Politics
The House Article | How A Secret Government Report Delayed Leeds’ Long-Awaited Trams
West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin insists mass transit ‘will be a tram’ (Credit: Milo Chandler / Alamy)
10 min read
The long wait in Leeds for a tram network was recently extended yet again. Noah Vickers uncovers the real reasons for the latest delay
It looked as if the stars were finally in alignment. Leeds had been waiting decades for a tram network of the kind enjoyed in Sheffield, Manchester and Nottingham, and in July 2024 it looked as if one was closer than ever before.
West Yorkshire’s Labour mayor, Tracy Brabin, had just won re-election promising to start work on the scheme and her party had now taken office nationally on a mission to “forge ahead” with new infrastructure.
To top it off, Leeds now even had local MP Rachel Reeves in post as Chancellor. With £2.1bn committed to it in June 2025, the project’s future looked bright.
But just days before Christmas, an announcement was made. Brabin confirmed that following “an independent review” held in September 2025, the scheme was now being progressed at a slower pace. Instead of services starting in the mid-2030s, they will instead begin in the late 2030s.
The reason for this was that while Brabin’s West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) had previously been progressing the business case and the route planning simultaneously, they had now agreed to take a “sequential” approach by submitting the business case first.
The announcement did not make clear why the review was held, other than it being “part of the usual process for projects of this size and scale”.
And while calling the review “independent” might suggest its authors have nothing to do with those funding the scheme, it quickly emerged that the report was in fact written by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista), a joint unit of the Treasury and Cabinet Office.
Speculation mounted that the project was in trouble. Leeds has been disappointed not just by a litany of failed plans for trams and trolleybuses over the last 40 years but also by Boris Johnson’s 2021 decision to the axe the city’s High Speed 2 route.
Admitting that people in West Yorkshire have become “cynical” about such promises, Brabin insisted the new timeline would “offer certainty for the scheme”, as ministers had “committed to working with us to cut red tape and put tracks on the ground as quickly as possible”.
Tom Forth, a Leeds-based expert in transport data who has been a vocal advocate for the tram, was not convinced: “We have had about eight delays before to this type of thing in Leeds. All of the previous delays have resulted in cancellation… Maybe we’ll get a hovercraft to Mars and we’ll call it ‘West Yorkshire Tram’, I don’t know, but it’s not good.”
A Leeds Labour activist meanwhile tells The House: “Leeds residents think it’s cancelled. It doesn’t matter who I speak to. If it’s not somebody hyper-involved in local government policy or transport policy, [they think] it’s not happening.”
Both WYCA and the government have refused Freedom of Information requests for the Nista review, with the former citing an exemption to protect “the free and frank exchange of views” between officials.
The House, however, has obtained a copy and can for the first time reveal its contents. The 45-page document sets out 19 separate risks relating to the project’s governance, assurance and planning, but one key recurring theme is the extent to which WYCA is said to have allowed the scheme to be shaped “around a political agenda rather than a recognised programmatic approach”.
The review specifically refers to Brabin’s 2024 manifesto pledge to get “spades in the ground by 2028”, which is the year that she intends to stand for a third term in office.
One source who has been following the project closely says: “They were rushing so much to try and get something approved, to meet the political timescale of doing something in this mayor’s mandate by 2028. The whole point of the HS2 learning is you’re not supposed to do that, because that’s what leads you to make bad decisions.”
The review says of Brabin’s 2028 pledge: “This date has been driving the planning for WYMT [West Yorkshire Mass Transit] and while it is vitally important to drive pace into delivery and also challenge current ways of thinking, there are elements of Managing Public Money, that government needs to adhere to.
“This has generated a tension for WYMT between planning a major project in line with current Green Book Business Case Approval and seeking to achieve a manifesto pledge.
“Lessons from other major projects have identified that options appraisal for investment, robust project planning and risk management are critical ingredients for successful delivery and should not be compromised for unrealistic milestones.”
It cautions that there is a risk of “political embarrassment if there was a large disconnect between a lauded ‘spades in the ground’ date and the start of actual work” and warns that money could be wasted, saying: “The risk of nugatory spend is high.”
The likely cost of a Bus Rapid Transit mode is significantly less than for trams
In addition to concerns about staff capacity in both WYCA and the Department for Transport (DfT), the review also highlights the need for WYCA to take a “mode-agnostic” view of the project. In plain English, the government has not actually said it will fund a tram system in West Yorkshire. It has said it will fund a “mass transit” system, which might consist of trams, but might not.
The review found there was a “clear mantra” among those working on the scheme that “the term WYMT is synonymous with ‘tram’” and that “anything less than” a tram would be considered “second-class”.
Nista said that while “it may be the case that trams are the right modal choice”, the review team were “concerned that the lack of unbiased thinking about the best solution for delivering the objectives has hampered the development of an evidence-based demonstration of the most effective and efficient scheme”.
It adds: “There is a need to build the case for trams which has not been completed. This is particularly important because the likely cost of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) mode is significantly less than for trams and the BRT benefits:cost ratio is significantly better.”
Staff working on the project told Nista that trams “will be transformational, more resilient and more acceptable to the public” than a bus network, but Nista asserted that “the evidence for this has not yet been developed”.
