Lawmakers left Washington for a long weekend without resolving an impasse over much-criticized agency’s funding
The Department of Homeland Security has begun a partial shutdown, after funding for the much-criticized agency expired, with a range of services, including domestic flights and the US Coastguard, now vulnerable to disruption.
The shutdown was all but confirmed on Thursday, after the Senate failed to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the DHS appropriations bill and lawmakers left Washington for a long weekend without resolving the impasse.
Democratic representative also condemns US capture of Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and US support for Israel’s war on Gaza – key US politics stories from Friday, 13 February at a glance
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused Donald Trump of tearing apart the transatlantic alliance with Europe and of seeking to introduce an “age of authoritarianism”, as she condemned his administration’s foreign policy in front of its allies’ top policymakers at the Munich security conference.
Speaking at a panel on populism on Friday, the New York representative outlined what she called an “alternative vision” for a leftwing US foreign policy, challenging the Trump administration’s shift to the right in front an audience of US allies who have grown increasingly wary of the US’s increasingly nationalist – and militaristic – global posture.
British PM to tell Munich Security Conference that Europe together is ‘sleeping giant’ and will say UK won’t turn away from its allies
Keir Starmer will say the UK and Europe need to step up their commitments to Nato and avoid the risk of overdependence on the US for defence, as he sets out one of the main planks of his foreign policy vision on Saturday.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the prime minister will warn against the idea of the UK turning inwards on security, instead calling for a focus on what he will call the “sleeping giant” of shared European defence capabilities.
Letter says it is clear the former US ambassador ‘holds critical information’ for their investigation into Epstein
Peter Mandelson has been asked to testify to the US Congress over his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Robert Garcia, ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, and congressman Suhas Subramanyam have written to Mandelson requesting he be questioned as part of the investigation into Epstein.
At a moment of stagnation and political drift, Andy Burnham’s push for a new plan suggests the centre-left debate has moved beyond Downing Street
Once a political leader’s net favourability sinks deep into negative territory, recovery is the exception, not the rule. It usually takes an economic rebound, a dramatic political reset or an opposition implosion to reverse the slide. Sir Keir Starmer’s personal ratings are in a danger zone from which few escape.
Yet the prime minister, like the Bourbons, has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. He made a speech this week after coming close to being ousted suggesting he would “fight” on. He doubled down in parliament despite glaring errors in judgment. He forced out his cabinet secretary while his own failures remain unaddressed. He seemed to blame everyone but himself. When support slips and a leader answers with defiance, voters don’t see strength – they see denial.
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Byelection candidate accused of indulging ‘alt right fantasy’ by suggesting women need ‘biological reality’ check
Reform UK’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection has been accused of wanting a “Handmaid’s Tale future” after unearthed YouTube footage revealed he called for “young girls and women” to be given a “biological reality” check.
In a clip posted to his personal YouTube channel in November 2024, Matt Goodwin stated that “many women in Britain are having children much too late in life”.
The co-founder of Palestine Action has won a legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws. Palestine Action was the first direct action protest group to be proscribed. The decision was widely condemned and was defied by a civil disobedience campaign, during which more than 2,000 people have been arrested. From July last year, being a member of – or showing support for – the group became an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian columnist Owen Jones
Centers would have capacity for tens of thousands of people to be held; talks over funding bill stall hours before shutdown
The annual rate of US inflation eased in January, according to the latest data consumer price index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Over the last 12 months, the cost of goods has increased by 2.4% – down from 2.7% in last month’s report.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate left Washington on Thursday as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) heads for another shutdown, when stopgap funding lapses tonight. Nearly all Democrats blocked a second attempt to pass the annual DHS appropriations bill as negotiations for guardrails on federal immigration enforcement have stalled. Senator John Fetterman was the only lawmaker to break ranks with the party.
PM says country’s discourse is being poisoned and polluted by rhetoric ‘pitting communities against one another’
The Equality and Human Rights Commissionhas welcomed a high court ruling defending the interim guidance it issued to organisations about the implications of the supreme court judgement saying that, when the Equality Act refers to sex, it means biological sex.
The guidance – described as an “interim update” – was controversial because it was seen as over-prescriptive, and the Good Law Project launched a legal challenge.
We welcome the court’s conclusion that the interim update was lawful and the EHRC did not act in breach of its statutory duties.
