How do Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer’s numbers and pledges measure up?
At the Sky News leaders’ event, both Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak were challenged on their records in opposition and in office, as well as their plans for the future – and both at times struggled to explain away failures and omissions.
Sir Keir went first and found himself challenged over his previous support for Jeremy Corbyn, which the Conservatives see as an opportunity, given the efforts he has made to distance his Labour Party from the now-expelled former leader.
His campaign to replace Mr Corbyn in 2020 was also brought up by interviewer Beth Rigby, who said the Labour leader had ditched “six or seven” of the pledges he described at the time as “the moral case for socialism”.
A quick check of the scorecard shows Rigby was right.
Sir Keir’s promise to increase income tax for the top 5% of earners has been ditched, as has a promise to “support the abolition of tuition fees”, while a commitment to abolish Universal Credit has become “fundamental reform”.
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The promised ‘Green New Deal’ survives but has been dramatically scaled back from £28bn a year to £23bn over five. And a red pen has gone through nationalising “rail, mail, energy and water”.
Only railways will return to public ownership, with Sir Keir arguing that in the case of energy companies, the price of buying out shareholders was too high.
A significant indicator of what Sir Keir might do in the future was what he said – and importantly, did not say – on tax.
The Labour leader repeated his position that he would not “raise taxes for working people”, ruling out increasing income tax, national insurance and VAT. But under questioning, he repeatedly refused to rule out other potential tax rises, including capital gains tax (CGT).
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CGT is paid on capital gains, predominantly from the sale of assets, at rates between 10% and 28%. These rates are much lower than income tax, which starts at 20% and rises to 45% – meaning the asset-rich living off gains can pay less tax than a nurse.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts CGT will raise £15.2bn this year, rising to £23.5bn in 2028-29, but University of Warwick research has estimated equalising CGT rates with income tax could raise a further £16.9bn annually.
Sir Keir’s determination not to commit suggests a CGT raise remains firmly on the table when, and if, Rachel Reeves writes her first budget.
If it is introduced, she would not be the first new chancellor of the exchequer to raise taxes immediately after an election.
Resolution Foundation research shows, since 1992, every chancellor but one has raised taxes in their first two fiscal events after polling day by an average of £21bn.
Has Rishi Sunak delivered on his pledges?
If the challenge for Sir Keir is what he might do in office, the problem for Mr Sunak is what he has done.
Being prime minister of a party that’s been in power for 14 years leaves nowhere to hide, and Mr Sunak put a target on his back by setting five very specific pledges on which he can be judged back in January last year.
He promised to halve inflation, grow the economy, get debt falling, reduce NHS waiting lists and “stop the boats” by the year’s end.
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Did Sunak’s claims add up?
On only one count, inflation, can he unambiguously be said to have succeeded, and his influence over even that is contested ground.
Inflation did fall from 11% to less than half that, and is currently 2.6%, but global factors, specifically falling energy prices, and the action of central banks were more influential than his decisions not to stoke domestic inflation.
Mr Sunak told Rigby inflation was now “back to normal” but that applies only to the rate of increase in prices, rather than the impact on costs.
Seen through that lens, prices are now around 20% higher than they were before the war in Ukraine, a new “normal” few people relish.
Pic: PA
On growth, Mr Sunak was never explicit about which measure he would use. Growth in the final quarter of 2023 was down 0.3% on the previous one, but overall growth for the year was up by 0.1% – the narrowest of margins, but enough to claim success.
The rest of the list makes grim reading for the prime minister. Debt is not falling, though it is forecast to come down in five years, the measure that both Conservatives and Labour use to set their fiscal rules.
The NHS and immigration were even tougher areas for the PM, the statistical scorecard meshing with the lived reality of people experiencing under-pressure public services.
Waiting lists have risen dramatically, up to a peak of 7.4 million before falling back a little in the last few months. Unlike in the first TV debate, Mr Sunak did not try to argue that a small reduction amounted to a win.
On small boats he was more combative but on no measure can he be said to have stopped the crossings. In 2023, there were around 15,000 fewer crossings than in the year before. But this year to date, they’re up.
The broader immigration picture is also problematic. Every Conservative prime minister from Cameron to Truss promised to cut net migration to the tens of thousands and failed.
Mr Sunak set no target but has overseen the highest ever figure, more than 800,000 people last year, a number that appeared to stick with the audience in Grimsby.
Net migration is falling on the latest figures, and fewer visas are being granted after rules were tightened on the dependants of students and care workers, and salary thresholds for skilled workers increased.
The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
Source: Summer Meng
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Source: jmhorp
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
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“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.
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Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.
Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.
While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.
OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.
The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
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Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.
A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.
In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.
CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.
CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI
The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.
CLS Global was among at least three firms that took the FBI’s bait and agreed to provide “market maker services” for NexFundAI, including a fraudulent scheme to attract investors to purchase the token.
In October 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against CLS and its employee, Andrey Zhorzhes. The US securities regulator also filed complaints against two other NexFundAI manipulators, Hong Kong-linked ZM Quant Investment and Russia-linked Gotbit Consulting.
CLS Global’s profile
According to CLS Global CEO Filipp Veselov, the company was founded in 2017 to fill in a “huge gap in the market for high-quality market-making solutions and trading consulting.”
Prior to CLS, Veselov worked at the Russian cryptocurrency exchange platform Latoken, which is advertised as a “global digital asset exchange” and has about 370,000 followers on X.
The CLS team also includes chief revenue officer Pavel Singaevskii, who previously served as sales manager at Stex, a crypto platform that reportedly ceased operations without warning in 2023.
Source: CLS Global
According to CLS Global’s X page, the platform continues operating and has more than 110,000 followers at the time of publication.
How much wash trading is in crypto?
Wash trading is an illegal practice involving artificially inflating trading volume by repeatedly buying and selling the same asset, generating a misleading perception of demand.
According to a January 2025 report by the US blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the crypto market has at least $2.6 billion in estimated wash traded volumes, or just about 2% of total daily crypto trading volumes, as reported by CoinGecko.
Estimated wash trade volume in crypto. Source: Chainalysis
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Some studies indicate that wash trading makes up a bigger share of the crypto market.
In 2022, the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that illegal wash trading may account for as much as 70% of average trading volumes on unregulated exchanges.
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