3
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Politics
MPs to debate emergency legislation to keep British Steel open as ‘security is on the line’
Sir Keir Starmer has said the government will debate emergency legislation on Saturday to keep the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe open as “our economic and national security is on the line”.
The prime minister added that “the future of British Steel hangs in the balance” and that legislation will be passed tomorrow to allow the government to “take control of the plant and preserve all viable options” for it.
MPs are being summoned back from Easter recess to Westminster to debate draft legislation on the plans, and will sit from 11am on Saturday.
The government had been actively considering nationalising British Steel after Jingye, its Chinese owner in Scunthorpe, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the last blast furnaces in the UK running.
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Jingye also rejected a £500m state rescue package in a move which raised fresh doubts about the 3,500 people employed at the Lincolnshire plant – with it feared the site would be forced to close as early as next week.
The steel from the plant is used in the rail network and the construction and automotive industries. Without the plant, Britain would be reliant on imports at a time of trade wars and geopolitical instability.
In a short statement delivered from Downing Street this evening, Sir Keir said: “I will always act in the national interest to protect British jobs and British workers.
“This afternoon, the future of British Steel hangs in the balance.
“Jobs, investment, growth, our economic and national security are all on the line.”
One of the two blast furnaces at British Steel’s Scunthorpe operation
‘A new era of global instability’
The prime minister added that he has been to the site in Scunthorpe and met the steelworkers there.
He said that he understands how “important steel is” to the “whole country” and continued: “It’s part of our national story, Part of the pride and heritage of this nation.
“And I’ll tell you this, it is essential for our future.
“(The government’s) plan for change means we need more steel, not less. So we will act with urgency… This situation and our response is unique.
“While it is true that we’re facing a new era of global instability, our concerns about this plant and negotiations to protect it have been running for years.”
Sir Keir said parliament will be recalled for a “Saturday sitting” and will “pass emergency legislation” in “one day” to give the business secretary the powers to do “everything possible to stop the closure of these blast furnaces”.
He added: “We will keep all options on the table. Our future is in our hands.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves posted on X after the statement that the government is “taking action to save British steel production and protect British jobs”.
“We are securing Britain’s future,” she added.
The Lords will also return to parliament for a rare Saturday sitting tomorrow.
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Inside the UK’s last blast furnaces
Tory leader criticises Starmer
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said this evening that the Chinese owner of British steel has left the government with “no choice” but to act.
Jingye had confirmed plans to close the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe immediately despite months of talks and the offer of £500m of co-investment from the UK government, Mr Reynolds added in a statement.
It came as Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the government has landed itself in a “steel crisis entirely of their own making”.
“As business secretary, I negotiated a modernisation plan with British Steel to limit job losses and keep the plant running, including introducing an electric arc furnace in Teesside, similar to what we did with Tata at Port Talbot steelworks.
“However, the union-led Labour government have bungled the negotiations, insisting on a Scunthorpe-only deal that the company has deemed unviable. Keir Starmer should have seen this coming. But instead of addressing it earlier in the week when parliament was sitting, their incompetence has led to a last-minute recall of parliament.”
She added the government’s attempts to find a solution to the crisis are inevitably “going to cost taxpayers a lot of money”.
British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant.
Pic Reuters
Meanwhile the Unite union welcomed Sir Keir’s announcement by saying it is “absolutely the right things to do to begin the process of nationalisation”.
The government has not confirmed plans to nationalise the company, but like the prime minister this evening, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said earlier this week that “all options” are on the table.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said this evening: “I am pleased that the government has listened to representations by Unite and other steel unions over the future of British Steel.
“Ministers could not have allowed a foundation industry to go under with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs and key skills… Discussions have been positive and whilst a longer-term plan needs to be developed, this gives workers the reprieve we have been asking for.”
‘When it was Wales, they mocked’
The government’s intervention over British Steel comes six months after the last blast furnace was closed at Port Talbot in Wales.
