In the Commons Ayoub Khan, the independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, which covers the Villa Park ground where the Maccabi Tel Aviv match was played, claimed that Craig Guildford, the West Midlands chief constable, was the victim of a witch-hunt.

Khan said:

This is truly a sad day for British politics. Despite all the rhetoric we have heard in this House, Brummies know the truth: that this is nothing but a witch-hunt, and the chief constable is being thrown under the bus.

The home secretary knows all too well that West Midlands police have a reputation for working with all communities. They have never caved into community pressure. We all know this because we regularly have far right protests and marches in our city.

The police could have done a better job in terms of procedure, yes, but the reasons for banning Maccabi fans was the same from day one. We all know their unashamed racism and violence. That is the reason why they were banned …

Is it worth throwing our chief constable under the bus just to show that the words of rightwing media and Dutch officials, under pressure from Amsterdam City Hall, matter more than our British police.

As Khan ended, there were calls of “disgraceful”.

In response, Shabana Mahmood said Khan should read the report from Sir Andy Cooke. (See 2.58pm.) And she said he did not speak for all Birmingham MPs. (Mahmood is MP for Birmingham Ladywood.) She said, when the police carry out a risk assessment, people should be able to be confident it is accurate.

Khan was one of the five independent MPs elected at the last election mainly or partly on a pro-Palestinian platform. Ahead of the match, he campaigned for the Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture to be cancelled, or at least played without fans present – partly because of the violent record of some Maccabi fans, but also he wanted all Israeli teams to be banned from sporting fixtures because of Israel committing “genocide” in Gaza.

In his response to Mahmood, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, accused said the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ban was “vicious antisemitism” and he said West Midlands police had allowed “violent Islamists to impose their will on our country”.

But he also claimed that Shabana Mahmood should be sacking Craig Guildford, the chief constable, herself. He claimed she had the power to do this.

He said:

[Mahmood] failed to mention section 40 of the Police Act 1996 which remains in force today. Under that, she as home secretary has the power to direct the police and crime commissioner to do things, including dismissing the chief constable where, and I quote from section 60, subsection one, “Any part of the force is failing to act in an effective manner”.

That test is quite clearly met. Part of the force, the chief constable, is indeed failing to act in an effective manner by the home secretary’s own analysis.

The home secretary must today use her section 40 powers to go through the process, to direct the police and crime commissioner Simon Foster to dismiss Craig Guildford. She must stop pretending to have no power and actually act.

But Mahmood claimed that Philp had got the law wrong.

It was the Conservative government that removed the Home Secretary’s direct power to remove a chief constable. It used to be a power contained within section 42 of the Police Act 1996. That was repealed by the Conservatives in their 2011 Police and Social Responsibility Act, which explicitly removed the power.

Mahmood also said she would legislate to ensure that the home secretary regains the power to sack chief constables. She said:

When a chief constable is responsible for a damaging failure of leadership, the public rightly expect the home secretary to act, and I intend to restore their ability to do so.

I can announce today that this government will soon reintroduce the home secretary’s power to dismiss chief constables in light of significant or persistent failings, and that this will be part of the government’s upcoming white paper on wider police reform, with legislation to follow.

I do not expect this power to be used often, but I think it must be available at those rare moments when it is warranted.

In November the Home Office announced that it was getting rid of police and crime commissioners, the elected officials who currently do have the power to sack chief constables. But at the time it said PCC responsibilites would be taken over by mayors, or policing and crime boards. There was no talk of the home secretary taking back the power to sack chief constables.

Mahmood said it was more than 20 years since a home secretary last said they had no confidence in a chief constable.

She said until 2011 the home secretary could sack a chief constable.

That changed when Theresa May changed the law to set up police and crime commissioners, she said.

She said it was now up to Simon Foster, the West Midlands (Labour) police and crime commissioner, to decide the future of Craig Guildford, the West Midlands chief constable.

She goes on:

I am sure that Simon Foster will now follow all due process as he considers that question for himself.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is now making a statement about the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ban.