We issued the interim update in response to a high level of demand immediately after the supreme court’s ruling. We were concerned that organisations and individuals could be subject to misinformation and misrepresentation of the judgment and its consequences. That might have led to them failing to comply with the law: adopting or maintaining discriminatory policies or practices, to the detriment of those the law is supposed to protect.
It is wrong because it reduces trans people to a third sex. It is wrong because it gives little or no weight to the harm done to trans people by excluding them. And it is wrong because it is not interested enough in the rights of people who are trans to keep their status private.
The tragic irony for [Morgan] McSweeney [Starmer’s chief of staff until Sunday] was that Starmer’s 18 months as prime minister have only vindicated Blair’s central analysis of their project. McSweeney and Starmer might have identified what they disliked most about the excesses of New Labour, but they never developed an alternative political economy of their own that might replace it. In place of Blairism there was no theory of political reform or coherent critique of British state failure, no analysis of Britain’s future place in the world or any kind of distinct moral mission. All there was was a promise to “clean things up” as Starmer put it to me. The mission became, in essence, conservative: to protect the settlement erected by Blair and eroded over the 20 years since his departure. Britain could thrive if it could only begin to live within its means, attract more foreign investment, reassure the bond markets and return a sense of “service” to government. After years of chaos, mere stability would be change. And this would be enough.
Where there was distinct radicalism – from McSweeney’s Blue Labour instincts – there was no mandate. McSweeney and Starmer had not fought an ideological battle to bring Blue Labour to government, as Wilson had done for socialist modernisation in the 1960s and Blair for liberal progressivism 30 years later. This was largely because Starmer never really believed in it in the first place and McSweeney, though a reflective thinker, was always more of an operator than political theorist. And so, the pair offered a programme without a programme, a government without ideas or the mandate to enact them.
Another of those who worked for [Stamer] adds: ‘He’s completely incurious. He’s not interested in policy or politics. He thinks his job is to sit in a room and be serious, be presented with something and say “Yes” or “No” – invariably “Yes” – rather than be persuader–in-chief.’ Even before he fell out with Starmer, Mandelson told friends and colleagues that the Prime Minister had never once asked him ‘What really makes Trump tick?’ or ‘How will he react to this?’.
Others dispute the claim of incuriosity. ‘There are subjects when he drills down and he’s really, really good,’ says another aide. ‘The idea he can’t think politically is also wrong. He will often think ahead.’ But even these loyalists admit Starmer lacks a ‘philosophical worldview’.
New border controls require ‘certificate of entitlement’ to attach to second nationality passport that costs £589
Dual British nationals have been warned they may be denied boarding a flight, ferry or train to the UK after 25 February unless they carry a valid British passport.
The warning by the Home Office comes amid scores of complaints from British people living or travelling abroad who have suddenly found themselves at risk of not being allowed into the UK.
If you are affected by the change and want to share your story, email lisa.ocarroll@theguardian.com
Advice on how to respond to students questioning their birth gender has been updated. Here are the key changes
Ministers have released updated guidance on how schools and colleges in England should respond to students who are questioning their birth gender. How is it different to the previous Department for Education (DfE) guidance, released under the Conservatives in 2023?
Some of the world’s most corrupt countries have received huge payments in controversial third-country deportation scheme
The Trump administration has spent more than $1m per person to deport some migrants to countries they have no connection to, only to see many sent back to their home nations at further taxpayer expense, according to a new congressional investigation.
A 30-page report from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats, released on Thursday and shared with the Guardian, details how the US government paid more than $32m to five foreign governments – including some of the world’s most corrupt regimes – to accept approximately 300 third-country nationals deported from the US.
As the prime minister fought for his political life before Labour MPs at their Monday evening meeting, even hardened sceptics saw a flash of something different in Keir Starmer.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said Starmer had been “liberated”. He did not have to spell out who from. His comments came 24 hours after the departure of Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, a man who has shaped Labour’s modern incarnation.
The only winners from a political coup in Westminster would be Labour’s enemies on the left and right
They roared, they stamped and they cheered. On Monday, the parliamentary Labour party reacted as it should when its leader hit a spot of bother. It knew it could not sack him, so it backed him. The constitution did its job and parliament supported the elected government of the day.
The idea that what Britain most needs is a Downing Street conflict is madness. After a week of a truly almighty storm in a teacup, it was a relief that the Commons could recover and steady the ship of state. It should keep it that way into the immediate future.