Welsh political party Plaid Cymru has questioned why the government didn’t take similiar action to save that steelworks.
The party’s Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts MP said: “Parliament is being recalled tomorrow to debate the nationalisation of Scunthorpe steelworks.
“But when global market forces devastated Welsh livelihoods in Port Talbot, Labour dismissed Plaid Cymru’s calls for nationalisation as ‘pipe dreams’.
“In a real emergency, governments step up to defend their strategic interests. Plaid Cymru recognised the importance of Welsh steelmaking. Labour chose to look the other way.
“When it was Wales, they mocked. Now it’s England, they act.
“Labour has taken Wales for granted for far too long – and the people of Wales won’t forget it.”
Politics
Defence secretary warns this is ‘the critical year’ for Ukraine – as £450m in funding allocated
The defence secretary has said that 2025 is “the critical year” for Ukraine as he confirmed £450m in funding for a military support package.
The funding includes £350m from this year’s previously announced pot of £4.5bn in financial support, while the rest of the cash is being provided by Norway via the UK-led International Fund for Ukraine.
The money will fund repairs to and maintenance of UK-provided materials and equipment already given to Ukraine, as well as radar systems, anti-tank mines and hundreds of thousands of drones.
Follow the latest on the war in Ukraine here
It was announced on Friday by Defence Secretary John Healey, who is in Brussels chairing a meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group alongside his German counterpart Boris Pistorius.
The group is an alliance of about 50 countries – all 32 NATO member states, including the US, and about 20 other nations – that has been supporting Ukraine by sending military equipment there since April 2022, a few weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
John Healey and Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius take part in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting
Speaking at the start of the meeting, Mr Healey warned: “2025 is the critical year for the war in Ukraine, and this is the critical moment.
“A moment for our defence industries to step up, and they are; a moment for our militaries to step up, and they are; a moment for our governments to step up, and they are.
“Together, we are sending a signal to Russia and we are saying to Ukraine that we stand with you in the fight and we will stand with you in the peace.”
At a news conference following the talks, Mr Healey told journalists that Ukraine’s allies have agreed to provide a “record boost” €21bn (£18.2bn) in total of military support for Kyiv.
The German defence minister confirmed that US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, attended virtually, while special envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Moscow, which Mr Pistorius insisted was not a matter of “priorities”, but of “schedules”.
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Healey announces funding for Ukraine
‘Coalition of the willing’ planning continues
The meeting comes one day after the UK defence secretary and his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu led 30 defence ministers from the “coalition of the willing” in Brussels.
The group, which does not include the US, discussed operational plans on Thursday afternoon for a multinational peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
Rustem Umerov, Tony Radakin, John Healey and Sebastien Lecornu during the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Brussels.
Pic: Reuters
It looked at each nation’s capabilities and how they could be best used to support Ukraine’s long-term defence and security as part of what the Ministry of Defence called a “reassurance force”.
UK and French military chiefs discussed planning with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his military chiefs in Kyiv last weekend.
Peace negotiations are ongoing between the US and Russia, however, US officials appear to be growing increasingly impatient with the lack of progress after Donald Trump publicly suggested a month ago that Vladimir Putin wants to end the war.
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Children killed in Russian missile strike
Last Tuesday, the Kremlin described the latest US peace proposal as unacceptable in its current form because it does not solve the “root causes” of the conflict.
Read more:
Two Chinese citizens ‘fighting for Russia’ captured in Ukraine
Zelenskyy makes dig at US over response to Russian attack
Mr Putin wants to dismantle Ukraine as an independent, functioning state and has demanded Kyiv recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and other partly occupied areas and pull its forces out, as well as a pledge for Ukraine to never join NATO and to demilitarise.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday that Mr Trump is not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Moscow.
Despite the apparent impasse in talks, the coalition of the willing is continuing with its plans for when peace is agreed.
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