‘Terrible’ Caerphilly result akin to Hartlepool by-election loss, says Wes Streeting
The health secretary has compared the collapse of Labour’s vote in the Caerphilly by-election to the party’s defeat in Hartlepool in 2021 – when Sir Keir Starmer considered resigning as leader.
Wes Streeting described the party’s performance in the Senedd seat – where it took just 3,713 votes – as “terrible” and said it had to match Labour’s response to the Hartlepool by-election defeat.
Politics latest: UK in ‘despair’, warns Streeting
Plaid Cymru’s Lindsay Whittle was elected to represent his hometown of Caerphilly. Pic: PA
Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Mr Streeting said the loss of Hartlepool to the Tories while the party was in opposition was a “shock to Labour’s core” and prompted Sir Keir to “change the Labour Party with a pace and scale of ambition” that paved the way for its landslide election victory last year.
The prime minister has admitted in several interviews that he considered resigning in the wake of the defeat.
Asked whether he was providing “withering criticism” of Sir Keir and the direction of his government, Mr Streeting said he was not but acknowledged that the public was “not yet feeling the change” Labour had promised.
“If I have one criticism of us collectively as a team, we are not telling a compelling enough story about who we are, who we’re for and what it is we are driving to do,” he said.
“Take that result in Caerphilly on the chin, take it to heart and show the same level of ambition and drive and the scale of change within government that the public are crying out for.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What does Plaid Cymru’s victory in Caerphilly mean for Labour?
Support for Labour in the Welsh town of Caerphilly slumped in the by-election on Thursday, where it came in third place behind winners Plaid Cymru, who won with 15,960 votes.
While a defeat was denied to Reform UK, which came second with 12,113 votes, the result has prompted fear within Labour ranks that it is losing support to rival left-wing parties as well as those on the right.
The result, which Sir Keir admitted was “bad” and “disappointing”, came during another challenging week for the prime minister.
On Saturday Lucy Powell, the former Commons leader who was sacked by Sir Keir in his most recent reshuffle, was elected Labour deputy leader in what has been interpreted as a repudiation of the prime minister’s leadership.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Powell on plans to unite Labour Party
And the day before, a nationwide manhunt was triggered after Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian migrant who was jailed for 12 months in September for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Essex, was accidentally released from HMP Chelmsford.
The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it has now found Kebatu – whose crimes sparked protests outside the asylum hotel in Epping where he was staying – and that he was arrested in the Finsbury Park area of London at around 8.30am on Sunday morning.
Read more:
20 warnings for Sir Keir Starmer from new deputy leader
Mr Streeting said there needed to be accountability for the “egregious failure” which resulted in Kebatu’s release.
He said he agreed the incident was an example of “state failure” that played into the “sense of despair” felt across the country about the state of the country’s public services.
“There is a deep disillusionment in this country at the moment and, I’d say, growing sense of despair about whether anyone is capable of turning this country around,” he said.
“Now, I am an optimist in politics. I think there are green shoots of recovery in the NHS, in the economy, in our public services, but there is also so much more to do and we’ve got to attack those challenges with the level of energy and focus that the scale of the challenge demands.”
Over a third of people think Rachel Reeves exaggerated economic bad news in the run-up to the budget – twice as many as thought the chancellor was being honest, a new Sky News poll has found.
Some 37% told a YouGov-Sky News poll that Ms Reeves made out things were worse than they really are. This is much higher than the 18% who said she was broadly honest, and the 13% who said things were better than she presented.
This comes in an in-depth look at the public reaction to the budget by YouGov, which suggests widespread disenchantment in the performance of the chancellor.
Just 8% think the budget will leave the country as a whole better off, while 2% think it will leave them and their family better off.
Some 52% think the country will be worse off because of the budget, and 50% think they and their family will be worse off.
This suggests the prime minister and chancellor will struggle to sell last week’s set-piece as one that helps with the cost of living.
Some 20% think the budget worried too much about help for older people and didn’t have enough for younger people, while 23% think the reverse.
The poll found 57% think the chancellor broke Labour’s election promises, while 13% think she did not and 30% are not sure. Some 54% said the budget was unfair, including 16% of Labour voters.
And it arguably gets worse…
This comes as the latest Sky News-Times-YouGov poll showed Labour and the Tories are now neck and neck among voters.
The two parties are tied on 19% each, behind Reform UK on 26%. The Greens are on 16%, while the Liberal Democrats are on 14%.
This is broadly consistent with last week, suggesting the budget has not had a dramatic impact on people’s views.
