Newslinks for Tuesday 15th April 2025

Unions threaten to spread bin strikes

“Bin workers are poised to strike across the country, union sources have warned. Unite, one of Britain’s largest trade unions, is considering a series of walkouts in the event of any further pay disputes like the row in Birmingham. Workers are embroiled in similar disputes in Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire, and some Unite staff in Sheffield are already on strike. It comes with no end in sight to the bin strike in Birmingham, where Unite members overwhelmingly rejected a second offer from the council as their walkout entered its sixth week.” – Daily Telegraph

• Union’s bins at Birmingham office are spotless – Daily Mail
• Birmingham bin strikes cost Unite £1m for workers and legal costs – The Times

Steel 1) Miliband backed Chinese investment in critical UK infrastructure

“Ed Miliband encouraged Chinese involvement in key parts of the UK’s critical infrastructure less than a month before the government wrested control of British Steel from its Beijing shareholders. The energy secretary heralded how “two-way trade and investment can bring mutually beneficial results” and signed an agreement promising “close co-operation” with Beijing in sectors including battery energy storage and offshore wind power during a visit to the country last month, The Times can reveal.” – The Times

• Senior Labour figures warn a rapprochement with Beijing could risk national security – The Guardian
• China threatens UK jobs over British Steel row – The i
• Don’t blame Ed Miliband for UK steel crisis, say “experts” – The Guardian
• Miliband’s net zero obsession left British Steel on brink of extinction – Jawad Iqbal, The Times
• Labour’s anti-sewage plan to drive up water bills – Daily Telegraph
• British Steel affair shows confusion over relations with China – Leader, The Times
• China warns UK not to ‘politicise’ trade – Daily Telegraph
• China isn’t investing in Britain because it likes us. It wants to suborn and control us – Stephen Glover, Daily Mail

Steel 2) Scunthorpe blast furnaces “set to continue running”

“British Steel’s blast furnaces are set to continue running with a delivery of enough raw materials to keep them lit for the “coming weeks” due on Tuesday, the government has said. Coking coal and iron ore from the US will be unloaded at Immingham docks and transported to the Scunthorpe site after a scramble for supplies.” – BBC

• British Steel needs a forever subsidy – Financial Times
• Parliament seems to have no idea what to do with the steel industry – Leader, Daily Telegraph

Steel 3) Griffith: The trade unions will call the shots

“The only unequivocal winner from the weekend’s events are the unions. Staggeringly, we learn that the lead union of Scunthorpe workers, the GMB, has donated £28million to Labour since 2010. Taking powers to direct British Steel won’t reduce the ruinously high price of energy that is hitting all sorts of businesses. British manufacturers in Birmingham, West Midlands, face energy costs four times those in Birmingham, Alabama, in the US. Until they ditch the mad dash to net zero by 2050, this is nothing but sticking plaster politics. But trade unions don’t have to balance the nation’s books so long as taxpayer subsidies keep flowing.” – Andrew Grifffith, Daily Telegraph

‘Good chance’ of US-UK trade deal, says Vance

“US Vice-President JD Vance said there was a “good chance” a trade deal could be reached with the UK, as the dust continues to settle from America’s global trade shakeup. “We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government,” Vance said in an interview on Monday with the UnHerd website.” – BBC

Poll in “red wall” shows Reform UK set to win local elections

“Asked about voting intentions for areas where elections are going ahead in May, Reform’s share rises to 29 per cent, Labour’s falls to 20 with the Tories on 24. Most people (53 per cent) said the cost of living is the most important issue for deciding how they will vote next month. Next came immigration (35), health (32), the economy (28) and crime (23 per cent)…Mr Farage today makes a major campaign speech in Durham. Last night he told The Sun that his party will be “planting our tanks” firmly on Labour’s lawns.” – The Sun

• Farage warned about steel industry. It’s no surprise Reform is ahead in polls – Harry Cole, The Sun
• Starmer’s Labour has lost touch with working Brits. Only Reform can fix UK with real change. – Nigel Farage, The Sun
• Starmer warned at least 80 Labour MPs could lose their seats as their majorities are smaller than the number of constituents who are set to have their disability benefits cut – Daily Mail
• Keep children well away from the ballot box – Melanie Phillips, The Times

>Today:

Ex-MP Craig Williams among 15 charged with betting offences

“Fifteen people including former Conservative MP Craig Williams have been charged with betting offences by the Gambling Commission. The investigation was launched last year following bets placed on the timing of the 2024 general election. The commission said the investigation focused on individuals “suspected of using confidential information – specifically advance knowledge of the proposed election date – to gain an unfair advantage in betting markets”. Before the election was called, Williams was the MP for Montgomeryshire and an aide to then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.” – BBC

