‘Nothing off the table’ over potential UK troop deployment for Ukraine, says No 10
“Nothing is off the table” in terms of potential troop deployment on air, land or sea for Ukraine, Downing Street said amid questions about whether the prospect of ground forces had become less likely.
Asked whether the focus had shifted away from the prospect of ground troops for Ukraine, a Number 10 spokesman said: “No, nothing is off the table on any of these fronts, so I wouldn’t start ruling anything out, but clearly thousands of troops will be required to support any deployment, whether that is at sea, on land or in the air.”
Any deployment will require significant support and the firming up of “basic logistics of … moving people and ensuring deployment rotations, so as the PM said we need to be prepared for all eventualities,” the official said.
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Key events
First Minister John Swinney says he is “sorry” that veteran MSP Fergus Ewing will not stand for the SNP in next May’s Holyrood elections, the PA news agency reports.
Earlier on Friday, Ewing, who previously served as the Scottish government’s rural economy secretary, said he could run as an independent candidate in the elections.
Ewing said: “Amongst several reasons, the principal one is that I am afraid that I simply cannot defend the record of the SNP Government to fail to deliver on its long-standing pledges to dual the A9 and A96 – both so vital for my constituency.
I have stood in every election on these pledges, and so, as a matter of honour, I simply cannot defend the lack of delivery.”
Swinney said he was “sorry Fergus Ewing has decided not to stand for the SNP at the next election”.
The SNP leader praised the veteran politician for being a “faithful servant of his constituents” and added he has “contributed much” to both the Parliament and the Scottish Government. “I said I would be the First Minister for all of Scotland, and that is what I will do.”
Labour MPs having ‘tense meetings’ over return to austerity
Liz Kendall has been having “tense’ meetings with Labour MPs to reassure them about cuts to disability benefits,” Shebab Khan, ITV’s Political Correspondent, reports.
In a post on X, Shebab wrote that “One MP told me they left the meeting ‘feeling worse than when they walked in’ while another said they weren’t sure ‘how much longer we can claim this isn’t austerity’.”
It is true that Reeves’ cuts to public spending are some of the biggest since austerity was first inflicted on the UK in 2010 by the coalition government.
The last bout of deep spending cuts launched by the coalition and subsequently sustained by the Tories was an unmitigated disaster for the most vulnerable people in the UK.
Over 300,000 excess deaths have been attributed to austerity, which also saw significant rises in child poverty, homelessness, crime rates, health inequality, and a decline in life expectancy.
The UK’s largest fact-checking charity, Full Fact, has compiled a few issues with statements the prime minister has made this week about welfare spending, the PA news agency reports.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and another minister suggested that such spending is set to reach £70 billion by the end of the decade.
Sir Keir said at an event last week: “The welfare system as it’s set up, it can’t be defended on economic terms or moral terms. Economically, the cost is going through the roof. So if we don’t do anything, the cost of welfare is going to go to £70 billion per year.”
And in a broadcast interview on Monday, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds MP said that without changes “we’ll be spending £70 billion on social security by the end of the decade”.
However, according to Full Fact, these figures appear to refer specifically to the forecast cost of working-age health and disability benefit spending by 2029/30 – not the overall cost of welfare spending, which is much higher.
Figures published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) prior to this week’s announcement forecast that spending on health and disability benefits for working-age adults would increase from £56.4 billion in 2024/25 to £75.7 billion in 2029/30.
Full Fact said:
It’s been four months since we at Full Fact launched our Government Tracker – a major ongoing project tracking the Government’s progress in delivering some key pledges, made both in the Labour manifesto and in the eight months since Labour took office.
We’re now monitoring progress on 51 pledges. And while the Government’s made clear progress on a range of commitments, we believe it still needs to do much more to explain what some of its pledges mean and how progress on them should be measured.
While many of the Government’s promises are clear, or have been clarified since Labour formed a Government, we’ve found it difficult or impossible to meaningfully rate 12 pledges, due either to unclear wording or insufficient information about the details of the pledge.
That represents nearly a quarter of the pledges we’re tracking so far, selected from an initial list of almost 300 trackable commitments in Labour’s election manifesto and some of the commitments the Government has made subsequently.
We’ve been unable to give any meaningful verdict on three pledges – including the commitment to “not increase taxes on working people” and to deliver “thousands more GPs” – because of a lack of clarity and essential information about what Labour originally pledged.
We think a further nine pledges – such as the promises to recruit “6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects” or halve serious violent crime – lack important information to determine how success should be measured.
We’ve so far rated eight of the 51 pledges we’ve examined as ‘achieved’, and a further 16 as ‘appears on track’. Three pledges are currently rated as ‘appears off track’ however, including the commitment to “secure the highest sustained growth in the G7” and the promise to end the use of “asylum hotels”.
The Government recently declared it had achieved one manifesto pledge – to deliver an extra two million NHS appointments – even though that pledge appears to have originally been set in the manifesto as an annual target, which means we won’t be able to say for sure if it has been achieved until the first year of the parliament is complete. For now, we’ve rated that pledge as ‘appears on track’.
