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UK economy sees surprise growth in March despite Iran war
The economy grew by 0.3% in the month, official figures show, confounding analysts’ forecasts of a small contraction.
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Angela Rayner says Starmer should ‘reflect on’ stepping aside after HMRC clears her over tax affairs – UK politics live | Politics
Good morning. Today it looks as though the phoney Labour leadership contest that has been bubbling away at least since Sunday may finally turn into a real one. Westminster is braced for Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to announce that he is standing – although journalists are not yet 100% certain it will happen.
This morning, in a joint scoop, the Guardian and ITV had news that could affect Streeting’s calculations. As Pippa Crerar reports, Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM, has been cleared by HMRC of deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness over her tax affairs.
In an interview with Pippa, Rayner said that she would not challenge Starmer herself. But she said she wanted to see change, “action, not just words”. Asked whether Starmer should step aside, she said: “Keir will have to reflect on that.”
If there is a contest, Rayner did not rule out being a candidate, but she also hinted that she might back someone else. She said:
I’ll play my part in doing everything we possibly can to deliver the change, because it’s not a personal ambition, I know the difference it makes. Whatever role I can play, I will keep pushing and pushing hard because I want the people out there at the moment who are really struggling … to know that I’m putting all my energy into fighting for them.
Rayner has hinted that she would be happy for Andy Burnham (who, like her, is on Labour’s soft-left wing – Streeting is identified with Labour’s right) to replace Starmer. But Burnham could only be a candidate if he can find a seat and return to the Commons in a byelection. We are expecting to hear more on that soon. Burnham has cancelled his regular weekly appearance on Radio Manchester saying he needs to prioritise “discussions arising from last week’s local elections”.
We don’t know when the possible main announcements for today – from Streeting and Burnham – might happen. But here are the events that are in the diary.
9.30am: NHS England publishes its monthly performance figures. Normally Streeting, as health secretary, records a short clip for broadcasters when they come out.
After 10.30am: MPs resume the king’s speech debate, focusing on economic growth.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
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Key events
Wes Streeting’s allies have been briefing journalists. This is from Alex Wickham at Bloomberg, but other lobby correspondents are being given the same message.
Supporters of Wes Streeting claim he has the numbers BUT they say “things are shifting”
They claim MPs who signed the loyalty letter told the PM last night he has to go
They claim cabinet ministers are going in to Downing Street today tell Starmer to go
They claim Darren Jones is telling MPs the PM is going to go
Ed Davey accuses Streeting of having ‘dire track record’ at NHS, saying 12-hour A&E waits up 20% since 2024
The Liberal Democrats say Wes Streeting should not be celebrating the NHS England performance figures out today. They are focusing on the figures for waits lasting more than 12 hours in A&E departments.
According to the Press Association, the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted stood at 47,750 in April, up slightly from 46,665 in March, NHS figures indicate. The figure reached a record 71,517 people in January.
The Lib Dems says:
220,581 A&E patients have had to wait over 12 hours from decision to admit to admission, such as on a corridor or in a plastic chair, so far this year. That number is the worst on record. The equivalent period in 2025 saw 20,000 fewer patients face this ordeal, and is up by nearly 40,000 on the equivalent point in 2024. This means that since Labour took office the numbers facing degrading trolley waits has increased by over 20%.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said:
The devastating A&E statistics this morning prove that Wes Streeting has been too busy measuring the curtains in Number 10 to turn our NHS around.
This is a dire track record for any minister with plans to take the top job. Labour’s management of our NHS has been a walking policy disaster.
Kevin Schofield, political editor at HuffPost UK, says a Wes Streeting leadership challenge is now looking more unlikely.
Looking increasingly unlikely that Wes Streeting will challenge Keir Starmer today.
Some in his team are not convinced he has the 81 supporters locked in to formally launch a contest.
Suspicion that Angela Rayner’s announcement this morning that she’s been cleared by HMRC is also making Streeting think twice.
(Readers may be getting fed up with the uncertainty. You’re not alone; journalists would like a bit of certainty too.)
Streeting says NHS England has achieved biggest single-month cut in waiting lists in 17 years
Wes Streeting hasn’t resigned yet – because he has just issued a statement about the NHS England waiting figures.
He said:
Our plan for the NHS is working. This is the biggest cut in waiting lists in a single month in 17 years.
It means we are right on track to deliver the fastest reduction in waiting times in the history of the NHS.
That is thanks to the Government’s investment, modernisation, and the remarkable efforts of staff right across the country.
Lots done, lots more to do.
Here is the NHS England news release about the figures. Confusingly, the figures it quotes don’t seem to match the claim Streeting is making. It says “the waiting list fell by over 312,000 last year, the largest year-on-year reduction in 16 years”. I’m seeking clarification as to why Streeting described the figures differently.
Cleared by HMRC, Angela Rayner says Labour must deliver change – video
Here is a clip from Pippa Crerar’s inteview with Angela Rayner.