‘We need to speak about this at the end of the season’
Roberto Rosetti, Uefa’s managing director for refereeing, has warned video assistant refereeing is becoming too “microscopic” and fears use of the technology has strayed from its intended purpose.
VAR is rarely far from the headlines and has been the subject of further controversy in recent weeks after a series of high-profile incidents in the Premier League. Rosetti made clear that he was not commenting specifically on VAR’s deployment in England but suggested that, across the board, it is guilty of overreach. “We forgot a little bit, everywhere,” he said. “Eight years ago, I came to London and we discussed what VAR stands for. We spoke about clear mistakes, because technology works so well in factual decisions. In objective decisions, it is fantastic.
People my age have been privileged all our lives, yet we’re still the political priority. Votes at 16 is the start of a welcome change
Here it is as promised, a bill introduced to parliament on Thursday proposing to give the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds by the next general election. Good. The accusation from the Conservatives and Reform last year was that this was gerrymandering. “Rank hypocrisy” says the Sun. If polls had shown that the young traditionally swing to the right, would Labour have espoused this? I don’t know.
Nigel Farage’s claim that the young are turning to him is largely overblown, according to YouGov polling, with only 9% of 18 to 24-year-olds saying they would vote Reform – no better than what Ukip achieved in 2015. However there is a gender gap, says More in Common, with boys nearly twice as likely to support parties on the right. The Tories, who will lose out, search for reasons to oppose the bill and come up with some rum arguments. I particularly enjoyed Claire Coutinho’s concern that young people do not need the “added pressure” of deciding whether to focus on their exams or “stay up to watch” political debates, as elections are often in the summer exam season.
In the 60s and 70s, he pioneered kitchen-sink drama and made bisexuality mainstream. So why did the director end up making Tory ads? Those who knew him best reveal all
Michael Childers was a 22-year-old Los Angeles student when a friend set him up on a date with John Schlesinger, a visiting British director nearly two decades his senior. The esteemed film-maker was licking his wounds: his most recent picture, Far from the Madding Crowd, which imbued its 19th-century rural characters with an anachronistic King’s Road style and panache, had flopped stateside.
Childers approached the date with mixed feelings. He adored Schlesinger’s previous movie, the jazzy Darling, starring Julie Christie as a model on the make, and had seen it three times.But he had heard the director described as “mercurial”. His solution was to take a friend along with him to the bar at the Beverly Wilshire hotel for backup. “I thought: This guy might be a total shit,” recalls Childers, now 81, on the phone from Palm Springs. “I told my friend, ‘Two kicks under the table means we’re out of here. One kick means you’re out of here.’”
Ex-PM’s thinktank urges more drilling and fewer renewables, ignoring evidence that clean energy is cheaper and better for bills
A thinktank with close ties to Saudi Arabia and substantial funding from a Donald Trump ally needs to present a particularly robust analysis to earn the right to be listened to on the climate crisis. On that measure, Tony Blair’s latest report fails on almost every point.
Analysis shows that the world is moving closer to China, as Trump’s isolationism rears its head at the United Nations
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has accelerated a profound shift in the global order, according to new analysis.
A report from Focaldata, which analyses UN voting records, reveals how Washington’s “America First” agenda has started to redraw the geopolitical map in favour of China.
City analysts say financial market investors will be worried if cost is deducted from budget surplus
Rachel Reeves is under pressure to reassure MPs over the state of the UK’s public finances, amid concerns that the rising cost of special educational needs and disabilities (Send) could leave a significant hole in the government’s financial buffer.
Meg Hillier, the chair of the all-party House of Commons Treasury committee, said the chancellor should make clear her long-term plans for the £6bn-a-year Send bill as uncertainty grows over how it will be accounted for at the end of the decade.
European leaders divided over how far to accommodate Trump’s ‘wrecking ball’ politics and foreign policy
US Democrats will use a security summit this weekend to urge European leaders to stand up to Donald Trump, with the continent divided over how to keep the unpredictable US president on side.
