Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Are Labour's donors dictating policy?
The paper says that the plan, if implemented, would have scuppered any potential donations from the billionaire Elon Musk to Reform UK by making it illegal to donate unless donors were registered to vote in the UK or via companies owned by people based in Britain:
Labour has received £4m from a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands, Quadrature Capital, though it pays corporation tax in the UK on profits.
But Lord Alli, the party’s fundraising chief in opposition, is said to have stopped the planned speech by Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, and Gordon Brown to announce the changes, according to a new book about Labour’s path to power.
The former Labour prime minister had already booked accommodation in London for the speech announcing the changes when it was canned, according to Get In, by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.
Labour and Alli declined to comment.
The book contains a leaked policy paper for the speech intended to take place in December 2023 at Chatham House – and suggests it had been signed off by Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s now chief of staff.
Though McSweeney was reportedly concerned about seeming anti-donor, he is said to have agreed the plan on the basis it would prevent donations from those without “skin in the game”.
A Labour source told the authors that Alli had intervened to pull the announcement with a week to go, with no explanation.
Labour is said to be examining proposals to limit how much individuals and companies can donate to political parties as part of an effort to tighten the rules around money in UK politics. The Institute for Public Policy Research has recommended that ministers limit individual and corporate donations to political parties to £100,000 a year.
In its manifesto, Labour committed to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”. At the core of this promise was an aim to tighten protections around foreign interference in UK democracy.
Donation caps are among a number of measures the government is looking at as part of plans for an election and democracy bill in the next parliamentary session. The bill did not form part of the king’s speech in July.
According to the policy paper quoted in the book, Rayner’s proposal was to “close loopholes in UK donation law which currently allow dodgy money to enter our politics – primarily through the Tory party – via shell companies or companies with no connection to the UK.
“This policy will provide us with a robust defence to the Tories’ attack on our donations by laying out with full transparency the robustness of our donation due diligence, and inviting the Tories to close loopholes which allow foreign money into UK democracy.”
Whatever the truth, the impression that the government us being led by its donors is terribly damaging and of course plays into the hands of both Nigel Farage and the Tory Party.
Tuesday, February 04, 2025
Starmer's EU reset evidence that Brexit has failed
The paper adds that senior diplomats have reportedly said that the French president views the prime minister as the “demandeur”, a leader humbled into returning to the EU fold because Britain has been weakened by Brexit:
“The Brexit project, breaking away from the EU to create a global Britain, didn’t work. We thought it wouldn’t work because the UK is European, geographically and economically. Brexit was a project for a stable and prosperous world, but in a complicated world, obviously the UK will be closer to Europe,” one source told The Times.
Ahead of the visit, Sir Keir said that Brexit is “settled”, but added that “I do want to see a closer relationship on defence and security, on energy, on trade and our economy”.
“And that is what we’re working on,” the PM said.
But Brussels diplomats have said Donald Trump’s return to the White House, and the looming threat of a global trade war, have heightened the need for Britain to return to the EU’s orbit.
At a meeting of the 27 EU leaders on Monday, Sir Keir will place defence at the heart of his post-Brexit reset with Brussels, calling on European allies to double down on their support for Ukraine.
He will challenge EU countries to ramp up their defence spending to keep the continent safe from Vladimir Putin’s “campaign of sabotage and destruction”.
But while the PM wants to focus on defence and security, he is also facing questions about other parts of the UK’s relationship with Europe, notably over fishing and a youth mobility agreement.
A senior UK government source has indicated Britain is closer to agreeing to a deal on youth mobility, which would allow under-30s to study, work and travel across the European Union for a number of years.
The scheme, a key demand of Brussels in Sir Keir’s bid for closer ties with the EU, would run for up to three years under concessions being considered by the bloc. In a sign Labour could ease its opposition so far to a scheme, a government source told The Telegraph “we will look at anything that the European Union does put forward”.
Ahead of the meeting on Monday, Sir Keir was warned Brussels will play tough in negotiations about closer ties, with Sir Keir facing the same fate as Boris Johnson in talks with the bloc – with tough concessions demanded in return for any new relationship.
