Labour’s new council leaders pledge to take cost of living action within 100 days
Labour’s new council leaders have pledged to deliver emergency cost of living plans within 100 days of taking office.
The party has 22 new council leaders as a result of last week’s local elections, which saw Labour triumph in Tory heartlands including Medway, Swindon and East Staffordshire.
On Tuesday, the new council leaders will meet Sir Keir Starmer along with senior members of the shadow cabinet to reflect on their success and set out how they will govern going forward.
Six councils transferred directly from Tory hands to Labour in last Thursday’s election, while the party was also able to win control of councils that were previously under no overall control, including Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent.
In total, it picked up 528 seats. The party is now the largest in local government for the first time since 2002.
The Conservatives, by contrast, endured a torrid night, losing more than 1,000 seats and control of 48 councils – meeting the worst possible pre-election predictions.
Labour put the rising cost of living at the heart of its local election campaign, promising to bring in a more substantial windfall tax on oil and gas giants as well as freeze council tax this year if it was in power.
PM promises to ‘work day and night’ after Tories lose over 1,000 council seats – politics latest
Speaking ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir said the election results showed there was “appetite for change, right across the country”.
“Our relentless focus on the number one issue keeping people up at night was because we get it,” he said.
“We understand that times are tough, and prices are biting. That people are making different choices, changing their lifestyles, and they’re despondent about the future.
“Labour offered a positive alternative, and people have given us their trust. It’s now our duty to not waste a day in delivering on the Labour commitment to ease the squeeze on people’s pockets.”
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This is how the local election unfolded.
Each new Labour council will be twinned with an existing Labour-led local authority to help them learn the ropes.
One of the first acts the new council leaders will do is review local housing and development plans “to make sure they reflect local need” after Sir Keir promised not to “abandon the ambitions of generation rent”.
One factor that has been blamed for the Conservatives’ poor performance was Rishi Sunak’s decision to scrap house-building targets, which former levelling up secretary Simon Clarke branded “a major mistake”.
As well as the hybrid meeting on Tuesday, Sir Keir will also hold his weekly shadow cabinet where he is expected to stress that despite the positive showing, there is “still more work to be done” and “the hardest part lies ahead”.
He will say: “The fact that Labour won in all parts of the country was a sign of the strides we have made.
“People who turned away from us during the Corbyn years and the Brexit years are coming back.
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Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby assesses election results
“But there is understandably a lot of scepticism about politics out there and now we need to go from reassurance to hope. We need to show that we will be a big reforming government bringing hope of a better life for working people.”
In the coming weeks, the party will launch three new missions on health, opportunity and clean power.
It will also set out more details on its plan to win back Scotland, where Labour has a chance of regaining territory following the turmoil in the SNP leadership.
In recent weeks the SNP has been turning its fire on the Labour Party, with polls showing that the latter is closing the gap on the SNP’s hegemony.
In a further sign that the SNP intends to turn up the heat on Labour, the party has said it would demand a “close relationship” with the EU in the event of a hung parliament at the next election.
Read more:
Labour would fall 28 short of overall majority in general election, Sky News vote share projection shows
Labour snatches key battlegrounds from Tories but Starmer still has mountain to climb to secure majority
While Sky’s election analyst Michael Thrasher said Labour was on course to be the largest party in 2024, he said it would still nevertheless be short of a majority, meaning the party may have no option but to form a coalition.
Sir Keir has repeatedly ruled out a coalition with the SNP but the latter believes it could hold “the balance of power” at the next election.
The SNP’s EU Accession spokesperson, Alyn Smith MP said: “While independence is the only way for Scotland to regain our EU membership, the SNP could hold the balance of power at the next election and we would use our influence to undo Brexit as far as possible and demand the UK has a close relationship with the EU.
“With all the signs pointing to a hung parliament, the SNP could force a minority Labour government to rejoin the EU single market, reintroduce free movement and transfer power for an independence referendum to Edinburgh, so Scotland can regain our place in Europe.
