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After five months in power, even the most loyal cabinet members would quietly admit it’s been a rocky run for Sir Keir Starmer and Labour.

The prime minister’s personal polling ratings have tumbled from a +7 in the post-election honeymoon to -29 now.

Many pensioners, business owners, entrepreneurs and farmers are angry, and between the Downing Street power struggles that became front page news, rows over freebies and the first cabinet resignation, it can at times be hard to pinpoint what this government is about and trying to achieve.

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Starmer won big in the summer but is struggling to punch through.

Thursday is a serious attempt to change that. Because this is when Sir Keir will give you, the voter, the nuts and bolts of what to expect in the first half of the ‘decade of renewal’ he has long talked about.

You will be getting a series of “mission milestones” from the prime minister to give you clear markers on which to measure this government and Whitehall – a sharp navigation tool for a government that has been somewhat buffeted by side winds since taking office.

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From Thursday onwards the “plan for change” will be, as one person in the top team puts it, the Northern Star of Starmer’s first term in office.

What it looks like will be a checklist of what the government wants to achieve and when it comes to the next election day, you will be able to judge whether Labour have delivered or not.

Sir Keir Starmer. File pic: PA
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Pic: PA

The pledges will be hung around the missions for government that Sir Keir set out in opposition in February 2023 which then formed the backbone of his manifesto.

In a nutshell, these five missions (a sixth, to tackle small boats was introduced in May 2024) were to turn the UK into the fastest growing economy in the G7, improve the NHS and cut NHS waiting lists, launch a new border security command to drive down small boat crossings, make Britain a clean energy power, safer streets and improve opportunities for all through improvements in childcare, schools and further education.

Turning missions into milestones

On Thursday, those missions will be turned into a set of milestones for this parliament.

The PM hopes it will help voters better understand what he wants to achieve to improve their lives, while giving us all a checklist to hold the government to account.

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Number 10 also wants these “measurable milestones” to galvanise delivery in Whitehall and force reform, be it through the use of artificial intelligence and tech, re-organisation, and efficiency savings.

I’m told there will be two elements to this.

The first part of what the PM will outline is about fixing the foundations – economic stability, secure borders and national security. Within that, the prime minister will make a clear commitment to reduce net migration and reduce small boat crossings.

The second part will be the mission milestones: For the NHS, there will be a pledge to carry out 92% of routine operations and appointments within 18 weeks by March 2029, a target that has not been hit for almost and decade and will require the current 6.7 million waiting list to be halved in the next five years.

Pledge for thousands more police officers

There will be a new promise for 13,000 police officers on the streets with every neighbourhood having a named, contactable police officer in their community, dealing with local issues.

There will be pledges too on early years education and recommitment that all electricity will come from renewables and nuclear by 2030.

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On the economy, the prime minister will pledge to improve living standards, as the more abstract mission to have the fastest growing economy in the G7 is made, to quote one government figure, “real for people around the kitchen table”.

Labour know all too well what happened to their US sister party the Democrats when they talked in broad terms about growth rather than telling voters what it really meant for their pocket, so you can expect the ‘growth commitment’ to be turned into some sort of disposable income target.

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Immigration: Starmer blames Tories

No migration mission milestone

As I understand it, there will not be a “mission milestone” on migration, which could well raise eyebrows on Thursday given that the prime minister explicitly added tackling small boats to his missions in the run-up to the election.

Five missions became six first steps in the general election campaign as Labour put tackling small boats on the same footing as the other long-term mission with a pledge to set up a new border command to drive down illegal crossings.

At the time, it was seen as an admission from the Labour opposition that they needed to give voters an offer on small boats and illegal migration. To not include it in the “milestones” on which Starmer is prepared to be measured by the public may well raise questions.

For its part, the prime minister’s team has been at pains to stress these new milestones are not an attempt at a reset, but rather a continuation of the mission-led government Sir Keir has been talking about for over 18 months, from opposition into power.

PM unbothered by critics

Insiders say the milestones are the “obvious next step” which Sir Keir and his team were always going to take and follow the processes that have characterised his ascent to the leadership and style of opposition: logical, methodical follow through of ideas he’s been working on.

Those who work with Sir Keir say he tends to be unbothered by the criticism and views it as the rough and tumble of getting on with it as he ploughs ahead with this plan.

But there is an acknowledgement in all of this that to have any hope of holding his fragile and shallow coalition of support together, then Starmer needs to take on, as one government figure put it, “the tsunami of cynicism”.

This cynicism has imbibed our politics in recent years on the back of broken promises around migration, NHS waiting lists, compounded by partygate and the Truss mini-budget that did for the Tories and for any residual trust in politics too, they said.

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Is Starmer the right leader to take on Farage?

Tackling Farage and Reform

Sir Keir’s election strategists Pat McFadden, who now runs the cabinet office at the heart of government, and Morgan McSweeney, who now runs Downing Street as the PM’s chief of staff, know that deliverables are their route to being able to answer the populist and insurgency politics driving the rise of Nigel Farage and Reform.

Former cabinet minister Harriet Harman pointed out in our Electoral Dysfunction podcast that if the story of the 2024 election was Reform eating into the Conservative vote, the battle of the next one will also be driven on whether Labour can hold off the party in strongholds such as Wales, Scotland and parts of the Red Wall where Reform came in second in dozens of seats.

If you look at council by-elections since the general election, argues Baroness Harman, Reform have gained 10 points, while Labour have lost 10 points and the Conservative party has stayed put.

Nigel Farage has made no secret of his desire to start taking votes off the new ‘establishment’, the Labour government.