She says MPs will be familiar with this, because of the “forensic” work done by the Commons home affairs committee.

She says decisions like this are subject to police operational independence. She did not seek to influence the decision before the ban was recommended, because she did not have the power to do that, she says.

The ban was of national and international importance. The Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were told they could not attend the match because the police could not guarantee their safety, only two weeks after the Manchester synagogue attack.

Mahmood says the government then said it would offer the police extra resources to allow the match to go ahead. The safety advisory group (the local authority body that took the decision, on the basis of advice from the police) organised another meeting.

At this moment, the chair requested “a wholly fresh consideration of the issue” at which point the intelligence provided by West Midlands police hardened and the recommendation to ban fans was upheld.

Mahmood says she then ordered an inquiry. It was carried out by Sir Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary.

She goes on:

Sir Andy’s findings are damning. There is no other way to describe them. The force we now discover conducted little engagement with the Jewish community, and none with the Jewish community in Birmingham before a decision was taken. As Andy himself says, it is no excuse to claim, as the force now does, that there were high holy days during this time that prevented this engagement.

Most concerning, Andy describes an approach taken by West Midlands police that he characterises as “confirmation bias”.

This means that rather than follow the evidence, the force sought only the evidence to support their desired position to ban the funds …

The West Midlands police engagement with the Dutch police is one of the most disquieting elements of Sandys report. The summary provided as evidence to the Safety Advisory Group ahead of their crucial meeting on 24 October, was inaccurate.

Claims including the number of police officers deployed, links between fans and the Israeli Defence Forces, targeting of Muslim communities, the mass tearing down of Palestinian flags, attacks on police officers and on taxi drivers were all either exaggerated or simply untrue.

In his report, Sir Andy is clear that the validation of intelligence conducted by the force was a cause of significant concern. That record keeping within the force was poor, and he was especially concerned about the handling of sensitive information that should never have been shared without redaction.

Sir Andy also points to a series of public statements from West Midlands police that we now know to have been misleading. He shows that the police overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, while understating the risks that was posed to the Israeli fans if they travelled to the area.

Misleading communications also extend to the words of the chief constable himself. At his appearance in front of the home affairs select committee, he claimed that AI tools were not used to prepare intelligence reports – a claim since refuted by one of his own officers who blames incorrect evidence on “an AI hallucination”.

Mahmood says this is an issue of significance to the whole Jewish community in the UK.

She goes on:

The ultimate responsibility for the force’s failure to discharge its duties on a matter of such national importance rests with the chief constable, and it is for that reason that I must declare today that the chief constable of West Midlands police no longer has my confidence.

Bethan McKernan is the Guardian’s Wales correspondent.

Plaid Cymru have surged ahead of Reform UK and could form a majority government in the next Senedd, according to a seismic new poll commissioned by ITV Wales/Cymru and Cardiff University.

Plaid, for months viewed as being in a neck-and-neck race with Nigel Farage’s outfit to become the biggest party in May’s elections, now have a 14-point lead, according to polling data released on Tuesday night.

The first poll of 2026, conducted by YouGov, also suggests that the Green party, which was hoping for between one to four seats, could go from no MSs to 11 - making a Plaid-Green majority government a strong possibility.

Reform has dropped from 29% to 23%, which would still see the party grow from one MS to 23, but could mean that support for the party has peaked.

Labour, which has won every election in Wales for more than a century, is now set to finish fourth, after Reform and the Greens, with just 10% of the vote and eight seats. The Tories are down to six seats from 16.

Relatives of those killed in the Hillsborough football disaster and the Manchester Arena attack are still concerned that the Hillsborough law as drafted by the government will not fully cover intelligence officers. These are from my colleague Jessica Elgot.

New - I understand Hillsborough and Manchester Arena families are not prepared to accept the govt compromise on the law which gives special carve-outs for the security services.

Lammy had proposed allowing intelligence officers to give evidence, subject to agreement of DG.