Health secretary will consider national inquiry into baby deaths at NHS trust
Health secretary Wes Streeting says he will consider making a public inquiry into a maternity scandal after pressure from affected families.
On Thursday, Streeting met with families who had lost babies and women under the care of Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust.
The trust is now the subject of the largest review in the history of the NHS, with senior midwife Donna Ockenden scrutinising 2,500 individual cases.
Streeting claimed he would “reflect carefully” on calls for a public inquiry and consider the ”next steps”.
Streeting said in a statement that he heard “personal and painful accounts” including stories of “dead babies, life-changing injuries” and ongoing trauma. He added that the two-hour meeting “will stay with me for the rest of my life”.
“While my words can’t do justice to what they – and other families across the country – have suffered, actions from government and the NHS can at least try to put right past wrongs. I will do everything in my power to ensure all women and babies receive the safe, personalised and compassionate care they deserve.”
The prime minister is expected to take a call on Friday to discuss progress towards safeguarding any Ukraine peace deal.
The PM will get his own briefing from European Council President António Costa, and possibly Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in a call to brief their non-EU allies this afternoon.
Keir Starmer is expected to also update them on the “coalition of the willing” of countries prepared to support Ukraine. Turkey, Norway and Iceland are expected to also dial in.
Leaked messages reveal Farage’s antipathy to Lowe amid Reform rows
Aletha Adu
Nigel Farage accused the suspended Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe of “damaging the party”, calling his behaviour “disgusting” in leaked messages which reveal the antipathy between the two right-wing politicians.
Farage had sent the private Whatsapp messages to someone who had worked for Lowe in recent years. His criticism came after Lowe called Reform a “protest party” and Farage “messianic” in an interview with the Daily Mail in March.
In the interview, Lowe – who had been touted as a replacement leader by Elon Musk earlier this year – was asked if Farage would make a good prime minister. He told the Mail: “It’s too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods. He can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people.
“Nigel is a fiercely independent individual and is extremely good at what we have done so far. He has got messianic qualities. Will those messianic qualities distill into sage leadership? I don’t know.”
Read the full story here
The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has faced questions about how one fire could shut down an entire airport.
He said electricity distribution network National Grid had told him they had not seen “anything like the scale” of what happened.
“But it makes Heathrow look quite vulnerable and therefore we’ve got to learn lessons, as I say, about not just Heathrow but how we protect our major infrastructure,” he told ITV news.
The chair of the parliamentary transport committee, Ruth Cadbury, said it was “speculative” to suggest at the moment that arson might have caused the fire.
But she told Times Radio: “There are obviously questions about it.”
Asked about the Heathrow fire, the No 10 spokesman said it “wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect checks on resilience” to be carried out at other major airports.
Counter terror police are leading the investigation into the “unprecedented” electrical substation fire that has closed down the airport, stopping more than 1,300 flights on Friday. You can follow our blog on developments here
‘Nothing off the table’ over potential UK troop deployment for Ukraine, says No 10
“Nothing is off the table” in terms of potential troop deployment on air, land or sea for Ukraine, Downing Street said amid questions about whether the prospect of ground forces had become less likely.
Asked whether the focus had shifted away from the prospect of ground troops for Ukraine, a Number 10 spokesman said: “No, nothing is off the table on any of these fronts, so I wouldn’t start ruling anything out, but clearly thousands of troops will be required to support any deployment, whether that is at sea, on land or in the air.”
Any deployment will require significant support and the firming up of “basic logistics of … moving people and ensuring deployment rotations, so as the PM said we need to be prepared for all eventualities,” the official said.
More London meetings next week to ‘accelerate’ Ukraine planning
More military meetings will take place in London next week among allied countries to “accelerate” planning to enforce any future peace deal in Ukraine, Downing Street has said.
As PA Media reports, a Number 10 spokesman said: “We’ve moved into an operational phase now and what that means is … bringing together military planners to look at the potential design of force structures, interoperability and what capability is needed to ensure a sovereign Ukraine is able to defend itself for generations to come.
“That includes looking at everything from aircraft, tanks, troops and intelligence capabilities, and how we can best put them to use to support Ukraine.
“This delivers on the prime minister’s plan to support Ukraine by ramping up delivery of weapons and equipment, boosting Ukraine’s defensive capabilities in the long-term, working with allies to develop robust security assurances and keeping up the pressure on President Putin.
“Next week, we’ll continue to accelerate the pace and scale of operational planning with further meetings at our Northwood headquarters as we look forward more closely at the details and structure of any future force.”
More than 5,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats after crossing the Channel so far this year, latest figures show.
PA reports that 341 people made the journey in six boats on Thursday, bringing the provisional total for the year so far to 5,025. This is the earliest point in the year that crossings have reached the 5,000 mark since data on Channel crossings was first reported in 2018. Last year, 5,000 arrivals was passed on 31 March.