Martin Hamilton, CEO of the Leeds Civic Trust, tells The House that trams would attract a higher ridership than buses, as “people who wouldn’t think about getting a bus do consider getting a tram”. He adds that as well as offering increased speed, trams would also bring wider economic benefits.
“If you look at some of the examples within the UK, but also internationally, you can see how it’s possible to use a tram route as a way of bringing brownfield sites into play in terms of housebuilding and in terms of industry along the route. It can really act as a catalyst for regeneration in a way that simply running a bus down a road just won’t do.”
WYCA has consulted on several different possible alignments for the scheme’s initial two routes.
The first would run from central to south Leeds, and could potentially call at Elland Road, the home of Leeds United. The club is expanding its stadium in a £650m redevelopment project, with LUFC director Peter Lowy suggesting mass transit could make a big difference for fans on match days.
The other route would link Leeds with Bradford, despite the fact that the two cities are already connected by train.
The House understands that, at the time of the review, WYCA’s preferred alignment for this second route involved running the tram on main roads between the two cities, because that would enable planning consent to be granted most quickly. But this would have caused significant disruption to traffic during construction, and would also not have enabled much new housing development compared with options which took the tram off-road.
A source familiar with the scheme said that by taking this approach, the mayor had been putting “political expediency in front of what’s probably in the best interests of taxpayers, bluntly”.
In a February letter, rail minister Lord Hendy told Brabin: “It is important to carefully consider the cost, effects and benefits/disbenefits of ‘street running’ vs utilising reserved track where available or running through brownfield land.”
The Nista review similarly warns that “there are risks in committing to a specific route and mode before full approval and which may not be supported by all senior stakeholders”, in addition to “the risk of nugatory spend, litigation and public embarrassment for WYCA if works are started out of sequence and there is a subsequent need for reversal”.
A WYCA source told The House no decisions had yet been made on routes.
Since the review, Brabin has refused to resile from her manifesto pledge, insisting that spades will still go in the ground in 2028, though she now specifies these will enable “preparatory works”.
WYCA’s website explains: “This will not involve laying tracks, but it will prevent issues in any new developments or on our road network that could cause problems for the project, helping to advance future delivery.”
The mayor has also doubled down on her claim that mass transit will mean a tram network, despite the review’s findings on that question. “It’s going to be a tram,” she told WYCA’s scrutiny committee in March this year, adding that the Chancellor has made clear her support for trams.
But the scheme’s business case is being submitted to the DfT, not the Treasury. Asked just a few weeks ago whether she could rule out a bus-only scheme in Leeds, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that while Brabin was making the case for trams “very powerfully”, it is the DfT’s job to ensure public funds are “spent wisely”.
Brabin told the committee: “We are now in a process where we have to prove it can’t be a bus – and that’s fine, we’ll do that, because it will be a tram. My approach is, the case has been proven that light rail is a solution to connectivity in Manchester, in Nottingham, in Birmingham, in Edinburgh, in all of the cities across Europe [that have trams].”
A WYCA spokesperson told The House: “We have bold ambitions for West Yorkshire and that includes addressing long-standing connectivity issues that are holding our region back.
“Beginning preparatory construction works by 2028 has been an ambition for the combined authority for some time because the people of West Yorkshire have waited long enough for this investment. Delivery of major infrastructure projects in the UK is too slow, and in the spirit of devolution we want to innovate to deliver mass transit more quickly.
“Nista’s predecessor body, the National Infrastructure Commission, set out clearly in 2023 that Leeds needs a tram. A review at this stage of a project of this scale is completely normal, and the majority of its recommendations have already been addressed by the combined authority.”
The DfT said: “While we do not comment on details of leaked reports, the government fully supports mayor Brabin’s ambitions for a world-class mass transit system for West Yorkshire. We look forward to receiving WYCA’s initial business case for the project later this year.”
HOMER, Georgia — The last few players of the day were finishing their rounds at the Chimney Oaks Golf Club when a steady wind picked up by the practice putting green. Pin flags bent to a near snap. A sleek helicopter slowly descended onto the manicured lawn.
Rick Jackson had arrived.
The billionaire health care executive turned GOP gubernatorial candidate was making his grand entrance as a headliner for a recent event hosted by the Banks County Republican Party. In many ways, it mimicked the same disruptive force with which he entered the race two months earlier: loud, ostentatious and out of nowhere.
He rose from being a virtually unknown contender to a frontrunner in the polls by spending $50 million of his own money to flood the airwaves, social media and mailboxes with ads — nearly double the amount of all the candidates in both primaries for governor combined, according to an AdImpact analysis. He’s cutting into Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ margins with ultra-conservative voters and he’s complicating Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger’s path to making the June run-off.
An already crowded race has become all about Jackson.
“Anytime you’ve got somebody spending $100 million on TV and mailers and everything else, obviously you’re forced to talk about him,” Jones said in an interview with POLITICO.
As Jackson has upended the governor’s race, he’s also taking up so much of voters’ attention that Georgia Republicans in other races are worried about their own chances of breaking through.
Voters and strategists alike say they just can’t avoid Jackson’s presence anywhere, not even at home. His media blitz is alarming fellow Republicans, half a dozen of whom told POLITICO that Jackson is endangering Republicans in down ballot races — and a critical Senate contest — that will likely be decided by razor-thin margins.