Sir Keir will be warned that progress on issues such as defence and security is not an option unless he is willing to give ground on issues such as EU access to Britain’s fishing waters and a youth mobility scheme.
In a boost for Sir Keir ahead of the meeting, Poland’s foreign minister said that while Brexit is not reversible, the EU would like to have Britain as “a major partner” on security and defence.
In my view Macron has judged the UK's weakness perfectly, as well as identifying a huge opportunity for Starmer to start to put things right. As Ed Davey has now started to say much more openly, we need to be part of the single market if we are to stand up to Trump and his tariffs, and if we are to kickstart growth.
Monday, February 03, 2025
It is time for the Welsh Government to intervene on university cuts
The paper says that nearly one in four leading UK universities are slashing staff numbers and cutting budgets, with up to 10,000 redundancies or job losses, bringing calls for action to avoid damaging the sector’s international standing.
They add that in the past week four universities, including two members of the research-intensive Russell Group of universities, have announced a combined 1,000 job losses in response to budget shortfalls, while about 90 universities are currently restructuring alongside compulsory and voluntary redundancy schemes to lower their wage bills.
The paper features the decision by Cardiff University to axe its highly rated nursing courses as well as job losses in humanities subjects:
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has sounded the alarm that the financial crisis is “engulfing” nursing courses. A majority of nurse-lecturers and other higher education nursing staff across the UK reported redundancies and recruitment freezes, when there are more than 40,000 vacancies in the sector.
Helen Whyley, the executive director of RCN Wales, said she was “very concerned” by Cardiff’s proposals.
She said: “Its school of nursing has a longstanding reputation for excellence, producing highly skilled, compassionate nurses who have gone on to serve communities locally and across Wales.
“This decision has the potential to threaten the pipeline of registered nurses into the largest health board in Wales and undermines efforts to address the critical staffing crisis in the NHS and social care.”
While universities such as Durham and Cardiff are only now announcing job losses, others have undergone constant cost-cutting and restructuring for the past three years as rising costs and declining tuition fee income from domestic students have eroded budgets.
One vice-chancellor said the “drip-drip” nature of the cuts meant they had largely passed under the public’s radar.
“If the BBC or John Lewis was cutting 5,000 or 6,000 jobs, we’d hear all about it but what we’re seeing in universities isn’t being noticed,” they said.
Highlighting the lack of fuss being made about the loss of these courses is absolutely right. It is something that Welsh journalist Will Hayward is particularly scathing about in his latest newsletter.
He says that the proposed 400 job cuts at Cardiff Uni have been covered extensively but what hasn’t got the attention it deserves is the Welsh Government’s attempt to abdicate responsibility over this:
Let’s just focus on the proposed removal of the nursing course (though loss in the other areas is also clearly devastating for Wales).
Here are some numbers:
There are 800 to 1,000 students in the Cardiff Uni nursing school.
There are 2,000 nursing vacancies in Wales.
The Cardiff course is the #1 ranked nursing course in Wales and #5 in the whole of the UK.
One of the challenges Welsh health boards face is attracting staff to come and work in Wales. This is a particular issue in rural Wales and at Betsi Cadwaladr in the North. When people study in a place, there is a pretty decent chance they will stick around after university.
I know six people who studied nursing at Cardiff. Four of them were from England. 10 years on from graduating, five of the six are still working in the Welsh NHS.
You can make a strong argument that a shortage in a profession as vital as nursing is a national security threat. Especially given our aging population, long waiting lists and the ever present threat of pandemics.
Given that it is devolved, it begs the question what has been the Welsh Government's response to this crisis in higher education? Well it has been two fold:
To start with they were seemingly utterly blindsided by it despite other Welsh unis making redundancies and repeated warnings about the perilous state of HE institutions by economists like Professor Dylan Jones-Evans.
Once the proposed cuts were announced they did everything they could to distance themselves from the problem and deflect responsibility for solving it.
Barely anyone has come forward for an interview on the issue and when the minister for further and higher education, Vikki Howells, appeared in the Senedd it was an exhibition of the finest buck passing.
Over and over again she responded to questions saying that “universities are autonomous of the Government”.