Democrats at the annual Munich Security Conference will include some of Trump’s most outspoken critics, such as the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Arizona senator Ruben Gallego and the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
A debating society didn’t want to invite two figures connected to the party to speak. Cue an authoritarian response
It must have seemed the easiest offer in the world to refuse. Would students at Bangor University enjoy a question-and-answer session with Sarah Pochin– the Reform UK MP famous for saying it “drives me mad” to see TV adverts full of black people – and Jack Anderton, the 25-year-old influencer who helped send Nigel Farage’s TikTok account viral among teenagers? No, the university’s debating society decided, it would not.
And had it filed the request in the bin, you wouldn’t be reading this. Until now, Anderton’s A New Dawn campus tour– a homage to the “debate me bro” style of the American rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, killed last year, who was famed for invitingliberal students to take on his arguments and live-streaming the results – hadn’t exactly set the heather alight. Reform is actively pushing to recruit inside universities, but in Cambridge, according to its student newspaper Varsity, only about 30 people turned up to hear Anderton argue that migrants are taking the part-time jobs students once used to do.
Scott Socha, whose company sued to claim trademark rights to Yosemite name, criticized by conservation groups
Donald Trump has nominated the hospitality executive Scott Socha – whose company once sued to claim trademark rights to the name “Yosemite National Park” – to lead the National Park Service.
The nomination of an outsider with business ties to the agency he’d oversee comes at a pivotal moment for the service, which lost a quarter of its staff under Doge’s civil sector purge and which has been the subject of the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to erase mention of historical events from NPS sites that portray Americans in an unfavorable light, such as slavery.
Sussan Ley will soon quit politics, saying she plans on “stepping away completely and comprehensively from public life” after being defeated in a party room spill for the Liberal leadership.
The decision sets up a byelection for Ley’s seat of Farrer, which could result in the opposition’s parliamentary numbers dwindling further.
Report by Tony Blair Institute urges government to drop some green policies amid criticism of decarbonisation goal
Tony Blair’s thinktank has accused Ed Miliband of driving up energy prices in his push to make Britain’s energy supply more environmentally friendly.
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) published a report on Friday criticising the government’s green policies and urging the energy secretary to drop some of them altogether, including almost completely decarbonising the electricity system by 2030.
Exclusive: in 2025 briefing to Wes Streeting, officials warned reputation of tech firm behind US ICE operations would hinder rollout of data system in UK
Health officials fear Palantir’s reputation will hinder the delivery of a “vital” £330m NHS contract, according to briefings seen by the Guardian, sparking fresh calls for the deal to be scrapped.
In 2023, ministers selected Palantir, a US surveillance technology company that also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump’s ICE operation, to build an AI-enabled data platform to connect disparate health information across the NHS.
Tax exile has already proven himself a terrible club owner; now his ill-informed diatribe about immigration has poured fuel on wider flames
Well I, for one, am shocked. Shocked to learn that a tax-exiled English expat who made his billions squeezing chemical plants doesn’t have liberal, let alone accurate, views on immigration. Or at least, in public anyway.
It seems highly likely Sir Jim Ratcliffe knew what he was doing in the course of his now semi-recanted Sky News interview. And it is above all vital that at least one part of his empire of influence – football, sport, Manchester United – rejects it, as the club have done to some extent in their statement.
Chris Wormald steps down ‘by mutual consent’ after a year in post with Antonia Romeo expected to succeed him
Keir Starmer’s attempt to shake up his top team after the disastrous Peter Mandelson scandal began on Thursday, when he forced out his most senior civil servant with a view to replacing him with Antonia Romeo.
The prime minister announced that Chris Wormald was stepping down “by mutual consent” after just over a year as cabinet secretary, with Romeo almost certain to succeed him as the first woman in the job.
Unions accuse government of acting in bad faith after Wes Streeting announces details of increase
Health unions have criticised the 3.3% pay rise imposed on 1.4 million NHS staff in England as “an insult”, with one threatening to strike over the below-inflation award.
They described the increase announced by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, as a “betrayal” of the frontline workers – including nurses, midwives and porters – who will receive it for 2026-27. The 3.3% is less than inflation, which stood at 3.4% last month, but above the rate of inflation that is expected during the next financial year.
A campaign of ethnic cleansing and ‘tectonic’ new legal measures are killing the two-state solution to which other governments pay lip service
Protecting archaeological sites. Preventing water theft. The streamlining of land purchases. If anyone doubted the real purpose of the motley collection of new administrative and enforcement measures for the illegally occupied West Bank, Israel’s defence minister spelt it out: “We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state,” Israel Katz said in a joint statement with the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.