But families say that’s not good enough - citing the Manchester Arena inquiry where they say MI5’s official position was misleading, and it was only after judge took closed evidence of intelligence officers that they were found to have had opportunities to stop the bombing.

More than 20 Labour MPs have signed an amendment saying intelligence officers should be subject to duty of candour in the bill.

Families are meeting the prime minister today - if they withdraw support for the Hillsborough Law it will be a huge blow.

Jess posted these before PMQs. Asked about this issue, Keir Starmer told MPs:

I’ve always been clear the duty of candour applies to the intelligence services.

I made a commitment we wouldn’t watered down the bill and the amendments we put forward strengthen it.

It is right that are essential safeguards in place to protect national security and we’ve got that balance right.

I will meet the families and will outline the next steps on Monday in relation to that crucial balance.

Asked about this at the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said:

Amendments are expected to be tabled later today, and as the prime minister indicated we are determined to get this right. He talked about the crucial balance that needed to be struck.

Since we introduced the bill we have worked with the families to make this duty of candour as strong as it possibly can be, whilst never compromising on national security.

We remain determined to get this right.

Many news organisations have been on U-turn count this morning. Politico highlighted a list of seven major U-turns peformed by Keir Starmer’s government, which rises to eight when you include digital ID. The Independent has 11 on its list. Sky News has got the tally up to 13.

But there is one they have all missed, which after today will now have to be added to the list. Starmer, who first made his name at PMQs with praise for “forensic” questioning, and who also has an admirable disdain for the sillier aspects of parliamentary ya-boo, has changed tack. Last year Kemi Badenoch revealed that she had decided to treat PMQs as panto. She explained:

And actually thinking about it like a panto helped … It’s more theatre than it is a prosecution or a question and answer session or an interrogation. And that helped in terms of simplifying it, so that everybody could follow.

And today Starmer adopted this approach. Knowing that he was going to get beaten up on U-turns, he arrived armed with a script full of jokes.

For the record (although I’m not sure what the record has done to deserve them), there are some of the “highlights”.

In his first reply to Badenoch, Starmer said:

[The Conservatives] once took great pride in our diverse city. Now they talk of deporting our neighbours to achieve cultural coherence.

And, on consistency, don’t get me started on five prime ministers, six chancellors, eight home secretaries, 16 housing ministers. They had more positions in 14 years on the Kama Sutra. No wonder they knackered and they left the country screwed.

In his second reply, he said:

I understand that [Badenoch] has taking advice on change. She had Nadhim Zahawi in to ask his advice, how to change and how to save her party. Please don’t tell me she listened to his accountant. Next day, after his advice, he jumped ship to Reform, the 23rd former Tory MP to do so.

In her third reply, he said:

On Monday, the business secretary and I went to Croydon to discuss our employment rights act with workers … And whilst we were there, at Ikea, they showed me their new prototype, the Ikea shadow cabinet. The trouble is, nobody wants to buy it, it’s mainly constructed of old dead wood, and every time you lose a nut, it defects to Reform.

In her fourth reply, he said:

No wonder [Zahawi] has joined the Tory migration to Reform. It’s the second Boriswave.

And in his final reply, he said:

[Tories] are queueing up to join [Nigel Farage’s] laundry service for disgraced Tory politicians.

To be fair, by the end Starmer mostly in serious mode, not panto mode. He concluded his final answer saying: “Meanwhile, inflation is down, wages are up and waiting lists are down. Labour’s turning the corner and changing this country for the better.”

By the standards of parliament, these jokes were OK, even quite good. Starmer held his own; he did not sound like someone being trampled over by Badenoch. Given that there was no real debate on anything, on substance there could be no winner. But anyone watching the exchanges in full will have noticed that Starmer was declining to engage at all with the specific points that Badenoch was raising, which is never a sign of someone confident in their position.

And, in an exchange reduced to panto slapstick, where all that matters is whose social media or TV news clip works best, Badenoch probably had the stronger lines. This is what she said about Starmer at one point.