That’s true but as BBC journo James Williams pointed out on his podcast, “so is Tata Steel in Port Talbot”, and yet the Welsh Government never missed a second telling the UK Government that they needed to intervene there (until of course Labour were in charge of the UK Government and then the plan made by the Tories was apparently good enough).
He quotes the response by Vikki Howells to questions in which she says:
“I'd like to place on record in this Chamber this afternoon that we need to see a review of how the HE sector is funded across the UK as a whole.
“I understand that some work is ongoing in the UK Government, and I expect the Welsh Government to have the opportunity to contribute to this review so that any findings are relevant to the needs of Wales, which will of course always be my primary concern.”
Oh for crying out loud. These jobs and vital training places are at risk of going right now. The UK Government clearly has no appetite for tackling the problems for unis in England let alone Wales. To call for that review by someone else and think that it is enough is a dereliction of duty. They are the custodians of Wales, they must do more.
Now don’t get me wrong, in an ideal world, any review of HE would indeed cover England and Wales because HE institutions on both sides of the border are facing similar issues like changes to visa rules, the impact of Brexit and the student finances rules set in London. Not to mention the fact they are very interconnected.
But this isn’t an ideal world and Welsh Labour clearly have next to no influence with their Westminster colleagues to drive the changes
Therefore it is the duty of the Welsh Labour Government to step up and do all they can to help the sector in Wales. Barely a day goes by when Welsh Labour doesn’t call for more powers to be devolved, but when there is an issue in an area which is already devolved they call on the UK Government to do more. It is infuriating.
Finally, it is important to note that though Cardiff grabs the headlines, almost every uni in Wales is facing the same challenges. This is a Wales issue, not a Cardiff issue.
One of the big failures of devolution in my view is the inability of ministers to carry out effective workforce planning around the health service. The shortage of nurses is a symptom of that. Their failure to secure this vital course is just more of the same. an abrogation of responsibility by the Welsh government.
Sunday, February 02, 2025
Troubled times in the pursuit of growth
Evidence that things are going awry is set out in black and white in this article in the Independent. They report that Reeves has suffered a humiliating blow to her hopes win back business confidence after AstraZeneca has cancelled a planned £450 million investment in a vaccine manufacturing plant in Merseyside.
They say that the announcement provides a harsh reality check at the end of a week where the chancellor had hoped to use a major speech to get her economic growth agenda back on track:
Already, her attempts to woo major companies again with pledges of major investments including the expansion of Heathrow and a new Silicon Valley between Oxford and Cambridge had fallen flat.
Praise for her speech from business leaders had not been met with actions as Lloyds Bank, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and two major universities announced thousands of job losses.
While the row with AstraZeneca appeared to be around previously promised subsidies, there is deep disquiet among business leaders about the hike in national insurance contributions dubbed the “jobs tax” and a massive rollout of employment rights with a repeal of restrictions on industrial action.
Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “There’s no vaccine for incompetence. In the same week they talked about growth, Labour seem to have fumbled a deal with AstraZeneca, one of the UK’s largest companies and central to the critical Life Sciences sector.
"This is yet another sign that their tax rises and changes to employment law have made the UK an unattractive place to invest.
"When will Labour learn that only businesses can creates growth and jobs in the economy?”
The major pharmaceutical company claimed Labour had failed to match the previous tory government’s offer of support.
The decision reverses an announcement made by then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt at last year’s March budget that would have seen the pharmaceutical company expand its existing facility in Speke.
At the time, the Conservative government said the investment would both boost the UK’s life sciences sector and improve public health protection and pandemic preparedness.
Confirming the reversal on Friday, a spokesperson for AstraZeneca said: “Following discussions with the current Government, we are no longer pursuing our planned investment in Speke.
“Several factors have influenced this decision including the timing and reduction of the final offer compared to the previous government’s proposal.”
The existing facility will continue to operate and no jobs are at risk.
Reeves will have to start listening better if she is to achieve her goals.
They say that the announcement provides a harsh reality check at the end of a week where the chancellor had hoped to use a major speech to get her economic growth agenda back on track:
Already, her attempts to woo major companies again with pledges of major investments including the expansion of Heathrow and a new Silicon Valley between Oxford and Cambridge had fallen flat.
