Transport Secretary Louise Haigh resigns after Sky News revealed mobile phone guilty plea
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has resigned after it emerged she pleaded guilty to an offence related to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013.
In a letter to the prime minister, she described the incident as a “mistake” but said that “whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government”.
It comes after Sky News revealed details of the offence last night, with Ms Haigh saying in a statement she believed her phone had been stolen after she was “mugged on a night out” but later discovered this was not the case.
She alluded to Sir Keir knowing about this in her resignation letter, telling him: “As you know, in 2013 I was mugged in London. As a 24-year-old woman, the experience was terrifying. In the immediate aftermath, I reported the incident to the police.
“I gave the police a list of my possessions that I believed had been stolen, including my work phone.
“Some time later, I discovered that the handset in question was still in my house.
“I should have immediately informed my employer and not doing so straight away was a mistake.”
Ms Haigh then said that while she is “totally committed to our political project,” she believes “it will be best served by my supporting you from outside government”.
The MP for Sheffield Heeley added: “I am sorry to leave under these circumstances, but I take pride in what we have done.
“I will continue to fight every day for the people of Sheffield Heeley who I was first and foremost elected to represent and to ensure that the rest of our programme is delivered in full.”
‘Questions’ for Starmer
In response, Sir Keir Starmer thanked Ms Haigh for “all you have done to deliver this government’s ambitious transport agenda” and said: “I know you still have a huge contribution to make in the future.”
The letters were dated yesterday, 28th November, but only made public this morning.
A Conservative Party spokesman said Ms Haigh has “done the right thing in resigning”.
They said the incident “raises questions as to why the prime minister appointed Ms Haigh to Cabinet with responsibility for a £30bn budget”.
“The onus is now on Keir Starmer to explain this obvious failure of judgement to the British public,” they added.
The straightforward reason for Louise Haigh’s rapid resignation
While government sources insist this resignation was Louise Haigh’s decision, the political weather around the now former transport secretary always made walking from her job a potential outcome.
As well as being the first cabinet minister to resign, Ms Haigh was also the first cabinet minister to be publicly rebuked by Sir Keir Starmer.
That was over calls she made to boycott P&O ferries after the mass sacking of hundreds of workers, comments that led to a £1bn investment being temporarily shelved.
Hailing from the left of Labour, the Sheffield MP also has connections with former Downing Street chief of staff Sue Gray.
But with a new team now in place at the top of Number 10 – some had already been speculating about her future in government.
The ultimate trigger for this resignation is likely more straightforward though.
In 2022, speaking about the partygate scandal, Sir Keir Starmer said “you can’t be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker”.
This appears to show what that mantra looks like when transplanted into the realities of government.
Conviction just before 2015 election
Sky News understands Ms Haigh appeared at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court six months before the 2015 general election, after making a false report to officers that her mobile phone had been stolen.
It’s understood her conviction is now classified as ‘spent’.
Three separate sources claimed to Sky News that she made the false report to benefit personally, with two of the sources alleging she wanted a more modern work handset that was being rolled out to her colleagues at the time.
The outgoing cabinet minister had been working as a public policy manager at Aviva, but two sources said she lost her job at the insurance firm because of the incident.
The offence was disclosed in full when Ms Haigh was appointed to Sir Keir’s shadow cabinet, Sky News understands.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Minister admits offence over ‘stolen’ phone
‘Genuine mistake’
In her statement last night, Ms Haigh called the incident a “genuine mistake from which I did not make any gain”.
She said she had been “issued with another work phone” in the interim between making the police report and discovering it had not been stolen, and was called in for questioning when the original device was switched on, which “triggered police attention”.
“My solicitor advised me not to comment during that interview and I regret following that advice,” she said.
“The police referred the matter to the CPS and I appeared before Southwark magistrates.”
Ms Haigh continued: “Under the advice of my solicitor I pleaded guilty – despite the fact this was a genuine mistake from which I did not make any gain.
“The magistrates accepted all of these arguments and gave me the lowest possible outcome (a discharge) available.”
Pic: Louise Haigh was a special constable from 2009-2011
Career in Met before politics
As transport secretary, Ms Haigh appointed members of the board that oversees the British Transport Police.
Before entering politics, the MP was a special constable in the Metropolitan Police – serving between 2009 and 2011 in the South London Borough of Lambeth, close to where she was convicted several years later.
She was appointed shadow policing minister by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 and frequently drew on her experience in the Met when challenging the Tory government on the rising demands on officers.
Sir Keir promoted the MP to shadow Northern Ireland secretary in 2020 before moving her to shadow transport secretary in 2021.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is seeking permission from the court to drop an appeal against prediction market Kalshi. The move could allow the platform to offer political event contracts to users without contest.