“Down the ballot, it’s going to be extremely difficult for candidates for the other constitutional offices to get any kind of media attention, which creates a scenario where many of these races are essentially crapshoots,” said Spiro Amburn, a longtime Georgia Republican strategist and statehouse official who is neutral in the race.
A Georgia-based Republican operative involved with the governor’s race suggested that Jackson is partly the reason for the GOP’s messy Senate primary because the candidates are struggling to “get traction” and make headway with paid media. Another GOP strategist said Jackson’s spending, particularly in a primary, has far surpassed any precedent: “I watched 30 minutes of TV the other day and had six Rick Jackson ads. It’s just on a different level.”
“He’s sucked up so much oxygen that it’s really hard for any other Republican to operate right now,” said a third GOP strategist involved in races up and down the ballot in the state.
Jackson, in an interview, said he had not considered how his spending might be affecting other races and said he’d ultimately help them across the finish line when he’s the GOP nominee.
“Anytime you have a lot of money on TV, it’s going to raise the bar for everybody. Unfortunately, it’s just a necessity,” he said unapologetically. Speaking with POLITICO after the Banks County event last week, Jackson shrugged off any concerns about his money and said he will do “whatever it takes” to win.
“When I win, that’s when I’m done,” he added.
Rick Jackson’s money vs. Burt Jones’ Trump endorsement
Perhaps the biggest target in the face of Jackson’s onslaught is Jones, who used to lead the governor’s race by most standards. He now finds himself neck and neck with the billionaire in recent polling, as Jackson sells himself as another Trump-aligned candidate — even though he and the president don’t have much of a close, personal relationship.
“He’s not portraying himself as what he really is,” Jones told POLITICO. “He’s not this hard-nosed conservative guy. He is somebody who’s dependent on state and federal contracts to make his living, and he’s trying to make himself out to be some outsider and doesn’t know how the political process works.”
Other Jones allies have been leaning hard into attacking Jackson as a big-spending outsider. At a fish fry last week in rural Atkinson County, state Rep. James Burchette encouraged voters to question why a candidate would spend so much money to “take control of the state of Georgia.” Sen. Russ Goodman warned that “all this stuff that you see in the mailbox — it’s nothing but a bunch of lies.”
But even with Jackson’s big-spending approach, Trump’s stamp of approval still holds immeasurable power with the MAGA base.
The president has reaffirmed his support for Jones: “All these guys are coming in now loaded up with some money. Who the hell knows how much money he’s got? But Burt Jones has been here and been with you and been with me right from the beginning,” the president said at an event in Rome, Georgia in February.
Parked outside the fish fry, Jones’ campaign bus was emblazoned with that reminder: “Trump Endorsed.”
Jackson is betting on voters like Bruce Brooker, a 72-year-old farmer from Atkinson County: intrigued by Jackson, but ultimately sticking with the lieutenant governor out of loyalty to the president.
“I would probably vote for [Jackson] if Trump had not endorsed Burt,” he said. “I like the fact that he started with nothing and crawled and climbed through like any. He knows what hard work is. I’m not being critical of him. I admire him.”
Jackson, meanwhile, is trying to prove his MAGA credentials to Georgia Republicans to siphon off enough of Jones’ voters to win. Over in Homer, where Jackson was addressing a crowd of about 200 voters at the country club, attendees peppered him with questions about his relationship with Trump.
One man in the crowd asked Jackson to explain why he had donated to former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — a longtime Trump critic who voted to impeach the president during his first term. Another questioned why he had only donated to the president after the 2024 election.
“Just like JD Vance and Marco Rubio, I will admit I was late to the Trump Train. There’s no question about it,” Jackson responded. “But I gave a million dollars to him. That’s not an insignificant concept of supporting somebody.”
The non-MAGA candidates say they have an opening
Others in the governor’s race who are less interested in wooing the MAGA masses — including Raffensperger, who has rebuked efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and Attorney General Chris Carr — are not as concerned about Jackson undercutting their campaigns.
Carr campaign spokesperson Julia Mazzone said in a statement that Jackson’s entry into the race “devastates Burt Jones’ campaign, but it does not change the fundamentals for us.” The attorney general has a long-shot chance of advancing out of the primary, however, as polls show him in a single-digit fourth place.
A March 30 memo penned by Raffensberger’s campaign manager and obtained by POLITICO claimed that the Jackson-Jones cagefight has created an opening for other candidates to lead on policy substance. The secretary has avoided injecting himself into the MAGA mêlée, instead keeping his profile comparatively low as he travels the state to speak with voters.
“I have my own lane, and I feel good where we are,” Raffensberger said in an interview. “We travel all over the state, reaching voters, talking to people, making sure that people understand my message is about making sure we keep Georgia affordable and safe, and I’m best positioned to do that at the end of the day.”
After all, Raffensperger has a history of overcoming Trump-backed challengers and cruising to a general election victory.
“I’m going to be in the runoff,” he added, deflecting any and all concerns with finality.
Understanding the true essence of the current conflict in South West Asia requires grasping the geopolitical ambition of the Axis of Resistance, which aims for decolonisation and ‘the end of the colonial era’.
This process of decolonisation is only completed by uprooting the usurping entity as a settler colony and dismantling its ‘Siamese twins’ – the dynastic entities and sheikhdoms planted by colonialism in the Arabian Peninsula to safeguard its interests.