The reason he U-turns all the time is because he is clueless. He is blowing around like a plastic bag in the wind – no sense of direction whatsoever.

But her best clip was probably her U-turn call and response.

In terms of technique, this really is the panto-fication of parliament.

Starmer attacks Reform UK for proposing to abolish the Online Safety Act. He says:

[Reform’s position] is disgusting on this. This is weaponising images of women and children that should never be made. And that’s why we’re acting.

Reform not only refuse to do anything about it. But more than that, if they would scrap the Online Safety Act that stops children accessing content like pornography, suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, [that’s an] absolute disgrace.

Emily Darlington (Lab) says Elon Musk has climbed down today under pressure from this government, according to reports today. But will the government ensure it takes action against any social media companies allowing abuse like this.

Starmer says the government has made it clear that it will not back down.

He says he has been told today X is complying to ensure full compliance with UK law. If that is happening, it is to be welcome. But he says this will be monitored.

UPDATE: Starmer said:

I have been informed this morning that X is acting to ensure full compliance with UK law. If so, that is welcome, but we’re not going to back down. They must act. We will take the necessary measures. We will strengthen existing laws and prepare for legislation if it needs to go further, and Ofcom will continue its independent investigation.

FURTHER UPDATE: Darlington was referring to this tweet about Grok changing its policy. We have not seen independent confirmation of it yet.

PMQs is starting soon. Kemi Badenoch has an obvious attack line.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.

Clarence Mitchell, the former BBC journalist who was a spokesman for Madeline McCann’s parents, is among the latest group of mainly Tory councillors to defect to Reform UK.

Mitchell, a former leader of Reading Borough Council, was one at least 20 members of a range of local authorities announced this morning as the latest recruits from the Conservatives after former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawai was unveiled as a recruit to Nigel Farage’s party on Monday. Reform has been unveiling names on its social media feed all morning, and the announcements are still coming.

Mitchell said he had been a member of the Conservative party for 16 years and now believed Reform was the only part that could truly represent what he described as “the authentic values that are fundamental to our country’s recovery and its restoration of pride”. He added:

Many voters have lost all faith in our politics, and they feel deeply let down that their concerns are not being listened to such as the cost of living, illegal immigration, the rise of woke-ism and an ever-encroaching level of State interference.

Other defections from the Tories announced by Reform today give Farage’s party new footholds in local government.

They include the defections of three Merseyside councillors who had previously represented the Wirral Council’s Tory group. Graham Davies, Kathryn Hodson and Andrew Hodson become Reform’s first group of elected councillors on the local authority, which currently does not have a ruling majority party.

Elsewhere, others included David Hawley, formerly a Green party member of St Helens Borough council. A supporter of Brexit and of lowering immigration, he said his views no longer align with the Greens.

The defections bring the total number of Reform councillors across the UK to more than 960. The new ones include at least 14 who were sitting as Tories and five independents, including some who had originally been elected as Conservatives.

Robert Booth is the Guardian’s UK technology editor.

MPs have criticised the government’s slowness in banning AI nudification tools and warned that its plan to do so may not go far enough and cover multi-purpose image generators like Grok, which has triggered a wave of outrage.

The technology secretary Liz Kendall has written to MPs to say the ban on nudification tools – confirmed in a statement to the Commons on Monday – “will apply to applications that have one despicable purpose only: to use generative AI to turn images of real people into fake nude pictures and videos without their permission”. She offered no date, but said ministers will bring forward legislation “as a priority” via amendments to the crime and policing bill currently in parliament.

Kendall called the tools “disgusting” and said new legislation will allow the police to target the firms and individuals who design and supply them.

But Chi Onwuruh, the Labour chair of the commons technology select committee, asked:

Why, then, has it taken so long to introduce the nudification ban, when reports of these disturbing Grok deepfakes appeared in August 2025?