However, the verdict on Labour’s economic competence has declined further post-budget.
Asked who they would trust with the economy, Labour are now on 10% – lower than Liz Truss, who oversaw the 2022 mini-budget, and also lower than Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 election.
The Tories come top of the list of parties trusted on the economy on 17%, with Reform UK second on 13%, Greens on 8% and Lib Dems on 5%. Nearly half, 47%, don’t know or say none of them.
Only 57% of current Labour voters say the party would do the best job at managing the economy, falling to 25% among those who voted Labour in the 2024 election.
Some 63% of voters think Ms Reeves is doing a bad job, including 20% of current Labour voters, while just 11% of all voters think she is doing a good job.
A higher proportion – 69% – think Sir Keir Starmer is doing a bad job.
Paul Atkins, chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, said that the agency can continue advancing digital asset regulation without legislation from Congress, signaling his expectations for the industry in 2026.
In a CNBC interview released on Tuesday, Atkins said the SEC was providing “technical assistance” as Congress considered legislation for digital asset regulation, likely referring to the market structure bill working its way through the US Senate. Atkins said that although the agency’s operations were impacted by the longest US government shutdown in the country’s history, he continued to make progress on “rules that are focused on helping [the crypto] sector.”
“We have enough authority to drive forward,” said Atkins. “I’m looking forward to having an innovation exemption that we’ve been talking about now. We’ll be able to get that out in a month or so.”
Atkins, whom the US Senate confirmed to chair the SEC in April after his nomination by US President Donald Trump, has taken steps to reduce the number of enforcement actions against crypto companies, including by issuing no-action letters for decentralized physical infrastructure networks.
His actions align with many of the policy directives from the White House under Trump, who has issued several executive orders touching on crypto and blockchain.
Related: Republicans urge action on market structure bill over debanking claims
The SEC chair rang the opening bell at the NYSE on Tuesday, outlining his plans for the agency “on the cusp of America’s 250th anniversary.”
US regulators are still awaiting progress on a market structure bill
Lawmakers on the US Senate Agriculture Committee and the Senate Banking Committee are taking steps to move forward with a digital asset market structure bill, which will outline the regulatory authority of agencies, including the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, over cryptocurrencies.
Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott said that the committee planned to have the bill ready for markup in December.
Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice
An official from the Bank of Russia suggested easing restrictions on cryptocurrencies in response to the sweeping sanctions imposed on the country.
According to a Monday report by local news outlet Kommersant, Bank of Russia First Deputy Governor Vladimir Chistyukhin said the regulator is discussing easing regulations for cryptocurrencies. He explicitly linked the rationale for this effort to the sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Chistyukhin said that easing the crypto rules is particularly relevant when Russia and Russians are subject to restrictions “on the use of normal currencies for making payments abroad.”
Russia banned the use of cryptocurrencies for payments in the summer of 2020.
Chistyukhin said he expects Russia’s central bank to reach an agreement with the Ministry of Finance on this issue by the end of this month. The central issue being discussed is the removal of the requirement to meet the “super-qualified investor” criteria for buying and selling crypto with actual delivery. The requirement was introduced in late April when Russia’s finance ministry and central bank were launching a crypto exchange.
Related: UK sanctions Kyrgyz banks, $9.3B crypto network tied to Russia
What is a super-qualified investor?
The super-qualified investor classification, created earlier this year, is defined by wealth and income thresholds of over 100 million rubles ($1.3 million) or an annual income of at least 50 million rubles.
This limits access to cryptocurrencies for transactions or investment to only the wealthiest few in Russian society. “We are discussing the feasibility of using ‘superquals’ in the new regulation of crypto assets,” Chistyukhin said, in an apparent shifting approach to the restrictive regulation.
Related: How a Russian national allegedly laundered $530M in crypto via Tether
Russia’s fight against sanctions
Russia has been hit with sweeping Western sanctions for years, and regulators in the United States and Europe have increasingly targeted crypto-based efforts to evade those measures.
In late October, the European Union adopted its 19th sanctions package against Russia, including restrictions on cryptocurrency platforms. This also included sanctions against the A7A5 ruble-backed stablecoin, which EU authorities described as “a prominent tool for financing activities supporting the war of aggression.”
Earlier in October, reports indicated that A7A5 — backed by the Russian ruble but issued in Kyrgyzstan — had become the world’s largest non-US-dollar stablecoin. In August, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also redesignated cryptocurrency exchange Garantex Europe to its list of sanctioned entities for a second time.
Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024