The geopolitical premise: decolonisation
Anyone who imagines that this historical objective of decolonisation can be achieved easily, quickly, or without a heavy price, is ignorant of historical and contemporary realities.
We are effectively discussing the undermining of a millennium-old empire, the roots of which trace back to 1095, when Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade.
This crusade established settler colonies on the eastern Mediterranean coast, forming the foundation for the second colonial phase at the end of the 15th century, which persists in various forms today.
The three-front strategy
The Axis of Resistance wages its battle on three integrated fronts:
- The Military Front: Focuses on seizing control of strategic straits – Hormuz first and Bab al-Mandab second – to exert total control over energy flows and vital derivatives (such as chemical fertilisers, helium, and sulphuric acid) from the Arabian Peninsula. This positions the Axis as the primary player in the global economy.
- The Economic Front: Utilises a mechanism of ‘precision calibration’ of supply flows to trigger structural socio-economic crises in target nations, specifically Western systems. This policy of ‘selective strangulation’ targets the economic stability and livelihoods of Western societies.
- The Psychological Front: Aims to inflict the necessary pain on the adversary to impose a new geopolitical reality. It seeks to force global societies and political leaderships to accept the demise of the old order.
Unlike previous wars (such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Ukraine), the majority of humanity will not merely watch from behind screens. Instead, they will feel the direct consequences in their daily lives – a necessary step towards the acceptance of this major geopolitical shift.
The time factor and the necessity of steadfastness
Time is the most fundamental element in this war, with its rhythm controlled by the intensity of field escalation and the pace of energy flow.
Strategically, this confrontation must continue until it achieves:
- A collapse of Western stock markets exceeding 70%.
- Inflation rates surpassing 15%.
- The imposition of forced energy and food rationing in Western countries.
These scenarios are unlikely to mature before the winter season of 2026–2027. Discussions of a ceasefire or ‘peace’ are merely public-relations manoeuvres to manage time and present the Axis as a seeker of stability to its people and allies.
Imperial erosion vs. Axis deepening
Doubting the Axis’s ability to withstand the ‘Empire’ is a form of intellectual folly.
If Gaza – with its limited area and suffocating siege – has stood firm for over two years, the Axis, with its expansive bases, can endure for decades. Conversely, the Empire’s ability to persist is questioned due to:
- Strategic Failure: The Western military system has proven incapable, trapped in a ’20th-century mindset’ while the Axis wages a ’21st-century war’.
- Industrial Base Erosion: Western armies lack the industrial capacity required for wars of attrition.
- Depleted Reserves: There is an acute exhaustion of air defence and, more importantly, long-range offensive missiles like TOMAHAWK and JASSM-ER.
- Structural Crises: Worsening economic and political problems within the Empire’s entities, from America and Europe to the usurping entity.
Strategic Balance of Power: Reflections on Phase One
The first phase of this confrontation has revealed a radical shift in global military doctrine.
Analysts acknowledge the superiority of Iran’s ‘Hybrid Warfare Strategy‘ over the structural flaws of the US strategy, which appeared prepared for a war of the past.
- The Winners’ Camp
- Iran: Achieved ‘comprehensive deterrence’ by neutralising US air and naval power. Its precision missiles shattered the myth of Western technical superiority. Economically, it leveraged high oil revenues and imposed ‘procedural sovereignty’ over the Strait of Hormuz. Politically, it became a global hub, with countries like France, Italy, Japan, and India seeking direct channels with Tehran.
- China: US failures against Iran confirmed the validity of Beijing’s strategy in East Asia, rendering US bases a strategic burden. Guaranteed energy security from Iran provides Chinese industry with a competitive edge over European and Asian rivals.
- Russia: The depletion of Western missile stocks in the south weakened support for Ukraine and curbed NATO’s recklessness against Moscow. Russia has converted global energy shortages into direct political influence over European capitals.
- The Impacted Camp
- The US and the West: Suffered the fall of military prestige alongside an economic earthquake of runaway inflation and unemployment.
- The Zionist Entity and Functional Sheikhdoms: The US-guaranteed security umbrella has collapsed, leaving the Zionist entity isolated and militarily deficient. For the dynastic sheikhdoms, they have lost their role as ‘rhythm keepers’ of the energy markets, becoming marginal players facing heavy economic losses.
Conclusion
The balance of steadfastness tilts towards those with the stamina and capacity for military and political innovation.
While the Empire suffers from strategic obsolescence and industrial decay, the Axis is seizing its sovereignty by controlling the artery of energy. The question is no longer ‘Will geopolitical change occur?’ but rather ‘When will economic collapses and social crises force the West to accept its defeat and recognise the new reality in South West Asia?’
Politics
Fascist Meloni more principled than Starmer: Italy suspends military cooperation with Israel
Fascist Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has announced Italy’s ‘defence’ agreement with Israel will be suspended.
Meloni attributed the decision to Israel’s continued aggression against its regional neighbours, particularly Iran.
She said:
In view of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defence agreement with Israel.
Italy says its ‘Israeli counterparts’ have been informed
The pact is outlined in a military cooperation framework signed in April 2016 and usually renews automatically every five years. Italy’s defence minister Guido Crosetti said that his ministry had informed Israeli counterparts.
