Chancellor opens Commons questions with mini statement on Trump’s tariffs, saying government will respond in calm, pragmatic manner

Half of Britons (51%) think the government should impose retaliatory tariffs on imports from the US, according to polling by More in Common , a campaign group. Last week, just before the Trump tariffs were announced, YouGov published figures suggesting 71% of Britons would favour retaliatory tariffs against the US.

Yesterday YouGov also released polling suggesting that only around a third of voters think Keir Starmer and the government played a significant role in ensuring the US tariffs imposed on the UK are relatively low.

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Raising standards, including safety, should be at the heart of Labour’s plans for preschool

Figures showing a steep increase in the number of safety incidents involving children at nurseries in England are a reminder that the government-funded expansion of early years education needs to be monitored closely. The increased entitlement to free places, which was announced by the last government and is being rolled out gradually, is hugely welcome. Bridget Phillipson’s decision to prioritise new nurseries in the north and Midlands in the first round of funding was a good one.

High-quality preschool settings are a crucial foundation for future learning. They are particularly important at a time of rising concern about young children’s development – with growing numbers arriving in reception classes unable to feed themselves or go to the toilet. Currently, early learning opportunities are not evenly or fairly distributed – partly because providers rely on income from fees as well as public funding. The 4,000 new state nursery places that are due to come on stream by September should provide a boost to preschoolers in poorer parts of the country.

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Exclusive: Richard Harpin pauses donations in move insiders say will result in closure of party’s northern HQ

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One of the Conservatives’ biggest donors has stopped funding the party in a move insiders believe will result in the closure of its northern HQ, the Guardian can reveal.

Richard Harpin, the founder of the home repairs business HomeServe, has ended his donations to the Conservatives, according to two Tory sources.

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Prime minister says ‘no one is pretending tariffs are good news’ during speech on car industry

In his Times article Keir Starmer describes the Trump tariffs as “the beginning of a new era”. He has been saying this at least since last Thursday, when he spoke about the tariffs at a Q&A with journalists at Labour’s local elections campaign launch. The speech this afternoon is being described as the PM’s most considered response so far to the global economic turmoil generated by the tariffs, but we have already heard quite a lot from Starmer on this topic already, in a Sunday Telegraph article yesterday and in No 10 briefings on the calls he had with world leaders about the situation over the weekend.

Is there a coherent strategy? On the basis of what he has said so far, there are at least five elements in the mix at the moment.

John Ryan is a local hero and we are truly humbled that he has publicly endorsed Reform UK ahead of May’s elections in Doncaster.

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Analysis suggests prioritising projects that give quick local results may hold back support for populism

Areas that received money from the last government’s much-criticised levelling up fund tended to have lower votes for Reform UK in the general election, a study has found, indicating that projects delivering quick results may hold back support for populism.

The study by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) thinktank, billed as the first to examine a mass of data factors linked to support for Reform at the level of individual seats, identified a series of factors likely to make voters more likely to back Nigel Farage’s party.

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Jason Stockwood, ex chair of Grimsby Town FC, has a plan for keeping his rival Andrea Jenkyns from implementing US-style cuts

Labour can beat Reform UK by focusing relentlessly on the cost of living, the party’s mayoral candidate for Greater Lincolnshire, who is taking on the Tory defector Andrea Jenkyns, has said.

Jason Stockwood, the former chair of Grimsby Town football club, is standing for Labour in the most high-profile mayoral race of the local elections.

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The Tories are trailing third in the polls and look set for local election disaster. If Reform is the answer, she may have to go

Kemi Badenoch may only be four months into her leadership, but already Westminster is talking about her successor. Nigel Farage declared over the weekend that the Conservative party leader would be “lucky to survive past June ”. Of course, he would say that. The Reform UK leader has a personal interest in Tory misfortune. But more concerning for Badenoch is that some in her own party are starting to ask if she’ll still be leader at the next election.

Her problems are piling up. The Tories regularly come third in national polls behind Reform and Labour. There is little money to go around ( despite a spurt in Tory donations late last year ) and redundancies at Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ) are seen as inevitable. Badenoch’s performances at prime minister’s questions are regularly criticised among Tory MPs for being too scatter-gun and missing open goals. The May local elections will be the first electoral test of her leadership – and CCHQ sources are attempting some serious expectation management as they warn of losses.

Katy Balls is the Spectator’s political editor

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The Conservative leader isn’t convincing fellow Tories that she possesses a viable route map to recovery

Kemi Badenoch is not much good at Prime Minister’s Questions. To which you might retort: so what? Everyone knows the weekly bout of mouth-to-mouth combat between prime minister and leader of the opposition is a theatrical ritual. The typical voter deplores it as a load of yah-boo, signifying nothing. Only a small minority of the public tune in on a consistent basis.

Mrs Badenoch’s problem is that PMQs is taken seriously by two audiences that should be important to the Tory leader. One is made up of Westminster reporters and commentators. Their verdict about who has “won” PMQs influences the overall judgment about whether a leader has forward momentum or is going nowhere. The other critical audience is made up of MPs. They crowd into the chamber for a ringside seat at the prize fight. A robust performance by a leader energises them, while a flop disheartens. More often than not, the Tory leader sends her side away feeling deflated. They were led to expect better from someone who was marketed on the basis that she had a zesty and combative personality. “She was hired because it was thought she would kick ass,” remarks a Conservative veteran. During the Tory leadership contest last autumn, one of the claims made for her by supporters was that she’d rattle Sir Keir Starmer. He leaves his encounters with the Tory leader looking distinctly unrattled.

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MPs claim during her 2022 party leadership campaign she promised them she was committed to green targets

Kemi Badenoch has been accused of breaking a promise made to Tory MPs during her leadership campaign after abandoning the party’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2050.

Speaking to the Observer , Chris Skidmore, who served as a government minister between 2016 and 2020, said that Badenoch had made clear to a group of Tory MPs and other Conservatives at a leadership hustings in 2022, when she was seeking their votes in the race to replace Boris Johnson, that she backed the policy.

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