Sir Keir is clearly alive to the threat, as just days after Donald Trump’s victory in the US election the prime minister said the economy and borders were his two top priorities in government.

These are the battlegrounds on which the Tories and Reform will try to fight them, with the former badly damaged on both and the latter now trying to take lumps out of Labour.

Risk in setting milestones

“There’s more at stake than losing the next election,” one senior Labour figure opined to me the other week. “People thinking we cannot fix problems is the real risk for all progressives. If people don’t believe politics can improve things it will only feed more into the politics of division and hate.”

There is also a risk in setting milestones. Too soft and they become meaningless, too ambitious without a concrete plan to deliver them, and you set yourself up to fail. “We have to prioritise and know the route map,’ explained one government figure. “We might not hit it,” they added, acknowledging the jeopardy.

What about Sunak’s targets?

You might remember Rishi Sunak’s five targets – halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and stop the boats.

At the time of the general election campaign, we went through these line-by-line in the Sky News Battle for No 10 leadership interviews, and Mr Sunak had to tell a live audience that on NHS waiting lists, stopping small boats and falling debt, he had failed.

He promised the public “no tricks, no ambiguity” and owned those failures before being given the verdict at the ballot box a few weeks later.

When I asked Sir Keir in Rio at the G7 summit what the essence of his leadership was, he said: “I want working people to be better off. I want people to feel the impact of our policies in their pocket so that they can enjoy life in the way they want to, with themselves and their family.

“The basic security is that working people want a decent wage that provides for them in their family. Education allows their children to go as far as their talent will take them, a health service that’s there when they need it. But in a nutshell, it’s about making working people feel better off, and I am determined that that will remain my focus.”

Thursday’s milestones will be built around that central goal to make people better off, in their pockets, and in their lives – be it better schooling for their kids or better access to the local GP or hospital, or cleaner energy.

Tangible pledges on which the prime minister can be measured. It may not be a reset but, if Number 10 gets it right, it has the potential to be a fresh start for a prime minister who has failed to make his mark with the electorate since he won that election.

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Zhenhao Zou: More than 20 new potential victims come forward after ‘prolific’ rapist jailed for assaulting 10 women

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Zhenhao Zou: More than 20 new potential victims come forward after 'prolific' rapist jailed for assaulting 10 women

Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.

The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.

Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.

Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.

“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”

Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
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Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth

Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.

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He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.

“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.

“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.

“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”

***ONLY USE IF HE IS CONVICTED OF AT LEAST TWO RAPES***It is feared Zou may have carried out dozens more sex crimes. Pic: Met Police
Image:
Pic: Met Police

Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.

He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.

Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.

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Moment police arrest rapist student

Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.

“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.

“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.

“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”

Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”

Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”

The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.

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Girl, 11, who went missing after entering River Thames named

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Girl, 11, who went missing after entering River Thames named

An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.

An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.

Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.

A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.

Location of Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich, where 11-year-old girl Kaliyah Coa went into the River Thames on 31/03
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Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames

Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.

He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.

He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”

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“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”

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On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.

When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.

Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.

Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.

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Planning reforms to ‘rewire the system’ and get Britain building – all while protecting wildlife

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Planning reforms to 'rewire the system' and get Britain building - all while protecting wildlife

Major developers will only deal with one regulator under planning reforms which ministers say will “rewire the system” to get Britain building – all while protecting the environment. 

A review by former Labour adviser Dan Corry into Britain’s sluggish system of green regulation has concluded that existing environmental regulators should remain in place, while rejecting a “bonfire of regulations”.

But Mr Corry suggested there might be circumstances in which the government look at changing the wildlife and habit rules inherited from the EU, which protect individual species.

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These lie at the centre of the controversy of a £120m bat tunnel – the shed in Aylesbury which protects a rare breed from future high speed trains.

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The government has now explicitly ruled out any such change in this parliament.

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Campaigners have questioned whether the changes go far enough and will make a major difference to the rate and scale of building in the UK.

Speaking to Sky News, Environment Secretary Steve Reed insisted that accepting nine of the recommendations from the Corry review would amount to wholesale reform.

The minister said: “We can get a win-win for economic growth and for nature. And that is why we are moving ahead with proposals such as appointing a lead regulator for major developments so that the developers don’t have to navigate the architecture of multiple regulators.

“They just work for a single regulator who manages all the others on their behalf. Simplifying the online planning portal.

“These are huge changes that will save developers billions of pounds and speed up decisions doing damage to the environment.”

Mr Reed insisted that there would be “no more bat tunnels” built, even though the Corry review suggests that more work needs to be done to look again at the relevant guidance.

It says: “Rapidly reviewing the existing catalogue of compliance guidance, including on protecting bats, will identify opportunities to remove duplication, ambiguity or inconsistency.

“Natural England has already agreed to review and update their advice to Local Planning Authorities on bats to ensure there is clear, proportionate and accessible advice available.”

The review will mean:

• Appointing one lead regulator for every major infrastructure project, like Heathrow expansion

• A review on how nature rules are implemented – but not the rules themselves

• Insisting regulators focus more on government priorities, particularly growth

Economist and former charity leader Mr Corry, who led the review, said it shows that “simply scrapping regulations isn’t the answer”.

“Instead we need modern, streamlined regulation that is easier for everyone to use. While short-term trade-offs may be needed, these reforms will ultimately deliver a win-win for both nature and economic growth in the longer run.”

However, Sam Richards from Britain Remade, a thinktank trying to get Britain growing, said that while the steps are welcome, the number of regulators that report to the environment department would remain the same before and after the review. He questioned whether this would have the impact ministers claimed.

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