Keir Starmer, meanwhile, continues to provide Israel and its US enablers with access to UK military bases and airspace. Meanwhile, the UK navy and RAF support Israel’s war on Lebanese civilians and continue to provide it with defensive cover against Iran’s retaliation for US-Israeli aggression.
The UK ministry of defence is even boasting about fast-tracking new anti-drone “interceptor missiles” to help ‘Gulf partners’ — weasel words that will certainly include Israel.
He condemns Iran’s justified closure of the Hormuz Strait and plans to try to break it but is silent on the US’s and Israel’s crimes.
Italy’s fascist PM is way ahead of the supposedly ‘centrist’, but in reality, ethno-supremacist Starmer on human rights and Israel, again.
Featured image via Reuters/ Vincenzo Livieri
By Skwawkbox
“probably the most explicitly anticipated mass atrocity event ever”. It was indeed clear to anyone watching the 18 month-long siege of the city that it was going to end in appalling violence.
But when the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) took the city, the eyes of the world were largely elsewhere, as crimes that UN reporters said bore “the hallmarks of genocide” took place. Tens of thousands – including countless children – were massacred in a matter of days.
“Sudan has become the site of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today – and of the 21st century, full stop.”
You would be hard pressed to learn this studying the international community’s responses. The attitude of looking away implies that the conflict is detached from our concerns, our politics, here in the UK. It suggests that Sudan is so far away, so foreign, as to be essentially sealed from us. This is wrong morally, and practically too.
The UK cannot lapse into a passive acceptance of the situation in Sudan that borders on complicity. There is a renewed energy in the Foreign Office, and this week international leaders – including the foreign secretary Yvette Cooper – will meet in Berlin. Their relentless focus must be on civilian protection. As things stand on this anniversary, there will be more atrocities like those that took place in El Fasher and Zamzam: slow-motion Srebrenicas in front of our eyes should we choose to look.
The next anniversary of this conflict must be different to the last two – a moment of remembrance and reflection, not yet another snapshot of the horrors of war. In April 2027, I hope we will be looking backwards in commemoration of the many thousands who have died – and not forwards, as we do today, to the many whose lives this conflict may yet claim.
Anneliese Dodds served as the development minister and minister for women and equalities between July 2024 and February 2025, before quitting government over Keir Starmer’s cuts to foreign aid. She also sat as the shadow chancellor for a year when Labour was in opposition.
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JD Vance has said stopping funding for Ukraine is one of the “proudest” things he has done since entering government.
The US vice-president’s comments are likely to be welcomed in Russia, which has been waging war on their neighbours since the 2022 invasion.
Donald Trump, who vowed to end the war within 24 hours of being re-elected president in 2024, has been a consistent critic of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But despite holding a peace summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska last year, Trump has failed to keep that campaign pledge and the war continues.
Nevertheless, Vance said he was pleased that the US had withdrawn the support for Ukraine which had been in place under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden.
Speaking at a Turning Point USA event on Tuesday, he said: “It was during a Senate event that I had done, where I had somebody who came up to me, and I’m sure a great person, it was a Ukrainian American, and this person got really agitated at me because I was saying we should stop funding the Ukraine war.
“And I still believe that, obviously, and it’s one of the things I’m proudest that we’ve done as an administration, is we’ve told Europe if you want to buy weapons you can, but he United States is not buying weapons and sending them to Ukraine any more.”
Social media users were quick to condemn Vance over his remarks.
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Donald Trump has threatened to rip up the US-UK trade deal as he launched yet another attack on Keir Starmer.
The US president said the agreement “can always be changed” as relations between the two countries remain in the deep freeze.
Trump has made a series of jibes at the prime minister after Starmer initially refused to let US jets use RAF bases to bomb Iran.
He was again repeated them in an interview with Sky News, as he also condemned the PM’s policies on North Sea oil and immigration.
The president said: “I think I like Starmer, but I think that he’s made a tragic mistake in closing the North Sea oil. You see your energy prices are the highest in the world and I think he’s made a tragic mistake on immigration.
“I love your country and I would love to see it succeed, but if you have bad immigration policies and bad energy policies you have the worst of both. You can’t succeed, it’s not possible.”
He added: “A lot of people ask me what I think of [Starmer’s policies] and I think they’re insane … your country is being invaded.”
Asked who the UK is being invaded by, Trump said: “By illegal immigrants from all over the world, including those from prisons, drug dealers, people from mental institutions. Your country is being invaded.”
Last May, Trump said America and Britain had agreed a “full and comprehensive” trade deal that would “cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come”.
But the president told Sky News: “We gave them a good trade deal, better than I had to, which can always be changed. We gave them a trade deal that was very good because they’re having a lot of problems.”
His comments come as the UK government tries to agree closer economic ties with the European Union.
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Lena Dunham is lifting the lid on the end of her relationship with Grammy-winning music producer Jack Antonoff.
The two were an item for around five years, before going their separate ways in 2017.
In her new memoir Famesick, the Girls creator has written candidly about how things ended for herself and Jack, revealing that she slept with an old boyfriend while they were going through a rough patch.
Lena claimed that after undergoing her hysterectomy – which she had due to severe endometriosis – she tried to talk to Jack about her increasing reliance on pain medication, after which they got into the “worst” fight of their relationship.