Praise for her speech from business leaders had not been met with actions as Lloyds Bank, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and two major universities announced thousands of job losses.
While the row with AstraZeneca appeared to be around previously promised subsidies, there is deep disquiet among business leaders about the hike in national insurance contributions dubbed the “jobs tax” and a massive rollout of employment rights with a repeal of restrictions on industrial action.
Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “There’s no vaccine for incompetence. In the same week they talked about growth, Labour seem to have fumbled a deal with AstraZeneca, one of the UK’s largest companies and central to the critical Life Sciences sector.
"This is yet another sign that their tax rises and changes to employment law have made the UK an unattractive place to invest.
"When will Labour learn that only businesses can creates growth and jobs in the economy?”
The major pharmaceutical company claimed Labour had failed to match the previous tory government’s offer of support.
The decision reverses an announcement made by then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt at last year’s March budget that would have seen the pharmaceutical company expand its existing facility in Speke.
At the time, the Conservative government said the investment would both boost the UK’s life sciences sector and improve public health protection and pandemic preparedness.
Confirming the reversal on Friday, a spokesperson for AstraZeneca said: “Following discussions with the current Government, we are no longer pursuing our planned investment in Speke.
“Several factors have influenced this decision including the timing and reduction of the final offer compared to the previous government’s proposal.”
The existing facility will continue to operate and no jobs are at risk.
Reeves will have to start listening better if she is to achieve her goals.
Saturday, February 01, 2025
Tory funders defecting to Reform
The paper says that the party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, is expected to appear at the Conservatives’ London conference in Westminster on Saturday, where wealthy party donors say they have been invited to evening drinks:
It comes after Reform’s fundraiser in Mayfair on Tuesday which was attended by former Conservative donors including Bassim Haidar and Mohamed Amersi, who each paid £25,000 to join a top table with Farage.
Sources in Reform say that pledges of more than £1m had already come in from businesspeople, and the Guardian understands there is now deep concern at Conservative central headquarters (CCHQ) that many of their donors are considering switching to Farage’s party.
One Conservative source said the past few months appeared to be one of the worst periods ever for the party in terms of bringing in donations.
They said the CCHQ’s treasurer department was extremely concerned about the number of donors who have paused or entirely stopped donations. There is particular worry about those who have already started contributing to Reform, as it can be almost impossible to bring back donors who switch to another party.
Others senior Conservatives are alarmed that Badenoch does not appear to have put in enough effort to wooing donors, with one attender at a function saying she turned up late, was not explicit enough about asking for money and then left early.
There is even concern among some of Badenoch’s high profile supporters.
Sir Rocco Forte, the luxury hotel owner who gave £20,000 to Badenoch’s leadership campaign last year and donated £100,000 to the Tory party during its successful 2019 general election campaign, said: “It’s not yet clear what the Conservative party is doing and for me and many other people there is a big question mark.
“I’m a very big supporter of Kemi Badenoch. I think she understands a radical revolution is needed. A lot of what Reform is saying is pointing in the right direction and I admire Farage, who have momentum at the moment and have no baggage.
“The problem for Kemi Badenoch is that every time she says anything, others ask ‘Well, why didn’t you do something about it when you’re in power?’ I think she’s got to disassociate herself quite significantly from what happened in the last 14 years when there was a strategy of the middle ground and all that.”
He said he thought Farage could reach parts of the country the Tories could not, “particularly the north”, adding: “It could well be that come the next election you could have the vote on the right split. Some form of accommodation may have to come about. People talk about a merger but I think an accommodation is more likely.”
In an uncomfortable moment for Badenoch, Farage plans to park Reform’s tanks on the Tory leader’s own lawn on Friday night by holding a rally in her constituency of North West Essex.
Badenoch is defending a relatively slim majority of 2,610 in what was once a Tory stronghold, but where a bigger Reform showing at the next election could hand the seat to Labour by splitting the right-wing vote.
Things are looking really ropey for the new Tory leader. Can she turn it around?