Libel claim against Matt Hancock can go to trial

“A libel case against former Health Secretary Matt Hancock can go to trial, after a High Court judge refused the ex-MP’s attempt to have the claim thrown out. Mr Hancock, who was the MP for West Suffolk from 2010 to 2024, was accused of making a “malicious” comment about former Tory MP Andrew Bridgen online.” – BBC

Claims of two-tier policing during 2024 summer riots ‘baseless’, report finds

“The way police responded to the riots that swept the country last summer was “entirely appropriate”, a parliamentary report has found. MPs considered accusations that the riots were policed more strongly than previous protests, but said that claims of “two-tier policing” were “baseless”. Parliament’s home affairs cross-party select committee published the report on Monday into the police response to the disorder that broke out across the country after the murder of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on 29 July.” – The Guardian

UK wage growth rises in February

“Wage growth in the UK rose in the three months to February ahead of the introduction of higher payroll taxes and a lifting of the national living wage. The Office for National Statistics said average weekly earnings growth, excluding bonuses, rose by 5.9 per cent in a rolling three-month period to February, up from 5.8 per cent in the previous month.” – The Times

>Today: Steve Loftus on Comment: A national pension fund offers a Conservative solution to a looming crisis

Other political news

• NHS trusts fast-track ethnic minorities to top jobs – Daily Telegraph
• Keir Starmer paid £54,718 in tax last year – BBC
• UK business confidence falls to lowest level in over two years, survey shows – The Guardian
• Sir Lindsay Hoyle splurged £25,000 on a junket to Malaysia – Daily Mail
• Tulip Siddiq attacks ‘smear campaign’ after arrest warrant – BBC
• SNP brings forward government programme due to Trump turmoil – Financial Times
• ‘Stop Brexit Man’ cleared of flouting ban on playing music outside parliament – The Guardian
• Jo Stevens plays down first minister benefits spat – BBC
• Lesbian couple can stay in UK as Albania is ‘too homophobic’ – Daily Telegraph
• MP barred from Hong Kong says it was to ‘shut me up’ – BBC
• Daniel Noboa wins re-election in Ecuador and renews war on drugs – The Times
• Government tries to block evidence in private school parents’ VAT case – Daily Telegraph

Hannan: Abedi case shows we need to be stricter about how we let into the country

“Why was Abedi in the country at all? His father Ramadan left Libya after falling out with the Gaddafi regime in 1991, and ended up in the UK a year or two later. Hashem and Salman were therefore native Mancunians. But the family evidently did not regard itself as British….Where, then, does this leave Abedi? We can’t deport him: he is our problem as a British national. But we can try to stop future Abedis. We can be selective about whom we admit into this country and enforce deportation orders. We can make clear that if people’s primary allegiance is to a foreign cause, they should pursue it elsewhere. It may be too late for those murdered in Manchester; but it is not too late for the next set of targets.” – Daniel Hannan, Daily Mail

• Islamist gangs exploit vacuum of authority in Britain’s prisons – Leader, The Times

>Yesterday: Ian Acheson on Comment: Jenrick should make fixing the shocking treatment of prison officers a Conservative priority

Hague: Trump is mishandling relations with China and Russia

“It will not have gone unnoticed in Beijing that a president who can underestimate them on tariffs, and then flip-flop when faced with a determined response, might do the same over Taiwan…All of this amounts to the most serious mishandling of strategic competition with China in the recent decades of its rising power. To compound matters, the US envoy Steve Witkoff has spent recent days in Moscow talking to Vladimir Putin, who continues to run rings round all the Trump envoys sent to see him. Harbouring the illusion that Putin can be turned into a friend and will stop the war in Ukraine, the White House seems to hope that Russia can be prised away from China as part of a masterstroke on the geopolitical chess board. But it is another misreading of a rival, since Russia is now bound to China and cannot risk leaving its embrace.” – William Hague, The Times

• Trump has been proven right about pretty much everything – Liz Truss, Daily Telegraph
• Meloni walks diplomatic tightrope between Brussels and Washington – The Times
• Trump seems blind to the need to put pressure on Putin – Leader, Daily Telegraph
• The UK is hosting ministers from 20 countries in London on Tuesday in an attempt to restart stalled Sudan peace talks – The Guardian
• Trump administration halts $2.2bn in Harvard funds after it defied pressure – Financial Times

>Yesterday: Charlotte Leslie on Comment: Dithering over Sudan highlights the utopian unrealism of Western foreign policy

News in brief

• JD Vance’s message to Europe – Interview, Unherd
• Nationalised steel is the last thing Britain needs – Harry Phibbs, CapX
• Why is the army fixing Birmingham’s bin crisis? – Eliot Wilson, The Spectator
• We should dissent from our allies on assisted suicide – Andrew Rosindell, The Critic
• Has the demise of DEI been greatly exaggerated? – C.J. Strachan, Daily Sceptic