While the world’s attention was fixed upon the annihilation in Gaza, settlers in the West Bank intensified their campaign of ethnic cleansing. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed there since October 2023; a fifth of them were children. Many more have been driven from their homes by relentless harassment and the destruction of infrastructure, with entire Palestinian communities erased across vast swathes of land.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Trump administration has revoked the bedrock scientific determination that gives the government the ability to regulate climate-heating pollution. The move was described as a gift to “billionaire polluters” at the expense of Americans’ health.
The endangerment finding, which states that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare, has since 2009 allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources.
CMA and Ofcom to examine DMGT takeover amid fears merger could curb ‘diverging editorial stances’ in press
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has referred the Telegraph’s proposed sale to the publisher of the Daily Mail to the competition and media watchdogs, weeks after she raised concerns about the consolidation of rightwing newspapers.
Nandy said she was using her powers to refer the £500m deal for the Telegraph titles, which include the Daily Telegraph and its Sunday sister paper, to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the media regulator Ofcom.
Exclusive: TSSA general secretary wants Rayner to take over after Gorton byelection which she expects party to lose
The head of a Labour-affiliated union has called for Angela Rayner to replace Keir Starmer, warning that Starmer risks leading the party into a heavy election defeat to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Maryam Eslamdoust, the general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), told the Guardian she wanted the former deputy prime minister to take charge after this month’s Gorton and Denton byelection.
Skeleton racer sacrificed his dream of winning a medal and succeeded in putting the horrors of the war in Ukraine back on the agenda
To be an Olympic-class skeleton racer requires extraordinary guts and impeccable nerve, as the corners loom and then whoosh past at frightening speed. So did anybody really believe that Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych would lose his when the world’s eyes were upon him?
Not the International Olympic Committee, who flipped between threats of expulsion and sweet talk over the past fortnight, without coming close to changing his mind. And certainly not those of us who have spoken and messaged Heraskevych, and found a man utterly prepared to sacrifice his dream of winning a Winter Olympic medal for a higher purpose.
Bar blockers | Unlikely book recommendation | Ask AI | The proliferation of potholes | Divine intervention
Queues in pubs (Letters, 6 February)? Hallelujah! Now perhaps elderly women of 5ft 1in will be able to get a drink. I’m not sure which are worse, the big blokes who wave their £20 notes over your head or the ones who, having bought a drink, just stay leaning on the bar. Queueing? Bring it on. Mine’s a large house red, please. Rosemary Chamberlin Bristol
• Paul Dacre’s characterisation of a certain book as “written to appeal to a certain section of the Guardian readership” was presumably intended as a put-down, but I took it as a recommendation (Flashes of anger but Paul Dacre keeps his head before court cut-off, 11 February). Can we get more of the same from this unlikely source of advice? Mark de Brunner Harrogate, North Yorkshire
After a week when it seemed all but over for Keir Starmer, John, Pippa and Kiran unpack how the prime minister survived – and what it means for Labour in the long run
DfE guidance urges teachers to respond to social transition requests ‘with caution’ and includes Cass report findings
Primary school-age children who question their gender could be allowed to use different pronouns under long-awaited government guidance on the subject.
The guidance, billed as moving away from a culture-war approach to the subject, has some notablechanges compared with a draft produced in 2023 under the Conservatives, which said that primary-aged children “should not have different pronouns to their sex-based pronouns used about them”.
Supporters raise £73,000 to secure future of Welsh valleys chapel where beloved hymn was first sung
The Welsh valleys chapel where the beloved hymn Cwm Rhondda – also known as Bread of Heaven – was first sung is safe in the hands of local people after a successful fundraising campaign.
A community group has taken ownership of Capel Rhondda in Hopkinstown, near Pontypridd, after raising more than £70,000.
Leaders promise to fight back with court challenges as Trump rescinds finding foundational to US climate rules
Climate leaders gathered outside the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters on Wednesday to condemn the Trump administration’s plans to repeal the legal finding underpinning all federal climate regulations, and promised to fight against the rollback.
“This is corruption, plain and simple. Old-fashioned, dirty political corruption,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, senator for Rhode Island, at the rally. “This is an agency that has been so infiltrated by the corrupt fossil fuel industry that it has turned an agency of government into the weapon of the fossil fuel polluters.”