“At the next election, voting SNP is the only way to beat the Tories in Scotland.”
This is the highest stakes diplomacy via social media.
The American president just posted on his Truth Social platform: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers.
“Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Israel-Iran live: Trump says US knows where Iran’s supreme leader is ‘hiding’
It was followed minutes later by “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
In real-time, we are witnessing Donald Trump’s extreme version of maximum pressure diplomacy.
He’d probably call it the ‘art of the deal’, but bunker busters are the tool, and it comes with such huge consequences, intended and unintended, known and unknown.
Read more:
The bunker buster bomb which could destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions
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Nuclear sites targeted in Iran
There is intentional ambiguity in the president’s messaging. His assumption is that he can apply his ‘art of the deal’ strategy to a deeply ideological geopolitical challenge.
It’s all playing out publicly. Overnight, the New York Times, via two of its best-sourced reporters, had been told that Mr Trump is weighing whether to use B-2 aircraft to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, Axios was reporting that a meeting is possible between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
The reporting came just as Mr Trump warned “everyone in Tehran to evacuate”. The nuclear sites being threatened with bunker busters are not in Tehran, but Trump’s words are designed to stoke tension, to confuse and to apply intense pressure.
His actions are too. He left the G7 in Canada early and asked his teams to gather in the White House Situation Room.
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Trump: ‘I want an end, not a ceasefire’
This is a game of smoke, mirrors, brinkmanship and – maybe – bluff. In Tehran, what’s left of the leadership is watching and reading closely as they consider what’s next.
Maybe the Supreme Leader and his regime’s days are numbered. Things remain very unpredictable.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
From history, though, regime change, even when it comes with a plan – and there is certainly not one here, spells civil war and from that comes a refugee crisis.
These are truly tense and chaotic times.
World
Ukraine war: 14 killed as Russian missile and drone attacks strike Kyiv – including American citizen
Russian missile and drone attacks have killed 14 people in Kyiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials.
A 62-year-old US citizen who suffered shrapnel wounds is among the dead.
At least 99 others were wounded in strikes that hollowed out a residential building and destroyed dozens of apartments.
Pic: AP
Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Images show a firefighter was among those hurt, with injured residents evacuated from their homes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “one of the most terrifying attacks on Kyiv” – and said Russian forces had fired 440 drones and 32 missiles as civilians slept in their homes.
“[Putin] wants the war to go on,” he said. “It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it.”
Pic: AP
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said 27 locations across the capital have been hit – including educational institutions and critical infrastructure.
He claimed the attack, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was one of the largest on the capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Drones swarmed over the city, with an air raid alert remaining in force for seven hours.
One person was killed and 17 others injured as a result of separate Russian drone strikes in the port city of Odesa.
Pic: Reuters
It comes as the G7 summit in Canada continues, which Ukraine’s leader is expected to attend.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold talks with Donald Trump – but the president has announced he is unexpectedly returning to Washington because of tensions in the Middle East.
Ukraine’s foreign minister says Moscow’s decision to attack Kyiv during the summit is a signal of disrespect to the US.
Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, and says the attacks are in retaliation for a Ukrainian operation that targeted warplanes in airbases deep within Russian territory.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko says fires broke out in two of the city’s districts as a result of debris from drones shot down by the nation’s air defences.
Read more from Sky News:
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US-UK trade deal is ‘done’, Donald Trump says
Pic: AP
On X, Ukraine’s foreign ministry wrote: “Russia’s campaign of terror against civilians continues. Its war against Ukraine escalates with increased brutality.
“The only way to stop Russia is tighter pressure – through sanctions, more defence support for Ukraine, and limiting Russia’s ability to keep sowing war.”
Olena Lapyshnak, who lived in one of the destroyed buildings, said: “It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life. I can only curse the Russians, that’s all I can say. They shouldn’t exist in this world.”
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