She wrote that Jack then “angrily flush[ed] all my pills down the toilet, which necessitated a call to the doctor and a late-night trip to the pharmacy to get more so that I wouldn’t go into withdrawal – from any one of the drugs – overnight”.
The former Fun. musician apparently then addressed Lena in ways she said she had “never been spoken to” before, which she said opened up old needs for her “to be wanted”.
At this point, Lena texted an ex she’d known since school, telling him: “I’ve been through something awful. I don’t want to talk about it, but I need you to fuck me and I need you to do all of the work.”
When Jack went on tour, Lena recalled embarking on a two-week affair with her ex, before eventually ending her relationship.
In her book, Lena also spoke about Jack’s closeness with a fellow musician, who she does not name, but heavily suggests is Lorde, with whom he collaborated on her hit 2017 album Melodrama.
The Emmy nominee wrote that as things in her relationship with Jack began to falter, he was spending an increasing amount of time with a “teen pop star”, once coming home from a doctor’s appointment to find her “sprawled across our sectional couch, weeping into Jack’s lap as he told her that ‘your teens are for experimenting’”.
She noted that his “comforting” tone of voice “almost brought tears to my eyes”, as it had been “so long since he’d spoken to me with that kind of expansive generosity”.
“I had never stopped flirting – I mean, I wasn’t dead yet,” she said. “But I had observed careful boundaries, never taking it far enough that I could be declared out of bounds.”
Lena continued: “If I’d wanted to look, perhaps I may have seen that Jack was not observing them as closely as I was. I wasn’t paying attention, but the internet sure was, and they made some pretty amazing PowerPoints on the issue, so convincing they had me rethinking events that I myself had been present for.”
HuffPost UK has contacted Jack Antonoff’s team for comment.
Jack and Lorde were previously the subject of an expansive viral PowerPoint presentation, speculating about the nature of their relationship.
At the time, Jack dismissed the rumours as “dumb heteronormative gossip”, while Lena later told The Cut after her break-up that she found the speculation “awful”.
“I don’t think anything happened between them,” Lena insisted in 2018. “I can never know someone else’s life. I have never spoken to [Lorde] about it. We haven’t talked since Jack and I broke up.”
She added: “It was awful, and I couldn’t do anything about it except trust that what he was saying to me was true.”
Lorde also made it clear around this time that she and Jack were not an item, insisting: “I love him. He’s awesome, but we’re not dating!”
Elsewhere in her book, Lena also made some surprising revelations about her working relationship with Adam Driver, and his apparently “aggressive” outbursts on the set of Girls.
The British Retail Consortium expects food inflation to rise sharply to around six to eight per cent by next year. (Alamy)
5 min read
Fuel and energy are not the only essentials impacted by the Iran war, with experts warning that grocery prices could rise sharply in the next 12 months.
Last week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves met with supermarket bosses to discuss the impact of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East on supermarket prices.
On Tuesday, Reeves expressed her strongest criticism yet of the US decision to launch strikes on Iran, saying it was “folly” to attack the country without a clear strategy.
“Obviously, no sensible person is a supporter of the Iranian regime, but to start a conflict without being clear what the objectives are and not being clear about how you are going to get out of it, I do think that is a folly, and it is one that is affecting families here in the UK but also families in the US and around the world, she told The Daily Mirror.
Reeves is dealing with inflation across the board as a result of disruption to global trade caused by the war.
Petrol prices climbed shortly after the US and Israel first launched strikes on Iran, while Tehran’s threat to attack ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane responsible for significant portions of the world’s gas and oil, has led to a sharp rise in global energy prices.
The government has made support available for people reliant on heating oil, but is under increasing pressure to announce a wider package of support to protect household bills.
But the cost-of-living headache doesn’t stop there. The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) trade body recently warned that UK food inflation could reach as high as 9 per cent by the end of 2026 as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.
Why is the Iran war affecting UK food prices?
The disruption to vital trade flows in the Middle East is not just impacting oil and gas, which food producers use for energy and transport, but also a key nitrogen-based fertiliser called Urea.
Urea, which relies on gas, is vital to global food production as it is widely used in the agriculture sector to grow crops — particularly at this time of year, spring.
Pressure on urea supplies means farmers will have to pay more for it, which in turn will lead to higher prices for the consumer.
According to Harvir Dhillon, economist at the British Retail Consortium (BRC), “you can already see an uptick in food price inflation” in the latest United Nations data, “and it will likely continue”.
He explained that it will take a few months before the impact is properly felt, telling PoliticsHome: “If we assume that the trajectory of food prices will follow something similar to what we saw following Ukraine-Russia… food inflation pretty much starts to increase more or less three or four months after that point.”
The National Farmers’ Union (NUF) has warned that farmers are “under immense pressure”.
“Farmers and growers are having to shoulder increased costs of fuel and fertiliser, often only being made aware of the price they will pay once products have been delivered onto farm,” said NFU president, Tom Bradshaw.
“If these cost pressures persist — which span the whole food supply chain — food inflation could rise, as recent reporting suggests.”
The Bank of America has estimated that global urea prices have increased by up to 40 per cent since the start of the Iran war.
In the UK, estimates vary in terms of how this will impact the cost of food at home.