In a statement issued on behalf of the committee, she also warned it was “unclear whether this ban - which appears to be limited to apps that have the sole function of generating nude images - will cover multi-purpose tools like Grok”.

A make-or-break auction for the UK government’s goal to create a clean electricity system by 2030 has awarded subsidy contracts to enough offshore windfarms to power a record 12m homes, Jillian Ambrose reports.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has written an article for the Guardian about the significance of this news. Here is an extract.

We know that bills rocketed when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because in the international fossil fuel markets, Britain is a price-taker, not a price-maker. Renewables and nuclear, on the other hand, offer us a chance for Britain to stand on our own two feet in the world – making and setting the price of our own energy.

Over the last year and a half, a well-funded rightwing network has waged a relentless war against this argument. When Keir Starmer set out our mission for clean power by 2030, they said it couldn’t be done, or that even if it could it was the wrong choice.

Today’s historic offshore wind auction has proved the doubters wrong. The government has secured a record-breaking 8.4GW of offshore wind, enough to power the equivalent of more than 12m homes, the largest amount of offshore wind procured in any auction ever in Britain, or indeed Europe.

And here is the full article.

There is a possible link here to the U-turn controversy. Sam Freedman says there is no point in Keir Starmer trying to clear the “barnacles off the boat” if there isn’t a boat, or voters can’t see one. (See 8.46am.) But Miliband thinks the government does have a boat. He published a book called Go Big five years ago, and he argues that Labour does have a clear, defining strategy.

Reform UK and the Conservatives want to wage war on clean energy, leaving Britain strapped to the fossil fuel rollercoaster, destroying the clean energy jobs we are creating and betraying our young people and future generations by giving up on tackling the climate crisis.

Labour is brave enough to face down the naysayers because clean power is the right choice for lower bills, energy security, good jobs and the climate. Today we’ve proved the doubters wrong again – and we will continue to do so.

Here are extracts from three interesting comment articles about the digital ID U-turn.

Ailbhe Rea in the New Statesman in the New Statesmans says there were high hopes for the policy when it was first announced.

I remember a leisurely lunch over the summer when a supporter of digital IDs told me how they thought Keir Starmer would reset his premiership. Alongside a reorganisation of his team in Number 10, and maybe a junior ministerial reshuffle, they predicted he would announce in his speech at party conference that his government would be embracing digital IDs. “It will allow him to show he’s willing to do whatever it takes to tackle illegal immigration,” was their rationale.

Sure enough, Starmer announced “phase two” of his government, reshuffled his top team and, on the Friday before Labour party conference, he duly announced his government would make digital IDs mandatory for workers. “We need to know who is in our country,” he said, arguing that the IDs would prevent migrants who “come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally”.

By the time he announced the plan, however, it was dead on arrival. Much like the reshuffle, now described by one senior Labour figure as “the worst reshuffle in the history of the Labour party” because of the discontent it fomented, the digital ID scheme has barely been mentioned since.

Stephen Bush in the Financial Times says making digital ID compulsory was a mistake.

In policy terms, I don’t think you particularly gain anything by making the government’s planned new digital ID compulsory.

One example of that: Kemi Badenoch has both criticised the government’s plans to introduce compulsory ID, while at the same time committing to creating a “British ICE” that would go around deporting large numbers of people living in the UK. In a country with that kind of target and approach, people would be forced to carry their IDs around with them in any case! The Online Safety Act, passed into law by the last Conservative government with cross-party support and implemented by Labour, presupposes some form of ID to work properly.

Making digital ID compulsory removes the incentive to make it genuinely useful for people. The challenge for the government ought to be: how can it create something that serves the citizen well enough — and offers such clear consumer benefit — that we proactively choose “the government’s digital ID” over the vast number of documents we have already to prove who we are.

Chris Mason at the BBC says the rising number of U-turns are becoming a problem for Keir Starmer.

Here is the political challenge for Downing Street: the climbdowns, dilutions, U- turns, about turns, call them what you will, are mounting up.