Ed Miliband, the energy secreratary and Labour leader from 2010 to 2015, has also told some colleagues that, in the right circumstances, he could stand for the leadership, Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt reports. Publicly, Miliband has said he won’t stand again. But soft-left Labour are in a panic over who would be their candidate in the event of Wes Streeting launching a contest. Broadly, they don’t want to back Starmer, because they think he will lose the next election; they like Andy Burnham, but are not confident he will be a candidate; and they have reservations about Angela Rayner, another potential ‘stop Streeting’ option.
Defence minister Al Carns does not deny wanting to enter any Labour leadership contest
Al Carns, the defence minister first elected in 2024, will launch his own leadership bid if a contest starts, Sky News is reporting.
Asked about this last night, Carns told Sky: “I’m just a humble junior minister.”
He is certainly a junior minister. But colleagues may query the “humble” bit. Carns had an impressive career in the military, but to consider standing to be PM after only two years in the Commons is hubristic, and may be unprecedented.
Carns has written an article for the New Statesman setting out his response to the election results. It does not say anything about policy, but it does tell you a bit about Al Carns. “I grew up in Aberdeen in a working-class family with a single mum,” he says.
Here’s an extract.
Unless Labour understands that insecurity on an emotional level as well as on an economic one, we will continue to lose voters who would naturally align with us. Working-class voters have not simply left Labour. Many feel Labour stopped understanding their lives, and so they looked elsewhere.
What is the point of Labour if it does not represent Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley, Swansea and Aberdeen? What is the point of the Labour party if it cannot replace despair and frustration with hope, stability and purpose? The party was founded to give ordinary working people security, dignity and bargaining power over their lives.
That is exactly what I believe, and it must be our mission again. We do not need more slogans, strategies, press releases or commissions. We need action.
According to a story by David Maddox for the Independent, “as many as five other ministers, all allies of [Wes] Streeting, are on a resignation watchlist”.
But so far this morning there is no sign yet of Streeting launching his much-talked-about leadership bid.
Wes Streeting is deeply unpopular on the Labour left. This morning Richard Burgon, secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group in parliament, has posted a message saying that, if Streeting does launch a leadership bid today, he will be ignoring the wishes of Labour-affiliated trade unions. Burgon said:
Wes Streeting launching a leadership bid today would be deliberately flying in the face of this joint statement from all of Labour’s affiliated trade unions for an orderly transition.
Dismissing our trade unions like this will not help us learn the lessons or help us stop Farage
In an interview with BBC Radio Scotland this morning, Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, stressed that, for all the speculation, Wes Streeting has still not triggered a leadership contest.
Alexander said:
The prime minister has my support, I am a member of the cabinet.
I think for all of the speculation, for all of the headlines, it’s worth holding on to the fact we’ve seen twists and turns in this drama even in recent days. There’s a process by which a challenge to the Labour party leadership can be conducted, and that process simply hasn’t been triggered this morning.
Alexander may have been reflecting scepticism in No 10 about whether Wes Streeting really does have the support of 80 Labour MPs that he will need to get a contest started. In a report for the Financial Times, Jim Pickard, Lucy Fisher and George Parker also pick up these doubts. They say:
One cabinet minister loyal to Starmer claimed Streeting did not have the numbers. “All the effort now has to go into stopping him getting to 81 names and he’s currently only on about 30,” they said. “The herd is not as big as he thinks it is.”
One former Tory Downing Street adviser said MPs could be notoriously unreliable in chaotic leadership situations. “If it was me I’d want 130 names to be sure of 81,” he added.
Last night Tony Diver from the Telegraph claimed that Streeting’s allies were telling Labour MPs they could nominate Streeting and then switch support to another candidate.
In response, the Labour MP Luke Akehurst, a member of Labour’s national executive committee, pointed out that this is not correct. An MP who nominates a candidate for leader can only withdraw their name to nominate someone else if the person they nominated originally withdraws.
(There is nothing to stop an MP nominating one candidate but then actually voting for another candidate. But, at the voting stage, the vote an MP carries no more weight than the vote of any other party member; it won’t make much difference. MPs have most power at the point when they can nominate someone to get them on the ballot.)
Tracy Brabin, the Labour mayor of West Yorkshire, was also on the Today programme this morning. She said she met Keir Starmer yesterday and had a “frank conversation” with him about how the government needed to do better. She said Labour would have to “escalate the pace of change”. She was rather non-committal about whether she wanted this to happen with Starmer remaining leader but, when asked if he should go, she said that currently there was no leadership contest and that she had “no horse in this race”.
She also summed up her message in a post on social media.
Minister urges Labour MPs to ‘step back’ from supporting leadership contest
James Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has been the No 10 voice on the airwaves this morning.
In an interview on the Today programme, he urged Labour colleagues to “step back” from supporting a leadership contest. He said:
I would say to all colleagues, take a deep breath. Take a step back.
Make sure that we recognise we’re less than two years into this parliament. Look at what we’ve done so far. Look at the benefits of the stability that we brought to government, make sure that we don’t go into a chaotic process of uncertainty, and make sure we focus on what people want us to be doing.
Asked about Wes Streeting, Murray said:
He is the health secretary, and I hope he is the health secretary by the end of the day.