The FDF, which represents 12,000 food and drink manufacturers nationwide, has predicted that food inflation will hit 9 per cent by the end of the year.
The BRC currently believes that it will peak slightly lower, between 6 and 8 per cent, and slightly later, in early 2027.
What action could be taken?
The government continues to argue that the best way to protect people from the economic impact of the Iran war is to re-open the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible.
Later this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron will co-host a meeting of world leaders to discuss restoring freedom of navigation in the vital shipping lane as soon as conditions allow it.
The UK government has said it does not support President Donald Trump’s decision to blockade ships entering or exiting the strait after peace talks between the US and Iran failed to produce an agreement.
Ultimately, ninisters have no direct control over food prices in the UK as they are largely driven by global forces.
Affected sectors say the government can ease the overall financial pressure by providing relief elsewhere, with the BRC calling for retailers to be given support with their energy bills, and the NFU urging ministers to reduce electricity charges for farmers using glasshouses to grow.
In the long-term, MPs like Alistair Carmichael, chair of the food and rural affairs select committee, argue that the UK must think seriously about improving its food security so that it isn’t “left swinging in the wind” every time there is a global supply shock.
“I have been banging on about food security and resilience in supply chains for a long time, and we have always spoken about that in the context of production,” the long-serving Lib Dem MP told PoliticsHome.
“Why we need to have a critical mass of livestock, why we need to have land for cultivation, and the rest of it.”
He said boosting domestic food production should be a key priority for the government as it seeks to bolster national defence.
The MP was echoed by the NFU’s Bradshaw, who told PoliticsHome: “In the long-term, it all comes down to resilience.
“We need to find ways to prevent UK farm businesses from becoming collateral damage of global politics. This is about ensuring we have a stable homegrown food sector which can withstand shocks from global volatility and continue to produce food for the 70m consumers of the UK.”
A government spokesperson said: “We are taking the effects of the Iran war very seriously and are actively monitoring the potential impact of the conflict on the food and farming sector.
“We expect no change to food availability and are continuing to meet with stakeholders, including farmers’ unions, to share information on rising fuel and oil prices – ready to act to protect our rural communities.”
Donald Trump has slammed the UK for refusing to drill for more oil in the North Sea in a fresh takedown of the government’s “tragic” decision.
In a post on TruthSocial, the president took aim at Labour’s focus on renewable energy, writing: “Europe is desperate for Energy, and yet the United Kingdom refuses to open North Sea Oil, one of the greatest fields in the World. Tragic!!!
“Aberdeen should be booming. Norway sells its North Sea Oil to the U.K. at double the price.
“They are making a fortune. U.K., which is better situated on the North Sea for purposes of energy than Norway, should, DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! It is absolutely crazy that they don’t… AND, NO MORE WINDMILLS!”
The US president keeps finding new ways to criticise Britain after prime minister Keir Starmer decided not to let American forces use UK military bases to launch pre-emptive strikes on Iran at the end of February.
Britain then refused to send its Navy to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open as the Iranian forces effectively closed the major oil shipping lane.
Now, after peace talks failed with Iran, Trump has decided to also blockade the waterway.
The chaotic conflict has had major economic consequences for the rest of the world as oil prices soar.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Trump’s war in Iran will damage the UK economy more than any other major country.
The Labour government is now scrambling to organise a contingency plan before the upcoming cost of living shock.
Starmer has made it clear the UK will not be “dragged” into the conflict while his chancellor Rachel Reeves lashed out at Trump for the “folly” of starting a war without any exit plan.
The president’s unprompted attack on UK energy is just his latest criticism of Britain.
He compared Starmer to former PM Neville Chamberlain – who championed the Nazi appeasement policy before World War 2 – and accused the UK of trying to join a conflict which the US had already won.
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Andy Burnham and Manchesterism (Illustration by Tracy Worrall)
7 min read
What would Burnham’s Britain look like? Ros Taylor explores the Manchester mayor’s governing philosophy – derided by some as more a vibe than a replicable political model, but celebrated by others as key to the city’s recent success
The first hint of Manchesterism in the public consciousness came at an outdoor press conference in October 2020, when Andy Burnham heard about the latest Covid restrictions to be imposed on the city and the money available for it. In a moment that launched a thousand memes, the mayor looked down at his adviser’s phone bearing the news and grimaced. “I mean, it’s brutal, isn’t it?” he said. “This is not right. They should not be doing this – grinding people down: £22m to fight the situation we are in is frankly disgraceful.”
Boris Johnson was the prime minister then, but the refrain has persisted: ‘Manchester is being done down by Westminster and Whitehall, deprived of the autonomy it needs to thrive and I, the city’s elected mayor, will not roll over and keep quiet about it.’ As Burnham has grown more confident – poised, were he able to do so, to challenge Keir Starmer – Manchesterism has become a way for him to express how he would run the country differently.
What, then, is Manchesterism? What relevance does an idea rooted in one city have for governing a nation of 70 million? Does it owe anything to Manchester Liberalism, the other big political idea to have emerged from the North West? And given how little power British mayors have, how much has Burnham been able to do to flesh out his philosophy?