In just the last couple of weeks, there has been the issue of business rates on pubs in England and inheritance tax on farmers.

Before that, among others, income tax, benefits cuts and winter fuel payments.

Sir Keir Starmer’s critics, external and internal, are taking note.

Just hours before this latest backtracking, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting – who’d quite fancy being prime minister himself one day – said it was important the government “gets it right first time”.

That, to put it very politely, is a work in progress for Sir Keir Starmer.

And Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, says the digitial ID U-turn is a victory for liberty.

Keir Starmer has abandoned plans for the Digital ID to be compulsory.

This is a victory for individual liberty against a ghastly, authoritarian government.

Reform UK would scrap it altogether.

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has welcomed the digitial ID U-turn. In a post on Bluesky, he says:

The Government have u-turned on ID Cards.

Good.

Authoritarian plans to scrap jury trials need to go next.

Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, has also been giving inteviews this morning. Like Rachel Reeves (see 9.13am), she played down the significance of the digital ID U-turn. She told Times Radio:

We will still have mandatory digital right-to-work checks. The form of digital ID … the nature of the material that is presented could be either the digital ID on somebody’s phone [the new document proposed by the government, sometimes referred to as a “card” although not a physical card, that would have been mandatory for workers] … or it could be another form of digital documentation which contains proof of your right to work.

When it was put to her that the government had performed a “massive U-turn”, she replied:

You say that this is some sort of massive U-turn. We said that we would have digital checks on people for right to work. That’s what we are continuing to do ... Those are the things that we said that we would deliver for the electorate. Change takes time.

Craig Guildford, the West Midlands chief constable who is fighting for his job over claims his force misled MPs about the intelligence used to justify its call for Maccabi Tel Aviv fans to be banned from a Villa Park match last year, has apologised to the Commons home affairs committee over a mistake in evidence given to it.

He offered a “profound apology” in a letter written Monday, and it has been published today.

Earlier this morning, referring to the statement that Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will make to MPs about this later, a Home Office spokesperson said:

The home secretary has this morning received the chief inspectorate’s findings into the recommendation by West Midlands Police to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending a match against Aston Villa.

She will carefully consider the letter and will make a statement in the House of Commons in response later today.

As Vikram Dodd reports, Simon Foster, the Labour West Midlands police and crime commissioner, who is the only person who can sack Guildford, has criticised MPs on the home affairs committee for allegedly briefing journalists that Guildford should be ousted, despite the fact their inquiry into the controversy continues.

Dodd says:

Sources say [Foster] has an open mind about Guildford’s fate and wants to read the HMIC [His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary] and home affairs committee findings before he decides the fate of the chief constable, whom he has praised for cutting crime and improving the force.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has accused the media of exaggerating the extent of the digital ID U-turn.

In an interview on BBC Breakfast this morning, she said:

On the digital ID, for starters, I do think this story has been a bit overwritten.

We are saying that you will need mandatory digital ID to be able to work in the UK.

Now the difference is whether that has to be one piece of ID, a digital ID card, or whether it could be an e-visa or an e-passport, and we’re pretty relaxed about what form that takes …

I don’t think most people mind whether it is one piece of digital ID or a form of digital ID that can be verified.

When it was put to her that repeated U-turns undermined confidence in the government, she replied:

The key thing is where you’re trying to go. Our government, this government, our focus is on growing the economy and improving living standards for working people.

On the Today programme David Blunkett, a Labour home secretary under Tony Blair and a strong supporter of ID cards, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the digitial ID U-turn. Blunkett said.

I’m disappointed, but I’m not surprised.

I’m not surprised because the original announcement was not followed by a narrative or supportive statements or any kind of strategic plan which involved other ministers and those who are committed to this actually making the case.

And, as a consequence, those who are opposed to the scheme for all kinds of nefarious and very different reasons – some of them inexplicable – were able to mobilise public opinion and to get the online opposition to it up and running.

So, very sadly, it’s an indication of a failure to be able to enunciate why this policy mattered, to be able to follow through with a detail of how it would work, and then to reinforce that by a plan and communication of action.