The cumulative number of arrivals so far in 2025 – 5,025 – is 24% higher than at this stage in 2024, when the figure stood at 4,043, and 36% higher than at this point in 2023 (3,683).
The highest number arriving in one day this year so far stands at 592 people, crossing the Channel in 11 boats on 2 March.
The latest figures come after the French coastguard confirmed two people died in two days trying to cross the Channel on Wednesday and Thursday. One person died after being pulled from the water while the other person died after trying to cross in an overloaded boat, despite rescue efforts to save them.
The UK signed a “road-map” agreement with France earlier this month aimed at bolstering cooperation to tackle people-smuggling across the Channel. The government’s new border security, asylum and immigration bill also continues through parliament with plans to introduce new criminal offences and hand counter terror-style powers to police and enforcement agencies to crack down on people-smuggling gangs.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security. The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.”
Polly Toynbee
Wrong, badly wrong, and it won’t easily, if ever, be forgotten or forgiven. To take £5bn from those with the least, disability claimants already well below the median income who are clustered in the poorest towns, will leave a lasting scar on Labour’s reputation.
Sending Labour ministers out on the airwaves to defend the indefensible has been like sending lambs to the slaughter. The welfare secretary, Liz Kendall, and the employment minister, Alison McGovern, used to speak with passion about their optimistic plans for the future of work – but they never meant £5bn cuts. Torsten Bell, the treasury minister, is fresh from heading the Resolution Foundation with its myriad reports on reducing poverty and inequality, but he had to back £5bn cuts on Newsnight. Stephen Timms, social security and disability minister at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), is one of the most thoughtful and knowledgable ministers about social security. He surely never intended this, yet he too was sent out on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme…
Bats are being “scapegoated” by Reeves – Chris Packham
Helena Horton
Chris Packham join campaigners outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA
Nature broadcaster Chris Packham has told my colleague Helena Horton that Bats are being “scapegoated” by Rachel Reeves after the chancellor suggested they were getting in the way of economic growth.
“It’s absolutely absurd,” says the broadcaster and nature campaigner:
I am always someone who likes to deal with the facts so I would really like to know over the course of a year how many planning applications are completely refused because of bats, as a percentage of all those across the country. I am going to hazard a guess that it would be a fraction of 1%.
They picked bats because most people never get to see them and engage with them because they are nocturnal. They wouldn’t pick on hedgehogs or red squirrels for example.”
The life of Bats in the UK is precarious, with some species being endangered and others being considered near threatened. According to the Bat Conservation Trust, even though populations of the 11 species of bat surveyed in a study “appear to be stable or increasing, we know there is still a long way to go before these species recover from huge historical declines.”
For more on the story:
Farage says suspended Reform UK MP’s behaviour was “contemptible” in leaked messages
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described the behaviour of suspended Reform MP Rupert Lowe as “disgusting” and “contemptible” in private WhatsApp messages leaked to the BBC.
In one message, Farage says Lowe is “contemptible”. When asked by the BBC’s anonymous source, who used to be a party member and is also being investigated for bullying, a claim they deny, why Reform did not allow an investigation to be completed by a lawyer before suspending Lowe, Farage said: “Because he is damaging the party just before elections. Disgusting.”
When it was suggested the investigation into Lowe was a response to his criticism of the leadership, Farage replied on WhatsApp: “We are definitely damaged and within two weeks of nominations. Awful.”
Members of Rupert Lowe’s team. Among them, people who have worked with Farage for years told the BBC that “Nigel is thin-skinned and egotistical. I have spent years defending him but the aura has gone for me now. Reporting Rupert to the police? Come on. They’re trying to put him in prison!”
The staff member claimed the row was over Elon Musk’s praise for Lowe on X, saying: “Nigel is very sensitive about his American contacts.”
Another staffer added: “It is absolutely terrible the party going to the police. You’d never find someone more kind and considerate than Rupert. If you don’t have policies as a party, you’re a joke, and that is what Rupert was pointing out.”
Ed Miliband announces first major project for the publicly-owned Great British Energy.
Responding to a question about the 650,000 new jobs pledged in Labour’s manifesto, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday:
We’re confident we’re going to provide hundreds of thousands of jobs as a result of our drive to net zero.
This is the growth opportunity of the 21st century. Turn your back on net zero and you turn your back on business investment, good jobs, innovation for the future, and Britain leading in the key industrial areas of the future.
I’m very confident that we will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the green economy.” He also said he is “confident” the Government will meet its pledges.
The investment will also include additional money for councils and community groups to create clean power projects, such as community-owned onshore wind, rooftop solar and hydropower in rivers.
Miliband told ITV’s Good Morning Britain there are “many schools and hospitals facing sky-high energy bills as a result of our dependence on fossil fuels. This will cut bills for schools, 200 schools, 200 hospitals, a 300% increase in the coverage of solar panels in terms of the NHS in terms of hospitals.”
He added that the average reduction in a bill would be “£25,000 for a school” and “£45,000 for a hospital”.