Doubters say it is mostly vibes and boosterism, rooted in a belief in Manchester’s thwarted potential (axing HS2 to Manchester fuelled that disaffection) and relies on a bottom-up localism that would be hard to translate to the national stage. Enthusiasts believe it would permanently reshape the relationship between Britons and their elected representatives. Rachel Reeves’ tentative plans to share income tax revenues with local government, mentioned in her recent Mais Lecture, hint that Burnham’s message is getting through.
Yet Manchesterism is a “governance rather than an economics question”, says Marc Stears, director of the Policy Lab at UCL, and a former adviser to Ed Miliband. He describes it as “an essentially collaborative way of working” where government allies with trade unions and business to “dismantle roadblocks”. He says this approach is impossible when the country is governed overwhelmingly from Westminster: “The short-termism and antiquated nature of our governing stops you having a growth plan which is going to be successful.”
Stears, who has spent time in Australia, admires the “healthy rivalry” between cities like Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide, compared with the relatively unproductive British cities beyond the capital. “If we’re reliant only on London and the South East, we won’t be able to get growth above 1.5 per cent.”
In practice, working more closely with unions and business has meant trying to bring services back into public control. Burnham’s signature reform has been to bring Manchester’s buses back into local authority control, calling them the Bee Network. He has also been planning more social housing to replace the stock lost to sell-offs. “It’s been difficult,” says Ryan Swift of the think tank IPPR North. “There’s been a mix of local government taking the lead on that and financially empowering social housing companies.” Efforts to reform skills and education have been less successful, largely because of the limited powers a city mayor has and difficulties in bringing opportunities and transport to some of Greater Manchester’s outlying boroughs, like Wigan.
Burnham has fleshed out Manchesterism by calling for constitutional changes like abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with a senate of the nations and regions. Gordon Brown championed this plan, but very few of his proposed reforms survived contact with the Starmer government. Burnham also wants to reform the whipping system so that MPs can vote in the interests of their constituencies, and he has “come round” to proportional representation.
Critics ask how much of what makes Manchester relatively prosperous today is down to Burnham himself
Last autumn he called for higher taxes on the better-off, the renationalisation of utilities and more government borrowing, telling the New Statesman: “We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond market.” It was a bold move for a “governance” rather an economic project and raised questions about the cost of Burnham’s aspirations. With borrowing unlikely to get cheaper until the war in the Middle East is resolved, Manchesterism looks even more expensive. The market’s lack of confidence frustrates him. “The focus on the longer-term returns on delivery is something that’s held back investment in the North in recent years,” says Swift.
Critics ask how much of what makes Manchester relatively prosperous today is down to Burnham himself. The Labour-controlled council took several key decisions in the decade before he became mayor. It welcomed foreign investment in property, especially from the Abu Dhabi United Group investment fund, a lot of it unaffordable to most Mancunians. By 2011, the BBC was already moving into Salford and the Beetham Tower, for a while the tallest UK building outside London, had gone up. Burnham’s focus on the ‘social economy’ is in part a reaction to the feeling that central Manchester has prospered from a huge injection of oil money, not necessarily to the benefit of locals. “Kids can’t see a path to those skyscrapers,” he told the Social Mobility Commission.
Abu Dhabi still owns Man City, but Burnham has attracted foreign direct investment from the US, EU and India. The UK Biobank and a GCHQ base have moved in. Universities are heavily involved in the planned ‘Atom Valley’ in Rochdale. They represent the scientific, trade and manufacturing side of Manchesterism – an echo of the Manchester Liberalism of the mid-19th century and the emancipation of workers through international trade. Burnham is notably enthusiastic about reindustrialisation. Asked whether he identifies more with Richard Cobden or Friedrich Engels, he chooses Cobden, the Mancunian Radical and free-trader.
The Greens’ by-election victory in Gorton and Denton shows that Labour’s record in Manchester has not been enough to counter Keir Starmer’s unpopularity. Burnham will take comfort from the fact he was barred from standing, and that the Greens won through a very Labour appeal to working-class solidarity and the pain of the cost of living. Should he become PM and need to govern in coalition after the next election, Burnham is ideologically flexible enough to do it: for his part, Zack Polanski has said he could work with him.
But ‘Manchester’ localism carries risks. Regional and fiscal devolution means taking power away from Westminster – perhaps even a devolved England of German-style Länder. What if, as in Scotland, some regions choose to entrust it to parties that are not Labour? The prospect of, say, the East Midlands being run by Reform makes many on the left shudder. “There would have to be a change in the way people feel about politics,” says Swift, “and an acceptance of different politics in different areas. The argument still needs to be made for why devolution is a good thing in the longer term.”
Manchesterism is partly a howl of civic pride, an echo of The Fall’s “big, big, big, wide streets; those useless MPs”. “The wiring of the country isn’t right,” says Burnham, who couldn’t get a job in journalism in Manchester when he graduated. But it is also a model for radical devolution and a renationalisation and reindustrialisation project. Where it breaks from some of the early 21st century left is its lack of interest in expanding individual rights.
Social mobility is vital to Burnham, but industry, education and infrastructure drive it forward, not rights-based law. Tellingly, the foreign cities to which he compares Manchester are outside Europe: Austin, Texas and Osaka in Japan.
To its fans, Manchesterism’s possibilities lie in the aspiration for an England that is not defined by the capital’s appetites, where “people feel settled and at ease with themselves”, as Stears puts it. It remains a work in progress – and that might suit Andy Burnham very well.
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