And, when you failed to do all those things, it’s not surprising in the end, this thing runs into the sand.

Blunkett is right to say that Keir Starmer announced plans for digital ID (cards were not part of it – despite the scheme regularly being described in those terms) in a fairly haphazard manner. Digital ID was not in Labour’s manifesto. Starmer announced the proposal in a surprise speech last autumn, just before Labour’s conference. He presented it as a major change. But the following week, in his conference speech, he did not mention it, and he did not build support for it in the party.

At least, when he announced the plan, it was popular. But then public support for it collapsed, leading to claims that Starmer had a “reverse Midas touch”, as Eleni Courea reported at the time. In October she wrote:

Net support for digital ID cards fell from 35% in the early summer to -14% at the weekend after Starmer’s announcement, according to polling by More in Common.

The findings suggest that the proposal has suffered considerably from its association with an unpopular government. In June, 53% of voters surveyed said they were in favour of digital ID cards for all Britons, while 19% were opposed.

Good morning. Keir Starmer has performed another U-turn – on compulsory digital ID. Here is Peter Walker and Pippa Crerar’s overnight story.

A few days ago Noah Keate from Politico listed seven major U-turns the government has already performed. Today’s news takes that tally to eight, although, if you were being harsh, you could probably find more, because government always involves adjusting to circumstances, and so plans always change. But these a big, proper U-turns, in the usual meaning of the word as applied to politics – significant reversals on signature policy.

U-turns normally allow the opposition to enjoy saying ‘we told you so’, and there has been a lot of that overnight. This is from Kemi Badenoch.

The Prime Minister is ‘turning the corner’...straight into another u-turn.

Good riddance. It was a terrible policy anyway.

This is from her shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood.

While we welcome the scrapping of any mandatory identification, this is yet another humiliating U-turn from the government. Keir Starmer’s spinelessness is becoming a pattern, not an exception.

What was sold as a tough measure to tackle illegal working is now set to become yet another costly, ill-thought-out experiment abandoned at the first sign of pressure from Labour’s backbenches.

And this is from Lisa Smart, the Lib Dem Cabinet Office spokesperson.

Number 10 must be bulk ordering motion sickness tablets at this rate to cope with all their U-turns.

It was clear right from the start this was a proposal doomed to failure, that would have cost obscene amounts of taxpayers money to deliver absolutely nothing.

The political debate about the merits or otherwise of this was captured last in a good exchange of tweets (Bluesky tweets) between my colleague Pippa Crerar and Sam Freedman, the Comment is Freed substacker and policy expert. At the start of a thread, Pippa said:

Remember Lynton Crosby’s “barnacles off the boat” strategy? At 2010 and 2015 elections the Tories successfully shed unpopular policies and perceptions that hindered their electoral appeal. Instead, they focused on core messages they believed would help win over floating voters. It worked.

This is the argument used by governments of all kind down the ages to justify U-turns – take the short-term hit, because in the longer term you are better off if you ditch an unpopular policy.

But Freedman, replying to this post, said:

Unfortunately to make this strategy work you need a boat.

By this he means there is no point Starmer ditching his unpopular policies if no-one knows what his core, popular ones are.

Starmer would argue he has got a boat; he explained it to cabinet yesterday, reducing the cost of living. But Labour MPs fear that voters either have not got the message, or aren’t impressed by it.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

After 12.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, makes a statement to MPs about West Midlands police and their support for Maccabi Tel Aviv fans being banned from the match against Aston Villa last year. She will present the results of an inquiry by the police inspectorate into how WMP justified the decision. Craig Guildford, the chief constable, has been accused of giving misleading information to MPs about the intelligence used to justify the decision, and, although Mahmood does not hhiave the power to sack Guildford, there is speculation she will says she no longer has confidence in him.

2pm: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will confirm plans to revive the Northern Powerhouse Rail project at an event in Leeds.

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