UK economy records surprise 0.3% growth in first month of the Iran war
The UK economy unexpectedly grew during the first full month of the Iran war, according to official figures, suggesting the Middle East conflict has not yet affected growth as much as feared, Tom Knowles reports.
Reeves suggests Labour leadership contest could put economic recovery at risk
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, spoke to reporters this morning after the growth figures were released. She claimed that a Labour leadership contest would put economic recovery at risk. She said:
Labour MPs have got an important decision to make today, but the numbers show that the economy is growing and that when we entered this conflict [the Iran war], our economy was growing strongly because of the decisions that I have made as chancellor. We shouldn’t put that at risk.
In her interview with ITV, Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM, said she would not be making a pact with Andy Burnham to challenge Keir Starmer. “I’m not doing deals or anything like that,” she said.
Good morning. Today it looks as though the phoney Labour leadership contest that has been bubbling away at least since Sunday may finally turn into a real one. Westminster is braced for Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to announce that he is standing – although journalists are not yet 100% certain it will happen.
This morning, in a joint scoop, the Guardian and ITV had news that could affect Streeting’s calculations. As Pippa Crerar reports, Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM, has been cleared by HMRC of deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness over her tax affairs.
In an interview with Pippa, Rayner said that she would not challenge Starmer herself. But she said she wanted to see change, “action, not just words”. Asked whether Starmer should step aside, she said: “Keir will have to reflect on that.”
If there is a contest, Rayner did not rule out being a candidate, but she also hinted that she might back someone else. She said:
I’ll play my part in doing everything we possibly can to deliver the change, because it’s not a personal ambition, I know the difference it makes. Whatever role I can play, I will keep pushing and pushing hard because I want the people out there at the moment who are really struggling … to know that I’m putting all my energy into fighting for them.
Rayner has hinted that she would be happy for Andy Burnham (who, like her, is on Labour’s soft-left wing – Streeting is identified with Labour’s right) to replace Starmer. But Burnham could only be a candidate if he can find a seat and return to the Commons in a byelection. We are expecting to hear more on that soon. Burnham has cancelled his regular weekly appearance on Radio Manchester saying he needs to prioritise “discussions arising from last week’s local elections”.
We don’t know when the possible main announcements for today – from Streeting and Burnham – might happen. But here are the events that are in the diary.
9.30am: NHS England publishes its monthly performance figures. Normally Streeting, as health secretary, records a short clip for broadcasters when they come out.
After 10.30am: MPs resume the king’s speech debate, focusing on economic growth.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
UK News
One dead and 40 injured as intense Russian strikes on Ukraine continue – Europe live | Europe
Morning opening: Russia continues strikes on Ukraine
Jakub Krupa
After a tense day of intense attacks on Wednesday, Russia has continued its strikes on Ukraine overnight, with at least one dead and 40 injured in the capital, Kyiv, after reported hits on civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the strikes, saying:
“These are definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end. It is important that partners do not remain silent about this strike.”
He said that over the last 30 hours, Russia deployed more than 1,500 drones against Ukraine.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 18 apartments were destroyed as a direct result of the attack, with water supply problems reported in left bank Kyiv. He added that 40 people were injured, with 31 requiring hospitalisation.
Elsewhere, I will be jealous of parts of Europe that are off on bank holiday today looking at the Charlemagne ceremony in Germany, the meeting of Finnish and Lithuanian presidents to discuss regional security, and media reports about potential US troops movement out of Poland (although denied by the Polish government).
Oh, and it’s the second Eurovision semi-final tonight!
It’s Thursday, 14 May 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
Key events
Latvian prime minister reportedly about to resign from office after drone incursion
Things are heating up in Latvian politics today.
A major government crisis has been brewing in the last few days over how a recent drone incursion incident was handled, and early reports suggest prime minister Evika Siliņa might actually step down.
Latvia’s public broadcaster LSM is reporting that she plans to resign from the position.
I will keep an eye on this for you and bring you the latest lines here.
Morning opening: Russia continues strikes on Ukraine
Jakub Krupa
After a tense day of intense attacks on Wednesday, Russia has continued its strikes on Ukraine overnight, with at least one dead and 40 injured in the capital, Kyiv, after reported hits on civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the strikes, saying:
“These are definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end. It is important that partners do not remain silent about this strike.”
He said that over the last 30 hours, Russia deployed more than 1,500 drones against Ukraine.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 18 apartments were destroyed as a direct result of the attack, with water supply problems reported in left bank Kyiv. He added that 40 people were injured, with 31 requiring hospitalisation.
Elsewhere, I will be jealous of parts of Europe that are off on bank holiday today looking at the Charlemagne ceremony in Germany, the meeting of Finnish and Lithuanian presidents to discuss regional security, and media reports about potential US troops movement out of Poland (although denied by the Polish government).
Oh, and it’s the second Eurovision semi-final tonight!
It’s Thursday, 14 May 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
Brighton and Hove City Council leader Bella Sankey says the women are yet to be identified.
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Angela Rayner says Starmer should ‘reflect on’ stepping aside after HMRC clears her over tax affairs – UK politics live | Politics
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