In a May 5 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, lawyers for the CFTC filed an unopposed motion for voluntary dismissal, suggesting an agreement with Kalshi. The motion, subject to approval by the court, could end the CFTC’s appeal against a federal court ruling that the financial regulator could not bar Kalshi from listing political event contracts, i.e., bets on elections.
Kalshi stipulated in a joint filing that the company would “bear its own costs, court fees and attorney fees incurred” if the court granted the CFTC’s motion to dismiss. The platform said that “election markets are here to stay” in a May 6 X post following the filing.
The betting platform initially filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in 2023 in response to the regulator ordering Kalshi to stop offering political event contracts. The company won in the lower court, prompting the appeal by the CFTC in September 2024.
Motion to drop the appeal after the change in administration?
The case was handled mainly before the US election and the appointment of acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham under President Donald Trump. CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, nominated by former President Joe Biden, reportedly echoed Kalshi’s sentiment in February, claiming that election prediction markets were “here to stay.”
Related: Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users
Launched in 2021, Kalshi became popular among many crypto users in part due to bets related to the 2024 US election. Though the CFTC argued in its appeal that betting on the elections could result in “spectacular manipulation” of markets and harm to the public interest, the regulator under Pham and Trump appeared to have reversed its position with the motion to dismiss.
Magazine: Pokémon on Sui rumors, Polymarket bets on Filipino Pope: Asia Express
Digital asset manager Bitwise has filed to list a spot Near exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to a growing list of altcoins currently vying to win regulatory approval.
The Bitwise Near (NEAR) ETF will track the price movements of the NEAR token, minus expenses, through a traditional brokerage, Bitwise’s May 6 registration statement shows.
Bitwise named Coinbase Custody as the proposed custodian of the Bitwise NEAR ETF. The management fee, ticker and stock exchange it seeks to list on weren’t named yet.
Bitwise must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund. The crypto native asset manager indicated it would make such a filing when it registered a trust linked to the NEAR ETF in Delaware on April 28.
NEAR joins a pile of spot crypto ETFs on the SEC’s desk
The SEC now has at least a dozen spot crypto ETFs to review in 2025, including applications for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Hedera (HBAR), Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Aptos (APT) and Sui (SUI).
Bitwise already has applications out for a spot DOGE, SOL, and XRP ETFs, and also has an approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETF, which are listed on the NYSE Arca and have attracted a combined $2.35 billion in net inflows since launching last year.
NEAR — the token powering the layer-1 Near blockchain — is the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $2.73 billion, CoinGecko data shows.
The Near blockchain was once touted as an Ethereum killer and is considered by its proponents as a solution to the “blockchain trilemma” — the challenge of achieving all three critical aspects of blockchain performance: security, scalability and decentralization.
Related: Ethereum’s era of crypto dominance is over — LONGITUDE panel
Through Nightshade sharding, Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second and is secured by 265 active validators, Nearblocks.io data shows.
The Near ecosystem shifted from decentralized finance to AI infrastructure in 2024, unveiling plans to build the world’s largest open-source large language model.
Magazine: 12 minutes of nail-biting tension when Ethereum’s Pectra fork goes live
New Hampshire became the first US state to allow its government to invest in crypto currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), after Governor Kelly Ayotte signed a bill passed by the legislature into law.
In a May 6 notice, Ayotte announced on social media that New Hampshire would be permitted to “invest in cryptocurrency and precious metals” through a bill passed in the state Senate and House of Representatives. House Bill 302, introduced in New Hampshire in January, will allow the state’s treasury to use funds to invest in cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of more than $500 billion, eliminating many tokens and memecoins.
“The Live Free or Die state is leading the way in forging the future of commerce and digital assets,” said New Hampshire Republicans in a May 6 X post.
With the signing of the bill into law, New Hampshire becomes the first of several US states considering passing legislation to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, including an initiative with the federal government. A similar bill in Arizona passed the state’s House in April but was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs on May 2, and Florida’s government withdrew two crypto reserve bills from consideration on May 3.
Related: Bitcoin’s role as a reserve asset gains traction in US as states adopt
New Hampshire’s crypto plans to precede the US government’s?
The efforts to create crypto reserves in different US states come as US President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers propose similar policies at the federal level. Trump signed an executive order in March to establish a “Digital Asset Stockpile” and a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who sponsored the Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act, proposed that the US government could hold more than 1 million BTC through civil and criminal forfeiture seizures. The bill is currently being considered by members of the US Senate Banking Committee.
Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway