Tag Archives: UK news

Burnham refuses to commit to raising defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 as he faces Badenoch at PMQs – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian

News, , , , , , ,

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Politics, UK news, PMQs, Andy Burnham, Ed Miliband, Israel, West Bank, Foreign policy
Title – Miliband defends sanctions on Israeli settlements and pushes back against chief rabbi’s criticism – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andrewsparrow
Link – Miliband defends sanctions on Israeli settlements and pushes back against chief rabbi’s criticism – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T10:37:25.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/sep/09/uk-israel-west-bank-ed-miliband-andy-burnham-uk-politics-latest-news-updates

Miliband defends sanctions on Israeli settlements and pushes back against chief rabbi’s criticism

Good morning. Yesterday Ed Miliband , the foreign secretary, made what may turn out to be one of the most important Commons statements of the year. Here is our overnight report by Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Kiran Stacey.

Here is an analysis by Patrick Wintour , the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.

And here is the Guardian’s editorial .

It starts: “Rarely in recent years has the Commons felt like the cockpit of history. On Tuesday it did.”

Ministers were worried about a backlash from Donald Trump. So far, that has not happened, and in the US Axios is reporting that, when Andy Burnham spoke to Trump on Monday, “two sources with knowledge of the call said Trump didn’t push back or ask Burnham to change course”. In his report for Axios, Barak Ravid says: “US officials told their British counterparts they shared their concerns about the Netanyahu government’s West Bank policy, even if they disagreed with these specific sanctions, sources say.”

But in the UK some of the leading organisations representing the Jewish community have strongly condemned the decision to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis , the chief rabbi, described yesterday as “truly a dark day for British Jews”. The rightwing papers are all leading their coverage on his remarks.

Miliband has been giving interviews this morning, and he has said he does not agree.

Asked about the chief rabbi’s statement, Miliband told Sky News:

Well, I’m a proud British Jew, and I don’t agree with the chief rabbi.

I have great respect for the chief rabbi, but I don’t agree with him, and I believe that it must be possible to do what we did yesterday, which is to stand up for British values of the rule of law, of dignity for people, of the prevention of injustice, and do so in a way, as I did yesterday, to say to anyone in our country who holds British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, that is antisemitism, pure and simple.

We will hear from Andy Burnham on this later at PMQs.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, speaks at the Wild Summit in Bristol. Words and video planned

From 9am: David Anderson and Jonathan Hall, the former and current independent reviewer of terror legislation respectively, are among those giving evidence to phase two of the Southport inquiry, looking at Prevent’s role in managing violence-fixated individuals.

10am: Prof Alexis Jay, chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), is among the experts giving evidence to the London assembly’s police and crime committee on grooming gangs.

Noon: Andy Burnham faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs .

After 12.30pm: Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, may make a Commons statement on the air traffic control chaos . She is also opening the second reading debate on the civil aviation bill.

I’m afraid we are no longer able to have comments open below the line every day on this blog . If you want to contact me, please email politics.live@theguardian.com. You can use this email to flag up corrections, comments for publication, questions or complaints.

There are three Commons statements after PMQs today.

After 12.30pm: Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, on summer health and resilience.

Around 1.30pm: Lucy Powell, the education secretary, on education skills and reform.

Around 2.30pm: Blair McDougall, the reindustrialisation minister, on the Jaguar Land Rover redundancies.

On Newsnight last night Nicholas Watt , the programme’s political editor, said he had been told by one cabinet minister there was a simple explanation for the Israel sanctions announcement: “We’re doing things which Keir [Starmer] wouldn’t let us do,” the minister said.

Today Watt says the Starmerites are disputing this. He says :

Allies of Sir Keir Starmer are strongly disputing what this cabinet minister told me last night. One Starmer ally tells me that earlier this year the former prime minister asked his aides to chase Foreign Office ministers for “proper advice” on blocking settler trade or imposing sanctions on West Bank settlements.

“He was no blocker,” the Starmer ally told me. They claim that the Foreign Office told them the issue was “complicated” which showed, according to that ally, that they simply “had no plan”.

The ally tells me: “There’s just a lot of rewriting of history going on.”

Deputy Tory leader Alex Burghart accuses Labour of ‘hypocrisy’, saying it is not taking similar action against China

Alex Burghart , the deputy Tory leader, was giving interviews this morning. On Israel , he opened up a new line of attack against the government, accusing it of hypocrisy. This is what he told GB News.

At the same time that Labour were saying all these things about Israel in the House of Commons, they put out a communique.

They put out an account of a conversation that Andy Burnham has had with the Chinese president, and it said how constructive they wanted to be with China, how they wanted to work with China, and what a great relationship we have.

Now, I’m not saying we should put sanctions on China, but I would point out that the Chinese over the past few decades have been guilty of some of the very worst human rights violations that we’ve seen anywhere, and yet Labour’s hypocrisy is capable of allowing it to have these two totally different approaches at the same time. I think that this is madness.

Reform UK insists National Rally agreed migrant policy after backlash in France

Reform UK has insisted its deal with France’s far-right National Rally to return migrants back across the Channel was fully approved by the party and signed off by its president, Jordan Bardella, amid a furious backlash in France. Rowena Mason and Angelique Chrisafis have the story.

Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar thanks Badenoch for her ‘firm opposition’ to UK sanctions

Gideon Saar , the Israeli foreign minister, has thanked Kemi Badenoch for her “firm opposition” to the government’s sanctions against his country. They spoke last night and afterward he posted this on social media.

Great conversation this evening with UK Opposition Leader @KemiBadenoch and Shadow Foreign Secretary @TomTugendhat.

I thanked them for their firm opposition to the hostile Labour Government’s announcement today and its series of anti-Israel policies since taking office.

I welcomed their support for the friendship with Israel and their commitment for the future relations between our countries. We know that we have many friends in the UK, but unfortunately we are faced with the ongoing hostility of the current Labour government.

I also thanked Kemi for her warm wishes ahead of the Jewish New Year.

Miliband says he is ‘confident’ that security cooperation with Israel will continue despite backlash over sanctions

In his interview on the Today programme, Ed Miliband also said that he was “confident our security cooperation with Israel will continue” despite the sanctions.

The Tories are claiming the government’s move puts that cooperation in jeopardy, and that British lives are at risk as a result .

Asked why he was confident that there would not be a problem, “given how angry [the Israelis] are”, Miliband replied:

I won’t go into the details of this, but we have important intelligence and security relationships with Israel and I’m confident they will continue.

And I was very clear yesterday that we do believe in working with our Israeli partners when it comes to the threats they face from Iran. For example, I announced new sanctions on Iran yesterday.

Miliband confirms UK sanctions could hit Israeli banks dealing with West Bank settlers

Emma Graham-Harrison wrote a good explainer for the Guardian yesterday about the potential impact of the sanctions imposed by Ed Miliband .

She explained that, while the most obvious part of the announcement relates to the ban on the import of goods produced in settlements, the measures relating to financial services are potentially much more significant.

She said:

Miliband highlighted that the Israeli settler population in occupied Palestine had almost tripled over the past three decades, from 270,000 in 1993 to 770,000 today.

That expansion is underpinned by large government subsidies. A trade ban alone would be unlikely to have much impact on the viability of construction that is a government priority, or on the broader Israeli economy.

However, plans to place sanctions on any company that finances or facilitates settlement expansion could force Israel’s main banks and insurance companies to choose between their business interests in the UK and those in occupied Palestine.

Miliband has not provided details of the new measures, which he said would take between six and nine months to put in place. But they have the potential to slow or stop construction.

The activist Yehuda Shaul wrote in a social media post about new building projects: “Companies that bid for tenders on government-led projects, including settlement expansion, must have a financial guarantor. Without the backing of Israeli financial institutions, these projects cannot occur.”

Some Israeli commentators have expressed doubts as to whether, in practice, these sanctions really will cover mainstream Israeli banks. But, in his interview on the Today programme this morning, Miliband insisted they could.

He said:

I also make this wider point, because this is about a substantive intervention to make a difference to the facts on the ground.

With our sanctions regime, we are also seeking to cut off the supply of the supply lines of British finance, British construction, for settlement expansion. This is about a clear purpose, which is to draw a line in the sand and to stop this infinite, ever-expanding settlement expansion.

Asked if Israeli banks would be covered too, Miliband replied:

The way this works is that we sanction companies, and we don’t name the companies in advance. We sanction companies that might be engaging in the occupied territories. And then it is about the relationship with British citizens and British companies.

When Justin Webb , the presenter, put it to Miliband that this meant the sanctions would go much wider than just applying to people “selling dates”, and that they would apply to companies in Israel with relationships with settler companies, Miliband replied:

Yes, because this is about seeking to have an impact on the services that are provided to expand the occupation.

And we are very serious about making a substantive difference and using the power of our sanctions regime to make a difference to the facts on the ground.

A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in London has accused the UK of deploying a diplomatic “nuclear option” against his country.

In an interview with the Today programme this morning, Alex Gandler said:

A response and a conversation between friends is something that is wanted.

Operating a nuclear option of sanction between democratic countries, especially towards a country that is at war for the past few years and is fighting a shared enemy in Iran, is something that is unheard of.

Hence, our assessment that this has nothing to do with realities on the ground and everything to do with the fact that there’s politics involved.

Gandler also claimed the timing of the announcement was particularly bad.

The timing couldn’t be worse than it is regarding Israel, as we are less than 50 days away from elections in the country, days away from our high holidays in Israel.

It definitely does not promote the relationship between Israel and the United Kingdom, that is for sure, and it does create an atmosphere for violence against Jews.

The BBC’s Tom Bateman has posted this on social media . It is the sign outside the UK consulate in Jerusalem that Israel is now closing. (See 9.21am .)

Bateman says:

The very long standing sign that used to be on the wall in the British consulate in East Jerusalem. Israel has said it will close the consulate in retaliation for the UK’s trade ban on settlements

In his interview with Sky News this morning, Miliband sidestepped a question about what Washington is telling the UK government about its decision to impose sanctions on Israel relating to the illegal West Bank settlements.

Miliband said:

I’ll let our American friends speak for themselves.

We obviously talked to them in advance of our announcement.

You know, I think the whole international community has been quite frustrated, to put it mildly, with some of the actions of the Israeli government.

I will let them say what they feel, but I think there is real concern about what is happening … Underlying so many of the conflicts in the Middle East is this failure to really grasp the situation between Israel and Palestine, and this is why it’s in our interest to act.

Miliband plays down significance of Israel’s retaliatory measures, saying UK sanctions still ‘right thing to do’

In his interview with Sky News this morning, Ed Miliband , the foreign secretary, said that he regretted the fact that Israel is ordering the UK to close its consulate in Jerusalem in response to the UK sanctions . But he said the government had weighed up “the costs and benefits” of its move in advance.

He said:

I regret what the Israeli government has announced, but I’m proud of what we did yesterday and it was the right thing to do.

It will be damaging, that’s true, but we weighed up the costs and the benefits in advance of this.

And we did something very important. We talked to the representatives of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian prime minister, the representative here, and they both said to us with a very clear voice, you need to act from our point of view.

He added:

I would prefer that Israel hadn’t announced what it did, but overall, I strongly believe that what we did, along with other international allies, was absolutely the right thing to do.

Miliband defends sanctions on Israeli settlements and pushes back against chief rabbi’s criticism

Good morning. Yesterday Ed Miliband , the foreign secretary, made what may turn out to be one of the most important Commons statements of the year. Here is our overnight report by Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Kiran Stacey.

Here is an analysis by Patrick Wintour , the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.

And here is the Guardian’s editorial .

It starts: “Rarely in recent years has the Commons felt like the cockpit of history. On Tuesday it did.”

Ministers were worried about a backlash from Donald Trump. So far, that has not happened, and in the US Axios is reporting that, when Andy Burnham spoke to Trump on Monday, “two sources with knowledge of the call said Trump didn’t push back or ask Burnham to change course”. In his report for Axios, Barak Ravid says: “US officials told their British counterparts they shared their concerns about the Netanyahu government’s West Bank policy, even if they disagreed with these specific sanctions, sources say.”

But in the UK some of the leading organisations representing the Jewish community have strongly condemned the decision to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis , the chief rabbi, described yesterday as “truly a dark day for British Jews”. The rightwing papers are all leading their coverage on his remarks.

Miliband has been giving interviews this morning, and he has said he does not agree.

Asked about the chief rabbi’s statement, Miliband told Sky News:

Well, I’m a proud British Jew, and I don’t agree with the chief rabbi.

I have great respect for the chief rabbi, but I don’t agree with him, and I believe that it must be possible to do what we did yesterday, which is to stand up for British values of the rule of law, of dignity for people, of the prevention of injustice, and do so in a way, as I did yesterday, to say to anyone in our country who holds British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, that is antisemitism, pure and simple.

We will hear from Andy Burnham on this later at PMQs.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, speaks at the Wild Summit in Bristol. Words and video planned

From 9am: David Anderson and Jonathan Hall, the former and current independent reviewer of terror legislation respectively, are among those giving evidence to phase two of the Southport inquiry, looking at Prevent’s role in managing violence-fixated individuals.

10am: Prof Alexis Jay, chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), is among the experts giving evidence to the London assembly’s police and crime committee on grooming gangs.

Noon: Andy Burnham faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs .

After 12.30pm: Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, may make a Commons statement on the air traffic control chaos . She is also opening the second reading debate on the civil aviation bill.

I’m afraid we are no longer able to have comments open below the line every day on this blog . If you want to contact me, please email politics.live@theguardian.com. You can use this email to flag up corrections, comments for publication, questions or complaints.

Oil prices rise above $100 a barrel for first time since July as Iran war escalates | Oil | The Guardian

News around the world, , , , , , ,

Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Oil, Commodities, Business, US-Israel war on Iran, Gas, World news, UK news, US news
Title – Oil prices rise above $100 a barrel for first time since July as Iran war escalates | Oil | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/lauren-almeida,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/marksweney
Link – Oil prices rise above $100 a barrel for first time since July as Iran war escalates | Oil | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:27:07.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/09/oil-prices-rise-iran-war-brent-crude-inflation-higher-interest-rates

The price of oil has risen above $100 a barrel for the first time since July as the escalating conflict in the Middle East threatens further disruption to global supplies.

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose 2.1% past the milestone after tensions increased in the Gulf amid the latest tit-for-tat exchange of fire between the US and Iran.

The US military said it had “destroyed” multiple Iranian tankers , after Tehran attempted to strike a US navy warship with ballistic missiles. The exchange came after Iran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in Saudi Arabia the previous night, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze.

UK and mainland Europe gas prices also soared on Wednesday. The benchmark Dutch gas contract rose by almost 4% to €78.73 per megawatt hour, the highest since January 2023. Meanwhile, the British contract rose by 7.77p to 196.57p per therm, the highest since December 2022.

On Tuesday the Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, said the latest rise in oil prices was putting pressure on inflation and interest rates.

“The risks, I’m afraid, are on the upside,” he told MPs . “And that’s really the risks coming from energy prices.”

The oil price has jumped by a quarter since early August as hopes for a permanent resolution to the six-month-old war faded and as fighting flared again.

The energy companies BP, Shell and the British Gas owner, Centrica, were among the top performers across the FTSE 100 on Wednesday morning, with their shares rising by at least 1% on the back of the higher oil price. The index was down by 0.5% overall.

The climb in costs has hit UK motorists, with petrol at the pump reaching an average of 166.2p a litre on Tuesday, the highest level in four years, according to the motoring body the AA.

The AA said diesel hit an average of 187.7p, a price it last reached in May. Prices per litre of petrol have risen 4.4p since the August bank holiday, with diesel up 4.1p.

Brent is up more than 60% this year, and has risen above the $100 mark for three periods so far in 2026.

China, the world’s largest importer of crude, has increased purchases in recent days, after a hiatus that had been a factor keeping oil prices somewhat in check in the early part of the conflict.

“For the direction of crude prices, we are also monitoring Chinese crude imports as a key indicator,” said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodity analyst at UBS Global Wealth Management, in a note.

“Chinese crude imports recovered to nearly 9m barrels per day in August, up from the June low of 7.15m, but still lower compared to the [pre-conflict] February imports of 12.6m. It looks like the recovery trend could continue.”

Oil prices have fluctuated in the six months since the start of Tehran’s block on the strait of Hormuz prompted what many feared would be the greatest energy supply disruption in history.

In the first weeks after the first US-Israeli attacks on Iran in late February, oil prices soared past $100 a barrel and analysts predicted that prices could rise to as high as $150 as flows through Hormuz came to a halt.

The oil price peaked at $126 in April during the conflict but later fell back amid hopes of a ceasefire in the region. The price then began to climb again after a memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran fell apart and hostilities restarted.

Gas prices have also risen on the back of the conflict. UK natural gas prices hit the highest level in three and a half years this month.

The rise in energy prices has stoked fears around inflation and the prospect of higher interest rates this year. In the US, economists are expecting at least one interest rate rise from the Federal Reserve by the end of the year.

Miliband rejects chief rabbi’s claim that West Bank sanctions put UK Jews at risk | Foreign policy | The Guardian

News, , , , , , ,

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Foreign policy, Israel, Ed Miliband, UK news, West Bank, Palestine, Trade policy
Title – Miliband rejects chief rabbi’s claim that West Bank sanctions put UK Jews at risk | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/aletha-adu
Link – Miliband rejects chief rabbi’s claim that West Bank sanctions put UK Jews at risk | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:15:28.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/09/ed-miliband-rejects-chief-rabbi-claim-west-bank-sanctions-british-jews-less-safe

Ed Miliband has rejected warnings from the UK’s chief rabbi that the government’s sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements will make British Jews less safe, as he emphasised ministers can confront the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government while also fighting antisemitism.

The foreign secretary announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday, with the government taking the position that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory was unlawful.

The measures were coordinated with France, Canada and nine other countries that were also introducing sanctions on Israel over the increasing expansion of settlements, which the UK government says is threatening the future of a Palestinian state.

In a joint statement, leaders including Andy Burnham, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney said: “The time has come to take further action to uphold our commitment to protect the two-state solution, our interests and to stand up for our values, before it is too late.”

The chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, called the UK sanctions a “dark day for British Jews” and said they could embolden people who “use hatred as a weapon against Jews”.

Milliband, who describes himself as a “proud British Jew”, said he did not agree with Mirvis. Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he was saying the chief rabbi was wrong, Miliband replied: “Yes, I am saying I don’t agree with the chief rabbi, somebody over whom I have great respect.”

He added: “I just want to be very, very clear. As I said it in my statement yesterday, anyone who holds British Jews, or indeed Jews around the world, responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is engaging in antisemitism, pure and simple.

“And it must be possible to stand up in our society for British values of freedom, dignity, and against oppression and injustice, and do so as I believe I did yesterday in a way that calls out antisemitism.”

The foreign secretary was pressed on the chief rabbi’s fear that British Jews could feel less safe as a result of the sanctions and was challenged by the BBC presenter, Justin Webb, who suggested Mirvis’s claim could mean less to Miliband because he did not attend synagogue.

“No, I don’t agree with that,” said Miliband, adding: “Antisemitism is a scourge and an evil … I want Jews, I want people of all faiths and none to feel safe in our country.”

Tuesday’s sanctions announcement also prompted a swift backlash from Israel, which ordered the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem and banned 12 British MPs and activists from entering Israel.

Washington’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, threatened that the US could take retaliatory action over trade, but the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the US would “obviously” not follow the UK government’s actions but did not want to see the West Bank destabilised.

Miliband told Sky News he would “let our American friends speak for themselves” but insisted the international community had been “quite frustrated to put it mildly, with some of the actions of the Israeli government”.

The foreign secretary said he regretted what the Israeli government had announced but was “proud of what we did yesterday and it was the right thing to do”.

Miliband accepted the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem would be “damaging” but said the government had “weighed up the costs and benefits in advance if this”.

The government is set to enact:

An import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories and a new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

A comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements and a ban on advertising them in the UK.

Personal sanctions against the main individuals accused of promoting settler violence.

A new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

Miliband made an impassioned statement in the Commons on Tuesday, recounting the horrific tales he had heard from Palestinians in the West Bank, whose homes had been destroyed, and doctors in Gaza who saw children dying while waiting for treatment.

The prime minister, Andy Burnham, said the sanctions were “the right thing to do” and emphasised they were aimed “not at the Israeli people”. Burnham is due to face MPs over this issue at prime minister’s questions.

‘I am seen as a Marmite figure’: Margaret Hodge on political battles, victories, errors – and regrets | Margaret Hodge | The Guardian

News, , , ,

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Margaret Hodge, Labour, Politics, UK news, Antisemitism
Title – ‘I am seen as a Marmite figure’: Margaret Hodge on political battles, victories, errors – and regrets | Margaret Hodge | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/simonhattenstone
Link – ‘I am seen as a Marmite figure’: Margaret Hodge on political battles, victories, errors – and regrets | Margaret Hodge | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:00:05.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/09/i-am-seen-as-a-marmite-figure-margaret-hodge-on-political-battles-victories-errors-and-regrets

M argaret Hodge doesn’t do small talk. “So, how d’you think Andy’s doing?” is her opening gambit. “Not too bad, huh? I think he’s had a really good start.” It’s classic Hodge – sufficiently curious to ask the question about the new Labour prime minister, and assertive enough to provide the answer before you get yours out. “Yep. Fantastic empathy. But then he’s got to deliver. I think the budget is going to be the key moment. And we’ve also got these awful global challenges and Iran and Hormuz. God, it’s a mess. Ugh . Hahahaha!” She hoots with laughter at the horror of it all.

She says she was against ousting Keir Starmer. “I thought we were doing so badly that what we really needed was a complete change in what we were about, what our ambitions were, where we were going, what our priorities were and how we were going to have a message of hope. I thought it was about much more than Keir at that point. I thought changing leaders was like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. I think I was wrong, right?”

Hodge has seen it all. Decade-long leader of Islington council when it was regarded as part of the “loony left”; Labour moderate and Blair-Brown loyalist throughout the years in power; scrapper extraordinaire who has taken on the BNP as MP for Barking, antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and tax-avoiding tech companies as the formidable chair of the cross-party public accounts committee (PAC).

Now, in the week of her 82nd birthday, Hodge is publishing a memoir, Battleaxe. “I’m reclaiming the term. It shouldn’t be a term of derision. It’s a strong woman.” Who came up with the title? “If I’m absolutely honest, it was my agent. My children don’t like it, but lots of people do.”

Does she really feel like a battleaxe? “People do say: ‘Oh, you don’t want to take on Margaret.’” She stares me down, fiercely proud, big brown eyes aglint. “Can I tell you what I think about myself? I listen and reflect, but when I’ve made up my mind I’m quite strong and determined.” She reminds me of the great football manager Brian Clough, who said: “If I had an argument with a player, we would sit down for 20 minutes, talk about it, and then decide I was right.”

We are at her London home, where she lives alone. It’s every bit as immaculate and stylish as she is. “Don’t look in the garden,” she says. “It’s such a mess – I’ve been away for six weeks.” Her gardening tools are at the ready by the door. The walls are covered in lovely paintings. There are busts of her husband (the high court judge Henry Hodge, who specialised in immigration and died aged 65 in 2009) and her father (Hans Oppenheimer, who co-founded Coutinho, Caro & Co, a steel trading firm that became the multinational Stemcor). On the main wall in the living room is a gorgeous splash of abstract colour by Gillian Ayres. “I love it because it’s painted in big bold strokes and is really optimistic.” You could say much the same of Hodge.

She’s had a fascinating life. Her Jewish parents fled Germany to escape the Nazis, and she was born in Egypt. After a window was broken at her father’s business in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war, he took the hint. This time the family fled to Kent in England. Although they were atheists, the family’s only friends were other Jewish refugees.

On Christmas Day in 1954, when Hodge was 10, her mother died of stomach cancer. Shortly afterwards, it was decided that as the brightest child in her class, she should skip a year. So within months she had lost her mother and her peer group. She was devastated, and became increasingly unruly. Oppenheimer didn’t know what to do with her and sent her away to boarding school in Oxford, which she hated. In 1966 she graduated from the London School of Economics with a third-class honours degree in economics.

She worked in corporate market research for seven years, and did a stint as an unqualified teacher. In 1968 she married Andrew Watson, an economist with whom she had two children. She joined the Labour party in 1973, and won a seat on Islington council in the same year. A friend had told her that getting involved in local politics would keep her sane while raising a family. She was, and remains, driven by two desires – to equalise life chances and fight racism.

By 1975, she was chair of the council’s housing committee, with Henry Hodge, then a solicitor, as her deputy. In 1978, she divorced Watson and married Hodge. They went on to have two daughters. In 1982, she became leader of the council. Opponents nicknamed her Enver Hodge, a play on Enver Hoxha, the brutal communist dictator who ruled Stalinist Albania.

Hodge admits she was pretty hardline. “I don’t hold back. Henry always used to try to restrain me.” Can she give an example? “We did a walkout on Michael Heseltine because he did a conference on inner-city regeneration and he was chopping all our funding. I thought it was such hypocrisy.”

Why did Henry object to the walkout? “He said it was a daft thing to do. It was gesture politics. And in that era we were seen as engaging in too much gesture politics.” She pauses. “ But ,” she barks, “having said that, he was incredibly supportive.”

She gives another example of her gesture politics. “I refused to meet Margaret Thatcher. But she did do these awful things.”

I’m fully aware of the things she did, I say, but wasn’t it … She finishes the sentence for me. “It was stupid. It was stupid. I wouldn’t do it today, but isn’t that interesting to learn that of yourself and how you’ve changed? And it fitted with the time. She was taking on local government and the unions. She was destroying what Andy’s now going to try to recreate.”

She says that pre-Thatcher, she had so much power as a council leader, and the Iron Lady gradually stripped it away – rate-capping, grant cutting, privatisations, the abolition of the Greater London Council. “It was a terrible transformation. We did hate her. She was a Marmite figure, wasn’t she? You loved her or you hated her.”

That’s funny, I say: Marmite is how you describe yourself in Battleaxe. “Yep. Ha! This is true. I am controversial. I am seen as a Marmite figure, too. Why is that? Why is that? ” And for once she doesn’t answer her own question .

Has she been surprised by her career? “Yes. As a school kid, I never thought I’d be anybody. I thought I’d be a mum. I’d lost my mother and it made me think the only thing I want to be in life is a mum. So I feel surprised by the extent of my experience and opportunities.” There’s another thing that has surprised her – this time, not so positive. “I never thought I would become a hate figure in the way that I became sometimes.”

What does she consider her greatest achievement? “BNP,” she says instantly. “It has to be the BNP, doesn’t it?” In 2006, the neo-Nazi party won 12 of the 51 seats on Barking and Dagenham council. It looked as if it could go on to win the 2010 council election and that the BNP leader Nick Griffin could oust Hodge as MP in the general election.

Labour had committed the cardinal sin of taking the electorate for granted, Hodge says. What’s more, it was terrified of talking about migration. Meanwhile, her constituency had become unrecognisable to many. “It went from 98% white to under 50% in a generation, which is massive. If your community or my community changed liked that in a generation, we would feel unsettled. At best , unsettled. Kids in the street change, neighbours change, food in the shops changes.”

Hodge discovered her constituents were furious because they believed they were being ignored and that migrants were being prioritised for social housing. She proposed that weighting be given to people’s links to the community rather than housing being based purely on immediate need, which eventually happened.

Many fellow Labour MPs criticised her. Keith Vaz said she “appears to want to be the Alf Garnett of Islington”, while Alan Johnson accused her of pandering to the BNP. “He said that on Question Time. He was going for the deputy leadership,” Hodge says. Did they have a point? “No. I never ever caved in to the racism. Ever . E ver !”

In 2010 Labour wiped out the BNP and she trounced Griffin by 18,000 votes. How did that feel? “Very mixed because it was just under a year since Henry had died. There was a lot of ‘why is Henry not here?’ in it. But I also felt fantastic. Jubilant. If I hadn’t changed the way I’d operated politically, and knocked on doors, I think we would have had a BNP council and a BNP MP. It took me four years of work – it wasn’t just a quick three weeks before the election.”

She talks about the echoes today with Reform. “We lost control of immigration so I think what Shabana [Mahmood] is doing is really important. Now you don’t have massive delays in dealing with asylum seeker applications. People who come here have to abide by our rules, and if they don’t, they lose the right to be here. If they commit a criminal offence they should lose the right to be here.”

Really? Surely our rules are that you serve a sentence for a crime, then come out and get on with your life? I point out that many refugees are deported for minor crimes. “That changes once you’ve got your British citizenship,” she says. But under new Labour legislation, you could wait 20 years for that. “No, I agree,” she says. “I have problems with a 20-year wait.”

What was tougher, fighting the BNP or antisemitism? “The BNP was a much easier fight in an odd way. It was much clearer.” Why? “Because antisemitism was in the Labour party. It was horrible. Antisemitism is the worst of all the battles I have fought. I hated it. I absolutely hated it. It was miserable. I hated the abuse. I hated walking into rooms and thinking: ‘God, who’s for me and who’s against me in this room?’” Abuse on social media included: “The only support she deserves is a handrail to climb the gallows”.

Was she surprised when in 2018 she ended up calling Corbyn … Again she finishes the sentence for me. “ An antisemite ? Was I surprised at myself? No, that’s the battleaxe in me, isn’t it?” She had told two fellow MPs that she had planned to do it beforehand. So, I ask, was there a theatrical element to it? “I didn’t do it publicly. These two lads wanted me to say it to him on the frontbench. I said, ‘I’m not going to do that – I’ll catch him on his way out [of the House of Commons chamber]’, which is what I did.”

The 2022 report by Martin Forde KC into the toxic culture in the Labour party concluded that antisemitism was weaponised by the left and the right of the party. “I was anti-Corbyn; but no, I never used it as a weapon,” Hodge says. Does she agree in general that it was weaponised on both sides? “Yes, probably. I think there was some weaponising.”

If she saw Corbyn now, what would she say to him? “He doesn’t talk to me. Haha! He passes me by. Haha! Ignores me.” She chuckles with satisfaction. The Labour party asked her to apologise to Corbyn, but she told it where to go. After the party dropped its investigation in August 2018, she told Sky News: “On the day that I heard that they were going to discipline me and possibly suspend me, it felt almost like … what did it feel like to be a Jew in Germany in the 30s?”

Was this when she felt most hated in politics? “Yep.” Has it left scars? “It’s still there. But it’s a joy now to be in the Labour party. When Keir became leader, he single-mindedly tackled antisemitism. I hadn’t expected that and I appreciate it. But it’s a part of my life, so it doesn’t disappear.” Now she says it took Corbyn to help her rediscover her identity. “It’s brought me back to feeling an empathy with who I am – a Jewish immigrant refugee.”

What is her biggest regret in politics? She immediately cites the sexual abuse scandal in Islington children’s homes when she was leader of the council. “I just don’t think any of us thought paedophiles were operating out of children’s homes. It was unconscionable. Now it’s unconscionable today to think that we didn’t realise it. That’s probably caused me more political problems than anything.” She had just been made the UK’s first children’s minister when the scandal became headline news again decades later in 2003. She offered her resignation to Tony Blair, who refused it.

But many people knew it was going on and told you so? “We went through each allegation, and I had all the officers there and they denied any of this was happening. Remember, back then kids in care were called naughty. Today that is unconscionable, isn’t it? I’d listened to all the officers, but I didn’t talk to the kids, and that’s a regret.”

What was even more unconscionable is that she tried to close down an investigation by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and called Demetrious Panton, a child abuse survivor, an “extremely disturbed person”. She squirms when I mention it. “That was a terrible error. Terrible error.” Why did you do that? “I was advised. Everyone was ringing me up saying the Today programme was digging around and I thought: ‘How the hell can I stop this?’ That was an appalling bit of advice. But in the end I took responsibility. I did it.” Hodge was forced to issue an unreserved public apology in the high court, she paid Panton’s legal costs, and was ordered to pay him £30,000, which included a £10,000 donation to a charity of his choice.

But in the end Hodge, who now sits in the Lords, will be remembered more for exposing corruption than for covering it up. Although she never achieved high office as an MP, she became a political rock star as chair of the PAC between 2010 and 2015. She was convinced it was going to be a dull job when she took it on, yet it proved anything but. The cross-party committee tasked with assessing the value for money of government projects became a must-watch as corporate executives and senior civil servants were held to account for dodging taxes, playing fast and loose with public money, failing to answer questions or simply being rude.

Hodge proved herself a fearless one-woman grilling machine. Google’s Matt Brittin (now director general of the BBC) was well and truly Hodged when she threw the company motto back in his face, saying: “You are a company that says you ‘do no evil’. And I think that you do do evil.” After a session challenging BBC execs over excessive severance payoffs, she concluded it was “a very unedifying experience watching seven people at the top of the BBC dancing on the head of a pin to try and avoid responsibility”.

In 2024, she was made the UK’s official anti-corruption champion , a fiscal Wonder Woman fighting dirty money, offshore tax dodgers and economic crime. On her kitchen table today is a tax file she tells me I mustn’t look at on pain of death. For all of Hodge’s warmth, I tell her she can be terrifying. “Why?” Well, I’ve seen you in action on the PAC, I say.

Again, Hodge hoots with happy laughter. That’s the battleaxe, she says. Then she half-whispers, almost conspiratorially: “I’m always surprised when people say: ‘God, you don’t cross Margaret.’” But I’m not so sure she is.

Battleaxe: A Memoir by Margaret Hodge is out on 10 September, published by HarperCollins (£25). To support the Guardian and the Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com

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Supercar maker McLaren to create 1,000 UK jobs as part of £450m tech investment | Automotive industry | The Guardian

News, , , ,

Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Automotive industry, Manufacturing sector, Business, UK news, Surrey
Title – Supercar maker McLaren to create 1,000 UK jobs as part of £450m tech investment | Automotive industry | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/marksweney
Link – Supercar maker McLaren to create 1,000 UK jobs as part of £450m tech investment | Automotive industry | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T08:34:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/09/supercar-maker-mclaren-to-create-1000-uk-jobs-tech-investment

The British supercar manufacturer McLaren is to create 1,000 jobs in a welcome boost to the UK’s struggling automotive industry.

The carmaker is creating the jobs as part of a £450m investment in its technology centre in Woking, near to the plant where it manufactures all of its vehicles.

McLaren, which merged with the premium UK electric vehicle startup Forseven Holdings, currently employs 2,500 staff. The new jobs will include indirect and agency workers, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the investment.

The news comes days after Jaguar Land Rover confirmed plans to cut 4,000 jobs over the next two years . JLR, which is restructuring to address falling sales and financial challenges including Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack last year , employs 44,000 people globally and 34,000 in the UK.

The cuts will mainly affect the 26,000 UK employees who are salaried and management workers.

Last year, CYVN Holdings, an Abu Dhabi government-owned investment company, acquired McLaren’s automotive business from Bahraini sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat.

CYVN has said that it plans to invest $2bn (£1.4bn) over the next five years to drive the lossmaking group.

European carmakers have faced tough trading conditions as Chinese rivals, such as BYD and Chery, have enjoyed soaring sales across the UK and mainland Europe.

Last week Volkswagen announced that it was to cut 100,000 of its more than 650,000 global workforce by 2030 and cut the number of models the group produces by half.

VW group also includes the Bentley, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Porsche, Cupra and Lamborghini brands.

From early next year UK carmakers face a 10% tariff for electric vehicles shipped to the EU, and UK-made vehicles do not qualify for “made in Europe” subsidies under current proposals.

Reform insists National Rally agreed migrant policy after backlash in France | France | The Guardian

News around the world, , , , , , , , ,

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – France, Europe, Nigel Farage, World news, Politics, Reform UK, UK news, Marine Le Pen, National Rally, Migration
Title – Reform insists National Rally agreed migrant policy after backlash in France | France | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rowena-mason,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/angeliquechrisafis
Link – Reform insists National Rally agreed migrant policy after backlash in France | France | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T06:00:02.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/09/reform-uk-national-rally-migrants-deal-farage-bardella

Reform UK has insisted its deal with France’s far-right National Rally to return migrants back across the Channel was fully approved by the party and signed off by its president, Jordan Bardella, amid a furious backlash in France.

The agreement unveiled on Friday between Nigel Farage and Bardella, who is the 30-year-old protege of presidential candidate Marine Le Pen , appeared to directly contradict Le Pen’s long-held policy of refusing to accept the return of those who arrive in the UK in small boats from France.

Le Pen was pressed for her position by journalists from France TV, the state broadcaster, on Monday. Le Pen declined to comment, saying she would talk about the issue soon, but at a time of her choosing.

In 2021, Le Pen said she wanted a rewriting of border agreements for the UK to specifically send people arriving on boats back to their countries of origin, instead of returning them to France.

Since the agreement, Bardella has come under fire from political parties in France for signing the deal, with Benjamin Haddad, the Europe minister, criticising Bardella for “submission” that was “against our interests and sovereignty”.

Some French media have questioned whether Bardella was duped by Reform, querying whether the French translation accurately conveyed the meaning by Farage that the National Rally (RN) was prepared to accept any migrants back who travel by small boat.

However, a Reform spokesperson said it was “signed off by both Bardella and the presidential team”, that the policy was included in the French version as well as the English, and it could “confirm both parties are fully on board”.

Until the summer, Bardella had been considered as a potential replacement for Le Pen in next spring’s presidential election but will now run as her future prime minister. In July, when a Paris appeal court upheld Le Pen’s conviction for embezzling European parliament funds, her ban from running for office was reduced, allowing her to stand.

Farage has kept Le Pen at arm’s length, while having cultivated good relations with Bardella over the past year, but he is rumoured to be planning to meet her later in the autumn.

He previously rejected the idea of a tie-up in 2014 in the European parliament when he accused Le Pen’s party of having a history of “prejudice and antisemitism”, which she said was slander. Last week, Farage said he would not have done a deal with the party when led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, a convicted Holocaust denier who co-founded the Front National in 1972. Le Pen expelled her father from the party in 2015. Farage praised her, saying she had got rid of “extreme elements”.

At the heart of the row in France is the wording of the document Farage brought out for Bardella to sign with him on stage in Birmingham, calling it a memorandum of understanding.

Both texts, presented side by side in English and French, state that, if Farage and Bardella become prime ministers of their respective countries, the UK will intercept boats launched from the French coast, and that France will return people onboard to their countries of origin.

But the English text carried an extra phrase saying “France will ordinarily accept these persons” who would then be returned to their home country. This appeared to show that Bardella was promising to accept returned persons in France, which contradicts the long-held position of RN.

France TV said RN denied any controversy, saying the text was only a declaration of intention that would be refined at a later point. Speaking in Italy over the weekend, Bardella suggested his party in government would prevent migrants from reaching France by much tougher border controls, resulting in the numbers crossing to the UK being much lower.

However, RN’s opponents were critical of Bardella for signing a memorandum on immigration on stage with Farage.

The MP, Sacha Houlié, an ally of the centre-left would-be presidential candidate, Raphael Glucksmann, wrote on X about what he called “a miserable episode where the whole of France could see Mr Bardella used as a doormat by the English far-right.” He told the RN: “You claim to be patriots, you’re cowards.”

Gabriel Attal, the former centrist prime minister and presidential candidate, wrote on X: “To applause from his party members, Nigel Farage made Jordan Bardella sign a memorandum to ensure that all migrants intercepted in the Channel are sent back to France. Either Jordan Bardella doesn’t understand English or he is shamefully weak when it comes to defending French interests. And I think he does understand English.”

Édouard Philippe, a former prime minister and centre-right candidate, said it was an example of hypocrisy and division in Bardella’s party. Philippe said it looked like Bardella found it difficult to stand up to Farage in order to “protect French interests”.

Xavier Bertrand, the rightwing head of the northern Hauts-de-France region, wrote on X that in agreeing that France alone would take responsibility for returning people to their home countries, Bardella was “reducing France to the status of Britain’s subcontractor.”

Chris Philp, the Conservative shadow home secretary, said: “Reform UK’s deal with Jordan Bardella is a complete farce … Time and again, Reform prove they are fundamentally unserious with grand claims for the cameras, with none of the detail or hard work that might survive actual scrutiny.”