In yet another confusing and chaotic period for British politics there is one thing on which just about everyone can agree: Keir Starmer is unpopular. Very, very unpopular.
His net favourability rating, the difference between those who have a generally positive or negative view of the prime minister has been, depending on the pollster, anything from -50 to -57, a nadir only beaten by Liz Truss. Recent focus group descriptions of Starmer include a “jellyfish” and a “doormat”.
Rachel Reeves has suggested 2026 is the year Labour can start to deliver on its economic promises; but 0.1% GDP growth in the final quarter of last year is hardly the springboard she was hoping for.
In the supportive message on X she sent on Monday as Keir Starmer’s future appeared under threat, the chancellor claimed “the conditions for the economy to grow are there”.
New proposals that would force poorly paid migrant workers to wait longer for earned settlement are nothing more than an assault on working-class people
Andrea Egan is the general secretary of Unison
Billionaires and politicians fan the flames of hate, but without migrant workers, Britain would grind to a halt. That’s especially true when it comes to health and social care: more than a fifth of the NHS workforce is made up of migrant staff. The same proportion of care workers nationally are migrants, rising to halfin London.
Yet these workers, many of whom are members of Unison, have increasingly become a punchbag for politicians. In particular, they have become a scapegoat for this Labour government, which has sunk to a new low with its proposals on earned settlement. These changes could see low-paid public sector workers, including carers, forced to wait 15 years before being granted indefinite leave to remain, instead of the five years they were promised before they made the decision to come here. These changes would entrench and worsen the environment of fear and exploitation that defines the current system.
Capitalism cares about our species’ prospects as much as a wolf cares about a lamb’s. But democratise our economy and a better world is within our grasp
We have an urgent responsibility. Our existing economic system is incapable of addressing the social and ecological crises we face in the 21st century. When we look around we see an extraordinary paradox. On the one hand, we have access to remarkable new technologies and a collective capacity to produce more food, more stuff than we need or that the planet can afford. Yet at the same time, millions of people suffer in conditions of severe deprivation.
What explains this paradox? Capitalism. By capitalism we do not mean markets, trade and entrepreneurship, which have been around for thousands of years before the rise of capitalism. By capitalism we mean something very odd and very specific: an economic systemthat boils down to a dictatorship run by the tiny minority who control capital – the big banks, the major corporations and the 1% who own the majority of investible assets. Even if we live in a democracy and have a choice in our political system, our choices never seem to change the economic system. Capitalists are the ones who determine what to produce, how to use our labour and who gets to benefit. The rest of us – the people who are actually doing the production – do not get a say.
Polymarket and Kalshi are less regulated than betting sites, but users can win or lose large sums on the platforms
Yadin Eldar, 21, has been betting on prediction markets since 2019. His friends think he’s “crazy”, he said. But the craze surrounding these platforms is rapidly gathering steam.
Users can bet on virtually anything, from the outcome of Sunday’s Super Bowl to whether the US will invade Greenland, every second of every day.
Ratcliffe claimed UK being ‘colonised’ by immigrants
United say Manchester a city ‘anyone can call home’
Manchester United took the extraordinary step of publicly asserting their “inclusive and welcoming” values after their co-owner Jim Ratcliffe sparked widespread condemnation with his comments about immigration.
In a statement that did not name Ratcliffe but clearly referred to his claims that the UK is being “colonised” by immigrants, United affirmed their commitment to “equality, diversity and inclusion” and described Manchester as “a city that anyone can call home”.
The UK economy expanded by only 0.1% in the final three months of last year, according to official data, as falling business investment and weak consumer spending led to little momentum going into 2026.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the economy grew at the same rate of 0.1% as the previous three months. This was less than a 0.2% rise that economists had been expecting.
It is not just this doomed government but the Labour party itself that is disappearing before our very eyes
When he does go, what will the political death certificate give as the true cause of Keir Starmer’s demise? It won’t be the Peter Mandelson scandal, the policy U-turns or the bleak nights at provincial counting centres. All these are symptoms, not the disease. No, what is turning the guy elected just 19 months ago into an ex-prime minister is the slow realisation among ministers, colleagues and voters of one essential truth about the man: there is less to him than meets the eye.
His promises get shrunk in the wash. A green new deal is jettisoned, an Employment Rights Act has a large watering can poured over it, a bold manifesto pledge to end Britain’s feudal leasehold laws suddenly grows caveats.
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