What we learnt from Sunak and Starmer at leaders’ event – including prime minister’s ‘appalling’ diet

Published

10 months ago

June 13, 2024

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Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer took turns answering questions from Sky News and a live audience, with a snap poll suggesting the Labour leader performed better on the night.

But what did we learn from their responses about the key issues facing the country?

Here’s a look at the key points from the Sky News leaders’ event in Grimsby.

Latest updates on the general election

NHS waiting lists

With the NHS England waiting list up to about 7.5 million cases, there was some angry shouting from the audience when Mr Sunak brought up the industrial action taken up by staff in the health service.

“We’ve not made as much progress on cutting waiting lists as I would have liked,” he said.

“That was something that I was keen to do, and it has proved more difficult for a number of reasons, obviously recovering from a pandemic is not easy.”

He faced groans and boos when he said: “I think everyone knows the impact the industrial action has had, that’s why we haven’t made as much [progress].”

Sir Keir said the government could not afford to meet junior doctors’ pay-rise demands but said Labour would “get the room and settle this dispute”.

Tory tax burden

Mr Sunak repeated his promise of “tax cuts for people at every stage for people at every stage of their life”.

Facing questions about the tax burden potentially being higher than it is now under a future Conservative government, Mr Sunak said: “What our manifesto announced is the tax cuts for people at every stage of their life – for people in work, for people that are setting up small businesses, that are self-employed, for those young people who want to buy their first home, for pensioners and for families.”

D-Day fallout

“It hasn’t been an easy 18 months in general,” Mr Sunak admitted, when asked about what has gone so wrong for his party.

“I’m going to keep fighting hard until last day of this election,” he said.

But Mr Sunak’s decision to leave D-Day commemorations early sparked widespread backlash against the prime minister.

“I was incredibly sad to have caused people hurt and upset,” he said, adding he hopes people can forgive him.

National service

When an audience member asked why a young person today would believe the Tories have their best interests at heart, Mr Sunak said he is “incredibly excited” for his daughters to do national service.

“I think it will be transformative for our country,” he added.

Tough questions for Starmer on tax

Addressing his tax plans, Sir Keir insisted “working people shouldn’t pay more tax” and repeated “no tax rises for working people”.

This includes income tax, VAT and National Insurance, but rises in fuel duty, for example, would impact working people, Rigby pointed out.

That has not been explicitly ruled out.

To help balance the scales, increasing capital gains tax could raise £14bn a year, Rigby said, but Sir Keir revealed “that is not in our manifesto”.

He said he’d be happy to pay more tax himself, despite being in the top 3% for amount of tax paid – after earning £128,000 and paying £44,000 in income tax last year.

“Yes, of course,” he said, reminding the audience his father was a toolmaker – with the often-repeated line causing some laughter in the audience – and his family “couldn’t make ends meet”.

VAT on private schools

Challenged on his plans for a VAT tax on private school education, Sir Keir told an audience member the party is removing a tax break – rather than adding a new tax.

“The position at the moment is there’s a tax break, so you pay VAT on other services, but you don’t pay for private schools,” he said.

“Now I understand why that’s been in place, but it’s a tax break that we are removing. It’s not an introduction of a new tax.”

Two-child benefit cap

Sir Keir confirmed there is no plan in his party’s manifesto to cut a two-child benefit cap, admitting it was a “difficult” decision.

“I can’t do something – I know the benefits of it and we will have a strategy for it – but I think people are fed up of politicians who before the election say we’ll do everything,” he said.

Small boat crossings and immigration

On small boats, Rigby confronted Mr Sunak about small boat crossings. More than 10,000 migrants have arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats in 2024 – a new record for this stage in the year.

Part of the Tory strategy to cut the number of crossings is the controversial Rwanda policy, which Mr Sunak again vowed would take off in July if he wins the election.

Asked why, if he is so confident flights would take off in July, he didn’t prove this before calling an election, Mr Sunak said “it was the right moment” to go to the polls.

Meanwhile, Rigby outlined how net migration in the past three years stands at 1.9 million people – against 836,000 before Brexit.

With the figure more than doubling since leaving the European Union, Mr Sunak admitted “it’s too high”.

“I’m sure people feel frustrated about that,” he said. “The numbers are too high.”

Starmer distances from Corbyn

Questioned on trust, Sir Keir defended changing previous stances he held, including Labour policies.

He said the “country comes first, party second” and looked back at previous decisions to ask himself if they’re best for the nation, rather than Labour.

Reminded on his claim in the last election that Jeremy Corbyn would make a “great prime minister”, the Labour leader refused to answer directly if he believed that.

Instead, he repeated he was “certain” the party would lose the election in 2019.

What we didn’t know about the leaders

Asked what he fears most about becoming prime minister, the Labour leader said he’s worried about the impact it will have on his family, including his children aged 16 and 13.

Rigby asked Mr Sunak to tell the audience one thing they might not know about him.

He said he had an “appalling diet” due to his sweet tooth. Haribo and Twix are apparently his favourites.

Politics

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Published

51 mins ago

April 4, 2025

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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.

“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.

“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.

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.

“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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Politics

Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange $1.2M for past AML breaches

Published

1 hour ago

April 4, 2025

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

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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Politics

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

Published

2 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

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.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading — *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.

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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